*** PLEDGE TO OUR LEGAL FUND VIA CONTACT FORM! ***
UPDATE ON DEVELOPER-OWNED GOOD NEIGHBOR PLAN PROCESS
SEPTEMBER 2011
On Monday September 26th at 7pm, Town Council will receive an update from the developer and will consider the petition that we presented (video) on September 12th. Click here for the agenda and materials (note that no draft plans have been provided by the developer to the public).
We will continue to update our position prior to the Monday Meeting on this page.
We are making the case for the town council to require a more balanced membership and the same transparency that would be required if this plan were being developed by a town committee.
Here are the email communications with the developer proving that the developer intended to close the meeting, answered questions evasively, and withheld information until one business day before the meeting. We send an initial email and then a followup email to the town council over the summer, but did not receive a response from them.
See below for membership bias maps, our petition presentation, and council direction to the developer which was ignored.
Important Facts About the Biased Committee Membership and Lack of Key Stakeholders:
HERE IS THE GUIDANCE GIVEN BY TOWN COUNCIL WHEN ADOPTING THE RESOLUTION
CLEARLY, THE DEVELOPER HAS IGNORED THIS DIRECTION:
UPDATE ON DEVELOPER-OWNED GOOD NEIGHBOR PLAN PROCESS
JULY 2011
We would like to summarize important facts from our communications with the shelter developer
·
We asked for the process documentation and a
list of the invitees and on June 20th, 23rd, 27th, 29th, July 5th and 8th.
However, these were withheld by the developer until 3:15pm Friday July 8th,
which was one business day before the meeting.
o
Once those documents were disclosed, the fatal
deficiencies became obvious.
·
We asked that the meetings follow open meeting
law since this is a town-mandated process. The developer denied our request.
·
We asked that the meetings be observed by the
general public. The developer denied our request.
·
We asked that neighbors be allowed to attend the
meetings. The developer denied our request.
·
We asked that our alternate representatives be
allowed to attend the meeting for continuity given that it is summer and we
would be traveling and taking turns attending. The developer denied our
request.
·
In the May 9th SUP hearing, we expressed
concerns that the developer would stack the deck of participants, and it is
clear that it has done so.
o
There is only one Home Owner Association (HOA)
representative.
o
Most of the "neighbors" are
hand-picked supporters of the developer.
o
The Larkspur representative was invited by the
developer and the Larkspur HOA was not asked to recommend or appoint an
invitee.
o
The North Forest Hills
neighbor is also a staunch supporter of the developer and is the next door
neighbor of the biggest supporter of the project who is also on the committee.
o
All of the committee members live one half mile
away or more from the shelter. We would expect that the committee would include
several closer homeowners and business owners.
·
At no point in time did the Dispute Settlement
Center seek to understand
or help to resolve the differences regarding our participation. When we asked
the town council for DSC involvement on May 9th, we were counting on DSC
support to insure diverse representation and to create a fair and open process.
We notice in the developer’s email that the future meetings are
still not announced and there is no declaration that the public or neighbors
can attend. Neither the public nor the council has any way to
verify that the meeting went well or that any substantive or controversial
subjects were actually given consideration. Closing meetings to
neighbors is a poor way to begin neighbor relations. Furthermore, closed
meetings indicate that the developer is extremely unlikely to be open and
forthcoming in future relations.
It is bad enough that the membership of the committee is almost entirely
comprised of hand-picked developer advocates versus one representative for the
only organization that has proposed stipulations and conditions for the SUP and
the lease, but it is intolerable that the developer chose to deny observers and
to fail to follow open meeting rules for transparency.
We urge council members to watch the video of the guidance that you gave to the
developer during the May 9th meeting. Council members clearly stated that the
developer needed to go beyond simply inviting attendees and needed to make sure
that they felt welcome and that diverse opinions were being fairly represented.
Unfortunately, neither has happened.
This is an expected outcome when a developer is allowed to come up with a plan
to govern itself.
We request the following from the town council:
·
To make sure that our input is given equal
consideration and is available in the same agenda materials as the
developer-created “neighbor plan”, we request that the developer be required to
provide any draft of the plan to the public at least two or three weeks before
the deadline for materials to be submitted for the agenda for the town meeting
where said draft will be discussed.
o
We further request that the town email the existing
list of concerned citizens to publicize that said draft is available.
·
We request that the town council incorporate our
updated stipulations and comments that we will bring forth at a future time as
permanent requirements into the lease.
DEVELOPER-OWNED GOOD NEIGHBOR PLAN PROCESS HAS FATAL DEFICIENCIES
JULY 2011
When Council approved the permit for the new men's homeless
shelter it asked the developer to create a good
neighbor plan for the Homestead Park area. At that time we were
concerned about getting a "seat at the table" to help shape this plan and we
were disturbed that the council would allow a private developer to create
the plan that would be used to govern itself.
We spent three weeks asking the developer to agree to follow open meeting law and asking about who was invited by the developer to be on the committee. We finally received
the information about the date of first scheduled meeting, committee membership,
and proposed process late Friday afternoon, one business day before the first
scheduled meeting on Monday afternoon, despite our having requested this
information several weeks ago.
We have reviewed the developers process for creating a good
neighbor plan and it has many fatal deficiencies
- The subcommittee members do not hold diverse points of view
because the developer filled the committee with its closest
friends. Almost all of the members that the developer appointed
are staunch supporters of the new shelter, including most of the members
listed from neighborhoods. Most committee members do not actually live
near or own property near the new facility. Families who raise children
and own property in the area - residents who have the most at stake -
are not adequately or equally represented. The most impacted
retail businesses in The Station at Homestead who are closest to the new
facility are not represented at all and the largest development Parkside
is not represented.
- The meetings will not be held in a neutral
location. United Church of Chapel Hill, the intended meeting
place for this process, has repeatedly voiced it's support for the new
facility. At last year's annual meeting, Tom Whisnant, a project
manager for the developer, wrongly characterized many area residents while
speaking at UCC. See link.
- The developer will not abide by open meeting
law. The July 11th meeting is a closed, unannounced
meeting. We assumed a process that is required by a town resolution
would follow open meeting rules and would expect a developer who is given so
much public funding from taxpayers would provide transparency. We
requested that the developer abide by the same laws that would apply if the
neighbor plan was being created by a town committee, but the developer refused
to follow any of the open meeting rules.
According to
Resolution C the primary Goal of the GNP is establishing mutual
understanding and respect. Despite the extensive research
that the members of A Better Site have done during the SUP process and
despite the many families who share our views, our group was
allotted only one slot on the GNP subcommittee.
We would like to
participate in the development of the neighbor plan, but we cannot do so due to
the deficiencies stated above. A process which does
not represent the neighbors who have clearly documented the facts
and issues will have no legitimacy for Homestead Park area residents
and does nothing to establish mutual understanding and respect.
Allowing
the developer to manipulate and control this process will result in no
good plan for Homestead Park area residents.
NEIGHBORS FILE LAWSUIT AGAINST TOWN
JUNE 2011
Two neighbors who own property near the newly
approved men's homeless shelter filed an appeal in North Carolina
Superior Court.
This lawsuit focuses on the due process issues which occur in
cases where quasi-judicial decisionmakers have made up their minds
prior to hearing the evidence. The lawsuit addresses the
predetermined position some town council
members appeared to clearly have on this matter prior to the quasi
judicial hearing. We all heard "it was a done deal" back in 2008
when the site was announced and then saw ample evidence of this
back room deal over the past two years. UNC and the
Town announced it's partnership and this chosen site in a press
conference that surprised the community: Town, University announce
partnership to bring new homeless shelter to Chapel Hill
In the May 9th hearing, legal counsel for some Homestead Park
residents requested that four council members recuse themselves
from voting. The residents cited evidence of a fixed position on
this issue prior to the hearing. The council members chose not to
recuse themselves. This created the grounds necessary for the
neighbors most directly impacted to file an appeal.
In a quasi-judicial hearing, any member of the public can
be sworn in to provide evidence. Homestead Park area
residents presented hours of sworn testimony and provided
dozens of documents for town council's review and consideration in
this matter yet none of these items were discussed at this hearing
prior to this application being approved. There was no
discussion of the over-concentration of facilities in the
Homestead Park area, no discussion of it's proximity to
pre-schools or Homestead Park, no mention of public
safety concerns and no discussion or plan to address sex offender
issues.
This hearing confirmed what we all knew in our hearts: that
many on the town council lacked the political will to represent
all the people of Chapel Hill and instead chose to represent only
a narrow set of economic and special interests.
We will be sending links to news articles and more
information as we receive it. Yesterday, Chapel Hill Watch commented
on the lawsuit. As the lawsuit progresses and details emerge,
the strength of this legal action will become apparent.
We believe legal action by these parties is further
evidence that the site selection for this facility with no public
input was the wrong approach. Had the town, IFC, and the
community worked together, this site would have never been
chosen. Good public process would have thoroughly vetted multiple
sites to find the best home for this facility.
Many in town say that caring for the homeless is the
entire community's responsibility. It's a terrible
irony that only one tiny part of Chapel Hill will actually be
the ones who house this entire community responsibility of all
overnight supportive housing (over 200 transitional, emergency
shelter, drug detox, and drug rehabilitation beds in one fifth
of a square mile)
SHELTER WAS APPROVED WITHOUT ANY OF THE CONDITIONS AND STIPULATIONS REQUESTED BY NEIGHBORS. EMERGENCY BEDS ARE PERMANENT.
MAY 2011
On May 9th, the Town Council in a 6 to 2 vote passed "Resolution A", an act
that approves the new mens' homeless shelter. An act that has created a
serious rift in this community. The council's action condemns our
neighborhoods as the dumping ground for all overnight at-risk social
services, given that this is the third significant facility in one-fifth
of a square mile.
Council approved a 52 transitional bed program and room for 17 emergency
occupants and will at a later date approve the 50 year lease. The
building planned as 16,250 sq. ft. can be increased to 20,938 sq. ft
through an administrative process. While the be count cannot be
increased without another SUP we can already hear it now. "We already
have the space." "It's convenient to all the other facilities."
"Everyone in the community should support the homeless." "Orange County
will not provide service so we have to."
We are appalled that the town council chose to approve permanent
emergency shelter in addition to the transitional services. The council should have at least placed a one or two year expiration on the
emergency shelter. This failure is a missed opportunity to leverage county participation for this critical service.
Without political pressure, no other entities will step up to fill this
need and we will watch the grant money pile up to fund Community House
while no money is earmarked to build a facility that would house these
17 emergency beds.
On March 21st, A Better Site supporters submitted a clear and reasonable
list of conditions for consideration. We asked the town to consider
them as part of the SUP. NONE of these conditions were included in the approved permit. The council side stepped critical issues by relegating them to a yet defined Good Neighbor Plan. Because conditions are not attached to the special use permit, they are not enforceable. This means we will be living on a 50 year promise (a promise not even yet written).
This is not the first time we have been dismissed and ignored. Our
requests were not considered when the shelter LUMO definition changed.
Our input was ignored when the Planning Board created Shelter
Guidelines. It's evident the council chose to dismiss all the evidence
we submitted for this hearing. A Better Site submitted hundreds of
pages of documents and presented hours of testimony yet no council
member ever asked us one question or for clarification of any fact we
submitted.
Council members have repeatedly defended the SUP as the right process
for this public conversation yet both sides talked beyond each other,
some talking about the site and others talking about the program. After
many hours of testimony the majority of council discussion centered
around word-smithing the resolutions. Council Member Czajkowski tried to
address some of the larger issues associated with the permit but his
questions were met with silence.
At great political risk to themselves, Matt Czajkowski and Laurin Easthom
were the only council members willing to ask questions and to vote
against "Resolution A". Matt proposed an alternate resolution that
would get the emergency beds off the table, but clearly he did not have
adequate support.
As was admitted last night and in recorded hearings of the UNC Board of
Trustees, this site was a done deal long ago when Roger Perry, Kevin
Foy, and James Moeser made this deal. Aaron Nelson, along with some downtown
merchants, landowners, and developers were enlisted to get the
shelter out of downtown. It was clear that the neighbors never stood a
chance.
Although we are disappointed with last night's outcome, many of you have already asked "What's next"?
We are exploring legal options. We will try, yet again, to be heard during
the lease negotiations. Additionally, we look forward to the new
election year. Although our neighborhoods have been dismissed and
ignored we are comforted by the fact that they cannot ignore our votes.
Sincerely,
ABetterSite Team
www.abettersite.org
On March 21st the Inter-Faith Council submitted
evidence to the town council for their proposed new mens shelter. If approved
the shelter would be sited at the corner of MLK and Homestead Road.
On Monday May 9th the town council will discuss
the permit for this new facility. This
may be the most interesting discussion to date for the shelter permit and the
council may vote on this issue.
Click Here to view the presentation that we gave on March 21st
Town Council Meeting Video for March 21st 2011
March 22, 2011 Media Coverage
Recent Videos