Anasa Hicks

News

Downtown business goes niche

By Anasa Hicks | April 25

Chapel Hill residents have lost several longtime businesses this year as new ones pop up to replace them. But the new businesses might be moving in a different direction than residents are used to. Toots and Magoo, an antiques and paper goods store, opened Tuesday at 142 E. Franklin St. It's scheduled a grand opening May 5. The Crunkleton, a bar, furniture showroom and art gallery, is slated to open at 320 W. Franklin St. at the beginning of May. Buns, a hamburger restaurant, will open in the next five weeks.

News

Drought effects far-reaching across state

By Anasa Hicks | April 25

The rain didn't miss just Chapel Hill and Carrboro last fall. In response to an ongoing drought, towns across the state have had to evaluate and implement water conservation measures to control what is ultimately decided by nature: water availability. Durham Water Management Deputy Director Vicki Westbrook said the city has struggled to make water restrictions clear. "Because we're in such a media market, we have bleed-over from Raleigh and Cary," she said. "Even when we all say hand-held watering is allowed, what we mean may be different from place to place."

News

Library grows from humble beginnings

By Anasa Hicks | April 21

Fifty years ago, the biography section of the Chapel Hill Public Library was in someone's bathroom. The town's first public library opened in 1958 at 115 W. Franklin St., on the ground floor of a white house. The tenants lived upstairs. Jane Dyer, who started volunteering at the library in 1959 as an eighth-grader, remembered marking the biographies with a metal stylus - an old-fashioned device used to label books. "I don't know if any of the biographies here now are still labeled by me," she said.

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Carrboro Aldermen discuss parking, water restrictions

By Anasa Hicks | April 16

It's not that there are no parking spaces in downtown Carrboro; it's just that drivers aren't looking hard enough. That was one part of the parking study findings by graduate students at the UNC Department of City and Regional Planning, which was presented to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen on Tuesday. The students found that at peak hours in the most crowded part of Carrboro, while some parking lots were full to capacity, there were often open spots a three-minute walk away.

News

OWASA doesn't ease rules

By Anasa Hicks | March 28

Customers will still have to pay high water rates, despite rising reservoir levels. The Orange Water and Sewer Authority Board of Directors decided Thursday to defer a decision to lower water rates until they have billing information for Stage 3. The board wants to know how severely the increased rates affect customers before lessening restrictions. At its Feb. 28 meeting when the board implemented Stage 3 water restrictions, OWASA staff recommended the board consider moving back to Stage 2 if reservoir levels reached 60 percent by April 1.

News

Carrboro residents worry business zoning will ruin neighborhoods

By Anasa Hicks | March 26

Some residents are worried a zoning change will disrupt the character and history of the area they live in. A lot at 102 Center St. could be the first area in the town to be classified as an area of conditional zoning if approved in May. Currently conditional zoning does not exist. But comments from Board of Aldermen and Carrboro residents at a public hearing Tuesday made it clear that a medium between commercial and residential zoning needed to be created.

News

Program fills hungry kids' bags

By Anasa Hicks | March 24

Along with school assignments, some Chapel Hill and Carrboro children can now carry home food in their backpacks. Volunteers with Table, a new nonprofit organization in Carrboro, give children backpacks - not plastic bags, which lack privacy - filled with food to take home with them Thursday, and the children return the backpacks Monday. "Teachers talk about kids coming in from the weekend, not having had much to eat," said Kathy Herington, a UNC junior who is on the board of directors.

News

Aldermen discuss water conservation, pork packager

By Anasa Hicks | March 19

The Carrboro Board of Aldermen heard plans outlining far-reaching water conservation goals at Tuesday's meeting. Carrboro Environmental Planner Randy Dodd spoke on behalf of an inter-local work group formed in August 2006 to develop a consensus on water conservation practices and presented an overview of the group's recommendations. The group suggested that the Orange Water and Sewer Authority consider financial incentives, such as rebates and discounts, to encourage water conservation practices.

News

OWASA's increased water rates begin today

By Anasa Hicks | March 17

Increased water rates go into effect today, despite second thoughts after recent rain raised area reservoir levels from 40 percent to 57 percent. "The rain is very welcome, but you have to understand that having our lakes 57 percent full at this time of year is unprecedented," said Greg Feller, spokesman for the Orange Water and Sewer Authority. "Normally in early spring, our lakes are full." OWASA customers could see as much as a 25 percent increase in their water bills this month, but local businesses already are feeling the effects of restrictions put on water use.

News

Water rates increasing

By Anasa Hicks | February 29

CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, the cutline with the photo for Friday's front-page story "Water rates increasing," had an incorrect date. Carrboro's University Lake was pictured in January in the photo. The Daily Tar Heel apologizes for error. Chapel Hill and Carrboro residents can say goodbye to swimming pools, car washes and sprinklers. Stage 3 water shortage restrictions will go into effect Saturday, and corresponding water rate increases will start March 17.