
{"id":17079,"date":"2011-03-31T12:50:38","date_gmt":"2011-03-31T16:50:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=17079"},"modified":"2011-03-31T12:50:38","modified_gmt":"2011-03-31T16:50:38","slug":"reject-the-hillsborough-road-rezoning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/03\/31\/reject-the-hillsborough-road-rezoning\/","title":{"rendered":"Reject the Hillsborough Road rezoning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><br \/>\nBy James Carnahan<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The Carrboro Citizen<\/em> March 24 editorial characterizing the opposition to the proposed Hillsborough Road site for a library as NIMBYism does a big disservice to the community. People living closest to proposed land-use changes are always the most attentive and often make the most cogent <em>and<\/em> objective arguments not to make changes \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as was the case at the March 22 hearing. <\/p>\n<p>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a near neighbor and I strongly oppose the site for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with neighborhood impacts. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking about spending $6 million-plus of hard-earned taxpayer money for the land and facilities; we need to take whatever time it takes to get this right.<\/p>\n<p>Nor is this just a narrow legislative issue about whether a lot zoned residential can support more intensive use. This is about where a library will be located in Carrboro. There are broad issues of public health and welfare the board of aldermen must consider, as their decision bears greatly on the evolution of key town infrastructure and how public facilities will serve us and future residents. <\/p>\n<p>The concerns about traffic are not just convenient buttons for opponents to push. Most folks living in Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s northern parts and in southwest Orange County will have to drive here. Access to the Hillsborough Road site is awkward and adds traffic in front of a public school and a day-care center. This traffic will have real impacts not only on immediate neighbors but on the narrow streets throughout the mill village, currently the most pleasurably walkable part of Carrboro.<\/p>\n<p>It is not clear from looking at the numerous agenda packets, minutes and attachments what a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153walkable site in or near the downtown\u00e2\u20ac\u009d actually means. And nowhere in the paper trail of committee activity does there seem to have been a public-input process advertised specifically to elicit site-selection criteria that would have clearly defined \u00e2\u20ac\u0153downtown\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and addressed as well some of the many other issues that arose at the public hearing. The burden was on the most diligent stakeholder to keep apprised of issues on the commissioners\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 agenda to know when one could voice an opinion. But \u00e2\u20ac\u201c with all due respect to the hard work of task force members \u00e2\u20ac\u201c when was there an event dedicated to finding out what residents thought about this complex issue?<\/p>\n<p>I agree wholeheartedly with speaker Bethany Chaney, who asked the aldermen to include social-justice criteria in deciding where to site a library. Many of Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s less affluent residents live in the highest density areas in Carrboro along N.C. 54 bypass and Jones Ferry Road. Consider the Mellott property at the corner of Jones Ferry Road and Barnes Street; the owners are actively trying to redevelop it. It is on key pedestrian, transit and transportation corridors; the area is already in fairly intense mixed use and is very close to many who are greatly challenged to achieve their aspirations.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, the Parker Lane\/North Greensboro Street site mentioned by speaker David Jesse is truly \u00e2\u20ac\u0153downtown,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d very close to all three of Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bus lines <em>and<\/em> close to higher-density, lower-income neighborhoods. Jesse said at the hearing that the county declined the property he and his wife had offered at a competitive price. Why was Jesse\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s generous offer of a more suitable site declined? <\/p>\n<p>There are creative ways to have a more central downtown library and one more accessible to our most underserved constituencies, but an obstacle here seems to be that the county does not have \u00e2\u20ac\u0153public-private partnership\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in its tool kit. Why not work with the Mellott owners or CVS or The ArtsCenter? What about the sadly underutilized parking lot Carrboro owns across the street from the Century Center?<\/p>\n<p>There was talk of masking the library on the Hillsborough Rd site to minimize its visual impact. Historically, libraries have been highly visible, functioning as landmarks and sources of community pride, not hidden away. (Chas Gaertner mentioned the beautiful libraries built with Carnegie endowments.) Do we really want our library to be invisible?<\/p>\n<p>I think we lack a clear idea of what and where we want this library to be, and I join other opponents in asking the aldermen to serve Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s long-term health and welfare by rejecting the Hillsborough Road rezoning. I ask as well that they insist the county escrow the funds intended for this purchase and convene an inclusive participatory process that develops site-selection criteria that truly serve all of our stakeholders. <\/p>\n<p><em>James Carnahan is a Carrboro resident with a longtime interest in planning issues.<\/p>\n<p><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><em>The Carrboro Citizen<\/em> March 24 editorial characterizing the opposition to the proposed Hillsborough Road site for a library as NIMBYism does a big disservice to the community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17079"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17117,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17079\/revisions\/17117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}