All posts for the month March, 2018

Guidelines Matter

In its quest to increase the commercial tax base, the Town Council in 2014 approved form-based code for the Ephesus-Fordham, now Blue Hill, district. FBC shifted approval for development projects from council to the town manager in that defined area around Rams and Village plazas and Eastgate. Council drew up some guidelines about maximum building […]

Joint Investment

Let me see whether I have this right – a developer can come into town, get town approval to build a project of high-end apartments and condos that displaces residents who have trouble affording living here, and we as taxpayers have to pay to make housing available to the displaced residents? That’s pretty much what […]

Noisy Neighbors

Chapel Hill’s noise ordinance aims to ensure reasonable peace and quiet for residents in their homes. Typically, people use the law to rein in loud parties or construction projects that go on into the wee hours of the morning. Does that mean people who work from home or cover night shifts and sleep during the […]

Consensus? Maybe Not

Every time I hear someone on Town Council urging us to come to a consensus, I can’t help but think of the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s definition: “The process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes but to which no one objects.” We […]