Obey Creek

Chapel Hill hosted another lunchtime presentation Tuesday, this time to discuss development agreements. UNC School of Government professor David Owens broke down development agreements as they exist under North Carolina state law while Chapel Hill Director of Policy and Strategic Initiatives Mary Jane Nirdlinger provided a presentation on Chapel Hill's development process specifically.

I attended the presentation, and you can read my livetweets below. I found the presentation useful to better understand how the development process has changed and now operates in our town, particularly given the ongoing development processes for Glen Lennox and Obey Creek.

Development agreements are authorized under North Carolina state law (specifically, NC General Statutes §160A‑400.20 through §160A‑400.32). As written, state law gives much autonomy to municipalities to determine their own development processes and how to go about entering into development agreements. It's also worth noting that development agreements are designed for large-scale projects only (defined under state law as 25 or more developable acres).

A few other takeaways from the presentation:

• Municipalities in North Carolina have the ability to alter zoning codes as they see fit. There is no "threshold" requirement for rezoning. However, rezoning cannot be included in a development agreement, but must be carried out before approving a development agreement that necessitates a zoning change.
• Development agreements are useful because they're all-encompassing and outline very specifically the details of a proposed development. Once approved, an agreement cannot be altered without the mutual approval of both the municipality and developer.
• Beginning a development agreement process does not guarantee approval of any development agreement.

As the June 25 deadline for completion and possible adoption of Chapel Hill’s new comprehensive plan draws near, kudos and congratulatory pats on the back abound. Unfortunately, I am not able to join in the current Chapel Hill 2020 lovefest. While there are many positive points that can be made, the final product is certainly not shaping up to be anything we should celebrate.

CH2020 co-chairs George Cianciolo and Rosemary Waldorf have touted this process of creating a new plan as “our people’s vision” with “a wide-open opportunity to break with the old ways of doing business.” Additionally, at the May 21 Chapel Hill Town Council meeting, there were but a few exceptions to the parade of valentines for the 2020 leadership and town staff.

There is no doubt that a great deal of time and effort on the part of a lot of people went into this thing. I certainly applaud the months of arduous work and self-sacrifice by all of those involved. However, let me suggest an alternative, far less rosy perspective of the 2020 process and its resulting document.