Category: ChapelHill
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Comprehensive Plan – Compromise or Consensus?
Last night Mike Collins and George Cianciolo (current and former heads of the Planning Board) laid out an interesting plan of action to move the Town’s planning process forward. Most importantly, they underlined the need for a more measurable, nuanced plan that works as an adjunct to the current Comprehensive Plan. Their plan also emphasized […]
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Affordable Housing – Preferences and/or Priorities
Big agenda this evening. I also commented on the proposal for creating a range of housing options as a consequence of implementing the inclusionary zoning ordinance. Other folks commenting included Anita Badrock, Operations Manager of the Community Home Trust and Rob Reda, the local director of Habitat for Humanity. For the last 6 years, I […]
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Comprehensive Plan Refresh, Long Overdue
The former and current Planning Board chairs made a concerted call for a long overdue refresh of the Town’s Comprehensive Plan. This refresh and elaboration on the existing plan is long overdue. I started calling for a re-evaluation 6 years ago when the original plan had an already scheduled a review of the underlying assumptions […]
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Parking Confusion
Once again an item with significant budget implications appeared on the consent agenda. This evening’s dealt with buying 40 more pay stations to finish covering Downtown’s on-street spots and increasing the cost of parking %25 to $1.25 an hour. The discussion has been rather disturbing because two efforts have been conflated: the staff led Downtown […]
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Lot $$$5 Lurches Forward?
Council has been quite patient with their development partner RAM Development. The Lot $$$5 project has seen delay after delay, the basic tenets under which is was justified shifted substantially over that time. For instance, developers apparently didn’t need the Lot $$$5 project to whet their appetite for Downtown projects as three are on-going. Even […]
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Recreation Fee Reduced Redux
Last month I took my concerns about the proposed recreation fee structure amendments to Council (Parks Impact Fee: How Many (More) Goodies Do High Density Developers Need?). Tonight, Council revisits the proposal for possibly the last time. Unfortunately, the issues I raised Oct. 18th were ignored by staff. The reason I petition Council at their […]
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Bolin Creek Beauty
I’ve been highlighting the importance of treating the Bolin Creek watershed as a regional resource suffering from our piecemeal approach establishing adequate policies for its protection. The whole basin requires, and deserves, a greater level of cooperation between Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Orange County, Orange Water and Sewer Authority(OWASA), the State’s Divisions of Water Quality (DENR-DWQ) […]
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Election 2010: Sales Tax Referendum
[UPDATE 2] The referendum is shelved with a margin of over 1,000 votes. Next up, the transit tax referendum. [UPDATE 3] Just listened to a really inept analysis of the sales tax referendum problems on WCHL. WCHL is usually ridiculously deferential to Aaron Nelson of the local Chamber of Commerce – rarely calls him out […]
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Nov. 2nd, 2010 Election
In case there’s any confusion, Morgan Freeman had nothing to do with this post! I’ll be helping the Orange County Democratic Party over at the Caldwell precinct in northern Orange County from 9:30am to 4:00pm. Drop by if you’re in the area. Over the last week I’ve received emails asking my recommendations for the judicial […]
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Chief Blue?
Looks like only one of the five potential internal candidates for Police Chief expressed interest in the position: Chris Blue. Chris’ evaluation “will focus on the characteristics that have been identified that we need in a chief and the extent to which his behavior fulfills those characteristics. The basic characteristics we are looking for were […]
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Chapel Hill Police Department’s Community Outreach – Round 2
Looks like I’m stuck on “law and order” mode with the latest series of posts. The Chapel Hill Police Department is hosting an additional community outreach Nov. 4th, 4:30 and 5:30pm at Extraordinary Ventures, Elliot Rd. (INFO). The meetings present an opportunity to comment on and improve the department’s new strategic plan. The plan’s current […]