Carrboro mayor: Bingham annexation unlikely

It worked in Hillsborough, where a threat to annex effectively eliminated sites south of town from hosting a future solid waste transfer station.

Now an Orange County woman has asked the mayor of Carrboro if that town would consider annexing Bingham Township. The township lies just west of Carrboro, and the county commissioners have made two sites there top contenders for the future garbage depot. Residents also fear UNC leaders want to put an airport there.

“If you think that Carrboro would consider such a move if Bingham Township residents requested it, I would like to proceed with collecting signatures of Bingham Township residents supporting such a move, with the aim of presenting the request to the Board of Aldermen in early 2009,” Rachel Hoke wrote in an e-mail to Mayor Mark Chilton.

The mayor responded a couple of days ago. He says he loves the rural township and has friends there.

“However, about 20 years ago the Town of Carrboro entered into an agreement with Orange County and Chapel Hill under which Carrboro conceded a large amount of the town's annexation area west of Carrboro in exchange for new annexation areas north of Homestead Road," he wrote. "This was intended to prevent development in the University Lake Watershed (because new development there would compromise the quality of drinking water coming from University Lake).”

Chilton doesn’t think the town would try to annex areas in Bingham Township now because of that agreement.