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LETTER: Grow, but maintain small-town charm

Posted on April 12, 2012April 11, 2012 by Staff

I was glad to read Dave Sidor’s good piece (“Issues with Chapel Hill 2020,” The Carrboro Citizen, 4/5/12) about flaws in the 2020 discussions now taking place in Chapel Hill-Carrboro about land-use and development. We do have to grow. The problem as I see it is how to keep the charm and small-town atmosphere that made us love the place.

As an example of what I have in mind, Boulder, Colo., began building high-rise buildings in the 1960s and soon discovered their height threatened the character of the town. In 1972 they passed a law limiting the height of all new buildings to 46 feet, or about four stories. Many of us who live in or near the historic district would like to see similar limits on the height of Chapel Hill’s new buildings.

We’d also like to see more awareness from developers of the need to protect our water sources as well as historic neighborhoods and longtime residents’ peace of mind. As you say, we need more public discussion of the assumptions being used to decide how much and what kind of growth is good.
Let’s hope we can get some good discussion going.

Nancy Tilly
Chapel Hill

1 thought on “LETTER: Grow, but maintain small-town charm”

  1. Deepa Sanyal says:
    April 12, 2012 at 7:10 pm

    As I drive around Chapel Hill, to meetings, shopping, errands, I notice, I have to drive. There is no other way to do anything in Chapel Hill but drive, unless you are on campus. However, there is a little island of walkability that aslo encompasses most of the small town space and feel of Chapel Hill – the area around the Chapel Hill and Carrboro downtowns. I often just park my car at the Harris Teeter at Car Mill Mall and walk to and around the two towns. Every step is so interesting because of the diversity of businesses including the car businesses at the dwindled town end of West Franklin – I kind of like them because they keep Franklins street from becoming too twee. Northside is a gem. The porches, level with the street, are open for social interaction unlike so many of the aerie like porches in the New Urbanist developments which function more like must have design features than overtures to neighborliness. Let’s conserve this fast dwindling small town or build new pockets that offer the scale, openess and walkability that are so vital to the emotional connection we need with the places in which we live.

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