-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Schworer
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 12:17 PM
To: Town Council
Subject: Consent Agenda Item 4-j June 25 Public Comment
Doug Schworer
Date: June 25, 2008
Comments: Consent Agenda Item 4 -j
Re: Additional Affordable Housing Requirement for Redevelopment
I recommend the mayor and town council reconsider moving this item to committee until a complete list of affordable housing issues are included and messed into the overall strategy.
General Comments:
Robert Dowling has addressed this council multiple times and communicated the following:
1) The affordable housing model is broken;
2) He has difficulty selling affordable units and in some cases has a glut;
3) Financial impact and maintenance fees and tax increases have created a burden to the home owners.
The goal of any committee discussion should NOT be to change the ordinance to increase affordable housing percentages on redeveloped properties but to develop a comprehensive sustainable strategy that addresses existing problematic OCLT items and allows developers creativity in the affordable housing designs; while at the same time meeting the town needs without any tax burdens.
Impact:
Affordable housing has both a direct and indirect impact to the taxpayers of Orange County and Chapel Hill. Direct impact includes: 2003 affordable housing bonds contributions each year Orange County, Town of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Additionally, each of these municipalities and county provide affordable housing grant money. Indirectly Orange County Land Trust receives Community development block grant and other local grants associated supporting affordable housing.
Specific to Item 4-j:
First: The petition is restrictive in terms of enhancing creativity by the developer to deal with affordable housing from both a cost and design perspective. . (An example of affordable housing creativity was Roger Perry and Hwy54). Each redevelopment might be better suited for 15, 20, or some other number of affordable units. The Town and committee should push creativity to the developer and away from an ordinance. Let the developer come up with proposed solutions without specific restrictions.
Second: By design, if a development can not support 30% affordable units, then the developer will incur additional cost for payment in lieu either $$$, infrastructure or will be accessed so other way. This DRIVES up the cost of all properties within project and makes Chapel Hill less affordable.