After a monthslong kerfuffle with the residents of Carrboro’s Glosson Circle, the Orange Water and Sewer Authority (OWASA) has hit pause on its plans to expand their facility to build a parking lot in the neighborhood.
The community-owned utility’s main water treatment plant on Jones Ferry Road helps provide clean water to about 86,000 people across Chapel Hill and Carrboro. OWASA has been eyeing plans to build a PFAS treatment facility and a new clearwell (for water storage) on the site, but construction of those facilities would permanently take up nearly half of the hub’s current 225 parking spaces.
OWASA says those spaces are necessary for emergency preparedness, as well as “employee vehicles, fleet vehicles, customers and visitors, equipment delivery, vendors, contractors, and more.”
Earlier this year, OWASA acquired two vacant properties and started moving forward with a plan to build more parking on the adjoining cul-de-sac of Glosson Circle, a historically Black community.
OWASA’s plans include paving over one to three residential properties on Glosson Circle and Fidelity Street. Neighbors at OWASA’s April board meeting said they didn’t want to see any loss of residential property in a neighborhood that remains relatively affordable near Carrboro’s core and worried about the environmental impact of paving over those lots.
“To be clear, we are supportive of the PFAS treatment facility being built as well as the clearwell,” resident Matthew Henrickson told the OWASA board in April. “The proposed solution for the lost parking due to these projects is what brings us here.”
Since then, OWASA has slowed down on the project, which is supposed to start construction in early 2026.
That cautious reaction makes sense in Carrboro, an ultra-progressive town named after a Confederate white supremacist, which has spent decades trying to face Orange County’s legacy of foisting its municipal infrastructure burdens on its Black residents (see: the “preregulatory” Orange County Landfill). OWASA’s board of directors isn’t far removed from the area’s equity-minded voters, as members are appointed by Carrboro, Chapel Hill, and Orange County electeds.
OWASA has also invited residents to two community meetings to collaborate on other possible parking solutions. This week, at the most recent of those meetings, OWASA executive director Todd Taylor told residents that he thought of this as a “fresh start” in the relationship.
Led by an earnest facilitator (“Embrace a learning mindset, get curious, ask questions,” he urged), staff and residents talked over possibilities like having staff drive company vehicles home, expanding remote work capacities, and trying to fit a parking structure on the existing OWASA site.
John Harrison, who lives on Glosson Circle, told INDY that the neighborhood has tried to move past some of the drama of the spring—including when OWASA representatives told residents that the utility wasn’t interested in buying the property at 114 Glosson Circle but then bought it weeks later. “We couldn’t tell the community that we were pursuing a property until we were under contract, or else we could be totally price gouged,” an OWASA representative told The Daily Tar Heel afterward.
“We are trying to work together,” Harrison says, diplomatically. “I feel like the intention is honest, and I feel like [OWASA] is open to figuring out the best solutions for all the entities involved. I’m trusting in that.”
But barring a radical shift, that parking will still have to go somewhere. The OWASA board of directors is set to discuss—but not yet vote on—possible solutions at their August 14 meeting, OWASA spokesperson Katie Hall told INDY via email. The organization will then ask for more input from residents and employees.
“For example, the community neighbors will tell us how various solutions would impact the quality of life or property value in their neighborhood, while OWASA staff would tell us how a parking solution would affect their safety or ability to respond to emergencies,” Hall said.
Staff will submit all of that information to the board of directors at its September 11 meeting, but it’s not yet clear how long the board will take to come to a decision.
“Due to construction schedules looming, I’m sure we will ask them to make a decision as soon as possible while allowing them reasonable time to fully consider their important and impactful decision,” said Hall.
Reach Reporter Chase Pellegrini de Paur at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].