The Chapel Hill town council majority has embarked on yet another framework for development, this time termed Complete Communities, a concept advanced by a Canadian consultant at a cost of over $470,000. At the same time, town staff have removed all but two advisory boards from development review, concentrating public input in the Community Design and Planning Commissions.

The Planning Commission currently has members aligned with the pro-growth NEXT group. Three town council candidates, Jon Mitchell, Eric Valera and Theodore Nollert, are also on the Planning Commission and are strong Complete Communities advocates. Do any of the Commission’s remaining voting members have different views?

This is reminiscent of the Blue Hill experiment where decision-making authority was concentrated in the town manager, excluding the public, advisory boards and even the council in the process.

You don’t have to be a research scientist like myself to observe what has happened in Blue Hill. Instead of incentives for affordable housing, 199 units of such housing were replaced by luxury apartments. No long-sought community benefits, like green construction, green energy, green space, walkability and commercial space. Huge concrete parking decks surrounded by apartments to form a heat island with increased traffic congestion.

To be sure, Complete Communities is an improvement, but the idea itself is not new as evidenced by Meadowmont and Southern Village. A key aspect, inclusion of neighbors in the design, is a plus given the public exclusion elsewhere in the process.

Chapel Hill Crossings is an example that illustrates both the advantages and shortcomings of the Complete Communities framework. (see https://chapelboro.com/news/development/how-is-chapel-hills-complete-communities-being-implemented-one-new-housing-development-is-an-example.)

This application went through several iterations. In one, the developer sought a waiver to the town’s future land use map (FLUM), only two years after it was created with extensive public engagement. A massive seven story apartment complex was eventually scaled back with more townhomes added; most rental and some “attainable” for-sale. There is green space, but commercial units were removed. A basic sidewalk is listed as a “recreational amenity of a walking trail”.

More important to neighbors is the unresolved stormwater issue. The development will have a major impact on hydrology and downstream homes on Clark Lake could be at risk. The application was eventually approved without meeting all the Complete Communities’ requirements or the neighbors’ concerns.

What good are requirements if not met? Recent history of development in Chapel Hill is filled with waivers and payments-in-lieu by developers to skirt requirements. The Planning Commission just recommended approval of a height variance to allow building wet labs on west Franklin that will displace the Purple Bowl, Blue Dogwood Market, Chimney Indian Kitchen and Bella Nail Bar. The latter two are minority-owned small businesses. The Commission also recommended approval of a twelve-story apartment building adjacent to a sorority house on historic east Rosemary Street. Will the town’s fire trucks reach the top floors?

Let’s be clear. What has been built and what is in the development pipeline IS our housing policy. Less than ten percent of the 9000 units in our pipeline are of the affordable or “missing middle” type. Most are multifamily, market-rate units that we don’t need and don’t meet the Complete Communities or “housing choice” text amendment criteria.

Let’s learn from our development experiments before pushing forward at breakneck speed without appropriate guardrails. Let’s consider impacts on traffic and infrastructure, on stormwater flow, on our commercial to residential imbalance, on our town’s character.

If wet labs and massive luxury apartments are your idea of a modern college town, so be it. If you are unhappy with “what is” and “what’s to come”, consider voting for change. Vote Adam Searing for mayor and myself, Renuka Soll, Elizabeth Sharp and Breckany Eckhardt for town council.

But most of all, VOTE in this municipal election on November 7^th

By David Adams, Council candidate