If you’re an Orange County voter, you’ll see two bond referendums (referenda?) on your ballot this fall: a $120 million bond to raise funds for school repairs, and a smaller $5 million bond for affordable housing projects.
Learn more about both bonds here.
Should you vote for the affordable housing bond? The Independent Weekly said no (citing a “startling lack of specifics” in the plan), but local housing advocates say the funds are vital: Orange County desperately needs to expand its affordable housing stock, they say, and the funding from the bond will help build hundreds of new affordable homes that otherwise wouldn’t get built. (The market alone can’t meet the need, advocates argue, largely because the cost of land is too high – making affordable housing a guaranteed loss for developers if there’s no public support.)
Robert Dowling of Community Home Trust spoke with WCHL’s Aaron Keck.
If the bond passes, Dowling says, Orange County Commissioners will solicit proposals and determine how the money will be distributed. Those decisions will be based on a predetermined formula: a certain portion of the funds will be given to projects targeting certain income levels, based on the county’s median income.
View a sample ballot for Orange County.
The affordable housing referendum reads as follows:
Shall the order authorizing Orange County general obligation bonds in the maximum amount of $5,000,000 plus interest to pay capital costs of providing housing for persons of low and moderate income and paying related costs, and providing that additional taxes may be levied in an amount sufficient to pay the principal of and interest on the bonds, as adopted by the County’s Board of Commissioners on May 5, 2016, be approved?
Comments on Chapelboro are moderated according to our Community Guidelines