THE EVOLUTION OF CAROLINA NORTH Carolina North development    agreement approved       Agreement built on    unprecedented trust       and mutual benefits       What key players in the    process had to say      Carolina North timeline    '

Carolina North development
agreement approved

After nearly two decades of off-and-on again planning and an intense 10-month period of almost continual staff work, ongoing public dialogue and monthly negotiations between trustees and council members, the University now has in hand what some departing trustees began to doubt would happen on their watch: a 20-year development agreement with the Town of Chapel Hill for Carolina North.

A specially called June 25 Board of Trustees meeting was characterized by a sense of surprise and relief as outgoing trustees Karol Mason, Nelson Schwab III and Paul Fulton voted for the agreement and celebrated the many people who made it happen.

The agreement received a similar level of acclaim from Chapel Hill Town Council members, who unanimously approved it three days before.

“Surreal and wonderful,” was how Chancellor Holden Thorp described the experience of being present for the council’s endorsement of an agreement that will guide the development of 3 million square feet of building space on 133 acres during a 20-year period.

Adding a new zoning district
Enabling the town council’s approval of the development agreement were preceding votes to create a new University-1 zoning district and to rezone 643 acres of the Carolina North property to the new U-1 zone.

At the trustees meeting, Jack Evans, Carolina North’s executive director, reminded trustees that the passage of the development agreement marked a “milestone, not a finish line,” and that much collaborative work between the University and town lay ahead.

During the next 50 years, the University expects to build a total of 8 million square feet on 228 acres within the U-1 zone. While the entire Carolina North property within Chapel Hill is in the new U-1 zone, the area proposed for development over the next 50 years occupies only the southeastern section of the tract. This area now encompasses the Horace Williams Airport, which will be closed once construction begins.

The development agreement was limited to 20 years in duration as required by state law.

Not only does the agreement allow for continued negotiations and modifications, it requires both as the development of Carolina North unfolds during the next two decades, Evans said.

Unlike a conventional special-use permit, the agreement calls for ongoing review and negotiation processes between the town and University to continue for the life of the agreement.

Town Manager Roger Stancil emphasized this ongoing flexibility to town council members on June 22 when he recommended the development agreement as “an affirmation of the collaborative process.”

Stancil described the agreement as a “living document” laden with various triggers and deadlines through which the town and the University will determine the course of Carolina North in the future. It signified a “brand new way of doing business,” he said.

“The way it is written, we learn as we go,” Stancil said. “We adapt. We change the requirements to reflect the reality of the day.”

The first 800,000 square feet
It could be two years or longer before the first planned construction project – a proposed 80,000-square-foot business accelerator – begins. (The builder, California-based Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc., put the project on hold until the economy improves.)

The other known project, also on hold for economic reasons, is a new building for the School of Law, which is projected to cost $100 million.

The agreement spells out projected land uses for the initial 800,000 square feet of building development that would include both projects.

The University committed one-quarter of that space for housing, something the town favored. More than half of the overall space (410,000 square feet) would be academic space, including the law school, while 180,000 square feet would be for private research and development, including the Innovation Center. The remaining 10,000 square feet will be set aside for a variety of civic and retail uses.

A foundation of trust
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the past 10 months’ work is the way it joined the town and University in pursuit of a mutually beneficial agreement. Many people were instrumental in making that happen. For example, Stancil, Evans, Thorp and trustees Roger Perry and Bob Winston met almost monthly with council members to iron out any areas of concern.

But the man singled out universally as the glue that helped hold negotiations together was David Owens, a professor in the School of Government. He was engaged by the town to provide technical advice and to guide the negotiations. At the end of the trustees meeting, Perry commended Owens as someone “uniquely and totally trusted by both sides.”

“Dr. Owens has proved that his level of integrity is matched only by his skill and his acumen in helping us craft and develop this agreement,” Perry said.

At the June 25 trustees meeting, Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy also was recognized for his leadership in the process.

“As Jack (Evans) said, this has spawned the basis for a really productive relationship that is going to endure for the next 20 years,” Foy said, “so thank you all.”

Agreement built on unprecedented trust and mutual benefits

No one can say precisely how long the University has been trying to develop a plan for Carolina North because it depends, as Jack Evans said, on the rather arbitrary decision  when to start the clock.

The development plan the University’s Board of Trustees approved in 2007 and that served as the basis for the development agreement approved last month by the Chapel Hill Town Council was the fourth iteration of University plans, following those in 1995, 2000 and 2004.

Evans, the executive director of Carolina North, described the most recent plan as the University’s third planning “mulligan” – a golf term that describes the practice of ignoring an errant shot and counting only its replacement in scoring.

The analogy seemed apt enough, even though the earlier efforts served to help the University hit the final shot close to dead center.

Preparations for the work that led to the recently approved development agreement started in the summer of 2008 when town officials engaged David Owens, a longtime resident of Chapel Hill and professor in the School of Government, to help with the process. 

Working with Town Manager Roger Stancil, Evans and a number of town and University staff members, Owens crafted a tightly compressed set of parallel processes that the group hoped would culminate in a development agreement by the following summer. Chancellor Emeritus James Moeser had aggressively pursued such an agreement.

“It is an ambitious agenda,” Owens told Evans at the time, “but it can be done.”

Unprecedented trust
That both parties trusted Owens was important from the outset. Equally important was the trust that developed in the successive negotiating sessions involving the town council, Chancellor Holden Thorp and trustees Roger Perry and Bob Winston.

After the historic agreement was approved, Evans noted, “I think we should all take some satisfaction that, with David’s considerable help, we got to where we are.”

Evans and Owens, though from the University, understood the competing pressures faced by council members and trustees. They partnered with Stancil to devise an open-ended, inclusive process that not only allowed residents to voice concerns through regular forums, but also addressed those concerns during monthly meetings of a joint group of trustees and council members.

The difference, in the end, may have been the dramatic shift in what council member Bill Strom described as the “atmospherics” surrounding the decision.

When the council unanimously approved the agreement, council member Sally Green said, “The silence up here speaks volumes.”

She could have made a similar comment about the rows of empty chairs in the town chamber. During the meeting’s public hearing phase, only one person spoke and she offered more praise than criticism.

During the past year, the atmosphere had shifted from confrontation to collaboration, and from suspicion to trust. Part of the shift came from the strength of personal relationships forged; part from the exhaustive, comprehensive analytical work to conduct separate environmental, transportation and fiscal impact studies – all of which laid the foundation for informed decisions.

Earlier, some council members had focused on the negative outcomes they feared Carolina North might generate – from heavier traffic to air pollution and stormwater runoff – and the fiscal strains associated with them.

Gains for both sides
Stancil also pointed out that the town gained more in the development agreement after the yearlong discussions than it could under existing state law or town ordinances.

Among the gains: a requirement to offer affordable housing and a firm commitment that the University would contribute to the stormwater utility and commit to sustainable systems for water re-use and reclamation.

Another key point was the University’s commitment to remain a partner with the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro in the Chapel Hill Transit system for the life of the development agreement. With that commitment in place, council members who had pushed for transit solutions for Carolina North could be assured that the University was equally committed.

Similarly, Evans told trustees at the specially called June 25 meeting that the community input had been invaluable.

That input included work in 2004 by the Horace Williams Advisory Committee and the Carolina North Leadership Advisory Committee (LAC). The LAC was a cross-section of University, town and community leaders who met monthly from March 2006 to January 2007 to forge areas of agreement on development principles.

In the final weeks leading to the agreement’s approval, the University agreed to some final transportation changes.

The University will make needed transportation improvements prior to the occupancy of buildings and submit an annual schedule to the town to show how road improvements would stay in sync with scheduled growth. And the University will work with the town to develop a bike and pedestrian pathway to campus.

Council member Jim Ward advised that the newly forged town-gown relationship not be taken for granted.

“Our history isn’t rich with times that this could happen from my 35 years here,” Ward said. “It’s a bit quixotic. Just because we have it now doesn’t mean we will have it a year from now. This is a long-term agreement so we need to put a lot of hard work into nurturing this relationship. It will not flourish without effort.”

At the special trustees meeting on June 25, both Perry and Mayor Kevin Foy emphasized the importance of sustaining the newly created relationship.

What key players in the process had to say

Carolina North timeline

Upon his death, retired professor Horace Williams, founder of the UNC philosophy department, leaves more than 24 area properties to the University, including the land north of campus that became known as the Horace Williams tract.

While the date of construction of Horace Williams Airport has not been precisely determined, its earliest depiction appears in the May 14 M Regional Aeronautical Chart.

A long-term study results in a report by JJR Incorporated and Parson Brinckerhoff that establishes key elements of planning and transportation systems for the development of the property. The plan featured a mixed-use “University Village,” assumed the continued operation of the airport and called for 56 percent of the property to be developed.

A UNC advisory committee working with Ayers Saint Gross architectural firm produces a land-use plan that limits new development to about 30 percent of the site. Much of the new campus is to be built alongside the runway of the airport, which would continue operation.

Town of Chapel Hill’s Horace Williams Citizens’ Committee meets throughout the year and issues a report in January 2004 outlining the town’s goals for Carolina North.

A UNC advisory committee works with Ayers Saint Gross to design a conceptual plan for Carolina North featuring five mixed-use “neighborhoods” and assuming closure of the airport.

A conceptual plan is presented to University trustees, who endorse a vision for Carolina North. First occupants of Carolina North are projected to be the School of Pharmacy, the School of Public Health and FPG’s FirstSchool. Trustees vote in May to close the airport and move AHEC’s operations to Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

UNC creates the Carolina North Leadership Advisory Committee. Jack Evans, business professor and former dean of the Kenan-Flagler Business School, is named executive director of Carolina North.

University planners work extensively with Ayers Saint Gross to develop a concept master plan limiting development to 25 percent of the property, concentrated on the current airport site. Through a series of community meetings, public concerns are addressed and ideas incorporated into the plan, which trustees approved in September.

In October, UNC submits its plan for Carolina North to the Chapel Hill Town Council, requesting that the town and University work to develop a text amendment for a new zoning district, a map amendment and development agreement for the new campus.

In January, the town council approves a special-use permit for the construction of the Innovation Center, the first building planned for Carolina North. In June, the council unanimously approves the new zone and a development agreement; trustees ratify the decision at a special meeting later that week.