Image credit: Jeremy Bishop. unsplash.com/@jeremybishop
It was a late June evening in 2021 when council members addressed a gigantic council agenda in one of the last meetings before summer break. University Place and the developer RAM brought for the fifth time a massive permit request for extensive redevelopment of University Place. The permit took up hundreds of pages of permit language and still there was more to learn. The project was organized into phases so the Council wisely urged the preparation of Design Standards, themselves hundreds of pages long. Finally, late in the evening, the Town Council approved the project 5 – 2 with Council members Amy Ryan and Hongbin Gu voting no.
See the Town webpage for the University Place permit here.
Unfortunately, much later we are beginning to find ramifications of this permit approval. First, the Pastor of Binkley Baptist Church learned that the developer is planning a drive-through commercial fast food restaurant adjacent to the church playground. The playground is attached to a day care school run by Binkley Church. A careful read of the permit reveals that the permit allows for not one but five drive-through establishments!
Why is this so surprising? First, Chapel Hill’s Land Use Management Ordinance (LUMO) does not allow drive-through establishments, and for good reason. They encourage idling, increasing harmful air pollution, are a poor use of land especially in an area meant to be walkable, and they contribute to traffic congestion and increase danger to pedestrians and bicyclists.
So how did five drive-throughs get approved despite not meeting the Town’s land use ordinances?
We learn in talks with farmers at the Chapel Hill Farmers Market that the structures and amenities RAM had promised for the Farmers Market space have been eliminated “due to cost considerations.” So much for RAM’s promises to create a welcoming outdoor market for our area farmers and community!
RAM has a reputation for driving a hard bargain. Chapel Hill came out poorly in negotiations within the public-private partnership that built the condos at 140 West Franklin Street. Here again, is Chapel Hill getting the kind of redevelopment it wants and needs? While everyone makes mistakes, it concerns us that the contents of permits were not understood by Town government before they were approved.
The next question to ask our Town Council: How can this damage be undone?
Read the Design Guidelines and permit details here.