OWASA to convert Fidelity Street, Glosson Circle properties into parking spaces

John Harrison lives at Glosson Circle, which directly adjoins the Orange Water and Sewer Authority’s Carrboro campus on Jones Ferry Road. There is currently a chain-link fence and tree line that serve as a buffer between the water treatment plant and the cul-de-sac. 

In February, residents of Glosson Circle and adjoining Fidelity Street received notice that OWASA was converting two properties into employee parking structures. According to OWASA, 100 additional surface parking spaces are needed to accommodate construction plans for an estimated $82 million PFAS treatment facility and a replacement Clearwell purification system. PFAS, or forever chemicals, are harmful synthetic compounds that the Environmental Protection Agency requires OWASA to contain.

OWASA Public Information Officer Katie Hall said that a peak number of spaces are needed for emergencies such as hurricanes and line breaks, which would require communications staff, engineers and Orange County emergency services. 

“Working with the community might affect how we approach it and the details of the project,” Hall said. “But because of the structures that have to be built on, a loss of property that will eliminate so much of our parking, the need for the parking is going to remain necessary.”

The project manager and OWASA's utilities engineer, Mo Rasheed, said in an email to residents that construction would begin in spring 2026, and that neighbors should “expect noise during working hours, dust and mud during rain.” 

Glosson Circle is a tight-knit, historically Black community in Carrboro where some residents have lived for generations. Patricia Jackson’s 97-year-old mother lives on Glosson, and Jackson said that OWASA’s concept plan was harmful for these residents and families new to the neighborhood.

“It should be a place where they can now live and enjoy their family without being uprooted by the monstrosity, noise and traffic — what would come with the event of a parking lot being placed there,” Jackson said. “It’s just not conducive for life in the community as it has been in the past and the future.”  

Harrison said that OWASA’s concept plan could degrade the tight-knit neighborhood’s historic character, at a time when historically Black neighborhoods in Chapel Hill and Carrboro are facing affordability crises and gentrification-related displacement.

“When you buy a house in a neighborhood, you expect it to stay a neighborhood,” Harrison said.

After hearing the news, community members contacted Rasheed with questions about how the parking lot developments would impact their quality of life and property values. JJ Quinn, a Fidelity Street resident, said that in a conversation between Harrison and Rasheed, Rasheed said that OWASA had no plans to purchase any more residential property, following February’s acquisition of a private residential lot at 131 Fidelity St. 

On April 8, community members received a letter that OWASA had also purchased 115 Glosson Circle, a family home that was on the market at the time.

"We couldn't tell the community that we were pursuing a property until we were under contract, or else we could be totally price gouged, or all kinds of things," Hall said. "So that was the information we waited to tell. But in terms of plans for the project, as soon as we had plans for the project, we were sending out emails to the community," 

Carrboro Town Council Member Randee Haven-O’Donnell said she was concerned that OWASA had started committing to plans without being able to answer residents’ questions about the construction’s immediate disruptions and long-term consequences. 

Haven-O’Donnell also said that the parking lot would increase the non-absorptive surfaces in the neighborhood, which would fail to accommodate stormwater. 

“Carrboro has twin pillars — race equity and climate,” Haven-O’Donnell said. “This plan raises questions for both.”

Quinn said they supported OWASA’s efforts to remove PFAS from the Orange County drinking supply. However, they said, given the authority’s poor track record with land management at Glosson and Fidelity, they anticipated that the development would amplify existing environmental hazards like flooding.

“They’re already not managing that land super well,” Quinn said. “I’m not going to trust them to be like, ‘Give me more land to manage it better.’” 

OWASA Director of Engineering, Vishnu Gangadharan, said that that stormwater effects will be mitigated alongside Carrboro's requirements. 

Dorothy Moore has lived on Glosson Circle since 1968. After receiving the notice in February, Moore began meeting with her neighbors to strategize how they could petition OWASA’s board to hear their concerns. Moore said she was specifically worried about whether or not the development would open an access road for construction vehicles.

She said the neighborhood had been a peaceful and supportive environment for raising her two children. Moore now lives alone, but enjoys the company of her flower garden and her neighbor, Steady, who lives adjacent to the wooded property that may become a surface parking lot. 

“This is a close-knit neighborhood,” Moore said. “People are concerned about each other.” 

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