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The Chapel Hill Town Council paved at least part of the way for the University
to implement its master plan by approving a new zoning classification for the
550-acre central campus and several adjoining properties.
The action, approved July 2 by an 8-1 vote, came after months of negotiations
between University and town officials, and after intense public debate that
continued up until the board's decision.
The rezoning changes the way the town reviews and approves construction
projects on campus.
The old zoning set a cap on the amount of square footage that could be built on
the main campus -- a limit that would have blocked the University's ability to
proceed fully with some $1 billion worth of planned construction over the next
decade.
The newly created zoning district, called "Office/Institutional -- 4," removes
that cap and ties town control over campus growth to a 10-year development
plan.
On July 5, three days after the zoning change was approved, the University
submitted to the town the proposed development plan, nearly as thick as the
town's telephone directory. The plan contains hundreds of pages and is full of
maps and charts and tables that not only reveal the size and location of new
buildings but also seeks to calculate the impact these buildings can be
expected to have on everything from traffic to utilities to noise.
Town approval of the development plan is critical because without it the new
zoning would lack the guiding mechanism called for under the zoning to make it
work.
Many University staff members were called upon to work over the July 4 holiday
to get the development plan ready for the town, work that did not go unnoticed
in South Building. "Thanks to all the University employees who gave the extra
effort over the July 4th holiday to enable us to deliver the development plan
to the town in a timely fashion," said Nancy Suttenfield, vice chancellor for
finance and administration.
Staff members for the town will have about three months to review the plan
before it is forwarded to the Town Council for its consideration on Oct. 1. A
public hearing on the plan is scheduled for Sept. 19 at 7 p.m. in the Chapel
Hill Town Hall.
Several community meetings also will be held on campus in the fall to give
Carolina faculty and staff a chance to weigh in on the plan before the council
vote. And the plan is being made available for review online at the Facilities
Services web site at http://www.fac.unc.edu/DevelopmentPlan
If the University does not get its development plan approved, it would have to
go through the town's special-use permit review for each building.
The University's plan calls for adding 5.9 million square feet of building
space to the existing 13.7 million square feet. The development plan projects
that enrollment will increase to 29,249 over the next decade, an increase of
about 13 percent. At the same time, the plan envisions an addition of about
5,000 new University employees that would bring the total to 19,377. All but
about 1,700 of employees would work on the main campus.
Sticking points addressed
While the development plan looks at a range of complex and far-reaching
issues, most of the attention prior to the July 2 vote focused on concerns
residents living along the southern edges of campus have raised over the past
year.
Even before the University trustees approved the master plan in March,
University officials held a series of town-gown meetings to respond to their
specific concerns.
Much of the discussion -- and disagreement -- has focused on the University's
plans to add student family housing there that could affect residents living
along nearby Mason Farm Road.
University officials, including trustees, have sought to weigh the wishes of
residents along Mason Farm Road to remain in their homes against their larger
responsibility to make sure the University's future needs are met.
Still, in the weeks leading up to the July 2 vote, many residents stepped up
their opposition, leaving University officials uncertain of whether the zoning
request would get the necessary votes to pass. Such fears were heightened by a
town law that requires a super majority of seven members of the nine-member
council to approve a zoning change whenever a proposed zoning change is
challenged by a protest petition. Residents on the southern border of campus
had filed such a petition against the campus rezoning.
On June 26, during a joint town and University committee meeting that served as
a prelude to the July 2 Town Council meeting, Chancellor James Moeser sought to
win the support of council members by explaining the University's housing needs
in greater detail and by making several final concessions.
One of those concessions involved an agreement to delay the development of one
proposed student family housing unit on a University-owned property along Mason
Farm Road for up to eight years, or until the University acquires nearby
private properties. Moeser also agreed to withdraw zoning requests for several
peripheral parcels of land that the University has no plans to develop.
Housing units to proceed
The University expects to proceed with plans to build three other
housing units along Mason Farm Road, along with eight housing units around
nearby Baity Hill.
Moeser, in a column that appeared in The Chapel Hill News on the day before the
council vote, called attention to the irony of the community's opposition to
the proposed housing units.
Several years ago, former Chancellor Michael Hooker pledged to the town that
the University would seek to provide a "bed for every head" to accommodate
growth in enrollment. The master plan seeks to fulfill that pledge with a
series of projects, sequenced in a way to limit disruptions for both students
and the town. The key to the process will be ensuring a consistent availability
of on-campus housing even as new residence halls are built, old residence halls
are renovated and as Odum Village, the current site for existing student family
housing, is torn down and replaced.
A linchpin to that whole sequence has been the early construction of new
student family housing on the southern outskirts of campus to replace Odum
Village. The replacement units for Odum must be ready in time to allow Odum
Village to be used temporarily for undergraduate housing while undergraduate
residence are being renovated.
Some residents have urged that new student family housing be built closer to
the center of campus. University officials, though, argue that these units will
be filled with young families with small children who would make the best
neighbors.
Administrators here have said they would welcome residents to become involved
in the design of the new housing to make sure both the style and scale of the
student family housing units are compatible with the existing community.
With such housing in place, University officials have said, the border between
campus and community will become almost imperceptible because the housing units
will look and function like the neighborhood. Many of the students will be able
to walk to where they work and study on the south end of campus. That will not
only create convenience for students, but reduce traffic on city streets as
well. "We have developed a vision for our campus for the next century, one that
will make both town and campus an even better place," Moeser said.
Meeting set for Sept. 19
A public hearing will be held Sept. 19 at 7 p.m. in the Chapel Hill Town
Hall to give residents the chance to weigh in on Carolina's campus development
plan before the Chapel Hill Town Council votes on it Oct. 1.
Also for that purpose, several community meetings will be held on campus for
Carolina faculty and staff. Details will be announced as they become
available.
And the plan is online for review at the Facilities Services web site at:
http://www.fac.unc.edu/DevelopmentPlan
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