SUMMARY MINUTES OF A REGULAR BUSINESS MEETING
ON MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 1999 AT 7:00 P.M.
Mayor Waldorf called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.
Council Members present were Flicka Bateman, Joyce Brown, Joe Capowski, Pat Evans, Kevin Foy, Lee Pavão, and Edith Wiggins. Council Member Julie McClintock arrived at 7:04 p.m. Also in attendance were Town Manager Cal Horton, Assistant Town Managers Sonna Loewenthal and Florentine Miller, Town Attorney Ralph Karpinos, Planning Director Roger Waldon, Community Development Planner Loryn Barnes, Finance Director Jim Baker, Housing Director Tina Vaughn, Current Development Planner Lorie Tekiele, Senior Engineering Coordinator Mike Neal, Traffic Engineer David Brown, Current Development Planner Kendal Brown, Human Services Coordinator Karen Rose and Interim Town Clerk Joyce Smith.
Item 1—Ceremonies (none)
Item 2—Public Forum on a Report from Shaping Orange County’s Future
(postponed to January 25, 1999)
Item 3a—By Citizens Not on the Agenda (none)
(1) By Council Member Joyce Brown regarding National League of Cities’ programs on Sustainability. Council Member Brown asked the Council to request that the Manager invite representatives from three organizations to speak before the Council on environmental issues: 1) Wilson Orr, Director, and Hoyt Johnson, Technical Systems Manager, of Sustainability and Global Change Program to speak on the Urban Growth Model; 2) someone from the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives to make a presentation about their Climate Protection Campaign and the possibility of a joint effort between Chapel Hill and Durham; and 3) Jim Mills, of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, to discuss ways that his organization may assist Chapel Hill.
Council Member Evans asked Council Member Brown if she intended to call a special meeting to hear these speakers, or if it could be done at a regular Council meeting. Council Member Brown replied that this would depend on the length of the presentations.
Council Member Evans asked if the speakers had previously been taped, pointing out that viewing such tapes would be an option. Council Member Brown said that she believed they had only been audio-taped.
Council Member Evans commented that hearing these speakers at a regular Council meeting would be preferable. Council Member Brown stated that this would be determined at a later date.
Mayor Waldorf stated that she, too, would like to have the presentations at regular meetings.
Council Member McClintock added her support for the petition.
COUNCIL MEMBER BROWN MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER FOY, TO REFER THE PETITION, AS WRITTEN, TO THE MANAGER. THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).
(2) By Mayor pro tem Capowski regarding a field trip to Glenwood Avenue.
Mayor pro tem Capowski withdrew his petition.
(3) By Council Members McClintock, Brown, Foy and Mayor pro tem Capowski regarding the proposed Southpoint Development in Durham. Council Member McClintock asked the Council to send Resolution 15 to the Durham City Council. She noted that Resolution 15 should state the Council’s concerns about traffic on Interstate 40, caused by the proposed Southpoint and adjacent mixed-use development, and requests a delay. Council Member McClintock acknowledged that the area is not within Chapel Hill’s jurisdiction but pointed out that half of I-40’s current capacity would be taken up by new cars connected with the proposed shopping mall.
Mayor pro tem Capowski volunteered to present the resolution to the Durham City Council at its next meeting.
Mayor Waldorf indicated approval of that and noted that even though the proposed mall is not within Chapel Hill’s jurisdiction it is within the Transportation Planning Area that Chapel Hill shares with Durham, Durham County, and part of Chatham County. Mayor Waldorf added that she questions whether this proposal is in conformance with Durham’s 20/20 Land Use Plan. She also suggested that Mayor pro tem Capowski point out at the meeting that a 1.3 million square foot mall is an interesting definition of mixed use. Mayor Waldorf added that she has asked for projections on unemployment and residences and has explored whether the Transportation 20/25 plan took the proposed mall into account. She said that she learned that it did not.
COUNCIL MEMBER MCCLINTOCK MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER BROWN, TO PASS RESOLUTION 15. THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).
A RESOLUTION REGARDING PROPOSED SOUTHPOINT DEVELOPMENT IN DURHAM (99-1-11/R-15)
WHEREAS, the construction of Southpoint and adjacent mixed use development proposed for Fayetteville Road and Interstate 40 is located in Durham City’s zoning jurisdiction; and
WHEREAS, the proposed projects pose significant traffic, water and air quality impacts on neighboring jurisdictions, including Chapel Hill; and
WHEREAS, I-40 serves as a vital transportation link for area Chapel Hill and Durham area residents to commute to jobs in Durham, Research Triangle Park, and Raleigh, as well as to the Raleigh-Durham Airport; and
WHEREAS, the approval and construction of a 1.3 million square foot mall, and an additional 400,000 square feet of retail, offices and hotel will generate an estimated 48,000 additional cars per day, 32,000 of those on I-40 (according to the Institute of Transportation Engineers); and
WHEREAS, an estimated 32,000 vehicles consumes nearly one half of the current capacity of Interstate 40; and
WHEREAS, I-40's present capacity of 70,000 vehicles per day is over burdened by an estimated 85,000 vehicles per day; and
WHEREAS, under current conditions it is common for traffic to stall from the Durham Expressway to Chapel Hill at peak hours traveling east in the mornings, and toward the west in the evenings; and
WHEREAS, the estimated 32,000 additional cars caused by these applications will exceed I-40 capacity; and in addition that if two more lanes are added by DOT, the additional capacity of 105,000 for 6 lanes will also be exceeded; and
WHEREAS, this past summer the Triangle area suffered 37 days of code orange and red ozone alert days because of poor air quality, second only to Los Angeles in number of days exceeding ozone standards; and
WHEREAS, land disturbance activities will cause sedimentation and pollution into local creeks draining into Jordan Lake, a regional water supply;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council respectfully requests the Durham City Council to reduce the scale or delay these applications until adequate transportation can be implemented to accommodate the additional trips in order that citizens now residing in Chapel Hill and Durham can commute to jobs, cultural events and shopping in nearby cities.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Chapel Hill Town Council asks the Durham City Council to join with them to work with the State of North Carolina to ensure adequate transportation improvements, and a safe level of air and water quality for area residents.
This the 11th day of January, 1999.
(4) By Council Member Brown regarding a proposed rule on net metering by the State of North Carolina Utilities Commission. Council Member Brown asked the Council to adopted a resolution to petition the Utilities Commission to allow the Town to intervene in support of the proposed net metering rule proposed by the NC Solar Energy Association. She explained that this would allow homeowners who wish to generate their own electricity to use their electric meters to foster the use of renewables, particularly photo-voltaic cells. Council Member Brown added that this would help the Town identify those who are not on the grid and who could therefore help their neighbors when electricity goes out. She explained that the system has an inverter, which means that it would be shut down at the house during an emergency and would not cause safety problems.
Council Member Evans, noting that a citizen had requested that the Council hear other perspectives on this issue, asked if there would be a problem delaying the vote. Council Member Brown replied that she hoped she had adequately addressed safety concerns, but if the Council so recommended the vote could be delayed until early February. Council Member Brown noted comments were due to the Utilities Commission by February 12th.
Mayor Waldorf pointed out that the Council could approve the petition with the option to hear other points of view and amend if necessary.
COUNCIL MEMBER BROWN MOVED, SECONDED BY MAYOR PRO TEM CAPOWSKI, TO PASS RESOLUTION 16, WITH AN OPTION TO AMEND. THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).
A Resolution Authorizing a petition to be filed to intervene in Support of the Proposed Net Metering Docket E-100 SUB 83 to the State of North Carolina Utilities Commission (99-1-11/R-16)
WHEREAS, net metering would make available to persons or businesses that generate electric energy using renewable energy sources (solar, wind, micro-hydro and biomass) a standard business contract and a safe, economical, technical standard for interconnecting with their electric utility, and;
WHEREAS, the State of North Carolina Utilities Commission must receive petitions to intervene and comments in support of the rule no later than February 12, 1999, and;
WHEREAS, enactment of the proposed rule on net metering allows North Carolina to participate in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Million Solar Roof Initiative, which requires net metering and encourages the use of solar energy; and,
WHEREAS, enactment of the proposed rule could allow the Town access to information on energy resources that might be available in the event of a major outage of standard utility service;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council authorizes and directs that a petition be filed to intervene and that comments be filed in support of net metering in Docket E-100 Sub 83 before the State of North Carolina Utilities Commission.
This the 11th day of January, 1999.
By Council Member Bateman. Council Member Bateman referred to a letter from Stateside Drive resident Raleigh Mann who asks the Council to support his letter to the Department of Transportation regarding its decision against putting a traffic light at the intersection of NC 86 and Stateside Drive. She explained that Mr. Mann also asked the Council to consider appropriating funds for plantings along NC 86 that would diminish the noise. Council Member Bateman also distributed copies of a letter from another neighbor on Stateside Drive concerning the same issue.
Council Member McClintock pointed out that extensive landscaping was done after widening the bypass and stressed that residents along NC 86 deserve some buffers.
Mayor Waldorf explained that she also had received Mr. Mann’s letter and had passed it on to the Manager, who was checking into local funding sources. She also stated that she would look into the possibility of receiving beautification funds from the Department of Transportation.
COUNCIL MEMBER BATEMAN MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER MCCLINTOCK, TO SUPPORT THE NEIGHBORS’ REQUEST FOR A TRAFFIC LIGHT AT STATESIDE DRIVE. THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).
4j. Pine Knolls Development Association Housing Program
Loryn Barnes, Community Development Planner, summarized the staff report. She reported that the Committee had recommended hiring a contractor to complete renovation and sale of the four homes remaining in the Housing Program. Ms. Barnes said that the Committee suggested that the Council make funds available for that purpose. She also reported that the Review Committee did not feel that it required any further meetings.
Ms. Barnes summarized a report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) which recommended that the Town improve the effectiveness of the Pine Knolls Homeownership Program. She explained that the report states that the Center did not repair houses in a timely manner and that the objective of home-ownership had not been met.
Rev. J. Franklin Bowden, a Pine Knolls resident, referring to a newspaper article which asserted that the Town planned to “back out” of the Pine Knolls Program, pleaded with the Council to continue working with the Pine Knolls community on this Program.
Rev. Wayne M. Weathers noted that there is land around his house on Park Road which could be used for affordable housing. He cautioned against letting for-profit developers come in and change the standards for development. Rev. Weathers asked the Council to continue its commitment to affordable housing in Chapel Hill.
Ted Parish argued that the Pines Community Center (PCC) had been successful. He said that the committee appointed by the Manager prior to the Royster Committee had stated that expectations for the Community were unrealistic because there was no paid staff, no up-front funds and no families above 60% of Chapel Hill’s median family income. Mr. Parish pointed out that that committee had also recommended that the Town provide an administrator.
Mr. Parish suggested opening accounts so that the PCC could obtain materials on credit rather than using Board members’ money. He also advised increasing family eligibility to 80% of the median, providing a second Town mortgage, and allowing families up to three years to close. Noting that none of the PCC’s recommendations were put into place, Mr. Parish stated that the PCC nevertheless continues to work to improve the community. He pointed out that the Center is not only concerned with housing issues, but has addressed civic, social and other activities as well, such as the community center and playground that it has provided.
Mr. Parish suggested that the Town recognize the PCC for what it has accomplished. He asked the Council to consider receiving monthly payments from the Center until each house is sold, rather than foreclosing.
Mayor Waldorf explained that the Council had a resolution before it to refer the reports from the Royster Committee, as well as the letter from HUD, to the Manager and Attorney for a report back to the Council on January 25th. She added expressed hope that the Council would pass the resolution.
COUNCIL MEMBER FOY MOVED TO ADOPT RESOLUTION 10, INCLUDING THE REQUEST BY REV. WEATHERS REGARDING THE PARK ROAD PROPERTY.
Mayor Waldorf agreed, adding that it should include all of the comments just made.
Council Member Wiggins asked that the Manager’s report include the successes of the Pines Community Center and that it note that the PCC is not only concerned with housing.
COUNCIL MEMBER FOY MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER EVANS, TO ADOPT RESOLUTION 10, AS AMENDED. THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).
A RESOLUTION REFERRING REPORTS FROM THE COUNCIL-APPOINTED MEMBERS OF THE REVIEW COMMITTEE CHARGED WITH SELECTION OF AN ADMINISTRATOR FOR THE PINES COMMUNITY CENTER HOMEOWNERSHIP PROGRAM AND FROM THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT TO THE MANAGER (99-1-11/R-10)
WHEREAS, on January 11, 1999, the Council received a report from the Review Committee charged with selecting an Administrator for the Pines Community Center Homeownership Program; and
WHEREAS, on January 11, 1999, the Council received a report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development regarding the Pines Community Center Homeownership Program;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the reports from the Council-appointed members of the Review Committee charged with selection of an Administrator for the Pines Community Center Homeownership Program and from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development be referred to the Manager, including all of the comments made at the Council’s January 11, 1999 meeting, specifically the comments made regarding the Park Road site.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Manager is directed to present recommendations for the Council’s consideration on January 25, 1999.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Manager’s report should reflect the successes of the Pines Community Center so that the report would reflect that the Pines Community Center focuses not only on housing but on other beneficial programs in that community.
This the 11th day of January, 1999.
Council Member Bateman pulled 4f.
Mayor pro tem Capowski pulled 4g from the consent agenda.
COUNCIL MEMBER PAVÃO MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER EVANS, TO ADOPT THE CONSENT AGENDA WITHOUT F, G AND J (PREVIOUSLY CONSIDERED). THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).
(99-1-11/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:
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a. |
Minutes of October 12, 21, 26, November 4, 9, 16, 21, and December 7, 1998. |
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b. |
Correction to Minutes of June 22, 1998. |
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c. |
Resolution authorizing the exchange
of land for the Lower Booker Creek Trail Project |
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d. |
Resolution receiving and referring the report from the Greenways Commission to the Manager and advisory boards (R-3). |
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e. |
Resolution accepting a bid for recycling containers (R-4). |
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h. |
Resolution and ordinance authorizing sponsorship of a lunch with a delegation from Ann Arbor, Michigan (Mayor Waldorf and Mayor pro tem Capowski) (R-7) (O-2). |
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i. |
Resolutions amending the Town’s insurance programs provided by the N.C. League of Municipalities (R-8) (R-9). |
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k. |
Resolution appointing Linda Foxworth as liaison to Comprehensive Plan Work Group from Shaping Orange County’s Future Task Force (Mayor Waldorf) (R-10.1). |
This the 11th day of January, 1999.
A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MANAGER TO EXCHANGE A 2.47-ACRE OF TOWN-OWNED PROPERTY FOR A 2.01-ACRE TRACT OWNED BY P.H. CRAIG FOR THE LOWER BOOKER CREEK TRAIL PROEJCT (99-1-11/R-2)
WHEREAS, the Town Council has authorized the Manager to begin land acquisition for the Lower Booker Creek Trail project; and
WHEREAS, property owned by P.H. Craig is critical to the success of the project; and
WHEREAS, Mr. Craig has agreed to exchange his property for a similar tract of property owned by the Town; and
WHEREAS, the two properties are of similar size, location, and value;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council hereby authorizes the Manager to exchange a 2.47-acre tract of Town-owned property identified as Chapel Hill Tax Map 42, Block A, Lot 16 for a 2.01-acre parcel of property owned by P.H. Craig that is identified as Chapel Hill Tax Map 42, Block D, Lot 1.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED by the Council that the exchange shall be made without further remuneration to Mr. Craig, except that the Town shall pay the costs of preparation and recordation of the deeds.
This the 11th day of January, 1999.
A RESOLUTION ACCEPTING COMMUNICATION FROM THE GREENWAYS COMMISSION (99-1-11/R-3)
WHEREAS, on March 24, 1998 the Town Council asked the Greenways Commission to prepare recommendations concerning the use of 1996 Open Space bond funds; and
WHEREAS, the Greenways Commission has developed and adopted recommendations,
NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council receives and refers the recommended priorities for purchase of land using 1996 Open Space Bond funds to the Manager and all advisory boards to receive feedback on what might be desired.
This the 11th day of January, 1999.
A RESOLUTION TO ACCEPT THE BID FOR TWELVE (30) CUBIC YARD ROLL-OFF CONTAINERS (99-1-11/R-4)
WHEREAS, the Town of Chapel Hill has solicited formal bids by legal notice in The Chapel Hill News on December 6, 1998 in accordance with General Statute 143-129 for twelve 30 cubic yard roll-off containers: and
WHEREAS, the following bids were received and opened on December 17, 1998:
VENDOR UNIT PRICE TOTAL COST
Waste Industries, Inc. $7,530.00 $90,360.00
Durham, N. C.
Carolina Environmental Systems, Inc. $4,995.00 $59,940.00
Kernersville, N. C.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Town accepts the bid of Carolina Environmental Systems, Inc. in the amount of $59,940.00.
This the 11th day of January, 1999.
A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING SPONSORSHIP OF A LUNCH WITH A DELEGATION FROM ANN ARBOR (99-1-11/R-7)
WHEREAS, last year’s visit by representatives to Ann Arbor was well received by leaders in the Ann Arbor community; and
WHEREAS, the delegation of Ann Arbor would like to discuss issues of mutual interest to university communities;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council authorizes the sponsorship of a lunch with a delegation from Ann Arbor with costs not to exceed $700.
This the 11th day of January, 1999.
AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND “THE ORDINANCE CONCERNING APPROPRIATIONS AND THE RAISING OF REVENUE FOR THE FISCAL YEAR BEGINNING JULY 1, 1998 (99-1-11/O-2)
BE IT ORDAINED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Budget Ordinance entitled “An Ordinance Concerning Appropriations and the Raising of Revenue for the Fiscal Year Beginning July 1, 1998” as duly adopted on June 8, 1998, be and the same is hereby amended as follows:
Current Revised
APPROPRIATIONS Budget Increase Decrease Budget
GENERAL FUND
Non-departmental
Contingency 44,890 700 44,190
Mayor/Council 172,776 700 173,476
This the 11th day of January, 1999.
A RESOLUTION AMENDING THE AGREEMENT FOR PROPERTY AND LIABILITY INSURANCE WITH THE INTERLOCAL RISK FINANCING FUND OF NORTH CAROLINA (99-1-11/R-8)
WHEREAS, the Town's property and liability insurance is provided through participation in the Interlocal Risk Financing Fund of North Carolina sponsored by the North Carolina League of Municipalities; and
WHEREAS, the Board of Directors of said League has requested that participants approve amendments to the agreement for the property and liability program;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council hereby approves two amendments as follows to these paragraphs of the agreement with the Interlocal Risk Financing Fund of North Carolina":
Paragraph 15. Should any clause, sentence, provision, paragraph, or other part of this agreement be adjudged by any court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, such judgement shall not affect, impair, or invalidate the remainder of this Agreement. Each of the parties declares that it would have entered into this Agreement irrespective of the fat that any one or more of this Agreement's clauses, sentences, provisions, paragraphs, or other parts have been so declared invalid. Accordingly, it is the intention of the parties that the remaining portions of this Agreement shall remain in full force and effect without regard to the clause(s), sentence(s), paragraph(s), or other part(s) invalidated.
Paragraph 10. This Fund shall operate on a fiscal year from 12:01 a.m. July lst to midnight of the last day of June of the succeeding year (the "Agency Year"). Application for membership, when approved in writing by the Trustees or their designee, shall constitute a continuing contract for each succeeding Agency Year unless canceled by the Trustees, or unless the member shall have resigned or withdrawn from the Agency and the Fund by having written notice delivered to the Administrator on or before April 1 (i.e., the Administrator must receive written notice ninety (90) days prior to the last day, June 30, of the Agency Year). Failure to provide ninety (90) days written notice shall subject the member to the assessment of an exiting fee. Calculation of the fee shall be 2 percent of the premium for the Agency Year.
This the 11th day of January, 1999.
A RESOLUTION AMENDING THE AGREEMENT FOR WORKERS’ COMPENSATION INSURANCE WITH THE NORTH CAROLINA INTERLOCAL RISK MANAEMENT AGENCY (99-1-11/R-9)
WHEREAS, The Town's workers’ compensation insurance is provided through participation in the North Carolina Interlocal Risk Management Agency sponsored by the North Carolina League of Municipalities; and
WHEREAS, the Board of Directors of said League has requested that participants approve amendments to the agreement for the worker's compensation program;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council hereby approves three amendments as follows to these paragraphs of the agreement with the Interlocal Risk Management Agency:
Paragraph 14. Should any clause, sentence, provision, paragraph, or other part of this agreement be adjudged by any court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, such judgement shall not affect, impair, or invalidate the remainder of this Agreement. Each of the parties declares that it would have entered into this Agreement irrespective of the fat that any one or more of this Agreement's clauses, sentences, provisions, paragraphs, or other parts have been so declared invalid. Accordingly, it is the intention of the parties that the remaining portions of this Agreement shall remain in full force and effect without regard to the clause(s), sentence(s), paragraph(s), or other part(s) invalidated.
Paragraph 11. The Agency and this Fund shall operate on a fiscal year from 12:01 a.m. July lst to midnight of the last day of June of the succeeding year (the "Agency Year"). Application for membership, when approved in writing by the Trustees or their designee, shall constitute a continuing contract for each succeeding Agency Year unless canceled by the Trustees, or unless the member shall have resigned or withdrawn from the Agency and the Fund by having written notice delivered to the Administrator on or before April 1 (i.e., the Administrator must receive written notice ninety (90) days prior to the last day, June 30, of the Agency Year). Failure to provide ninety (90) days written notice shall subject the member to the assessment of an exiting fee. Calculation of the fee shall be 2 percent of the premium for the Agency Year.
Paragraph 8. All members of the Agency hereby agree that the Trustees may admit as members of this Agency only governmental units, institutions or agencies in the State of North Carolina. The Trustees shall be the sole Judge of whether or not an applicant shall be admitted to membership. A member may be suspended or expelled by the Trustees from the Agency 90 (ninety) days notice has been mailed to it and no payment shall be required of the Agency from this Fund as a result of any accident to employee of the suspended or expelled member occurring after 90 (ninety) days written notice has be mailed to the suspended or expelled member.
This the 11th day of January, 1999.
A RESOLUTION APPOINTING LINDA FOXWORTH AS LIAISON TO THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN WORK GROUP FROM SHAPING ORANGE COUNTY’S FUTURE (99-1-11/R-10.1)
BE IT RESOLVED that the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill appoints Linda Foxworth as liaison to the Comprehensive Plan Work Group from Shaping Orange County’s Future Task Force.
This the 11th day of January, 1999.
Item 5—Information Reports
5a. Follow-up Report on Grant Application for Alternatively Fueled Vehicles
Council Member McClintock asked if the Town would drop its interest in alternatively fueled vehicles if it did not receive a grant. Mr. Horton replied that the Town would remain interested but it would be difficult to move forward without grant money. He pointed out, though, that the Council could take the issue up doing the budget process this year.
Item 6—Nominations and Appointments
6a. Nominations
COUNCIL MEMBERS EVANS AND FOY MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER MCCLINTOCK, TO PLACE IN NOMINATION THE NAMES OF THOSE WHO HAVE APPLIED TO THE CHAPEL HILL PUBLIC ARTS COMMISSION AND THE SPECIAL WORK GROUP TO STUDY THE NC 54/HAMILTON ROAD INTERSECTION. THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).
6b. Appointments (none).
Item 7—Annual Needs Report from the Human Services Advisory Board
Michael Owen, HSAB Chair, summarized the Boards’ written report which identified four major areas of human service need in Chapel Hill: high-risk youth; substance abuse treatment and prevention; parent and family support; and services for senior citizens who need assistance. He also noted that the HSAB intends to encourage applicants to explain how they would address the needs of Spanish-speaking community members.
Mayor Waldorf remarked that she and Council Member Bateman had been exploring the “very disturbing” problem of at-risk and homeless teens. She asked Mr. Owen to inform her about that issue in particular and also to contact Donna Smith at the Police Department. Mr. Owen replied that he was aware of the problem.
Council Member McClintock expressed hope that the Town and the HSAB could work together to coordinate programs for at-risk teens.
Mr. Owen pointed out that after school programs have a direct impact on this population.
Mayor Waldorf agreed that after-school programs are important, and suggested that the Council get more involved than it has in the past.
Mr. Owen said that many of the programs that HSAB contributes money to have after school programs—not just one.
Council Member Bateman praised the HSAB for its plan to reach out to the Latino population.
Mr. Owen explained that HSAB also planned to ask agencies how they could better meet the needs of the homeless population.
Item 8—Resolution Authorizing the Manager to Submit a Revised Disaster Recovery Initiative Grant to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Mr. Horton reported that the Town had received a “post Fran” grant to assist the community in recovering from the hurricane and in being more prepared for similar future emergencies. He explained that because the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) had not agreed to fund all that the Town requested, the staff planned to submit a revised grant plan.
Loryn Barnes, Community Development Planner, outlined the proposal to spend approximately $349,000 of Disaster Recovery Initiative Grant funds from HUD and outlined the proposed revised plan: $181,000 for soil erosion and drainage problems at seven public housing sites; $112,000 to acquire property in flood prone areas; $30,000 to purchase an emergency generator for the Public Works Department; $22,000 to correct erosion problems at Chase Park and Elliott Woods; and, $5,000 for curb and gutter and improvements on Starlight Drive. She explained that the staff would submit the revised application to HUD if the Council passed Resolution 11.
Council Member Foy asked if the staff had identified the property for purchase. Mr. Horton replied that they had not, adding that they would come to the Council with recommendations from areas where a clear record of flooding had taken place.
COUNCIL MEMBER EVANS MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER PAVÃO, TO ADOPT RESOLUTION 11. THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).
A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MANAGER TO SUBMIT A REVISED DISASTER RECOVERY INITIATIVE GRANT TO THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT (99-1-11/R-11)
WHEREAS, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded the Town of Chapel Hill $349,041 of Disaster Recovery Initiative Grant funds; and
WHEREAS, on January 12, 1998, the Council authorized the Manager to submit a Disaster Recovery Initiative Grant Application to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; and
WHEREAS, on December 7, 1998, the Council held a public hearing to receive citizen’s comments on how to revise the Town’s Disaster Recovery Initiative Grant application;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council adopts the following activities:
Correction of soil erosion and drainage problems
at Public Housing neighborhoods $180,041
Acquisition of property in flood prone areas $112,000
Purchase of emergency generator $ 30,000
Correction of erosion problems at Chase Park and Elliott Woods $ 22,000
Curb and gutter improvements at Starlite Drive $ 5,000 $349,041
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Council authorizes the Manager to submit a revised Disaster Recovery Initiative Grant plan to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
This the 11th day of January, 1999.
(verbatim transcription)
Mr. Horton: “We have answered a number of questions that were raised at the previous hearing and some questions that were submitted by Council Members subsequent to that hearing. We have provided that information in a report to you that comes in multiple parts. We’ve provided a table of contents at the beginning of the report with the thought that it might assist you in finding sections of it tonight, as you desire, and hope that they will be of help to you. We have worked hard to present evidence about the findings, both evidence in support and evidence in opposition. We’ve done the best that we can to identify areas where the Council has discretion and to indicate the decisions that the Council may make or not make this evening.
“We have no expectation one way or the other as to whether or not you may need additional information. We understand that we will work on this issue as long as you desire, and we look forward to hearing other comments from the public as well tonight. But I do think it would be useful if Roger [Waldon] summarized, briefly, the key points that we present to you as additional information this evening.”
Mr. Waldon: “I’ve put a graphic up on the board. The application, of course, is a part of the Meadowmont Master Plan shown on this overhead, a portion of the Master Plan. This location is on the south side of NC 54. What I had just shown you was the Master Plan. This is the special use proposal indicating the location of the Hilton, an existing pond on the property, a proposed stormwater management pond, and a road running through the property. This is a road that would connect through to this additional portion of Meadowmont at some point in the future.
“The issues that were raised at the first hearing tended to fall out into a couple of key categories. There were neighborhood protection issues. There was considerable discussion about Finley Forest, which exists immediately to the south of this property. And there were a series of questions about Finley Forest and the impact of this hotel on Finley Forest—drainage, lighting, buffering, etc. We’ve tried to respond to all of those, and we will address more specifically any that you would like us to through your questions.
“One issue I’d like to just highlight while I’m up here has to do with the location of that entrance drive on the Friday Center Lane here. And we’ve included language in here that suggests that we believe that that is a good location for that driveway—in part because it’s directly across from an entrance to the Friday Center and their service drive. But we can respond to any questions that you have on that.
“We’re prepared to answer any questions you might have on how stormwater is managed on this site, or on the Meadowmont site as a whole. I won’t go into that now. But I just want to let you know that we’re prepared to give you as much explanation as you care to have. And, if you ask us, I’ll be glad to talk about stormwater as it flows through the Meadowmont site in general, as it comes across, how it’s managed on this property, and then how it would flow to the south to Finley Forest. That information is in the packet. But if you want elaboration, please ask us.
“One issue that I’d like to just highlight, about transportation and traffic, which was discussed at the last meeting…a less elegant graphic, which I’d like to just talk from, that I think might be helpful. We have been talking about—at the last hearing, and before, and since—about traffic volumes on NC 54. There’s some information in the packet. And I thought that we could help clarify with this graphic. This is, of course, NC 54 along here. Existing Friday Center Lane. Existing Barbee Chapel Road. Proposed Meadowmont Lane. This is the location of the proposed Hilton.
“The traffic volumes on NC 54, as they were counted for the master plan, counted in 1996…35,000 average daily trips on NC 54. The projection at that time was that at build-out—which at that time was projected as 10 years hence, 2006, without Meadowmont—traffic was expected to increase to 42,000 trips per day along this road. And then, if Meadowmont were folded into the picture with its trip generation the impact would be slightly greater on this section of 54 than on this.
“So, therefore, I’ve split it into sections A & B and you can see that with Meadowmont in 2006 the projection was 57,400 cars per day on this segment and a little bit lower, 52,500, on this segment. And then you recall that last July in the Council’s deliberations of several Special Use Permits for infrastructure and the Village Center there was discussion about lowering the overall trip generation from Meadowmont. And the developer agreed to make modifications to the Master Plan to lower trip generation by twenty-five percent.
“So with twenty-five percent fewer trips coming out of Meadowmont we come out with this bottom line here. So this becomes the most current projection for build-out at Meadowmont in 2006, or whenever build-out would occur: 53,700 trips per day on this segment of NC 54 and 50,000 trips per day on this segment east of Friday Center Lane. So I just wanted to offer those clarifications.
“You’ve got in your packet three alternate resolutions of approval (A, B, and C). A comes from the Manager. Our recommendation is that the application be approved, assuming that the Council makes the four findings that you have to make. Resolution B comes from the Planning Board, recommending approval with a slightly different set of conditions. Resolution C from the Transportation Board, the same. Resolution D would deny the application. And then we have a fifth resolution. I just want to call your attention.
“Resolution E refers to comments that were made by the Bicycle Task Force. You recall that at the last hearing you asked that these two Meadowmont applications be considered by the Bicycle Task Force, which had completed its work but reconvened to meet and consider these applications. You’ve got a report and recommendations from the Bike Task Force in your memorandum. Some of them deal with Meadowmont. Those recommendations have been folded into Resolution A.
“The comments of the Bicycle Task Force that did not deal with Meadowmont specifically we suggest that the Council deal with in a different way by adopting a resolution just referring those comments to the Manager for a follow-up report. And that’s Resolution E. So that’s the quick road map of the packet and we’re ready for your questions.”
Mayor Waldorf: “I have one question, Roger, about the traffic numbers. Is it possible for you to say what the numbers would be…or, maybe you’ve said it already. What’s anticipated without build-out of Meadowmont? Is that the second row?”
Mr. Waldon: “Yes. 42,700.”
Mayor Waldorf: “That’s 42,700, and 42,700 as compared to 53,700 and 50,100? Is that right? Am I reading it right? Okay. Any questions for Roger right now? Okay, he’ll be available. Thank you. Let’s see. Let’s move on to…. Do we have additional presentation by the applicant tonight? Okay.”
Ken Crockett: “Good evening. I’m an executive vice president with Winston Hotels, and we’re the applicant for the Special Use Permit for the Hilton Garden Inn in Meadowmont. We’ll work very hard tonight to not repeat information that we’ve already presented to you in written format or has been summarized by the staff. But we do want to elaborate on some of the points that we’ve already…that have been raised. We also have with us tonight a number of members of our development team and I’ll introduce those members to you in just a moment.
“But first, since this is the first time I’ve had a chance to stand before you I’d like to tell you a little bit about Winston Hotels. We are a real estate investment trust and we’re headquartered in the Research Triangle area. Our organization got started in the hospitality industry as far back as 1958. And that year our current Board Chairman, Charles Winston, started a restaurant out by the Raleigh/Durham Airport, in partnership with Thad Eure. Many of you may have been to The Angus Barn. In fact it’s still operating today by Thad Eure, who is Charlie’s partner. By Thad’s daughter. And from that start our organization evolved into restaurant development, and then hotel development, and as of today we now own 51 hotels in 13 states.
“In the questions from Council in our first presentation the question was to discuss a little bit some of our hotel developments in the nearby area. And so I thought it might be appropriate to show you a couple of photographs tonight if you have not had a chance to visit any of our hotels. And we encourage you to go visit them. We’re kind of proud of them and are happy to show them off.
“The first property is the Homewood Suites Hotel located in the south side of Cary in McGregor Park. We opened this property in 1994. It has 120 one- and two-bedroom suites. Here’s a shot of the interior area. This is the two-story lobby area that would be sort of typical of the type of detailing we’d like to do in the Homewood Suites property.
“And a second more recent hotel that we’ve developed is the Homewood Suites in Crabtree Valley in Raleigh. We opened in March of last year, in 1998, and it has 137 one- and two-bedroom suites. And I’ll take a moment to explain that the architectural detail and the styling of this building is not comparable to the architectural details and the style that we’re talking about for Hilton Garden Inn in Meadowmont.
“But I hope you will agree with me that we make extra efforts to add architectural detailing like the trim around the windows, the extended in-gables that create shadow lines and interest in the building, the metal roof. Things that unfortunately are becoming non-standard in the hotel industry today but as long-term owners of hotels we believe in putting in those extra touches for long-term appeal in the property.
“Again, lobby area, two-story. This would be a typical Homewood lobby for us, and again, we think some extra details that you don’t often find in a Homewood Suites property. Here, for example, we did a large fireplace. You can’t quite tell it in this case because they have plants in front of it. But the opening for that fireplace is five feet wide and eight feet high, and it’s become quite a conversation piece and gives an example of the type of thing we like to do in our hotels.
“Moving on to another Homewood Suite. This is a property in Durham. One hundred units. We opened this property just at the end of 1998. We’re still adding some finishing details and didn’t have time to wait for a pretty day to take the photograph. So I apologize, it’s not very clear. But, in the lobby, a few extra details—the kind of finishes and extra attention that we think makes a property last for a long time.
“Another property that we thought might be helpful for you to see is an existing Hilton Garden Inn. And I want to clarify quickly. We did not develop this property. We do own it. We purchased it from another development group. This particular property is on I-40 near the Raleigh/Durham Airport. And again, the outside of this hotel, the architectural details and materials are not comparable to what we’re doing in Chapel Hill, but the main reason we wanted to show it to you is the inside will give you some idea of the lobby finishes, and, very importantly, the level of services that are provided in a Hilton Garden Inn.
“This is a photograph of the lounge area. And I think the point I want to emphasize here is that sometimes when we say “lounge” people think of some type of entertainment venue. In this case our lounge is a seating area. A place to sit and read—have a conversation. It’s incorporated within the lobby area. It’s intended to serve the existing hotel customers. We don’t do outside advertising to attract patronage from outside the hotel.
“Very similarly, this is the restaurant area. It too is incorporated into the lobby area. It serves three meals a day. But again, it tended to serve the hotel guests. We don’t advertise to attract patronage intentionally from outside the hotel itself.”
Council Member Bateman: “Mr. Crockett. May I interrupt you for just a second?”
Mr. Crockett: “Yes, please do.”
Council Member Bateman: “How many rooms in the one at the airport?”
Mr. Crockett: “That is six stories and roughly 155. It is a story higher than our proposed Hilton Garden Inn for Meadowmont, which is a five story hotel. So Meadowmont is a little wider and not quite as tall.
“In just a moment I’m actually going to turn the presentation over to Mr. Larry Sitton, but let me take just a moment to introduce the other members of our development team that are hear tonight, not all of whom will make a presentation but they are all available to answer your questions. From Ballentine Associates, our civil engineers, we have Bruce Ballentine, Holly Crist Mansson and Glen Phillips. From Jerry Turner and Associates, our land planners and landscape architects, we have Linda Harris. From Rabun, Hogan, Ota and Rasche, our building design architect, we have Tom Hogan. From the law firm of Smith, Helms, Mullis and Moore, Larry Sitton and Rob Marcus. From our traffic engineering firm, Kimley-Horn and Associates, Mike Horn. And also joining me from Winston Hotels, Mr. Craig Eick and Catherine Hicks. With that, I’ll turn it over to Larry Sitton. Thank you.”
Mr. Sitton: “Madam Mayor and Members of the Council, I’m Larry Sitton, an attorney representing Winston Hotels on this Special Use Permit. What I’d like to do now is have Rob Marcus hand to you a submission that we’re making on behalf of Winston Hotels. This is to put in convenient form for you the materials that we are submitting for the record tonight. I won’t go through this in great detail, but as you know on a Special Use Permit there are four findings that you have to make. These findings are discussed in detail in the report and our submission of the evidence on those findings.
“Obviously, as we discussed last time, if the Special Use Permit is consistent with the master plan then there is a rebuttable presumption that three of these four findings have been satisfied— all the findings except the finding relating to whether it meets with the applicable regulations and standards of the Town of Chapel Hill. On that particular finding there is no evidence to the contrary, and the staff has taken the position that it does meet those regulations and standards. So there is, we would contend, a rebuttable presumption that the other three findings have been met. And we have discussed those in some detail.
“I would point you to one thing on the property value issue that’s new. Under tab C—I’m sorry— under tab B of this report is a letter from Tom Heffner, who all of you are familiar with. He’s from here in Chapel Hill. He’s a real estate appraiser. Mr. Heffner had an unavoidable conflict and could not be here tonight, but we have submitted his report as part of our submission. And his report reaches the conclusion that this Special Use Permit and the construction of the Hilton Garden Inn would maintain or enhance the property values of the contiguous property.
“And specifically, he discusses the effect of this development on Finley Forest and the Finley Forest Condominiums, and points out that they are already impacted by the Friday Center, and talks about the impact of the Friday Center on those condominiums, and takes the position that the construction of the hotel would not adversely affect their property values—in fact would, as the finding requires, maintain or enhance those property values.
“There are a number of other matters that were discussed, and we’ve attached both the letter that we submitted to the staff and information relating to the traffic impact studies. Obviously, we did not have available to us when we prepared this submission the staff report so there is some duplication. But I think when you look at the two of them together you’ll see that they’re very consistent with each other.
“And there were a number of issues that were raised specifically at the hearing last time on the Special Use Permit—matters relating to stormwater, a bike pass—things like that. These are specifically addressed in this submission, and in fact will be addressed by a number of the witnesses tonight. So I simply wanted to set the stage, give you this submission on behalf of the company, and see if you have any questions of me.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Any questions of Mr. Sitton? Okay, thank you very much.”
Bruce Ballentine: “Our project design team is planning tonight to address a number of the issues and questions that were raised at the October 21st public hearing. Linda Harris and I will address the neighborhood issues related to visibility, particularly from Finley Forest toward the direction of the new hotel. But also Linda will address the view from NC 54 to the hotel as well. Following Linda, Glen Phillips will discuss the stormwater impact of this project on Finley Forest, and also explain to you our reasoning behind the best management practice choice that we’ve made for the Hilton Garden Inn. Following Glen, Tom Hogan will address the appearance and noise issue raised on October 21st.
“In listening to some of the comments made by Council and some of the questions from the neighbors back in October, I seem to feel that, looking and thinking about the graphics that have been presented to you in the past on this project…. It’s typical of other projects, where the graphics highlight the property itself, the property that’s under evaluation and consideration. And the board behind me shows that.
“If you look at our graphic, it shows the property as if it’s in space and there’s nothing else around it. And what I wanted to do is…I’ve been thinking since that time: how can I best explain to the audience and the Council what is going to remain on this site after it’s cleared. What kind of buffer, particularly, are we leaving adjacent to Finley Forest? What kind of buffer do they have already in place? Where are their buildings located? Where is our building located? What’s the proximity between the two? How does their site relate to the Friday Center that’s already existing?
“And what I’ve done is put together a series of photographs that I took last Monday. And it’s going to essentially start at the new intersection. And I’ve walked the clearing limits heading east, taking photographs back toward Finley Forest to try to give you a feel for what kind of vegetation is there and what will be there after this site is cleared to the north. It doesn’t take into account the building that would be behind these photographs, behind the photographer.
“It also doesn’t take into account the new vegetation that’s going to be placed both in front and behind the photographer. But it does look at this situation in the wintertime. The deciduous leaves are off the trees. And so I think it gives a good representation of what kind of vegetation is going to be there in the worst case, which is the wintertime.
“This first graphic is an aerial view of this part of town. It shows the current site. This is the proposed building superimposed over the site. The site is mostly wooded, pond and overgrown meadow at this time. The dash-line is the property line to the south and the east. You’ll see the little pond that’s existing and the RCD line that’s around it. You’ll notice that the Friday Center is mostly cleared. There’s a little bit of vegetation just to the east of the building. And you’ll notice also that Finley Forest is mostly buildings and pavement with some vegetation between the buildings.
“In the area of the site that this graphic indicates the proximity of the buildings, you’ll see the Finley Forest building on the lower center of the site. It’s 400 feet from Friday Center. It will be 520 feet from the new hotel building. The middle Finley Forest building is 350 feet from the Hilton Garden Inn (the proposed Hilton Garden Inn), and the building on the right is 390 feet.
“Now that distance and that view from those condominium buildings toward the Hilton Garden Inn, when it’s built as proposed, would be through existing woods, through new vegetation screening parking, to a building in the background. The distances are considerable. They, in some cases, as you can see, exceed the distances to the Friday Center today, which is across Friday Center Drive.
“The other interesting thing is the existing pond which the staff has indicated is an RCD. The Hilton Garden Inn has got to maintain a 75-foot buffer off of that pond, and that’s the reason that the drive curves to the north. It tends to cramp our site. It means that when we leave the meadow along Highway 54 and we leave the RCD around the pond, the area of our site that is developable is quite small. It also indicates that the Finley Forest buildings are within that 75-foot buffer.
“And I think that’s understandable because by the time Finley Forest was done…. And, as you remember, we maintained in the beginning that that little pond was not actually an RCD, and someone in the past must also have come to that conclusion. But if in fact that is an RCD, Finley Forest could have backed up some and provided an additional distance of buffer between those buildings and the property line.
“But, in any event, what we have there is what we have. And this graphic shows, if you can differentiate the colors, the green around the pond is the vegetation on the Hilton Garden Inn site. The blue to the south is the vegetation that exists on the Finley Forest site. And the southwest area of their site is an open space.
“So the next graphic shows these photographs. And this is not an easy thing to show, but I think this does it as well as we could. Starting on Friday Center Lane at our new property line the first three photographs show a view down the road. On the left you’ll see the Finley Forest building. On the right, the Friday Center. The second view is to the right toward the Friday Center—big building, antenna behind it, not many trees. The third view is along our property line, and you can see this vegetation to the right will remain.
“And then the next shots are every 25 feet or so as I’m moving around the clearing limits. Some have more vegetation than others. Photograph 4, for example, probably has the least amount of buffer, and you probably will be able to see through it to the Finley Forest building. It is filtered through trees. An if you were in Finley Forest looking through the number four dot in that graphic, your line of site would be in this direction, not toward the hotel.
“So it’s important to remember as we get maybe towards the third slide or fourth slide, as I’m walking around, that’s a view to a buffer and also a little later on I’ll point out a view through here from a building to the hotel through a buffer. So the first view right here, not in line with the hotel. There’s another point right here along a drainage way. It doesn’t have much vegetation. I did take a picture there to show you what it looks like. It, again, is not…. It’s a view in this direction.
“Looking to the south you can see the Finley Forest building. It’s quite close to the road. There is vegetation that’s been planted, and it’s a pretty good screen even though it’s very thin. It’s a continuation of vegetation along here.
“That’s a view to the right, to the southwest of the Friday Center.
“That’s looking east along the property line. To the right you can barely make out the beginning of the meadow. Here’s the property line. The drive will start here and curve to the left. It’ll start to curve back so at this point there’s this much vegetation left but as you go further into the site there’s more and more. What is a little bit misleading when you think about these graphics is that line at the bottom of that graphic is here [indicates on photo]. So there is some vegetation that was left on purpose on Finley Forest.
“This is standing at the property line. You can see the stake at the bottom of the photograph. Looking back through the vegetation, across the meadow, to the building in the background.
“Moving west, again. In all of these shots…if you reverse these and stood there looking back it would be this type of line of sight.
“A little more buffer. A little more. Now, from this point you’re beginning to get a view of the hotel behind where this photographer is standing. There’s that much existing vegetation. And there’s new landscaping to be planted behind. You can barely make out the building through the trees.
“Again, moving west. The building starts to disappear with more vegetation. You can see the property line in the front, which is the ribbons around the trees.
“I’m beginning now to curve to the north. The building’s disappearing. There’s more vegetation.
“But this shot actually turns and looks back to the Friday Center, and I’ve moved up to the property line to show what it looks like along the property line looking back at the Friday Center, which is that roof line. There’s the Finley Forest building.
“This is that view that’s quite open. It’s a drainage way and it’s looking through here. If you reversed it and stood at that condo and looked back your line of site would be here.
“This is moving further around the corner looking back through quite a bit of vegetation. You can barely see a roof line. Again, more vegetation. Everything in this photograph will remain.
“The pond is starting to come up on the left now. What’s in front of me is the pond. We’re looking through the RCD buffer to the pond. Behind are the buildings, which you cannot see.
“I’ve now moved up to the corner of the little dam right here and I’m looking diagonally this way across the pond. There’s a…. This is the scummy little pond. There’s a chair out there. There’re bottles and cans. As I said before, it is very little drainage so it doesn’t change over very frequently.
“This is looking along the dam towards this building.
“Here’s a …. On the next corner of the site. This is at the pond looking at the building. You can see how close it is. If this is in fact an RCD 75 feet puts you about at that window.
“But there is some buffer there. And this is a photograph standing in the parking lot looking…. The pond is here. The RCD line is about here. We’re looking east.
“Now I’ve turned around, looking at the other condo. Through there would be towards the hotel.
“This graphic shows a little better the vegetation that exists off the site. The building’s quite close to the property line. Parking. The third building was down here. The Friday Center here. And this is the meadow. But here’s the amount of buffer that exists without the new plantings that are proposed.
“Later in the presentation Ken will address the resolutions. I wanted to take this opportunity to mention three suggestions that I believe will make the Special Use Permit and the construction of this project a better project. Let me pass out this memo. These are minor in nature. If you choose to adopt Resolution A without these suggestions the project can be built. In some cases, when different reviewers are looking at applications for design projects and design proposals they tend to look at their own areas of expertise and sometimes these things conflict.
“As I mentioned, this particular site is squeezed between saving the RCD, saving the meadow, trying to save trees along Friday Center Drive. So this area of the site where the pond is, there is a conflict for space. And stipulation 5F requires a bus pull-off on Friday Center Drive in this general vicinity—which would be additional asphalt, less trees, more impervious surface, more run-off. And we question the need for the pull-off.
“Friday Center Drive is a four-lane divided road. And in the past, when the staff and other committees have taken a look at when to use pull-offs and when not to, a general rule of thumb has been a four-lane road, two lanes in each direction. When a bus stops in a road, there’s still a lane left for traffic to pass. And an example of that is Airport Road, Raleigh Road, Franklin Street—all the Town’s bus stops. Take a look at them next time when you’re traveling those roads. The only thing you have for a bus stop is a sign and a pad, but no pull-offs. They still function. The bus stops, there’s a lane for people to travel around.
“Now, those streets are all heavily traveled. Friday Center Drive was originally designed as Laurel Hill Parkway. That’s why it’s four lanes wide. That’s why there’s a median. But it’s not going to be extended further to the south. The only thing Friday Center Drive serves…Friday Center. Not Finley Forest, by the way, there’s no curve cut onto Finley Forest. But the Town park and ride lot, the UNC tennis facility, and the hospital administration building. There’s not much traffic on Friday Center Drive, and we believe that a bus stop will adequately serve our needs and a pull-off is not necessary.
“Stipulation 25 is a staff recommendation that the pond be reconfigured and some trees to the west of the pond and around the pond be saved. You can leave that wording as is, but we’ve already done that. We’ve already looked at saving trees. We’ve saved as many trees in that area as we can. Residents at some of our previous meetings have asked us to make the pond as large as we can for stormwater issues and we’ve agreed to do that. But you start to get a conflict between bus pull-offs, saving trees, making the pond bigger. They’re all competing for the same space. So we would ask that the last sentence of Stipulation 25 be stricken.
“And item 24b—again, it’s a matter of semantics—but there’s a word, the word ‘limited’ grading in the meadow could present a hindrance to the design team, particularly the landscape architect and the civil engineer, as we try to drain the meadow and reshape the meadow to make it as pleasing as possible as being in the foreground between the building and Highway 54.
“We would not propose to do any grading in areas where trees were to be saved. But where the meadow is going to be restored, vegetation is going to be removed anyway, and topsoil is going to be spread—we would like to have the ability at least to reshape the ground. And so it’s just a…. If you deleted that word ‘limited’ it would be less hindrance on the design and review team as we moved into ZCP phase.
“With that, I’d like to call on Linda Harris please.
Mayor Waldorf: “Excuse me. Do you have any idea how much longer the applicant’s presentation will run? I just got a note from Julie making a good point. There’re a couple of citizens here who want to speak who have little children. Is it going to be a lot longer?”
Mr. Ballentine: “No, we can speed it up.”
Mayor Waldorf: “I don’t want to rush you. I just want to accommodate them.”
Mr. Ballentine: “Yep.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay. I really don’t want to rush you at all. I just thought we could interpose them if necessary.”
Mr. Ballentine: “Okay.”
Linda Harris: “To supplement Bruce’s presentation, we wanted to show the relationships of some of the elements on the sites. We’ve been looking at everything in plain view. So we chose three portions of the site that we thought would best express the relationships that we’ve been talking about, and did some sections to show the elevation along Highway 54, across the meadow, showing the hotel and then its relationship to the condominiums at Finley Forest. The second one is from Highway 54 across some of the meadow that was going to have to be graded out due to some utilities, and exposing some of the parking area. And then the third one shows the relationship between 54 and the parking, and then on through to the condominiums in Finley Forest.
“Now, of course, these don’t show an infinite number of views. But it does give you an idea of what some of the site lines might be from some of these places on 54 and across to the parking lot. And it also helps us understand what the elevations of the plant material has to be to achieve what we want to achieve in terms of screening.
“So you see the first section that I’ll show you going across the meadow to Finley Forest. And because it is long we’ll have to show the section of the meadow first. This was done quite obviously a bit larger. These lines show 10-foot contours and the horizontal and the vertical are all the same relationship. So it hadn’t been exaggerated in any direction. This is Highway 54 shown at about elevation 92. The hotel is proposed to be at about 85, so you can see that over that distance there doesn’t seem to be that much of an elevation change. Most of it occurs right at Highway 54.
“There’s the property line. The existing hedgerow that we plan to keep some of to create those windows that we’ve talked about so frequently. And then perhaps some groups of trees within that meadow, but, basically, you see the meadow is fairly flat and that’s the way it occurs out there now. And we’re showing the bike path where it has been proposed to be down into the meadow area. Then we back up to the hotel and elevation 85.
“Then, as we move across, showing the hotel with its relationship to Finley Forest, we find the hotel at 85. You follow that line across and this—the finished floor here—is about 10 feet lower than the hotel, which across that distance doesn’t seem that much but most of the elevation change is from here to that first driveway as you’re coming into the proposed parking lot. Between there and those condominiums are the existing trees which are somewhere, we’ve estimated, in the neighborhood of 80 to 90 feet, which is up in that range.
“Now, we’re planning on supplementing in this area with evergreens that will get up anywhere between—well, eventually much taller—but at least start out at 10 to 12. And then some lower in there to screen the view lines anywhere across there to the parking. And as…Of course, these trees are shown as they’re going in. As they grow, of course, they will begin to screen view lines into the hotel itself.
“On the lower level, there are a series of areas where we’ll be planting in front of the parking. And I’ve estimated that anywhere between five and six feet will screen most of the parking from even the second floor condominium.
“Now, to show you the second section. That just is to demonstrate from 54 what we’re going to have to do to screen the parking in this area where a lot of the trees are going to be removed due to the utilities I was describing.
“Once again, you see Highway 54 at its…. I’ve ball-parked the elevation at about 90-92, and it will drop across there. There’s the bike path. The hedgerow. Some existing trees. But primarily those trees in that area are going to be removed. So we’re going to come in and try to make that area conform with some of the trees that are going to be saved so it’ll look more natural.
“Then, it doesn’t take much in the way of evergreen material right in here. As you can see, that sight line going basically across there, to screen all of that parking. That’s anywhere between five and six feet. And, of course, we’ll have other things that are added in there to make it look more native.
“The third section, again, was done through the forest area that we’re going to save. You can see that these are the limits of grading. So, we’re going to have to come in there on the south side and supplement this area. And we took this section all the way through to show you its relationship to Finley Forest as well.
“Okay, once again, we have the power line, the right of way….”
Mayor Waldorf: “Excuse me, Ms. Harris, a question I believe right now from Council Member Brown.”
Council Member Brown: “Back to the other slide. When you were talking about the parking lot. Could you please tell me what you meant by ‘supplement.’ You said…I wasn’t quite sure whether you were going to completely grade and then replant. Is that what you meant by ‘supplement,’ or what did you mean?”
Ms. Harris: “On the last section?”
Council Member Brown: “On the one before this. When you were talking about the parking lot. When you were talking about buffering it, something about supplement there, and I wasn’t quite sure what you meant.”
Ms. Harris: “Are you talking about right here?’
Council Member Brown: “Yes.”
Ms. Harris: “Well that is the limits of grading, right there. All of those trees are the trees that are existing out there. Anything that we’ve taken out in here we’ll come back in and plant native material as well as an evergreen hedge. You can’t see it very well. I apologize. The resolution on this isn’t quite as good as on my drawing but we need a hedge. And I’ll show you. It doesn’t take much. This is how we determine how high that hedge needs to be to screen the parking. Outside of that hedge we’ll want to reintroduce material that was taken out.”
Council Member Brown: “Okay. Thank you.”
Ms. Harris: “I’m afraid this section doesn’t show that adequately, but I do want to…. Once again, there is one of those 10-foot contour lines that can be used as a site line, and that is about six feet above…There is a car …And there it is. And that’s six feet above ground level right there. So it won’t take much to actually screen the parking from view. But these are existing trees, and we’ll come in that narrow corridor behind there and replant some native materials so we won’t have a leftover hole.
“We just did this to emphasize—because of these relationships—the road to the parking. That we can easily screen the parking from view without having to go to enormous plant material to do it. It’s an easy thing to do. And then, of course, as you go across, we’ll add more plant material. There’s a parking isle. And it just reinforces the evergreens across there so that we don’t believe that there’s any way that that will be visible from Highway 54.
“Now, going a little bit beyond that just to show Finley Forest…This is a little bit skewed, but… Those houses really are a little bit farther back than that. So there’s more plant material there. But there is the existing pond and, of course, there are trees in the background here. So that looks like a void, but it’s really not. And then, additional trees in this area as the road curves up around the pond. These are existing.
“And then, to screen the parking from this view line we’ve determined that it will take somewhere in the neighborhood of a six-foot hedge right there to screen the parking from the second story. So that will take care of any visibility from…Even if you can see through there, we would supplement that with an evergreen hedge. Thank you.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay. Is there anything further?”
Mr. Crockett: “Mayor Waldorf, we have two more presenters. So if you’d like us to defer….”
Mayor Waldorf: “Yes, I’d like to go ahead and just call on the…Is it okay with Council to go ahead and hear from the citizens, and then the applicant can finish his presentation? Okay. I’m going to call on people in the order in which they signed up. Diane O’Shea. And then after Diane, Doug Stuber.”
Diane O’Shea: “Good evening. I am a homeowner at Finley Forest. I had a lot of things to say tonight, but some of the material presented by these gentlemen have changed my opinion a little bit. However, I would like to pass out, if you wouldn’t mind, thank you, some information which I got from driving around to all of the hotels in Chapel Hill. There are seven hotels in our town. And if this hotel is built it will be the only one that’s built abutting private property owned by people like us in condos.
“We have 372 condos. We pay a lot of taxes to Chapel Hill. We spend an awful lot of money keeping our property looking nice, and we’re worried about things like the visibility. We’re very concerned about that. Our homes are about 22 feet high. Your hotel is going to be about 70 feet high. There has to be some visibility, and that can’t improve our property values. We paid a fair amount of money for our homes, and we would hate to see the value go down. Thank you.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay. Thank you very much Ms. O’Shea. Doug Stuber and then Dorothy Verkerk.”
Doug Stuber: “I’d like to make a case for a more pedestrian friendly Route 54 between proposed Meadowmont and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, specifically the intersection of 54 at Hamilton Road, which used to have a crossing guard for Glenwood Elementary and now it’s been declared a ‘no walk zone’ with no crossing guard and a 30 minute bus ride for kids who used to walk to school in ten minutes or less.
“Meadowmont is planned to be a pedestrian-friendly community, yet this utopia is in the meantime stripping almost 400 people from being able to walk to a grocery store, a pharmacist, or a university. I don’t think that the folks who are spending up to $275,000 for a new residence are going to walk up the hill to Franklin Street, but the developers could at least chip in so the rest of us can walk up the hill without getting mowed over by one of the thousands of new cars that will be added to Route 54.
“My guess is that the Department of Transportation will be tempted to actually widen Route 54. This would not only make it quicker to drive from Meadowmont to the Governor’s Club, but also make it harder for us to cross Route 54 in an existing affordable housing neighborhood.
“The irony is that even though the Chapel Hill police have done a commendable job enforcing the 35 mile per hour speed limit, once Meadowmont is sold out pedestrians and bicycle riders who were here first will be at greater risk on their daily commute up the hill. A superhighway through a pedestrian-friendly utopia should at least be balanced by a sidewalk and bike route on Route 54 from approximately the corner of Country Club out to Meadowmont. This would not only improve the value of the condominiums but also resolve some issues for a group of existing citizens.
“If Chapel Hill is willing to make the trip from Meadowmont to I-40 quicker, then we ought to make the walk or bike ride up the hill to Route 54 safer at the same time. Meadowmont threatens to make Chapel Hill into one of those gated communities made famous by Naples, Florida and Bolder, Colorado. I call on Mr. Perry to join us in keeping our whole town pedestrian-friendly, not just the rich part.
“Mr. Perry must have forgotten his female residents when proposing a pedestrian tunnel. Ask the women of Los Angeles, or those who have walked Central Park in New York, whether they would ever trek through the pedestrian tunnels in their cities. After so many rapes and muggings have taken place, it defies common sense to inadvertently pander to such criminals by building one here in once pristine Chapel Hill.
“The three part solution is simple: An adequate sidewalk and bicycle path from Meadowmont to the Chapel Hill campus; slower speed limits; and longer lights activated by residents so that we can still walk safely out of Glen Lenox, as we have for the past 40 years. Mr. Perry’s Meadowmont residents will appreciate such a gesture as it will improve safety and healthy walking habits. Mr. Perry himself will sleep well at night knowing that he balanced his pedestrian friendly development with the needs of the current pedestrians in his new neighborhood. Thank you.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Thank you very much. Dorothy Verkerk. Dorothy and Council, there are two people who have signed up saying that that they want to give their time to you.”
Ms. Verkerk: “Yeah, there’s a lot of my neighbors in the audience and there are a lot of people who read the contents of this speech. We just thought it would save a lot of time if I just present it as one person.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Yeah, if that’s okay with the Council. That’s fine. Go ahead. I’m just going to turn the light on and I’ll just go through it two or three times. All right. Just take your time.”
Ms. Verkerk: “Now that we’ve exhausted the trees maybe we should look at the forest, hmm? Tonight you’re being asked to vote on a Special Use Permit that would allow Mr. Perry to construct an office complex and a large hotel on the south side of Highway 54 with a multi-lane highway to accommodate these complexes. This is part of a larger mixed-use plan to create a pedestrian village which straddles Highway 54, with mixed housing on the north side and homes and places of employment and services on the south side.
“This is in fact what already exists—or once was existing in Glen Lenox just west. (And actually today we timed it. It’s three-tenths of a mile to the west of the proposed office and hotel and homes development.) In the past year, the situation has radically changed on NC 54 that has a tremendous impact for the implementation of the 1995 Meadowmont plan.
“First of all, the court ruled that its ‘contiguous property’ is 2,000 feet from the boundaries of the hotel and office complexes. Second, this is a ‘no walk zone’ in the Glen Lenox neighborhood. Homes in Glen Lenox neighborhood fall within the 2,000 foot impact boundary and, to date, the ‘no walk zone’ remains a fact for Glen Lenox.
“In August of 1998 the school administration declared Glen Lenox a ‘no walk zone,’ which is a 50 year-old (I’ll have to contradict my friend Doug. It’s 50, not 40.) neighborhood of mixed use and affordable homes of Chapel Hillians who walked across Highway 54, brought their kids to school, and shopped at stores. The ‘no walk zone’ has relegated our children to a bus ride that now conveys them here—down Burning Tree, up Burning Tree, to Finley Forest, back down Finley Forest and then back down Highway 54 to the Glen Lenox School.
“Our safety, our health, and our quality of life have been compromised by the seven lanes of traffic that even the police department has been unable to control by enforcing the now existing 35 and 45 mile an hour speed limits. In this memo, dated September 9, 1998, Mary Lin Truelove, who is the director of safety and transportation of the Chapel Hill-Carborro Schools, stated to Dr. Pedersen that Glen Lenox no longer has the luxury of walking and that for their safety students must be transported across Highway 54. This is in fact confirmed by the letter that Dr. Neil Pedersen sent to me.
“She arrived at this conclusion, as she states in her memo, with Principal Gail Turner, Vice Principal Linda Evans and Captain Oakley of the Chapel Hill Police Department. Even with a Police Department crossing guard carrying a stop sign, current levels of traffic—that’s current levels of traffic—endangered our children’s lives.
“But what about the pedestrian without the protection of the police? If city engineers’ pedestrian count of Hamilton and Highway 54, administered by the Town’s staff on the orders of Town Council, confirmed on November 10th of 1998 what the school administration and the Police Department has already determined—and here’s a copy that was sent to me—that the intersection was unsafe for any pedestrian. Pedestrian counts crossing Highway 54 between 7:30 to 8:30 in the morning showed zero to one pedestrian. A convoy of cars and buses…In fact more traffic now crosses there.
“Unfortunately, however, what the traffic engineers did not determine was that through the day there is a steady trickle of bikers, bus-riders and walkers who risk their lives to cross that highway. I’m one of them because I take the S bus stop which drops me off here and I have to cross the street. And I take it on a daily basis despite Captain Oakley in a telephone conversation in August of 1998 simply telling me it was too dangerous for me to take the S bus. (By the way, thank you for all those free rides this summer. That was great. With the ozone alert days.) At current levels of traffic, Ms. Truelove, Ms. Turner and Captain Oakley are correct. Walking is a luxury we can only afford at the risk of our safety.
“The Town Council recognized the undesirability of a neighborhood cut off from walking to school, to the Harris Teeter’s, to The Village Doctor’s office, and to the State Credit Union. And in response to a petition from myself and to Dr. John Randall, Town Council created a citizen task force to work for solutions. You asked for 12 names. We were sort of obnoxious and sent you 14. You sent us applications and we applied and we assumed that this was done in good faith.
“Mr. Horton’s memo here of November 23, 1998 states, and I’ll read from it: ‘Residents of Glen Lenox and the Little Creek neighborhood should be able to cross NC 54/Hamilton Road intersection with reasonable comfort and safety whenever necessary.’ I assume that Mr. Horton included the small children, two of whom are sitting there, who currently live in a ‘no walk’ zone in this statement.
“Forty-three Glen Lenox neighbors also sent a letter to Governor Jim Hunt, State Senator Howard Lee, and State Senator Eleanor Kinaird, asking them to act as our advocates to return us to a pedestrian village that Glen Lenox enjoyed for 50 years. In December of 1998 and, as I heard, just today Senator Kinaird responded and assures us of a meeting with DOT to re-assess NC 54 and highway/pedestrian viability.
“What will DOT hear about this short stretch of 54? On the one hand he will hear from a Raleigh developer who will tell him that in order to accommodate his pedestrian village and his office and hotel complex he needs to widen the road. On the other hand DOT will also hear from citizens and residents of Chapel Hill, who now currently enjoy seven lanes of traffic, that we in fact want NC 54 retrofitted so that we can in fact walk. This just makes no sense, and it puts DOT in a totally untenable position.
“Mr. Perry is very eloquent in his description of Meadowmont as a pedestrian village. We would like to see him adhere to those principles of the 1995 Master Plan. His planners, who have not kept abreast of developments nor considered the impact of that 2000-foot contiguous property, have actually served him extremely poorly. The proposed pedestrian tunnel at the Friday Center is not a comprehensive solution and is in fact, as Doug Stuber so eloquently said, a danger to solitary pedestrians. State of the art urban planning does not recommend tunnels nor the widening of roads to promote pedestrian friendliness.
“We ask that you halt the granting of these Special Use Permits until we can rectify the ‘no walk zone’ at Glen Lenox, because Mr. Perry has not come up with viable solutions that would make Meadowmont more pedestrian-friendly than Glen Lenox. Glen Lenox is, in fact, the litmus test for Meadowmont. Mr. Perry’s request for widening NC 54 to accommodate business complexes result, by his own estimates, in a substantial increase in traffic on NC 54. As proposed, Mr. Perry will merely duplicate a failed attempt in Chapel Hill to provide housing, services and employment straddling a multi-lane highway.
“We also ask that you do not undermine the Town Council’s citizen task force. By granting a proposal you only hamper our ability to find solutions to current traffic problems. Granting Mr. Perry’s and his planners’ short-sighted proposals, written in the early 1990s, is clearly out of step with recent developments along Highway 54, the new definition of ‘contiguous property’ and thus the 1995 Meadowmont plan.
“The court ruling on ‘contiguous property’ inextricably links Meadowmont and its surrounding neighborhoods. Like Siamese twins sharing the common heart of NC 54 Glen Lenox and Meadowmont cannot be severed. The Town Council jeopardizes its own credibility when it says that Meadowmont will be a ‘pedestrian village’ when its twin neighborhood is a ‘no walk zone’ village.
“Allowing Mr. Perry’s special applications as they stand tonight will send a powerful and very cynical message: Town Council does not stand behind the 1995 pedestrian-friendly Meadowmont Master Plan because it does not stand behind returning Glen Lenox to a pedestrian village as well.”
John LeMasters: “I live a little north of here off of Piney Mountain Drive. I’m a professor at the University of North Carolina in the department of Cell Biology. I’ve been here more than 20 years, and really, I’m not here on anyone’s behalf. I don’t know Mr. Ballentine, and I’m really acting here as a private citizen at the behest of no one except perhaps my wife, who suggests I should tell my opinions to other than the dining room table.
“But my interest here is to point out the value of the Friday Center to our community and to our University. As you drive on 54 into town you really don’t appreciate that building and what it does. It conducts conferences—meetings as small as 10 or 15 people, as many as a few hundred —that bring together people in the Town both from the University, from the government, from private and civic organizations. It also brings in people from around the State, and in many cases brings people nationally and internationally to Chapel Hill.
“And it’s working well. But it’s not living up to its real capacity and capability. And I know this because I will plan these kinds of conferences and the real drawback is you can’t bring in faculty for the conferences and, in many cases, participants in the conferences because there’s no lodging within walking distance, easy access to the Friday Center. And so the consequence is you just don’t hold the meetings.
“And I think these visitors are exactly the kinds of visitors we’d most like to have to Chapel Hill. Other than eating at our restaurants and maybe walking around campus they have very little impact in terms of Town services, but they provide a kind of intellectual vitality to the community that I think is quite worthwhile.
“And additionally, I think that if we can have this kind of hotel built the right way we can maintain our beautiful gateway into Town. I think as we come into town on 15/501 (where there’s a lot more clutter), I think of the Hotel Europa, which is now a Sheraton Hotel, built several years ago but maintained very nicely. It’s probably the most attractive thing you’ll see when you come in from Durham on 15/501. And I think a hotel properly placed would do the same thing. And I worry that if we don’t take advantage of a good project we’re going to end up with just another fast food franchise at a location such as this.
“Now, I haven’t looked at the plans. I don’t know what an RCD is. And this is going to be to your judgment. The point I simply want to make is that the hotel would have a benefit in promoting the activities of the Friday Center, promoting the University’s broadest and best goals, maintain the attractiveness of our gateway to our Town, and bring us the kinds of visitors that are going to enhance our lives.
“And so, as you consider this—and I know you’re considering every aspect—I just want you to add as an important part of the equation the value of the Friday Center’s function to our community. And I hope you do put every—apply the screws to Mr. Ballentine, and have him put in sidewalks and bridges over Route 54 and whatever needs to be done, but at the end of the day we’ll have a place to house these visitors within walking distance of the Friday Center so the Friday Center can be even more effectively utilized. Thank you.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Thank you. While Mr. Goodman is coming forward, I just want to mention I think you all have a copy of this letter from Ken MacIntyre raising questions and objections about this project. Let’s just make sure we get that entered into the record.
Philip Goodman: “Good evening. Happy New Year. I came to speak as to why these Special Use Permits do not conform to the Comprehensive Plan of Chapel Hill. And there are several areas in the Comprehensive Plan, including the goals for the entranceway 54 that were revised in ‘95 that this project does not meet. I’ll highlight five statements from the Comprehensive Plan and leave it to you to judge whether or not these particular five items are met by this project.
“First is, ‘incorporate the office and retail components within neighborhoods in a scale to fit the neighborhoods.’ Second, ‘limit the office and retail components to accommodate primarily the neighborhood needs.’ The third statement out of the Comprehensive Plan: ‘Neighborhoods including the office/retail segment should be built so as not to impinge unduly on the tranquillity of already existing neighborhoods.’ The fourth, ‘preserve, restore and enhance natural pastoral landscapes and vistas generally as depicted in the 1988 Entranceway Plan to account actual terrain.’
“And the fifth statement from the Comprehensive Plan: ‘Maintain and reinforce ridge lines and edges of the meadows.’ And specifically, I believe the framers of this Comprehensive Plan and the Entranceway Plan were trying to make sure that there would be no buildings visible from Highway 54, nor especially would it be useful to have those meadows operate as a pre-drop of foreground to somebody’s commercial enterprise.
“I’m not sure how well this picture I have of the meadows looked in about 1950…It may project because it’s a Xerox of a black and white photo. But if you can see that, you’ll see a meadow from Highway 54 with a ridge line of trees in the background. No buildings. No 80-foot high signs suggesting that there’s a hotel behind here. Nothing of that sort is envisioned nor accommodated by the Comprehensive Plan.
“In the Master Landscape Plan entranceway corridors of the Comprehensive Plan there are some statements that I believe are important. They talk about special vistas. They list four locations. The first one, the DuBose pasture. Both sides of NC 54 to ridge line and forested backdrop. And they state in this Comprehensive Plan that has never been overturned, never been undone, despite the Entranceway Committee’s meetings and a lot of discussion.
“What came out of that—you may have copies of—does not undo what this says: ‘There remain in Chapel Hill certain highway imagable pieces of the Townscape which in themselves have helped over the years to define Chapel Hill as a memorable place. They link people with the past and forge a strong connection to place. These special vistas and views as seen by car extending beyond the confines of the public rights of way are often remnant pastoral settings which are as much a part of Chapel Hill as its major architectural elements. I don’t believe we should be taking away this part of Chapel Hill.
“Today, Vice President Gore was speaking about the growth as it’s occurring in a number of urban and small communities in the United States. And he is going to propose that there be something called ‘smart growth,’ that the federal government will give money to small communities to preserve these forested areas and to try to prevent the gridlock that might develop otherwise. And I would hope that this committee—this Council—would see that adding more office space, more hotel rooms, would convert Highway 54, which once looked like this and is still intended to look like that, into something more like Highway 15/501. Thank you.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Thank you very much. Beth Kell, and then Valerie Broadwell.”
Council Member Foy: “Madam Mayor, many of the speakers’ comments seem to go to both of these Special Use Permit applications. So I would just like to be sure that the comments are included in the records of both….”
Mayor Waldorf: “Thank you for bringing that up. Actually the sign up sheet says that people could sign up for both at the same time. So, Madam Clerk, can we just make sure that the comments that have been made by citizens are part of the record of both these special use hearings? Okay.”
Beth Kell: “I did want to make sure that a couple of things got submitted—in one case, resubmitted—to the record tonight. This, of course, pertains to section 18.3 of the Town Development Ordinance and the four findings that are necessary before approving Special Use Permits. And I’ll go first, I guess, to C under that listing: ‘The use of the development is located, designed and proposed to be operated so as to maintain and enhance the value of contiguous property or that the use of the development is of public necessity.’
“Back in March of 1998, the Little Creek neighborhood hired a certified appraiser to look into that issue for us. And now, since several of the houses on both Oakwood and Rogerson Drive fall into this new 2,000 feet boundary, I’d like simply to resubmit this report from Reginald Morgan and Associates. This was presented to Council on May 14, 1998 and I’m not going to read it. I will read one line in it, which says, ‘I’ve gathered some facts and observation and it’s my opinion that the proposed Meadowmont Community would have a negative effect on the residents of Little Creek and would not promote public health, safety, and the general welfare of these residents.’ I’d just like to make sure that that is resubmitted for the record.
“Going to issue A of safety: that the use of the development is located, designed and proposed to be operated so as to maintain the public safety and general welfare. We think that, since 1990, there have been at least three pedestrian or bicycle fatalities right around Glen Lenox but don’t have confirmation of that yet through the Police Department. I apologize for being a little late in asking, and the person I needed to speak with was not there today. But I do have one…I do know the latest, the most recent fatality there happened two years ago, January 14, 1997. A seventy year-old woman was killed trying to cross the road in front of Glen Lenox, the shopping center, and perhaps I or some of the staff members can look back over the last 10 years and see not only pedestrian and bicycle fatalities there—we think there are three, we’re sure there are two—and also it might be helpful to look at fatalities from car crashes right in that area. So we’d like to get that into the record.
“The other is just…I’m trying to understand, really, how Members can in good conscience vote approval for these Special Use Permits when so many safety-related issues have been raised and so few have been addressed, not even adequately—some not even at all. You know, for example, there’s Jordan Lake. I know you folks just had a workshop on run-off and sedimentation, and we only need to look at north Chapel Hill to see that current measures are just a complete failure.
“I’d like to know what the impact studies are from this project and how those will affect erosion sedimentation into this potential drinking resource for the Town. You know, and what’s the plan to protect Jordan Lake from the kinds of things we’re seeing in north Chapel Hill? Also, how are we really going to deal effectively with the exponential growth of traffic on 54? Not just the Glen Lenox/Hamilton intersection, which has already been discussed, but what’s going to happen—what are the impact studies and what are the plans for the traffic impacts on 54 and I-40 intersection?
“Or, even more importantly to us in the Glen Lenox neighborhood, what’s going to happen to the woefully inadequate already intersection of 54 and 15/501, which already causes a great deal of cut through traffic through our neighborhoods because that is such a terrible intersection? I understand that traffic studies have not been done on those intersections by staff or requested from North Carolina DOT. That may have happened since I got my last information, but I think it’s something that has to be addressed before approval can be given to these permits.
“And also, what about what I hope is not just the lip service—to make our Town more pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly. I know that several of you—Mr. Foy—I know several staff members—Mr. Horton, Mayor Waldorf—I’m not sure who else—attended the Highway Safety Research Council meeting we had not such a long time ago. And Mr. Capowski was there of course. And I think…Everyone got to speak at that meeting and I think there was unanimous consent that not only did we have a long way to go, not only was making our Town a more pedestrian/bicycle-friendly a desirable thing, but a necessary thing if we are not to have total dependence on the internal combustion engine.
“You know, we already know—getting back to our intersection at Glen Lenox and Hamilton Road, and that area—that it’s not safe for even able-bodied adult to cross that road. I also want to bring up…what about our commitment to accessibility and to independence issues for those of us who for whatever reason can’t drive a car and can no longer use our multi-use neighborhood to go to the doctor’s office across the street, go to do our own shopping, to pick up our own prescription? For whatever reason, there are many of us who can no longer sprint across that highway even if we were willing to take the risk.
“And I know in my own case I would love to take my electric scooter and go do my own shopping and be independent, as many of our older residents would be. It’s just…It’s suicidal. The only time I’ve been able to safely cross that intersection is when our neighborhood has organized the crossings and with, you know, 30, 40, 50 people around me and some police presence, at least in the first crossing event, I did feel safe enough to do that.
“These are serious issues and I know that all of you will think seriously about these issues. And I hope that you will search your consciences and that you will consider these issues and, I hope, vote not to approve these Special Use Permits. We’re just nowhere near ready to handle the kind of traffic problems that are going to be created. Tonight, you have at least a chance not to compound our existing safety and traffic problems, and I urge you to do just that. Thank you for your time.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Thank you. Is Valerie Broadwell here? [Ms. Broadwell explained, off mike, that she had given her time up.] Oh, you did. Okay. I didn’t know that. All right, Kathleen McAndrews. We really do want to get through both of these hearings tonight. So, to the extent that both the applicant’s representatives and citizens can be concise, we’re really appreciative.”
Kathleen McAndrews: “I moved here about four years ago and I moved to Chapel Hill because it was a nice little Town and I had envisioned myself walking to do grocery shopping down at the end of the street by Glen Lenox. And you can’t do that. And I see all of these lovely ideas and these beautiful hotels, but I don’t hear anyone addressing the traffic problem. We can’t handle 35,000 cars today. I don’t see how we’re going to handle 55. And that’s not counting football games and concerts.
“I think we need to address how we’re going to handle the traffic. Then think about building or adding to it. That’s my biggest concern is the traffic. And people compared it in the newspaper to the Glenwood Shopping—the eight lanes. I don’t know if you’ve ever…in front of Crabtree Mall. I don’t go there because of that. It’s just a really, really bad intersection. I don’t think we want to resemble that.
“Another thing I want to address is the safety issue. I just feel a little bit concerned with 70 feet…. And I’m in Finley Forest and they’re 22 feet, where our buildings are, and people can look in. I think we need to address the safety…We need to make sure there’s proper lighting. And also, we need to investigate the noise and make sure it’s not too much noise. And that’s all I want to say. Thank you.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay. Thank you very much, Kathleen. Alice Ingram is signed up to speak on the Office Park. She’s the only remaining citizen to sign up, and we’re allowing people to speak on both subjects now as a courtesy to people.
Alice Ingram: “The Office hasn’t been presented.”
Mayor Waldorf: “No it hasn’t, but several people who’ve made comments have spoken to both projects, and what we’re doing, Alice, is we’re just making….”
Ms. Ingram: “A sweep.”
Mayor Waldorf: “We’re making a sweep, and we’re making comments. Just parts of both records.”
Ms. Ingram: “Okay. Chapel Hill is still struggling to be a true town. It’s shape as a donut with a hole in the middle filled by a world class university makes it a glaring anomaly as a town. To make its identity even more shaky, the University has extensive and growing medical and entertainment facilities which serve the whole State. No one is turned away.
“But there are only four main arteries to serve this growth in the hole and the surrounding area where bigger houses and less in taxes draw people. Except for small pieces of land the Town’s land is already developed or planned for development and mostly it is sprawling residential. The University is, and will increasingly become, urban in its density and offerings. It is an uneven match of power now and for the future.
“Residential simply has no real identity, organized focus, power, when compared to academic or medical concentrations on campus. Further development of the downtown will help to alleviate this mismatch of urban power, as will the mixed use pieces, particularly the shopping and the offices of Meadowmont and Southern Village. The Timberlyne’s contribution is still a guess. Not to nurture and guard the urban nature of both the downtown and Meadowmont would be to reduce our ability to introduce effective alternate modes of moving people—which are the key to walk and talk, the heart of Chapel Hill’s character.
“I doubt that few would disagree that 1998 saw as much, or more, increase in traffic on 54 than will be generated by the once-in/once-out trips of the proposed offices. When the whole of Meadowmont is developed one car out of seven on 54 will belong to Meadowmont. So what do we do with the others? In fact, some of the street talk is it’s going to be one car in 50 will be from Meadowmont. And the rest will be going to the University or coming up from Chatham County, Carborro, that sort of thing.
“I think that we need immediate and firm action on three of the four arteries—54, Franklin, 15/501—to control and direct this traffic. One, insure the safety of crosswalks. Glen Lenox, Elliot, West Franklin, Rosemary, Pittsborough. DOT needs to be reminded everyday that pedestrians come before cars in Chapel Hill. Two, we need to make sure that our four good representatives in the state legislature get our fair share of the transportation money voted for by Congress (billions in 1998) and that which will be voted on this year.
“Three, Mrs. Verkerk of Glen Lenox is absolutely right about making Chapel Hill a walking town. Miles of greenway, sidewalks, and bikeways are in place. Let’s use some of that national money to finish the job and go back to the pleasantries of walk and talk. Four, the final item, the most critical and important, is to be absolutely sure that we continue to work with the University for light rail and to improve our own transit system so that it services the Town’s needs and not just those of the University. Thank you.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Thank you. Dianne Bachman is here to speak for the Community Design Commission.”
Dianne Bachman: “Good evening. At the public hearing on October 21st I addressed the Council for the Garden Inn relative to the CDC’s review comments, so this evening I’d like to give you the comments of the CDC for the Office Park. We reviewed this project on September 26th. Under the purview of the CDC they reviewed the project relative to the approved illustrated Master Plan as well as the design guidelines for Meadowmont, and no serious issues were raised, and the project was recommended for approval by the Town Council, 10-0. Do you have any questions?”
Mayor Waldorf: “Any questions of Dianne? Okay. Thank you very much. All right, if there are no other citizens (I don’t have anybody else signed up to speak), lets return to conclude the applicant’s presentation.”
Mr. Crockett: “Just to get this back into sync. Glen Philips will discuss quickly some stormwater issues that have been raised. Tom Hogan will follow with a quick discussion on the HVAC and a noise concern that I think was raised in particular. And then, if I can have about a two minute wrap-up, we’ll be done.”
Glen Philips: “Hopefully you’ve all read our prepared responses to the questions raised at the last meeting. We tried to go in depth on all of them to address a lot of the issues relating to stormwater and water quality. As stated within those responses, our opinion on the wet detention pond is that it is the best choice for this site. We have provided enough room to accommodate the wet detention pond. Your ordinances reference the wet detention pond, and your engineer has concurred with this choice. In our opinion, over time a wet detention pond will out-perform a sand filter, if it’s designed and integrated with the rest of the site. It will also look a lot nicer.”
“Regarding stormwater, the staff has pointed out to you that the drainage area out-letting Finley Forest has been reduced by approximately 14 acres. This will have a significant impact on the project peak run-off which will be accepted by Finley Forest. Based upon this, we can reduce peak flows leaving our site to, at, or below pre-existing conditions, not only for the 10-year storm but also for the 25-year storm and the 100-year storm. At this time, I’d like to turn it over to Tom Hogan our architect.”
Tom Hogan: “I’m here to answer any questions relative to the appearance or design of the project. It is not our intention to go through another presentation of the architecture of the building, but I am here to answer any of your questions. I’m also asked to speak with regard to an issue that was raised at the last meeting regarding some of the HVAC noise generation considerations.
“To answer that question, Winston Hotels hired Stewart Acoustical Consultants, a Triangle area-based acoustical consultant who has a Ph.D. in acoustical engineering to analyze our particular project. My firm and my mechanical consultants provided Mr. Stewart with some of the equipment that’s going to be used in the hotel and we gave him the data from manufacturers regarding the decibel level output of many of the pieces of equipment that are going to be exposed to the general environment.
“Dr. Stewart went to the site and took three different readings of existing noise levels at a period of time where you would expect it to be quiet and getting ready to turn down for bed, which was between 9:15 p.m. and 10:15 p.m. on the evening of December 30th. His results indicate an existing ambient noise level of an average ranging between 44 and 46.5 decibels. I only tell you this to just give you some background of where the existing level is relative to where we are going to be at the end of the project.
“Using the numbers that we provided Mr. Stewart the decibel level that is anticipated from all of the guest-room units on at the same time on the south side of the building is anticipated to be 41 decibels, which is somewhat lower than the average readings that he took on that evening. There are some ground mounted units that will be in place that provide conditioning for the public areas. These will increase the db level output somewhat.
“His recommendation is that we screen those, and Winston Hotels has agreed to provide acoustical screening around these particular ground mounted units that will drop the db output of the total building—individual guest-room units inclusive of the public area units—to a db output level of 49. These are lower than the db output levels that he had taken readings of at the Finley Forest Condominium for their air conditioning equipment that was running at the time of his calculations.
“We would like to incorporate his letter into the record as soon as I’m finished with it here, but I was asked to read the conclusion that Dr. Stewart came up after this testing: ‘In conclusion, the sound emanating from the guest-room units will be negligible. It is our opinion based on the information listed above that the public space units also will not significantly affect the Finley Forest residential area. However, minor acoustical treatment of these areas—of the areas adjacent to these units—would reduce the sound level heard in Finley Forest.
“‘We suggest a screen wall blocking the view of the units from the front of the hotel. This screen must have sound absorption on the back side towards the units. This would improve the appearance as well as reduce sound reaching neighbors. The maximum level reaching Finley Forest, with all units operating, should then not be more than 49 decibels. Keep in mind that the sound should rarely approach this maximum.’
“I should mention that the testing was done on these units is all empirical data. It’s just numbers that are just generated for example. In reality, these numbers are much higher than what would be experienced in real life, due to vegetation. Some of the photographs that Bruce had presented showed a lot of the leaves off of the trees. I would propose that because in most of the year the leaves would be on the trees you’d have much more reduction in the transmission of noise from the hotel to the adjacent neighborhood.”
[Continuing to read] “‘Further, given the existing sound levels in the Finley Forest Condominiums, and the presence of many similar sound sources within that area, an occasional level of 49 decibels due to the hotel will also be negligible.’ And I must mention, we apologize for the unavoidable absence of Dr. Stewart. He had a prior commitment. Thank You.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay. Thank you very much.”
Mr. Crockett: “I’ll wrap up here, briefly. We’d like to conclude our presentation by reading a letter that was written to Mayor Waldorf and the Council Members by Tom McKeon of 205 Butternut Drive, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. ‘Dear Mayor Waldorf and Council Members. As director of the Division of Continuing Education and director of the William and Ida Friday Continuing Education Center from 1990 through 1997, I gained a perspective on the needs of the Friday Center that I hope you will find useful in your deliberations on the Meadowmont development.
“‘The Friday Center depends on local hotels to house the substantial number of out-of-town participants in the many programs hosted at the center. Most hotels in Chapel Hill are situated several miles away from the Center in the vicinity of University Mall or on the UNC campus. Only the Best Western on NC Highway 54 is within a mile of the Center. A good location, but not within walking distance.
“‘The Hilton Garden Inn will be within walking distance of the Friday Center. Convenient pedestrian access will reduce the need for driving back and forth between the Center and the existing hotels. In addition, the convenience and the quality of the proposed hotel facilities will enhance the range of programs that the Center is able to offer, programs and cultural opportunities that are good for the University and for the Town of Chapel Hill.
“‘I believe the new hotel will result in a net increase in programs at the Friday Center that will support the proposed hotel and still require the ongoing support of existing hotels. While I am no longer associated with the Friday Center, I remain a citizen of Chapel Hill and offer my support for the Hilton Garden Inn in that capacity. I appreciate your consideration of my views. Sincerely, Thomas L. McKeon.’
“We believe Mr. McKeon’s letter presents an excellent example of the benefits gained from complimentary services located within a Master Plan community, and especially a high-end, quality community such as Meadowmont. We at Winston Hotels take a lot of pride in our work, both personally and as a company, and we will be very proud to produce a hotel within Meadowmont that upholds the high standards for that community, and, in turn, for the Town at large. In closing, we respectfully request that the Council pass Resolution A of the staff’s report, with the three modifications that Bruce Ballentine presented to you earlier. Thank you.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay. Thank you very much. Are there any questions from Council of either the applicant or the staff? No questions? Okay.”
Mr. Horton: “Madam Mayor, it’d be helpful to us for the purpose of establishing the record to have a copy of the data disk that has the presentation of the applicant on it.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay. Can that be made available? All right. No questions. Okay. Joe.”
Mayor pro tem Capowski: “Madam Mayor, I move we close the public hearing.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay, there’s a motion to close the public hearing. Is there a second?”
Council Member Pavão: “Second.”
Council Member Wiggins: “Did you…Will we have an opportunity to ask questions of the applicant?”
Mayor Waldorf: “I just asked that. You didn’t hear me?”
Council Member Wiggins: “No, I’m the Council Member having a problem hearing tonight.”
Mayor pro tem Capowski: “I’ll withdraw my motion if you would like.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay, go ahead, Edith.”
Council Member Wiggins: “We can ask questions of the applicant when the hearing is closed, right?”
Mayor Waldorf: “Well, the answers won’t be part of the record if the hearing is closed. So it’s best to do it now.”
Council Member Wiggins: “Oh, all right. I have a couple of questions I would like to ask Mr. Crockett about the Winston Hotels as a corporation. It’s a corporate citizen type question.”
Mr. Crockett: “Yes.”
Council Member Wiggins: “Could you describe the range of employment opportunities this hotel would provide, and to what extent would you look to the local community to supply, or meet, your personnel needs?”
Mr. Crockett: “In what context do you want the range? The description of the actual jobs?”
Council Member Wiggins: “Yes, just a summation of the range. If you could, attach the salaries associated with the range.”
Mr. Crockett: “Our hotel staff…I’m not a particular operations person so I’m going to take a little bit of liberties with approximations, if it’s all right. But we have a range that starts with housekeeping staff and maintenance staff that are paid on an hourly basis. These days, in this market, we usually end up paying more than minimum wage, although not a whole lot more. I don’t know the number of the hourly range right off the bat but I’m going to guess we’re in the five to six dollar range, something like that. That again is an approximation. I’m not an expert in that field.
“And it would range up then to a chief engineer, who does a lot of the maintenance and upkeep on the hotel, who might be in the $20-25,000 a year range. Again, I’m approximating some. And on up to management staff. You might have a food and beverage manager, an assistant manager, sales staff. And then all the way up to a general manager. A general manager of a hotel of this nature—it can range anywhere from probably $50-80,000 a year salary, plus benefits.
“As far as from where we obtain our employees for our hotel. We specifically look for most of our employees to come from the area in which the hotel is located. A very important part of our choosing a site, in addition to being able to attract guests to the hotel, is to attract employees. Much discussion has been made of public transit. In fact we talked earlier about the bus stop, or bus stops, adjacent to our site. That’s a particular attraction for because many of our employees like to use the mass trans, or public transportation to get to the hotel.”
Council Member Wiggins: “So, part of that research then…You realize that there’s a very low unemployment rate in this area and that your salaries will have to be highly competitive to maintain a good and productive workforce.”
Mr. Crockett: “Yes, we’re well aware of that. We….”
Council Member Wiggins: “With 51 hotels or so, does your corporation have policies that speak to some of your corporate values—like career advancement, diversity of the workforce, living wages? Do you have those kinds of corporate policies?”
Mr. Crockett: “The short answer is ‘yes,’ but I think I need to clarify. As a real estate investment trust we are not actually the direct operators of the hotels. We cannot…The IRS won’t let us do it and maintain our status as a real estate investment trust. We actually lease the hotel properties on a long-term basis to hotel operating companies. But they in turn have those policies that you’re referencing.”
Council Member Wiggins: “But do you look for companies that operate under those kinds of values?”
Mr. Crockett: “Yes.”
Council Member Wiggins: “If…I don’t know to what extent we can accept additional information, but I’d like some more specifics along those lines just for my own information.”
Mr. Crockett: “I’ll be happy to provide it for you.”
Council Member Wiggins: “Also, would you have any…I see now what your relationship is with Winston Hotels. Are you aware that they have any kind of programs with local high schools or other educational institutions that help train people for this industry? Not for just the housekeeping and food service positions but some of the other higher paying positions?”
Mr. Crockett: “I’m not aware of any programs particularly in this area. To the extent that they are there we’d be happy to pursue them.”
Council Member Wiggins: “So this is one of the themes that this, Winston Hotels, is noted for. Otherwise you’d probably know about it.”
Mr. Crockett: “I don’t know that I can say we’re actually noted for it, but we’d be happy to pursue them. Yes, in fact, eager to. Again, as you mentioned earlier, this area is difficult. It’s a low unemployment rate, and it’s difficult to find good employees, and we’re exploring around.”
Council Member Wiggins: “Well, I don’t know what’s going to happen to this Special Use Permit, but this is an industry that provides a lot of opportunity for doing some very creative and innovative things as far as personnel practices and employing people. So that’s my interest in this. And I apologize for not getting these questions to you earlier so that you could have spoken with the right persons and gotten more detailed information.”
Mr. Crockett: “Sure. To the extent it’s appropriate, I guess I convey the information back through the Town staff? Is that the way I’m supposed to get the information back to you? Is that correct? Then we’ll make sure we do that.”
Council Member Wiggins: “Thank you.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Any other questions? Of anybody?”
Council Member Evans: “I notice that Pat Davis has been sitting at this entire meeting and he is an expert on the water quality issues, and erosion and things. Since he’s been here, I would hope that we would get some of his expertise admitted into the record, even though we may have questions that arise later. So, if he could maybe make a couple brief comments as to how he feels the impact of this will be on the quality of water in Jordan Lake I would appreciate it. Pat?”
Mayor Waldorf: “I think that’s fair enough. We did ask you to come. But it doesn’t have to be lengthy.”
Pat Davis: “And I always enjoy the opportunity to appear back before you and the staff. Council Member Wiggins did forward some requests for additional information through the Town staff to me. And, over the holidays, we did pursue getting that information from the State and from our information sources…And I’d like to briefly summarize that information that’s going around in this handout.
“There were three general categories of information that was being requested by Council Member Wiggins, as I understand it. First was concerning the number of acres in the Jordan Lake watershed, or the land area within the watershed. Again, Jordan Lake watershed has a land area of approximately 1,690 square miles. That’s equivalent to 1,082,000 acres, approximately. Of that land area about 43% is in forested cover, about 17% is in urban land use, and then crop land (agricultural land) makes up somewhere around 15% or so.
“All of those land uses have an impact
on water resource conditions throughout the Jordan Lake watershed. Those land
uses all have different non-point-source pollutant loading rates that cumulatively
impact Jordan Lake water quality. And, as you recall, at the October 21st
hearing I
presented information about Jordan Lake water quality and in your agenda packet
was additional information that was provided by the Division of Water Quality
that provided some summary information about how they interpret Jordan Lake
water quality monitoring data. And I can get into that to the extent that you’d
like to.
“The second category of information that Council Member Wiggins had requested was concerning waste-water treatment plants that discharge in the Jordan Lake watershed. There’s a five page table that’s attached to the handout that I’ve provided to you. Just summarizing, there are 183 point-source discharge facilities that are located within the Jordan Lake watershed. Together, those facilities have a permanent capacity of over 115 million gallons per day. That’s permanent flow. That’s not actual average daily discharge under current conditions.
“But just to give you an idea, the largest 12 facilities have a combined permanent capacity of about 115 million gallons per day and are currently estimated to discharge—to actually discharge into surface waters in the watershed—somewhere around 80 million gallons per day. So we can see that point-source discharge facilities in the Jordan Lake watershed have a significant contribution to the total pollutant load in the watershed.
“A third category of information that Ms. Wiggins requested was concerning concentrated animal operations within the watershed. There’s a summary table on page two of my memorandum that essentially shows the number of major cattle operations and swine operations within the watershed. To summarize, there are about 31 major cattle operations, with about 7,700 head of cattle in the watershed. There are eight major swine operations that have over 34,000 swine within the Jordan Lake watershed. And again, concentrated animal operations do also have an impact on pollutant loading within the watershed.
“And this table doesn’t include the small operations. It also doesn’t include any summary of significant poultry operations that may be going on within the watershed. There isn’t any estimate of pollutant loading associated with this information to pull together. That would entail a significant level of effort—one that hasn’t been undertaken since about the mid-1980s, I think. And again, as I pointed out at the October 21st hearing, there are discussions underway concerning development of watershed pollutant loading models—fate and transport models—what happens to pollutants when they enter the receiving waters in the lake’s watershed.
“And then ultimately what happens when those pollutant levels reach Jordan Lake, and what the water quality response is under different hydrologic conditions once those pollutants do get in the lake. And that’s an incredibly complex technical task, and also a very expensive and time-consuming one as well. So that’s just summarizing the additional information that Council Member Wiggins had requested.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Thank you very much. And this testimony and this submission is relevant to both of this evening’s hearings. Julie?”
Council Member McClintock: “You’ve just given us some information on the point sources. Do you disagree with what I’ve often heard, that impervious surface and non-point-source pollution is the more serious cause of water pollution?”
Mr. Davis: “I would state that in the Cape Fear River Basin and, in fact, in most of the river basins in the State of North Carolina, that the Division of Water Quality does have the opinion that non-point-source impacts are the greatest cause of water quality impairment within those major basins. However, I would also like to point out that in the case of the majority of impaired water ratings within the State (impaired waters that are associated with non-point-source impacts) that the greatest percentage of impact is associated with agricultural non-point-source loads.
“And I don’t say that to make light of the urban non-point-source impacts because its clear form the basin-wide management plans that there are non-point-source impacts associated with greater urban development.”
Council Member Evans: “Pat, would you do a 360 degree turn, and put on your OWASA hat for me, and answer a question for me regarding reclaimed water. OWASA did a study to see if it was economically viable to provide reclaimed water. And I think, with the expansion, there will be an increased supply of reclaimed water and it will be partially used for the irrigation of the redesigned Finley Golf Course. Am I correct?”
Mr. Davis: “The latest information that I had regarding the water reclamation and reuse facilities that were proposed from the Mason Farm plant, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has under consideration the potential use of reclaimed water for irrigation of the Finley Golf Course. However, because of economic issues, they’ve not yet made the decision as to whether or not to fully participate in that project.
“It is an economic issue. The University could go just 100 feet downstream in the Mason Farm wastewater plant discharge and pull the water directly out of the creek without having to meet any water reclaimed standards that would be applicable if it were coming directly out of the discharge pipe at the Mason Farm plant. If you’re pulling it directly out of the wastewater treatment plant facilities then you’re subject to some pretty stringent reclamation and reuse rules that the State of North Carolina has in place. And there’s a significant expense associated with meeting the turbidity, disinfection, and facility storage and retention requirements for reclamation and reuse, even for something as basic as a golf course reclamation project. So, there is an expense associated with those facilities and the University still has that under consideration.”
Council Member Wiggins: “Would you define ‘point-source’ and ‘non-point-source’ for me, please.”
Mr. Davis: “Okay. A point-source of pollution would be a source of pollution that essentially comes through a central treatment type train or a piping network. So a typical wastewater treatment plant that concentrates discharge form the homes, business, industries and institutions in a community, goes through a collection network, goes through a treatment facility, and then that discharge is made through a common or collective discharge pipe.
“Non-point would be, say, the pollutant loading that is associated with a diffuse range of activities and uses that occur over a broad range of land covers. Take an agricultural operation—a field, an agricultural field—or a suburban residential development—where you have a lot of activities occurring on the street and on the lawns and in the open space that could result in water quality contaminants originating from a number of different sources and flowing in the rainwater, the surface run-off, and reaching the surface waters through a number of different drainage channels or flow channels.”
Council Member Wiggins: “So residential yards are a non-point-source.”
Mr. Davis: “That’s correct. Residential yards, commercial establishments, parking lot areas in a mall, in an office complex—those things are considered non-point-source run-off.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Anything else? Well, Pat, thank you very much. Sorry you had to wait so long even though it’s always a pleasure for you to be here. All right. Questions? No. Joe?”
Mayor pro tem Capowski: “Actually I have two motions.”
MAYOR PRO TEM CAPOWSKI MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER FOY, TO CLOSE THE PUBLIC HEARING. THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).
MAYOR PRO TEM CAPOWSKI MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER BROWN TO PASS RESOLUTION 12d TO DENY THE APPLICATION.
Mayor Waldorf: “Resolution D has been moved and seconded. Any discussion?”
Council Member Bateman: “I have something to say. Like Mr. Crockett, I get nervous when I’m in the hot seat, so I have written out some thoughts. I want to say that I’ve approached this vote tonight much as I have my earlier Meadowmont vote—that is, by rereading minutes and documents of earlier discussions and studying aspects of the Comprehensive Plan and by re-watching some of the eleven hours of tapes from our October and November public hearings.
“Once again I have found myself balancing
the positives and the negatives. Unlike some on the Council and in the community
I don’t have the black/white response of either ‘this proposal is just what
our town needs’ or ‘this proposal will usher in the degradation of what we
all love about Chapel Hill.’ I appreciate all the detailed work and clear presentations
made by the
applicant. Likewise, I thank neighbors and citizens who’ve spoken during our
public hearings. And I sincerely commend the staff for what we’ve put them
through in answering all our questions, fielding all our calls, and giving their
honest, professional judgments sometimes at their peril.
“In making our determination we must find that the SUP complies with the Master Land Use Plan which must comply with the Comprehensive Plan. I am persuaded by the evidence presented that this application does not comply with the Comprehensive Plan, specifically the North Carolina 54 East Entranceway Goals adopted as part of the Comprehensive Plan in 1995 include the following, which I do not believe are adhered to (and I’m not going to read them all, but I’m going to read several):
“One, neighborhoods, including the office retail segments, should be built so as not to impinge unduly on the tranquillity of already existing neighborhoods. Two, incorporate the retail/office components within neighborhoods in a scale to fit the neighborhoods. Three, the nature of the business should appeal to pedestrian traffic. And four, preserve, restore, and enhance natural pastoral landscapes and vistas.
“A project, I realize, will be constructed on this site, but it needs to be one that meets the conditions of the Comprehensive Plan for being smaller in scale and thus providing neighborhood protection to Finley Forest through achieving a pedestrian friendly orientation and through preserving the meadows, not a small portion of them. I want to reiterate, this for me was not an easy decision. It required assimilating many facts and details and the choice was not clear cut. I’ve followed the law, weighed the evidence, and applied my best judgment. And I just have to say one more time I’m going to continue to vote my conscience on each and every question that comes before the Council as long as I’m a Member.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay. Pat, you wanted to say something?”
Council Member Evans: “I just wanted to make a couple comments. In the past, the Council has had policies—and oftentimes we see the results of those. Our neighbor, Durham County, also sees the results of those, and I would bring up the fact that they have had the foresight to approve two hospital sites at the corner of 54 and I-40. One of those, I understand, is under construction.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Hotel, not hospital.”
Council Member Evans: “Hotel. Maybe I’m feeling ill. Hotel. And so I’d like to say that if we don’t build it Durham will, and we’ll feel the impacts of it. We won’t get any of the taxes from it—none for our schools, none for employment, no occupancy tax—which helps to fund human services. And these hotels will even have Chapel Hill addresses. I want to state that the occupancy rate for Chapel Hill is higher than our surrounding jurisdictions. It shows that there is a need, a demand, for hotel space. And with the projected increased growth in the University it shows that this demand will increase.
“I remember when the Friday Center was being discussed and was approved. I think we always intended that there would be a hotel nearby to serve this convention center. That’s what most communities do to decrease the impact of traffic. There will also be another one now, across the street at the Rizzo Conference Center. This is an ideal location for a hotel. I almost wish it would be larger.
“It will be convenient to shopping. I go with my husband to meetings. He goes to meetings, and I go off and do my thing, and we usually don’t have a rental car and so I walk. And there are some that are isolated in the middle of nowhere with nothing nearby and there are those in which there are conveniences nearby and this would be one of those. And even if you couldn’t walk, there’s going to be good bus transit nearby—we already had a good bus system there—and we’re going to be provided with a bike and walk facility.
“I think it was interesting to talk about the stormwater impact and that the stormwater run-off will be reduced from this site. Therefore, the impact on the adjoining residential area will be lessened.
“Today, Rosemary and I spent all day in a transportation conference in Raleigh. One of the statements that was made there—that I would like to leave you with—is ‘land-use and transportation go hand in hand. A dysfunctional system shows the symptoms of road congestion and empty buses.’”
Council Member Wiggins: “These Meadowmont decisions have been some of the most difficult for me during my tenure on the Council. Early in my service on the Council I voted with the majority against a project. Months later that action was overturned and that project is now underway. I voted against that project because of my concerns about traffic, property values, safety issues, and the like.
“I’ve also had the experience of voting with the majority to approve a project only to find the Council in court again, defending its decision against residents of nearby neighborhoods. I hope at the end of our Comprehensive Plan updating process, and the changes that will occur in our development ordinances as a result of that update, we will rescue the Council, residents, developers and staff from the untenable situation of no matter what the Council action is the other side will have grounds for a suit and that our revised development ordinances will provide clearer, less ambiguous guidelines for developers, the Council and citizens.”
Mayor pro tem Capowski: “I’d like to start by paying a compliment to Glen Phillips. And to most of you who don’t know it, he’s one of the engineers in the Ballentine firm. Spokesman after spokesman for Meadowmont came to the podium and promoted Meadowmont as a pedestrian-friendly, bicycle-friendly place where everyone would ride his bike to his office and everyone would walk to shopping. And if you totally believe that we’d have a marvelous utopia.
“But that’s not the definition of the project. The definition of the project is what is in a number of documents. And when you read that definition you see 951 parking spaces required in an office complex, 987 parking spaces required at a Village Center, and a lot of traffic on Raleigh Road. Glen, you were about the only one I know of who did not subscribe to that and did not try to sell Meadowmont like that. You wrote, and I’m quoting from your letter to us, which is in our packet on B11, ‘Most of our hotel patrons will drive to the hotel, even those patrons who fly into the Raleigh/Durham International Airport will rent a car rather than using a cab or other public transportation to get to the hotel.’ I truly, fully and sincerely appreciate your honesty.
“I will not vote for this—or, I will vote to deny this special use permit for what I think are the reasons that most of us have specified lately. Namely, the increase in traffic and the automobile infrastructure and the effects that they will have on safety, especially pedestrians and bicyclists, and especially the people in Glen Lenox with the little kids and the elderly population in Glen Lenox.
“The noise generated by a substantial road like Glenwood Avenue is hostile. It is difficult. You cannot hold a conversation standing next to that road. Finally, that number of cars causes air pollution. (I think Julie’s going to talk about that some more.) We are becoming a substantial center of air pollution now, and water pollution—that is, water run-off pollution, and, of course, Jordan Lake is a regional water supply that we must maintain in the absolute, most possible pristine condition for the rest of our lives and my descendants’ lives.
“We know from northern Chapel Hill that the engineering solutions to the water problems aren’t working. I don’t know why they’re not working. I don’t think there’s a way to engineer a method out of this—or, at least, I haven’t seen one that works. I hope someday someone will find one. That’s all I have to say.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Any body else need to say something? Joyce? “
Council Member Brown: “I would just like to put some things into the resolution…”
Mayor Waldorf: “I think that’s a good idea.”
Council Member Brown: “…where it says, ‘Be it further resolved that the Council finds...’ And I would like to incorporate some of the things that Flicka said, and I would like to add some other things too. And this is from the Comprehensive Plan. I would like to have a ‘Be it further resolved the Council finds that this is not in compliance with the Comprehensive Plan and that it does not incorporate a mix of uses and an integrated development pattern.’ And one that Flicka said, that it did ‘not incorporate office and retail within neighborhoods in a scale to fit the neighborhoods.’ It did not limit office and retail components to accommodate primarily the neighborhood needs.
“That the neighborhoods, including office retail segments, should be built so as not to impinge unduly on the tranquillity of existing neighborhoods. I don’t know that if I…The nature of the… The nature of the business should…It is not that the nature of the business appeal to pedestrian traffic—I think that was one that Flicka includes. Flicka also had ‘the preservation, restoration and enhancement of natural pastoral landscapes and vistas, generally as depicted in the 1988 entranceway plan.’”
Mayor Waldorf: “All right, let me ask then if the mover—and Joyce you’re the seconder of the motion—are you happy to include all of the things that Joyce has just cited? Okay. And if you can provide that, Joyce, for the Clerk, because I can’t remember all that you said. Can you provide those items for the Clerk for the record?”
Council Member Brown: “Yes.”
Council Member McClintock: “Let me just mention a couple of things. And maybe at the end I could just pull out a couple of things that we could add to the resolution. Just a general statement about how we think about pedestrian safety and traffic—which are really the counterpoints here. I think that when the Council approved the Master Plan—and I was not on the Council at that time—there wasn’t much discussion of transportation at all. And I think it really was very difficult at that point to look at the special use findings and say this project meets these findings, because the Council didn’t know what the impacts were at that point.
“There really wasn’t any discussion. There was no factual information on the table of what would happen at the intersections. Now we have much more information, submitted by the applicant, but we have the applicants figures at least and we can better appreciate the effects that this proposal is going to have on existing neighbors and the many Town residents that are going to be using this corridor.
“Something that caught my attention from one of the speakers tonight was we don’t want to compound the problem. What I fear is that if we keep approving more traffic on 54 we are going to make this area a future study area in which we will dump millions of dollars, just like we are doing with 15/501.
“Air quality. Cars, vehicles are the cause of our problem and many people aren’t aware that we had second to the highest number of ozone exceedances last year—only next to Los Angeles. So, we’re getting there. We’re going in that direction. And certainly, we as Town officials should be responsible for the citizens’ health. And this is a problem that we need to increasingly look at.
“There were a couple items in our materials that dealt with water quality that I want to particularly mention and we might consider making part of the resolution. There was G1, from Coleen Sullins, saying ‘the Division of Water Quality and other investigators continue to document algae blooms, fish kills, drinking water taste and odor problems, and highly eutrophic water quality conditions in both the Haw River and New Hope River segments of the lake.’ And we also have a report showing significant problems in quadrant four, which is the area that the this development will feed into.
“There was also a letter to Roger Waldon from Jay Sauber, who’s from the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources. This is part of our materials. And I’ll just read one sentence: ‘Water quality observation for trophic parameters continue to warrant concern. Jordan lake remains a highly eutrophic lake with elevated nutrient levels and frequent algal blooms.’ And this, for the non-technical layman, spells trouble in terms of water quality.
“I think Flicka and Joyce touched on most of the important points on the Comprehensive Plan, but I would just like to add a footnote. And that is, we spent thousands of dollars in the 1980s on a landscape architect to develop the entranceway, visually, and I would really like to see that observed and respected.
“I don’t feel the hotel is compatible with neighboring uses. And finally—this one we may need to get some agreement on—but my opinion is this application does not comply with existing ordinances because we’re squeezing more into less. Basically, this building requires twelve acres and it’s on nine. I don’t think it was the intent of the Master Land Use plan to borrow from the meadows.
“Now, it’s our staff’s advice that they think it’s okay, that a previous court upheld the Council doing that, but that was the Council’s discretion. And I think this Council can decide whether or not we think that’s okay, and I don’t happen to think it’s okay to encumber land, the meadows, which were never meant to be encumbered. So we can guide our staff about how the ordinances are interpreted. So those are the new points. I guess the new ones would be the ones on water quality, maybe a little bit on traffic, and then the point about non-complying with our present ordinances.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay. Are those acceptable amendments? Joyce, go ahead.”
Council Member Brown: “I want to make sure that the language that I used is correct. Like Flicka, and Mr. Crockett too, I was a little nervous in going through this, and I want to make sure that I had the language…I think maybe I left out a couple of words, and a couple of things, so I think it’s important. I want to make sure that each one has the correct language and so if I could just quickly go over and state it as it comes form the Comprehensive Plan with the added words to make it right.
“The first one was ‘does not incorporate a mix of uses.’ And take that whole item from the Comprehensive Plan in integrated development…It does not ‘incorporate the office and retail components in a scale to fit the neighborhoods,’ does not ‘limit the office and retail components to accommodate primarily the neighborhood needs, does not ‘preserve, restore and enhance natural pastoral landscapes as depicted in the 1988 Entranceway, the nature of the business does not ‘appeal to pedestrian traffic,’ neighborhoods including the office and retail are not ‘built so as not to impinge on the tranquillity of already existing neighborhoods.’”
Mayor Waldorf: “Anything else? Are we ready to vote?”
MAYOR PRO TEM CAPOWSKI MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER BROWN, TO ADOPT RESOLUTION 12d AS AMENDED. THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED 5-4, WITH COUNCIL MEMBERS BATEMAN, FOY, CAPOWSKI, BROWN AND MCCLINTOCK VOTING AYE, AND MAYOR WALDORF AND COUNCIL MEMBERS WIGGINS, EVANS, AND PAVÃO VOTING NAY.
A RESOLUTION DENYING AN APPLICATION FOR A SPECIAL USE PERMIT FOR MEADOWMONT HILTON GARDEN INN (File Number 52..6) (99-1-11/R-12d)
BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that it finds that the Special Use Permit application proposed by Mr. Kenneth Crockett of Winston Hotels, on property identified as Chapel Hill Township Tax Map 52, part of Lot 6, and Durham County Tax Map 491, Block 6, part of Lot 696A, if developed according to the site plan dated February 11, 1998 (revised July 16, 1998; Sheet 3 revised August 24, 1998), the Meadowmont Master Land Use Plan, and with the conditions listed below, would not:
1. Be located, designed, and proposed to be operated so as to maintain or promote the public health, safety, and general welfare;
2. Comply with all required regulations and standards of the Development Ordinance, including all applicable provisions of Article 12, 13, 14, and 18, and with all other applicable regulations;
3. Be located, designed, and operated so as to maintain or enhance the value of contiguous property; and
4. Conform with the general plans for the physical development of the Town as embodied in the Development Ordinance and in the Comprehensive Plan.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Council finds that the Special Use Permit does not meet the following stipulations of the Comprehensive Plan:
· Incorporate a mix of uses including a variety of residential types balanced with neighborhood/community retail, services, and office uses in an integrated development pattern. The office, retail, and housing should not be in large separate zones on the north side of NC 54, but should instead be mixed in fine grains;
· Incorporate the office and retail components within neighborhoods in a scale to fit the neighborhoods, for example, with two to three story buildings with living units on the top floors;
· Limit the office and retail components to accommodate primarily the neighborhood needs;
· Preserve, restore, and enhance natural pastoral landscapes and vistas generally as depicted in the 1988 Entranceway Plan taking into account actual terrain;
· The nature of the business should appeal to pedestrian traffic; and
· Neighborhoods, including the office/retail segments, should be built so as not to impinge unduly on the tranquility of already existing neighborhoods.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Council finds that the Special Use Permit does not adequately address the following issues:
· Water quality;
· Traffic; and
· Compliance with present ordinances.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council hereby denies the application for a Special Use Permit for Meadowmont Hilton Garden Inn.
This the 11th day of January, 1999.
(verbatim transcription)
Mayor Waldorf: “Let’s…We have item 10 which is continuation of Meadowmont Office Park application for Special Use Permit. I was called by the applicant late this afternoon and said ‘do you think you’ll get to it tonight?’ And I said, ‘yes.” I’ve been up since 5:30. I’m ready to keep going. But, whatever…These folks have sat here all night. What’s the pleasure of the applicant? Would you like to go ahead tonight, or would you like to not go ahead tonight? It is pretty late, yeah. Do you anticipate your presentation will be…How long? Well, I think we could go ahead tonight. But if you don’t want to, then….”
Council Member Wiggins: “Let’s get it over with.”
Council Member McClintock: “Let’s go ahead.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay.”
Mr. Horton: “We’ll be very brief in our introduction.”
Mayor Waldorf: “And I guess everybody who’s going to speak tonight was previously sworn. All right. Good. Thank you.”
Mr. Waldon: “You have our packet, which includes the responses to questions that Council Members asked. It includes three alternative resolutions of approval—A, B and C—coming from the Manager, Planning Board and Transportation Board. Resolution D would deny the project. And we have the same resolution with respect to the Bicycle Task Force that we had last time, Resolution E. We’re here to respond to your questions.”
Mayor Waldorf: “All right. Are there any questions of the applicant? Or does…? Miss Stoddard, do you want to go ahead and make a presentation?”
Anne Stoddard: “No. The team is here to answer questions (Bruce Ballentine, Josh Gurlitz, Susan Little, Mike Horn) on traffic. And let me…Where’s Larry? I was going to ask Larry Sitton to just make a quick comment. While finding Larry…We were requested by the Council to meet with the Bicycle Task Force. We did that. We had a good meeting with them, which resulted in an amendment to the plan. We also have amended our Transportation Management Plan to reflect some additional bicycle use.
“Also I think Ms. Bateman had asked at the last meeting for some alternate buildings to take a look at. I think that in terms of scale some good ones to look at would be Park 40 Plaza in Durham, which is at the 54/55 exit. In addition, the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Building, which was built in Durham, is a pretty good representation. It’s brick. It’s relatively low. It’s a good example of many things that I think we’re trying to do here. And the quadrangle buildings would be a good representation of the smaller scale building on the plan because that one…Those tend to be in the 75,000 square foot range. So that would be a couple to take a look at.
“Let me ask Larry Sitton to step up first, and then we’ll turn it over for Council questions.”
Mr. Sitton: “Madam Mayor and Members of the Council, as with the hotel Special Use Permit we have a submission on the Office Park Special Use Permit, which Rob Marcus will hand out now. It is very similar to the one on the hotel in that it goes through the four findings and answers some specific questions. It has attached to it a number of exhibits, including our submission to the Town staff to answer questions that had been submitted, and a letter from Mr. Heffner which indicates that the Office Park will maintain or enhance the property values. Any questions?”
Mayor Waldorf: “Any questions of Mr. Sitton? Okay. Any questions of Miss Stoddard, or anyone? You have a question Phil? Okay, well then go to the microphone and ask it.”
Mr. Goodman: “In the presentation of Special Use Permit it’s required by the ordinance that there be some indication of what the project will look like from Highway 54, again in regards to entranceway situations and entranceway questions. And I was wondering what they had to show us in regards to what might be visible from Highway 54 for the office park development. And then, if I’ve seen that, then I might have some other comments.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay. I think they’ve gone to get it. They had a model here at the last hearing, which is probably the best sort of representation you can have.”
Ms. Stoddard: “Just to remind the Council. The model that we had prepared by the architect… You are now looking from the north side south, and I think all of you…It’s been in the Planning Library, and I hope all of you have had a chance to look at it in a little more detail. It really provides both a bird’s eye view of the site as well as the relationships of the buildings to the model. And, if you get down and sort of set your eye level at the edge, you can really get a sense of what Mr. Goodman is talking about: The screening of the various elements of the project, and the relationships of them to each other, and the road around them.”
Mayor Waldorf: “I have a question for you, Miss Stoddard. I wonder if you would agree to add a stipulation to Resolution A. And it could just be…The last one is number 35. This would be number 36. It goes like this. It’s called ‘taxation of property.’ That you would agree that arrangements be made by the developer such that the proposed office buildings, if built as proposed in this Special Use Permit, be subject to local and state property and sales taxes, or that provisions be made for payment in lieu of such taxes in the event that the property becomes tax exempt. What I’m driving at here is that it’s cheaper for the University and the Hospital to buy office space than it is to build it. And in the event that they end up purchasing some or all of your property I would like them to make payments in lieu of taxes on that. Would you agree to that?”
Ms. Stoddard: “Yes ma’am.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay. Thank you. Something else?”
Mr. Goodman: “I think, looking at the model, again I have the same concerns that I had about the hotel proposal and that was that it does not fit the Comprehensive Plan for the Town of Chapel Hill in that buildings are visible from the highway. And the Comprehensive Plan would suggest that vistas through meadows should be to backdrops of trees, in the 1988 Landscape Plan of the Comprehensive Plan.
“Also, in regards to the office development—that situation about encumbering land to meet the criteria for building in a particular area is used in this particular setting. And, as a citizen, it’s always…. Pat’s shaking her head ‘no.’”
Council Member Evans: “I don’t think…Not for this building.”
Mayor Waldorf: “It’s not relevant to this proposal.”
Mr. Goodman: “Which one was that?’
Mayor Waldorf and Council Members Evans and Foy (speaking simultaneously): “It’s the hotel.”
Mr. Goodman: “I thought I saw it in the handout. Let me check that.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Well, we’re right. It’s not relevant to this project.”
Ms. Stoddard: “I guess the other comment I would like to make in response to that is that this is a site that the guidelines say to design a ‘signature office building,’ and I think ‘signature’ means one that we can see and be proud of as a community. And that’s what we’ve tried very hard to do with our architects. And I’m very proud of what they’ve produced, and I think a signature building is one that’s meant to be seen and help to define the entrance to our town.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Are there any other questions that anybody has? Lee?”
COUNCIL MEMBER PAVAO MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER EVANS, TO CLOSE THE PUBLIC HEARING. THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).
COUNCIL MEMBER PAVÃO MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER EVANS, TO ADOPT RESOLUTION 13a.
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay, Resolution A is moved and seconded. And that would be with the amendment of stipulation #36 that we talked about. Okay. Discussion?”
Mayor pro tem Capowski: “Rosemary, I have about ten amendments. But I don’t want to go through the time because I don’t know if this is going to pass. So let’s run the test. I would like to make a substitute motion. I’d like to substitute Resolution D for Resolution A.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay. Is there a….”
Council Member McClintock: “Second.”
Mayor Waldorf: “All right, let’s vote on whether to substitute that motion.”
MAYOR PRO TEM CAPOWSKI MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER MCCLINTOCK, TO SUBSTITUTE RESOLUTION 13d FOR RESOLUTION 13a, AS AMENDED. THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED (5-4), WITH COUNCIL MEMBERS BATEMAN, FOY, CAPOWSKI, BROWN AND MCCLINTOCK VOTING AYE AND MAYOR WALDORF AND COUNCIL MEMBERS WIGGINS, EVANS, AND PAVÃO VOTING NAY.
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay. The motion to deny is on the floor. Julie?”
Council Member McClintock: “Yeah, I just had…A lot of our comments—my comments, at least—apply to some concerns about both projects because of the pedestrian and traffic component. But there were two comments that I had that were specific to this project. One is the transportation management plan, I think, promises some things which can’t be delivered upon in terms of traffic reductions.
“And I think that the Hamilton Road intersection that we’ve been hearing about tonight is certainly within the 2,000 feet of the area that we’ve talked about that would apply to property values. And if reasonable people can think that property values might be affected within that area, then I think also one could reasonably assume that the traffic that’s going to be on 54 is going to be affected in that area and all the pedestrians that are going to be trying to cross that road….”
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay, anything else anybody wants to say? Kevin.”
Council Member Foy: “I would like to add specific reasons in the ‘be it further resolved...’ that are similar to the reasons that we added in the last resolution.”
Mayor pro tem Capowski: “Ralph, would it be okay if we simply said ‘all of reasons we inserted in Resolution D of the previous item’ would apply to this one? That would save us a lot of time?”
Mr. Karpinos: “Well, if the person who made the motion and the person who seconded it accept that as a friendly amendment then I think that….”
Mayor Waldorf: “So it was Joe’s motion, and Julie seconded it. Is that what you’d like to do Joe?”
Mayor pro tem Capowski: “I don’t think so. Go ahead.”
Council Member Brown: “Are all of them applicable? I think you added something that I didn’t have on there.”
Council Member McClintock: “Yeah, the transportation management plan. You don’t have one for a hotel. That only applies to the offices.”
Council Member Foy: “Well, why don’t we just do this one separately.”
[General agreement indicated by Council Members nodding.]
Council Member Bateman: “Again, my concern is that this doesn’t meet the Comprehensive Plan based on three goals: One, ‘limit the office and retail components to accommodate primarily the neighborhood needs.’ I think that it’s too large. Two, ‘the nature of the business should appeal to pedestrian traffic.’ And three, ‘preserve, restore and enhance natural pastoral landscapes and vistas.’”
Council Member Evans: “I don’t know whether I’ll go ahead and do this, but I think I will. As everyone is aware, there are now 50,000 (and growing) workers in the Research Triangle Park. That is one of our employment generators, along with the University. And future growth will probably be smaller spin-off companies and contract firms. In Orange County we just appointed Rollie Tillman to the Economic Development Commission to look at entrepreneurship and technology transfers and where to help balance our tax base. Because there’s no doubt our tax base is great and is growing on residential property.
“One of the never-ending discussions is the need for space for companies growing out of the University, and those that grow out from the companies that are in the Park. We don’t benefit from this at all. What we feel is the impact of our residents all driving to the park. The community needs a business presence. We asked what kind of a corporate citizen the hotel would be. Well, we have the opportunity here to have a great many corporate citizens having offices in this building.
“Corporate citizens support our human services. They support the public schools. They support High School Graduation Night, Rainbow Soccer, and on and on. We don’t have this anymore. We have lost it. In the past it has been Village Companies and WCHL. We no longer have these. As the community grows we need to grow corporate citizens, and that means businesses.
“When it comes to traffic…One of the reasons the traffic…I often try to exit onto 15/501 at peak hour. And I’ve not done a comprehensive traffic study, but I notice that a lot of the traffic comes in 54, goes south or west on 15/501, and stays on 54 and goes to Carborro—or, like half of it goes to Carborro. A great deal of this growth goes to Carborro because of the traffic on Airport Road. Once the improvements are made on Airport Road it’s possible that some of that traffic may proceed on I-40 and exit at Airport Road and then move on into Carborro. Because a great deal of the residential growth is occurring in Carborro.
“Glenwood School. I have a 35 year-old daughter. She went to Glenwood School. Glenwood School is not a new facility. It does not meet our state standards for new construction anymore. It’s possible that in the future (depending on what the School Board decides) they may build another elementary school in Meadowmont and decide to close this as an elementary school. They might even decide to sell it as an office building—it’s also probably going to be on the transit line—to raise funds. Y’know, a school is not always a school. It may become a charter school in which probably all children will be bused.
“I remember when Glen Lenox was there, whether it be 40 or 50 years old. There was nothing on the other side of the street. All there was was Glen Lenox. There was no Glenwood Shopping Center. I am appalled with people who try to cross the road in the middle of the block. And that’s how that accident happened. If we can make the pedestrian crossing safe, then we shouldn’t have to say that we have to make the middle of the block safe also.
“Maybe what we need to do is restrict it to crossing in the crosswalk. I have had no trouble crossing in the crosswalk. I’m a walker, so I maybe I move a little more quickly. But I do think that we need to make it possible for people to cross halfway to a resting point, and then they could cross the other half of the way.
“There is a letter in our packet about when somebody raised the question of studying the impact of the intersections of 15/501 and Raleigh Road, and also 54 and I-40. I would remind you there’s a letter in here that Rosemary had written to State DOT to look at that. I would say we need office space. We need corporate citizens in this community as the community grows. This is an ideal place. It was planned as an office building in the Master Plan. It seems we’re going against the Master Plan if we don’t approve this.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Anybody want to say anything else? Kevin.”
Council Member Foy: “I want to add three other reasons for denial. That is: that the office structure impinges unduly on the tranquillity of existing neighborhoods; that the office development is not sufficiently integrated into the neighborhood plan; and, that the office development is in a large separate zone. So I’d like those to be made a part of this resolution.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay. Is that acceptable to the mover and the seconder? Did you have your hand up, Julie?”
Council Member McClintock: “Yeah. Did we capture the transportation…? I’m trying to remember what we said on it. What do we have down for that at this point? Does anyone remember?”
Mayor Waldorf: “I don’t believe anything. That’s just my memory.”
Council Member McClintock: “Okay, I just want to make sure that we say that the transportation impacts of this development have not been addressed. And I want to speak specifically as to why I do not think that the possibility of fixed guideway is going to help us out. All the studies that we’ve received show that it can mitigate a problem but mitigate it a slight amount.
“We have congestion on 54, and people can’t get to work in the Research Triangle Park, or wherever they’re going, whether they live in Carborro or live in Chapel Hill. We’re going to have a major problem. People won’t be able to get to the hospital. It’s the major way to get to the hospital for out-of-towners. I think we’re going to have a tremendous problem, and I don’t think that the guideway is going to be a panacea.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Y’know, if Chapel Hill goes and robs Fort Knox, and uses that money to go and buy up every piece of untouched undeveloped land in our urban services boundary, all our roads are still going to get worse. I mean, there’s always a lot of talk when we review development projects that seems to suggest that the roads are only going to get more congested because new developments are being considered. But honestly, I just really think that everybody on the Council, and everybody in the public, needs to be aware of that fact.
“I’m not going to say very much because when I’m going to lose I like to get it over quick. But I do think that this is a good site for the hotel. I think both these projects conform to the Master Plan. I think that the office building, in particular, is an exceptional design. In our community, we do not have a good balance of residential and other types of uses. And we do talk quite a bit about how growth doesn’t pay for itself.
“Well, residential development definitely does not pay for itself because that’s what produces children who have to be educated, have to be sent to schools. And residences, and citizens who live in them, require the entire array of services. But hotels and offices don’t require parks. They don’t require libraries. The fire infrastructure, the police infrastructure, is already there. This is growth that doesn’t cost. This is growth that you make money on. And that is just one of the things that I think sometimes needs to be taken into consideration.
“Y’know, you have to dislike these projects a whole lot to say I’m prepared to forego the million dollars every year that they would bring in in perpetuity. And that’s conservatively estimated at today’s dollars—unlike the traffic projections, which are worst case scenarios. So I’m going to vote against Resolution D.”
Council Member Wiggins: “I’d like to just piggyback on what Rosemary said. I had these in my comments about the hotel but decided, y’know, what’s the use. But I think now we’ll go on record saying, hotels and office complexes provide a range of employment opportunities. And because so many of us are professionally employed, either at the University, the hospital, the public schools or the Research Triangle, we forget that there is a need in our community to have employment opportunities for people who are not at the professional level.
“These two projects provide a range of employment opportunity for a segment of our community—a segment of our community that is too often forgotten and ignored, and it…I’m prepared to accept the vote, but I think that at some time in the future when we talk about the economics—low income, moderate income—people in our community, those who cannot afford housing in our community, let’s not forget that we bypassed, or we voted against, two opportunities that would have provided employment opportunities for many of our citizens to have upgraded their income.”
Mayor Waldorf: “Okay, are we ready to vote?”
COUNCIL MEMBER CAPOWSKI MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER MCCLINTOCK, TO ADOPT RESOLUTION 13d AS AMENDED. THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED (5-4), WITH COUNCIL MEMBERS BATEMAN, FOY, CAPOWSKI, BROWN AND MCCLINTOCK VOTING AYE AND MAYOR WALDORF AND COUNCIL MEMBERS WIGGINS, EVANS, AND PAVÃO VOTING NAY.
A RESOLUTION DENYING AN APPLICATION FOR A SPECIAL USE PERMIT FOR MEADOWMONT OFFICE PARK (File Number 52..6) (99-1-11/R-13d)
BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that it finds that the Special Use Permit application proposed by Capital Associates, on property identified as Chapel Hill Township Tax Map 52, part of Lot 6, if developed according to the site plan dated July 8, 1998, the Meadowmont Master Land Use Plan and the conditions listed below, would not:
1. Be located, designed, and proposed to be operated so as to maintain or promote the public health, safety, and general welfare;
2. Comply with all required regulations and standards of the Development Ordinance, including all applicable provisions of Article 12, 13, 14, and 18, and with all other applicable regulations;
3. Be located, designed, and operated so as to maintain or enhance the value of contiguous property; and
4. Conform with the general plans for the physical development of the Town as embodied in the Development Ordinance and in the Comprehensive Plan.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Council finds that the Special Use Permit does not meet the following stipulations of the Comprehensive Plan:
· Limit the office and retail components to accommodate primarily the neighborhood needs;
· Preserve, restore, and enhance natural pastoral landscapes and vistas generally as depicted in the 1988 Entranceway Plan taking into account actual terrain;
· The nature of the business should appeal to pedestrian traffic; and
· Neighborhoods, including the office/retail segments, should be built so as not to impinge unduly on the tranquility of already existing neighborhoods.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Council finds that the Special Use Permit does not adequately address the following issues:
· Water quality;
· Traffic; and
· Compliance with present ordinances.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Council finds that the development is not sufficiently integrated into the neighborhood plan and that the office development is in a large separate zone.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Council finds that the transportation impacts of this project have not been addressed.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council hereby denies the application for a Special Use Permit for Meadowmont Office Park.
This the 11th day of January, 1999.
Mr. Horton proposed the following additional Council meetings: with the Historic District Commission on February 8th at 5:45 p.m. prior to the 7:00 p.m. business meeting; with the Triangle Transit Authority on February 5th at a 7:30 a.m. breakfast; with the transportation consultant on February 10th at a 5:30 p.m. work session; with the Comprehensive Plan Work Group on February 15th at 5:30 p.m. prior to the 7:00 p.m. public hearing (or February 3rd at 5:30 p.m.); and with the Comprehensive Plan Work Group on May 10th at 5:30 p.m. prior to 7:00 p.m. meeting (or May 5th at 5:30 p.m.). Mr. Horton also recommended scheduling a public hearing on the Comprehensive Plan revisions for June 16th at 7:00 p.m.
Council Members Evans and Brown stated that they would not be able to attend a meeting with the transportation consultant on February 10th.
Mayor Waldorf suggested scheduling that meeting on February 3rd instead.
Council Member McClintock requested scheduling the Comprehensive Plan work session on May 5th, rather than May 10th before the 7:00 p.m. Council meeting.
Council Member Evans asked Mr. Horton to provide a revised memo, reflecting these changed dates. Mr. Horton agreed, pointing out that the staff would have to confer with the transportation consultant about the changed date.
Council Member Wiggins stated that she would not be able to attend either the May 5th or the May 10th meetings.
COUNCIL MEMBER PAVÃO MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER EVANS, TO ADOPT RESOLUTION 14 AS AMENDED. THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).
A RESOLUTION AMENDING THE COUNCIL’S MEETING SCHEDULE TO ADD WORK SESSIONS AND A PUBLIC HEARING (99-1-11/R-14)
BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council hereby schedules a work session with the Historic District Commission for Monday, February 8, 1999 for 5:45 p.m.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council hereby schedules a work session with representatives of Triangle Transit Authority for Friday, February 5, 1999 from 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. in the 1st floor conference room of Town Hall, to discuss Triangle Transit Authority’s plans for expanded bus service, station location and train service.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council hereby schedules a work session with Balloffet and Associates for Wednesday, February 3, 1999 at 5:30 p.m.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council hereby schedules a work session with the Comprehensive Plan Work Group for February 15, 1999 at 5:30 p.m.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council hereby schedules a work session with the Comprehensive Plan Work Group for May 5, 1999 at 5:30 p.m.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council hereby schedules a public hearing on the Comprehensive Plan for Wednesday, June 16, 1999 at 7:00 p.m.
This the 11th day of January, 1999.
4f. Resolution and Ordinance Authorizing the Acceptance of a Public Housing Drug Elimination Program Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Council Member Bateman requested more information on: the continuation of the GED program; the structured youth program; and, the computer learning labs. She stated that this information should include who is going to implement these programs and those individuals’ qualifications.
4g. Resolution Requesting Public Comment and Opposing any Proposed Expansion of High Level Radioactive Waste Storage Facilities at CP&L’s Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant
Mayor pro tem Capowski asked for more information on two issues: why is transporting spent fuel rods safer than a semi-permanent swimming pool storage on or near the site of use; and why does transporting spent fuel rods from two regions of relatively low population density—the South Carolina and the Brunswick County areas—to an area of much higher population density, Wake County, minimize the overall risk to people?
Mayor Waldorf suggested that Mayor pro tem Capowski move Resolution 6 and add his two questions as points 5 & 6.
Council Member Foy added that he thought the Commissioners have initiated an effort to meet with CP&L. He also said that the Council should be part of that process and pointed out that many questions could be answered at the proposed public hearing.
Mayor Waldorf asked Mr. Horton to send a cover letter with Resolution 6 stating that the Council would like to be notified of any hearings or public forums. Mr. Horton suggested making that part of Resolution 6.
Council Member Foy agreed to make it point 7 of Resolution 6, adding that the Council should send copies of Resolution 6 to many communities.
Council Member McClintock said that she feared having a “great repository” nearby, adding that there were so many hazards connected with this project that the Council should do all it can to protest.
MAYOR PRO TEM CAPOWSKI MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER FOY, TO ADOPT RESOLUTION 6, AS AMENDED. THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).
A RESOLUTION REQUESTING PUBLIC COMMENT AND OPPOSING ANY PROPOSED EXPANSION OF HIGH LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE STORAGE FACILITIES AT CP&L’S SHEARON HARRIS NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
(99-1-11/R-6)
WHEREAS, the Council understands that Carolina Power & Light has plans for the expansion of the high level radioactive waste storage facilities at the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant in Wake County; and
WHEREAS, the Council understands that there are risks inherent with the doubling of the storage capacity of the temporary storage pools for the high level radioactive waste for the purpose of long term storage of high level radioactive waste, not only from the Shearon Harris plant, but also from two other nuclear power plants from elsewhere in North and South Carolina; and
WHEREAS, the Council has concerns about the plans to expand the waste storage capacity at the Shearon Harris facility and the lack of public input into the approval process for those; and
WHEREAS, the Council believes that communities should consider alternative forms of energy production that are safer for the environment;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the Town of Chapel Hill that the Council requests that the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission conduct public hearings in which Carolina Power & Light and appropriate regulatory staff:
1) explain the plans to expand the storage facilities for high level radioactive waste at the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant;
2) outline the risks, or lack thereof, and explain the risk assessment methodology employed to develop risk projections related to the use of facilities designed for short term storage of high level radioactive wastes for long term storage;
3) outline the risks, or lack thereof, and explain the risk assessment methodology employed to develop risk projections associated with the transportation and handling of materials from other distant nuclear power generating facilities;
4) accept and consider public comments relative to support for or opposition to operating or examining such a facility in this area;
5) explain why transporting spent fuel rods is safer than a semi-permanent storage (that is, “swimming pool” storage) onto their site of use, as transporting them increases risks;
6) explain why transporting spent fuel rods from two regions of relatively low population density (South Carolina and Brunswick County, NC) to an area of much higher population density (Wake County) minimizes the overall risk to people; and
7) requests that the Chapel Hill Town Council be included in discussions with Carolina Power and Light and the Orange County Commissioners, and that these questions be answered in a public forum.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Council opposes any proposed expansion of high level radioactive waste storage facilities at CP&L’s Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant.
This the 11th day of January, 1999.
COUNCIL MEMBER PAVÃO MOVED, SECONDED BY COUNCIL MEMBER EVANS, TO ADJOURN THE MEETING. THE MOTION WAS ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY (9-0).
The meeting was adjourned at 10:48 p.m.
The minutes of January 11, 1999 were adopted on the 22nd day of February, 1999.
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Joyce A. Smith, CMC