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The nature-nurture argument may still rage in some quarters, but it has long
been settled among University faculty and staff who have been involved the past
two years with putting together a new campus master plan.
Their consensus is that nature has indeed nurtured the minds and spirits of the
students and teachers who have been drawn to this place for more than two
centuries now and that the natural beauty of this place should be allowed to
work its magic on future generations of students and faculty over the next
century.
On Sept. 7, members of master plan committees met with Ayers Saint Gross
planners to hear the consultants' final recommendations. The committees include
trustees, administrators, faculty, staff, students, community leaders and
residents, reflecting former Chancellor Michael Hooker's insistence that the
process be an open one that invited both the participation and scrutiny of
campus and community views.
"It has been a unique experience," said Adam Gross, one of the consultants who
has shepherded the process from the beginning.
"Has it been a highlight?" somebody asked from the audience.
"It has been a highlight, and it will always be a highlight," Gross said. "We
love it here, and it has been infinitely interesting."
Phil Berke, an associate professor in city and regional planning, told Gross
that the plan had come together far better than he had imagined it could. He
still had questions, he said, and knows the "devil will be in the details."
Still, Berke said, "The thrust and the direction of this is really what we
teach."
Jonathan Howes, who has chaired the master plan process, emphasized that the
plan is still in draft form. It will be presented at various "town meetings"
throughout the fall. It also will go to the campus Buildings and Grounds
Committee for its recommendation. In January, the plan will be forwarded to the
University Board of Trustees for its consideration.
The draft of the final master plan not only calls for the natural beauty of
north campus to be preserved but to be perpetuated everywhere on campus.
That will require making room for new buildings without sacrificing historic
forests or interfering with natural watersheds.
And it will require extending walkways throughout the campus to increase
pedestrian safety and link the north and south sides of campus. One such
walkway would cross South Road, connecting new buildings near Kenan Labs and
Dye Hall to UNC Hospitals.
The plan also calls for establishing a southern access route from U.S. 15-501
to UNC Hospitals to lessen the speed and volume of traffic on Manning Drive.
Determining exactly how and where to put that corridor remains the last
unsettled and most unsettling question of the entire plan.
Gross believes the ideal solution would require obtaining property the
University does not now own.
Gross said the corridor issue is further complicated by the desire to identify
a corridor for regional transit proposed by the Triangle Transit Authority that
may or may not materialize.
But Gross said the key to allowing the campus to grow in both size and beauty
will be to take away what nearly everyone complains there are not enough of:
parking spaces.
The plan calls for removing a total of 27 acres of surface parking spaces from
the Smith Center to the Bell Tower to Venable Hall. Some of those spaces would
be replaced with parking decks. Ten to 12 of those acres now in parking lots
would be transformed back to grass and trees.
Many of the decks would be incorporated into new buildings. One such deck would
be built as part of the replacement of Venable Hall, which would be demolished.
Two decks are proposed on either side of Kenan Stadium where the Bell Tower and
Ramshead parking lots are now. The parking decks would be built to fit the
contours of the surrounding hills, and the tops of the decks would provide
foundations for new buildings as well as serve as bridges for pedestrian
walkways.
Gross said the other part of the solution will be to discourage the use of cars
on campus. Such strategies would include more park and ride lots, more bike
paths, more regional transit solutions involving buses or trains or both, more
students and staff and faculty living closer enough to campus to walk or bike
or catch a bus.
Another difficult decision that has been made is to keep Baity Hill in the
southeastern corner of campus undeveloped. The spot had been eyed as a possible
site to build new housing for married couples to replace Odum Village, which
under the master plan would be demolished. Some of those family housing units
could be replaced with two- to three-story units built along the proposed
southern corridor leading from U.S. 15-501 to UNC Hospitals, Gross said.
Figuring out where the rest of them will go remains another challenge, he
said.
Part of the value of keeping the hill undeveloped is its natural beauty. The
other part is the ability of a natural forest to absorb rainwater and reduce
the excessive surface runoff that can accompany development.
For more on the master plan, see http://www.unc.edu/planning
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