Central West Steering Committee Develops Draft Recommendations

The Central West Steering Committee was charged by the Town Council to develop a Small Area Plan for the Central West Focus Area. The Steering Committee has been meeting since December of 2012, to address this charge.

The Steering Committee has developed a draft concept plan which provides information about the uses and heights in the Central West Focus Area. The Steering Committee has also developed draft recommendations about the bicycle and pedestrian amenities in the area.

These draft recommendations are being reviewed by the Planning Board during the Planning Board meeting on October 1st. For more information about the meeting, please click here.

For a copy of the draft recommendations, please click here.

The following is the draft concept plan:

Please click on the image above to see a larger version.

The following are the bicycle and pedestrian recommendations:

Please click on the image above to see a larger version.

Please click on the image above to see a larger version.

For more information about the Central West Focus Area process, please visit: http://www.townofchapelhill.org/centralwest

MLK/Estes Drive Focus Area: How should the Steering Committee be structured? And what should its purpose be? Give us your thoughts!

On Wednesday, September 19th, the community will be gathering to discuss the Steering Committee structure, purpose, and application process for the MLK/Estes Drive Focus Area (recommended name: Central West Focus Area). This meeting will be held from 5:00-6:30pm in the HR Training Room, second floor, Town Hall, 405 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Chapel Hill.

In order to prepare for Wednesday’s meeting, a survey has been developed with the purpose of collecting information in advance of the meeting. Please complete this survey and provide us with your thoughts!

The survey can be found at the following link: Steering Committee Survey

The information from this survey will be compiled and will be a part of the discussion during the Wednesday, September 19th Recommendation Meeting #2.

Please complete the survey by noon on Wednesday, September 19th. The responses from the survey will be published on this blog by Friday, September 21st.

For more information about this process, please visit www.townofchapelhill.org/estesdrive

What do you think the “MLK/Estes Drive Focus Area” should be called? And what should its boundary be? Let us know!

On August 28^th and 29^th, 2012, a Public Information Open House for the MLK/Estes Drive Focus Area was held with the purpose of providing information about the area that can be used as a starting point for community discussions.

During the Open House, the participants were asked to provide their thoughts and ideas about the following:

1. What the process should be called
2. What the boundary of the focus area should be

Common answers about the name of the process include the following:

• MLK/Estes Drive Focus Area
• Estes Drive/MLK Focus Area
• MLK/Estes Drive Study Area
• MLK/Estes Drive Community Focus Area
• MLK-Carolina North-Estes Drive Focus Area
• Mid-town Focus Area

 What do you think?

We would like to gather everyone’s thoughts about this. What do you think the focus area should be called? And what should the boundaries be? Please provide the information as a comment to this post.

A copy of the handout (which provided a tentative map of the area) provided at the Open House can be found here.

We will be gathering comments until noon on Thursday, September 13^th. On the evening of Thursday, September 13^th, the first in a series of three “Recommendation Meetings” will be held. This meeting will be from 7-8:30pm in the First Floor Conference Room, Town Hall, 405 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Chapel Hill. All community members are invited to attend, and the purpose of this meeting will be to develop a recommendation which can be sent to Council for their consideration.

We will post the recommendation about the name and boundary to this blog on Monday, September 17^th.

For more information, please visit www.townofchapelhill.org/estesdrive