Chapel Hill residents take housing affordability seriously. Are we on Town Council poised to undermine progress we’ve made? The budget we passed last week included a property tax increase that would fund the $10 million bond voters approved last year to be spent on increasing the supply of affordable housing. Some years back, council approved […]
All posts in category Housing
Kneecapping our best intentions
Posted by Nancy Oates on June 17, 2019
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/06/17/kneecapping-our-best-intentions/
If we build it …
Which came first — residents with a plethora of discretionary income? Or craft breweries, tapas bars and the availability of Starbucks’ White Chocolate Mocha Frappuccino on every street corner? If we build it, they will come, goes the adage. Last Friday morning at the town’s Economic Sustainability Committee meeting, Alisa Duffey Rogers, project manager of […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on June 10, 2019
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/06/10/if-we-build-it/
Rogers Road victory
The historically black Rogers Road neighborhood crossed the finish line this past week on quality-of-life improvements years in the making. Town Council approved rezoning that would protect the neighborhood from the over-development expected once the sewer line extends into the area. The neighborhood, north of Homestead Road and east of Rogers Road, sits just south […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on May 27, 2019
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/05/27/rogers-road-victory/
Women helping women
I go to a lot of meetings, and some of them are productive. Some lay the groundwork for future success. Others are simply vehicles for egos to preen. To offset the waste of time of the latter, I occasionally volunteer with Habitat for Humanity. It is satisfying to see what can be accomplished by a […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on May 6, 2019
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/05/06/women-helping-women/
Our tenuous link to history
I haven’t been inside the Cathedral of Notre Dame since I went sightseeing after running the Paris Marathon some 30 years ago. Yet when I heard about the fire that destroyed the ceiling and spire of the 800-year-old church, it felt like a personal loss. In his book Why Old Places Matter, Tom May, the […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on April 22, 2019
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/04/22/our-tenuous-link-to-history/
Sanctuary city
A couple of years ago, after Donald Trump had taken office and begun threatening punishments to sanctuary cities, a member of the Justice in Action Committee proposed that Chapel Hill take a stand and declare itself a sanctuary city. After all, the committee member pointed out, we behave like one. My response at the time […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on April 15, 2019
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/04/15/sanctuary-city/
Whose opportunity?
Trump has come to Chapel Hill. The federal Tax Cuts & Jobs Act, signed into law in December 2017, created an investment vehicle to allow the very wealthy to avoid paying taxes. The idea was presented to the public as a way to attract new development to high-poverty areas. A thousand such areas were identified […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on April 8, 2019
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/04/08/whose-opportunity/
Losing our towns
When we take road trips, I sometimes like to get off the interstate and drive some state and county roads to see the different Americas in our country. There are so many. Over the decades that I’ve done this, I’ve come to appreciate the stability of life in small and midsize towns, despite the vastly […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 25, 2019
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/03/25/losing-our-towns/
Words matter
For our rehearsal dinner, my husband-to-be and I wanted to serve a carrot cake from a restaurant that was special to us. The restaurant owner gave our contact information to the woman who baked the cakes. The next day her husband called and explained that his wife was an opera singer and baked the cakes […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 4, 2019
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/03/04/words-matter/
Ask the neighbors
The road to redevelopment is paved with community meetings, as residents in the Rogers Road area found out, and residents on the southern edge of the Greene Tract wished they’d found out. At last week’s Town Council meeting, we received an update on staff’s plans to create a zoning overlay for several parcels of land […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on February 25, 2019
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/02/25/ask-the-neighbors/