Letter to Mayor and Councilors,
The last time Chapel Hill experimented with zoning we got Blue Hill.
The outcome of proposed changes to single-family zoning might also be different than the one you intend.
One idealized vision of what our community should look like was presented to you by the Town’s planning staff at the April 19 town council meeting, as described in Chapelboro.
However, developers might have a different idea. Their recent handiwork in Chapel Hill is in evidence in the results of a zoning experiment by the town council in 2014 in the area now known as Blue Hill: the Eastgate-Ephesus-Elliot-Fordham Boulevard area. We have all gawked at it in amazement and disbelief that such a thing could happen here. This is what it looks like today.
Blue Hill today. Can someone tell us how much affordable housing is in Blue Hill? How many families live there? Where are the walkways, the bicycles, the playgrounds? And the parks and green space other than the unbuildable swampy park on Bolin Creek? And where are the moderate-rent apartments like Colonial Apartments that were there before? Why does this remind us of big cities like Dallas and Brooklyn?
We urge you to beware of unintended consequenses. Families in our single family neighborhoods depend on your good judgement.
— Don Liner