The legal definition of a single family home is “a residence housing one family or household or one that is designed for one family only.” Betsy and I have lived in one of these for 38 years, in a nice Chapel Hill neighborhood filled with single-family homes. But Chapel Hill town leaders apparently define “single family” in a different way.
For several years, a single-family home across the street from us has been occupied by groups of students. Are they all members of the same family? No. This student population changes with the passing semesters. One year there was a drummer who practiced a lot. Another group liked loud parties. A few had so many cars among them they struggled to fit them all in the yard. The current occupants like to stage yard sales so much they put one on almost every Saturday, filling our street with cruising drivers searching for a place to park. Don’t you wonder how much stuff students actually own that others will want to buy?
Two doors away, a so-called single-family dwelling has also served for years as a dormitory. Around the corner, “For Rent” signs are appearing, signaling the prospect of even more student dorms in our neighborhood posing as single-family homes.
Please get one thing straight. I love, respect and admire students. I was one myself, and I remember those days well. For more than 20 years I taught wonderful students at our university and loved them all. Students deserve a place to live convenient to campus, and Chapel Hill and Carrboro offer plenty of good options.
But living together in a home designed for one family, in a neighborhood of single family homes, should not be one of those options.
And Chapel Hill town leaders need to wake up and respect the lives of its many families who thought they were living in a quiet neighborhood of single-family homes. That’s a reasonable expectation. Don’t take that away.
