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Affordable Housing and Urban Resilience Aren’t at Odds, They’re Natural Allies
— Isabelle Shepherd, executive director of the Alliance for Cape Fear Trees, and Liz Carbone, board member of the Cape Fear Housing Coalition
When we think of growth, the public conversation typically falls into binaries: either we build housing and services, or we preserve trees. Either we make room for people, or we save room for nature. But is it really a zero-sum game?
In rapidly growing communities like ours, development and preservation certainly feel at odds. Who hasn’t gasped when turning a corner on Masonboro Loop Road to find dozens of clear-cut acres that were wooded just days before? Who hasn’t gotten turned around on Eastwood Road because so much change has made the places we know best feel unfamiliar? At the same time, who doesn’t know someone who has had to move out of town or who can’t buy a home because of the cost of housing in our beloved coastal city? There is a growing school of thought that in order to protect our tree canopy, or in order to preserve our city’s character, we should simply stop building altogether–but this belief denies the realities of change and growth, and further exacerbates the housing affordability crisis that thousands of our neighbors are facing each day.
Another misconception: housing advocates and environmentalists are always at odds. Too often, well-meaning advocates for trees are perceived as “NIMBYs” while housing advocates are unfairly cast as indifferent to environmental loss and neighborhood character. This division is a distraction from the real work ahead.
Let’s start with what we share: both affordable housing advocates and urban greening groups want a community that prioritizes health, safety, and resilience. We are all working towards a Wilmington where residents in all neighborhoods, not just the wealthiest, have access to the same quality of life that makes Wilmington such a desirable place to live. At the core of our respective issues are a fundamental lack of investment in critical infrastructure and an aspiration towards more complete community planning. Housing and trees are not luxuries, they are necessities.
In neighborhoods with fewer trees, we see higher surface temperatures, higher rates of respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, and poorer mental health and educational outcomes. These are the same neighborhoods where rent burdens are high and the quality of housing is poor. That’s not a coincidence. It's the legacy of redlining and defunct planning policies that benefitted some communities while neglecting others for decades.
So how do we create a shared vision that moves our city closer to housing affordability AND environmental justice? Wilmington urgently needs more housing, but how and where we build matters just as much as what we build. We need thoughtful, connected projects that reduce displacement, offer diverse options, counter sprawl, and preserve community. We can’t control how many people decide to move here, but we can decide whether we want to be a city for all or a city for some, and the choices we make now will determine our answer.
Here’s what that looks like on the ground:
- Prioritize infill development on greyfields rather than clearing remaining wooded lots.
- Redevelopment of low-use, high-acreage parcels such as strip malls and parking lots that can relieve housing pressure without fueling sprawl or swallowing up contiguous green space.
- Adaptive reuse of nuisance motels, abandoned storefronts, and other unutilized preexisting structures.
- Increasing density to house more people on smaller parcels while providing connecting corridors and buffers for surrounding neighborhoods.
- Prioritizing height over footprint to increase the green space to paved surface ratio in new developments.
- Low-impact design elements such as permeable pavement and drainage swales instead of retention ponds to better manage stormwater.
- Street trees and shade infrastructure that make sidewalks walkable, cool homes, and activate public spaces.
- Investments in prevention of homelessness and housing crises — we need less new affordable housing when we can keep households safe and stable in the homes they currently inhabit.
- Investments in public transit that reduce the need for space dedicated to parking and the number of cars on our streets.
- Affordable options for rent and for sale integrated across our community — not segregated to certain areas — to promote neighborhood continuity and a diversity of choice for our workforce, families with children, seniors, and the disabled.
In the soon to be voted on New Hanover County Destination 2050 Comprehensive Plan, we see policies that support these approaches alongside those that would make them even more difficult to execute. The prioritization of right-sized infill development in primarily residential areas is encouraging, with language in the plan highlighting a desire for maintaining neighborhood stability while allowing for modest growth consistent with existing zoning. The plan calls for development that reflects the scale of surrounding neighborhoods with attention to open space, tree canopy, and connectivity for pedestrians and cyclists–all things that any resident would hope to see more of. However, there is a lack of clarity around the exact number of units that would be allowable per acre, creating some uncertainty about what this policy directive would look like in practice.
Many local stakeholders have also raised questions about the creation of “commercial corridors” along some of our community’s busiest thoroughfares–a shift that replaces some Community Mixed Use and all Urban Mixed Use zoning designations while explicitly stating that residential uses are not encouraged. This approach runs counter to nationally accepted best practices which emphasize preserving contiguous green space while directing growth to existing high-traffic, low-canopy corridors as a primary strategy for increasing both housing capacity and tree canopy. The Alliance and the Coalition share the concern that this shift in the plan will further encourage unnecessary sprawl and reduce our remaining canopy rather than better utilizing our existing highly-developed areas in a way that meets the growing needs of the greater Wilmington area. In effect, the plan discourages reinvestment and increased residential capacity where development would cause the least environmental harm.
We know that planning and community development is not for the faint of heart, but we feel sure that the many stakeholders involved in these conversations come to the table with at least one shared goal: a safer, greener, and more prosperous future for our community. We need leadership and resources to make this happen, and we need partnerships built with trust and mutual respect. Local governments must get creative and persistently drive land use policy towards the attainable goals listed above. Environmental advocates must engage in good faith with affordable housing advocates and vice versa, and developers must be willing to hear out their neighbors and find compromise. We need a community-wide commitment to understanding that sustainability and affordability are not at odds, they are aligned.
