New community center approved for Rogers Road

At a meeting Wednesday night, local officials unanimously approved a plan to build a new community center for the Rogers Road neighborhood.

David Caldwell, a representative of the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association, said that building the center is about fulfilling a 40-year-old promise to the embattled community — which has housed the county’s landfill since 1972.

In August, the Rogers Road community center was closed after it failed to meet fire and safety standards.

Decades ago, the neighborhood was promised a community center in exchange for hosting the county’s landfill for a decade, though it has done so for more than 40 years.

In February, a landfill closing date was set for June 2013. And the Historic Rogers Road Neighborhood Task Force — made up from representatives from Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County — was created to discuss remediation options.

Task force members agreed Wednesday that building a new community center for Rogers Road was the right move. But some had concerns about its implementation.

Chapel Hill town councilwoman Penny Rich said she approved of the center but was worried not enough people would use it.

“We don’t want people to feel like they haven’t been compensated in a positive way,” she said.

Construction of the 5,000-square foot community center is projected to cost about $500,000.

JB Culpepper, planning director for Chapel Hill, said the center can’t be built until zoning and building permits are obtained — which could take as long as two months.

“It typically takes four to six weeks to obtain a zoning permit, then another six weeks or so to obtain a building permit for the actual structure,” she said.

But officials at the meeting said they didn’t want to stall the process while waiting for the permits.

“I just don’t want to sit around and wait another year to get started,” said Orange County Commissioner Pam Hemminger.

Plans for the center include making it as green as possible — for example, the council hopes to make much of the building out of glass, reducing the need for electricity.

The board also discussed the cost of a project that would hook up residents to a new sewer system.

A 2010 survey by the Orange County Health Department found that nine of 11 wells in the community were contaminated.

The sewer project would cost about $7 million.

Chapel Hill and Orange County would contribute the most to the sewer project — about 34 percent and 46 percent of the total cost, respectively.

But Rev. Robert Campbell, president of the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association, said no amount of compensation could make up for the landfill’s impact on the community.

“You cannot just buy relationships,” he said.

“But building a community center gives us an opportunity to actually sustain the community.”

The task force will reconvene Oct. 25, after the representatives meet with their respective governments, to further discuss the community center and sewage hookup.

Contact the desk editor at city@dailytarheel.com.