All posts for the month November, 2010

New voices

We’re adding some new voices to Chapel Hill Watch. Don has retired, though he may make an occasional appearance as a guest blogger. Today’s post is by Ebony Shamberger, a UNC sophomore who plans to make a career in journalism. She writes for Black Ink Magazine and has written for The Daily Tar Heel. Recently […]

Waiting

I’m waiting for the Town of Chapel Hill to fix its video problems so I can watch the Nov. 22 council meeting (we had a family commitment that evening), and I’m waiting for Dillard’s public relations director to call me back about what seems to have been a surprise announcement of the store’s closing. Public […]

What’s up tonight

The big news for tonight’s Town Council business meeting could be the town’s financial/economic update, presented by town manager Roger Stancil. It holds the No. 1 spot on the agenda, with no accompanying documentation to give us a clue as to what the presentation will reveal. Our prediction? The address will be short, as in, […]

Sprawl

I spent last week at my brother’s house, on an acreage on the edge of the Iowa town where I grew up. He lives at the end of a narrow tarmac road that barely allows two cars to pass one another and still keep all eight wheels on impervious surface. The population of the town […]

2 dense 4 where?

Neighbors for Responsible Growth must have been giddy with the comments they heard Town Council members make at Monday’s public hearing. The feedback council members delivered to Capstone Co. as its representative presented a revised concept plan for The Cottages proposed for a 33-acre parcel along Homestead Road across from the recently approved Bridgepoint mixed-use […]

Pay attention

I never thought I’d quote Richard Nixon, but let me make one thing perfectly clear: UNC at Chapel Hill Foundation does not own the land all the way back to Cameron Avenue. John McColl, executive vice president at Cousins Properties, the company redeveloping University Square, repeatedly told council members during his concept plan presentation Monday […]

Consistently inconsistent

This Town Council sure is hard to figure out. Council members seemed poised to endorse a bicycle path/pedestrian walkway along Old Chapel Hill/Durham Road last night. Town transportation planner David Bonk said the time was right to start the project. The Blue Cross Blue Shield representative expressed concerns, since the project would shave three-quarters of […]

The Cottages, redux

The Cottages of Chapel Hill are back on the agenda for tonight’s Town Council meeting. In May, Capstone Co. of Birmingham, Ala., proposed a complex of townhomes and apartments along the south side of Homestead Road, near the intersection with Weaver Dairy Extension. The original plan, given a thumbs down by council members, consisted of […]

Trust me

Gene Pease brought up the issue, not me – the issue of trust. During the Monday night Town Council meeting, after speakers opposed to the Obey Creek development across the street from Southern Village rose again and again to speak to the council, after Town Manager Roger Stancil could not explain coherently what a consultant’s […]

High hopes

Anyone who has listened to WUNC Radio in the last couple of months has heard the ad for the 140 West project. The ad, which can run as many as four times a day, says that the project “is now rising in downtown Chapel Hill.” Last I checked nothing is rising on the spot where […]