Residents of the Alabama Avenue neighborhood have asked the Carrboro Board of Aldermen to revise the development approval process to put permit requests like the Family Dollar application under the aldermen's jurisidiction.  

As it stands now, the process involving the Board of Adjustment puts too great a burden on neighbors to follow the process and any changes applicants make along the way. In the Family Dollar case, the group also says the quasi judicial process did not allow for sufficient public input. 

"We love our community, and we will fight for it as long as we have to. But this is Carrboro, and we shouldn’t have to fight this hard for social and environmental justice," the residents write. "We recognize the benefit of responsible development to our Town. We ask that the Town Staff and our elected officials ensure that citizens and property owners with such a deep and personal stake in these decisions can provide input that will be respected, without fear of reprisal, and that the process be amended to allow the Town to work with both the applicant and the affected community in a transparent, participatory manner."

Click more to read the full letter

By Tammy Grubb

Family Dollar opponents say the retail store is being shoehorned into a longtime neighborhood with no regard or respect for what the community wants or needs.

“We want the character of our community preserved. We want our health and safety protected. We want our natural environment protected, and we want vulnerable populations protected and justice done,” Alabama Avenue resident Claire Hermann said last night.

Both they and the developer will have to wait another two weeks to find out if the Board of Adjustment approves an 8,100-square-foot Family Dollar for the less than one acre site. The Board of Aldermen will not review the plan.

Roughly 40 people spoke Wednesday night against building the store. The public hearing was continued from May 16, when developer Will Stronach, of Raleigh-based Stronach Properties, presented more than two hours of expert testimony to a standing-room only crowd.

Members of Carrboro’s Alabama Avenue community will speak out against a proposed Family Dollar store tonight when a concept plan goes to the town's advisory boards for joint review.

Stronach Properties plans an 8,000 square foot store on Alabama Avenue, near the intersection of Jones Ferry and Highway 54. The plot, about an acre, is wooded with an ephemeral stream. Last month, the company told residents that construction would require them to cut all the existing trees and pave the wetland area, according to a statement from the residents.

Alabama Avenue is a mostly black neighborhood (see resident Anissa McLendon's letter to The Chapel Hill News), and some families have lived there for generations. Residents have raised concerns about traffic, overflow parking, noise and light pollution, among other issues. According to the Town of Carrboro’s planning department, an 8,000 store should have 40 parking spaces; the lot only allows for 26 spaces, raising concern among residents about overflow parking on the narrow street, according to the statement.

The developers already have the zoning the project needs, town planner Jeff Kleaveland says. The project does requires a special use permit from the Board of Adjustment because of the need to relocate the stream on the property. That board will hold a public hearing after developers revise and formally submit their plan after getting feedback tonight.