The Carrboro Town Council recently discussed its comprehensive plan, “Carrboro Connects.” This is the first comprehensive plan for Carrboro. The council viewed the proposed final draft with a vote whether to pass scheduled for June.
The plan titled Carrboro Connects describes the “type of community that Carrboro wants to be in the future with an implementation strategy to achieve that vision.”
The plan focuses on what the next twenty years in Carrboro could look like.
Goals within the plan include: affordable housing, climate and environment, land use and transportation and mobility. Additional goals are green stormwater infrastructure, energy and water, economic sustainability, recreation, parks and culture and public services and communication.
The plan states it was developed around the themes of race and equity and climate action, which Scott Goldstein of Teska Associates said are explicitly laid out in every chapter.
“Every item that directly relates to race and equity and climate action are highlighted,” Goldstein said. “Plus, that lens was used specifically by the task force to choose which were the priority projects. Because we heard from you all, from the very beginning, how important that was the town of Carrboro. So that’s how the taskforce listened to the community.”
Goldstein said Carrboro’s comprehensive plan is meant to be viewed as a guide. These documents outline town goals for the future – not bind local governments to specific quotas or standards.
“It’s a policy document,” Goldstein said. “It’s not your [Land Use Ordinance]. You can be very clear here what your goals are.”
One example of this was how council members discussed parking minimums within the comprehensive plan. Council member Danny Nowell asked if those minimums could be eliminated altogether.
“I would extend it to residential broadly, rather than just the high high traffic or transit connected corridors,” Nowell said. “Basically can we be as aggressive as Mebane?”
But Carrboro Mayor Damon Seils advised the council to work within the draft of the plan as to not put more work on town staff.
“We’re sort of at this one yard from the goal line kind of situation here,” Seils said. “So kind of working within the draft that we have before us and offering tweaks or additional direction or firmer direction on a given point that’s already perhaps included in the draft.”
Because council member Randee Haven-O’Donnell was absent, the Carrboro Town Council pushed a vote on the comprehensive plan to its June 7 meeting.
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