Estes Drive users, neighbors and parents could not convince a Council majority that the Aura development project would fail to protect public safety and ensure a mobile Estes Drive.
The Mayor and Town Council voted 5 – 3 a second time on June 23rd to approve the Aura permit. Unfortunately, many Council members who voted for the project were reassured by an imperfect town-wide traffic model that lacked data and validation and contained inaccuracies, such as streets that cannot feasibly be built. While the Council expressed concerns about stormwater runoff from the 15 acre tract the developer Trinsic refused to make more than minimal concessions to reduce impervious surfaces, the most common cause of flooding.
Council members who voted 5 – 3 for Aura were Jess Andersen, Tai Huynh, Michael Parker, Amy Ryan and Karen Stegman. Allen Buansi, Hongbin Gu, and Pam Hemminger opposed the measure. Those Council members who supported the permit appear to believe that the several thousand future residents will leave their cars at home and will ride the yet to be built proposed bus rapid transit buses running north and south on MLK Blvd. Jr. Future traffic counts on Estes Drive will prove them wrong.
Here are 5 reasons the Aura project does not measure up to the kind of development Chapel Hill needs:
1. Aura speeds climate change: (1) increases carbon emissions by allowing 650 parking spaces for vehicles; (2) uses massive amounts of concrete and pavement that will raise temperatures via heat island effect; (3) reduces carbon capture by radically reducing tree cover.
2. There is no Town traffic plan in place to manage future development on Estes Drive, an important east-west connector. Aura allows 650 parking places that will contribute 3000 trips a day to add to the current congestion. The official Traffic Impact Analysis study showed that even with all planned road improvements in place, congestion will be worse at the majority of Estes intersections after Aura.
3. The project design includes a dangerous 3 lane full access entrance on Estes Drive that will permit traffic turns causing potential fatalities and injuries involving vehicles and pedestrians on the multi-use path. The Town Transportation and Connectivity Board recommended denial of Aura for this reason.
4. Aura provides mostly expensive rentals ($3000 a month) that we don’t need. Subsidies agreed to for the 15% of owner occupied units are minimal. None of the rentals or townhouses will be affordable to those making the Orange County $15/hour “living wage”.
5. Impervious surfaces are so large for this site that even the engineered solution of stormwater holding tanks will allow 3 times as much run-off as the present. The proscribed six foot planting strip is not wide enough to grow trees needed to provide shade for walkers nor will the slender ribbon of soil soak up even 1% of the stormwater runoff. The additional runoff will further scour Bolin Creek banks and lead to flooding at Camelot and University Place.
