Council to consider preserving localities

Local officials are looking at ways to preserve the past and protect the future of three of the area’s historic neighborhoods.

The Chapel Hill Town Council will consider requests tonight to create neighborhood conservation districts in the Greenwood, Pine Knolls and Coker Hills areas.

“They’re long-established neighborhoods with history,” Planning Board Chairman Timothy Dempsey said. “I think that any long-established neighborhood deserves to be protected.”

Conservation districts are designed to limit the concentration and type of development in areas the town considers distinctive.

The Northside neighborhood was established as an conservation district in February 2004, with specific restrictions on building heights.

But neighborhood conservation is not always universally lauded.

Greenwood residents’ application for a conservation district has provoked a conflict between one local developer’s rights and neighborhood values. Residents have asked the council to rezone the neighborhood so that the minimum lot size is increased from 17,000 square feet to 43,560 square feet.

Greenwood residents asked for the changes after developer Tom Tucker expressed a desire to subdivide the lot he owns at 715 Greenwood St. into two plots of land.

The town planning board has expressed reservations about the residents’ move. In a memorandum, the board states its concern that 67 of the neighborhood’s 163 existing lots do not meet the larger standard.

Tucker has called the rezoning proposal an underhanded attempt to suppress his rights.

Spats over developer interests and neighborhood feel have prompted much of the discussion surrounding conservation districts and other town building standards.

Many of the residents in neighborhoods now soliciting conservation districts want new rental property developers held to the standards set by homeowners’ associations.

“The preservation would mean that our covenants would be enforced and recognized by the city of Chapel Hill,” said Michael Byerley, a Coker Hills resident.

Rental properties and duplexes, a source of contention for years in the area, also lie at the heart of neighborhood preservation efforts. Duplexes cannot be constructed in Northside.

Rental properties tend to be more accessible to students and low-income families, but some neighborhoods hope to conserve their small-town atmosphere. Tensions arise when the town tries to balance these interests with its need to provide affordable housing.

“There’s been some history of people buying property and using it solely as rental property,” Byerley said. “A lot of us who live (here) find that the properties aren’t maintained.”

While the Northside district took a year to establish, Dempsey said he hopes the latest three will proceed more quickly.

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.