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Established boundaries

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Staff

Jack Haggerty
This is the first in a three-part series about Carrboro development.

I think of Carrboro as my hometown. I was not born here, nor did I grow up here, but I have lived in Carrboro long enough for my heart to have attached to this place. A long residency gives a perspective that is focused by involvement and one that is made keen by the attachment. I’ve gone to a great number of town committee meetings and attended numerous hearings before the board of aldermen. I’ve sat on steering groups and served on commissions. I have done more than a few projects in Carrboro as an architect. This essay is about the horizontal growth of Carrboro’s downtown, while the next will focus on the vertical element of growth. I believe the expansion of the “downtown” beyond its historic boundaries, which are still apparent, and for the most part respected, has two counterproductive results, and that such growth, when proposed, should be strongly discouraged.

Compactness is required for a small downtown to be a lively, civic venue. The boundaries need to be clear, and the desired activity of the downtown is enhanced by the containment. When the boundaries are expanded for no pressing reason, the energy collected begins to dissipate, and the downtown is diminished. The current zoning districts in Carrboro are structured to keep the downtown compact.

The downtown boundaries of Carrboro are well established. The western edge is the area around town hall, the exception being the potential for commercial development along the wide stretch of Jones Ferry Road with its ready access to N.C. 54. The train tracks at North Greensboro Street are the historic northern boundary. It wasn’t so long ago that houses, fields and pastures were the only things north of the train tracks. Now that area is a residential neighborhood. Carr Street is the southern boundary of the downtown, and the commercial lots down South Greensboro Street are the exception in that direction. That area went commercial quite some time ago, and a large part of it is now ripe for commercial redevelopment. Like the Jones Ferry Road area, the lots at the foot of South Greensboro Street have quick access to 54. The area is well bound by its geography; a redevelopment of it won’t impinge on the nearby neighborhoods. In addition, Carrboro can develop to the east along East Main St. It is a happy circumstance that Chapel Hill encourages businesses on their west end, and the synergy where the two towns meet should be exploited.

Looking through older photos of Carrboro, it is easy to see the historic boundaries. It is easy to see them still. The town’s Vision 2020 document, the product of a broad, consensual, community-visioning effort, contains the goal of doubling commercial square footage. It also contains the goal of preserving the older neighborhoods around the downtown. These goals are compatible. The doubling of commercial square footage in no way requires we expand the boundaries of the downtown, the boundaries captured in the current zoning. I’ve seen nothing in the 25 years that I’ve lived here that makes me think we need to go beyond these boundaries to have the Carrboro we “visioned” a little over a decade ago.

The bright lights of the compact downtown give way to streetlight-lit avenues of small mill houses, crepe myrtles and insect song. Even our generic street names have acquired the patina of charm – Oak, Poplar, Maple – because their integrity has been maintained, because they’re ours, because they’re Carrboro. There are still some shabby spots, some anomalous duplexes, some small, two-story apartment complexes, but none of us wants to lose these either. The expansion of commercial uses, of the downtown, into these neighborhoods will erode and degrade them. We should not chip away at our assets.

Zoning protects neighborhoods. Zoning focuses development. Zoning creates predictability, a reliable expectation of the uses and sizes of projects, and where they can occur. A developer would study the zoning map to see what uses the town allows in specific zones. Homebuyers would study the map to see if a four-story building could be built 10 yards from the house where they want to raise their children. The necessity and value of zoning are obvious. It is at once a recognition of the town’s past and a map to its future.

The members of the board of aldermen have created some zoning “tools” with which they can redraw zoning districts, or they can even create a new zone, whole cloth, to accommodate a developer. To do so is something of a radical act, especially if the proposed use is inconsistent with the surrounding uses. When the aldermen use these “tools,” the expectation engendered by the zoning map are upset, and residents should recognize that vagaries have been introduced into an area, into their neighborhood. When does it end? What precedents are set?

Carrboro is not suffering from expansionary pressures. The downtown of Carrboro is not built out. There is no cause to rethink the existing zoning, no reason to allow commercial uses into the older neighborhoods. Such an action weakens the identity of the downtown and erodes the older neighborhoods. We should not give up our identity so easily, so willingly, simply to accommodate developers who want to reshape the town.

Jack Haggerty is an architect who lives in downtown Carrboro.

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