Chapel Hill Town Council and the UNC Board of Trustees met Wednesday night to address several issues related to Carolina North, UNC's planned 250 acre mixed-use academic and research campus.

Officials addressed everything from how Chapel Hill's transportation and parking plan fit into the scope of Carolina North, to the campus' carbon footprint, to how quickly it will grow over a span of 15 or 20 years once it's built.  

Jack Evans, Carolina North's Executive Director, also talked about the role the slumping economy is playing on the development's progress.

"It (the economy) affects the rate at which we are likely to proceed with this," said Evans.

Evans brought up the examples of the two most clearly defined projects for Carolina North: the Innovation Center, which he said will be built by a private developer, and the new law school which will be dependent on state appropriated funds.

"In different ways those two projects are very dependent on the economic climate, what's going on in financial markets, the ability of the developer to get the financing they want, the ability of them to expect the building will be adequately occupied when it's ready to be open," said Evans. "That project is theirs to plan but we're in conversations about the timing of that."

Despite the condition of the economy, Evans said, "It's still very important to us to move forward with negotiations to get this new zone and development agreement because that creates the contexts and entitlements for work we eventually want to do when the time is right."