November 2014
Coldwell Banker is out with their annual home price comparisons, as reported by the Triangle Business Journal, and the news isn't so great for anyone living in Orange County concerned with affordability.
Chapel Hill ranks as the most expensive housing community in North Carolina. A typical four-bedroom, two-bathroom home will cost you an average of $401,765 here, compared with a state average of only $229,112. Hillsborough ranks 9th at $276,816.
For comparison, the average price for a four-bedroom, two-bath home in Durham is only $250,129. In Raleigh, it's $272,305.
The metric isn't perfect - looking only at relatively large houses - but the comparison still paints a pretty clear picture of what's happening in Orange County compared with the rest of the state.
On the agenda for this week's meeting of the Town of Chapel Hill Transportation and Connectivity Advisory Board is a discussion of bicycle safety improvement. Much of this is in response to the death of a woman on a bicycle who was hit by a motor vehicle near the intersection of Hillsborough Road and MLK Jr. Blvd, a notoriously dangerous part of town on which to ride a bike.
The Town has decided to make bicycle safety a priority and has already taken several steps, including an awareness campaign, changes to pedestrian crossings on MLK Jr. Blvd and adding green-painted sharrows to roads on certain popular bike corridors.
The focus will be regional this week, with all four of the county’s elected boards meeting together Wednesday to discuss affordable housing, the use of sales tax revenue for economic development, solid waste and the rural buffer. Triangle Transit will also be hosting workshops in Durham and Chapel Hill to get feedback on the current phase of the light rail project.
Several elected bodies will also be having their own meetings. The Carrboro Alderfolks will follow up on the town’s recent community police forum, while the Chapel Hill Town Council will tackle the Edge development proposed on Eubanks Road and the county commissioners discuss parks and rec.
Here’s the full summary:
ASSEMBLY OF GOVERNMENTS (ORANGE COUNTY, HILLSBOROUGH, CHAPEL HILL, & CARRBORO)
Despite the holiday, only the county commissioners are off this week. Both the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Education and the Carrboro Alderfolks will meet in closed session, while the Chapel Hill Town Council will hold a regular meeting on wide variety of topics. The Hillsborough Town Board will discuss its upcoming planning board retreat, while the county school board will talk strategic planning and community engagement.
Here’s the full summary:
CARRBORO BOARD OF ALDERPERSONS
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.
Here is a list of candidates:
- Anne DiBella - via telephone
- Desiree Cho
- Gary Winzelberg
- Greg Dye - missing
- Ignacio Tzoumas
- Jennifer Clark
- Jennifer Marsh
- Joanna Cleveland
- Katherine Worley
- Kulwadee Yung
- Mary Ann Wolf - withdrew
- Mary Litsikas
- Rani Dasi
- Theresa Watson - arrived at 6:25, missed introduction
- David Saussy
Candidates got to start with 30-second introductions. First question was about biggest challenges, second about communication and decision-making style. Will post answers to succeeding questions below.
Link to applications is below.
Since Election Day folks have asked me what’s next. Some of those people asked me to consider running for state party chair or for one of the other positions in state party leadership. However, I have decided to run for re-election as the chair of the Orange County Democratic Party.
On election night no one was more disappointed with the results from the U.S. Senate race than me. However, we did a lot of work right here in Orange County and while we don’t have all the data yet, we know that what we did had an impact:
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