Commissioners express frustration with proposed road in North Woods, end COVID-19 state of emergency

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PITTSBORO — Commissioners ended the town’s COVID-19 state of emergency, announced a new Public Information Officer and voted to dispute a road proposal bisecting Pittsboro’s North Woods community during their Monday meeting.

After almost four years of conversations and studies, the North Carolina Department of Transportation approached the board on Monday about a proposed road — North Chatham Park Way — for Chatham Park’s Northern Village development. Known as Alternate 6, NCDOT’s proposed road would divide the North Woods neighborhood — an outcome commissioners vehemently opposed.

The board voted in November to ask NCDOT to conduct a study to find a different route — known as Alternative 8 — to the proposed road that would avoid bisecting the historic community. While Alternative 8 allowed the road to bypass North Woods, NCDOT concluded that Alternate 6 would be the most cost effective and involve less environmental impact than Alternate 8.

Commissioners criticized the decision, especially after months of discussion and emphasis on avoiding Alternate 6.

New board member James Vose spoke to his frustrations, saying that no matter what the town did, it appears NCDOT will be able to do whatever it wishes.

“We’re discussing this northern alignment as if we had any say in its outcome,” Vose said. “Regardless of my personal feelings on the subject, it is my understanding that a unanimous vote by this board to divert to Alternative 8 would change absolutely nothing — this decision was made for us by NCDOT.”

Ultimately, the board elected to not vote to concur with NCDOT’s opinion, effectively stating Pittsboro officials did not agree with the decision to bisect the 40 year-old neighborhood.

NCDOT’s Patrick Norman told commissioners Monday that the department wants to work in partnership with the town, but if that’s not possible, NCDOT will continue the project as planned.

“Yes, there are considerations and we want to be partners, but there is also a large financial contribution that has to be considered,” Norman said. “If that contribution is not able to be covered, then we have to look at what our options are, and that could mean removing the project.”

The financial contribution Norman referred to amounts to $9 million and would come from Chatham Park Investors. However, Chatham Park investors have not given the $9 million to Pittsboro, and as commissioners learned Monday, investors have tied the funds to the proposal — Alternative 6 — NCDOT decided to pursue.

“The agreement that was put in place back in 2018 between Chatham Park and the town of Pittsboro in coordination with the department was (that) Chatham Park would provide the funds to the town to provide to NCDOT,” Norman said. “Without that contribution, the project could be removed completely, and you could lose the $4.5 million bonus allocation that would be coming back to the town.”

According to commissioner John Bonitz, the town and Chatham Park Investors have not entered into a formal agreement regarding the $9 million contribution. Rather, the town acknowledged a letter from investors and sent clarifications multiple times stating the town and investors had not reached an agreement.

“You have relied on documents that have not been formally approved by the board,” Bonitz said. “There is some ambiguity in the record of the suggested pathways before alignments were created, and some of that ambiguity did point to Chatham Park land.”

Mayor Pro Tem Pamela Baldwin also expressed her disappointment in NCDOT’s decision and in Chatham Park’s direct involvement in the alignment proposal.

“I had no idea that the bonus allocation, as well as the contribution from Chatham Park would be linked in the matter that it is,” Baldwin said. “Pittsboro is not in a position to fund such a thing as this — we could not utilize that type of money.”

Mark Pavao, a resident of the North Woods neighborhood, said he was glad the board stood up to NCDOT and Chatham Park Investors by effectively disagreeing with the department’s decision.

“For me and for my neighbors, that’s a moral victory,” Pavao said. “It’s a moral victory that basically says the coordination between Chatham Park investors and NCDOT to build this road through North Woods is not right, and at the end of the discussion, the board of commissioners were not willing to sign up and endorse the outcome of that coordination.”

Pavao said the outcome is inevitable; he and his neighbors now wait as NCDOT prepares to start working on the North Chatham Park Way, which will divide the historic community he lives in.

“At this point, it’s clear that NCDOT is going to do what they’re going to do,” he said. “A 40-year-old neighborhood is going to be destroyed. So we will watch it happen — we will document it, we will publicize it and we will basically create a living museum so that people can see what happens when development is not well managed.”

Other business

• Pittsboro now has a public information officer, Colby Sawyer, town manager Chris Kennedy announced Monday.

Sawyer has worked for Chatham County as a manager in the Emergency Services Department. Kennedy said Sawyer will not only operate as the town’s PIO, but he will also work as the town’s emergency management coordinator.

“He’ll help us with a lot of our field work,” Kennedy told commissioners. “When you look at the information that goes into press releases, a lot of it is emergency related, so going through the applicant pool and having some conversations with Mr. Sawyer, I felt he would be a good fit for us.”

Sawyer is set to start on April 11.

• Pittsboro Mayor Cindy Perry announced she had signed off on ending the town’s COVID-19 State of Emergency, which former mayor Jim Nass had declared on March 17, 2020.

“It declares that the COVID emergency is no longer necessary, and is rescinded and terminated as of the effective date, which was this afternoon,” Perry said.

Perry also asked town staff and the board to consider reopening town hall for the public to handle their payments for town utilities, such as water or sewage. This would be the first time town hall would be open to the public since March 2020.

Perry also said she’d like commissioner meetings to resume meeting in person, as part of the town’s return to normalcy.

“We need to be moving ahead with that kind of representation of our constituency,” she said, “and therefore, we look forward to discussing that and beginning to meet in person.”

Reporter Taylor Heeden can be reached at theeden@chathamnr.com.