Planning & Transportation
Hillsborough wants you to get off your butt on Saturday.
Fostering community spirit and promoting the walkability of the town will be the main focus of the fourth annual Walkable Hillsborough Day this Saturday.
There are three different walks to choose from, all based on the level of difficulty. Each will begin at 9 a.m. at the old courthouse on the corner of King and Churton streets, she said.
- The News of Orange County, 6/9/05
The three different walking routes vary from 20-minutes to a vigorous hour-long hike. All of them are short enough that you can come into the cool air-conditioned lab for the Blog Teach-In after you get all sweaty walking around. ;-)
This Monday (May 23) the Orange County Commission will be holding a public hearing on a proposal to downzone most or all of the land in its planning jurisdiction. The purpose of this initiative is to stop suburban sprawl from overtaking the rural areas of the County. And I think we should all be in support of that goal. Preserving the remaining farm land in our community is not merely an aesthetic issue, it is also a national and regional security issue. (What will happen to the availability of food as the price of shipping our food across the globe increases?)
However, the County is missing the boat on one important issue. While we do need to find more sustainable ways to grow, we also need to ensure that we will have areas where we can grow sustainably. Rather than eliminating the possibility of new residences in the unincorporated areas of the County, we could be transferring the presently allowed density into a few, well-chosen sites. That is, we should keep the dwellings, but have them be in appropriate locations (where there is potential sewer-access, low-impact on streams, potential access to public transportation etc.)
Guest Post by Linda Convissor
Friends and Neighbors,
A you know, we are in the midst of a major building program on campus. The campus master plan, which was completed in 2001, guides this campus development.
Midway through our historic building program, we recognize that it is a good time to evaluate and update the plan for main campus. The update process began with a number of initial planning workshops held this past winter to assess current conditions and identify the scope of the update. Issues of pedestrian connections, green space, transportation and parking are some of the issues being looked at.
Next week we will hold a meeting to solicit additional input from the community and invite you to attend. The meeting will be held on Thursday, May 19, 5:30 - 7:00 p.m. in 116 Murphey Hall.
If you are unfamiliar with the 2001 master plan, it is posted at http://www.fpc.unc.edu/CampusMasterPlan. It is also available at the Chapel Hill Public Library.
Tomorrow (Wednesday) evening at 7 pm is the big, friendly hoe down between the Town and UNC to discuss proposed changes to OI-4, the zone that covers the entire main campus. This is intended to be a relatively-informal event which should allow UNC administrators and town officials to discuss issues in a non-confrontational format. There will be some audience participation, but I'm not sure how much.
After establishing Neighborhood Conservation Districts (NCDs) in the town Land Use Management Ordinance, the town of Chapel Hill started the process to create an NCD for Northside, the historically black neighborhood north of Rosemary Street and west of North Columbia Street. I was disappointed that the Northside NCD didn't do more to define and promote community design principles that could actually improve our quality of life. But it was a step in the right direction.
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