Exceptions to the rule

The vote hadn’t even been taken last night before cell phone ban supporters on council began jockeying for exceptions for their constituents unhappy with a ban.

First, a couple of ham radio operators made a last-minute plea to exempt federally licensed amateur radio operators. So Jim Ward moved that the cell phone ban ordinance be amended to exempt them.

Soon, Ed Harrison spoke up to say the ordinance wouldn’t outlaw talking on the phone while driving; it only makes driving while yakking illegal if the driver were violating another traffic law, such as crossing a double yellow line or running a red light.

Laurin Easthom begged to differ, stating the ordinance would ban drivers from talking on a handheld phone or Bluetooth or any hands-free phone system built into a car.

Donna Bell jumped in to side with Harrison, saying that drivers talking on cell phones could sail right by a police officer, and they wouldn’t be pulled over unless they were committing some other moving violation. Then to further appease voters, she urged police to hold off giving tickets for cell phone violations and just give violators a warning. The spirit of the law was to educate drivers not punish them, she said in effect. (Town attorney Ralph Karpinos clarified that money collected from tickets goes to the school system, not the town.)

After five council members (Bell, Harrison, Rich, Storrow and Ward) voted for the ordinance that they are exempt from, council moved on to the vote about an education campaign for the new law. Eastholm asked for signs “on all five entrances” to town. Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt clarified that it would require “scores” of signs, not just five. Matt Czajkowski asked about the cost for the signs and education plan, and that once that figure were known it be included as a line item on the budget.

In the end, council has given us the worst of all worlds: Our taxes will go up to pay for a law that drivers don’t have to obey and won’t make our streets any safer.
– Nancy Oates

by on March 27, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Lifestyle, Taxes
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Posted by Nancy Oates on March 27, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/03/27/exceptions-to-the-rule/

Save all of us from ourselves

The town has confidence in us to use our handguns responsibly in public parks, and perhaps to use our cell phones responsibly on public roads (unless we are single or in a marriage not recognized by the state or are childless or orphaned), but not to make decisions in the best interest of health regarding tobacco use. A proposed ordinance in the consent agenda outlaws smoking in public parks, effective as soon as the town installs signs warning people that smoking in public parks is against the law.

No one can defend smoking as not being harmful to the user and others in the vicinity, anymore than someone can defend using a cell phone while driving, well, except if the user is in a state-recognized marriage, has children or at least one living parent, evidently. And in the spirit of Big Government, council evidently believes the smoking ban should pass, given that the item is in the Consent Agenda, not up for discussion as the ban on using cell phones while driving was.

So as long as the town supports Big Government, why not ban sodas, fried foods and salty snacks? They also are unhealthy for the users and others – health problems connected to obesity and high blood pressure negatively affect the health insurance premiums of everyone, even those who haven’t made a claim in years. As long as we’re spending the money to print signs banning smoking, why can’t we add soft drinks, French fries and Doritos to the list?

Tonight, in addition to deciding on the advisability of smoking in public parks, Town Council will have a second vote on whether to ban some drivers from using cell phones. Anytime I’ve driven on a major thoroughfare in town since the tie vote a few weeks ago, I’ve clocked how long between places to pull off to answer or return a phone call. Except for stopping at traffic lights, I’m never more than 15 seconds away from pulling into a parking lot or side street. Though we’d like to pretend that the only time we use our cell phones while driving is for medical or financial emergencies, more often than not it’s for the mundane – calling for clarification on whether the person who wrote “barbecue potato chips” on the shopping list meant Cajun, Carolina, Hickory Smoked or Honey.

If council members feel the need to pass a cell phone ban, the least they can do is remove the “traditional family” exemption. It would be healthier for everyone.
– Nancy Oates

by on March 26, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Ethics, Lifestyle, Politics
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Posted by Nancy Oates on March 26, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/03/26/save-all-of-us-from-ourselves/

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; it’s been more than 15 years since I read it.) His wife gives him a boiled egg, which he peels and slices, giving each child a bite. His wife chides him that he needs the egg for his journey, to which he replies, “What’s a man to do with a whole egg all to himself?”

That anecdote came to mind as I listened to Town Council members decide who should get CDBG funding and how much. Several folks came to the mike to tout the good work Jackson Center has done in the Northside neighborhood. The town had allocated $5,000 to Jackson Center. Jim Ward proposed increasing the amount to $15,000, finding the extra funds by shaving $2,000 off five of the other aid organizations. They won’t feel it, he said.

I can sympathize with Ward’s comment. When you look at the grand scale of need, it’s easy to think, What good can $2,000 do anyway? It’s a drop in the bucket. Fortunately, Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt spoke up that rather than redistribute money from an ever-shrinking pot, council might best find the funds elsewhere in the budget.

Matt Czajkowski gave the Jackson Center folks a tip in the form of thinking creatively about money. He pointed out that IFC got 100 percent of the money it requested and Habitat for Humanity and Community Home Trust got even more than they requested because the money was there and no one else had requested it. So ask, he urged the Jackson administrators. Look at your budget and see what items would fit the criteria to qualify for HOME Program funds and to compete in the category with IFC.

Czajkowski asked town staff once again for an accounting of how IFC had spent its allocation. Ed Harrison asked whether Jackson Center had a performance agreement. (Not yet, but one would be signed before any money was distributed to the center.) And Penny Rich asked whether the town could require the YMCA to return its allocation if it merged with the county Y and dropped its anti-discrimination practices. (Yes.)

Though it appeared in the fall of 2010, when they approved the bond sales for a state-of-the-art library that we couldn’t afford to operate, that council members were spending money like drunken sailors. But they seemed to have sobered up enough this year to at least ask the right questions to become better stewards of taxpayers’ money.
– Nancy Oates

by on March 22, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Budget, Library, Northside, Taxes
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 22, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/03/22/dividing-a-small-pot/

Why not live here?

At last night’s Town Council meeting, town business management director Ken Pennoyer and a band of technology professionals waxed eloquent on the wonders of Gig U, the ultra-high-speed connectivity coming to town. Following the presentation that detailed ways the new service would improve our lives, Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt crowed, “Why doesn’t everyone want to live here?”

Well, many people do. But as became clear during discussions of other items on the agenda, we only have room for the wealthy. And we certainly don’t want any students.

The meeting began with pleas for funding of affordable housing initiatives through CDBG (which is not a night club, but stands for Community Development Block Grants) and HOME Program money. Laurin Easthom and Mayor K lamented the continuous reduction in such government aid. Matt Czajkowski pointed out that the proposed distribution of funds gives IFC every penny it requested (all to go toward the new shelter on Homestead Road) and Habitat for Humanity and the Community Home Trust more than they requested, yet one Northside resident noted pointedly that the town isn’t building anymore public housing units.

The meeting ended with a concept review plan for The Retreat at Homestead, a student housing development that one single-family homeowner on Homestead Road dubbed a “resort-style student housing experience.” Several single-family homeowners of nearby Homestead Village stepped up to the mike to state their opposition, and silent NIMBY-ers stood up on cue. Donna Bell called The Retreat a parking lot with bedrooms, and Easthom, Czajkowski and Penny Rich sided with her. Jim Ward and Lee Storrow supported the concept, but also winced at 850 additional cars driving back and forth to Harris Teeter. Ward, bless his egalitarian heart, told Homestead Village residents that their desire to keep others from clogging the same roads that they clog didn’t hold water for him.

Homestead Village residents railed that student housing should be built in high-rises close to campus, the inverse of the arguments that single-family homeowners near the proposed Trinitas development voiced some weeks back, urging council to take the pressure off neighborhoods close to campus by building student housing further out.

Maybe we should put both sets of neighbors in a room and ask them to work out where to house the students that help make this town a place where everyone wants to live.
– Nancy Oates

by on March 20, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Housing, Lifestyle, Parking, Technology
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Posted by Nancy Oates on March 20, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/03/20/why-not-live-here/

Price of free speech

My column in The Weekly last week offended some Hilltop Condo owners. I had chastised the senior citizens who made multiple pleas to council to retain two rogue parking spaces residents had created in a driveway curb cut on W. Barbee Chapel Road so they wouldn’t have to drive two-tenths of a mile to the parking lot behind their building. The issue caused confusion for three council members who ended up voting against the Hultquist IP office building proposal that they were in favor of, thinking they were voting against removing the rogue parking spaces.

In my column, I chided the people who said the two parking spaces meant a lot to Hilltop residents, even though only two of them would be able to park there. I also took Penny Rich’s comment at face value that many of the Hilltop residents were senior citizens, her point being that they would walk slowly and put themselves and drivers at greater risk by jaywalking. One letter writer correct that impression, saying that only a third of Hilltop residents are retired, something that neither Rich nor I would be able to “check,” as one letter writer suggested we do.

As people do when their feelings are hurt, they lashed out with words designed to hurt back. The Weekly’s publisher, Dan Shannon bolded the insults, so you won’t have to read the whole letters. You can just glance at the juicy parts.

For the record, I am not against free speech, as one letter writer charged – witness this blog. I do have little patience for people who believe that saving two otherwise fortunate individuals the inconvenience of driving an extra two-tenths of a mile to a parking space directly outside their door is worth the risk they pose to themselves and drivers who might hit them. The driveway cut also interrupts the sidewalk, but parking space supporters weren’t concerned about that.

Council does sometimes too good of a job making concessions to special interest groups. In this instance, I was pleased to see that council gave precedence to the safety of the potential jaywalkers, especially given that the jaywalkers, however quickly they move, didn’t see the danger for themselves.

If you’re not on a postal route that delivers The Weekly to your mailbox (I’m not, and neither are some council members), pick up a copy wherever free publications are distributed. It’s an interesting read.
– Nancy Oates

by on March 16, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Lifestyle, Parking
Tagged
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 16, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/03/16/price-of-free-speech/

Don’t block the bump

I’ve been pressed gently but relentlessly by people in the neighborhood where I own rental property to sign a petition to install traffic-calming devices on the streets that frame my corner lot. I’ve gently but relentlessly refused. My observation has been that traffic-calming devices – speed bumps, humps, tables, cushions and traffic undulation devices – don’t work. We already have speed bumps on nearby streets. Many university students live in that neighborhood, and they roar up to a speed bump, slam on the brakes, then roar away. That’s if they stop at all. An SUV can take the bump at full speed, undeterred by being airborne for a second or two.

Several people who spoke at last Monday’s council meeting agree with me. An item on the consent agenda recommended that parking 50 feet on either side of a traffic calming device be prohibited. People from three different neighborhoods spoke, most of them against the parking restrictions. The total 100-foot No Parking span – 6 feet longer than a basketball court, to put it in context – would inordinately squeeze already tight parking availability in Northside and Southern Village and along Sedgefield Drive, where many houses don’t have garages. And although speed bumps don’t always work to slow traffic, lining the street with several parked cars usually does.

Some asked that the speed bumps be removed altogether.

Some people brought up that the latest iteration of traffic-calming device has a set of narrow tracks cut into it, spaced just wide enough for a car to roll its tires through, if it slows down enough. However, the car has to cross the yellow line to do so. Parked cars close to the speed bump might encourage cars to pull out to the middle to aim for the cut-throughs, so that contingent wanted to enact the parking prohibition.

One resident, arguing for the parking restrictions, pointed out that some pedestrians use speed tables as de facto crosswalks, and if cars are parked close by, motorists can’t see pedestrians emerging from between parked cars until it is too late.

Every time a neighbor contacts me about signing a petition in favor of speed bumps, I ask them to consider sidewalks instead. If we had sidewalks, the fast-moving cars in the street would pose less of a danger to pedestrians. But sidewalks take too long, my neighbors tell me, and are too expensive. But so is installing a speed bump at one group’s behest and removing it at another’s.
– Nancy Oates

by on March 15, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Parking, Roads
Tagged
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 15, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/03/15/dont-block-the-bump/

Waving or waiving our values

Tonight Town Council members vote on two measures that are both for show. One vote is for a resolution urging North Carolina voters to vote against a state constitutional amendment that will ban certain people from marrying. The other is to decide whether to ban certain people from talking on cell phones while driving.

On the surface, the two votes seem unrelated. The first resolution is to take a stand against Amendment One, which will be on the ballot in May. Amendment One is an attempt to mess with the state’s constitution, defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. Amendment One is the sort of thing that rallies angry people to pick up a pitch fork and join a mob and destroy something – anything. The point is to have someone or something to blame for your unhappiness.

The amendment won’t fix anything, and it certainly won’t stop people of the same gender from loving one another. It will only prevent unmarried couples from receiving the legal protections married folks take for granted. It will allow a judgmental blood relative to bar a domestic partner from visiting his or her beloved in the ICU, for example. It may invalidate domestic violence convictions if the perpetrator and victim weren’t married.

Council also votes tonight on whether to pass an ordinance that will fine some people who talk on the phone while driving, but only people who are single, childless, in a partnership that the state doesn’t recognize as a marriage or have only a hand-held cell phone, not the more expensive hands-free variety. So council is voting on an ordinance that all of them – except the mayor – are exempt from.

The cell phone ordinance is for show because the state attorney general’s office has said the ordinance won’t stand up in court. But, like Amendment One, it’s an opportunity show off our values, to define the type of people and behaviors that we want to protect and sanction. Council defends the exclusionary language as mimicking wording in the state law that prevents drivers under age 18 from using cell phones.

Does council not see the irony? They buck the state’s proposed change to the constitution because it is exclusionary, at the same time they accept the state’s equally exclusionary law on the cell phone ban, saying they can’t reject the state’s wording.

Council is likely to pass both the resolution and the ordinance. What does that say about what we stand for? Imposing ordinances that hand-pick who is exempt is every bit as misguided as hand-picking which ordinances to enforce.
– Nancy Oates

by on March 12, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Council Members, Lifestyle
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Posted by Nancy Oates on March 12, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/03/12/waving-our-values/

Landmark proposal

Brace yourself. In a couple of weeks, Town Council will once again consider a housing project marketed to students. Landmark Properties is on the March 19 agenda to present another plan for The Retreat, a university student residential neighborhood. Last year, Landmark appeared before council with a concept plan review, and council shot it down. But Landmark is back, because business is business, and there is a market need for places for students to live off campus.

On the 39.5-acre site next to the South Orange County Social Services facility on the south side of Homestead Road, Landmark proposes to build 72 townhouses and 102 single-family houses, totaling almost 800 bedrooms, and save room for 809 parking spaces. The developer calls it a “student cottage community.” The developer is in the process of building a similar community in Raleigh and has built a dozen similar developments in the South over the past five years or so.

Chapel Hill needs student housing. The developers have a track record that shows they know what they are doing. The management staff will live onsite. The ample number of parking spaces acknowledges the concerns voiced by neighbors to the Trinitas proposal a couple of weeks ago: Students like to live off campus because they can have their own car.

There’s only one glitch: Some of the cottages have five or six bedrooms. The town has an ordinance that prevents more than four unrelated people from living in the same house.

I suspect the ordinance has its roots in a desire to banish rooming houses. And, as residents of many neighborhoods around campus can attest, the town rarely enforces its ordinance. Nevertheless, it is an ordinance on the books, and Town Council would look foolish ignoring it.

Still, we are a town built around a university, which means we must make room for students. We may not like their tendency to not clean up after themselves or their loud parties or invincible attitude driving their SUVs, but we do appreciate the vitality they bring to town, and certainly the revenue they contribute.

Let’s limit the number of bedrooms per cottage to four, and welcome The Retreat to Homestead Road.
– Nancy Oates

by on March 7, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Economic development, Housing, UNC
Tagged ,
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 7, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/03/07/landmark-proposal/

Second chance for Charterwood

We can all agree: $4.3 million is a serious amount of money to invest and a foolish amount to gamble. Yet when developers go before Town Council with a development project, the money they spend to plan, present, readjust and repeat frequently comes down to the mood council members are in.

The Charterwood developers, after spending $4.3 million over four years to make council members happy, got their hearts broken when five council members voted for the project, but they needed a sixth because a protest petition had been filed, forcing a three-quarters majority of yea votes for the project to continue.

The Weekly broke a story yesterday about new life for Charterwood. Bill Christian and Crescent Properties may have found a way around the super-majority vote constraint to seek approval for their proposed mixed-use development on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, north of Homestead Road. If the developers redraw their property lines on the parcels they are combining to create space for the development, neighbors would be prohibited from submitting a petition that would require a three-quarters majority of council members to vote for the rezoning and the special use permit.

Charterwood failed to win approval for the rezoning last month, which automatically quashed the special use permit application, even though a simple majority of five council members voted for the project to move forward. If Charterwood resubmits its plan, with the redrawn property lines, council would only need five votes to approve rezoning.

Are the developers gaming the system? Yes, just as the person organizing the protest petition did. It’s too bad that our development decisions come down to who’s got the last ace up their sleeve. But $4.3 million is a lot of money to leave on the table and walk away.

Pick up a copy of The Weekly. Find it wherever fine news publications are distributed.
– Nancy Oates

by on March 2, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Economic development, Housing
Tagged ,
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 2, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/03/02/second-chance-for-charterwood/

Loving the Loft

Town Council is ready to fall in love – with Shortbread Lofts. (You’ll only get the joke if you’re among the subset of council meeting viewers who flip channels to “The Bachelor” during some of the more tedious PowerPoint presentations. We won’t ask for a show of hands.)

The development team for Shortbread Lofts on West Rosemary Street came back Monday night to show their revisions. They had agreed to all of the Planning Department’s recommendations. They had addressed all of council members’ earlier concerns and had satisfied Franklin Street business owners anxious about a conflict over encroachment onto their rear parking areas. They had mustered support from such Chapel Hill legends as Lennie Rosenbluth (star of the undefeated UNC men’s basketball team of 1957) and Freddie Kiger (who has kept stats for subsequent teams and who writes about Chapel Hill history). Even the two people who brought up concerns about the project still said they supported it.

But as a caveat under the Be Careful What You Wish For category, the developers also had some alternatives to appease Matt Czajkowski’s contention that the mustard-yellow building was ugly. Part of their PowerPoint presentation had a computerized dramatization of how the building would look in different colors: green, beige and pink. Hot pink. The color of Penny Rich’s sweater that night, which is a good color for her but eye-catching in the extreme.

The apartments would charge market rate rents – about $724 per bedroom, the developer said – which is not the same as workforce housing, unless you’re a part of the workforce that earns very good tips.

Yet when it came time to vote yea or nay, all seven voting council members raised their right hand in favor of the rezoning and the special use permit. (Donna Bell was absent, and Laurin Easthom recused herself because her husband is a partner in the law firm that represents developer Larry Short, and if the law firm was to represent Short successfully, the firm, and by extension Easthom’s household, would benefit financially.)

Short expects to start construction in June.
– Nancy Oates

by on February 28, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Downtown Chapel Hill, Economic development, Housing
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Posted by Nancy Oates on February 28, 2012

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2012/02/28/loving-the-loft/

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