Affordable Housing Hypocrites
A perspective from Matt Bailey
“We don’t need luxury apartments. We need affordable housing!”
Chapel Hill’s No Growth Gang has uttered that mantra every time anyone attempted to address our housing crisis with the novel solution of building new housing.
They said it when 140 West Franklin replaced an ugly parking lot downtown.
They said it when The Berkshire replaced an even uglier parking lot next to Whole Foods.
They said it when they convinced Chapel Hill to spend $9 million we didn’t have to buy the American Legion property, just so a developer wouldn’t build apartments on the site. (Remember that bond you supported to improve Chapel Hill’s parks? Yeah—the town spent it instead to stop new homes for new neighbors. Then — they raised taxes, in part, to address a housing shortage.)
Local officials have heard the call for affordable housing — and they’re exploring it for an area where neighbors have wanted it for years — the Greene Tract.
The Greene Tract is a 164-acre parcel jointly owned by Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro next to the Historic Rogers Road Neighborhood. After decades of neglecting, (or more accurately, abusing,) its residents, local officials are finally addressing long-broken promises to invest in the area. Tentative ideas would use 45 acres for a mix of affordable housing and economic investment, 11 acres for a new school and four acres for public recreation space — all while permanently preserving 86 acres as untouched nature.
Unlike Chapel Hill’s affluent neighborhoods, who wield their privilege to block new homes in their neighborhoods through exclusionary zoning and neighborhood “conservation” districts, Rogers Road residents actually want local officials to use the Greene Tract for affordable housing and economic stimulation in their neighborhood.
You’d think those opponents of “luxury apartments” would be thrilled to finally have “affordable housing” to support.
You’d be wrong.
A group calling itself “Friends Of The Greene Tract” sprung up to urge the Chapel Hill Town Council to scrap plans they’ve worked on for years with Orange County and Carrboro. They don’t oppose housing on the site, they claim. They merely oppose the current plans for housing on the site.
Problem is, Chapel Hill wasn’t voting on any specific concept plans for the Greene Tract. The town council was merely voting to move forward with a resolution to explore creating affordable housing on the site. Even after years of working with our local government partners to get to this point, we’re still years away from anyone moving in to a new home there.
Ultimately, the Chapel Hill Town Council adopted an alternative resolution for the Greene Tract. Intended as a compromise, the new resolution not only kills 22 acres of possible housing, it will require Orange County and Carrboro to go back and vote to approve the changes, further delaying any work on a plan for months.
Even with the watered-down proposal, two council members flat out voted “no”: Hongbin Gu and Nancy Oates.
Coincidentally, both Gu and Oates won their seats with support from CHALT, the group that has opposed every significant effort to increase Chapel Hill’s desperate shortage of housing, all while claiming they merely oppose “luxury apartments” and would gladly support “affordable housing”.
The “no” vote of Hongbin Gu and Nancy Oates reveals the truth: Chapel Hill’s No Growth Gang only supports hypothetical affordable housing. When an opportunity arises to build real homes for real families, they’ll oppose “affordable housing” as vehemently as they oppose the privately built homes they deride as “luxury apartments.”
Now that the Greene Tact has separated the affordable housing advocates from the affordable housing hypocrites, let’s hope Chapel Hill voters replace the hypocrites with the advocates during this fall’s election.
“Viewpoints” is a place on Chapelboro where local people are encouraged to share their unique perspectives on issues affecting our community. If you’d like to contribute a column on an issue you’re concerned about, interesting happenings around town, reflections on local life — or anything else — send a submission to viewpoints@wchl.com
This is probably the most scurrilous piece of nonsense I’ve ever seen Bailey write. It is riddled with factual errors and serves mainly as an erroneous broadside against the local CHALT group who has supported far more winning candidates than Nancy Oates and Hongbin Gu.
Shame on WCHL for not vetting this piece more closely.
This article is riddled with so many inaccuracies and misconceptions that is is difficult to know where to begin. First. no one is opposed to growth. The opposition is to inappropriate growth, the notion that growth itself can solve all of Chapel Hill’s problems, as well as development that is not based on factual evidence; especially ignoring the problems caused in other municipalities by the very strategies that ‘pro-growth’ folks advocate. Residential growth does create revenue. Yet, the cost of providing services to new residents exceeds the revenues generated by about 2%. This has placed Chapel Hill on an unsustainable fiscal path. Second, Chapel Hill needs millions of dollars of work in storm-water remediation. A report concluded that $30 million dollars of remediation is needed in just one watershed. Only $5 million in remediation in that one watershed has been done. Meanwhile the Future Land Use Map places many of its suggested developments in flood planes, or in areas that will increase resident’s storm-water woes. Third, we all support workforce housing, and mixed income housing that is affordable for people with incomes beginning at 30% of area median income. We believe that UNC’s failure to provide adequate undergrad and grad housing greatly contributes to the shortage of affordable housing. What we don’t support is placing all of workforce, mixed income, affordable housing in a single area. Roughly 30% of the town’s residents.are in their 30s–young families who would like to own their own homes–not rent an apartment. It is my personal belief that rentals only benefit developers who suck the money out of communities as they line their pockets. Home-ownership offers people a way out of poverty by helping them to build wealth via the equity in their homes. They will own something they can leverage. This is one of the best ways to begin to address the wealth gap. What we support is a common sense approach to development, that meets the needs of all residents, based on solid research, that takes into account the specific variables, and unique needs of Chapel Hill.
Matt misses the point that affordable workforce housing, robust retail, walkability, and a positive income stream for the town were much discussed district goals embraced the 2014 Council. The flawed well-intentioned zoning code failed to deliver on all counts. CHALT does not name call those with whom we disagree. Instead we’ve been working for 4 years to fix the code. Wouldn’t it be worth while for the Town Square Editor to set some standards for civil discourse? That would be good for everyone!
Thanks for speaking the truth! Agree on all points. CHALT loves to move the goalposts. With mayor and a majority these last few years they have achieved absolutely nothing because the true goal is obstruction.
Matt, my recent post on http://www.chapelhillwatch.com explains why I voted in support of the RENA community on the Greene Tract resolution. I hear the passion in your writing that would be wonderful to redirect to advocating for housing for those of modest means. When developers of high-rent apartments request a rezoning, I’d welcome you and anyone else who would support me in urging them to include affordable units in their project. That is the fastest way to get units for people on a tight budget. The Inclusionary Zoning standard is 15% of the total units to be affordable, half to people at 65% AMI and half at 80% AMI. A rezoning adds millions of dollars of profit for the developer. 15% of the units at a reduced rent is certainly reasonable. Please join me in supporting more affordable units for people to move into right away.
There were so many inaccuracies in this opinion piece, I wrote WCHL and send this annotated editorial explaining each one. https://www.chalt.org/annotated-editorial/