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Chapel Hill 2020 outlines projects for six theme groups

Groups that are helping to remake the town’s comprehensive plan have gained direction — but they still need tweaking.

About 150 residents and town officials met last week to outline the issues and projects each of the six Chapel Hill 2020 theme groups will work on as the initiative moves forward.

The themes — development, University relations, community engagement, diversity, transportation and sustainability — were chosen based on community input at earlier sessions.

Though the groups of 10 to 30 people made progress in defining their goals, Chapel Hill 2020 Co-Chairman George Cianciolo said they still need adjustments.

“We don’t have enough young people involved yet,” Cianciolo said. He said that they hope to increase diversity of attendees in terms of age range.

He said that some of the themes might need to be re-titled — the “town and gown” group on University relations was poorly attended, and Cianciolo said that might be because residents don’t understand what it addresses.

Cianciolo added that last week’s 4:30 p.m. meeting time proved inconvenient for some attendees.

“There are things that need to be tweaked,” he said.

Despite room for changes, some attendees said the theme groups’ first meeting was a step in the right direction.

“I think the meeting went really well,” said Rosemary Waldorf, Chapel Hill 2020 co-chairwoman.

David Godschalk, a group facilitator and a professor in UNC’s department of city and regional planning, said his group made progress.

“We talked a lot about gathering places in the future of the community and about the downtown as a primary gathering place,” Godschalk said.

While Godschalk’s group focused on downtown development, another group discussed new student housing and how to handle UNC-created traffic.

Other participants discussed ways to relieve traffic congestion, ways to decrease reliance on cars and resource consumption methods.

Each discussion group also looked into what data and research will be necessary to carry out theme group projects, said Catherine Lazorko, spokeswoman for the town.

Town officials are also playing a role in theme formation, Cianciolo said.

Members of the transportation division, finance department, police department, planning department and the Chapel Hill Town Council volunteered at the first meeting by helping to set up and assist the discussion groups.

“We had good support staff from the town,” Godschalk said.

The next meeting — a “reporting out” session in which group facilitators will present their progress — will be held Nov. 19 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Chapel Hill High School.

Cianciolo said the goal of that meeting will be to address the sub-projects each group has decided to work on to ensure that they do not overlap.

Contact the City Editor at city@dailytarheel.com.

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