UNC Students' Idealism, Work Make Chapel Hill Distinctive

That decision saved the town money and, coupled with the decision to provide commuter service to our guests, it might well have saved lives.

So it would be completely unfair to say that the Town Council's raison d'etre is to give students the finger.

Sometimes it just seems that way.

Sometimes it just seems that they don't want to let five college guys with pink flamingos in the yard and an inclination to walk home singing late at night live in a neighborhood in which the average age approaches 80.

I should know -- I live in such an arrangement.

Apparently our venerable neighbors have tired of merely stealing from our flock of flamingoes. They, in cahoots with hundreds of others around the city, have taken the drastic step of complaining to their elected representatives.

The results -- the council began discussing limiting the number of non-related persons living in a house, the number of cars per residence and freezing duplex construction.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say they didn't like us.

These proposed restrictions are bad in at least two ways. Because they are almost certainly meant to target students, at least in part, they set up students who live off campus as a sort of second-class citizen of Chapel Hill.

We students are the Chapel Hill residents who pump millions of dollars into the local economy and pay thousands more in taxes.

We vote, set up organizations to benefit the poor and downtrodden in our town and love every minute of it. We choose to spend what we are assured are the best four years of our lives in Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill -- the entire town, not just the University -- has a youthful sense of energy and optimism, and it's not hard to guess where that comes from.

Above and beyond any tangible monetary gains the town derives from us, students are what makes Chapel Hill the place it is. Take away the students, and you've got any other medium-sized town in the Triangle -- Morrisville, Knightsdale, take your pick.

Further, when broad restrictions such as these are put into place in an attempt to target one group, there almost certainly will be outliers from other groups that will be affected as well. Let us not forget that students are not the only ones who rely on rental properties and duplexes to live. And the non-student group most likely to be effected by the restrictions is the poor.

Letting a few duplexes be built near 100-year-old Tudor and Georgian style mansions will not really harm our town. Nor will letting people park a few extra cars in their yard. What will hurt Chapel Hill is if we forget to adequately protect the most vulnerable sections of our population.

This was the sentiment shared by Town Council member Mark Kleinschmidt when he was the lone dissenter in an 8-1 vote last week to formalize occupancy limits at four unrelated people per side of a duplex. That only one person in the entire council was concerned enough by the plight of the disadvantaged to vote against the ordinance is troubling.

Sure, students as a rule could probably do a better job being good neighbors.

We could be a little quieter.

We could drive a little slower.

We could even cut our grass occasionally.

So let's propose a compromise, one that will improve relations between the town and the students and protect our disadvantaged citizens.

We'll quit singing on the way back from Franklin Street. You bring back our flamingos.

Reach Dan Harrison at dsharris@email.unc.edu.