Rising above

I landed in London as the British were waking up to Boris Johnson’s landslide victory. Over the course of the ensuing few days, I chatted with people I met about what they thought of the election outcome. Their responses lead me to predict four more years of Donald Trump.

Johnson’s wide margin of victory surprised many people, as did the large number of working class voters, who traditionally support the Labor Party but switched allegiance to the Conservative Party. It was not unlike blue-collar workers in the U.S. abandoning the Democratic Party to vote Republican, a party that prioritizes the wealthy at the expense of the modestly paid.

The U.K., England in particular, share similar socioeconomic challenges: insufficient affordable housing, stagnant upward mobility and competition for low-skilled jobs. Londoners I spoke with linked everything to a too generous immigration policy.

As a tourist, I found the ethnic diversity to be part of London’s charm. I heard dozens of different languages from people with a wide range of skin tones and clothing styles. I had many more options for food than what I’m used to in Chapel Hill.

But the Londoners I spoke with who held jobs that in the U.S. would be modestly paid saw that diversity as competition: for jobs, for inexpensive housing; for appointment slots in the socialized medicine system (although limiting immigration would reduce the number of doctors and nurses). Then there’s the history of the independence of the British Empire, underscoring the appeal of separating from the European Union.

Great Britain has some turmoil ahead as it works through Brexit. Likewise, the working class and middle class in the U.S. will struggle under an extended reign of Trump. What can we, as a town, do to mitigate that impact?

Clear a path for upward mobility. Given that Trump’s actions have inflicted the greatest pain on those at the lower end of the income scale, smooth the way for people to scootch up. The surest way to increase generational financial stability is through homeownership. In the U.K. and many European countries, lenders require 20%-50% down payment for a home, ensuring that only those with significant means already can hope to buy a home.

Buyers in the U.S. can borrow with only 3% down. A town program I pushed for gives town employees up to $7,500 toward a down payment, but not all employees are aware of the perk. Publicize that benefit.

Increase funding for Community Home Trust to expand its supply of affordable housing.

Prioritize the development of condos, townhomes and single-family housing over apartments that trap those of modest means in a vortex of increasing rents.

By moving up the socioeconomic ladder, people can move away from being targeted by Trump.

— Nancy Oates

by on December 23, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Community life, Housing, Politics, Town staff
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Posted by Nancy Oates on December 23, 2019

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/12/23/rising-above/

Winning or transforming?

“North Korea Threatens to Resume Calling Trump a ‘Dotard’ ” — headline in Time newsfeed

We have hit a new low when name-calling and bullying pass as leadership. Seeing this headline on the heels of having listened to the impeachment hearings over the past couple of weeks underscores our need for a different form of leadership.

Our decline in leadership didn’t happen overnight. Politics has long tainted good decision-making. While comprise is necessary to move a divided board forward, the distressing trend is that an obsession with winning has filtered down from the national and international realm to state, county and local governance.

I had a scales-fall-from-my-eyes moment a couple of years ago when another council member was lobbying me before an upcoming vote. I heard her out but wouldn’t commit to how I would vote until I went to the council meeting that night and heard what others on council had to say and, most importantly, heard from the public. In frustration, the council member lashed out: “Do you want [name of another council member] to win?”

We need to focus instead on good decision-making, what moves all of our constituents forward, not just those with deep pockets who fund our election campaigns.

I recall a comment made by another council member that he considered those of us on council to be Chapel Hill’s elite because only nine people in town sit on the board. That council member’s votes reflected his priority of catering to the well-heeled, not the entire electorate.

We need leadership focused on transforming what doesn’t work for our entire constituency. This week is the final week to file to run for a seat on the board of Orange County commissioners. If you have the drive to serve residents of all income levels, to restore balance to our community, and to make good decisions a priority over personal winning, please step forward and file. We need your leadership.

— Nancy Oates

by on December 16, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Community life, Council Members, Politics
Posted by Nancy Oates on December 16, 2019

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/12/16/winning/

Hospitality

Staff at the Durham Performing Arts Center have that hospitality thing down pat. Even if your ticket is for a seat in the very last row of the upper balcony, DPAC staff welcome you as if they are delighted that you’ve accepted their invitation to their soiree. Yet, statistically, a certain percentage of them have had a bad day and didn’t want to go to work that night. But no matter what may be going on in their personal lives, they work hard to make sure you have a wonderful evening, feel valued and likely will come back again.

I was chatting with one staff member before I found my seat, and I asked whether she had seen the show. She shook her head no. Don’t you get to slip into an empty seat after the show starts or get an employee discount for tickets on your night off?

No, and no.

That seemed wrong to me, that the people who work so hard to make DPAC a success can’t enjoy the benefit of seeing the shows.

After that night’s performance ended, I drove back home to Chapel Hill, where many of the people who work so hard to make our town a success can’t reap the benefits of living here.

That has to change. That’s why I came to advocate before council as a community member for years before I was elected. That underpinned many of my votes on council. And that’s what will bring me back to council chambers to speak as a community member going forward.

Living in Chapel Hill has so many advantages. Excellent schools; fare-free buses; nice recreational facilities and a superb senior center; cultural arts venues and lots of trees. Why should Chapel Hill be open only to those who can afford to pay the high admission price of housing? Why not have the housing equivalent of an employee discount?

I’m not talking only about municipal workers. People who make our town successful include the waitstaff, dishwashers, bartenders and line cooks of the many independently owned fine restaurants; the groundskeepers who keep the campus lovely; the housekeeping and kitchen staff at the hospital; grocery store stockers and cashiers; the people who teach our children and care for our aging parents.

Council has so many opportunities to move us toward making room for those who work here to live here. Yet too often council votes reflect what is politically expedient, without regard for the impact those decisions have on individual lives.

We need only five council members who get it to start making progress. Let’s begin educating them.

— Nancy Oates

by on December 9, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Council Members, Housing, Lifestyle, Politics, Town staff
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Posted by Nancy Oates on December 9, 2019

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/12/09/hospitality/

Speak for the trees

When development proposals came before Town Council, Jim Ward, council member from 1999 to 2015, could be relied upon to speak for the trees. When I joined council and he did not get re-elected, I took on that mantle. Now I’m leaving council, and no one has emerged to protect our environment in this fundamental way.

So many people in town have said, to me specifically and to council formally in petitions, that they value trees. People who had never before voiced concerns about development reached out to council members when the owner of a parcel of land on the corner of Estes Drive and MLK Jr. Boulevard that is taxed as a tree farm harvested the wood by clear-cutting. Many of us similarly mourned the loss when another landowner clear-cut hardwoods and pines from several acres in Carrboro, west of Seawell School Road. Likewise the land north of Eubanks Road bulldozed to prepare for Carraway Village and now sits baked like a brick, waiting for businesses to come.

Trees add more than grace and beauty to our town. They cool the air temperature, and most importantly, they soak up carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. Carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas that depletes ozone and contributes to global warming.

We may not feel the effects of global warming much in Chapel Hill. We have more frequent heavy rains that flood homes, but then we bail out and continue life as usual.

But I live in an international community, and my neighbors tell me of the impacts felt around the world. When they visit relatives and friends in far-off places, they tell of how those places have changed in recent years. Flooding in Venice that has harmed centuries-old buildings and destroyed ancient artwork. Higher death rates among oyster divers who have to go farther out into deeper waters and succumb to the bends. The death of coral reefs, the oceanic version of the canary in the coal mine. The deforestation of Brazil and the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

Town staff recently launched a plan to plant 200 trees over the coming year to celebrate Chapel Hill’s 200th birthday. That shows excellent foresight. Over time, if cared for properly, those 2-inch caliper saplings will grow into majestic, hard-working trees. In the short-term, they can’t make up for the loss of mature trees that occurs every time council approves a development and doesn’t specify that specimen trees be preserved and that setbacks not be clear-cut.

When some of us on council objected to UNC Health Care’s request to build in a natural heritage forest on its Eastowne property, UNC-HC pushed back saying that the town had not indicated the land was not developable before UNC-HC bought it. Later in that same council meeting, we talked about the Future Land Use Map. I urged staff to review the areas it has marked for high-density development to understand what we would be losing once that development comes to pass.

When I’m no longer on council, will anyone speak for the trees?

— Nancy Oates

by on December 2, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Elections, Environment, Land Use, Trees, UNC
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Posted by Nancy Oates on December 2, 2019

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/12/02/speak-for-the-trees/

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 of people who became homeless. The production explicated the varied interests of town residents layered onto decisions about affordable housing that can paralyze council from acting.

Good for CEF for holding council accountable to our campaign promises of supporting affordable housing.

One flaw in the musical’s premise, though, was that if we clearcut all greenspace and replace all parks with public housing projects, we’ll fill the need for affordable housing. That plan will only deprive people of modest means a free amenity. We’ll never fill the need for affordable housing, but we can make progress by redeveloping what we have.

A public housing complex has sat empty for nearly three years, and we haven’t decided what to do with it. Earlier this year, we received permission for RAD funding to redevelop and increase the density of other public housing sites, but we haven’t started the discussion yet. When we press developers to provide units in exchange for a rezoning, we ask for a low AMI threshold that results in a pitifully small number of units. Or we accept only a tiny amount of payment-in-lieu.

(The musical’s message was undercut somewhat by a cast member who had teamed up with a council member to quash a project that would have provided more than 30 apartments affordable in perpetuity to those making no more than 60% of the Area Median Income, plus given an additional $1 million for affordable housing off site.)

The show started and ended with a plaintive song from low-income characters who belted out the chorus: “What about us?”

That’s where the conference I went to Friday comes in. The Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, part of UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, hosted “Investing in Affordable Housing,” inviting investors, developers, affordable housing providers and a few elected officials to hear from experts in the field and get us all talking with one another.

One breakout session focused on emerging affordable housing models, of which there are precious few, and another laid out a proforma for a typical multifamily housing development and explained what factors affect the profit margin. Discouragingly thin margins and few levers that can be shifted to increase profits.

I had wanted the conference to inspire all those men with money to invest in housing for middle-class and working-class folks. Although the presenters did a fine job of demystifying who might hold what jobs at different annual income levels — underscoring that a balanced town needs to have housing options for people in a wide range of incomes — the thin profit margins revealed in the proforma session may have caused investors to dismiss the opportunity to invest in affordable housing.

I can only hope that the proforma session showed where the pinch points were, and the investors focused on the strong market demand for an affordable “product” and set their minds to finding ways to overcome the obstacles.

— Nancy Oates

by on November 25, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Council Members, Housing, Land Use, Northside, Politics
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Posted by Nancy Oates on November 25, 2019

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/11/25/2852/

Community Home Trust’s next chapter

When Robert Dowling accepted the offer Joe Cook and two colleagues extended in 1997 to head what would become Community Home Trust, Cook had one and only one directive. He shook hands with Dowling and said, “Don’t screw up.”

And 22 years later, we can testify that Dowling heeded that advice. Having launched the nonprofit that now has 318 permanently affordable homes, Dowling will retire in early January.

A former banker, Dowling had been on a committee that advised the Orange Community Housing Corp., which incorporated in 1990. After he was hired to a paying position, he led the formation of the Community Land Trust in 1999, which sold its first permanently affordable house, using the land trust model, in Carrboro, in 2000. CLT and OCHC merged in 2001 to form the Orange Community Housing and Land Trust. As the organization grew, its name shrank, to Community Home Trust.

Dowling built CHT from scratch without a recipe, learning from mistakes along the way. In 2001, Town Council began asking developers to provide affordable housing in exchange for a rezoning to higher density, and the stock of affordable units increased steadily. CHT has single-family houses, townhouses and condos.

In 2017, CHT bought The Landings, a 58-unit apartment complex in the Winmore development in Carrboro, out of receivership. Over the past two years, CHT has made repairs and other efforts to return the complex to a safe and nice place to live for very low-income tenants. Earlier this year, CHT took on a master lease for five units in Glen Lennox to house people at risk of homelessness.

But last year, Dowling announced he was ready to retire. Our board hired Kimberly Sanchez, a housing lawyer from Florida, and Dowling will help her get acclimated to the community before he hands over the reins on Jan. 10.

Dowling hasn’t made any decisions yet about the next phase of his life. He plans to stay in the neighborhood, though, and he’ll be easy to reach, if Sanchez needs some inside information. Her leadership style will be different, and she’ll have new ideas. I have every confidence she will continue the success that Dowling started.

— Nancy Oates

by on November 18, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Housing, Land Use
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Posted by Nancy Oates on November 18, 2019

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/11/18/community-home-trusts-next-chapter/

Beyond Benetton

Funny, I would have expected UNC students to be more woke.

Last week The Daily Tar Heel editors chose to write a story about a UNC graduate student who did not get appointed to a town advisory board. The town receives many applications for a limited number of vacant advisory board seats, so applicants are more likely to be turned down than appointed. Periodically, we get a flurry of applications from undergrads or grad students who believe serving on a town board will make their resume stand out, or they are applying as part of a class assignment.

But last week, a grad student who did not get appointed to the Transportation and Connectivity Advisory Board took umbrage because council members appointed someone who is completely dependent on public transit, instead of the grad student who rides his bike.

A little background on the makeup of the TCAB: It has very little turnover, and everyone on it is a serious cyclist. The recommendations that come from that board tend to be homogenous and focused on what’s best for bikes.

Because the best decisions come from groups that have members with different perspectives, council would like to add some diversity to boards — people who stand on different viewing platforms to look at an issue, so the group can get a more complete understanding of the problem and possible solutions.

But the UNC student expressed his hurt and frustration on Twitter, and apparently some council members responded, and before you know it, the situation becomes newsworthy.

It seems the tension comes from disagreement over what “diversity” means. The grad student, who identified himself on the application as black, objected to council members appointing the transit-dependent applicant, who described himself as white.

If we merely decorate our advisory boards with a sprinkling of people of color or ethnicities, we have not created a diverse board. Rather, we must pay attention to lived experience, career path, passions and outside-the-box ideas.

The DTH editorial board and the disappointed applicant are our future leaders. It troubled me that they seemed to focus only on appearances. Our leaders can’t make good decisions if they’re more concerned with how things look than on solving problems. Simply making our boards look like a Benetton ad (and note that Benetton’s diversity does not extend to people who are not physically fit) won’t necessarily give us the diversity we need.

— Nancy Oates

by on November 11, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Community life, Media
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Posted by Nancy Oates on November 11, 2019

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/11/11/beyond-benetton/

VOTE!

Over the past few weeks that I’ve walked through neighborhoods, canvassing voters, I’ve seen some truly lovely homes. Places that are sanctuaries from the problems and corrosive encounters with the world at large. Beautiful views; lush greenery; maybe a bubbling fountain to calm and rejuvenate one’s spirit. When the going gets tough, these folks have a place where they can retreat.

But they don’t retreat. The people on my walk lists are reliable voters. When I knock on their doors, they ask questions, they read my pamphlet, they make time to educate themselves about local issues and where candidates stand.

They give me hope.

I always return from canvassing energized. People in upscale homes who have the money to insulate themselves from harshness, instead stay involved and vote for those who put change into action. People in more modest circumstances, who continually deal with the vicissitudes of life, don’t give up. Instead, they go vote.

Tuesday, Nov. 5, is Election Day, your opportunity to change your world. Local elections sometimes have a greater impact on your day-to-day quality of life than national elections do.

I understand that all of us want a good life, and that the vision for a “good” life varies with each of us. Part of my job on council is to remove obstacles that stand between you and success.

I never forget I work for you.

I’m asking for your vote to retain my seat on council for one more term. Thank you for caring about the town.

— Nancy Oates

by on November 4, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Community life, Council Members, Elections, Lifestyle, Politics
Posted by Nancy Oates on November 4, 2019

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/11/04/vote/

Look before you vote

I flat out enjoy canvassing. When else can I knock on a stranger’s door and start a conversation? After weeks of traipsing through neighborhoods all over town, I feel confident about giving directions to any Amazon Prime driver.

Regardless of what part of town I’m in, someone on whose door I’ve knocked will ask me, “What’s with all those ugly apartment buildings on Fordham?”

Those voters are referring to the the massive luxury apartment buildings — most of them still under construction — in the area known as Blue Hill, near the intersection of Fordham Boulevard and Ephesus Church Road. The Town Council in 2014, the year before I was elected, approved a form-based code to spur development. As long as the developer met a checklist of requirements, the town manager had to approve the proposal. The project would never come before council for ways to make it better.

The council at the time consciously declined to include any expectation for affordable housing, Blue Hill became a magnet for luxury apartments because it was the only place in town where developers could build without having to contribute anything toward housing for the modestly paid.

Within a matter of months, outraged voters ushered out three of the four incumbents up for election. (One seat was already vacant due to the resignation of an incumbent to take a job overseas.) I was one of the four newbies voted in.

When I explain all this, the next question I hear is, “Why haven’t you fixed it yet?”

State law makes it very tricky to retrofit a form-based code to include a requirement for affordable housing when the legislature says we can’t impose any requirement that limits the profit landowners can make on their property.

We have made some changes to keep more of the same from being built. We’ve included a requirement for a minimum of 10% of the square footage to be commercial space. The original concept for Blue Hill envisioned significantly more commercial development, which rakes in tax revenue for the town, and our changes are a step toward that end.

The changes we’ve made have been hard won in a council that has different visions for what Chapel Hill should look like in the future. In this current election, with four of us incumbents (the fifth incumbent opted not to run again) wanting to retain our seats and five challengers wanting us out, we could see those hard-won gains wiped away. Please make time to educate yourself on each candidate’s vision for Chapel Hill.

I stand on my record of thoughtful growth for a balanced town that makes room for people who work here to live here. I’m asking for your vote to put my experience to work for you for four more years on council.

— Nancy Oates

by on October 28, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Council Members, Elections, Housing, Land Use, Politics
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Posted by Nancy Oates on October 28, 2019

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/10/28/look-before-you-vote/

How to be inclusive

We can’t legislate kindness. If we could, that would have been my answer to a question posed at the candidates forum hosted by WCHL last week. Chapelboro on-air personality Aaron Keck, who moderated the forum, asked candidates: What’s the most important thing Chapel Hill can do to make itself a more welcoming and inclusive community?

Inclusivity starts and ends with individuals. If we want to be an inclusive town, then we, as individuals, must speak up when we hear someone making fun of or tossing off a derogatory comment about another person for being different.

We’ve all witnessed eye-rolling or sneers or a snarky response to someone who lives differently or who has nontraditional ideas or is different through no fault of their own. That’s when we must speak up to tell the bully how his or her hurtful behavior directed at someone else has hurts us.

I would expect all of us in leadership positions to do that. Here’s the caveat: If you speak up, it won’t end well for you.

I’ve been speaking up since grade school, and never once in those 50-plus years has a bully responded by saying, “Thank you for sharing how my behavior affects you. Now that I’ve seen the light, I’ll change.”

No, once you speak up, you’ll be one of the bully’s targets, often through some form of social isolation — the bully will stop speaking to you or start a whispered smear campaign against you.

But if we want to be an inclusive community, we have to behave like an inclusive community. That means speaking up to set our boundaries against meanness, so we create an environment where differences can thrive.

I’m supposed to end every forum by saying some version of “Vote for me,” so I’ll do it here. Vote for me, but more important: Speak up.

— Nancy Oates

by on October 21, 2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Community life, Ethics, Lifestyle, Politics
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Posted by Nancy Oates on October 21, 2019

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2019/10/21/how-to-be-inclusive/

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