Election Day is a little more than a month away, which means it’s time for candidate forums – including two organized by a newly-formed group called NEXT.
Organizers Molly DeMarco, Matt Bailey, and Jason Baker say the goal of NEXT is to make the Chapel Hill/Carrboro community “sustainable, resilient, and equitable.”
Where does NEXT stand? Organizers support policies that enable more homes to be built (subsidized as well as market-rate) to meet increasing demand and keep housing costs from skyrocketing – but without abandoning the rural buffer that’s helped prevent urban sprawl. (Urban sprawl ought to be avoided, they say, for two key reasons: it threatens farmland and agriculture, and it makes communities too dependent on cars to get around.) That means higher-density housing in town – building up rather than building out. Such an approach runs the risk of increasing density on the roads as well – so NEXT also supports more investment in public transit, as well as projects to make the towns more bike- and pedestrian-friendly. And organizers say Chapel Hill/Carrboro should be a desirable and accessible place to work and play as well as to live – so they’re also in favor of expanded office space (especially to help retain recent UNC grads) as well as initiatives to promote the towns’ arts-and-culture scene.
WCHL’s Aaron Keck spoke with NEXT co-organizer Matt Bailey.
With all those goals in mind, organizers are hosting a pair of candidate forums in the next two weeks.
The first is for Chapel Hill Town Council candidates: this Thursday, October 5, at 7 pm in the Varsity Theater on Franklin Street downtown.
The second is for candidates in Carrboro: it’ll be the following Thursday, October 12, also at 7 pm in the Looking Glass Cafe on West Main Street.
