More apartments near Chapel Hill’s Blue Hill District? Town board pushes for variety.

A town advisory board had a clear message for a developer looking to build more apartments on South Elliott Road, near the town’s Blue Hill District: Think again about your housing choices.

Texas-based Trinsic Residential Group has submitted a concept plan for Aura South Elliott, a five-story building next to Chapel Hill’s Blue Hill District. It calls for roughly 330 apartments and a 495-space parking deck, accessible from South Elliott Road, with another connection for bikes and pedestrians off Couch Road. The project includes a park around a stream on the property.

While Community Design Commission members were not overly critical of the plan Tuesday review, they did ask the developer to consider changes that might help the town with stormwater, traffic and its lack of for-sale housing options that aren’t single-family homes.

“I’m actually not looking forward to another project like this at all on Elliott,” Community Design Commission Chair John Weis said, in reference to the nearly 2,000 apartments added to the Blue Hill District since its creation in 2014. Only 149 units have been priced at affordable rates for people at different income levels.

“People drive, and they go to the Whole Foods and all those stores and all the new retail that’s there, and it’s chock-a-block with people, but they all hate the Berkshire,” he said about the first project built in the district.

“Not a person in town likes it, and I don’t know that this is an improvement on it,” Weis said.

The concept plan is not an official application, but a rough sketch that allows the developer to seek feedback from the Town Council and the commission. A council review is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, March 8.

Spike LLC owns just over four acres on three lots at 200 S. Elliott Road. Two lots are undeveloped; the third is home to Extraordinary Ventures, a nonprofit that provides employment and job skills to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Extraordinary Ventures could move into a new home if the developer’s plans advance, said Dan Hatley, its board president. Trinsic has the land under contract, and its concept plan suggested affordable housing or work space for residents with special needs is possible.

An alternative affordable housing plan could provide apartments leased at rates affordable to those earning up to 65% and 80% of the area median income — an individual earning up to $53,520 a year, or a family of four earning up to $76,400.

The affordable apartments could be mixed in among the market-rate units, instead of relegated to one corner of the project, said Justin Brown, Trinsic development director.

“Inclusionary affordable housing overcomes a lot of ills in my opinion,” Commissioner Scott Levitan said about the plan to mix in the affordable units, “and so I applaud you and thank you very much for addressing affordable housing in that manner.”

Town staff members are recommending the council negotiate an R-6 conditional zoning, rather than add the site to the Blue Hill district, as the developer has suggested.

The current zoning allows office and institutional uses, as well as residential projects with up to seven units. However, previous councils have discussed rezoning it to Blue Hill standards and offering density bonuses to projects that include affordable housing.

Transit, stormwater, parking

Projects in the Blue Hill District, which stretches from East Franklin Street and South Elliott Road to Fordham Boulevard, Ephesus Church Road and Legion Road, do not require council review or approval.

Instead, developers follow a form-based code to ensure their buildings blend into the surrounding streetscape, and seek approvals from the Community Design Commission and the town manager.

The goal is a walkable, urban community where people can live and work without a car.

Commissioner Susan Lyons urged the developer to consider less parking and more housing in the Elliott Road plan — in particular, more for-sale housing and townhomes, similar to the condos and townhomes in Franklin Grove, north of East Franklin Street.

She also noted the importance of the site’s connection to Franklin Street and to the town’s transit system. There are several bus stops within a short walk.

“I know that that might not be the best development strategy at this point (to have less parking), but this is just so close to Franklin Street that those connections could be really powerful for what the town is trying to do in other parts of MLK, as well as Franklin,” she said.

Traffic and stormwater also will be key issues. South Elliott Road is a busy street, with cars regularly exceeding the 25 mph speed limit. Flooding also is a longstanding problem in the Blue Hill District, which lies near the bottom of the Bolin Creek watershed.

Levitan noted the topography of the project site, and that it already might channel a significant amount of runoff from properties to the north and west.

“I worry about that, and I hope that the town staff on the call review the site drainage plan in the next phase of the drawing to ensure we’re not creating on-site water challenges,” Levitan said.

Commissioner Megan Patnaik offered a creative approach that would involve removing some apartments on the first and second floors and creating a bridge over the area where the water naturally drains.

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