DEVELOPMENT
Three ways to address affordable housing beyond subsidies
Charlotte is in the midst of a major affordable housing crunch, and though the city has substantially increased its subsidies for building leaders acknowledge there’s no way to fund the tens of thousands of units we’d need to meet demand. The city’s Housing Trust Fund bonds have been increased from $15 million to $50 million […]
Would closing these streets help our lack of public space?
A steady rain of giggles falls on a busy street in uptown Charlotte. A neat row of seesaws undulate back and forth, bright LED strips highlighting their movement, as elated, carefree riders push off. The smell of food trucks serving eager patrons wafts through the air. Parents watch, relaxed, knowing they don’t have to pull […]
Can we build our way out of the housing affordability crisis?
There’s a growing consensus that if we want to get out of the housing affordability mess we’re in, we need to hear a lot more swinging hammers. While local governments, including in Charlotte, have raised more money to subsidize affordable apartments and low-income rent payments, the scale of the problem is daunting. Mecklenburg County is […]
‘You can only make roads so big’: Charlotte region launches first transit plan
Leaders from across the region gathered Monday in a conference room at Charlotte Douglas International Airport with an ambitious goal: Creating a comprehensive plan for public transit, covering a dozen counties and setting the transit agenda for decades. Called CONNECT Beyond, the 18-month planning effort by the Centralina Council of Governments is, to put it […]
Putting a ‘there’ there: Placemaking aims to boost overlooked areas
A vacant park in a bustling downtown. A waterside bandshell and lawn that sit empty most days of the year. A busy intersection thousands of people drive through every day without a pause. In a fast-growing city that lacks parks and other public gathering spaces, planners are looking at ways to make these places into […]
Charlotte just wrapped up its busiest decade ever for uptown development
The 2010s in uptown Charlotte were a decade with a split personality, starting with an epic crash and swinging to a huge boom that transformed the skyline and left an enormous mark on the city. At the start of the decade, rusting rebar poked up from the EpiCentre, a reminder of a condo project that […]
What Charlotte needs to grow into a great city
In more than three decades since she moved to the city, UNC Charlotte professor Deb Ryan has seen a lot of changes. She’s also helped guide those changes, as chair of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission, founder of the Charlotte Community Design Studio, and a professor of architecture and urban design who led design work and […]
‘Raise our expectations:’ Four takeaways from Charlotte City Council’s retreat
Charlotte faces a wide range of needs, from affordable housing to more police, bigger parks and better transit, but they all share a similar root cause: growth. That was one of the main themes at City Council’s annual planning retreat, held this week over four days in Durham at the Washington Duke Inn. There was […]
Nonprofit charts a new course for troubled South End development
A new, mixed-income housing development is set to take the place of a long-troubled, low-income housing complex in South End. Brookhill Village is a paradox: An oasis of affordability in the midst of a booming and fast-gentrifying part of the city, but full of run-down units, many of them boarded up and visibly decaying from […]
Charlotte has 56 “tear-down” neighborhoods: Here’s a portrait of one
This is the first part in a two-part series. Read the second story here