Minutes 11-16-2021 Virtual Business Meeting

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20 tweaked as necessary to accommodate the roads. He said the Headwaters preserve is a headwaters for three different sub-basins, and to get sewer to this area would require having sewer services flow in three different directions. He said when sewer was installed in the Rogers Road community some extensions were made out to this area. Commissioner Fowler asked for a cost to develop water and sewer. Craig Benedict said he could not say that right now, but there are options from where it could come. He said the school site has two stub outs to the property. He said the Rogers Road sewer project extended sewer past the animal shelter and up to the Nunn property. He said the northern part of the site and the eastern area near the tracks would be served to the north at that time. He said as next steps are examined in a master plan, costs for infrastructure would be established. He said the Rogers Road sewer project was a joint effort between jurisdictions, and he hopes any future sewer work would be accomplished similarly. PUBLIC COMMENT John Dempsey said the Greene Tract Forest is a 164-acre parcel of publically owned land. He said elected officials are being asked to transfer much publically owned land for eventual private development. He referred to proposal 6A, noting this proposal targets 66 acres for unspecified mixed use and commercial development. He said acreage could vary up to 15% for a total of 76 acres, and 21 acres along the eastern side of the Greene tract will remain as public owned and undeveloped land in the short term, but may be evaluated for development in the future depending on needs at that time. He said that brings the total of public land being developed to 97 acres, over 59% of the property. He said 16 acres are designated for public schools and recreation site, equaling a total of 113 acres out of 164-acre tract that is being targeted for development. He said there is no affordable housing mandated by the joint resolution, but it includes a goal of affordable and mixed income opportunities. He said the Board and town councils should vote no and direct planning staff to work on a plan that is more in line with the Rogers Road: Mapping Our Community's Future report from May of 2016. He believes doing so would garner more public support. Nancy Oates said she is a long-time advocate for affordable housing. She said voting on this resolution is problematic because the public still does not know the ramifications of switching the boundaries around. She said she does not see any reason to rush. She said there was tremendous public turnout at the in person and online meetings, but their questions still have not been answered. She said 50 years ago elected officials dealt duplicitously with the residents of Rogers Road, promising a recreation area, but instead the landfill was expanded, tainting the local wells, and she has a sick feeling this duplicitousness is happening again. She said residents of Rogers Road voices have been clear they do not want "stack them and pack them" housing, but that is what mixed use for all income levels is. She said she did not get support from colleagues when she suggested removing mixed use high rises from allowable uses in 2016. She said in talking with them later, they said the plan was to sell off the land to private developers to pay for the infrastructure and would get more money with mixed use developments. She said the land could be donated to a nonprofit, and if that is the Board's intent, it should be spelled out in the resolution tonight. She said potential traffic impacts have not been explored. She said in 2019, then school board chair Joal Broun said the land was too small for a school and wanted to discuss preserving other land in Chapel Hill for a school site. She said the smallest school that would fit on this site is an elementary school, only if it took up all of the recreation space. She said the Chapel Hill Town Council is leaning on the three newly elected officials to support this and be a team player. She said the environmental report states clearly that no infrastructure is to be laid on top of the protected areas, but maps show that this will indeed happen.