When the UNC Board of Trustees meets this week, one committee will hear about a proposal that could eventually lead the university and town to exchange parcels of property.
The arrangement is being explored as the town is also working toward building a municipal services center, which could house a new town police station, on university-owned property. The proposal calls for the university swapping the approximately 21-acre property where the municipal services center would be located for a smaller property downtown.
Materials for the trustees’ finance, infrastructure and audit committee show the university would receive the approximately one-acre parking lot at the corner of Rosemary and Columbia streets currently owned by the town in exchange for the land on Estes Drive.
The town and UNC have been in talks since January 2017 working to come to terms on a development agreement to allow for the construction of a municipal services center.
The two sides came to terms on a tentative lease agreement for the property in August 2017. The town has been working toward starting the process of building a new police station in recent years. The current police station is located on Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard and has been the subject of additional environmental concern after it was discovered that it had been built on a coal ash deposit site. The town discovered the materials in 2013 and has been working under scrutiny from state environmental regulators to identify ways to move forward. Town officials estimate the coal ash deposit is from the 1960s or ‘70s.
An email from Chapel Hill town manager Roger Stancil said this land swap proposal came after the town had “discussed the potential for exploring whether there is a mutual interest and benefit to exchanging” the properties. Stancil wrote that the Town Council “expressed reservations and especially wanted any discussions to be consistent with Town adopted plans and interest.”
Stancil’s email said UNC’s committee meeting will focus on discussing “the merits of exploring whether the Town would consider a conversation about supporting the future of innovation and arts on their north campus and in Downtown Chapel Hill.”
The town manager added that the topic may come back before the council during a business meeting or work session for further exploration of the potential swap.
The finance, infrastructure and audit committee of the Board of Trustees is scheduled to meet Wednesday afternoon with the full board meeting slated for Thursday morning.
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