Board Suggests New Site for Proposed High School

About 100 people attended the meeting at McDougle Middle School in Carrboro to discuss the placement of the new school, scheduled to open in 2005.

Officials said they must decide on the school's location from three sites: one on Rock Haven Road, one at Eubanks Road and N.C. 86 and the newest site at Mt. Carmel and Old Lystra roads. The board set a deadline of Dec. 1 for selecting the school location.

The newest site, which is located south of Chapel Hill, would cost the system an estimated $2.5 million for purchasing the land.

Building the high school on the Eubanks Road site would not cost anything because it is owned by the county.

Proceeding on the Rock Haven Road site will cost anywhere between $2.2 million and $3 million.

The Old Lystra Road site is significantly smaller than the other two, measuring only 35 acres of buildable land on 49.13 acres of total land. The Rock Haven and Eubanks Road sites have 40 and 44 acres of buildable land, respectively.

The Old Lystra site is composed of three separate parcels with different owners. Lystra 8 Investors, a land development group, own 33.25 acres, 8.48 acres are owned by the Town of Chapel Hill, and 7.4 acres belong to Thomas Blackwood.

The board soon will begin negotiations with Lystra 8 Investors, which has already announced its intentions to develop the land, to acquire Lystra 8's parcel of the Old Lystra site. In addition, the board could swap some of its land for the 8.48 acres owned by the town.

Although Blackwood has yet to be contacted, Steve Scroggs, assistant superintendent for support services, does not think Blackwood's 7.4 acres will be needed because the parcel is too small to complete the high school's football stadium and other facilities.

Suitable land for the school is hard to find in the southern area of the district because of varying land slopes and hills.

Despite the unavoidable costs and limited area, residents called for the southern part of Chapel Hill to be the site for their third high school for its convenience, stability and safety for their children.

Carrboro resident Windy Sawczyn said the third high school should be built in the southern part of Chapel Hill because of increasing cost of land in Carrboro.

"We know that the Eubanks Road site is eventually going to be needed for a high school, but we need to purchase land now so that we lock in land value on two high school sites," Sawczyn said.

Ava Nackman, a parent of two Chapel Hill High School students, discussed issues like air pollution and traffic safety.

"I know how inconvenient it is for both students and parents to drive 45 minutes everyday to get to school, not to mention the air pollution it will cause." Nackman said.

She added that if the third high school was not built in the southern part, then it would force beginner drivers to drive significant distances through rush hour each day, which she claims will increase accident rates.

After hearing from a number of concerned residents, the school board members expressed their opinions on the issue.

"Maybe in our reality, all the stadiums and practice fields are to be eliminated, and we should start using more of community services," board member Nick Didow said, noting the shortage of land at the Old Lystra site, which would not fit athletic fields on campus.

He added that student parking could be scaled down to special constraints.

"In my judgement, student parking does not have to be like the existing two other schools," he said. "It can be just for about 200 to 250 spaces."

Board member Gloria Faley said, "We are limited in our options for the sites, and even if we build the school on the Eubanks site, we will have to buy one of the other two immediately.

"A tsunami of students are coming in. With this large number of students coming in, we just have to build the high school, period."

The City Editor can be reached at citydesk@unc.edu.