CHAPEL HILL - Their lawyer told them extending a development moratorium in northern Chapel Hill is probably illegal, but the Town Council is going to hold a public hearing on it anyway.

Last week, the council opened a public hearing on a set of development guidelines for northwest Chapel Hill. The hearing will continue Jan. 14, and a second hearing on extending the moratorium past its Jan. 31 expiration could happen a week later.

"I'm finding the hearings rewarding," council member Ed Harrison said with a nod to vocal members of the Northern Area Task Force. "I don't mind hearing more."

Last week, citizens and council members spoke against the town planning staff's recommendation to rezone some key properties in that area into a high-density mixed-use village district that would favor multistory buildings. But neither staff nor the council could identify a better option for rezoning.

"What you've gotten back to date ... is disappointing," said Scott Radway, a task force member and professional land planner.

While council members last week were pessimistic about making any decisions before the end of January, Radway urged them to use the next 2 1/2 months efficiently.

In particular, Radway asked them to direct the staff to explore realigning Old University Station Road with an entrance to the Timberlyne Shopping Center, and to craft a new zone for half of the 40-acre site of the previously proposed University Station apartment complex. That's one of the key parcels where the mixed-use village zone was deemed inappropriate for reasons ranging from the negative health effects of Interstate 40 to that zone's exclusion of public facilities such as schools and performance halls.

This week, council member Mark Kleinschmidt restated his call for the planning staff to put other rezoning possibilities on the table. "That's what I would like before we come out of the moratorium," he said. "I'm bothered that we don't have those tools."

In addition to new zoning options, Del Snow, who led the task force, asked for models of how development would affect town infrastructure, services and finances; a draft of an ordinance to limit development when infrastructure and services can't keep up; and a plan for financially viable forms of development. "I'm asking you to open your eyes to different possibilities for how planning can be carried out," she said.

Planning director J.B. Culpepper said her department would provide some alternate recommendations in January. Mayor Pro Tem Bill Strom, who ran the meeting in Mayor Kevin Foy's absence, said voting to add the task force report into the town's Comprehensive Plan after January's public hearing will allow the council to cite it when approving or denying development projects.