Key Affordable Housing Strategies and Programs
We support affordable housing by leveraging Town‑owned land and offering a range of programs that help employees and residents access stable, attainable homes. These initiatives include dedicating Town land for affordable housing development, providing home‑buyer and rental assistance for Town employees, offering transitional housing for families moving toward market options, and maintaining a collaborative Manufactured Homes Action Plan that addresses redevelopment threats to local manufactured home communities.
On this page, you'll find information about:
Affordable Housing Development on Town-Owned Land
We adopted a strategy of using Town-owned land to support the development of affordable housing. The strategy plays an integral part in increasing the inventory of affordable housing in convenient, amenity-rich locations. We have several projects underway and others for which we're in the early planning stages.
Learn More about these Projects
Town Employee Housing Program
We offer home buyer assistance and rental assistance to Town of Chapel Hill employees who want to live in the community they serve.
The home buyer assistance is designed to help Town employees purchase homes within five miles of the Town of Chapel Hill through down payment and/or closing cost assistance.
The rental assistance intends to assist employees in securing rental housing within five miles of the Town of Chapel Hill.
Learn about our Employee Housing Program
Transitional Housing Program
Our Transitional Housing Program is for families living on a low income who want to transition from the Town's public housing to homeownership or private rental housing. Program participants live in one of 21 units we own or lease throughout town.
Learn about our Transitional Housing Program
Manufactured Housing Action Plan
This action plan is designed to provide a roadmap to address the redevelopment threats facing manufactured home communities in Orange County. The Plan is a collaborative effort between the Towns of Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, and Orange County that outlines specific objectives, strategies, action steps, partners, and resource needs.
Manufactured Home Strategy
We've engaged with residents in the Manufactured Home Communities in various ways, including in-person meetings, focus groups, and surveys. Our goal is to understand their housing needs and preferences.
If we are successful in implementing this action plan, we will:
1. Preserve manufactured home communities.
2. Minimize resident displacement due to redevelopment.
3. Create a Relocation Assistance Package to provide meaningful relocation assistance options for residents seeking displacement.
Read the Strategy(PDF, 370KB)
Preservation Strategy Framework
This document outlines a strategic framework for preserving affordable housing in Chapel Hill by maintaining existing units, improving housing quality, and supporting residents at risk of displacement through coordinated, proactive preservation efforts.
One of Council's 2020-2022 Strategic Goals and Objectives for Affordable Housing was to implement an affordable housing preservation strategy. Staff developed the Strategy after researching approaches used by communities nationwide and incorporating feedback from the Housing Advisory Board. The framework is organized around three primary objectives:
1. Preserve existing affordable housing: maintain the inventory and affordability of affordable housing.
2. Improve or maintain quality of affordable housing: support the rehabilitation of properties in need of repair.
3. Support tenant protections for households at risk of displacement: support residents impacted by the affordable housing redevelopment
Review the Framework(PDF, 270KB)