Shelton Station development plan approved by Carrboro Aldermen

Plans for a mixed-use development that would offer affordable housing and office space can move forward after the Carrboro Board of Aldermen approved a rezoning request Tuesday.

The Board approved a request for additional residential density for the Shelton Station development in a 4-3 vote at a public hearing.

The meeting was a continuation of a series of public hearings that started June 14 after Ken Reiter, a project developer with the Durham-based real estate development company Belmont Sayre, submitted a rezoning request for the project.

Shelton Station would be located at 500 N. Greensboro St., would include approximately 20 percent commercial space, and would be built on a total of 2.5 acres, including parking.

It is slated to include nearly 100 residential units and to cost $15 million.

Residents have expressed concerns about the impact the development will have on traffic and increasing residential density in downtown Carrboro.

“I can see that it’s not going to do anything but increase traffic exponentially,” Carrboro resident Nancy Salmons said. “You’re going to add all these people on foot and with cars to an already congested area.”

Damon Seils, chairman of the advisory planning board, said the town planning department was more concerned about how the project would affect the landscape of downtown Carrboro.

Alderwoman Jacquelyn Gist expressed the same concern.

“This does not fit in Carrboro. It is not good for Carrboro. It is bad for us aesthetically. It is bad for us economically,” she said.

When the board approved the residential density request on Nov. 15, it asked that the developers notify neighbors of future developments, look into reducing the traffic impacts and consider whether the residential density is appropriate for this location.

Reiter adjusted the plan accordingly.

“We’ve heard the neighbors loud and clear,” Reiter said. “We’ve reduced the scale of the project significantly.”

The developers decreased the number of residential units from 114 to 96 and increased the non-residential usage by adding more retail and office space to their proposal.

The project has been criticized for its size, but isn’t as large as 300 East Main, another new Carrboro development.

“It’s a big project, but it’s certainly not the biggest one we’ve seen,” Seils said.

Despite concerns over traffic and undergraduate student housing — which the development will not include — many expressed support for the project.

“We know that for Carrboro to be locally resilient, Carrboro needs to change and is changing,” Alderwoman Randee Haven-O’Donnell said.

With rezoning approved, developers can put together an application.

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