In the Jan. 2 issue of the Chapel Hill News it was reported that Chapel Hill leaders were hoping that the new owners of University Mall and Rams Plaza would include condos in any new plans. It seems the town leaders would like to see redevelopment include “retail space on the ground floor and living spaces on the second and third floors.”

So here's the thing. Chapel Hill needs more commercial development because it has too much residential development. Residential development costs more in services than it generates in taxes. A study done for Orange County revealed that residential development generates about 76 cents in taxes for every $1 of services paid out in taxes; while commercial development (businesses) generates about $4.21 for every $1 of service paid out.

So basically without an adequate amount of commercial development you end up increasing taxes and fees on homeowners and renters or decreasing services or going into debt – or a combination of all three. And Chapel Hill taxes and fees are already causing many people who aren't wealthy to be very worried they may no longer be able to afford to live in town.

And Chapel Hill leaders have been so concerned about increasing commerical economic development that they have used your tax dollars to pay for consultants—used your tax dollars to form a downtown economic development corporation—and used your tax dollars to hire a permanent economic director.

We have also heard repeatedly that Chapel Hill is running out of land available for development.

And all of this might might you think that town leaders would be pushing the new owners of the two already established malls to concentrate all of their redevelopment efforts on increasing the commercial tax base by adding more businesses.

But instead they are pushing the new owners to build even more residential development in the form of condos—which will create even more of a tax drain and may even make the imbalance of too much residential vs commercial development worse.

And this obviously doesn't make a lot of sense.

It also doesn't make sense because the town also pushes the “shop local” campaign. But you can't shop locally if there just aren't that many places to shop. People are driving into Durham to shop because Durham has more places to shop and more choices.

If more shops were added at the already existing two malls then more people would frequent the malls and all the businesses would benefit—as would the town and all the citizens.

But instead the town wants the new owners to put condos on the second and third floors. Unless the people living in these condos are going to be selling things out of their homes, the whole shop locally campaign doesn't make a lot of sense.

In fact none of this makes any sense at all.

Oh, and one more point. Chapel Hill may be okay on water right now but it has been predicted that the drought next year will be as bad if not worse. And residential development uses more water than retail. So adding more population growth doesn't make sense if the goal is to conserve water to ensure an adequate supply for the future.

Oh, and one more point. There's been lots of talk about how it would be nice if Chapel Hill added more jobs for its citizens. More commercial development would do this—more residential development won't.