Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

ch-scene - Re: skylight/nightlight

ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: RTP-area local music and culture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Duncan Murrell <dvmurrell AT nc.rr.com>
  • To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: skylight/nightlight
  • Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 09:55:11 -0500

I live in Chatham and walk to work, you cranky person. So does the spouse. We walk to church, five different restaurants, two playgrounds, music at several venues, the community college, the cooperative marketplace and the mill (where they put on theater productions), the post office (if I'm in an energetic mood -- about a mile away), two art galleries, soon to be a woodwright's shop, Steve Carr's bar, a tienda, Tommy Edwards' s music shop, Tony Sullivan's music shop, two fishing holes, a florist, three banks, and many of our friend's houses.

Pfffffffff.

d


On Dec 13, 2007, at 8:02 AM, grady wrote:

l.sward wrote:

Yes, Durham was in the works, but we got a house in Chatham Co.
instead.

Also, do you really think Chapel Hill will do mixed-use right? I guess
what I mean is will they make it affordable so people don't have to
move to the subs and use there cars?

I dunno how many existing in-town residents will be displaced by the
upcoming mixed-use developments (I know the older white apartments
across from Breadmans will be replaced by the Shortbread Lofts, but I
don't know if that's a net increase or decrease, and how the prices will
compare). It would seem like the total number of in-town residential
units will be increasing, which has to be a good thing.

Once the redevelopment makes it all the way down to Cliff's, all bets
are off. But that'll be a while.

Will the in-town housing be affordable? Depends on what you mean by
affordable. People have to make tradeoffs, generally, when moving to
urban mixed-use developments (proximity to work/downtown, in exchange
for living-area, for example) and it's not clear that peeps around here
are willing to do that in large numbers.

People in the US in general, and in the south in particular, have been
conditioned to not accept the notion of compromise or trade-offs when it
comes to their living situations. They want to be able to have
convenience *and* two cars (with garage or on-street parking directly in
front of the house) *and* plenty of room in their house/apartment *and*
walkability *and* etc etc etc.

AND perhaps most importantly, they don't want to see any of the
"village-like" atmosphere of their current towns sullied by bulldozers
and new infill construction. So thus far Chapel Hill's "mixed-use"
developments (Meadowmont & Southern Village) have been failures, in the
sense that the people who live there by-and-large don't work there,
because the ratio of commercial to residential space is screwy (and in
both cases, the commercial mix isn't really even fully focused on
meeting the needs of the residents nearby). There's nothing inherently
great about one group of people living in close proximity to the
workplaces of another group of people, you know? And they're way out on
the edges of town because they couldn't disturb any existing stuff . . .
and so far anyway, town hasn't grown out towards them to bridge the gaps.

I shouldn't call them complete failures, because I'm sure there is some
percentage of residents at both places who actually work within the
developments, but I can't imagine that % being very high. I wonder if
anybody has kept statistics.

The stuff we're looking at now in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro core (setting
aside 54 East, which is going to take the place of the being-destroyed
motel out there on 54, and may or may not suffer the same
too-far-from-town problems as Meadowmont) is closer to what mixed- use is
supposed to be, which is to say maintaining or increasing the commercial
density of the downtown core while increasing its residential density.

But if the current experiments are any indication (the condos across
from Nightlight, plus the gonna-start-construction any-day-now
Greenbridge another 2 blocks up Rosemary), the developers are following
the "downtown condos! charge as much as you want!" model, same as in
Raleigh. The notion being, I guess, that there are enough rich folks who
like the idea of a glamorous condo high above downtown Chapel Hill that
they'd be willing and able to pay $225-$350/square foot for the privilege.

Affordability is a nagging issue, always, and Chapel Hill has ordinances
to address that, but it's typically done on a unit-price basis (X units
need to cost less than $Y). Greenbridge initially tried to cope with
this by making itty-bitty studio apartments (~600 sq ft) but the
neighborhood balked.

Nevertheless, that's the typical solution. Which brings us roundabout
back to the notion I started with, which is that people seem loath to
compromise, or trade one convenience for another. So it's hard to sell a
condo in town if it doesn't come with at least one dedicated parking
space directly adjacent. And it's hard to sell a condo in town (around
here, anyway, apparently) if it's less than 800 square feet.

People look at the existing housing stock (which is mostly less than 5
minutes drive away) and say "I could get a 1400-sq-foot house for what
you're charging me for 700 square feet," and honestly, it's hard to
argue with them.

So will Chapel Hill do mixed-use right? How about asking these
questions: will ground-floor commercial rents in the new buildings be
any higher than in the existing older single-story structures? Will
there be restrictions on the kinds of businesses that can operate on the
ground floor of a building with residential units on the upper floors?

If you answered "yes" or "probably," then it may or may not be "right,"
but the character of the downtown core will definitely be different.
People around here tend to be NIMBYs, so I would imagine there wouldn't
be much room for a rockclub below peoples' apartments. Even a restaurant
could be problematic, with the smells and the noises & etc. Putting up
with that is part of the point of urban living, but as I said,
compromise doesn't seem to be as prevalent around here as it is in the
urban-for-150-years northeast.

So if you're living in Chatham (which is where I currently live), you're
part of the problem, driving your ass everywhere you go. How's your
commute? And how much would you give up in order to shorten that drive,
and be closer to the stuff you actually like to do? (assuming that any
of what you actually like to do was still there by the time you moved
into your new downtown apartment ;-) )
-- ch-scene: the list that mirrors alt.music.chapel-hill --
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/ch-scene





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page