This is David Schwartz.

Remember all the fanfare last spring surrounding the Ephesus-Fordham redevelopment plan? How the new zoning code was going to eliminate traffic congestion, solve our flooding problems, bring us new shopping opportunities, create lots of affordable housing, improve the town’s balance sheet, help us lose weight and spice up our sex lives?

Well, now the Ephesus-Fordham cheerleaders are singing a new song. When we learned that the 90-ft tall Village Plaza Apartments, the first and largest project to result from the new zoning code, will provide no affordable housing, no public recreation space, and a trivial amount of new retail, Ephesus-Fordham proponents said, “Well, it’s better than nothing.” Specifically, they said that the oversized apartment block is better than the vacant lot it will replace.

“Better than nothing.” We’ve heard the same defeatist refrain used to justify other disappointing recent land use decisions by the town council. After all the years of planning, after all the meetings, staff work, and thousands of dollars paid to consultants, the hours and hours of presentations, discussions, and public comments, it is striking how quickly and how far our standards for new development have fallen. Surely in Chapel Hill, the southern part of heaven, we don’t need to settle for “better than nothing.” We can do better, and we should. Here’s how:

First, in Ephesus-Fordham, we need to supplement the existing zoning code with more specific design guidance to ensure that new development produces a welcoming, interesting, pedestrian-oriented public realm, a place that people want to visit, rather than simply a bunch of imposing vertical gated communities.

Second, we need to give developers incentives to provide the community benefits we want, such as affordable housing, public recreation areas, energy efficient buildings, and so on.

It’s not rocket science. We just need the political will to do it.