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Summerfield de-annexation battle turns to state legislature The town’s hope for successful negotiations sinks after a letter from developer David Couch’s lawyer signals that ‘he doesn’t want to work anything out,’ Councilman Hamilton said
Photo by Patti Stokes/NWO
IN THIS ISSUE
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by CHRIS BURRITT SUMMERFIELD – An exchange of letters between Summerfield councilman Jonathan Hamilton and Tom Terrell, a lawyer for developer David Couch, signaled that long-stalled negotiations over de-annexation aren’t likely to resume.
Summerfield Town Council member Heath Clay (forefront) listens as Council member Jonathan Hamilton (second from left) discusses the potential de-annexation of almost 1,000 acres in Summerfield while Mayor Tim Sessoms looks on. The Council held a special called meeting in Town Hall on Feb. 29 to discuss its next steps in opposing HB5, which legislators will likely vote on after they convene on April 24.
As that prospect emerged during last week’s Town Council meeting, residents urged council members to cease squabbling and focus on what’s shaping up to be a lastminute appeal to state lawmakers to oppose the legislative de-annexation of Couch’s nearly 1,000 acres.
for de-annexation, the legislator said last month he still favors the bill to de-annex Couch’s property from the Town of Summerfield and will seek the support of fellow lawmakers to push it through. If approved, the de-annexation of 978 acres would be one of the largest, if not the largest, in the state’s history.
The urgency comes just weeks before the General Assembly convenes on April 24 and considers whether to approve NC House Bill 5 (HB5). A year after Couch sought state Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger’s support
Hamilton said he concluded that Couch “doesn’t want to work anything out” after reading a March 12 letter from Terrell. The Greensboro lawyer responded to an earlier letter from Hamilton urging Couch to talk to town
leaders about “next steps.” Those steps would include filing an application for the rezoning of Couch’s property into a new zoning district, OSM-V, created by the council last October to accommodate the developer’s plans to build Summerfield’s first apartments (read more about the OSM-V district in Editor’s addition at end of this article). Even though Terrell stated last year that the new OSM-V district wasn’t suitable for Couch’s development, Hamilton said in his March 7 letter to Couch that he understood
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