The Chapel Hill Town Council recently reviewed and discussed a Draft Affordable Housing Preservation Strategy Framework to implement a strategic approach for preserving existing affordable housing in the Town, one of Town Council’s 2020-2022 Strategic Goals. The Preservation Strategy is a tool to create a proactive and comprehensive approach to preserving affordable housing in town and mitigating the impact of redevelopment on low-moderate income residents.
The Town’s current preservation activities include funding homebuyer subsidy for purchasing homes and home repairs, supporting the Northside Neighborhood Initiative, and the Rental and Utility Assistance and Housing Displacement Assistance Programs, among other activities. The Town’s Preservation Framework calls for building on these strategies, scaling them, and implementing new strategies that will increase the Town’s ability to support preservation efforts.
The three primary objectives of the Framework are to:
1. Preserve existing affordable housing
2. Improve or maintain quality of affordable housing, and
3. Provide tenant protections and support for households at risk of displacement.
Many benefits come with preserving affordable housing, including: maintaining a range of housing options for residents, allowing residents to stay in their community, and retaining socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods.
Next steps for the Town are to implement Council feedback, refine and build out the Framework, then begin implementing Framework strategies in winter 2020.
Full Council meeting details, documents, and video can be viewed here.
