Obey Creek Sparks Debate Between Developers and Environmentalists (Campus BluePrint Blog September 2012)

Obey Creek is a 120-acre property of largely undeveloped land in southern Chapel Hill, blanketed with a thick forest, neatly bisected by Wilson Creek, and marked with steep slopes and hills throughout the terrain. Obey Creek, however, is viewed by different people in very different ways; some see it as a vulnerable environmental preserve of sorts, while others see it as a wellspring of economic opportunity.

Directly across the street from Southern Village and Southern Community Park, Obey Creek is the subject of an extensive development proposal submitted in July by Roger Perry of East West Partners Club Management. The concept plan, itself a revised version of the original plan submitted in 2010, provides for approximately 1.5 million square feet of developed space, including area for retail, commercial buildings, a residential zone and a 120-room hotel.

Betsy Smith, however, says she doesn’t think development is a good idea. An ecologist who lives in the area, Smith says that Obey Creek is an especially sensitive site. “It’s in a watershed [with] very steep slopes, [it’s] highly erodible, and any kind of development is going to contribute to the problem of water quality,” she said in an interview.

The developers have committed in their concept application to not developing directly along the creek and to keeping the water clean, but Smith says that water pollution is inevitable with development on this scale, and that it could be an especially big problem for Obey Creek, which was originally zoned only for low-density residential development.

“It seeps into Jordan Lake,” Smith said, “which, under the Clean Water Act, is already non-compliance.”

Smith says that, according to the law as it currently stands, Chapel Hill could be responsible for cleaning up the Jordan Lake Reservoir “if they don’t reduce the input into the lake by 2014.”

Smith said she was also concerned about the air pollution that could be caused by the huge influx of cars moving through the new area, which will house a retail area of 350,000 square feet—about the size of University Mall—including some kind of “big-box” national retailer.

Chapel Hill Town Council member Penny Rich said that the council and the town don’t have ultimate control over land use. “We can’t always pick and choose who is going to be building and who is going to be owning the land,” she said in an interview.

Rich said that Chapel Hill as a whole constantly fights against development, and if the town continues to refuse to develop, there will be financial consequences, and other counties will benefit. “We can’t just keep letting our tax dollars leave Orange County and expect to not raise taxes on people,” she said.

“We will wind up with a very, very expensive county to live in, and it will change our county,” Rich said. “We will lose our diversity, which we already seem to be doing.

“Now that doesn’t mean I think we should build big-box stores all over the place,” Rich said. “I am not for that at all.”

Rich said that the most important thing is to keep an open mind and listen to everyone.

Perry could not be reached for comment, but according to the concept plan submitted jointly to council by East West Partners Club Management and two other developers, sustainability and resource preservation are important priorities that will be deliberately kept in mind during the construction process.

Along with the concept plan proposal, another document was submitted as a statement of compliance with Chapel Hill’s 2020 Comprehensive Plan, which, as a plan that involved extensive public input, includes a substantial amount of environmental considerations.

Jeanne Brown, a local resident, says she is not opposed to development in Obey Creek in theory, but the current plan goes too far and ignores public opinion.

Brown is a member of Citizens for Responsible Growth, which is a politically active organization of local residents that speaks out against the proposed Obey Creek development. She says that Chapel Hill needs to work harder to be transparent and keep citizens informed when there is planning like this happening.

Brown said she first heard about the original 2010 concept plan long after the process had begun.
 
“A boy in our carpool got in the car one morning and he was really upset to know that there was going to be a hotel in his backyard,” Brown said in an interview. “I thought that seemed unlikely, but the more I read about it, the more I realized what was going on.”

Brown said she understands that development is unavoidable, but she wants some of the Obey Creek property to be left undeveloped. “The fact of the matter is it’s zoned for development, and right now it’s zoned for the entire property to be developed.

“In the best of worlds it would stay what it is,” Brown said.

The Chapel Hill Town Council will hold a hearing on the issue on Wednesday, Sept. 19 at 7 p.m. at the Town Hall on 405 Martin Luther King Blvd.



 http://campusblueprint.com/2012/09/22/obey-creek-sparks-debate-between-developers-and-environmentalists/