Growth & Development

The Town of Chapel Hill now has some drawings that visualize the plans for the high-rise mixed-use development they are constructing downtown on parking lot #5, known as the Downtown Economic Development Initiative. In my opinion, this is a visionary project that has suffered from not having enough public input at the right times.

So how does the Town make this critical information available to the public? Oh, it's "on display" down at Town Hall. So those of you who work downtown or have a lot of free time during the day can stroll down to the Mayor's office and check it out. The rest of us will have to make due with looking at photos of the plans on the N&O and Herald web sites.

It seems that Grubb Properties wants to tear down Glen Lennox, a neighborhood of moderately-priced rentals, and rebuild more densely with a mix of uses including presumably higher-priced housing. The neighbors are applying for a Neighborhood Conservation District, which is, um, interesting. This isn't really what NCDs were designed to do - which is to protect the character and quality of neighborhoods as they change - but no-one seems to be using them for the intended purpose anyway. (Grumble.)