redevelopment

Mysterious acquisition

UPDATE: UNC is buying University Square and Granville Towers.

Anyone want to guess what this is about?

Representatives from UNC-Chapel Hill and the Town of Chapel Hill will hold a joint news conference at 1 p.m. today to announce details about a major real estate acquisition. The event will be held at the Chapel Hill Town Hall.

The news will have "significant positive implications" for the future of the downtown Chapel Hill business district, UNC officials said this morning.

Go Glen Lennox

[Save Glen Lennox]Kudos to the Little Creek Neighborhood Association who are mobilizing to save the nearby Glen Lennox neighborhood from redevelopment by Grubb Properties. They have enough petition signatures to start the Neighborhood Conservation District process with the Town of Chapel Hill. I'm still not sure whether the NCD is the right tool for the job, but it should help to slow the momentum of the developers who want to raze the neighborhood for a new high-rise mixed use development.

Save Glen Lennox

Glen Lennox

It seems that Grubb Properties wants to tear down Glen Lennox, a neighborhood of moderately-priced rentals, and rebuild more densely with a mix of uses including presumably higher-priced housing. The neighbors are applying for a Neighborhood Conservation District, which is, um, interesting. This isn't really what NCDs were designed to do - which is to protect the character and quality of neighborhoods as they change - but no-one seems to be using them for the intended purpose anyway. (Grumble.)

How to deal with density

I've been thinking a lot about the evolution of our community to a more urban mode of development. I think this is generally a good thing because it allows us to continue to grow without sprawling ever-outward, and also supports more pedestrian-oriented land uses which will build the critical mass needed to support fixed-guideway (rail or dedicated busway) transit. This continued growth (at a moderate pace, of course) is essential to maintain at least a modicum of affordable housing options. We can't just close the gate behind us now that we've got ours.

But of course this doesn't mean that anything big is automatically good. Similar to Carolina North if it's done right urbanization can revolutionize our community. But if done poorly it could ruin many of the things we love about living here. So I have a growing concern that our current planning and development review process is built to manage the suburban-style growth that we have seen for the last couple of decades.

An urban downtown

Are we ready? As a lover of urban spaces, I must say I am pretty excited about the proposals brewing for downtown Chapel Hill and Carrboro. (I have linked to respective towns' websites who have pretty good information, and maps!)

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