Pittsboro Matters claims there are 25 flaws with Chatham Park

Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 12:49:41 -0500
From: Pittsboro Matters
Subject: 25 Flaws with Chatham Park

Although there are many other flaws with the Chatham Park master plan as proposed, the poster, Samantha Capitol, got every one of these “positive” items wrong, or even backwards. Here are the first five:

Fiction 1 – “The owners are North Carolina Developers”

Fact 1 – The owners are Cary developers, who have focused primarily on exclusive “Greenfield McMansion” developments (over-sized houses on large parcels of vacant land, which contribute to sprawl and run counter to Smart Growth), and have no experience developing a master planned community of any size and complexity.

Fiction 2 – “The land is paid for thus there are no “options” nor bank notes and thus the standard risk of “failure” and “illiquidity” that is usually caused by the banks is not an issue. The community is dealing with well-financed developers.”

Fact 2 – We have no idea about the financial resources committed to this multi-billion dollar 30+ year project.  The town has received no written assurance of financial viability nor have they been required to submit and
have a peer reviewed marketing and financial plan for this development.  Chatham Park Investors claims that Jim Goodnight of SAS is financially backing this development, but the town has not had this confirmed or
documented in writing by Goodnight himself.  Moreover, the history of similar sized development in the U.S. raises questions about financial viability, since both Reston, Virginia, a development Chatham Park Investors has compared this project to, and Columbia, Maryland were started by wealthy developers, but in both cases these developers were pushed out or had to be bought out by international corporations, Gulf Oil Company and
Traveler’s Insurance respectively.  What corporation will end up determining Pittsboro’s future?

Fiction 3 – “The plan is designed and led by one of the country’s best land plan planning groups.”

Fact  3 – Except for their public relations appearance, we have not seen an outside planning group working with the town on Chatham Park.  Moreover, the vague and general master plan presented to the town does not have the appearance of being put together by a major land use group, let alone one of the county’s best.  There are virtually no graphic drawings of exactly what the various parts of the development will look like. But you can judge for yourself by comparing the Chatham Park proposed master plan to the master plan to revitalize internationally recognized Research Triangle Park (RTP), which will continue to compete with Chatham Park for major employers at: http://rtp.org/sites/default/files/Concise%20PUBLIC%20Master%20Plan.pdf

Fiction 4 – “The project will bring a needed and varied tax base to Pittsboro and Chatham County with upwards of 12 billion with a “b” in new tax base created over the next 30 years. (22 million square feet of commercial/institutional space alone.)”

Fact 4 – Here again, Chatham Park has not provided marketing, financial, and fiscal impact studies to back up any public relations claims they may make about bringing economic development and tax base to the town and county that will be greater than the service burden of the development. Where is the more than a million square feet of commercial space approved for development seven years ago? In Briar Chapel, touted as the economic savior of the county by its supporters? Or in Powell Place? While RTP still has massive excess capacity.  Let us add the fact that such New Urbanist new town development tends to drive up the price of land, which drives up local property taxes (for all of us), often forcing working class and lower income folks off their land.

Fiction 5 – “New schools and universities for the area that are state-of-the art.”

Fact 5 – There is absolutely nothing in the Planned Development Ordinance or the revised master plan from the developer that makes any requirements concerning financing or building public schools. The document  simply quotes known student population statistics (average of 0.45 per new household – approx. 10,000 new students) and calculates up to 12 schools may be necessary.  They don’t say they will build these schools. And remember, everyone in the county will be taxed for them. They are quick to point out that many of these schools will not need to be in Chatham Park PDD. They actually say, “It will take time and hard work by all involved to create a plan for serving this additional and the existing student population and is beyond the scope of this PDD Master Plan.” There is no plan! Chatham Park had done nothing to coordinator their plan with either the public schools or the community college and there is nothing in master plan requiring them to do that. New universities? Really?