Ouch! Obviously stung by Council member Jim Wards comment about “switch-n-baiting”, RAM Development’s VP Casey Cummings delivered a death blow to Council’s request for affordable condo fees for the affordable housing units and a commitment to energy efficiency.

[MOVIE]

Both requests seem quite reasonable.
What use is it for the Land Trust to “sell” [...]

We lost that argument when we passed parking lot#5 as designed.
One of the chief criticisms of the new Downtown Development Initiative (DDI) is that the Lot 5 building is setting a poor precedent for what is yet to come…

[MOVIE]

Councilmember Jim Ward tried to put the brakes on Council’s pellmell acceptance of “the new [...]

I went to this evening’s Council meeting fully expecting to be steamrolled.
Yes, the negotiation team has worked years on “a deal” but not “the deal”. Since Nov. 20th, no real new details have been forthcoming.
I’ll be posting the video of tonight’s action tomorrow, so I’ll reserve detailed critiques until then…

Just a few [...]

The Downtown Development Initiative is a steamroller (in more ways then one). Check out this summary of comments from Nov. 20th’s public hearing. A little light and less nuanced than the opposition comments I recall. Good thing there’s a video record on-line.
So why introduce the following bias?

Potential Advantages of the Project
-Mixed [...]

More questions about the Town’s and RAM’s Lot 5 development (DDI) plan?
Well, there’s been a dearth of specifics, so there should be a wealth of questions.
Add to the throng of “those who want to know” Council member Laurin Easthom.
With tonight’s pre-vote presentation on DDI looming (not a public forum)), Easthom weighs [...]

Lot #5 Downtown Development RAM building design based on Nov. 20th public hearing proposal . The model is in proportion and the proper height. It wasn’t until I laid out the model that I realized how large a beast we have here…

Looking North towards Lot 5 Dec2

(more…)

Making some progress on a GoogleEarth visualization of downtown.

Here’s some data if you want to either visualize Chapel Hill within GoogleEarth or want to start fresh with a re-import. Small caveat on the GoogleEarth import - don’t turn on the terrain as I still need to tweak the elevations to get the right output.
If anyone [...]

I believed the Town’s web site covering the Downtown Development Initiative would be updated after Nov. 20th’s public forum. After ten days, I finally sent in a formal request.
Here is Town Manager Stancil’s response:

Dear Mr. Raymond:
Thank you for our email message at 10:49 am on Dec. 1 to the Manager, Mayor [...]

[UPDATE]
How could the negotiations team done a better job informing the public throughout the process?
Here’s two examples from Greensboro’s District 5 Council member Sandy Carmany covering their coliseum issues, this one from a year ago and this one from November.
Sure, she wasn’t hampered by reporting on material potentially shielded under NC’s open meetings laws, [...]

WCHL1360 covered yesterday’s Downtown Partnership update.
Listen [MP3] to what Director Liz Parham and local “top flight” business guy Scott Maitland had to say.
And Dan S., if you’re reading this, thanks for the sly hat tip.

Posted these individual citizen comments from the Nov. 20th Public Hearing on the Downtown Development

Scott Kovens

Robert Dowling

Gene Pease

Roger Perry

Lex Alexander

David Godschalk

David Hartzell

Joyce Brown

Janet Kagan

Alan Rimer

Barnes Burke

Laurie Paolicelli

Scott Radway

Anita Badrock

Tom Jensen

Josh Gurlitz

Liz Parham

Philip Duchastel

Bill Camp

Raymond

[...]

First, kudos to the Downtown Partnership (CHDP) for finally pulling together a decent website (though disabling ‘right clicks’ is cheesy).

There’s a nice calendar widget, some news of the day, list of eats and drinks, services, shops, fun, etc. that are both fairly extensive and accurate.
Way to go Liz and company.
Today the CHDP is presenting their [...]