If you’re a parent of a child under age 18 in Carrboro like me, I have some weird news to share: Carrboro has a plan to make our kids move away. Nobody thinks of it that way, and I don’t think anybody really intended to make this the plan for our town, but make no mistake – this plan has existed for some time, and it is WORKING.

First: We Need to Have Empathy for Our Children as Young Adults

Think of your favorite pictures of your children. No matter their age, you likely have some pictures of them under age 10 that absolutely make you melt. The joy on their face the first time they ate an ice cream cone. A loving hug with a grandparent. Our kids will always be our babies, and it’s both fine and loving to think of them that way.

But now use your imagination a bit and try to picture them at ages 19, 20, 23, 26 and 28. What is their life like? What are their hopes and dreams? Do they have a job doing something that speaks to them? Where do they live? Do they live close enough that you see them as much as you’d like to?

That last question is going to be partly answered by this election. But let’s unpack the plan to make our kids move away first, and then talk about voting.

Carrboro Runs On A “Send The Kids Packing” Operating System

Maybe your phone is an Apple device with iOS. Or perhaps it’s an Android OS phone. Carrboro’s operating system for building homes and businesses is called the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO). When you see the word UDO, think “BuildingOS.”

Here’s how it works: the Research Triangle Region of North Carolina, where we live, has been one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the country for a long time. This creates a ton of demand for housing as new people move in and those already here have children who grow up and move out on their own.

Most of the UDOs communities in the Triangle, from big cities like Raleigh to small towns like Hillsborough and Clayton –  have allowed a lot of housing to provide homes for newcomers, and importantly for parents – new households formed by those who grow up here. But not Carrboro.

In Carrboro, here’s what we’ve done instead:

1: Carrboro has built little housing in general

As the Carolina Chamber documented this year, in the 2010s, Carrboro welcomed the fewest new residents in any decade since the 1970s.

2: Of the housing that has been built in Carrboro, 84% of it has been for the wealthy

In the last four years, the Town has allowed only two residential buildings that are NOT single family homes to be built. One is the CASA affordable housing building, which has 23 apartment homes in the Town Limits (most of the project is just over the town line in Chapel Hill); the other is a single duplex somewhere in town. 84% of all homes built were single family homes. From a building permits perspective, 98.5% of building permits were for single family homes.

With such limited buildings, housing prices in Carrboro rose by over $200,000 for a single family home in JUST THREE YEARS. Notice by how much less prices rose elsewhere in Wake and Durham counties, which built more housing. Even the non-Chapel Hill/Carrboro portions of Orange County had much smaller price increases.

And in the period where barely any apartments or duplex homes were built, look what happened to rents from 2019 to 2023. Up $327 per month:

When housing gets so expensive so quickly, who moves in and who does not?

In the past decade, while only 25% to 35% of growth came from retirement age residents in Wake, Durham, and Alamance counties, nearly two-thirds of all population growth in Orange County came from retirees.

This means that if our children want to try to live near us as young adults after high school or college, it’s going to be economically VERY DIFFICULT for them to do so. Look at the comparative resources of different age groups in our society:

The Carrboro UDO “BuildingOS” is Working Effectively to Move Young People Away

In addition to not building much housing, Carrboro has created very few job opportunities for young people in town, and the chickens are coming home to roost. Even while Orange County’s population has grown by nearly 15,000 residents in the past decade, we’ve lost 33% of our young workers under age 29 in that same time period.

So Our Town’s BuildingOS Stinks – Is There Anything We Can Do?

YES! The great news at this moment in Town history is that for the FIRST TIME ever, the Town has a comprehensive plan called Carrboro Connects that is designed to repair and replace our broken BuildingOS or UDO with new, improved and updated regulations that will make it possible for more people and jobs to call Carrboro “home,” INCLUDING OUR CHILDEN, if that is what they want to do.

How Will the Carrboro Connects Plan Help Our Kids Stay Local?

First, the Carrboro Connects plan aims to remove barriers to building housing in general, and promote a greater variety of smaller homes such as apartments, duplexes, triplexes, and other buildings that are most likely to be affordable to our children when they are in their 20s.

Second, the plan recommends things like removing parking requirements, which could make it easier for us to create new job opportunities downtown and in the parking lots at Carrboro Plaza and the Shoppes at Jones Ferry shopping center. Got a kid who’s interested in STEM? Wouldn’t it be great if there were STEM job opportunities in wet lab buildings in Carrboro, and not just in Durham and RTP?

These positive outcomes will become our more likely future when the Carrboro Town Council makes enough changes to the Carrboro UDO so that it promotes the goals of the plan, and not the trendlines in the charts above. We probably need to make at least 50 to 100 changes to the UDO to get the outcome we need. The current council has adopted the Carrboro Connects plan, gotten started, and made the first two UDO changes last week.

Okay, This Sounds Great! But It’s Election Season – Are There Candidates Running Who Support Implementing the Carrboro Connects Plan?

YES! Four candidates out of the six running for public office support the Carrboro Connects plan instead of sticking with the send-our-kids-packing status quo. Those candidates are:

For Mayor: Barbara Foushee

For Town Council:

• Catherine Fray
• Jason Merrill
• Eliazar Posada

Each of them either directly participated in the development of the Carrboro Connects plan, voted to approve it, or supports its completion.

Each of these candidates understand that we have this fundamental choice in front of us:

Our status quo accepts changing the PEOPLE who live in town to be older, wealthier and whiter – to avoid adding new buildings in town.

The Carrboro Connects Plan accepts adding buildings in town, making them more numerous and varied – to avoid changing the PEOPLE who live and work in those buildings, allowing more people who already love Carrboro to stay here, and making it easier for our kids to stick around.

Barbara Foushee, Catherine Fray, Jason Merrill and Eliazar Posada have swept every endorsement of consequence because they understand this is our principle challenge as a community. I give them my unequivocal, most enthusiastic endorsement! See the other endorsements they have received below.

Please support these excellent candidates by voting for them early ahead of Election Day! Information on early voting in Orange County can be found below. Remember – this year, for the first time, a photo ID is required to vote!