Each fall, UNC students begin their housing search for the upcoming year. Often upperclassmen, these students must decide between luxury apartment buildings, quasi-tiny houses, condominiums along MLK Jr. Boulevard or historic six-bedroom homes.
The search is frantic, as Chapel Hill’s fast-paced housing market sweeps lease signing within days. One neighborhood, located behind Rosemary Street, is the site of several student rentals, both due to its proximity to Franklin Street and campus, and the quaint air of the community.
Northside is a historically Black neighborhood located behind Rosemary, spanning from North Columbia to the Carrboro town limits. In the 1990s and 2000s, an influx of student rentals prompted the Town of Chapel Hill to create the Northside Neighborhood Conservation District, which aimed to protect the community’s history and culture. Residents of the neighborhood noticed the shift in demographics and shared concerns of rising property values and gentrification.
One Chapel Hill landlord, Mark Patmore, has had a history of conflict with the Town’s preservation efforts. Patmore moved to Northside in 1995, where he converted a Northside home into a duplex and rented it out to students. Patmore lived off the rental payments and began buying more properties across the neighborhood. Today, Patmore’s rental company, Mercia Rentals, owns 45 properties in Northside alone.
In 2012, the town implemented a zoning amendment which aimed to limit over-occupancy, or the leasing of a property to more residents than bedrooms. Over-occupancy had become a salient issue as it was associated with traffic congestion and increased violations of Town regulations. The zoning amendment limited the number of vehicles on a single Northside property to four and penalized property owners regardless of the property’s status as owner-occupied or rental.
Soon after its implementation, Patmore sued the town over concerns of “substantive due process,” arguing the ordinance was arbitrary and did not have a rational relationship to legitimate government interest. While Patmore lost the case, his ability to conjure a lengthy and expensive legal process was not lost on the Town council.
Landlords like Patmore are fundamentally erasing the history of Northside. This process not only harms residents, but also disadvantages students as the fast-paced housing market leaves them in poorly maintained properties. The fabled “landlord special” is all-too-familiar to student tenants.
Mercia Rentals itself boasts a 1.8-star rating on Google, mostly due to a lack of professionalism. As evidence in one response to a review, Patmore wrote, “I have a higher education level than you. I went to grad school. I suggest you remove your post.”
Students, while in a vulnerable and compromised position, must choose their landlords wisely. Insensitive and profit-seeking rental companies price out residents and destroy the neighborhood’s valued history and culture. Student tenants, working in conjunction with the Town, must work to preserve Northside and create fairer housing opportunities throughout Chapel Hill.
