Strife rules Carolina North talks

Environmental concerns again framed disagreement between town and University officials Thursday at a meeting of the Carolina North Leadership Advisory Committee.

Carolina North, the University's proposed satellite campus, is planned for development during the next 50 years.

Representatives of Carrboro and Chapel Hill urged UNC officials to commit to putting the land that won't be used for the new research park - an estimated 75 percent of the 963-acre area known as the Horace Williams tract-into land easements for preservation.

UNC Board of Trustees member Roger Perry responded that doing so would be irresponsible, and that it was too early to know what the University's needs would be 50 years down the road.

"There's no way that even if we wanted to, as a board of trustees, could we take the rest of that land and say that land is never going to be developed," Perry said. "I don't think we have a right to do it. I don't think that the state would allow us to do it, but irrespective of that, we will not do it."

Perry said that the University was willing to put some land, including the Bolin Creek Corridor, into easements, but that it was too early to say other land wouldn't be developed.

Chapel Hill Town Council member Cam Hill spoke in favor of preserving the land.

"We talk about visionary processes, we talk about doing something exemplary at Carolina North, and I would say that this is our opportunity to do that," he said.

The talk came to a head when Chapel Hill Mayor Pro Tem Bill Strom pointedly addressed Perry.

"The community is asking for certainty, Roger."

Perry's response came back just as direct: "And I don't think we can give that," he said.

Etta Pisano, a professor of radiology and biomedical engineering, said she didn't think the committee would ever agree on the issue.

The discussion will continue at the beginning of the meeting Sept. 7. For now, town and University officials have agreed to disagree.

This was not the first time that environmental issues have been the cause of contention.

In June, committee members sparred over the development's projected impact on Chapel Hill roadways and traffic. And an early plan calling for 17,000 parking spaces on the campus drew sharp criticism.

In his first meeting as executive director of Carolina North, newly appointed Jack Evans was less vocal than Perry, but agreed that it was unwise to commit unused lands to conservation in perpetuity.

Evans, who is working full time to coordinate the University faculty and administrators involved in planning Carolina North, said that so far, his role at meetings hasn't changed.

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.