neighborhood development

One UNC Student's Experience With Finding Off-Campus Housing

I signed a new housing lease about a month ago in mid-October – a lease that won’t start until June of next year. This is how competitive student off-campus housing is in Chapel Hill, and the ever-high demand for student housing in Chapel Hill continues to negatively affect non-student renters. 

Niche.com estimates that 90 percent of houses near campus fill up by October. From my experience, students looking to rent an affordable house (as opposed to a townhouse or apartment) begin the search as early as September. Every year this fight to find the closest, nicest and most affordable home puts additional stress on UNC students, and our desperation to sign a lease as soon as possible pits students against each other, increasing competition and driving prices up.

According to a 2010 report prepared by Development Concepts Inc., students make up about a third of all rented units in Chapel Hill (and rented housing comprises over half of all housing in Chapel Hill). We are a huge market for property owners and developers – on-campus housing can only accommodate 9,700 students, so the remaining 9,000 or so undergrads must find off-campus places.

Importance of Farms in Orange County

The other night District 2 County Commissioner candidate Steve Yuhasz said something to me that I found so incredible that I determined to do a little bit of research on the subject. Steve maintained that in 2006 there were only 3 farms in all of Orange County that claimed more than $20,000 farm income. He said that farming for a living was no longer viable. The implication was that if farming was not economically significant, then the county might as well be subdivided into more neighborhoods and strip malls. Steve said he got that info from something circulated by the Economic Devolpment subcomittee. How scary.

My first thought was how in the world would anybody get such information? Individual and corporate tax returns are considered so private that when the various gov't agencies that report on income sectors make their reports, they go to some lengths to make sure that nothing that could identify a specific person or farm can be gleaned from even a very careful reading of their summaries.

East West Partners discuss LEED-ND

Via an email...

Please join the Triangle Chapter EGB and East West Partners as we talk about the East 54 community development project in Chapel Hill. East 54 is currently under construction as one of the only LEED-ND pilot participants in North Carolina. East West Partners will be discussing the LEED-ND rating system, which credits they are incorporating into East 54, as well as any challenges they have faced while designing the project.

For more information on East West Partners, please visit their Website at: http://www.ewp-nc.com/
And for more information about East 54 (and a construction webcam!) Visit: http://www.east54.com/index.php

Date: 

Wednesday, March 19, 2008 - 2:00pm to 4:00pm

Location: 

East 54 - 1201-J Raleigh Rd., Chapel Hill
 

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