Chapel Hill Goes to the Polls
Chapel Hill Town Hall, where the Town Council and Mayor work. Photo by Mx. Granger.
November 7 is going to be an important day for Chapel Hill. Not only will hordes of people be flocking to the grand opening of chicken franchise Raising Cane’s on Franklin Street, but Chapel Hill’s polling stations will also find themselves busy, as the mayor’s office, four seats on the town council, and four seats on the school board are all up for election. Issues such as changes to zoning in Chapel Hill, progress on the Bus Rapid Transit line, and possibly more planned buildings on Franklin Street promise to make this election an impactful one for Chapel Hill’s future.
To date, this election has been fraught by the standards of Chapel Hill election campaigns. Current Town Council member Karen Stegman has even asked, “Is this the end of fair elections in Chapel Hill?” in her Substack newsletter. Much of this tension comes from how Chapel Hill candidates are polarized about housing policy, a dispute made clear by a 6-3 vote of the Town Council to allow duplexes and accessory apartments in parts of Chapel Hill zoned for residential usage.
Specifically, in Chapel Hill it is currently legal to build a duplex (two units in one building) or an accessory apartment or cottage (a smaller unit either detached or attached to a main unit) anywhere in town. Earlier versions of the proposals about duplexes would have also legalized buildings of three or four units, given certain requirements, but those changes were removed from the final version.
Five of the town council candidates, and one of the mayoral candidates, have voiced support for these changes to Chapel Hill’s Land Use Management Ordinance. The other five town council candidates and one mayoral candidate have spoken against the policy. On the side of duplexes there are also local political groups such as Triangle BlogBlog/Shameful Nuisance and NEXT Chapel Hill-Carrboro, while CHALT (Chapel Hill Alliance for a Livable Town) is supporting the anti-duplex side. These groups have publicly sparred with each other in the run-up to the election, with Triangle BlogBlog accusing CHALT of overly coordinating with candidates. Even some non-duplex issues tend to divide candidates by their alliance to one of these political groups.
Similar issues about building housing have also divided the town in recent years. Pro-duplex group NEXT keeps a scorecard of whether town council members vote in line with its recommendations, which shows that Adam Searing, a current town council member running for mayor with support from CHALT, is the only candidate to have voted against NEXT’s recommendation a majority of the time.
Divisions on housing go back even further, however. In 2015, Pam Hemminger, now the outgoing mayor, defeated Mark Kleinschmidt, 54% to 45%, with CHALT backing Hemminger over the incumbent Kleinschmidt. Current town council member and mayoral candidate Jess Anderson, a supporter of the housing changes, was also backed by CHALT in her successful campaign for town council in an election marked by disputes over the Blue Hill district. This region of northeastern Chapel Hill, which includes many commercial properties, was given a form-based zoning code, making it easier for developers to build projects there that met specific requirements.
However, relitigating the possibility of duplexes in much of Chapel Hill isn’t the only issue driving election tensions. The Chapel Hill Town Council currently has a plan to build affordable housing on nine acres of the American Legion Property, which is owned by the town. The other 27 acres of the property, which currently includes a pond, the American Legion building, and undeveloped land, will be merged with nearby Ephesus Park. As part of this, the town has committed to trying to preserve the “existing natural areas.” Searing was the sole no vote to this plan, instead supporting keeping the entire property undeveloped.
Another major issue is the discovery of coal ash, a carcinogen and pollutant, at 828 MLK Boulevard, a tract of land currently home to the Chapel Hill police headquarters. Issues with the material condition of this building has led the town to plan to lease a nearby office building for the police department while also working towards building a new headquarters, which it has been planning to build at the 828 MLK site. Earlier plans also mentioned using some of the land to build housing, but those plans have been postponed. The Town is also using the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Brownfields Program to work towards remediation of the coal ash on the site.
However, Councilmember Searing and CHALT have not been happy with Chapel Hill’s plans for the site. The bloc had been asking the town to rule out the possibility of building housing on the site because of concerns over the high levels of coal ash. Some citizens have also called for removing all of the coal ash rather than removing some and capping the rest with barriers, the plan currently supported by the Town. This would require sending the hazardous substance to landfills elsewhere in the state and would cost more, but some experts have recommended it as a way of further reducing the risk.
On the transportation side, the major divide between the blocs centers around the Complete Communities Plan. This plan was developed by the consultant Jennifer Keesmaat, a former mayoral candidate and city planner for Toronto, Ontario. It calls for Chapel Hill to build a network of interconnected greenways spanning the town, as well as setting out clearer standards for what Chapel Hill expects of developers. The pro-duplex candidates have mostly endorsed elements of the Complete Communities framework, while candidates opposed to the addition of duplexes have often criticized it. Searing in particular has also criticized the plan, and the town more generally, for its heavy reliance on consultants.
Yet these substantive issues have often been overshadowed by other conflicts. Anti-duplex candidates have been accused of holding an illegal candidate forum for only their candidates and for breaking norms about how much is acceptable to spend on Chapel Hill local elections. Harsh words have also been levied against Adam Searing’s record of combativeness in his work on the Town Council. Furthermore, the Daily Tar Heel and Triangle BlogBlog have both accused anti-duplex candidates of spreading false information.
Meanwhile, pro-duplex groups NEXT and Triangle BlogBlog have been called “dark money” groups because they do not disclose full information about their donors; NEXT reports some information, while Triangle BlogBlog has stated that they do not disclose because of concerns about harassment. Furthermore, Searing and Searing endorser Terri Buckner have accused an endorsement sheet from Triangle BlogBlog of being inaccurate, although Triangle BlogBlog then disputed that claim.
In a recent development, Melody Kramer of Triangle BlogBlog accused an anti-duplex activist of calling her employer in an attempt to intimidate and harass her. Buckner, the aforementioned Searing endorser, later claimed to be that activist, but accused Kramer of “bullying and intimidating” voters and described it as a response to such.
But this upcoming election doesn’t just reflect a divide between two warring blocs. The candidates themselves also matter. The pro-duplex side includes mayoral candidate Jess Anderson, incumbent Town Council candidate Amy Ryan, and non-incumbent Town Council candidates Melissa McCullough, Erik Valera, Jon Mitchell, and Theodore Nollert.
Because there are four seats and five candidates here, groups that put out endorsements and generally fall on this side of the aisle have had to decide which candidate to skip. The AFL-CIO, a prominent union, passed on endorsing Jon Mitchell, as did the Anderson-Thorpe-Battle Breakfast Club, a local group focused on racial justice, while local alt-weekly magazine IndyWeek also didn’t endorse him but gave him an honorable mention. Meanwhile, Triangle BlogBlog decided not to endorse Erik Valera, the Chief Operating Officer of El Centro Hispano. NEXT, meanwhile, didn’t endorse Ryan, who voted against the change in the town ordinance to allow duplexes despite generally expressing support for the measure. The Daily Tar Heel, meanwhile, skipped over McCullough, a retired employee of the Environmental Protection Agency. That leaves UNC graduate student Nollert, the former president of UNC’s Graduate and Professional Student Government, as the only candidate to be endorsed by every group supporting pro-duplex candidates.
Another difference among these candidates, who are drawing support from similar quarters, is what they said their top three issues were in the News & Observer series of candidate questionnaires. Ryan and Mitchell both listed implementation of the Complete Communities plan. McCullough and Nollert both focused on housing and transportation, but McCullough’s third issue was the environment and Nollert’s third issue listed was commercial development. Valera also listed housing, but added equity and “Connecting our Communities” as his other two issues.
Meanwhile, the anti-duplex side, besides Searing for mayor, features four Town Council candidates who are running as a group. Renuka Soll is the chair of the town’s Parks, Recreation, and Greenways Commission and also an anti-gun advocate. David Adams is a cancer scientist who has been a vocal advocate of not building affordable housing on the American Legion property. The other two candidates on their slate are Elizabeth Sharp, a local restaurateur who is behind Bluebird and Hawthorne and Wood, and healthcare software trainer Breckany Eckhardt. This slate has been endorsed by the Center for Biological Diversity, an Arizona-based group that credited these candidates’ support for completely removing coal ash from 828 MLK as the reason for the endorsements. CHALT has also backed these candidates through blog posts but has not described their support as endorsements.
Jeffrey Hoagland, a Town Council candidate who also ran in 2021, has again filed to run for Town Council. The registered Republican, who opposes the change to allow more duplexes, has also stated that he wants to increase funding for the police and prioritize downtown safety. Breckany Eckhardt is a member of the Green Party, Elizabeth Sharp and David Adams are not registered with a particular party, and all other candidates are registered Democrats. There is no evidence online of any groups endorsing Hoagland’s campaign, which also appears to lack a website other than a Facebook group.
This all makes the Chapel Hill election one in which there are great uncertainties about who is predicted to win. Local standard-bearers, as well as many current and former local politicians, have lined up behind Anderson and her pro-duplex compatriots. But it’s unclear how much help that will be in an environment where the favorability rating (favorable percentage minus unfavorable percentage, ignoring unsure respondents) of the Town Council is -11, according to a poll by Public Policy Polling.
This poll also suggests that Anderson very narrowly leads Searing 30% to 29% and also has a significantly better favorability rating. In the Town Council race, McCullough leads with 23% in favor, while Ryan and Nollert are just behind at 22%. Finishing out the top four is Elizabeth Sharp, the highest-ranking anti-duplex candidate, with Soll following at 19% and Adams at 17%. Then come both Jon Mitchell and Breckany Eckhardt at 16%, with Erik Valera at 10% and finally Jeffrey Hoagland at 3%. For the most part, anti-duplex candidates have more people stating that they will not vote for them; they attract an average “no” percentage of 23.8%, as compared to 15.6% for pro-duplex candidates.
Still, all these candidates are far behind our most unstoppable political juggernaut: “Not Sure.” This choice leads the mayoral race with 40% and is getting between 57% and 70% of the vote in other Town Council matchups. However, other candidates still have a prayer of a victory, as “Not Sure” is not a declared candidate.
So all these “Not Sure” voters are going to have to pick a candidate, and it’s presently unclear who that will be. The high proportion of people refusing to support specific anti-duplex candidates makes it appear as though some of these “Not Sure” voters are undecided because picking 5 pro-duplex candidates for 4 spots is a tough challenge. The Town Council’s favorability is underwater, which should help people who aren’t incumbents (or Searing, a sitting Town Council member who often votes in the minority), but endorsements, an important measure of the chance of candidate success, is highly tilted towards candidates who have pledged to continue the town’s policy of permitting duplexes to be built.
Fundamentals of specific candidates are also likely to matter. UNC students, a bloc of voters that candidates are actively courting, have been credited with making the difference in Tai Huynh’s victory over Nancy Oates for Town Council in 2019. Like Huynh, Nollert is a UNC student, indicating that a similar outcome is certainly possible this year. Unfortunately, the poll didn’t measure whether respondents are UNC students, but, as this will be the first time voting in a local election for many UNC students, an undercount is likely. The poll also generally shows that voters under the age of 65, 62% of the sample, are more likely to prefer pro-duplex candidates. If the average age of the voters ends up skewing younger than it is currently, this will likely help the pro-duplex side.
Another candidate who might get a boost from her specific expertise is Renuka Soll, who has formerly led gun givebacks. She is the only candidate here to have been endorsed by Everytown for Gun Safety and is one of four Town Council candidates to have received support from Moms Demand Action as a Gun Sense Candidate. Despite the fact that gun laws are mostly at the state and federal level, this could incentivize some voters in highly Democratic Chapel Hill to support her. However, Soll has run for Town Council before, and was unsuccessful in that attempt.
All this makes November 7 a day to watch for people who are curious about local politics. This election could have major impacts on the future of Chapel Hill, such as whether the ordinance permitting duplexes is rolled back and whether housing is built on the Legion Road site. With ten candidates for Town Council and two for Mayor, this tightly fought race promises to shape how Chapel Hill develops in the coming years.