Call for a Paradigm Shift

The Board of Directors of the Village Project joins Mayor Kevin Foy and the Chapel Hill News (3/21/04) in calling for “a Paradigm Shift” and a “serious and prolonged engagement” to shape a “truly creative” vision for the Carolina North Campus.

The changes proposed by UNC planners for this enormous project are marginally responsive to citizen input. What they are proposing, still, is a Research Triangle Park dressed in “New Urbanist clothing "– an incredibly intensive employment environment that will inflict huge demands for car-oriented residential development on the surrounding towns and on rural Chatham and Orange Counties.

For a sense of the scale of this project, consider that the eight million plus square feet of Carolina North is about half as big as the amount found in RTP. Look at the enormous impact RTP has had on this region to appreciate the challenge of fitting so much in to such a small package. It can be done, but only with great originality and sensitivity. Without close consideration of the full scope of the damage wrought on the region’s environment and quality of life we are doomed to repeat and magnify those aspects of the RTP planning model that we have come to deeply regret.

The “paradigm shift” Mayor Foy refers to is, we believe, about inverting the planning model that has dominated for the last half century in the United States. Instead of spreading out, we must concentrate and build up. Instead of depending on cars, we must create walkable places that connect easily to other activity centers and residential nodes by various forms of public transit.

Reducing the parking at Carolina North from 19,000 to 17,000 spaces and proposing to have some four and five floor buildings is a superficial response to the very real and serious resource crisis of our times. This is still land- and energy-intensive development, a pattern with grave long-range global environmental and economic consequences.

Mayor Foy was one of the first to publicly use the term “Car Free” regarding the Carolina North campus, and other citizens in the community, including the Village Project Board, have joined him in envisioning such a possibility. The Trustees and planners at UNC must realize that this petition from citizens calls attention to a singular opportunity to lead, to truly serve the interests of the people of North Carolina, and to show us a new path for land use and urban form suitable for the 21st century.

Although UNC owns the land, the land sits at the core of a community that belongs to all of us and to all the generations to come. In recognition of our shared interests, we believe that a planning summit that involves UNC, local citizens and stakeholders throughout North Carolina is the appropriate course to decide how to use this incredible resource.

Jean Earnhardt & James Carnahan
for the Board of Directors of The Village Project, Inc.