Economics at issue in UNC plan

University, towns grapple over costs of Carolina North

CHAPEL HILL -- Children who live in UNC-Chapel Hill's Student Family Housing off Mason Farm Road attend Glenwood Elementary School, but because they live on campus, their parents don't pay property taxes.

The university has pledged not to re-create that situation at Carolina North, a world-class research campus proposed in northwest Chapel Hill.

"The Carolina North campus will have a net neutral or positive fiscal impact on the Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County local governments," states part of a draft report endorsed by the Carolina North Leadership Advisory Committee during a six-hour meeting on Saturday.

The panel includes officials from UNC, Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

The university has not yet determined how much housing or retail development will rise as part of 8 million square feet imagined at Carolina North.

But the project's executive director, Jack Evans, promised that much of it will be privately owned and therefore subject to property taxes.

University and local government officials also agreed that Carolina North would:

* Serve as a model of an "ecologically, socially and economically sustainable community."

* Maintain some mix of classroom, research, commercial and residential uses at each stage of development over the next 50 years.

* Include space for schools and child care facilities.

* Connect with but not intrude on adjacent neighborhoods.

The committee's statement on fiscal impact was a compromise after university representatives would not promise that the municipalities would recover the full cost of services, such as fire protection and public schools.

The university delegation to the committee stressed the positive contributions UNC already makes to Orange County residents. Elected officials pointed out that university amenities such as public green spaces do not necessarily offset the costs of other services.

"You don't pay for providing firemen's salaries with providing walks in the park," Chapel Hill Mayor Pro Tem Bill Strom said. "You just can't get full credit."

Carolina North executive director Jack Evans said the university will pay for a fiscal impact study to determine its fair share toward the cost of new municipal services required by Carolina North.

University representatives rejected the municipalities' continued calls to preserve 750 out of 1,000 acres as open space forever and to ensure that the campus will have no negative impact on the area's air quality.

"We don't think it's a condition that any incremental development in Chapel Hill could meet," Evans said of the town's air quality demand. "We're not going to agree to that language, but that doesn't mean we're looking for license to be a bad citizen in regard to air quality."

The university also declined to recognize that continued growth could destroy Chapel Hill and Carrboro's quality of life, as requested by the Chapel Hill town delegation.

Former Town Council member Joe Capowski, one of a few people in the audience Saturday at the Friday Center, urged the towns to press the university on that issue, pointing to Manning Drive as an example.

"You have to start asking the question: Have we overdone it?"