BY MILES LAYTON

A block of townhouses close to John A. Holmes High School may be coming to Edenton.

Tuesday, Town Council held a public hearing and special meeting to discuss the possibility of nine townhouses being built between 706 and 708 North Oakum Street.

The council approved a major special use permit, which is the first step in the process of building homes that may serve teachers.  Property owner is John Sellers.  

“We’re trying to put affordable housing in the community. We’ve done numerous houses that are in the, a couple under 200. We’ve done them in the 200, 225 range,” CSH Builders property developer Chris Hehl said. “There’s a need for that. We are hopeful that this would be a spot for teachers, young professionals, et cetera. We think it can come in under $250K on these units; maybe, maybe a little better than that.”

Noting the price of the homes being in the $200K range, Councilman Aaron Coston said that kind of price tag might be difficult for teachers to manage – it’s no secret that teachers don’t make a lot of money. 

While praising Hehl and Sellers’ projects, Coston said, “I know that the target audience is going to be teachers — starting salary right now from blue collar employees and teachers are around $37,000 starting off. I think my only issue would be that at $250,000 or even less may not necessarily meet the affordability piece for us.”

Hehl explained that he can affect the price point more so by the cost of land rather than quality and labor – two factors he’s not going to compromise. 

“We’ve had ideas about how to get people on a piece of property, town workers, county workers, et cetera, teachers,” he said. “Perhaps there’s something as a group the town could do to help with the cost of that. The cost of the building is the cost of the building. I mean, somebody tells me how many square feet it is, I can kind of tell them about where it’s gonna end up because I know what it costs.” 

Hehl continued, “So really, I think the median income of teachers may be at $37,-38K is probably $60K in this part of the state. And you know, you just gotta look and see where we can get the price. We have sold to people that were probably in the $188 grand and they’re probably 850 square feet. So when I’ve had this conversation before with folks, it’s, there’s really only three ways I can affect the price of the house. You know, I could use inferior stuff; I could use inferior labor or I could make them smaller and I’m not gonna do the first two. So my only choice is to make them smaller.”  

Hehl said a two-income family, maybe a young family with help from their parents, could purchase one of these townhouses.  

“I helped my kids get started,” he said. “My folks help me get started. I’m convinced if folks have a little help getting into the housing business and they use some common sense and listen to some good advice and ride the housing market, they can move up.” 

Hehl said he wants people to live in the community where they work – not have to travel long distances from their homes to work elsewhere.  

“I’m very concerned about the folks that work here, living here,” he said. “There are a lot of communities where the folks that work there have to go live somewhere else and they’re gonna spend their money somewhere else. They’re gonna pay their taxes somewhere else. We need to find a way to have everybody here.”

Council approved the rezoning request – however, note the word “possible” – all council did was give a green light to rezoning. CSH Builders still needs to jump through many hoops to receive the Town’s blessing. If everything goes as planned, construction on the project would start this summer. Helh said these townhouses would primarily be owner occupied, but left open the possibility that some of these units would be rentals.

See our story about work Helh is doing in the county — a possible subdivision.

For folks who are keeping score at home, Sellers’ son, Patrick, a member of Town Council, recused himself from discussion on the matter and did not vote.  

In other news, there was a public hearing for a text amendment that would allow – perhaps called mother-in-law suites – to be built on property with existing homes. Council approved that amendment – so final approval will advance to the regular council meeting.  

Other items of note – During the committee meeting report, Administrative Committee Chairman Craig Miller announced that the Committee gave its blessing to amending the town’s golf cart ordinance to require folks to wear seatbelts while the vehicle is in motion. That ordinance change will now to go a full vote at the next council meeting.

Police Chief David Lafon said as to the ordinance, “It just said they had to be equipped and didn’t say they had to use them. So it was a play on words. I mean, most folks would’ve used them, but you know, then they, we’ve got attorneys in the room, they would’ve said, no, it’s not in there. So the Town Manager myself looked at it and reviewed, talked to some people and felt like if we put that word in there…

Miller added, “To make it more specific.” 

Kudos goes to Karen Murray for suggesting a review of the ordinance.  

“Thank you for bringing it to our attention that there may be a gap there, particularly as it relates to that – so thank you very much for bringing that to our attention,” Mayor Hackney High said.  

NOTE – wear a seatbelt when traveling a golf cart – High said the rules have changed, so “we expect the public to abide by that change.”   

The Administrative Committee recommended reforming the town’s fire prevention ordinance, which had last been updated in the 1990s.  

“This new ordinance will replace the existing Chapter 92 ordinance titled Fire Protection and the Town of East is Code of Ordinances,” Miller said.   “This update is to describe regulations consistent with the most current addition of the North Carolina Fire Prevention Code and nationally recognized good practice for safeguarding of life property, the hazards of fire. The provisions of this update ordinance will be applicable to buildings and structures specified in North Carolina prevention code and to other conditions.”  

Fire Chief Billy Bass added, “The language has changed a lot since then.”