Choose Your Own Adventure

A perspective from Karen Stegman

How is a vision achieved? Vote by vote.

Serving on the Town Council sometimes reminds me of those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. Every few chapters, you have to make a choice of which direction to go. Each time you choose, your future narrative changes – sometimes incrementally, other times, more dramatically. Each decision opens new doors, leads to new options, and then new decisions to be made, and so on. Luckily for the Council, we have strategies and plans that have been created with ample public input to help us make the right decisions. These include the Future Land Use Map, the Climate Action and Response Plan, the Mobility and Connectivity Plan, and many more. Taken together, they call for a future Chapel Hill that is a sustainable, equitable, connected community. We use these plans to inform our decisions and direct us towards the best path forward.

The Council recently approved a new multi-use development at the corner of Estes and MLK Drives, called Aura. In voting for Aura, I chose the path that moves us closer to the vision laid out in those strategies and plans: a vision of Chapel Hill where diverse community members live in homes they can afford and work at well-paying jobs they can use public transit to reach. Residents are able to meet most of their needs within a short walk or bicycle ride from their homes (the 15-minute city), including parks and green spaces where residents routinely gather and connect. Will Aura on its own achieve that vision? No, but it moves us in the right direction, and to the next opportunity to make another choice along the path that leads us even closer to our shared vision.

How does Aura take us down the right path towards achieving our collective vision for Chapel Hill? It includes:

  • Infill development that adds needed housing without sprawl and includes diverse housing types
  • Desperately needed affordable housing, meeting the inclusionary zoning ordinance of 15% of ownership units with 8 townhomes plus voluntarily offering an additional 29 rental apartments, at 65-80% AMI, that will accept Housing Choice/Section 8 vouchers
  • Proximity to schools so kids can walk or bike
  • 40% tree canopy and over 3 acres of recreation space including multiple parks
  • Access to the current bus line and future Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line
  • Retail space including a restaurant, plus the option to increase commercial space if there is demand
  • Commitment to zero stormwater runoff to neighbors on the northeastern side of the property, with recourse if the standard is not met and green stormwater management features including pervious pavement and bioretention.

The opposition to Aura focused primarily on traffic and stormwater. I grew up across the street from Phillips Middle School and my second child to attend Phillips is there now, so I understand that area and its challenges intimately. Genuine and valid concerns were raised by community members. And the Council listened. Because of that input, the plans for both greatly improved over the course of the nearly two years that Aura took to go through the full review process, including advisory board reviews, public hearings, and Council negotiations. The stormwater requirements for the project are far beyond the Town’s already stringent regulations, requiring Aura to manage the run-off from a 100-year storm. The intensive traffic studies conducted by the Town all show that by making the changes Council required, the issues at both ends of Estes will be mitigated.

Aura is not perfect – no project is – but it moves us further on the path towards our shared future vision. One development – one path – can’t meet all our goals or achieve our vision on its own. But it can move us forward and on to our next adventure.

 

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