The Orange County Board of Commissioners decided not to buy 2.69 acres at 210 Hillsborough Road for a planned Southwest Branch library.

Several residents support a site at 1124 Hillsborough Road near McDougle Schools and Martin Luther King Jr. Park. The 3.45 acre lot, owned by former Carrboro Alderwoman Frances Shetley, is for sale for $150,000, said resident Marty Mandell.

Alderwoman Jacquie Gist, the only member of the Board of Alderman who had voted against rezoning the 210 Hillsborough Road property for a library, said she is "delighted" the commissioners decided at their meeting Tuesday night to search for a new site.

The 1124 Hillsborough Road site is "a really good location," Gist said. "It's near a lot of families without being right on top of people. I know people in the surrounding neighborhoods are just ecstatic. I've heard from many of them."

Building a library at 210 Hillsborough Road would have had a "disproportionately negative impact on several of our oldest homes," she said.

The rush to find a site caused the county to overlook problems at 210 Hillsborough Road and bypass other options, said Tyler Huntington, who grew up in Carrboro and owns Tyler's Restaurant & Taproom on East Main Street.

"I think there were a lot of folks out there who just really wanted a library ... [and] that desire for a library made them blind to the problems at this current site," he said.

The 1124 Hillsborough Road property fits all the criteria the county has for a library; it's a commercial property with access to bus lines, he said.

He also suggested sites at the corner of Jones Ferry Road and Barnes Street because the land is in a commercial district, is on bike paths and has bus access.

Legal restrictions

The commissioners rejected the 210 Hillsborough Road site after discovering legal restrictions on how the land could be developed, making the project much more expensive.

Commissioner Earl McKee said he opposed the site from the start. As the county searches for a new one, it should also commit to resolving funding issues with Chapel Hill over the town's library, he said.

The Chapel Hill Town Council voted in June to accept more money from the county for its library and delay charging non-Chapel Hill county residents a proposed $60 annual fee. The town library is separate from the county library system.

An offer by Orange County to increase its contribution from $250,000 to $342,986 this fiscal year sealed the deal.

The county's offer also came with a pledge to gradually increase its contribution to the Chapel Hill Library from last fiscal year's 18 percent of county library spending to 30 percent. In other words, as the county spends more in its own library system, it also will spend more on Chapel Hill's.

Commissioner Barry Jacobs emphasized the need to make the search for a new Southwest Branch transparent and collaborative.

"It's important to have a partnership with the town of Carrboro ... and that we also involve the citizens," he said. "People are interested in this issue. Having this kind of an open and partnered process will be very important."

The board is focused on the long term as it starts a new search process and is serious about finding a site that works, said Chairwoman Bernadette Pelissier.

"This is a good outcome; our refusal to accept this offer now ... opens the doors," she said. "People are coming forward and suggesting sites. I think the community knows we are serious about finding a good site for a library."

Staff writer Mark Schultz contributed to this report.