Town Panel to Look At Horace Williams

The Chapel Hill Town Council has assembled an advisory panel to define and articulate the town's concerns about the development of the University's Horace Williams tract.

The council appointed three former council members -- Joyce Brown, Joe Capowski and Julie McClintock -- to the panel. Panel members also include advocates from surrounding neighborhoods and experts on development impact.

The University is developing the tract, located off Airport Road, as a satellite campus that officials hope will include research buildings and affordable housing for UNC employees.

Council member Pat Evans said the panel was formed in response to citizens' concerns about the effects of the tract's development.

"There were some council members, but mostly citizens, who felt like we needed to do more to address citizens' concerns about Horace Williams," she said.

Evans said the town's panel will complement a similar advisory panel being formed by the University, which includes town representatives. "I hope the facts uncovered by one committee can be used by the other," she said.

The town's representatives on UNC's panel, Planning Board member Ruby Sinreich and former mayoral candidate Cam Hill, also will be on the town's panel.

Sinreich said UNC's existing advisory panel will limit its focus to University issues but said, "The town panel's purpose is to advance citizens' interests."

Council member Mark Kleinschmidt said he hopes the two members can act as a bridge between the panels.

Hill and Sinreich will share information with both panels. Kleinschmidt said, "We're all going to be on the same page."

The two groups will deal with many of the same issues, but the town's panel likely will focus more on development concerns such as traffic and environmental impacts, said Linda Convissor, University coordinator of local relations, who will represent UNC on the town's panel.

She said the panels will help the town and the University think of the long-term effects of the large-scale development project.

One prominent issue the town panel will address is several UNC waste sites on the Horace Williams tract. Several panel members have been pressuring the University to speed up the sites' cleanup.

Carrboro Board of Aldermen member Diana McDuffee, who represents Carrboro on the University panel, said the aldermen are considering forming a panel similar to Chapel Hill's.

"I think we're waiting to see how the committee that the University formed is going to work out," McDuffee said. "Then we can judge whether there is a need for more input."

Kleinschmidt said the town panelists were chosen either because they represent neighborhoods near the Horace Williams tract or because of their expertise in fields that will help them study the effects of development.

Although the neighborhood representatives are those who have been involved in advocating citizen concerns in the Horace Williams debate, Kleinschmidt said the panel will not be distracted by representatives pursuing their own agendas.

McDuffee echoed Kleinschmidt's words, saying it is important for advisory panel members to "focus on the big picture" and not to concentrate solely on issues that affect their own neighborhoods.

Other appointees were John Boyer, an environmental engineer; James Coley, a transit advocate and University deputy secretary of the faculty; Del Snow, a Chapel Hill Board of Adjustment member; and Randy Kabrick, a civil and environmental engineer.

The Town Council is set to fill the vacancy on the panel and to schedule the panel's first meeting at an upcoming meeting.

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