By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer
CHAPEL HILL – Responding to increasing concerns regarding student-housing developments in the Northside and Pine Knolls neighborhoods, the Chapel Hill Town Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve a measure that will impose a six-month moratorium on residential development in the neighborhoods.
The council had initially intended to consider the measure on June 27 but rushed to get the moratorium approved because of a pending bill in the General Assembly that would limit towns’ ability to impose development moratoriums. Gov. Beverly Perdue is expected to sign the bill into law before Monday.
The moratorium will apply from May 23 until Jan. 21, 2012 to residential developments within the borders of the Northside and Pine Knolls Neighborhood Conservation Districts and properties located on the north side of Rosemary Street, South Graham Street, Merritt Mill Road and Pritchard Avenue Extension. According to town planning staff, the moratorium will affect five applications already received by the town.
Neighborhood residents have expressed concerns that the neighborhoods are losing their history as developers come in and modify single-family homes for student housing. Residents have cited parking issues, loud parties and garbage in the neighborhood as the student population has increased.
In 2004, Chapel Hill established the Neighborhood Conservation Districts to help prevent student-housing development, but according to town staff the zoning changes haven’t helped much as developers have figured out ways around regulations. NCD regulations prohibit new duplexes, limit single-family dwellings to 2,000 square feet and limit bedroom-to-bathroom ratios for houses occupied by unrelated residents. Town staff have identified several properties in the neighborhoods that were redeveloped – within regulations – for student housing, with as many as eight bedrooms.
In March, the council received a petition from Sustaining OurSelves Coalition (SOS), which includes the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP and St. Joseph’s CME Church, requesting a freeze on development in the neighborhoods and improved enforcement of existing zoning and occupation regulations and tightening of restrictions in the NCDs.
“It seems to me that we’ve had lots of alternatives we have put in place over the years, including a prior moratorium on development, while we were doing the NCD,†Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt said.
Council member Donna Bell said that while she believes it is valid to use development as an investment, she was in favor of a development moratorium in the neighborhoods.
“Even though we made it really clear in 2003-2004 that we were interested in a family-oriented community and not being the new housing stock for Chapel Hill … [developers] response to us was to repackage the same thing and hope that we didn’t say anything,†she said.
A number of residents spoke both for and against the moratorium.
“The current situation in these communities has caused low morale, confusion and distrust among many longtime homeowners and low-income renters. We feel as if we are treated like dirt,†said Keith Edwards, a resident of Northside. “This is not right, and some of this building is downright dishonest.â€
Eugene Farrar, a longtime resident of Chapel Hill, said the small black community in Chapel Hill doesn’t ask for much but asked the council to “do what’s right.
“I understand progress … but in this situation, progress is being made on the backs of poor people in the Northside area,†he said.
Whitney Long, a mortgage broker and resident of Chapel Hill, said that the timeline for implementing the moratorium seemed rushed and that stripping property owners of their abilities to use their personal property as they’d like is punitive.
“To develop in Chapel Hill requires considerable financial planning and commitment,†she said. “Current property owners should be grandfathered in on existing guidelines.â€
The council approved several exemptions to the moratorium, including repairs required by building codes or other laws to fix damage due to catastrophic loss; foundation repairs; repairs required to bring structures into compliance or to correct building or zoning violations; and building permits for renovations that don’t cumulatively exceed $10,000 and that don’t involve the addition of new bathrooms, the moving of load-bearing walls or the expansion of the existing building footprint or the existing building envelope.