Housing rules might change

The Chapel Hill Town Council took a step Monday night toward amending language in a town ordinance that could help create more affordable housing.

The town defines affordable housing as any unit that is affordable for individuals or families whose incomes are at or below 80 percent of the area median income for a family of four. The council requires that 15 percent of units in a residential development be devoted to such housing.

Currently, if that percentage does not convert to a whole number, the number of required units is rounded down. The council discussed a proposal Monday that instead would round these figures up.

"This change would make the affordable housing requirements more consistent with the way we do other things in the town, such as parking," said Roger Waldon, town planning director. "If you have to have 1.5 parking spaces and round down, you do not meet the requirements. We round up."

The council on Monday referred the proposal to the town manager and attorney after the public hearing. It will be back on the agenda Dec. 6 with three options for the council to consider.

The council could choose to leave the ordinance as is and continue to round down all fractions.

It could also choose to round fractions up - or, if a fraction is 0.5 or above, round the number up while all numbers 0.49 and below would be rounded down.

Robert Dowling, director of the Orange County Housing and Land Trust, said affordable housing is important in Chapel Hill because the average price of homes being constructed is more than $400,000.

He said the average UNC employee or hospital employee cannot afford these homes.

"No one is building $200,000 homes," he said. "This 15 percent affordability rate has already generated affordable homes that people are living in."

Dowling, as well as Virginia Knapp, associate director of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce, said Monday that although they support the idea of affordable housing, they had concerns about the council's plans.

Dowling explained that some developers sometimes try to pursue size-restrictive units instead of affordable units because they are more profitable.

He said he is concerned that developers will try to do this more if the council decides to round fractions up.

Knapp said rounding fractions up in small developments, which consist of between five and 12 houses, will deter developers from providing affordable housing.

As an alternative, Knapp suggested allowing developers to build more units than usually would be allowed in such divisions.

Mayor Kevin Foy agreed with the concerns in relation to small developments, but expressed an urgency to pass the change in language, which is the council's stop-gap proposal for the current problem in determining affordable housing proportions.

"My concern is that we don't want to create more small houses instead of affordable houses," Foy said. "We do have a big hole in our ordinance, though, and I'm willing to do this as a stop-gap measure."

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