Town Council and UNC Health representatives met for 2 hours on August 17th at the Chapel Hill Public Library. Their mission is to develop a master plan for the 50+ acre site where UNC Health (UNCH) has purchased the Eastowne Office complex just south of I-40, across from the former Blue Cross-Blue Shield building and the-soon-to be-open Wegmans Supermarket. UNCH’s goal is to complete the final master plan by June 2020, but there’s a lot of work yet to be done. Materials from that meeting are here.
Town Council representatives are Mayor Pam Hemminger, and Council members Hongbin Gu, Michael Parker and Rachel Schaevitz. UNC Health is represented by John Martin and a Team of UNC Health administrators, headed by Simon George.
The Town of Chapel Hill’s performance in negotiating a strong Master Plan carries risks for our community for a number of reasons:
- This is the first time a project of this magnitude will be built by UNCH in town away from the central hospital complex: UNC Health has said that they need between 1 million and 1.8 million gsf of clinic and office space.
- While the existing office park is peppered with office buildings, it retains a wooded character of gently rolling hills and streams. One 20 acre site that has been left untouched contains a valuable old growth oak forest and has been deemed significant and worthy of conservation “by any means feasible” by the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program;
- So far the transit or transportation strategy to handle a potential large number of employees is to provide lots of parking in 3 – 4 large parking decks expecting all those employees to drive to work or clinic appointments and park in those decks.
- The Town’s own traffic projections indicate that 15-501 traffic will slow to a crawl for even more hours a day within three years. These projections did not include the additional traffic caused by this new UNC health campus.
CHALT observers have asked their representatives to address the following issues:
- Celebrate staff and committee representatives for calling for a formal survey of the Heritage property promoted by Ed Harrison, among others, who have spoken forcefully in favor of the conservation of the Natural Heritage area land. See completed survey.
- Strongly suggest that the Chapel Hill team set measurable goals for water quality, stormwater management, perentage tree canopy and green space, and amount of addition traffic generated that 15-501 can accommodate before the joint committee reviews additional concept maps. (The plan to develop measurable outcomes decided at an earlier meeting seems to have been abandoned.)
- Prepare an environmental map of the tract that all parties agree is complete before any buildings are sited and decisions for stream setbacks are decided.
- Ask the Committee to review an in-depth report prepared by staff or a consultant about what Chapel Hill traffic studies show about traffic on 15-501. Questions of density, number of feet of office space and number of cars, cannot be safely made until the new Traffic Impact Analysis (TIA) that will measure total current traffic volumes on 15-501 is complete.