CHAPEL HILL - It costs a lot of people a lot of money to live in Chapel Hill.The median cost of a home in Chapel Hill is about $390,000, and most town employees can't afford to live here, according to a Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce report.
The Town Council passed an affordable housing strategy in June to improve access to housing for all income levels and give developers incentives to build mixed-income housing. It's working on a plan to implement the strategy to be released in January.
Housing help for the county's lowest-income residents has become more strained as budgets have tightened. The town has an inclusionary zoning ordinance, which requires that 15 percent of units in each new project be affordable to low- to moderate-income households. The developer can choose instead to make a payment-in-lieu to organizations such as Habitat for Humanity or the Community Home Trust, a nonprofit charged with managing the town's affordable housing.
This is the third of four stories in October examining election issues in the races for Chapel Hill mayor and Town Council. For today, we asked the candidates what is right and wrong about the town's approach to housing affordability and what they would do to improve it.
You can read highlights below and the candidates' complete answers to this and the other questions on the Orange Chat blog ( blogs.newsobserver.com/orangechat) later this month.
Mayor's race
Mark Kleinschmidt: "I think everything is right about the way the town's approaching it," he said. "I really don't think there is a panacea ... I don't like these questions because it assumes that what the council has determined is the solution and has somehow planted its flag and has declared that it's solved the problem."
The town has a plan in the process of finding ways to enact its affordable housing strategy by talking to all the stakeholders and addressing the full scope and root of the issue, he said.
Tim Sookram: "Chapel Hill has an approach to affordable housing? The rule that says a small percentage of housing in new developments should be affordable? Why not 100 percent?" he said. "People snatched up the 100K condos in Greenbridge - why can't we hire developers that will make affordable housing that they can also afford to build?"
Kevin Wolff did not respond to requests for an interview.
Town Council
Jason Baker: The town needs to focus discussion more on the rental housing market as well as home ownership, he said.
"It's been limited to home ownership, which I think has been a mistake," he said. "Fifty-three percent of the people who live in Chapel Hill right now are not home owners; they're renters."
Baker said the town should find ways to regulate the rental market to maintain affordable prices and make transitional housing like the new Community House project that's being built by the Inter-Faith Council for Social Services a priority too.
Donna Bell: The town alone cannot meet the affordable housing needs of our citizens who also work in town," Bell said. "This is definitely a space that requires innovative public / private partnerships as well as strong support from the University." The median cost of homes is market driven, but that's not the same market that needs affordable housing, she said.
Augustus Cho: There's a gap between theory and reality in Chapel Hill regarding affordable housing, Cho said. The development review process is too expensive, which later raises the price of housing, he said.
"In the end the final cost gets passed on to the developers which passes them on to the consumers," he said. The town needs more options like offering duplexes and giving the Community Home Trust flexibility with payment-in-lieu instead of more types of housing it may not need, he said.
Matt Czajkowski: The town needs to first define "affordable" housing and what types of people would live there, he said.
The town's pattern has been to offer condominiums, but the demographics show that families are not living in them.
"We have to really ask ourselves, are we trying to create affordable housing for families, for the kind of mythical fireman who's got two kids and a dog?" he said.
"What I've seen is kind of a shift, which is, 'Well we want to look at a broad spectrum,' OK, but how are we really defining this?"
Laney Dale: Dale supports what the town has already done to offer affordable housing, but says bringing in too much low- income housing may change the type of community Chapel Hill is.
"There is a certain premium feel to Chape Hill, for lack of a better term; it's a place you aspire to be," he said. "It's not a class issue; it's a matter of protecting what Chapel Hill is."
Dale said the town could implement programs to help older residents on fixed incomes.
Jon DeHart: It is getting too expensive for many families to live in Chapel Hill, DeHart said. Instead of offering affordable condominiums in mixed-used projects, it makes more sense to up-fit existing homes so more families can live in town, he said.
"A lot of families prefer a single-family residence to a condo," he said.
The town should continue to collaborate with organizations like Habitat for Humanity to increase the stock of affordable houses for families.
Carl Schuler: The town's relationship with Community Home Trust is a good thing and allows UNC employees to live in Chapel Hill, he said. When making affordable housing policies, the town needs to work more with the neighborhood associations in the areas where new affordable housing is built, he said.
"They need to not only take the quarterly report from Robert Dowling (executive director of the Community Home Trust) they need to critically examine what the rules are and make sure it's in the favor of the affordable housing constituents," he said. This is particularly important when it comes to homeowners association fees, he said.
Lee Storrow: Affordable housing should be talked about in the same context as issues such as transportation, utility costs and other service costs, because they affect each other, Storrow said.
"We talk about affordable housing sometimes in a bubble that doesn't acknowledge [that] just because you have a house that has a mortgage it does not mean you can get to work, does not mean you can get to daycare, does not mean necessarily that you can pay your water bill," he said.
The town should look to successful models used in similar college towns, he said.
Jim Ward: The town needs to find a more sustainable model for maintaining its current stock of affordable units and needs to offer more housing for families, Ward said.
"The size of the units are less and less often serving families with two or more kids," he said. "We're getting one- and two- bedroom units and they're small, and that's an area where we need to bring greater diversity and larger numbers of bedrooms."
There also needs to be more affordable rentals for families in addition to home ownership, he said.
Look for more on what the candidates are saying on the OrangeChat blog throughout the month.
The Town Council passed an affordable housing strategy in June to improve access to housing for all income levels and give developers incentives to build mixed-income housing. It's working on a plan to implement the strategy to be released in January.
Housing help for the county's lowest-income residents has become more strained as budgets have tightened. The town has an inclusionary zoning ordinance, which requires that 15 percent of units in each new project be affordable to low- to moderate-income households. The developer can choose instead to make a payment-in-lieu to organizations such as Habitat for Humanity or the Community Home Trust, a nonprofit charged with managing the town's affordable housing.
This is the third of four stories in October examining election issues in the races for Chapel Hill mayor and Town Council. For today, we asked the candidates what is right and wrong about the town's approach to housing affordability and what they would do to improve it.
You can read highlights below and the candidates' complete answers to this and the other questions on the Orange Chat blog ( blogs.newsobserver.com/orangechat) later this month.
Mayor's race
Mark Kleinschmidt: "I think everything is right about the way the town's approaching it," he said. "I really don't think there is a panacea ... I don't like these questions because it assumes that what the council has determined is the solution and has somehow planted its flag and has declared that it's solved the problem."
The town has a plan in the process of finding ways to enact its affordable housing strategy by talking to all the stakeholders and addressing the full scope and root of the issue, he said.
Tim Sookram: "Chapel Hill has an approach to affordable housing? The rule that says a small percentage of housing in new developments should be affordable? Why not 100 percent?" he said. "People snatched up the 100K condos in Greenbridge - why can't we hire developers that will make affordable housing that they can also afford to build?"
Kevin Wolff did not respond to requests for an interview.
Town Council
Jason Baker: The town needs to focus discussion more on the rental housing market as well as home ownership, he said.
"It's been limited to home ownership, which I think has been a mistake," he said. "Fifty-three percent of the people who live in Chapel Hill right now are not home owners; they're renters."
Baker said the town should find ways to regulate the rental market to maintain affordable prices and make transitional housing like the new Community House project that's being built by the Inter-Faith Council for Social Services a priority too.
Donna Bell: The town alone cannot meet the affordable housing needs of our citizens who also work in town," Bell said. "This is definitely a space that requires innovative public / private partnerships as well as strong support from the University." The median cost of homes is market driven, but that's not the same market that needs affordable housing, she said.
Augustus Cho: There's a gap between theory and reality in Chapel Hill regarding affordable housing, Cho said. The development review process is too expensive, which later raises the price of housing, he said.
"In the end the final cost gets passed on to the developers which passes them on to the consumers," he said. The town needs more options like offering duplexes and giving the Community Home Trust flexibility with payment-in-lieu instead of more types of housing it may not need, he said.
Matt Czajkowski: The town needs to first define "affordable" housing and what types of people would live there, he said.
The town's pattern has been to offer condominiums, but the demographics show that families are not living in them.
"We have to really ask ourselves, are we trying to create affordable housing for families, for the kind of mythical fireman who's got two kids and a dog?" he said.
"What I've seen is kind of a shift, which is, 'Well we want to look at a broad spectrum,' OK, but how are we really defining this?"
Laney Dale: Dale supports what the town has already done to offer affordable housing, but says bringing in too much low- income housing may change the type of community Chapel Hill is.
"There is a certain premium feel to Chape Hill, for lack of a better term; it's a place you aspire to be," he said. "It's not a class issue; it's a matter of protecting what Chapel Hill is."
Dale said the town could implement programs to help older residents on fixed incomes.
Jon DeHart: It is getting too expensive for many families to live in Chapel Hill, DeHart said. Instead of offering affordable condominiums in mixed-used projects, it makes more sense to up-fit existing homes so more families can live in town, he said.
"A lot of families prefer a single-family residence to a condo," he said.
The town should continue to collaborate with organizations like Habitat for Humanity to increase the stock of affordable houses for families.
Carl Schuler: The town's relationship with Community Home Trust is a good thing and allows UNC employees to live in Chapel Hill, he said. When making affordable housing policies, the town needs to work more with the neighborhood associations in the areas where new affordable housing is built, he said.
"They need to not only take the quarterly report from Robert Dowling (executive director of the Community Home Trust) they need to critically examine what the rules are and make sure it's in the favor of the affordable housing constituents," he said. This is particularly important when it comes to homeowners association fees, he said.
Lee Storrow: Affordable housing should be talked about in the same context as issues such as transportation, utility costs and other service costs, because they affect each other, Storrow said.
"We talk about affordable housing sometimes in a bubble that doesn't acknowledge [that] just because you have a house that has a mortgage it does not mean you can get to work, does not mean you can get to daycare, does not mean necessarily that you can pay your water bill," he said.
The town should look to successful models used in similar college towns, he said.
Jim Ward: The town needs to find a more sustainable model for maintaining its current stock of affordable units and needs to offer more housing for families, Ward said.
"The size of the units are less and less often serving families with two or more kids," he said. "We're getting one- and two- bedroom units and they're small, and that's an area where we need to bring greater diversity and larger numbers of bedrooms."
There also needs to be more affordable rentals for families in addition to home ownership, he said.
Look for more on what the candidates are saying on the OrangeChat blog throughout the month.
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