In an earlier article I wrote, the Chapel Hill Alliance for a Livable Town (CHALT)’s active involvement in shifting the makeup of our local representatives to reflect their largely NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard, an abbreviation used to characterize groups that oppose diversification through development) views were laid-out. However, the methodology and continuing efforts of CHALT today are far uglier, and prompt a serious examination into efforts for equitable and sustainable development of Chapel Hill.
John Rees, the former chair and current member of the Chapel Hill Planning Committee, has been one particularly concerned local, advocating for dense and sustainable town development. This is similar to former mayor Mark Keinschmidt’s vision of walkable planned communities, both with the goal of addressing climate change and the lack of affordable housing in town.
“CHALT doesn’t represent the residents of Chapel Hill, they represent themselves,” Rees said.
CHALT’s reactionary nature, and perhaps more concerning, their unethical and underhanded style of policy making and influence, has been and continues to be an obstacle to meaningful progress toward a sustainable and better town.
To take a step back in time, in local elections since 2015, CHALT has used sly and surreptitious methods to dramatically reshape both the representation on the Town Council and the Orange County Board Of County Commissioners (BOCC) to match their own close-minded attitudes.
They supported Pam Hemminger’s bid for mayor, where she ousted incumbent Kleinschmidt, replacing his view for planned, green and walkable communities using form-based code (a planning tool that streamlines development of such communities) with her prioritization of downtown business development and neighborhood “preservation.” In that mayoral race, CHALT utilized online trolls and ad hominem attacks against Kleinschmidt, according to Billy Ball of IndyWeek.
Creating Side PACs and Groups to Increase CHALT Influence
Similar tactics were used in the countywide 2020 elections. CHALT backed Jean Hamilton, Amy Fowler and Renee Price, while Penny Rich, a former chairperson of BOCC, says she experienced a smear campaign from CHALT making false claims against her. Kayla Guilliams of the Daily Tar Heel reported that, “[Rich] said the groups (CHALT and Save Orange Schools) made claims about her during the 2020 election that weren’t true.”
Most notably, the Save Orange Schools (SOS) organization was formed in 2020, with an accompanying PAC. The group was created in response to concerns about schools falling into disrepair and requiring swift action. However, the organization turned out to be a mask for CHALT leaders to operate behind, and they co-opted real concerns over the state of local schools to advance their own agenda of blocking sustainable, diverse developments, such as mixed-income apartment complexes, to their “pristine” neighborhoods.
Tom Henkel, one of CHALT’s co-founders and treasurer to CHALT’s PAC, also not-so-coincidentally operated as the treasurer for the Save Orange Schools-affiliated PAC. Both groups endorsed the same candidates, Hamilton and Fowler, who both ultimately won seats on the County Commission. Rees was sure to clarify that, “I’m not saying the people elected were involved [with co-opting SOS], but CHALT definitely was, and they used this strategy to get them elected.” Following the 2020 election, the SOS PAC was disbanded, and the website for the organization has since disappeared.
Rees said, “[CHALT] created an issue for their campaign. Right after they got two of their candidates elected, the whole organization vanished. They are no longer actively working to save the schools! So to me, it speaks volumes as to how they operate.”
Rees went on to pose two important questions: “Why haven’t they kept the website up, and why haven’t they continued to try and save the schools?” It is safe to say, at the very least, that there is more work to be done when it comes to our schools. The large increases in funding to improve school safety and infrastructure that the organization was demanding have largely not been implemented, and a substantial change in school safety has not been achieved.
But, since they disbanded the SOS organization, the schools must have been saved, right? The hard truth is that CHALT used a real and legitimate concern (being schools in need of repair and support) to prop up candidates who reflect their own views.
“They created that pseudo issue to make a rallying cry for their candidates; that’s what I consider ugly politics,” Rees said. “I consider CHALT an ugly group that doesn’t want anyone else to live in town.”
Failure to Authentically Address What They “Stand” for
The Aura project on the corner of MLK Jr. Blvd and Estes Dr. is another spot of local contention. And, once again, CHALT’s fingerprints are all over the opposition campaign. That is not to say that the development project is perfect—in my view, there are far too few affordable housing units.
Specifically, there are fewer than 50 affordable housing units for over 300 total units, with those units being priced at 65 percent and 85 percent of the town’s Area Median Income (AMI). This method of divvying up affordable housing in this deceiving way can be called, as Rees says, “token affordable housing—it looks good on paper, but when you dig beneath, Chapel Hill obviously has a high income, and 85 percent is still out of reach for a lot of people who work here.” This means that realistically, there are approximately only 6 percent of housing units that even approach true affordability in the development.
Regardless, this is not where CHALT raises issue, despite continually claiming to be staunchly pro-affordable housing. Where the opposition group “Estes Neighbors” has concerns is over the traffic flow, and how it inconveniences the surrounding areas. Their slogan of “Keep Estes Drive Moving” perfectly encapsulates this.
To clarify, Rees points out that “Estes Neighbors is CHALT.” Julie McClintock, a well known CHALT leader, has been a key connector between the two groups. McClintock herself, speaking on behalf of CHALT, said to Kayla Guilliams of the Daily Tar Heel that, “Absolutely we are involved with Estes Neighbors and absolutely we’re supportive.” Her support of Estes Neighbors, in the capacity as a CHALT leader, is one of the few spots of clarity between the two groups. She goes on to simultaneously claim, “But it’s not like we are the same,” despite sharing similar leaderships and mirrored ideologies. At the very least, it serves to establish the two organizations the same in function and purpose, with overlapping memberships, if nothing else.
The impact of the connection between these two groups is that it is consistent with CHALT’s methodology, of either forming or co-opting separate movements to advance their own goals, while also manufacturing a perception of increased support. This method of aggressive and concealed organizing to redefine narratives is non-transparent, and further paints CHALT as a bad-faith actor in the local arena. If past trends are any indicator, the clear overlap between Estes Neighbors and CHALT should raise red flags over the authenticity of the group, and CHALT’s relationship with them as an effort to promote their outdated agenda.
The way to address these traffic concerns is not through blocking much needed housing, rather it is to address the abundance of driving and lack of connectivity in our neighborhoods. The goal should be to build a world where driving is no longer necessary. Examples such as the 15-minute model of Paris, France, along with the 20-minute model that Portland, Oregon is working towards, offer a path towards this world. The goal of these models is to create a community where you can move through it in that given time. In these models, you don’t have to drive great distances to accomplish basic things, such as going to a bakery, store or pharmacy. However, under the status quo, in order for people who live in the Estes neighborhood to do any of that, they have to get into a car. And this leads to the real issue: the lack of connectivity in the neighborhood, forcing them all through Estes Drive, resulting in these traffic issues.
The larger point made from these models is that the solution to traffic is not to exclude necessary housing, but to transform how transit occurs, which also falls in line with the need to urgently address climate change through such large reforms.
Transit alternatives are ultimately useless as long as personal vehicles remain too accessible. Understanding induced demand is necessary in this conversation: it’s the idea that when it is made easy for an individual to do something, then that individual and others will do it. We must learn to apply that concept to transportation, if meaningful sustainable transit reforms are to be implemented.
CHALT (and by extension Estes Neighbors) seems content to operate within an untenable status quo when dealing with these transit (and climate) issues. However, even the smallest drop of nuance demonstrates that such efforts are reactionary, and are simply another obstacle to building a sustainable town.
The hypocrisy of CHALT’s actions and supposed beliefs is that within our modern world, one struggling to address the climate crisis, those focused on traffic instead of building toward sustainable and walkable communities are not only outdated, but actively harmful. What’s more, many of the issues being described about Estes Drive are already prevalent, and do not wholly fall on the development to address. The reality is that MLK Jr. Blvd has the potential (along with Fordham Blvd.) to become a public transport corridor, and the town aims to make it one. But in order for that to be achieved, residents must be located along said corridor, residents which the Aura project supplies.
Henkel said to Kayla Guilliams of the Daily Tar Heel that, “We (CHALT) support responsible growth and building things that the town really needs.” However, what the town really needs is housing, with over 40,000 people commuting into Chapel Hill to work, according to the U.S. Census, because these workers are unable to live in the very communities they are contributing to. This is largely because of the high cost of living and housing, combined with the overall lack of available housing—issues that can be addressed with dense, affordable housing (projects which CHALT has consistently opposed).
CHALT is at its core a dishonest group, designed for the purpose of exclusion by means of “neighborhood preservation.” Their efforts to staunchly oppose development, despite when it would offer much needed housing and create the walkable communities we need to build a sustainable town, and by using fear-mongering, misleading and plain dirty politics to accomplish their agenda, make the descriptor “ugly” too light a word for this organization.
Photo by Caroline Chen/The ECHO
