Click below to listen to the conversation between 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck and Dwight Bassett, Economic Development Director for the Town of Chapel Hill.
Welcome to “Embrace The Space!” A monthly segment presented by Trinsic Residential Group, “Embrace The Space” features conversations with experts and professionals in town planning, discussing how differing concepts — from land use and housing to transportation and beyond – all come together to create a community that works, and works for people. This month, 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck was joined by Dwight Bassett, Economic Development Director for the Town of Chapel Hill.
Bassett has been with the town of Chapel Hill for roughly half of his career spanning over three decades of development and planning, and in recent years his work has seen a lot change in Orange County — from big projects backed by UNC to plans to revitalize downtown office space and create housing for those workers.
“Back in 2010, we lost our office market,” said Bassett. “So, we spent from roughly 2010 to 2017 trying to rebuild a market for office space. Council been pushing us to think about a housing study to understand our demand, so that if we are gonna grow jobs, where do we house them and how do we house them? So, back in 2021, the town — jointly with UNC Chapel Hill — commissioned a housing report.”
That housing report analyzed aspects of Orange County’s growth, specifically focused in Chapel Hill, and projected needs to keep existing economic engines functioning. According to Bassett, some of the findings were particularly helpful.
“Council began to realize that we’ve never really been paying that sector a lot of attention,” said Bassett. “And, if we want to find success in job creation and being an inclusive community — you know, one of the hard truths that came out of that first session by our consultant is ‘you’re actually an exclusive community, and if you really want to be an inclusive community, then you need to think about your future housing growth.’ So, we’ve started kicked off this initiative we’re calling Complete Community, where we look at housing as the baseline for community development, job growth, everything.”
As Chapel Hill continues efforts to be a “complete community,” Basset’s work continues.
“There’s a framework of what a complete community should include, and that graphic’s on the website that tells you all those ingredients,” said Bassett. “But, I think that the vision, what’s coming out of this, is there’ll be a lot more work related to [making sure that] we continue to build for the needs of affordable housing, the missing middle, or whatever else that we need in our community.”
“Embrace The Space” is a monthly segment presented by Trinsic Residential Group on 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com featuring conversations with experts and professionals exploring town planning, from land use to housing to transportation, and examine how so much works together to form a place where people can not only live — but thrive.
You can find more conversations like this in the “Embrace The Space” archive on Chapelboro, and each month in a special segment airing on 97.9 The Hill!
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