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 (“a typo,” the applicant replied) and whether UNC’s $200,000 contribution (money that came from our pockets as state taxpayers) to ameliorating problems in Northside should be considered part of payment in lieu, given that the applicant insisted the for-profit real estate investment group was unrelated to UNC. Even as the hour grew late, council members kept their focus, taking a pragmatic approach to a satellite parking lot for the American Board of Pediatrics’ office expansion needed only to meet LUMO requirements.

Tonight will indicate whether council members’ new vigor was an anomaly or signals a trend. The docket for tonight’s meeting runs the gamut from where we live to how we get around and what we’re going to do with vacant or soon-to-be-vacant property the town owns.

A couple items on the consent agenda deal with affordable housing. A proposed amendment to the 140 West contract with RAM Development raises the income ceiling for buyers of Community Home Trust affordable apartments in 140 West from 80 percent of HUD-dictated Area Median Income to 115 percent. Because HUD factors in the many students living in Chapel Hill, the HUD median (the point at which half make less and half make more) is lower than the median for permanent residents. The amendment would increase the pool of buyers who might be able to qualify for a loan under the more stringent requirements banks have adopted in recent years. A gift of a rental duplex from Habitat for Humanity to the town doubles the town’s non-HUD-managed stock of affordable housing from two units to four.

Council will hear a report that the food truck permit count has spiked to four.
The Arc of Orange County’s application for a Master Land Use Plan Modification and the special use permit is up for discussion. What little opposition to the project has emerged concerns the fear of lowered property values for existing homeowners. That may or may not happen, but if it does, how refreshing that it would be due to benefiting some residents who have been shackled with lifelong challenges, rather than enriching already wealthy private developers.

Finally – and this will be the test of council members’ resolve to stay focused and engaged – a presentation on the Preferred Option of the 2040 Metropolitan Transportation Plan. Odds are good that it will include a PowerPoint presentation, but public comment should keep things lively.
– Nancy Oates

by on November 19, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Council Members, Food Trucks, Housing, Land Use, Northside
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Posted by Nancy Oates on November 19, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/11/19/council-rejuvenated/

Banking on buffers

Call me a cynic – as if that never occurred to you before – but I can’t help wondering whether there is a connection between Roger Perry telling Town Council last week that he might spread his buildings in Obey Creek over all of the buildable acres (even though the land is laced with a network of streams) and the town staff’s recommendation Monday night to reduce the stream buffers in town unilaterally to 50 feet, shrinking some buffers as much as 100 feet on either side.

Town staff aimed to simplify the regulations and align them with the soon-to-be-in-effect Jordan Lake Riparian Buffer rules. But many folks who spoke up Monday night saw the move as a step backward. Increased stream impairment had prompted the town to create the Resource Conservation District in 2003, yet staff are recommending removing protections just as the streams are about to become more stressed by construction in Obey Creek, Will Raymond said. Matt Witsil, chair of the Stormwater Advisory Board, advocated 100-foot buffers. Julie McClintock, representing Friends of Bolin Creek, dismissed the need to align the rules for RCD and Jordan Lake buffers because the regulations address different issues: Jordan Lake protects nutrient pollution, and the RCD is a multi-pronged ordinance covering wildlife, flooding and other aspects.

Only Kristen Smith of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce supported the alignment to make it less confusing for developers.

Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt weighed in first, expressing confidence that developers were not so easily muddled. Keenly aware of all the development and redevelopment proposals stacking up on council’s agenda, he didn’t want to lose the hard-won environmental protections. Jim Ward, too, seemed unsettled by the idea of stripping protections from vulnerable waterways. Ed Harrison noted that Durham is increasing its buffers unilaterally to 150 feet.

Certainly Chapel Hill is not Durham; we’re more like Durham’s rich uncle who doesn’t have to care about the underlings. And the gap widens with every approval of Class A office space and luxury housing units that council makes. Which is not to say that the town shouldn’t continue to support growth and development. But we don’t want to sacrifice our respect for the environment nor shirk our responsibility to keep our shared water source clean.

As the Obey Creek development lumbers forward, we want to make sure our rainwater transportation system doesn’t fall victim to progress.
– Nancy Oates

by on November 14, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Environment, Land Use
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Posted by Nancy Oates on November 14, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/11/14/banking-on-buffers/

Keep talking

A certain peevishness has settled over Jim Ward this term. He snaps at his colleagues and makes motions and calls for votes before discussion has barely begun. It may be a manifestation of what many of us felt upon turning 50 and realizing that after working for 30 years, we’re tired, and we still have half again as many years to work before we can stop. He seems to have a low-level frustration that, if he doesn’t check it, could lead him to make decisions based on expediency rather than for the good of the community.

Like his vote last week on the bus ads. Ward said, sincerely, that weighing in on the bus ad policy was one of the times he appreciated being on council, because it made him think through the issue and get off the fence. He landed on the side of silence rather than forbearance. Some people do deal with discord in relationships that way – just don’t talk about it and everything will be fine on the surface. But to preserve a strong connection with one another in the community, we need to accept that we will disagree, sometimes passionately. Even when the viewpoint we support doesn’t prevail, we must continue to respect and interact with one another.

Then again, Ward simply might be tired of hearing everyone’s opinions. If so, tonight’s Town Council meeting may be torture for him. It’s public hearing night, and the agenda is packed with five of them. Some are straightforward administrative matters, but that won’t stop people from expounding.

First up: a LUMO text amendment that would relieve single-family and two-family homes of the expense of strict stormwater management standards that developers of higher-density developments must adhere to.

Next, a LUMO text amendment to realign stream buffer widths in resource conservation districts with Jordan stream buffer regulations. The town is expected to adopt the Jordan rules next month, instead of waiting another two years, as the General Assembly allows.

After that comes a zoning atlas amendment and special use permit application to allow the redevelopment of University Square. Plans for replacing the buildings at 123 W. Franklin St., while retaining Granville Towers as is, have met with relatively little community objection so far. The SUP application, however, does pare the width of the public right-of-way by a third, which would not allow two travel lanes and parking. It also requests a streetscape building height increase of 10 feet, making the buildings along E. Franklin Street 54 feet tall, and an increase in the height of the inner buildings from 120 feet tall to as tall as 138 feet, 40 feet taller than Granville Towers.

The requested payment-in-lieu for the multimillion-dollar project is only $60,000, not enough to cover the cost of even one affordable housing unit.

That alone is enough to make anyone peevish.
– Nancy Oates

by on November 12, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Council Members, Land Use, Uncategorized
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Posted by Nancy Oates on November 12, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/11/12/keep-talking/

What’s the rush?

Southern Area resident and CH2020 participant Jeanne Brown has this to say about the proposed Obey Creek development near Southern Village:

As has become a common theme in the two-and-a-half-year-old Obey Creek discussion, area residents found that Monday night’s Town Council agenda included another Obey Creek twist: The resolution before Town Council combined discussion and approvals for moving forward with Development Agreements at Glen Lennox and Obey Creek projects into one vote.

Clay Grubbs’ request to enter into this type of contract with the town for his Glen Lennox project instead of going through the Special Use Permit (SUP) process makes sense. The developer and residents and neighbors of Glen Lennox have spent the past two years working together to craft a plan that takes into considerations the needs of developer, town and local community. The town-sponsored and -directed process has included significant opportunity for all parties to analyze important information about traffic and transportation infrastructure, local watersheds, area schools and more. And careful consideration was given to the impacts on those who would be most affected – abutting neighbors and those looking for affordable housing.

By comparison, the Obey Creek discussion has barely begun and, as council members acknowledge, the only opportunity provided for citizen input was a fast-tracked, three-day process that took a total of 7 hours and 43 minutes!

Based on the state’s legal requirement that a development site be larger than 25 acres to be considered for a Development Agreement, future proposals for the 35 developable acres on the west side of Obey Creek offer Roger Perry and the town the possibility of a Development Agreement in the future.

But what other criteria should be applied to a proposal to determine whether a Development Agreement is the right process to use? At what point in the development process should a Development Agreement be initiated? How will a Development Agreement – a contract between the town and the developer which allows flexibility for future change – protect the rights of abutting landowners, nearby neighborhoods and local business owners during initial discussions and in the event the developer wishes to request changes to the agreed upon work in the future?

Jim Ward indicates that he feels that data collection and planning steps can be folded into a Development Agreement process because the town can decide not to approve a rezoning if the negotiations fail to produce consensus.

Gene Pease disagreed, pointing out that the successes at Carolina North and Glen Lennox were the product of the careful work done before moving to a Development Agreement. Echoing citizen concerns he said, “Obey Creek feels like we are somehow rushing this process. I wonder why we’re moving to a Development Agreement versus the process we’ve been going through.”

For their part, 18 speakers and 310 petition signers urged council to adopt a modified “Central West” process – with citizen organizing efforts beginning in December, adoption of a steering committee in January and work completed by June.
Given data in the December 2011 UNC Traffic Impact Analysis that indicates the Culbreth Road/James Taylor Bridge intersection will fail with normal growth, it is hard to believe a Target and other major retailers would find this an optimal spot. So why the rush?

Through a careful process, the town, developer and Southern Area stakeholders can find the right opportunities for southern Chapel Hill to be “Open for Business,” whereas a developer-driven, rushed process may very well result in “giving away the store” with the only winners being East West Partners and their Maryland-based owners.

by on November 8, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in CH2020, Economic development, Land Use, Uncategorized
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Posted by Nancy Oates on November 8, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/11/08/whats-the-rush/

Accidental free speech

Jim Ward admonished Chapel Hill: No talking on the bus.

The issues to be decided by the six council members who made it to Monday night’s Town Council meeting were whether a Chapel Hill Transit bus is a public forum, and if not, what sorts of ads, if any, could be displayed. In June 2011, council approved a bus ad policy that did not allow any ads that addressed social issues, political stances or religious persuasion. But the transit staff had a copy of the wrong policy, and for the past year and a half had been accepting ads on all those topics.

At the Oct. 24 council meeting, the error came to light, and council suspended the town’s bus ad policy until council had a chance to revisit the issue.

Townspeople spoke for more than an hour Monday night, some wanting to pull all ads, others wanting to ditch only the Church of Rec ads, and many wanting to continuing using the buses as a public forum. One speaker noted that she has held forums on the topic of U.S. aid to Israel, but people who disagree with her don’t attend. The ads on the bus got everyone talking.

When it was council’s turn to weigh in, Ward jumped in that while he is a fan of free speech, it has its place, and that place is not on the bus. He asked Church of Rec to voluntarily pull the ads, and failing that, staff should remove them and the town resume its June 2011 policy of basically commercial ads only.

Laurin Easthom and Lee Storrow pushed back immediately. Easthom said the public input would allow council to make a better decision than the quickie made in June. Penny Rich claimed council had had a lengthy discussion about the ads, but no one else on council could remember it, and there was no record of it. Storrow said how a policy is enforced matters. For 18 months, transit staff had not been following the town’s policy, including not requiring contact information on the ads, until Church of Rec’s ad. Perhaps freedom of speech came to the town by accident; nevertheless, the town had a de facto policy of buses being a public forum.

Gene Pease pointed out council was not voting on who was right and who was wrong on the military aid isue but on whether buses should serve as a public forum.

Ed Harrison, filling in for the mayor, recommended that no action be taken until after the transit partners of UNC and Carrboro weighed in. Like they would take a stand against free speech. But time was, no one would have expected Chapel Hillians to lobby so passionately against free speech, either.

Ward made a motion to revert to the June 2011 policy. It failed, 3-3, falling two votes shy of the five needed to pass.

Council will take up the matter again on Dec. 3, after transit partners have lodged their comments and presumably there will be fewer empty seats on the dais.
– Nancy Oates

by on November 7, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Lifestyle, Transportation
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Posted by Nancy Oates on November 7, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/11/07/accidental-free-speech/

Choose wisely

Some countries have mandatory military service for all its citizens. I wish the U.S. required every one of its citizens to do one week of census work among neighborhoods that make up the left side of the housing price bell curve. We would make better decisions in the voting booth if we had a sense of what everyday life is like for people who don’t have the advantages those of us in Chapel Hill have.

Tomorrow, Election Day, is the day of reckoning for our vision of the future. Do we elect leaders who aim to enable everyone to make a better life for themselves, or leaders who make policies that benefit those we would like to consider our peer group?

Mitt Romney’s guiding philosophy seems to be to gear his policies toward those already on a trajectory of success. And if you can’t keep up, to hell witcha. Those who don’t have the wherewithal to keep pace might move away or be thrown in jail or die young, and eventually the rest of us won’t have them to trip over on our way to the top.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, understands a president governs all citizens. Obama believes in people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, and his policies devote some resources to explaining what a bootstrap is and what up looks like. Children, especially, benefit from opportunities to see what life has to offer beyond their families and neighborhoods, and maybe they’ll make better decisions and avoid mistakes their parents made.

There is tremendous wealth and tremendous need in the midst of our community. In these last few days of encouraging people to vote, I’ve knocked on doors of weathered trailers, some anchored across from a gated community. I’ve talked to people who live in an old school bus, and people who live at the end of driveways so long, I hiked back to my car and drove to their elegant house (only to find a Romney supporter taking out his anger on me because his son registered as a Democrat).

This election will reveal whether we want our country to be inclusive or exclusive. Though we don’t have any municipal seats on the ballot Tuesday, council members, too, should remember that their decisions on the dais determine whether Chapel Hill still values the socioeconomic diversity it once embraced. Do we want to make room for the working class and middle class? Or do we want to shoo them out to communities of their own kind and make them commute in to serve those of us who are landowners, or luxury renters, in town?

The decisions each of us make matter. Make sure you vote in this election, and choose wisely.
– Nancy Oates

by on November 5, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Elections, Lifestyle
Posted by Nancy Oates on November 5, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/11/05/choose-wisely/

Yesterday’s transit tomorrow

Smart Transit for Orange County writes:

Smart Transit for Orange County is asking voters to vote “NO” (AGAINST) the transit tax so that a better plan can be developed. The diverse group of pro-transit leaders from the towns and the county who joined together to oppose the transit tax referendum said the tax increase would authorize a plan that over-emphasizes light rail transit (LRT) at the expense of a frequent, reliable bus system that truly serves the towns and the county. Once built, light rail cannot be shifted to accommodate changing commuter and user patterns.

If the tax fails in November, planners will be forced to come up with a plan that better fits the needs of the county. The tax can be brought back on a later ballot.

The tax referendum has received little fact-based reporting from the press, partly because the details of the complex plan weren’t finalized until early October – just a week or so before the polls opened for early voting. Many voters don’t know that there even is a plan, and believe they are voting for or against transit in principle.

The major issues raised by the group are:
• Fixed LRT doesn’t fit changing local demographics and commuter patterns. UNC’s campuses and health-care facilities are decentralizing, and increasingly, commuters are coming from Chatham and Mebane. Growth projections ignore the growing senior population and changes due to cyber commuting.
• Transit priorities for bus service and the Amtrak station in Hillsborough are shortchanged by the huge investment in LRT. The plan devotes nearly 75% of the county’s transit dollars to a four-mile light rail segment from UNC Hospital along east NC 54. The segment completes a 17-mile line to Duke Medical Center and on to Alston Avenue and is estimated to cost Orange County taxpayers $1.4 billion.
• The plan provides no direct service to RDU, RTP or Raleigh. Wake County has not discussed or agreed to the plan at all.
• The plan overlooks emerging technologies such as Bus Rapid Transit – which qualifies for the same grant funds as LRT and can provide integrated transit service throughout the county at a fraction of the cost.

Triangle Transit Authority and associated government agencies need to go back to the drawing board. Convenient, reliable and widespread bus service that targets population centers and economic development areas is essential to building ridership and encouraging people to leave their cars at home. A flexible, frequent and extensive bus service, along with bike lanes and sidewalks, might meet the needs of workers and students better than LRT and be less costly per rider. Good transit is non-partisan. It’s hard to understand why Orange County voters are being asked to fund a plan that’s clearly designed to benefit Durham and the universities. A “no” vote now buys the time to make a better transit future for Orange County.

Smart Transit for Orange County is committed to working with leaders to develop plans. The group includes former Town Council member Julie McClintock, GOP leader Bob Randall, Chapel Hill Realtor Mark Zimmerman, Efland businessman Greg Andrews and Maple View’s Bob Nutter working side by side with town advocates Will Raymond and Marty Mandel, rural advocates Bonnie Hauser and Tony Blake, Southern Triangle’s Jeanne Brown and Hillsborough resident and county commissioner candidate Mary Carter.

To learn more about the plan and the tax, visit the Smart Transit for Orangewebsite, http://transitfororangecounty.wordpress.com/, and Facebook page, “Smart Transit for Orange County,” or contact:

Tony Blake (tonyblake@nc.rr.com)
Mary Carter (mary.carter_nc@yahoo.com)
Bonnie Hauser (bonnie@OrangeCountyVoice.org)
Will Raymond (transit@willraymond.org)
Del Snow (djdsnow@msn.com)

by on October 29, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Taxes, Transportation
Tagged
Posted by Nancy Oates on October 29, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/10/29/yesterdays-transit-tomorrow/

Policy goes; bus ads stay

At 11:20 last night, Town Council voted to suspend Chapel Hill’s bus ad policy. In a memo slipped to council members during the evening, town manager Roger Stancil explained that the bus ad policy the town approved in June 2011 prohibited any transit advertising of a religious or political nature. Thus, once transit work crews clocked in this morning, they would begin stripping the controversial bus ads paid for by Church of Reconciliation from buses unless council voted to suspend the town’s existing policy.

The motion passed 8-1, with Penny Rich voting against suspending the policy.

Council had planned to discuss possible changes to the existing bus ad policy in about two weeks. Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt stated he believed pulling the bus ads now, without notice to the community, would be injurious to the process of crafting a policy that everyone in the community could live with.

While the policy is suspended, the town will accept no new bus ad contracts but would honor existing contracts. The transit manager informed Stancil in a memo today that the town had passed an amended version of the proposed bus ad policy last year, and the amendments prohibited accepting ads pertaining to politics or political causes and ads for or against any religious beliefs.

Presumably the memos will be posted on the town’s website later today. For now, the bus ads will stay in place.
– Nancy Oates

by on October 25, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Lifestyle, Transportation
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Posted by Nancy Oates on October 25, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/10/25/policy-goes-bus-ads-stay/

The art of the deal

Ah, the nuggets you find tucked away in Town Council’s consent agenda, those items council members vote to approve without comment, unless a council member pulls an item for further discussion. The consent agenda for this week’s council meeting – moved to Wednesday again this week – includes a request to approve the 2012-13 public art works plan and adopt a budget amendment to allocate the Percent for Art funds.

The administrative transaction itself can be done without fanfare: transferring to the Public Art Fund $2,800 from the Capital Project Fund and $7,000 from the Two-Thirds Bonds. The resolution also authorizes spending $18,035 previously allocated from streetscape money. That money will be spent on windscreens for bus shelters downtown. An additional $7,000 will cover a rubberized playground surface in Umstead Park.

That’s it? Taxpayers spend about $100,000 annually for a full-time public art coordinator and his assistant, and all the two did for a year was arrange for bus shelter windscreens and a playground mat? Basically, public art coordinator Steve Wright and his assistant, Jeffrey York, sent out a couple of RFPs, reviewed some portfolios, and negotiated a price for two projects. Compare that to the pace and productivity of town employees in, say, the planning department, who could probably knock that off in a week or two at most, and develop a lovely PowerPoint presentation to accompany each.

Town manager Roger Stancil chronically is on the lookout for pennies to pinch. Not to go all Bain Capital or anything, but here’s 10 million of them he could save in one fell swoop. Eliminate the two positions from staff, saving salaries, benefits and office space, and contract out the work to a “consultant” connected to local artists. The consultant could come up with projects and commission local artists to do the work. And if Stancil chose from among people who call themselves “project managers” instead of “consultants,” he could save even more.

I’m sure Stancil could find some productive use for that $100,000 saved.
– Nancy Oates

by on October 22, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Budget
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Posted by Nancy Oates on October 22, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/10/22/the-art-of-the-deal/

Table talk

John Ager is a member of the Planning Board and co-facilitated the recent Central West Focus Area meetings. Here’s what he has to say:

A fundamental challenge lies at the heart of the “Central West Focus Area” debate. This area contains some of the town’s oldest and loveliest neighborhoods. No one is surprised when the citizens living there turn out in large numbers to protect what they have. But Estes Drive and MLK Jr. Blvd. have become major arteries heavily used by citizens from all over town. And as Carolina North moves from concept to reality, there will be a need for services and amenities on or close to that intersection. It is unreasonable for decisions about growth and change in the area to be dominated by nearby homeowners.

I’m one of the two Planning Board members who helped facilitate the four recent meetings. I was disappointed but perhaps not surprised to discover many of the residents consider developers to be untrustworthy, and interested only in maximizing their profit. There was much talk of limiting developer representation on the steering committee because they have a “financial interest.” It’s clear to me that every homeowner also has a financial interest.

In fairness to everyone who attended the meetings, there were also many residents who view developers differently, and understand that change is inevitable. The proposed developments will certainly increase the volume of traffic on both MLK and Estes. But these roads will see increased traffic even if nothing new is built here. Estes Drive is one of the few connectors between Franklin Street and northern Chapel Hill and Carrboro. It’s already over capacity, for two main reasons. First, some decisions were made when the road system was originally designed many decades ago, which in hindsight were not the wisest. A limited number of connectors were built, no doubt due to cost, which is relatively higher in this town because of the topography. There are lots of hills. Second, many people in all parts of the town are working energetically to maintain Chapel Hill’s justly famous quality of life. The consequence is, more and more people want to be here! We’ve seen explosive growth in Carrboro, organic growth in and adjacent to the town, and there are many car-owning students – all making Estes a very busy road.

I’m convinced the best way forward is to encourage and support a true community conversation about how the Town should evolve. This conversation should not be an argument between residents and developers in a zero sum game. Instead there must be a sustained debate between ALL stakeholders: residents, developers, the University, town planners, property owners, businesses, and even students. The great achievement of Chapel Hill 2020 is that the early meetings mobilized more individuals than ever before to collectively figure out what questions should be asked. Even though the Council “adopted” the plan, everyone knows that the questions have not been fully answered. We are now in the Implementation phase where the debate will continue and specific answers can be determined through compromise.

— John Ager

by on October 15, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Economic development, Housing, Land Use, Roads
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Posted by Nancy Oates on October 15, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/10/15/table-talk/

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