Julian Taylor ’25
Why should we ‘Tell the Town Council No Rezoning?’
We shouldn’t.
The signs (above) you may have seen refer to June’s ruling in which the Chapel Hill Town Council voted to allow duplexes in areas zoned for single-family homes. Previously, only standalone homes could be built on lots zoned for single-family homes.
This controversial amendment has become a central issue in November’s local elections. Here is what it means for students:
If you live off-campus, you may have noticed that it’s becoming more difficult to find affordable housing. From January 2020 to September 2023, estimated rent in Chapel Hill rose by $339. Next year, my monthly rent will be $100 higher than it is now.
Students aren’t the only ones struggling to afford housing in Chapel Hill. Every day, 40,000 people commute into the town of roughly 61,000. And while Raleigh and Durham have grown since 2020, Chapel Hill has decreased in population.
Simply put, more housing means more people and lower prices. Single-family is the least dense classification of zoning and has its roots in racial discrimination. In 1916, Berkeley, CA, was the first city to introduce single-family zoning with the intent of preserving home values and keeping Black families out of the area. This was reinforced by racial covenants, which explicitly barred certain ethnicities from buying homes.
Today, single-family zoning proponents use sustainability and community as central talking points at the expense of walkability, affordability, and accessibility. Higher density decreases greenhouse gas emissions per capita, due to reduced car usage.
With local elections approaching, a small group of wealthy donors planned to form a PAC and raise $120,000. This is an unprecedented amount of money for any Chapel Hill election. Now, they’ve redirected this effort to the already existing Chapel Hill Leadership PAC, which was formed by CHALT (Chapel Hill Alliance for a Livable Town), a group that has opposed almost every major development project in Chapel Hill.
CHALT is expected to endorse a slate of four town council candidates running alongside mayoral candidate Adam Searing. If elected, they would likely seek to repeal June’s amendment that allows for increased housing density. This would pose yet another setback for an already stagnant Chapel Hill.
This election cycle, five Town Council seats will be filled, including the mayoral seat. Historically, local election turnout in Chapel Hill has been disappointingly low. In 2021, Karen Stegman led with only 6,587 votes. Not much number crunching is necessary to realize that UNC’s 31,539 students can make a difference. In 2019, the last time a UNC student ran for council, the margin was only 24 votes.
Your vote counts.
UNC One Cards are now a valid form of voter ID. If you’re registered to vote in Chapel Hill, show up to vote on election day, November 7th, or during early voting, from October 26th to November 4th.
If you’re not registered to vote in Chapel Hill, you’ll have to go to early voting with a valid form of voter ID. If you use a One Card, bring proof of address (whether it be on-campus or off-campus). To play it safe, show up to vote at the beginning of early voting. You can always return another day with proper documentation if you’re missing something.
In hopes of a denser, more sustainable, walkable, affordable, growing Chapel Hill, here’s who I’ll be voting for:
Melissa McCullough
Theodore Nollert
Jon Mitchell
Erik Valera
The NIMBYs (Not In My BackYard) are going hard this year, and they don’t want students to vote. But if you don’t want to live in a place where college students can afford to live, maybe a college town isn’t for you.
This article is well argued. While preservation has its place, for example, historic districts and even individual buildings of singular merit, it is a poor excuse for opposing appropriate development that will maintain or increase the stock of affordable housing. Thoughtful rezoning won’t destroy the character of a lovely town like Chapel Hill. In the vicinity of commercial areas, greater density is a boon to business viability. In residential areas, greater density along the main corridors takes advantage of and increases the fiscal sustainability of bus routes, without affecting the character of the neighborhood. And rezoning areas that now allow only detached single family homes to permit duplexes and even four-plexes, especially along or near major streets, will increase the stock of affordable housing without changing the character of the neighborhood, especially if design criteria ensure that the new houses look basically like houses rather than apartment buildings. It would be helpful if people could see what the new housing would look like. In the absence of visualizations, people unfortunately become risk averse and imagine the worst case. Perhaps it isn’t too late to provide illustrative renderings in/on local media.