Unintended consequences

We’ll give Jim Ward the benefit of the doubt that his heart was in the right place when he directed Loryn Clark to focus affordable housing funds on the people who make 30 percent of the Area Median Income.

At the March 18 Town Council meeting, Clark, the Planning Department’s neighborhood and community services manager, made a pitch for how Community Development Block Grant and HOME funds should be spent on affordable housing. CDBG funds and HOME funding come from the federal government, and Clark expects that they will be cut by at least 5 percent. That, combined with difficulties modest-income people have in getting mortgages under the tighter criteria imposed after the economic meltdown in 2008, make affordable rentals all the more important.

Cutoff points for receiving financial assistance frequently are tied to the Area Median Income (a number set by U.S. Housing and Urban Development) and the number of people in the household. The Metropolitan Statistical Area that Chapel Hill falls into has an AMI of $67,700. To be eligible to purchase a home from Community Home Trust, for instance, buyers for the most part can have an annual household income of no more than 80 percent of the AMI, which, for a two-person household is $43,350.

Donna Bell pointed out that the combined income for a couple who both work at modest-income jobs could easily exceed that limit, and it didn’t seem fair to shut them out of decent housing. Exactly. That’s what people have been trooping up to the Town Council podium to plea for week after week: the preservation of modest-income housing.

Of course, people who make 30 percent of the AMI need taxpayer support. But that shouldn’t come at the expense of the people who work to keep our town running – those who serve us the multiple lattes we order every week, who keep the buildings and grounds of UNC and the hospitals in ship-shape, who clean us up in the hospital when we’re incapacitated by illness, who whisk away our garbage and sort our recycling, and many, many more folks who perform similar low-profile services in return for modest paychecks. Those folks should not have to commute in from miles away. They are a part of our community, and they deserve to live in decent housing in town.

Shunting more aid to the destitute consequently punishes those working hard to become upwardly mobile. Ward means well, but he needs to step back and let Loryn Clark do her job.
– Nancy Oates

by on March 25, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Housing, Lifestyle
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Posted by Nancy Oates on March 25, 2013

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/03/25/unintended-consequences/

A representative view

Former Town Council member Julie McClintock, who also worked for the EPA, has participated in many planning efforts. She offers her reaction to the town’s priority-budgeting survey:

In a recent email from the Town, I was invited to take a budget survey to show “what [I] value.”

Since I’m an engaged citizen, I took the survey. I now have a queasy feeling about my responses and wonder how they might be used. I know it’s a tough budget year, and it’s reasonable that our town administrators want some idea of what people think before they increase taxes — something I’ve been expecting for a while, since depleting the town’s reserves is not sustainable.

The survey questions were indefinable and ambiguous, so I could not tell what I was ranking or how it applied to town services. For instance:

5. Rank each of the Town’s Safety Objectives from most important to least:

Regulatory Compliance – Ensures regulatory compliance in order to protect property, the environment and the lives of its residents and visitors
Emergency – Protects the community by justly enforcing the law, promptly responding to calls for service and being prepared for all emergency situations
Safe Environment – Creates a secure, well-regulated, well-maintained community that is healthy, clean, well-lit and visually attractive
Community Presence – Fosters a feeling of personal safety through a visible and approachable presence that ensures proactive prevention and responds to community concerns

If I want more police to deal with the rash of break-ins we’ve seen in Chapel Hill this spring, which one do I rank highly? From these confusing choices, how could staff make valid conclusions that reflect community values, the stated purpose of the survey?

So here’s my survey response. I expect Chapel Hill to be able to provide high quality public safety, waste/recycling collection and first-rate recreation. After all, we’ve been doing those things for a long time. I’m pleased the town re-upped our commitment to a premier public library. I like our free bus system — but now that we have embraced the regional transportation plan, the stakes are higher. In that context, I’d like to see a hard look at our local bus system to find ways to better service our residents — not just students and employees of UNC. Oh, I fully expect to achieve this without compromising the environment — particularly water quality — and in a way that enriches the quality of life for every homeowner who has made Chapel Hill their home.

I’ll add — although it never came up in the survey — that I fully support including community members in planning the density of downtown and the land use map for the 2020 focus areas in a way that does not compromise the taxpayers who are funding the town today. Certainly property owners in Chapel Hill have the right to enjoy predictable zoning and a development planning process that makes protecting existing properties a priority.

None of my priorities were evident in the survey — and now I wonder whether I should have responded at all. I wish that the Town and the Council had used the opportunity to communicate clearly and directly with its citizens. Instead, they seem poised to create a nebulous framework, which may be used to justify projects and initiatives that may or may not fit my values or priorities.

If the Town insists on using surveys to inform its policy, aren’t they obligated to design statistically valid surveys that accurately capture representative opinions about real world choices? Do I want my street paved? Do I want to see the stream protection ordinance enforced? What response time is acceptable for the fire, police or ambulance to get to my house? Those are tough choices, but since these are the real choices that need to be made, shouldn’t citizens be asked to weigh in on them?

Maybe I’m old fashioned but I’d prefer that the Town abandon the surveys and the priority based budgeting system and move back to the old way of doing budgeting — making hard choices. So go ahead and take the survey and say what you think. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SGQRRXS.

— Julie McClintock

by on March 18, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Budget, CH2020, Spending, Taxes, Technology
Posted by Nancy Oates on March 18, 2013

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/03/18/a-representative-view/

Heated exchange over fire district

I got a hint of the complexity of the relationship between town and county governing bodies after watching Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt address the Orange County Board of Commissioners not long ago about the matter of Chapel Hill becoming the official first-responder to fires in the extra-territorial jurisdiction.

At its Feb. 11 meeting, Town Council discussed some ETJ residents’ request that Chapel Hill include their neighborhood in its fire district so that those ETJ homeowners could get a break on their fire insurance. Although Chapel Hill fire trucks are the first on the scene in that area because of a Mutual Aid Agreement with nearby jurisdictions, the Chapel Hill fire district is limited to property within town limits.

Some council members pushed for annexation of the ETJ neighborhood, but property owners there made it clear they would resist annexation initiatives. Town manager Roger Stancil advised the council to extend its fire district in exchange for a 15-cent tax per $100 valuation of property, the best deal for the town, given that ETJ residents could appeal to become part of Carrboro’s fire district for a 10-cent tax, or continuing as is, providing fire coverage for free. Council authorized Stancil to extend the fire district but only for two years, while working on annexation.

However, the county commissioners met the following week and voted for the contract to run five years, with a clause that would allow the town to terminate with a year’s notice. Kleinschmidt argued that opting out would inject a political move into an already charged relationship with ETJ residents. He also posited that the concept of an ETJ was no longer workable because changes in state law basically have eliminated annexation, even though the town provides fire and police protection and building and planning department resources for the ETJ.

Nevertheless, county commissioners held firm to the five-year contract and seemingly didn’t understand that they couldn’t just order the town to comply. Kleinschmidt explained that Town Council would have to vote to amend its instructions to Stancil (which it did at its Feb. 27 meeting). Commissioners repeatedly harped that they needed to strike a deal that was best for Orange County residents. Kleinschmidt called them out: What about the Orange County residents who live inside Chapel Hill town limits who are paying higher taxes to subsidize ETJ residents who don’t want to be annexed to town despite enjoying town services?

When one commissioner said that ETJ residents were in this pickle through no fault of their own, Penny Rich pointed out that ETJ residents had the power to fix the problem themselves by asking to be annexed. Other commissioners, though, seemed almost hostile toward the town.

On March 21, the commissioners and council will hold a joint meeting at Southern Human Services. On the agenda is the topic of working together to encourage annexation or address issues of a no-longer viable ETJ concept.
– Nancy Oates

by on March 11, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in County business, Politics, Taxes
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Posted by Nancy Oates on March 11, 2013

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/03/11/heated-exchange-over-fire-district/

Save Del Snow

If you had told me six months ago that someday I would lead the cheering section for Planning Board chair Del Snow, I would have called you crazy. And now look.

After Town Council’s Feb. 27 vote approving Bicycle Apartments, Snow wrote a letter to council questioning why council members didn’t postpone the vote until staff had answered their questions and noting that the board agreed Bicycle didn’t adhere to the Comprehensive Plan that came out of the CH2020 process. Unfortunately, she used the phrase “fact-based data.” Gene Pease, who runs a company that supplies such data to Fortune 500 corporations to make fact-based decisions, responded, concluding his letter by asking her to resign from the Planning Board. He noted that she filed a lawsuit against the town over Town Council’s approval of the Charterwood development that abuts her property, which he concedes, here in America, she is allowed to do. And he objected to her giving equal weight to minority opinions she supports when she, as Planning Board chair, reports board recommendations.

Having similarly lived my life as a burr under various saddles, I understand why Snow pushed the issue of council members disregarding the Comprehensive Plan. The town went through a long, expensive, time-consuming process that exploited the free expertise contributed by various facilitators and other participants of CH2020, and only Matt Czajkowski and Laurin Easthom have paid heed to the resulting Comprehensive Plan.

Snow and I generally are on opposite sides of any development debate (private note to Del: Drop the Charterwood lawsuit, and have a lawyer-free cup of coffee with Bill Christian; you’re both smart enough to work out a winnish-winnish compromise). And many times Snow is on the opposite side of development debates with the rest of the Planning Board. Heaven help us if we made development decisions based on a board that all thought like Snow. Or all thought like me. Or all thought like Pease. Dissension incites robust discussion that makes for better decisions.

Kicking Snow off the board to silence her would be shooting ourselves in the foot, development-wise and politically. Not only would we miss out on the Mento tossed into the Coke of the development debate, but by removing Snow from the board, we brand ourselves as Tea Party Democrats, intolerant of anyone who does not support our liberal, Sierra Club views. Wait a minute – Snow does support the Sierra Club mindset, the same Sierra Club whose endorsement guarantees a candidate’s win.

Could it be we are seeing the profit-driven, Republican underbelly of our superficially left-leaning council and citizenry?
– Nancy Oates

by on March 6, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Committees, Council Members, Ethics, Land Use
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Posted by Nancy Oates on March 6, 2013

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/03/06/save-del-snow/

Our anti-social Town Council

There’s nothing in the town’s bylaws that says Town Council members have to be socially responsible. Or that they must exercise foresight in their decision making. Or that they should do their best to make certain the social fabric of our community is kept intact.

But it sure would be nice.

The council extravagantly funds the Inter-Faith Council. Council members have worked at the IFC Kitchen. They pass laws to fund election campaigns. They ban free speech on buses (unless you are a business). Some members go out of their way to trumpet their forays into socially responsible activities. They go to great lengths to present themselves as socially responsible.

And then they go and approve a short-sighted and anti-social project such as the Bicycle Apartments off Hillsborough Street.

How are council members anti-social? They approve laws that they have no intention of enforcing, such as building limits in Northside and occupancy limits for houses. They pass cell phone bans that police cannot enforce, thereby tying up tax dollars in legal fees (tax dollars that could have gone for funding maintenance costs for the renovated library or subsidizing workforce housing). And they allow developers such as the Bicycle Apartments folks to go forward with construction plans that violate town ordinances, disrupt the peace of mind of neighbors and suck rent dollars out of the local economy.

How is Bicycle anti-social? The council handed over to the out-of-state developers an opportunity to make money hand over fist without having to worry about the consequences of their project, its long-term effects on neighbors and its costs down the road. There are a lot of warning flags attached to this project and the company that will run it, not the least of which are poor management and wood framing (like Rosemary Village, which already is beginning to sag).

The council is anti-social when it overturns zoning regulations and requirements anytime a developer wants them changed. And it’s anti-social and deeply cynical when it goes to great lengths to let speakers at council meetings have their say, and then ignores every word by fast-tracking a project such as Bicycle Apartments.

What our town needs is council decisions based on farsighted reflection rather than on immediate action intended merely to clear an agenda. Council members are anti-social when they put the desires of out-of-state developers before the well-being of the town and its residents. Their lack of integrity and foresight ultimately degrade the community.

I do appreciate the humor that inevitably arises from council meetings such as the one that reviewed Bicycle Apartments. I was tickled to hear Chamber of Commerce executive director Aaron Nelson, who never met a development he didn’t like, step up for social responsibility by saying with a straight face that student housing will at some time become workforce housing.

Maybe he was taking his lead from Town Council.
– Don Evans

by on March 4, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Council Members, Housing, Land Use
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Posted by Nancy Oates on March 4, 2013

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/03/04/our-anti-social-town-council/

Act now

Town Council won’t meet again until Wednesday, Feb. 27, which gives council members two more days to do something about workforce housing.

Approval for rezoning and a special use permit for The Bicycle Apartments comes up for a vote toward the end of a packed agenda. Council members will likely be tired and perhaps a bit testy after the public forum on the budget and a handful of petitions, including one from the planning board that, among other issues, pushes council to take action on creating workforce housing.

If ever council members will do more than just wring their hands over the workforce housing issue, Wednesday’s meeting would be the right time. Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt will have come fresh from a panel on affordable housing in the Triangle; surely he will have brought back some ideas. After all, Durham and Raleigh both have enacted plans for affordable and workforce housing that have proved successful. Sally Greene, in lobbying for an appointment to fill the council seat vacant since before Thanksgiving, said she had some solutions for creating affordable rentals, but thus far she has kept them to herself. Wednesday’s meeting would be a great time to unveil them.

Council has the bully pulpit and the authority to support affordable housing. So far, council’s decisions have set us on a course to push the people who keep our town running out to Durham, Mebane and Pittsboro. It’s as though we’ve said, “We’ll shelter the homeless; in exchange, you find places for our worker bees to live.”

Here are some things council can do Wednesday night to take action to preserve workforce housing:

 Turn down the rezoning and SUP for Bicycle Apartments unless the developers contractually agree to ensure that leases for half the units would exclude students and would be priced for workforce housing. Neighborhood opposition would evaporate if the number of students was halved and the party animals would find the place less appealing.
 Create a workforce housing board, and set a moratorium on all rezoning and SUP applications for apartment developments and redevelopments for six months until the new board comes up with some ideas to preserve workforce rentals.
 Adopt a resolution to speed through applications for construction of workforce housing. The Central West developers would be so happy they’d carry council members around the room on their shoulders.

Keener minds than mine can come up with even better ideas. Where would you begin?
– Nancy Oates

by on February 25, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Housing
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Posted by Nancy Oates on February 25, 2013

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/02/25/act-now/

What’s another $50 million?

Watching Parks & Rec director Butch Kisiah and various paid consultants and volunteer committee chairs present the master plans for Parks & Rec and Greenways, I learned that I’m not the only one with Lexus tastes on a Civic budget.

The plans looked great: adding 10 miles of greenway trails to the town’s existing 13 to be able to use greenways as transportation corridors; a district park large enough to attract tournaments and the dollars they’d pump into local businesses; more spray fields (which sounded terrific, until I Googled it); volleyball courts for the 200 girls who have to go to Cary to get their volleyball fix; an arts center; and a new office for Parks & Rec employees who cram themselves into a cinderblock building on a flood-prone lot.

All of it could be ours – for $50 million.

I was still reeling from sticker shock when Donna Bell turned on her mike and added a half-dozen more improvements to the wish list. I kept waiting for the punch line – someone from the audience to step up to the podium and announce how many lattes we’d have to give up to pay for all this.

Instead, Ed Harrison, subbing for the mayor who was, ironically, in Durham on an affordable housing panel (I hope he listens and brings back some ideas), asked Roger Stancil when we’d be able to issue another bond. Not until 2017, Stancil replied, and even then, only a small one. We shot our debt ceiling on the library expansion.

Anything that encourages us to get off the couch and moving around in the sunshine is a good investment – it’s an affordable way to feel good and reduce health-care costs at the same time. But we need to find a way to pay for it without pushing out the working and middle classes to make room for more wealthy class.

Kisiah is putting into play some cost-effective resources: opening Parks & Rec to Eagle Scout projects and using artificial turf to get more use out of fields. Council members added more ideas: selling naming rights for fields and facilities; leveraging rec space by partnering with Carrboro; turning the responsibility of pocket-park maintenance over to the homeowners associations that benefit most from them. I’d add leveraging under-utilized space. The transportation center, for instance, is nice enough to rent out for weddings.

Jim Ward cautioned keeping the plan flexible to anticipate our changing demographics and what sort of recreation facilities we might need 10 years hence.

The direction our town is going, we might have greater need for polo fields.
– Nancy Oates

by on February 19, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Budget, Land Use, Lifestyle
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Posted by Nancy Oates on February 19, 2013

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/02/19/whats-another-50-million/

Our box of chocolates

Don and I sometimes think about retiring to a rural town where our retirement dollars will go further. But when it comes time to act, we stay put. What keeps us in Chapel Hill is not the public art, the state-of-the-art transportation center or even the lovely indoor swimming pools and library (the limited hours they’re open). We stay because of the interesting people who surprise us by their differentness – those we serve on boards and committees with, volunteer with, sit next to at Parks and Rec league games and run into at Harris Teeter on Senior Discount Day.

We don’t believe the wealthy have a lock on being interesting. Yet the decisions some Town Council members make are steering us toward becoming a retirement community for people with means. We enjoy being close to top-quality health care, but we won’t make room for lab techs and nurse’s aides to live in town. We’ll allow students on campus and to spend money at Franklin Street businesses, as long as they take their partying ways home to Durham or Chatham County at night. We’ll bus in for the day our hired help – teachers, police, firefighters, wait staff, clerks and most municipal workers – comfortable knowing they won’t be sitting next to us at the concert hall.

This makes sense from a financial perspective, and those of us who already own homes here can sit back and wait for housing prices to go up and up, and eventually we’ll cash in and buy a plantation in Warrenton. But we lose what makes life enjoyable – the interactions with the diverse people with different perspectives we look forward to talking with or come across unexpectedly during the course of our day.

UNC learned long ago that the university is a better, richer environment if the student body is composed of the smartest and most talented students, not just the ones who have financially secure parents. Everyone benefits from diversity of culture, experiences and viewpoints. UNC makes its admissions decisions on a need-blind basis, offering spots to students who have the most to contribute – be it through intellect, talent or something unique that others can learn from – then making it possible for those who can’t afford college to accept.

Town Council says it can do nothing to stop affordable apartment complexes being cannibalized into cash cows for developers who collude to jack up rents and call it “market rate,” indistinguishable from price-fixing. But unless we want an entire population of people from one tax bracket with similar backgrounds and values – unless we want to give up the treat of being surprised by someone different – we need to find a way to enable people in all tax brackets to stay.
– Nancy Oates

by on February 18, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Housing, Lifestyle
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Posted by Nancy Oates on February 18, 2013

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/02/18/our-box-of-chocolates/

Whose fair share?

Turns out 123 West Franklin’s parking spaces and grassy courtyard weren’t for the public after all. In trying to defend its miserly contribution to affordable housing in the face of several council members’ criticism, developer Cousins Properties pointed to the courtyard green space and the pool of 150 to 200 metered spaces in its parking deck that the public could use on a pay-per-minute basis without worry of being towed for walking off the lot. (The town wouldn’t contribute to the construction cost, and Cousins would keep the parking revenue.)

Those perks were contributions to the town, Cousins said, and should offset any contribution to affordable housing.

So Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt called Cousins’ bluff. Link those perks to the SUP, he said, so when Cousins sells the development, which it will at some point, the new owner can’t take away those benefits.

That was a deal-breaker for Cousins. But when council held firm – and for a good part of the discussion, you would have been so proud of council fighting back for workforce housing – Cousins said, “Give us a minute.”

Team Cousins crunched some numbers with UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp, who had come out to stump for 123 while underscoring it was not a UNC project. His role got a little muddy when he then took the mike and said he could go as high as $250,000 for affordable housing.

Kleinschmidt replied, “Give us a minute.”

The amount still fell far short of Jim Ward’s ideal, but he demurred with, “I’m no horse-trader.” We should be as unhappy as Ward with the deal. Thorp telling council that $250,000 was all he had indicated that those of us who pay state taxes have just agreed to contribute $250,000 toward affordable housing on Cousins’ behalf.

Donna Bell turned out to be the surprise hero of the night. After chamber of commerce president Aaron Nelson chastised town residents for expecting developers to help solve the affordable housing problem, Bell pointed out that Cousins was bringing hundreds of low-wage jobs to downtown; the people who fill them will have to come from out of town because a job paying $8-$12 an hour can’t support someone paying the “market rate” rents Cousins will charge in its 300 dwelling units. Developers contribute to the problem; they should contribute to the solution.

Expect more of that trenchant insight and outspokenness from Bell without the distraction of Penny Rich sitting next to her, whispering to her throughout the meeting.
– Nancy Oates

by on February 12, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Council Members, Downtown Chapel Hill, Economic development, Housing, Parking
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Posted by Nancy Oates on February 12, 2013

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/02/12/whose-fair-share/

Too big to donate?

Shortbread Lofts got off easy when it came to making a contribution toward affordable housing. Should that set precedent for downtown redevelopment projects going forward?

Cousins Properties apparently thinks so.

Cousins makes a return visit to council tonight for a zoning change and special use permit to tear down the existing University Square buildings at 123 West Franklin Street and build a mixed use complex that includes 300 apartments, nearly 300,000 square feet of commercial space, a parking deck of more than 1,000 spaces and a courtyard greenspace. The plan appears essentially unchanged from its presentation last November, except that the street cut-through will run straight between Franklin Street and Cameron Avenue, connecting to Cameron close to Pittsboro Street, instead of dog-legging to come out near Mallette Street.

Cousins also bumped up its contribution to affordable housing from $60,000 to $90,000, pointing out that state law doesn’t require Cousins to pay anything because the residential units are rental, and state law won’t let municipalities control rents. Cousins also provided a chart of what other rental complexes paid toward affordable housing – a chart that argues against Cousins’ modest contribution.

By dividing each project’s contribution toward affordable housing by the total number of units in the project, the complexes range from Shortbread Lofts’ $294 per unit to Castalla at Meadowmont’s $15,000 per unit. In between, we have the likes of Chapel Watch Village ($2,500), Grove Park ($3,200), The Residences at Chapel Hill ($3,300) and University Village ($3,700).

Cousin’s $90,000 contribution for 123 West Franklin would be on par with Shortbread, at $300 per unit. (In its response to council, Cousins divides per-project contribution by 10 percent of the number of units, to bring its contribution to $3,000 per 10 percent of units. Applying that formula to other properties, Shortbread comes out at $2,940 per 10 percent of units, still paltry compared to Castalla’s $150,000, and the other projects above at $25,000, $32,000, $33,000 and $37,000, respectively.)

Overall, 123 West Franklin is a win-win. Cousins expects the completed development to be valued between $75 million and $100 million. Though it’s on land owned by Chapel Hill Foundation Real Estate Holdings, a nonprofit charitable organization, Cousins says the development will pay property taxes at the full, nonprofit rate. The project will bring more potential customers downtown, and downtown businesses will funnel customers to the pay stations in 123’s parking deck. The grassy courtyard, an aesthetic that justifies higher rents to 123’s genteel target market, can be enjoyed by the rest of us.

But for a project of 123’s scale, a contribution toward affordable housing of 10 times what Cousins is offering would be in line with other residential projects.
– Nancy Oates

by on February 11, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Downtown Chapel Hill, Economic development, Housing, Land Use, Parking, Taxes
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Posted by Nancy Oates on February 11, 2013

https://chapelhillwatch.com/2013/02/11/too-big-to-donate/

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