The owner and prospective developer of the contentious Black Meadow Ridge property adjacent to West Point on the Eno City Park want any action on the land's rezoning delayed until February.

Friends of West Point, the park support group pressing for the land's conservation, agrees -- in response to the owner and developers' promise to delay development action until February.

Next moves are up to the City of Durham -- or the State of North Carolina.

"There are a lot of little dominoes that need to fall together," said Josie McNeil Owen, Friends of West Point vice president.

Right now, though, neither city nor state seems anxious to move.

"I have not heard anything on that," said Charlie Peek, spokesman for the state parks division. "We haven't been approached by anybody" recently, he said.

Earlier this fall, Durham City Manager Tom Bonfield said he wanted to see a public consensus on the tract's future before taking any action. He's still waiting, he said this week, but the subject is on the city council's agenda at its Nov. 6 work session.

What's going on

The land at issue is a 60-acre forested tract between the city-owned West Point on the Eno Park and the Argonne Hills and Horton Hills neighborhoods. Mildred Ray, a former Durham resident now living in Sun City, Fla., owns the land, which has been appraised at $3 million.

Chapel Hill developer Keith Brown has proposed to build a 325-unit subdivision there. That is considerably denser than the adjoining neighborhoods, but allowable under the land's current zoning.

That zoning dates back more than 35 years, when a planned thoroughfare was expected to spur intense building in the area.

The thoroughfare plan, called "Eno Drive," has been abandoned for more than a decade, but with no development planned on Ray's property its zoning remained the same while the adjoining areas were built up with homes on quarter-acre lots.

When Brown's plan became public knowledge in the summer of 2007, Argonne Hills and Horton Hills residents opposed it, anticipating traffic congestion and harm to their property values. The Friends of West Point and other conservation interests also opposed it, fearing damage to the park's environment and sylvan ambience.

The plot thickens

Conservationists proposed the city buy the land and add it to West Point on the Eno, and City Councilman Mike Woodard stepped in to mediate a conversation among Friends of West Point, Eno River Association, Brown and Ray about the land's future.

In the meantime, the Joint City-County Planning Committee, of which Woodard is a member, asked the planning department to find any other anomalous zoning along the old Eno Drive route, and request their rezoning in keeping with their present surroundings. Two parcels have been rezoned; the Ray tract's turn came up in September.

In the meantime, "River Dave" Owen, treasurer of Friends of West Point, became frustrated with the slow pace of negotiations and proposed the state might buy the Ray tract -- by this time dubbed "Black Meadow Ridge" -- for addition to the Eno River State Park; and raised the idea of the state's taking over West Point itself.

Neither city nor state has said no; neither city nor state has shown enthusiasm, either.

Back to the present

When the city's rezoning request for "Eno Drive at West Point" came before the planning commission in September, both conservationists and developer asked for continuance. Both opposed the rezoning, but for different reasons. Downzoning, from 6.2 dwellings allowed per acre to four per acre, would decrease the land's value, Brown said; Josie Owen said any action on the city's part would only complicate negotiations with the state.

During the three extra months, all parties were encouraged to come to some agreement.

To date, 14 neighborhood associations and conservation nonprofits have endorsed a Friends of West Point statement calling for Black Meadow Ridge to be preserved in its present state.

Tuesday, the Inter Neighborhood Council endorsed a statement calling on the city to buy the property and seriously consider a state parks offer if that "is the only means with which to preserve the Tract."

In September, planning commissioners, who recommend approval or denial for rezoning requests, granted a continuance until December.

If the commissioners don't vote then, said assistant planning director Patrick Young, the case goes on to the city council with no recommendation and no comments -- unless the city withdraws its rezoning request.

So stand the dominoes.