City Council passes Stanhope Student Housing Center in 6-2 vote

The Raleigh City Council approved a site plan for the Stanhope Student Housing Center on Tuesday in a 6-2 vote, according to Planning Director Mitchell Silver. The altered plans include 277 units of student housing with a parking deck that is wrapped with offices. It is set to be built off of Hillsborough Street on Stanhope Avenue and Concord Street.

Plans include 167 four-bedroom units, 40 three-bedroom units and 70 two-bedroom “dorm-like” units that would accommodate up to 928 students. It also has a 787-space parking deck, 8,000 square feet of office space and 1,500 square feet of retail space.

Previous plans, including a master plan and a small area plan that served to inform the City Council of what residents in the area desired to be built, were approved in 2002.

The city did have to alter plans for the development, mostly due to requests from residents in the neighborhood, who he said wanted a buffer between the parking deck and the first residential home, as well as pedestrian tables that could slow traffic on Stanhope Avenue.

“There’s about 37 feet between where the parkingdeck ends and the end of their property begins. That distance is a buffer, and they’ll do landscaping there for open trees and shrubs. They’ll mask it, or put trees there, versus looking at a parking deck,” Silver said. “They also asked that pedestrian tables be placed at several locations along Stanhope to calm traffic down so people would not drive fast.”

With these changes, Silver said the parking deck would have little impact on nearby residents.

Although non-students will not be denied housing, Silver said the set up is geared primarily toward students.

Nola Dunleavy, student services assistant at University Housing, said although there were a few students on the waiting list for on-campus housing at the beginning of the fall semester, “by the time we got to their names we would have gotten them all in housing. By the time we got to them, they had found another place.”

She said most of the students who applied for housing got into a room.

Cameron Village development passes through next round

The City Council approved in a 5-2 vote the rezoning of a mixed-use development in Cameron Village at the corner of Clark Avenue and Oberlin Road. The site is 2.67 acres and could include 28,000 square feet of retail space and 232 apartments.

One City Council member requested the building’s height, proposed at six stories, be dropped to four stories, according to Planning Director Mitchell Silver. The council passed the rezoning at six stories.

“It’s their choice,” Silver said of the developer, Crescent Resources, LLC. “This request before council was just to allow them to build up to six stories. The developer will actually have to submit a project plan for the building.”

Gas prices bounce back up

At almost $3.80, gas prices in North Carolina are higher than any of the lower 48 states, and economist Michael Walden said it’s due mainly to a combination of shortages resulting from Hurricane Ike and North Carolina’s gas tax, a fee put on each gallon of gas to pay for roads and other state expenses incurred due to driving.

He, along with Governor Mike Easley’s office, said there is no reason to believe Raleigh will run out of gas.

“There’s one pipeline that feeds into the western part of the state, so that’s why the mountains are affected,” Walden, a professor of agriculture and resource economics, said. “Raleigh and the eastern part of the state have two pipelines.”

He said oil prices are falling, so gas prices should start to fall as well. He predicts gas prices will be about $3 by the end of this year.