In most of North Carolina, a person engaged in high-rise, urban, mixed use, residential development would not be thought of as a leading light in the environmental movement. That assessment would be doubly so if the developer lived on a multi-million dollar, two hundred acre estate that had sheltered paying property taxes through the clever use of land conservancy exemptions. Efforts to lecture the community on sustainable living would be laughed at as being hopelessly hypocritical.

Orange County isn’t like the rest of North Carolina. Here hypocrisy can be forgiven if your Progressive heart is in the right place. It doesn’t matter what you do. It matters what you say. Ineffectual gibberish can pour from your lips like Niagara Falls, so long as it sounds good and makes the listener feel good.

Case in point, read the recent puff piece in the Chapel Hill News on Progressive urban high-rise residential developer Tim Toben.

Apparetly, Mr. Toben had accepted a job as the President of the New Economics Institute (NEI) and had been commuting weekly between Chapelboro and Great Barrington, Massachusetts. (The puff piece says New York, but the NEI is located in that pastoral playground of the New York City rich, Great Barrington. Only off by a hundred miles or so, that’s good enough for the local media.) Mr. Toben was motivated to take the position because the current economic model off which he augmented his inherited fortune is unsustainable. (Nice Progressive touch, first make your money, then change the system.)

Feeling troubled by his carbon commuting footprint, he gave up the position at NEI after six weeks.

What is the NEI? Good question. According to Mr. Toben, the NEI is dedicated to creating a ”new economics, one which supports people and the planet, mainstream in the United States.” Doesn’t that make you feel good? Doesn’t it sound good? But really, what is the NEI proposing that the boots on the ground should do?

That’s unclear.

According to the NEI, “The heart of the New Economics Institute’s strategy is collaboration. Presenting an academically and intellectually robust new economics will allow us to partner with mainstream businesses and financial services which are looking for ways to adapt to new economic mandates. It will allow us to bypass policy disputes between campaigning outsiders and innovative insiders by focusing on empirical solutions. ” Wow, that’s impressive sounding. But what are the Progressive boots going to do?

“The purpose of the New Economics Institute is to develop, research, and lead in a US context, the implementation of systemic solutions to a series of systemic problems that now face humanity. These include: • The sustainability, climate and dwindling resources crisis. • The equality crisis, here and around the world, in income, assets, access, and democracy. • The financial risk crisis, with a system that is neither efficient nor resilient. • The well-being crisis, in which rising income is not translating into rising happiness.
Many and various solutions to these crises are emerging, but the solutions are often not systemic, nor are the systemic problems widely understood as such, certainly not by policy-makers. Nor are the solutions being pulled together into a compelling and coherent narrative. The task of the New Economics Institute is to provide this narrative, as well as the missing intellectual support for major system change – to collect and link together the solutions that are emerging, and to research and develop solutions where they are not.
To achieve the political and economic will to implement major systematic change will require a cultural shift in public opinion. The work ahead for the New Economics Institute is to provide the feasible solutions and effective communications that the vanguard requires to make this shift possible.”

Are you still clueless as to what they want to do? Must be a new organization just getting its feet wet in the new economic order pool, right?

No, NEI has been around for over 30 years. In an earlier (you guessed it) tax exempt form it was known as the “E.F. Schumacher Society”.

Well what has this group done to bring about a new economic order over the past thirty decades? They promote the use of community land trusts (CLTs). According to NEI, “a CLT is a form of common land ownership with a charter based on the principles of sustainable and ecologically-sound stewardship and use. The land in a CLT is held in trust by a democratically-governed non-profit corporation. Through an inheritable and renewable long-term lease, the trust removes land from the speculative market and facilitates multiple uses such as affordable housing, village improvement, commercial space, agriculture, recreation, and open space preservation. Individual leaseholders own the buildings and other improvements on the land created by their labor and investment, but do not own the land itself. Resale agreements on the buildings ensure that the land value of a site is not included in future sales, but rather held in perpetuity on behalf of the regional community.”

In the more blunt words of Schumacher Society founder Robert Schwann, “Motivated by a commitment to peace and social justice, I have devoted most of my life to economic reform and the strengthening of small communities. Specifically, my work has been in land reform (trusteeship, not ownership, of land); monetary reform (interest- and inflation-free money and local currencies); and cooperative ownership (worker management and ownership of the means of production). I am encouraged to see growing interest in and application of these concepts around the world.”

In plain words, the NEI wants to see the end of private personal land ownership. You should not own the land upon which your home sits. That's the cornerstone of the new world economic order. No matter where you live, if you don’t own the land on which your home sits, then you can be coerced into behaving the way your local majority wants you to behave. Get it? Ah yes, more great transition control mongers.

Perhaps Mr. Toben’s short exposure to the Presidency of the NEI is behind his putting his country baronial retreat up for sale. For only $4,360,000 you too can own a home over 8900 square feet, with nine bedrooms, nine and a half bathrooms, and over 188 acres.

According to Mr. Toben, his family is redoubling their efforts to work for a sustainable planet in another way. He will be entirely off the grid by 2012, producing all their energy and food. Guess there’s no morning orange juice, coffee, tea, or bananas on the menu at Mr. Toben’s Pickard Mountain Eco-Institute (PME) after 31 December 2011.

Curiously, in the same puff piece Mr. Toben indicates that the also tax exempt (do any Progressive organizations pay taxes?) PME will continue to “expand its work, conducting workshops, hosting school groups and other organizations, inviting guest lecturers and so on, to help educate people about natural building, green energy and food production.” Isn't the homebase for PME for sale?

So is Mr. Toben selling his Shangri-La or not? Is his ultra-expensive mixed use Chapel Hill urban project Greenbridge ecologically sustainable or merely a greenwash way to seek personal profit?

In most of North Carolina, an attorney representing a town would not represent a real estate developer actively developing in that town, even if the representation was for a development outside the town. After all, there’s the concept of the appearance of impropriety. There’s also the natural question, how can one truly advocate for and against the interests of the same person contemporaneously? How can one truly advocate for the best interests of town citizens against the interests of a developer that one is advocating for in an adjacent town?

However, Orange County isn’t like the rest of the state. Here, there can’t be corruption. Here, there can’t be conflicts of interest. Here, there can’t be appearances of impropriety. Progressives are pure of motive. Thus, these things just can’t be, even when (to those living in the non-Progressive world) they exist.

So, it should not come as a surprise to Pulpsters that Mr. Michael Brough, who simultaneously served as the Carrboro town manager and the Carrboro outside contractor town attorney (a situation in which he completely agreed with himself on all decisions), is once again pushing the boundaries of representation. Mr. Brough continues his two decade plus representation of Carrboro. A reign so successful, no citizen knows how many millions of dollars he's received to give advice that consistently places Carrboro in court to the benefit of Mr. Brough’s wallet.

As Carrboro's most expensive attorney, he's seen local developer and local political campaign contributor Ms. Carol Zinn come before the Carrboro governance board (the Boa) many times with multi-million dollar development projects. When Ms. Zinn appears, he must give advice to the Boa, advice that one would hope often conflicts with the interests of Ms. Zinn. He's supposed represent the interests of the Boa. In turn, theoretically (now don’t laugh), that means he's supposed to represent the interests of town citizens. However, it would be wholly naive to believe that Ms. Zinn's interests are always aligned with town citizen interests.

Turns out, Mr. Brough sees no problem also representing Ms. Zinn when she has problems with the adjacent twin town, Chapel Hill. (How convenient to have helped then Mayor Ellie Kinnaird stop the town merger movement back in the 1980s.) Yes, Mr. Brough represents Ms. Zinn in her battle over the proposed Ayden Court development in Chapel Hill. Mr. Brough wrote Chapel Hill staff attorney Mr. Ralph Karpinos concerning an alleged trespassing by Town Councilor Ed Harrison on Ms. Zinn’s property.

Mr. Harrison indicates that Ms. Misty Buchanan, a botanist with the N.C. Natural Heritage Program, and he visited ground zero in February 2010. However, he asserts that he never left adjacent UNC land to wander onto Ms. Zinn’s land.

Mr. Brough claims that just because of the visit (which is described as a trespass) Mr. Harrison may have lost his objectivity. Apparently Mr. Brough doesn’t want to forgive us our trespasses, preferring to lead us into temptation. According to Mr. Brough, Mr. Harrison might not be able to consider the merits of any future proposal for Zinn’s land “without having a fixed opinion prior to hearing the matter,” as required by law. (SeeN&O Forgive Us Our Trespasses Story.)

Curiously, Mr. Brough can maintain his objectivity in representing against Ms. Zinn in Carrboro, while representing for Ms. Zinn in Chapel Hill. However, Mr. Harrison has lost his objectivity by strolling on land next to Ms. Zinn’s.

In true progressive fashion, Mr. Karpinos found the loophole to restore Mr. Harrison’s objectivity. Ms. Zinn didn’t have an active development request in front of the town of Chapel Hill while M. Harrison perambulated. Thus, Mr. Karpinos may have provided Mr. Brough with his excuse as well. Appearances of impropriety be damned. So long as Ms. Zinn doesn't have an active development in front of Carrboro while Mr. Brough is actively representing Ms. Zinn in Chapel Hill, all is well. How progressive!

Here’s a fascinating note from Mr. Karpinos. According to him, you are free in Chapel Hill to walk on any other person’s land as you desire.unless the owner tells them otherwise, as with a “No Trespassing” sign. So start checking out all those fancy residences in Meadowmont and the Oaks. Until you're told to scram, it's OK!

No word on what Mr. Karpinos will say to the town governance board if “No Trespassing” signs sprout on all the residential yards of Chapel Hill as a result of his opinion.

Nothing brings home the naivete' of local progressive leadership when it comes to for-profit business dealings than the recent statement by Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt in referring to the 140 West Franklin deal. “The town can’t back out. It’s not a matter of money; once the town agrees to a development deal, it can’t simply change its mind.”

Pulpsters will recall that The Town owns the land to be developed at 140 West Franklin, is an investor in the development with cash, is a financial stakeholder in the outcome, and is the regulatory authority controlling the development. The Town’s business partner is Ram Development Inc. of Florida (Ram).

Does Ram management share Mr. Kleinschmidt’s dogged devotion to deals?

In October 2006, about one year after getting into bed with Chapel Hill on 140 West Franklin, Ram was courting the city council of Tampa, Florida. The prize? How about 38 acres of land in downtown Tampa.

The blighted area was called Temple Terrace, located roughly at the intersection of North 56th Street and Bullard Parkway. Ram. in association with Pinnacle Realty Advisors of Tampa and Cooper Carry of Atlanta. told the Tampa council that if the city forked over money ($6,700,000) for city-financed parks mixed in with privately-funded retail and residential components, everything would work out fine. The Ram group got picked by the Tampa council for the $45,000,000 mixed use revitalization of a depressed urban site.

Sound familiar?

Fast forward to October 2008. Ram and its Pinnacle Group partner back out of the Tampa Temple Terrace project.

Apparently, one can back out of a deal with a municipality. You can simply change your mind.

So much for a dogged devotion to deals.

In most of North Carolina, environmentalists seeking to keep a watershed protected from urban growth would fight vociferously against real estate development interests seeking to place the heaviest urban development smack up against the streams running through that watershed.

However, Chapelboro isn’t like the rest of North Carolina. Here, perversity truly reigns. Self-proclaimed progressive, environmentalist elected officials lead the charge to develop the Bolin Creek watershed with the heaviest urban densities. Self-proclaimed environmentalist groups such as the Orange Chatham Group of the Sierra Club and the Friends of Bolin Creek applaud town leadership for “smart growth” land development, ignoring the watershed destruction when it’s their friends seeking the approval of a mixed use development such as Winmore.

Why?

Because first you must destroy a watershed, in order to pat yourself on the back for caring enough to restore a watershed. You must allow your friends to profit from destroying a watershed, so as to seek taxpayer supported government grants to restore the watershed.

Keep the problem from arising in the first place? Then what would we do for work?

Bolin Creek is an excellent example of it became necessary to destroy the watershed in order to save it. In 2002 and 2003, the Department of Water Quality assessed the Bolin Creek watershed. As noted in an EPA 319 grant proposal, It found “several effects of urbanization, including habitat degradation, riparian degradation, channel incision/embeddedness, low base flow, and toxicity, are believed to be the primary factors stressing this watershed. Most of these problems were more prominent as one moves downstream in the watershed. Other potential stressors included temperature (ranges and extremes), high BOD/COD, nutrients, and cross-connections or leaks from sanitary sewer lines.”

Did this assessment halt further development along Bolin Creek until a plan could be developed?

No. Rather development approval intensified. The progressive leadership of the town of Carrboro (the Boa beacon) approved Winmore, the heaviest mixed use density permissible under town rules, smack dab up against Bolin Creek. (What’s the tagline for Winmore? “Tread lightly”.) Further developments seeking approval include further Lake Hogan Farms development, Turtleback Crossing development, the Claremont subdivisions, and the now dormant Colleton Crossing and Carolina Commons developments.

Instead local environmentalists and elected officials applied to the EPA for money to restore Bolin Creek. Yes, our EPA bureaucrats sees no irony or disincentive in rewarding a local government for destroying a watershed through bad land use planning by paying them to restore that watershed.

How much money and for what?

For over $600,000, Chapel Hill and Carrboro will come up with a restoration plan, monitor the water quality, build a demonstration rain garden, and perform some stream improvements along 700 feet of the miles-long watershed. That effort will take five years. How progressive.

In the Fall 2009 local elections, a handful of challenger candidates asked about the official growth forecasts for the conjoined towns of Chapelboro. No numbers were forthcoming. Incumbent Carrboro mayoral candidate Mark Chilton even pontificated as to the how could a candidate think to ask for such numbers, as there was no forecast number. Turns out Mr. Chilton was wrong, again. Turns out, there is an official forecast for Chapelboro growth from 2005 to 2035. Turns out that in order to stuff an überexpensive regional rail plan connecting Chapelboro, local smart growth social engineers have had to produce such a forecast.

And here is the third final round of detail from a 2007 regional transportation report. (The national housing bubble was just about bursting at this time.) These projections are for overall population growth. A first series has been presented on the overall population sector growth, with a second series on the employment sector growth. Please keep in mind that this report was made available to representatives from each local municipal government.

The projections are for an additional 2809 UNC student households and an additional 1893 Duke and/or Durham Tech student households over the next 30 years.

If ever one needed corroboration of the spiritual/religious aspects of climate change zealots, then the announcement of the Spring 2010 revival (aka “the Great Unleashing”) to be held in Carrboro is worth a look. Dr. Katherine Shea (a member of the UNC Institute for the Environment) recently distributed a notice to “People of Faith for the Environment”. (Pulpsters are forgiven in seeing the irony in having a great unleashing in conjoined towns that have recently implemented leash laws for animals.)

Dr. Shea is part of a new organization in Chapelboro dedicated to changing your lifestyle, for your good. It’s called “Transition Carrboro – Chapel Hill”. The mission statement for TCCH states, “Our purpose: Growing a pathway towards a positive local future that meets our needs in the context of the twin challenges of climate change and the end of cheap oil.”

TCCH will proselytize using a process developed by Mr. Rob Hopkins called ” Transition Town Initiatives” It’s set out in Mr. Hopkins book, “The Transition Handbook”. The cornerstone of the process is developing an “Energy Descent Action Plan” or EDAP. What's an EDAP. Look at the plan developed for a small Irish resort town. The Kinsale EDAP reveals a desire to return to the middle ages in terms of a local economy. The keyword is self-reliance.

Town residents should grow their own food locally (or at least 60% anyway), regardless of the local climate or soils. The town should appoint and pay a “Local Food Officer”. This food czar directs local food production. The town should become a “Slow Food” town. Fast food eating is banned. Food is made more expensive, putting a greater part on one’s daily budget.

Lawns are out. They’re bad (even though they can be used to sequester carbon through mulching). Town grounds should be covered in fruit trees. A municipal parking garage should be transformed into a subtropical arboretum for producing expensive bananas. Urban livestock raising should be the norm, with animal feces all over town. Livestock should be raised “free range”. Medicine can be made from locally grown mushrooms. Urban aquaculture should be used to raise fish in town.

Dr. Shea says the following about Chapelboro’s Great Unleashing. “Transition Carrboro-Chapel Hill…has been busy planning and has nailed down a date and location for our GREAT UNLEASHING. This is the capstone event of the Steering Committee's work which launches the concept of Transition in our towns. We hope to have many interested individuals and groups at this gala event which will include speakers, discussion, fun and food. An open spaces process will result in the formation of self-defined, sector based working groups which will take over the Transition work of growing a pathway to a positive, low carbon, locally resilient future in Carrboro and Chapel Hill. Climate Change and Peak Oil are upon us, but being proactive and creative will allow us to meet the future with enthusiasm and joy if we start now.

Please stay tuned for events leading up to the Great Unleashing, but mark your calendars now for May 15th. We need the minds, hearts and leadership of the faith community strongly represented in this critical work, so please plan to come and pass the word to others.”

Dr. Shea doesn’t tell you that this event comes designed straight from the Permaculture playbook,The Transistion Initiatives Primer. In following this playbook, expect government funds to be given to yet another, newly created local non-profit group.

Also expect to hear key parts of the Permaculture Creed chanted during the Great Unleashing. “Life with less energy is inevitable and it is better to plan for it than be taken by surprise. Industrial society has lost the resilience to be able to cope with energy shocks.” Anarchism and tribalism return under the guise of “respecting your elders”.

While creating its EDAP, will Chapelboro’s Transition Initiative advocates seek the end of the mining of hundreds of millions of dollars annually from the other 99 North Carolina counties which supports the local living economy UNC engine?

In the Fall 2009 local elections, a handful of challenger candidates asked about the official growth forecasts for the conjoined towns of Chapelboro. No numbers were forthcoming. Incumbent Carrboro mayoral candidate Mark Chilton even pontificated as to the how could a candidate think to ask for such numbers, as there was no forecast number.

Turns out Mr. Chilton was wrong, again. Turns out, there is an official forecast for Chapelboro growth from 2005 to 2035. Turns out that in order to stuff an überexpensive regional rail plan connecting Chapelboro, local smart growth social engineers have had to produce such a forecast for the East 54 development corridor.

And here is the first round of detail from a 2007 regional transportation report. (The national housing bubble was just bursting at this time.) These projections are for overall population growth. A second series will be presented on the employment sector growth, with a final third series on the student sector growth. Please keep in mind that this report was made available to representatives from each local municipal government.

The following table gives the total overall population numbers projected to 2035 for each municipal jurisdiction. Chapelboro will grow to about 110,000 residents, Orange County to about 160,000.

The overall population growth projections in the table below are the NEW residents, i.e., are in addition to current residents. Orange County is estimated to increase by 50,000 residents by 2035, 30,000 of which will be in Chapelboro, 10,000 in Hillsborough, all facilitated by your tax dollars! Are you ready for 250,000 more people just in the Western Triangle?

As the following table shows, the overall population growth projections are based on fairly stable household sizes.

In the Fall 2009 local elections, a handful of challenger candidates asked about the official growth forecasts for the conjoined towns of Chapelboro. No numbers were forthcoming. Incumbent Carrboro mayoral candidate Mark Chilton even pontificated as to the how could a candidate think to ask for such numbers, as there was no forecast number.

Turns out Mr. Chilton was wrong, again. Turns out, there is an official forecast for Chapelboro growth from 2005 to 2035. Turns out that in order to stuff an überexpensive regional rail plan connecting Chapelboro, local smart growth social engineers have had to produce such a forecast for the East 54 development corridor.

And here is the first round of detail from a 2007 regional transportation report. (The national housing bubble was just bursting at this time.) These projections are for overall population growth. A second series will be presented on the employment sector growth, with a final third series on the student sector growth. Please keep in mind that this report was made available to representatives from each local municipal government.

The following table gives the total overall population numbers projected to 2035 for each municipal jurisdiction. Chapelboro will grow to about 110,000 residents, Orange County to about 160,000.

The overall population growth projections in the table below are the NEW residents, i.e., are in addition to current residents. Orange County is estimated to increase by 50,000 residents by 2035, 30,000 of which will be in Chapelboro, 10,000 in Hillsborough, all facilitated by your tax dollars! Are you ready for 250,000 more people just in the Western Triangle?

As the following table shows, the overall population growth projections are based on fairly stable household sizes.

The greatest social engineering tool of our time is the bogeyman of mankind-induced catastrophic climate change. Practically all land use planning in southern Orange County is against the drop of this bogeyman. “If you don’t densify your town, then the bogeyman will come get you!”

Unfortunately, in the midst of a local election year, the bogeyman just got put back into his box with regards to the drought that gripped the Southeast (including southern Orange) from 2005 to 2007. According to a recently published The Journal of Climate article, the drought was caused by population growth. Moreover, the rainfall patterns fell within historical climatic rainfall patterns. “At the root of the water supply problem in the Southeast is a growing population.”

Oops!

Citing metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia growth figures, the authors noted that the population has grown from about 6,480,000 in 1990 to about 9,540,000 in 2007. That’s a growth rate of about 50%.

Compare that growth rate to Orange County. Since 1990, Orange County has grown from about 94,000 to about 125,000 in 2007. That’s a growth rate of about 33%.

As reported in the New York Times, Dr. Richard Seager, a climate expert at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who led the article study, “Our conclusion was this drought was pretty normal and pretty typical by standards of what has happened in the region over the century.” Furthermore, similar droughts unfolded over the last thousand years. Regardless of climate change similar weather patterns can be expected regularly in the future, with similar results. (See NYT SE Drought Story.)

The wedge of man-made, drastic climate change will be the dominant 21st century social engineering tool used to force behavioral changes throughout the USA. (Just ignore the unrestricted carbon loading of the rapidly growing mega-economies of China and India.)

All “socially progressive” change can be dictated by invoking the faithful dogma of globally warning about “global warming”. Want to reduce vehicle selection? Say “global warming”. Need to densify housing? Say “global warming”. Care to reduce meat consumption? Say “global warming”. Like to tax all consumption? Say “global warming”.

Facts? Religion doesn’t need facts. Just don’t say one thing to the true believers – “population control”.

It should come as no surprise that the faux environmental political forces in Orange County are pushing the latest social engineering tool to eliminate the dreaded and evil pariah – the franchised restaurant chain.

On 2 June 2009, the Commishes considered banning any further drive-thru business operations in Orange County. The proposed legislative ban, spearheaded by Commish Mike Nelson, was countered by a county planning board recommendation that the Commishes NOT vote for the ban, but instead promote an educational campaign about vehicle idling.

The measure was narrowly defeated (3-4), with Commishes Nelson, Alice Gordon, and Bernadette Pelissier voting for the ban. Never fear, Commish Barry Jacobs voted against the ban, but wants to reconsider it AFTER the municipal elections in November.

According to Mr. Nelson, it was a sad day for Orange County. “Last night the Orange County Board of Commissioners had an opportunity to prohibit new drive thru windows. Why would we be interested in banning drive thru windows? Many folks view them as a necessary convenience of early 21st century life.”

Conveniently, Mr. Nelson omits the part of the staff report recommending “'franchise architecture’ shall be strongly discouraged.” In other words, remove the architectural branding that a highly competitive service business needs to differentiate itself. He also omits the part that considered allowing drive-thrus, but charging an annual “carbon impact fee”. Such a move would open the door also to charging residents such a “fee” (aka a tax).

Opining further, Mr. Nelson states, “There are two reasons to consider prohibiting them (an action, by the way, that Carrboro took over a decade ago). First, we talk a good game about walkability; the county's new comprehensive plan calls for building a more walkable, pedestrian-friendly community. Yet,our planning regulations all too often create the exact opposite. Drive thru windows, by any reasonable definition, do not promote the pedestrian-friendly development our comprehensive plan calls for. But the even more important reason to prohibit drive-thru windows is to reduce air pollution and to take our community's first steps towards addressing a global warming. When we're campaigning, we local elected officials make all sorts of promises about the need to address global warming and how we'll do our part. But for the most part the rhetoric hasn't been followed up with action.” (See Nelson’s Pearls of Wisdom.)

Mr. Nelson rarely bothers with non-narcissistic concepts such as acquiring supportable technical backup, taking courses of technical study or training, or reviewing alternative arguments. Thus, he sees no problem either with appearing in a national AAR ad wearing the label “environmental scientist” (a collegiate degree noticeably absent from his resume’) or with quantifying what will actually be saved by the ban.

Mr. Nelson seems to be unaware of a comparative report commissioned by a Canadian coffee shop chain (Tim Hortons). That report found that “ [the] congestion that occurs in the parking lot, together with the start-up emissions and emissions from the extra travel distance to get to and from a space, all contribute to produce somewhat higher (CAC) emissions per vehicle compared to a store that has a drive-thru.” The report is based on actual traffic counts and timings. It may not make Mr. Nelson feel good, but it’s called “scientific methodology”.

Apparently, Mr. Nelson is also oblivious of the fact that auto technology has advanced to the point where engines will automatically shut down if the vehicle stays in one spot for more than a few seconds, and then restart when the throttle is actuated. (See more about "mild hybrid" vehicles.)

Displaying his narcissistic crutch, Mr. Nelson seems to forget that a significant part of the population isn't like him. They can’t walk as he can. He seems to want to impose his lifestyle on those with physical disabilities, a telling demonstration of the empathy he possesses. If he can get out of his car and walk, then you can get out of yours.

Handicapped? Just swing yourself into your wheelchair. It's no big deal. Elderly with bad joints? Get walking.

In most of North Carolina, “urban” is a land descriptor that is defined, in part, as the absence of farms and farm animals. The lessons learned from a hundred years ago, as urban areas first developed in the USA, incorporated and codified the fact that farm animals should be separated from dense human populations. The removal of horses from streets vastly improved public health in urban areas with the introduction of the dreaded automobile.

However, Orange County isn’t like most of North Carolina. Here, ground zero for ”small town urbanism”, “urban” means whatever you want it to mean. “Urban” is “good”. “Suburban” is “bad”. Lessons of history? What are they? Zoonoses? What are they?

So at the same time that the BOA is crucifying a local widow with a real farm that lies outside Carrboro but within its “torture limits” (aka extraterritorial jurisdiction) over a barn apartment, it gleefully and quickly changes the land use ordinances to allow goats to be kept on as little as a one half acre residence in a residential subdivision.

On 7 April 2009, Ms. Marieanne Prince, not the owner of record for 104 Cathy Road, ”urban farmer”, ”artist of reuse”, and a ”proponent of play”, asked the BOA to allow her to keep two goats on her half acre, along with her 50 (yes, that's right 5…0…) chickens, one illegal rooster, and some ducks. Ms. Price exhibited no knowledge of real farming. She did not come from a farming background. She has no demonstrated knowledge in animal diseases or animal disease control. She has provided no documentation of the use of animal disease control regimens on her “farm”.

The Prince ”Farm”


That was enough of a showing for the BOA to agree to change the law to allow goats onto Carrboro residential properties. You just need to apply for a town permit. A vague, ill-defined neighbor appeal process will be available, sure to please pals of the BOA, who can give their neighbor’s goats the boot, and sure to confound everyone else. (See Chapel Hill Herald Goat Story.)

Goat Zoonoses
As a public service to Pulpsters, here are just some of the goat diseases that can be spread to humans. Please do not bother to forward this Pulp expose' to the BOA, as facts merely confuse the members.

Sharing with goats, how Carrboro.

The closing of the Chapel Hill Horace Williams airport owned by UNC Chapel Hill is an eagerly awaited event by OPies. The insistence of UNC Health Care to maintain an airport in Orange County is viewed askance as not being sustainable. UNC Chapel Hill and the UNC Health Care system are forming a 15-member board to site a replacement airport ithe airport. With the creation of an airport board, OPies are concerned that building a new airport in Orange County is more than a pipe dream.

To soothe the progressive psyche, up to the plate steps former Chapel Hill Councilor, OPie propagandist, Carrboro Mayor political attack surrogate (aka ”Weaver Guy” on local political blogs and forums), and failed local transfer tax shill Joseph Capowski. Mr. Capowski wants to serve on the airport authority

Mr. Capowski is concerned about the airport board’s “too great authority,” which includes the power of eminent domain, i.e. the acquisition of of private property for public use. Writing to Chapel Hill Mayor Foy to secure the town's seat on that board, Mr. Capowski says, “Though I spent 21 years on the faculty of the med school, I do not believe that a UNC airport is the all-important need for the med school, the UNC hospitals and health care in North Carolina. Rather, an airport must be viewed in the context of the county and towns.”

Mr. Capowski, a contract UNC employee without any medical degree or tenure track position, has no known qualification in aviation, infrastructure siting, or emergency medicine logisitics, matching his expertise in taxation policy and character assessment.

Time not only heals all wounds, it enables all amnesia. A classic example of OPie amnesia can be found in how local “environmentalists” can be “for” a dense growth development alongside an ecologically sensitive stream basin and also “against” the same development. All it takes is time and a familiarity with invertebrates.

On 26 August 2008 the Carrboro Boa will consider easing the impervious surface rules for the failed “mixed use” village real estate development called “Winmore”. Founded on a bed of misperceptions, the Winmore project had the highest density allowed in Carrboro at the time, yet was located on top of the most ecologically sensitive stream basin in Carrboro, Bolin Creek, home to rare salamander invertebrates. Despite objections from all adjacent neighborhoods, the Boa approved Winmore.

Five years after public approval, Winmore still has no retail or commercial development, barely having any residential development. Instead of houses costing on average about $300,000, the housing in Winmore starts well over $500,000 and exceeds $1,000,000.

The reason for making one more environmental excuse for Winmore is to allow a day care center at Winmore. The request comes not from the developer team that got the original Winmore approval, but from Capkov Ventures Inc., who bought the development approvals as a wrapped gift package from the friends of the Boa developer team that made all the original broken promises to the Boa in order to get Winmore approval. In typical Boa fashion, the request is simply to exempt day care centers from being counted in making impervious surface calculations. For environmental purposes, day care centers will not exist in determining environmental impact in Carrboro mixed use villages, even if the reality is that their existence harms the environment.

The local media reports that Mr. Dave Otto, chair of the Friends of Bolin Creek micro interest “environmental” advocacy group, is going to speak out against allowing the day care center exemption. Today, Mr. Otto (as quoted by the N&O) says, ”A mixed-use development never should have been approved in this location in the first place”.

Curiously, the local media doesn’t quote Mr. Otto from a puff piece done only about a year earlier to prop up Winmore. In Mr. Otto’s 2007 words, in 2003 he thought Winmore was “[T]oo close to Bolin Creek… Our original thought was that they could've done this farther from Bolin Creek. But now that it's been approved, now that it's here, we think they did a good job.” Mr. Otto is described as “one of the supporters at a ribbon-cutting off Homestead Road”. He is also quoted as praising, ”They've built an incredibly beautiful nature trail around the periphery of the property. People that enjoy nature will be able to enjoy a beautiful nature trail right outside their doorstep.” Mr. Otto carefully ignores the clear cutting of the last mature hardwood forest on Bolin Creek at Winmore, a clearcutting in clear violation of the Boa approval which “required” saving almost a hundred specimen trees.

So which is it? Is Mr. Otto for Winmore or against Winmore being built?

Pulp readers are familiar with having to dig deeper when land developers and progressive politicians are bedfellows.

Mr. Otto didn’t really object to Winmore at the public hearings in May 2003. According to official town minutes, Mr. Otto “, on behalf of the Friends of Bolin Creek, was sworn in. He expressed concern that this development will be approved prior to the Bolin Creek Corridor Master Plan. He stated that they support the idea of establishing a nature park in the Bolin Creek corridor and the conservation easement to protect the natural characteristics of this corridor, but that other features of the proposal such as rezoning for denser development and plans for storm water management require further study and review before the plan is approved.” Mr. Otto did not call for Boa members to vote against approving Winmore, i.e., he did not object to Winmore.

So which is it? Is Mr. Otto for Winmore or against Winmore being built?

Apparently, Mr. Otto is for protecting his own backyard from the intense development that he allowed to get built at Winmore. If a day care center can be made to vanish, then perhaps an automobile road bridge can be made to do so as well.

Mr. Otto lives here (see arrow):

Pulp readers can see that he lives in a Carrboro (in pink) residential neighborhood) right near a road stub out. That stub out, built far beyond the necessary carrying capacity of Mr. Otto’s now cul de sac, is shown on future road plans as being eventually connected to Seawell School Road by a bridge over Bolin Creek and a small patch of road (both in green). Mr. Otto’s road was approved and built to connector road standards, far beyond the needs of his neighborhood. The future proposed bridge will connect a high volume of traffic from a future Carolina North UNC research park mainly in Chapel Hill (blue) to Carboro’s historic business district. Any easing of environmental protections for Bolin Creek at Winmore can be used to justify building the bridge.

As witnessed also by the failure of now Commish Bernadette Pelissier to rise to a challenge to speak out agaisnt environmental racism, backbones are not required for “protecting” the invertebrate environment of Carrboro.

Greenwashing Resource-Demanding Development
“Greenwash” refers to the application of a socially acceptable veneer of “feels good” eco-justification to manmade creations that demand ever more resources from the planet. (Notice Carrboro planners never talk about reducing the population growth and the ultimate number of houses, just change the nature of the houses.)

Want to drive a second Lexus without guilt? Talk about the grass roof on the assembly plant.

Under the rubric of creating “green jobs” and “sustainability” the Carrboro planning gurus have a new concept of “community living” to double residential density without considering affordable housing. The side benefit is that “community living” will be designed to filter and select new Carrboro residents that are in agreement with the mindset of those in power in Carrboro. (In Carrboro “diversity” is all about cosmetics, not thoughts.)

The “little engines of green jobs and smart growth” greenwash is bubbling up from the Carrboro planning board based on a concept from a local developer, Mr. Trip Overholt.

Here’s the deal. The real estate developer gets twice the normal residential density without having to build “affordable housing”. A greenwash development is designed around the “coal camp” cohousing vision of Pacifica. Houses front on a common area with a community garden. Houses will be limited in size to 1500 square feet. Prices are estimated to be about $350,000 each or about $230.00 per square foot. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification will be sought for the design.

In return, Carrboro grants the developer expedited approval.

Here’s the greenwash. The development will have a community photovoltaic panel array that generates 3kw per house and will have roofs that capture rainwater to cut OWASA water consumption by 50%. (Of course, there’s no requirement to keep the array working and generating power for any period of time.)

Ignore Reality
Whatever you do, ignore the fact that the average American home uses more than 29 kWh per day. Even at half the average home consumption of electrical power, 3kWh is far less than 14 kWh. So the electrical power grid will still provide power to the greenwash development. The electrical power deficit will come from MORE coal fired power generation. So long as SOME power comes from the sun, it’s a “solar-powered community” even though it increases the carbon loading of Orange County.

Also, ignore the gaming that goes on with LEED certification issued by yet another tax exempt business, the U.S. Green Building Council. For example, a $400 bike rack scores a builder just as many points as a $1,300,000 environmentally sensitive heating system. Or a casino with a 3200 car garage receives points for being located within a quarter-mile of a subway stop. (See LEED Certification Story.)

Don’t worry. It’s safe to accept greenwash, because in the words of Mr. Overholt, it’s “exactly what the Obama administration wants”. (Genuflection optional.)

Familiar Ring
Sound familiar? It should. It’s Mr. Overholt’s Appalachian coal camp vernacular Veridia development on steroids. The only change is the estimated housing pricing. It's moved up in the last year by about 15%, contrary to all other real estate in southern Orange.

Why all the concern for revamping the Carrboro Developer Service Department? Turns out Mr. Overholt has a second Veridia in the works. He wants to build it in Carrboro at Merritt Mill Road. Could it be that the non-Boa pal student apartment project by the cement plant chased out of town last year by the Boa has made way for a Boa pal development?

As posted in the Pulp last September 2008, Developer Dream Team members D. R. Bryan, John Fugo, and Rosemary Waldorf proposed a six-story building in the middle of the village center. Back in September Developer Dream Team member, local political incumbent campaign contributor, and former Chapel Hill mayor Rosemary Waldorf,said ”[a] hotel or new residential condominium building could be a third 'anchor' in the Village Center, along with Weaver Street and the Lumina Theatre.” Ms. Waldrop and associates D.R. Bryan and John Fugo are all members of the team that won approval for a 1,000,000 square foot project at Buckhorn Village from the Orange County commishes.

Local citizen response was overall less than enthusiastic to the plans for a 90,000 hotel with 58,000 sq feet of parking.

Less than six months later, the Southern Village developers show their concern and respect for those citizens by revealing a plan that’s 33% bigger, one that encompasses over 120,000 square feet.

Here’s a table showing hotel project differences introduced since September's showing:

Lost recreational credits from the original zoning approval in paving over the open space and parking have not been discussed by the developers or town staff, an oversight of substance.

Showing just how clueless Southern Village residents are, Ms. Haleigh Cole told the Chapel Hill town planners that she doesn't want density in her community. ”Southern Village's appeal is in its small, suburban community environment,” she wrote. “However, over time that community is being invaded by unecessarily huge, city-like buildings. It's destroying our airspace. If this hotel is built … we'd be living in the shadow of city-like consumerism.”

No word on when the local media will inform its public that Chapelboro is engaged in small town urbanism, not small town suburbanism.

Pulpsters hear ad nauseum about how local Orange Progressive politicians and town planning staffs are on the forefront of bringing “Small Town Urbanism” to southern Orange County. In keeping with the standards for the local “transparency” of land use planning issues, there is no single codified answer to point to as the definition of small town urbanism. The amorphous, “feel good” cloud of small town urbanism floats above a shifting sea of fluid plans and studies.

Pulpsters, here's a challenge for you.

Take the Small Town Urbanist Planning & Intense Development (aka STUPID) quiz. A series of statements regarding land use planning will be listed below. Guess whether or not each statement is true for the towns of Chapelboro, the metropolis of Chicago, or both. See if you can tell the difference between small town urbanism and metropolitan urbanism.

The answers will be provided at the end. No peeking.

STUPID Land Use Planning Quiz – Is It Chicago, Chapelboro, or Both?

1. Money often drives the land use planning process.

2. Municipal planning staff objects to intense dense infill development that changes neighborhoods.

3. Homeowners are often left out of the decision-making and boxed in by towering or dense structures approved by politicians.

4. Citizen community input is an illusion.

5. Advisory groups appointed by local politicians are billed as neighborhood's voice but are ignored.

6. Politicans decide what can be built regardless of advisory group input.

7. Rezoning requests depend upon whether or not you’re a pal of the mayor.

8. Politician approves dense upzoning, while spouse sells units from resulting upzoning.

9. Politicians consider their municipal land issue planning process to be a national model.

10. Local media uncovers land use planning abuses and hauls politicians onto the carpet for public examination.

Here’s a hint, Small Town Urbanism is largely a reflection of the upbringing of many of Chapelboro’s ex-urban politicians, people who escaped a metropolis only to want to rebuild one here.


STUPID Quiz Answers

For those who finished and didn’t peek, here are the answers:

1. Money often drives the land use planning process.
Both. As in Chicago, Chapelboro densification is driven by money. Developers seek increased profits from densification. Towns seek increased tax base without the cost of improving the citizen quality of life.

2. Municipal planning staff objects to intense dense infill development that changes neighborhoods.
Chicago. The Chapelboro planning staff actually drives densification. Developer project in Carrboro are routinely rejected for not being dense enough, for not maxing out under existing zoning and in some case for not asking for upzoning.

3. Homeowners are often left out of the decision-making and boxed in by towering or dense structures approved by politicians.
Both. Chapelboro neighborhoods are under densification assault from their politicians, just like Chicago neighborhoods.

4. Citizen community input is an illusion.
Both. Citizens aren’t crying out for densification of their neighborhoods either in Chicago or in Chapelboro. They are being told how to live by those benefiting from a deterioration in the citizen quality of life.

5. Politicians decide what can be built regardless of advisory group input.
Both. Advisory groups in Chicago and Chapelboro have no legal authority. The statement “Three- and four-story condo buildings dwarf century-old workman's cottages on quiet side streets.” applies equally to Chicago and to Carrboro.

6. Advisory groups appointed by local politicians are billed as neighborhood's voice, but are ignored.
Both. Advisory groups are fig leafs for Chicago and Chapelboro politicians to wear during the campaign season.

7. Passage of rezoning or ordinance amendment requests depends upon whether or not you’re a pal of the mayor.
Both. In Chicago, Mayor Daley’s friends get rezoning for densification, while those not his pals don’t. In Carrboro, Mayor Chilton’s pals get excused from affordable housing requirements or receive upzoning while non-pal barn apartment owners are wrung out to dry. (See Barn Apartment Pulp Story.)

8. Politician approves dense upzoning, while spouse sells units from resulting upzoning.
Chicago. A Chicago alderman approved upzoning that led to his wife selling $22,000,000 in real estate. In Carrboro, Mayor Chilton does both. He approves upzoning and sells property resulting from that upzoning.

9. Politicians consider their municipal land issue planning process to be a national model.
Both. Incredibly, in Chicago and Chapelboro, those abusing the will of local neighborhoods see their abuse as a benevolent and wise wielding of power.

10. Local media uncovers land use planning abuses and hauls politicians onto the carpet for public examination.
Chicago. The Chicago Tribune has a marvelous investigative journalist series on land use planning (see Tribune Land Use Abuse Series). Chapelboro media exists in service as a real estate advertiser for and a lapdog to land use development interests.

So how did you do?

At least you know what STUPID politicians you have in southern Orange.

UNC trustee and local developer Roger Perry fires off a shot across the bow of “absentee landlords” on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill.

Speaking to the Friends of Downtown group, Mr. Perry said that he (a representative of the biggest in-town land owner, UNC) “wants the town to hound absentee downtown landlords into building-code compliance or out of business.” According to Mr. Perry, too many “out-of-town” landlords have allowed their properties to deteriorate ,especially on the second floor. ”One of the biggest problems with the 100 block [of East Franklin Street] is we have irresponsible ownership with a lot of the buildings. We have a lot of absentee owners of buildings and land up and down Franklin Street who have not been good stewards, and we should give them a hard time.” (See Chapel Hill News Downtown Story.)

Within one week, the town bureaucrats have responded by conducting fire marshal inspections in the 100 block of Franklin Street.

Of course, Mr. Perry has led the competitive stripping of downtown businesses by building nearby Meadowmont and East 54 on the outskirts of Chapel Hill. But with that development completed, Mr. Perry is ready, as a lead UNC trustee, to take on new redevelopment in the downtown section, all ten or so blocks of it. The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Foundation has bought two big Franklin Street properties, the University Square and Granville Towers properties for $46,000,000. Each is ripe for redevelopment.

So what does Mr. Perry see as the crying need for downtown redevelopment? Density of course! He wants more people living on and near Franklin Street to make the downtown “vibrant”, read profitable for developers. (That bodes well for approving mega-dense mixed use redevelopment of University Square and Granville Towers.) He wants more connections between Franklin Street and Rosemary Street. (That bodes equally well for the for-profit retail properties located in UNC penumbra landlord holdings.) He wants more inspections. (That bodes well for pressuring landlords to sell out to redevelopers with money, such as Mr. Perry or UNC.)

Pulpsters should understand the mechanism by which UNC is buying downtown properties for commercial development. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is not buying the properties directly. Rather it buys them through an affiliated (you guessed it) tax exempt organization, the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill Foundation (UNC-CH Foundation), a foundation started in 1977.

Time has done well by the UNC-CH Foundation. As of FY 2007, the UNC-CH Foundation controlled assets worth $238,355,858. It had an annual income of $35,396,612. It had an annual earnings revenue of $22,398,165. It also holds all the equity rights to technology created at UNC using federal government grants.

Pulpsters should not confuse the UNC-CH Foundation with the UNC endowment. The endowment is held, at least in part, by the University of Chapel Hill Foundation Investment Fund, Inc. (Foundation Investment Fund) started in 1996. The stated purpose of the Foundation Investment Fund is to support University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill through providing investment services to the endowment fund of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and other related organizations. It invests the UNC endowment fund and other University related foundations.

As of FY 2007, the total assets of the Foundation Investment Fund is $454,511,641.

No word on how a tax exempt foundation buys local commercial/mixed use real estate, pays local property taxes, but doesn't pay federal income taxes, all legal, of course.

Just when affordable housing appeared to be on top as the “main squeeze” for local Orange Progressive politicians, Alderman Dan Coleman’s misnamed “Procrustean” bed gets a more attractive and dominant partner, green power. (See Peeled & Sliced Archives).

A local straw bale (aka ”mud hut”, formerly known as “slumlord”) owner cum developer has provided the basis for the ideological Carrboro conundrum – which is a better land use partner, affordable housing or a quasi-solar powered community?

Background
“Veridia” is a proposed redevelopment of an existing affordable housing community. Currently known as the “Pine Grove Mobile Home Park” on Old Fayetteville Road, the existing Veridia (not to be confused with the Carrboro Appalachian coal camp vernacular co-housing communities of “Arcadia” or “Pacifica”) comprises 39 mobile home trailers. As it stands, the existing Veridia is among the most affordable housing in Carrboro. However, the recent (2006) buyer (Sustainable Properties LLC) told the Carrboro BOA that it couldn’t make money with the existing housing it purchased barely two years earlier.

The New Veridia
On the ashes of the bulldozed about 5 acres of affordable housing will be built 39 three bedroom homes, each having about 1350 square feet. That’s about 8 homes per acre. The Veridia developers propose the standard green mantra of catching rainwater for use (thereby depriving the natural environment with naturally distributed water resources), LEED certification and photovoltaic (PV) solar power.

Veridia neighbors will be pleased to discover that, like Pacifica, the Appalachian coal camp vernacular will be aesthetically enhanced by a perimeter road encircling the five acres and the placement of carport structures adjacent the neighbor’s property lines.

The target price for the homes is $289,000, or about $214.00 per square foot, well above the locally mandated affordable housing target price of $120,000. (See “Lord” Robert Dowling, Affordable Housing Guru.)

The Awesome 100 kW PV Powerhouse
Pulpsters may not readily appreciate the enormous power of the proposed 100 kW PV array. Each housing unit will be provided with about 3 kWh of electrical power per sunny day. No power will be provided either early in the morning or at night when residents use most of their electrical energy.

For perspective, the average American home uses more than 29 kWh per day. Of course, the electrical power deficit will come from coal fired power generation. So long as some power comes from the sun, in Carrboro that qualifies as a “solar-powered community”.

The Developer Pals
Veridia is being developed by Mr. Trip Overholt and Mr. Giles Blunden (of Arcadia and Pacifica fame). They are quintessential BOA pals. Carrboro’s Developer Mayor Chilton is so involved with Mr. Blunden that he asked to be recused from participating in a Veridia decision. In Mayor Chilton’s words, he “did legal work and real estate brokerage work ” for Mr. Blunden. (Unfortunately, Mr. Chilton didn’t see fit to recuse himself from earlier decisions involving Mr. Blunden and Pacifica. Town attorney Mike Brough approved Mr. Chilton voting despite Mr. Chilton’s employee being a Pacifica development partner with Mr. Blunden. )

Mr. Overholt is your above average Carrboro trustafarian developer. Coming from up North, he attended an ultra-expensive private preparatory school in New England (the Hotchkiss School, home to the Edsel Ford Memorial Library). After playing lacrosse in college in the mid-1970s, he had no occupation he considers worth mentioning until 7 years out of college.

Then as a “national proposal manager” for two years Mr. Overholt, in his own words, “helped Price Waterhouse win new multinational corporate clients by explaining to them in benefits oriented language how they might avoid paying their fair share of taxes using various offshore tax loopholes available only to the rich.”

Again with a three year “notable job” hiatus, Mr. Overholt became a Carrboro entrepreneur, opening “Earthwares”.

After setting the retail world on fire with the first “green retail department store” in North Carolina and striking fear into the heart of WalMart, Mr. Overholt ”reenvisioned” himself as the owner of Sustainable Properties, LLC. He started his developer journey building a straw bale house with salvaged building materials in Chatham County. He also rebuilt a vacation rental home in Beaufort, North Carolina, turning the existing affordable home into a garage for the new unaffordable beach house.

Besides “tire kicking with my south of the mason dixon brethren”, Mr. Overholt has the goal of building “an affordable green community that will allow me to morph into a writing and counseling career as I delve within myself for the ultimate truth.”

The Town Code Conundrum
Unfortunately for the Veridia developers, pals or not, the town code requires that the Veridia project include six affordable homes in order to qualify for stuffing 39 homes on 5 acres under the proposed scheme.

The town attorney Mr. Mike Brough has already juggled the code to allow replacing the 39 trailers with 39 homes without using a conditional use permit procedure so long as existing nonconformities are not “made worse” and all applicable rules and regulations are followed. In plain English (Spanish not having yet been mandated for Pulp communications) the Veridia developers would have to forego the co-housing gems of communal open space, no setbacks, no recreational area, and no perimeter road.

Widening The “Procrustean” Bed By Exemption
The BOA has the ability to exempt the Veridia redevelopment form the CUP process and the affordable housing requirements of CUP applications. With one stroke of a pen without need of a public hearing, the BOA can allow Messrs. Overholt and Blunden to avoid the rules for non-pal developers. (See Pulp Barn Apartment Story.)

The Veridia developers presented to the BOA their request for a CUP exemption on 2 December 2008 at a regular BOA meeting. No vote was taken.

No word on whether or not Mr. Chilton has an interest in Veridia.

See Herald Sun Veridia Story.

While the Chapel Hill Councilors discuss the aesthetics of the proposed hotel for the Southern Village village-mixed-use community just south of Chapel Hill, just off US 15-501, no one will be asking the Councilors why the local hotel developers are allowed to “park” real property taxes on the parking lot site for the hotel?

Having secured northern Orange County “Buckhorn Village” development rights from the Orange County commishes, Developer Dream Team members Mr. D.R. Bryan, Mr. John Fugo, and former Chapel Hill mayor Ms. Rosemary Waldorf have returned to their Chapel Hill roots (see Pulp Southern Village story) as the developers of Southern Village. Now they seek approval of a four story hotel or condominium project at Southern Village’s Market Street “ground zero”.

One of the main features of the Southern Village “downtown” is the Market Street commons, dominated at one end by the steeple of the United Methodist Church. The church overlooks the open space of a giant “U” shape of retail shops and offices. Part of this open area is a large, one acre parking lot for visitors to the Southern Village retailers. Being in the heart of a high value area, this parking lot has a county tax revenue department assigned “land value” of just over $500,000. That land value is about equivalent to the land price for the shops and stores forming the “U”.

Do the Developer Dream Team owners pay the current Chapel Hill tax rate of $1.809 per $100 of assessed value for such a valuable piece of land? No. Why not? They get a break on the “total valuation”. Although the “land value” is over $500,000, the county tax revenue department assigned a “total valuation”, the value upon which taxes owed are calculated, of just over $70,000. So instead of paying about $9100 a year in taxes, the Southern Village owners have only had to pay about $1300 since Southern Village was developed. All the while, your taxes have doubled.

“Alternative valuation”, it’s just another small gift from local politicians to their campaign contributors.

Demand for transportation infrastructure is linked to population volume and density in the real world. However, the Pulp is concerned with how infrastructure demand is viewed within the microcosm of southern Orange County. Apparently, such factors don’t matter to The Village Project, southern Orange’s pro-growth, tax exempt, eco land development lobbying group.

After working local politicians diligently in order to get a piece of the Buckhorn Village project from the Developer Dream Team, the Village people have turned their sights onto demanding that a light rail system be built from Chapel Hill, a community with a stated population buildout of less than 150,000 people to Durham and on to Raleigh. In the words of Village people guru and Carrboro planning board chair James Carnahan, ”We generally think that rail transportation is really important for our region, both for dealing with existing highway congestions and significant dependence on the automobile as well as the emissions that result.”

Money is no object for the Village people, as witnessed by their letter campaign. Recruiting a massive 530 signatures from fellow Weaver Street Market Birkenstock capitalists, the Village people asked if their pals want a light rail system. No mention was made as to cost. No mention was made as to who would pay the cost.

Sketchy local plans call for the rail starting at UNC Hospitals, moving roughly down Manning Drive toward NC 54, into Durham County, and looping back into Chapel Hill at the intersection of Interstate 40 and U.S. 15-501.

Assuming a system that stretched from Chapel Hill to Durham downtown and on to Raleigh, a minimal, nodal only system of 40 miles would cost (at a nominal cost of $40,000,000 per mile) only $1,600,000,000 to build. That price tag doesn't include the annual operating loss to be made up by local taxes. Southern Orange sales tax revenues are inadequate to fund such a project thanks to a two decade policy of driving commercial and retail development to surrounding counties.

Economic concerns are brushed aside by Mr. Carnahan ”It is an economic concern, and yes, it may be expensive. But that's in the short term. In the long-term, I don't see that we really have an option if we're going to continue with the quality of life we enjoy.” Apparently Mr. Carnahan hasn’t considered limiting population growth to curb the need for increased transportation infrastructure. Having escaped the truly urbanized northeastern USA corridor, Mr. Carnahan wants to duplicate that urbanization here in southern Orange, participating in the profits from eco land development.

No word on whose mommy and daddy will pay for the “light rail doggie” in the window.

For years the Pulp has kept you informed on how residential growth in Orange County is net negative to county finances, yet the county remains addicted to a policy of “growth for growth sakes”. Simple translation, your taxes had to rise every time a front door opened. Developers have been walking off with profits financed by you. Part of the problem is that impact fees have been unrealistically low, not reflecting the burden of a new residence on county infrastructure. Low impact fees have been good for developers, bad for taxpayers.

How Much Have Developers Been Underpaying?

Currently, city school impact fees are $4,407 for single-family and multi-wide manufactured homes, and $1,979 for multi-family and single-wide manufactured homes. County fees are $3,000 for single-family/multi-wide and $1,420, respectively. That means that city school district fees are 47% higher than county fees. Both fee rates have been unchanged for seven years, unlike your taxes.

In 2007 the Commishes authorized a study of impact fees and student generation rates between 2001 and 2007. Part of the study proposed new maximum impact fees supported by state law for each district, adjusted to account for the housing types found there.

The current maximum support impact fee of the city school district is $19,039. For the county district, that fee is $9,372. Developers have been underpaying impact fees by 77%, paying only 23% of what they could be charged by the county for a city district infrastructure impact fee. For the county, developers have been underpaying impact fees by 68%, paying only 32% of what they could be charged by the county. The difference has been paid by taxpayers, almost $15,000 per house.

Pulp readers should keep in mind that the city school district has built nearly twice as many schools as the county district in the last 20 years. The school cost for new students generated by new housing is a major portion of the impact fee.

Opposing School Boards Views

In September 2008, the city school board urged Commishes to increase impact fees ”in order to provide a source of funding to construct new schools to keep pace with the district's growing student population and the escalating cost of construction.”

However, at the same time the county school board doesn’t want to raise their impact fees. County school board chair (and former Commish) Stephen Halkiotis said during a recent joint meeting with his Commish pals that impact fee revenues have stayed steady. In his words, it ”makes life a little easier when it comes to the revenue side of the picture.” See the Herald Sun Impact Fee Story.

Why Such Different Attitudes?

The county school district has spent the past few years complaining about how the rural county areas are subsidizing the urban areas for school construction. However, the reverse is true. Tax flows from the southern part of the county have built new schools in the rural north. If the city school impact fees increase, then the bias toward promoting county district growth over city district growth (a Commish goal) will be enhanced.

The city school district has been floundering under the burdens of a ciudad del sanctuario (sanctuary city) policy, i.e., don't ask, don't tell about someone's immigration status. As students from larger, economically disadvantaged immigrant families enter the city school system, the burdens are increased more than ever before. Although city school district residential growth has slowed to a crawl, student growth continues from rental families crowding former student housing units, in many cases with multiple families per housing unit.

Will the Barn Door Be Closed?

On 21 October 2008, the Commishes have scheduled a public hearing as to whether or not to adopt new student generation rates under the “Developer’s Right to Underfund Building Schools” ordinance (DRUBS), officially known as the Schools Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (SAPFO). The Commish conundrum is simple, but hard. Do you keep impact fees low, promoting net negative growth and raising taxes? Or do you make impact fees equitable to existing taxpayers, slowing growth but making it tax revenue neutral? In simpler terms, will the maximum developer impact fee pig fly politically with Commish pals, local residential developers, and the local media aka real estate advertisers?

On 9 September 2008, the Chapel Hill Councilors ignored the recommendations of the town planning board and approved “Woodmont”, another, so-called “smart growth” village mixed use (VMU) development comprising 91,500 square feet of office space and at least 88,900 square feet of multifamily homes and retail spaces. Located in Durham County as the town of Chapel Hill spreads beyond single county boundaries, Woodmont will eventually comprise up to a total of 600,000 square feet of VMU use, located off N.C. 54, east of Barbee Chapel Road.

For those Pulp readers wondering why the town of Chapel Hill is in Durham County, state municipal annexation law is designed to promote cross county annexation by towns and cities. The annexation of the vacant Woodmont acreage is designed to promote deals between politically connected developers and town governance boards such as the Chapel Hill town council.

In April 2008 the town planning board saw Woodmont as an office park disguised as a VMU, a VMU to be plopped into the middle of low density residential use. Such conclusions are not surprising given that the owner of Woodmont project is a well connected Triangle office park developer, Capital Associates.

The town council saw tax revenues. Money to feed a ceaselessly burgeoning government bureaucracy trumped any zoning legal concern over the rights of nearby residential town citizens, who can’t afford to move elsewhere regardless of what the council approves.

The town council saw an office park amidst low density residences as being in furtherance of the town’s comprehensive zoning plan, an office park built with the tallest structures on the highest point of the landscape.

The town council saw an office park with six story structures and segregated multi-family residential structures as fitting within the two to three story structures with integrated living units described for VMU use in the town’s comprehensive zoning plan.

The town council saw a fit between Woodmont (an office park with two story, lighted parking decks, and segregated high density residences (8 to 15 housing units per acre)) and existing low density residences.

The town council saw no problem with approving Woodmont without any promise as to when a separate new traffic intersection would be built onto NC 54, one of the most congested roads in southern Orange, even though NCDOT has a current backlog of $65,000,000,000 in requested projects statewide.

The town council saw a reduction of 10% in traffic use for an office park because of the existence of Chapel Hill Transit, even though Woodmont is not scheduled for a transit stop, the closest stop being half a mile away at the Meadowmont VMU.

The local media saw increased real estate advertising revenues. (See N&O Woodmont story.)

The power of locally connected developers over Orange County governance boards continues unabated. Developers of the Chapel Hill village mixed use (VMU) hill sprawling, twisty road community known as the “Goat Trails” (aka Southern Village) have proposed a six-story building in the middle of the village center. Less than a decade ago the 60-foot spire on Christ United Methodist Church symbolized the faith of local urban planners in “humanizing” suburbia. Now that spire will be dwarfed by the new symbol of local urban planning, the Trump-like profiteering of a high end condo block blocking people's views.

Currently, the village center has parking for those visiting the stores and shops of the village center. In the words of developer dream team member and former Chapel Hill mayor Rosemary Waldorf, ”[a] hotel or new residential condominium building could be a third 'anchor' in the Village Center, along with Weaver Street and the Lumina Theatre.” Ms. Waldrop and associates D.R. Bryan and John Fugo are all members of the team seeking approval for a 1,000,000 square foot project at Buckhorn Village.

No local political observers see the well-heeled developers having any difficulty in getting their friends on the town council to rezone the entire village center as a VMU, a designation not in existence at the time of approving the Goat Trails. As reported in the Chapel Hill News, the increase of 90,000 additional square feet (sf) would take the village to about 440,000 sf, not counting about 58,000 sf in structured parking below the building.

In the words of local campaign financial contributor Ms. Waldorf, ”It gives the building owners here a little bit more flexibility in responding to the market.”

No word on how the developers will make up for the lost recreational credits in paving over the open space and parking.

While southern Orange progressives (OPies) like to dream of being on the political avant garde, once again a more grounded appraisal reveals the proclivity for these avant gardes to reinvent what has already been shown to be problematic elsewhere.

The local Orange Chatham chapter of the Sierra Club Foundation labors under the delusion that it promotes “environmentally sound” policy decisions by supporting dense growth, applauding rapid population growth from illegal immigrants, ignoring deals between the national Sierra Club and toxic chemical manufacturers (see Pulp Clorox Sierra Club Tie-in Story), and remaining silent about local surface water carrying capacity. Proud of this record, the local chapter works diligently to get into and sustain in local political office such “environmentalists” as Mr. Mike Nelson (of the faux “environmental scientitst” and the Adams Tract creekside Carrboro public works “never happened” garage fame) and Ms. Bernadette Pelissier (of Orange County solid waste environmental injustice ostrich fame).

However, the derring dos of these staunch defenders of the local environment pale in comparison to the “environmental” achievements of Mr. Harry Reid, the Democrats’ Senate leader.

Back in Nevada, Mr. Reid is an enabler for developers and pit miners. He almost singlehandedly is enabling the raping of a desert ecosystem. His runaway growth environmental policy is unchallenged by the Sierra Club. While Lake Mead (Las Vegas’s surface water reservoir) is drying up (48% capacity), “sustainable”, “smart growth”, and “master planned” communities of 16,000 homes continue to bulldoze the desert ecosystem.

Sound familiar Pulp readers?

In the middle of a record western drought, Senator Reid co-sponsored a law granting the Southern Nevada Water Authority (the Las Vegas OWASA) a free right-of-way on federal land to pipe groundwater into Las Vegas from central Nevada, hundreds of miles away. The $3,000,000,000 plumbing plan would tap the Great Basin aquifer, a vast underground sink that runs from Death Valley, California, across central Nevada, into western Utah. As the Great Basin's groundwater is drained, desert springs and seeps will dry up. Native desert plants and wildlife will die off.

Mr. Reid, the enabler, is a darling of East and West Coasts environmentalists. The influential League of Conservation Voters gave him a perfect score in FY 2005 for his voting record on environmental issues. The national Sierra Club praised him for his opposition to a laundry list of things such as coal-fired power plants and oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

So what was the official Sierra Club response to the Great Basin “Drainage” bill? Not a word. What about selling off large tracts of government land in the Las Vegas Valley to developers? Not a word. Senator Reid hobnobs with none other than Mr. Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club Foundation.

It’s not as if the Sierra Club didn’t know about the bill. Senator Reid personally briefed Mr. Pope. According to him, Mr. Reid said “Look, it's important to me that we deal with our water supply problems in Clark County. This appears to be the best way.” That’s all it takes for friends to do friends a favor.

Sound familiar Pulp readers?

The Sierra Club’s excuse? It focuses on broad issues such as climate change and doesn't make regional water disputes a high priority.

According to Ms. Janine Blaeloch, founder of Western Lands Project, a Seattle nonprofit that closely monitors Mr. Reid’s sell-off of government land for Las Vegas growth, ”What's so dismaying is that he gets away with it, because the big environmental groups are bought in.” No supportive response from the Sierra Club.

The Pacific Institute, in Oakland, California recently co-authored a study of Las Vegas, growth and water use. It found that through more conservation Las Vegas could save nearly as much water as Reid’s Great Basin drainage is designed to take. No supportive response from the Sierra CLub

Sound familiar Pulp readers?

Just like Orange County, Clark County, Nevada, is even more hooked on growth. Are there other similarities between Las Vegas and southern Orange?

Consider both locations have transient populations that don’t pay attention to the development costs and local politics. Both have about a 10% voter participation in local elections. Both have developer friends on the municipal governance boards. Both have a controlling economic engine that is a palocracy. Both have a growth and extraction culture, (one minerals and growth, the other students and growth).

Sound familiar Pulp readers?

Mr. Reid has acknowledged that population explosion and drought are posing “difficult choices” for Nevada. Southern Nevada's water managers say there's nothing to worry about with the pipeline. ”This organization is about as environmentally friendly as you'll ever find a water agency, But we'll never know what the precise impacts are until we stress the system.”, according to Southern Nevada Water Authority's deputy general manager.

Sound familiar Pulp readers?

See Portfolio Reid Pipeline Story.

Normally, the Village People Project of Chapelboro (see Village Project website) is the biggest fan of any mixed use project, no matter how threadbare the mixed use fig leaf.

But Director James “Carny Hand” Carnahan is dead set against the County sponsored, Developer Dream team built Buckhorn Village mixed use project. (See Pulp Squeezed Out Village People Story and Pulp Buckhorn Village County Action Story.)

Mr. Carnahan has the following ostensible objections to Buckhorn Village:
1) It can’t be successful without interstate automobile traffic.
2) Economic development should reduce carbon footprint, not increase it.
3) Big box retail involves importing goods from other countries.
4) It will create at least 1,500 new jobs, “almost entirely very low-wage, high-turnover jobs that will dispense significant social burdens and demands on the public purse”.
5) It will require multi-million dollar investment by NCDOT to upgrade the Interstate 85/40 interchange. It probably can't happen without considerable cash subsidy or tax abatement from the county.

Yet, projects supported by Mr. Carnahan as chair of the Carrboro planning board have relied on the following:
1) Interstate traffic to Carrboro as a destination spot;
2) Increasing the carbon footprint in Carrboro;
3) Approving Carrboro businesses that import goods; and
4) Creating mostly low-wage, high turnover Carrboro jobs.
The only difference is that Mr. Carnahan’s approvals have been based on three interstate I-40 exchanges that have already been built by NCDOT.

As the Pulp reported earlier this year, the real difference this time is that the Village Project isn’t eating from the developer profit pie on the largest mixed use village that will be built in Orange County.

No word on how quicky the Village People concern will evaporate once a ten acre lot bone (a' la the Pacifica development in Carrboro) is thrown their way.

Showing the glory of smart growth urban planning, Arthur Nelson, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech and future director of the Center for the New Metropolis at the University of Utah, proclaims that the USA, third most populated country in the world at over 300,000,000 people today will reach 1,000,000,000 people by 2100, a glorious future for your grandchildren and great grandchildren in a country that has no limits on sustainability, according to university urban planners.

Advocating for more dense infill, the cause de jour in Chapelboro, planner Nelson states, “We have a surprising amount of space in existing urban areas. We can easily triple the population in our urbanized areas with much of that growth occurring on, of all things, parking lots.” Mr. Nelson wants to convert parking lots in commercial and residential buildings and extend light rail lines and rapid transit to get people out of cars, just like Chapelboro planners.

No word on who wants one billion people in the USA.

No word from any university planner in North Carolina on the national crisis of continued growth.

No word on either Chapel Hill or Carrboro hiring a new full time, parking lot-to-affordable housing conversion administrator.

See Virginia Tech Planners.

Only in southern Orange County can you tell a news story about a church moving and completely miss the underlying story of much greater import. As reported in the N&O, the ostensible story is that the St. Paul AME Church of Chapel Hill (St. Paul’s) is moving from its central location off Rosemary Street to distant Rogers Road area, home of the Orange County landfill and the once-declared spot for the trash transfer station once the landfill is full. See N&O St. Paul’s Story.

St. Paul’s move involves, as many politically connected real estate moves do in southern Orange, public largesse. In this case, St. Paul’s move is reported to involve improvements to publically-owned land available from the local Orange Progressive political triumvirs (the town of Chapel Hill, the town of Carrboro, and Orange County). In particular, the private St. Paul’s church may be getting water & sewer courtesy of the Chapelboro school board.

How? A new elementary school may be placed on a tract of publically owned land south of the Eubanks Road landfill, an area known as the “Greene Tract”. (This landfill area is ground zero for the environment injustice actions of the Orange County commishes.) But the local media reports only a feel good story of a coming church community center, an athletic field, and affordable homes.

Luckily, Pulpsters know that if you squeeze the pulp in Orange County, there’s so much more to tell, so long as you’re not a stenographer.

First, one should know who’s a most important parishioner of St. Paul’s, someone in a political position to help it receive a flow of blessings. That person is none other than Orange County Commish and State Senate candidate Moses Carey.

Second, an astute observer should ask the question, why is St. Paul’s moving in the first place? The reported reason is that it’s landlocked. That’s an odd statement considering all local politicians are favoring greater density and more urban design, moves that will landlock and overburden many existing churches. More importantly, St. Paul’s is right next door to the new high rise and high priced, grass roof development “Greenbridge”. So St. Paul’s current Merrit Mill Road land is worth a lot more now than just two years ago. It’s ground zero for a profitable sell-out for development of ”Greenbridge II”, as opposed to home to an affordable housing complex for St. Paul’s parishioners.

Third, one should look at what St. Paul’s and its friends have been doing. What hasn’t been reported by the N&O? What’s not part of the pre-arranged press release?

Part of the answer is that a friend of Commish Carey has been buying up parcels at the intersection of Purefoy Road and Rogers Road since 2003, some 20 acres all told. The map above shows where “X” marks the treasure spot.

The red parcels are the recent St. Paul’s purchases for its proposed “campus”. (See county GIS PINs 9870540416, 9870543735, 9870544583, 9870459243, and 9870545947. See Orange County GIS map system.) St. Paul’s purchased these five parcels, totaling about 20 acres, for about $650,000 in August 2007 (or about $32,000 per acre). That’s not a bad deal considering a similar parcel on Homestead Road, about a quarter of mile away, sold for $60,000 per acre two years earlier (2005). But the seller to St. Paul’s, Mr. Thomas C. Tucker didn’t do so badly either.

Mr. Tucker purchased 14 of those acres just four years earlier (2003) for about $300,000, or about $22,000 per acre. That’s a 50% profit in four years. He purchased the other two properties, about 6 acres, about two years later (2005) for about $25,000 per acre. That’s a 50% profit in two years! Such profit-taking is not unheard of in southern Orange, witness the 50% within months profit made off the optioned selling of what is now known as MLK Park to the town of Carrboro, a deal involving an employee/partner of now Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton.

The blue parcels represent land purchased by Habitat for Humanity of Orange County (HFH), yet another Orange County tax exempt organization. In December 2005, HFH purchased these 17 parcels (about 21 acres) for a total of about $420,000, parcels with there own environmental constraints being pushed through the system in an odd way. That’s a purchase about the same time as Mr. Tucker, a purchase at about $20,000 per acre. But then, these HFH parcels aren’t on the corner of Rogers Road like St. Paul’s purchases.

The green parcel represents the 104 acre, publicly owned Greene Tract (not 164 acres as reported by the N&O). Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County jointly own the Greene Tract. In the past, the Chapel Hill Town Council said in a 2002 concept plan that it wanted to build affordable housing on 18 acres and keep the rest undeveloped. But public memory is essentially absent in transitory Chapelboro, where the local media rarely calls forth the detailed history of any subject, a role for which the Pulp is glad to fill in.

The yellow parcels represent the publically owned Orange County Solid Waste properties, which include the Eubanks Road landfill. While the red parcels and blue parcels were changing hands, Commish Carey lead the decision to place the new Orange County trash transfer station on Eubanks Road, in the yellow parcels. Already depressed by the landfill next door, also in the yellow parcels, the trash transfer station site kept land prices on Purefoy Road below the market elsewhere in Chapel Hill, even though the landfill was due to close soon.

In Mr. Carey’s words, “All roads lead to Eubanks.” When his church (St. Paul’s) collected Rogers & Purefoy Road corner from Mr. Tucker, the trash transfer station decision was final. It was going on Eubanks. Since the St. Paul’s purchase, a new search has been opened. Now it may not go there.

Fast forward from August 2007 to March 2008. After quietly purchasing the about 20 acre campus at the corner of Rogers & Purefoy in August 2007, St. Paul’s wants to build a “campus”. Under preliminary plans submitted, a 51,000-square-foot main building would hold a 600-seat sanctuary, a fellowship hall, classrooms, offices and a day-care center in the west wing. The east wing would house a community center with a gym, locker rooms, a teen center and senior center. On the rest of the campus, the church would build a four-story senior housing center with 50 units, about 30 affordable homes, an athletic field, basketball and tennis courts, and a cemetery. About 175 parking spaces will be built around the main building and serve the church, community center and senior housing building, because the new site is miles from existing parishioners. (So much for walkability.)

Chapel Hill town councilman and Task Force co-chair Bill Strom is typically reserved about the proposed campus. ”Personally, I was impressed with the broad range of programs that the master plan lays out, from traditional worship to the community center, day care, senior housing and lots of active recreation. It seemed to me like they were taking a really thoughtful approach to some of the environmental constraints on the site.” There are no details on the environmental constraints on the campus at the corner of Rogers and Purefoy.

For those who doubt that St. Paul’s campus announcement is part of yet another well orchestrated southern Orange political deal worked out well in advance of you finding out, you should ignore that at the same Task Force meeting Chapelboro school board members announced that they want to build the district's 11th elementary school on the environmentally sensitive Greene tract. It’s 2008 and they want to open a school there in 2010, yet they are just announcing the location in time for the May primary.

So what’s the rush? The Rogers Road Task Force has been trying to mollify the people along Rogers Road for ten years from the joy of living near their toxic neighbor, the Orange County landfill. Why the dual private/public announcements now?

Commish Carey needs to counter charges of environmental injustice leveled at him by the Coalition to End Environmental Racism (CEER). (See Hot Orange Environmental Injustice Story.) The filed USDOJ complaint of environmental injustice stands out on his resume like an ink stain on a white shirt. He’s running against Ellie Kinnaird for a state senate seat in a primary on May 6th. He needs cover. Besides, the legal use of public lands and public money to enhance his friends and his church would shore up his political base. Yes, the gagging smell of trash on Purefoy Road has been replaced by the smell of cash. All roads, including Dorothy’s yellow brick road, truly do lead to Eubanks, just as candidate and Commish Carey has been saying for over a year.

NOTE: Pulpsters should note that the above referenced N&O story is irredeemably garbled. Task Force attendees confirm that St. Paul’s isn’t talking about using the Greene Tract at all. It’s the Chapelboro school board that’s talking about using 14 of the 18 buildable acres of the Greene Tract to build an elementary school on a school site (ES#11) with extremely poor road connectivity, as can be seen from the map above, but with extremely high political connectivity.

Greenbridge developer Ben Toben is building a 100 unit luxury condominium project with prices over $1,000,000 at the corner of Graham and West Rosemary Streets. (Pulpsters should note that the local stenographers prefer to speak about an average price (over $500,000) and not reflect how high the unit prices extend.) This site is near below median housing in the Northside and Pine Knoll neighborhoods. Post approval of the Greenbridge development, local affordable housing advocates are noticing that the introduction of luxury condos puts market pressure on the prices of local existing housing, raising the prices. Rising prices mean rising ad valorem property taxes.

Having gotten his profits approved by the town council without considering the tax effects of his development on neighbors, Mr. Toben now says “Why should Northside and its residents have to contribute more in taxes?” He calls for capping the property tax rate in areas he and his associates are gentrifying.

In response, local political analyst, former Chapel Hill Planning Board member, Orange Politics blog censor, “dances with bricks” anarchist, Carrboro Mayor Chilton backer, trustafarian disciple, and affected Northside bourgeoisie rentier (see Phictionary) Ruby Sinreich didn’t oppose Mr. Toben's Greenbridge project now or during the approval process, but instead commented in response to Mr. Toben's statements “The thing about gentrification is it’s complicated. Every day downtown is more valuable whether you build this or not.”

See CHN Greenbridge Story.

Hot off his magical act tour shilling the unpopular local transfer tax for Orange County commishes, tax-exempt expert, pollo asado eater, Carrboro developer & realtor, bourgeoisie rentier, black bag campaign poster expert, Carrboro mayor, and now water use guru Mr. Mark Chilton comes to the rescue once again of fellow developers/water profiteers (see Phictionary), with his bag of political magic tricks. At the 31 March 2008 meeting of the Orange County, Carrboro, and Chapel Hill municipal governments meeting attended by representatives of Chatham County and Durham County, Mr. Chilton waved his magic wand over the water problems facing local governments.

Mr. Chilton didn’t speak about conserving water by limiting local growth for developers. He didn’t speak about defining a carrying capacity for the region. Instead, he spoke about residents using less water. The answer is user conservation. ”We don't have a water supply problem, we have a water demand problem.” According to Mr. Chilton, Jordan Lake isn’t the answer to the region's water concerns. While calling for other municipalities to conserve and not tap an additional reservoir, he advocates OWASA (his town’s local water supplier) building an additional reservoir courtesy of local residents and not local water profiteers (the Stone Quarry reservoir, about the size of the University Lake reservoir) in the Jordan Lake watershed.

For Mr. Chilton, water demand is created not by those building housing (fellow water profiteers), but by those occupying housing (residents). This Orange Progressive nuance is matched by his insistence that adding high housing density in one area while temporarily lowering housing density in another area to offset the population increase in the former area until the buildout is completed in the former area, then increasing housing density in the latter area is somehow maintaining the status quo. (See Hot Orange Carrboro Density Story or Poet Lariat - DeNScItY... the magic of small town urbanism.)

No word on whether or not Mr. Chilton realizes the irony in his wisdom in his prestidigitation fingerpointing. The water captured by OWASA for Carrboro is in the Jordan Lake watershed, and thus, not only depletes the water available for Jordan Lake, but is, in essence, a tapping of Jordan Lake.

No word on whether or not Mr. Chilton, an expert in land options, has an option on a Joshua tree import business.

See Chapel Hill Herald Water Guru Story.

See Hot Orange Chilton Disses Durham Story.

The political celestial orchestra is in pre-election harmony in southern Orange.

First, big commish candidate, self-proclaimed long-time local time activist, Hillsborough resident, former OWASA director, former county planning board member, former chair of the local developers’ rights support group (the local Sierra Club, see Phictionary), former Federal Bureau of Prison employee, and AWOL environmental injustice activist, Bernadette Pelissier, calls for local laws that would force homeowners to retrofit water saving fixtures in order to sell a home. (Conveniently, Ms. Pelissier neglects to call for forced retrofitting on rental units owned by her bourgeoisie rentier friends.)

Now, the Carrboro Boa, replete with bourgeoisie rentiers, follows Ms. Pelissier’s tune with an “hallelujah chorus” for forced water conservation in Carrboro. Speaking at the 18 March 2008 Boa meeting, OWASA utility manager generalist, Pat Davis, didn’t see controlling growth as the cornerstone of OWASA’s sustainable water management strategy of the future. No, the answer is conservation. Southern Orange residents should adopt a semi-arid lifestyle!

Alderman Joal Hall Broun took an ambivalent view, concerned that forced water fixture retrofitting would penalize the wrong people. She’s more interested in eliminating lawn irrigation in Carrboro. You may have a right to own dirt in Carrboro. But your right to have a lawn is in question.

“Widest margin” vote getter Alderman Jacquie Gist advocated for a continuation of the foisting of municipal responsibilities on homeowners’ associations (HOAs). Yes, according to Ms. Gist, HOAs should be responsible for enforcing Stage 3 water restrictions on their residents, not OWASA. Your neighborly water police can share their love by ratfinking you out to OWASA. In the words of Ms. Gist, ”Water is a public good that is owned and needed by all of us, and it comes under pressure as we experience growth.”

No word on whether or not Ms. Gist will ever grasp the connection between carrying capacity, lifestyle, and growth.

No word on when the first shipment of Joshua Trees will arrive in Carrboro.

In related business news, shares of Kohler went “into the toilet” in light trading.

Roberson Square is the working name for a new project approved by the Boa at its 26 February 2008 meeting. It will sit where the old Andrews Rigsbee Hardware store stood on South Greensboro Street in the heart of the Carrboro historic district around Maple Avenue. The local media dutifully reported what was decided. A five story, mixed use building of 90,000 some square feet (sf) with parking and an affordable housing component (see Phictionary) was approved.

Astute observers saw a different picture, a picture of the Boa giving manna from heaven for another dense development. Roberson Square is a six floor (including a basement parking level) building with about 25,563 sf of parking for 65 spaces. Commercial/retail space will occupy about 32,000 sf. The remainder (about 34,000 sf) is residential. The Roberson Square ”virtual children” will play in the courtyard used by the ground floor businesses in lieu of real recreational facilities. This project is designed to retail at a nominal $250 per sf. The Carrboro Developer Service Department (aka town planning staff) orchestrated a plan to change the rules for Roberson Square.

According to the town planning staff, there’s no problem with Roberson Square being built (all 90,000 some sf) on the existing about .9 acre site without additional area logistical staging and construction parking. Supposedly, historic business district parking and traffic flow will not be adversely affected. More importantly, the infamous town zoning PILOs (”payments in lieu of”, see Phictionary) were brought out in full force. Town staff recommended granting the developer PILOs for a reduction in the need for parking spaces and PILOs for higher residential density (three additional housing units) because “affordable housing” is part of the project . (See Hot Orange PILO Virtual Affordable Housing Debate.).

Ordinarily, existing zoning laws would require a project of this magnitude to have 104 parking spaces, and not the approved 65 parking spaces. The 65 spaces require (even in the newly downsized parking space limits approved recently by the Boa, see story) 25,563 sf. If the 104 spaces the code “requires” had been applied, then an additional about 15,400 sf of the total project area (91,575 sf) would have been needed for parking and could not produce sales revenues for the developer. At a sales revenue value of $250 per sf, the Boa approval of reduced parking is worth about $3,800,000 to the developer. Although the Roberson Square project is designed to attract more people to the historic business district, less parking will be needed. Such is the genius of the Boa. Such is the “parking plan” of the Boa. (See Hot Orange Parking Values Story.)

Ordinarily, in order to get above normal zoning density approved by the Boa, the developer would have to build three additional housing units dedicated to be affordable. At a sales revenue value limited to about $200,000 each, the total developer sales revenue value for these three affordable units would be about $600,000 instead of the $1,350,000 value that would be realized at $250 per sf. Now, the developer only has to make a contribution to yet another tax-exempt, southern Orange organization, the Orange County Land Trust (OCLT), in order to market those three units at a higher value.

So what are the costs to the developer for these gifts?

Does the developer have to pay OCLT the difference between $1,350,000 and $600,000 (the additional revenues for the three units? No. Nobody really knows at this point. The Boa CUP approval didn’t spell that out.

Does the developer have to pay the town for the $3,800,000 of space freed from parking requirements? No. Nobody really knows at this point. The Boa CUP approval didn’t spell that out.

PILOs are the social engineering tool de jour in Carrboro. Astute observers anticipate a spate of local media puff pieces on how PILOs save the world. But if you’re not a stenographer, then the nuts and bolts of PILOs portends fatter profits for developers… with ordinary citizens getting the screws.

No word on whether or not Alderman Gist’s decision months ago to put her Maple Avenue home up for sale was triggered by her single street access to a main road, a limited access that must go past the construction and completion of Roberson Square.

In a strategic planning aka cumbaya (see Phictionary) session, Chapel Hill Councilman Matt Czajkowski spoke up about the social engineering aspects of the craze for developer profits in pushing mixed use developments. Mr. Czajkowski had the audacity to challenge if families prefer to live in high rise, multi-family, mixed use developments. ”Guys, you're making a massive assumption that families want to move into high density development.”

Mr. Czajkowski’s remarks were in response to Mayor Kevin Foy’s comment that ”We assume that mixed-use development is the best development, and on top of that, we assume that people want to live in dense development.”

In an Orange Progressive put-down, executive director of yet another local tax-exempt organization, on-again, off-again political power couple paramour, and fellow Town Councilman Mark Kleinschmidt accused Mr. Czajkowski of “harboring a 1950s perspective”. Readers should note that Mr. Kleinschmidt wasn’t born until the late 1960s and is not a practicing breeder (see Phictionary).

Town councilman Jim Ward piled on indicating that he didn’t care what ordinary families wanted. He doesn’t care if people want to live in high density developments. He assumes that it's the best way to grow Chapel Hill. “And you're making the assumption that they will or will not [live in whatever the council wants them to live in],”

No word on why any social engineering councilman thinks that growing Chapel Hill’s population is desirable.

No word of any discussion of carrying capacity occurring to the social engineers of the cumbayah circle.

See Chapel Hill Herald Cumbayah Story.

Where but deep down the “rabbit hole” of southern Orange politics can you have the local media present two articles with two conflicting viewpoints on the same day in the same media outlet with no questions asked?

In an article on the problems facing city schools, the Chapel Hill Herald quotes Steve Scroggs, assistant superintendent for support services and director of the district's long-range facilities committee, on the impact of continued growth in southern Orange on the city schools. ”We don't project our growth stopping – we're not at a plateau, We're really driving the numbers up as we [the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro] increase our density.” (SeeCHH City School Growth Story.)

Oblivious to these true statements of reality, along hops the ambilingual (see Phictionary) white rabbit of southern Orange, dense developer, bourgeoisie mill house rentier (see Phictionary), and black bag campaign poster expert, Carrboro mayor Mark Chilton, a mayor who gladly approves dense infill developments for his employees.

Mr. Chilton doesn’t see the world the way Mr. Scroggs does. He chides other Triangle governments about their growth. (Perhaps Mr. Chilton’s knowledge is imperfect because he doesn’t send his children to city schools. In a climate change conscious decision, they commute miles away to private school, instead of walking to the elementary school literally across the street.)

According to developer Chilton, the state government should ”take Jordan Lake off the table” unless other governments adopt “Keep It Weird” Carrboro land use policies. Mayor Chilton says “And until our neighbors are exercising the kind of self-restraint that Orange County has been pursuing – and doing so in a legally binding way through joint planning agreements – it doesn't seem wise to me to give those local governments still more access to drinking water, If we're going to pay millions and millions of dollars to pull water out of there, and what we're doing is continuing [to grow as] we've always done, and getting to the point where even that isn't enough, what's the point?”

There’s only one problem with this white rabbit story. Carrboro is pushing to increase its density, to build more homes in the land it set aside for growth. There’s nothing in its joint planning agreement that stops Carrboro from infilling to Manhattan densities. (See Carnahan Story.)

During the fall 2007 municipal election, all non-incumbent Carrboro candidates (excepting Ms. Lydia Lavelle) pointed out that a moratorium was imposed by the sitting Boa (including Mr. Chilton) for the specific purpose of increasing density in Carrboro. In a forthright display of Orange progressive logic, Mr. Chilton said that he would propose decreasing density west of old NC 86, so as to yield the same number of residents as were currently zoned prior to the moratorium. The declared “decrease in density” was a bone thrown to behind-the-scenes drafter of many Carrboro town zoning ordinances, treasurer of vehicular weapons expert Alderman Coleman’s campaign, former Alderman, Orange County planning board member , commish in his mind, and friend of his back yard (see Phictionary), Jay Bryan, who lives west of old NC 86 in Carrboro’s dreaded planning jurisdiction).

Only one problem, Mayor Chilton isn’t willing to sign his legislative legerdemain into law. When questioned on whether or not the western decrease would be permanent, Mr. Chilton admitted that it would just be until the area east of old NC 86 was built at the new highly increased density, than the area west of old NC 86 would suffer the same dense fate. So in the end, Carrboro will grow more after Mr. Chilton’s moratorium then before it. In keeping with his demonstrated propensities, Mr. Chilton is incapable of telling a complete and accurate story. He just wants to feed Carrburban heads with what they want to hear.

Local media reports none of this information, preferring to play the recumbent role of dutiful stenographer. The mayor who has increased population in the face of an exceptional drought, the second such drought in a decade, a mayor who asks people to adopt a semi-arid lifestyle in Carrboro, local media portrays that mayor as a force curbing development. Local media truly are blue pill swallowers, as well as dispensers.

No word of thanks from Mayor Chilton on how Durham stood ready to bail out Carrboro for Carrboro’s emergency water needs during the 2001-2002 drought by pumping 3 million gallons of water per day from Cary through the city's system to OWASA when OWASA's lakes fell to 32 percent full on 11 October 2002.

No word from the city of Durham on when it will proclaim “Mayor Chilton Ingrate Day”.

No word from local media as to why no mention is made of Mr. Chilton’s town needing (through OWASA) to build another deep waterhole (the future Rock Quarry reservoir, about the size of University Lake) in order to feed the profits of Mr. Chilton.

No word from Mr. Bryan explaining why he opposed the village mixed use dense development at Winmore in 2003, but now supports three additional village mixed use dense developments in northern Carrboro.

No word from Mr. Chilton on what property interests he has in the area being rezoned.

In related business news, stock of Del Monte Foods, owner of the Milk Bone brand, and Proctor & Gamble, owner of the Charmin brand, both traded slightly higher last week in regular trading.

See CHH Mayoral Propaganda Story.

Orange Methodist Church on Historic Airport Road (MLK Blvd.) in Chapel Hill has been the site of religious worship for over 180 years. As its congregation has expanded, its facilities have grown as well. Now church elders want to build a 57,000-square-foot addition and 188 extra parking spaces on the 16-acre site.

Not wishing to be surpassed by the usufructing (see Phictionary) movement in ”Keep It Weird” Carrboro, the Chapel Hill Planning Board has requested that the town council “encourage” the church to consider a publicly available park-and-ride facility at the site. According to the Planning Board turning the church parking lot into a park-and-ride would help the town meet its goal of increasing bus ridership, as well as mitigating traffic from Carolina North. But then, according to this Planning Board, there should be fewer public parking spaces at Carolina North (less than one mile closer in to the Chapel Hill historic business district) when it’s built.

Usufructers must wait until the March 17 meeting to see if they get private land for public parking spaces.

No word on whether or not the lack of parking and traffic issues will limit the development of Carolina North instead of local churches.

No word on whether or not the Town Council will solve the problem of downtown parking lots that remain unused before muscling a church for free town parking.

No word on which churches Planning Board members attend that only use parking lots on Sundays.

No word on where church members are supposed to park for the daily activities of daycare, bible studies, youth groups, community meetings, ESL classes, funerals …

SeeOrange Methodist Church.

SeeN&O Town Council Story.

In the Winter Orange County Democrat party guide, the front page articles are about water needs and the drought gripping Orange County.

Former OWASA director, former real estate advertiser columnist, and OWASA profiteer (aka local builder) Mark Marcoplos extols the virtues of OWASA in calling for you to reduce your water needs year round, whether or not there is a drought. While Mr. Marcoplos closes with a mention of shifting perspectives on growth (“understanding the carrying capacity of the bioregions”), he makes no call for translating that understanding into limits on growth.

Local Sierra Club president, anticipated county commissioner candidate, and “three blind mice” candidate for the Eubanks Road trash transfer imbroglio, Bernadette Pelissier, likewise, shows little concern for controlling development, instead wishing to control your life.

The salvation to local water needs is conservation, conservation, conservation. She glows ecstatically over asking the state legislature to approve local town ordinances that would require a homeowner to retrofit low water use plumbing fixtures at the time of a sale. For Ms. Pelissier, the currently approved alternative (a town or OWASA offering financial incentives) won't do the job. Better just to command you to spend money (thousands of dollars for non-mud hut owners). Use the stick, not the carrot. She doesn’t even offer the carrying capacity fig leaf. Yes, the local Sierra Club asks you to conserve water so others can move here and join you in conserving water.

No word on whether or not a grant has been applied for by the local tax-exempt Sierra Club to study the conundrum of supposed conservationists promoting land development.

No word from John Muir’s gravesite regarding the tachometer readings recorded on this latest pronouncement from the local Sierra Club.

Listen to the Audio Party Guide.

In a guest column in the 3 February 2008 edition of the local real estate advertiser (the Chapel Hill News), Carrboro Planning Board Chair, Village Project, Inc. guru, and climate change commentator, Mr. James Carnahan says that the proposed Buckhorn Village mega-retail project (brought to you courtesy of the Developer Dream Team and the Orange County Commissioners) is not within his vision of a “local living economy” and will harm Orange County as presently described.

Mr. Carnahan doesn’t object to future Buckhorn Village retail sales or the expected municipal sales tax revenues per se. Rather he objects to the lack of a planned dense (12 to 15 units per acre) residential community amidst Buckhorn Village. In pumping the attributes of his Village Project organization, noticeably absent from the Developer Dream Team, he invokes apocalyptic images of “global warming” catastrophe.

With the usual Orange Progressive knock against “franchise retailers”, Mr. Carnahan puts forth the economic alternative of a “local living economy”. According to Mr. Carnahan’s vision of Orange County’s future, the local “Community Supported Agriculture movement” can be expanded “to tap residents’ abilities, transform local materials and knowledge into the products and services we need. We can focus on creating a resilient economy integrating diverse locally owned businesses into adaptive entrepreneurial networks. They’ll be more likely to offer stable, high-paying jobs, treat employees fairly, pay living wages, provide health and retirement benefits and support environmental constraints.” Mr. Carnahan doesn’t explain which local businesses or institutions fall short of these hallmarks.

No word from Mr. Carnahan quantifying economic expansion in Carrboro during his planning board tenure beyond the introduction of sales tax-free loncheras.

No word on how Mr. Carnahan will view Buckhorn Village if the Village Project, Inc. (another local tax-exempt, non-profit organization) is embraced in the penumbra of development dollars flowing around the Developer Dream Team.

See Chapel Hill News Carnahan Editorial

As the Buckhorn Flea Market became “terra cero” (ground zero) for official government action, one local politician, Alderman John Herrera of Carrboro, spoke up for “mi pueblos” (my people), the Hispanic vendors at the flea market. As the Orange County Board of Adjustment met in May 2006 to decide on zoning violations by the Buckhorn Flea Market (which they did find, with one lone dissenter) Alderman Herrera told that board how important the flea market was to the Hispanic community. As quoted in the N&O, ”It is the only affordable market for a lot of Hispanic people, which means more food on the table.” He alleged that he has known several “immigrants” who established their own businesses by starting at the Buckhorn Flea Market.

Alderman Herrera also spoke in front of the Orange County Economic Development Council on 26 May 2006. According to the minutes, he suggested that the county address the following needs for the Hispanic business community: 1) find an alternative location for the flea market; 2) create a main central market for Hispanics; 3) assess permit fees and taxes – revenue for Orange County; 4) create a “business incubator”; 5) assist Hispanics with business permits; and 6) create on-site vendor storage preventing inventory loss due to transport damage.

Following that public hurrah, Alderman Herrera has been silent on the Buckhorn Flea Market. He didn’t make a statement about the December 2006 raid on “his people”. He didn’t make a statement about the June 2007 Orange County inspection shutdown and the effect on “his people”. He didn’t make a statement about the announcement of the Buckhorn Village deal and the effect on “his people”. He didn’t make a statement about how the Buckhorn Village development collaborative of time-honored heavy hitters in local Orange County real estate development (and generous political campaign contributors) would help create an alternative business venue for “his people”.

Alderman Herrera has made other public statements during this time. He announced a state senate run in September 2007, just two weeks after the Alderman Coleman assault with a deadly weapon - vehicle against a student track coach incident in Carrboro. About one month later he announced a withdrawal from that race, one day after incumbent Kinnaird announced her entry.

Virtual affordable housing is coming to Carrboro.

In its Tuesday meeting, the BOA changed its affordable housing policy, allowing developers to build higher density housing developments under the guise of providing affordable housing units without actually providing those units. The town wins in receiving more higher-value housing units to tax. The developers win in selling more higher-margin housing units per acre. Southern Orange affordable housing tax exempt organizations win in receiving more money supporting their program and administrative costs. The only losers appear to be those actually needing more physical affordable housing units.

The town staff presented that “the cost structure for affordable housing units has not fully captured ongoing maintenance and other costs associated with such units. In addition to the subsidies needed to bring the move-in costs down to a level that meets the needs of affordable housing, the anticipated future maintenance costs will be quite large. Coupled with the approval of a significant number of small, downtown affordable housing units in Chapel Hill, staff of Orange Community Housing and Land Trust has suggested that the Board of Aldermen consider accepting payments in lieu of constructed units at times, to provide funds for subsidies or other uses in support of affordable housing.”

Under the change, developers can give Carrboro money instead of building affordable housing units. The town rewards the developer by allowing them to build more houses on their site, houses that are priced at full market rates.

Carolina North representatives held a meeting at Chapel Hill town hall to show off the Carolina North plans for the coming “Innovation Center”. They revealed that the first five year (2010 to 2015) CN plan could involve building the Innovation Center, moving the School of Law, building housing for faculty, staff, graduate students, and, of course Umstead Act free retail.

Former Chapel Hill town councilman, political municipal campaign surrogate, and Weaver Street denizen Joe Capowski echoed the concerns of dense developer, Capowski comrade, and Carrboro Mayor, Mark Chilton. Mr. Capowski presented a powerpoint presentation on how CN is ”woefully” short on housing. ”The university considers only its employees, and many will move to Carolina North from rented space in Chapel Hill and Carrboro – a narrow but valid view.” Mr. Capowski didn't explain his vision how non-taxable CN housing would compensate Chapelboro for the strain on their municipal services.

See N&O CN story

Former Carrboro Collaborative Development member, NSAPIRC member, and Carrboro Planning Board chair with an ill-defined livelihood, James Carnahan lays out his dream for a denser Carrboro. Single family Northern Carrboro “breeders” apparently invited to head for town exits.

Without providing any evidence of how many Carrboro citizens called for what in Northern Carrboro , Mr. Carnahan proclaims in a published letter to the Carrboro Citizen that existing residents in Northern Carrboro want “commercial activities in the area that would enable them to reach shopping, services, jobs and recreation on foot, bicycle and public transportation, residents were also interested in addressing climate change and the rapid decline in global petroleum supplies. They were concerned about the lack of affordable housing in Carrboro and wanted greenways and sidewalks throughout the NSA that would interconnect neighborhoods and link everyone to commercial sites.” No specifics are given as to what employers and jobs (other than traditional “tax-exempt” employers with lower income jobs) would be attracted to his dense vision.

Mr. Carnahan demands three more mixed use villages sited in the undeveloped about 3000 acres remaining in Northern Carrboro. No mention is made as to how or why the Northern Carrboro mixed use village “Winmore” has failed to meet the promises of the BOA, the Carrboro town staff, the Carrboro planning board, or Mr. Carnahan himself who championed Winmore in public hearings in 2003. He makes a dramatic call for anarchistic “faith-based” municipal economics.

Mr. Carnahan’s wants “form-based” zoning for Northern Carrboro so as to “accommodate a more diverse population and maintain affordability, a difficult goal to achieve when most of the land left within our growth boundary is being developed into large-lot single-family subdivisions where home prices typically start around $300,000.” No explanation is given as to what population diversity he seeks, particularly in view of the town having one of the most diverse ethnic population mixes in North Carolina. No explanation is given as to why the existing old housing stock in Carrboro (about 70% of all housing stock) which is close to the historic business district can’t be transformed into affordable housing.

Curiously, although the Carrboro BOA and Planning Board are routinely hailed by the myopic local Sierra Club chapter as staunch environmentalists, Mr. Carnahan wants to “revisit and improve the town’s protections for streams, wetlands and other environmentally sensitive areas”. No explanation is given as to what streams and wetlands are left after the BOA has encouraged developers to build in these areas by counting unbuildable stream beds as open space.

Finally, Mr. Carnahan provides no overall financial impact statement of his dense vision on town finances.

See Carnahan letter

With this week’s announcement of the coming mega-retail Buckhorn Village development, featuring a development collaborative of time-honored heavy hitters in local Orange County real estate development, perhaps a trip down Buckhorn Road memory lane may be in order.

The future Buckhorn Village site has been a piece of red meat to any true developer, 130 acres of mostly green fields at a major interstate intersection. The only problem for a developer “Dream Team” has been getting the current owners to sell at a “reasonable” price, owners that have held the property since at least 1993. Even assuming that the owners don’t face mortgage payments, they still must pay the tax man, Orange County, a tax man that would much rather see the $1,000,000 plus in property taxes from a Buckhorn Village, as opposed to the fraction of that assessed Buckhorn Flea Market.

For unexplained reasons, after puttering along for almost two decades, the Buckhorn Flea Market became ground zero for official government actions.

Starting in September 2005, flea market vendors were visited by law enforcement officials, checking their wares et cetera.

Then the county manager (John Link at the time) is reported to have called a meeting with several county departments to discuss undisclosed complaints about traffic “snarling” the exit ramps to Buckhorn Road off Interstate 40-85.

Interest intensified in 2006. An inspection “SWAT team” of county officials drove out to the flea market in April. A triumvirate of a zoning officer, a building official, and a fire marshal found zoning violations. Due to a “zoning conflict”, the property owners couldn’t obtain a building permit from the county to fix the zoning violations. The county let the owners hire the Mebane Fire Department for fire protection services during business hours until the zoning issue was resolved. However, that “solution” required Mebane fire vehicles and personnel to be on site during the weekend activities.

One month later in May 2006, the Orange County Board of Adjustment ruled that the Buckhorn Flea Market violated county zoning ordinances. As noted by the sole dissenting board member, Joyce Moore-Hall, the county was just now trying to do something about violations that appear to have been in place since 1985. ”I have a problem that this county has been sitting on this for 20 years.” The N&O also reported that Ms. Moore-Hall was concerned that acknowledging the zoning violation would lead to the county shutting down the Buckhorn Flea Market. No reason for wanting the Buckhorn Flea Market to be shut down was given by local officials.

Some six months later in December 2006, the Buckhorn Flea Market entertained another weekend raid from officials searching for counterfeit goods.

Five months later (April 2007) the county commissioners voted 3-2 to put a soccer complex in nearby Efland. That decision apparently had the Buckhorn Village development in mind. As Commissioner Barry Jacobs is quoted saying this week, ”[A]nd since this [Buckhorn Village project] has been in the works for a good while, as we have made other decisions, this has factored into our thinking, such as locating the West End soccer complex.”

Less than two months after the West End complex decision factoring in higher uses for the Buckhorn Flea Market (June 2007), the Orange County Inspections Division shut down part of the Buckhorn Flea Market. The Mebane Fire Department withdrew its services. This action closed interior portions of the Buckhorn Flea Market “indefinitely”. Craig Benedict, Orange County planning inspections director is quoted as saying ”It's in our attorney's hands. Our courts do not move at super speed, but we would expect it to be examined sometime this year … we're hoping some solutions come to term before then.” Sorry words of solace if you’re a property owner facing county taxes, and a major source of income from that land is shut down. “Squeeze play” type words that might make a reasonable person more malleable for a buyout deal.

As reported contemporaneously by the Independent, one of the Buckhorn Flea Market owners believed that Orange County officials “just want the market gone, and the specifics of zoning issues and fire codes are simply bureaucratic hoops that must be jumped through in order to achieve this ultimate goal”.

Six months later (January 2008), a deal is announced by Buckhorn Retail Associates… to the open delight of county officials.

See N&O flea market report See Indy flea market report

Housing demand over the past thirty years in the US was driven, in part, by the 78,000,000 people born in the US between 1946 and 1964. That demand has been seen as housing price increases have exceeded normal inflationary pressures.

As the so-called “baby boomers” retire, a significant slackening on housing demand is predicted across the country, including North Carolina. In a recent JAPA article, land use planners Dowell Myer and SungHo Ryu (University of Southern California) propose a methodology for estimating average annual age-specific buying and selling rates. Coupling those rates to projected demographics, they looked for surplus supply and diminishing demand, finding that about 85% of annual home sales come from existing homes, with seniors being net home sellers.

After decades of relative housing stability in which families (“breeders” in Orange Progressive vernacular) stayed in the housing market, communities face a tipping point in the demographic ratio of seniors to working age residents. That ratio will grow in favor of seniors by about 30% for the next two decades.

Funded by the Fannie Mae Foundation, these authors foresee trouble ahead for the real estate industry, the most dominant private enterprise in Orange County. More homes may become available for sale than there are buyers for them.

During the 1960s, the largest adult growth in the US occurred in the population slice aged 55 to 64. That ended with the 1970s with the baby boomers entering the adult population. Baby boomers introduced adult population growth reaching four times that of the 1960s. Baby boomers crossed over into the housing market in 1970 (age 25 being accepted as the starting age for entering the land of homeownership) and continued entry until 1988. With each decade passing they have defined new housing demands - starters, families, empty nesters. All 78,000,000 baby boomers become “seniors” (age 65) starting in 2011 and ending in 2029.

The authors found that below age 50 buying is more common than selling, with each age group having net homeownership rate increases. Balance is achieved in the late 50s to early 60s. Sellers outweigh buyers by the mid 60s.

In looking at the effect of baby boomer aging bulge, the authors factored in the state levels of existing homeownership rates. Those states with large amounts of owners are said to have a greater potential for supply pressures. According to the authors, North Carolina is not on the leading edge of the downward sales pressure where the sellers exceed the buyers. That honor belongs to Connecticut, Hawaii, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia which are already there. North Carolina enters that scenario by 2030. (Please note that southern Orange is not typical of the state as a whole). Moreover, the ratio of median home values statewide in North Carolina to median income of households age 30 to 34 is about 3, less than that of the more volatile Florida and California markets. However, in southern Orange, that ratio is more in the 4 to 1 range, equivalent to the mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions.

Warning – Keep in mind that a famous 1989 forecast by Harvard land use planners (the “Mankiw-Weil prophecy” predicted a 47% decline in housing prices during the 1990s based on models of declining baby boomer demand. They missed the effects of open door immigration policy, generational wealth transfer, and the second home market.

See JAPA Boomer article

An undisclosed (by the media) real estate development firm, aka a purpose-specific Buckhorn Road Associates business entity (BRA) has filed a development application for the southeastern corner of I-85/I-40 and Buckhorn Road in Efland, between Hillsborough and Mebane. Using a straw man (James Parker of Hillsborough-based Summit Consulting Engineers), BRA continues the local tradition of keeping the public uninformed as to unimportant questions. Who exactly is going to make the profit off this exercise? What is their connection or relationship to the decision makers? Neither state nor local law requires complete financial transparency. (Curiously, the only publicly known address for BRA is located in the same facilities as the firm owned in part by UNC trustee Roger Perry - EastWest Partners, developer of Meadowmont (home to Commissioner Moses Carey). The non-binding development plan is said to include a 185,000-square-foot anchor store, hotels, offices, restaurants, residences, and a movie theater.

Freelance sportswriter, tax-exempt historical estate sitter, and county commissioner Barry Jacobs is reported to say “I think if it works out it will be a great thing for Orange County. It's one of the kinds of economic development we've talked about bringing to Orange County in that it's clean, properly located, and it's being done by quality developers. This is our most viable economic development district, so giving it a jump start would be great.” Mr. Jacobs even admits that ”[A]nd since this has been in the works for a good while, as we have made other decisions, this has factored into our thinking, such as locating the West End soccer complex.” Apparently, the public didn’t need to know this “factor”.

BRA claims that the proposed “Buckhorn Village” would bring in more than $7 million in assorted tax revenue per year (about $6,000,000 in sales taxes or about one quarter of the entire Orange County figure) and allegedly create 5,000 new private sector jobs, according to documents submitted to the County. In gaining its approvals from the County, BRA will not be held by the County to deliver contractually on any of these figures.

While lauding the development on the extreme western end of the county (a site further way from the southern Orange population centers than either the Southpoint Mall area or the retail complexes in southern Durham off 15/501), neither Mr. Jacobs nor any other commissioner raises the issue of exacerbating the carbon footprint for Orange County retail users. Conveniently, Buckhorn Village will not be located near any commissioner home.

With cautious reserve, the county economic development officer (Mr. Best) is quoted as saying ”[I]t would bring a lot of sales tax revenue and keep people who are now spending outside the county to purchase inside the county – that's what we're hoping for and that's what we're anticipating.”

(Portions originally reported in the Herald Sun on 13 January 2008.)

NSAPIRC (the handpicked northern Carrboro development study committee composed of dense growth advocates) makes predictable call for intense development, disagreeing only on the “whens” and “wheres”.

The Carrboro “Boa” authorized a hurry-up moratorium in the spring of 2007 in order to halt vested rights in developments that wished to use the northern Carrboro transition zoning in place for the last twenty years. The Boa created NSAPIRC to get a desired outcome - the oxymoronic vision of dense “millhouse vernacular” dotting the Carrboro countryside. (The predictability of NSAPIRC behavior has mirrored that of the now defunct New Horizon Task Force, pre-election showcase for now Alderman Lydia Lavelle.)

The NSAPIRC chair, former Carrboro Alderman, West Old NC 86 ranchette owner, current Orange County planning board member, and former treasurer of the Dan Coleman for Alderman campaign, Jay Bryan has championed delaying development in his backyard until the east side of Old NC 86 is peppered with “millhouse vernacular”.

Meanwhile, Carrboro’s planning board chairman, former member of the Carrboro Collaborative Development Corporation, associate of Pacifica and Arcadia developer Giles Blunden, and “rural village” zealot, James Carnahan is apparently in a Kabuki battle with Mr. Bryan over how much mixed use development will be built in northern Carrboro. Carnahan wants it wherever feasible along transit corridors, despite the abysmal failure of mixed use in the recent Winmore development. Bryan doesn’t want such mixed use in his backyard west of Old NC 86.

The Boa position may have been expressed best by Mayor Chilton during the fall elections, west of Old NC 86 will be developed, just not until dense development on the east side is finished (which will help pay for the “scheduled” northern OWASA water tower). Showing a proclivity for flexible argument, Mayor Chilton says that the absence of OWASA lines west of Old NC 86 should halt development there, but not halt development east of Old NC 86 where OWASA lines also don’t exist in some areas.

Meanwhile, the local media continues its failure to report on the development interests of Carrboro politicians with regards to properties around Old NC 86.

(Portions originally reported in the Carrboro Citizen. See Calvander story

University Mall, over off Estes Drive down by Fordham, and the Rams Gate Plaza were sold last month for a stated $53,500,000. Speaking for the town of Chapel Hill, Mayor Kevin Foy said the town seeks a mix of residential, office and retail space at the University Mall site, the densest development allowed.

The University Mall site is located in a flood plain and resource conservation district.

(Originally reported in the Chapel Hill News - 2 Jan 2008)

Four out of five Orange County shoppers report shopping outside Orange County in the past month. That proportion is twice that reported in surrounding counties.

(Originally reported in the Chapel Hill News - 2 Jan 2008)