This Monday (Dec. 4th), Council will take up the composition the Roger Road Area Task Force, I posted on earlier, and the possible future annexation of the eastern side of Rogers Rd.
If you’re interested in working with the Rogers Road community to correct these longstanding problems, Monday would be a great time to turn out and let your views be heard.
Click images to expand.
A quick reminder of this evening’s public forum [Mon., Nov. 20th] on the failing Downtown Initiative.
Tonight’s agenda starts with this gem
The 2000 Comprehensive Plan’s goal for downtown is to “enhance the downtown’s role as the center of the community, with a pedestrian orientation and a human scale.â€
I consider the 104′ multi-building development on lot #5 to be a stake through downtown’s heart. I’m not alone. Many residents find the scale of this development anything but “human”.
Former Council member David R. Godschalk, the Stephen Baxter Professor Emeritus in UNC’s City and Regional Planning department, waved the redflag in 2005 claiming
The developer has put too much building on these two small parcels. The nine-story building on lot 5 is out of scale with the existing downtown streetscape and soars above the 90-foot height allowed in the town center 2 district of the Chapel Hill zoning ordinance.
Scale aside, why else is the Downtown Initiative failing?
The deal with RAM Development was never very good, at least for the Town. RAM’s payment of $7.9 million ($4,750,000 to lease Lot 5, a one time lease payment of $3,150,000 for the air rights over the Wallace Deck and the Rosemary/Henderson street lot) was a steal of a deal.
$7.9 million for 99 years of use of citizen-owned, prime downtown real-estate? Incredible.
$99 for 99 years? Impossible!
Several folks pointed out that RAM’s original projected rate of return, less than %3, was financially infeasible and would have to be “re-traded”. Last year I publicly stated that RAM had over-promised and would under-deliver – that dramatic renegotiation upwards, more inline with Grubb’s competing bid, was an inevitable result.
For instance, I work on the corner across Church St. and remember well the Devil’s own time the construction crew had digging my building’s basement. I never bought into the idea the Town would only pony up $500,000 to build underground parking structures in the granite ladened Lot #5 – and I sure as heck found it difficult to believe that RAM, our Council members or any other longtime residents would buy this malarkey.
When I brought this and similar issues up with our leadership, both then and since, I was told “not to worry” and “the deal is the deal”.
Why should the citizens of Chapel Hill pay the piper? Remember how “thrilled” RAM was to get a piece of Chapel Hill’s action?
In the most stark example, Grubb’s financing model would produce a 21.77 percent return on its $10.5 million investment in condominiums on the Wallace Deck site. Ram sees only a 2.98 percent return on its $23 million investment there.
“If they’re willing to do it for that,” Harris said, “God bless ’em.”
Even if the company wanted to, Grubb couldn’t make a counteroffer, Stainback said, explaining that the proposals are considered “best and final offers.”
Two council members asked Cummings whether Ram’s financial model was too good to be true.
He said no projection ever is exactly right but that his company hopes to ride the growing trend of people returning to downtown.
After the meeting, Ivy Greaner, Ram’s managing partner, said the profit margins are healthy enough to sustain the project.
But Ram also is seeking a foothold in North Carolina. The company is willing to make less money in Chapel Hill to get a centerpiece project in the Triangle.
“This is a special town,” Greaner said, in a suitor’s tone. “We love Chapel Hill.”
Guess the Chapel Thrill has worn off for RAM. We’re special, just not $7.3 million special.
The Town and Ram claim costs have unforeseeably skyrocketed in the last year
In the time that has elapsed since the Developer formulated the development plan for Lot 5 and the Wallace Deck sites and the Town negotiated the October 24, 2005 MOU with the Developer, construction costs have increased by as much as 30 percent and interest rates have increased significantly.
yet we’re supposed to accept that the other rosy projections, like a %5 borrowing rate and an above average return on parking fees, retail and property taxes will pan out?
Since the original deal was inked, the national average cost of building materials hasn’t exceeded %11, with a recent flattening (due to lower energy, aggregate and raw material costs) of an annualized increase between %5 and %7.
Worse, last October, after closing the deal (N&O), Keith Cummings, president of Ram,
…personally guaranteed with his own money that the project will be completed as planned, according to the document signed Monday. Any increased costs — because of issues such as the rising price of construction materials — are to be borne by Ram.
Personally guaranteed.
Come on, I feel like the Town’s citizens are being taken to the cleaners on this deal.
Until I see the specifics of the %30 increase, I must assume it was part of the “shell game” of under-bidding to win the contract.
If this turns out to be the case, what must we expect of RAM’s projections (“guarantees”) concerning their luxury, mega-condo development – the largest in Town’s history – at 425 Hillsborough Street?
And once we’re hip deep into this development, what restricts RAM from coming back to the well? Quite frankly, while I’d hate to “throw away” any taxpayer investment, it certainly would be easier to back out of a $500K losing proposition than a $7.3 million boondoggle. The modest protections of paying on delivery don’t seem sufficient.
The return of the public’s investment better be phenomenal to justify this private-public partnership. With this project’s current fiscal track record, financial prudence, above all, should steer our leader’s decision, especially when we go against our Town’s tradition of letting the voters decide to take on such massive financial obligations.
Speaking of prudence, beyond the $7.3 million demanded by RAM, the Council is supposed to approve a major chunk of debt tonight for the Homestead Park Aquatic Center. As today’s HeraldSun reports
The next key step comes tonight, when the Town Council will consider approving a contract with the Resolute Building Co. to build the Homestead Park Aquatic Center. The contract on the table is for $5,238,000, although the town manager would be authorized to approve up to $530,000 in change orders if necessary, as the work proceeded.
…
In the town’s 2006-07 budget, the council authorized borrowing another $750,000 for the Homestead project. That’s in addition to the bond funds the town and Orange County both are allocating for it.Orange County is putting about $4.3 million into the project in bond funds approved by voters across the county, and Chapel Hill is contributing about $1.2 million in bond funds.
That’s nearly $2 million of debt we’re taking on – with a possible upward tick already projected. Strange that the citizenry had a voice in taking on that $2 million obligation, but we’re left out of directly approving an amount 4 times as large.
I’m going this evening with my concerns, fully expecting Council to answer each issue fully before moving forward. Hopefully the missing issues of public access, accommodations and facilities will be covered.
Here’s the “new deal” being proposed this evening.
Maintaining election signs feels like an art form.
During the 2005 election season, I plotted various energy saving routes to “care and feed” for my signs as I drove around town on regular errands. Two birds with one stone, so to speak.
I didn’t just fix my own signs. Heck, at one point I’d repaired or reset more of Ed Harrison’s signs than mine and every other candidates combined! Why? While to some the signs are just so much roadside rubbish, to me they represent not only a major campaign investment ($2-$8 per sign) but a valuable, if limited, form of communication.
Folks gained name recognition from my catchy slogan, read various intended and unintended meanings into my “daisy” design and followed my website URL ( now campaign.willraymond.org ) to find out more about my positions (and to get a real-time report on my finances).
Election 2005
Every candidate, as long as they follow the generally reasonable rules of signage, deserves the courtesy of publishing that limited message without interference. Sure, the “message” is sometimes lost due to poor implementation – like Ed’s short-staked slanted signs that easily tilted and wilted and fell under the merest of pressure – but, unfortunately, the weather doesn’t account for all sign damage.
While focusing on sites with Judge Baddour’s and Anderson’s signs, I’ve continued to repair all candidates’ signs – whether I support them – like Ellie Kinnaird – or don’t – like Steve Acuff. Baddour’s signs, some up for the whole duration, have weathered well. To date, my worst problem has been keeping ones up both on the corner of Estes/MLK and at the end of Mt. Bolus Rd. Those signs, unlike others I find in the woods or ditches, vanish. Anderson’s have done fairly well, though the cardboard they’re made of seems to get awful droopy in the wet.
Fred, one of the Madison attendees, over on OrangePolitics said he didn’t like my suggestion, given the organizer’s professed desire to “build relationships” – establish “synergies” amongst the group, that, for a few folks, there was a bit more to the Madison trip than simple learning or altruistic desire.
Chamber of Commerce director and trip sponsor Aaron Nelson pegs it pretty well: “”You get to spend a lot more time with each other,” Nelson said. “And there’s something really important about the shared experience.”
“The second reason is to build relationships among our community leaders,” Nelson added. “The hope is that when you get back, and you have an issue you need help with, you can pick up the phone and call the guy you sat next to on the plane for four hours.”
Once again, as we see from today’s soon to evaporate HeraldSun, the “shared experience” (smoozing) was of driving importance to the organizers of this event.
Now, of course, other attendees have different primary goals: inclusionary zoning, how a university building a research park deals fairly and honestly with neighborhoods, downtown economic development – even panhandling.
Again, we have a great crew attending. I fully expect the time, effort and more than $100,000 spent on this trip to yield benefits for our community.
But let us not pretend that Aaron Nelson’s “phone call” isn’t part of the calculus of the Madison event.
Whether that “phone call” benefits the community, as I imagine one between Mike Collins of Neighborhoods for Responsible Growth (NRG) and UNC’s Chancellor Moeser might, or not, will be measured in time.
No, Jim hasn’t been co-opted by another AstroTurf organization, he was responding to Mayor Kevin Foy’s remarks on the St. Thomas More Catholic Church expansion plans:
Councilman Jim Ward, in a point seconded by Mayor Kevin Foy, argued the issue went beyond Carmichael Street and driveways, to the overall impact of increased traffic on roads in the area. He said he’d like to see St. Thomas More challenge its parishioners to be “part of the solution” and look for ways to reduce vehicle traffic to the church property, which includes a school.
“My knee-jerk reaction to this is, how in the world can you expect to put more facilities and attract more people to this site?” Ward said.
The 15-501 intersection, as Council member Cam Hill says is “quite galling”. More evaporating coverage at the web unfriendly HeraldSun.
The Fordham/15-501 corridor is going to get developed. We have an opportunity to use the St. Thomas More expansion as a kick-start to rethinking transit/transportation access patterns along one of our most highly traveled routes. The NC-DOT needs to jump in and do a bit more creative thinking (maybe even some circular thinking) instead of their usual add-and-expand schtick.
My guess is it’ll take the town’s leadership to get a decent result.
Local Progress Energy nuke plant Shearon-Harris went unexpectedly offline (or in nuke industry jargon “had an unplanned outage”) this morning:
Progress Energy’s Shearon Harris nuclear plant shut down today at about 10 a.m., in the first unplanned outage this year.
The nuclear plant, about 25 miles southwest of Raleigh, turned itself off automatically when the plant’s generator stopped working. Plant personnel are trying to determine the cause of the malfunction.
Progress Energy continues to have legal, technical and regulatory problems with Shearon-Harris and other operations, including whistle-blowing by security guards, issues with their plan to build additional on-site capacity (reactors) and, of course, the wondrous new over-charging meter fiasco.
Incredible timing as tomorrow (Sept. 20th), NCWarn, our local safe-nuke activists, are holding a meeting on Shearon-Harris’ fire violations.
| Community Briefing Emergency Action on Fire Violations at Shearon Harris Nuclear Plant Wednesday. Sept 20, 7 pm |
A third of the way through my second “live” LAC meeting – the second with Evans as UNC’s point man – and a nascent theme from the last meeting has emerged full-blown: “Don’t pin me down…”
Last week [PDF], when questioned on specific environmental goals for Carolina North, Evans dismissed specific language.
Dan Coleman: Can we assume that the University does not want Carolina North to have a negative impact on the air quality of Chapel Hill? Given the way the principle is worded, is it the word ‘insure’ that is too strong a word? Is the hang-up in that phrase?
Jack Evans: My interest is not in wordsmithing. Agreed that we want a different wording for that section. The University people are interested in doing something innovative here; but we don’t want to find ourselves trapped by wording that doesn’t have the right intention/target…
Further, when asked about using stiff protections to limit growth to a specific sized footprint at Carolina North, BOT member (and local developer) Roger Perry responded
Ken Broun: Others will have a chance to comment. University comments: University disagrees: preserve in perpetuity the maximum amount of open space, with goal of preserving 75% of Horace Williams property.
Roger Perry: The problem: we are firmly committed to building Carolina North on as small a portion of the property as possible; are committed to environmentally protecting Bolin Creek and sensitive environmental areas to the best possible reasonable practices. That will leave additional land in Carolina North, after you take out the footprint for Carolina North and the environment protection areas and the green spaces and trail system. There’s no way that the Board of Trustees could take the rest of that land and say that it will never be developed. Not responsible, even if we could. Technologies change. Needs change. Missions change. That remaining land that is developable is an asset of the State of North Carolina. To say that it would never be used is not responsible, in keeping with our mission to the State. We would never be able to do that.
More on Perry’s strange, strained intransigence later.
This week, Evans expressed concern that the local Chamber of Commerce’s request that “Carolina North Creates public amenities such as schools, parks, conference facilities, performance space, trails and greenways that are open and welcoming to the general public” would be used as a firm list of deliverables. In other words, this desire would eventually transmute into a promise to provide “a school,a park,a performance space”, etc.
The committee turns to transit.
Wow! Evans: “single occupancy vehicles critical to Carolina North”.
Comments from UNC’s delegation following that interesting revelation seem to indicate a decision, absent the pending transit study and analysis, that the single occupancy vehicle is king at Carolina North.
Their claims have the feeling of a conclusion chasing a justification.
Evans trundles out the red-herring smoke screen that Carolina North’s build out will be very slow…that it will take decades to reach a daily population of 20,000. I say red-herring because the recent massive main campus build out demonstrated that when UNC has the will and the money, they can build like mad.
Finally (at least for this update), Roger Perry comments he’s never seen a development brought before Council where Council has asked for some of the workers to be housed on-site. Of course, he has seen, with his own Meadowmont, a requirement that residents’ kids be schooled on-site.
This seems to be a continuing theme from UNC’s delegation: Carolina North is, short term, a small development – a development essentially no different than a private development – and the “conditions” that elected folk want to moderate its more negative impacts somehow violate “equal protection” , so to speak.
I’ll be digging through this weeks video to try to capture the nuance of UNC’s transit nyets. Hopefully, the video will be up on the Carolina North site fairly quickly. Until then, here’s a link [Video of August 24, 2006 meeting of Leadership Advisory Committee (WMV)] to last weeks.
Dr. Crawford-Brown claimed at today’s LAC meeting that he feels he does more work on behalf of Chapel Hill’s Town Council than for the University even though he’s a member of the University’s delegation – and the director of UNC’s Carolina Environmental Program.
Trying to clarify his role, Crawford-Brown said he’s here as a scientist, an expert and that, though he works for UNC, he’s giving his balanced opinion. Or, as he colorfully put it, “I’ll take brickbats from both sides…”.
Dan Coleman followed up Crawford-Brown’s statement by asking Dean Jack Evans what role, then, was Crawford-Brown playing vis-a-vis UNC’s delegation. Essentially, he was asking Evans if Crawford-Brown’s statements should be construed as representing the University’s position. Evans danced around, avoiding answering the question, because he feels the firm roles of the committee members shouldn’t be pinned down while the substantive content of the recommendations are being formalized.
Sure, Crawford-Brown has a tough balancing act trying to forge a coherent vision of environmental analysis at Carolina North both as a member of the UNC delegation and a concerned scientist.
He is in an unenviable position considering he’s been positioned by UNC’s Jack Evans as their environmental expert. No matter what, to preserve his value as “THE” expert, he must continue to maintain at least the appearance of making unbiased appraisals of the LAC’s environmental strategies wherever his loyalties lie.
Evans could’ve helped Crawford-Brown by clarifying his specific role as “the expert.”
More on Crawford-Brown’s personal environmental philosophy.
4:17pm UNC Leadership Advisory Committee meeting on Carolina North development.
One curious reader asks “What is greenwashing?”
From the Center for Media & Democracy’s Sourcewatch project, greenwashing is defined thusly:
“Greenwashing is what corporations do when they try to make themselves look more environmentally friendly than they really are.” [1] (here)
“Greenwash†is defined in the 10th edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as the “disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image.†Its inclusion in the dictionary indicates the significance and permanence of a growing trend among corporations to take advantage of the many consumers who look for products with negative environmental impact. [2] (here)
“Earthday Resources for Living Green has released this report annually for the last 11 years to call attention to the past year’s worst greenwashers, corporations that have made misleading or false claims abut the environmental benefits of their products and industries. “Don’t Be Fooled” describes companies’ greenwashing attempts as well as the truth behind their misleading claims.” Current and past reports are available [online (here)].
The Washington Post has produced a Special Report titled BIG GREEN (here) which as series of investigative articles exposes the corporate infestation of The Nature Conservancy and “documents on the organization’s transformation from a grassroots group to a corporate juggernaut.”
Frequent PR Watch contributor Bob Burton has prepared a 5 page paper titled “Corporations Will Save the World, won’t they?” which describes how corporations lure their environmentalist adversaries into the illusion of cooperative engagements such as Community Advisory Panels which result in a win-win result for the corporations by reducing the energy of their adversaries, and turning the media attention away from environmental advocacy against the evil corporation into an image of the corporation attempting to benefit the environment. [3] (here [PDF])
“Several recent incidents show that, when faced with environmental crises attributable to business interests cozy with the White House, the administration has developed an alternative response: Suppress, Ignore, Preempt.” [4] (here)
Greenwashing is a form of public relations propaganda which gives something the appearance of being environmentally friendly when it is, in fact, not.
An example of this would be an oil company being forced in a court of law to create a habitat for endangered species in its oil fields. Greenwashing would occur when the company creates a magazine ad campaign that is complete with paintings of a beautiful moonlit oil field and nature coexisting, with the image assisted by text explaining how much that company cares for Nature and endangered species, as well as how nature can beautifully coexist with oil wells, factories, or whatever.
Another example is naming a piece of legislation “Clear Skies” when the legislation will not result in sky clearing.
In December 2005 the New York Times noted that corporations including Ford, Exxon Mobil, BP, General Electric and Alcan “appear to be spending ever-bigger chunks of their advertising budgets to promote” what critics call greenwashing. New ad campaigns from WPP, Omnicom Group, and Interpublic Group tout corporate “environmental do-goodism.” [5] (here)
“Oil companies, under attack for reaping windfall profits from soaring fuel prices, are trying to position themselves as part of the solution to energy problems rather than the cause. Manufacturers of fuel-efficient automobiles, jet engines or other green products are recognizing that they can burnish their image even as they promote their products. And companies in all industries are trying to make socially conscious investors and customers comfortable about buying their products and shares.” [6] (here)
A more extensive overview is available here.
[UPDATE:] And why did they ask? Carolina North: Crawford-Brown’s Counter-principles
The October 1st, 2007 can’t come soon enough for some of UNC’s Board of Trustees. Yesterday, Chancellor Moeser once again disingenuously affirmed the absolutely critical role Carolina North’s development plays.
Important? Maybe. Critical? How can we assess that before we see a real evaluation of its business, educational and community-oriented impacts?
Leaning on previous assertions of broad economic impacts, Moeser talked of his administrations “tireless” pursuit of Carolina North’s rollout – including the appointment of Dean Jack Evans (Moeser somehow omitted mentioning Evans’ $208,000+ per year salary). At least Evans’ sees this not as territory to seize but more of a potentially futile intellectual exercise.
Our engagement with the state will be greatly enhanced by Carolina North, our 21st Century living-and-learning community. We will pursue this project tirelessly. It is absolutely critical to our future. We want this new campus to be a national model for sustainability, addressing the long-term needs of the University for accelerated transfer of our new knowledge into the economy, housing for faculty and staff, and new collaborations with the private sector.
A Leadership Advisory Committee of community, state, and University representatives is recommending guiding principles for building Carolina North. Last month, I appointed Professor Jack Evans as executive director of Carolina North. Our trustees have directed us to submit our zoning and development plan applications to local governments by October 1st of next year.
We want the Carolina North campus to have an aesthetic quality that will draw people to it and enhance the communities surrounding it, just as the main campus has for two centuries. We believe it can do all of that at the same time that it advances our missions of teaching, research, and public service.
Chancellor Moeser’s main thesis from his September 6th State of the University remarks [via WCHL1360]:
…we can aspire for greatness … move from good to great … and be both great and good…
The speech was replete with references of being good, of moving from good to great both as an University and community member.
We have also talked about being good – good in the context of maintaining high ethical and moral values – goodness as critical to achieving greatness.
Over the past several years, we have talked about what it means to be a great university – to be the leading public university in America – striving for greatness.
Jim Collins, author of the best-selling book Good to Great, defines greatness not as a function of circumstance. Greatness, he says, “is largely a matter of conscious choice.”
Collins describes Carolina’s approach. We have made tough decisions and instilled discipline in our budget. Our priorities mark the way. We are driven to be better.
Like Collins, we have a conviction that greatness is a journey, not a destination. The moment we think of ourselves as great, he says, we will have begun our slide into mediocrity. 2
We have also talked about being good – good in the context of maintaining high ethical and moral values – goodness as critical to achieving greatness.
The single most distinguishing feature of this University is its goodness – its core values of commitment to the people of North Carolina and the betterment of humankind. Charles Kuralt nailed it in his 1993 Bicentennial remarks when he said:
“… Here we found something in the air. A kind of generosity, a certain tolerance, a disposition toward freedom of action and inquiry that has made of Chapel Hill, for thousands of us, a moral center of the world.”
Good enough is never good enough – not for an institution that aspires to be America’s leading public university. Going from good to great.
Leading with innovation. Going from good to great.
A University with a Strong Moral Center: Great and Good
I turn now to the second part of my thesis, the noble idea that Carolina can be both great and good – in Kuralt’s words “a moral center of the universe,” a great public university committed to access and affordability, to service and engagement, and to the conviction that our mission includes the development of the heart, as well as the mind.
Today, we are the stewards of that great venture at the dawn of a new century and a world as new and daunting as the one Davie faced. We are called upon to make this University even greater – to go from good to great. We are also called on to nurture and nourish what it means to be a public university, to be both great and good. And we must adapt this great and noble institution to the 21st Century.
Why enumerate Chancellor Moeser’s calls for greatness?
Oh, a small attempt to remind UNC’s Carolina North Leadership Advisory Committee that they’re supposed to produce a plan that is more than “good enough” – that, instead, is great and worthy of our world-class research University.
Rather than expanding upon the published principles created by Chapel Hill’s (now defunct) Horace-Williams Citizens’ Committee (HWCC) or integrating their newer environmental recommendations (which I championed), UNC’s green representative to the LAC (UNC’s Leadership Advisory Committee) offers a counter-proposal.
Why? Why follow Chancellor Moeser’s lead and continue butting heads?
To: LAC (9-3-06)
From: Doug Crawford-Brown
Re: Environmental Principles for Carolina NorthI’ve taken a stab at a few principles at the end of this memo, related to environmental issues we raised in our last meeting. Before giving the wording on those principles, I want to take a moment and explain how I reasoned towards them.
1. I assumed that these should be principles, not goals or strategies. I take a principle to be a statement about a core value we want Carolina North to reflect; a goal to be a measurable characteristic that will let us know whether we have satisfied a particular principle; and a strategy to be a statement of the way in which we will reach that goal.
2. Then I assumed that we are talking here about environmental issues, and not growth per se. There are legitimate reasons to control growth, but if we want the latter, we should just say it rather than couching it in environmental standards. So I have tried to design these principles based solely on their impact on core environmental concerns.
3.Then I assumed that principles need to be applied to all sectors of our community at some time. Still, Carolina North has some unique features: (i) it will be a large change in the infrastructure of our community, giving us an opportunity to affect that infrastructure significantly in one grand step; (ii) it is being built by a university with immense intellectual resources to solve problems of sustainability – the Chancellor has provided us leadership in that regard; (iii) it will be built in part by the State, which has resources to stimulate the market for sustainable designs; and (iv) it can provide a template for what we need eventually from all sectors of the community.
Here is my wording for a broad environmental principle, followed by more specific ones.
First Environmental Principle: Carolina North presents a unique opportunity to meet the mission of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill while providing a model for environmentally sustainable community design reflecting reasonably anticipated environmental goals over the next 50 years. Carolina North will therefore be an examplar of sustainability in the sense that if the entire community of Chapel Hill and Carrboro adopted the design and operational practices embodied in Carolina North, this community would be environmentally sustainable.
Then we need a principle concerning what we mean by “environmentally sustainableâ€, which can be a vague term. I assume that “environmentally sustainable†communities produce impacts that preserve specific conditions of the environment and public health above some level we would find acceptable as a long-term condition of life.
Second Environmental Principle: When added onto the baseline (2006) environmental conditions of the community, Carolina North will produce sustainable levels of criteria air pollutants and air toxics; emissions of carbon dioxide; carbon absorption capacity of the land; amount of land available as species habitat; amount of open land for human recreation; protection of water bodies; generation of waste; and quantity of water flowing off surfaces as run-off. “Sustainable†here means that each of these conditions and their implications for public health would be acceptable as a permanent feature of life in the community.
The community already is near natural or legal limits for some of these conditions. Important examples are ozone (related to emissions of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds); carbon dioxide emissions (related to climate change and the town-gown Carbon Reduction pledge); run-off of water during storm events (related to impervious surfaces); and watershed protection (related to flow of sediment and nutrients into local streams and rivers). The challenge here is in (i) bringing about these community-wide improvements without placing the burden solely on Carolina North, (ii) considering the “net†impact of campus activities, with improvements elsewhere by the University in part “offsetting†the effect of Carolina North (much as a cap-and-trade program allows), and (iii) ensuring that Carolina North does not consume all of the “buffer†between existing conditions in the community and the natural or legal limit. Fortunately, meeting the CRed pledge will have the follow-on effect of keeping ozone precursors neutral, and current water practices in campus construction will ensure that the storm-water and loading conditions are met at Carolina North.
Third Environmental Principle: Carolina North and related off-setting measures will produce no net increase in emissions of precursors of ozone, no net increase in vulnerability of the community to storm-water events, no net increase in loading of sediment and nutrients into local streams, and a continued ability to meet the carbon dioxide emissions reduction goals established by the university under CRed. “Related off-setting measures†means improvements to the existing campus and/or university support of community-wide programs targeting these four environmental conditions.
Finally, we have the other environmental conditions specified in the Second Environmental Principle. For these conditions, there is some “buffer†left for development, meaning the community is not yet at any of the relevant natural or legal limits on these conditions (although we are approaching them rapidly). For these conditions, the principle adopted should reflect the desire to avoid having Carolina North consume this “bufferâ€, which would prevent other forms of growth from occurring in town if the community desired.
Fourth Environmental Principle: With respect to all other environmental conditions, Carolina North will leave a “buffer†to accommodate development elsewhere in the community. “Buffer†means that the incremental effect of Carolina North on all relevant environmental conditions, when added onto existing baseline conditions, will allow for reasonably anticipated future development elsewhere in the community without the community exceeding natural and/or legal limits on these conditions.
Where to start?
I appreciate Crawford-Brown’s acknowledgment “that Carolina North presents a unique opportunity to meet the mission of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill while providing a model for environmentally sustainable community design”.
Diluting UNC’s responsibility by lumping in the whole community (“Carolina North will therefore be an examplar of sustainability in the sense that if the entire community of Chapel Hill and Carrboro adopted the design and operational practices embodied in Carolina North” strikes me as a precursor to a good old-style greenwashing.
For instance, what is reasonable and acceptable, as in his call for “reasonably anticipated environmental goals over the next 50 years” and his tautology that the standards applied to Carolina North simply be “acceptable as a long-term condition of life”?
Of course we don’t want a multi-billion dollar, taxpayer-financed, State project that’s inimical to life, do we?
The continuing tenor – his suggestion of applying “pollution reduction credits” accrued elsewhere to balance environmentally questionable development practices or working within a “buffer” that’s measured not by environmental best-practices but by our State’s rather weak legal requirements – makes we wonder if UNC’s current administration has positioned Crawford-Brown as more an apologist/whitewasher than a champion for world class green development.
According to the online minutes [PDF] of August 24th’s Carolina North Leadership Advisory Committee meeting, this is what I asked for…
Will Raymond, citizen of Chapel Hill, former member of HWCC: Speaking on own behalf. Wants to talk about the environmental assay, which was an issue brought up by HWCC. Like what BioHabitats is doing, but it’s not extensive enough/not a true environmental assay that UNC would be capable of doing. Want University to look at this property as a science experiment; are performing a major experiment on it. Look at it the same way you look at 100 acres in the deep jungle: looking for champion species of trees, real counts of flora and fauna, on/off-site evaluations of air pollution. No good hydrological studies/no good on-off site air studies. Want the committee to do that, but put as a core principle continuous monitoring after the fact.
Troubled: Dean Evans referenced the minimum specs of the state; that concerns me; want to shoot for the stars, as George said. Should have world-class goals. University is capable of doing that. No one player should bear the burden? There is no other player that is building a community/development the size of Hillsborough in Chapel Hill. Unique project deserves unique environmental assay to determine the baselines.
Two minutes is not much time to cover a fairly extensive and somewhat nuanced perspective on the incredible environmental potential Carolina North’s development presents our State.
Many other great quotes highlighting Evan’s subtext throughout the minutes….
Next meeting is September 7th at the Friday Center.
One of the hurricane projections has Ernesto tracking right over my home in less than a day.
Friday, September 6, 1996 – Fran!
Friday, September 1, 2006 – Ernesto?
Fran snuck up on the Triangle 10 years ago. Ernesto is days away.
I stayed up until 1am nearly a decade ago waiting to see what track Fran would take. WRAL’s ever reliable Greg Fishel predicted a hit between Rocky Mount and Raleigh. Even though the wind on Barclay Rd. was whipping up – the rain starting to “fall” horizontally, I went to bed unworried.
Next morning we awoke with trees down, little knowing we’d go days without roads, weeks without power.
Ten years on I don’t have to depend on Greg (though I’ll be checking in with him). The web offers an incredible smorgasboard of realtime sources for hurricane data.
One of the neatest is a “mash-up” of GoogleEarth and “glootons” hurricane tracker.