Citizen remarks from the BoC Meeting and Public Hearings 1/16/07

Remarks from Simon Smith

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Public Hearing Testimony From Simon Smith
On Sketch Design for “Lystra Road Property”

January 16, 2007

Simon Smith
xxxx xxxx Rd
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
919-xxx-xxxx


Dear commissioners,

My name is Simon Smith and my wife Gretchen and I live at xxxx xxxx Rd. Our property abuts the southeastern corner of the developer's Lystra Road property. I have been living at my present address for 11 years. I grew up in Chapel Hill and have lived almost my entire life in the greater Chapel Hill area. I urge you not to approve the developer's current sketch design for the following reasons:

The traffic situation along Lystra Road is going to become terrible by the year 2014 because of the construction of Briar Chapel. The Briar Chapel development is the proverbial 800 pound gorilla when it comes to traffic in North Chatham. With about 2400 homes, that one development is going to be dumping huge amounts of additional traffic on area roads. But where exactly is that traffic going to be heading. If one believes the Briar Chapel developer's traffic impact assessment (TIA) only 11% of peak hour traffic is going to use Lystra Road. I seriously question that figure of 11% because Lystra Road is the fastest way to reach such destinations as South Point Mall, I-40, RTP, northern Cary, and Raleigh. For ten years, I have been commuting to my job in northern Cary along Lystra road and Farrington road. This is the standard shortcut for people who live in my vicinity and work in RTP or northern Cary. I strongly suspect that the percentage of Briar Chapel morning traffic that will be traveling east along Lystra Road is going to be much higher than 11%.

The TIA submitted by the Lystra Road developer uses the Briar Chapel TIA as input. However, the Lystra Road developer's TIA deliberately underestimates traffic coming from the Briar Chapel development by using only 60% of the numbers from the Briar Chapel TIA. This was done because the Lystra Road developer expects to have build-out in 2011 while the Briar Chapel developer does not expect to have build-out until 2014. The board of commissioners must take into consideration the traffic situation not only in 2011 but also in 2014 and beyond. I encourage you to require that the Lystra Road TIA take into consideration all traffic expected to be generated by Briar Chapel. By considering only 60% of the Briar Chapel traffic, the Lystra Road TIA comes up with the amazing prediction that between 7:00 AM and 9:00 AM, only 56 cars will be added to Lystra Road from Briar Chapel. I am confident in saying that this number is ridiculously low. One of my coworkers lives in a neighborhood along Manns Chapel Road and he commutes to our company along Lystra Road. He told me that as he is driving to work, there are numerous other cars coming out of his neighborhood making the same journey down Lystra Road to I-40. When I told him about the Lystra Road developer's prediction that only 56 cars would be coming from 2400 homes in Briar Chapel, he laughed and said he thought the number would be ten times higher. I do not claim to be able to predict exactly how many cars will be traveling down Lystra Road from Briar Chapel, but I am confident in saying that it will certainly be a lot more than 56 cars, it will be many hundreds.

Some other flaws in the Lystra Road developer's TIA include:

The TIA only observed traffic from 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM and from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM. This means it missed the key event of North Chatham Elementary school getting out between 2:30 PM and 2:45 PM.

The TIA contains the flawed assumption that about 19% of morning rush hour traffic from Briar Chapel is going to turn right off Lystra Road onto Jack Bennett Road. This will not happen. Virtually 100% of Briar Chapel traffic will continue on to the intersection with Farrington Point road.

The TIA did not study at all the situation at the intersection of Lystra Road and Farrington Point Road. This intersection is poised to become a major rush-hour choke point by 2014.

Even given its shortcomings, the Lystra Road developer's TIA still reveals that by the year 2011, the traffic at the intersection of Lystra Road and Jack Bennett Road is going to be at a Level-of-Service (LOS) rating of F. This is the worst rating and is associated with bumper-to-bumper, stop-and-go traffic and long delays. This F rating applies even before the traffic from the Lystra Road Property is taken into consideration.

I strongly urge the commissioners not to approve any more developments in the Lystra Road area until an independent study of traffic in North Chatham in the year 2014 can be completed. I would like to read two sentences from the Chatham County Subdivision Regulations. The sentences I will read are found in the section titled "Purpose" on page 4. The section begins "This ordinance is adopted for the following purposes:". Paragraph D says "To insure an adequately planned street system and to avoid sharp curves, steep grades and hazardous intersections". Paragraph L says "To provide for the orderly safe flow of traffic and to avoid congestion and traffic hazards". Given the fact that the Briar Chapel development has already been approved, I do not see how approval of any more developments in the Lystra Road area is going to uphold the spirit of these two purposes for having subdivision regulations.

I have one final comment I would like to make while on the subject of traffic. Contrary to what a planning department staff member stated at the December planning board meeting, it is my understanding from reading the Chatham County Subdivision Regulations that for sketch design approval of major subdivisions the developer is required to provide an economic impact assessment and that part of such an assessment is a traffic study. I refer you to pages 38 and 39 of the Subdivision Regulations.

The southern portion of the developer's property has steep slopes and a bouldery surface, and the developer's design has some very steep roads and curves that will almost certainly require significant excavations to accommodate. The road that leads to the southeastern corner of the property begins downhill at a grade that I compute to be 17%. The NCDOT limit for such a road is 18%, so the developer's road is close to the limit. The road then curves around to the left. This curve will almost certainly require cutting into the hillside because otherwise one side of the road is going to be six feet higher than the other, which I strongly suspect is outside DOT limits. When I raised this concern at the planning board's meeting in December, a representative from the developer followed up to my comments with a response that they did not intend to do significant excavations or grading to accommodate the road but that they would build up one side of the road to make it level. I'm not exactly sure what kind of build up he was referring to, but generally when a road is constructed on a steep slope and it is not cut into the hillside, a substantial concrete and/or steel substructure is built to hold up the road in the presence of soil erosion. I am skeptical that such an investment in engineering and construction costs would be economically feasible for a road that serves only eight houses. I therefore stand by my original comment that significant grading and excavations will be required to accommodate this particular cul-de-sac.

The developer's design only provides a 25 foot buffer to adjacent property owners. While I am aware that this is the county mandated minimum, the Westfall development on Lystra Road granted at least a 50 foot undisturbed buffer to adjacent property owners. I think the Lystra Road Property sketch design should also be required to provide at least a 50 foot undisturbed buffer to adjacent property owners.

Like other property owners who will speak tonight, I too am very concerned about preserving the quality of the local environment, specifically the Herndon Creek Significant Natural Heritage Area and Jones Branch creek, which feeds into Herndon creek. I am not happy that the developer still has not modified their design to leave the Herndon Creek Significant Natural Heritage Area completely undisturbed. I will not go into greater detail on this subject because I know others are going to discuss it in more detail. However, I would like to add my voice to their concerns.

I appreciate your attention this evening. Again, I urge you not to approve the developer's sketch design in its present form. Thank you.