In response to “How CHALT Chokes Authentic Progress In Chapel Hill” by Caroline Chen, Julie McClintock, co-founder of CHALT, wrote a letter Oct. 20 to our high school newspaper, IndyWeek and the Daily Tar Heel. McClintock is also the co-founder of the Alliance of Neighborhoods, Neighborhoods for Responsible Growth, Estes Neighbors, and Affordable Transit for All. The first three organizations have advocated repeatedly for lower density and single-family house zoning in Chapel Hill. Estes Neighbors opposed a mixed-use development at the corner of MLK Blvd. and Estes Drive. Affordable Transit for All opposed the light rail system.
The below italicized text is from the ECHO’s original story, the quoted text is from McClintock and the bold text is our response.
“I am confounded and confused by the angry inaccurate opinions expressed by Ms Chen. Where does that anger come from? CHALT is exercising the best aspects of our democracy by endeavoring to engage in town policies and we always do so respectfully. We don’t bash people in social media.
“Ms Chen makes a number of inaccurate assertions which we respond to below. We will ask the Tarheel to print as well. Your publication must allow these unfounded statements to be corrected by the persons you are criticizing. Thank you.
“Julie McClintock for CHALT
“Following are assertions a writer made to the tarheel.vOur corrections and comments for each one follow.”
1. The point is, when you dig even a little bit deeper, it’s clear that their idea of a livable town is the status quo—everyone who can afford a median property of nearly $500,000.
“Utter baloney! CHALT has always favored environmentally responsible modestly priced medium density for sale housing developments with 15% affordable housing units. (According to US Census median Chapel Hill pricing is &400K [sic].) Over the last several years, out of town developers have successfully curried favor with Town government to successfully get only market rate apartments approved with little or no affordable housing. Some Council members buy into the supply-demand theory that does not work for housing. Building more doesn’t bring down prices.”
The Census figure is not current. The median price of homes in Chapel Hill is $499,835 (Zillow, 10/20/21). Prices were up 21.1 percent compared to last year.
In a recent article in Indyweek, you could only name one project that CHALT has supported since 2014 — the Glen Lennox development. Since 2010, Chapel Hill’s population has grown by 8.3 percent. Housing prices is a complicated subject, influenced by many factors — including exclusionary zoning, housing prices, historic preservation, and parking requirements. Because the market is dynamic, we can’t generalize to one specific area — but housing supply and restrictions on new supply are key factors. (There’s an entire body of literature on this, but this piece by the NYU Furman Center gives a good overview. Another good piece is this one from Health Affairs, which states: “Low density zoning ordinances make it more difficult and costly to build multifamily housing, which artificially raises the cost of housing for everyone by limiting housing supply, as well as excluding people who cannot afford to buy single-family homes on large lots.” Another quote from that piece: “The equitable solution for health and other outcomes is to upzone higher-resourced neighborhoods. However, as noted in the prior section, these neighborhoods tend to be the most tenacious and successful in resisting upzoning and housing density.”)
One thing definitely raises housing prices and that is artificially restricting the supply of housing in spite of great demand. Glaeser, et. al. discussed impacts of restricting housing markets through the lens of regulatory tools and categorically found that the only people who benefit from artificially restricting supply or over-regulating development are older, wealthy homeowners who purchased their homes decades ago, on the cheap. He also found that, “The great challenge facing attempts to loosen local housing restrictions is that existing homeowners do not want more affordable homes: they want the value of their asset to cost more, not less. They also may not like the idea that new housing will bring in more people, including those from different socioeconomic groups.”
2. One area CHALT becomes uniquely silent on is when it comes to constructing giant parking facilities downtown.
“We did not support it as proposed. We raised detailed concerns about the traffic management plan, the construction cost, and the financing scheme. We oppose the two way single lane design and providing huge amounts of concentrated parking and at a great cost that will create indebtedness for the town. We lobbied the Town Manager, Mayor and council members to hire a construction management expert to contain costs, but the Manager chose an in-house team with zero large scale project expertise. Now costs have doubled from $20 million to $40 million. “
CHALT did raise concerns about the parking deck and funding but did not oppose the deck. In comments sent to Town Council on 9/27/20, you and Fred Lampe write, “Both the East Rosemary parking garage and the office/lab building represent key components required to capture viable economic growth for Chapel Hill that has historically been grasped by neighboring counties.” Additionally, in a previous piece published on the CHALT website, a member states, “We live in an era of cars, and adequate parking must be provided.” CHALT has also opposed light rail, which has been shown to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprints.
3. For instance, the Rosemary Street “CVS” parking building is being taken down and reconstructed into a new 1,100-space, seven-story deck, to be completed in 2022.
“The 1100 space capacity is far in excess of need, particularly when considering the 200 spaces to be constructed under the new office/laboratory building across the street.”
It’s hard to talk about this topic without looking at the larger picture of traffic and transit in Chapel Hill. UNC has experienced a parking shortage for employees and students and has been involved (and a vocal advocate) for this parking project (UNC Letter of Intent). One way to alleviate a parking shortage would be to have high density housing along bus routes to campus, so that fewer people would need cars traveling to campus. You have opposed several projects along the BRT that would alleviate traffic congestion.
4. If CHALT really stands for a livable town for everyone, why not protest the gentrification of university-adjacent neighborhoods by student rentals?
“CHALT has vigorously encouraged UNC to provide on campus housing. We have protested many rezonings to prevent the destruction of moderate priced rentals. We were noisy fans of the lower priced Town House Apartments and Park Apartments that provided reasonable rents. If the Town had not approved those rezonings, this affordable housing would still be available. We strongly opposed the Form Based Code that abandoned affordable housing, as well as stormwater controls and public hearing. At a CHALT Affordable Housing Forum, we featured the work of the Jackson Center who has worked tirelessly to save Northside homes owed by residents from investors. The Town continues to favor “clusters” of affordable housing, instead of disbursed affordable housing located within every new development which has produced much more acceptable outcomes for their residents. Town policy frequently allows new developments to just provide “payments in lieu” instead of actual housing units.”
In a Sept. 22 email to the Town Council, you suggested that a storage facility go in place of an apartment complex on Adair Drive and Old University Station Road Ext. In addition, CHALT has opposed building affordable housing on the American Legion land. CHALT has opposed building affordable housing on the Greene Tract, which the residents of Rogers Road have called for, for the past 20 years. And your track record of opposing new housing in Chapel Hill extends back decades. You have protested rezonings in the past to prevent apartments from being built and favored single-family homes. You opposed the apartment complex in Fair Oaks. You opposed Ayden Court. You opposed the Columbia Street Annex. CHALT is responsible for the death of several projects that would have increased housing across Chapel Hill.
In addition, you raise a point about on-campus housing. There are many complexities in building on-campus housing — and UNC currently houses a greater percent of undergraduate students than almost all national public peers and comparable UNC system schools.
5. Not to mention, if the development is a grocery store, it’ll be fine. Wegmans’ 100,000 square feet and 750 parking spaces, all impervious concrete, suddenly aren’t such a problem.
“The big concern everyone shared was the traffic that such a popular grocery would bring to adjacent neighborhoods. CHALT worked with the neighbors and Chapel Hill transportation department to change the 15/501 access design from a right-in right-out only to a full access entrance, thus keeping the surrounding neighborhoods from becoming a conduit for massive new traffic. Wegmans did bring tax base diversity and paid for hazardous water cleanup from the previous car dealerships.”
We can find clear evidence that the neighbors and transportation department worked together to do this—it doesn’t appear as though any emails or petitions were sent by CHALT about this project. (Fred Lampe was cc’d on several of them, but didn’t author any.) Members of CHALT did not attend neighborhood meetings about the project, according to a participant who attended several of the meetings and wrote up results for the blog. Can you describe how you worked with the neighbors and transportation department?
6. When they vote against developments like Aura that could provide multiplexes, denser housing, or at least more affordable housing, they foment further what a report by the Town Council and UNC call Chapel Hill’s transformation into an “East Coast Palo Alto.” Many of the daily workers who drive our town forward, sometimes literally, do not live here.
“The reporter is confused. The reference to Palo Alto is from the jointly commissioned Town-UNC Rod Steven Housing report. Everyone who has actually reviewed the report has found the findings enlightening, especially with its focus on “missing middle” for sale housing. We want the Town to follow this strong well researched recommendation to reverse the present trend that has resulted in vast amounts of current market rate apartments, such as Aura. More workers will live here in town when the town provides affordable housing options.”
Our apologies for the error in the report authorship. We have adjusted this section in our original story. The report authored by Rod Stevens was prepared with data from UNC and presented to Town Council. Stevens noted that “Housing production needs to increase 35% to meet projected jobs and household growth.” Specifically, that “New housing for individual households will need to increase to 440 units/yr. (One Carraway Village/yr.); new housing for off campus students will need to 45 units/yr. (One Carraway Village/decade.); and Most of the remaining capacity [needed] is multi-family.”
Stevens also noted housing needs are being unmet for the following groups:
- First-time buyers
- Families with young children
- Divorcees
- Empty nesters
- Seniors
- Owner-occupied multi-family
Perhaps the most astounding statistic however, is that almost 90 percent of local jobs are filled by commuters and more than two out of three Chapel Hill residents work elsewhere. In urban planning, this is what’s known as a “jobs-housing mismatch” or “spatial mismatch.” This is indicative of a situation where workers (typically low-wage service workers) are unable to live and work in close proximity.
Workers are pushed further from their places of employment, increasing transportation costs and the opportunity costs of travel time. The primary solution for mitigating a mismatch is locating more housing near jobs and/or near transit. Prioritizing housing development on premium transit corridors (like Aura, a mixed-use development containing 341 apartments and 44 townhomes, with office, retail, and amenity spaces, and several other recent proposals along the planned N-S BRT corridor is a good start). Approving uses like storage facilities is not.
From the Manhattan Institute: “As the deleterious effects of the jobs–housing mismatch become clearer, actions are increasingly being taken at the state and local levels to lift the many regulatory impediments that stop new housing from being built where it’s needed.
“A 1989 article by Robert Cevero in the American Planning Association’s APA Journal found such imbalance—between growing suburbs and older central cities where low-cost housing is located—to be a major cause of increasing traffic congestion in growing metropolitan regions. He attributed the imbalance to several factors: “fiscal” and “exclusionary” zoning, growth moratoriums, a resulting mismatch between worker earnings and the cost of available housing, and the growth of two-earner households and increased job mobility.
“The best hope for changing zoning practices that result in a jobs–housing mismatch is organizing at the local level and in state capitals where legislatures are increasingly inclined to set limits on local governments’ discretion to prohibit new housing as public attitudes evolve. The problems created by rapid growth create the conditions for antigrowth politics.“
Also, it’s worth mentioning that there is an affordable housing plan for Aura (for both rental and for-sale units) with a total of 54 new affordable units. Not “game changing” (like a parking lot, per se) but better than zero, right? Notably, we have another Rod Stevens report on the Aura site, saying, “Economically, the highest and best use of this site is pure residential at the proposed density. With its excellent transit connections to the university, this is a good location for both students and staff.”
Image created by Caroline Chen/The ECHO.
