At Thursday’s Friends of the Downtown meeting, Town Manager Roger Stancil sang a familiar tune.
Stancil, who gave this month’s presentation on the town’s financial condition, spoke of budget constraints, urban sprawl and the need to create business in Chapel Hill to prevent University students from going elsewhere after graduation.
“We’re a hot bed of creative individuals and entrepreneurs. Right now they usually go to Durham to start their businesses,” he said.
“We want them to come back.”
The meeting, which was held at the Franklin Hotel, drew a crowd of local businesses and residents with an interest in Chapel Hill and the future of the community.
Stancil also answered questions regarding property taxes, urban sprawl and Chapel Hill 2020.
“We’re trying to evaluate our assets in light of today’s reality,” Stancil said. “We’ve learned that the measures we’ve taken will not work in the future.”
Stancil said that most budget decreases have been in parks and recreation and library services, but he said the town has plans for investing in the future.
He later discussed tourism in Chapel Hill and the need for a more stable housing market.
“The biggest dilemma for me is that we have a work force that doesn’t live here,” Stancil said. “We are perilously close to becoming a resort community.”
Stancil expressed his pride in the success of Chapel Hill 2020 — the town’s comprehensive planning process — and said it was time to focus on putting the input into action.
“It’s been a year of sustained intensive public engagement. We now need to move on to framing it,” he said.
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