All posts in category Northside

Two views of affordable housing

I attended two events over the weekend that showed the complicated issue of boosting the amount of affordable housing, from the perspective of the investor and the end-user. Each left me somewhat disheartened. Community Empowerment Fund’s “Affordable Housing: The Musical” poked fun at council members, developers and others in the community while sharing the experiences […]

How old is too old?

Age discrimination reared its ugly head at last week’s Town Council meeting. And this time, because we were talking about edifices, the youngster took the hit. Staff made two proposals — the first to donate town-owned land to be used to relocate nearly century-old tiny houses to be used for affordable housing; and the second, […]

Won’t you be my neighbor?

Is all affordable housing good? Is it morally defensible to put affordable housing somewhere that you wouldn’t put other housing? These questions came to mind last Wednesday during a Chapel Hill Town Council meeting at which representatives of the town’s Office for Housing and Community proposed putting affordable housing on three parcels of town-owned land […]

Mama Dip’s Legacy

Chapel Hill laid to rest one of its better-known and much-revered residents yesterday. Mildred Council died May 20 at age 89. Unexpectedly, perhaps because she was an icon, and we all thought that Mama Dip would always be there. She always was there, for anyone in the community who could use a meal or two […]

High-Rent District

I sat on the stoop of my 1940 Cape Cod and surveyed the view — one-bedroom brick-ranch duplexes and frumpy 1930s bungalows, SUVs spilling off gravel driveways onto lawns of hard-packed red clay tufted with weeds — and thought, “Wow, I’ve made it. I now live in the high-rent section of town.” According to a […]

Building community

When the Habitat for Humanity staffer asked, “Who’s not afraid of heights?” I raised my hand. I should have thought it through. But at 8:30 Saturday morning, with the temperatures still in the 70s and standing in the shade of a large, leafy tree, I didn’t pay attention to the fact that the unroofed part […]

Talk, listen, change

Former UNC Police Officer Keith Edwards, the first black woman on the force, objected to a less-experienced white male officer getting a promotion and raise ahead of her. One day when she walked into the campus police office, she overheard two white male officers complaining about the ensuing court case. “I wish Keith had never […]

Do-good discount

You get what you incentivize, or so hopes Todd Neal, a Northside landlord. Neal sees the benefit of having more people in the neighborhood who care about the community. To attract those civic-minded tenants, he is offering a rent discount of up to $50 a month to tenants who will volunteer up to 6 hours […]

Winding down or unraveling?

I’ve heard tales of people, upon receiving an eviction notice, vandalizing the very place they call home. At the Nov. 16 meeting, we saw a bit of that behavior by some council members wrapping up their terms and others anxious about the change that newly elected officials might bring. The meeting opened with a developer […]

How about yours?

Community members at last Monday’s Town Council meeting turned the “not in my backyard” philosophy on its head, asking instead, “Why not your backyard?” At the Sept. 21 meeting, developers presented their proposed plan for Amity Station, a tall apartment building on West Rosemary Street where Breadman’s sits now. The parcel is in the Northside […]