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Southern Pines considers limit on apartments
February 16, 2005
By Andrew Martel
Staff writer, Fayetteville Observer
SOUTHERN PINES -- The Southern Pines Planning Board is considering whether the Town Council should ban the construction of apartment buildings with more than 10 units.
The board meets at 7 tonight in the Town Council chambers on Broad Street.
Members of the committee that proposed the ban say Southern Pines does not need any more large apartment complexes. The Town Council put a moratorium on apartment construction in November after residents expressed concerns about the number of apartments being built. If the ban is approved, it could make finding affordable housing in Moore County more difficult, said Susan Bellew, director of the Sandhills Interfaith Hospitality Network in Aberdeen. The network works with churches in southern Moore County to provide shelter to homeless families and give them a base from which to search for jobs and housing.
Southern Pines is a natural destination for most of those families because it has plenty of jobs and stores within walking distance, Bellew said. "We can put up a unit out in Cameron, but people simply won't be able to get back and forth to jobs," Bellew said.
Many poor families can't afford anything but rental housing, Bellew added.
Search for home
The Locklear family is searching for a place to live almost exclusively in Southern Pines. Kristina Locklear and her husband, Christopher, have been trying to find a place with at least three bedrooms for their six children.
"We've been calling, looking in the newspaper," said Kristina Locklear, who has been with the network for five weeks. "There's nothing. Everything's just expensive."
More than 1,000 families are on a waiting list for Section 8 housing vouchers, which can be used as money to alleviate monthly housing costs. The Southern Pines Housing Authority has a growing waiting list, Bellew said.
"The county as a whole needs to look at this issue," Bellew said.
The Planning Board cannot set the policy, but it can recommend whether the Town Council should ban large apartments, which is defined as buildings with more than 10 units.
The ban should have no effect on how much affordable housing is available in Southern Pines, town Planning Director Bart Nuckols said. "We're not eliminating the use, we're simply limiting the scope," he said.
Southern Pines has more low-cost housing than any other town in Moore County, Nuckols said.
Even if the ban is passed, one low-cost apartment complex will still be built, said Greg Warren, president of the Downtown Housing Improvement Corp. of Raleigh.
The corporation received permission from the Southern Pines Board of Adjustment in January to go forward with plans to build three buildings with 32 apartment units by September.
Another apartment complex built by the improvement corporation in Southern Pines is open to households that make no more than $26,700 per year. A three-bedroom apartment rents for $505 to $605.
Most apartments built in Southern Pines rent for much more and are too expensive to be considered affordable housing, said Southern Pines Councilman Fred Walden, who led the committee that proposed the ban.
Need questioned
The Town Council formed Walden's committee after it passed a moratorium on apartment construction. Walden's committee was commissioned to study whether the town needed more rental housing.
After meeting weekly with landlords, Section 8 staff, the Moore County Chamber of Commerce, and the Sandhills Community Action Program, among others, the committee decided that the number of apartments in Southern Pines surpassed demand, Walden said.
"Some landlords have difficulties finding tenants," he said. "There did not seem to be much of a need, maybe just a preference."
While apartments in Southern Pines seem to be her best hope, Locklear said she is looking in other parts of the county and for other types of housing, such as mobile homes.
This week, she learned that her husband was hired for a construction job in Pinehurst, starting in two weeks. Three-bedroom apartments there go for about $500 to $600 per month.
"Right now that's too much, but it might not be if my husband gets that job," she said.
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