
{"id":6259,"date":"2009-06-18T09:00:58","date_gmt":"2009-06-18T17:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=6259"},"modified":"2009-06-18T09:00:58","modified_gmt":"2009-06-18T17:00:58","slug":"county-votes-4-3-to-consider-millhouse-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2009\/06\/18\/county-votes-4-3-to-consider-millhouse-site\/","title":{"rendered":"County votes 4-3 to consider Millhouse site"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Taylor Sisk<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Orange County Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday night to keep a Chapel Hill-owned site on Millhouse Road on the table as a potential location for a county solid waste transfer station. The vote came before a packed Southern Human Services Center assembly of citizens, many of whom had just stood to voice their opposition to the site.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nThe 4-3 vote moves forward a proposal to ask the Town of Chapel Hill to formally offer the property, which is north of the town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new operations center. Pending that offer, county staff will conduct a feedback session over the summer and is due to report the findings in August, when the commission returns from summer recess. <\/p>\n<p>Voting for the proposal were Pam Hemminger, Barry Jacobs, Bernadette Pelissier and Steve Yuhasz. Dissenting were board chair Valerie Foushee and commissioners Alice Gordon and Mike Nelson. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The public should not perceive that the vote last night was an indication that a decision has been made,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Pelissier said on Wednesday. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about keeping the doors open.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Judging from those gathered Tuesday night though, the move is not popular. The introduction of Millhouse Road as a potential transfer station site arrived as yet another twist in what was already a protracted site-search process.<\/p>\n<p>In April, after a year-long process, the county identified a 147-acre tract off N.C. 54 in the White Cross community as the best location for the transfer station. Then, in May, came Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s suggestion that the county consider the  Millhouse Road site.<br \/>\nFoy stressed at the time that it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t an offer \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a proposal to sell or lease the land to the county hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t yet been put before the Chapel Hill Town Council \u00e2\u20ac\u201c rather, that he first wanted to gauge the county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interest.<\/p>\n<p>Tuesday night\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s discussion of the Millhouse site began with Bob Sallach of Olver Inc. reporting on his company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s analysis of the site, as requested by commissioners at their May 19 meeting. Olver is the consulting firm hired by the county to establish criteria, conduct the search and advise the commissioners on the selection of a site.<\/p>\n<p>The Millhouse site had been considered in the original site search, but Sallach said it had scored low due to several factors, including poor access and inadequate buffering.<\/p>\n<p>The Town of Chapel Hill has offered to allow transfer station traffic to use an access road through its operations center, which Sallach said improved the site\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ranking.  <\/p>\n<p>Considerations in the site\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s favor, Sallach said, include its proximity to the areas of heaviest waste generation and to existing collection routes and the fact that governmental facilities are already there.<\/p>\n<p>A majority of those in attendance Tuesday night were unconvinced. When, during the public comments session, Millhouse Road resident Robert Long asked those who oppose consideration of the site to stand, about two-thirds of the 100-plus gathered did so.<\/p>\n<p>Most who spoke were puzzled that the site had withstood the scrutiny of the county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s community-specific criteria, which includes environmental-justice concerns as well as consideration of the number of residents affected and proximity to schools, churches and recreational sites.<\/p>\n<p>Millhouse Road runs off Eubanks Road to the north, and the intersection of Millhouse and Eubanks is a half-mile from the entrances to the landfill. Millhouse and Rogers-Eubanks residents have stressed that they have long considered themselves to be of one community and have argued that putting a transfer station so close to the landfill would mean that community would further bear the burden of waste disposal after 37 years of proximity to the landfill. <\/p>\n<p>The site is also adjacent to the Emerson Waldorf School, and several parents and board members and a student at the school expressed their concerns Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p>After hearing from the public, Commissioner Mike Nelson voiced his dissatisfaction with the turn of events.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where this got off track,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153was with this last-minute, 11th-hour offer, which might not even be an offer.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Nelson said that Rogers-Eubanks residents had been promised that if they were against the Millhouse Road site, it would be removed from consideration.<\/p>\n<p>Foushee was at the meeting with residents and Chapel Hill representatives in which the promise was made.<\/p>\n<p>Nelson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s comments, Foushee said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153are not only his opinion, but fact.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d She said that she indicated at the time that if the residents were against the idea, she was not interested in entertaining it, and added, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still not interested in entertaining it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, Nelson said reopening the process after first selecting Eubanks Road as the site of the transfer station was not only about siting a facility but, equally, about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153rebuilding trust with a part of the community that feels, rightly or wrongly, that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been lied to by local government.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We were on the verge of rebuilding bridges and rebuilding trust,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Nelson said. That, he believes, has been squandered.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A transfer station timeline<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>March 2007: The county commission votes to place a solid waste transfer station on the site of the Eubanks Road landfill.<\/p>\n<p>November 2007: Commissioners decide to reopen the search after an outcry from Rogers-Eubanks residents and others.<\/p>\n<p>May 2008: Commissioners approve exclusionary criteria to guide it in its search for a site for a transfer station.<\/p>\n<p>October 2008: The county narrows its search to three sites, eliminating the Eubanks Road location.<\/p>\n<p>April 2009: The county identifies a 147-acre tract off N.C. 54 in the White Cross community as the best location for the station.<\/p>\n<p>May 2009: Chapel Hill May Kevin Foy suggests a 32-acre Chapel Hill-owned property on Millhouse Road as a potential site for the transfer station. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Taylor Sisk Staff Writer The Orange County Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday night to keep a Chapel Hill-owned site on Millhouse Road on the table as a potential location for a county solid waste transfer station. The vote came before a packed Southern Human Services Center assembly of citizens, many of whom had just&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6259","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=6259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6260,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6259\/revisions\/6260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}