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The University will hold a forum on Sept. 10 to both present information and
get feedback about the development plan that it submitted to the town of Chapel
Hill in July.
The forum will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Carroll Hall auditorium
(Room 111). The meeting is open to the general public, to include town
residents as well as faculty, staff and students. It is being sponsored by the
Faculty Council, the Employee Forum and Student Government.
On Sept. 19, the Chapel Hill Town Council will hold its own public hearing on
the development plan, and on Oct. 1 the town is expected to vote on it.
The issue is as complicated as it is important, which was one of the reasons
that University officials decided to hold the Sept. 10 forum.
"The more people know about it, the better they will understand it," said Bruce
Runberg, the associate vice chancellor for facilities planning and
construction. "And the more people understand it, the better off we will be in
terms of building community support."
Simply put, the development plan is the linchpin for the new zoning
classification for the main campus that the town approved on July 2.
Under the old zoning, the town set a cap of 14 million square feet of building
space to be allowed on the main campus, a cap that would have stopped the
University from completing most of the $1 billion worth of construction already
planned for the next decade.
The newly created zoning district, called "Office/Institutional -- 4," removed
that cap and ties town control over campus growth to the 10-year development
plan.
If the new campus master plan was the instrument that laid out the guiding
principles for growth, the development plan is the document that shows how and
where those principles will take effect as the University adds 5.9 million
square feet of building space to the existing 13.7 million square feet.
Likewise, if the campus master plan is the compass pointing to the future, the
development plan is the accompanying map, full of exact numbers and precise
locations and target dates for construction and completion. To the extent
possible, the development plan estimates the financial and environmental
effects that growth will have on the town, while explaining what the University
plans to do to either avoid or mitigate those effects.
And that is why the next few weeks are so important to the University, Runberg
said.
"Getting the new zoning approved was a pivotal step, but the zoning alone does
not get us to where we have be," he said. "And that is why we are now at such a
critical juncture with the development plan. Unless the town council approves
it, the new zoning will be unable to accomplish what it was established to do,
which is to allow this University to flourish in a way that helps rather than
harms the town."
The plan is online for review at the Facilities Services web site at:
http://www.fac.unc.edu/DevelopmentPlan
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