Following a speech I gave in Durham a couple months ago, a gentlemen told me that his Durham neighborhood has seen a big influx of people who’ve abandoned Chapel Hill because of the onerous tax bill associated with owning a home. Now we have numbers to explain it. From the News & Observer (emphasis is mine):
Town Manager Roger Stancil is recommending a budget that would cut the town’s property tax rate about 14 percent, a level meant to generate about the same amount in property taxes as this year.
The proposed tax rate of 49.7 cents per $100 of assessed property value would mean a Chapel Hill homeowner with a $300,000 house would pay $1,491 in town taxes.
Coupled with a countywide tax rate expected to come in at 86 cents per $100 or lower, the owner of the $300,000 house would pay about $4,100 in town and county property taxes next year. That does not include the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools special district tax, which last year ran about 20 cents per $100.
The next time you hear a Chapel Hill official and/or advocate for affordable housing express concern about what it costs to live in the town, consider recommending that they look at Chapel Hill and Orange County’s land-use policies, which decrease the supply of land and drive up the cost of housing.
