Growth foments a fuss in Chapel Hill

CHAPEL HILL -- The kitchens and bathrooms were small, the air-conditioning spotty. But families felt safe, and on the weekends, neighbors hung laundry together on clotheslines outside.

It wasn't perfect, Alice Simmons said, but Glen Lennox was home.

Simmons was reading the newspaper in her nursing home when she learned developers planned to tear down the neighborhood and its companion shopping center off the N.C. 54 entrance to Chapel Hill. Having lived there in the 1970s and again in the early '90s, Simmons, 76, said the news made her heart drop.

"It would just be a terrible thing to lose it," she said. "Everything about the place is just wonderful."

The side effects of growth -- cranes, noise and higher rents -- are ubiquitous in the Triangle. But when growth comes to Chapel Hill, developers often meet a particular kind of resistance. It comes in the form of petitions, T-shirts and a Web site generated by a population that often prefers keeping things the way they are.

"People are on guard for not having Chapel Hill become a generic place," Mayor Kevin Foy said. "Not everything is open for redevelopment."

Grubb Properties, the owners of Glen Lennox, recently withdrew its design plans after neighbors lobbied hard against them. The two sides will now enter talks that could lead to new zoning rules and a new redevelopment plan next year. Residents and preservationists remain cautious.

In downtown Chapel Hill, construction is beginning on the 10-story Greenbridge condominium project. And across N.C. 54 from Glen Lennox, more condominiums are coming. Some observers say the future of Glen Lennox itself, the one-story apartments built for returning GIs, seems crucial.

"This is almost a test case; it's a line in the sand for how Chapel Hill is going to grow," said Ernest Dollar, executive director of the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill. "There has to be a delicate balance to preserve the idealized Chapel Hill that people come here for but still grow as a town. And I think that unwise growth and unwise development could really hamper and destroy the things we love about this town and brought us here."

Conservation option

Molly McConnell figured she'd die in Glen Lennox.

"Really, I thought this was my last stop before God," she said. But now, she said, she's thinking about finding a new place for herself and her beagle, MercyMe Lily Grace Happy Dog.

McConnell, 62, learned about the plans when Grubb called a meeting with homeowners bordering Glen Lennox. One homeowner, Mary Dexter, petitioned the Town Council around the same time to designate Glen Lennox a Neighborhood Conservation District. If approved, the district would restrict development to protect the area's character. Ten-dollar T-shirts and a Web site, save glenlennox.org -- soon followed.

Foy said the public outcry shows how many people feel about the neighborhood.

"Glen Lennox has become one of the iconic places in Chapel Hill, not because of its architecture and not because of its layout, but because of the people who have lived there and the life experiences they've had over the last 50 years," he said. "When you take that and say we're going to take out every trace of that neighborhood, I think people are justifiably appalled."

Glen Lennox Apartments opened in 1950 to address the housing shortage after World War II. Early residents included veterans, married students, retirees and new families -- much the same as its residents today.

"It's easy for ... someone who is not attached to the community emotionally to say this is going to be make us look better," said Delores Bailey, director of Empowerment, a neighborhood advocacy organization. "But when you own property and are raising children and you've been here for awhile, it's difficult to say, 'I will give up my way of life for the betterment of Chapel Hill.' "