Guest Column from Anissa McLendon

GUEST COLUMNS

My mother, Mae McLendon, spent twelve years as a volunteer member of the Chapel Hill Planning Board. She understood zoning, development and the difficult decisions that come with growth. More importantly, she believed that good governmental stewardship required considering the people who would live with the consequences of those decisions.

Before she passed away, my mother was concerned about the proposed development at 100 Alabama Avenue. In an email to Carrboro officials, she wrote: “Sometimes just because something is legal does not mean it is right.”

I return to those words today because the issue our neighborhood is facing is part of a larger problem.

Alabama Avenue is a small, historically African American neighborhood. Eleven of its 15 homes are occupied by families who have lived there for one or two generations. My family has owned our home since 1975, and I have lived there since 1993.

Under North Carolina law, certain small divisions of property are exempt from ordinary local subdivision regulation. Carrboro staff explained to my mother that this exemption applied to the proposed lots at 100 Alabama Avenue. Development on those lots must still meet applicable regulations, but the process may involve administrative approval without a public hearing or Town Council consideration.

That satisfies the requirements of the law, but it does not settle the question of what residents should be entitled to expect from their local government.

People who have lived beside a property for decades possess knowledge that does not appear on a zoning map. We know the history of the land and where the water goes when it rains. I have documented standing water and flooding in my backyard and basement and completed a stormwater assessment through the Town.

Residents have raised concerns about drainage, tree removal, parking and the effect of adding more intensive development to a small residential street. Property owners have rights, but long-term residents have rights, too.

Development rules that exclude public participation can also eliminate meaningful community expertise. This pattern of gentrification without community participation has been especially harmful to the few historically Black neighborhoods that remain in Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

Black homeownership was destroyed in Northside as property values rose and homes were converted for the student rental market.

So at some point we have to ask: How much more are the people whose labor built these communities expected to give up?

I am not trying to blame today’s public officials for decisions made decades ago. What I am saying is that history should change the way we govern now.

That lesson was driven home after our recent experience involving a short-term rental on nearby Glosson Circle. Residents attended a Town proceeding prepared to explain how activity there was affecting their homes and safety. Instead, several were interrupted and unable to fully express their concerns. Citizens should not leave Town Hall feeling that the public process had no place for what they came to say. If a particular hearing is not the place for those concerns, government should provide a place that is.

My family, like generations of Black families, believes in public service. My mother spent much of her life working for this community. I have served as a police officer, an educator and operate E3, a free STEAM education program for students, for nine years.

I understand that development will inevitably happen. My case is for a better public process when it does.

Carrboro should pause what can legally be paused at 100 Alabama Avenue and bring residents, the property owner, planning staff and Town leadership together with a neutral mediator. Walk the property. Examine the stormwater concerns. Listen to what residents know.

When state law removes a public hearing or Town Council vote from a development process, the Town should provide another meaningful avenue for residents to participate before decisions become effectively final. That process could include early notification, clear and transparent information about proposed development, neighborhood meetings, mediation and a written community-impact response from staff.

This should not be a difficult thing to do. We need to determine whether reasonable solutions can respect property rights without unnecessarily sacrificing the neighborhood around them.

Carrboro rightly celebrates its deep Black history of landownership, activism and civic service. But preservation cannot mean only plaques, commemorations and stories; it must also mean valuing the people who are trying to hold on today.

Mayor Barbara Foushee asked an important question when responding to my mother’s letter: “How can Alabama Avenue residents have more of a voice in this process and are there other options?”

I believe that growth can happen without asking the same communities, generation after generation, to keep giving something up while having so little say in what is taken.

The best way to honor a community is to hear it while it is still here.

That is what my mother was asking for. And that is what good government should provide.

-Anissa McLendon ( saintpaulvillage5k@gmail.com )