The Chapel Hill Town Council did the right thing Monday night by putting the brakes on what appeared to be a move to put a development proposal for the area across U.S. 15-501 from Southern Village and Southern Community Park on a fast track. Alarmed residents of the area cried foul over a proposal to use the new Development Agreement process for Meadowmont developer Roger Perry’s Obey Creek project.
The council then wisely decided that it was a little early to make that call, considering that a high-density retail and residential development is pretty much the opposite of what residents and policymakers agreed on for the area during the long public process, in the mid ’90s, that paved the way for Southern Village.
We have a little talking to do first. Sorry if that’s frustrating, but we do. Folks are aware that there are well-founded worries about retail “leakage.†But those with their hands on the levers of power shouldn’t let their longing for big-box retail turn to outright lust.