The CH 2020 draft comprehensive plan needs more information, more input from UNC and more transparency, according to Chapel Hill’s Planning Board.
Planning Board members met for nearly five hours April 7 to discuss CH 2020 during a special Saturday work session. The group presented a list of concerns to staff, noting the plan's lack of “clarity, focus, strategic thinking, and prioritization.”
The 2020 plan is scheduled to be completed in June. During council meetings earlier this month, some residents have said the town is moving too fast with the plan and have asked for delays. Town Manager Roger Stancil supports the June completion date.
The Planning Board did not specifically endorse a delay, but cautioned that “at this juncture in our town’s growth patterns, we take the approach that our future is worth the time to ‘get it right.’” The board recommended the approval of a vision statement in June to inform the basis for additional work on the plan after that time.
The next Chapel Hill 2020 meeting is at 5:30 p.m. tonight (Tuesday) in Town Hall.
Katelyn Ferral covers Orange County for The News & Observer and The Chapel Hill News.
Comments
Need time and clarity...
Tue, 04/17/2012 - 09:42 — CitizenWillIf the Planning Board, which is well-versed in local land-use policy, can't plow through the latest draft in 5+ hours, how are residents less conversant with the ins-and-outs of local development supposed to finish up in 1+ hours? Another draft is coming sometime soon ("in the 20's" according to TM Stancil) which will take more time to digest.
Contrary to Stancil's claims of inclusiveness, most of the critique and lots of the less contrarian material the public has introduced has NOT been integrated into the draft plans. Relevant detail, concerns, input is being filtered out behind the scenes.
As a practical matter, the Town is still not responding to comments and questions on the CH2020 website, still refuses to put up the draft plans in a format suitable for comment, still balks at highlighting changes in each version and has no plan to remedy the many communication issues underlined by the 16 recent speakers and 50+ petitioners.
CH2020 is salvageable but the first step is to make an honest assessment of where we are and put together a business-like approach to getting where we need to go.