Theodore Nollert recently announced his run for Town Council in Chapel Hill. Nollert, who has contributed to Triangle Blog Blog, is on the Planning Commision in Chapel Hill and the former President of the Graduate and Professional Student Government at UNC, where he successfully led a campaign to increase the graduate student stipend at UNC. He reflected on his campus advocacy in a Daily Tar Heel profile from March 2023.
In a press release, Nollert said that he was “running for Town Council because Chapel Hill can and should be a diverse, inclusive place where workers can afford to live. I want to ensure that our Town is a great place to live not just today, but tomorrow, too.”
John Rees recently sat down with Nollert for an in-depth interview.
Make your 2023 municipal election voting plan
Beginning with the 2023 municipal elections, North Carolina voters will be required to show photo ID when they check in to vote. Voters who vote by mail will be asked to include a photocopy of an acceptable ID when returning their ballot by mail.
Check your voter registration now. You can look it up here. This is really important particularly if you’ve moved in the past year.
Make a plan to vote during early voting. This ensures that if there’s a problem, you can sort it out. Early voting runs from October 19-November 4. Here is the complete schedule of voting sites, dates, and times for Orange County.
Read about the new voter ID requirements. Every vote counts in North Carolina, and this information must be shared early and often. If you know of people who have just moved here, or students, or new neighbors, please let them know about registering and the voter ID requirements.
Why are you running for town council?
Well, I’m a young person, a grad student, I’m a renter in town. I have first hand experience with how challenging it can be to find housing in Chapel Hill. And, I have learned on the Planning Commission that there are things we can do to make it less challenging to find housing that people can afford.
So, I want to see the town do that. I think we have a lot of opportunities to create a town that’s a place for everyone. And make sure that the people who live here now can live here in the future, and that we can have a diverse inclusive community in the future. So we can continue to invest in our transit programs and our bikes and our bus lanes and try to increase bus frequency. We can attract businesses to town that are creating jobs so that young people have a future in this town.
We can reduce the barriers to creating businesses in this town so that people from low income backgrounds and from underrepresented groups, like people of color and women, have a fair shot at starting a business.
So I think there are a lot of exciting things we can do, you know, investing in greenways, and our park system. We have a lot of opportunities, and I want people to embrace that and say yes to the future right now.
What experience from your term on the Planning Commission has prepared you for this work?
There’s a lot of practical experience, I think.
So I’ve read the LUMO (Land Use Management Ordinance) and the future land use manual. I’ve read our mobility plan and the parks plan. I read the budget. So there are a lot of logistical and strategic planning documents that I’m familiar with now, thanks to working on the Planning Commission.
And I have practical experience in probably the most important thing that the Town Council does, which is to make decisions about land use, and to think about what our town is going to look like. In particular thinking about the land use manual rewrite that we’re going to do.
I think that serving on the Planning Commission has really pushed me to think: What is Chapel Hill going to look like for the next generation? What is our future going to look like?
That’s a big opportunity. And I want to make sure that we do right by the town as we go forward.
You served as the President of the Graduate and Professional Student Government at UNC. Can you briefly explain what you did and what you learned that’s applicable to the Town Council race?
The thing that’s most relevant to town council is that I had a listening tour across 30 different departments at UNC. So I went out, I met constituents, I listened to them, I learned what they wanted.
And then I acted on it, which was persuading the administration and Board of Trustees that it was the right time to implement the single biggest pay raise that grad students have ever received at this university.
We got a $3,000 increase to the minimum stipend, plus smaller increases for people who were already making above $20,000. So, you know, the three things there, I think, are listening to people, data driven advocacy, and the ability to work across different groups, like with the administration and the Board of Trustees to achieve an outcome that benefits everyone.
What are your focus areas for the council race?
Increasing the number of affordable housing units for people with low income is critical. I think increasing the diversity of housing types to bring the cost of housing down across the board is critical.
Investing in our greenways and bus rapid transit, you know, bike lanes and pedestrian paths so that we get our mobility in line with the expected population growth of the town – we need to make investments there.
Promoting the growth of business in town so we have job creation, so that we have diverse opportunities for both employers and employees around town. Those are priorities that I’m excited about.
We’ve seen an increase in anti-student friction appear in Chapel Hill over the last few years. It’s always been present in town, but it seemed to be especially present in recent times, especially with the work that the town has been doing in adding more housing choices like duplexes. How would you respond to those voices?
There’s a program at the Jackson Center called the Good Neighbor Initiative. I want to be a good neighbor, students want to be good neighbors. That starts with all of us getting to know each other.
So I think what I would say to people around town who are concerned about that is, you know, come out and get to know me for me, and don’t think about what my job title is, and that I work at the University. I’m getting a PhD here, but come find out who I am. I’m eager to do the same for them.
What are three things that you believe the town could be doing better?
We should be expanding our transit capacity around town. Expanding the ways that people can walk and bike and bus around town – that’s crucial for meeting our climate goals.
Environmental justice is something really important to focus on. Expanding the diversity of housing types is something we need to work on.
And then beyond that, I think that we have an opportunity to grow businesses more so that this is a kind of bustling commercial place year round, and that is not entirely reliant on students.
What are the things you think the town currently is doing right?
I think the Complete Community strategic plan is a terrific document, It really lays out what this town is, should try to be, and it’s a good direction for us to go in. We have just gotten some terrific signals from the federal government through grants relating to our transit plans. That’s a strong sign that we’re going in the right direction there.
It’s important to acknowledge the work that we’ve done around affordable housing. I mean, there are things like the 2200 Homestead Development, PEACH Apartments. I think that the $5 million revolving loan fund that we got with UNC Health is going to be really critical for affordable housing. So I would say that’s an area where the town and the council have been bold and decisive, and they have notched some big wins, and we should keep going in that direction.
Some people are skeptical that students or renters are committed to serving the town and that they’re not invested in the town’s policies to the same extent that homeowners are. How would you respond to that?
Well, first, I would say that more than half of the town are renters. Those are folks who live here, many of them work here. They have a right to representation, they have a right to voice their opinion and to be heard. I’m one of them.
I’m a renter, but this is my home, I feel like I’ve been welcomed here with open arms. I’ve been pleased to give back by joining the Planning Commission. I’ve enjoyed getting to know people around town and meeting different groups, getting engaged, and I want to take that service to the next level with a seat on the Town Council. So I would say that this is my home. And because it’s my home, it’s a place that I want to serve.
Is there anything else you want to add?
I think that when we talk about saying yes to tomorrow, or embracing the future, a lot of that, especially for young people, means thinking about environmental justice, and how we will take action to ensure that there is a future for not just for young people now, but for future generations, period, to enjoy.
And I think that that needs to be a sort of guiding philosophy that underpins all of those specific priorities in areas like housing or in transit or in development in general. And that’s something that’s reflected in the Complete Communities strategic framework. So that’s a principle of the town that I wholeheartedly endorse..
Anything else?
Everyone in Chapel Hill should register to vote before October 13. There will be same day registration at early voting, but it’s likely to be more complicated this year due to the new voter ID requirements.
It’s going to be much simpler if people get registered before then. I hope that people will vote. Local elections are where your vote carries the most weight. The people that are elected to Town Council this November are going to make decisions about the land use manual that shape what the town’s going to look like for the next generation.
So I think it’s a really critical time to figure out what’s going on in town and come out and vote. And I hope that people will embrace the vision of a bright future that I am running on.
Make your 2023 municipal election voting plan
Beginning with the 2023 municipal elections, North Carolina voters will be required to show photo ID when they check in to vote. Voters who vote by mail will be asked to include a photocopy of an acceptable ID when returning their ballot by mail.
Check your voter registration now. You can look it up here. This is really important particularly if you’ve moved in the past year.
Make a plan to vote during early voting. This ensures that if there’s a problem, you can sort it out. Early voting runs from October 19-November 4. Here is the complete schedule of voting sites, dates, and times for Orange County.
Read about the new voter ID requirements. Every vote counts in North Carolina, and this information must be shared early and often. If you know of people who have just moved here, or students, or new neighbors, please let them know about registering and the voter ID requirements.