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.

NEXT is co-hosting both forums along with the Carrboro Bicycle Coalition, the Bicycle Alliance Chapel Hill, and campus groups including the UNC Roosevelt Institute.

For more info on the organization and the upcoming forums, visit NEXTNC.org.