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People on campus have agreed for a long time that a crucial element of the new
master plan will be to make the south side of campus look more like the north
side.
During planning sessions held over the past two years, faculty, staff and
students have said again and again that the south side of campus is too
dangerous to walk because of heavy traffic and steep slopes.
Consultants from Ayers Saint Gross, the Baltimore firm hired to develop the
master plan, responded with a blueprint designed to ease those particular
problems.
During the process, University officials have also heard the concerns of nearby
residents who view many of the proposed solutions for the south end of campus
as potential problems for them.
And at a public forum held Sept. 26, residents filled Chapel Hill Town Hall to
tell town officials their side to the story from their end of the street.
The morning after the community meeting, Chancellor James Moeser told
University trustees that he embraces the master plan as a model for development
of this campus over the next 50 years.
He described the community meeting as a "sound, constructive engagement"
between residents and town officials. Moeser also thanked the dozens of
University officials who attended the meeting to listen to residents'
concerns.
"We want to be a good neighbor, and we intend to be," Moeser said.
On the other hand, Moeser made it clear that the University has an interest in
safeguarding its ability to meet its growing needs both now and in the
future.
Jonathan Howes has been one of the University officials shepherding the master
plan through its various stages over the past two years. Howes is also a former
mayor of Chapel Hill who understands all too well that the position someone
takes on an issue is often determined by the position from which he is looking
at it.
It's not a matter of right or wrong so much as point of view, Howes said.
Residents have been invited to sit in on the meetings held in the master plan's
design studio at the Morehead Planetarium. University officials have walked to
residents' neighborhoods to see their concerns up close.
As a result, residents have garnered a greater understanding of what the
University seeks to accomplish with the new master plan, while University
officials have a better understanding of the real fears that residents have
about it, Howes said.
But seeing the other side is not the same thing as going along with it.
"They appreciate the openness of the process, but that doesn't necessarily mean
at the end of the day that they agree with us," Howes said.
"In this case there is an overarching public interest that is in conflict with
the neighbors' continued use of their own property," Howes said.
The property question arises because of the University's plan to extend a new
southern corridor to campus from Fordham Boulevard.
Concern about traffic around UNC Hospitals was heightened last November when a
postdoctoral student suffered fatal injuries while trying to cross Manning
Drive.
University officials also want to reduce traffic on Manning to create a better
environment for four new residence halls planned for the corner of Ridge Road
and Manning Drive that would house 960 undergraduate students.
Much of the traffic on Manning Drive is now created by visitors to UNC
Hospitals, including many who are not used to negotiating a street teeming with
so many pedestrians.
The corridor would allow the University to divert much of the traffic from
Manning Drive by funneling hospital visitors directly into nearby parking decks
so that drivers could avoid Manning altogether. University officials have
already talked to state Department of Transportation officials to gain their
support for making that happen.
The ideal route for that corridor is through the neighborhood along Mason Farm
Road.
Since the mid-1990s, the University has bought about half a dozen parcels of
property through which a southern corridor could be built. But there are still
eight properties that the University does not own that would be needed to build
the road. Three are on the north side of Mason Farm Road. Five others are
located within a triangle created by Otey's Road.
The property owners on Mason Farm Road are particularly concerned that the
University will force the acquisition of their properties by invoking eminent
domain, the legal process that government can use to acquire private property
against the owner's wishes in order to achieve a public purpose.
Though the state has the authority to exercise the power of eminent domain,
University General Counsel Susan Ehringhaus said the University still has no
intention of doing so, strongly preferring instead to purchase the properties
on the open market.
The corridor question is further clouded by the possibility that the Triangle
Transit Authority may one day build a transit line linking Carolina to Duke
University. Other institutions involved in the transit corridor are the cities
of Durham and Chapel Hill and Duke University.
There is no telling when or if that will happen, but the authority has asked
all parties that could be involved in the project to present possible routes
for such a line.
Adam Gross, the consultant with Ayers Saint Gross who has been one of the main
architects of the master plan, told residents during the Sept. 26 meeting about
two new road designs that could be built on land the University already owns.
But the University's ability to consider these alternate routes hinges on a
decision by the transit authority on what form of transit it would use. If
buses or light rails are used, either of the two alternative routes would work.
If a heavy diesel train option were chosen, the Mason Farm route would be the
only feasible choice because of its gentler terrain, Howes said.
The authority expects to announce by early next year what kind of technology
would be used for a transit system. Whatever that decision turns out to be will
have a major impact on what the University ultimately includes in the final
version of the master plan, Howes said.
In addition to the proposed corridor, some residents have said that proposed
parking decks and new family housing to replace Odum Village could harm their
neighborhoods. Two of the decks and the family housing address problems
identified with the south end of campus.
The north end covers the highest ground on campus and also the flattest, which
is the reason the area was selected as the original site of the campus two
centuries ago. Starting at South Road, the land slopes downward, creating those
steep climbs that so many people have complained about.
And it is here, near Kenan Stadium and the Bell Tower, where the two parking
decks would be built.
With the decks, the master plan seeks to address three needs at once.
The first is the need for more parking spaces in a convenient location.
The second is the need for more open space near where students live.
The third is to make it easier to walk from one end of the campus to the
other.
The parking decks hold the potential to do all those things because they could
be built in low areas in such a way that the flat surface of their roofs would
create a sort of wide bridge that could be built level with the surrounding
hills.
The roofs of the parking lots would be sodded over to be used for student
recreation. These fields, in turn, could absorb storm-water runoff. And space
on the roofs could be kept open for paths for people to get from one side of
campus to the other without going up and down those steep slopes.
The master plan calls for at least replacing the 304 units that would be lost
with the demolition of Odum Village. The one area University officials would
most like to do that is the area in dispute along the proposed Mason Farm Road
corridor.
Dean Bresciani, the associate vice chancellor of student services, said there
are good arguments to be made for why residents should welcome such housing.
First, the married students living in Odum Village have already proven to be
good neighbors to the town residents living nearby.
Second, the family housing apartments would be built in a style and proportion
that would blend with the surrounding architecture, Bresciani said.
Even more to the point, the families living on campus would blend with the
families living off of it.
In effect, Bresciani said, "the housing would create a buffer between the
University and the neighborhood that literally would make that border
invisible. That's as smooth of a buffer zone as one could hope to have."
Finally, the inclusion of more family student housing on campus would help to
preserve the character of Chapel Hill's historic neighborhoods because it would
reduce the number of students moving into them.
People involved with the master plan have agreed that another key to reducing
traffic and attendant parking problems on campus is to find ways to discourage
the use of cars by faculty, staff and students. The best way to do that,
planners have said, would be to build more student housing close enough to
campus for students to walk or bike or catch a transit bus.
The proposed family housing would do exactly that, Bresciani said.
Most of the students now living in Odum Village are graduate students in
medicine, dentistry or some other health-related field. The Mason Farm Road
area would give them close, easy access to the part of campus they need to
go.
Howes said work will continue on these and other issues related to the master
plan through the end of the year. The plan is expected to go before University
trustees in January, Howes said.
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