The Chapel Hill Town Council is committed to a new community center and sewer lines in the Rogers Road neighborhood, but how much will the town pay?

Town Council members did not answer that question last week, although some did wonder if those projects will make up for 40 years of living beside the Orange County Landfill.

Council member Jim Ward, who serves with Council member Penny Rich on the Historic Rogers Road Task Force, said the council has a lot of questions as it moves forward.

The center should be the first priority, because it will have “more impact on kids and is the easier problem to solve,” Ward said.

The center was forced to close in August because of fire and building code issues.

The County Commissioners have pledged $500,000 for a new center – roughly the cost for a 3,000-square-foot building.

The commissioners also suggested that Chapel Hill and Carrboro consider paying to equip the center, its first year of utilities, and permitting and connection costs.

Carrboro recently committed $900,000 toward the roughly $6 million sewer project. The commissioners have postponed discussion of sewer costs to a future meeting.

Here's more from Monday's BOCC trash transfer station work session, followed by an earlier print version.

Alice Gordon said several times that she felt consultants Olver Inc. were focusing too heavily on the site itself and its layout, and not on how it will fit into its surroundings. Other commissioners seemed to agree.

Initially commissioners Foushee, Gordon and Nelson asked that access to utilities be given a higher priority, saying they were concerned in particular about how dirty "washdown" water will be handled. (If there's no sewer access the county would have to haul it off in tankers.) But Carey and Jacobs pointed out that making sewer access more important would make the station more likely to go near populated and developed areas. The commissioners eventually settled on a system where a site with utility access will receive a few extra points at the end of the process.

One member of the public asked about site size requirements that are currently set at 25 acres (except under certain circumstances), and whether that would eliminate the Eubanks Road site from consideration. Consultant Bob Sallach said he and colleagues hadn't looked at the Eubanks site yet vis-a-vis the criteria. "We really haven't looked at that," Sallach said. "This is being developed independently of [Eubanks]."

The board was scheduled to approve both the technical and community criteria for sites, but hadn't made a decision by the time I had to leave to make print deadline.

CHAPEL HILL -- Orange County Commissioners met Monday to work on finding a location for a solid waste transfer station.
The facility will be a building where garbage trucks drop trash to be gathered and shipped out of the county.
The commissioners talked for hours about technical criteria and community factors for sites that will determine where the station goes.
The board made a few changes to consultant recommendations, asking that bicycle routes be considered earlier in the traffic analysis, and that greater consideration be given to utility access and protected watersheds.
Members of the public asked the board and consultants Olver Inc. about emissions, environmental studies and the size of the site.
Early last year the commissioners decided to put the trash transfer station at the the site of the current county landfill, which is filling up and will close in a few years. But that decision angered local residents who say they have lived near the county’s solid waste for decades and want it to go elsewhere.
Late last year the commissioners decided to reopen the search process, and are scheduled to choose a site later this year.