Regain Local Control

CHALT Goals:  Regain local control of our decision making by electing a Town Council that will:

  • Make the difficult decisions to stand up for the best interests of our community;

  • Stand up to the “financialization of housing”: Explanation by Peter Sabonis;

  • Follow duly approved processes and plans developed with extensive citizen involvement.

  • Use the power of conditional zoning as a tool to get desired community benefits.

Within the last decade, we’ve seen more and more projects financed by out of state corporations, real estate investment trusts (REITS), pension funds, and hedge funds that are more often result in apartment rentals constructed for the purpose of providing investors a stream of revenue,  rather than homes for purchase.  This phenomenon, happening on a national and global scale, is also having an impact on Chapel Hill.

We know that the North Carolina General Assembly delegates many powers  to municipal governments, including the police power that allows the town to zone and make land use decisions. Citizens elect the Mayor and Town Council to use this power to shape the Town’s land use policies. Yet, this phenomenon is undermining our traditional decision-making processes, where our elected officials hold public hearings, review a developer’s plans, listen to the public, and decide whether to approve a project or not.

In the case of AURA, a Texas teachers’ pension fund determined what got built in Chapel Hill because rental housing is more profitable than home ownership. While that choice made sense to the investor, it did not meet the housing needs of Chapel Hill residents who desire town homes for the “missing middle”.

In the 2015 Chapel Hill municipal elections (for the first time we know of), large amounts of outside developer money were pooled together to  finance the campaigns of certain candidates.  If candidates are accepting large sums of money from developers, how can council members try represent the interests of citizens? Read about the 2015 elections here.

To understand the trends read this thought provoking twitter thread.