InterCity Visit 2014 in more than 140 characters

One of the big takeaways I've had on this trip is how differently Athens handles community engagement, particularly as it relates to the development process. Athens made a choice in the early 2000s to create a comprehensive land use and zoning plan, meaning that many developments became by-right developments, greatly reducing the timeline for development and the number of permits that require approval from their elected governing board. It's very interesting to observe how a very different development process can work well for a town, and I think it's very useful for us to think about how development works in other communities and how successful alternative approaches can be.

On the Inter-City Visit to Bloomington in 2012, Meg McGurk challenged the community to build a convention center in downtown Chapel Hill within ten years. Bloomington saw a significant increase in meetings and visitor spending after building their center. Downtown Athens has The Classic Center, a major center that includes a theatre, ice skating rink, and large and small meeting rooms. I think it's time we had a conversation about the lack of space for meetings and conferences in Chapel Hill, and if a convention center is a tool we need in Orange County. 

Convention centers are generally terrible investments for the communities that make them. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/steven-pearlstein-debunking-the-c... and this older study by the Brookings Institute http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2005/01/01cities-sanders

I've been thinking a bit more about Athens since we've returned, and I thought I'd add a few more things to what's listed above that I think we can learn from:

• Municipalities in Georgia have a tool called a special-purpose local-option sales tax (SPLOST) for capital outlay projects. On our bus tour, we saw many, many projects that Athens had successfully funded using this local tax option. It's unique to the state of Georgia, but as municipalities in North Carolina continue to see funding opportunities vanish and state funding decline, perhaps it's time we start thinking about innovative ways to generate funding, and see if our state government can at least give us that.
• BikeAthens is the local bicycle group in Athens (as you can probably tell from the name), and one really cool thing about them is that they have a full-time executive director paid under a state grant from the Georgia Governor's Office of Highway Safety. In fact, this funding pays for 4 full-time executive directors for bicycle organizations across the state (the others are Savannah, Atlanta, and a statewide director). Wouldn't it be awesome if the Carrboro Bicycle Coalition had a dedicated staff person to advocate for bike and ped issues in Orange County?
• Luxury student housing in Chapel Hill has nothing on luxury student housing in Athens -- and I think we need to be very careful about future student housing developments to avoid what's happened in Athens. The Standard, Athens' most recent, most luxurious student housing project right in downtown boasts a long list of "amenities," including a rooftop infinity pool, a golf simulator, "Athens' most extensive fitness facilities," and is a gated community. I wrote about the need to break away from the luxury student housing model in Chapel Hill in a letter to the editor about what is now the Graduate last November. At the very least, can we stop approving housing with an attached bathroom to each bedroom? That's not resilient housing stock.

I'll continue to think about Athens, but I thought I would at least put these observations I had out for discussion.

I was interested in Athen's convention center, especially as it was right downtown. But in thinking about putting one in our area, cannot think of a place where there is land enough to build one. Let alone a site that would allow for adequate parking for conventioneers and is 'downtown.'

The most interesting comment came from Greenville, SC. They discovered a lovely waterfall along a small river--it had been covered up by a highway bridge for decades. They took stock of their area's special features, and re-discovered the waterfall. They removed the bridge, made the waterfall the centerpiece of a park area, and it created a wonderful place for people to play as well as a draw for business.  

What is our special feature?? What do we have and what could we create? We have no waterfeature or mountain view or beach. We have some lovely creeks, a resevoir, some hills--after all the name of the town is Chapel Hill. I would also dare to suggest that we not try to repeat what has been done by Durham or Raleigh. We need to set up something different and special, something not available at other local venues. Can we create something new around some of our festivals, or special events? Put little Eiffel Towers all over Carrboro? I know there are a lot of creative people out there who can come up with better ideas than mine. What can we do that sets us apart?

The next thing of note to me was the comment from a Hillsborough Town councilman--why do we have to make repeated trips out of town to re-discover what we need to work on? We know what we need to work on. We hear the same comments every time---our permitting and approval processes are too long. Why have they not yet been changed??? This is one place where we seem unable to take a risk (another thing we all noted these towns did). Why can we not take a risk and shorten our processes and cut the costs of our application fees??  Are we to be forever held hostage by a small group that does not want to see any change at all, ever? Life is growth, stagnation is death. How many people are willing to support our town and county reps if they want to make a change in this??  Form-based code is a step in the right direction. We should not spend years working on every single application.

We elect people to make these decisions for them but then the community jumps in and wants to micromanage every single thing. CH once had a 2 hour discussion on where to place a mail box at University Mall--things of that nature should be left to staff. Micromanaging is not always appropriate. Growth is coming. We cannot stop it. All we can do is make plans to guide it along the lines we feel most comfortable with. 

What's wrong with making our community more unique?

Change is not always bad.

Form based code is a fantastic opportunity to shift away from conditional zoning to "by right" zoning.  Developer projects that fit should sail through.  I'd love to see form based code in the county - especially in and around the economic development districts in Efland and ENO.  

But there's no magic. It takes time to think through the rezoning (upzoning presumably) and its ramifications.  Planners can leverage local assets, plan greenspaces and other amenities, and assess overall impacts on transportation and the environment.   Now we rehash these issues with every project - without the benefit of the whole picture, and always at the expense of the developer and the taxpayer.  

 If I'm reading the comments correctly, Athens leaders first rezoned the city working with their citizens.   Developers can participate, but developer projects are not an alternative to zoning.  Done well, rezoning can create excitement and enthusiasm around change. 

Consider Obey Creek - a project proposed under a new vision for density, commercial development, and growth for an area that is currently zoned single family residential.  Wouldn't Athens first work with its citizens to rezone the entire area, and integrate it with the adjacent areas (in this case Southern Village and surrounding neighborhoods)?  Then it's easier to approve any project that fits the zoning.  

I'm confused by the conversation about convention center.  When I hear "convention center", I think Javitts Center in NYC or McCormack Center in Chicago.  These venues support large scale trade shows attracting visitors from all over.  Theres no shortage of local meeting spaces.  Did Athens build a convention center or a community center?  

I’ve have gone on the last two inter-city visits and found them tremendously useful and productive.  Speaking for myself, I have found clear lessons to be learned from the way other towns deal with land use planning and the development review process.  Other towns also deal with football games and other sources of town-gown friction in ways that I think we could learn from.  And I know others have been taken by the potential desirability of a convention center and ways in which bikeways and linear parks can be developed from unused railroad tracks.

But I have also learned something important in a different way on these trips and that is how much we here in Chapel Hill and Carrboro get right.  We have the largest fare-free transit system in the nation. We have been leaders in protecting the environment. And we are leaders in our commitment to social and economic justice.

So as we think about past and future trips, we should keep in mind that they are terrific for learning from other places.  But they are equally terrific for learning about ourselves.