Glen Lennox
Public information meetings on the proposed Glen Lennox Development Agreement are scheduled for noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday, April 29, and 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 30, in Room A of the Chapel Hill Public Library, 100 Library Drive.
Participants will receive information about the Draft Glen Lennox Development Agreement and have an opportunity to ask questions and give input. The community comments that are gathered will be shared with the Town Council in advance of its work session on May 5.
The format of these two meetings will be identical; the purpose of holding two meetings is to provide multiple opportunities for participants to attend and provide their input.
If adopted by Council, the agreement will guide future development of the Glen Lennox apartment and commercial property, an area bound by NC 54 on the south, Brandon Road to the north, Hamilton Road to the east, and US 15-501 to the west.
The portion of the neighborhood that is addressed by the draft development agreement is referred to as the Glen Lennox Area Neighborhood Conservation District-8C (CD-8C).
A development agreement is a unique planning tool useful for large projects that will be built over a period of up to 20 years. It provides the developer a level of certainty about what it can build and what mitigation measures will be required, if agreement is reached. It also provides the Town with the opportunity to look at the long-term horizon and make sure it fits with the Town's comprehensive planning efforts and local policies.
Questions? Send them to developmentagreement@townofchapelhill.org.
Date:
Wednesday, April 30, 2014 - 5:30pm to 6:30pm
Location:
Chapel Hill Public Library, 100 Library Drive, Chapel Hill (Meeting Room A)
Public information meetings on the proposed Glen Lennox Development Agreement are scheduled for noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday, April 29, and 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 30, in Room A of the Chapel Hill Public Library, 100 Library Drive.
Participants will receive information about the Draft Glen Lennox Development Agreement and have an opportunity to ask questions and give input. The community comments that are gathered will be shared with the Town Council in advance of its work session on May 5.
The format of these two meetings will be identical; the purpose of holding two meetings is to provide multiple opportunities for participants to attend and provide their input.
If adopted by Council, the agreement will guide future development of the Glen Lennox apartment and commercial property, an area bound by NC 54 on the south, Brandon Road to the north, Hamilton Road to the east, and US 15-501 to the west.
The portion of the neighborhood that is addressed by the draft development agreement is referred to as the Glen Lennox Area Neighborhood Conservation District-8C (CD-8C).
A development agreement is a unique planning tool useful for large projects that will be built over a period of up to 20 years. It provides the developer a level of certainty about what it can build and what mitigation measures will be required, if agreement is reached. It also provides the Town with the opportunity to look at the long-term horizon and make sure it fits with the Town's comprehensive planning efforts and local policies.
Questions? Send them to developmentagreement@townofchapelhill.org.
Date:
Tuesday, April 29, 2014 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Location:
Chapel Hill Public Library, 100 Library Drive, Chapel Hill (Meeting Room A)
Chapel Hill hosted another lunchtime presentation Tuesday, this time to discuss development agreements. UNC School of Government professor David Owens broke down development agreements as they exist under North Carolina state law while Chapel Hill Director of Policy and Strategic Initiatives Mary Jane Nirdlinger provided a presentation on Chapel Hill's development process specifically.
I attended the presentation, and you can read my livetweets below. I found the presentation useful to better understand how the development process has changed and now operates in our town, particularly given the ongoing development processes for Glen Lennox and Obey Creek.
Development agreements are authorized under North Carolina state law (specifically, NC General Statutes §160A‑400.20 through §160A‑400.32). As written, state law gives much autonomy to municipalities to determine their own development processes and how to go about entering into development agreements. It's also worth noting that development agreements are designed for large-scale projects only (defined under state law as 25 or more developable acres).
A few other takeaways from the presentation:
- Municipalities in North Carolina have the ability to alter zoning codes as they see fit. There is no "threshold" requirement for rezoning. However, rezoning cannot be included in a development agreement, but must be carried out before approving a development agreement that necessitates a zoning change.
- Development agreements are useful because they're all-encompassing and outline very specifically the details of a proposed development. Once approved, an agreement cannot be altered without the mutual approval of both the municipality and developer.
- Beginning a development agreement process does not guarantee approval of any development agreement.
Tonight, the Chapel Hill Town Council received a report from the developers of what once was the Colony Apartments and will now be called The Park at Chapel Hill (a mixed use development). Colony Apartments was one of the only locations of affordable rentals in Chapel Hill, but with this redevelopment that is no longer likely to be the case. With the redevelopment of Glen Lennox in Chapel Hill and the recent purchase of the majority of the units at Abbey Court (now to be called Collins Crossing), affordable rentals may become extinct in Southern Orange County.
This is an issue that Orange County Justice United has been focused on and Tish Galu, Strategy Team Chair for Justice United, made the following statement at the council meeting:
I am a graduate student in the UNC Planning Department (and the School of Law). My Site Planning class tonight had guest lecturer Bruce Ballentine to talk about Glen Lennox. About an hour into the lecture, a classmate of mine asked if Glen Lennox is an issue in the current municipal election. In the discourse about his take on the municipal election that followed, Mr. Ballentine called several of the candidates "anti-growth, anti-business, anti-University, and anti-downtown." He spared "three of the mayoral candidates" and DeHart, Pease, and Pohlman by name. He portrayed the muncipal elections in a biased manner, one that I felt was purposefully misleading. Regardless, it was an inapprorpriate forum for his stump speech.
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