If it were up to me, the only 8-story structure I’d build in Obey Creek would be a water slide. I’d accessorize it with a batting cage and a miniature golf course. I’d put a grocery store nearby, but a Walmart would be a tough sell, if we’ve learned anything from the Chatham County residents’ response to the Walmart that was proposed a mile or two south on 15-501. The developer is still sulking about that one. Maybe if we made it a two-story Walmart, with skylights and a landscaped buffer, not unlike the Walgreens that will soon be built on East Franklin Street and Estes Drive, that would fit in with our friendly village image.

But my vision is different from Roger Perry’s. Maybe that’s why he’s sitting on an empire, and I’m toiling away past midnight for free, sitting on a steadily shrinking nest egg.

In reading all the comments disparaging Roger Perry’s developments, I couldn’t silence the little voice in my head that kept saying, “But they sell.” Whatever we think of the aesthetics of East 54, Meadowmont and Buckhorn Village, they have all sold well, despite vocal community opposition. Somebody must like them enough to lay their money down.

I would never bet against Roger Perry’s ability to pick a market. And although he has made lots and lots of money off his developments, he has also increased the supply of desirable affordable housing. I’m counting on him continuing that at Obey Creek, though socioeconomic diversity is just as important in housing developments as it is in schools. You have to have the right mix of haves and have-nots to avoid a tipping point that will cause one side or the other to find the place undesirable.

Not that I think Town Council should give Roger Perry carte blanche to build whatever he wants wherever he wants. But rest assured he’s not going to propose something that won’t find customers. Maybe Ram Development should give him a call.
– Nancy Oates

What was the difference between The Cottages and Obey Creek? Both projects went before the Town Council Monday night. The Cottages would build 330 dwellings on 33 acres off Homestead Road. Obey Creek would put 1,200 dwellings and 570,000 square feet of retail/office space on 120 acres across the road from Southern Village.

Council members sat back and gazed favorably on the Obey Creek presentation, but they were openly critical of The Cottages. At issue was parking – The Cottages would put 1,175 parking spaces at its residents’ convenience. But given the scale of Obey Creek – almost four times as large acre-wise – there will be quite a few parking spaces built there, too.

So what was the difference? When you come right down to it, the difference was Roger Perry.

Perry’s development group, East West Partners, will handle the planning for Obey Creek. And what Roger Perry wants in this town, Roger Perry gets. He seems to be the guy who is behind all the massive developments hereabouts – think Meadowmont, East 54, Buckhorn Village.

And Obey Creek is massive. In addition to the acreage – enough to fit at least three The Cottages within its boundaries – Obey Creek’s preliminary plans call for eight-story buildings that will rival what we have in the UNC Hospitals complex. What the town would get if it approved Obey Creek would be another East 54-type development lining another road into town, unless someone on the council or in the planning department can convince Perry to set back the development.
The project will take another one to three years before it breaks ground, and then the planned build-out is 20 years.

Perry told the council “what we’re suggesting here is a pretty big deal.” He’s right about that. Too big for an entryway such as U.S. 15-501. Let’s hope the council learned something from East 54. Members who were up for election last year tried to distance themselves from that project because they caught so much grief from residents over the decision to approve. Will they remain true to their constituents and take a closer look at Obey Creek?

I’m with council member Donna Bell – I’d rather see tall buildings in downtown Chapel Hill, not in the suburbs.
–Don Evans

The Town Council’s leanings at Monday night’s meeting took us by surprise, giving a thumbs down on The Cottages student apartments along Homestead Road and insisting on commercial space in Obey Creek across from Southern Village. It prompted a discussion between Don and me about what sort of business would draw us to shop in Obey Creek or Southern Village.

We realized we were not good meters of the average consumers. Both self-employed in a dying industry and with two children in schools that demand tuition, we don’t shop. Our austere health insurance keeps us from going to the doctor, so that rules out prescriptions, the main reason we might go to a drug store. We’ve aged out of growth spurts and don’t go anyplace where people care what we look like, so we don’t buy new clothes. Once every 20 years, we’ll buy a refrigerator or washing machine or car. About every five years, one of us – not me – buys a new computer. A couple of times a year, we go to an office supply store to buy paper. We buy groceries and gasoline, and that’s it.

Periodically, I go to a garden store to buy a plant for the bald patches in our lawn that don’t get enough sunlight to grow anything – we call it our shade garden – but Chapel Hill and Carrboro have enough nurseries. In recent years, I’ve gone to a home improvement store to buy chicken wire and plastic mesh to build what has become a plant zoo to discourage deer, but, again, we have plenty of choices there. We go to the library instead of bookstores – and much as we use the library, we think it is fiscally irresponsible to expand it now.

So we’re taking the debate to the Web world – what sort of business would draw you to a commercial center that might be a bit out of your way? What does our town need?

One commenter at the meeting came up with an idea that we support 100 percent: Put a miniature golf course in Obey Creek. With Southern Community Park just down the street, that would fit in well. And it is the only thing we think our Southern Part of Heaven lacks.

What do you think?
– Nancy Oates

Riders who board Chapel Hill Transit buses this week and are offered passenger surveys should think long and hard about filling out those forms – they may be a ticket to ride less.

CHT is conducting an on-board passenger survey designed to cover such topics as convenience of routes, service levels and availability of information. The feedback is intended to help the town “improve” bus service.

By “improve” the town means downgrade or eliminate routes that have the least ridership (or least vocal ridership) as a way to help cut costs. So some riders who fill out and turn in the surveys will be casting a vote on whether the very route they enjoyed while filling out the form will continue or, at the least, become less frequent.

The manager’s budget for the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1, plans to discontinue the Shared Rider/Feeder services, which provide service to areas that do not receive regular evening or Sunday bus service. There’s talk about eliminating the M route, which goes from Carrboro to downtown and out to University Mall and the public library, and adjusting the HS, RU, NS, CCX, NU and F routes.

Cost efficiencies are always welcome, especially in a tight budget year when the town will have to dip into its reserve funds so it can hand out $800 bonuses to town workers while increasing their health care costs. But people who missed the bus or were out of town during the survey may be in for a big surprise the next time they walk over to the nearest bus stop to wait for the express.

Transit costs will siphon more than $17.4 million from the town budget next year. And the manager is looking uneasily at the budgets that will follow this one. Federal assistance is expected to decline by as much as 7 percent next fiscal year, and federal operating grants have been eliminated. While state assistance could increase, I wouldn’t count on it. Looks like it could be a bumpy road for town bus service.

The town characterizes the survey as “an effort to provide better service to its valued customers.” Anybody have any suggestions for how to reduce transit costs or find alternative sources of funding? The town manager and CHT sure could use them.

All this was discussed at two public forums on Monday at the Chapel Hill Bible Church. If you missed them and want to learn more, you can contact CHT at chtransit@townofchapelhill.org or call 919-969-4900.
–Don Evans

As UNC alumni from 40 or 50 years ago can and will tell you, much has changed on campus and in town over the decades. Chapel Hill is no longer the quaint little village whose merchants accepted IOU’s for tickets to the picture show when the banks closed in the 1930s; or where students wore coats and ties or dresses and high-heels to football games as they did through the mid-1960s; or where campus officials heeded town residents’ complaints about loud rock concerts. Many of the changes to the town have come about because of changes in the university, and at tonight’s council meeting, we’re once again faced with an issue of how to grow together.

Council will hear comments from citizens tonight about two proposed large developments: The Cottages, on Homestead Road, and Obey Creek, across from Southern Village. Together they are meant to accommodate housing, office and hotel needs anticipated as the university grows.

The Cottages developer is upfront about its 330 units (1,120 bedrooms total) providing student housing, although it may want to tweak its design somewhat. The plan calls for some five bedroom units. Chapel Hill ordinance does not allow more than four unrelated people to live together in a single unit.

Obey Creek, a Scott Kovens project (though Roger Perry of East West Partners signed the concept plan application), plans 1,200 residences, along with 870,000 square feet of office/commercial space, which includes a hotel.

The Community Design Commission generally gave a thumbs-down to Obey Creek, mainly because, with 10-story buildings along its frontage, it seemed too large-scale to fit in with its neighbors. Not to mention that the additional vehicle traffic streaming into campus from the south would soon overwhelm even the planned widening of South Columbia Street.

Some Town Council members were critical of Bridgepoint, a much smaller mixed-use development across the street from The Cottages due to the increased traffic it would generate. Residents who live near the proposed site are expected to voice objections at tonight’s meeting. Residents who live near the proposed Obey Creek expressed discontent at the Community Design Commission meeting.

So, where do we grow? And make no mistake, if UNC grows, so will the town. Where do we house these new residents? Where will they shop? How will they get where they need to go?

We need to find answers we can live with. Our quaint little village is no more. But we can still build a town we love to call home.
– Nancy Oates

There’s one way the U.S. Census is saving money – on office space.

At least, that’s what’s happening in Chapel Hill. On Thursday, I met up with a crew leader, one of the folks who coordinate the actions of a group of enumerators, who is using the last three rows of tables at a Burger King as his group’s office space. He and his assistants have spread out their binders and stacks of Enumerator Questionnaires on the Formica table tops and seem to be doing quite well in those surroundings. No water cooler and no snack machine, sure, but also no tax money spent on expensive space.

These crew members are keeping track of the work to count Chapel Hill’s population at about the least expensive place they could find. And I like that.

I like it because it is a very efficient use of space that would otherwise remain mostly empty. And the space sure doesn’t cost much. What does Burger King get out of it? Well, it doesn’t hurt when hungry census enumerators come in for their assignments and see ads for Whoppers, fries and cold sodas. The smell of burgers and fried foods will quickly take your mind off population counts.

Maybe the Town of Chapel Hill should think outside the box and see about finding alternative office space. I’ll bet there’s plenty of unused space in other establishments around town that would just love to have a gaggle of town office workers stationed in their space, doing the taxpayers’ business without using the taxpayers’ money. Good for business and good for town expenses? Sure seems like it.
–Don Evans

There goes the neighborhood, and it looks like it’s due, if not to the hand of God, at least an arm of the Catholic church.

John Stone, a resident of the St. James neighborhood, situated next door to St. Thomas More Church, petitioned Town Council Monday night for help. He said that when council approved the special use permit for St. Thomas More’s massive addition, a condition of the permit was that St. Thomas More leave a 35-foot green buffer zone between the St. James neighborhood and traffic. But now that construction is under way, the 35-foot buffer has been reduced to 5 feet. All the trees have been clear cut and replaced by a 9-foot-high embankment.

St. James neighbors notified town staff of the SUP violation and met with planning department staff on four occasions to remedy the problem, Stone said, to no avail. So the St. James neighbors asked that the town order construction stopped on the St. Thomas More addition until a solution is worked out.

The problem seems to be that a 30-foot OWASA easement was not mentioned in the SUP. St. Thomas More went on the assumption that the buffer includes the OWASA easement; neighbors believe that the buffer starts at the edge of the easement. Because OWASA has rights to the easement, St. Thomas More can’t landscape it or demand that it be preserved as a buffer. Planning director J.B. Culpepper was called to the mike to shed some light on the situation. “We are not aware of any violation,” she said with a chipper smile.

Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt shrugged off the petition with an our-hands-are-tied dismissal. Other council members weren’t quite so sanguine.

Council member Sally Greene expressed surprise that Culpepper was not aware of the situation as council members had been getting e-mails about the problem for weeks, she said. Culpepper backpedaled a bit and conceded that she had been “working with the church on some plantings.”

Council member Matt Czajkowski asked whether the map that accompanied the planning board recommendation showed the easement as part of the buffer. “I don’t have that information,” Culpepper chirped, “but I’ll be happy to bring back a report to council.”

Council member Laurin Easthom, perhaps sensing that the report would be as oblique as Culpepper’s answers, specified that the report state what the planning staff believed about the relation of the buffer to the easement when staff presented the SUP request to council. Council member Jim Ward worried about the timeliness of a report while construction continued. Culpepper offered to e-mail her report to council; the dismissive smile never left her face.

Council member Ed Harrison bypassed Culpepper completely and asked town manager Roger Stancil when, exactly, staff would report back to council. “As soon as we can,” Stancil said. Harrison noted, “But this has to come back to a business meeting,” and Stancil grudgingly acknowledged it would.

So it looks like the St. James residents, who followed the rules and put their faith in the system, may lose this fight. The church and its bulldozers will win. Evidently it helps to have God, and Roger Stancil, on your side.
– Nancy Oates

We sat in the large civics room of a local newspaper, 12 of us and an instructor. The group included a former newspaper editor, a scientist, a woman who had just received a doctorate, a former milkman, a retiree, a student, an artist and several IT professionals. We were all there to learn how to be enumerators for the U.S. census.

Our ages ranged from mid 30s to late 60s. Several of us had been laid off from other jobs. Soon after we began our class, we were asked to introduce ourselves. Most class members confessed that they were there to earn a little extra money. But I was happy to hear several say they were there because they believed it was their civic duty.

There was a lot to learn over the four days of training. We got many lessons in filling out the Enumerator Questionnaire, or “EQ” in Census lingo. These forms are at the heart of our work. They contain the questions to be asked at each household and the special situations that may pertain. We have to ask the questions according to a script printed on the EQ and are encouraged not to deviate from that script. We must take down the responses in pencil in case an erasure becomes necessary. Most of all we are to allow great leeway to the person interviewed – how that person perceives himself race-wise and gender-wise is paramount.

We’re to get information about ages, races, residences and genders. We were told to allow the interviewee to say what race he or she is. We can show a list of races on an information sheet, but it’s up to the person to express how he or she considers that characteristic. We were encouraged to ask respondents to provide information rather than reminding them that it is a federal law that you must respond to the questionnaire.
We learned about safety, and were encouraged to wear comfortable shoes that “may come in handy should there be a need to run” and to “scan beneath the vehicle for persons waiting to charge out at your ankles,” as our D-590 employee handbook advised.

Each of us got an official ID badge on a lanyard, which we must wear at all times that we do census business. We got our D-547 enumerator manuals and workbooks. We got sheaves of EQs and Notice of Visit forms. We got packets that contain several blue-ink pens, No. 2 pencils and a little green sharpener, erasers and paper clips. We got our black Census Bureau carrying cases in which to stash our tools.

Now the members of my “class” await a call from a crew leader, whose job it is to assemble enumerators into a group that will go out to addresses from which no census form was received by the federal government.
So if an enumerator shows up at your door in the next weeks, be patient and polite, even if you are asked whether you are male or female. The enumerator won’t take up more than 10 minutes of your time. And answering the questions on the EQ is a good reminder of who we are as Americans and where we come from.
–Don Evans