During the election season, Chapel Hill seemed divided into groups that were either for or opposed to town growth. But recent results from Public Policy Polling show that residents are okay with the rate of Chapel Hill’s growth.

Communications Director Tom Jensen says just over 600 likely Chapel Hill voters were surveyed before the election.

Most of the respondents, who have lived in town somewhere between 11 and 20 years, were white, over 46 years old, and were evenly split between liberal and moderate. All respondents were called on a landline.

Interestingly, 51-percent of those polled felt Chapel Hill was on the wrong track. Specifically, 38-percent felt that the East 54 development was a bad thing for Chapel Hill. 25-percent responded that they were not sure. The jury was still out regarding the Greenbridge development with 45-percent answering that they were not sure.  Over half of those asked agreed with the Town Council’s vision of growth, which has focused on dense, mixed-use developments along transit corridors.

Jensen says the poll shows that growth did not have the polarizing effect that campaign rhetoric led some voters to believe.

Those asked felt the town’s ideal population in 25 years should roughly remain where it’s at, roughly 55,000 people. But Jensen says the town’s population is projected to be around 80,000 by 2030 to 2035.