CHAPEL HILL — Depending on whom you ask, the Buckhorn Village project is either an economic godsend or an environmentally-unfriendly development dinosaur.

The Orange County Planning Board, which has been studying the proposed 1 million square foot shopping center, says it needs more time and more analysis to evaluate it.

Last week the planning board missed a deadline for making its recommendations to the county commissioners, after meeting three times in May for hours at a stretch.

Some planning board members say they’ve felt pressured to move too quickly for a project this big. The county commissioners gave the planning board three more months, until September, to finish its work.

The volunteer board’s partial findings, presented last week, shed light on some members’ concerns. By a 7-2 vote, the board found the economic analysis presented by a county consultant and the developers “significantly flawed.”

The report, prepared by The Sanford Holshouser Business Development Group, says Orange County can expect to reap about $1.3 million in new annual property taxes, and a share of $6 million in sales taxes.

At the crux of the analysis is the assumption that the City of Mebane will annex the Buckhorn Village site soon after it’s developed. “There will be minimal cost during the short time Orange County is responsible for public services,” the report says. It also says the impact on schools will be slight because workers in the future shopping center won’t move to the county for the lower-wage retail and hotel jobs.

Planning board members say they need more information to do their jobs. “Questions weren’t answered that should have been answered,” said member Judith Wegner, a former Carrboro alderwoman and UNC Law School professor.

Some of the transportation analysis was “problematic,” she said, challenging the notion that Chapel Hill and Carrboro residents would shop at Buckhorn. “I think they would be very likely to continue to go to Southpoint because it’s closer.”

Planning board member Craufurd Goodwin called the Sanford Holshouser report “wholly inadequate.”

“There’s an assumption that the project will be annexed by Mebane within a year, therefore you can ignore the public service cost,” said Goodwin, a professor of economics at Duke University.

“If one of my students were doing this, I would give them a really low grade,” said Goodwin. “It’s just very shoddy work in my view. There’s not a serious discussion of costs.”

John Fugo, one of the three Orange County developers proposing Buckhorn Village, said Sanford Holshouser has a strong reputation. The report is very favorable to the project, he said. “The tax benefit to the county is enormous, and that’s in the report,” he said, adding that the developers weren’t involved in creating the report. Also, he said, the project is going on a site the county has already decided it wants developed.

Fugo added that project’s partners want to create a shopping destination that will draw shoppers from around the region. “We’re not looking to copy Southpoint,” he said. “That wouldn’t make a lot of sense ... we’re looking for a unique mix.”

The developers were approached by the county and asked to consider a project in the Buckhorn area economic development district, Fugo said.

“Some of the planning board or some of the county officials forget that all of us live here,” Fugo said. “If you look at the projects that we’ve built, I don’t think you can say that any one of us did anything that was typical, and we don’t intend to now. ... We do not intend to do anything that we won’t be proud of.”

Board of Commissioners Chairman Barry Jacobs said the Economic Development Commission board would be a more appropriate group to handle economic development questions than the planning board. “That way they could keep moving forward, and enlist another board that has a specialty in that area,” he said.

But some planning board members said they can’t analyze one without the other.

“They come together,” said Renee Price, planning board vice-chairwoman. “I mean, it is an economic development district, so we should look at that.”

“We’ll keep asking for, and have been asking for, a fair and unbiased report,” said Michelle Kempinski, another planning board member.

Also in its preliminary findings, the board narrowly voted that the retail and hotel jobs were inconsistant with the higher-income, full-time jobs called for in county plans.

County Planning Director Craig Benedict said the project wouldn’t preclude other types of economic development. “I think there’s plenty of acreage to go around for a variety of uses,” he said.

“There’s not an aspect to our zoning regulations that says ‘make sure the jobs are X, Y and Z,’” Benedict said.

Buckhorn at a glance

The $143 million project would have 1.1 million square feet of retail, hotel, restaurant and residential space off Interstates 40/85 in western Orange County. The developers are some of the biggest names in area real estate:

-- Roger Perry, president of East West Partners, which developed Meadowmont.

-- George Horton, president of Tryon Investment Group, whose latest project is the Gateway Center Complex in downtown Hillsborough; and

-- John Fugo, partner and manager of Montgomery Carolina and owner-manager of Montgomery Development Carolina Corp., a commercial construction firm that has built retail space in 45 states. His company was a partner on the village center in Chapel Hill’s Southern Village.

County consultants say the project would create about 1,100 jobs, and provide the county about $4.4 million a year in taxes.

Currently the site is home to a flea market patronized on the weekends by thousands of shoppers, many of them Hispanic residents of Orange and neighboring counties.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

“The Buckhorn Village project … is a mammoth 20th-century style development, auto-dependent and anchored by big-box retail. Supporters overlook the long track record of chain stores sucking money out of the local economy.” — Dan Coleman, March 2.

“It’s proposed for an area where we have said for years we want economic development. It specifically addresses “retail leakage” — the fact that the majority of Orange County citizens go outside Orange County to buy stuff like computers, underwear and fishing gear. It’s being done by people who will have to show their faces in Orange County long after the construction crane leaves. It’s on a transportation corridor designed to move lots of people through the area. … It puts property on the tax rolls that doesn’t also put children in the public schools. It puts almost $3 million a year into the county coffers without a land-transfer tax.” — Bryant M. Colson and Anita Badrock, May 21.

“With gas selling near $4 a gallon and increasing global demand presaging no relief whatsoever, their prescription that Orange County should rely on interstate automobile traffic for economic security is desperately naive. If gas cost $6 a gallon when Buckhorn opens its doors, would today’s revenue projections still apply?” — James Carnahan, May 28.

Contact staff writer Samuel Spies at 932-2014 or samuel.spies@nando.com.