This is a two-part blog post. Part one explores what the working group is and why all Chapel Hill residents – not just those living near Booker Creek – should be paying attention to it. Part two explores the working groups’ recommendations and whether or not they will actually solve flooding in Chapel Hill. (Spoiler: […]
Stephen Whitlow
Stephen Whitlow lives in Chapel Hill. Trained as an urban planner at DCRP, he works for a research, evaluation, and technical assistance firm and focuses on the areas of housing affordability, fair housing, community development, and local government innovation. He is interested in placemaking, how cities change (or don't), and the role of place in shaping economic and social opportunity.
Posted inCHALT
Factchecking CHALT: How many vacant apartments are in Chapel Hill?
There was a time not long ago when stressed-out parents, to take the edge off, abused benzodiazepines. Then, someone launched NextDoor. Early evidence suggests that mother’s little helpers were less harmful to society than NextDoor, a platform that says to the worst people in your neighborhood – the busy body, the power-hungry HOA president, the […]
Posted inHousing
Housing news: Starter homes, land for housing, rental units
It must have been a rough weekend for our neighbors who continue to mangle basic economics and use convoluted logic to argue that we don’t need to build more housing in Chapel Hill. Both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal released articles detailing the housing crisis affecting the nation as a whole, and […]
Posted inHousing
Ugly and Unacceptable: An Evening with the Chapel Hill Community Design Commission
If there were a soap opera about Chapel Hill, it would be called As the World Burns and the lead villain would be the Community Design Commission (CDC). Soap opera villains tend to be rich and powerful and will take any steps to protect their oil wealth or media empire. The CDC may not have […]
Posted inPickleball
Affordable Housing is Quite a Pickle[ball]
As Chapel Hillians increasingly recognize our moral obligation to address the housing affordability crisis, inspiration may come from an unlikely source: pickleball. Think of your typical suburban single-family lot as a tennis court, with plenty of open green space and clear boundaries. When you first get a tennis court it’s a lot of fun but […]
Posted inChapel Hill
Jenny Schuetz on America’s (and Chapel Hill’s) Housing Crisis
While many of us have recognized for a long time that Chapel Hill is an expensive place to live, the Rod Stevens report seems to have cut through the noise and raised Chapel Hillians’ awareness of the extent of the problem. According to Stevens, the report was commissioned to answer town council’s question “Are we building too […]