Last week, the mayors of Chapel Hill and Carrboro held a press conference to wring their hands over the affordable housing crisis wrought by owner/investors of workforce apartment complexes no longer accepting Section 8 vouchers because those owner/investors realized they could install granite countertops and double the rent. While the mayors were pleading with those […]
All posts in category Lifestyle
Granite countertop city
Posted by Nancy Oates on August 11, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/08/11/granite-countertop-city/
Waldon’s world
Chapel Hill has the potential to be someplace really special, if we could only articulate it. The town’s former planning director, Roger Waldon, who now makes his living guiding developers through the town’s rezoning and special use permit approval process, discovered that the articulation part is harder than it looks. In an editorial published last […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on July 28, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/07/28/waldons-world/
Is the thrill gone?
I had a conversation not long ago with a musician, a mixed-race man in his mid-20s working a day job unrelated to music as he got his career started. At one point he asked where I was from, and I told him I lived in Chapel Hill. His eyes lit up. “I call it Chapel […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on June 23, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/06/23/is-the-thrill-gone/
Wreck-reation
Folks who attended the Town Council meeting Monday night in the Southern Human Services building off Homestead Road were treated to new definitions of recreation space. The meeting included a continuation of a hearing on the proposal by Blue Heron to expand the Timber Hollow apartments by adding 109 housing units. Fancy units would be […]
Posted by Don Evans on April 29, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/04/29/wreck-reation/
See schools run
Recently, I listened to a couple of longtime friends reminisce about their early days as first-graders at Glenwood Elementary School. Both of them entered first grade already knowing how to read. They were put into the Dick and Jane reading group. Average readers were sent to the Spot and Puff group. Those not yet able […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on April 21, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/04/21/see-schools-run/
Office-retail only
Ellie Kinnaird’s voice was drowned out during her final years in the N.C. Senate by affluent colleagues who, having reached a high level of creature comfort, put in place policies that closed off that path to others. After several years of advocating for laws that made life better for residents in all socio-economic classes, Kinnaird […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on April 14, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/04/14/office-retail-only/
Hometown brand
Driving home from Raleigh one spring night with my car windows rolled down, I stopped at a traffic light. A car pulled up beside me, and the driver hollered out, “You must be going to Chapel Hill. I can tell by your bumper stickers.” Chapel Hill used to be known as an enclave for liberals: […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on April 7, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/04/07/hometown-brand/
Public-private = win-win
Chapel Hill needs a Stuyvesant Town, a large-scale complex of safe, well-built, no-frills apartments with rents affordable to your average working stiff. For some years during my New York days I lived in Stuy Town, an 11,000-unit complex built on 80 acres of what used to house leaky gas storage tanks and businesses and apartments […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 31, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/03/31/public-private-win-win/
To our health
At the Feb. 24 Town Council meeting, a community member asked council members to pass a resolution urging Gov. Pat McCrory and the General Assembly to accept the opportunity to expand Medicaid, an option made available by the Affordable Care Act. The cost would be paid for by federal taxpayers, 100% for the first three […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 3, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/03/03/to-our-health-2/
Senior special
A concept plan for a dense subdivision on the agenda at last week’s council meeting drew not a single resident to protest. Maybe this developer knew to schedule his presentation at the exact same time as a UNC men’s basketball game, or maybe this developer offered something that many of us have been waiting years […]
Posted by Nancy Oates on February 24, 2014
http://chapelhillwatch.com/2014/02/24/senior-special/