March 2004

Activists, start your engines! There are three great events tonight, addressing development of Carolina North, workers' rights on campus, and homophobia in the classroom. (All pertaining to UNC, hmmm.) Which one are you going to?

1. Town Council Public Hearing on the Horace Williams Citizen's Commitee Report and on OI-4. Starts at 7pm, Chapel Hill Town Hall. There are lots and lots of meetings relating to UNC's development plans, but this Monday is one not to miss. The Chapel Hill Town Council will hold public hearings on two issues that will define the future deliberations about Carolina North. I'll be there.

2. The Workers Solidarity Coalition teach-in about the history of workers struggles at UNC. Starts at 7pm, Greenlaw 101, UNC-CH. Sounds great! Panelists include: Fred Battle, leaders of the 1969 Lenoir strike, Keith Edwards, leaders of the Housekeepers Movement and UE 150. I hate that I will be missing this.

If you have been following this site (3/1/04 & 2/27/04), you know that on Monday, the Chapel Hill Town Council stated clearly that they felt the 90-day review period for UNC Development Plan Modifications is way too short. In fact, it amounts to little more than a rubber stamping of UNC projects. UNC Administrators' insistence on the lighting-round review is a clear indicator of their negligent attitude toward the Town. Chapel Hill would never make a decision that would affect UNC this much without extensive hemming and hawing and making sure everyone was happy.

For the eighth time this decade a man has shot a woman or child in a domestic dispute in Orange County. Hopefully the victim, the girlfriend of Mark Wade Gentry (nephew of the man convicted in three other domestic violence murders), will survive. (She is in critical condition at UNC.) The previous seven died. It seems pointless to wax on about this subject on a forum like OP.org. I say that because I assume that the gentle readers of this site are not the sort of people who do this. Indeed any sort of public outcry seems unlikely to reach that kind of scoundrel.

Still, here's hoping that it does some kind of good somehow. Domestic violence is not some kind of theoretical issue. It is something that is killing real people in our community.

Tragically, domestic violence is something that runs in families. Children grow up in abusive households and begin to think that Daddy hitting Mommy is somehow normal. And these same people think that it is okay when they are adults as well.

Guest Post by Nick Eberlein

Now that UNC and Chapel Hill are prepping for new discussions over zoning and campus expansion, it seems like the editorial pages in the local papers have been handed their collective wet dream: "contentious negotiations," always ripe fodder for the opinion pages.

Woe is me, however, when I read rants like yesterday's editorial in The Daily Tar Heel entitled "Hostile Intention." I'm now convinced that what hampers both UNC and the town the most during these times of critical decision-making and long-term planning is the tendency of some in our community to blindly hop to one side of the fence or the other in reaction to either side's "hostility."

As both a UNC student and town native, I take strong issue with the DTH editorial board's assertion that "town residents would ideally like to live in a college town without the students." Nothing is further from the truth.

During the elections last fall, part of suburban north Chapel Hill was up in arms about a proposal from Habitat For Humanity to build some homes off of Sunrise Road. Habitat managed to quell the unrest for a few months by establishing a public process including a charette (community planning meeting) and proposals from 4 different designers.

The designers who participated are Josh Gurlitz, Gary Giles, Scott Radway, and James Carnahan. Theirs ideas range from 42 to 56 total units, with various mixes of single-family and townhouse units. No matter what Habitat does, I doubt that it will be few enough for the neighbors. It seems they will be happy with nothing more than zero townhouses and one or two detached houses on the 17-acre tract.

Members of the Sunrise Coalition, which includes residents of the nearby Chandler's Green subdivision and neighborhoods in the area, remain concerned about Habitat's plans.

The Chapel Hill Town Council asked for more time to adequately review proposals. They asked for concept plans before receiving the official modification request. What was UNC's response? F--k you.

"We did take a serious look at that request," said Nancy Suttenfield, UNC vice chancellor for finance and administration. "But it's neither fiscally responsible nor practical."- Daily Tarheel, 3/16/04

(More on the specific changes proposed in today's Chapel Hill Herald.)

Coming through loud and clear, Nancy. Just don't be suprised if the Town Council doesn't have enough time in your 90-day lighting review to get the information it needs in to make a responsible decision and has to turn the application down. What you seem to think is cheaper, could end up costing UNC (and the state/taxpayers) a lot more.

Wheww. It appears they've found the barrels of toxic waste that went missing in January from the demolition of the University's Medical Science Research Building. This hasn't assuaged the concerns of subcontractor Southern Site & Environmental Corporation, who apparently took the barrels away to test them, after having their complaints about the presence of toxic waste at the site rebuffed. According the firm's lawyer, they found mercury and arsenic after being assured that the site was safe. The company believes the University has broken state law by exposing its workers to the toxic waste; the University says the waste was well-contained and that workers had been instructed to stay away from it. The state Department of Environment and Natural Resources is investigating.

[The subcontractor] expressed their concerns last Thursday in a letter to Doug Holyfield, director of compliance for the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

,Well, it always amused me that the first thing the town/gown/merchant committee took up, while thinking about how to organize the effort to create a nonprofit downtown development entity, was whether to drop the downtown special tax. Oh, so that's the problem! Forget about the empty storefronts and buildings kept empty by landlords who have driven up rents beyond what's reasonable on Franklin Street, and who won't countenance the idea that the market has changed, that with the explosion of retail space in the Triangle, the rents they enjoyed in the 1990s (adjusted for inflation) are no longer fair market rents. No no! It's a levy of 6.2 cents per $100 that's killing commerce downtown!

I love it when I can detect a certain love ... errr... affinity shared between our two leading North Carolina think tanks -- the Common Sense Foundation and the John Locke Foundation. The topic on which they seem to most often agree is the practice of government giving incentives (tax breaks, cold cash) to corporations in exchange for what is often a meager or nonexistent return on the investment. In the last week, both groups have issued rousing attacks on the practice, from a couple different angles.

The Herald Sun reports today that the Town Council will officially hear from it's downtown consultant tonight on their downtown market study. It's not surprising that the consultant advocates a further reliance on retail of home furnishings, movie theaters, etc. But it's disappointing to hear that they feel there is no need for new owner-occupied units downtown and no grocery store.

Unfortunately, despite it's progressive reputation, Chapel Hill is still not the walkable community that Carrboro and even parts of Durham are, partially due to the lack of diverse housing options downtown and the lack of a small grocery within the downtown. I'd be interested in hearing more about why the downtown market study did not feel that condos and a market were feasible, especially considering the successful trend towards this in other towns and cities throughout the country. Meeting = Monday (tonight) at 7pm at the town hall.

I just got this by e-mail from the Town Clerk:

You are invited to attend a Town Council Work Session on Thursday, April 1, at 7:00 p.m. in the Council Chamber at Town Hall, 306 N. Columbia Street. The Council will hear a presentation by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on the University’s Development Plan Modification No. 2.

Because this is a "work session" public comment won't be allowed. But it should be a great way to find out what changes UNC is asking for in their main campus Development Plan. It could also be a good way to signal to the Council with our presence that we are paying attention.

Here's a little background of the politics around this modification request.

On Monday night, the Chapel Hill Town Council discussed the idea of beginning to place conservation easements on some town owned property to prevent that property from being developed in the future. Sally Greene pointed out that she felt the council should consider this since the council has been advocating for the university to do the same thing with much of their land along Bolin Creek. If the town council can't consider conservation easements on their own land, how can they expect the university to do the same thing?

Of course, on the more practical side of things, maybe each tract should be examined for its relative ecological/recreation work before placing restrictions on future development. And just because we want a conservation easement on the land doesn't mean we can find anyone willing to carry the responsibility of holding that easement for us.

Much of the most exciting grassroots environmental work in Orange County over the past few decades has been done by the Eno River Association. Although many Chapel Hill/Carrboro folk identify the organization with Durham, this amazing and very effective group has helped protect thousands of acres of land in Orange County just this year. And they couldn't have done it without a capable executive director, Lori Olson. Unfortunately, Lori is leaving for Athens and there is currently a search process for the new leader of the organization. In the meantime, three cheers for Lori and her successes.

And thank goodness we have the Eno River Association.

Anyone have any stories they want to share about the ERA and how it has affected the local environmental scene?

The Herald reports that the Carrboro Board of Alermen discussed whether to allow a payment option for developers to meet their affordable housing obligation. We have debated this issue on the Chapel Hill Planning Board as well. So far we have come out against it every time, but there are also some compelling arguments for it.

Developers in Chapel Hill and Carrboro are currently required to include either a certain number of small (< 1,350 & 1,100 square feet) or affordable (<80% of area median income) homes in all residential developments over a certain size. Payment-in-lieu of housing would allow developers to make a financial contribution instead.

What do you all think? Are we missing a chance to support municipal housing efforts, or would we be letting them off the hook too easily and allowing further economic segregation of housing?