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The Chapel Hill Town Council asked for more time to adequately review proposals. They asked for concept plans before receiving the official modification request. What was UNC's response? F--k you.

"We did take a serious look at that request," said Nancy Suttenfield, UNC vice chancellor for finance and administration. "But it's neither fiscally responsible nor practical."- Daily Tarheel, 3/16/04

(More on the specific changes proposed in today's Chapel Hill Herald.)

Coming through loud and clear, Nancy. Just don't be suprised if the Town Council doesn't have enough time in your 90-day lighting review to get the information it needs in to make a responsible decision and has to turn the application down. What you seem to think is cheaper, could end up costing UNC (and the state/taxpayers) a lot more.

During the elections last fall, part of suburban north Chapel Hill was up in arms about a proposal from Habitat For Humanity to build some homes off of Sunrise Road. Habitat managed to quell the unrest for a few months by establishing a public process including a charette (community planning meeting) and proposals from 4 different designers.

The designers who participated are Josh Gurlitz, Gary Giles, Scott Radway, and James Carnahan. Theirs ideas range from 42 to 56 total units, with various mixes of single-family and townhouse units. No matter what Habitat does, I doubt that it will be few enough for the neighbors. It seems they will be happy with nothing more than zero townhouses and one or two detached houses on the 17-acre tract.

Members of the Sunrise Coalition, which includes residents of the nearby Chandler's Green subdivision and neighborhoods in the area, remain concerned about Habitat's plans.

Guest Post by Nick Eberlein

Now that UNC and Chapel Hill are prepping for new discussions over zoning and campus expansion, it seems like the editorial pages in the local papers have been handed their collective wet dream: "contentious negotiations," always ripe fodder for the opinion pages.

Woe is me, however, when I read rants like yesterday's editorial in The Daily Tar Heel entitled "Hostile Intention." I'm now convinced that what hampers both UNC and the town the most during these times of critical decision-making and long-term planning is the tendency of some in our community to blindly hop to one side of the fence or the other in reaction to either side's "hostility."

As both a UNC student and town native, I take strong issue with the DTH editorial board's assertion that "town residents would ideally like to live in a college town without the students." Nothing is further from the truth.