6
Monday, October 16,1995
DEVELOPMENT
ROM PAGE 1
costly services that residents do, such as
schools.
Commercial development also brings
jobs, ideally for the residents of the
community. “There are just not a lot of
employment opportunities here,”
Protzman said.
SpatW Constraints
Protzman said the main obstacle to com
mercial development was not the relative
attractiveness of Chapel Hill but a lack of
space. “Businesses are already attracted to
Chapel Hill, but we just need some space
for 4em.”
That is easier said than done.
“Within Chapel Hill itself, the most
pressing development issue is that the
boundary of Chapel Hill is finite, and we
effectively aren’t developing anymore,"
said council candidate Scott Radway.
“Ninety percent of our land is already
developed in some form. Clashes over what
to do become heated.”
Chapel Hill is landlocked bordered
on the north by a rural buffer zone, by
Canboro on the west, and on the east and
south by the county line.
“The Chapel Hill Town Council, the
Canboro Board of Aldermen and the Or
ange County Board ofDirectors in 1987 all
adopted plans calling for the creation of a
rural buffer zone and put in place a regula
tion agreement,” said Roger Walden, plan
ning director for Chapel Hill.
Walden said the buffer zone was in
tended to limit development to areas that
had already been built up. “All three gov
ernments agree that the best thing for the
area is that it stay reasonably compact.”
Under the agreement, development
within the rural buffer zone is limited to
on< unit per two acres in some areas and
one for every five acres in other areas.
A Fnnwott for Pmiopwft lined Use
With the scarcity of space in Chapel
Hill, officials are attempting to design a
framework for development that will make
the most efficient use of land. One such
concept that has gained popularity in city
planning recently is mixed-use develop
ment, which combines retail, offices and
residences within the same area.
“To me, mixed-use development is a
community where residents shop and go to
school and do recreation and all of the
things that people do within one region,”
said council member and candidate Joe
Capowsld. “I think it’s fair to say that all
nine of us on the Council support mixed
use development.”
One of file few areas in Chapel Hill that
may be used for commercial development
in the coming year is a relatively undevel
oped parcel in the northwest comer of the
town, near the current landfill. No pro
posal for the area has been brought before
die council, but the general plan for its
development isbasedonaversionofmixed-
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use development, modified for only com
mercial use.
“The most significant thing that the
northwest area plan would allow or create
is anew zoning category an employ
ment campus zone,” said council member
and candidate Mark Chilton. “The con
cept is to create land and buildings that are
suitable for a wide variety of uses, includ
ing light manufacturing or reprocessing
type facilities.”
Ted Abernathy, director of the Orange
County Economic Development Commis
sion, said that currently there was no place
for such businesses in Chapel Hill and that
the northwest area was a prime location for
the commercial mixed-use development of
an employment campus zone.
“The area is surrounded by railway,
highway and electric wire,” he said. “It’s
not a good place for low-density residential
development. But it makes good sense for
small businesses or for companies that do
research and development.
“Mixed use can work, and there arealot
of examples of it working,” Abernathy
said. “The Ttmberlyne area in Chapel Hill
is a fairly clear area of mixed use. You have
a real mix of residential, office and com
mercial space.”
The area includes a day care center, a
movie theater, a grocery store and a retire
ment community, as well as a concentra
tion of apartments and neighborhoods.
“The people are no more than two blocks
from the services they need,” Abernathy
said.
While council members overwhelm
ingly support mixed use, they are deeply
divided on what constitutes a good devel
STATE & NATIONAL
opment plan.
A case in point is the Meadowmont
proposal—recently approved by a Coun
cil vote of 5-4—which includes plans for
a hotel, a commercial center, an office
complex and a wellness center.
“I had some concerns about the inten
sity, but I was more concerned about the
kind of commercial development we’d have
there,” Chilton said.
One of Chilton’s criticisms of
Meadowmont was that the development
plan lacked details. “All we knew was the
total square footage in certain areas. There
wasnothingtosay(thedeveloper)couldn’t
build a huge Wal-Mart,” he said.
Capowski voiced concerns about the
scope of Meadowmont, the largest devel
opment ever in Chapel Hill. “I’m not sure
it was a true mixed-use proposal. It was for
a major commercial center oriented to
ward central North Carolina, with residen
tial development attached,” he said. “That
hotel is not going to serve the local resi
dents.”
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In addition to forming their own views
on what development should take place in
Chapel Hill, council and mayoral candi
dates are considering the effect develop
ment will have on the town’s future.
“Growth management is probably the
primary issue in this campaign because it
has such impact on all the other facets of
living that affect the community,” said
mayoral candidate Kevin Foy. “How we
manage growth will determine what the
community is like years down the road.”
Capowsld said it was important to in
corporate businesses into the community
in ways that maintained Chapel Hill’s ap
peal.
“There are three things that attract
people to (live in) Chapel Hill: UNC, the
hospitals and the school system. We can
not do anything to upset the attractiveness
of three things.
“Nobody says, ‘I came here because of
the quality of shopping or because of the
quality of the restaurants on Franklin
Street,”’ Capowsld said.
Council candidate Todd Goodson said
Chapel Hill government officials needed
to supervise development in order to pre-
Bosnian Refugees Struggle to Survive
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina
—Fighting ebbed Sunday in northwestern
Bosnia, where up toso,oooexhausted Serbs
were struggling to survive after fleeing ad
vances by government and Croat forces.
In a bitter twist in the three-year-long
war, many of the refugees are now at
Omarska, site of one of the most notorious
prison camps set up when Serb rebels over
ran much of Bosnia in 1992.
A field hospital has been treating both
civilians and soldiers wounded in the latest
fighting. Aid workers say some older refu
gees are dying, apparently exhausted after
being uprooted by rapid shifts in front lines
in northern Bosnia in the past six weeks.
The U.S.-brokered truce which started
Thursday was largely observed through
out the country, U.N. officials said Sun
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serve file ambience of the town. “We can
maintain the village atmosphere as long as
we keep a close eye on what is being built. ”
Radway said it was important for the
community to agree upon and promote a
vision of its future character. He suggested
that Chapel Hill draw inspiration from the
successes or failures of other communities
in the area of development “If you don’t
start the process broadly, you won’t get to
see how other people foiled,” he said.
Foy said it was important to avoid en
croaching upon green space and bike paths.
“(Chapel Hill) is a contained unit, and we
can’t assume we’re going to violate the
rural buffer zone,” he said. “We have to
say we’re not going to go past that and that
we’re not going to build on every square
inch of land in Chapel Hill.”
MMhfbtfct light Mkm
Some council candidates said they be
lieved development could be responsibly
implemented if it was restricted to the right
areas.
Chilton said the best way to protect
rural areas was to develop some of the
more urban areas.
“This is an urban area, and we should be
urban in some ways, not on the same scale
as Detroit or New York, but let’s not pre
tend that one house per acre is a good way
to develop land.”
The rural buffer zone is a fundamental
piece of Chapel Hill’s growth manage
ment system, Walden said. “I think that
(candidates’) standing behind those rural
buffer zones is, long-term, one of the most
important filings for the community," he
said. “There’s a good set of policies in
place to manage growth and keep us com
pact”
Walden, the town planning director,
said the rural buffer theoretically could be
eliminated some day. “Of course it could
—if the government policies were changed
and the oldplans were rqected. Thiswould
not be easy," he said. “It would have to be
day.
The Muslim-led Bosnian government
claimed on Saturday that it was halting its
offensive, amid reports Seibia had to
threaten to send in the Yugoslav army.
Government army commanders met for
five hours in the Bosnian capital late Satur
day and dispatched a senior officer to the
bitterly contested northwest, apparently to
ensure government troops there observed
the truce, army sources said.
Bosnian Sob military sources cited by
the Belgrade news agency Tanjug, how
ever, claimed fierce fighting continued in
the northwest Sunday, including govern
ment shelling of Serb-held Prijedor. There
was no independent confirmation.
Muslims and Croats in the northwest
have a powerful motive to keep fighting:
revenge for reported Serb atrocities during
8 ally iar H*rl
by the agreement ofall three governments.”
Incumbent Protzman said commercial
development did not necessarily threaten
the town environment.
“The thoughtful use of land by busi
nesses is in some ways more environmen
tally sound than hundreds of one-acre resi
dences,” Protzman said. “When people
talk about environmental concerns with
development, it’s really just rhetoric.”
Slater said he thought the town had
woiked out an effective development ordi
nance over the last 15 years. “We’ve done
well in Chapel Hill protecting the environ
ment. The best evidence is that people
want to come and live here.”
While most of the large tracts of land in
Chapel Hill have already been developed,
development will continue in the next year
on a smaller scale, said J.B. Culpepper,
development coordinator for Chapel Hill.
“There are still undeveloped parcels,
although often we find that they have use
constraints such as difficult topography,"
Culpepper said.
During the next year, the University
will deride how to develop its two outlying
properties, the Mason Farm and Horace
Williams tracts. In addition, several devel
opment projects—on a smaller scale than
Meadowmont will come before the
council.
Such projects include: a 240-apartment
complex near the Timberlyne shopping
center, a 151 -lot subdivision tailed Parkside
off of Highway 86, OWASA’s request to
construct a water tower near the
University’s cogeneration facility, and a
request for re-zoning 2.2 acres in the
Cameron-Macauley historic district.
Capowski said he believed that with the
exception of Meadowmont development
had not been too fast. “We have a vety
cumbersome land use review process, but
a lot of public input generates higher qual
ity projects,” he said. “Town government
sacrifices some efficiency for public in
put.”
the Serb takeover of the region in spring
and summer 1992.
John Sparrow of the international Red
Cross said Saturday that some of the Serb
refugees were living in a mine that served
as a Serb detention center in 1992, but that
most were in the open.
Prison camps such as the one at Omarska
provided the world with some of the most
gripping images of alleged Serb atrocities
in the war. Footage of emaciated Muslim
prisoners and reports of mass killings fo
cused outrage at the Serbs and helped spur
calls for international action to stop the
war and punish war criminals.
Sparrow said he had no exact figures on
how many of the Serb refugees have died.
“Some of them have been uprooted
three or four times as the front lines have
come ar.dgpne," Sparrow said.