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The Primary Election Question: Should Carrboro Infrastructure Decisions Be Governed by the Priorities of Those Who Live Nearby, or by The Broader Needs of the Town?

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Now that we’re several weeks into election season, we’re getting a clearer picture of the priorities of each of the Carrboro Town Council candidates.

What’s also clear is that while there are five candidates running, there are functionally two groups of candidates aligned around two different sets of priorities.

The first group includes incumbent Town Councilor Elizar Posada, former Planning Board chair Catherine Fray, and the former owner of Back Alley Bikes, Jason Merrill. Merrill also previously served on the Transportation Board when he lived in Chapel Hill. They have named their slate “Carrboro Better Together.”

The second group includes legal firm Client Relationship Executive and Triangle Red Cross Board Member April Mills and former UNC-Chapel Hill Systems Analyst and Meals on Wheels volunteer Stephanie Wade. While they have not named their slate (to my knowledge) they are campaigning together with joint advertising and canvassing. For this article, I will refer to them as “The Newcomers” since this appears to be their first time running or seeking to join a Town Board.

All of the candidates running are personally and professionally accomplished, and demonstrate a high level of engagement in the campaign.

How to Evaluate Candidates In a Campaign

The longer I follow politics at any level, the less interested I am in someone’s experience, and the more interested I am in how a candidate defines and understands various issues and ultimately, how they will vote on key issues before the community.

Fortunately, all the campaigns have provided a lot of information in this regard through published platforms, social media, and questions answered in public forums. We’ll get to that shortly. But first, what are the priorities of Carrboro residents?

The 2021 Carrboro Community Survey: What People All Over Town Want

Carrboro surveys its residents every few years using a telephone and mail survey, with scientific demographic sampling and follow-up designed to ensure that those responding to the survey are representative of the town, which is:

  • 58% renters
  • 38% non-white
  • Mostly earning less than $75,000 per year

The 2021 Survey can be found here. Highlights that are direct quotes from the Executive Summary can be found below.

On transportation:

“Based on the sum of their top two choices, the transportation services that residents thought were most important were: 1) ease of walking in Carrboro, 2) availability of greenways/multi-use paths, and 3) ease of driving in Carrboro.”

and, in the supplement surveying Census tracts with more low-income and minority residents:

On housing:

“The most important aspect of housing to Carrboro residents was the availability of housing options by price.”

and, in the body of the full report:

“Today, community leaders have limited resources which need to be targeted to activities that are of the most benefit to their citizens. Two of the most important criteria for decision making are (1) to target resources toward services of the highest importance to citizens; and (2) to target resources toward those services where citizens are the least satisfied.”

Only 26% of Carrboro residents are satisfied with the price points of housing in Town. The survey recommends this be the #1 issue that the Town seeks to address.

The Candidates On Two Timely Topics In Town: Affordable Housing and the Bolin Creek Greenway

We’re in the middle of deep affordability crisis in Carrboro. As documented by Carolina Demography at the recent State of the Community briefing offered by the Carolina Chamber, the median home price in Carrboro has risen by over $200,000 in the last three years.

The Candidates ON HOUSING

On housing, as on many issues, Catherine Fray brings their planning board experience to offer precise policy actions they would support: (from frayforcarrboro.com/platform/)

And at the NEXT/IFC/CEF/EMPOWERment candidate forum, a question was asked if candidates would support the 34 affordable housing units proposed for town-owned land on Pathway Drive. The forum was recorded (links go to YouTube comments of the candidates) and here is the summary portion of Fray’s detailed answer:

“Carrboro needs to be building as many units as the review of the site [at Pathway Drive] will support.” – Catherine Fray

On the same question, Eliazar Posada responded: “First, we need to build more, period…one of the key issues is that we just don’t have enough places for folks to live…As for Pathway Drive, I want to build as much as we can wherever we can….on any town-owned land where it makes sense for us to build affordable housing, we need to build it.” – Eliazar Posada

Jason Merrill has spoken multiple times in the campaign about how he trusts Catherine’s instincts an analysis for policy direction, and did so here as well: “On this subject…I agree with Catherine completely…Please vote for Catherine, and then also vote for me and I’ll be a plus-one…the logistics are there for Pathway-can we only build 34? Can we build more than 34 on Pathway. I’m agreement with as much affordable housing as we can build.” – Jason Merrill

On the same question, April Mills responded: “So I agree-affordable housing is a huge concern for many people…I respect the land when it comes down to it, and I understand stormwater, and so if a site is telling you that you can only build or do so much, I think that you have to respect that…it’s not that I don’t want more houses, it’s that the water and how it impacts others is just as important, especially if it’s going to increase costs on those individuals living around or in that housing…It also needs to be on a public transportation line… it is about what is capable on the land…I do think it needs to match within the neighborhood and the community…“

Let’s unpack this a bit. To recap, Fray, Posada, and Merrill support building affordable housing on the Pathway Site. All three of them are focused on the broad affordability challenge in the community, and how it makes it hard for people across the income spectrum to remain in Carrboro.

Mills would not commit to nor outright oppose affordable housing on the site, and says that the [storm]”water and how it impacts others is just as important.” There is no development plan for the Pathway Site yet; it is early in a screening process to see what the site can accommodate in terms of housing while also meeting environmental rules. It’s entirely possible that a site plan can be created that adds no net new stormwater to the neighborhoods beyond the site. Building taller and more densely on some of the land may leave more of the land available for drainage. But Mills also raises the prospect of aesthetic criteria, putting a taller building on less land strategy that could help on stormwater in conflict with her “match the neighborhood” criterion. While not saying an outright “no,” Mills is making it clear that her priority is the perceived concerns of the neighbors (stormwater, aesthetics) and that housing for low-income residents is important, but perhaps a lower priority. (as another indicator, see Mills’ door hanger below, which mentions stormwater but not affordability)

Stephanie Wade did not attend the forum above, but has made it clear through instagram that she opposes affordable housing on Pathway Drive, and perhaps any housing anywhere else in town.

There are several policy implications of this post. Wade stated:

“One of the things I am very passionate about is tackling the affordable housing problems in Carrboro that come from being an area that has high demand.”

Then:

“Adding homes, apartments and other dwellings isn’t the answer.”

Interestingly, Wade later edited the post and the italicized sentence was removed. Here’s the current post:

Even if one ignores the deleted “no adding homes” comment, Wade’s remaining prescriptions face potentially insurmountable challenges for legal, functional and financial reasons. Those reasons are:

  1. Rent control is illegal in NC, and there is no legislative lever that the Town Council can pull on existing housing to prevent any landlord, corporate or local, from raising the rent by a certain amount.
  2. Apartment construction is THE primary method that created MOST of the affordable housing built in the area, particularly in the last ten years. That includes non-profit development projects like Greenfield Commons in Chapel Hill and Perry Place on the Chapel Hill/Carrboro town line. It also includes Shelton Station, built by for-profit developer Belmont Sayre, which includes 20 affordable and 74 market rate apartments. Another for-profit developer built The Landing at Winmore, where Wade had just visited prior to posting. It’s going to be hard to build affordable housing for individuals below the Area Median Income (AMI) without building apartments.

3. Our Transit funds are fully committed for some time. Chapel Hill Transit, GoTriangle and Orange Public Transportation have all made investments in recent years. The planned Hillsborough Train Station has funding reserved in our county transit plan. Between these investments and construction funds reserved for the crucial North-South Bus Rapid Transit project in Chapel Hill, nearly every transit dollar in the county is already committed for the next several years, perhaps as far out as 2030. When Wade says that we must add more transit before adding any more housing, she is inherently implying either:

a)the Town should support a multi-year-long development moratorium on all housing until new bus service arrives, which could be as late as 2030
b)the Town should raise taxes to pay for more public transportation

As a final piece of information to assess how Mills and Wade prioritize affordable housing, I’ve taken a picture of their door hanger literature below. Neither mentions affordable housing in their priorities, despite it being the #1 issue in the Town Survey. Public transportation is also not mentioned on either door hanger.

The Candidates ON TRANSPORTATION & THE BOLIN CREEK GREENWAY

The NEXT/IFC/CEF/EMPOWERment Forum asked if the Town Council should complete the Bolin Creek greenway sections 3 and 4. Here are key excerpts of the answers of the candidates who attended. We’ll start with The Newcomers this time.

April Mills: “For me, there are four options that are available. I really don’t think anybody knows the costs for all four options, or the maintenance costs after they are installed. I do have a lot of environmental questions about the creekside alignment…I know there is talk about OWASA right-of-way, but from my understanding, its that they would be 30 feet from the OWASA right of From my understanding [the greenway] would need to be 30 feet away from the OWASA right-of-way, and so I do have concerns over where the path would go...”

While Stephanie Wade did not attend this forum, she recently made the statement below on social media that mirrors Mills’ statement about greenways not being allowed in already-cleared-of-trees OWASA easements.

It’s possible that Mills and Wade have been given misinformation here, as MOST of the greenways in both Chapel Hill and Carrboro have been built in OWASA easements, which Ryan Byars has documented (with photos!) here.

Here’s what the Carrboro Better Together slate had to say on the issue.

Catherine Fray: “Yes, Carrboro should complete sections 3 and 4 of the Bolin Creek Greenway. It’s time to complete the greenway. My message to the town majority that supports the greenway is that we are going to complete the Bolin Creek greenway, and…we’re going to be talking about separated bike lanes, and about shading pavement in neighborhoods that have been under-invested in so that people can walk safely…this is a no-brainer, we’re Carrboro, we want to be that green,walkable, bikeable town…there little better we can do to support than completing the greenway.”

Eliazar Posada: “Do you want to finish the greenway? Yes. Period…The last time the town took an action before re-opening public comment was 14 years ago…that’s way too long to keep the community trying to figure out what is going to happen here…we as a town have been cowering to the most influential, and that’s not something that I’m here for.”

Jason Merrill: “Bolin Creek is 40 to 60 million years old. To think that a species that has been only here 10,000 years old is going cause irreparable damage…is kind of arrogant…what this issue is about is exclusive access…what people lobbying against it are about is maintaining THEIR access and not letting other people share it…making those two miles more accessible to probably ten times the number of people who are using it now would be a benefit to the entire community…”

The Crystallization of the Election in One Comment

While Merrill was only speaking about the greenway in the comment above, he touched upon the primary axis around which every other issue in the campaign revolves – should public policy decisions should be viewed primarily through the eyes of wealthy homeowners who live near proposed public investments, or should we take a broader view while also parsing those concerns?

Here’s a map showing the median income of the town, the proposed Bolin Creek Greenway Phases 3 and 4, and the proposed Pathway Drive affordable housing site. It’s impossible to miss how the greenway would connect lower-income parts of the community to the south to Chapel Hill High School, Smith Middle School, and Seawell Elementary at the north end of the greenway alignment.

On these two key issues, the Carrboro Better Together slate and the Newcomers slate have clearly different priorities.

  • The Carrboro Better Together candidates will support the completion of public investments in the Bolin Creek Greenway along the creekside alignment and affordable housing on town-owned land on Pathway Drive. Both will connect residents across the income spectrum to schools, parks, and each other.
  • The Newcomer candidates, while being less definitive on both projects, are more likely to oppose both the construction of affordable housing on Pathway Drive, and to oppose the creekside alignment while supporting other alignment plans that are promoted by anti-greenway groups such as the Friends of Bolin Creek. The Newcomers’ objection to both is couched in terms of stormwater and environmental management, even though there are plenty of local examples of technical best practies on both of these fronts. (Shelton Station apartments detains stormwater underground to prevent flooding; the Bolin Creek Greenway in Chapel Hill used multiple techniques that have stabilized the creekbed and prevented erosion.)

Does Where We Stand Ultimately Depend Upon Where We Sit?

As we consider these five candidates, it is also worth knowing that the Newcomer candidates both live in census tracts on the north side of town that both have median incomes over $100,000 per year, while the Carrboro Better Together candidates all live in the Census Tract that had a median income of $36,059 in the map above.

So it’s not surprising that the Carrboro Better Together candidates might hear more about housing cost challenges from their neighbors, and that the Newcomers might hear more from their neighbors about stormwater, since their financial basic needs are more likely to be met.

When any of these five candidates say “this is what I’m hearing,” we should taken them at their word.

What is most interesting about these two sets of platforms is that while it’s clear that the Newcomers’ platform is likely to block substantial priorities of the Carrboro Better Together slate, the reverse is not necessarily true. While the Newcomers are talking about stormwater as a problem, Catherine Fray from the Carrboro Better Together slate is as well, and has been identifying actionable strategies the Town can take to work on the stormwater issue, including using the stormwater utility that the Town established in 2017. Watch them break the issue down here in their closing statement from the forum:

The Town Survey, The Comprehensive Plan, The Candidates and The Future

In 2023, we have a very good idea of what is important to Carrboro residents at a large scale thanks to the 2021 Town Survey, and also the Carrboro Connects Comprehensive Plan process, which involved over 1,600 residents in Town and won an award for inclusive engagement.

The Carrboro Connects plan declares its two foundational pillars to be Racial Equity and Climate Action. Addressing these issues in 2023 largely requires TAKING actions and building things to change the course of an inequitable and climate-change-accelerating status quo.

The Carrboro Better Together slate largely supports the direction set by Carrboro Connects plan, and would TAKE action to build low-to-zero-carbon transportation choices like the Bolin Creek Greenway, and TAKE racial equity steps forward like developing affordable housing on Town-owned land, including Pathway Drive.

The Newcomers are less precise in their policy preferences, and express skepticism or outright opposition to the completing the Bolin Creek Greenway or building affordable housing on Pathway Drive. On these issues, the primary policy approach of the Newcomers would be the PREVENTION of actions, particularly construction (of greenways or homes) in the wealthiest part of Carrboro, and perhaps other parts of town as well.

Carrboro’s future will hinge on which of these two directions the electorate chooses in November.

Carrboro Town Council Should Vote on Parking Reform This Week (May 16th)

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On Tuesday, May 16th, the Town Council will discuss the potential of removing parking requirements in town for the first time.

The Short Story: All of the information the Town Council needs to make a decision about parking requirements is already in the public domain, and there is no additional research that can be undertaken to further illuminate the policy question. To take an affirmative, meaningful step towards the goals of Climate Action and Racial Equity that uphold the Carrboro Connects plan, THE TOWN COUNCIL SHOULD VOTE ON MAY 16TH TO CONVERT ALL MINIMUM PARKING REQUIREMENTS TO MAXIMUM PARKING ALLOWANCES IN THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS:

  • Downtown Carrboro zoning districts
  • All non-residential parcels within ½ of mile of All-Day (J, CW, CM) and Express (JFX, 405) bus routes

AND ELIMINATE ALL MINIMUM PARKING REQUIREMENTS IN THE REMAINDER OF THE TOWN, WHILE REFRAINING FROM ADDING PARKING MAXIMUMS ON RESIDENTIAL-ONLY PARCELS.

Any alternative policy that requires developer negotiation with staff or council to meet a parking number is a version of the failed status quo and should be considered dead on arrival at the Council table.

The Bigger Picture: The town staff materials discussing the proposed parking policy change in the May 16th agenda packet focus on highly improbable outcomes and do not mention climate change, or equity risks inherent in the status quo.

Before we get into the details, I want to make two key points. The first:

THE ELIMINATION OF MINIMUM PARKING REQUIREMENTS DOES NOT REQUIRE THAT NEW DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS HAVE ZERO PARKING SPACES.

201 N Greensboro street recently got a permit that did not use the town’s minimum parking requirements – they simply proposed a number that made more in line with the actual use they anticipate.  The removal of parking requirements allows developers to bring in proposals with a number of parking spaces they think makes sense while meeting other project goals like street trees, affordable housing, and high quality design. It saves time and helps get us good projects faster.

The second key point:

THE PRIMARY GOAL OF ELIMINATING PARKING REQUIREMENTS IS TO MAKE GOOD DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS (INCLUDING THOSE WITH AFFORDABLE HOUSING COMPONENTS) CEASE TO BE FINANCIALLY INFEASIBLE DUE TO AN ARBITRARY NUMBER OF PARKING SPACES IN THE TOWN CODE THAT DRIVES UP CONSTRUCTION COSTS. REMOVING MINIMUM PARKING REQUIREMENTS STILL ALLOWS ANY DEVELOPER TO PROPOSE AS MUCH PARKING AS THEY WOULD LIKE.

The Details:

The Town Staff materials on the policy have several shortcomings we need to unpack to have a healthy community conversation about this. If you read the Staff Materials, you might have the following take-aways:

  • That we know nothing about how Carrboro residents travel today that could help us think about whether eliminating parking minimums has risks to the town.
  • That altering policy on parking requirements requires a certain level of transit service or it can’t be done.
  • That removing parking requirements raises the risk of a flood of automobiles into Carrboro city streets for on-street parking that will be so substantial that it will block fire trucks and first responders to reach emergencies, and these are potential outcomes even along semi-rural Rogers Rd.
  • That parking requirements have nothing to do with climate change, which is not mentioned in the document.
  • That it is not possible for Town Council will take an action any sooner than fall 2023.
  • Finally, and perhaps most importantly – it presumes that the status quo is less risky and more equitable than the potential policy change. Unrealistic risks that have not happened in other communities that have reformed parking are imagined in the staff memo, and the force that parking requirements apply to make mixed-use and mixed income housing projects financially infeasible – is only obliquely referenced.

The remainder of this blog post addresses each of these shortcomings in the staff materials.

ANALYSIS USING CARRBORO TRANSPORTATION COMMUTING BEHAVIOR DATA

If we care about slowing climate change, we must work to actively reduce the auto-dependency of our communities. However, the staff memo does the opposite, assumes a fully auto-dependent population, and assumes that for each new development, that every developer will underestimate the needs of their building, and that they will not provide enough spaces and produce spillover effects on town streets. But does every Carrboro resident drive everywhere? No. We have lots of data on this.

Nearly Half of Carrboro Commuters Carpool, Take the Bus, Bike, Walk or Telecommute

Here are the 5-Year Average Estimates for Carrboro commuting modes from the American Community Survey, the best publicly available data, for the years 2017-2021:

Drove AloneCarpoolTransitBike / Walk / TelecommuteTotal
55.3%7.9%10.9% 25.8%100.0%
Method of commuting to work, Carrboro American Community Survey, 2017-2021

Prior to the pandemic, Carrboro was already one of the towns with the highest percentage of residents who DON’T drive alone to work in the Southeast. The work-from-home revolution has significantly contributed to the expansion of the Bike/Walk/Telecommute number above, and transit use in Carrboro remains at a level equal to or above that of suburbs of major US cities with mature rail systems.

What does this mean for parking use? It means being a two-worker, one car household in Carrboro is much easier than in other communities. It means that when I go downtown on good weather days, I’m much more likely to bike than drive. Our household of three has gone from being a two-car family to a one-car family for the past 18 months, and living in Carrboro makes it possible because we have transportation choices. As we permit new buildings, the new residents will have the same opportunities.

Carrboro literally welcomes new residents and helps them to drive less!

We don’t just see this in commuting data, though. We also see it in traffic counts.

TRAFFIC COUNTS HAVE FALLEN SIGNIFICANTLY IN CARRBORO OVER THE PAST TWENTY YEARS

What? Am I kidding? No. You can go fact-check me at the NCDOT interactive traffic count website if you want to.

Here are some daily traffic counts for key locations in town by year:

West Main Street in Front of Town Hall (total of all vehicles over 24 hours)

2003: 5,200 cars
2009: 4,500 cars
2017: 4,100 cars
2021: 3,100 cars

North Greensboro Street in front of Fitch Lumber

2003: 16,000 cars
2009: 13,000 cars
2017: 14,000 cars
2021:  7,800 cars

East Main Street by China Gourmet Kingdom

2003: 21,000 cars
2009: 18,000 cars
2017: 15,000 cars
2021: 12,000 cars

N Greensboro St West of Blue Ridge Rd (Close to MLK Jr Park)

2003: no data
2009: 6,200 cars
2017: 5,800 cars
2021: 3,900 cars

Again, here’s the link, go see for yourself.

The only place in town you see counts rising is on NC 54, because that is predominantly pass-through traffic in our growing region. Within town, our residents are driving less and biking, walking, and working from home more.

The final point I want to make here is that between 2000 and 2020, Carrboro also grew from 16,782 residents to 21,295! The town added almost 5,000 new residents and CAR TRAFFIC FELL ALL OVER TOWN.

WHY IS THIS DATA RELEVANT?

What we see in our commute data tells us that if we pick 20 Carrboro residents at random, 12 of them will drive to work alone, two of them will carpool, another two will ride the bus, and four will bike, walk or work from home.

But our ordinance in the staff memo (Attachment B, sections 1.100 through 1.300 of the Part I table) basically assigns one parking space per bedroom, or two parking spaces per unit. This is functionally requiring 20 parking spaces for the 20 random individuals above. We’re requiring too much, and making housing more expensive by requiring the unneeded parking.

THE LEVEL OF TRANSIT SERVICE IS LARGELY IRRELEVANT TO REMOVING PARKING REQUIREMENTS

If finding the “right” level of transit service to safely eliminate parking requirements was critical, we would see parking crises in towns with less bus service than Carrboro that have taken this action. However, towns in NC that have eliminated parking minimums include:

  • Graham (83% Drive Alone in 2017-2021 ACS)
  • Mebane  (85% Drove Alone)
  • Albemarle (82% Drove Alone)
  • Mooresville (84% Drove Alone)
  • Gastonia (84% Drove Alone)

All of these places have significantly less transit service than Carrboro, and Graham and Mebane grow much faster than Carrboro does due to our restrictive zoning. Even during the bus operator shortage, the J bus still operates 15-minute service on Main Street and 20-minute frequency on the CW in the morning. The CM and JFX supplement with rush hour frequencies of 15 to 25 minutes, and GoTriangle 405 connects us to Durham every 30 minutes. These are excellent transit frequencies at peak times in any southeastern US city. Only the F bus, which only runs four daily roundtrips at this point, has a qualitatively different and noticeably low level of service. It is reasonable therefore to exclude the F but otherwise support parking policy reforms around the remaining All-Day (J,CM, CW) and Express (JFX,405) services.

If the towns above aren’t having parking nightmares with less transit and 30% more drive-alone commuters, why are we contemplating such outcomes in Carrboro? Surely if the votes to reform parking in these five other communities had created significant problems, we’d be able to find news of it. That doesn’t seem to be the case. From a qualitative point of view, if you haven’t been to downtown Graham recently, it’s jumping. Old buildings are full of new businesses and it’s an increasingly lively and pleasant place, and the elimination of parking requirements has been a key ingredient in activating old buildings with new businesses.

If these small towns with fewer transportation choices and greater auto-dependency can make these parking change without crisis, Carrboro, with its significantly larger transit, bike, and telecommuting mode shares, can likely do so without any noticeable impact on our streets, given our reduced traffic counts in recent years.

CLIMATE ACTION IS A PILLAR OF THE CARRBORO CONNECTS PLAN

It’s frustrating to see a document from the Town related to Carrboro Connects that is silent on climate change.

Councilor Slade has made repeated valiant efforts to bring climate action to the Council Table, and I believe that the Council is earnestly interested in taking action. Transportation is the largest source of GHG emissions in Orange County, and therefore is the biggest lever to push to move the needle locally to reduce GHG emissions. Requiring too much parking is fundamentally encouraging further auto use when we need to reduce it. Eliminating parking requirements doesn’t even discourage auto use, it merely stops over-promoting it. Developers can still choose to provide parking at a level that is out of touch with climate imperatives. Parking maximums, however, with their limits on ultimate parking supply, affirmatively discourage auto use, which is why I recommend it as the preferred policy at the beginning of this post.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Orange County by Sector

THE USE OF THE RACIAL EQUITY POCKET QUESTIONS IS INCOMPLETE

As a regular reader of Town Council packets, I observe that the Racial Equity Pocket Questions are primarily posed to consider the racial equity benefits and impacts of a proposed policy change, but not the racial equity dimensions of the status quo policy situation.

This is a problem as it assumes that the current state of affairs is inherently more equitable, even though the Carrboro Connects plan identifies many inequities in town that demand action more than additional study. The Racial Equity Pocket Questions are one of the best new practices in local governance, but they need to examine the status quo as vigorously as any proposed policy change for the best outcomes.

SOME OF THE ANALYSIS IS AT ODDS WITH CURRENT LOCAL TRENDS AND BEST PRACTICES IN TRANSPORTATION PLANNING

While several of the answers in the Racial Equity Pocket Questions in the staff memo are well-considered, there is also a good deal of unrealistic speculation that is at odds with most transportation planning best practices and what we know about relative life safety risks in our community. For example, the memo states:

 “Unintended consequences include the congestion of small streets that are unequipped for street parking (as residents who live or move into the area still have cars). Congested streets could make it difficult for emergency services to access residences, could make the streets more dangerous for walkers and cyclists…”

First – development in Carrboro is so slow and so difficult due to our development ordinances, that it is not going to be possible to develop quickly enough in most of the town for this to become a problem. Removing parking minimums is usually a necessary, but not sufficient step to unlocking new economic development opportunities, mixed-use buildings that drive tax revenue for equity goals, and new affordable housing concepts. Unfortunately, the town’s development ordinances have many other hurdles embedded in them that will also need to be overcome. But this situation also means it will be impossible for a parking problem to overtake the town with any speed, especially in residential neighborhoods.

Second, this paragraph is embedded with the assumption that ever more car use is inevitable, even as noted above, car traffic on many Carrboro streets has fallen by 50% over 20 years!

Regarding congestion, the Town of Chapel Hill just added parking protected bike lanes to Franklin Street, and car speeds are slower and people walking and on bike report feeling much safer even though motorists might consider the street more congested. Many Vision Zero strategies that municipalities are using to reduce traffic deaths and life-altering injuries intentionally deploy congestion as a tool to slow automobile speeds.

From an overall life safety perspective, many more residents in Carrboro are injured each year by traffic violence than by fires in homes or businesses. Making streets fast for first responders mostly makes them fast for all other drivers, which puts everyone in town at greater risk every day, even if it gets a fire truck to a house a few seconds earlier on a much less frequent basis.

A second excerpt states: “Spatial analysis…—indicates most of the parcels in Carrboro’s two qualified census tracts (QCTs) as well as historically Black neighborhoods near Rogers Road and Alabama Avenue would be impacted by changes identified in this project.”

Again, this statement seems to be embedded with the notion that removing parking requirements will lead developers simply not to provide parking, leading to congest the sides of streets like Rogers Rd with parking on the shoulder of the street. Whether they are private developers or mission-driven ones such as a church, both have self-interested incentives not to do this. Private developers have profit at risk, and want to meet consumer preferences. In places that have a semi-rural built environment, such as Rogers Rd, the expectation will very much be for off-street parking, and developers will likely cater to that expectation to sell or rent their homes. Similarly, if a church or other mission-driven organization like Habitat for Humanity proposes a development, they will likely propose parking locations that work for their stakeholders, not those that straddle the road right-of-way. This is a significant amount of discussion for a risk that is unlikely to materialize.

WHAT’S THE MOST PRO-CLIMATE ACTION AND PRO-RACIAL EQUITY POSITION POSSIBLE?

On climate, sustaining minimum parking requirements is 100% in conflict with all climate goals, and is Anti-Climate Action. This consensus spans all kinds of publications, from Bloomberg to Mother Jones, and international transit advocacy organizations:

Climate Action’s Next Frontier is Parking Reform – Bloomberg

Why US Cities Are Falling Out of Love With the Parking Lot
To Tackle Climate Change, Cities Need to Rethink Parking

Maintaining minimum parking requirements is the bad-for-the-climate status quo that Carrboro must move on from on Tuesday night.

As mentioned at the top of the post, eliminating parking requirements still allows a developer to propose as many parking spaces as they would like for a project, even if that number of spaces encourages auto dependency. So eliminating parking requirements is progress from a bad status quo but is still only climate-neutral.

With required parking maximums that cannot be exceeded, the Town is explicitly directing developers to take positive Climate Action to bring forth concepts that double down on Carrboro’s strong mode share performance for biking, walking and transit, and to de-emphasize car use as much as feasible while still bringing new jobs and economic development to Carrboro.

Relative alignment of Parking Requirement approaches with Climate Change Mitigation Action

Regarding racial equity, BIPOC homeowners, particularly black residents, have been negatively impacted by systemic racism that discouraged bank lending and wealth-building through homeownership in minority communities over many decades. While adopting maximum parking requirements is a stronger climate policy than simply eliminating minimum parking requirements, applying maximum parking requirements only to commercial properties in Downtown Carrboro and within ½-mile of all-day and express bus services allows commercial landowners to lead on parking supply innovation while ensuring that BIPOC homeowners (and all homeowners) have the freedom to build as much or as little parking on their land as suits their needs. Taking the climate neutral approach of Eliminating Parking Requirements on residential-only land in Town is therefore positive movement on climate while also being a pro-Racial Equity position that does not add regulatory burdens to homeowners, including BIPOC homeowners.

IN CLOSING: CARRBORO CONNECTS CAN BE A COMPREHENSIVE PLAN OR A COMPREHENSIVE WISH

Most of the data in this blog post is old. We know a lot. A plan is something you do and we have enough information to give us the wisdom to act.

Adding density to land in town on transit routes in small units offers one of our best chances to expand the stock of small multifamily homes that will have some legally binding affordable units, and others that will be attainable to 1 and 2 person households near the median income. But our parking requirements are probably the #1 barrier to making this happen.

So the land use reform vs affordability debate is on the table again Tuesday night, as it has been at every Town Council meeting since the Carrboro Connects plan was adopted on June 7th, 2022. The median home price has risen about 5% (~$21,000) since plan adoption. Waiting has consequences.

Carrboro Connects plan is a great document informed by the most inclusive planning process the town has ever done. But without policy action, it’s a comprehensive wish, not a plan.

Let’s take a vote Tuesday evening, shall we?

The Equity Benefits of Completing the Bolin Creek Greenway

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There are lots of great reasons to complete the Phase 3 and 4 segments of the Bolin Creek Greenway through Carrboro that include a wide variety of environmental benefits. But equally important are the equity benefits that the community will receive from completing the greenway.

Connecting Students to Public Schools

There are three Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools that are close to the proposed Phase 3 and 4 segments of the Bolin Creek Greenway: Seawell Elementary School, Smith Middle School, and Chapel Hill High School.

Really? Where?

The image below shows proximate the northern portion of the greenway would be to the three schools. Connecting the greenway to each of them would be easy to do as part of the Phase 3 and 4 project. The Chapel Hill High School-Homestead Rd path already connects neighborhoods north of Homestead Rd to Chapel Hill High School near the tennis courts.

Talking Equity: The Differences Between Household Income Along the Proposed Greenway and School Demographics at Seawell, Smith, and CHHS

The households living in the Census Block Groups immediately adjacent to the proposed phase 3 and phase 4 segments of the Bolin Creek Greenway have only 3% of residents living in poverty, and have median incomes over $123,000 per year. (well above the median income for Chapel Hill/Carrboro of roughly $77,000 per year) The map below shows the relative income of Census Block groups near Phase 3 and 4, labeled as “Bolin Creek Missing Greenway.”

However, data gathered by US News shows that the percentages of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch (strongly correlated with household poverty) at the three schools are notably higher:

  • Seawell Elementary: 26% of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch
  • Smith Middle School: 23% of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch
  • Chapel Hill High School: 16% of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch

Here are individual median incomes identified for some of the Census Block Groups near the proposed Greenway. In each case, the median household income of the block group is identified in a green box.

South of Estes Drive and East of North Greensboro Street

The Census Block Group immediately south of Estes drive and East of North Greensboro Street has the lowest median household income near the proposed greenway. This area include the Estes Park apartments and the 605 Oak Avenue public housing community.

Immediately East of the University Railroad and West of Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd in Chapel Hill

This Census Block Group has a median income of roughly $72,000 per year, which is closer to (but still below) the median income in the area.

North of Estes Drive and Surrounding the Proposed Greenway Alignment

The Census Block that largely surrounds the proposed greenway on both sides has a median income of over $123,000 per year.

The Attendance Zones for These Schools Serve Low-Income Neighborhoods in both Carrboro and Chapel Hill

Here are the Smith Middle School attendance zones laid on top of the income map and the proposed greenway alignment. What becomes pretty obvious is that the SCHOOLS are at the north end of proposed Bolin Creek Greenway and many of the neighborhoods with lower and middle income residents are at the south end.

Completing this portion of the greenway (and connecting the southern end to Umstead Park in Chapel Hill!) would really provide a safe, healthy, environmentally friendly transportation choice for students at all three schools, though particularly middle school and high school students, who are more likely to take a longer trip by foot or bike.

Given that the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools are facing unprecedented challenges in hiring school bus drivers to bring children to school, and that low-income families are less likely to have a car available to drive a child to school if their bus doesn’t show up, completing the Bolin Creek Greenway is more than a way to create emission-free, environmentally-friendly trips between neighborhoods – it’s a way to help make access to education more equitable, resilient and reliable for everyone.

The Fundamentals of Carrboro

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Carrboro Town Hall

Carrboro has a relatively new (and yet deeply experienced) Mayor, a new town manager, and the most progressive town council in recent memory.

This new leadership team has settled into place and Carrboro recently adopted its first ever Comprehensive Plan for the town, declaring that its two overarching principles are making Carrboro a place that advances Racial Justice and takes Climate Action.

Now that the Carrboro Connects plan is adopted, will it move us in the directions described above? Are the strategies proposed to move ahead feasible for a town with budget and staff capacity the size of Carrboro, and will they be designed to leverage our assets, or be more dependent on the goodwill of other partners to be executed?

To answer these questions, we’ve got to start with an accounting of Carrboro’s place in the world, and our challenges and opportunities. Below I present what I see as the lay of the land, what I will refer to going forward as The Fundamentals of Carrboro. Let’s begin.

Fundamental #1: Carrboro is part of the Triangle economy, and except for UNC, it is far from all of the region’s other major job centers.

Traditionally, the Triangle regional economy has centered on employment opportunities in Wake, Durham, and Orange counties. Carrboro sits very close to one of the densest job clusters in the region with UNC and UNC Hospital. Downtown Chapel Hill and Downtown Carrboro could also be considered part of this cluster. But most of the rest of Carrboro is adjacent to low-density suburban Chapel Hill neighborhoods or the Orange County rural buffer. The rural buffer has few to zero job opportunities now and will not likely add them in the future. East Chapel Hill may hold more jobs in the future, but development cycles in Chapel Hill are long and slow. Except for those Carrboro-ers that work at or adjacent to UNC, most Carrboro residents are traveling 10-20 miles each way to work in Durham or RTP, or 30-40 miles to work in Raleigh. Increasing suburban growth across the region and no high capacity transit planned for Carrboro in the next 30 years means that driving to these far-flung jobs will only get more challenging for Carrboro residents.

Unless we figure out how to grow a larger base of jobs here in town, Carrboro residents will have an increasingly difficult time accessing a wide variety of jobs in other communities in the region. If like me, you are a parent who finds Carrboro a good place to raise a child, this situation increases the likelihood that the kids we love to raise here will move away to find work.

Fundamental #2: Our tax base is 86% residential and only 14% commercial.

We have a very high dependence on residential property tax to pay for town operations. If we can’t grow the commercial tax base, the funding for all of Carrboro’s lofty goals will be paid for most heavily through residential property taxes, which…raise the cost of housing.

Fundamental #3: Carrboro is part of, and heavily influenced by, the Chapel Hill real estate market. Both towns have made choices to grow slower than the region, with significant consequences.

Over the past decade, all the other communities surrounding Chapel Hill and Carrboro have grown by at least 20%, while Chapel Hill and Carrboro have grown at less than half the rate of the others. (Durham, while not listed, is also over 20%).

Wikipedia

Growing this slowly is A POLICY CHOICE that has been repeatedly made by both the Chapel Hill and Carrboro town councils.

The scarcity of new housing in both communities for a growing population has a predictable result, nearly half of our renters are cost-burdened:

Carolina Chamber State of the Community Report

This means that since Carrboro is adjacent to another slow-growing town, Chapel Hill’s scarcity of housing also drives up our prices and rents, and the difficulty of building in either of the two towns sends jobs elsewhere.

What does growing slower and becoming more expensive have to do with Racial Justice? Due to a host of systemic discriminatory phenomena, from redlining to urban renewal to hiring discrimination to real estate appraisals, we have a significant wealth gap in the United States between white and non-white households.

Median Net Worth By Race (Federal Reserve, 2019)

This means that when lower-income residents struggle to afford to live in Carrboro, they are much more likely to be black and brown residents. Our current development patterns have us on a glide path to being an increasingly older, wealthier, and whiter town. This outcome is far from the values Carrboro professes to hold.

What does growing slower have to do with Climate Action?

The Cool Climate Network at UC-Berkeley modeled a bunch of policy actions to see how much they would reduce GHG emissions. The data above is for the City of Sacramento. Look at how much urban infill outperforms. The biggest source of GHGs in the US is transportation, and urban infill can convert driving trips to walking, turning the most polluting trips into zero-emissions exercise. That’s why it makes such an impact.

Fundamental #4: Carrboro does not have the capacity to build affordable housing at scale.

Building new affordable housing units is expensive, and while Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill have the financial and staff capacity to do Low Income Housing Tax Credit projects like Willard Street Apartments in Durham or Greenfield Commons in Chapel Hill, Carrboro presently lacks both the resources and staff to produce and fund new affordable housing at this level.

This doesn’t mean Carrboro shouldn’t pursue affordable housing initiatives; we most certainly should. What it means is that we should be thinking about how to increase Carrboro’s capacity to meet our goals just as we define those goals in our Comprehensive Plan.

This capacity expansion will demand financial resources and technical skill, likely through the hiring of new town employees.

Fundamental #5: We are the people we’ve been waiting for.

If you’ve followed state government or federal government policy recently, it’s fair to say that if our plans rely on outside partners to contribute significant amounts of funding to achieve our goals, then we could be waiting for a long time. To paraphrase Barack Obama, Carrboro’s plans should embrace the idea that “we are the people we’ve been waiting for.”

Our elected leaders should certainly try to build partnerships with other levels of government to advance community goals. The soon-to-break-ground 203 Project, featuring a new library in Carrboro, is a great example of the town and Orange County working together. However, excellent outcomes like this are more often the exception than the rule, and while we should embrace those opportunities when they arise, we should not count on them to achieve our goals.

Fundamental #6: Carrboro has assets to pursue its goals, but the town is not taking full advantage of those assets to reach its goals more quickly – YET.

Carrboro has some powerful things going for it. While far from many jobs in the Triangle region, it is very close to a big job center in UNC, including many well-paying jobs. The University and UNC hospital also aren’t going anywhere, which means that even in recessions, that job base will likely remain present and strong.

Carrboro and Chapel Hill share the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School System, which is one of the highest-regarded and best funded in the state of North Carolina. As a former college admissions counselor, I can tell you that its high schools are well-regarded both in-state and nationally.

We have a downtown that has a strong local business flavor. Our town commons hosts a nationally recognized Farmers Market.

Our fare-free bus system, Chapel Hill Transit, carries a very high number of passengers for a community of this size, and has helped LOWER most traffic counts in town compared to the early 2000s, despite growing population in both communities.

These are just some of the things that make our community a good place to live, and makes the land beneath our buildings quite valuable. But not all buildings are created equal, and on a per-acre basis, our more densely developed buildings provide significantly more tax revenue per acre to pursue our community goals. In 2013, the Chamber hired a consulting firm, Urban 3, to report on the tax productivity per acre in Orange County. The most productive building in Carrboro at that time was the Hampton Inn.

Tax value per acre (Carolina Chamber / Urban 3/ Joe Minicozzi)

Putting it all together – Carrboro can meet a lot of goals by using our valuable land differently, and more intensely. We can build more housing, and make room for new neighbors, while helping current ones stay in town. We can provide space for new job opportunities, so our residents can shorten their commutes, and their emissions. Doing both will also bring in new tax revenue to help pay for the big goals the town wishes to pursue.

Equally important is that how the town grows is mostly controlled by choices made by the Carrboro Town Council.

The 2022 – 2023 Town Council session presents an ideal time to begin making a transition to a greener and more inclusive future. This coming year on the blog will be dedicated to putting forth strategies to make this happen.

Affordable Housing on Town Land Presents an Opportunity for Carrboro – and a Character Test

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This blog post is an overview of a community conversation going on in Carrboro, NC, about the town’s plan to build affordable housing on town-owned land.

The Big Picture: Our Housing Challenge

But first: how expensive is it to live in Carrboro? We need to put things in perspective. Before we grapple with this question, watch this 90 second video from the Raleigh News and Observer yesterday with the volume on. Take a listen to Monique Edwards, who is narrating the scene at a showing for a house that is being sold for $260,000 in Raleigh.

 

Now that we’ve set the scene, here are the median listing prices for homes in our area from realtor.com as of February 23, 2022:

Let it sink in- the median home for sale in Carrboro is priced 85% higher than the one in this video.

Carrboro’s Strategy to Build Affordable Housing on Town-Owned Land

Here’s what’s happening: on February 8th, 2022, the Carrboro Town Council approved a strategy to create affordable housing on Town-owned land. This approval represents the culmination of several years of work, including:

  • Town Council adopting Affordable Housing Goals and Strategies (June 2014)
  • Updating those strategy documents (March 2015)
  • Affirming via the Town Attorney that Carrboro has the authority to provide affordable housing in general, and on town-on land specifically (February 2018)

The most recent step has been for the Town to review land it owns to see which sites are most suitable for building affordable housing. Building affordable homes on publicly owned land is a common strategy for municipalities in North Carolina, which lacks the legislative support for tools like rent control and inclusionary zoning that are available in other states.

The Town reviewed 47 parcels, and narrowed the list down to three sites with the most potential after excluding other sites in the list of 47 that were any of the following categories:

1) Within a conservation easement
2) Inside a Long-Term Interest Areas (WASMPBA)
3) No water or sewer nearby
4) Within 100 year floodplain
5) Within dedicated right-of-way
6) Parcel completely developed
7) Inside Rural Buffer zoning

The Town Council unanimously endorsed this strategy at the meeting on February 8th, and it was reported on by Chapelboro.com on February 16th.

Where are the sites?

  • 106 Hill Street (three homes already being built)
  • Crest Street
  • 1814-1816 Pathway Drive

Community Response

After the Chapelboro story, email lists around town began receiving invitations to a meeting scheduled by neighbors of the Pathway Drive site on Saturday, February 19th. As someone with a long interest and professional background in these topics, I attended the meeting. About 50 to 75 people gathered in a cul-de-sac near the proposed Pathway Drive site to share their thoughts and concerns about the proposal with each other, and Councilmember Randee Haven O’Donnell took questions.

While I’m not going to spend time detailing lots of comments, I think it is fair to say that the majority of those in attendance were first and foremost trying to learn what is going on. Beyond that, I think it is also fair to say that there were a few individuals who think that affordable housing at the Pathway site represents a significant opportunity for the community, and several more who have concerns.

But while this story may be new to Carrboro, it has all the ingredients of a disheartening local government controversy that we see time and again in communities that vote in very high percentages for Democratic candidates in national elections.

A Local Story In a National Moment

I was going to write a few paragraphs about this, but then I remembered that the New York Times did a fabulous video on this recently. Start at the 4 minute mark, and go to 7:15. This is a better primer than anything I could write.

This topic has also been addressed in Richard Reeves’ book Dream Hoarders, where he takes a look at how anti-development activism locks lower income children out of better school systems, and limits social mobility:

“…homes near good elementary schools are more expensive: about two and a half times as much as those near the poorer-performing schools, according to an analysis by Jonathan Rothwell. But the gap is much wider in metropolitan areas with more restrictive zoning. ‘A change in permitted zoning from the most restrictive to the least restrictive would close at least 50% of the observed gap between the most unequal metropolitan area and the least, in terms of neighborhood inequality,” Rothwell finds. Loosening zoning regulations would reduce the housing cost gap and by extension narrow educational inequalities.”

So…how similar is this conversation we’re having in Carrboro to the national trend?

I don’t need to review how Carrboro votes in national election. And I think everyone is aware we have one of the top-rated school systems in North Carolina, and that McDougle Elementary and Middle schools are well regarded. But let’s look at Census data. We have two sites up for discussion since the third one is already being built upon.

Here is a map of the Crest Street and Pathway Drive sites, overlaid on median income by census tract from the American Community Survey (ACS):

The Pathway site is in one of the highest income neighborhoods in Carrboro, with a median income over $130,000, which is approaching double the Orange County median household income of around $71,000.

And also percent white by census tract from the ACS tables on race and ethnicity:

The Pathway site is in a census tract that is 81% white, whereas Carrboro as a whole is 62% white. (2020 Census)

On my way home that evening, I counted seven Black Lives Matter yard signs on the way back to North Greensboro Street. It was also hard to miss this larger banner one block from where the meeting was held.So yes, while every college town development tussle has its own nuances, this is a conversation that could very easily end in dispiriting outcomes like Boulder residents opposing affordable housing to protect firefly habitats and limit “pet density.”

Can We Have A Better Conversation In Carrboro?

I sure hope so. With that in mind, I’ve got some suggestions for everybody.

Suggestions for the Town

For the town staff:

1. The clearest take-away from the meeting I attended near the Pathway site is that the process that got from 47 sites to 3 sites is a mystery to everyone. I don’t think the Town intended it to be that way, but I spent some time looking around the town website and digging through 2018 meeting minutes and I couldn’t find what I think a lot of people would like to see – a spreadsheet that lists all of the sites, which criteria they met and failed to meet, and so forth. I think it’s imperative to share that data with the community.

2. Future discussion of these projects needs to have some basic educational content about what is and what isn’t possible with affordable housing in North Carolina and Carrboro. Rent control? Illegal. Requiring affordable units in new development? Not allowed under standard zoning in NC. Can we negotiate with a for-profit developer? Yes, but density bonuses are tricky and when Durham offered 3 bonus market rate units for every 1 affordable unit supplied a few years back, not one developer took them up on it. These are some of the reasons why non-profit developers building on public-owned land are often how affordable housing gets delivered these days.

I’m a professional urban planner and these things are not common knowledge even in our circles. The public shouldn’t be expected to navigate the what-ifs without more background on why other things may not be possible. Please help the community understand why certain things are and are not on the table.

3. Share more information about how our Stormwater Utility (and the money it collects) are designed to help with addressing flooding issues. It’s clear there are legitimate flooding concerns already being dealt with by neighbors, and talking about how the town can address those on a parallel path to any new home construction will be valuable.

Suggestions for Those With Good Faith Concerns About the Pathway Project

4. Most importantly – go look at some multifamily home communities nearby. There are many that are quite beautiful and sought-after places to live. Take pictures of things you don’t like to share with town staff, but crucially, also take pictures of things you DO LIKE so that if something does get built, it is as informed by your goals as much as possible.

There are lots of ways to put 24 to 36 units on a small number of acres, and a sloping landline can sometimes help. Stacked townhomes with a one-floor condo on top of a two-story townhouse (or vice versa) create a three-story building type that makes it easier to build cost-efficiently while preserving more trees.

We have some interesting examples around here – the best may be Village West off of Estes Drive:

The two cohousing communities of Arcadia and Pacifica also offer some interesting, compact building techniques. I like how little land the parking at Pacifica takes up. That said, both of those communities were designed with solar access in mind, so they have very few trees amid the homes, with significant trees at the edge of their buildings. I wonder if some mix of the parking approach at Pacifica and the building type from Village West could meet the town’s goals while leaving more land undisturbed, which seems to be a goal of several neighbors.

5. Accept that while this may have felt like surprising news, the Town did not get to this point casually or without careful consideration. I hope the Town does share their list of 47 town-owned sites and the attributes of those that didn’t make the cut.  But be prepared to find out that even after the data is released, that the Pathway site is still probably the best site that the town controls to build the most affordable housing at one time.

Suggestions for the Media

In this conversation, there will be misinformation brought up, and it can’t be put on an equal plane with real technical expertise. I’ve seen reporting in one local outlet that sounds too frequently like this: “The professional stormwater engineer certified that the design can detain all the runoff from a 125-year storm using its cistern and best management practices, but a person with a strongly held opinion said that it will flood just like all the other stuff in the neighborhood [that was built before modern stormwater rules] does.”

6. Don’t do this. If you believe that reporting on an assertion that isn’t supported by technical expertise is crucial to a story, use a truth sandwich when sharing it.

Suggestions for Affordable Housing Advocates

In every local government controversy, our elected officials are besieged with emails about what people are mad about, afraid of, and against, and they rarely get emails about what people are excited about, hopeful for, or supportive of.

7. If you think building affordable housing is important, don’t just watch this process, write in and tell the town council. You can write to council@townofcarrboro.org.

Suggestion For The Town Council: Help Us Pass This Character Test

Sometimes it’s easy to tell what the right thing to do is, and hard to follow through on it. Our town’s draft comprehensive plan is built on pillars of Racial Equity and Climate Action. How do those fare if we miss this opportunity? Well, if lower-income families who were going to live at the Pathway Drive site wind up living somewhere else, it’s probably most likely somewhere with lower housing costs outside of Chapel Hill/Carrboro, and Orange County. The medical staff who check people in at my doctor’s office in Carrboro drive in from Roxboro and Siler City, respectively. The emissions of commute trips that long are a climate issue. I’m sure they’d live closer if they could afford it. From a racial equity point of view, researchers have documented how much the zipcode you grow up in can influence your life trajectory. So many of us live here because we believe this is true in Carrboro for our children. Being generous with that opportunity in 27510 is one of the best contributions we can make to racial equity.

In closing, at the community meeting last Saturday, I was heartened to hear Council member Randee Haven O’Donnell say that we absolutely must avoid pitting affordable housing and environmental goals against each other, and that this project is an opportunity to build a new model for how a community can come together to build affordable housing, and share all that we love about Carrboro with others.

May it be so. I believe this Town Council can lead us there.

Carrboro Built More Multifamily Homes from 1985 to 1989 Than It Did In The Next 30 Years Combined

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As we approach the Open House for the Carrboro Connects Draft Plan on Wednesday, September 22nd, it’s clear that Affordable Housing will be among the top topics in the plan. With that in mind, I thought it would be worthwhile to look back and attempt to analyze the long-term trends of housing construction in Carrboro.

The big take-away: Carrboro produced more multifamily homes between 1985 and 1989 than it did in the next 30 years combined.

Why does this matter? In Carrboro, with land as expensive as it is, having several households share the cost of living on expensive land is a way to allow lower-income residents to form a “density team” that gives them access to high-amenity neighborhoods at a lower price than a larger, more expensive single-family home. If Carrboro is going to approach the question of affordability seriously, the comprehensive plan must make it easier to permit multifamily dwellings throughout the town.

For each of the tables below, read up from the bottom to see how the percentages for single family homes change over time. The top right cell of data in each chart shows what percent of housing in that decade was single-family homes. (For example, in the 1980s, 47.8% of all homes in Carrboro that decade were single-family homes)

In the 1990s, only 2 multifamily homes were built in the first six years of the decade. 70.3% of all homes built in the 1990s were single family homes.

In the 2000s, over 90% of all homes built in Carrboro were single-family homes.

In the 2010s, Shelton Station added 93 multifamily homes in 2018, but the decade still had single-family housing as 79% of all housing built.

Looking at 2015 – 2019 Census data, we can see that the neighborhoods with the highest percentage of single family homes are north of Hillsborough Rd, particularly north of the intersection of Hillsborough Rd and North Greensboro Street. The three dark blue areas in north Carrboro are all 98-99% single family homes. As the median price for a single family home in Carrboro was $408,000 as of August 2021, this means we have significant portions of the town that only have housing available to those earning over $100,000 per year.

2017 Year-End Stats for CityBeautiful21

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Carrboro

Compulsory Town Logo Shot

It was a light year of posting on this blog. Only 5 posts in total! I probably worked more hours this year than I ever have at my day job, and I’m sure that had an impact. Quick blog stat highlights for 2017:

  • Total pageviews this year: about 5,100. Down from 10,700 in 2016 where I posted 8 times and also had one piece get picked up by reddit and the national blogosphere. That did not happen this year.
  • Average pageviews per post was 725 in 2015, 669 in 2016, and 1,017 in 2017. So maybe more of you are reading a second piece after the first post when you visit?

 

With only 5 posts, running down a “Top X posts” list seems silly, but my recent piece about the Chelsea Theater’s future was the most popular post of the year.

Thanks to everyone who commented this year- it’s always a joy to have your perspective added.

I hope to write a few more pieces next year. We’ll see what happens. Stay tuned!

2016 Year End Stats for CityBeautiful21

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Carrboro

Compulsory Town Logo Shot

With a few days left in a year like none other, I’ve assembled my annual stroll through the site statistics for CityBeautiful21. A few highlights:

  • More posts! Last year, Iamented only posting 8 times in 2015. I posted 16 times this year. Improvement!
  • Total pageviews this year: about 10,700. 85% more pageviews than last year.
  • Average pageviews per post was about 725 in 2015. This year, I reached only 669 per post, but that’s hiding some wide variation. See the popular post item below for the tale of the tape.

 

Most Popular Posts

  1. 4,026 views: Lloyd Farm: What Happens When You Let a Grocery Store Chain Do Urban Design
  2. 585 views: Tell the Aldermen: Carrboro Needs The Homestead-Chapel Hill High School Multi-Use Path
  3. 493 views: Chapel Hill News Describes Very Typical Carrboro Infill Project as “Unusual Density”
  4. 367 views: Lloyd Farm Development: Can We Avoid a Missed Opportunity?
  5. 292 views: Carrboro Advisory Boards Should Push For Gathering Space at Lloyd Farm

 

The Lloyd Farm piece at number 1 blew away everything I’ve previously written on this site. It was a read a lot locally for a day or two, but then within the national urbanist blogging scene, it went viral. It got picked up by Reddit’s architecture forum and got put on the front page of The Direct Transfer, and cracked the top three articles the day it was posted. It then got featured on the mega-urban DC blog Greater Greater Washington as well.

Most Common Referring Websites

  1. 1,704 from search engines, 95% from Google
  2. 1,699 from Facebook.
  3. 812 from Twitter.
  4. 699 from Reddit
  5. 174 from Greater Greater Washington

 

More Comments!

Most enjoyably, this was the blog’s best year from comments. Ray and BlakeR were among the most frequent, and I’m glad to have their contributions, and those from everyone else who weighs in.

Keeping Up With CityBeautiful21 in 201&

To all of you who read regularly, first and foremost, thank you! I appreciate your readership and your comments, be they on the blog or via email.

If you’re interested in keeping track of new posts when they hit the blog, there are several ways to do so:

  1. The Email Blast – the easiest way to ensure you get every post from CityBeautiful21.  Proceed to the Home Page, and look for the Subscribe Link at the upper right! Your email will NEVER be shared with anyone else, for any reason, period.
  2. Facebook – You can “Like” CityBeautiful21 on Facebook, where I now post direct links to every new blog post.
  3. Twitter – Follow me @CityBeautiful21

 

What’s coming in 2017? I’m not entirely sure, but Carrboro is likely to face another decision on the ugly property on the corner of N Greensboro and Weaver Streets, and I expect there will be more discussion about the future of the Lloyd Farm property. A new hotel could arrive behind the ArtsCenter, or at least go under construction. Meanwhile, Carrboro still deals with each of these items lacking a comprehensive plan and a zoning code that had its DNA formed in the 1980s, which steers us towards a suburban default in most of our outcomes unless a really progressive developer appears and does something better by working harder.

My biggest hope for 2017 is that the Board of Aldermen will put money in the 2017-2018 budget for a Comprehensive Plan effort that will ultimately replace the current zoning and development ordinance in town with something updated, modern, more predictable, and more urban. You can expect me to talk about this more in the coming months.

As always, drop me a line if you have a story idea or a question.

Best wishes to you all for a healthy and happy 2017,
Patrick

At Busiest Time of Day, Downtown Carrboro Has Over 2,000 EMPTY Parking Spaces

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Yes, you read that right. There are usually 2,000 (or more!) parking spaces empty at all times in downtown Carrboro. But we don’t have a way to allow private businesses to partner seamlessly with each other and the town to make these spaces available to the public in a way that balances individual lot owner goals and overall access goals for the downtown, so these spaces go unused when they could be more full.

Until we figure out how to address this untapped parking capacity for the benefit of business owners, the Town, and residents, there is absolutely no reason to build another parking space with public money in downtown Carrboro. It represents a massive opportunity “hiding” in plain sight.

In February, the consulting firm hired by the town to conduct the parking study, VHB, reported the following:

  • The Town of Carrboro owns 359 public parking spaces in 3 lots
  • The Town of Carrboro leases 356 public parking spaces in 5 lots
  • Private Property owners control 3,333 private parking spaces in 145 lots
  • Total Downtown Parking = 4,048 parking spaces
  •  Carrboro’s parking supply is 82% private spaces and 18% public spaces

 

Lunch Time is Crunch Time

VHB conducted parking counts and determined that peak usage for parking lots overall occurred between 11 am and 1 pm.

Parking Occupancy In Downtown Carrboro By Time of Day

Parking Occupancy In Downtown Carrboro By Time of Day

 

As you can see, the public parking spaces (the combined blue and red area) are more uniformly full, while the private spaces vary greatly. It’s also worth noting that the town leases or owns 715 parking spaces in total, and these counts never get above 500.  So our public parking system still has capacity at all times of day.

This second chart by VHB shows how much capacity is available in terms of public, leased, and private spaces.

Parking Utilization By Type

Parking Utilization By Type

 

Parking Availability Varies by Block and By Lot

VHB put together two helpful maps showing parking occupancy by block and by lot.  Here it is by block, with publicly owner or leased facilities emphasized. For example, the dark green rectangle to the right of the letters 300 E Main is the parking deck by Hickory Tavern/Hampton Inn. It’s clear that parking, while still having capacity, is most scarce (up to 85% full) in the Carr Mill Mall section in the middle.

Downtown Carrboro Parking Utilization by Block

Downtown Carrboro Parking Utilization by Block

When you break parking availability down by lot, you see much wider variation in how full the lots are.

Downtown Carrboro Parking Supply By Lot- 11 am to 1 pm

Downtown Carrboro Parking Supply By Lot- 11 am to 1 pm

Still, three of the public lots, including those on Laurel and West Weaver St near PNC Bank, are close to half empty or have greater than 50% of their spaces available. Even the large lot just south of Open Eye Cafe shows at least 30% vacancy at lunch time. The small lots by Friendly Barber are tapped out, as is the lot by Carrburritos and Bowbarr on Rosemary. The parking deck also shows at least 30% vacancy.

What The Green Means – Opportunity

But look closely at the green lot in the middle towards the bottom, just a little bit below the “W” in the “E Weaver St” text. I’ve circled that lot in PURPLE. (click the image to make it bigger)

This is the Bank of America Lot. It has 25 regular spaces plus some for people with disabilities. What the parking study is telling us is that at the biggest crunch time for parking, a lunchtime rush hour, when a lot of people come to downtown Carrboro to eat at restaurants, with Tyler’s to the left of it, Acme to the right, there it is – stuck in the middle with at least 15 parking spaces free, ALL the time. The lot surely has signs saying “Parking for Customers only” so nobody parks there unless they’re going to the bank. But the bank clearly has far fewer customers coming by car than their lot can accommodate. In fact, VHB’s analysis tells us that Bank of America could keep the ten parking spaces closest to their door for themselves, and rent out the other 15 for public use- and not ever have a customer come to the bank and not be able to park for free in one of those ten spaces.

So why doesn’t this happen? Simply put, there’s not a system to buy into. This problem is too big for any one business in town to tackle on its own, but if the town set up the infrastructure and technology to make it EASY for Bank of America to release its parking spaces, the barrier for the bank to become a partner would be greatly reduced.  What would such a system look like? It would look something like the system Asheville already has for its public spaces, but would allow businesses to opt in for some portions of their parking lots. I’d call it “CarrPark.” If the town set up a system like the one in the link for its public and leased lots, then opened up invites to businesses, then lots like the Bank of America who clearly have capacity could be invited to join, and even get some revenue for renting their spaces. If Bank of America wanted to be cautious, they could only decide to lease ten spaces to the CarrPark pool at first. That means the public supply would go from 715 to 725. If it worked well, and Bank of America customers were still happy, the bank could consider moving to 15 spaces, and the public supply would go from 725 to 730. See how this works? Incrementally, without having to worry about giving up ALL their parking, business owners could expand the general parking pool, making everyone feel LESS of a parking crunch.

How to Price a “CarrPark” System

Best practices suggest that if you set the price of parking lots to to the lowest price possible that keeps them 85% full, but no more- then people find parking to be easy and convenient. If a parking lot in the CarrPark system is less than 85% full at any time, it’s free! When demand goes up, though- the price rises to help keep the lot convenient. Revenue from the system would cover the cost of operations and provide some revenue to business owners for each space they share as an incentive to participate. Revenue beyond the incentive would be used to fund other access improvements to downtown such as better evening transit service and bike/ped access projects.

Carrboro Parking Meeting June 16th: 5:30 – 7:30 PM, Town Hall

The next meeting on the Carrboro Parking Study will be Thursday, June 16th, at 5:30 PM at Town Hall, and the agenda includes future parking management strategies. I hope to see something like the CarrPark system presented as one of the options. Please attend if you can!

Chapel Hill News Describes Very Typical Carrboro Infill Project as “Unusual Density”

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inara-courtThere are a few rezoning hearings coming up at the Carrboro Board of Aldermen meetings in June. One of them is a project called Inara Court, slated for 102 to 104 Fidelity St, which is right behind the O2 Fitness property, on the same side of Fidelity Street. I am very familiar with the area as I previously lived at two different addresses on Fidelity.

CH News Reporter Jean Bolduc’s description of the project in the paper was strange, stating:

The Board of Aldermen will hear from residents this month about a plan to build six homes on about a half-acre on Fidelity Street, behind the O2 Fitness Club. The infill project offered by Yates-Greene, LLC is classified as an “Architecturally Integrated Subdivision,” which would allow for the unusual density of so many homes on so little land.

The math here is pretty straightforward – six units on 1/2-acre of land yields 6/.5 = 13 dwelling units per acre. Is this “unusual” in Carrboro? I did some quick checking in Google Earth with the polygon tool to measure acreage, then counted units using Google Streetview.

Literally directly across the street is White Oak, a condo complex built in the early 1980s with 96 units on about 6.1 acres, or roughly 16 dwelling units per acre.

Immediately next to White Oak, also on Fidelity Street, is Village Square, with about 26 units on 2.4 acres, or roughly 11 dwelling units per acre.

At the end of Fidelity Street at the intersection with Davie Rd, there is Fidelity Court- with 72 units on about 4.5 acres or again, 16 dwelling units per acre.

Just north of the O2 Fitness and Looking Glass Cafe, there is the 605 West Main building, which if you ignore the two floors of commercial above the parking, sports 7 units in about 0.26 acres, which is about 27 dwelling units per acre.

Nothing Unusual About This Density

At 13 dwelling units to the acre, the Inara Court project fits in very consistently with residential projects in its immediate vicinity, as well as being consistent with density found at places such as Cedar Court or The Flats on North Greensboro Street. While the “Architecturally Integrated Subdivision” may be a new way of delivering 13 units/acre in town, this is a very commonplace residential density in Carrboro, and has been for nearly 4 decades.

Hopefully in the future, the Chapel Hill News will use simple comparative techniques to describe the relative density of a project as accurately as possible.

Carrboro Should Aim Higher for Infill

While I think this project has a nice aesthetic if they turn out looking like the rendering, I’m also somewhat disappointed that there was not a proposal to combine these properties with the O2 Fitness site for a larger redevelopment project. Having vacant land next to a mostly past-its life suburban strip mall that used to be  Piggly Wiggly  [correction: an A&P grocery store] way back when would have been a terrific opportunity to get at least this many housing units, maybe many more on both the market rate and affordable side, **AND** also build some new office and commercial space in downtown.

The rezoning to the higher density is certainly better infill than the two single family houses that have gone in on Poplar just behind the proposed Inara Court project, but I think we could have done even better here for the tax base, for affordable housing, and for economic vitality if we had positioned this site as a true redevelopment opportunity and put appropriate zoning in place. This is another reason Carrboro needs a comprehensive plan.