
{"id":26517,"date":"2012-06-21T10:20:06","date_gmt":"2012-06-21T14:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=26517"},"modified":"2012-06-27T19:10:43","modified_gmt":"2012-06-27T23:10:43","slug":"claremont-plans-worry-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2012\/06\/21\/claremont-plans-worry-public\/","title":{"rendered":"Claremont plans worry public"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Susan Dickson<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>CARRBORO \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Following the April approval of the second iteration of Claremont South, the developer has again proposed revising the development, this time such that it could include a hotly contested charter school. <\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, the Carrboro Board of Aldermen reviewed only the affordable-housing component of the project, proposed for 38 acres on the south side of Homestead Road, north of Wexford. The board had been previously scheduled to consider an expedited review of the modified project, but the developer withdrew that request late last week and has yet to submit a formal application for the modifications. <\/p>\n<p>In 2009, the board approved Claremont Phases IV and V, which were proposed to include 96 residential units on the same property. However, Omar Zinn of Parker Louis LLC, the developer, returned to the board in 2010 to discuss the state of the housing market, and then worked to develop a revised proposal including 92 single-family residences and a small commercial component, which the board approved in April. <\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, Zinn came back to the town with early plans to again revise the project to increase the amount of commercial land, add a charter school to the site, change a portion of the housing to either townhomes or apartments and increase the overall density to 117 residential units. <\/p>\n<p>Zinn said the residential units would consist of 37 single-family homes and 70 to 80 multi-family units, either townhomes or apartments. Twenty-five percent of the units would be size-limited units, per the town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s requirements. The town requires developers to either include 25 percent size-limited units or 15 percent affordable housing. <\/p>\n<p>When developers choose not to include affordable housing, they are required to meet with the board to discuss it. More details regarding the project will come back before the board in the fall, after the application has been formalized. <\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, neighbors, school-district officials and others have expressed concern about the inclusion of the charter school in the project. The school \u00e2\u20ac\u201c\u00c2\u00a0the Howard and Lillian Lee Scholars Charter School \u00e2\u20ac\u201c has been the subject of controversy since its application was first submitted to the state, receiving criticism from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP. Both organizations have raised concerns about the school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s for-profit management company, National Heritage Academies, and say the school targets minority students, which would lower diversity rates in schools.<\/p>\n<p>The school received fast-track approval to open this fall from the State Board of Education earlier this year, but reapplied to open in 2013 after notifying the state Department of Public Instruction that it would need to delay its opening after having experienced delays finding a site.  <\/p>\n<p>The board of aldermen did not discuss the school component of the project or any other details on Tuesday, saying they could not consider details of the project other than its affordable-housing component until the application is formalized, given the quasi-judicial nature of hearings surrounding conditional-use permits. <\/p>\n<p>Several neighbors of the project spoke to the board regarding their concerns, but were repeatedly urged by the board only to discuss the project\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s affordable housing. <\/p>\n<p>Resident Miriam Thompson was critical of the lack of affordable housing in the project, saying that student rentals are taking over what remains of affordable rentals.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They are not providing affordable housing to the people that I represent,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d including children who \u00e2\u20ac\u0153are being traumatized because they are being displaced,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. <\/p>\n<p>Julie McClintock, president of the Friends of Bolin Creek, began to speak regarding environmental impacts of stormwater runoff on Bolin Creek, but was asked to hold her comments until the fall. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m really concerned that you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re putting us in a vulnerable legal position,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d board member Jacquie Gist said in response to McClintock\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attempted comments. <\/p>\n<p>Neighbors also asked for increased transparency in the development process. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following the April approval of the second iteration of Claremont South, the developer has again proposed revising the development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26517","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26517"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26651,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26517\/revisions\/26651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}