David Adam’s Speech to Council

Town Council Meeting

December 7th, 2022

Mayor and Council Members:

I am David Adams and I am here to advocate for the many people who live all around the Legion property; those in affordable housing, those who live in the many new and coming apartments and those who live in everything from townhomes and duplexes to our older neighborhood of single family homes.

First, thanks to you for all the resources and effort you have devoted to address the critical need for affordable housing in Chapel Hill. Thanks for your recent approval of six projects and $9M in new tax dollars for this purpose. But even more thank you for the Complete Communities pilot projects in which the town will partner with the private sector (SECU) and/or with UNC to join forces for affordable housing. This approach can now be applied to new development proposals such as those on old Chapel Hill Road just around the corner from the Legion site.

Thankfully then, there are many options for getting needed affordable housing in town. In contrast, there are NO OTHER OPTIONS for conserving green space for a true community park in east Chapel Hill. No options for losing a beautiful pond, a park centerpiece, or for bulldozing a butterfly garden created and maintained by our own high school students. No options for losing acres of green space to impervious surface.

Why don’t citizens that live in the affordable units, the townhomes and duplexes, the new apartments and the old neighborhoods next to Legion deserve a park like the wealthy neighborhoods next to Cedar Falls, Homestead and Southern Community parks??

This subcommittee recommendation is not a so-called “reasonable compromise”. 

This is about EQUITY.

EQUITY for those who live in affordable and modest income housing next to Legion.

EQUITY for those living around Blue Hill who deal with wall to wall luxury apartments with NO affordable units and NO green space but plenty of traffic congestion.

EQUITY for those new residents of Blue Hill who deserve a true park that would create the Blue Hill Complete Community.