UNC to lease land for new homeless shelter

If the homeless shelter downtown has always looked a little like a jail, it's because it used to be one.

The building at 100 W. Rosemary St. was once a police lockup. It's taken more than $1 million over the years to turn it into a 30-bed men's homeless shelter and community kitchen.

And even with the bars and jail cells removed, the drab, two-story brick building has never been ideal, its director said.

"We have to sleep people on the dining room floor at night every night," said Chris Moran, executive director of the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service.

Now, thanks to a three-way partnership announced Monday, that's about to change.

The shelter will move -- Moran hopes by 2011 -- to a spot off Homestead Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in northern Chapel Hill. The 1.5-acre site is part of a larger tract that UNC is buying from Duke Energy.

Town staff had recently approached the university for help when it learned UNC was buying the land, Mayor Kevin Foy said Monday. UNC agreed to a long-term lease.

"That was just our good fortune," Foy said.

The current shelter housed 669 different men in 2007, for anywhere from a few days to a few months or more. The IFC houses women in its Project Homestart program, also on Homestead Road.

The new shelter will have 50 beds.

In addition to emergency housing, it will offer job training, financial planning and greater access to health care, veterans assistance and other services. Moran expects that residents will help run the program.

And instead of bunk beds and mats on the floor, residents will move from bunks, to quads, to doubles to single rooms as they get closer to independent living.

"It's going to be different," Moran said.

"We want more than people who want to spend the night," he explained. "We want people who want to work on their goals, who want to make repairs. It takes a long time to make the adjustments [homeless] people need to make."

The IFC may need as much as $3 million to build the shelter, which Moran wants to make a model of energy efficiency.

-- Mark Schultz, 932-2003; mark.schultz@nando.com

Judge delays hearing in Carson killing

CHAPEL HILL -- The local legal system has taken additional steps to keep details of the Eve Carson case out of the media.

On Monday Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens postponed a hearing to determine whether accused killer Demario Atwater is eligible for the death penalty.

"Facts would be discussed in open court as part of a Rule 24 hearing that are contained in the search warrants and autopsy report that are currently under seal in this matter," Stephens wrote. "It would be in the interest of justice that this matter be continued."

On Thursday, two days after denying a local newspaper's motion to unseal records in the Carson case, Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour agreed to seal Carson's autopsy until he could decide whether releasing it would compromise the ongoing investigation.

Woodall asked that Baddour order the autopsy released only to his office, the Chapel Hill Police Department, the State Bureau of Investigation and defense attorneys. He expects the judge to rule some time this week.

Police found Carson's body in a wooded neighborhood near UNC about 5 a.m. March 5. Police have said she was shot multiple times including once to the right temple. Within days of the shooting, police released security-camera photographs of Atwater and a second suspect charged in the case, Laurence Lovette.

-- Jesse DeConto, 932-8760; jesse.deconto@nando.com

Town manager wants 11 percent tax rate hike

Town Manager Roger Stancil has proposed raising Chapel Hill's tax rate by more than 11 percent.

Monday night he asked the Town Council to consider increasing the town property tax rate by 5.9 cents per $100 of assessed value, which would bring the rate to 58.1 cents.

This year, the town's 52-cent rate is less than one-third of the total local tax bill of nearly $1.68 per $100 valuation that Chapel Hill property owners paid. The rest goes to fund Orange County services and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. Stancil predicted other elected officials also would raise taxes to pay for services next year.

"I don't think we will stand alone this year," he said. "Tax increases of 3 to 10 cents in local jurisdictions will not be uncommon."

This would be the town's first tax-rate increase in three years. Chapel Hill has been using its fund balance, or savings account, to pay its debts and avoid raising taxes.

Stancil wants to use some of the fund balance again this year, but only about $2.8 million. He said the town can't dig any deeper into the fund balance.

"At this point, it is depleted as low as it can get," Stancil said Monday afternoon.

-- Jesse DeConto, 932-8760; jesse.deconto@nando.com

Property tax increase proposed in Chatham

PITTSBORO -- The Chatham County manager's proposed budget includes a 5.5-cent property tax rate increase to 67.2 cents per $100 of assessed property value.

"We worked hard to limit the property tax burden, but the economic downturn is affecting county government as well," County Manager Charlie Horne said in a release Tuesday. "While this region of the state is faring better than most, the economy has impacted our revenue sources when the need for county services and facilities is on the increase."

Assistant County Manager Renee Paschal said sales tax revenues will grow half as much as last year and growth in the property tax base has slowed.

In addition, Paschal added that both building permits and deed stamp collections have declined in the past few quarters, so impact fees collected to support schools also will be lower.

The proposed 5.5-cent property tax increase would provide:

• 1.2 cents for school needs;
• 1 cent to create a capital reserve fund to help pay for park facilities;
• 1 cent set aside to cover future debt payment for water system construction; and
• 2.3 cents to support general operations of the county, including new personnel.

-- From staff reports