
{"id":26435,"date":"2012-06-14T11:54:35","date_gmt":"2012-06-14T15:54:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=26435"},"modified":"2012-06-14T11:54:35","modified_gmt":"2012-06-14T15:54:35","slug":"shelve-dont-expedite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2012\/06\/14\/shelve-dont-expedite\/","title":{"rendered":"Shelve, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expedite"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Mindy Morton<\/strong><br \/>\nOn June 19 the developers of Claremont South subdivision, Parker Louis LLC, are going to ask the Carrboro Board of Aldermen to expedite the process of obtaining a conditional-use permit. Their hope is to be able to sell their parcel of land to the National Heritage Academies for the purpose of constructing the Howard and Lillian Lee Scholars Charter School. <\/p>\n<p>This charter school has already faced controversy from our community. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education and local chapter of the NAACP oppose the school, saying that it is not needed in this county. The school is not needed in our district, and the impact of the school will actually do more harm than good. Since the school cannot be built by August 2012, their current State Board of Education application is now null and void. They have submitted a new application, stating that the school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s delay was due to difficulties in obtaining land. The parcel of land off Homestead Road is land they needed. However, if the application is not approved and the land is already being prepped for the school site, we will end up with empty land or, worse, an empty building filling our landscape.<\/p>\n<p>This location for the school is also being opposed by many neighboring subdivisions. The traffic concerns that already exist due to added day-care centers and the number of high school drivers along Homestead Road are very troubling to the citizens in this area. If this conditional-use permit is expedited by the board of aldermen, a rushed traffic study may not best express the issues the increased traffic will create. Charter schools don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t provide busing, so the parents bringing their students to school would add tremendously to the congestion at drop-off and pick-up time. There is no public transportation at this end of Homestead Road either, so a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153greener\u00e2\u20ac\u009d alternative is not an option.<\/p>\n<p>Heavy exhaust fumes and wasted gas by parents are not the only environmental concerns involved with the placement of this school. It is being opposed by the Friends of Bolin Creek and other environmental-protection agencies. There are horned owls that live in the forests around this parcel of land. There are also large numbers of deer, foxes and other wildlife that would lose their habitats if this area of land were to be plowed down. The land is adjacent to Bolin Creek, a tributary of Jordan Lake. The Bolin Creek watershed has been identified by the State Division of Water Quality as a 303(d) impaired stream. Many EPA grants have been obtained and battles fought to keep our watershed areas clean and unpolluted. <\/p>\n<p>Carrboro is required by state law to reduce nutrient loading into Jordan Lake by 35 percent total nitrogen and 5 percent total phosphorous. Of the three sub-watersheds feeding Jordan Lake, this one has the largest nutrient reduction requirements. The Claremont South development as it is proposed contains a very high level of impervious surface. Though some aids have been proposed by the developer to help with runoff, they do not address the total volume of the stormwater entering the creek or the erosion that would occur.<\/p>\n<p>With so much opposition from our town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leaders and neighboring residents, I believe the board of aldermen should not act in haste. <\/p>\n<p>Aldermen, please consider these land and zoning changes carefully. Do not expedite the conditional-use permit. Take your time and be sure this is what is best for everyone and everything in our town.<\/p>\n<p>Readers, please let the Carrboro aldermen know of your concerns for our community and how you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to see the changes in our area addressed. It is up to all of us to let our concerns be known, so our elected officials can act in the best interests of everyone.<\/p>\n<p><em>Mindy Morton is a resident of Claremont. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On June 19 the developers of Claremont South subdivision, Parker Louis LLC, are going to ask the Carrboro Board of Aldermen to expedite the process of obtaining a conditional-use permit.<\/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-26435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26435","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=26435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26436,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26435\/revisions\/26436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}