February 2015
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
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 |
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,
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
Starting next week, I'll be hosting a series of four Town Hall events that each focus on a different issue in our community: downtown Chapel Hill, social and environmental justice, economic development and working together in Orange County.
I want these events to be an opportunity for residents to engage and take an active role in shaping the future of our town. All you need to bring is an open mind and ideas for how we can build a more vibrant, livable community. Here's the schedule:
Issue: Downtown Chapel Hill
When: Wednesday, Feb. 25th at 5:30 p.m.
Where: DSI Comedy, 62 W Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC 27514
Click here to see full event details and RSVP for the downtown Chapel Hill Town Hall.
Issue: Social and Environmental Justice
When: Saturday, Feb. 28th at 1 p.m.
Where: Rogers Road Community Center, 101 Edgar Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516
Kirk Ross posted some of his thoughts about the recent UNC system center closings. Here are some of his observations:
Although passed by consensus vote, during discussions Tuesday there was a split over the at least some recommendations including one tense exchange over the decision not to close Chapel Hill’s Center for Civil Rights, which is based at the law school.
BOG member Steven Long and Center for Civil Rights director Ted Shaw
BOG member Steven Long said the center was engaging in political activities and said the center’s engagement in school segregation cases in several North Carolina counties was wrong and damaging to the county budgets. Long said he did not think it was right for a part of the university to be engaged in legal actions against the state or local governments.
Date:
Sunday, March 1, 2015 - 11:00am to 1:00pm
Though the Carrboro Alderfolks and Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Board are both are break this week, it’ll still be a busy week for Orange County’s public bodies. The Chapel Hill Town Council will consider Obey Creek and talk about a number of other development proposals currently on the table, while the county school board will consider approving its strategic plan.
The Hillsborough Town Board will hold a workshop on stormwater and Riverwalk, and host a joint meeting with the county commissioners covering transit, economic development, planning and host of other issues.
Other events across the county this week include a town hall with Chapel Hill Town Council member Lee Storrow and a meeting of the Chapel Hill Transit Partners. We’ll also hold our monthly editors meeting Sunday.
Here’s the full summary:
CARRBORO BOARD OF ALDERPERSONS
-
There is no meeting this week. The next meeting is Tuesday, March 3rd.
CHAPEL HILL TOWN COUNCIL
It was a surprise to all of us on Town Council, judging from the reactions around the dais, to hear Council Member Matt Czajkowski resign effective March 30. He is moving to Kigali to work on providing clean water and economic development. I know the Council will be very different without him and the elections in November very interesting. Here's wishing the family all kinds of success!!
An event announcement from Orange/Chatham public defender James Williams:
- Do you know how to respond to police during a traffic stop?
- Did you know regardless of your citizenship status, you have constitutional rights?
- Do you know you are not required to consent to a search of yourself?
Panel Discussion Moderated by Dr. Rodney Coleman
While everyone is welcome, it is being planned primarily by and on behalf of young people. It is really important to encourage our youth, particularly mid-teens to mid-twenties to attend. Representatives from the bench, bar, law enforcement, and community will be among the panelists. Refreshments will be provided.
Date:
Saturday, February 28, 2015 - 4:00pm to 6:00pm
Location:
Hargraves Community Center, 216 N. Roberson Street, Chapel Hill
We've already had one precinct meeting and one regional precinct meeting and what a success they have been already! Hogan Farms met on Saturday and will develop an issues based advocacy plan. Last night eight precincts in and around Hillsborough met and formulated ways to move forward and develop a stronger presence in their respective precincts.
The annual precinct meeting is a great opportunity to meet your neighbors, discuss the issues facing our great state, and help build your party leading into 2016. Last year we saw a tremendous amount of effort and energy in the local party. Let’s keep that momentum going for our community and our state by participating in your precinct meeting!
The remaining precincts to meet are:
Central Chapel Hill Area Precinct Meetings
Battle Park, East Franklin, Greenwood, Lincoln, Northside
Wednesday, February 25, 7pm to 9pm
Chapel Hill Public Library, 100 Library Drive, Chapel Hill
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