You’re more likely to behave yourself if you live next door to your landlord. Jay Patel of, well, a few different business partnerships, but known by Chapel Hillians as the owner of the Franklin Hotel, apparently ascribes to that theory. At tonight’s Town Council meeting, he will present a concept review of Franklin Student Housing, […]
All posts in category Land Use
Loopholes and buzzkill
Posted by Nancy Oates on November 18, 2013
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/11/18/loopholes-and-buzzkill/
Buybacks
Tell me I’m not the only person to have donated something to the PTA Thrift Shop, then a month later bought it back. Town Council members know the feeling. They are asked to give away affordable housing as they vote to approve redevelopment projects, then scrounge for town resources to buy affordable housing somewhere else […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on October 21, 2013
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/10/21/buybacks/
Price tag on the gift
Head and heart – they can coexist. We desperately want them to in Town Council members. At a council work session last week, DHIC, a housing nonprofit in Raleigh, proposed building 140 apartments – 60 reserved for senior citizens and 80 for low-income families – on 10 acres of what is now part of Chapel […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on October 7, 2013
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/10/07/price-tag-on-the-gift/
Small town, big money
The Age of Private Equity Transactions has arrived in Chapel Hill. Private equity transactions are nothing new; they got a lot of press coverage during the 2012 presidential race because Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital specialized in them and made Romney rich. This is the concept: Buy an asset with borrowed money; resell it at a […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on September 30, 2013
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/09/30/small-town-big-money/
Free market
Developers and property owners who rant about their “right” to make the maximum profit regardless of how it affects the quality of life for the rest of the community should spend a couple hours at the end of a Saturday afternoon at the Orange County Solid Waste Convenience Center on Eubanks Road. There they could […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on September 23, 2013
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/09/23/free-market/
Seeing red
About 200 taxpayers turned out for the open house last Tuesday night that showed off the four plans for Central West Focus Area that we got for the nearly quarter of a million dollars we paid to Rhodeside & Harwell. Or as Jim Ward framed it in an email on the Central West listserv: a […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on September 16, 2013
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/09/16/seeing-red/
Feature presentation
We’ve gotten spoiled. With Town Council’s newfound determination to end council meetings before midnight, and breaking out council discussions in midweek work sessions at the library (which are not on TV nor videoed and accessible by computer), the regular Monday night meetings end two to three hours after they begin. Tonight may be an exception. […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on May 20, 2013
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/05/20/feature-presentation/
Obey Creek: From Outreach to Inclusion
Southern Area resident Jeanne Brown has this to say about the evolving community engagement process for Obey Creek: Three years after Town Council members asked to know what a Development Agreement for Obey Creek would look like, a long-awaited public engagement process is beginning to take shape – thanks to council suggestion that staff, East […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on May 13, 2013
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/05/13/obey-creek-from-outreach-to-inclusion/
The bleaching of Chapel Hill
Last week I walked along MLK Jr. Boulevard to go from my house off Piney Mountain Road to Harrington Bank. Schools had a delayed opening that day, and I passed several groups of high school students waiting along MLK for the school bus. Presumably they lived in the modest rentals and mobile homes in the […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on May 6, 2013
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/05/06/the-bleaching-of-chapel-hill/
Save Del Snow
If you had told me six months ago that someday I would lead the cheering section for Planning Board chair Del Snow, I would have called you crazy. And now look. After Town Council’s Feb. 27 vote approving Bicycle Apartments, Snow wrote a letter to council questioning why council members didn’t postpone the vote until […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 6, 2013
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/03/06/save-del-snow/