Group offers alternate plan

Seventeen thousand versus 5,845.

That’s the number of parking spaces in Carolina North proposed by the University compared to that of a local nonprofit group.

The Village Project, a group that promotes ecologically sustainable communities, presented Monday its alternate concept plan to the University’s design for its proposed satellite campus.

James Carnahan, the organization’s chairman, said the University should envision Carolina North “not just as a technology transfer campus but also as a great sustainable land-use plan.”

A major difference between the group’s proposal and the University’s current plan is the use of electricity-powered light-rail transit. The group suggests installing transit lines that would thread through campus, connecting at either end with bus routes on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and the existing railroad along Seawell School Road.

“We want to make the need for the car to be occasional rather than regular,” Carnahan said Monday.

The current UNC plan does not include light-rail transit.

The rail system could be built between 2018 and 2030 with funding and commitment, Village Project board member Patrick McDonough said.

Rail transit is only one way of lessening dependency on cars.

“There’s no silver bullet here,” McDonough said, adding that a number of initiatives such as van pooling, creating new park-and-ride lots, restricting on-campus parking and increasing housing would be required to create a synergy effect.

The 8,000 on-campus residences proposed by the group are another of its more visible departures from the UNC plan, which calls for 1,800.

Expanding the housing supply while maintaining the campus’s 260-acre footprint necessarily leads to higher density, but it would remain still lower than the core density of Southern Village, said Kathy Buck, the group’s treasurer.

Another feature of The Village Project’s proposal is the Horace Williams Rainbank, a rainwater reservoir filled with water harvested from rooftops that would double as a recreational area.

Should the reservoir prove technically unfeasible, a broad promenade for walking and bicycling could be built instead, Carnahan said.

Group members said they have worked on this plan since last July and have sought to reflect the concerns raised by nearby existing neighborhoods.

The group presented its suggestions to University officials early this month. Tony Waldrop, UNC’s vice chancellor for research and economic development, said in an interview Monday the suggestions on light-rail transit were especially interesting.

“We will look at the ideas they presented and see which are viable,” he said.

Waldrop had reservations about some other proposals, such as the possibility of cutting parking spaces to fewer than 6,000 while increasing housing units to 8,000.

“That’s less than one parking space per household,” he said, adding that researchers and other University employees would also need parking.

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.