Click on a heading to sort the data by it.

#	Item	Ideal and/or where Chapel Hill stands	Grade
1	Taxes	Chapel Hill taxes are near the highest in the state.	D
2	Traffic	There should be no intersections where you have to wait for three light changes.  People have been asking for a consolidated traffic study.  Only area studies have been done.	B
3	Stormwater	Upstream development must ensure that it doesn’t aggravate downstream flooding.  There are sections of town like Briarcliff and Camelot apartments where properties get flooded when heavy rains strike.	C
4	Water	Must be adequate to accommodate all residents during a time of drought.  Water quality is an issue, because Chapel Hill is in the watershed that feeds Jordan Lake.  Jordan Lake is a water source for many communities, and Chapel Hill must help protect it as such.	A
5	Air quality	Must not exceed certain thresholds in various parts of town.	A
6	Affordable housing	15% should be affordable by teachers, police, and custodians. Chapel Hill is very deficient in this area.  Unfortunately, state law prevents municipalities from mandating affordable rentals.  Affordability can only be imposed on owner occupied developments.  To cope with the rental restriction, a municipality can balk at up-zoning unless a development provides affordable housing.  Unfortunately, this was not done in Ephesus-Fordham. (INDY March 18, 2015) "After 15 years, Chapel Hill is still trying to get a grip on its housing problem"	F
7	Apartments	X per X people It has been estimated that we now have a 20 year supply of apartments.  We don't need any more.	A
8	Hotels	1 room per every 30 residents	A
9	Schools	1 elementary school per X people. 1 middle school per X people. 1 high school per X people. For schools, there is the “Adequate Facilities Stipulation”.  The school district makes the determination every year as to whether they have adequate facilities for students given the projection of new students coming into the school district based on approved developments.  Fortunately, Chapel Hill built a lot of schools in the last 20 years.  There used to be only one high school.  Now there are three (two in Chapel Hill; one in Carrboro). (May 12, 2016) Here's a powerful speech by Cedar Ridge high school senior Mateo Carvalo on why teachers should be paid more.	B
10	Jobs (professionals)	X per 1000 residents	C
11	Parks	X acres per 1000 people with ample ball fields, hiking trails, and open space evenly distributed across Orange County.  There should be some "community parks" which are 20 to 50 acres in size.	B
12	Bike trails	X number of miles per 1000 residents.	C
13	Buses	1 per X residents.  Critical factors are access and routes.  Most routes are to and from UNC. Our fleet of buses is aged and in needed of replacement.	D
14	Fire stations and fire trucks	From an insurance perspective, the critical factors are the distance from houses to the nearest fire station and response time.  If you’re within 2.5 miles, you get the lowest insurance rating.  Chapel Hill's rating is currently a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is the best. At the May 2, 2016 Town Council meeting, interim fire chief Matthew Sullivan gave a review of Chapel Hill's five fire stations.  See it between 3:39 and 35:10 of that meeting's video.  Most notable is that three of the Town's five stations need to be replaced.	B
15	Retail	Chapel Hill no longer has any department stores.  Residents are continually driving to Durham to do their shopping.  On the other hand, online shopping has made a big dent in mall stores.  See this May 13, 2016 N&O story.	F
16	Office space	Chapel Hill currently has 1,698,702 square feet of approved office space.  It is believed that the absorption rate is 70,000 square feet per year.  That would equate to a 24 year supply.  Unknown is the amount of existing space that is vacant.  It should also be noted that Durham intends to build an 8 story office building adjacent to the intersection of Farrington Road and Route 54.  The rental cost will likely be cheaper than what exists in Chapel Hill. Office Market Analysis - prepared for Town of Chapel Hill in 2010	A
17	Gas stations	1 per X residents In recent years four gas stations have closed – two in Eastgate, one at Rams Plaza, and one on the NE corner of Franklin and Estes Drive.	D
18	Library facilities	We have a great library.	A
19	Solid waste disposal and recycling	The Town does a very good job with solid waste disposal and recycling, but we no longer have a local landfill.	A
20	Police facilities	X police per 1000 people.  Critical factor is response time. We need a new police facility.	B
21	Natural gas distribution		A
22	Sustainable construction	Mandate LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)	D
23	Parking	There is no free parking downtown.  There have been instances of predatory towing.  In 2014 a parking formula was adopted for Form Based Code (FBC) developments which skimp on how much parking a developer is obliged to provide (details).	C
24	Zoning	Developers want greater density so that they don’t have to go through so many hoops to get new developments approved.  The Town is reluctant to blanket upzone, because that would deprive them of leverage to try to get developers to provide affordable rentals.	B
25	Cemetery space	In 2014 the Chapel Hill Town Council gave 8.5 acres of land to a non-profit (DHIC) to build some affordable housing.  That land was going to be used for cemetery expansion, but it's no longer available for that use.  Only a few cemetery plots remain in all of Chapel Hill.	F