More workers to live in town

With a variety of affordable housing proposals making their way through the Chapel Hill Town Council, people who work in town might become more likely to be able to live here, too.

Four different organizations are making headway on several affordable housing options, most of which are serving niche groups of Chapel Hill’s working class — especially those associated with the University.

“There’s a nationwide discussion that’s happening about workforce housing,” said Loryn Clark, the neighborhood and community services manager for the town’s planning department.

“A variety of affordable housing opportunities and options is really good for our community,” she said.

Alongside the Community Home Trust, an organization funded partially by the town that provides affordable homes in new developments, other organizations like The Arc of Orange County are also taking on the affordable housing challenge.

The organization plans to apply for funding for an affordable housing community for the disabled in Meadowmont later this year.

“The need is so great and the organizations are so small. You need all the hands you can get working on this problem,” said Robert Dowling, executive director of the Community Home Trust.

The Home Trust presented its latest quarterly report to the Town Council last week, describing successful sales of affordable homes in the new East 54 condominiums and on Crest Street in Carrboro.

Dowling is a firm believer that those who work in a community should be able to live in that community, and many of the Home Trust’s lower-income home buyers are employed by either the University or UNC Hospitals.

“It’s absolutely essential that we don’t become a bedroom community where if you can’t afford a half-a-million-dollar home you can’t live here,” Dowling said.

“We have teachers and UNC employees and hospital employees who don’t make a lot of money who are really vital to this town.”

Orange County Habitat for Humanity has also been providing housing for University and hospital employees, although Habitat’s housing is aimed at the income group between 30 percent and 50 percent of the town’s median income.

The Community Home Trust caters to those earning 80 percent or less of the median.

In its newest project, Phoenix Place, off Purefoy Drive in the Rogers Road community, Habitat has recently accepted applications for 18 of the 50 homes in the environmentally friendly development, which is set to begin construction in January.

“Fourteen out of the 18 were either University or UNC Health Care employees,” said Habitat Executive Director Susan Levy. “Most of them work in housekeeping or facilities services.”

Another proposed development would provide affordable housing for not only University and hospital workers, but also town employees.

The Pine Knolls Townhomes planning committee will propose its plan, aimed at serving the slightly higher income group of teachers, firefighters and police, this spring.

“There’s need across the board, for sure,” Levy said, adding that each organization serves different but equal needs. “Nobody is more worthy than anyone else.”



Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.