On a recent Friday, Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt tweeted that UNC was poised to make a Big Announcement about Northside, leaving us on tenterhooks all weekend. On Monday, the mayor and UNC Chancellor Carol Folt, along with some neighborhood and nonprofit dignitaries, took the stage and said UNC would lend $3 million interest-free for 10 years […]
All posts in category Northside
Saving grace
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 16, 2015
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2015/03/16/saving-grace/
Council rejuvenated
Council members showed their better selves at last Monday’s meeting. They asked questions that indicated they had read and understood the reams of material in their binders. They stood firm on what they thought was best for the town. They called out 123 West developer Cousins Properties about discrepancies in the number of parking spaces […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on November 19, 2012
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/11/19/council-rejuvenated/
Dividing a small pot
Frank McCourt’s memoir “Angela’s Ashes” shares the experiences of a family that coexists with poverty, not letting it impede them as they live their lives. In one scene, a father is ready to go from Ireland to England to find work to support the family. (Forgive me if I’ve gotten some of the details wrong; […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 22, 2012
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/03/22/dividing-a-small-pot/
Affordable housing
Northside and Pine Knolls face a losing battle to remain affordable (and black, for that matter) unless we, as a town, address the demand for student housing near campus. Tonight Town Council will receive the Planning Department’s update on the town’s affordable housing strategy, a plan the council adopted in June of last year. One […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on January 23, 2012
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/01/23/affordable-housing/
Good news, bad news
Last night’s Town Council meeting (which didn’t end until early this morning) yielded good news and bad news. The good news: Council passed all three resolutions and all three ordinances to tighten development restrictions in the Northside community. The bad news: The town has no money to enforce them. The Neighborhood Conservation District status put […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on January 10, 2012
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/01/10/good-news-bad-news/
2011 highlights
A sign in the window of the tax office at Town Hall, where about a dozen of us were waiting to pay our taxes yesterday around lunchtime, lists various products the town sells to market itself: flags, tote bags, books and ball caps. As I totaled up my various tax bills – vehicle, business, real […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on December 29, 2011
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2011/12/29/2011-highlights/
A rainy night in Northside
Chapel Hill voters, you did me proud. On a rainy night in a transitional neighborhood with the Yankees on TV clinching the American League East title, you turned out in droves to meet the candidates for Town Council and mayor. You filled Hargraves Center parking lot and every marginally legal parking space along North Roberson […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on September 22, 2011
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2011/09/22/a-rainy-night-in-northside/
Northside moratorium
In 2004, the Northside neighborhood won Neighborhood Conservation District status. But developers soon learned how to work around the rules. By calling a bedroom a “den” or a “game room,” they could fool the town Inspections Department into allowing a six- to eight-bedroom house to be built in a neighborhood where town ordinance limits house […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on May 24, 2011
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2011/05/24/northside-moratorium/
Preserve Northside
At the Town Council meeting on March 28, several Northside residents petitioned council for a moratorium on building permits. Although Northside was granted Neighborhood Conservation District status in 2005 to preserve the character of the historically black working-class neighborhood, developers have found ways to skirt the rules and continue building student rental housing under the […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on April 6, 2011
https://chapelhillwatch.com/2011/04/06/preserve-northside/