TAKING STOCK OF SEVENTH & TRYON
Affordable-housing, environmental leaders explain the downside of the Uptown project On July 13, the Charlotte City Council unanimously agreed to allocate millions of dollars in public funding for the private development of the $600 million North Tryon project, which has been the focus of concern by local affordable housing advocates and environmental groups. Natural Awakenings reached out to Peter and Mary Kelly, co-founders of Equitable Communities CLT, as well as former Charlotte mayor Jennifer Watson Roberts, to find out how air quality will be affected by this development.
Let’s Not Miss Another Opportunity by Peter and Mary Kelly
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nce again, our local governments missed an opportunity to promote an Uptown project that complies with the city’s Strategic Energy Action Plan (SEAP) and provides affordable housing. The new Seventh & Tryon Development in Uptown, which is close to the Blue Line light rail, includes excessive parking spaces (some of them expensive underground spaces) that will be publicly funded through a $25 million Tax Increment Grant (TIG). In addition, the project doesn’t include any new affordable housing in Uptown. Instead it diverts investments to other areas of Charlotte. Our city’s affordable housing crisis existed before the pandemic. More than 36,000 households in Charlotte make less than $35,000 a year and must spend more than half their income on rent. Their limited remaining money often goes toward high transportation costs, because they need a car to get to work. 20
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Our best chance at resolving this crisis is to create more affordable housing near high-use mass transit—a strategy that will also lower our community’s carbon footprint. Housing justice is very much aligned with climate improvement. We need to change our local governments’ approach to decision making, so their economic-growth strategies better coordinate with affordable-housing and carbon-reduction strategies. When public funds are used for an economic-development project, we must demand that it meet those complementary goals. The Seventh & Tryon Development would have had an equally beneficial economic impact if the negotiations had also focused on those goals. By simply decreasing the number of parking spaces in the project, we could have reduced its carbon footprint, decreased the public funding required to make it attractive to investors, and redirected the excess public funds to address the affordable housing crisis, while achieving the same business growth. While we missed that opportunity for this project, you can pressure the Charlotte City Council to review the Uptown Zoning and
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limit the number of parking spaces allowed in any new development. You can also push to ensure that any projects planned for the remaining 25-plus acres of vacant public land and other TIG-financed projects include the balanced goals of economic growth, affordable housing and SEAP. Peter and Mary Kelly are cofounders of Equitable Communities CLT, a 501(c)3 nonprofit that seeks to broaden public understanding of issues surrounding Charlotte’s affordable housing crisis and issues surrounding economic disparities, such as wages, education and wealth. For more information and to subscribe to the Equitable Communities newsletter, visit EquitableCommunitiesCLT.org.
Parking Decks Are So Yesteryear by Jennifer Watson Roberts
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he City of Charlotte’s parking requirements for new construction are outdated and need to change. This need was laid bare during a recent Charlotte City Council discussion of the Seventh & Tryon Development, which will receive a $25 million tax subsidy for a parking deck. There are many reasons the city must change its parking requirements and its use of public funds to build parking. If enough people weigh in, that change could happen. Building parking spaces adds considerable expense to any project, especially when it comes to housing. Research has shown that
