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Carolina North briefing raises concerns

Posted on April 2, 2009 by Staff

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

Chapel Hill — Local officials are taking stock of a new study that shows a net fiscal gain for Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County from the Carolina North project.

During a briefing on a fiscal impact report on the project by university consultants Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, several representatives of Chapel Hill and Carrboro questioned some of the report’s conclusions.

The report shows that the direct impacts of the project will produce net deficits to the town of Chapel Hill of between $780,000 and $792,000 annually and of roughly $50,000 annually for Carrboro. Orange County fares better according to the study, with additional revenue from both county and school district taxes adding between $921,000 and $1.1 million.

The analysis shows the towns and the county eventually seeing positive results once indirect impacts such as increases to the employment base and sales taxes are figured in.

Carrboro Board of Aldermen member Jacquie Gist said she was concerned to hear the sentiment that the residential development that would result from the project would boost revenues.

“There’s no way that residential developments pay for themselves,” she said. “If that was true, we’d be mailing out tax refunds instead of sending out tax bills.”

Gist was also among those questioning the projected increase in the number of students to attend local schools.

TischlerBise, the university’s consultants, estimated that 417 proposed multi-family-housing units would result in 29 new students.
“That, intuitively, doesn’t feel right,” she said.

In a question-and-answer session with reporters prior to the Tuesday briefing for local officials, Jack Evans, executive director of the project, and TischlerBise representatives said those numbers are in agreement with standards adopted by the county and its school systems.

In 2007, TischlerBise worked with Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools to update generation rates in preparation for proposals to raise the county’s impact fees. Under the new generation tables, the rate for multi-family housing — the type proposed for Carolina North — was broken out and is far lower than other types of housing. Single-family detached homes generate .6 students per household and single-family attached homes generate .35 students while multi-family housing generates .07 per students according to the school system’s table. The district’s average student-generation rate for all types of housing is .332.

Chapel Hill Town Council member Sally Greene said she doesn’t dispute the results of the study, but has questions about how best to proceed.
“The study itself is solid,” she said. “We’ve got to do some real work about how to use it, because a lot is at stake here.”

Greene said that in the Wednesday morning session between the town council and TischlerBise representatives, the role of Chapel Hill Police was discussed. Given the close proximity of Carolina North to the main police station and the fact that the development will include commercial and residential buildings, it may not make sense for the development to rely on the campus police department. Greene said that is an example of how a policy decision could affect the cost to the town.

Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton said that the study is only as good as the data and that there were many things left out that would be difficult to measure, such as the impact of lower air quality and greater traffic congestion.

Chilton said Carrboro will try to stay engaged in the discussion on the project and would like to see university officials give a courtesy presentation to the board of aldermen once the Carolina North plan is submitted to the Town of Chapel Hill. He said the phasing of the plan is important to how it will impact the area.

“Clearly, UNC is going to build Carolina North,” he said. “I’m interested in what order the components come together.”

He said he wants to know when bike and pedestrian connections along with additional transit and more park-and-ride facilities west of Carrboro would be provided.

A recording of the briefing and the TischlerBise report is available on the university’s Carolina North website at http://research.unc.edu/cn/specifics.php.

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