Thanks for catching that one! I had that one jotted down but forgot it as I was transcribing my chicken scratch to the community topic!
Any others that I’ve missed?
I am curious, how long do you think the suburban towns can pull in that level of population growth? With basically all of the growth in Apex, Holly Springs, FV, etc being subdivisions, it seems like they will run out of space in short order. Garner might run wild for a while though especially if it is able to spill into JoCo.
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This isn’t a data based answer, but I think they can keep it up for awhile. There’s still a lot of land in those areas that can be developed on. In Apex, driving through it seems like a lot of their developments are townhouse based. They have several of those near their downtown. I don’t think the growth is strictly subdivision SFHs.
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Infrastructure will be a challenge.
Holy springs already running up against water allocation challenges. Johnston county too
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I’m not sure how Chapel Hill lost population with all the new apartments off of Fordham blvd
I suppose it matters when those new apartments were completed. That estimate is nearly a year old and is based on July 1, 2023.
clever developers and long time property owners/sitters likley have that answer already
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Despite those new apartments, Chapel Hill is notoriously NIMBY City, and they’ve blocked far more apartments than they’ve built, resulting in skyrocketing rents. That, and being purely a college town makes it way less enticing for people moving here vs Raleigh or Durham. That’d be my best guess.
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I think it’s enticing in terms of everyone knowing it’s a really nice place to live. That downtown is just perfect, and there’s so many outdoor activities and good city facilities. There’s just nowhere to actually move to that isn’t student housing or frighteningly expensive.
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New suburban can be relatively dense. Chatham park will have roughly 70,000 residents in 23,000 units on about 8000 acres. Somebody can do the math about density. Also include parks, retail, schools, office obviously.
I strongly disagree, “downtown” Chapel Hill (which, let’s be frank, is just Franklin St) has become so sterile and flavorless over the years. I would say Carrboro has the more unique, interesting “downtown” but it’s even smaller. I honestly just do not care for Chapel Hill in general these days.
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To each their own, I suppose. For me, CH and Carrboro are symbiotic - each one scratches a different itch, and it’s awesome they’re right next to each other.
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This is a phenomena that’s been the baseline in the West for a 100 years. What you got there was lots of density while still being suburban and auto oriented. Getting even a quarter acre today in new construction in Wake is the exception, not the rule. 30 years ago, a quarter acre was pretty much the norm or baseline. Go back 50 years or more and new suburban lots in Wake were 1/3-1/2 acre or more.
This is why infill in established neighborhoods are often yielding Million $+ houses. You just can’t easily find sizable lots in most newer developments.
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Chapel Hill and Carrboro have a conjoined downtown and I find it pointless pretending they’re separate towns. Yes the Carrboro part is better but the whole thing is good.
I lived in Carrboro for many years. It’s a solid town and I could’ve stayed but it is a town in the end and I’m pretty happy to be in Durham now.
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I’m just a staunch Chapel Hell hater so I gotta keep my brand up.
(EDIT: not the school, I don’t GAF about college sports. Just the town. Chapel Hell is also just a town IMO lol)
True! I live in Garner off of Timber Drive. House is 50 years old and on a half acre. My other two neighbors have 3/4 acre lots.
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Wait until they finish the “complete 540” leg from HS to Garner. This entire south of Raleigh region will explode with suburbia, much like N. Raleigh / WF did when the original part of 540 was built.
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I expect Garner to explode at some point. It’s easy for me to imagine it being the size of Apex.
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I’ve noticed that many new streets built in Southeast Raleigh towards Garner have MUPs or at least some large, nice sidewalks. Should be much easier this time around to make all this new development somewhat bike friendly compared to retroactively trying to “fix” the Apex/Cary/North Raleigh burbs.
This is why it drives me nuts that Pittsboro isn’t mandating separated bike infrastructure in new developments. It’s almost all greenfield and that’ll become most of their road network in the not-too-distant future.
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I bought in Garner in 2008. It was dirt cheap back then. I am 4 miles from downtown Raleigh.
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