Growth & Development
Check out this comment on the News and Observer article:
"The trouble at my downtown business all began when the police station moved out and the homeless shelter moved in. Downtown looks like hell. It is dirty and unkept. How about a program that pays some of these homeless to clean up the area they call "home"?
Good luck to the neighborhood this place is moving into. I actually have more homeless people using my property for a toilet or a bed than I did before the homeless shelter opened. Why? b/c they can get a meal, beg money, then go get drunk or high. They are then turned away from the shelter and end up crashing on the nearest "cozy" property.
Chapel Hill has put out the welcome mat to homeless and they are come in droves."
So I was catching up on the Chapel Hill News yesterday and I noticed some eery similarity in two stories about new downtown developments in both Carrboro and Chapel Hill. In one article, questions are raised about how the developers of Greenbridge qualified for the gigantic loan that they are currently unable to repay. It should surprise no-one to learn that the 15% of the condos that were mandated to be affordable by the Town sold first. It turns out that when the bank looked at pre-sales to determine demand, they counted the number, rather than the value, of the units. In fact, the News goes so far as to ask whether the affordable housing policy itself is somehow at fault for Greenbidge's current financial problems. I think that's a stretch, but it does make you think twice about the process by which banks decide to make commercial loans. (Housing bubble anyone?)
In another story, the News talks about the recently restarted mixed-use project at 300 East Main Street in Carrboro, which will bring 5 stories of retail, housing offices, a hotel, and parking to the current run-down strip mall that houses the ArtsCenter and the Cat's Cradle. (VisArt, RIP.) One key element that helped Main Street Partners to secure their financing for this was the Town of Carrboro agreeing to lease a large number of parking spaces for the first few years after construction.
The Chapel Hill Affordable Housing Technical Advisory Group met again for the first time after the town staff worked over the past 2 months to hold 59 focus groups, talking to nearly 450 people about what an affordable housing plan for the town should look like. We were joined by two new members; a representative from UNC (Linda Convissor) and a representative from the Homebuilders Association of Durham, Orange, and Chatham Counties (Nick Tennyson).
Focus groups were held with Habitat for Humanity families, UNC undergrad and graduate students, Chapel Hill fire fighters, residents of Northside, realtors, El Centro Hispano clients, members of the UNC Employees’ Forum, Community Home Trust owners, Chapel Hill Carrboro Schools employees, members of the Homebuilders Association and many others.
As reported in our local newspapers (see here & here), CVS has submitted plans to the town of Carrboro to build a large CVS and parking lot on the corner of N. Greensboro St. & Weaver St. This development would demolish at least 2 historic buildings, cut down many trees, create more traffic problems and the parking lot would be placed on a residential street.
See my previous two posts to get more details on the history of the project so far.
There are some new pieces of information that are relevant to the development:
Date:
Thursday, April 7, 2011 - 6:30pm
Location:
Hargraves Community Center, 216 North Roberson Street, Chapel Hill
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