Storyline
Chapel Hill’s first zoning ordinance, adopted in June 1928, and its board of adjustment at work: the residence and business zones, the order to clear the village of billboards by 1930, and the ruling that let the Acacia fraternity rebuild in a residence zone.
In briefChapel Hill's first zoning ordinance, adopted unanimously in June 1928, soon shaped decisions about billboards, fraternity houses and apartments. It created residence and business zones and a board of adjustment, and its published text made no reference to race. In 1929 the board of adjustment ordered every billboard removed by 1930 and let the Acacia fraternity, whose house predated the ordinance, build anew in a residential zone. That fall the aldermen refused to rezone Pittsboro Street blocks for fraternity houses and apartments after neighbors said they meant to keep living there. In 1933, after neighbors objected to apartments in the former Acacia house, the aldermen forbade building or converting apartment houses in the Residence A zones.
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No works in the index are currently linked directly to this storyline. The works below provide background on Growth, Land & Planning.
In June 1928 the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen unanimously adopted the town's first zoning ordinance. It divided the town into two residence zones and two business zones, set height limits, setbacks and yard rules, and created a board of adjustment. The published text made no reference to race. On April 19, 1929, acting under the ordinance, the board of adjustment resolved that every billboard be removed from the village by January 1, 1930. It also ruled that a nationally advertised soft-drink sign on the Ray store did not count as advertising goods sold on the premises, and Town Manager Foushee reported that he had had a sign painter arrested and fined for painting it.
On May 27 the board allowed the Acacia fraternity, whose house predated the ordinance, to put up a new house on its lot at Franklin and Boundary streets in the eastern residential zone, on condition that the lot not be divided. The board said the ruling set no precedent for fraternities in zones where none had been. After a public hearing on September 16, 1929 the aldermen voted unanimously against moving the Pittsboro Street blocks between McCauley Street and West University Drive into the zone that admitted fraternity houses and apartments; owners led by J. L. Foister had sought the change to raise land values, and neighbors led by A. M. Jordan said they meant to keep living there.
On May 17, 1933, two days after neighbors objected at a hearing to a plan to turn the former Acacia house at Franklin and Boundary streets into apartments, which the old wording allowed, the aldermen amended the ordinance to forbid building or converting apartment houses in the Residence A zones, except that an owner living in a house might add one more family unit.
Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 5 dated events in the chronology →
Background reading on Growth, Land & Planning. These works cover the broader subject and may not discuss this storyline. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Stewart E. Dunaway's 2015 addendum to his history of Hillsborough's town lots, adding deed records arranged by lot number and further town history, with the expansion of the 1890s covered for the first time. Self-published in North Carolina as version 1.0, 446 pages with illustrations, facsimiles and maps. Topics include deeds, court records, land titles and real property in Hillsborough.
Ejectment suits were the legal route for disputing who held title to a tract of land, and the case files often include plats and drawings of the property. Stewart E. Dunaway gathered Orange County's ejectment cases from the state archives and reproduced them in facsimile, with maps, in a self-published volume issued through Lulu in 2015 (issue 2).
Deed transcripts for the town lots of Chapel Hill and adjoining land from 1790 to the 1930s, compiled by Stewart E. Dunaway. Each transcript keeps only the working facts: grantor and grantee, price, acreage and the metes and bounds of the parcel. Self-published in 2014 as Issue 1G, 702 pages with maps and facsimiles.
Comprehensive transportation plan for Orange County prepared by Sarah Lee for the Transportation Planning Branch of the N.C. Department of Transportation, October 2013. It covers highway planning, roads and their environmental effects, and traffic engineering, with color maps, some folded.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Strategic plan for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library covering 2013 through 2018, issued by the university libraries in July 2013. A 12-page pamphlet with color illustrations. Its title ties the library's plans to the mission of the university as a whole.
David R. Godschalk and Jonathan B. Howes describe the ten-year building program that reshaped the UNC campus in Chapel Hill, when some six million square feet in new buildings went up and a million more of historic buildings were restored. Chapters treat the campus master plan, siting and design decisions, the historic north campus, the southeast and health-sciences precincts and the planned Carolina North research campus, with contributions by chancellors James Moeser and Holden Thorp. Published by UNC Press in 2012, 175 pages.
Mark Chilton's short history of transportation planning in the North Carolina Piedmont, drawing lessons from earlier projects. Subjects include the Cape Fear Navigation Company and river navigation, and the railroads of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, including the State University Railroad Company whose spur brought trains to the two towns. Chilton was mayor of Carrboro when the book appeared. Published by Hand Made Books, Carrboro, 2012, 92 pages with illustrations, maps and portraits.
J. Ronald Oakley's pictorial history of Mebane, the railroad town on the Orange and Alamance county line, from Arcadia Publishing in 2012, 127 pages of photographs. Chapters cover the railroad, industries, businesses, the Depression and war years, profiles past and present, churches and civic clubs, recreation and sports, school days, and preserving the past. Topics include Mebane's history, economy, buildings and railroads.
A group of materials combining a county planning document with a highway map of Orange County, dated 2012. The planning piece, issued in Raleigh by a state commission, lays out a planning and management process for the county with recommendations on land development. The map, based on the statewide highway planning survey, shows roads, bridges, utilities, public property, businesses and industries across Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough; one copy carries red-pencil notes naming the county's voting precincts.
Stewart E. Dunaway's abstracts of civil suits over land heard in the Hillsborough District Superior Court between 1778 and 1806. The district covered Orange, Wake, Granville, Caswell, Person, Chatham and Randolph counties, and the papers concern boundaries, ownership and disputed tracts. Published through Lulu in 2011, 337 pages with illustrations, maps and facsimiles.
Stewart E. Dunaway's four-volume set of ejectment cases from Orange County, reproducing the original documents and maps from the North Carolina State Archives with partial transcriptions. The volumes cover 1778 to 1814, 1817 to 1832, 1833 to 1849 and 1850 to 1902. Ejectment suits contested title and possession of land, and the cases include surveys and plats. Self-published in 2010.
Stewart E. Dunaway's two-volume edition of the Orange County land entry book, the register in which settlers first claimed vacant land from the state before a grant was surveyed and issued. Volume one covers the first thousand entries, all made in 1778; volume two runs from 1779 to 1795. Each entry is reproduced from the original in the State Archives with an abstract of its contents. Self-published through Lulu in a second version dated 2010, two volumes at 28 cm with facsimiles and maps.
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