Over the past few months, the Town of Chapel Hill has been listening to the input of town residents on what they want to see in the Rosemary Street developmental plan. After a period of constructing this developmental guide, the town is ready to propose the final draft guide to the Chapel Hill Town Council.
If the proposal goes through, it would improve resident concerns such as the maintenance of stormwater drainage, the adequacy of street lighting and the condition of sidewalks, among others.
Rae Buckley, assistant to the manager for organizational and strategic initiatives, has played an important role in the process of constructing the development plan.
Buckley said she has listened to the input of residents for other projects in the past and it worked well, so she wanted to do it again.
She said people voiced a lot of important concerns about Rosemary Street and these concerns were directly addressed in the developmental guide.
Buckley said the Chapel Hill Town Council will be considering the guide in April and May, and the decision to pass it or not will be made on May 22.
If the proposal is accepted, the next steps for developing Rosemary Street will be to push for the construction of small — four stories or less — buildings with affordable office space that local businesses can acquire, Buckley said.
Meg McGurk, executive director of the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership, is also heavily involved in the creation of the developmental guide.
She said the downtown partnership has played an important role in the process of developing the developmental guide, such as helping to organize the two community input sections.
