Affordable Housing

Home. The word means many different things to many different people. For some, it might be a house. For others, it might be a park bench or a tent behind a supermarket. Just as homes can take many forms, so can homelessness. I was forced to reflect on this last month, as a volunteer with […]

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Department won’t pursue zoning regulations aimed at dealing with rent-by-the-bedroom apartment complexes near colleges and universities. But it will continue working to solve parking and transportation issues near the schools. The staff recommendation October 21 to the City Council’s Transportation and Planning Committee means students and residents living near UNC Charlotte and […]

It took them two years to design and build it, but over the next two weeks, a team of UNC Charlotte architecture, business and engineering students will tear down their solar-powered home, Urban Eden. But that’s only because the home must be deconstructed, loaded on a flatbed trailer and shipped to Orange County, Calif., where […]

Brightwalk is unique among Charlotte’s new developments. Part of that is size and location. It’s on 98 acres of redeveloped infill property along Statesville Avenue, about 2 miles from uptown. It will offer more than 1,000 single-family homes, townhomes and apartments – including senior housing and a day-care facility, all of it arranged around green […]

Containment policies, such as Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs), are becoming more widespread as metro regions try to control sprawl and revitalize central cities. Mecklenburg County’s northeastern neighbor, Cabarrus County, has tried such an approach in hopes of preserving small town atmospheres and farmland. Disappearing farmland and mounting pressure from developers reached an apex in 2004. […]

As Charlotte’s real estate market continues to recover from one of the worst economic downturns in modern times, it might be easy to assume that housing affordability is no longer an issue of great concern. But in south Charlotte and other highly desirable parts of Mecklenburg County, home prices continue to remain out of reach […]

Is it prescient and forward-thinking for the city to encourage subsidized housing at rapid transit stations in coming decades? Or would that be the nail in the coffin, killing any near-term chance to halt a pattern of sinking property values near some of those stations, especially in troubled parts of east and northeast Charlotte? Two […]