David Adams, Renuka Soll, Elizabeth Sharp and Breckany Eckhardt are planning to run for council alongside council member Adam Searing, who is running for mayor. Over the weekend, we learned that Adam Searing will be running for Mayor alongside four like-minded candidates for Chapel Hill Town Council. Three of the four are running for office […]
Martin Johnson
Martin Johnson lives in Chapel Hill. He teaches film studies courses at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also a member of NEXT Chapel Hill-Carrboro and the Bicycle Alliance of Chapel Hill. He believes that walkable urbanism is the solution to our environmental and economic challenges.
Posted inChapel Hill, Chapel Hill Town Council, Housing
The proposed text amendment is good policy, one that will actually save Chapel Hill.
Our housing crisis did not take shape in a day, and the tools proposed in the text amendment are responses to the recognition that we need more opportunities for housing in our community, and that we needed more than just new, large rental apartments. Even CHALT leaders have recognized that “missing middle” infill development is […]
Posted inChapel Hill, From the archives, Housing
The five-year-long struggle to build Elliott Woods
Where we left off: With the election of Howard Lee and two political allies, the Chapel Hill Town Council finally voted to approve the rezoning necessary to build Elliott Woods. Part 6: For more than a year, the Inter-Church Council had patiently waited for the stars to align so they could start building Elliott Woods. […]
Posted inChapel Hill, From the archives
The Resurrection of Elliott Woods
Where we left off: After a fierce, months-long debate about building affordable housing adjacent to the large single-family homes in the Coker Hills and Lake Forest neighborhoods, the town council declines to support the Inter-Church Council’s proposal to build the Elliott Woods project. It took an election. In May 1969, Howard Lee, Chapel Hill’s first, […]
Posted inDowntown
Why do we need a vision for mobility in downtown Chapel Hill?
Last November, the Chapel Hill Town Council committed $500,000 in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to a “Streetscape Enhancement Mobility Plan,” that would focus on how people move around downtown. In February, the town selected Toole Design, a national streetscape design firm that has offices in Raleigh, to conduct a study of downtown streets. […]
Posted inChapel Hill Town Council
Parking Ruins Everything: UNC Health Balks at Council Demands
For at least six years, UNC Health, the Chapel Hill-based nonprofit medical system owned by the state of North Carolina, has dreamed of turning its ~50 acres of land at Eastowne Drive and 15-501 into a medical campus. A short history: In September 2018, the Chapel Hill Town Council approved the first building of the […]