Imagine waking up one day to a train coming through your yard. That’s the specter that haunts property owners along the edge of Morgan Creek.

The light rail system has been in the works for years, long enough that some of us won’t believe it until we see it. But the various options for its path took some residents by surprise when council members went over the alternate routes Monday night. Laurin Easthom and Sally Greene want to know why, and they put long-range transportation manager David Bonk on the hot seat.

In the latest iteration of the route and stations for the light rail commuter train that would connect UNC Hospitals to Durham and eventually Raleigh, the route changed from along Manning Drive en route to East 54 and Meadowmont. The grade of the hill on Manning to Fordham Boulevard is too steep for light rail, and the buried utility lines would be expensive to work around. So the new route parallels Mason Farm Road to Fordham Boulevard, after which it will continue along Fordham to Raleigh Road and out N.C. 54. But instead of running along the west side of Fordham, where there are no houses, the proposal takes the route across Fordham to cut through the yards of houses in the Morgan Creek neighborhood.

Other changes slid the Hamilton Road station closer to Glenwood Elementary and away from the condos of East 54. The light rail runs along the back edge of East 54 next to Finley Golf Course. When Laurin Easthom questioned the advisability of moving the station so close to the elementary school, Bonk implied that Glenwood might cede to progress. “Don’t count on it being there in perpetuity,” he said. Don’t count on it going away, Easthom countered. “Land for schools is rare in Chapel Hill. I don’t see Glenwood going away,” she said.

Greene noted that the Manning Drive hill had been there all along, as had the underground utilities. Why hadn’t that been factored in from the start, she asked. Bonk replied that in the early planning phase “we made seat-of-our-pants decisions. Now we’re re-evaluating.”

One irate property owner wanted to know, “How do citizens get informed that a railroad is going through their property?” The new route could potentially reduce their property values by hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said. At that it was Bonk’s turn to be irate. Triangle Transit had held 19 workshops to give residents a chance to review plans and give input. It’s up to residents to stay informed.

The matter returns to council June 13.
– Nancy Oates

Sometimes what you don’t say says it all. Council members – minus Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt, Matt Czajkowski and Gene Pease, who were absent – got schooled in the art during a discussion of the Ephesus Church-Fordham Boulevard Small Area Plan at last night’s Town Council meeting. Jim Babb, managing director of real estate for Bluerock Real Estate, a national real estate investment concern headquartered in New York that owns Colony Apartments as well as The Apartments at Meadowmont, spoke in support of the plan presented by Chapel Hill’s economic development officer, Dwight Bassett. One of the implications in the plan was that the 180 units of Colony Apartment’s relatively low-cost housing would be torn down or at least spruced up to the point that it would no longer be low cost.

Sally Greene was the first to cut to the chase, asking Babb what Bluerock’s commitment was to affordable housing. Babb meandered a bit before pointing out that Colony Apartments are not “affordable housing.” They’re market rate housing, but run down to the point of being low rent. Greene, showing her lawyerly side, pressed. Would Colony Apartments be replaced with an equal number of units affordable to the working class?

“That’s complicated,” Babb replied, a negotiator’s way of saying, “No way, no how.”

Bluerock had acquired Colony Apartments with the idea of raising rates, Babb said. “My goal is to maximize return for my investors.”

By now, Donna Bell and Penny Rich were on edge. Bell asked Babb to explain what he meant when he said the plan didn’t go far enough.

Blah, blah, blah, is essentially what Babb replied. He didn’t have those answers as he was not a developer nor was he a planner. He didn’t know unit counts, whether the area should have office space or certain retailers. But he did know that we had to “rethink development to be bolder.”

Rich recommended Babb get the nearby neighborhoods and town staff involved in his design plans as they develop. “Learn from Clay Grubb’s experience with Glen Lennox,” she advised.
– Nancy Oates

Any article that promises tips on how to trim a household budget gets my attention. Self-employed and married to someone who retired early, I’m highly motivated to keep our expenses low. But invariably I come away from those financial advice columns disappointed – whatever they suggest, I’ve already done. At this point, there’s very little to pare from our budget. OWASA board chair Gordon Merklein would understand.

During the debate at the April 25 Town Council meeting over whether to secure permanent access to 5 million gallons a day of Jordan Lake water, some council members argued that OWASA should implore the community to conserve water as supplies run low, rather than have OWASA tap another supply. Merklein pointed out that demand for water has been reduced so much after the drought in 2007 and 2008 that there is not much more we can do to conserve. “People forget how high we’ve raised the bar on conservation,” he said.

And is it OWASA’s responsibility to urge the community to conserve? As Ed Kerwin, OWASA’s executive director, told council: “The community determines its water needs. OWASA’s job is to meet that need.” And OWASA is bound to do so in a manner cost-effective for its customers. The law of supply and demand dictates that as demand for water increases and/or supply decreases, the cost will rise. Why not hedge against unsustainably high water bills, as council member Matt Czajkowski said, by having permanent access to a back-up option of water, albeit of what council member and former OWASA board member Penny Rich referred to as inferior quality from Jordan Lake?

Granted, Merklein, who became UNC’s executive director of real estate development after he was named to the OWASA board, certainly is cognizant of his employer’s water needs. UNC is OWASA’s biggest customer, even though the university has launched aggressive conservation measures in the past few years. But somebody on the OWASA board should be watching out for UNC’s interests, and Merklein is as good as any.

The issue isn’t over. Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt urged OWASA to keep talking and bring the matter back at a future meeting.
– Nancy Oates

An item near the end of the agenda for the April 25 Town Council meeting announced the beginning of the selection process for appointing members to various town committees. But a vote earlier in the evening may have left some prospective committee members wondering, Why bother?

Midway through the meeting, the council reconsidered its previous vote approving amendments to the water, sewer and boundary agreement for 2011. The initial vote took place late at night at a long meeting earlier this year, and council member Laurin Easthom thought the issue had not been considered thoroughly. The amendments would enable OWASA to secure permanent access to its current allocation of 5 million gallons a day from Jordan Lake to be used in an emergency. OWASA’s board recommended approving the amendments, but at the April 25 council meeting, council voted it down, 7-2, over concern about what constituted an emergency and under what non-emergency conditions OWASA could tap into Jordan Lake.

Once again, council voted against an advisory committee or board recommendation. We’ve watched that scenario play out with the planning board, the sustainability committee, the long-term visioning committee and others. The council appoints five of OWASA’s nine board seats, giving council the power to stack the board to win a majority vote. If the board members don’t vote the way council likes, council can replace them.

Fortunately, the council members voters have seated aren’t all of one mind. We would like to think that any board member who wins approval from a diverse council was chosen because he or she had expertise respected by people of differing views. So why not trust their judgment?

The volunteers who serve on advisory board and committee meetings slog through tedious and sometimes contentious meetings to come up with recommendations because they genuinely care about the decisions our town leaders make. The volunteer advisers put thought and creativity and their expertise into coming up with advice to make our town function efficiently and cost-effectively into the future. So why not give their recommendations more weight?

The water issue in particular ignites passions on both sides. All the more reason to listen to the experts serving on advisory boards and committees. Maybe if they called themselves consultants and charged a hefty fee they’d garner more respect from council.
– Nancy Oates

At the WCHL community forum on “Local Media Ecosystems – Objectivity, Bias, Access,” aired last Thursday, panelists included two bloggers but only one newspaper editor. Carrboro Citizen editor Kirk Ross was the sole representative of print journalism. (The next day, The Citizen announced that Ross would be succeeded as editor by Susan Dickson, the publisher’s daughter. We trust the leadership change had nothing to do with Ross appearing on the radio show.) WCHL’s CEO, Barry Leffler, extended an invitation to The N&O and The Chapel Hill News, but they turned him down, perhaps because they consider themselves to be “rivals” of a community news radio station.

And that’s too bad. One of the points brought out in the panel discussion was the positive effect that more voices have on the accuracy and relevancy of community news. With electronic access to news, readers can weigh in and correct a story that contains inaccuracies and can give context by showing how news affects our lives.

We’ve heard more voices at Town Council meetings, too, in recent months. Not only from the increased number of residents who petition the town and speak at public hearings but from council members themselves. Though one observer complained about the “cocktail party” atmosphere of council meetings, with citizens returning to the mike repeatedly to answer council members’ questions or rebut statements, the extra input indicates that council members are listening to other viewpoints and perhaps remaining open to change.

At the WCHL panel, I sat across from a blogger who tweeted under the table anytime she wasn’t talking. To me, that indicated she wasn’t interested in any opinion but her own. Some years’ back, Town Council operated that way. One clique decided it knew what was best for residents, sat stoically through citizen comments, then voted 9-0 on issues that came before it.

Now, we’re seeing real discussions at council meetings. Council members are airing different views, listening respectfully and, for the most part, responding without any snide tone of voice. They’re holding town staff accountable for providing additional information. They’re willing to compromise and to take a stand on issues important to small factions of residents.

Council meetings last longer, and nearly everyone on the dais has a day job. But when council members pay attention and think before voting, all of us benefit.

If we could only get newspapers to join the party.
– Nancy Oates

Reesenews, a multimedia news project by UNC journalism students, has put together a package of stories on gentrification of the Northside community. Check it out at http://reesenews.org/2011/04/14/the-struggle-for-a-neighborhood/13888/.