Named event or history
The park of 1959 and the commuting, housing, and growth pressure that remade rural Orange County into a university region.
264 indexed records are connected with this event.
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"Ejectment was a legal process disputing ownership (of the title) to a piece of land. This might answer questions over mysterious land situations (disappearing or title change). Some plats and drawings were included in …
[1] A planning/management process for Orange County, North Carolina with recommendations for sound land development.
volume 1. 1787 [that is, 1778]-1814 -- volume 2. 1817-1832 -- volume 3. 1833-1849 -- volume 4. 1850-1902
Vol. 1. 1778 grants #1-1000 -- v. 2. 1779-1795.
Dated events connected with this event, earliest first. See the whole chronology →
The 1950 census counted 34,435 people in Orange County, 9,177 in the town of Chapel Hill and 1,795 in Carrboro. Chapel Hill township as a whole had 18,222.
The Research Triangle Foundation, formed in 1959, ran the research park planned between Durham and Raleigh around UNC, N.C. State and Duke. That November Orange County commissioners said the park would bring the county mainly new residents and school costs rather than taxable industry, and began discussing county-wide zoning.
At a special meeting, Orange County commissioners gave only a lukewarm reception to a request to help fund a land development survey for the Research Triangle area and took no action pending firm figures. The Chapel Hill Weekly reported that the county expected to gain mostly new residents and school costs from the park rather than industry, and commissioners discussed zoning the area northeast of Chapel Hill toward the Durham County line.
The 1960 census counted 42,970 people in Orange County, 12,573 in Chapel Hill and 1,997 in Carrboro. Chapel Hill township had 25,030, up from 18,222 in 1950.
The Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen appropriated $1,545, six percent of the $25,750 budget of the Research Triangle Regional Planning Commission for 1960-61. The commission also asked the Orange County commissioners for four percent, or $1,030.
The Chapel Hill Planning Board held a special meeting to review the Research Triangle Planning Commission's land use plan for the planning area, which projected population and density to 1980. The Chapel Hill Weekly described the plan as a major guide for future zoning changes and school locations.
Reviewing the Research Triangle Planning Commission staff's General Development Plan for Chapel Hill to 1980, the Planning Board went on record preferring that the town grow as a large village rather than a small city. The plan also addressed subdivision layout, a collector road system and a proposed lake on Bolin Creek north of town.
John Scott of the Research Triangle Planning Commission told the Chapel Hill School Board that district enrollment could reach 8,000 pupils by 1980, more than double the current number, and cited a 1960 township population of 25,000. The commission delivered its full report on school needs to 1980 by late July.
The 1970 census counted 57,567 people in Orange County, 26,199 in Chapel Hill (26,195 of them in the Orange County part) and 5,058 in Carrboro. Chapel Hill's population had more than doubled since 1960.
The 1980 census counted 77,055 people in Orange County, 32,421 in Chapel Hill (32,038 in the Orange County part) and 7,336 in Carrboro.
Of 49,915 employed Orange County residents in the 1990 census, 12,185 (about 24 percent) worked in Durham County, 31,591 worked in Orange County and 2,085 worked in Wake County.
The 1990 census counted 93,851 people in Orange County, 38,719 in Chapel Hill (37,604 in Orange County and 1,115 in Durham County) and 11,553 in Carrboro.
Of 60,860 employed Orange County residents in Census 2000, 16,470 (about 27 percent) worked in Durham County, 35,053 worked in Orange County and 4,212 worked in Wake County.
Census 2000 counted 118,227 people in Orange County, 46,798 in the Orange County part of Chapel Hill and 16,782 in Carrboro, according to the county's published table.
The Land Use Element of Orange County's 2030 Comprehensive Plan says the county, as an integral part of the Triangle, grew nearly 50 percent from 1980 to an estimated 121,991 in 2005, and names the Research Triangle Park as part of its region, calling jobs and economic conditions a frequent catalyst for changes in population and land use. It also records the 1984 Joint Planning Agreement with Chapel Hill, extended to Carrboro in 1987, and the 1986 rural buffer plan.
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Held in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection. Selected because their titles or catalog subjects provide wider historical context for this event; they may not discuss the Orange County event directly.
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