MINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE MAYOR AND COUNCIL OF THE TOWN OF

CHAPEL HILL,  MONDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1996 AT 7:00 P.M.

 

 

Meeting Agenda:

 

1.    Presentation of annual Community Appearance Awards   (Page 1)

2.    Petitions by Citizens and Council Members   (Page 5)

3.    Consent Agenda   (Page 7)

a.  Minutes of August 24, 26, and September 18

b.  Paving part of Lone Pine Road with assessments (R-2) (Page 8)

c.  Submittal to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development of a report

on the use of federal Comprehensive Grant funds for public housing renovations

and related services (O-0.1) (Page 9)

d.  Adjusting work hours of two positions in the Finance Department (O-1) (Page 10)

4.    Information Reports   (Page 10)

5.    Applications for Southern Village development  (Page 10)

6.    Public Housing Matters  (Page 11, 23)

7.    Solid Waste Management Issues  (Page 11)

8.    Color and Lighting Options for Hilltop elevated water tank  (Page 31)

9.    Transportation Priorities for the 1998-2004 T.I.P  (Page 35)

10.   Comprehensive Plan   (Page 42)

11.   Traffic Calming and use of Single-occupant vehicles  (Page 50)

12.   Stormwater impact statement requirements  (Page 55)

13.   Home Occupation ordinance changes  (Page 58) 

 

 

 

 

Mayor Waldorf called the meeting to order at 7:02 p.m.  Council Members in attendance were

Julie Andresen, Joyce Brown, Joe Capowski, Mark Chilton, Pat Evans, Richard Franck, Lee

Pavao and Edith Wiggins.  Also in attendance were Town Manager Cal Horton, Assistant Town

Managers Sonna Loewenthal and Florentine Miller, Housing Director Tina Vaughn, Solid Waste

Director Gayle Wilson, Planning Director Roger Waldon and Town Attorney Ralph Karpinos.

                                                                 

Item 1   Presentation of Annual Community Appearance Awards

 

Mayor Waldorf    Good evening and welcome to this regular meeting of the Chapel Hill Town

Council. We get to begin this meeting with a very special ceremony. For the 5th year in a row the

town Appearance Commission will be presenting the Community Appearance Awards and

tonight is a special occasion because two awards are being dedicated to the service of three very

special people in Chapel Hill. At this point I'd like to call on Diane Bachman, the Chairman of

the Appearance Commission to tell us a little bit about the special awards and then she'll turn it

over to Joan Page to present this year's Community Appearance Awards.

 

Diane Bachman  Good evening, Mayor, Council Members, guests and staff. As current chair of

the Appearance Commission I am delighted this evening to present the fifth annual awards

program for Chapel Hill. The Appearance Commission Awards were established in 1991 by the

Commission to emphasize the importance it places on publicly recognizing the efforts of

citizenry who have made significant contributions to the enhancement of the natural and built

environment in our community.  It is our goal that by doing the awards program we increase

public awareness of the effects and the importance of appearance on the quality of life for Chapel

Hill. At our September meeting this fall the Appearance Commission voted unanimously to

name two of our awards in honor of three Chapel Hillians who have given of their time and effort

over the last few decades to our community.  Bob Stipe is the first one that we will announce this

evening and the second one is for  Jean and Pearson Stewart.  Bob Stipe is one of the leading

architectural land designers in Chapel Hill.  His knowledge, whether it be in environment

development or history, has had a long-standing contribution to Chapel Hill as well as

communities across North Carolina. He has been a primary author of State legislation that has

affected the appearance and historic preservations for Chapel Hill.  He also served as a charter

member on the Appearance Commission and the Historic District Commission and one of his

noteworthy accomplishments was the drafting of the initial rules for Chapel Hill's Appearance

Commission. Most recently he has served on the Design Review Board for our community. Bob

Stipe has been a contemporary force in setting high design standards in Chapel Hill and working

diligently to see that these are met. Would you come up for a moment please?

 

Bob Stipe   I'm very deeply honored by the award having been named for me. If there are two

people who are responsible for it, one is my wife Josie and the other is a gentleman who's not

here tonight.  His name is Jim Webb, who has been a surrogate father to me for forty years now,

since the time I entered Planning School.  There's a kind of delicious irony in this year's awards

because the idea for the Appearance Commission goes back to an attempt to prevent the erection

of a hamburger stand on the corner of Franklin and Columbia Streets, the land owned by the

Baptist Church. I won't go into the history of that legislation but as I look back on those times,

the chairman of the League of Municipalities Legislative Committee took one look at that bill

and said "Well, a wacky idea like this could only come from Chapel Hill but we won't oppose it"

and they didn't.  Today I learned from the director of Scenic North Carolina that there are sixty-

five official Appearance Commissions and another fifty or sixty operating similar operations. I

think the idea started here and  I think Chapel Hill deserves much credit for it.  Thank you for the

honor.

 

Diane Bachman   Our second honor award is named for Jean and Pearson Stewart who have

spent decades working for the betterment of Chapel Hill.  Mr. Stewart, among some of his many

notable contributions, prepared the blueprint for a new idea in this region at that time called the

Research Triangle Park which some of us are somewhat familiar with.  In the 1960's he prepared

the first comprehensive land use plan for this area, titled, A Guide to the Growth of the Research

Triangle Region. He worked diligently to establish the Triangle Land Conservancy which has

resulted in permanent reservation of hundreds of acres of very sensitive open space surrounding

Chapel Hill.  His wife, Jean Stewart, served from 1968 to 1980 on the Appearance Commission.

She has cared for the crype myrtles which adorn Franklin Street which we are all very familiar

with. I know we appreciate when we are in our downtown area and has worked diligently as a

volunteer clearing many of our walking trails in the community.  Last but not least she has been a

notable Council watcher involved with almost every meeting, if not every meeting that the

council has had in our community. Recently, her diligence has paid off with the dedication of the

Jean Stewart Collection to the town. This is a compilation of minutes and records and has filled

in precious gaps in the official town archives.  Mr. Stewart, would  you come up for a moment

please?

 

Pearson Stewart     I appreciate Bob Stipe's remarks.  One thing he left out was that in 1955 I

was involved in preparation of a special study of hurricane rehabilitation measures for North

Carolina and that study was reviewed and edited by Bob Stipe and for that I appreciate his help

very much. Jean and I are honored to have the award named in our names, recognizing our

efforts for conservation and stewardship of the land.  At any one time, it is easy to see all the

conservation problems that exist and they are very real.  However, it is also true that over the

years there has been a very marked improvement in the quality of land conservation efforts and

results. Efforts by local governments and organizations and individuals, especially in the Chapel

Hill and Orange County areas. Jean and I feel that it has been a great privilege to have been a part

of those efforts and to urge their continuance. Thank you.

 

Diane Bachman  Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Stewart.  Nominations are accepted each year through

June and a panel of judges meets in September and awards are done at a special Town Council

meeting each October. You will see the awards nominations. We have a group of these on the

table outside so if you happen to want to pick one up on your way out and start for next year,

everyone on the Commission would certainly appreciate your involvement. We'd like to thank

Council Member Evans for her support as the Council Liaison to the Appearance Commission

and Dave Roesler and Kay Tapp who are our stalwart and diligent staff support on a constant

basis. The Appearance Commission invites everyone to participate in next year's award program.

Those not receiving awards this year are eligible for renomination next year. I'd like to recognize

the other members of the Appearance Commission who are here tonight. We have Nancy Gabriel

who is constantly instrumental in our program. Joan Page another constant, Terry Eason, a very

important part of our Commission and that's if for this evening.  We also have Jim Ellis and

Chip Wood and Bill Mullen as members of our Commission.  Now I'd like to turn the awards

program over to Joan Page.

 

Joan Page  Thank you Diane. First I'd like to recognize our panel of judges who met five days

after Fran stormed through town to sit down and look at the community and what was left of its

appearance.  First we have Mary Reeb, an architectural historian and chairman of the Planning

Board in Chapel Hill.  We have Catherine Ward, the first woman to be licensed in North

Carolina as a landscape architect and Josh Gurlitz, an architect and member of the Historic

District Commission and Josh is in Kentucky at a meeting. After I announce each of the seven

winners this year, I'll read some comments from the judges and the people who nominated them

and then I'd like for each project's representative to come down front and receive the framed

certificate from the Appearance Commission and remain standing here until all the winners are

announced and then I think the Council would like to shake your hands.

 

Our very first Bob Stipe Awards goes to Mary Arthur Studemyre.  Mary Arthur is well known in

our community for her constant vigilance and awareness of historical preservation and

community issues. She's even better known for here willingness to stand up and fight when

community treasures are threatened. I've been told many times the Mary Arthur Studemyre is the

one woman you want on your team whatever the cause. She's a walking text of our town's

history and the past president of our Preservation Society.  Currently she's fighting to help save

the McDade house in downtown Chapel Hill on Franklin Street and she's supervising the

restoration of the headstones in the old Chapel Hill Cemetery.

 

The first Pearson and Jean Stewart Award goes to the North Carolina Botanical Garden. Over the

past eighteen months, the staff of the North Carolina Botanical Garden, assisted by the Botanical

Garden Foundation, has brought to life a new and integrated landscape design known as the

Garden Commons this area was created by landscape architect, Tom Hunter of Raleigh. Removal

of old structures and reorganization of plant collections have resulted in the cohesive design of

the half acre site that is attractive, accessible and welcome to all guests. This new focal point for

our State garden includes aquatic and carnivorous plant collections, a native shrub and

wildflower border, patio and plant family gardens, a wildflower and herb sales area. Ellen

Johnson, who I understand is responsible for most of this coordination of the Garden Commons,

will accept the award.

 

Our residential garden winner, this year, is Dorothy Mullen. Ten years in the making, Dorothy's

curbside garden stretches over 200 feet along Caswell Road and is enjoyed daily by all who pass

by. In fact, one of her neighbors who passes by everyday nominated her. A tasteful blend of

annuals and perennials assures an attractive display of blooms from early May until frost in late

October or November. Dogwoods, crepe myrtles and an assortment of fruit trees form a backdrop

for spring bulbs, summer lilies and of course fall's array of mums and pansies. Rose bushes in

every hue line the driveway and three springs converge in the back yard to form a pond. The

plantings enhance the house and the rustic setting and Dorothy does most of the gardening

herself. Dorothy.

 

Caf‚ Driade wins for creative rehabilitation of an existing structure for commercial use. Located

on Stroud Hill, off Franklin Street, Caf‚ Driade is the result of the creative rehabilitation of a

former cottage and bookbinding shop into a unique European style coffee and tea house. Durham

designer, Jane Waldon, worked with owner Larry Hayes and Manager, Linda Holland, to achieve

a style that she describes as "custom funk".  A host of local artists and artisans have pitched in

and embellished the site with amusing crafts.  You'll see colorful tiles, scrap metal some stucco,

stained glass, a sand sculpture, a ceramic urn and an antique fountain competing for attention.

The tasteful yet adventurous modifications have transformed a modest mundane building into a

charming gathering place for our community. Larry Hayes, the owner will accept the award.

 

Next we have the Gables on Airport Road for landscaping.  A highly visible condominium

building on a corner lot, the Gables is landscaped with over four hundred shrubs and trees.

Resident Marvin Shenal chairs the grounds committee and oversees this project. This project was

selected for the scale of its landscaping as well as the texture and the seasonal variety of its

plantings. One section on the side of the building features native North Carolina shrubs and

perennials.  Accent and screening plants are especially effective and the abundance of flowers is

enjoyed by residents, motorists and walkers year-round. Larry Comoil, the secretary treasurer of

the Gables Association will accept the award.

 

Our neighborhood development award goes to Hundred Oaks. Located on 37 hilltop acres off

Mount Carmel Church Road, this site is the remaining parcel of  a one hundred year old farm

which now contains approximately one hundred century-old oaks and I understand that only two

of them were knocked down during the hurricane.  The site designed for Hundred Oaks calls for

the renovation of the farm house and creates a 1« acre central park as the neighborhood focus.

There are connections to yet another  1« acres common recreation area which includes a pond.

The first tier of single family lots faces the park while the second tier is provided with an

undisturbed hillside and vegetation buffer that is a permanent conservation easement. Developer,

John Hanson, has provided a unique site plan that respects nature and where the homes and the

land are juxtaposed and synergised and augment each other. Developer John Hanson will accept

the award.

 

Our 7th award goes to Top of the Hill for excellence in design for commercial use. Located on

the highly  visible corner  of Franklin and Columbia Streets, Top of the Hill is a prominent  three

story mixed-use building which displays sensitivity to the character of the historic downtown

streetscape.  In respect for the scale of adjacent buildings, the new structure sits back from

Franklin Street and a cornice continues the line of emphasis along the three-storey Columbia

Street frontage.  Projected bay windows, awnings and outdoor rooftop dining area add interest.

The project exhibits a blend of modern facilities in a facade that fits with the downtown's vintage

mercantile and colonial revival architecture.  Scott Maitland, one of the managers will accept the

award. Congratulations to all of our winners and I believe the Town Council would like to shake

your hands.

 

Mayor Waldorf  We would love to shake the hands of all the winners and I propose that we all

give a standing ovation to all the winners. Again I'd like to thank Joan Page and Diane Bachman

and all the members of the Appearance Commission who put all this together. I know it's a lot of

work and both the Council and the Town and the recipients appreciate it.  We're going to move

on to the rest of our meeting now. We have no public hearings tonight. We have a petition first

by Mr. Howard Krasnow of  The Lake Forest Association.

 

Item 2   Petitions

 

Howard Krasnow    I am Howard Krasnow, chairman of the Lake Forest Association which is a

non-profit corporation that owns and operates Eastwood Lake. It consists of the residents of the

Lake Forest Estates section of town, approximately 320 homeowners. We are very concerned

with the progressive deterioration of the lake as a consequence of silt which is deposited with

stormwater run-off and has been for many years. This is, we believe, in part the responsibility of

the Town in terms of the management of the construction process throughout the watershed

which has partly been responsible for this situation. More to the point, we believe that the Town

has a very significant stake in the long term viability and health of that lake. It's an important

asset, not just to us clearly, but to the town at large. So we are submitting a petition which seeks

not to get financial assistance as we go forward with trying to deal with this problem but seeks to

get technical and administrative support from the Town in a number of areas we think could be

very helpful to us in the planning and executing of removing the silt ultimately from the lake. If I

may, I'd like to just briefly highlight some sections from the petition and not read it in full. We

say, for example, that "whereas officials of the Town have publicly stated that the Town's

erosion and sedimentation control measures are inadequate to eliminate soil run-off. And

whereas the Town does have a strategic interest in Eastwood Lake as part of the overall storm

water management infrastructure and whereas the decline in the water capacity of the lake (we

estimate that we have already lost 20% of the capacity of the lake in the last 10 to 15 years) puts

not only the lake at risk but downstream areas potentially subject to increased flooding such as

Eastgate and other areas downstream on Booker Creek.  And whereas Eastwood Lake certainly

enhances the property value of the homeowners in our area and that benefits primarily the town

in the form of higher tax base so the town has a stake at that level. And finally, that when we do

have to intervene to remove the silt we estimate that the cost could well exceed, to us, half a

million dollars.

 

So what we are seeking from the Town by way of petition is technical engineering, logistical and

legal support such as help, guidance with respect to local, state, federal laws and regulations that

have to be dealt with.  Much greater efforts on the part of the town to control runoff to the lake,

particularly in the light of construction that's now planned, especially Route NC 86. That is a

major concern to us. Help with the disposition of the silt that gets moved, that can be the most

costly part of the process and to the extent that the town assist us with either making use of the

landfill, capping the landfill or whatever. That would be a major help to us. Assisting in the

construction of access roads. There are plans on the books.  I guess as part of the bond issue was

for a bridge over Booker Creek on North Lakeshore Drive. As part of that construction process it

may be possible to facilitate access for purposes of sedimentation removal. Assisting with the

design of control systems so that in the future, if we do this once we don't have to keep doing it

at a huge expense periodically. Engineering support, support in the permitting process, support

possibly in identifying funding opportunities where we might find ways to gain some kind of

assistance or to alleviate the financial burden. So we hope that you will consider this seriously

and give this your attention. We thank you very much.

 

COUNCIL MEMBER EVANS MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER

ANDRESEN, TO RECEIVE AND REFER THE PETITION.

 

Council Member Andresen    I'd just like for the Manager to come back and see what he thinks

would be practical of this list that's been presented to us.  I agree with the speaker that the lake is

an important part of our stormwater management system.

 

Mayor Waldorf    I would agree with that. I think your petition is very well thought out and well

worded and we'll give it good attention.

 

THE MOTION TO REFER WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).

 

Thank you Mr. Krasnow. Are there other petitions by citizens? I don't have anyone else signed

up. Are there any petitions by council members?

 

Council Member Brown  Yes, this afternoon I received a letter from a citizen who's concerned

about the Police  Department firing range.  There's also been a story in one of the local papers

about this. I would, if the rest of the Council agrees, would like to have the Manager look at this

and bring us back an information report on the firing range in response to this letter.

 

Mayor Waldorf   You mean the firing range where the police officers do their weapons

training?

 

Council Member Brown   Yes, and what the Town connection is. Just a general information

report to see if we can go anywhere from there.

 

Mayor Waldorf   Is it agreeable to the council that we get a report on that from the Manager?

Okay. Any other petitions?

 

Council Member Andresen     Yes, I just had one regarding the condition of city streets and

particularly connected to the hurricane Fran because of the heavy equipment. I have noticed that

streets in my own neighborhood are breaking up. What happens, of course, is that if these aren't

attended to before frost comes, of course frost is coming very soon, moisture gets in there and the

streets heave and it's much more difficult to repair them. So I'm just concerned in general what

this is going to do to our regular maintenance program for our streets and wanted to ask the

Town Manager if he'd give us a report on that. When is that regular assessment due, Mr.

Manager?

 

Town Manager Horton     We usually do it in the spring of the year, as I recall so that we're

able to take advantage of it in planning the pavement work that we're going to do in the summer.

But I certainly understand the point that you're making and I think it would be worthwhile to

make a quick assessment at this time.

 

Mayor Waldorf     Any other comments? Is that agreeable to the council to ask the Manager for

that report? There was Council concurrence for the Manager to prepare a follow-up report.  There

appear to be no other petitions from the Council or Manager and Attorney.  Very good, then let's

move on to item 4.1 which is consent agenda. Are there any items that council members wish to

have removed from the Consent Agenda?

 

Item 3   Consent Agenda

 

COUNCIL MEMBER FRANCK MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER PAVAO,

TO ADOPT THE CONSENT AGENDA AS PRESENTED.  THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED

UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).

 

 

A RESOLUTION ADOPTING VARIOUS RESOLUTIONS AND ORDINANCES

(96-10-28/R-1)

 

BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council hereby adopts

the following minutes, resolutions and ordinances as submitted by the Town Manager in regard

to the following:

 

a.  Minutes of August 24, 26 and September 18.

b.  Paving part of Lone Pine Road with assessments (R-2).

c.  Submittal to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development of a report on

the use of federal Comprehensive Grant funds for public housing renovations and

related services (O-0.1).

d.  Adjusting the work hours of two positions in the Finance Department (0-1).

 

This the 28th day of October, 1996.

 

A RESOLUTION ADOPTING AN ASSESSMENT RESOLUTION FOR PAVING A

PORTION OF LONE PINE ROAD (96-10-28/R-2)

 

BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council hereby directs

the Town Manager to undertake the paving of a portion of Lone Pine Road with related

improvements as described in the preliminary resolution adopted by the Council on August 26,

1996.

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED by the Council that pursuant to Article 10 of Chapter 160A of

the North Carolina General Statutes:

 

1. Special assessments shall be levied, after completion and determination of actual final costs

of the improvements, on the basis of frontage abutting the project, at an equal rate per foot

of frontage.

 

2. Fifty percent of actual final costs of the project, including those of construction (excluding

intersections), legal services, interest charges, right-of-way acquisition, and publication

expenses, shall be assessed to the owners of property abutting the project.

 

3. An owner of property abutting the project may pay an assessment in one cash payment for

the entire amount of the assessment, without interest, within 30 days after publication of a

notice of confirmation of the final assessment roll, or in not more than 10 annual

installments, with interest at an annual rate of 6%, the first of which shall be due and

payable concurrently with property taxes, and subsequent annual installments shall be due

and payable on the same date in each successive year until the assessment is paid in full.

 

This the  28th day of October, 1996.

 

AN ORDINANCE TO ESTABLISH A COMPREHENSIVE GRANT PROGRAM (CGP)

PROJECT ORDINANCE (96-10-28/O-0.1)

 

BE IT ORDAINED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that pursuant to Section 13.2

of Chapter 159 of the General Statutes of North Carolina, the following project ordinance is

hereby established:

 

      Section I

 

The projects authorized are the Comprehensive Grant Program (CGP) projects as approved by

the Council on May 29, 1996: funds are as contained in the Amendment to Consolidated

Annual Contributions Contract between the Town and the U.S. Department of Housing and

Urban Development (HUD) dated August 14, 1996.

 

      Section II

 

The Manager of the Town of Chapel Hill is hereby directed to proceed with the project within

the terms of the contract document(s), the Rules and Regulations of the U.S. Department of

Housing and Urban Development, and budget contained herein.

 

      Section III

 

The following revenue is available to complete the project:

 

Comprehensive Grant Program         $380,531

 

      Section IV

 

The following amounts are appropriated for the project as follows:

 

Management Improvements       $ 38,053

Administration                $ 29,637

Dwelling Structures                 $250,004

Fees and Costs                $ 62,837

 

TOTAL             $380,531

 

      Section V

 

The Finance Director is hereby directed to maintain within the Project Fund sufficient specific

detailed accounting records to provide the accounting to HUD as required by the agreement(s)

and federal regulations.

 

 

 

      Section VI

 

Funds may be advanced from the General Funds for the purpose of making payments as due.

Reimbursement requests should be made to HUD in an orderly and timely manner.

 

      Section VII

 

The Manager is directed to report annually on the financial status of each project in Section IV

and on the total revenues received.

 

This the 28th day of October, 1996.

 

AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE POSITION CLASSIFICATION AND PAY PLAN

DATED  OCTOBER 1, 1996 (96-10-28/O-1))

 

BE IT ORDAINED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill as follows:

 

In Section IV, part C, in the  Finance Department DELETE the lines

 

                                    full-time   part-time              

                                    #       hrs.      #        hrs.       Grade No.

Buyer                               -     -     1     30          20

Purchasing Clerk                    -     -     1     30          14

 

 

and ADD the lines

                                    full-time   part-time              

                                    #         hrs.    #        hrs.          Grade No.

Buyer                               1     37.5  -     -           20

Purchasing Clerk                    -     -     1     20          14

 

This the  28th day of October, 1996.

 

Item 4     Information Reports

 

Council Member Andresen   I'd like to remove item a from the Information Reports for

discussion later in the meeting.

 

Item 5    Southern Village Development

 

Mayor Waldorf   All right. A, response to the petition regarding picking up bulky items. We

don't really need to adopt that. Let's move on to item five. This is applications for Southern

Village  development. What we're doing here, I believe, is just procedurally reopening the

hearing on Southern Village  special use permits that are still pending and making a motion to

recess this hearing to.. the proposed date is November 4th.   Mr. Manager is there anything to add

about that?

 

Town Manager Horton   Wouldn't add a thing.

 

COUNCIL MEMBER CHILTON MOVED,  SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER PAVAO,

TO RECESS THE SOUTHERN VILLAGE HEARINGS TO NOVEMBER 4TH.  THE MOTION

WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).

 

Item 6  Public Housing Matters

 

Mayor Waldorf   Is Charlie Zimmerli here yet?  Charlie Zimmerli is the Chair of the Housing

and Community Development Board and he has a report to make in connection with this item so

with the consent of the council, I'd like to just defer this item one by one until Mr. Zimmerli

arrives and then we'll take it up. Is that acceptable. Okay, moving on. I note that we do have

other speakers for item 6 but if you'll wait and then we'll do it all at once.

 

Item 7  Continuation of Discussion on Solid Waste Management Issues

 

Mayor Waldorf   We'll have a report by the Manager and then a report by the Mayor Pro-tem

and then Council discussion.  Mr. Manager.

 

Town Manager Horton   Thank you Madam Mayor and Members of the Council. Although it

was not quite clear whether you wanted us to look at only item two or whether you wanted us to

do items one and two in our review, we felt it would be best and go ahead and do both to resolve

that issue.  What we did was, having heard the conversation of the Council and reviewed the

material available from past discussion, create a list of key functional area for decision making

authority and then do the best that we could to offer possible distinctions between the two

different forms that the Council has been considering. The first form was the County

Commissioners operating with an advisory board, the second was the County Commissioners

operating with a policy board. The fundamental distinction between the two is that the first

option, the advisory board would have no power other than moral persuasion and convincing

argument. They would be advisory only.  In the second, the most fundamental distinction would

be that the policy board actually would be able to determine certain policies, however, we note

that there are a number of things that would have to be approved by the County Commissioners.

I think this table is clear and I would not offer to go through each item on it. I know the Council

members have done that and I think it's more important to reserve all of the time possible for

your discussion. We would be glad to answer any questions that we are able to answer.

 

Mayor Waldorf   Are there any questions that Council would like to ask on this staff report?

Would the Council like to go ahead and hear Joyce's report and deal with this all at once?

 

Council Member Andresen    I just have a quick observation. I think it actually was helpful to

look at two options in terms of comparing what would be the difference between a County board

that was merely an advisory board and a board that would be made up of all the County's

municipalities making policy but having their budget reviewed by the Commissioners, It was

helpful to see that but I also have the idea that we had reached agreement on option two as the

one we fleshed out. And so I guess maybe I've learned a lesson here and maybe the next time we

have a work session, we should all agree before we leave the room exactly what we have agreed

on because it's very clear from talking to other Council Members that we didn't come out of that

room all on the same page.  So I think it's really important when we have work sessions to spend

our extra time to work out the policy decision so it's clear on what our agreements are and what

the next steps are.

 

Mayor Waldorf    Questions? Should we let Joyce go ahead?

 

Council Member Brown    Actually, I didn't think of mine as a report. I thought of mine simply

as questions that I would hope that we discuss as we're going through this whole process.

 

Mayor Waldorf    All right then let's just open this up for discussion from Council Members. I

would just say that, Julie, in response to what you said that I came away with the same

impression that the Manager had which I thought that there was an openness of mind on the part

of the Council to have both options one and two fleshed out. Your point is well taken. Next time

we'll get it clarified.  Comments or questions from council? What do you all want to do? We

need to decide something.

 

Council Member Franck  I'm not sure that we do need to decide anything. I think that the next

step is to wait until the follow-up the Assembly of Governments meeting. I'm surprised, actually,

to see this on the agenda. I'm not sure what more we can do that we haven't done now.

 

Mayor Waldorf    Well, this is on the agenda because I do believe I remember that at that work

session on October 3rd we asked the staff to do this and bring it back and we said when can you

do it and I think they said October 28th.   So that's why it's here..

 

Council Member Brown    I think that there are some things that we need to discuss and decide

before going to that meeting so that we have a clearer idea of where we agree and a majority of

us agree, at least.

 

Council Member Andresen    Just in terms of what we're about here, (just still on maybe the

process here), I think it would be useful for us to come up with, "Yes, this looks like the model

we would really like to pursue and see fleshed out." And then put that on a page or two and put it

forward to the other governments and ask our log representatives to do that. It seems to me, I've

seen some things on paper that Carrboro would like to do. They had a couple representatives sit

down and worked out what they wanted to do. I think we need to put forward what is good for

us. Clearly we're going to arrive at something that's going to meet more of our interests if we put

something forward. So I think that's what we need to do.

 

Council Member Franck   Didn't the council ask Mark and Rosemary to get together and do

something along the lines that Julie is suggesting, flesh out some of these ideas?

 

Mayor Waldorf    Mark, I heard no particular charge in that direction? Did you? It was tossed

out but..

 

Council Member Chilton   That was a little unclear what or when we might meet. My

interpretation is that the majority view on the council last time we discussed this was some

version of option two here and I do recall that Rosemary and I were supposed to get together to

discuss some of the details of that and we have not had a chance to do so.

 

Mayor Waldorf    I don't recall that we were supposed to but I'm willing to.

 

Council Member Chilton    In any case, I guess if the Council is still comfortable with that I'd

be glad to go ahead and do that.  The Landfill Owners Group discussed the other night when to

schedule that, we put in basically a request to Moses and the Mayors for, what date was it to

discuss the Assembly of Governments meeting?   November 13th.  It's a Wednesday.

 

Council Member Franck   It was previously scheduled as a Landfill Owners Group meeting so

we were fairly certain that none of the other boards had any meetings that night.

 

Council Member Chilton  The LOG doesn't have the power to call an Assembly of

Governments meeting so we were just suggesting that date.

 

Mayor Waldorf    Can I ask what sort of an agenda we'd be looking at at that meeting?

 

Council Member Franck    Don and Jackie and I would get together and come up with that

agenda again and I'm frankly not exactly sure where that's going to go but the objective is going

to be to resolve the issue of the organization.

 

Council Member Brown   It seems to me to go to that meeting we need to have at least some

general idea of where the majority of us stand. It's not clear if even though there seem to be a

majority that we're interested in option two.  I think that's at least a starting place for us.

 

Mayor Waldorf     I think we need to talk about it tonight. That's my view.

 

Council Member Evans    As you may recall, I was the one who thought that it might be better

just to turn it over to the elected officials from the county and maybe not have an advisory board

so maybe that's why option one was included. Because it might be palatable to me for the

County Commissioners to have an advisory board but I'm a bit uncomfortable with it being a

policy board because I can envision the same sort of problems that we have encountered in the

past re-occurring again.

 

Joe and I, when we were at the League of Municipalities meeting, met with the director of the

Utilities Commission in Winston-Salem and he told us about how a Utilities Commission was

formed in Winston-Salem. It was primarily due to the fact that, not that elected officials couldn't

agree but that staff couldn't agree. It was composed, the elected officials chose to compose it of

all, to have no elected officials on the Commission and to have it be run like a business. So they

had the chairman of Wachovia as the chairman of the Utilities Commission to start with. They've

continued to have prominent business leaders serve on this commission. I'm not saying that

that's the total direction we want to take although, I think we could do with some financial

expertise in this. And I do think it is a business running a landfill or overseeing the running of a

landfill just like OWASA is. Therefore, I guess I support option 1 because I think that depending

upon who is appointed we can have a broader base rather than just more elected officials. Elected

officials can always have input.  I have county commissioners who call me about things

occasionally, I call county commissioners about issues. I think that there is a dialogue that

naturally occurs there. So  I would support option one.

 

Council Member Pavao    I think when we had our work session, I did not have a clear opinion

as to whether I would prefer an advisory board or a policy board and I think that this exercise that

we've gone through in having option one and option two fleshed out for us..and I read through

option two,  I become more concerned with option two than I do with option one. I think there is

much too much power placed in the policy board and I think in that work session, I said whether

it was an advisory board or a policy board, I felt that the County or the County Commissioners

should have the final authority. I don't see that in here in option two. So not seeing that I think I

would prefer option one and the buck would stop with the County Commissioners.

 

Council Member Andresen    I guess I just wonder where we should start here because it seems

to me like we're going backwards.  We were divided on the three options and we held a work

session and no one was happy early with option two. It was just something everybody said they

could live with. So what I would like to suggest is that we start with option two and see if we can

tweak it so that it can address some of the concerns that Lee or Pat has.  But just to sort of start

and open the whole thing up all over again makes me feel like we wasted a lot of time. I think

everyone is certainly entitled to change their mind but I would like to suggest that we start with

option two and see if we can use that as a starting place and then see if we can address some of

the concerns that have been raised.

 

Council Member Capowski    I agree with something Lee said about option two, that is the

policy board and I have a couple of specific questions. The policy board option two says that the

" County Commissioners can approve or withhold approval of the total budget size but do not

exert direct line item or policy control over the budget."  First of all, is that legal or can the

County Commissioners simply say, "Hey, it's our budget, we can change it on a line by line

basis because it's our budget."

 

Town Manager Horton    We tried to set this up following models that already exist within the

County structure. There is a provision for this kind of model where they do exercise control over

the entire budget, the dollar limit that the budget but refrain from exercising any control over the

line item level. That would typically be the case with a school board budget, for instance, and I

know that Council Member Wiggins is much more familiar with that than I am. I believe that it

also may be the case with the Visitors Bureau Budget. Any group of commissioners, of course I

suppose, could use the power over the total budget to exert effective influence overan line item

when they wished to do so.

 

Council Member Chilton    I actually like the way option two is put forward here and I'd feel

pretty comfortable with it.  I think that basically I perceive one of the fundamental problems that

we have with the current arrangement is that it's unclear as to just who the staff works for. And

I'm not saying this in any way by way of criticism of our landfill staff.  I think they're struggling

with a complex situation but it's really unclear whether their responsibilities are to Cal Horton or

to the Chapel Hill Town Council or to Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County or to the

Landfill Owner's Group, you know, who ultimately they take direction from. Of course,

technically speaking the way that the Landfill Fund is organized that they work for Cal Horton

and they are Chapel Hill Town employees just as the members of the Planning Department are.

 

To me that's one of the problems and it's been one of the areas of conflict that we've come up

against, particularly two years ago in the budget there were disputes that related to this issue.

Option two would clearly resolve that problem. It would resolve that problem because the

Director would be responsible to the policy board.  Option one doesn't really solve that problem.

Option one kind of is a sort of slight shifting around of the current arrangement that we have now

which is that the landfill staff works for one of the local governments and then all the rest of the

local governments have an advisory board which is apparently the Landfill Owners Group in this

case. So I'm not sure that option one would very much help to clarify what the relationship is and

what the role of the advisory board is and what issues are so trivial that they don't have to come

up to the County Commissioners so that they can be decided by the advisory board.

 

Well, in theory, if it's an advisory board no issue is too trivial but in reality there are things that

the Landfill Owners Group decides that never end up coming back to this level because you guys

just don't want to spend your time on it. Of course, that leads into my other concern about option

one which is that our county commissioners are. .. The people who run for county commissioner

are interested in a whole lot of different issues and hopefully solid waste is one of them. But

they've got a lot of issues to deal with whether it's development of farm land or the county

budget and so forth. I can tell you that these solid waste issues are definitely becoming more

complex not less complex, more time consuming and so for me it's a little hard to picture how

the. I mean are the County Commissioners going to schedule an extra meeting once a month to

deal with all the solid waste issues that they would need to deal with? Because I almost believe

that that's what it would take. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that's definitely what it

would take but it would be on that scale, I think.

 

I just can't quite picture the County Commission spending that much time on these issues. On

the other hand, with a policy board, it's possible to appoint a group of people who are interested

in pursuing these issues and want to spend a lot of time talking about them. And the similar thing

could be done with the policy board. I continue to get the impression, and maybe you can correct

me, that one of the concerns with the policy board proposal is that this policy board will be

dominated by people who come from some particular ideological perspective about solid waste

issues and if that's the concern then let me just say, I don't think it should be a concern. The

proposal is that we'll pick who we want to have on the policy board and so who represents us on

that board is up to us to decide. That to assume that that board would have some kind of bent to it

is a mistake and ultimately it seems to me that option two is one that continues to have, to one

degree or another,  the Chapel Hill Town Council at the table and having some direct say over

how solid waste is managed and what kinds of recycling services are provided to our citizens and

so forth.  Whereas option one doesn't really provide for that. I was criticized recently by one of

the local papers for trying to scare people into being opposed to turning over all this operation to

the county commission and I apologize if anyone was frightened.  My point was not to scare you

but to raise the simple point that the County Commissioners ultimately have a different

responsibility and a different set of interests from what we do as a Town and that option one

basically leaves us with only indirect influence over the policies and option two leaves us with

direct influence. I don't feel the need to flesh out a lot of the details because I would hate, in a

way, to develop a position at this point.

 

We've talked about negotiation and the idea that you should talk about what your interests are

rather than what your positions are and we are in a negotiative setting here in dealing with our

fellow local governments. I think that option two is based on an existing working model. We

have several departments of the County government that are operated this way now. Both the

school systems are essentially operated this way except that the board in question is elected in

that case. I kind of don't know all the answers to the questions that Joyce poses here but I would

say let's not mess with success and let's say that the health board is a system that works and

we'll just model this around the same existing model of the Health Board or the DSS Board.

 

Council Member Capowski    Nowhere in options one  or two does it say anything about where

recycling is so therefore I assume that recycling will be part of the landfill rather than part of

each individual's  Town operation.

 

Council Member Chilton    That's the assumption. I mean you don't have to buy into that

assumption if you don't want to.

 

Council Member Capowski    It says that "we assume that there will be an integrated solid

waste management plan before the new board begins making a policy." Now it is my belief that

we as the Chapel Hill Town Council need to make the decisions on the collection of garbage;

how it's collected, how we charge for it, how much we collect, all the standard things. I would

hate to give some of that authority away to groups outside of Chapel Hill.

 

Council Member Chilton   Absolutely. I don't think anybody's contemplating giving away any

of that authority under any of these options.

 

Council Member Capowski    My final point and I guess this is a simplistic view of the word

but I always picture the landfill as a landfill.  Anybody can take a truck to it, pay $13.00 a ton

and the function of a landfill is to put stuff in the land. We have a strong economic motivation in

Chapel Hill to minimize our solid waste simply because the fewer trucks we take there the fewer

number of dollars we pay to the landfill and we have several tools we can use to minimize the

solid waste, namely recycling maybe economic incentive to the citizens by charging by the bag

or something but that's assuming that we have control over the recycling program and whatever

other tools we use within the corporate limits of Chapel Hill without ceding any of that authority

to the county or to the other towns. Am I being totally unrealistic?

 

Council Member Chilton    We don't entirely have that authority currently. Theoretically, we

can re-write the landfill budget and kind of write in whatever kind of recycling programs we

want but we have as a general rule not done that kind of thing.

 

Council Member Capowski     No one is suggesting that the Town of Chapel Hill is going to

take over the landfill. But my question then becomes, if the County Commissioners through

some form took it over, who is going to deal with the Chapel Hill citizen's recycling?

 

Council Member Chilton     I would think that the county would. I mean the main reason for it

is really the economy of scale and whether it's done in-house or contracted out, if the four

governments all negotiated separate contracts with BFI, I'm sure that collectively we'd be paying

a lot more than we do as a group.

 

Council Member Brown    Joe, do you find something wrong with the program now?

 

Council Member Capowski      Certainly. No decisions can be made.

 

Council Member Brown     No, I mean with the recycling. I guess I don't understand your

question because it's all part of the structure right now and we're going ahead with recycling. I

just don't understand the question. I'm just trying to get some feeling of where you're coming

from.

 

Council Member Capowski    Here's where I'm coming from. We are able to recycle and

source reduce a certain percentage of our waste stream. It's probably unlikely that we would

every make 50% without spending a fortune. And I think that decision has to be our decision in

Chapel Hill not that the authority  on the decision of how much and what we recycle balancing

all the parameters of recycling for Chapel Hillians.

 

Council Member Brown     Can I just say . I think that we keep saying these things about the

expenses and it doesn't seem to actually be realistic because everything about solid waste is

expensive. From my information and Gayle and Cal can tell me, the collection, particularly the

collection for the solid waste going into the landfill is one of the most expensive parts of our

program and yet people sort of pick on recycling and I'm not sure that's quite fair. In

comparison, and other places have found it in comparison too, if we take it off one end and cut

down on those expenses through our collection then certainly we can do something elsewhere.

But I think that before we put forth things like the idea that something is going to cost a fortune

that we need to have that set of figures.

 

Council Member Capowski      The question is who is going to make decisions for Chapel Hill

solid waste in terms of all the things that go on before the landfill. Is it going to be the Chapel

Hill town council or is it going to be a county-wide body or what?

 

Council Member Franck      Assuming that you're making an argument here and not just asking

question your argument led to its logical conclusion is that the town of Chapel Hill  should have

absolute control over everything it does in the solid waste arena with the possible exception of it

would deliver any solid waste that could not be recycled to some landfill. That is one extreme of

the way that solid waste could be managed in this county or anywhere. The LOG, when it started

looking at this integrated solid waste management plan, decided that these issues were best dealt

with on a wider scale because there were economies of scale, it was easier to raise the capital to

invest in these sorts of facilities that are needed to manage solid waste. And that there could be

some benefits from working together cooperatively. So that's why this process was undertaken.

 

The complete other end of that scale, from where you started, is that we should let the county run

everything and give up all of our decision making authority and basically let other people make

the decision about how solid waste should be managed for us. Now, if the town continues to

collect solid waste then we would continue to retain some control, even under option 1 which

would basically give all the control to the county commissioners. But all of these solid waste

issues are very tightly tied together. The issue of how you collect, how you recycle, how much

waste you try to reduce by what means be it collections bans or pay as you throw incentives. All

of those things are very tightly tied together and you can't chop a line and say  all of this is going

to be done by the county and all of this is going to be done by the town of Chapel Hill or

Carrboro because if the county, as the owners of the landfills and the runner of the recycling

program, makes a decision which makes it harder for the town to meet our solid waste reduction

goals, we're left out. If you take that argument and assume that you don't want the town of

Chapel Hill to run everything then you've just made the argument that favors option 2.

 

Mayor Waldorf     The reason all these things have to be lumped together. I mean a reason that

all of these things have to be lumped together is financial. None of these enterprises make

money, they all cost money. I guess in a way it seems like the objective here . sometimes I feel

like we're not getting onto the main objective. The objective is to get to a point where somebody

can make decisions about what solid waste processing and disposal facilities are going to be built

for the future. That's the objective.  It's not who the staff works for or any of that. That's the real

objective. Now how are we going to get there? That's my question. Under the policy board

model, and I want to direct this question to the LOG members and I want to direct it to the staff

as well. Under the policy board model who makes decisions about buying land and negotiating

contracts with participating local governments and incurring debt? I think under both models the

county commissioners incur the debt.

 

Town Manager Horton    I believe that the county commissioners would be the only body that

would be able to effectively acquire land because they are the only ones that have the

condemnation power as we have outlined it here. They would have to be involved in any kind of

decision about buying land. But I believe that the staff of the agency would do the staff work and

bring considerations to the policy board and the policy board would decide whether or not to

move ahead on an acquisition. But ultimately, I believe, it would have to go to the county

commissioners for their approval on a land transaction.

 

Council Member Brown    It seems to me that the basic decisions that you were talking about

were things that we thought were going to be decided by all of the governing bodies before

anything happened and I think that that's one of the confusions because all of these three

extremely important decisions came together at the same time and I am still working on the idea

that the basic decisions right now about a future landfill, where it's to be or what is to be the

disposal method, the integrated solid waste plan and the new structure will be decided by

everybody before the new structure takes place. I think that's getting to what you  were talking

about, Joe, because if we make some basic decisions now I think everything is going to be easier.

 

If we all decided that these goals that we actually passed are the goals that we want to abide by,

to have guide us in any kind of policies. If we decide on a structure, that it's going to be a policy

board which is what I favor and then decide the details of that. And then the landfill too, all of us

jointly decide on the site of the new landfill. That was the basis that I was thinking about in all of

these. I don't think that the new policy board should just be put out without these basic decisions

which we've all been involved in and we've all gone through the process together and I think

that these should be the decisions that we should be making. I think that the thing that we're

thinking about tonight is the structure and we can at least come to some agreement that, at least a

majority of us, think that Chapel Hill needs to have a voting interest  to represent the citizens of

Chapel Hill in something as important that has many financial ramifications that dealing with

solid waste has. I think that we need to have at least a decision making part in the policy board. I

think that if we reach some sort of conclusion there and we go on to the next thing which would

be the integrated solid waste management plan, work out that and then work out the landfill site

too. One thing that I would hate for us to do is go into another meeting with the Assembly of

Governments and at least not have some sense of direction for us.

 

Mayor Waldorf    I want to pursue something that you said, Joyce, which is you were putting

forward the proposition that Chapel Hill needs to have a decision making role in whatever

structure is arrived at. What I want to ask is what of the things that we're concerned about like tip

fees and how they are adjusted and what kinds of services are going to be provided, which of

those things can be covered through a contract? I mean no one, not proposal one or two or three,

nobody can run this landfill and associated facilities without the buy of Chapel Hill and Orange

County at the minimum and we really need the buy in of the University and Carrboro and

Hillsborough.  So what protections can we get for Chapel Hill by writing a good contract? Why

do we have to have a policy board?  Why can't we just write a very good contract?  Because they

have to have our trash.  Whoever runs it has to have Chapel Hill's trash and has to have Chapel

Hill's tip fees.  It seems to me we've got some leverage there to achieve what we want to

achieve. What's wrong with that?

 

Council Member Chilton    I almost turned the question around and asked what's wrong with

this? I mean I think both of those potentially.. I mean you can write a contract to cover that sort

of thing. I think both what you're discussing, that contract model and this policy board model

contemplate the same thing. Actually, it's been a little bit unspoken in all of this but part of the

issue here is, if Orange County wants to go off by themselves and build solid waste disposal

facility, they can just go do that.  But we aren't necessarily going to take our solid waste there

unless for some reason it was a good deal to us. So part of the reason that the county would be

interested in the first place in buying into option two is because that along with that would go the

notion that we were binding ourselves to sending our waste onto their facilities. I mean you could

do that with a contract as well. I think, however, one of the problems with that that leaps to mind

is that you'd presumably want to do a fairly long-term contract and there's a contract

contemplate in option two, this binding relationship.

 

Mayor Waldorf     Well, there has to be. You'd never be able to borrow the money without

those contracts.

 

Council Member Chilton     And the County Commission would have no reason to want to let

us have any say over the issues without that pledge but the problem that comes to my mind is

that what our needs and values are as a town are dynamic. A twenty-year term contract gets

written in 1999 and then the rule that they operate by until 2019 or whatever the years may be

and that won't account for.. I guess the County could just agree out of the goodness of their

hearts to renegotiate a contract at some point part way through the term but there wouldn't be

any way to kind of force that to happen.

 

Mayor Waldorf    You can't write in provisions for modification? Mark, it's not just that our

needs as a Town are dynamic, this whole area technologically is dynamic.

 

Council Member Chilton    I guess you could ask the Town Attorney whether you can write in

provisions like that. I think it's difficult to write in the contract that we're going to be able to

force a renegotiation of it later on.

 

Mayor Waldorf    Well, let me ask the Town Attorney.   Can you include, in a contract,

provisions for modification of the agreement that would be generally acceptable to all signing

parties?

 

Ralph Karpinos, Attorney   You certainly could. I think the question is who and when those

changes can be made and what impact that would have on the county's ability to get financing?

What do they show the lending agencies as their assurance of and income stream?  Yes, you can

always have terms to have it renegotiated at some point.

 

Council Member Brown    I think that this is the same kind of thing that we're thinking about

with a long-term contract with anybody other than Orange County. Why would we want to tie

ourselves up to a contract when things are changing in this field. Technologically, you might

have been thinking about the disposal technologies, but I think that the technologies on the front

end of the waste stream are just as important; the recycling, the industry that is developing

rapidly in this country. We are actually way behind other countries in dealing with this issue. I

can't see us binding ourselves to any other governing body in such a contract when we need to

have the flexibility and need to have some decision making in the directions that we need to be

going in with the ever-changing technologies on both ends of the waste stream.

 

Council Member Pavao    So how would the policy board allow us to have this ability that we

need to move in a direction where we can change our minds mid-stream? When we have the

Assembly of Governors meetings, I was quite surprised to hear that there was one government

that actually trusted the way the current landfill was being managed. I wasn't aware of that

before. What if one government suddenly.. were locked into this policy board thing and we feel

that we distrust the way that it is being managed. What can we fall back on to extricate ourselves

from this policy board? Those are the concerns that I have when I look at a policy board that is

going to sit there and decide something that we're not even sure of what we're deciding at this

point. And it doesn't seem clear to me and no one has actually made it any clearer in the

discussions that we have. That's why we didn't reach a decision at the Assembly of Governments

meeting or the work session that we had.

 

Council Member Andresen     Just to answer your question a little bit, Lee, about why don't we

just handle it all through a contract. I think that clearly a contract is needed in any one of these

options but the question is what does not get covered by it? It's sort of like we have a contract for

Cal Horton to run the town of Chapel Hill in a sense but there's tons of policy decisions that

come up every day which need to be made. We could entrust all of that to him and not have a

town council at all, that's one possibility. Another way to do it would be to have a policy making

board which deals with all the stuff that comes up daily that you don't know is coming until it

gets there. Maybe suddenly it becomes difficult to dispose of cardboard or maybe it suddenly

becomes difficult to dispose of something or other. Then this board has an opportunity to make a

policy decision. Otherwise, you just can't cover everything in a contract. It just all can't be

covered. That's my response to what you have said.

 

Mayor Waldorf     Except that you can have provisions for modification, I think.

 

Council Member Chilton     But the town Attorney, he's correct in saying that but basically it's

like with the cable television franchise that we considered some time ago. There's just such a

provision in it that it says basically something like , if we make a determination at some point

that you are in violation of this agreement in some substantial way then you must come to the

table with us and we'll negotiate again. But suppose that you write in such a thing with your

contract with the county. And then you say, "We're electing to force you to come to the table and

re-negotiate" and the county says, "No, we're not going to do that." "But it says here in the

contract why we're going to sue and force you to do what it says in this contract and come to the

table and negotiate in good faith." I mean, a judge can't order, "Go to the table and negotiate in

good faith!"  What does that mean. That's the so called "agreement to agree" and in a sense you

can write in provision for how those re-negotiations will happen if the parties agree to re-

negotiate or if the term of the contract comes up or a certain date comes along you can write up

how those negotiations will occur but you can't write into the contract the results of those

negotiations or that both side will enter into those negotiations in good faith. It's not something

that's really enforceable.

 

Council Member Evans    But it's a breech of contract if they don't

 

Council Member Chilton    But what I'm telling you it's not really because those kind of

clauses are not really enforceable.

 

Mayor Waldorf    Does the Town Attorney want to comment on that? I want to call on Edith.

 

Council Member Wiggins      Lee and Pat. Your concerns would lead you to which option?

Option one?

 

Council Member Evans    If there's any advisory board at all.  I think if all these decisions are

made on the front end it could be that the County can handle the running of the landfill but I

would be comfortable with an advisory board.

 

Council Member Wiggins    I just wanted to find out which way you were leaning because I

tried to study both of these options very carefully in being new to this. There are a few of these

that are exactly the same.  The ones that are different, I tried to make sense out of them and really

kind of decided that the difference between them was so subtle that it really wasn't that big a

difference because I believe that the advisory board will end up having almost the same impact

on the county commissioners as the policy board. I believe that the county commissioners will

rely on that advisory board a great deal giving all of the other functions that they have for county

government. I think they really will rely on that board in many respects. It will be a policy type

board. So I think I'm supporting option two because I think your concerns that you have

expressed can probably be dealt with in option two.

 

Council Member Franck     I was thinking that we could maybe move this to some completion.

It seems to me from what I've heard that we're still at the same position that we were on October

3rd which is that while we don't agree that there's really only one option that there's any chance

of getting a majority support behind and that's option two and so I would like to move that the

Council declares that it favors, not is irrevocably in support of, but favors a solid waste

management structure in Orange County which is based on the model identified as option two,

the commissioners with a policy board and instructs the town staff to prepare a narrative

description which can be use to describe this option and variations to other Orange County

governments at the Assembly of Governments meeting.

 

Mayor Waldorf     That's a motion. Is there a second?

 

COUNCIL MEMBER FRANCK  MOVED,  SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER

CHILTON, TO DECLARE THAT THE CHAPEL HILL TOWN COUNCIL FAVORS, BUT IS

NOT IRREVOCABLY IN SUPPORT OF,  A SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE

IN ORANGE COUNTY WHICH WAS BASED ON THE MODEL IDENTIFIED AS OPTION

TOW, THE COUNTY COMMISSIONERS WITH A POLICY BOARD, AND

INSTRUCTSTHE TOWN STAFF TO PREPARE A NARRATIVE DESCRIPTION WHICH

COULD BE USED TO DESCRIBE THIS OPTION AND VARIATIONS TO THE OTHER

COUNTY GOVERNMENTS AT THE ASSEMBLY OF GOVERNMENTS  MEETING.

 

Council Member Chilton    Let me clarify. We're not taking a position..

 

Council Member Franck     It favors. We're identifying something that we think we can support

and so we've got something to go into this meeting with and use that as a basis for discussion.

 

Council Member Pavao  But it's not cut and dry that it's number two.

 

Council Member Capowski    I'm happy to support that with the same qualification I brought

up at the previous meeting and that is that we in Chapel Hill deposit more trash in the landfill

than all the other governments combined. I think that the policy board, if it has budgetary power

and lots of other kinds of powers has to reflect that.

 

Mayor Waldorf     Okay. This motion has been made and seconded. Any other discussion?

 

Council Member Evans     I think that what this means is that we're recreating the Landfill

Owner's Group (LOG) because in essence we all appoint members and the chance of impotence

of behalf of the new board is the same as what has occurred on the LOG. I guess my problem

with the existing LOG is when Lee and I went to visit VEDCO and we came back and asked the

LOG to look at it and finally got it on as a petition for them to take to the LOG and it still was

not brought to the public's attention or did they review it and it took going to the county to ask

them to bring VEDCO here to be receptive to citizen's interests. Maybe the reason the County

Commissioners were receptive to looking at the VEDCO option is because we all do elect them.

I think that the problems that we've had with the existing LOG are just going to be repeated by

this new board of elected officials from all of the jurisdictions and I'm sorry, I don't favor that.

 

Mayor Waldorf     I'd like to make one comment if I could. I'm going to vote against this

because I prefer option one because that's a long thought.  I think that it would enable decisions

to be made more quickly and cleanly and I think that most of the things that we're concerned

about could be covered through contracts. However, it's obvious that option two is going to pass

and we'll work with the council and make it work.

 

THE MOTION PASSED BY A VOTE OF 6-3, WITH COUNCIL MEMBERS EVANS AND

PAVAO AND MAYOR WALDORF VOTING NO.

 

Item 6  Housing Matters

 

Mayor Waldorf    Well that's good. We made a decision until November 13th. Has Mr.

Zimmerli appeared yet?  Let's please move back to item #6 which is in two parts and it begins

with a report from Charlie Zimmerli, the chairman of Housing and Community Development

Board. I won't put the timer on Charlie. We never put the timer on board people who are coming

to report on work we've asked them to do.

 

Charlie Zimmerli    I will not be late again but I do appreciate the Council's flexibility in

timing. I'd like to thank you also for the opportunity to be able to present our report.  I also

specifically want to thank Lee Butzin and Charles Debose who are board members who did a lot

of work on the report which is being presented here to you tonight. You'll see that we are

generally in favor of the special needs committee report. Some things are quietly being done to

amend some of those issues even before the implementation of it by our board and by the

residents council and also by the housing department. And we would encourage you to continue

in the implementation of the special needs report. We think there are a lot of very good things

there that would be very helpful to the community. There are a couple of related items that I want

to speak to. That is the issue of board membership is always kind of paramount with us. At the

present time, we have eight members and we basically need one more member and that's from

the public housing community and it would even be better if we could get someone from the

Carrboro community. But we are still just one person short to have a board. Those members who

are on the board, however, are excellent in their attendance.

 

We are getting full participation by the members that we do have and we also need a liaison on

the Town Council and that's one of the things that I hope that you all will be addressing soon.

One other issue that I just want to bring to your attention and that is, as you know, with the

implementation of the community orient policing program, there has been an increase in an

awareness of drug activities in the public housing communities and in the communities in

general and that has brought before us as a grievance panel the opportunity and the task of

making decisions about people's staying in public housing who's family members have been

involved with drugs. In some cases, these family members are either known or unknown to the

parents and so we're in the position because the lease is quite clear, we've made that quite clear

to the members of the community, that the lease is clear on this issue. We are having to move

people out of public housing. In areas that they have some limited control of that in some cases.

So we recognize that while that has had a positive effect in terms of reducing drug activity and

certainly reducing some of the initial reactions we were getting from community residents about

gun firings and various rather dangerous situations, that has been reduced considerably. But we

now have the issue, the other issue, of placing people on the streets and maybe making the

problems somewhere else in the community because of this issue and so one of the things that as

the residents Council has developed as an initiative is to try to be sure that we are aware of all of

the services that are in the community available to people who want to pro-actively deal with

their family situation, either themselves, their children, people that they know to get some kind

of relief in the area of drug rehabilitation or drug education. So we're working with the residents

council to assemble a group of resources that are available.

 

We plan to have a joint meeting with the residents council and some of the residents to deal with

this issue. We want to be sure that both sides of this issue are addressed and that is that there is

an understanding that in fact we are in a zero tolerance position as far as drugs but also that we're

going to be available as a community to help people whether know or unknown in their family

that there is a drug issue. That's one of the things that we'll be talking about in the coming

months and we will perhaps be coming to you with some recommendations in terms of some

ways to coordinate that kind of activity to get some liaisons in the community. And that is

somewhat addressed in the human services side of the special meeting's report. That's a major

issue that we are facing now. Thank you.

 

Mayor Waldorf     Thank you very much. Your board has been working very hard and I know

those grievance hearings are not easy so we really appreciate the time and care that you all put in

to it. Are there any questions of Charlie?

 

Council Member Andresen   I really very much appreciate your work. I'm wondering and I

guess I have to ask the Council this really but I'm wondering if it would be helpful with all these

excellent recommendations you have to actually, if your board just sat down and came up with

some milestones and dates for all of these things. There's an enormous amount of energy going

into all these different things and it's very time consuming. However, there are some things that,

like reorganizing the housing apartment, the community resource teams,.. I think it would be just

helpful if we all kind of had a goal of like, when do you think this is going to happen, what's

reasonable.. and of course that has to do with the Town Manager and what he thinks reasonably

can be done but I think it would really be helpful to council to know when do they think these

things might reasonably happen. Obviously, there are some goals here like "refurbishing public

housing" are on-going. But I'm talking about more of the things that are sort of new that were

brought together in this report.

 

Mayor Waldorf  Charlie is responding to an adopted Town policy that the staff is in the process

of implementing and I think the staff actually has something of a timetable which maybe you'll

speak to when you give your report.

 

Council Member Andresen   What I'm wondering about is whether I want to hear the

Manager's response but I'm also wondering if we don't have one maybe the Housing Board

could help us to develop one.

 

Charlie Zimmerli    I would agree that I think it would be helpful to all of us but I do think it

needs to be a totally integrated process and that the leadership for that has to come from Cal and

from the Council.

 

Town Manager Horton  The Housing Board had been working to figure out what their

assessment of the special committee's work was. They now have completed that and that puts us

in position to do exactly what you're saying. They've recommended a few variations and I would

hope that the council would refer their report to us so that we can work with them and I think the

next stage would involve working with them to determine what the highest priority areas are and

in determining what the reasonable dates of expected accomplishment of key milestones might

be. There's one little piece that we would still hope for some feedback on that the board has not

had an opportunity to comment on and that is organization structure for the housing program and

we would like to work with the board to get that feedback as well. I think we are well positioned

now to move ahead to the next stage.

 

Council Member Chilton   Very quickly. On this memo that we received from the entire board,

the first indented paragraph speaks to recommendation 2a about clarifying the function and

responsibilities of the Housing and Community Development Advisory Board and the board

points out that actually the Code of Ordinances for the Town is fairly clear that you are

authorized to approve the housing policies and procedures. And you say that that responsibility

should be reaffirmed, suggesting that maybe doesn't need to be rewritten but then on the second

to last of those indented paragraphs, it say recommendation 2c is that the Board be changed from

advisory to policy and you say the Town ordinance already does this.  "The problem is with the

implementation, we recommend that the current ordinance be reinforced". I don't know whether

those two comments are entirely consistent but, in any case, I think I very much agree with

where the board is headed with that which. it doesn't really matter either way whether you

rewrite the ordinances or not, the question is whether you live up to what the ordinance says now

and I hope that you will find a way to kind of implement more of the spirit of it as you are

interpreting it. But I agree with you.

 

The second thing was, on recommendation 2d, you say that you agree with the recommendation

that community development matters be moved out of the realm of the currently Housing and

Community Development Advisory Board or more like just a Housing Advisory Board and I can

see a strong argument for that. I wonder, do you all have any perspective on what we might do

with that subject matter in terms of the organization. It probably doesn't make sense to have a

Community Development Advisory Board separate on just that topic.

 

Charlie Zimmerli   We really had not addressed that other side of it and that's a very important

part of it because I know that we received that responsibility as a result of it being a difficulty for

some other function, I think it was the Planning Department at the time. We just never felt

comfortable with it in terms of our expertise that does not have the economic side of it that we

need in order to make those recommendations. And I would really be hesitant to recommend

publicly like that that another board get this responsibility. Maybe I'll talk to you later.

 

Council Member Chilton   The final thing is just another comment. I'm glad and excited to hear

that you  are thinking about ways to deal with the difficulties that are raised by our eviction

policy with respect to when any member of the household. Basically, the policy is now when

any member of a household in public housing is arrested for drug violation on or near public

housing that the whole family is evicted and I hope you'll keep looking at that. I was one of two

people who vote against that policy. I was concerned about exactly the issue that you were just

outlining. Are we then throwing these people out on the street to . Does that further reinforce

the problem that they already have in some situations? On the other hand, are we in the position

of evicting potentially innocent grandmother who didn't know about what her grandson was up

to? There's obviously no way to really know in any given circumstance whether that's really

happening or not but we have to believe that this policy is at some point is going to cause that to

happen. We're going to be evicting a family because one member of that family was,

unbeknownst to the rest of the family, involved in drugs.

 

Charlie Zimmerli     We're right with you on that with the exception that we did suggest this

again at our last meeting. It's a very important issue with us and the board feels very strongly

that we need to have zero tolerance of drugs in our communities and we think that the only way

to do that is to enforce the lease as it written. So we really have no question about that, we just

need to work on the other side to be in support of the people and to let people know that there is

someone out there to help them even if they don't suspect it. That they can go for help. So we

really feel okay about that position.

 

Council Member Wiggins     I don't know how liaisons are chosen for these advisory boards

but I would volunteer for one.

 

Mayor Waldorf     Would someone like to nominate her by acclamation?

 

Council Member Evans    I nominate her.

 

Mayor Waldorf     All in favor please say Aye, "Aye". You're on. You're it. Good. Way to go.

 

Council Member Wiggins   Mark, in response to your concern about the grandmother who

wouldn't know what her grandson was doing. Someone in that neighborhood though would

know what her grandson was doing and I think when there's a strong zero tolerance mentality

throughout a project, someone would get to that grandmother and someone would get to that

grandson because they would know that this grandson is putting the grandmother at risk so I

think that when you have  that zero tolerance I think we'll be surprised at how much other people

will get involved in enforcing it.

 

Council Member Chilton    I guess what I wonder about is whether there's any way to have a

zero tolerance as individuals who are breaking the law rather than entire families where there

may only be one member. It's not something that we need to get into tonight but it continues to

concern me.

 

Mayor Waldorf      I really think that the Housing and Community Development Board can deal

with it effectively and sensitively, I think. I think they are. I'm so glad I voted for you for

Housing Board Liaison. Okay Mr. Manager's status report on the second part of this item.

 

Town Manager Horton  Flo Miller, Assistant Town Manager, is the person who leads the

general staff work in regard to housing and a lot has been accomplished and I'm going to ask Flo

to touch on the highlights for you.

 

Flo Miller, Assistant Town Manager     It's a pleasure to follow Charlie. He's already given

most of the report so thank you Charlie. We're following up from the committee's

recommendations.  We have had two interim reports back in February and also in the middle of

the summer.  The report highlights many of the activities that are going on. We still have quite a

lot to do but there are some things that are moving forward. Charlie has mentioned community-

oriented policing. That's a good thing that's continuing. We're working closely together. We

unfortunately have had to evict some residents, however, that's based on the activities and an

effort to move to strengthen our communities. We are working on the screening process

applicants. That's a little more difficult area but we know that if we can come up with a policy

and recommendations for the people before they enter that will strengthen the neighborhoods.

One of the things that we will move to do is to have applicant interviews before and as you know

that means a staff will need to go out and visit people in their homes and as well as to do

extensive background checks. Once we get a recommendation, both in working with the

residents council, the advisory board and comments from the residents, we will come back to the

Council.

 

 As you know, one of the things that we had mentioned in the special report was the need to

communicate and communication both takes a lot of time and effort. We are going to really try to

give residents a chance to have input into the things that we are recommending as well as to give

the Housing and Community Development Advisory Board and Resident's Council a chance to

comment. An area that we're also continuing to work with Dr. Turner is around the community

resource teams. I think that that one is one that, in tagging on to what Charlie said, we have a

great chance some huge improvements.

 

We met with some of the county staff because, as you know, the county is already doing many of

the services that we would be linking together. And we are going to pull together an initial group

to start talking about getting a community resource team established along with Dr. Turner.

We're hoping to get that up and to get that started in working with the Residents Council fairly

soon.  I will skip over the rest and if you have some particular comments or questions. I will try

to answer those. The issue about prioritization, that is one of the next steps that we believe is

necessary in that if we can come up with three or four top priority items that will be

recommended by the Housing Advisory Board by the Residents Council and also by the staff to

come back to the council and make a recommendation and also time-lines from that area that that

would give us our focus probably for the next six months.

 

Mayor Waldorf   I made a goof which is that I should have called on Joanne to speak before I

called on Flo so with the Council's indulgence before we ask Flo questions, let's recognize

Joanne Shire to come forward and I'm sorry.

 

Joanne Shirer    Good evening, I'm Joanne Shirer and I'm staff of the Resident's Council and I

would like to sort of sum all this up what we've just been saying. I'd like to remind you that

October was three years that we have been working on the special needs committee and all the

recommendations that have been before you all. In those three years a lot of progress has been

made. The majority of the progress centers around maintenance that really brought our

apartments up to a lot of the standards that it should be and it was long overdue. Ground work

has been done. The boards have been a working board now and I can say that Charlie and the

Housing Advisory Board has worked diligently to seek the interests of the residents.

 

In fact, one of the recommendations from the Resident's Council was that they will adopt at a

community and go in and see for themselves the concerns of the residents directly and I think

that has really been effective and they are really working even harder now. So I'm really proud of

that Board. The Resident's Council has taken on another board also but they are really strong

representatives from the residents of public housing and the Chair person now is Benita Evers.

 

The community policing has been very effective in our communities. In fact, like Charlie was

saying, a lot of our drug arrests were due to community policing and I would also like to say that

because the Resident's Council is out there organizing residents now to speak for themselves a

lot of residents have come forward to their concerns and they are opening the doors and saying

that we care about our community, we are real people and have real concerns and not to look

down on us, we're not handicapped. Also, I'd like to say that my main concern tonight was to

address a time-line because it was not addressed when the recommendation was given that we do

this in a timely manner. Not to start dragging our feet and I do think the idea of prioritizing, if we

all were prioritizing and bringing our issues back to the table together and then do another

prioritizing to see what is most concerned about the issues that's before us.

 

I would like to say that some of the residents still feel like that our wheels are being turned

because a lot of the communication is not strong and I think the more we come together and get

together as a community to improve our community that this will cease but right now we need

your efforts to especially appoint someone that is going to see that the recommendations be put

in this time-line because it's just important not to make this continuous. And if we had one

person to report to I think that would speed the process up also. That's our major concern but we

would definitely like to have a time-line and a responsive person that we can bring our feedback

to.

 

Mayor Waldorf     You mean a staff person?

 

Joanne Shirer      It can be a Council Member or a staff person.

 

Mayor Waldorf     Are there questions? I have a couple. There's discussion on page two of this

report about stiffer screening procedures that you all are working on and I guess I'm a little bit

unclear about.. I think I understand the purpose which is to keep people who have any sort of a

criminal record from becoming lease-holders in public housing. I'm a little unclear about when

you'll get that in place and can you enlighten me on that.

 

Flo Miller, Assistant Town Manager     I think that that's one of the things that we can do

fairly quickly. It may involve an ordinance change. The rules are such that we have limited

access into some information so we would need to work with police department and the attorneys

to come up and council would authorize us where we could do sort of appropriate criminal

checks and use that information.

 

Mayor Waldorf      Am I correct in believing that all or mostly all of the apartments at South

Estes Drive are currently vacant? Because of the renovation, how many are vacant?

 

Town Manager Horton    There are about twenty-four vacant right now, actually twelve, I

guess. We're in a transition period right now. We've got twelve people getting ready to move in

to twelve newly renovated so we'll have twelve vacant.  So there are twenty-four on the table but

pretty soon there will only be twelve vacant.

 

Mayor Waldorf     My point, maybe it's not a terribly important one, but my point was going to

be that when we have multiple vacancies like that, I really would like to get the screening in

place before we occupy all those units if that's possible.

 

Flo Miller, Assistant Town Manager    And this is one area where we are actually doing home

visits for the future residents of South Estes.

 

Mayor Waldorf     So, you're actually going to where they live now?

 

Flo Miller, Assistant Town Manager     Within reason, yes.

 

Mayor Waldorf     I just wanted to ask about the potential changes to the screening. Could you

elaborate on what the goals of these changes are? I mean I've stated what I assume they are. Are

there other goals other than that?

 

Flo Miller, Assistant Town Manager      To keep people with criminal backgrounds or

activities from slipping through.

 

Mayor Waldorf     Just that then? Are there other questions or comments? I think you all have

done a good job and I really want to say that publicly. I think that to have renovated 214 or 336

units, 24 of which are almost brand new anyway is a commendable record during the time that

we've been working on this and I really appreciate Joanne's comments about maintenance

improvements. Clearly that's terribly important. So I really want to commend the staff.

 

Town Manager Horton      Madam Mayor, we certainly appreciate that and if you don't mind,

this will give us an opportunity to say thanks to the resident's council and to the Housing Board.

They have been a challenging group and they've made sure that we've had sufficient heat under

us to keep on doing the good things that need to be done. And although that's not always

comfortable it's necessary and we appreciate it.

 

Mayor Waldorf     Okay, I don't think there's any action that we need to take on this.

 

Council Member Wiggins     One question about the Human Services Coordinator. Is that a

staff person of the housing department or another.

 

Town Manager Horton   No ma'am. It's a staff position within the Police Department because

many of the services we found that were needed most by residents of public housing also were

available through the crisis counselor's connections, in particular and it established a certain

objectivity and distancing from the housing staff. I think that it created greater credibility and a

greater sense of trust and confidentiality.

 

Council Member Wiggins     So this one person services the housing area, the law enforcement

area and other town areas?

 

Town Manager Horton    No.

 

Council Member Wiggins   They're in with the Housing but they serve with the Police

Department.

 

Town Manager Horton     That's correct. And they have colleagues in that department who are

crisis counselors and other  social workers plus connection with the project turn-around staff

which has been a very successful program. I think the numbers clearly indicate that, in helping

people who are first time offenders overcome the conditions that contributed greatly to those

first-time offenses including drug rehabilitation.

 

Council Member Wiggins   Could I get a copy of the job description for the Human Services

Coordinator? Because I thought it was interesting that many of the needs that the community

services agency, resource team would address, quite often would be very much part of a job

description for social worker coordinating agencies to give services to families. I'd just like to

see that.

 

Item 8  Color and Lighting Options of Hilltop Elevated Water Tank

 

Mayor Waldorf    Let's move on to item 7.1 which is the water tank. Mr. Manager.

 

Town Manager Horton    Roger Waldon is going to make a brief report. This is an issue that

comes back to you at your request.

 

Roger Waldon, Planning Director    When you approved a special use permit for OWASA's

new water tank, located off of Hilltop Street, you included a condition of that approval that

would require Council approval of the color of the tank and lighting options for the tank. Staff at

the OWASA have been working on this, coming up with a couple of ideas and talking about the

color and lighting options with nearby neighbors. John Green is here from OWASA and has a

report to make to you and some overheads he can show to you and the action that is on the table

for you to consider tonight is approving a color scheme and a lighting scheme.

 

John Green     Most of my comments are contained in the letter that's in your agenda that I did

to the Town Manager. But real briefly I'd like to tell you the efforts that we've made in trying to

comply with the special use requirement of notifying homeowners within 1000 feet of the

property of the Appearance Commission meeting. With the meeting tonight, there have now been

four opportunities for property owners to comment. Two of those meetings were scheduled by

OWASA prior to the Appearance Commission meeting and of course there's the Appearance

Commission meeting at tonight's meeting. Notice was provided through a mailing of all of the

meetings and we also received a considerable media attention as well as, I don't know how many

of y'all saw last Friday's edition, but we had several "Color Your Tank" contests. From those

meetings we came out with recommendations from the homeowners of basically two color

schemes and I think there's a color photo in the agenda packet.

 

I'll put up an overhead but I'm not sure how well it will show up. But one scheme was a

variation of a blue color starting with a deep, dark blue color at the bottom and gradually

lightning that color as you proceed toward the top. The second meeting that we had, the group

chose a dark, almost black forest green column with a off-white bowl. When it got to the

Appearance Commission I think at the suggestion of Mr. Stuts was to combine those two colors,

not to pick one color over the other but to start with the blue scheme again but using the darker

colors, forest green at the base and move to the various shades of blue. I think that's the

recommendation that you have from the Appearance Commission. On the lighting issue, it

basically came down to a non-issue. The FAA gave us three options. One of them was to do the

checkerboard pattern of the tank with what they call safety orange and white. They also gave us

the option of a high intensity and a medium intensity strobe and the medium intensity strobe with

a red light. If we were going to choose the checkerboard pattern then we wouldn't have these two

options here. I think the power plant went through considerable discussions with the neighbors

on the strobe issue and so the choice that we have recommended or suggested is the medium

intensity strobe with the red light at night which is the same lighting scheme that is currently at

the power plant.

 

On the communication equipment issue we have no proposals from any Bell South, Cellular One

or 360 Communications, any of those individuals to attach to this tank at this time. We, at one

point, were talking about installing brackets on the tank so that provisions could be made for

these antennas but in talking to our consultant, it's very difficult at this point to guess where

those brackets should be. Wherever we would put them would probably be in the wrong location

so the decision now is to make provisions for the cabling to be internal to the tank so nothing

will on the outside of the tank and then work through with whichever company has a proposal for

attachments and let them do the necessary design and calculations to make sure the tank can

support the attachment and let them be welded on there later.

 

Alan Stutts     Good evening, as some of you may remember, my property is the property that is

due north of the water tank. It will be within the 200 feet set-back requirements. We're asking for

basically what the Appearance Commission has recommended. The dark colored tank, dark blue,

forest green, whatever blending into a lighter colored tank. Our preference is blue, white's

acceptable. That's pretty much the color we would like. The other thing is the communication

brackets. Although they're not proposing any right now, what I'm asking is that no brackets be

placed specifically for microwave dishes on the north side of the tower facing our house directly.

I think it if you want to get into this microwave safety issue you can look at it from that point.

You can look at it from an aesthetic view. I think that most of the people who are going to see the

tower are going to see the north side. It would be nicer not to have a microwave dish on the

tower on that side. Those really are the two main issues I have with it. I've been in favor of the

tower all along, still am. I just want to see it done properly. Thanks.

 

Mayor Waldorf      Are there questions of the applicant or the staff?

 

Council Member Andresen      I just have a little question for John Green from OWASA. John,

on the lighting, did you say that if it were a checkerboard pattern on the very most top but not

maybe on the side that you'd get away with not doing lighting or did I misunderstand?

 

John Green     No. This would be a checkerboard pattern, top, sides basically the whole

structure.

 

Council Member Andresen     But planes don't fly around the sides of it. It's kind of hard to

understand why they need it there.

 

John Green    You see it on an approach, you'd be looking in the side of it.

 

Council Member Andresen    So we're basically stuck with what we've got at the power plant

with the blinking red lights.

 

John Green     And that's the same lighting we have on the Manning Drive Tower as well as the

Nunn Mountain tank.  They all have the reds lights on them too. They don't have the medium

intensity strobe but you do have the red lights.

 

Council Member Capowski      I just want to say thank you three times.  One to OWASA for

working with the neighbors, ones to the neighbors for not objecting to this tank and specifically

also to OWASA for flying that balloon a year and a half ago that gave us one of the better

visualizations of the project of any kind before we approved it. It's rare that we can see

something in advance. So Thank you.

 

Town Manager Horton     I did talk to some of the neighbors who live near the project and they

did go to some of your meeting and to the Appearance Commission and agreed with Mr. Stuts

about the color and it should be dark green at the base and graduate to blue then gray. So there

seemed to be agreement on that color scheme. I was real happy about that.

 

Council Member Chilton      I'd like to move R3 adding in the language from the memorandum

that we got from the Appearance Commission which is that the elevated water tank be of the

color scheme that is dark green at the bottom of the tank graduating to a blue at the middle to

gray at the top of the tank and that the FAA required lighting be medium strobes for daytime and

red lights at night.   Council Member Pavao seconded the motion.

 

Mayor Waldorf      Been moved and seconded. Any discussion?

 

Council Member Brown     I wonder if we could put in some language to address Mr. Stuts

concern or it that necessary if we don't address it at all.

 

Mayor Waldorf     John, is that something that you  can address. I didn't really understand the

issue about microwave disks but I'm sure you do.

 

John Green     I don't know a whole lot about it but I've heard people speak to it before. The

frequency that microwave operates at posed some health risk. I'm probably speaking way out of

my knowledge of this. You know, the devices we have now are two-way radio communication

on our existing tank and we have some cellular phone companies. I don't think any of them are

using microwave disks. I don't know the procedure with modifications to our special use permit.

I'm surely willing to work through the attachment of the antenna or communication equipment

with the neighbors at that time that that comes up.

 

Council Member Andresen      I'm sorry. I didn't catch that last statement. If it comes up what

would you do?

 

John Green     We'll be glad to contact the neighbors and get their opinions on the attachment of

these communication devices.

 

Mayor Waldorf      If you decide to attach them.

 

Council Member Brown     But that's no guarantee that if you all want to. You might listen to

the neighbors but if they had some contrary opinion would you take that into account and not put

the attachments on?

 

Council Member Chilton     It would be up to the OWASA board to decide whether or not to

agree to those attachments.

 

Mayor Waldorf     I agree with Mark. I don't think we have any business stipulating something

we don't understand.

 

Council Member Andresen    I disagree. I think that if there's something that's going to be put

on this tower or that we don't know about. We are basically giving away any authority for

citizens to come and be concerned about. I mean the way we're leaving it is to basically work it

out with OWASA and that might or might not work.

 

Council Member Chilton     I don't think anything in this resolution would change that in

reality except that it would express..

 

Council Member Andresen     Well, we could add language.

 

Council Member Chilton    But adding that language wouldn't necessarily be binding on

OWASA except to the extent that we appoint the majority of that board. This is not a stipulation

to their special use permit.

 

Mayor Waldorf   It's not something that being asked for now, correct?

 

Roger Waldon, Planning Director   When the Council approved the special use permit there

was the point of telecommunications facilities came up and my recollection is that the special use

permit specifically authorized the addition of telecommunications facilities to this tank so as to

avoid proliferation of a separate antenna tower needing to go in at some point in the future. So

the special use permit the council approved authorizes the placement of telecommunication

devices on this tank. There was no further specificity at the time of the special use permit

because as is the case now, there's no specific proposal on the table. The industry is evolving.

We don't know the needs there might be for telecommunication devices and what direction they

might need to be pointed and so on to achieve coverage. Again, my recollection of the time that

this was coming through is that it was deemed desirable to in the future have a device attached to

a structure that's already in place rather than having to build a new tower.

 

Council Member Capowski     Certainly it's a good idea to attach an aesthetically innocuous

telecommunications devices to the tower and certainly much better to do that then to build a new

tower. I am concerned that, for example, on the Manning Drive water tower, if I remember right

there's a tower on top of the tank which extended light on top of it up another twenty or thirty

feet. It's that kind of thing that we want to avoid. So I would say that we're concerned about the

aesthetics of whatever devices are attached to that tank and we would be reasonable.

 

Council Member Brown    I believe this stipulation covers it because it says that they can't put

any antenna without your approval.

 

Council Member Franck     I was just going to suggest that all of this is not relevant to the

resolution before us.

 

Council Member Andresen     I appreciate John's comment. However OWASA would talk to

the neighbors if something like this was proposed.

 

RESOLUTION 3, AS AMENDED, WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).

 

A RESOLUTION APPROVING COLOR AND LIGHTING OPTIONS FOR THE HILLTOP

ELEVATED WATER TANK (96-10-28/R-3)

 

WHEREAS, the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill approved a Special Use Permit

authorizing construction of an Orange Water and Sewer Authority Water Storage Tank and

Tower; and

 

WHEREAS, the Council included a condition of approval that requires:

 

Tank Elevation Approval:  That detailed elevations of the tank, including the addition

of communication antennae and the color(s) of the tank, and the lighting of the tank be

approved by the Chapel Hill Town Council, with advice from the Appearance

Commission and working with interested neighbors and OWASA prior to issuance of a

Zoning Compliance Permit.  The applicant shall notify property owners within 1,000

feet of the property of the time and place of the meeting at which the Commission

considers the color of the tank and the proposed Federal Aviation Administration

required lighting plans, and the Commission shall give interested people an opportunity

to be heard.

 

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the

Council hereby approves the following:

 

      COLOR:         Dark green at the bottom of the tank graduating to a blue at the

                   middle to gray at the top of the tank.

 

      LIGHTING:    Medium strobes for daytime and red lights at night.

 

This the 28th day of October, 1996.

 

Item 9  1998-2004 Transportation Improvements Program

 

Town Manager Horton    As the Council well knows, the schedule for getting

recommendations into the process for consideration in the Transportation Improvement Plan has

varied from year to year. Fortunately, this was a year in which it was rational and not completely

irrational as it has been on occasion. Roger Waldon will limit his comments to pointing out the

differences between what you originally were presented with and what's before you tonight.

 

Roger Waldon, Planning Director     We did have a public forum and we had advisory board

comments we had to work with and all of that was geared at looking at last year's project priority

list and making suggestions for changes. The memorandum highlights the comments that came

forward from citizens and from board and we are recommending a few changes to last year's list

in connection with those comments. Bumping up on our priority list the following projects; The

Estes Dr., between NC 86 and Curtis to try and include bike lanes, we've been talking about that

before, the pedestrian crosswalk on Estes Dr. at the entrance to the Library, sidewalks along

Fordham Blvd. and Booker Creek bikeway from Booker Creek Rd. to East Franklin St. We

continue to recommend to you that the top priority be transit capitol projects. It's important to

make that statement that that's our highest transportation priority and we believe that having the

council put that at the top of the list helps in negotiation at the regional level to try and channel

as many resources as we can to our transit system and with those changes as we identified in the

memorandum our recommendation to you is that you adopt Resolution A.

 

Town Manager Horton     There are no citizens who have signed up to speak to this issue. Are

there Council comments?

 

Council Member Franck     Project #5. A couple of  weeks ago we voted to instruct the staff to

basically remove the previous funding for bike lanes on Estes Drive east of Airport Road.   I

think the rationale behind that was that we were willing to spend a half a million dollars on that

project but we weren't willing to spend the larger amount which the Department of

Transportation  had determined it was going to cost, $1.85 million but yet now we're being asked

to put this project back on our priority list. I understand that there's need for bicycle

improvements on that stretch of road but I think the vote we took a couple of weeks ago is still,

at least my feeling, that that's just too expensive and we need to find a less expensive way to do

this.

 

I am not in favor of putting an expensive project like this this high on the priority list all of a

sudden and really taking money away from all those other projects that have been on there, many

of which are just as critical for giving bicyclists an easier time. Pope Road and Ephesus Church

Road, Piney Mountain Road--we could just go on and on. One suggestion would be either

dropping that or removing it entirely. I'd ask if the staff has any comments to the contrary that

might persuade me otherwise?  Okay.

 

The other project I wanted to mention is #23. This is my pet project and it's gotten bumped down

to last on the list. I haven't convinced the Greenways Commission that this is important. This

would be a bike path that would pick up where phase 2 of the Bolin Creek leads off the

Community Center and connect all the way to the Meadowmont Property. This is a very

important link in a regional greenway system really anchored by the American Tobacco Trail

which the city of Durham is building in the abandoned rail corridor. This is obviously only one

stretch, it doesn't get us all the way to hook up with that trail but it gets us very close because

there are a couple of back roads in that area that are called Stagecoach Rd. and Old Fearington

Rd. that help you connect up to that corridor. So I guess I'd like to see this placed a little bit

higher on the list. I think it's an important regional connection.

 

Council Member Andresen      Before a motion is made just to respond a little bit to your

comment. Yeah, I think that the price tag is really high, Richard, I also think this stretch of road..

offering some other means of traveling rather than in a car is really important. It's a link to get

kids out to the high school, it's very well-traveled portion.

 

Council Member Franck     Let me offer a suggestion. In looking at this map, I notice two

things. First of all that there's a road inside the neighborhood off of Caswell Rd that sort of heads

in that direction toward Airport Rd. and also that the YMCA property runs a great length along

there and there might be some possibility for an off-road bicycle path.

 

Council Member Andresen     Well, I'm all for the off-road if one can be worked out, but if one

can't be, you know, Estes Drive.  I don't know what the comparison is on the amount of cars

traveled on Estes vs. Weaver Dairy. That road is getting wider which is good as it's a major

artery. But Estes Drive is not going to be widened in the near future, but we need to put some

bicycle lanes on Estes. I think Carrboro has done far better than we have, and I would really like

to see us get some good bike lanes in place along major arteries.

 

Council Member Chilton      Richard, you were talking about moving #9? I'm sorry, you were

talking about a connection to The American Tobacco Trail?

 

Council Member Franck      It seems to me that if I compared that to other greenway projects,

I'd put it right up with the Upper Booker Creek Greenways so around number fifteen on the list.

 

Council Member Chilton

That project connects toward the American Tobacco Trail somehow?

 

Council Member Franck     Well, it connects toward  Durham which would get you there a

couple of different ways because: one, Durham has some city projects that extend Westward off

of the American Tobacco Trail. It would be a long bike ride. I'm not saying it's an easy thing.

 

Council Member Chilton   And no matter how you slice it, it's a long distance but it is heading

over in that direction.

 

Mayor Waldorf   But in town, Mark, it would complete a connection that would start at Airport

Road and go all the way to the Community Center and then all the way to the Dubose property.

It's nice to complete those in-town routes.

 

Council Member Franck    The reason the price tag is so high is that you have to get across the

bypass.

 

Council Member Chilton  As a practical matter that really starts at Estes Drive because

Umstead Drive is sufficiently bicycle-friendly.

 

Town Manager Horton   Roger could you give us some estimate of the time of any of these

projects?

 

Roger Waldon, Planning Director     No.

 

Town Manager Horton    I mean is it going to be 10 years or.?

 

Council Member Franck     This is a wish list to the TAC and it's up to them to decide and then

ultimately up to the state.

 

Council Member Andresen     This is a minor point perhaps, but on the Fordham Boulevard

sidewalk, #10: I don't know if there's enough right-of-way, but one of the things that really isn't

very pleasant is to walk along a major artery right next to the road. It isn't fun and if there's any

way we can make a sidewalk that's curvy or away from the road, I would really like to encourage

the staff to do it. That is, to talk to Department of Transportation about that.

 

Council Member Franck    There's a lot of right-of-way, the problem is you run into Booker

Creek.

 

Council Member Andresen    Not along that section, is there? Oh so it is narrow.

 

Town Manager Horton     Madam Mayor Pro-tem, if I could in response to your question about

timing.  My best advice is anything lower than #4 you're not going to see any time soon. If you

really want something done, I recommend you put it in your top three or four.

 

Mayor Waldorf     In view of that maybe we could wrap up this discussion.

 

Council Member Pavao     Just a quick question, Richard, did I understand you to say that

you've approached the Greenways Commission and they weren't at all interested in this?

 

Council Member Franck     No, I've never approached them about this. I've been trying to go

to a meeting for about six months and I haven't been able to get to one yet. They always vote to

move this project down more than it is.  I'd like to move R4 and if it can be seconded, I'll make

some amendments.   Council Member Evans seconded the motion.  

 

I'd like to move that project #5, Estes Dr. NC 86 to Curtis Road be deleted and implicit in that is

that we instruct the staff to explore a few alternatives and see if we can do a less expensive

project to meet the same goals.

 

Council Member Evans     I don't agree with that. That's an area in town in which it serves two

schools, both and elementary and a middle school. It serves a recreation park facility there at the

tennis courts,  there are a lot of people who use the track. It is surrounded by developed

residential neighborhoods and there's a lot of traffic on that and I think it needs to stay there.

 

Mayor Waldorf    Now, Richard was making a motion ..

 

Council Member Evans      Which I seconded. and he wanted to do the amendment as

friendly?

 

Council Member Franck     I just moved to amend the motion. I don't disagree with the need

for the project. I think it could be done in a less expensive way if we look into it.

 

Mayor Waldorf      Is there a second to this amendment?

 

Council Member Brown     Could I ask a question of the staff? My memory is that we passed

something regarding this just recently?

 

Town Manager Horton    I don't remember the details. What I do remember is you asking us to

try and find some other way to get this done and the other way is to make it a road project rather

than a bicycle project and the council member I'm sure remembers the original proposal on this

which is that it would be a bicycle and it would cost about a quarter of a million dollars and the

state would pay for it all.  And then it grew and grew and grew, by the time the State added all

the features they wanted and took all the right-of-way they needed it turned out to be

$1.8 million.  Well the maximum you can get for a bicycle project is $250,000 so we were

$1.6 million short.  If you go back to them and say, "Okay, turn it into a road project" They have

a lot of money for road projects.

 

Council Member Brown     Didn't we also ask our Transportation Board to look at this as well?

 

Mayor Waldorf     They support this recommendation don't they?

 

Town Manager Horton     I believe that they do but I wouldn't swear to that.

 

Mayor Waldorf     Okay, Richard has made an amendment to this motion which is to delete # 5.

Is there a second to this motion? Okay, so the amendment fails for lack of a second. So we're

back to the main motion which is the resolution as put forward on the list here. Any further

discussion? All in favor please say Aye, "Aye". All opposed no. The motion passes unanimously

(9-0).

 

A RESOLUTION APPROVING TRANSPORTATION PRIORITIES TO BE SUBMITTED TO

THE DURHAM-CHAPEL HILL-CARRBORO URBAN AREA TRANSPORTATION

ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR INCLUSION IN THE DURHAM-CHAPEL HILL-

CARRBORO 1998-2004 METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENT

PROGRAM (96-10-28/R-4)

 

WHEREAS, it is the policy of the Town of Chapel Hill to develop a balanced transportation

system for the citizens of Chapel Hill, to include roadways, public transit services, bicycle and

pedestrian facilities; and

 

WHEREAS, the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Urban Area Transportation Advisory Committee

will prepare a Regional Transportation Priority List and Metropolitan Transportation

Improvement Program that identifies funding priorities for transportation projects; and

 

WHEREAS, the Town of Chapel Hill has considered its transportation needs and identified

projects that would meet the Town's transportation goals;

 

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the

Council adopts the attached 1998-2004 Transportation Project Priority List.

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Town of Chapel Hill continues to support those local

projects previously identified for funding in the Metropolitan Transportation Improvement

Program.

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Town Council directs the Town Manager to transmit

these adopted priorities to the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Transportation Advisory

Committee for their consideration in preparing the 1998-2004 Metropolitan Transportation

Improvement Program.

 

This the 28th day of October, 1996

 

PROPOSED

Town of Chapel Hill

1998-2004

Transportation Project Priority List

 

1.  Transit Capital Projects (FY 1998-2002).

 

2.  South Columbia Street - Improvement of South Columbia from Manning Drive to Fordham

Boulevard with bicycle and pedestrian accommodations; minimize right-of-way takings.

 

3.  Estes Drive Extension - N.C. 86 to Greensboro Street (Carrboro), widen to three lanes with

four foot shoulders.

 

4.  Weaver Dairy Road - Improvements to include a four lanes with turn lanes cross section

from N.C. 86 to U.S. 15-501 including bicycle, pedestrian, and transit accommodations.

This project includes the Sage Road Extension.

 

5.  Estes Drive - N.C. 86 to Curtis Road, widen existing roadway to include two 12" travel

lanes and 4" bike lanes.

 

6.  Culbreth Road - Bicycle lanes from Smith Level Road to U.S. 15-501 South.

 

7.  Raleigh Road (NC 54) - Sidewalk on both sides from Burning Tree Drive to Country Club

Road.

 

8.  Estes Drive - Prove a pedestrian cross-walk and signal at entrance to Chapel Hill Public

Library.

 

9.  Pope Road - Ephesus Church Road - 5' bicycle lanes.

 

10.  Fordham Boulevard - Sidewalk along west side from Willow Drive to Eastgate shopping

Center.

 

11.  Booker Creek Bikeway - 10' bikeway from Booker Creek Road to East Franklin Street and

bicycle improvements along East Franklin Street.

 

12.  Piney Mountain Road - Improvements from N.C. 86 to Riggsbee Road including turn lanes,

bicycle, pedestrian, and transit accommodations.

 

13.  East Franklin Street - Infill sidewalk on both sides from Elliott Road to Eastgate Shopping

Center.

 

14.  Cameron Avenue - Sidewalk on both sides entire length.

 

15.  Upper Booker Creek Greenway - Construct a 10' bikeway from the Northern Community

Park to Weaver Dairy Road Extension.

 

16.  Mount Carmel Church Road - Improvements from U.S. 15-501 to Chatham County line

including turn lanes, bicycle, pedestrian, and transit accommodations.

 

17.  Seawell School Road - Improvements from Homestead Road to Estes Drive.

 

18.  Manning Drive - Sidewalk on east side from Skipper Bowles Drive to U.S. 15-501.

 

19.  Morgan Creek Greenway - Construct a greenway from Southern Village to Frank Porter

Graham School.

 

20.  Fordham Boulevard - Construct a sidewalk along the north side, Manning Drive to

Carmichael street.

 

21.  Country Club Road - Sidewalk on east side from South Road to Raleigh Street.

 

22.  Merritt Mill Road - Sidewalk on east side from Cameron Avenue to Edwards Place.

 

23.  Bolin Creek/ Little Creek Greenway - 10' bike path from Chapel Hill Community Center

to Dubose property.

 

Note: Bold type indicates a new project or a project that has been reordered in the priority list.

 

Council Member Capowski      May I make a comment? Just like the First Amendment is your

favorite amendment, South Columbia Street is probably the reason why I weigh 160 and not 190.

You have to be light to dodge the traffic.  There is a particularly dangerous area for pedestrians at

the corner of Manning Drive and South Columbia Street.  If you walk down the sidewalk in a

northward direction toward town and you want to cross Manning Drive on the east side of South

Columbia even with the traffic lights, there is no safe way to do it.  It is always a "run as fast as

you can" game and that's incredibly ridiculous because there are a half a dozen major UNC

hospital-related buildings on the south side of Manning Drive between West Drive and South

Columbia Street.  And it is a flood of pedestrians continuously across Manning Drive in the

couple of hundred yards east of  South Columbia Street.   Is there anything that we can do about

this?

 

Town Manager Horton      Let us explore. Perhaps if while we're trying to solve that specific

problem we might be able to work out something with the University that the State would

approve.  We'll try.

 

Item 10  Comprehensive Plan

 

Mayor Waldorf     Item 8. I've just counted. We've got one hour and seven items left.

Comprehensive Plan.   Mr. Manager.

 

Town Manager Horton     I'll try and give a very quick overview on this. As a part of its work

plan that the Council adopted earlier this year, you asked us to bring a report to you that would

explore methods for updating the Comprehensive Plan.  We have looked at that and you asked us

also to take into account the staffing requirements. We think it would be possible to update the

existing plan and we've outlined a method for doing that that would require fewer resources but

would require significant effort in any case. The second alternative would be to use the rather

traditional approach of community involvement to develop a completely new comprehensive

plan. That obviously would take a lot more effort. A third option would be to defer starting any

revision of the plan until the completion of the Shaping Orange County's Future project. And, of

course, the fourth would be to do nothing. We think those are the four key options available to

the council. We offer a description of option 1 and option 2 with a schedule. Either one of them

would take a significant effort. We welcome the Council's guidance on this subject.

 

Council Member Evans     Yes, I'd like to move R5 and if I had a second I'd like to say a few

words.   Council Member Pavao seconded the motion. 

 

I think that it's very very important for us to start the process for a new Comprehensive Plan

now. I wish this had been done yesterday.  If we put it off, we're going to end up with a plan that

is either fifteen to twenty years old and this is not good planning.  We are living in a community

in which we've been voted to be the most livable community, the best community to do business

in, the best community for women to work in and on and on. The pressures here are great and it's

difficult to continue working with an outdated comprehensive plan.

 

Some of the issues that really need to be addressed besides the fact that it's just generally

outdated and we continue to make changes to it and we continue to have to do small corridor

studies or small area plans rather than doing the whole thing over. The Laurel Hill Parkway is

still part of the plan. In the existing plan crime and public safety is not on the list of key issues let

along dealt with in a meaningful way. The plan, for the most part, calls for the separation of uses

and I think we realize that the separation of uses has detrimental impacts on our town. #4, the

issues of planning for regional transit are not included.

 

There are new agreements regarding water and sewer areas which are not a part of this. Plans for

development of Mason Farm and Horace Williams tracts and the impacts of this development

need to be included. And as Julie raised at the retreat, we need to update the facility plans for

bikeways, greenways, park, fire and police station, roadways, etc. At the present time the

Planning Board has full membership and they have no long range planning projects on the table

so it is an ideal time for them to start addressing this. So I think that it is important that we start

now. I know that there is the issue that Joyce just passed around to probably wait, I haven't had a

chance to read it but I can read the word defer and I know what that means, until Orange

County's Future is done.. Much of the work is going to done for Shaping Orange County's

Future will duplicate work that we're going to need to do for our own comprehensive plan. Much

of the demographic work, much of the studies etc. and it would complement the Shaping Orange

County's Future project for us to do ahead and do our comprehensive plan.

 

Mayor Waldorf     I just want to bring everybody's attention to the fact that it was R5 that was

moved and R5 refers this to the Planning Board to get their comments.

 

Council Member Andresen     I'd like to address the resolution that's on the floor. I think we

need to think if something's a good idea ourselves before we refer it to the board. I don't think

we should have mixed feelings about it and see what the Planning Board thinks if we're not sure

we think it's a good idea. Pat, I really admire your tenacity in going after this particular thing and

I respect your opinion but I respectfully disagree that spending a lot of time and energy on

redoing our comprehensive plan is going to do us much good as a town right now. We're

approving massive developments which are going to continue. We are going to continue to do, if

we take on this additional work and it's going to be a tremendous amount of additional work for

the council. I've been on a council that had done a comprehensive plan and it is arduous, believe

me. Just imagine all the budget work sessions. You have all that kind of energy. It takes that. 

 

It takes a tremendous amount of energy from the staff. It takes more staff members. I would

think we'd either have to hire new staff members or we need to just say, "Well, these

development applications are coming through, we just won't look at them." It's an energy thing

that the citizens have to support and participate in. It's a little akin to the bond issue. It's a thing

where all the citizens need to get involved and it isn't just the Planning Board holding hearings.

If you really do a good comprehensive plan, you get everybody involved and you have a lot of

citizens committees and then it becomes truly something which the average citizen can

participate in and that effort is actually going on now with Orange County's Future. We've got a

task force. There are going to be many committees associated with that.

 

What a comprehensive plan rests on is a long-range vision a town has for its future. It's like,

"Where do we want to be in twenty years?"  One of the general principles that we want to have

in this document.  It seems to me that's exactly what Orange County's Future Task Force is

going to come up with. That's the kind of thinking we need and it makes sense for us to review

our document when that happens.  As far as the facilities planning is concerned, I agree with you.

We need to do facilities planning and I count on the Manager to be doing that. I want him to be

doing that every year. I want him to be thinking ahead about what bikeways, roadways should be

recommended. I don't think it's doing some fancy document that's given out to everyone. I think

that we can count on our Town Manager to do yearly facilities planning. So, in summation, I

would just say that I would like to not support this but support something in which we will take a

look at our long range planning in the context of what comes out of the Orange County's Future.

 

Council Member Brown   Were you offering the substitute motion?

 

Council Member Andresen     I'll offer a substitute motion if that's procedurally appropriate.

 

Council Member Brown  I'd like to second that and I would just like to add something. I think

it's real important for us to go into this project with the idea that you will be paying attention. I

know that the staff has already told me that some of the concerns of the citizens who are going to

be on the extremely important task force relate to.. Their work will actually be heeded. I think

it's real important to look at this 15 step process and realize that the final step, step 15 actually

addresses what we're talking about now. That the report that this task force will be preparing and

submitting will actually be used as a policy base in revising the comprehensive plan and I think

that that is the logical process and that we need to work with this group and give all our effort to

this group as this project is going forward and so I support waiting until that report is complete.

 

Mayor Waldorf      We need to vote on whether to substitute R5b which Joyce just distributed a

few minutes ago for the main motion that's on the floor.  I think we ought to vote on whether to

substitute it before we get into any further discussion.

 

Council Member Pavao     I don't think I can support R5b since we just received it and I don't

think we've had adequate time to really weigh the total implications.  But we've talked so much

about this Comprehensive Plan, that it needs updating and I think we generally agree on that and

if we keep deferring it, I think we'll miss the bus and get down to the end of 1999 just before the

year 2000 and we'll find that we have an outdated document that will then need all this work that

we're proposing to get stared now and we'll be behind the eight-ball. If this document already is

somewhat out-dated, it's fifteen years old.

 

Mayor Waldorf      I would like us to vote on whether to substitute the motion please. All in

favor of substituting R5b to the main motion please say Aye, "Aye". All opposed no. The motion

passed by a vote of 5-4, with Council Members Capowski,  Evans, Pavao and Mayor Waldorf

voting no).   So the motion now before us to take action on is R5b which is a resolution deferring

revision of the Town's Comprehensive Plan until after Shaping Orange County's Future

completes it work.  Let's remind everybody, Joyce, when that will be. That's two and a half

years from now?

 

Council Member Brown     Yes, it's beginning in November and we've been talking in terms of

two years maybe even shorter.

 

Council Member Evans     But is that true that the staff person has not even been hired yet by

the county?

 

Council Member Brown    The staff person who's in charge of this has been working on it.

There will be an additional person and that person will be on that task force when it has its

retreat.

 

Council Member Pavao     Which will be in the fall of 1999.

 

Council Member Evans     And these usually do take longer. I just want to say that on our part

is it wise for us as the elected officials from Chapel Hill who are concerned, we should be

concerned primarily with Chapel Hill to make a decision in which we are going to have a

comprehensive plan by the time we have a new one in place, our old one will be twenty years

old.

 

Mayor Waldorf     I agree with you. I don't see these processes as conflicting. It seems to me

they could work together fairly well. Any other comment on this motion?

 

Council Member Capowski    I have a question about this motion. Should this motion fail,

where are we?

 

Mayor Waldorf     We'll see where we are

 

Council Member Wiggins   I apologize for asking this, but what were the goals for Shaping

Orange County's Future?

 

Town Manager Horton     It's a visioning process to get together all the people in the county to

put together ideas that would guide us in the growth collectively for the next 20-30 years. And

it's also a community building process where we come together to try to reinvigorate ourselves

as a community and as a whole.   This also will be an information gathering process for the

whole county and there are a number of areas for information gathering both environmental,

social and economic and I think it will give us a real basis for decision making in a collective in a

regional effort.

 

Council Member Wiggins    Roger, are we disadvantaged, given that some people feel that the

comprehensive plan that we have now is kind of old and out-dated, are disadvantaged in any way

by waiting?

 

Town Manager Horton    That really is a determination that only the council can make. The

council decides whether or not the comprehensive plan is satisfactory. We can offer technical

analysis of it. We could point out that if some piece of it is wrong, the data is wrong or

something like that. The key part of the comprehensive plan sets out the community's goals as

council member Andresen noted. And it's up to the Council to determine whether or not you're

satisfied with that plan and if you're not then to decide what action would be appropriate to adopt

a new plan or to amend the one that we have now.   There is no set answer to that question.

 

Council Member Wiggins    If I'm remembering correctly, some of the development proposals

that have come before the board, they always start out by referring to the comprehensive plan and

if this development project is in keeping with it. So it seems like this plan is dated in the late

`80's is somehow influencing our decision, right? (Yes) And so are we satisfied? I mean, I

haven't heard anyone question a development project because the plan didn't have the right thing

in it. I'm just trying to figure out how all this fits together.

 

Council Member Franck     I would say, no. We have not had a problem, since I've been on the

council (8 or 10 months) that the comprehensive didn't reflect our wishes and thus didn't give us

grounds to deny or ask for a better development application. In fact, I think we may see in the

future applications that come in that we can clearly use the comprehensive plan as grounds for

denying them. So the goals that are laid out for the plan and much of the narrative that's in the

plan, even though it is old, I think it still reflects the wishes of the majority of the council when it

comes to approving or not approving these developments.

 

Council Member Brown     I would just like question the age because I believe it has on it 1989,

that hasn't been so long ago and I can remember going.

 

Town Manager Horton     It was formally adopted in the summer of the 1989 or the fall of

1989.

 

Council Member Brown    .and I can remember going to a number of those public meetings

and discussions that the group had to bring the community together so I'm not sure it's that out-

dated.

 

Town Manager Horton    I believe the work started on it around 1986 or so and took about 3

years to complete.

 

Council Member Evans      Much of it does date back to the beginning of when it was started in

'86. But a lot of the demographics, of course, are even older than that because in 1986 you

couldn't get your hands on it. There are a lot of parts of the comprehensive plan other than just

the goals and objectives. So the facilities report, development ordinances, our land use map are

all a part of it too. I think those are things which we see time after time saying that we wish we

had more flexibility in regard to road construction or in regard to buffer requirements. The crime

issue in regard to our buffer requirements, now we require buffers that are really not smart to

have because they provide shielding for people to hide behind especially at banks and things like

that. So there are lots of issues that need to be addressed.

 

Are the existing goals and objectives terribly out of date? No, probably not because they are very

general and I think that that's probably what will happen Shaping Orange County's Future. I

cannot see that there will be any conflict because the vision that northern Orange County and

Hillsborough is going to have will be agreed upon by Carrboro and Chapel Hill are going to have

to be so general that  we need to have a plan that's much more specific and much more centered

just on Chapel Hill.

 

Mayor Waldorf     All right. R5b is on the floor. Ready to vote? All in favor please say Aye,

"Aye". All opposed no. (Ayes are Wiggins, Franck, Brown, Chilton and Andresen. Nos are

Waldorf, Capowski, Pavao and Evans.)   So R5b passes.  Okay, let's move on to item 8b which

is the Downtown Small Area Plan.

 

A RESOLUTION DEFERRING REVISION OF THE TOWN'S COMPREHENSIVE PLAN

UNTIL AFTER THE TASK FORCE ON SHAPING ORANGE COUNTY'S FUTURE

COMPLETES ITS WORK (96-10-28/R-5b)

 

WHEREAS, the Council has entered into a collaborative effort with Orange County and

Carrboro, which includes participation by Hillsborough and is called Shaping Orange County's

Future; and

 

WHEREAS, that collaborative process was approved by the supporting governing bodies in

Orange County; and

 

WHEREAS, the final step in the Shaping Orange County's Future 15 step process includes "A

final report from the Task Force will be prepared and submitted to each jurisdiction, for use as a

policy base in revising local comprehensive plans," and

 

WHEREAS, such regional efforts as Shaping Orange County's Future are a positive direction in

our long range planning process; and

 

WHEREAS, staff resources are presently stretched with the ongoing work required in this high

development period; and

 

WHEREAS, the conclusions in the final report of the Shaping Orange County's Future Task

Force could measurably shape Chapel Hill's revision of the Comprehensive Plan;

 

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the

Council defers consideration of revising the Town's Comprehensive Plan until after the final

report from the Task Force on Shaping Orange County's Future.

 

This the 28th day of October, 1996.

 

Town Manager Horton    The Council asked us to consider how to move forward with work

that you initiated in reviewing the downtown development plan. We presented for your

consideration several possibilities. The first is to combine the Downtown Area Planning process

with the revision of the town's comprehensive plan. Based on your last vote, that would come, I

suppose in conjunction with the comprehensive plan after Shaping Orange County. The second

option would be to direct that a small area work group be formed under the leadership of the

Planning Board to carry out specialized look at just that small area of our town. In a manner

similar to the northwest area plan and the southern area plan. Having considered very quickly

your vote on the last issue, I would recommend that you give strong consideration to conducting

an additional student workshop class on the downtown area to gather additional data and to

continue what has been done with the most modest investment. Another option, of course, would

be to do nothing at this time.

 

Mayor Waldorf     Well, another option would be to make slight changes to Resolution A

changing the title to "Initiating a Downtown Area Planning Process" and then striking the 5th

whereas and rewording the "now therefor be it resolved". Just taking out the references to the

comprehensive plan but still allowing us the Downtown Small Area Plan to go forward which I

think one should.

 

Town Manager Horton      The Small Area Plan is Resolution B.

 

Council Member Franck      I'd like to move Resolution B.  As Council Member Evans points

out, the Planning Board is not currently engaged in any long-range planning activities and I think

this is probably one of the most important one that they can undertake.

 

Council Member Capowski     Since we just passed Resolution R5b which in effect freezes our

comprehensive plan for 5 « years..

 

Council Member Franck     No it doesn't.  It just means we're not going to comprehensively

review it.

 

Mayor Waldorf     We can change our mind in three months if we want to but a majority of the

council rejected the idea of undertaking a comprehensive review of the comprehensive plan at

this time. That's for sure.

 

Council Member Capowski  Well, I'm not an attorney but we said we are deferring

consideration of revising the comprehensive plan.

 

Council Member Franck     And now we're getting ready to say that we'd like the Planning

Board to work on a Downtown Area Plan.

 

Council Member Capowski      Which will become... guess what?

 

Mayor Waldorf     Part of the comprehensive plan, another patchwork revision. Well Resolution

B has been moved and seconded. I sure support it. Any other comment?

 

Council Member Andresen     I'm wondering what is it that's really needed now?  We've had

these work shop classes working on this and they've come up with some excellent work and then

Josh Gurlitz who certainly has been involved in this effort for years has asked the Town Council

to appoint a committee to create a Small Area Plan. I'm not so sure a committee wouldn't be

better than the Planning Board, frankly.  I would like to see some people with specific downtown

interests working on this. I don't think maybe giving it to the Planning Board is the best idea.

 

Council Member Franck     That's what Resolution B does. #2, request the Manager to solicit

applications for appointment to the Downtown Small Area work group.

 

Council Member Andresen     All right. I like it.

 

Mayor Waldorf      But it says the group should be made up of existing Planning Board

members and 5 other interested individuals from the community. I think you make a good point.

I don't think 5 is enough.

 

Council Member Andresen     Maybe we ought to start with a downtown committee and add to

it.

 

Council Member Franck   Why don't we let the Planning Board really take the lead role

because that is their job.

 

Council Member Chilton   Why don't we just delete this little clause that says we want the

group to be made up of etc., etc., and leave that issue a little more open-ended about who will be

on that committee.

 

Mayor Waldorf     And point #1 makes it clear that the Planning Board is supposed to take the

lead. So is that a friendly amendment that's okay with the mover and the seconder? Any other

discussion?

 

Council Member Evans   Would you say the change again please?

 

Mayor Waldorf   On point #2 on Resolution B, we're striking the phrase, "such group to be

made up of the existing Planning Board etc." We're just not specifying what the composition is

but we're asking the Manager to solicit applications and telling the Planning Board to get ready.

Okay? All in favor please say Aye, "Aye". All opposed no.  The motion was adopted

unanimously (9-0).

 

A RESOLUTION DIRECTING THE PLANNING BOARD TO CONDUCT A SMALL

AREA PLAN FOR DOWNTOWN CHAPEL HILL  (96-10-28/R-6b)

 

WHEREAS, the Council is interested in pursuing a planning process to provide a detailed long

range guide to the future development and conservation of  Downtown Chapel Hill; and

 

WHEREAS, in July 1995, the Downtown Plan Committee petitioned the Town Council to

undertake a Downtown Small Area Planning Process; and

 

WHEREAS, the Town Council contracted with the Department of City and Regional Planning

at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to undertake a Downtown Area Student

Workshop Class during the 1996 Spring semester; and

 

WHEREAS, the Downtown Area Student Workshop conducted preliminary analysis and

prepared a report on Downtown Chapel Hill that will serve as a foundation for future

Downtown Area planning processes;

 

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the

Council:

 

   1) Directs the Planning Board to undertake a Small Area Plan for Chapel Hill's

Downtown Area.

 

   2) Requests the Town Manager to solicit applications for appointment to a Downtown

Small Area Plan Work Group.

 

   3)       Expresses its intent to call a Public Hearing to consider a draft plan for the Downtown

Area in the Fall of 1997.

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Report prepared by the Downtown Area Student

Workshop Class shall be used as a resource for the Downtown Small Area planning process.

 

This the 28th day of October, 1996.

 

Item 11  Transportation Board Report on Traffic Calming

 

Brett Perry    I'm a senior now so I don't do homework. What I want to speak about tonight is

on the single occupancy vehicle reduction report mentioned in #9, it's page 2 of the item that I

got. It brings to light many of the concerns that student government has received from the

students about transportation costs, namely the bus systems. As the Chapel Hill Transportation

Board's report on the single occupant vehicle use reduction states that there is an urgent to

reduce single occupant vehicle use for environmental, economic and traffic congestion reasons.

In order to do this the alternate modes of transportation not only need to be made available but

also need to be affordable. Approximately 18,000 undergraduates, graduate students and

university staff commute to campus every day. Thus, the majority of the bus riders are affiliated

with the University.

 

As a representative of the student body to the Town Council, I must request that the Town

seriously take into account the wishes of the students.  As any person who has tried to park near

downtown around mid-day knows that parking is a headache. How do we solve this problem?

Make buses cheaper and increase the coverage of bike paths as agenda item 7.2 suggests.

However, the Town's bus system is the most important thing at this point. If rates go up, expect

more S.O.V.'s and more congestion. In conclusion, bus rates need to be maintained at the current

rate or lowered in order to increase the usage of the town's bus system and cut down on S.O.V.'s. 

In order to lower or maintain the current bus rates Chapel Hill Town Council, the Transportation

Board, Public Transit and myself need to come up with cost-cutting measures as this report

suggests.   Thank you.

 

Ruby Sinreich    First of all, I certainly agree with the gentleman's comments and we on the

Transportation Board and myself personally have been working to keep the buses as cheap as

possible for a long time and sometimes we've been succeeding and sometimes we haven't and

we're definitely continuing to work on that. Also, in reference to the most previous agenda item,

another thing I've been trying to accomplish as chair is to make transportation and the

Transportation Board involved with the town's planning process because I think transportation

planning is essential to intelligent planning and we're finding that more and more and that goes

into everything Pat was taking about and mixed uses and all that kind of stuff. And we have felt

that the comprehensive plan is way out of date.

 

I don't know very much about the Shaping Orange County's Future report and it may be a good

idea to delay it. I'm not going to pass judgment on that but I know that the Transportation Board

and I personally would be thrilled to be involved in any such undertaking as revising the

comprehensive plan and definitely would like to be involved in a small area plan for downtown.

So if you're going to talk about the composition of that group, stick us on there. That's one of the

things that's in the S.O.V. report. So single occupant vehicle use is basically an indicator of what

people in town are doing, how people are getting around. So the reason we look at is not because

of that specific thing, the decrease in the use of single occupancy vehicles means less people are

getting around, hopefully that means we're increasing the use of other modes. So really this is all

about how people get around Chapel Hill.

 

There's a cycle of how you can get around and the ways you use those and so on. So this is the

transportation side of good planning. Some people, as we were working on this report, wanted to

make sure that we weren't too negative in it but this is a sentiment we have sometimes because

it's real frustrating to come up to these issues over and over again. We come up to them when

we're talking about mixed-use planning, sustainable development. It's really a broad issue and

it keeps coming up. Also in the comprehensive plan we get frustrated sometimes because it

doesn't support us where we want it. So my point is it's a very broad issue and it has

implications for sustainable development, for intelligent planning, it has huge implications for

15-501 which we're currently looking at doing major things to. Just to quickly go over some of

the implications,  the obvious pollution from the numbers of cars.

 

One of the most important one to me and the key to most of the rest of them is the issue of access

and access to transportation to people who don't drive cars for whatever reason. It could be

they're too young, too old, disabled, can't afford it or just don't want to which is certainly good

reason. But the dependence of our transportation structure on single occupancy vehicles means

that a lot of people don't have access that way. That leaves car oriented planning which leads

back to less access. That's the cycle that I was talking about before. It also means that this

dependence on cars and the car-oriented planning means that it's less safe for pedestrians and

cyclists and that leads to traffic calming which I'll talk about later. It also just generally poor for

our community.

 

We're finding that more people are in their cars the less they see of each other and the less they

get to know each other and care about each other and obviously it makes it very difficult for us to

support good transit around. If there's tons and tons of roads and not a lot of buses or even just

tons and tons of roads people don't need to take the bus. I mean if we build 50 parking decks up

town people don't need to take the bus anymore and we think the bus is a good thing and we

want to support it. And that also has implications as our cover sheet shows for regional transit

which we're looking at now and we want to make sure that planning in Chapel Hill is supportive

of transit and supportive of the regional transit that I hope we'll have soon. So dependence on

single occupancy vehicles is expensive and it doesn't serve our community.

 

So I would like to see the Town take a very comprehensive look at planning for a sustainable

community and that means a lot of things. That means getting this stuff into the comprehensive

plan. I think we definitely need to look at zoning as a concept because the more I learn the more I

realize that zoning separates uses out and the more I think about this the more I think I don't

want things to be separated, I want things to be together at least to some certain extent. So just

the whole concept of the way we zone needs to be evaluated and I think that's part of the

comprehensive plan. It could also be transportation overlay zones which I never thought of until

Richard mentioned it but it sounds like a really neat idea that I'd like to look into more. So I was

going to suggest that we establish a task force to look at these issues and there's a number of

responsibilities that I hope will come up that would fall under this kind.   One is that $10,000 that

the Council  have already allocated for public education that we asked for this year to increase

the understanding of alternatives, why alternatives are great of how easy they are to use and so

on.

 

That's a whole thing that we haven't really even thought about how we specifically want to do

that. We laid out some real general ideas in the S.O.V. report. Also to monitor the goals and

measurements which are at the end of this report to actually put those into use to get these

happenings set them up with our goals and see how they are doing, see what we need to do about

that. To look at zoning, how zoning is done and how transportation planning is part of that. And,

of course, to talk about sustainable development. As you know, there is another student group

doing a second sustainable development report. I took a class with that professor at UNC so I'm

really familiar with those issues and also with his style. We, on the transportation board have

been kind of frustrated with that process because we are very interested in sustainable

development and just have been frustrated not to see more come out of it and would like to be

very involved with that.

 

We would like to maybe meet with the student group or at least representatives, say half of our

board meet some representatives of their group to talk about what they're doing and what we're

doing so that they'll understand because we haven't had a lot of direct communication with them.

We have kind of liaison and a half on their committee but as a whole we really don't know

what's going on and we feel like they may not be up to date with what we do also and we'd like

them to know. We're working on a lot of the issues that they're talking about working on. So

there's a lot of stuff to be done and I'd like to see more involvement of the Transportation Board

in planning and I think this would be a good opportunity to put together a committee that would

put planning board and education board and probably a CRB member maybe a couple of council

liaisons or maybe not. But to talk about really revising the way that we think about transportation

planning in Chapel Hill.

 

Mayor Waldorf     Ruby, it would help me.. You went through a proposal here at the end that I

don't think we have written down. It would help me to have that in writing, have some time to

think about it and then let us address it at a future meeting. Is that possible?

 

Ruby Sinreich      Oh sure. We have, on the board, just managed to get the report out and talk

about a lot of things we want to do but didn't talk about the exact implementation of those we

could probably put together a proposal for that. Also a good reference is the S.O.V. report that

was done in 1990, I was a new Transportation Board member at the time, which is much more

comprehensive than ours and goes in depth and makes some very specific recommendations.

Some of those have been implemented but a lot of them haven't and so that's useful to go back to

also and we would definitely do that in that process.

 

Mayor Waldorf      Would the Council like to refer this report to the Manager for comment?

 

Council Member Franck     I would specifically like to refer it to the Manager and ask that he

pass on the report, especially part 3, regarding measurements, to the sustainability group that is

working with the University. When the Transportation Board started this that was one of our

goals, was to tie this into that sustainability. They were discussing at the time the indicators of

sustainable development and the Trasnportation Board undertook to identify what we thought

were key indicators for transportation in regards to sustainable development and so we'd like to

see this section of the report be considered by that sustainable development group.

 

COUNCIL MEMBER FRANCK MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER CHILTON,

TO REFER THE MATTER TO THE MANAGER.  THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED

UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).

 

Mayor Waldorf   Now traffic calming.

 

Ruby Sinreich    As I mentioned, traffic calming plays into all these same issues of

transportation planning. It can make a street a lot more friendly and we talked about the way we

developed the suburban development model, cul-de-sacs and things like that. Part of that is for

the purpose of having a safe place within your neighborhood to play. Since we feel that streets

should be connected generally that it's a good thing but we also want communities to have safe

areas. I think traffic calming is a great way to make streets for neighborhoods again and yet still

serve the function of connecting to other streets as well. As you know our recommendations.

By the way I would like to thank David Bronk being such an incredible resource person. He

brought us a lot of materials and he spent a lot of time and we learned a lot about different types

of traffic calming and he also did the general report of our process so I thank him very much for

that.

 

If you got to skim this you may have seen the Dutch Wooner method of traffic calming which

seemed really neat to me and I had a chance to go to Holland last month and was in a more urban

area and saw similar styles of things. It's just the most beautiful thing and planning-wise in

general, I highly recommend traveling to Europe because people have had to develop more

compact ways and very efficiently and beautifully also. Around Amsterdam there are so many

more multitudes of bicycles and pedestrians than cars. Cars are practically useless there. There

are little tiny parking spaces for them. Trucks can't even get in there. Lots of alleys. All the stuff

we've been talking about, it works there and it's beautiful. So as you can see, our conclusion was

to recommend in addition to the existing plan for Lakeshore Drive speed humps or bumps to do

some traffic calming on Pinehurst Drive which would include a traffic circle at one more main

intersections within there which basically means people just can't go and fly through there. It just

gives you something to dodge around. Plus they're real neat.

 

Bicycle lanes, of course, because that will narrow the travel lanes which serves to slow people

down and also as Julie was mentioning we don't have enough of.  Bicycle lanes are always good

whenever we can possibly get them in and the resulting road-narrowing could be counted as

bicycle lanes but it's an additional thing we're doing there. So that's our basic recommendation.

Another thing that came out of this is that we saw that street design standards were not always

supportive of the same goals that we have. We'd like to be more pro-active with those. I

understand a manual's coming up for revision. We'd very much like to be a part of that process.

Also I thought I'd mention that Mallette street was one that we considered because a lot of

people came out and were unhappy about a lot of trucks there and there is a posted no trucks sign

there so I think it simply needs more enforcement. So I'd recommend that as well.

 

Council Member Andresen     First of all I think that the fact that the Transportation Board has

gotten interested in this whole subject of traffic calming is terrific and shows you're on a

forefront of transportation thinking. Do you have some kind of system to recommend that we

take on projects because you made a couple of recommendations here and I think that they're

really good and I think neighborhoods would really be excited about a way to deal with the

traffic going through. Do you have something to suggest how we're going to work?

 

Ruby Sinreich     We did recommend that the council allocate $30,000 a year for traffic calming

projects. We didn't make any additional recommendations but off the top of my head I would say

that looking at some of the other communities that we have seen they have mechanisms for

implementing traffic calming so that community members come in and petition and request and

the town will implement it. I think this was in Boulder. I think we'd be glad to look at that more.

We do want this to be a continuing process. I think traffic calming is very popular in

neighborhoods.

 

Council Member Andresen      It seems to me with that limited money you might want to

suggest some kind of process to the council where those applications could be reviewed. How

would you choose what neighborhood and all that.

 

Ruby Sinreich      Definitely. I would start by looking at how other places are doing this and

model it after that.

 

Mayor Waldorf      I really think that the two that they've identified, it sounds like they have

generally supportive neighborhoods. We ought to refer them to the Manager for an

implementation proposal.

 

COUNCIL MEMBER CHILTON MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER BROWN,

TO REFER THE MATTER TO THE MANAGER.  THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED

UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).

 

Mayor Waldorf   So you're going to go back to your board and work on the kind of process that

Julie's talking about for filtering the neediest from the less needy.

 

Ruby Sinreich     Sure, if you agree to allocate $30,000 a year, we'll agree to figure out what to

do with it.

 

Mayor Waldorf      Maybe you want to wait and do it after the budget. Okay. Item #10 Storm

water impact statements.

 

Item  12   Stormwater Impact Statements

 

George Small, Engineering Director     I would like to point out that this report for the most

part is the same information that was provided at the public hearing that we had. I would just

comment tonight on the results of the hearing. Three people spoke at the hearing. There was no

opposition to the concept of requiring a storm water impact statement. The one issue that was

brought up was the question of whether to leave the sentence that allows the Manager to grant

exemption to all or part of the requirements of the stormwater impact statement. We believe that

sentence should remain in there simply to provide us the flexibility that we often need to not be

so rigorous and say that every single development has to submit exactly all these items.

 

In some cases the RCD has pointed this out that it  just doesn't make sense and it's not useful

information. When the manager has the flexibility to take a look at that and exempt some of

those I think it's helpful to the staff and it's helpful to you to not have information that's really

not useful. It also saves some time for everyone. So we are suggesting proceeding with the

resolution that would ask for these storm water impact statements to be submitted with any new

development application starting with those submitted on January 1st 1997 which is a couple

months away.

 

Council Member Andresen     Why January?

 

George Small     We just felt like that was the appropriate time. We're going to need some time

to send the information out and get people up to speed. You could pick almost any date. We felt

like we would need at least 6 or 8 weeks to get people tuned in. Give them a chance to come in

and talk to us about what is it that they're supposed to do. And that's based on past things like

traffic impact statements in RCD applications. It would take a little while.

 

COUNCIL MEMBER CHILTON MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER PAVAO,

TO ADOPT RESOLUTION 7.

 

Mayor Waldorf    Any discussion?

 

Council Member Capowski    Will this apply to UNC? I guess excluding the main campus?

 

George Small     It wouldn't be a requirement for them. It would be the same as the courtesy

reviews that we do on their applications now. They submit information to us and we ask them to

submit this information to us like we do for any of their other developments.

 

Council Member Capowski     How will we know if this is really forming a good effect or

whether it's just another hoop that the developer has to jump through?

 

George Small    I think the first year seeing what information you get you can come to your own

conclusions on that. I think that's the only way we can find out how useful it is is to get a feel

and see if it's information that's useful to you. If it's not there's no reason to continue it. If it is

we would continue.

 

Council Member Capowski    Then R7 has been moved and seconded. I would ask the mover

and the seconder to accept the very small amendment which is to ask the Manager to report to us

periodically on the number of statements that we get and his opinion of how well this is working.

 

Council Member Chilton     Why don't you be more specific and say one time a year from

now?

 

Council Member Brown    If we could do that at the conclusion of the fiscal year, that's the

time when we do a number of other reports. It would be easier to remember to just put it into the

routine.

 

Mayor Waldorf     That would be another "be it further resolved" clause. Do the mover and the

seconder..?

 

Council Member Chilton    What date are we talking about?

 

Council Member Brown   July 1 or thereabouts.

 

Council Member Wiggins    Would that status report include any exemptions to the

requirement?

 

Town Manager Horton     Yes ma'am.

 

Mayor Waldorf     So we have an additional "be it further resolved" clause that the Manager

will provide a status report to the council including any exemptions that he's granted by July 1

1997.

 

RESOLUTION 7, AS AMENDED, WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).

 

All in favor please say Aye, "Aye". All opposed no. Passes unanimously. Okay, item #11, Home

Occupations, this is actually a continuation of a public hearing which began a couple of weeks

ago and we have 4 citizens who signed up to speak. Mr. Manager?

 

A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE TOWN MANAGER TO IMPLEMENT A

REQUIREMENT FOR SUBMITTAL OF A STORMWATER IMPACT STATEMENT AS

PART OF ALL SPECIAL USE PERMIT AND MAJOR SUBDIVISION APPLICATIONS

(96-10-28-/R-7).

 

WHEREAS, a Stormwater Management Committee was established by the Town Council in

1992 to investigate and make recommendations regarding stormwater management issues

affecting Chapel Hill; and

 

WHEREAS, the Committee presented its final report to the Town Council on November 8,

1994; and

 

WHEREAS, the Committee's final report contained a recommendation that the approval

process for new development include submittal of a Stormwater Impact Statement; and

 

WHEREAS, guidelines have been developed which outline specific requirements for

preparation of an acceptable Stormwater Impact Statement, and

 

WHEREAS, the Town Council realizes that requiring Stormwater Impact Statements would

involve additional time and expense for preparation and review of said statements.

 

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the

Council herewith authorizes the Town Manager to implement a requirement for submittal of a

Stormwater Impact Statement as part of all Special Use Permit and major subdivision

applications.

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this requirement shall become effective for applications

submitted to the Town on or after January 1, 1997 and that the Town Manager shall furnish an

annual report to the Council on or about July 1st of each year.

 

This the 28th day of October , 1996.

 

Item  13   Home  Occupations Ordinance

 

Assistant to Manager Greg Feller     This hearing tonight is a continuation of a hearing that the

council began on October 7th. We have notices published to this hearing. There are two alternate

ordinances before you. One is recommended by the Home Occupations Committee. The other

ordinance of recommended by the Planning Board and the Town Manager. We have provided a

memorandum to you that discusses it in some detail the proposals that are before the council and

the differences between the two proposed ordinances. There are several questions that came up in

the last hearing that we provided answers to. I'd be glad to answer any questions.

 

Council Member Andresen     Someone inquired of me whether it would be possible to have

the automobile repair facility if they wanted to build a garage next to their house and repair cars

and have one employee, would it be possible under this home occupations ordinance?

 

Greg Feller     Let me see if we can look that up.

 

Nancy Brooks     I am Nancy Brooks, a violin teacher in Chapel Hill for thirty years and I `m

part of the Chapel Hill cooperative Suzuki project group of teachers. In these years I have never

had a neighborhood complaint. I know you people want to encourage music lessons for children

in Chapel Hill. I ask you to try to create an ordinance which we enable music learning to flourish

here. The problem for this particular endeavor lies in two proposed restrictions, only three

business related cars at a time and limited to the owner's frontage. Violin students have a private

and a group or small ensemble lesson every week.

 

At my house there is a group class for young children once a week for an hour. Every two to

three months there's a recital for about 15 students. Right now I'm coaching a junior High string

quartet. Since I have a good music room, I let other teachers use my room from time to time.

Sometimes cellist James Salemson borrows my music room and coaches a cello quartet. Small

groups and classes are part of quality music teaching and even occasional groups meeting the

proposed rules. A few years ago a fellow teacher rented commercial space near Wellspring for

these kinds of activities. She had to charge $9.00 per child for each group class versus our $4.00

and she still had to file bankruptcy finally and close down this September. That put about 50

students on the street, so to speak, and created a real crisis in the music teaching in town.

 

We offer a beginning class twice a year. The September class absorbed some of the beginners

from this teacher but the January class already has about 16 signed up and it is very uncertain

that there will be any openings among the remaining private teachers to take them when they

finish the class. We are barely able to keep up with the demand and need every help we can get

to encourage teachers to teach. Music lessons in Chapel Hill really are affordable only because

the teaching space is rent -free in the home. The teachers teach because they love to. They do not

make much money. I feel as though I spend most of my waking hours on teaching related task

and I have never broken $9,000.00 in a year. But I can manage because my husband earns a

living. I can do it as a hobby. A single person trying to earn a living teaching music simply

cannot rent space and still charge a reasonable fee. If we must rent space it will pretty much shut

down quality violin teaching. I ask you please to find a way that we can keep music lessons

available and affordable for the children in the town.

 

Yolanda Morrell      I'm actually one of those single people that Miss Brooks was talking about

and as a matter of fact, I have a part-time job in order to teach at my home. I'm also teaching the

class at Nancy's house and requires about 15 students. The parents drop them off sometimes but

sometimes they stay. So the space that we're using there is really important. In my neighborhood

there are only 8 houses and almost everybody has a home business so we don't complain about

each other. But the three car limit is really rough even when I'm teaching at my home, the

switch-over between students overlaps.

 

Philip Hirsch     I'm Phil Hirsch and I was on this Home Occupations Committee appointed by

the Council.  I had not intended to speak tonight but I saw a need to comment on something I

said three weeks ago and it bothered me so much that I thought I should come and talk about it. It

has to do with a comment that.. my comment was that there was no assurance that the Home

Occupation Ordinance would be enforced and the staff comment was that "we currently enforce

these regulations in response to expressed concerns on specific complaints. We do not

recommend more aggressive enforcement at this time. We believe that additional staffing would

be necessary to increase current zoning enforcement work of town including but not limited to

home occupation regulations." I have a letter here written by Mr. Roger Waldon in November of

1995 and this was after my third letter written asking about the pictures that I sent. You may

recall that three weeks ago I referred you to page 65 of your hand-out and it showed pictures of

the parking in front of a psychiatrists house on Ridgecrest Drive.

 

This letter starts, "Dear Mr. Hirsch, I am responding to the several letters you have written me

regarding home occupations in your neighborhood.  I am sorry I did not write sooner. I did

indeed receive photographs you provided me with showing vehicles parked in the vicinity of the

Eisen/Bristol house at 1900 South Lakeshore Drive and in the vicinity of 206 Ridgecrest Drive.

 In addition to studying your photographs we have also done our own monitoring of the situation

driving through your neighborhood at different times of the day on numerous occasions. I have

seen similar situation to those you described in your letter and show in your photographs. As you

know, my original opinion on the nature of the Eisen/Bristol home occupation as you have

illustrated with your photographs was that it was beyond the bounds of our definition of home

occupation. It was the basis of this opinion that I revoked Dr. Eisen's home occupation permit

last year. As you know my revocation was overturned by our board of adjustment on a 9 to 1

vote with the board concluding that the activity taking place at the residence is consistent with

our definition of home occupation. I have not found evidence, either in our observation or in your

photographs that differ substantially from the evidence presented to the board of adjustments. My

conclusion is that the level of activity at the residence continues to be approximately the same as

was upheld by the board." Now Mr. Waldon did not agree at that time that this opinion of the

board was reasonable and in fact he recommended to a groups of us, not me alone, that if we

provided evidence that the traffic was excessive he would withdraw the permit again. I do not

know what caused him to change his mind but what I emphasize is that it was the ordinance as it

was presently was not being enforced.

 

Rhoda Wynn      Ladies and gentlemen of the council and the staff, it pleases me that the

council, by giving due attention to the matter of home occupations in our community has

acknowledged that this is not a one neighborhood problem. It has the potential of becoming a

problem in neighborhoods if misused. As we hear so often, home occupations are a wave of the

future and there are many of us who wish Chapel Hill to be ready for that future and the present

with an ordinance which is fair for home occupations while maintaining the values of residential

neighborhoods. Personally, I value the serious consideration the council has shown by the

appointment of a committee with council representation by Council Member Pavao and Council

Member Chilton. You all have put a significant amount of time and resource both human and

financial to this question. When the citizen issues were first raised, town officials could not tell

us how the home occupations were active.

 

As we move to a conclusion of this question could we take a little more time and a little more

effort to begin the process where it should begin with a survey of home occupation permits

which have been issued? The figures vary from 212 in August 1995 to 279 by August 1996. Are

those true growth figures? With a simple questionnaire sent first class to those permit owners that

are on the books, could we find out how many homes really are in business and the nature of

their business? What I have just heard is that should we find out what those businesses are and

we find out that there is a category perhaps of music teachers or of garage repair people, perhaps

some designation could be made within the regulation. I don't see that it would be a tremendous

problem to devise a simple questionnaire and send it out to those people. That would provide the

necessary base information the town needs.

 

Then second let's report by the media the results we have together with the terms of the newly

revised ordinance not only through the brochures which the staff advocates but with help also of

the media. Then third and quite importantly, let's set up a monitoring system of annual or bi-

annual renewals which really do need to be done. In your packet you have a recommendation

even from the Chapel Hill Home Business and Professional Association for renewal process with

a fee. In the year 1997, the town will have a base of information on how many home occupations

there are and of what type for future control and deliberations. By 1999 it will be easy to

determine the growth and to use this renewal process to remind those with permits of the current

ordinance. The same in 2001, if home occupations are a wave of the future, let us in Chapel Hill

anticipate that wave. Not only with the 1996 ordinance revisions but by stetting up a simple

process by which the town can meet and ride that wave.

 

I urge the council to provide in the ordinance 1; a provision for determining the current extent of

home occupations, 2; provision for wide advertising of the revised ordinance and its terms and 3;

provision for regular renewal process. Let's not let the process and all you and we have been

through over two years slip through our fingers as you provide for what may be a wave of the

future. How will it affect Chapel Hill's future. I think we're at a critical point and let's not let it

slip away. I thank you. May I also add, Madam Mayor, Mr. Parsons was unavoidably required to

miss tonight's meeting. He had a prepared a statement which either I could read or I could

distribute.

 

Mayor Waldorf      If you could just distribute it we will read it later. Thank you. We will all

find an opportunity to read Mr. Parson's statement.

 

Council Member Andresen     Does the current ordinance as it's written provide for regular

renewal process or not. (No) It does not. What would it take to do that?

 

Council Member Franck     The permit that is issued as outlined in the ordinance is not a permit

to run  a home occupation. It's a zoning compliance permit to indicate that the holder of the

permit is going to operate their home occupation within the definition of the Home Occupation

Ordinance, the development ordinance on this section 2.56. A zoning compliance permit does not

need to be renewed. A permit that would be renewed would be something akin to our annual

business licensee that all businesses in town are required to submit. I asked the Manager this

afternoon if that could easily be extended to include home occupations and his answer was that

they needed to do some investigation on that. In any case, I don't think it would be appropriate to

put that in this ordinance because I don't think it belongs in the development ordinance. I don't

think it's a development ordinance issue.

 

Council Member Andresen     But we could come back later to ..? (Yes) What's the category

that falls into?

 

Town Manager Horton     There is not provision for permit renewal at this point.

 

Council Member Andresen     Well, how would we do one then?

 

Town Manager Horton     Well, we don't know.

 

Council Member Andresen     We'll find out later. Okay I just think we spent a lot of time

thinking about how to do these things right and I must say I agree with the speaker's comments

that we really need to make sure that what we do is enforced. Why spend all the time of doing

this if it's not going to mean anything? I think it's really important that this means something just

as all the regulations we do mean something.

 

Council Member Brown    I think it's really important that we address these comments that

we've heard tonight, particularly about renewal and so I'd like to ask when that could come back

to us? Do you all have any idea when you would be able to research this and bring it back to us?

 

Town Manager Horton     We were only presented with the question late this evening and the

Town Attorney has not had any opportunity to even glance at the law to get a sense of what kind

of research he might have to do.

 

Ralph Karpinos, Attorney     It will come back in due course. It may be a month, it may be

three meetings from now. We'll get it done as time allows. There are a number of other things on

the table.

 

Mayor Waldorf      As I understand Richard's point which I say the Manager nod to, this thing

you're going to look up is not necessarily integrally tied to action on this ordinance.

 

Town Manager Horton      What we're talking about is the process the person would go through

in order to obtain a permit to operate a business in their residence. And that is clearly a zoning

compliance issue. The question of what could be established in order to require an annual

reporting and renewal is a substantially different question. We could come back and determine

that , nope we're wrong, it should fit under this ordinance but my preliminary opinion is that it

would not fit under this ordinance.

 

Council Member Capowski      Lee and Mark, I know you spent a lot of time on this committee

and I thank you for your work but I really have a basic philosophic question which is generally,

"Why are we here?" Specifically, if someone can run a business out of their home and impact the

neighborhood not at all or at least below a threshold that no one is complaining, why does the

town need to be involved at all? What are we after? What's our goal? Is it revenue? Is it

regulation? We don't do a good job of solving neighborhood disputes. We don't have that skill-

set here. It's not clear to me what our goal in this whole process is. I would add that when Nancy

Brooks, who has been a thirty year violin teacher and an honest law-abiding citizen is going to

find that what has been a marvelous home business is suddenly rendered illegal, we've got

something wrong.

 

Council Member Chilton    A lot of those home occupations such as you described that are as

innocuous as you're describing, so innocuous that we don't know that they're there by and large

are, in a sense, already illegal because many of them are already operating without a zoning

compliance permit. And the question is who cares? And the answer is nobody. The planning

department hasn't received a complaint about them and the policy is that if they receive a

complaint then they pursue the question of whether the person has a permit and if they do have a

permit whether they are operating in compliance with it. It's a very complaint-driven system. I

think with all due respect to some of the speakers tonight. It makes a lot of sense, if it's not a

problem, it's just not a problem.

 

Council Member Franck      But the answer to your question of why are we here and who cares

is because we have to have a policy to deal with the case of what happens when a Dr. Eisen

creates a disturbance in a neighborhood. We have to have some law that allows us to make a

judgment in that case. And we do have one now and we found that it wasn't the best one we

could have and we're looking at revising it and the reason we're here is Dr. Eisen.

 

Mayor Waldorf       Right. Who has now moved to an office in a commercial district.

 

Council Member Franck      That doesn't change our task.

 

Council Member Evans      I would hope that we would refer this to the staff and get the staff to

come back because I think it's absurd that we can't continue to have music lessons in the homes.

I've got two Suzuki kids that Nancy Brooks taught and neither of them went to Julliard but they

did enjoy it and it was a good experience. It came to mind that there are people who teach Bridge

in their home too and there's no impact on that. When I moved into a neighborhood there was a

clipping service across the street. You think that probably had to do with dogs, actually it had to

do with newspaper articles. Some of the women worked in the morning some of the women

drove, some walked and it was great. There was no impact. If we're going to start making rules

that you all think we should enforce, we should be sure that we don't outlaw a lot of good things

that happen in neighborhoods.

 

Council Member Pavao    In all the deliberations that the committee had it was never the intent

to limit any home occupation that does not affect the integrity of the neighborhood. What we are

concerned with is home occupations that destroy the fabric of a neighborhood and that's what

we're all about and I think that's why we're here and that's why we spent, how many week and

hours Mark? That's where we came down. I think most of us felt that the existing ordinance that

we had worked pretty well. However, there was some language in it that need to be clarified and

to make it as simple as we possibly could to understand it. Now the committee may not have

done the best job. I think that was a goal that they set out and I think that was everything that we

deliberated on is that we were concerned for the fabric of the neighborhood and we tried to

clarify our ordinance to protect that. It was not the intent of shutting down music teachers or quilt

makers or even small daycares. It was just protection of our citizenry. And the request that came

up from a group of citizens because someone if not disobeyed the ordinance as it was written just

disregarded it.

 

Council Member Chilton     And here's what the problem boils down to. I sympathize with the

point that the music teachers are raising and hopefully we can think of a way to address that

problem but I will point out that this ordinance would not make it illegal to operate where they're

operating now, it's just that they couldn't have more than, page 9 #2, it says "not more than three

vehicles at a given time on or off street for non-residential purposes." I guess the context to put

this into is, think about your own house and having the next door neighbor be the operator of  a

home business and to me it seems like some number like maybe three vehicles parked there

besides the ones that belong to people who already live there. Sure that's going to put a cramp on

some people's style of operating right now but it seems like a reasonable limit. Okay, so make it

four but then you potentially have like 6 cars in the driveway next door. That starts to sound

pretty obnoxious to me. I mean, no matter how you slice it, the problem is to accommodate

music teachers you change it to 8 or something like that but there's nothing to guarantee that it's

only one hour a day or a couple of hours a week that way some of these small music teaching

operations operate because then you have Dr. Eisen turn around and he's got people there all the

time. He's open 40 hours a week.

 

Council Member Andresen      Well, that's the distinction you're making, it's between all the

time and once every two to three months.

 

Council Member Chilton    Right. We don't know a realistic way to write that in to this.

 

Council Member Capowski      That's the whole point Mark. The issue is not number of cars,

the issue is impact. We've tried this remember as we've discussed over the years, should we

reduce the threshold for special use permits for important buildings, where important might be on

the corner of Franklin and Columbia, even if it's really tiny simply because there's other reasons

things are important other than they're 20,000 square feet or greater. It turned out is was

something that was impossible to legislate importance. I don't know how you legislate impact. If

the neighbors are happy, there's no impact.

 

Council Member Chilton      If you turn and look back at page 7 at the current version of 2.56

you'll see what it is that generated the whole dagone problem in the first place. 2.56d, "The home

occupation shall not generate traffic volumes or parking needs greater than would normally be

expected in a residential neighborhood." What the heck does that mean? That's Phil Hirsh's

issue, what did that mean? And to give it some meaning we said, at the very outside it means

three business related vehicles at one time parked at the house. I can't really think of a way. I

mean you can take that out and that will accommodate the concern that the two music teachers

have raised but then you might as well just not adopt this whole thing because that is a really

critical component of the changes we're talking about and we're back to square one. My

perspective is that the teachers can probably, I think it is realistic for music teachers to tell their

students that they need to carpool or be dropped off rather than driving a car over and parking

there. In any case, no more than three at a time can drive over and park there.

 

Council Member Franck     I think there's a real easy way to make changes to this ordinance

that can accomplish what we want. If someone will move the ordinance, I have a whole lot of

comments that will lead to amendments.

 

COUNCIL MEMBER ANDRESEN MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER

PAVAO, TO ADOPT ORDINANCE 2A.

 

Council Member Capowski     So we're going to try and legislate this tonight and not refer it to

staff?

 

Mayor Waldorf     The question that's open about the one year renewal is not going to be a part

of this development amendment so that doesn't stand in the way of acting on this tonight. So this

is like the 8th time we've dealt with this. If we could deal with this tonight, let's do it.

 

Council Member Evans   But wait to address the issues that the music teachers raised by the

staff might take another time.

 

Council Member Franck      I don't think the staff are going to be any more confident in doing

this than the committee was,...

 

Mayor Waldorf      The ordinance has been moved and seconded.

 

Council Member Franck      Now that that's on the floor if I may be recognized. I've had a real

problem in dealing with this and I've finally  been able to come up with what I think is a pretty

cohesive position. I'd like to call your attention to two pieces of correspondence that we

received. One we got recently from a Michelle McGee, it's single side with some underlining

and some italics and the other one was a letter from John Thomas on Colony Woods Dr. last

May.

 

The keypoints that Ms. McGee raises are that the ordinance should specify limits on external

evidence and not arbitrary limits on internal workings of home occupations. That makes a whole

lot of sense to me. The whole point of the ordinance is to prevent things like happened on South

Lakeshore Drive.   To make sure that people can do what they need to do to earn a living as long

as it's not impacting in an excessive way on their neighbors. I don't think that this ordinance as

proposed quite meets that but we can get there. The other point that Ms. McGee raised is the

permitting.   She says that the permitting basically criminalizes the activity of upstanding

citizens. When I talked to Roger about this what kind of permit it actually was that's when I

realized for the first time that what we're talking about is a zoning compliance permit. It's the

same kind of permit that an owner of a building that's zoned Town Center and it's used for an

office and he wants to change it to commercial use. He wants to put in a Sunglass Hut where he's

currently got a doctor's office. In order to do that that owner even though he owns the building

and the use is allowed in that zone, he needs to get a zoning compliance permit. It's the same

permit that a political party organization would need if they wanted to open an office in a

building that had previously been used as a gas station. It's exactly the same issue.

 

That also brings up a point that Victor Friedmann raised during the public hearing that I think

needs to be clarified. He stated that allowing someone to operate a home occupation was a

variance to the zoning ordinance and that is emphatically not true. Home occupations are allowed

as an accessory use in all of our residential zones in Chapel Hill. So we are not granting a

variance, we are merely allowing them to do something that they, by right, have the right to do as

long as the zoning compliance permit has been issued meaning that the town is comfortable that

the requirements of the zoning ordinance are being met.

 

The point that Mr. Thomas raised which is similar is that the revisions.. His first question is, "Do

proposed revisions to the home occupation ordinance prevent home occupation permit holders

from using their home and property in ways that are commonly used by their neighbors that do

not have home occupations?" And that's where we run into problems with this parking issue. I

have a home and for the most part there are only two cars parked in my home and they're used of

residential purposes. Occasionally I do entertain and I have maybe a dozen of my friends over

and they all bring their cars and as long as I don't do that very often that's not a very big

problem. No one in my neighborhood complains. I think the frequency with which this sort of

thing occurs is really more important than the shear number. I can imagine in addition to the

music teacher, that's an example I hadn't thought of, an architect or a computer consultant

working out of his home for that vast majority of the time, there are no cars parked there but

occasionally, he has to meet with his clients, say he's got three clients over and he's told them all

he can only have three cars and then the FedEx truck shows up and there's your fourth car and

he's now violated the ordinance. Another example of this where treating home occupations is

different that for those who don't  is the sign business under the letter c.

 

Under the sign ordinance, section 14 of the Development Ordinance I can put a two foot square

sign out in front of my house that says "The Franck Residence" and Joe can have one that says

"Casa de Capowski" and that's legal but we're saying that someone who owns a home

occupation can't put a sign advertising a home occupation. I think that's just wrong. I realize that

a sign advertising a home occupation is commercial speech and not political speech but I'd sure

hate to be the lawyer who tried to defend that on a first amendment case because I don't think it's

defensible. Signs, I think we should restore the ability to have signs. If a three foot square sign is

too big I think a two foot square sign is appropriate.   That's the same size that anyone can put on

their house.

 

Council Member Andresen     I have no problem with identification but I just don't think a two

foot sign is appropriate. I just think that goes against... That's the exterior, that's what we look

at to see if it's still a neighborhood. If activities go on and you can't tell, that's fine but if you

drive along and you've got two foot signs all over the neighborhood, I just think that isn't going

to go down well. Plus, I think a lot of these issues you're raising, Richard, are ones which, I'm

sure Mark and Lee spent a lot of time on and we don't have the benefit of all the people that were

involved in that. Granted we've got good minds and we can make our own decisions here but I

think we do need to respect to some extent the hours that they put into it and the degree to which

the whole community was involved. I have a little trouble coming back with some new ideas at

this point and I'm certainly resistant to the one on the two foot sign.

 

Council Member Chilton      I'm not sure how large of a sign I would allow but I do have this

ongoing concern that Richard has. Basically, the question I have is that it can say Council

Member Andresen on the mailbox but it can't say Andresen Consulting? The point is that it does

seem a little extreme to say that they can't have any identifying feature at all. How about a one

foot square sign? It just seems to me that some little marker. One of the things that people

actually came and complained about was people driving around their neighborhood lost looking

for these home occupations and coming up and knocking on their doors. We actually had a

number of people complain about that. Well, saying that you can't have a sign definitely

increases that problem. In fairness to the committee, we did discuss this and the majority of the

members thought that the simplest thing was no signs.

 

Mayor Waldorf      So we're talking about 2.56c.

 

Council Member Franck       I'd like to move to amend the ordinance by restoring the original

language of  2.56c except that I think rather than saying article 13 it should say article 14. To be

consistent then we would also have to..

 

Mayor Waldorf      Before we move on lets' make sure everybody understands what that

language is.  It means that signs that are two feet by two feet..

 

Council Member Chilton       What it says here on mine is that currently a maximum display

surface area of 3 square feet is allowed. So what is currently allowed? 3 square feet.

 

Council Member Franck     I was going to suggest where it says section 2 at the bottom of page

9, basically restore that original language except change three square feet to two square feet.

That's the same size that anyone else who wants a sign in front of their residence can have. I

think it's very fair. It puts home occupations and non home occupations on the same footing and

also to be consistent then we would have to delete section 3 of what we're looking at tonight

which was intended to clarify that no signs would be allowed and since we would be revoking

that then it would make sense to leave that section as is.

 

Mayor Waldorf      Richard would you please go through that amendment one more time?

We're on 2.56c..

 

Council Member Franck      In section c we would restore the original language, "no external

evidence of the contents of the home occupation shall be visible other than a sign permitted in

article (change 13 to 14 )". On the bottom of page 9 of we have is section 2. Rather than deleting

that language there that's struck through, we would simply change 3 to 2. In other words 2

square feet. And then we would remove section 3 from this ordinance leaving it the same as it

says now which is, " sign stating that a business is open provided.." So we wouldn't make any

changes to 14.13.4n.

 

Mayor Waldorf      So the first paragraph would be stricken.

 

Council Member Chilton   The essence of all this is that you'll be allowed to have a two square

foot sign.

 

Council Member Andresen     Mr. Manager. Do you think that if I put out my Andresen

Consulting sign that was as big as my name plaque on my mailbox, do you think that I would

have any complaints for violating this ordinance?

 

Town Manager Horton    I doubt it.

 

Mayor Waldorf       Could we see if there's a second to Richard's amendment before we

continue discussing this?

 

Council Member Chilton      I'll second it and then let's not spend too much time talking about

this. Does the staff has any opinion that they're willing to offer at this point about Andresen

Consulting on your mailbox?

 

Town Manager Horton    I think we probably have examples of that all over town.

 

Ralph Karpinos, Attorney      Is the question whether it would be permitted under the proposed

ordinance? It would not be permitted. It would be external evidence of the home occupation.

 

Council Member Chilton      So to clarify the way it reads as it was originally moved, it

couldn't say Andresen Consulting on your mailbox.

 

Council Member Andresen      No, but I asked the Manager is if was a problem and he said it

would probably not be a problem.

 

Council Member Franck     It's not a problem until somebody complains.

 

Town Manager Horton      The question you asked is would somebody complain and I said

probably not.

 

Mayor Waldorf      But if someone did and it were a violation of the ordinance then.. Could I

ask a question? If this were passed as originally proposed before. what does that do with people

who already have signs up like J. Knox Tate Architects?

 

Council Member Chilton    All the people who are operating right now and who have a permit

are in existing non-conforming use and they have a zoning compliance permit and these changes

don't affect them as long as they are continuing to operate.

 

Ralph Karpinos, Attorney      As for Mark's point, I think the provisions of the non-conforming

ordinance section of the development ordinance would apply to the provisions of that sign. The

provisions of the ordinance on non-conforming uses and non-conforming signs would apply to

any existing structures, uses or signs that are at the time this ordinance were to be changed.

 

Council Member Chilton      In other words, it's a little more complicated than what I just said.

 

Mayor Waldorf      This amendment has been made and seconded. Any other discussion? Any

comments from Mark and Lee?

 

THE MOTION FAILED BY A VOTE OF 4-5, WITH COUNCIL MEMBERS BROWN,

CAPOWSKI, CHILTON AND FRANCK VOTING YES AND COUNCIL MEMBERS

ANDRESEN, EVANS, PAVAO, WIGGINS AND MAYOR WALDORF VOTING NO.

 

Mayor Waldorf    Okay, you've got another amendment?

 

Council Member Franck     I've got plenty. We'll call this the "violin teacher clause" I move

that #2 under d on top of page 9 be amended to read, "In addition the home occupation shall not

regularly (once per week or more frequent) generate the parking of more than three vehicles at a

given time on or off street.." It's going to be regulated the way that every other part of this

ordinance is, by complaint. Someone thinks that it's being violated then they're going to have to

produce evidence to convince the planning director or the Board of Adjustments that it's being

violated and if the evidence doesn't substantiate the claim then I think the home occupation

would continue.

 

Mayor Waldorf     Is there a second to that? 

 

Council Member Chilton     Could we have a little staff reaction because the problem that arises

again is how do you really determine this?

 

Town Manager Horton     I would recommend that you not try to draft this kind of language at

the table,  that you get all the issues on the table and refer it to the town Attorney and the

Manager and let us bring you some recommendations. With all due respect, I know that the

council members labored hard on the language. We were not asked to prepare language to

attempt to accomplish any of these objectives so therefor we haven't even worked on it. We'd be

glad to do so if it's the council's desire.

 

Council Member Evans     Since it's five minutes after 11, I think that's a good idea. We have

an automatic adjournment time at 10:30 so..

 

Town Manager Horton     We could work with Council Member Franck on this..

 

Council Member Franck      Apparently that's not a very good idea because apparently my

views are not in the majority here.

 

Council Member Brown    I would like to refer all these issues.

 

Council Member Franck    The other issues are .. #3 on my list is straight out of the letter from

John Thomas. Why should we limit the number of employees if a home occupation generates no

client or no customer traffic, why shouldn't all three of those vehicles being parked there be

employees? The impact is identical. That's another issue. Number 4, when I called the Manager

this afternoon and I told him I thought I had this figured out, he'd asked me if I had considered

the Tupperware problem. Under the current ordinance and under Ordinance A, someone who

sells Tupperware someone who sells Avon is illegal if they use their home as an accessory use to

conduct the occupation meaning they store their product in their home, meaning if they take

delivery from UPS or FedEx or something like that at their home. I don't think it's the intent of

the current ordinance or of the changes to make people who sell make-up or Amway products

illegal and I think that's crazy.

 

I think the way to change that would be to get rid of item f which says that you can't sell

anything unless you produce it. I think all of the things that people would be worried about for

having someone that can be addressed by the impact of the traffic and the parking.

 

Council Member Chilton     I'll tell you the answer to that question, if you eliminate f, it's no

longer clear that you can't operate a convenience store because that is why you can't operate a

convenience store. Convenience store is maybe an extreme example because it would generate

more traffic. But it opens the door real wide to just eliminate that and again that was the kind of

thing that we were bonking our heads against in this committee.

 

Council Member Franck    Perhaps the Manager can take another crack at the Tupperware

problem if we refer this.

 

Council Member Andresen      Could we take a vote to see if there's enough support for the

ideas that Richard has put forward? The Manager could then tee up those questions and then

bring us back some options. It's real important that everybody that's been involved with this get

to see what we're putting forward. I think that's the advantage of delaying it, if we're serious

about making big changes here.

 

Mayor Waldorf      Ordinance A is on the floor. It has been moved and seconded and none of

the amendments have been accepted.

 

Council Member Franck      I would like to refer ordinance A to the Manager and the Attorney.

 

Council Member Chilton      The one issue you didn't raise is with respect to part b which says

you can only use up to 35% of the interior of the home or 750 square feet. My response to the

issue that you raised on a and b is, look up at the top in the language in 2.56, "home occupation

and occupation conducted as an accessory use of a dwelling unit." That's a real issue. If at some

point you go over 50% of the square footage area, that's no longer accessory, it's becoming the

majority, the dominant use.

 

Technically speaking, you can get one of these ZCP's through this process in any part of town

where residential use is allowed which I think is virtually every part of town. It means that

theoretically, as long as you're willing to move into some part of the storefront downtown, that

you would be able to get almost anything through without being reviewed through this special

use permit process because you'd fall under this and have a home occupation. But the whole

point is that a lot of this stuff is targeted at stuff that's internal to the site and that might not be all

that obvious to the outside world but it's supposed to be an accessory use and we felt like more

than one full-time staff person is getting beyond the scope of accessory. I think the ordinance is

pretty good the way it is and I think we should just go ahead and adopt it

 

Mayor Waldorf      Well, there is a motion on the floor that has been made and seconded.

Ordinance A as it is, there were no amendments accepted yet. Julie?

 

Council Member Andresen    I didn't get my question answered about the automobile uses.

Could you have a garage?

 

Ralph Karpinos, Attorney     The type of occupation is not limited. It's a question of the

amount of space that you're allowed to use in the dwelling or in the foyer, the building or any

accessory building. That is limited to 35% and no more than 750 square feet.

 

Council Member Chilton      But on the other hand, it has to be a permitted use in that zone, at

least permitted as an accessory use, right? I haven't looked at the development ordinance all that

recently but there's those big table that list all these different uses in different zones whether it's

a..

 

Ralph Karpinos, Attorney      Are you saying there are certain types of home occupations that

are allowed and others that are not?

 

Council Member Franck     If it meets the definition of a home occupation it is a permitted use,

by definition.

 

Council Member Chilton      But you're saying apart from those tables.

 

Ralph Karpinos, Attorney      No, I'm saying that if it's a home occupation in that it meets the

35% and 750 square feet and it's accessory use, it's permitted as long as it meets all the other

criteria

 

Council Member Chilton      So with respect to a home occupation, those tables are irrelevant.

 

Council Member Brown      I think it's pretty clear that as long as you met all of the other

conditions you could do that.

 

Council Member Evans      The same with a dog kennel and all those things?

 

Council Member Chilton      But a dog kennel. How could that really be something that would

have no external evidence of the contents of the home occupation? The noise would clearly be

external.

 

Council Member Capowski      I think that Richard's got some good ideas. I think if we

implement them, we've got to let all the people who worked on this at least see them. We've got

to have respect, as Julie said, for all the work that Lee and Mark and the rest of the committee did

because they studied this issue like crazy. I'm really close to saying I move we adjourn. I don't

think we can implement Richard's stuff on the fly. I think that would end up being bad

legislation.

 

COUNCIL MEMBER CAPOWSKI MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER

PAVAO, TO ADJOURN THE MEETING.

 

Mayor Waldorf     This is a non-debatable motion.

 

Council Member Andresen    I suggest the we..

 

Mayor Waldorf

It's a non-debatable motion. All in favor please say aye and all opposed no.

 

THE MOTION PASSED BY A VOTE OF 6-3, WITH COUNCIL MEMBERS ANDRESEN,

BROWN AND CHILTON VOTING NO.

 

Council Member Andresen   So have no idea where we're going now with this now, right?

 

Council Member Chilton     There are two people in the audience who waited here all this time

to get to item 14.

 

Mayor Waldorf   We need to have a closed session  the Attorney has told me and it will be very

brief.

 

Ralph Karpinos, Attorney     The meeting has been adjourned.

 

Mayor Waldorf     Can we re-open the meeting for the purposes of calling a closed session?

 

Ralph Karpinos, Attorney

I wouldn't recommend that.

 

The meeting concluded at 11:12 p.m.

 

 

 

 

15

 

 

Council Meeting, 10-28-96

 

Council Minutes, 10-28-96