Last year, a 24-hour Harris Teeter proposed for Barnes Street was rejected because of increased foot and vehicular traffic at the dangerous intersection of Barnes and Jones Ferry (in front of OWASA) and increased crime it would bring to the Lincoln Park neighborhood.

Now, Big Business is back in our neighborhoods, trying to either sneak in the back door, or just, if they can get away with it, break in through the front!

The neighborhoods along Alabama Avenue and Neville Drive are going through the exact same predicament. Stronach Properties wants to lease the wooded lot that is on Alabama Avenue adjacent to Jones Ferry Road. The company is proposing a Family Dollar Store that would adjoin the back side of the Pantry on Jones Ferry Road.

They said that it would bring "jobs." But when asked, we were told maybe eight positions and not even members from our neighborhood.

In order to build this $1 million store on this lot, it would take: 1) cutting down ALL of the existing trees; 2) a promise of eight "just wait and hope they materialize one day" jobs; 3) moving existing OWASA sewage pipes to my back yard; and 4) destroying a natural stream that flows through the lot.

This proposed Family Dollar Store would be open from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. It would bring unwanted foot and vehicular traffic to our residential road and increase carjacking, loitering and robberies. Neighbors' routines will be interrupted and ultimately destroyed.

For over a combined 250 years, our 13 families have made Alabama Avenue a close-knit neighborhood. I am worried that the place I call home may be in the process of being destroyed forever.

Anissa McLendon

Carrboro