The vote allows Pace Academy, a secondary school, to move to N.C. 54 from Legion Road in Chapel Hill, where it opened in 2004. The school serves students with learning disabilities, autism and mental and emotional health issues.

Pace serves 120 students but has had to turn students away because of space constraints, Principal Rhonda Franklin said. It has a waitlist of 41 students.

The change will allow the school to some day serve up to 300 students and offer programs such as cosmetology, landscaping, sustainable farming, welding, carpentry and car mechanics.

Bryan Hughes graduated from Pace Academy in 2008.

"I went from failing in the public school system to going to Pace Academy and making straight A's my first semester," he said.

He said school personnel helped him get a full-time job in the community.

"There's so many students that want to go there right now."

Elizabeth Craig said her son wanted to quit school until he transferred to Pace Academy.

"Pace Academy was the place he really found a home," she said.

Students, parents and school employees clapped after the vote.

In other business Tuesday

A public hearing on the Chapel Hill and Carrboro 2035 Long Range Transit Plan turned into a passionate discussion about trains and global warming.

The plan recommends adding services at major entry points to Chapel Hill and Carrboro, expanding local bus service and studying parking policies to support transit growth.

The Carrboro part of the plan includes two new express bus routes. One would originate at Calvander and run through Hillsborough Road, North Greensboro Street, downtown and to Carolina North. Another would go connect Carrboro Plaza on N.C. 54 with South Greensboro Street , Estes Drive extension and Carolina North.

Architect Giles Blunden asked the town to focus on the proposal regional rail plan as an alternative to buses and cars.

"It isn't going to happen from Raleigh," he said. "It's going to happen from Carrboro because Carrboro really wants it."

James Carnahan, a planning board member, asked the board to table the transit plan indefinitely and start over.

"It's going to solve congestion, perhaps," he said. "But it's not really addressing the real challenges that confront us and our children."

"The rail line is really important," he said.

New Alderman Sammy Slade said half of Orange County's greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation, while Alderman Randee Haven-O'Donnell said that a plan based on petroleum would be "short-sighted."

Alderman Dan Coleman said he would love to see rail service, but defended the plan.

"This is a transit plan, it's not a stop global warming plan or a sustainability plan," he said.

He said people in the community are concerned about taxes, and that they would not want to pay more to subsidize a railway.

"This is a plan based on federal and state funding." He said it was practical, but that it "does address climate change."

Haven-Donnell moved to discuss the light rail at another time after staff members could research the matter and give them more details.

A civil rights attorney asked the Board of Aldermen to formally oppose placing a waste transfer station near Millhouse Road.

Mark Dorosin, a senior attorney with the UNC Center for Civil Rights, spoke on behalf of the greater Rogers and Eubanks Road communities.

He said the Board of County Commissioners is scheduled to site the waste transfer station at a Dec. 7 meeting.

Dorosin said a resolution from the Board of Aldermen would be "reinforcing this board and this town's commitment to racial and economic justice."

But Mayor Mark Chilton deferred the idea.

"This is a matter that the Board of Aldermen will have to discuss among themselves..." he said.

The Aldermen are only scheduled to meet once before the Dec. 7 decision.

When the Board met Oct. 20, Chilton acknowledged the board had been criticized for not passing a resolution.

"I think that's been a strategic decision on our part, it's not from neglect," he said.

But he also said racism played a role of the original decision to place the landfill in a largely black area.

"The root of the landfill being in that neighborhood, is, in part, because of the race of the people," he said.

"I think it would be fundamentally unfair to repeat those mistakes and eat the fruit of the poisonous tree."