The UNC publicity machine scored another triumph. At a media-only event University development officials rolled out plans for Carolina Commons. UNC talked of its concern for affordable housing for employees. The media lapped it up, rewriting the press releases. (See Chapel Hill Herald Story and Chapel Hill News Story.)
The real story was missed.
Never fear. The Pulp will deliver as much as it can of the full story of Carolina Commons over the next few months. It’s an uncommon story of private development interests tied quietly to public university interests. It’s a story of public deceptions. It’s a story of municipal taxes diverted for university benefit. It's a story of municipal taxes diverted for private development benefit. It’s not a story you’ll find in the local media.
Media Embrace
As reported by the local media, Carolina Commons is an affordable housing project north of Homestead Road that will provide affordable housing for junior faculty and staff who want to purchase their own home. All the magic ethereal buzzwords are used - sustainability, affordability, green.
According to Ms. Mary Jane Nirdlinger, purveyor of ever-changing Carolina Common promises for over a year and proud owner of the title “project manager in facilities planning”, UNC will sell the homes at 20% below the market value of similar units in the area. (The only such homes are in Winmore, directly to the south, where the public isn’t buying. The cheapest home in Winmore sells at about $305,000 for 1350 square feet, or about $225 per square foot.)
That’s it. As far as the media is concerned, that’s the whole story.
Follow The Money
No one in the local media asked the obvious question. What about the money?
Anyone with a modicum of private enterprise experience would want to know the financial details. How is UNC paying for this development? Who is providing UNC the development capital? At what cost? Has it been competitively bid? Who is making money off this development?
If you follow the money, then the real story emerges. But first, what is being built.
Physical Reality
So how green is Carolina Commons really?
UNC is building 58 single-family homes, 40 condominiums and 51 rowhouses (about 150 units) on about 15 acres. That’s a density of about 10 houses per acre. Their site for such density is not a flat field surrounded by flat buffer, but alongside Bolin Creek, an environmentally sensitive stream with steep slopes. Such a site reflects the best in UNC green planning. Such a site is the essence of sustainability, affordability, and green.
UNC hides its urban streamside density by referring in its calculations to the bulk acreage of the 63 acre parcel dominated by the Bolin Creek streambed and its slopes. While that acreage isn’t buildable, it’s not a problem. Carrboro rules allow such acreage to be counted as green space. As far as Carrboro and UNC are concerned, building the densest residential projects next to streams is to be encouraged, not deterred. Slap a few rooftop solar panels, add some extra insulation. Shazam, you have a green project.
Never mind that one won't walk from Carolina Commons to the UNC main campus. Never mind that one won't walk from Carolina Commons to the coming Carolina North campus. It sounds green. That's what's important.
Living Wages Versus Living Equity
Amidst the hoopla of affordable, green housing for UNC employees, lies the reality of the residential real estate fiefdom being created by UNC.
While UNC will sell the 150 or so southeastern Carolina Commons homes to its employees at below-market rates, UNC will not sell the land upon which those homes sit. UNC will retain ownership of those lands, forever. If the home is to remain as affordable housing for UNC employees, then UNC employees must enter into an agreement to sell to another UNC employee. Moreover, according to Ms. Nirdlinger, UNC employees must enter into an agreement to share the market appreciation of their home with UNC when they wish to sell. (Query, what will UNC do with that shared equity appreciation?)
Gone unspoken is another approach.
Why doesn’t UNC pay its employees a living wage that allows them to own a home in Chapelboro? If it’s important for UNC employees to live five miles away from campus, as opposed to fifteen, then why not pay a wage that allows them to enter the private home market? Why create a perpetual housing fiefdom? (Query, how much will the administration of this fiefdom cost?)
The Town/UNC Unspoken Deal
Lost by the local media is the handshake, behind-the-scenes deal between UNC and the town of Carrboro. In order to cut the county out of the Winmore development process in 2003, the Carrboro Boa had to get the Winmore land into town limits.
Mr. Michael Brough, then filling the unusual combination of being Carrboro’s outside attorney and Carrboro’s acting town manager, wanted to help Winmore developers stuff a mixed use village alongside Bolin Creek (which included his longtime friend and acquaintance, Mr. Phil Szostak.) He needed to get UNC to seek voluntary annexation of its Carolina North lands and the Carolina Commons land site in order to allow the Winmore land to be voluntarily annexed. Coincidentally, it allowed the town of Carrboro to involuntarily annex about 400 homes and bag over $500,000 annually in taxes without providing any more services to those involuntarily drug into the town.
UNC complied without offering a reason, even though it had no plans for developing these properties in the immediate future. Unasked by the media, (and unspoken by Mr. Brough, the Boa, or UNC) why would UNC seek such annexation years before building within the Carrboro planning jurisdiction?
The answer became obvious several years later. The town of Carrboro spent over $250,000 to extend a sewer line through the Carolina Commons property as a reward for the voluntary annexation move. That gift from the town to UNC reduced the development costs for UNC. A gift from town taxpayers to UNC.
Political Corner
The most interesting part of the Carolina Commons development from a news perspective is not the 150 or so homes in the southwest corner. Rather it’s the tale of the northeast corner.
Several years ago, Carrboro citizens living adjacent to the northeast corner approached UNC regarding the future of the northeast corner. No less that Mr. Roger Perry, UNC trustee in charge of UNC building plans, told these citizens that UNC intended to build about seven executive homes off a cul de sac at the stubout on Claymore Road. These homes would be high end, designed to attract key employees to UNC. It was a developer’s promise from a UNC trustee, worth the paper it wasn’t written on.
Then the town of Carrboro stepped into the fray. Seeking the highest return in tax dollars, the town $1,000,000 planning department decided to increase the number of homes from seven to seventeen.
Moreover, the town decided to force a road connection (32 foot wide with sidewalks and curb and gutter) between the Colleton Crossing development to the north of Carolina Commons and Claymore Road (20 foot wide, no sidewalks or curb and gutter). As can be seen below, such a connection would cost the town about $1,000,000 to improve that road up to the town’s legal requirements for a sub-collector road.
Curiously, the town planning staff ignored connecting Colleton Crossing to Homestead Road through Camden Lane (32 foot wide with sidewalks and curb and gutter, just like the proposed Colleton Crossing and Carolina Common roads). As can be seen below, such a connection would cost the town nothing and would provide a road connection that met the town’s legal requirements for a sub-collector road.
Why would the town of Carrboro seek to connect to a substandard road that would cost town taxpayers substantial moneys to improve when they could connect to an existing road that was up to standards?
The answer goes unreported by the media.
As described at a meeting between UNC officials, their private advisors, and neighbors surrounding Carolina Commons a few months ago, a political score must be settled at taxpayer expense by connecting to a substandard road. Taxpayer expense and public safety be damned. In the words of Alderman Dan Coleman, he wanted to get back at his political opponents in the Highlands who live off, you guessed it, Claymore Road. Challengers in the last municipal election, they publicly asked Mr. Coleman to resign after he lied to the public about attacking a woman on town property with his vehicle.
Enter The Handpicked Private Developer
Subsequent to the Perry meeting, and prior to the submission of the concept plan to the town of Carrboro, a new player came into the Carolina Commons deal. Enter the private for-profit residential development firm of D.R. Bryan. D.R. Bryan is a privately held for profit enterprise that builds major residential developments. It built Southern Village and Treyburn. It’s building an oversized hotel for Southern Village, as reported in the Pulp.
D. R. Bryan is “advising” UNC on the Carolina Commons development. What's the contractual relationship? No one will say. At the UNC Carolina Commons neighbors meeting the question was asked. However, Ms. Rosemary Waldorf, former Chapel Hill mayor and D.R. Bryan kingpin, declined to answer that question. Based upon their advice, the seventeen homes are no longer to be used to attract key UNC employees. Instead they are being sold on the open market. Mr. Perry's promise to Carolina Commons neighbors is a true developer’s promise.
The Unspoken Web
D.R. Bryan is also a partner in the mega Buckhorn Village development along with East-West Partners. Who heads East-West Partners? None other than… Mr. Perry, UNC trustee in charge of Carolina Commons.
How much is D.R. Bryan being paid by UNC?
Is it providing any capital?
Is it building the homes?
Why is it involved?
Was this “advisory” contract competitively bid?
Who at UNC approved the contract?
Is anyone other than the Pulp paying attention?
No word on why those in the media lamenting the death of printed newspapers can't see the reason why.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when we first practice to deceive” - Sir Walter Scott
In most North Carolina towns, the mayor, the town manager, the town attorney, and the town clerk would notice if their email didn’t have receive a copy of a general notice to the town email listserv notifying the media and the public of a town public meeting subject to state “sunshine” laws. Not so in Carrboro, where Mayor Mark Chilton, Town Manager Steve Stewart, Town Attorney Mike Brough, and Town Clerk Sarah Williamson all “forgot” to check on the local media notice of Town’s annual BOA and staff retreat. Apparently, the fact that it's an election year has nothing to do with the error. (Pulpsters should note that these meetings are not only attended by the local media, but also by interested citizens, some of whom might be considering a run for local office.)
According to Mr. Chilton, the Town had a problem sending official notification to anyone outside of Town Hall, beyond that is a piece of 8.5” by 11” paper stuck on a bulletin board in Town Hall. According to Mr. Chilton, that’s all that’s needed to comply with state law. (You can read the law below and decide for yourself.)
State law requires that the public be informed of the retreat. In particular state law requires, in part, that Carrboro send a written notice to the media. The law reads that such a notice should “… be mailed or delivered to each newspaper, wire service, radio station, and television station, which has filed a written request for notice with the clerk or secretary of the public body or with some other person designated by the public body. The public body shall also cause notice to be mailed or delivered to any person, in addition to the representatives of the media listed above, who has filed a written request with the clerk, secretary, or other person designated by the public body. This notice shall be posted and mailed or delivered at least 48 hours before the time of the meeting. The public body may require each newspaper, wire service, radio station, and television station submitting a written request for notice to renew the request annually. The public body shall charge a fee to persons other than the media, who request notice, of ten dollars ($10.00) per calendar year, and may require them to renew their requests quarterly.” (See NCGS § 143 318.12.)
How the notice snafu happened wasn’t fully explained. (See Carboro Citizen Story.) More importantly, how did the mayor, the town manager, the town attorney, and the town clerk each miss the fact that none of them received a copy of any email from the town IT department notifying the media or public of the meeting? If the Carrboro IT system doesn’t send these officials such a notice, then why not? If it does, then why did none of these people notice that no one came to the meeting? Why did that not seem strange?
One curious reaction to this “clerical error” is that of former Carrboro Alderman candidate and BOA pal Catherine DeVine, who said, “The town manager shouldn't have to apologize for meeting with the mayor and BOA without members of the press in attendance. They need this freedom when there's hard stuff to discuss out of the public eye.” Of course, the illegality of such an action is of little concern for Orange Progressives. After all, the “right” people are in charge. They only have your “best interests” in mind.
When the retreat started, Messrs. Brough, Chilton, and Stewart and Ms. Williamson all knew that no one from the local media was there. They knew that was an unprecedented occurrence for a town retreat, much less one held before an upcoming election and in a time of economic turmoil. Yet, they went ahead with the meeting anyway. This misfeasance begs the all important question, why was the meeting not adjourned? Why did they knowingly hold a meeting when even a UNC journalism student knows proper public notice wasn't given to the media?
