After a lengthy discussion, the Chapel Hill Town Council approved a special use permit for a 62 single-family home development for the Merin Road Communty.

These types of developments are required to have a certain level of recreation space, but sustainability and planning executive director Mary Jane Nirdlinger said the town usually expects 75 percent of the requirement to be on-site, with the other 25 percent given to the town as a payment in-lieu.

The payment helps pay for the town’s current parks.

“The philosophy behind the 25 percent payment in-lieu is that folks who move into a neighborhood in town also take advantage of other things in their neighborhood such as the aquatic center, Homestead Park, our existing greenways and trails,” she said.

Capkov Ventures, the proposed developer, offered to create 115 percent of the required recreation space, but asked to be exempt from the estimated $88,000 payment in-lieu. The payment in-lieu is not legally required, but has become an expectation of the council.

“This has been a fairly consistent requirement,” Nirdlinger said. “But the council has made a couple of exceptions.”

The council became split over whether or not to allow the developer to be exempt from the payment. Councilwoman Sally Greene said she wanted to see the developer make the payment.

“It’s a private amenity you’re providing,” she said. “The fact is, it is not supporting the public park system and I have actually maintained over the years that 25 percent is too low.”

Council members asked Eric Chupp, who represented Capkov Ventures, to consider agreeing to pay in-lieu, but he said he could not do it.

Chupp said part of the reason was because there was no law requiring the payment and that exceptions had been made by the council in the past

“When you’re looking at a $90,000 payment when you’re already providing 115 percent of what the ordinance required at the elevated status of active recreation, typically single-family developments only have to provide passive recreation, I have to draw the line in the sand somewhere,” he said.

Councilwoman Donna Bell said the town needed to go back and clarify their policies regarding the payment in-lieu.

“It’s not staff that’s been wavering, it’s been the council that’s been sitting, that’s been wavering,” Bell said. “I am considering wavering again this evening with the idea that we’ll have something in writing which means we don’t have to waver anymore.”

The special use permit passed by a margin of 6-3, with councilwomen Sally Greene, Jessica Anderson and Nancy Oates as the dissenting voices.

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