Chatham Park will bring many benefits to Pittsboro and Chatham County, NC

Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 20:34:09 -0400
From: chathammatters
Subject: Chatham Park

Chatham Park will bring many benefits to Pittsboro and Chatham County.

Chatham County has made significant progress recently, but we still have far too many people who have to travel outside of the county for work, this development will help change that balance in our favor.  Many advocate for creating communities where work/living/shopping are closer together, Chatham Park appears to be designed along those lines.  It would also bring a much healthier balance between personal property taxes and business taxes benefiting both Pittsboro and Chatham County’s citizens.  It would also enable the town to dramatically improve it’s water and sewer capacity mostly paid for by this development, given the significant water/sewer rate hikes twice in the last two years we need the help.

However, this can go sideways for Pittsboro quickly.  This development most likely meets all of the requirements necessary to “Charter” the land they own, in simple terms they can create their own town if they want to.  Pittsboro does not meet the size requirement (too small), and doesn’t need to be consulted.  It only requires the State Legislature to pass it. While Chatham County would still benefit, the Town of Pittsboro would be left standing out in the cold.

I sincerely hope Pittsboro’s town board doesn’t follow Chapel Hill’s example.  They town turned down both Home Depot and Walmart – in return, both Home Depot and Walmart went just across 40 into Durham and Chapel Hill was left with all of the traffic and none of the revenue.

It appears that these Chatham Park’s developers believe they can work with the Pittsboro Town Board.  Who knows how long that will last if the board starts listing to those who advocate for injecting a “go-slow” into the Pittsboro town board process of evaluating Chatham Park, or to those advocating their own personal “environmental” demands far in excess of State regulations (fyi this is no longer allowed under state law).

Pittsboro can work with this development to the benefit of both, or it can be cut out of the process and the future.  I hope the town board chooses wisely, it affects all of us.