Chapel Hill speaks out on the Downtown Development Initiative.

Don Stanford is a professor of business law at Kenan-Flagler School of Business. His brother is the clerk of court. long time CH family.

I don't understand. In Carrboro the talk is about how to get away from a residential tax base. But Chapel Hill thinks that the downtown economy is dependent on residential?

I did live downtown back in the 1970s when the downtown was vital. Fewer people living there but basic services were available along with cool, funky locally owned businesses.

The least the town could do with this development if it must go forward is to put a couple of floors into office space.

We're buying a bunch of $45,000 parking spaces. For that money we could build 30 or more standalone homes. Weird twist on progressive values...

Hi, I'm new to town and the community, and live on the CH side a few blocks from Carrboro.

I went to this meeting, and it was pretty crammed, but I have to say that I found a lot of 'progressive' viewpoints expressed which seem to me to be exactly counter to reality.

The dominant one was the idea that a 5 story building was too dense, was not envirnmental enough (one citizen noted that it wouldn't allow for optimal future solar power (???)). Another idea was the rupture of ''spirit'' or a unique architecture of ''the South" in such a project.

I have to say, high-density and environmental design (which this one is) are here on the table. And high density is itself a tremendously weighty environmental plus. Additionally there is the issue of social justice, vis affordable housing.

I guess I'm pretty perplexed about this because I've been living in Madison, Wisconsin for 7 years and we have much much larger condo developments all over our downtown, and though they have been a mixed blessing, no thinking progressive opposed them on those grounds- what we fought for was the affordable housing component. Otherwise we largely ROOTED for them, on density grounds alone! And these were at times very egregious developments in some ways - much of the capacity I suspect is owned by Chicago speculators and the moneyed elite, and they often have security foyers and such which seem to smack of a distate of us madison hoi poi. But overall there is much greater capacity now downtown, in a place where there is a roaring demand for it. And all the side effects brought up in the proposal (Iread the entire thing at the meeting) are real effects in Madison. Greater business sustainability, greater rents to commercial landlords (a possible downside, btw), a more vibrant 24 hour downtown less driven by the student consumers, and perhaps most important in a way - dramatically better property tax revenues, which means progressive government with muscle, as well as (theoretically) property tax relief for other taxpayers (not in Madison, we spent that money baby!). So even if progressives don't get the perfect, they get the good, and we all understood this.

But here at this meeting - I have to be frank - it sounded like a lot of Nimbyism dressed up in moonbeam environmentalism. It may sound good to be against a big development, but think of how selfish it is that you can't buy housing here in the city for under 1/4 a million dollars that's convenient by walking or biking to downtown. That's a tremendous cost premium to Durham in other areas, which is stunning. (I met someone in Durham who bought what must have been a 1.5 acre space in the city with a 2 bedroom for 90k about 2 years ago - she could build an apartment complex on her lot!).

Now, here's where I come in. I'm seeking housing near downtown, so I can bike like I did in Madison, but I understand why it is so unaffordable - because the housing and layout of CH is some of the most inefficient and wasteful I have ever seen. Small houses on huge lots. Low level density on major thoroughfares despite an absence of an aestetic view or landmark to protect (as with the Wisconsin Capitol, which could be seen despite the condo developments downtown through careful siting and tailoring). Large lots of single level asphalt parking by the UNC and the city. Many single family unattached houses, and small ones, on large lots, rather than rowhouses or semi-attached houses, or at least larger houses more proportional to their lots (and no, I don't mean McMansions).

It's really quite surreal if you've lived in another ''bright blue'' progressive area, where we assume density is a social and environmental good, and where that density creates a tremendous number of forces to eliminate sprawl (the greater the density, the fewer cars both in the community and among outsiders, and the greater demand for bike paths, etc.) It's a funny consequence of a dense downtown, by the way, that carlovers find themselves preferring masstran downtown than taking their cars, because it becomes a major hastle to park, and the downtowns don't need their business to sustain themselves, so don't have to pander to them with single level parking lots (!!!).

This all seems to confirm CH as a place where if you got here 10 years ago, you can afford your house, but you're effectively locking out new citizens from doing the same. But such a model isn't realistic, largely because UNC is growing. It is hiring new staff, such as myself, who are progressive and want to participate in a more just and sustainable place, who want to live close to work and yet not pay - as the greenbridge development charges - 280000 for a 1 bedroom (700 sq ft) condo (before fees, parking, utes, etc). That's not realistic on a middleclass salary.

So, the solution is what Madison has done - offer smaller but more centralized housing through big, high density developments downtown - with rigorous civic oversight - but with an eye towards increasing capacity dramatically. The developers in Madison may have thought they would be able to sell all that stuff for 300k a condo, but the actual price becomes through competition more like 160k, which is reasonable. Indeed, if we can get 12-14 of these sorts of projects up and down the downtown area, we create through the market a whole dynamic glut of housing that lowers purchasing price through supply demand forces, and long term we stop the sprawl for which the current (I would say criminally) misallocated spaces in downtown are partially responsible. I'm seeing already a ton of young middle class singles and couples who are - all - it seems, living on the far outskirts of carrboro (which is a great place!) or on the southern edges of Durham, then commuting themselves back to the UNC area to work, often by car.

Now, is this worth 7.5 million that will be paid back in a few years? I think so. I think the increased vibrancy and the long term savings from decreased car accomodation etc., as well as the increased commercial district health and property tax revenues more than make up for it, not to mention the social justice, livibility, sustainability, and environmental rewards.

Well, thanks for this forum. I'm brand new to the area, but I care a lot about these issues, and I love the voices I read here.

Given the vastly different evaluations of the project, the financial model, who's for it and who's opposed, and the "goodness of fit" arguments for downtown Chapel Hill, which way will the December 4th vote go?

I agree Tom. Guess it's also OK (since we haven't heard a lot of criticism this time) for council members to work long, hard, and closely with a contractor to hammer out deals behind closed doors.

Tol (and welcome to CH!) is right, we are plagued around here with mixed perspectives dressed up to disguise what they really are.

I like the project and think it will imporve our community. Like we saw on the Madison trip when we weren't "smoozing," taller and more dense can work if we do it right. I have concerns about the financial model, however, so I guess I know in the end it will cost us more than what we are saying today.