“Trickle-down” economics doesn’t work. Not for tax policy, as we learned during the Reagan administration, and not for housing affordability, as we are seeing in Chapel Hill. Yet some candidates for Town Council persist in claiming that building more luxury high-rise apartments like the Berkshire on Elliot Rd. will somehow bring down the cost of local rents.
It ain’t so, as John Quinterno explained in a 2015 article in the News and Observer. Prior town leaders believed erroneously that simple laws of supply and demand could be applied to complex housing market dynamics such that expanding the housing supply would cause the price of housing to fall. Armed with this faith, Quinterno wrote, Town leaders mistakenly steered Chapel Hill from a path of deliberate development onto one of rapid growth – a shift embodied in the mushrooming across town of high-rise, high-rent apartment towers.
What has been the result? Fast-track project approvals that award permits to developers without any opportunity for public input and new construction that enriches out-of-town investors while imposing fiscal, environmental, and congestion costs on the local population. But housing has not become more affordable. In fact, there has been a net loss of housing for low- and moderate-income households in the five years since “wild west” zoning was adopted for the Ephesus-Fordham (“Blue Hill”) district. The lowering of town standards and doing away with public review did work, because there was a rush of new owners from out of town to the district. The result? The district contains 1630 new apartments as a result of the economic stimulus that was applied and prices have not come down.
Zoning changes can cause displacement of lower cost housing. A good example is the interest by owners to redevelop their trailer parks like the one located across the street from Timberlyne Shopping Plaza. In essence, private parties want the public to create wealth for them by rezoning the property and at the same time that action would displace many residents. The only reason why the property was potentially worth as much as the developer was willing to pay was because the rezoning would allow them to build more. Fortunately Council Member Jessica Anderson and others pushed back on that effort.
The gentrification encouraged by the loosening of the Town’s development standards is best exemplified by the destruction of the moderately-priced Park Apartments, pictured here, in order to build in its place several hundred new high-priced units. Around 200 families were displaced, most of whom have had to move out of Chapel Hill in order to find housing they can afford. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and the candidates endorsed by the ostensibly progressive INDY and Sierra Club seemed determined to do just that. Chapel Hill voters, however, can learn from the mistakes of the past and elect thoughtful leaders such as Jess Anderson, Nancy Oates, Amy Ryan, and Renuka Soll who will stop subsidizing the destruction of the Town’s affordable housing stock and will instead pursue effective strategies for making Chapel Hill a truly inclusive community.
Note: the intent of this article is to discuss whether the Form based code was effective in delivering affordable housing and community benefits that were promised in return for “fast track” review authority. There is a common consensus that the Code has failed in its objectives to achieve community benefits. The frustration felt by citizens who were part of the Town Code deliberations in no way is directed toward the residents of the apartments who now live there.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/community/chapel-hill-news/chn-opinion/article43667409.html