
{"id":24812,"date":"2012-04-05T10:07:51","date_gmt":"2012-04-05T14:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=24812"},"modified":"2012-04-04T16:17:08","modified_gmt":"2012-04-04T20:17:08","slug":"issues-with-chapel-hill-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2012\/04\/05\/issues-with-chapel-hill-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Issues with Chapel Hill 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Dave Sidor<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>During the March 26 Chapel Hill Town Council meeting a large group of citizens \u00e2\u20ac\u201c representing various neighborhoods and CH2020 theme groups \u00e2\u20ac\u201c related many concerns and suggestions about the ongoing Chapel Hill 2020 process.<\/p>\n<p>In the town manager\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s presentation to council, he asserted that the 2020 process was moving into the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153review and refinement stage\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and the comprehensive (vision and framework) plan is on track to be completed by June. <\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately I have to disagree, and so do the 42 other citizens who signed a letter to council in which we shared our experiences as 2020 participants. We believe the 2020 work to date is far from finished and does not answer the fundamental question the council wants answered: How much and in what way do we want to grow? <\/p>\n<p>Our primary concerns lie in the fact that \u00e2\u20ac\u201c because of infrequent meeting times, lack of data and a mid-stream change in focus from creating the vision to evaluating specific land-use maps \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we have not been given adequate time to formulate and discuss the guiding principles that will set the stage for more specific decisions like land-use and budgeting priorities. <\/p>\n<p>Also missing is a community discussion and analysis of all the information gathered. And glaringly absent is additional information such as: What are UNC and UNC Health Care projections, school capacity limitations and our office- and commercial-vacancy backlog? How many students will need to be housed by 2020? What new UNC medical facilities are planned? How much revenue do a retail store, an office building or apartments generate?<\/p>\n<p>We have asked to evaluate the assumptions being used to drive decisions about growth, and no opportunity to do so to date has been given. Additionally, we question using the results from the fleeting 60-plus-minute mapping exercises and surveys to make important land-use recommendations and zoning-ordinance changes, especially as the 2020 vision is not yet agreed. <\/p>\n<p>Our points were further emphasized by council member Matt Czajkowski, who pointed out that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153consensus conclusions \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 regarding the trade-offs that, overall, the community is willing to make have not yet been determined.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He went on to explain that compared to decisions on growth over the last decade, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We are at a different point. We potentially will transform the Chapel Hill we know; that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a much bigger deal.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And finally he stated, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The fundamental question is how much growth do we want.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Needless to say we agree regarding this key question! To date Chapel Hill 2020 leadership, town staff and citizen stakeholders have invested a great deal of time and energy into this process, and we are committed to its success. However, we think that, at this critical point, it is important for council to redefine the product so that it is truly a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153vision\u00e2\u20ac\u009d document that addresses the broad goals and objectives of our community.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, we feel that they should work with CH2020 leadership and stakeholders to establish a process for additional public discussion of land-use decisions. <\/p>\n<p>Finally, we have requested that maps and results of the Future Focus mapping exercises be left out of the June comprehensive plan, as we feel that they are not yet representative of citizen opinion and input. <\/p>\n<p>Making these adjustments could push the deadline into fall. But most communities take 18-24 months to create a comprehensive plan; we took about that long to create the 2000 comprehensive plan. Additional time would bring opportunities for meaningful citizen discussion of the assumptions and the vision, including goals and objectives, to articulate what&#8217;s important to the entire community.<\/p>\n<p><em>Dave Sidor is a participant in the Chapel Hill 2020 process. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During the March 26 Chapel Hill Town Council meeting a large group of citizens \u00e2\u20ac\u201c representing various neighborhoods and CH2020 theme groups \u00e2\u20ac\u201c related many concerns and suggestions about the ongoing Chapel Hill 2020 process.<\/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-24812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24812","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=24812"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24816,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24812\/revisions\/24816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}