TO: Chapel Hill Town Council
UNC-CH Trustees/Chancellor
FROM: David Owens
RE: Staff Drafts for Potential Development Agreement and Ordinance Amendment
DATE: March 31, 2009
The Town and University Joint Staff Work Group (JSWG) has prepared on an initial draft of a potential development agreement for the Carolina North project. That draft, along with the LUMO text amendment, is attached for your review and discussion.
The draft development standards and mitigation measures are in Exhibit G of the draft development agreement. This is the new part of this material. The draft standards in Exhibit G reflect consideration of the discussions the Council and Trustees have conducted since January, the work of joint Town and University staff groups, and public comments. The LUMO text and body of the development agreement have modest edits, but are essentially similar to the drafts distributed in early February (those are visible in the “track changes” option for those documents).
On a number of topics the draft standards have language that we feel captures a broad staff consensus of the direction you have given us. These will certainly need additional public review and discussion by the Council and Trustees, but a good deal of progress has been made on these topics. There are several key issues where additional Council and Trustee direction is needed. We have tried to provide options in this draft for you to consider as those discussions proceed.
The process going forward is to continue discussion of these draft standards over the month of April. There are two meetings scheduled to brief town advisory boards and the public on this package of materials and seek their comments. The April 1 meeting will focus on an update of the University’s proposal and the overall proposed development review process. The April 16 meeting will focus on the draft standards in Exhibit G. In addition to questions and comments at these sessions, each advisory board will also take up the package in their regularly scheduled meetings over the next two months. These materials will also be immediately posted on the Town (and University) web sites and additional public comment solicited there. Staff is also nearing completion of a matrix that will facilitate comparison of these standards to the recommendations of the Horace Williams Citizen Committee report. The Council has set a work session on April 8 to discuss this and there is an extended Council-Trustees work session set for April 22. This process leads to completion by the end of April on the package that will be sent out for formal public review in comment at hearings set for May and June.-
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