February 2015

This Week in Orange Politics: February 2-8

After a pretty busy couple of weeks, this week will be a bit quieter for Orange County’s public bodies. The Carrboro Alderfolks will hold the second half of their public hearing on the proposed Carrboro Arts & Innovation Center, while the county commissioners will get a series of annual updates and discuss a strategic communications plan. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Board will talk parental involvement and health education.

The Chapel Hill Town Council, Hillsborough Town Board and county school board are all break this week.

Be sure and stop by our monthly editors meeting at the Tiger Room, Sunday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Here’s the full summary:

CARRBORO BOARD OF ALDERPERSONS

The Truth About Traffic

Whenever there’s a new development proposal pending before a local governing board, the center of the conversation always seems to gravitate toward traffic. Given this tendency, I think it’s important we understand historic traffic changes in Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation maintains historic traffic counts for urban areas around the state, including Chapel Hill. These traffic counts date back to 1997, with the most recent data being from 2013. With this in mind, let’s take a look at the average annual daily traffic in some major areas around town:

 

Area

1997

2004

2013

Change, 2013 vs. 1997

W Franklin St (just west of Columbia St)

17,400

18,000

12,000

Public Hearing: Housing and Community Development Needs

The Orange County Board of Commissioners will hold a public hearing to obtain comments regarding the housing and community development needs in Orange County, including the Towns of Carrboro, Chapel Hill, and Hillsborough. 

The public hearing will take place at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 3, at the Richard Whitted Meeting Facility in Hillsborough.

The needs identified and suggestions for addressing those needs will be considered in the development of the FY 2015-2019 Orange County Consolidated Housing Plan. 

Additionally, the County is seeking input from the community regarding the proposed expenditure of 2015-2016 HOME Investment Partnership funds. The Orange County Home Consortium expects to receive approximately $351,540 in HOME funds.  All interested County residents are invited to attend and provide comments during this hearing. 

For more information, please contact the Orange County Housing, Human Rights and Community Development Department at 919.245.2490.  The TDD number is 919.644-.3045.

Date: 

Tuesday, March 3, 2015 - 7:00pm

Location: 

Richard Whitted Meeting Facility, 300 West Tryon Street, Hillsborough,

This Week in Orange Politics: February 9-15

It’s another busy week across Orange County, with all of the county’s public bodies holding at least one meeting.

The Carrboro Alderfolks will talk “green” cemeteries while the Chapel Hill Town Council will have a special meeting on Obey Creek and host an initial public forum on how to use Community Development Block Grants. The county commissioners will discuss mandating that county’s contractors pay a living wage to get government business, while the Hillsborough Town Board will consider an economic development grant application.

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Board will hold its annual retreat, while its counterpart for the county will review the district’s 2013-14 report card.

Here’s the full summary:

CARRBORO BOARD OF ALDERPERSONS

Let's Do Parking Right: A Look at the Evidence

Parking, like traffic, is a recurring theme in local conversation about growth and development. We often hear from some community members that there is nowhere to park in downtown Chapel Hill/Carrboro, that a lack of parking is hurting local businesses, and that the parking minimums required for the Ephesus-Fordham renewal district are insufficient.

But the facts simply don’t support these claims. The reality is that providing more parking – especially surface parking – is fundamentally incompatible with urban land uses.*

Numerous urban planning scholars have researched parking, and their research has consistently confirmed that more parking is not desirable on any metric – unless, that is, you want more people to drive and create more traffic.

The Chapel Hill Killings: Lessons

I'm sorry, but it is never too early to be discussing lessons. Especially not in the current world of ADD, where folks move on as soon as the headlines disappear. For me, the two primary lessons to learn are: own responsibility and get involved.

What. No rant about Muslim-haters, police cover-up, irresponsible media reporting? No. Well, some about the latter a bit later. But, no. Why? Because you can't change what you can't change. What you have to do is own responsibility for what you can change, and get involved to change it.

No-one has, or will ever have, the slightest notion of what goes on or was going on in the head of Craig Stephen Hicks. Almost nothing is served by trying to find out now. Of course it was a hate crime. The man hated. Does it really change one dot, tittle or iota of anything to have a long. unseemly, pointless debate about whether it was parking he hated, or Muslims?

You can not legislate the way people feel, including hatred. What you can do is legislate the way they demonstrate their feelings. And this man had been demonstrating feelings for yonks.

Town Hall- Downtown Chapel Hill

On February 25th from 5:30-6:30, I'm hosting a Town Hall at DSI Comedy on Franklin Street focused on our downtown. Come hear about what's new for Franklin and Rosemary Streets in the coming year, and share your vision about what you want downtown to look like in the future!

Date: 

Wednesday, February 25, 2015 - 5:30am

Location: 

DSI Comedy

This Week in Orange Politics: February 16-22

Though the wintry weather has delayed or cancelled many of the public meetings on tap for this week, we still wanted to give you an update as to what’s going on. Right now we know that the Carrboro Alderfolks discussion on the Carrboro Arts and Innovation Center will happen on Thursday and that the Chapel Hill Town Council will meet on Obey Creek that night as well.

Both school boards and the Hillsborough Town Board were scheduled to be off this week. As we get information on new meeting times we’ll update the posts below.

Here’s the full summary:

CARRBORO BOARD OF ALDERPERSONS

CHAPEL HILL TOWN COUNCIL

How Unaffordable? A Look at the Data

Last week, Chapel Hill’s economic development officer, Dwight Bassett, presented some data on Chapel Hill’s housing market to a reasonably-sized crowd at Town Hall. Bassett’s presentation followed a brief talk from Robert Hickey of the National Housing Conference about what’s happening in housing trends around the country.

Like many of the other audience members, it was Bassett’s data that struck me the most. (During the Q&A following the presentations, all but one question was directed at Bassett rather than Hickey). The one number that really stood out: 3117%. That is, since 1990, the number of houses in Chapel Hill valued at over $500,000 has increased by 3117%.

Compare this to more affordable price ranges: For houses valued between $100,000-$149,000, the number of houses has increased by only 32%. For houses valued between $150,000-$199,999, there has only been a 107% increase in the number of houses.

snow and sidewalks

Yesterday morning I drove a bit around town. (I used our old '92 civic that was "totalled" a few years ago just in case it was icier than I thought.) Most of the university and school lots and sidewalks were plowed. Few residentail sidewalks were shoveled. Have you noticed that  it is usually the older residents in town who first shovel their sidewalks?  I noticed the Town staff was digging out the snow at the bus stops. I wish the folks using the snow plows would take an extra moment and not leave a big pile of snow at the curb cut cross walks. Later I walked around our neighborhood and to campus. Manning Drive was ice free but the sidewalk south of campus was unplowed and all the curb cuts were piled high from the snow plows.I wish the folks using the snow plows would take an extra moment and not leave a big pile of snow at the curb cut cross walks. Later afternoon was a great time to clear ice from driveways and sidewalks. We were able to shovel pretty quickly in front of our house.  I wish our town would spend more effort in clearing the main sidewalks in town. That would really be pedestrian friendly. 

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