After years of discussion and planning for the master-planned Chatham Park development, its South Village is beginning to take shape in its design — and both the public and Pittsboro’s elected officials recently shared feedback on its Small Area Plan.
South Village plans to expand nearly five thousand acres south of U.S. Highway 64 Business. At a meeting on Oct. 13, town commissioners reviewed the future development’s Small Area Plan, or SAP, which would guide future development plans for the project.
The board reviewed the 129-page document — which also provides conceptual locations for roadways, open spaces, and public facilities — chapter-by-chapter, and the discussion particularly centered on transit and connectivity to Pittsboro. In an interview with 97.9 The Hill last month, Mayor Kyle Shipp said the board has seen several drafts of the plan over the last year, with it becoming clearer with each revision.
“It’s a big topic overall,” Shipp said. “But I really appreciate [town] staff’s diligence in guiding us through that, guiding the planning board, and guiding the town through that, and we’ll see how it goes here in the rest of October and November.”
Chatham Park’s South Village expands nearly 5,000 acres to the east of downtown Pittsboro, just south of U.S. Highway 64 Business. The planned neighborhood primarily plans for residential units, research and development hubs, and activity centers. (Rendering via Chatham Park Investors.)
The development is the larger counterpart to Chatham Park’s North Village. Also part of the 7,000-acre master plan community, design and construction there is already underway for mixed-use and residential. The proposed uses for South Village include up to 15,000 housing units, research and development hubs, and activity centers. The SAP describes the latter as the most “vibrant” area of the site, with higher-density residential development, a variety of shops, public spaces, and walkable streets to complement its housing. According to the SAP, the site also plans for public facilities like schools, parks, greenspace, water, and sewer to help mitigate how the combined North and South villages will likely account for most of Pittboro’s growth over the next 15 years.
In the face of that anticipated growth, a large part of the town government’s discussion focused on how the development will integrate with downtown Pittsboro. While Chatham Parkway — the main thoroughfare servicing the master-community — is currently under construction, Shipp said the town is working on what a connection to the road will look like.
A public transit system will also be an important need for the town as it grows, according to Pittsboro Assistant Planning Director Teresa Thompson who led the presentation at the Oct. 13 meeting.
“We don’t really have a true transit network in Pittsboro right now,” Thompson said. “We have Chatham Transit, which that’s more of an on-call base. But in the future, I’m sure we will. And so [some town needs will require] a transit network in the future. We just don’t know what those [needs] are yet.”
Noting how the town has an agreement with Chatham Park’s investors to build transit stops in the neighborhood, Pittsboro Commissioner John Bonitz said it could be helpful to have a percentage of trips assumed or projected to be walking, biking or transit versus private auto. He added how he hopes the town will “rigorously” contemplate future transportation networks as the town builds a transportation plan.
“And I don’t mean like [under a] blue sky. I mean what do we actually need in terms of transit?” Bonitz said. “And I think that that’s going to be very helpful for the Chatham Transit Network because I think they fully recognize that as the community grows, they’re going to have to change, evolve, and grow, and giving them some quantitative basis would be really useful.”
Thompson said an updated Thoroughfare Plan as part of the town’s Comprehensive Transportation Plan (CTP) is also in the works to help identify what additional future roadways are needed for the development. She said the proposed transportation layout also includes removing some corridors to the east of South Village, near Hanks Chapel Road, and several board members requested any impacted or removed roadways be explicitly named in the next draft version.
Pittsboro’s Thoroughfare Plan helps guide where future roadways are needed for the Chatham Park development. The SAP proposes to remove some corridors to the east of South Village. (Rendering via Chatham Park Investors.)
A new addition to the SAP since the board last reviewed is a park dedication section, which details how parks and trails can only be approved by the board after they have gone through multiple review sessions with town staff. While the plan does not provide final details or layout for public facilities, Thompson said it should give the future town board, developers, and the community a sense of where to anticipate future growth, infrastructure, and public facilities.
A fiscal impact analysis for South Village also currently plans for 10,000 dwelling units, aiming for a conservative revenue projection according to Preston Development’s VP of Planning Chuck Smith. Noting how about 2,000 acres will be set aside for greenspace and parks, Bonitz said he wants a better sense for the area’s residential density and the financial implications of it.
“It’s puzzling to me,” he said. “That projection there is only for 10,000 [units], plus a few hundred residential units when the overall entitlement is clearly 22,000 residential units and by extension in the affordable housing policy 35,000 residential units. It makes the effort of considering the financial impacts and trying to guess the impact on the general welfare of this community very hard.”
Shipp said because market trends can change “drastically” in the future, it could be difficult to say how the market will drive the phasing for that aspect of the project. Bonitz said he thinks that difficulty stems from trying to create a SAP for a project as large as 5,000 acres.
“I don’t disagree with you,” Bonitz responded. “But if we’re trying to do this, and our master plan says there has to be a financial analysis, and reasonable folks say a financial analysis should have both revenues and expenditures, this is what the developer is attempting to do. And if you’re attempting to do something challenging, I don’t think we should just write it off and say it’s a shot in the dark, that we shouldn’t even bother looking at the FIA. I think we need to try and be diligent about it.”
The town’s planning board broadly agreed with Bonitz’s sentiments. In its own meeting on Oct. 20 to review and provide a recommendation to the Board of Commissioners on whether to approve the SAP, the planning board unanimously voted against town approval in its current form and cited the need for more specifics in several key proponents, according to the Chatham Journal.
In October, the town also launched a survey for public input on the proposed SAP, asking for comments from residents, business owners, and stakeholders. The now-closed forum is another step towards the plan being finalized, but community members can also provide comments and feedback at upcoming public meetings.
The Pittsboro board will vote on the SAP on November 10. To view the full meeting, click here.
Featured image via Chatham Park Investors.
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