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Chapel Hill Town Council Recommendations
A perspective from Sue Hunter
Recently I was out with some longtime friends who, like me, have lived in Chapel Hill for several decades. I asked them what they paid for rent in the early 1990’s. Their answers ranged from $100 or less if you shared your rental, to up to $500-600 for a small house. We were all absolutely certain of one thing – we could not afford to pay very much. We were Chapel Hill’s low wage workers from 30 years ago. We held multiple jobs that paid very little in local retail, restaurants, child care, social services and at UNC.
Fast forward to 2023, and a lot has changed. I now own a home in the same neighborhood where I once worked as a nanny, and the cost of housing in Chapel Hill has greatly outpaced any increase in wages or housing supply. Although I can afford to live here, I feel the impact of our housing affordability crisis every day. It’s the staffing challenges in our local school system, restaurants and retail. The difficulty in recruiting and retaining bus drivers for our schools and transit system. The impossibility of finding local housing options for those who need to downsize, age in place, move closer to family caregivers or find anything other than a single family home. It’s the people who live unhoused in our community. I see it when my friends are pushed further out of town, and forced to accept rentals that violate housing codes or reek of mold infestations. When families who relocate here spend 18 months or more living in an apartment, devote every weekend to losing the competitive house hunt, before finally purchasing a home in an off market deal. The traffic everyone hates? It’s caused by more than 43,000 people who don’t live here, but commute to work in and around Chapel Hill every day. It’s the climate crisis we face in part due to car-dependency and sprawling development as we build out rather than in.
Our community is making progress in addressing the affordable housing crisis thanks to a committed Town Council, dedicated town staff, policy innovations and financial investment. Your vote in the current election will determine whether or not we can continue. As a member of the Town of Chapel Hill’s Housing Advisory Board and former Chair, I know that Jess Anderson is the only mayoral candidate whose votes on Town Council support affordable housing. Jess has consistently voted yes to missing middle housing choices, building affordable housing projects on town-owned land (Jay Street and Legion Road), and yes to a $5 million revolving loan from UNC to leverage funding from affordable housing providers. Her opponent voted no on all of these items. Jess has been a leader in championing the Complete Community strategy for Chapel Hill, integrating housing and business growth with green mobility and environmental sustainability. We all stand to benefit from this improved approach to planning, but making it easier to live car free in Chapel Hill also makes it more affordable. Still not convinced? Check out the Orange County Affordable Housing Coalition website to get more information on where all the candidates stand: https://www.orangehousing.org/home
We can’t afford to go backwards in time – we need to continue moving forward together. If affordable housing matters as much to you as it does to me, vote for the true leader on this critical issue: Jess Anderson for Mayor.
“Viewpoints” on Chapelboro is a recurring series of community-submitted opinion columns. All thoughts, ideas, opinions and expressions in this series are those of the author, and do not reflect the work or reporting of 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com.
