Agenda - 02-18-2014 - 6a - Laserfiche WebLink

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 I Chapel Hill, and the Board cannot tell the Town what to do, though the Commissioners have asked Chapel Hill to begin working on this. Commissioner Pelissier said there was an agreement, at the AOG meeting, to ask the managers of the County municipalities, to come up with a mechanism for a countywide group to look at affordable housing. She said the challenge is to make it affordable, but within a municipality with access to transit. She said this issue is on the forefront, as all of the municipalities have done some work, and it is time to bring that together Tony Blake said there is no way to require a developer to build or maintain affordable housing. John Roberts said there are ways to do that, though he cannot quote them now. He said there are legal mechanisms. Tony Blake said he thought there was a lawsuit that prohibited trading of units for affordability. John Roberts said he has not read this. Maxecine Mitchell said it seems that there is a drift away from addressing affordable housing. She said there is a need to intentionally think about how to bring this back into the planning conversation and create action on the part of all of the local governments. She said if the density is changed, the high end developers will come running. She asked if anyone out there is just building affordable housing in Orange County, other than Habitat. Tony Blake said this is what he sees as the problem in Chapel Hill. He said affordable housing is being bought up, renovated, and then rent is raised, which forces low income families out. Maxecine Mitchell said she would like to see a plan to include long term designation of affordable housing. Chair Jacobs noted that much of the County affordable housing works this way, and the Land Trust is permanent. Commissioner Price said affordable housing historically becomes public housing in urban areas. She said states have done this too, but she has mostly seen it in the municipalities Commissioner Gordon apologized that she was unavoidably detained. She said transit is an important piece of this conversation. She said one challenge is determining what you can do to have successful rural transportation. She said you do have to have good access to transit for it to be successful, and there should be walkable communities nearby. She said one piece of the puzzle is getting people to their jobs. She said as the routes are discussed, it will be important to see that the half cent sales tax in the rural areas is spent effectively. Paul Guthrie said he sent a letter to the OUTboard to summarize his observations on the TTA presentation on the Chapel Hill light rail. He said he also mentioned that it would be appropriate for OUTboard to engage in discussion about what an adequate rural transportation plan over the long haul would look like for Orange County. He said this should feed the light rail system and provide transportation that the citizens of this County need. He feels there will be a dialogue in OUTBoard on this issue, and he feels this element fits neatly into the housing issue conversation. Chair Jacobs said there was a joint meeting with the Affordable Housing Advisory Board, and there was discussion about mobile homes as a class of affordable units. He said there are an abundance of these in the County, and the question is how to deal with the mobile home parks in the municipalities, as these seem to have a limited life expectancy now. He said there have been past discussions about land banking where there is water and sewer to allow people to move their mobile homes to a parcel that they do not have to own. Chair Jacobs said it might be a good conversation for the Planning Board to have with the Affordable Housing Advisory Board. f