Road to 10K

Oh, Welcome to another edition of Talk City, Greensboro, produced by GTM featuring interviews and events happening around town. It's an easy way to stand to know while you're on to go. Subscribe to Talk City on iTunes, Pandora, or SoundCloud so you can keep up with what is going on in Greensboro City Government and beyond. I'm your host, Rodney Dawson, Solo. Rosemary Plabond is off doing wonderful things with the family, and a special thank you to our listeners for joining us here on Talk City Greensboro. We got the origins of something. We might have the origins of something here, some kind of table talk. Perhaps. We stayed in house today and we have wonderful guests from the CMO's office, Nasha McCray, Assistant City Manager, Nasha McCray, as well as our community partnership and development officer April Albert. That's right. Happy to be back. Thank you for being here. And so you always, y'all are always in the know and you have to be. And let me say this, I go to a lot of city council meetings, and I see you all from afar. Let me just tell you thank you for your work. I appreciate you. Thank you. And happy Founders Day. Yes. Yes. Thank you so much. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Congratulations. That is an accomplishment. Absolutely. And can you tell me who y'all's official songster is? I will not. For S.G. Roe. Next question. What's my favorite word? What are your colors so, folks? They are royal blue and antique gold. And what do you call this month? This is Rovember. Roe Vember. I like that. I like it a lot. Okay, April, we're here today to talk about the road to 10,000. Okay, now. I'm hearing a lot of talk, and one thing I do know, I'm a layman, so I'm not very adept on this topic, but I do know it's a. Can I say a crisis or it's a problem? I think that's fair. Okay. Yeah. And you know housing. Right. And so if you know housing and you know what the sentiment is nationally, you know how important this topic is. So can you tell us, can you set the table for us, what situation are we in? So for us in Greensboro, you know, one of our main priorities that was established by our city manager earlier this year was to figure out how can we start to have greater strides in providing housing for everyone across every economic demographic, every price point, every house style. In response to the need that we know exist in this community for all types of housing, we're experiencing tremendous amount of growth. significant and really exciting economic development announcements with Toyota and Jet Zero and boom you know and many others and so with that is going to bring more people to our region where they're going to obviously need somewhere to stay and if you've also like I said been paying attention nationally housing is in short supply in many communities and so Greensboro is not an anomaly

And so our effort for the road to 10,000, our goal is to facilitate the... growth of or the creation of 10,000 housing units in the next five years. And that was spawned from the Carolina Corps, which did a regional study for our triad regional area that indicated we actually need a little over 33,000 housing units just in our county and regional area in the next five years. So naturally, Greensboro said we'll take the lead and we'll cut off about a third of that. And so that's really where we started and what our goal was. And it's not just about the number, right? focuses on the 10,000. But it's more than just creating units. It's creating homes. It's creating community. It is preserving our neighborhoods and making sure that we not only can stabilize and preserve the neighborhoods in the communities that already exist in Greensboro. That makes it great. But also, how do we become a welcoming place for the new residents that we will have here in the next couple of years? Understood. April, can you... Break it down for us a little further. What do those folks look like that need the housing? Well, it's actually across the board, which is really interesting. And when Nasha talks about the road to 10,000, this isn't just home ownership. This is rental as well because we're seeing a need across the market. So they're looking like, I like to think that I'm young. I know I'm not. But they're looking at Middle Age America coming out of college. We've got 70,000 college students here. Where are they going to live when we're able to retain them here in Greensboro? But it's also looking at people who are my mom's age. My mom turned 70 in 2026. And so, for example, her and my father 20 years ago brought their dream home, which was 3,600 square footage. Now it's just my mom. There's no way to maintain that. But as she looks to downsize because of the demand of housing, anything smaller is actually going to cost her more than what she spent, her and my dad spent on their dream home. And so how are we able to help residents age in place and live in the places that they've grown accustomed to where their doctor's offices are, where their favorite yoga studio is? How can you go through the progressions of life and stay in your neighborhood? That's what it looks like. It looks like everybody. It's you, me, and in between. The American dream isn't necessarily changing, but the demographic is. Before it used to be two parents, two kids, and a cute golden retriever. Now it's me and my pug or me and my child and my dog or just two adults. Things are changing, and we've got to kind of go with that and make sure that people can live with dignity.

I'll even add to April, what you mentioned too, is the family dynamic, the structure has changed. So what most people don't realize is that it's no longer, you know, a two-person household with children. People are not having children at the rate that they used to before. There are actually more people that own pets than have children in this country. Really? Absolutely. Yeah. And then the other thing is, and I know it seems like it could be gloom and doom, but Greensboro is actually in the top 10, according to realtor.com for housing markets. So it is the great place to be. The timing is perfect, but that is even more reason why we need to make sure that we're prepared and that people have economic mobility to be able to age in places, April mentioned, and have housing choice. And that's really what Road to 10,000 is housing choice, you know, because affordability is relative to everybody's individual situations. So what may be affordable to you, Rodney, or to some of our viewers, it may be. look different and that's okay. And so we want to have something available for everyone or a product that is for everyone along whichever part of the housing continuum they're on. So whether it's supportive housing or transit housing all the way to, you know, retirement homes or multifamily housing, townhomes, condos, quadplexes, duplexes, everything in between, we want people to have choice. I'm actually going to say it. It's two words that we need to see. and housing, and that's density, dun, dun, done, and diversity. And they're not bad words. That is how it keeps us growing as a really beautiful metropolitan city that also answers some of those old school ideals that we see people wanting Greensboro to have. A study just came out this week that said that the average median age for first-time homebuyers is now 40 years old. Okay, the great thing is Greensboro is still super affordable for a lot of folks. We're also a larger major city. We're the third largest city and the ninth fastest growing state in the country. And so we want to be able to just offer diverse options for people when they come here. Like we said, we've had economic developments that are just exploding across the board. And so we want to have a little bit of something for everyone. I like the word you're using a housing choice, and I think we can spend a little more time on it. I need to spend a little bit more time on it. But you also said some scary words to me. So let me play the citizen that's out there. Okay. If I'm living in New York or living in Rochester or something like that, you know, a little more density, and I'm trying to escape that, you know, you don't have to answer it. I've got a couple questions. And I'm trying to escape that. And I move down here, and I hear the word, I'm trying to be more dense. that may discourage me a little bit. And then also, I know we got the road to 10,000. I know there's a housing choice. There's a plan in place, but I'm also thinking, are we just looking for land, finding land to build homes? But housing choice tells me that it's not that simple. It's just finding land to build homes. How do you accomplish this, 10,000 homes and deal with those needs and those different dynamics? Is it in stages or how is this plan looked upon? Yeah, I think I can maybe address that in two ways. One, as April said, density, many people are very fearful of what that means, right? And you just imagine the analogy you just gave New York City.

For us in this world, density, you know, especially from an economic standpoint, it's actually what you do want because then you can actually spread the wealth around because it is very expensive to connect infrastructure, to have larger lots. It's more harmful for the environment. And so when we have an opportunity to do infill, so filling in those pieces in established neighborhoods, and we can tap into the existing infrastructure, whether it's water sidewalks, the transit stops into existing. parks, it actually helps to bring the cost down. So it's a little bit more expensive when you sprawl out. The other thing, though, density, it really goes back to many areas in our community here in Greensboro. This actually is... a homage to how our neighborhoods were established traditionally in a traditional sense. So walkability, right? So being able to not have to use your car to get to the grocery store or the doctor's office because it's in walking distance. So this ties in the gold boroughs. Absolutely. The other thing is from a public safety standpoint, you know, think about how you have eyes, you know, on the street when we grew up, right? You know, you can't go and cut up, you know, because the neighbor up, you know, on the corner, they're going to see you, right? They get you to do that. They might get you before your parents might even have to get you, right? And so this helps us to actually have stronger neighborhoods when you have more people that are more invested, you know, more, you know, in close-knit proximity in the community. And to me, that you can't really quantify the value of that. It actually encourages and improves the quality of life, you know, when you're able to infill. The other thing is not just about building new. You know, what we want to do is preserve our existing housing stock. We have some gorgeous neighborhoods. gorgeous bones, you know, in our, many of our neighborhoods here in Greensboro. And so we don't want to... We don't want to take that for granted, and we don't want to see the other bad word, the G word, gentrification. You know, we don't want to displace people, the culture, the heritage, and the history, you know, in our community. And so we want to honor that and be sensitive to that. And so one of the other things with the road to 10,000 is how do we do both, right? You can build new, but you also can help people preserve to stay in their homes. So how can we help them get access to home repair programs and home, you know, dollars if they're tax. build goes up. How can we make sure that we keep that as low as possible? So we're looking at quite a few different strategies, not just again building new and helping, you know, Greensboro expand its footprint, but how do we fill in, you know, what's already there? And one other thing that we also talk about is like that missing middle. And it's not necessarily tied to the price point, but the missing middle is more so the housing type. There are actually places right now that you can drive around Greensboro. You will have a single family home right next to a multifamily unit, like a duplex. And you probably wouldn't even know it's there. And so that's just trying to get the narrative change a little bit to help reduce that stigma. And a lot of times it's the fear of unknown. I think it's the fear of, okay, we don't want to be like New York City. And I hear this a lot. We don't want to be like Charlotte.

You know, we don't want to be like Raleigh and all these other places. But at some point, you know, we have a really good opportunity right now to help influence what growth looks like. You know, we can protect. But we also embrace some of the change because we have folks that actually want a new type of product. Not everyone wants a single family home. April, let me ask you this because you're the young one. Am I? I'm a second. You're a young one at the table as you start. I'm the old one at the table. But speaking of that demographic, you know. I hear them say, I want a Charlotte. I want some of the things that Charlotte have. So how are you balancing that or how are you addressing that as well? Absolutely. So the fun thing is I'm born and raised in Charlotte, spent a lot of my life there, went to undergrad in Greensboro and then came back. So I get to see kind of the best of both worlds and we're not Charlotte and that's a good thing. We are Greensboro. We're proud to be Greensboro. But people want the amenities of Charlotte and that we can do. We can bring those to Greensboro. We don't want the traffic. And we don't have the traffic. Folks, if you've had to sit on Freeman Mill for five minutes, you've not sat in traffic. There's nothing worse than sitting on 77 for two hours on a Sunday. And you're like, Lord, was this where I was supposed to get my message? Is this where you're testing my patient? Absolutely. But that's the great thing, you know. I was actually just on Zillow because I just purchased a home not too long ago. And so I was just doing some comparative math. And to get an 800-square-foot condo, close to Uptown Charlotte, you're looking at $599. Not $599. You're looking at almost $600,000 for less than 1,000 square feet. Greensboro, I mean, first off, you're living on a golf course here if you want that. which is very, very nice, but you have options. What we're trying to make sure, though, is that as we grow, you continue to have those options. And I think that's really what young people. I did air quotes because I don't know if I really do identify. But that's what young people want. They want the options for housing. They want the options to have to drive. And they want the options to say, you know what, I'm not cooking tonight. So I'm going to walk up the street here and head up this great little restaurant. They just opened right by my place. Greensboro can offer you those things. But Greensboro is also having the conversations with subject matter experts. I'm a shout out our planning department. Our director of planning is the APA president, which is the American Planning Association. So not only is she helping us kind of develop some of these plans along with others in transportation and in housing, but she is also the key person that's seeing trends across the country as well. And the good thing is we've seen some of this stuff play out on the West Coast. And housing has happened to Charlotte. Housing has happened to Raleigh. Greensboro, we're actually taking a hold of that narrative and saying this is what we want to see. And that is something that this city should really cherish because they didn't get the opportunities to do that. We decide how we grow. And we're going to grow smartly. And I will add to that April 2. You mentioned subject matter experts. And I appreciate you for saying that because this isn't something that.

Absolutely. So it's been really exciting since it's been almost a year since the city manager launched this initiative. He did it actually last year at the annual council retreat is when we kicked it off. And we're getting ready to come up on the next council retreat in February. And again, we're going to have brand new members of that organization. So one, we're going to be presenting to them what we've been doing. And I will actually say, if I can get a quick drum roll, we've actually hit 2,500 under construction. or completed homes in less than a year. So something is working. Let me tell you, we know how the sausage is being made, and it is quality sausage. That is that niece's sausage. Grass fed. I'm telling you. But we're doing other things, too. We know exactly what you said. that people are hearing this, and it's like we're speaking Mandarin. So we've already had two pretty well-attended community events. We call them our community road shows. We'll play on words there. The first one was in July, and that was open to the public. Any question that you had about housing or any elements that went along with housing, like transit, like transportation, even just drawing pictures of houses for our younger population, we hosted it at the Depot downtown. And there was information galore. And it was really exciting to see about 75, 80 folks come through and just ask their questions from, if you're interesting, getting into becoming a developer, to what opportunities are there for me as a first-time homeowner? We actually have a down payment assistance program through the city. Council just increased the down payment assistance amount, y'all. $20,000 up to $25 if you purchase in a reinvestment area. And not only is that to take. off of your down payment you can also use it to buy down points which is huge for the life of your mortgage because now you've got an opportunity to lower your interest rate which has kind of made some people afraid right now when they're going through the housing process is this credit based or it yes yes you can use it I mean FHA I think starts to like a 580 credit store we've got some great lenders as well that we can send you afterwards to tell people to work with but like Atlantic Bay mortgage they're one of our tax task force members they work directly with. our down payment assistance, which is fantastic. You can stack it with other funding sources, which is the other cool part. So, I mean, you could get up to $50,000 if you tie it right with the state of North Carolina as well. Home ownership is a possibility still here in Greensboro and in North Carolina. Then just last month, we had a developer-based meeting, which meant if you work in construction, if you work in architecture, if you are a developer wanting to do housing here in Greensboro, whether you are local, we had some outside folks coming to, we had 125. people show up for a breakfast. First off, it started at 7.30 in the morning. Which was impressive by itself. Yeah, that's rough. We had really good food. And we talked to them about what we're looking for, but then we also stopped talking.

which is important sometimes with the city and said, you tell us what we need to do to make this easier. Because we're supposed to be a city. Council adopted a priority three years ago. We want to be the easiest place to do business. And we have not stopped working on that. So that's the great thing is we listened. We gave our perspective, but then we took that feedback as well. And we've created a lot of really good information. We're improving our development services website, as well as the Road to 10,000 website too. So we can get your information. Okay. It's out there. www. G-S-O Road to 10K.com. And it's very colorful. We'll show it on the screen. Absolutely. Right, when you say it, okay, let me get you out of here on this one. You answered one question, two and one just now. So I was going to ask you about community buy-in, but I think I got a sense of it, and I don't want to put you on the spot. But if I had the grade, if you had the grade community buy-in, A being high, they still give Fs or is an E now? Well, we don't do. We don't accept F at this table. We only do excellent. There you go. How pleased are you with community? buy-in so far. I... Chinks! Chinks! You owe me a kid. I've been pleased with community buy-in. Is it easy? Absolutely not. I appreciate the community, though, for challenging us on the things that we're saying, which means they're listening, and then they've got questions, and we need to have those answers. But we have seen a lot of really positive community buy-in, and we're not just having these community road shows. I have been to numerous neighborhood meetings. I was all the way in Winston for a housing hangout, which people... came out at noon just to learn about it. We're getting that feedback. We're getting that community buy-in. I think, as we know, 2025, there is some misinformation out there. So what we just need to work on is making sure that we are getting our message out there. And it's not being construed with some of these action-pack groups that do funding that have a different agenda out there right now. But the Assembly has done a really good coverage of the Road to 10,000, the News and Record. why all of those stations have done a good job of covering us and helping us get what we're actually trying to do out there. And from that, we've gotten really positive feedback. But this is a five-year project, so we're not done yet. Go ahead. Well, and I was going to just to add on to that, which I think, April, you said it beautifully. I think even beyond our community, the reach that we have been having in the interests in what we're doing, there is no less than maybe once per week that we get contacted. by another community that says, hey, we heard about Road to 10,000 and what you all are doing in Greensboro. So that means something. What can you share with us? That means a lot. I just did a panel presentation with our city manager and our parks and rec director at the ICMA, which is the International City County Managers Association National Conference. And we talked about economic impact. And a portion of that conversation was around housing and Road to 10K. And there are several communities that were like, wow, y'all are really pushing the needle. How can we like?

learn, you know, what can we, you share with us that we can apply here, you know, in our respective communities. And I mean, this is from West Coast to East Coast, you know, and all across the board. So for us knowing that, you know, it's very reassuring that we're on the right track. So when we do get folks that don't really understand, you know, or that push back, then that means that we may either need to tailor our message a little bit more. But that doesn't mean that we're not doing the right thing. Right. Yeah, well, just you sharing that. It puts my mind at ease, you know, so you never know what will be far reaching for someone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And can I give you some homework? Of course. Okay. And you have to think about it now. I don't know if you can come up with an answer now, but think about as you're going through these stages, and you know when you might potentially be able to come back. We're going to have them back, y'all. Oh, thank you. Speaking with Nasha McCray, Assistant City Manager, and then also April Albert and the Community Partnership and Development Office. When you come back, what would you like to say give a report on? And do you have a goal? Like, I want to reach this many more people. So when I come back, I can say, hey, we reached 80% of the amount of people. Something like that. What can we set for now that we can come back? and report on yeah well since you call me young i really want to continue to talk to the young people about what we're doing because when i was here in undergrad in greensboro that was part of the reason i felt i needed to go you know expand my wings is because i couldn't quite see my life expanding here. And I'd be a lot richer if I didn't have to do that because I went and spent the money in New York, Seattle and all those different places and lived in a shoe closet for way too much money. But now I'm here back in Greensboro and I feel like I am flourishing and prospering and I want to bring that message to our young people as they make their next steps in the world. Greensboro can be your next step and you can feel fulfilled. Okay. Well, I'm including you in on this homework assignment because you are our connect. to your listeners that are hearing us have this conversation. So you are actually going to help us figure out what our goal is and how we can expend that reach. So I'm lumping you in on this group project. Go ahead. Let me in. Has it come with a pay raise, assist the city manager. I have your people call my people. There we go. Negotiate. I'm going to get a new pen. Thank you for your service. April, Albertton, and Nasha McRae, thank you for joining us on Talk City, talking about the road to 10,000. I'm educated a little bit more, and we know education means to lead to that fullest potential, so I'm better informed, so I'm led. Wonderful. We did our time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to our audience will be, too. And thank you to our audience for tuning in as well to Talk City. Be sure you can. Check us out on iTunes Pandora, and don't forget you can download Talk City from SoundCloud. That's it for this episode and this week. Thank you for tuning in. Be sure to watch GTN, your official source for news and information about the city of Greensboro. Gt.N is also available on Spectrum Channel 13, AT&T, Uverse Channel 99, and Lumos 31. Gt also streams live on Roku and the city's website at Greensboro-NC.gov.