In its report to the Chapel Hill Town Council Economic Sustainability Committee, a private-the business advisory firm said that Chapel Hill needs to increase its production of new housing by 35% to meet demand or face rapidly increasing housing prices.
If action is not taken, Business Street, the firm contracted by the town to report on housing, suggests that Chapel Hill’s housing market could approach extreme levels of price growth, not unlike those seen in the California Bay Area and Palo Alto.
Beyond even an increase in housing costs—the median value of a home in Chapel Hill has approached almost $600,000—Rod Stevens, a consultant with Business Street, said that, without decisive action on housing and transportation, “gentrification [will be] programmed into Chapel Hill’s future.” Stevens cited historically Black Chapel Hill neighborhoods like Northside as examples of gentrification and the town’s future.
Furthermore, the “worst case scenario” of continuing to plan housing project by project, as opposed to a more comprehensive planning strategy, would lead to a loss of much of Chapel Hill’s distinct and valued diversity.
English teacher Joanne McClelland, who grew up in Chapel Hill but now lives in Durham, argued that the gentrification had already come, saying, “There [are] no longer African American neighborhoods because African Americans do not have the salaries to afford to buy many of the houses in Chapel Hill.”
McClelland acknowledged the town’s efforts to include affordable housing in every new subdivision, but said, “I do not think that [new developments] are built with teachers or other everyday workers in mind.”
A side effect of gentrification and a lack of multifamily owner-occupied housing is, according to Business Street, increased political instability, something the Bay Area has experienced acutely. An increase in political instability—possibly including tumultuous or contentious elections and a rise in protesting—would generally be caused by a growing gap in the priorities and needs of renters and owners in what would be an increasingly divided community.
Ultimately, according to the report, to prevent extreme housing price growth, gentrification, loss of diversity and the many negative side effects of these problems, Chapel Hill needs to invest in multifamily owner-occupied housing, a type of housing that the town currently builds very little of. This type of housing makes the entire market more affordable, allows families to build generational wealth and makes the town more sustainable by promoting walkability.
While Councilwoman Jessica Anderson, the chair of the committee to which the housing report was presented, described the presentation as “a pretty serious call to action,” she did not describe any specific action that she was planning on taking other than possible changes to the upcoming Land Use Management Ordinance (LUMO) rewrite.
Mayor Pam Hemminger, who was reelected as mayor this year, disagreed with the consultant’s dire assessment of the town’s comprehensive planning, saying, “we have used the Future Land Use Map, which we will be reviewing in November with Stevens’ input in mind.”
Beyond that point, the mayor largely agreed with Stevens’s assertions that the town needed more owner-occupied multifamily housing and that gentrification is, to some degree, currently programmed into Chapel Hill’s future, but she did not identify any specific action that she plans to take other than changes to the LUMO rewrite.
While the vast majority of the politicians in and around Chapel Hill’s government nominally support growth and development, some local groups and members of the city government have long opposed many of Chapel Hill’s development projects, such as the recently approved mixed-use Aura development on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Prominent among these forces is the Chapel Hill group CHALT, which describes its growth policy as “gentle,” and offers tiny homes as an affordable housing solution.
On the other side of the issue, local groups like NEXT Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Indy Week oppose CHALT and its associated politicians, favoring a more aggressive approach given the gravity of the problem. They endorsed candidates and policies that push for denser planning and more aggressive requirements for developers with regards to affordable housing and contend that while, yes, tiny homes are affordable housing, they fail to address the need for dense, walkable, multi-family, owner-occupied housing detailed in the report to the commission.
