Consultants present costs, benefits of Carolina North

Before adjourning for summer recess last month, local elected officials got a look at a preliminary fiscal impact analysis of Carolina North, the University’s mixed-use research and academic campus to be built two miles north of the main campus.

The June 26 meeting at the Southern Human Services Center included representatives from the Chapel Hill Town Council, Carrboro Board of Aldermen and Orange County Board of Commissioners as well as about 50 members of the community at large.

Carolina North will create more than 8,600 jobs in the area (3,591 on the new campus and the remainder off campus) in its first 15 years and generate more than $4.5 billion in benefits to the region, according to The Chesapeake Group, the consultants hired by the University to analyze the indirect impact of the new campus.

At the same time, Carolina North could cost Chapel Hill taxpayers about $16 million cumulatively over the first 20 years, according to TischlerBise, the consultants who presented the direct costs and benefits of the project. (The analysis does not take into account contributions from the University and future state appropriations that may offset those costs.)

The two-part presentation began with the indirect benefits, which projected how many jobs were likely to be created at Carolina North and how that increase in income and population would affect retail sales, property values, taxes and other revenues.

The indirect benefits were then factored into the fiscal impact analysis, which sought to show the balance between the costs of the local governments’ provision of services such as fire protection, transit and schools, and the direct and indirect revenues created by a development like Carolina North.

Elected officials seemed most wary of the indirect benefits report.

Town council member Bill Strom asked that indirect benefits not be included in the analysis, but Carolina North Executive Director Jack Evans said that they would remain in the study. Indirect revenues and costs were part of the original scope of work specified by the study’s monitoring committee, comprised equally of town and gown representatives.

The consultants stressed that the results were only preliminary and also that their baseline projections were conservative ones, based on current levels of service and continuation of current policies. The analysts will use the feedback they received at the meeting to adjust their model and incorporate it into a draft report they plan to present in late August or early September.

At that time, they will also provide the University with a custom-designed model and training for UNC and government representatives on how to adjust the analysis by plugging in different scenarios.

The fiscal impact analysis is one of three foundational studies that the University agreed to do for Carolina North. The ecological assessment of the site was finished a year ago, and a long-range transit study should be completed soon.

The fiscal impact analysis presentation occurred the day after a Chapel Hill Town Council meeting at which council members unanimously endorsed a process to guide the development of Carolina North.

Town and University staff members will continue work on a potential development agreement and a possible new zoning district and to plan a September work session that would include members of the town council and the UNC Board of Trustees.

Both consultants’ presentations are posted on the Carolina North Web site, research.unc.edu/cn/index.php.