I Support Housing Reform. Other Restaurant, Coffee Shop, and Bar Owners Should Too.
Servers are young people figuring out their lives; they deserve better housing choices
This piece is authored by Jason Cox, a restaurateur and small-scale developer based in Graham, NC. You can follow him over on X @jasonc_nc where he frequently writes about real estate, urbanism, hospitality, and where they collide, including regular debates about fire code and small fire trucks.
My experiences here are specific to Durham, North Carolina, but broadly true in many fast-growing Southeast metros. Anyone in Durham who works in the service industry knows the pain of finding housing.
As the city experienced a renaissance with local restaurants and bars at the vanguard, housing prices took flight. Now the very people who helped put Durham on the culinary map are increasingly forced to live elsewhere.
It’s important to me that our team members can live where they work. As Bull City continues to undergo a population boom, we must ask: “Will the ones who help make this place what it is also be able to live here?”
Durham is failing in this effort.
I fear we will all lose something from the outcome. Where’s the famous Bull City localism when it comes to housing choices?
Infill development is increasingly just two types: “scrape and build” construction of >$1m new homes for sale, or new 200+ apartment buildings on primary corridors.
Where are the options for those without 6-figure household incomes?
LOCALISM vs. THE STATUS QUO
On the topic of localism: The current status quo assures us large development. I emphasize large because everything about it must be large under the current regulatory framework. Obtaining approval to build anything not allowed by right can easily cost six figures and 1-2 years. Development is, therefore, almost exclusively large, with large pools of outside capital shaping the city.
There is nothing local about it.
Meanwhile, there are members of the community who want to build. They want to build accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in backyards. They want to build cottage courts and small missing middle projects. These neighbors would start building in a heartbeat, if only it were feasible to do so.
No person building a cottage court can afford $100,000 of entitlement costs (permitting, site plan reviews, etc.) for an uncertain outcome.
More so, the math doesn’t work for the small-scale. Two hundred units can absorb those entitlement costs. Four cannot.
I’ve watched zoning reform in Durham be mischaracterized to the point of caricature for months. Is any proposal perfect? Certainly not. Can issues as found be addressed with amendments? Absolutely.
What we can’t do is keep kicking the proverbial can to some future utopian outcome that will never arrive. This path benefits a select few at the expense of very, very many.
It’s also disingenuous to pretend there aren’t incentives for select homeowners who claim to represent the city writ large. Excluding ADUs, smaller homes on smaller lots, and small Missing Middle developments reduces the artificial monopoly many enjoy. It means allowing neighborhoods to be what Durham claims to want: a melting pot of people (and yes, incomes) that have the option to live where they work, where they have built lives and friendships.
The reality is that a vote against reform is a de facto approval of the status quo.
a note from our team:
Jason wrote the words written above just a little over a year ago, in support of the Simplifying Codes for Affordable Development (SCAD) ordinance. A series of amendments to the development ordinance that made small commercial and small housing projects easier, ultimately passed by Durham City Council at the end of 2024.
We’re re-printing them today because there is still more work to do.
Durham is currently rewriting its Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), which will dictate what can and cannot be built for years to come.
CITYBUILDER has been hard at work analyzing the proposed code, which you can read about in our Durham’s New UDO series:
Unfortunately, the same individuals that assembled to oppose SCAD are colluding to stop our new UDO. They understand that even if they can’t prevent City Council from approving it, they can lobby to sneak in policies that undue the progress we achieved through SCAD, and even the Expanding Housing Choices (EHC) amendment from 2019.
So if you want better neighborhoods, more housing, and cheaper rent for service workers, please show up to a UDO engagement session and let our city planning staff know. And when the time comes, we hope you’ll join us at city council meetings to express our community’s support for the new reforms.
We need your voice, because plenty of people are fighting for the status quo that got us into the housing crisis.
We’re fighting for a better Bull City.