Too bad the Town Council thought the staff had all the answers and rammed through the comprehensive plan in record time instead of leading a visioning process that would have given the community an opportunity to learn about and understand each other's values, and be thoughtful about where we wanted the town to be in future decades.
If only someone had tried to get them to slow down and do it right. 🙄 Instead they played right into CHALT's hands and it just gets worse and worse.
"It's quite unheard of for any municipality to do a comprehensive plan in less than a year," Sinreich said. "Chapel Hill's process is nine months."
She added that the draft combines many ideas, some good and some bad, but fails to yield a "cohesive vision."
"I think that this plan is worse than no plan at all right now," Sinreich said. "It's a completely missed opportunity to actually talk to the community, find a vision and bring us together around that vision."
Regarding this point: "He expects that the Food Lion will close in the next few years, driving redevelopment of the shopping center, and that other retail developments may seek to redevelop as well." Which Food Lion?
I guess to those of you making points about CH taxes being too high, can't both be true? Can't the lack of strategic planning AND high taxes both be contributing to a direction that we may not want to be moving in (eg, squeezing out certain demographics)? I agree CH taxes are high, and I don't want to see them go up. But I agree wholeheartedly with the author that strategic planning and critical thinking about urban and community development would be time and resources well spent (and that subsequent action needs to be taken that is in line with whatever comes out of those strategic planning efforts). I don't think investing CH resources into that type of effort will result in even higher taxes. The tax issue is real, for sure, but a separate issue than the one raised by the author.
Geoff Green, I agree with you that there needs to be more single family housing in Chapel Hill and improved parks and pools. However, in the United States of America, it is not the job of the government to build houses. That is the job of land owners who own land and then builders who build buildings. The government on a federal, state, and local level in the USA is not very efficient. The only way to get to the vision you desire and to improve Chapel Hill housing is to have land owners and builders make this happen. There are major impediments to this that you leave out of your story. Chapel Hill is the most difficult place in the state to build with very stringent and odd building requirements, which prevent land owners and builders from embarking on new projects. The property tax rate is off the charts in Chapel Hill, about 1.4% of values. The NC average is closer to 0.7%.
My suggestion to you would be to buy some land and build the housing that you desire to live in and sell.
I realize I am a week late but I felt compelled to comment. I was born and raised in Chapel Hill as was my husband. We lived in Chapel Hill/Orange Co. for 23 years and recently moved to Mebane on the Alamance County side. We were looking to upgrade and our youngest is a sophomore in college so it was time for a change. We, mainly me, were extremely disheartened that we could not afford for our new home to be in the Chapel Hill/ Carrboro area. The home prices far exceeded what we could afford and property taxes made that hope even more unattainable. It makes me sad that there are no longer affordable homes in the area for Chapel Hill natives who fall in the middle class economic classification. It is sad that the town is losing economic and cultural diversity due to poor planning.
Having been in the market for a modest home in Chapel Hill for the past 2 years, I can say that this analysis is true.
If the general rule of thumb that a proper ratio of housing cost to annual income is 2.5:1, then the average 3-4 bedroom modest house in the Chapel Hill area (not talking about the in-town enclaves, but across Orange and Chatham counties) requires a minimum of $200k annual household income. In Carrboro - forget about it - that won't even buy a lot.
This is indeed starting to mirror the Bay Area - where now the dumpiest 2 bedroom ranch on a postage stamp lot is $2M. One of the core problems in the financial crisis in 2008-2009 was the creative financing that was squeezing people into these homes, when they didn't have the income to support it.
People are cashing out of their California homes, and moving to Boise Idaho, Austin Texas, and... Chapel Hill among others. With a million + cash in the bank, and a CA price perspective, they're increasingly dropping more and more on houses in Chapel Hill. Houses in Briar Chapel for example, which two years ago were $350k, are listing and selling in a day for over $500k.
What a really biased perspective. The market works. If people have to commute in and find closer paying jobs, then we will have to increase wages and salaries to attract them to work here. It is simple and it works. No one is entitled to work and live in the some town. In my household, we do not work and live in the same place. We made that decision based on what was best for us and our budget. Other workers do the same. Are there people that would like to live in Chapel Hill but find other alternatives more affordable, of course. Is that bad, no. In fact, most of the people that I work with have been migrating over to Briar Chapel in Chatham because they can get a lot more house and pay lower taxes and still be nearby. Chapel Hill does not have to be everything to everybody. People can commute and we (employers in Chapel Hill) may have to pay them more to do that. It is simple and this is ridiculous.
The town has never turned down a development project, whether large or small, except for Carol Ann Zinn’s Aydan Court (a proposed apartment complex between Meadowmont and the game lands). There is by now an established game whereby the town pays a consultant for a dramatic report, like the one above. This promotes development, which forces the county, school district, and town to raise taxes. That’s how the town keeps up with garbage collection, policing, fire, road maintenance, new subsidies for housing, raises for staff, hiring new assistants for public relations and economic development, and more consultants.
Raising taxes, conveniently, drives out lower income and older homeowners standing in the way of gentrification, and prevents middle income families from moving in. It raises rents on apartment dwellers and retailers alike. In 20 years of watching, I have never seen the TOCH hire a consultant to tell mayor and council how much given development will cost in services at town, school district, and county levels. I think it’s because they don’t want to know. It’s easier (and more profitable for developer friends) to react to hysterical cries of “Apocalypse Now!” just as it’s easier for consultants to write that.
I totally agree. Our property taxes are the highest in the state. These taxes force the poor and middle class to sell their properties and move to wake, Chatham, and Durham. So what does the town do? Raise taxes for affordable housing, and build apartment complexes that are unappealing to families and an eyesore for the public.
Thank you both for reading! As to the tax question, this doesn’t follow at all. As I pointed out earlier this year, the Berkshire apartment complex pays $1.16 million in property taxes (whether it’s full or empty!) and its construction required very little new maintenance responsibilities by the town — no new roads to be maintained (as is the case with a new single-family subdivision), a small percentage of the residents likely have children of school age due to the configuration of the apartments, the town didn’t subsidize their construction, and services like garbage collection, etc. are either more efficient than other types of housing development because they’re serving hundreds of people at one stop OR they may actually be privately contracted by the complex.
And of course, the town hasn’t built apartment complexes, private developers have done so, largely in Blue Hill, which is the only place the Town has made it easy for anyone to do development.
What the consultant was attacking was our inability to do any planning which is the necessary precondition to getting other types of development that we might like. Infill townhouses. For-sale apartment condos that empty nesters might want to move into. Townhouses for young professionals who are ready to move on from an apartment but who can’t afford a detached single-family home. People renting in Chapel Hill who want these types of housing options are moving to Durham or Raleigh. Why are won’t we producing them here? It has less to do with taxes and more to do with a development philosophy that fails to set forth a coherent vision and set of regulations which means only because large-, well-capitalized developers doing large projects are the only ones who can afford to run the advisory board-council-public involvement gauntlet required for each project.
Chapel hill property taxes are high, which means that only the wealthy can afford to live here. My former modest home in Chapel Hill, a 2500 brick ranch, was appraised at 430k, and had property taxes of $7,300 per year. There are many homes in historic black neighborhoods that have houses currently assessed at $500-$600k. What do people do when they cant afford the taxes? They move. Orange County is 1 of 2 in NC where the black population declined.
Sure the Berkshire pays a chunk of property taxes. But it demands services, particularly, expensive additions to the fire department (did you know a “hook and ladder” costs over $1,000,000 and requires 3 shifts of 8 people each to man it? Also, collective trash collection is a net cost to the town. And, the town spent big time on storm water basin collecting Berkshire’s runoff, built a little road in back, and then, retaining walls. Now it turns out to be not enough, so the town is looking at destroying a forest upstream from Berkshire to build a several-acres storm-water collection pond. Look for increased taxes soon.
Too bad the Town Council thought the staff had all the answers and rammed through the comprehensive plan in record time instead of leading a visioning process that would have given the community an opportunity to learn about and understand each other's values, and be thoughtful about where we wanted the town to be in future decades.
If only someone had tried to get them to slow down and do it right. 🙄 Instead they played right into CHALT's hands and it just gets worse and worse.
https://orangepolitics.org/2011/04/initiating-matters
https://orangepolitics.org/2012/01/chapel-hill-2020-is-worth-doin
https://orangepolitics.org/2012/01/dont-rush-the-comprehensive-pl
And https://indyweek.com/news/orange/city-town-chapel-hill-s-2020-plan/:
"It's quite unheard of for any municipality to do a comprehensive plan in less than a year," Sinreich said. "Chapel Hill's process is nine months."
She added that the draft combines many ideas, some good and some bad, but fails to yield a "cohesive vision."
"I think that this plan is worse than no plan at all right now," Sinreich said. "It's a completely missed opportunity to actually talk to the community, find a vision and bring us together around that vision."
Regarding this point: "He expects that the Food Lion will close in the next few years, driving redevelopment of the shopping center, and that other retail developments may seek to redevelop as well." Which Food Lion?
I’m assuming the one at Ram’s Plaza, since so much change is ongoing in that area?
Yes, I think so.
I guess to those of you making points about CH taxes being too high, can't both be true? Can't the lack of strategic planning AND high taxes both be contributing to a direction that we may not want to be moving in (eg, squeezing out certain demographics)? I agree CH taxes are high, and I don't want to see them go up. But I agree wholeheartedly with the author that strategic planning and critical thinking about urban and community development would be time and resources well spent (and that subsequent action needs to be taken that is in line with whatever comes out of those strategic planning efforts). I don't think investing CH resources into that type of effort will result in even higher taxes. The tax issue is real, for sure, but a separate issue than the one raised by the author.
Geoff Green, I agree with you that there needs to be more single family housing in Chapel Hill and improved parks and pools. However, in the United States of America, it is not the job of the government to build houses. That is the job of land owners who own land and then builders who build buildings. The government on a federal, state, and local level in the USA is not very efficient. The only way to get to the vision you desire and to improve Chapel Hill housing is to have land owners and builders make this happen. There are major impediments to this that you leave out of your story. Chapel Hill is the most difficult place in the state to build with very stringent and odd building requirements, which prevent land owners and builders from embarking on new projects. The property tax rate is off the charts in Chapel Hill, about 1.4% of values. The NC average is closer to 0.7%.
My suggestion to you would be to buy some land and build the housing that you desire to live in and sell.
Respectfully, I believe you wildly misunderstand my point.
I realize I am a week late but I felt compelled to comment. I was born and raised in Chapel Hill as was my husband. We lived in Chapel Hill/Orange Co. for 23 years and recently moved to Mebane on the Alamance County side. We were looking to upgrade and our youngest is a sophomore in college so it was time for a change. We, mainly me, were extremely disheartened that we could not afford for our new home to be in the Chapel Hill/ Carrboro area. The home prices far exceeded what we could afford and property taxes made that hope even more unattainable. It makes me sad that there are no longer affordable homes in the area for Chapel Hill natives who fall in the middle class economic classification. It is sad that the town is losing economic and cultural diversity due to poor planning.
Having been in the market for a modest home in Chapel Hill for the past 2 years, I can say that this analysis is true.
If the general rule of thumb that a proper ratio of housing cost to annual income is 2.5:1, then the average 3-4 bedroom modest house in the Chapel Hill area (not talking about the in-town enclaves, but across Orange and Chatham counties) requires a minimum of $200k annual household income. In Carrboro - forget about it - that won't even buy a lot.
This is indeed starting to mirror the Bay Area - where now the dumpiest 2 bedroom ranch on a postage stamp lot is $2M. One of the core problems in the financial crisis in 2008-2009 was the creative financing that was squeezing people into these homes, when they didn't have the income to support it.
People are cashing out of their California homes, and moving to Boise Idaho, Austin Texas, and... Chapel Hill among others. With a million + cash in the bank, and a CA price perspective, they're increasingly dropping more and more on houses in Chapel Hill. Houses in Briar Chapel for example, which two years ago were $350k, are listing and selling in a day for over $500k.
Let's hope we're not headed for another 2008.
I doubt it - they’re probably paying cash for the houses they’re buying, coming from CA.
What a really biased perspective. The market works. If people have to commute in and find closer paying jobs, then we will have to increase wages and salaries to attract them to work here. It is simple and it works. No one is entitled to work and live in the some town. In my household, we do not work and live in the same place. We made that decision based on what was best for us and our budget. Other workers do the same. Are there people that would like to live in Chapel Hill but find other alternatives more affordable, of course. Is that bad, no. In fact, most of the people that I work with have been migrating over to Briar Chapel in Chatham because they can get a lot more house and pay lower taxes and still be nearby. Chapel Hill does not have to be everything to everybody. People can commute and we (employers in Chapel Hill) may have to pay them more to do that. It is simple and this is ridiculous.
The town has never turned down a development project, whether large or small, except for Carol Ann Zinn’s Aydan Court (a proposed apartment complex between Meadowmont and the game lands). There is by now an established game whereby the town pays a consultant for a dramatic report, like the one above. This promotes development, which forces the county, school district, and town to raise taxes. That’s how the town keeps up with garbage collection, policing, fire, road maintenance, new subsidies for housing, raises for staff, hiring new assistants for public relations and economic development, and more consultants.
Raising taxes, conveniently, drives out lower income and older homeowners standing in the way of gentrification, and prevents middle income families from moving in. It raises rents on apartment dwellers and retailers alike. In 20 years of watching, I have never seen the TOCH hire a consultant to tell mayor and council how much given development will cost in services at town, school district, and county levels. I think it’s because they don’t want to know. It’s easier (and more profitable for developer friends) to react to hysterical cries of “Apocalypse Now!” just as it’s easier for consultants to write that.
I totally agree. Our property taxes are the highest in the state. These taxes force the poor and middle class to sell their properties and move to wake, Chatham, and Durham. So what does the town do? Raise taxes for affordable housing, and build apartment complexes that are unappealing to families and an eyesore for the public.
Thank you both for reading! As to the tax question, this doesn’t follow at all. As I pointed out earlier this year, the Berkshire apartment complex pays $1.16 million in property taxes (whether it’s full or empty!) and its construction required very little new maintenance responsibilities by the town — no new roads to be maintained (as is the case with a new single-family subdivision), a small percentage of the residents likely have children of school age due to the configuration of the apartments, the town didn’t subsidize their construction, and services like garbage collection, etc. are either more efficient than other types of housing development because they’re serving hundreds of people at one stop OR they may actually be privately contracted by the complex.
And of course, the town hasn’t built apartment complexes, private developers have done so, largely in Blue Hill, which is the only place the Town has made it easy for anyone to do development.
What the consultant was attacking was our inability to do any planning which is the necessary precondition to getting other types of development that we might like. Infill townhouses. For-sale apartment condos that empty nesters might want to move into. Townhouses for young professionals who are ready to move on from an apartment but who can’t afford a detached single-family home. People renting in Chapel Hill who want these types of housing options are moving to Durham or Raleigh. Why are won’t we producing them here? It has less to do with taxes and more to do with a development philosophy that fails to set forth a coherent vision and set of regulations which means only because large-, well-capitalized developers doing large projects are the only ones who can afford to run the advisory board-council-public involvement gauntlet required for each project.
Chapel hill property taxes are high, which means that only the wealthy can afford to live here. My former modest home in Chapel Hill, a 2500 brick ranch, was appraised at 430k, and had property taxes of $7,300 per year. There are many homes in historic black neighborhoods that have houses currently assessed at $500-$600k. What do people do when they cant afford the taxes? They move. Orange County is 1 of 2 in NC where the black population declined.
Sure the Berkshire pays a chunk of property taxes. But it demands services, particularly, expensive additions to the fire department (did you know a “hook and ladder” costs over $1,000,000 and requires 3 shifts of 8 people each to man it? Also, collective trash collection is a net cost to the town. And, the town spent big time on storm water basin collecting Berkshire’s runoff, built a little road in back, and then, retaining walls. Now it turns out to be not enough, so the town is looking at destroying a forest upstream from Berkshire to build a several-acres storm-water collection pond. Look for increased taxes soon.