AMERICAN CONSTRUCTION NEWS

October 18, 2026 at 3:44:53 PM

When Zoning Laws Erase History: Hidden Valley's Fight Against Charlotte's Triplex Crisis

Article Summary:

• A 2025 housing gap analysis commissioned by the NC Chamber Foundation, NC Home Builders Association, and NC Realtors projects that North Carolina faces a shortage of 764,000 available homes through 2029 — 322,000 rental units and 442,000 homes for purchase.

• Governor Josh Stein signed Executive Order No. 36 on May 19, 2026, directing state agencies to coordinate a 'whole-of-government' approach to housing, establishing a Senior Advisor for Housing Policy (Janneke Ratcliffe, formerly of the Urban Institute), and proposing $50 million in new funding through the Housing Trust Fund and Workforce Housing Loan Program.

• Housing affordability has declined in all 100 North Carolina counties. Nearly half of all renters are cost-burdened, teachers in 23 counties can't afford average rent, a carpenter in Raleigh can afford only 8% of starter homes, and 53% of enlisted military families spend more than 30% of income on housing.

• The executive order directs the Department of Commerce to prioritize construction workforce development, expand training and certifications in skilled trades, strengthen the housing supply chain, and promote innovation to reduce construction timelines and costs.

• The Department of Administration is directed to evaluate underutilized state-owned properties for housing development, while DEQ will use flood resiliency data and water/wastewater capacity analysis to guide where new homes should — and shouldn't — be built.

• For the construction and architecture industry, the housing crisis represents the largest building opportunity in a generation — but only for firms that can navigate the policy landscape, scale workforce capacity, and deliver the housing types North Carolina actually needs.

The problem.

North Carolina needs 764,000 homes. That number is so large it stops meaning anything unless you break it down.

It means that if you took every single home built in Wake County over the past decade and multiplied it by seven, you'd still fall short. It means that the state needs to build approximately 150,000 new housing units per year for the next five years — a pace North Carolina has never sustained.

The 2025 housing gap analysis, commissioned by the NC Chamber Foundation, the NC Home Builders Association, and the NC Realtors, breaks the deficit into two categories: 322,000 rental units and 442,000 homes for purchase. The shortage spans every county, every income level, and every housing type.

But the numbers don't hit until you see what they mean for real people.

WHO CAN'T AFFORD TO LIVE HERE

The 2025 Area Median Income in North Carolina is $95,000 for a family of four. Low-income households — those earning 80% of AMI, or $76,000 — are effectively locked out of the homeownership market in most urban and suburban areas.

The math is brutal:
• Almost half of all homes listed for sale in North Carolina are priced at $400,000 or more.
• To afford a $400,000 mortgage while spending less than 30% of household income on housing, a family needs to earn at least $110,000 per year.
• A carpenter in Charlotte can afford roughly 20% of entry-level homes in the market.
• A carpenter in Raleigh can afford about 8% of starter homes.
• Teachers in 23 North Carolina counties don't earn enough to afford the average fair market rent in their work areas.
• 53% of enlisted military families in the state spend more than 30% of their monthly income on housing and utilities.
• Nearly 30% of older adults spend more than one-third of their income on housing.

From 2024 to 2025, North Carolina experienced the ninth-highest rental price increases in the United States. And more than one-third of the state's existing housing stock was built over 45 years ago, meaning rehabilitation needs are compounding on top of the new construction deficit.

This isn't a housing inconvenience. It's a structural economic crisis that affects workforce recruitment, military readiness, educational quality, and the long-term fiscal health of every North Carolina community.

THE GOVERNOR'S RESPONSE: EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 36

On May 19, 2026, Governor Josh Stein signed Executive Order No. 36 — the most comprehensive housing policy directive in North Carolina's history.

The order establishes a 'whole-of-government' approach to housing, directing every cabinet agency to prioritize housing access, creation, and resilience in their policies and planning. It creates a new Senior Advisor for Housing Policy within the Governor's Office — a position filled by Janneke Ratcliffe, formerly the Vice President of the Housing and Communities Division at the Urban Institute.

Ratcliffe's mandate: define the first statewide housing strategy, establish affordability goals and metrics, oversee implementation, and report progress to the Governor semi-annually.

The executive order's specific directives read like a blueprint for reshaping how North Carolina builds:

• Every principal state department must designate a 'department housing lead' to coordinate with the Senior Advisor.
• The Department of Administration must evaluate underutilized state-owned properties to identify sites suitable for housing development.
• The Department of Environmental Quality will use the Flood Resiliency Blueprint, natural hazard risk data, and water/wastewater capacity data to guide development patterns.
• DHHS and the NC Housing Finance Agency will expand supportive housing models for populations with complex needs.
• The Department of Commerce is directed to prioritize construction workforce capacity, expand training and certification programs, strengthen the housing supply chain, and promote innovation to reduce construction costs and timelines.

Governor Stein's recommended FY 2026-2027 budget includes a $35 million increase for the North Carolina Housing Trust Fund and $15 million for the Workforce Housing Loan Program.

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A deeper understanding.

Executive Order No. 36 is the most ambitious housing policy framework North Carolina has ever produced. It's also, by design, limited. Understanding what it can and cannot do is essential for every architect, contractor, and developer operating in the state.

WHAT THE EXECUTIVE ORDER CAN DO

The order's power lies in coordination. For the first time, North Carolina has a designated point person — Janneke Ratcliffe — whose sole responsibility is to align state agency resources, data, and programs around housing production. That's significant because housing policy has historically been fragmented across dozens of agencies, each operating in isolation.

Specific capabilities:
• Data infrastructure: The order directs agencies to share data, technology platforms, and research to support local governments and builders. This could mean streamlined permitting data, centralized workforce availability tracking, and real-time dashboards for housing production metrics.
• State land activation: Directing DOA to evaluate underutilized state-owned properties for housing creates a potential pipeline of shovel-ready sites that bypass the land acquisition bottleneck.
• Environmental guidance: DEQ's mandate to use flood resiliency data and water/wastewater capacity analysis to guide development patterns could prevent the kind of environmental disasters — like building affordable housing on a hog lagoon — that undermine public trust.
• Workforce development: Commerce's directive to expand training, certifications, and supply chain capacity directly addresses the construction industry's most acute constraint: not enough skilled workers to build 764,000 homes.

WHAT THE EXECUTIVE ORDER CANNOT DO

The executive order cannot change local zoning laws, eliminate parking mandates, increase density allowances, reduce minimum lot sizes, or streamline local permitting processes. Those powers belong to the state legislature and individual municipal governments.

This is the fundamental limitation. The Governor can coordinate, incentivize, and direct state agency resources. But the regulatory barriers that most directly obstruct housing production — restrictive zoning, slow permitting, density caps, and expensive impact fees — are controlled by 553 municipalities and 100 counties, each with its own political dynamics.

THE LEGISLATIVE LANDSCAPE

State lawmakers have considered bills like Senate Bill 497, which aimed to expand 'by-right' housing development, increase housing flexibility, and limit regulatory barriers. Cities like Raleigh have already enacted local zoning reforms — allowing more duplexes, townhomes, and accessory dwelling units — that have demonstrably increased housing supply.

But these reforms are uneven. Charlotte's UDO has expanded multi-family construction but faces equity challenges in historically Black neighborhoods. Smaller municipalities in western North Carolina have resisted density increases entirely. And rural counties often lack the infrastructure — water, sewer, roads — to support new housing even if zoning allowed it.

The $50 million in proposed funding ($35M for the Housing Trust Fund, $15M for the Workforce Housing Loan Program) is meaningful but modest relative to the scale of the problem. Building 764,000 homes at an average construction cost of $250,000 per unit represents a $191 billion building challenge. Government funding can catalyze production and subsidize affordability, but the private sector must deliver the vast majority of units.

THE WORKFORCE CRISIS WITHIN THE HOUSING CRISIS

Even if every regulatory barrier disappeared overnight, North Carolina doesn't have enough construction workers to build 764,000 homes.

The state's construction workforce has been shrinking relative to demand for over a decade. An aging skilled trades population, insufficient training pipeline capacity, immigration policy uncertainty, and competition from other booming Sun Belt states have created a labor market where qualified framers, electricians, plumbers, and HVAC technicians can name their price — and often leave projects understaffed anyway.

The executive order's directive to Commerce to 'prioritize initiatives that increase housing development and construction workforce capacity' is the right instinct. But workforce development is a multi-year investment. Training a skilled carpenter takes two to four years. Certifying an electrical inspector takes longer. The homes needed in 2027 require workers who should have started training in 2024.

THE FACTORY-BUILT AND MODULAR OPPORTUNITY

One of the most promising pathways to closing the gap is factory-built and modular housing — homes constructed in controlled manufacturing environments and assembled on-site. The executive order specifically references 'innovation-driven production to reduce overall construction timelines and costs.'

Modular construction can reduce build times by 30% to 50%, minimize material waste, improve quality control, and operate year-round regardless of weather. For a state that needs to build at unprecedented speed, shifting a meaningful percentage of housing production to factory-built methods isn't optional — it's the only math that works.

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The Solution.

The Hidden Valley triplex case doesn't have a single, clean answer — because the problem itself is layered, systemic, and decades in the making. But the path forward involves action at every level: individual homeowners, neighborhoods, city government, and state policy.

FOR HOMEOWNERS AND NEIGHBORHOODS: ACTIVATE YOUR DEED RESTRICTIONS — NOW

If you live in an older North Carolina neighborhood without an active HOA, the single most important thing you can do today is locate your original deed restrictions and determine if they've been re-filed within the last 30 years.

The NC Supreme Court's ruling in C Investments 2, LLC v. Auger made this urgently clear: covenants that haven't been renewed are likely unenforceable. But covenants that have been properly filed — or that can be renewed and re-recorded now — remain a powerful legal tool.

Action steps:
• Contact your Register of Deeds office and request the original restrictive covenants for your subdivision.
• Consult a real estate attorney to determine whether your restrictions are still enforceable under the Marketable Title Act.
• If they've lapsed, organize your neighbors to re-file updated covenants that reflect your community's shared values around density, setbacks, and building standards.
• Form or strengthen your community association — even without HOA authority, an organized neighborhood voice carries weight in zoning hearings, city council meetings, and media coverage.

Hidden Valley's residents did this. They sent letters. They filed petitions. They hired lawyers. They organized a press conference at Parkwood Institutional CME Church with the backing of the Historic Black Neighborhood Coalition. The triplex may already be built — but their legal record is now ammunition for every fight that follows.

FOR CHARLOTTE CITY GOVERNMENT: CLOSE THE ENFORCEMENT GAP

The city's current position — issuing permits under the UDO while refusing to enforce private deed restrictions — creates a structural injustice that falls hardest on under-resourced communities.

Policy recommendations:
• Require developers to conduct a deed restriction review before permits are issued in subdivisions with recorded covenants. This doesn't mean the city enforces private contracts — but it means developers can't claim ignorance.
• Create a publicly accessible database of active deed restrictions by subdivision, so both developers and homeowners know the legal landscape before conflict erupts.
• Establish a community legal fund for neighborhoods facing developer challenges to deed restrictions.
• Conduct an equity impact analysis of the UDO that tracks where duplexes and triplexes are being permitted, cross-referenced with demographic data. If the pattern shows disproportionate impact on historically Black neighborhoods — and the current data strongly suggests it does — the ordinance needs targeted amendments.

FOR THE ARCHITECTURE AND CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY: BUILD WITH THE COMMUNITY, NOT AGAINST IT

Developers and architects operating in Charlotte and across North Carolina have an opportunity — and a responsibility — to approach projects in historically sensitive neighborhoods differently.

Best practices:
• Engage the community before pulling permits. Four Corners claims they reached out to neighbors and received no response. The community tells a different story. Either way, meaningful engagement means more than a letter — it means attending community meetings, presenting designs, and genuinely incorporating feedback.
• Design for context. A triplex doesn't have to look like an alien structure dropped into a single-family neighborhood. Architects can design multi-unit housing that respects the scale, setbacks, and aesthetic character of the surrounding homes. This isn't just good ethics — it's good business, reducing community opposition and legal risk.
• Prioritize affordability, not just density. If 'missing middle' housing is the stated goal, then the units need to be priced for middle-income households — not marketed as luxury rentals or Airbnb investments.

FOR STATE LAWMAKERS: REVISIT THE MARKETABLE TITLE ACT

The 2022 Supreme Court ruling exposed a devastating flaw in North Carolina's property law framework: thousands of communities lost legal protections they didn't know were expiring.

Legislative fixes:
• Extend the automatic survival period for residential deed restrictions from 30 years to 50 or 60 years, giving communities more time to organize and re-file.
• Require county notification when deed restrictions in a subdivision are approaching their expiration window, similar to how property owners receive tax assessment notices.
• Create a simplified re-filing process that doesn't require individual homeowners to hire attorneys — a standardized form, filed by a community association or a designated group of homeowners, should be sufficient.

WATCH THIS CASE

The Hidden Valley triplex lawsuit is a bellwether. Its outcome will signal whether deed restrictions can still serve as a meaningful check on developer-driven density in North Carolina — or whether the combination of the UDO and the Marketable Title Act has rendered them effectively obsolete.

If the homeowners win, it sends a powerful message: communities have the right to enforce the agreements that shaped their neighborhoods, regardless of changing city policy.

If the developer wins, it confirms what many fear: that in Charlotte's housing gold rush, the communities with the fewest resources bear the greatest cost — and that a century of community building can be overridden by a zoning change and a building permit.

Either way, Hidden Valley isn't waiting for a judge to determine its future. The lawsuit is filed. The community is organized. The donations are flowing. The coalition is holding.

As Marjorie Parker told the crowd at Parkwood Institutional CME Church: they do not oppose thoughtful growth. But development must respect the commitments that homeowners relied upon — and the character of a neighborhood that fairy-tale street names alone didn't build.

The people who lived there did.

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