In case you're getting a late start on your Super Bowl Sunday paper ...

NO VOTE FRUSTRATES CRITICS: It wasn't Aydan Court, but some say last week's Chapel Hill Town Council vote against Charterwood isn't the first time the town's elected officials haven't listened to the town's appointed officials. The council has a different role to play, of course. Read katelyn Ferral's stor and tell us what you think.

REFUGEES DISCUSS NEEDS: I was driving down Main Street when I saw three Burmese people squatting in a circle on the sidewalk talking. I thought that was interesting, perhaps the way they talked in the refugee camps they came from. I learned a lot when I got to meet soem of the immigrants at the Chapel Hill 2020 meeting at Carrboro Elementary School.

STANCIL, BLUE INTERVIEWS: I want to thank Town Manager Roger Stancil and Police Chief Blue for their candor during last week's interviews about the Yates raid. We have received two letters: one saying I was too hard on the men and one saying I asked good questions. 

New My View columnist Julie Moore discovers UNC's women's gymnastics (they're not all skinny teenagers), Aaron Nelson invites you to his state of the community address at noon today in Chapel Hill Town Hall, and letter writer Sam Schanfarber says there's a drug problem at East Chapel Hill and asks why.

Thanks for reading, and remember you can join us on Twitter (@chapelhillnews1), where we're up to 1,200 followers ) and on my Facebook page, as 800 of you already have. You'll find more news, more photographs (see Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton and the masked anarchist) and more ways for you to share what you think.   

Mark       

Nothing like a little holiday advertising to drive up the page count and allow us to bring you even more local news. Today's 16-page A section is packed; here's some of what we've got:

SCHOOL CROWDING: The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schoools' new elementary won't open for another year and a half. New correspondent Brooks Dareff reports what the school board might do to ease crowding at Carrboro, Glenwood and Seawell in the meantime.

CONDO SITE SOLD: Developer Carol Ann Zin paid $1.14 million for the Aydan Court site off N.C. 54 in 2007. Find out why she sold it to UNC this fall for $410,000. (And she's not happy about it; read her guest column in today's opinion section.)

LONG LEAF GOODBYE: If you've got tickets to "Amahl and the Night Visitors" today (left), you're seeing one of our local opera company's final performaces. What? You didn't know we had an opera company? Read Dave Hart's story.

Anne Blythe says watch for the Lovette trial closing arguments tomorrow. Katelyn Ferral says watch for the town's report on the Yates Motor Co. raid this week. And police have arested a suspect in the mysterious shooting of a Chapel Hill man in his Ashley Forest home last weekend. 

Julie Moore is learning more things about Chapel Hill in today's My View, and Will Allen, Elias Schwartz, Roy Brock, Harvey Carnes, Jill Bone and Robert Dowling have letters in today's edition. What's on your mind?

Thanks for reading,

Mark

The recession may be nearing an end, at least in Chapel Hill.

The development moratorium the Town Council enacted in 2007 in response to feverish activity near N.C. 86 and Interstate 40 got a de facto extension as the credit markets collapsed in 2008.

But the moratorium is over, and developers all over town have submitted new proposals in recent months, including one giant subdivision on Homestead Road and one gargantuan mixed-use project across from Southern Village.

Capkov Ventures plans 1,200 multi-family housing units and 570,000 square feet of commercial space, including a hotel. The project, dubbed Obey Creek, would comprise 120 acres with three access points along U.S. 15/501 South near Market Street and Southern Community Park.

Capstone Development Corp., meanwhile, plans 330 homes in 137 buildings, including single-families, townhomes and apartment-style units. If approved, The Cottages subdivision would sit on 33 acres with 1,175 parking spaces.

The condominium proposal that ended in a fiery showdown last winter between former mayor Kevin Foy and developer Carol Ann Zinn recently reignited over alleged trespassing by Councilman Ed Harrison and a state official on Zinn’s land.

Harrison said he and Misty Buchanan, a botanist with the N.C. Natural Heritage Program, visited the land in February where Zinn had proposed the 58-unit Aydan Court townhouse project. With permission, they had joined a group of consultants hired by UNC-Chapel Hill to assess the natural resources on adjacent land owned by the university and intended for the expansion of the Kenan-Flagler business school’s Paul J. Rizzo Conference Center.

“I said, ‘I think we’re moving off UNC property,’” said Harrison. “They knew this. I told them. I was not the one who did the wandering. They did.”

Two weeks after the second of two visits, Zinn’s lawyer Michael Brough wrote a letter to Town Attorney Ralph Karpinos complaining that Harrison might not be able to consider the merits of any future proposal for Zinn’s land “without having a fixed opinion prior to hearing the matter,” as required by law.

Karpinos agreed that a council member can’t independently investigate property under review for a permit without making the developer aware but since Zinn hasn’t submitted a new proposal, Harrison was in compliance. Anyone can walk on someone else’s land unless the owner tells them otherwise, as with a “No Trespassing” sign, Karpinos said.