redevelopment

Kudos to the Little Creek Neighborhood Association who are mobilizing to save the nearby Glen Lennox neighborhood from redevelopment by Grubb Properties. They have enough petition signatures to start the Neighborhood Conservation District process with the Town of Chapel Hill. I'm still not sure whether the NCD is the right tool for the job, but it should help to slow the momentum of the developers who want to raze the neighborhood for a new high-rise mixed use development.

I've been thinking a lot about the evolution of our community to a more urban mode of development. I think this is generally a good thing because it allows us to continue to grow without sprawling ever-outward, and also supports more pedestrian-oriented land uses which will build the critical mass needed to support fixed-guideway (rail or dedicated busway) transit. This continued growth (at a moderate pace, of course) is essential to maintain at least a modicum of affordable housing options. We can't just close the gate behind us now that we've got ours.

But of course this doesn't mean that anything big is automatically good. Similar to Carolina North if it's done right urbanization can revolutionize our community. But if done poorly it could ruin many of the things we love about living here. So I have a growing concern that our current planning and development review process is built to manage the suburban-style growth that we have seen for the last couple of decades.