The Town of Carrboro’s Comprehensive Plan found the town has a 1,079 housing unit gap based on housing affordability and demand. To help address that gap, town staff are seeking to take advantage of town-owned land which could be turned into affordable housing sites.
The Carrboro housing gap is composed of 314 for-sale units and 765 rental units. For-sale or ownership units affect households at or below $75,000 whereas rental units affect households at or below $25,000.
At the most recent Carrboro Town Council meeting, Anne-Marie Vanaman of the Carrboro Housing and Community Services department said affordable housing meets many of Carrboro’s priorities.
“Creating affordable housing on land that’s not used for other public purposes offers us many benefits,” Vanaman said. “It gives the town the ability to prioritize its goals like racial equity and climate action.”
The strategy adopted by the Carrboro Town Council has three steps. The first step of inventory and assessment of properties was completed in 2018.
Vanaman said the town surveyed 47 land parcels for affordable housing.
“Of these 47, they found five possibilities and selected three,” Vanaman said. “It’s Hill Street, Crest Street and two parcels with Pathway Drive.”
Parcels were excluded for affordable housing if they fell into several categories. Land within a conservation easement, inside a rural buffer zoning, or had no water or sewer nearby was eliminated.
Development within the Hill Street property is already underway with Peewee Homes providing three homes on the lot. The Crest Street property is currently zoned for six units or nine with a density bonus. Pathway Drive is currently zoned for 23 units but could increase up to 34 with the density bonus.
The second step of the affordable housing plan focuses on community engagement and goals for the identified property. This includes design work as well as type of housing and who the property is for.
Council member Susan Romaine urged the focus to be for members of the community living at or below 30 percent area median income.
“The fact that there’s so little land left and we have this rare opportunity to do this, I hope that we will really prioritize that when we move forward with these projects,” Romaine said. “These are, of course, the most housing cost-burden community members. Many have been historically excluded from the private market and many are going to be community members of color. So, let’s build them a home here in Carrboro.”
Carrboro Mayor Damon Seils, who recently spoke with 97.9 The Hill, echoed Romaine’s comments saying the need has been there for a while especially for people in the lower income level.
“What we’re really trying to accommodate and especially with these publicly owned properties where we can really lower the cost of the project is to meet needs of those lower income levels,” Seils said.
The third step of the affordable housing strategy is the request for proposal and development review process.
Seils said the adoption of the strategy eliminates both the cost of the land itself and the cost of the lengthy development review process which he said is notorious in Chapel Hill and Carrboro.
“One of the things that this new policy that the council adopted this week does is it tries to shorten that development review timeline,” said Seils, “and do some of that preliminary development work early on the front end before the developer comes in so they don’t have to spend as much time and money doing that work themselves.”
Town staff said the current timeframe of the process to the beginning of construction on the property is estimated to take about 23 months.
Town staff said the process developed for affordable housing on town-owned land can also be used for other land use projects.
Photo via Town of Carrboro
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