Affordable housing proposal close to finalization

Chapel Hill Town Council held a public hearing Monday on proposed changes to the town's affordable housing policy, though no one had anything to say.

The council heard a presentation from Loryn Clark, the town's principal planner for community development, about a plan to formalize the town's affordable housing requirement before opening the hearing and closing it again when no residents volunteered to speak.

"The language is already general policy and this will just be making the compromise plan the same as the Land Use Management Ordinance," she said.

Town officials are examining an amendment to town code that aims to put in place stricter regulations for developers in an attempt to achieve its goal in creating more affordable housing in the area.

Rather than the current code text found in the town's 2000 Comprehensive Plan - in which the town strongly suggests that builders set aside 15 percent of their housing to be sold to low-income buyers - the amendment would require that minimum.

The new amendment also defines in-lieu fees, which developers can opt to pay rather than include affordable housing.

The fee will be the cost of providing the number of units elsewhere that the 15 percent requirement would generate at the development, pricing the units for sale to families who make no more than 80 percent of the area median income, or $39,950 for one person.

Additionally, the policy calls for rounding up if the 15 percent results in a fraction of a unit. Town officials have said the new text should clarify confusion that has existed about how to calculate the fee.

Orange Community Housing and Land Trust's executive director, Robert Dowling, said Monday that the success of current town code is proof that furthering requirements would stimulate affordable housing growth.

"The town's policy (of) asking developers to make 15 percent of their units affordable permanent housing is doing well," he said. "There are houses on the ground with people living in them. There's proof that this works."

Chapel Hill created the Comprehensive Plan in 2000 to supplement the town's Land Use Management Ordinance, which instead required developers to limit 25 percent of new units being developed to 1,350 square feet - a condition that was not always feasible.

But the proposed changes to in-lieu fees have drawn contention.

"It's difficult to figure out the in-lieu fees without numbers," said Nick Tennyson, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association. "I feel as if it's a very abstract concept."

Dowling said making the in-lieu fees a common occurrence could prove to be detrimental to the town's goals.

"I think that by and large, the payment-in-lieu option should be an exception rather than the rule," he said. "It's more important to have housing that people can afford to live in than money from developers."

Both Tennyson and Dowling said changes to the code would make a practice that some have followed voluntarily since 2000 mandatory for all.

But Tennyson said reinforcing the ordinance only will create more issues.

"My consistent comment is that the problem is a supply and demand problem," he said. "There are so many pressures on the supply that housing prices in Chapel Hill reflect that imbalance. The only way a proposal like this will function is in a market that is very expensive.

"These laws will only drive up housing costs."

The Chapel Hill Town Council will make a decision whether to move forward with the code change at its Oct. 10 meeting.

 

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