Chair of the Chatham County Commissioners Karen Howard joined 97.9 The Hill’s Brighton McConnell on Tuesday, June 7 for the latest Chatham County Roundup. This time, Howard discussed managing growth in the community, the academic year finishing up and previewing a key meeting with Pittsboro leaders. Below is a transcript of the conversation edited for clarity. You can listen to the full conversation here.
Brighton McConnell: We have a lot to catch up on on the local government side, since the Board of Commissioners had a meeting yesterday afternoon. Didn’t seem like the most full agenda, but still, a few things to go through from there. I was hoping that you could share some of the highlights with us.
Karen Howard: Absolutely. I felt like the big highlight from last night’s meeting was our discussion on our unified development ordinance, which we are calling Recode Chatham because there’s just so much to think about and talk about and engage the community on as we get an opportunity to revision a lot of the policy around development and planning. And so of course we had some very robust conversation as expected, but the first part of that was a presentation of the work that the UDO team has done so far with regard to getting input from staff, from departments, from the community, and pulling that together and trying to align it with plan Chatham, which is our comprehensive plan. And then from there, the goal is to extract the policies that need revisioning or revising and make them stand up more forcefully in the face of the development pressures we’re seeing in this area with regard to just growth in general, but also with regard to our new understanding of our role in climate change and in protecting the environment.
So how do we plan to manage our development planning practices in a way that respects the environment and lightens our footprint and is mindful of water and conservation and protects tree cover and green space while also allowing people to develop their land communities to grow and thrive? It’s a tricky balance. We had some really good conversations around that. I loved one of the things that the presenter said. We have a goal of ensuring that there is economic viability in all parts of the county while preserving the jewel-like characteristics and quality and the rest. And I thought that was a wonderful way of putting it. And so a lot of our conversations flowed from there and coming up in August, we will have an opportunity for having the community give input for the plan for the area.
McConnell: It’s hard to avoid using buzzwords here, but it does sound like the synthesis of a lot of big goals for Chatham County. As a reminder for listeners out there too, a unified development ordinance usually is tackling that set of regulations that are in place concerning the use of development on land and how buildings look and stuff like that. And you obviously just gave some great examples there, Karen, what are some of the themes of how Chatham County wants their buildings to look and be used on that land?
Howard: So I think more of our conversation took a little bit of a step back from that and talked about what was the level of intensity of development that we wanted to see in different parts of the county. So the east is developing in a certain way and certainly the northeast is, so is that something we want to incentivize and encourage in the west? And if not, then what do we think development should and could look like in the context of a rural community? So does that mean that you might have some really robust development that’s completely surrounded by trees and green spaces, so you don’t know that it’s there from highways and byways? How do you revise development so that it fits with the goals and values of the various parts of the community?
We’ve had some high-level questions, like do we believe that the development should be encouraged to stay in the east and no development in the west? There was a resounding no from the board that we do not want to pitch the west off from the potential of having growth. We do want that growth to be more thoughtful and properly managed so that the qualities of the west that all of Chatham County said were important are preserved. But again, there’s a difficult balance there in terms of how you allow for land uses that protect our character and still allow for that growth and development. Along with that growth and development, there will come the need for schools and emergency services and libraries and grocery stores and many other things, and do you want to be thinking about that?
I actually feel as though this is a wonderful opportunity that I don’t think we necessarily had for the Eastern part of Chatham, which has grown and evolved without the same level of intense scrutiny. We didn’t have the same pressures of growth and we didn’t have the awareness that we have around our environmental footprint. I think the important thing is for us to keep challenging ourselves to look at that balance and find ways to make it work for the residents of the west that are fair, both now and future residents. That’s difficult work.
McConnell: I know that another part of yesterday’s meeting was kind of an update from Chatham County Schools specifically on PE and wellness, but I want to pin that off into the end of the school year here. I know that the county is involved with the schools a little bit, but you as a parent must be involved. How does it feel to be hitting the end of this school year? Especially one where we had a lot of ups and downs, a lot of kind of returns from COVID-19 and mixing with a new normal, but also a lot of challenges too, when it comes to mental health, discussion of school safety and so much more.
Howard: Absolutely. As a parent, I am relieved. I’m ready to not get up at the crack of dawn for a while. But I also had many opportunities over the school year to witness the resilience of our teachers and staff and students. I got to speak at a graduation at the School of Science and Engineering. The service ceremony was actually in Pittsboro, but the school is in Siler City. Just to witness the wonder and amazement of our students and the energy that they have, their passion and commitment and also their kindness and tenderness towards one another at difficult times. It happened to be the same day that the school shooting had occurred. And that young population was very aware of the reality that there is this increased incredibly horrific risk.
So I’ve been on the parent side. I’ve been very much aware of that, but also as liaison to the school board I’m very mindful of the fact that schools are being handed a lot of responsibilities that have nothing to do with education. I think as a community, we need to be thinking about that. We need to be talking about that. And we need to be grappling with what schools should really be responsible for and what the responsibility of the rest of the community is. How do we support schools and teachers and children in a way that we are not pushing broken children out into our environment because we didn’t protect them and didn’t invest on the front end? So part of that conversation last night from Chatham County Schools was about their health and wellness, and it’s physical health, they’re talking about PE and physical health, but they’re also talking about mental and emotional and social wellbeing.
The teachers themselves are assessing their ability to teach the content. I love that one. The one example that was used was giving the teachers the opportunity to look at different areas of study and say, which are the ones they felt comfortable with and then going back in there and helping them be more successful in the areas they were not as comfortable with. And I thought that’s a wonderful way to approach it and a wonderfully supportive tool for our teachers to know that the school system has for them.
McConnell: We’ve got a couple of minutes left before we need to wrap up, and I also want to take a little bit of time to preview another big meeting that the county commissioners will be involved with tomorrow, and that is a joint meeting with the Pittsboro town board. We were talking about the development in the growth in the eastern part of the county, Pittsboro a big part of that. What should people be on the lookout for when it comes to meeting topics Thursday night?
Howard: One of the important things that you’ll hear us talk about is some of the joint planning that we have coming up. There are questions around space sharing as Pittsboro grows and its personnel needs grow. There are some opportunities for us to work collaboratively, to house those individuals that they need to bring on board. But I think more than anything, this conversation is an opportunity for us to serve our community and our citizens. People that live in Pittsboro are still Chatham County residents. We need to be having these conversations with our municipalities and towns and our school system so that we are working together and each party knows what the other is doing. That way, when there are opportunities for us to work together, we’re aware of them and we’re jumping on them. I think we have four or five items on our agenda. We will be talking about space needs, but also water and wastewater for Pittsboro and some of the future planning that might be involved there in ways that the county can help. A couple of other topics have also come up over the past year or so since our last joint meeting.
McConnell: Yeah, no small amount of important and key topics Thursday night for that joint meeting between Pittsburgh’s town board and the county board of commissioners. Karen, as always, thank you so much for the time and we hope you have a good rest of your week.
Howard: Thank you. It’s always a pleasure.
Every Tuesday, learn what’s happening from around Chatham County during the Chatham County Roundup! Featuring local government representatives, the Chatham News + Record and other community members, the segment spotlights the latest news from around the region.
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