CHAPEL HILL – The Chapel Hill Carrboro school board voted Thursday night to build the district’s 11th elementary school in the Northside neighborhood.

The new school will be built on the old Northside School site located between Caldwell and McMasters streets, a big selling point for the board. The county owns the land, and it already has water and sewer lines.

The historically black neighborhood has changed in recent years from mostly owner-occupied homes to rental housing. Many UNC-Chapel Hill students now live there.

“I think it will return some families to the area,” school board Chairwoman Pam Hemminger said this morning. “That will be a positive for the neighborhood.”

The $34 million school is scheduled to open in the fall of 2011.

The Northside site was one of three the board considered. The other two were in the Greene Tract, property between Homestead and Eubanks roads owned by Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County governments, and on UNC-Chapel Hill’s Carolina North property.

The board would like to build the next elementary school, No. 12, on the Greene Tract, Hemminger said. The site received an early thumbs up from residents in the neighboring Rogers Road area.