Tag: Hillsborough425

  • Twisting the Zoning Pretzel

    Tonight I asked the Council, once again, to reconsider cutting corners in the zoning process to push their “dense” development agenda. Just as in this Spring’s approval of the new TC-3 zoning district (A Matter of Process: Greenbridge and Council’s Devolving Standard of Public Review), the Council is trying to slide through a far-reaching zoning […]

  • Godzilla vs. Bambi::RAM Development and Chapel Hill

    If I worked for RAM Development, I’d be dancing quite a jig this evening. Not only have they negotiated the sweetest of deals – their own publicly underwritten Downtown tower of wealth – they’ve gotten the friendliest of non-reviews by the majority of Council. Maybe folks will like “rah rah” growth RAM Development style. If […]

  • Hillsborough425: Yes, it is interactive!

    One of my readers was slightly confused about whether the fly-by of Hillsborough425 documented in my post Hillsborough425: Google Earth Fly-By, Alpha Quality was live or not. Yes it is! If you have the proper version of GoogleEarth installed ( GoogleEarth v4.0291.beta ), then opening this link will crank up the application and display the […]

  • Hillsborough425: Google Earth Fly-By, Alpha Quality

    Alpha quality? This is my first release of a “fly-by” created with Google’s mapping tool Google Earth [v4.0291.beta], drawing tool SketchUp and published concept plans to model new development in our community. In this case, modeling RAM Development’s 322 luxury condos visual impact. The large McMansion-like teardown, unfortunately, is displacing Hillsborough Street’s affordable 111 unit […]

  • Hillsborough425 aka “The Residences at Grove Park”

    Plenty of kudzu, not much of a grove. HeraldSun covers some of the issues with RAM Development’s strangely renamed condo-blivium project “The Residences at Grove Park”. I’ve already commented on Council’s need “to be as Caesar’s wife” in handling this project’s approvals in light of their existing relationship as co-developers with RAM on the $100 […]

  • Council’s Conflict of Interest?

    RAM Development, our town’s partner in an increasingly troubling downtown development project, is now looking to build the largest condominium project in Chapel Hill’s history. Sited along Hillsborough Rd. on the current Townhouse Apartment parcel, the project would include 335 condos in 6 story blocks. Without a site proposal, it’s hard to envision how such […]