Nearly 750 affordable rental units are still needed to meet the growing demand in Chatham, according to the annual report by the county’s Affordable Housing Advisory Committee — despite an increase of 185 affordable units from 2019 to last year.
There are currently 1,582 affordable rental units in the county, the report found, but approximately 2,325 units are needed — with more need anticipated as substantial development continues in Chatham.
“The supply of affordable housing, whether it’s rental or homeownership — the crux of the problem is there’s just not enough of it,” Susan Levy, the committee’s chairperson, told the News + Record. “There is a real, real, serious, significant shortage.”
The data used is based on the American Community Survey’s five-year datasets, which don’t necessarily reflect the economic conditions of the pandemic, and don’t count mobile homes or units in a building with fewer than 20 dwellings.
“There’s a lot of caveats about the accuracy of that number,” Levy said of the 2,325 projected units needed, “But it’s the best we can do with the data we’ve got.
“... The problem is just going to keep getting worse as Chatham grows, so I think we’re probably underestimating, if anything, the size of the problem.”
Chatham County continues to see growth in single family homes — there was a 25% increase from FY20 to FY21, according to the 2021 State of Chatham County Report — and a sustained increase in the number of multi-family units. Chatham’s population rose from 63,500 in 2010 to 76,300 in 2020, according to Census data, a 20.1% growth rate that ranked seventh in the state. Amid that growth and housing boom, the report says, “Affordable Housing continues to be a top priority in Chatham County.”
Affordable Housing is typically defined as housing that does not cost, through rent or mortgage payments, more than 30% of a person’s gross annual income, including utilities and insurance.
The committee’s report focused on rental units in Chatham, but more affordable for-sale housing options are needed too. The median home value in Chatham County is over $338,000, the Triangle Business Journal reported, which has risen 9.4% in the last year, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The county — as well as the town of Pittsboro — has regularly discussed affordable housing solutions at commissioners meetings in recent years. Still, the growing need for affordable units is outpacing gains made, Levy said.
Black and Hispanic households are disproportionately impacted by the affordable housing shortage, Levy said during a presentation of the report to county commissioners last month, with Black and Hispanic people comprising about 20% of the county’s population, according to Census data. The medium income for those households is 50-60% lower than that for white households, the report said.
“That continues to be an appalling figure and reflects systemic racism,” Levy said during the January presentation. “It also shows there’s a disproportionate impact on those folks when it comes to affordable housing.”
The data also shows that the gap between the number of existing low-income renter households and affordable units continues to widen. There was a more than a 25% increase in low-income renter households from 2019 to 2021, but only a 13% increase in available affordable units during the same period.
There are 2,325 cost-burdened low-income renters households, the report says, many of whom still can’t afford the recently planned affordable units in the county.
For example, the Pittsboro Board of Commissioners voted 4-1 in November to approve the last of Chatham Park’s “additional elements” components — requiring 7.5%, or 1,650, of the planned community’s 22,000 market-rate housing units — to be affordable housing. This was a large increase from Chatham Park’s original proposal in 2016, when the development offered to make 1% of its residential developments affordable housing units. Of those, the News + Record previously reported, 90% of the units will be multi-family homes, such as duplexes, apartments and more, while the other 10% will be allocated for single-family homes.
Still, the agreement defines an affordable unit as one for which rent/mortgage and utilities does not exceed 30% of 80% of the annual median family income (MFI) divided by 12. The median family income for 2021 in Chatham is "considered to be" $86,400, according to the county’s affordable housing website. Under the Chatham Park affordable housing agreement, affordable units and utilities could then cost upwards of $1,700 per month for a 4-person household, or $1,200 for one person.
That 80% number is the cutoff for MFI that is considered affordable housing, Levy said, with income levels further broken down to 60-80%, 30-60% and 0-30%. (Affordable workforce housing is considered 80-120% of MFI.)
“As you go up the income scale, the problem becomes a little less, but it’s definitely severe at the low end of the scale, and the 0 to 30% is the hardest group to reach,” she said. “The market isn’t going to create housing that’s affordable to people below, like 60% of median income, for example, without some kind of either requirement or significant incentive or subsidy — you can’t do it. It just isn’t financially possible to do it without that.”
Developer Tim Booras, owner of Siler City’s CAM (Chatham Advanced Manufacturing) megasite, says potential tenants looking there always ask where their employees will live.
“Siler City housing inventory is not adequate for several hundred or even thousands to take up roots here,” he said.
And while Booras points to housing in Chatham Park as a place that could absorb many working families, there remains a need for “affordable and moderately priced single-family homes, apartments and garden homes.”
He says he’s working on a concept plan for a possible Siler City project that would enable a pivot to additional affordable housing, if needed.
In the meantime, some gains for lower-income renters have been made, though renters in the 0-30% income level still have few options. One exception, Levy said, is UNC Farm at Penny Lane in Pittsboro, a project partly operated by the UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health. The operation, which received its full ask of $54,000 from the county in 2020, construct tiny homes to serve “people with mental illness and other health conditions living on a fixed income.”
Most other projects focus on renters in the 60-80% income level, and then the 30-60% group.
In August, Wallick Communities Inc. was selected for tax credits to build 72 affordable units in Siler City behind UNC Hospital in Chatham Business Park. This income-restricted development, which is expected to come online in 2023, is receiving $85,000 from the Housing Trust Fund (2020-2021 cycle) and will be built on formerly county-owned land.
The Chatham County Housing Trust Fund (HTF) was created in 2018 and since then has provided nearly $600,000 in grants and low-interest loans to projects that create and preserve affordable housing units across Chatham. The HTF helped create 162 new affordable housing units, 90 of which are now open and online. The remaining units are expected to open in 2023, the report says.
In 2021, the Emergency Housing Fund (EHF) served over 40 households, at the time the report was written, “by working with community partners, the Department of Social Services and Court programs to assist with emergency hotel stays, utility assistance, as well as eviction and foreclosure prevention.”
Levy said the county is also working toward securing grants to help preserve existing affordable housing options by funding any necessary repairs, as well as developing its new unified development ordinance with the need for affordable housing in mind.
Last year, commissioners also designated a portion of income from an additional sales tax revenue category to go toward affordable housing.
“They’ve shown their support,” Levy said of the commissioners, “but you know, I think we could always use more and do more.”
The development team behind a 370-acre proposed mixed-use project south of Briar Chapel talked about the need for more affordable housing last August during a presentation to county commissioners.
“On the question of affordable housing in my seven years on the board, this is the first private developer of any stripe to come forward,” then-Commissioner Jim Crawford said, “and their initial card on the table will be they want to provide affordable workforce housing, period. So I take that seriously.”
The county recognizes the need for affordable housing is a significant issue, Levy said, but that may not be enough.
“Over time, it’s going to probably require more than what we’re doing now,” she said. “Just based on what I’ve seen, for example, in Orange County, which has a really significant affordability problem — and I think we’re fast approaching that.”
Reporter Hannah McClellan can be reached at hannah@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @HannerMcClellan.
