On Wednesday evening, the Chapel Hill Town Council unanimously approved the town’s first ever comprehensive affordable housing plan and investment strategy. The plan – read it here – identifies key housing priorities for the next five years and the resources needed to implement it. The vote did not, however, allocate those resources. The investment strategy […]
Affordable Housing
UNC Health Proposes a New Approach to Affordable Housing
This Wednesday, the Chapel Hill Town Council will hear a years-in-the-making proposal from UNC Health to add up to 1.1 million square feet of office space and parking garages to its Eastowne location over the next twenty-five years. While this project is textbook suburban medical office space, UNC Health is making an interesting proposal on […]
Everything awful said or implied about UNC students in the Town’s housing survey
One of the stranger things about Chapel Hill, a quintessential college town, is how many people here dislike college students. They dislike renters in general but have an extra level of contempt for students, who are widely regarded as rich brats with an unquenchable thirst for destroying the property values of the town’s landed gentry. […]
We say yes to “doing all of the things” when it comes to housing
Opponents to housing in Chapel Hill often say that they’re not against more housing, they’re just against a particular development or type of housing because of its location and/or because it won’t solve our affordable housing crisis. (This has, in practice, meant that they’ve largely and vocally been against every opportunity to add new housing […]
Low income residents need more market-rate apartments
As a graduate student, my income is below Chapel Hill’s median. I pay almost half my income to my landlord. I expect to be priced out of any new apartments in Chapel Hill under consideration in the Blue Hill District. To help cost-burdened tenants like me, I hope the Town Council continues to allow the development of dense new market-rate apartments in this area as quickly as possible.
An undergrad’s perspective on student neighbors in Chapel Hill
NextDoorers, please stop trying to make rent too expensive before you at least get to know your student neighbors. Yes, unknown Nextdoor users, drunk 19-year-olds are obnoxious. However, Chapel Hill is one of the most highly educated towns in the country, with 75% of residents holding at least a bachelor’s degree. So, there is a […]