Elon’s town council has turned down a request for an accessory dwelling that had become something of a proxy for the broader conflict over the spread of student housing into the town’s more traditional neighborhoods.
The council came down squarely on the side of the townies late last month when it rejected a special use permit that would’ve allowed landlords David and Joshua Erzine to set up this particular apartment above an existing garage at 212 Foster Drive.
According to the town’s planning staff, this second-floor flat would’ve accommodated up to three unrelated adults on top of the threesome that the Erzines can already house in the lot’s primary dwelling. Although this doubling is theoretically possible under the town’s land development ordinance, the property’s location within a suburban residential district required the Erzines to obtain a special use permit in order to follow through with their plan.
The town’s planning staff ultimately signed off on this permit once it had determined that the proposed second-story apartment met all of the community’s development rules. A majority of the town’s planning board, likewise, endorsed the request when it came up for consideration.
The permit nevertheless ran into some static earlier this month when Elon’s town council convened a quasi-judicial hearing to evaluate the pros and cons of the requested permit. This court-like proceeding left some of the council’s members with unresolved issues about the potential increase in housing density. Meanwhile, others observed that the Erzines have college students among their existing tenants in Elon – which touched off a wider discussion about the proliferation of student housing beyond the campus of Elon’s eponymous university.
The council returned to these same themes recently after a couple of their older, year-round constituents raised some concerns that echoed their own preoccupations.
During a designated public comment period that evening, Mary Marshall objected to the chaos that she said college students have wrought in her own neighborhood along Ball Park Avenue.
“About every week they have parties. They are walking across our property and throwing beer cans and cups in our yard…My son has even seen sexual activity out in the open.”
– Elon resident Mary Marshall
“About every week they have parties,” Marshall said of these conspicuous collegians. “They are walking across our property and throwing beer cans and cups in our yard…My son has even seen sexual activity out in the open.”
Marshall went on to lament the traffic problems caused by the dense concentration of these undergraduate revelers.
The issue of housing density was addressed at greater length by Jim Beasley, who serves as the chairman of Elon’s municipal planning board. Beasley admitted that his own ruminations on density have compelled him to abandon his initial support for the special use permit along Foster Drive.
“I’ve come to the opinion, after some restless nights, that we are not protecting our neighborhoods. Putting this accessory dwelling in the back is increasing the density of [suburban neighborhoods] throughout Elon. . . and most of our property tax revenue comes from those districts; They’re our bread and butter.”
– Elon planning board chairman Jim Beasley
“I’ve come to the opinion, after some restless nights, that we are not protecting our neighborhoods,” he said during the meeting’s public comment period. “Putting this accessory dwelling in the back is increasing the density of [suburban neighborhoods] throughout Elon…and most of our property tax revenue comes from those districts; They’re our bread and butter.”
The prospect of residential congestion was also on the minds of the council’s own members that evening. In fact, councilman Randy Orwig broached this very issue as he dwelled on the deliberate oversupply of parking that the Erzine brothers had offered to clinch the support of the town’s municipal leaders.
“You said that you’re putting a lot of parking spots on the property, which implies that there’s the potential for a lot of vehicles…So, I want to know what this is going to do to the adjacent property.”
– Elon town councilman Randy Orwig
Chad Huffine, a civil engineer in the employ of the property owners, had made the most of these six proposed parking spaces when he presented his clients’ request during the quasi-judicial hearing.
“I’m simply a civil engineer. I can only consider the land use of what we’re proposing here. . . The building is an inanimate object. . . and the building, in my opinion, does not injure the neighboring property. . . And a garage apartment, in my opinion, improves the community because it provides additional housing.”
– Engineer Chad Huffine
Yet, Orwig turned the tables on Huffine as he recounted this oft-mentioned selling point before this Tuesday’s vote.
“You said that you’re putting a lot of parking spots on the property,” he reminded the civil engineer, “which implies that there’s the potential for a lot of vehicles…So, I want to know what this is going to do to the adjacent property.”
Huffine assured Orwig that he generally tries to “overdesign the parking areas” in order to stave off the parking-related objections that he has heard time and again from residents who live near development sites. He nevertheless found himself a bit more nonplussed when Elon’s mayor Emily Sharpe conjured the specter of student housing and the impact it may have on the quality of life along Foster Drive.
“What evidence do we have this this will not injure the enjoyment and use of property in the immediate vicinity? Do you live in Elon? Do you live next to college students? Would you consider what college students bring to a neighborhood as improving the quality of life?”
– Elon mayor Emily Sharpe
Sharpe admonished the civil engineer that he had provided a mere boiler plate statement about quality of life during the quasi-judicial hearing. She proceeded to goad him for a more substantive explanation of how the proposed accessory dwelling would improve the surrounding area.
“What evidence do we have this this will not injure the enjoyment and use of property in the immediate vicinity?” she demanded of Huffine. “Do you live in Elon? Do you live next to college students? Would you consider what college students bring to a neighborhood as improving the quality of life?”
Huffine, a Graham resident who serves on that city’s planning board, managed a sheepish “no” in response to the mayor’s more pointed inquiries about his personal experience with life in a college town. He added, however, that his lack of insight about college-aged neighbors never struck him as a handicap in his professional assessments about land use and development.
“I’m simply a civil engineer,” he protested. “I can only consider the land use of what we’re proposing here…The building is an inanimate object…and the building, in my opinion, does not injure the neighboring property…And a garage apartment, in my opinion, improves the community because it provides additional housing.”
In the end, Huffine could do little to sway the council from its ultimate verdict on the proposed accessory dwelling.
As a prelude to its vote on the special use permit, the council enunciated a series of six, separate conclusions to sum up its takeaway from the quasi-judicial hearing. In order to warrant the permit’s approval, all six of these statements needed to support the arguments that Huffine advanced during the hearing.
On four of the six counts, the council concurred with the civil engineer. Even so, a majority of its members found that the proposed land use was likely to harm neighboring property values and that it wasn’t in harmony with neighboring land uses.
The council went on to vote 5-to-0 to reject the special use permit at the end of last month because it had failed to meet two of the six criteria that Huffine previously presented.
