Blogs

Serving on the Chapel Hill Town Council has been an enormous privilege. We’ve accomplished a lot over the past four years, but as residents remind me every day, there’s still a lot we can do to improve and strengthen our community.

That’s why I’m announcing the launch of my campaign for re-election to the Chapel Hill Town Council.

I’m proud of what we have achieved over the last four years. A stronger food truck ordinance, expanded access to our Community Center pool and a single-family stormwater ordinance that actually works all have had a positive impact for our community. The Glen-Lennox development agreement, new zoning in Ephesus-Fordham, as well as  exciting projects in downtown like LaUNCh Chapel Hill and a redeveloped University Square will bring new jobs and expand our economic tax base.

In its ongoing series on affordable housing, the Town of Chapel Hill hosted Michelle Winters, senior visiting fellow at the Urban Land Institute’s Terwilliger Center for Housing last Tuesday to talk about the policy tools and best practices for affordable and workforce housing.

Winters began her presentation discussing housing trends nationwide and specifically talked about the recent surge in renter households that is expected to continue into the future. The most important takeaway: Half of all renter households are at least moderately cost burdened, meaning they spend at least 30% of their income on rent. This statistic highlights why housing professionals have broadened their discussion of what affordable means in recent years to include a range, all the way from homelessness to just below market rate. As the town’s executive director for housing and community development, Loryn Clark, put it: housing needs to be affordable for everybody.