Danny Nowell, candidate for Carrboro, NC, Town Council

Five candidates are competing for three seats on the Carrboro Town Council in the Nov. 2 nonpartisan election.

Copywriter Daniel Nowell is challenging three incumbent council members — Jacquelyn Gist, Barbara Foushee and Randee Haven O’Donnell — for a seat on the council. The other challenger is Aja Kelleher.

Early voting in the nonpartisan Nov. 2 election begins Oct. 14 and runs through Oct. 30.

To find polling places and full details on early voting, visit co.orange.nc.us/1720/Elections or contact the Board of Elections at 919-245-2350 or vote@orangecountync.gov.

Name: Daniel Nowell

Age: 32

Residence: 102 Stable Road, Carrboro

Occupation: Copywriter

Education: Bachelor of Arts, Southern Studies and Creative Writing, UNC (2011), Master of Fine Arts in fiction writing, Warren Wilson College (2016)

Political or civic experience: This is my first time running for elected office, but I’ve filled a number of community roles that inform my platform and campaign: Fundraising chair, NC Triangle Chapter, Democratic Socialists of America Branch officer, Carrboro-Chapel Hill Branch, Democratic Socialists of America, Freedom Fund fundraising committee, Chapel Hill Carrboro NAACP

Campaign website: dannynowell.com

Endorsements: Sierra Club, NEXT Chapel Hill-Carrboro

What do you think the town’s top three priorities should be? Choose one and describe how you will work to address it.

▪ Expanding affordable housing

▪ Aggressively using our planning and transit resources to build a less car-dependent town

▪ Making it possible for people of color to build wealth and equity here.

These issues are tightly interconnected, but a major step our town needs to take is to commit to providing more affordable rental units in the 30-60% range of Area Median Income. If we provide more housing for workers like UNC Health employees, teachers, or retail and service workers — the vast majority of whom do not meet our Area Median Income — and we commit to building them in high-density corridors connected to transit and services — we can reduce car dependency, allow the workers driving our local economy to live closer to home, and make our town much more accessible for the multiracial working class.

What is the town doing right, and wrong, about development and growth?

Our commitment to transit is admirable for a town of our size, but to truly make progress on our climate and equity goals or achieve a more vibrant town economy, we’re going to have start building more densely, particularly in the “missing middle” of the housing market with townhomes, duplexes, and triplexes. Developing these more affordable, denser ownership opportunities in tandem with the affordable rental units our town needs allows us to lay a foundation for smart, climate-friendlier growth. As things stand, our status quo is far too sprawl oriented, with far too much of our town zoned for single family housing. If we’re able to strategically zone more of our town for multifamily housing, we’ll be taking a big step toward implementing the kind of systematic approach we need to make our town more climate-friendly and meaningfully accessible to working-class people.

Climate change and flooding are growing issues and a regular part of the town’s development discussion. What do you think the town should do about it, and how would you pay for it?

Reducing car dependency is one of the highest priorities we have on these fronts, as we need to both reduce our emissions and dramatically scale back the construction of new impervious surfaces like roadways and parking structures. A systematic approach to denser building can get us a long way without requiring any radically different funding models for town, but the reality is that continually expanding our transit to the levels we’ll need will exceed the resources allotted to us by the state. While I think transit should be a top consideration in the town’s annual budgetary process, I also think we need to explore options like a bond referendum to secure funding to move toward a car-free Carrboro.

What skill or life experience do you have that would bring diversity to local government?

Carrboro badly needs leaders with a younger perspective, especially ones who understand the challenges for young families in this housing and jobs market. My wife and I have worked hard to be able to raise our family in Carrboro in large part because of my experience growing up with a single mother who often worked two jobs — I know firsthand what income scarcity and housing precarity do to a family, and finding somewhere like Carrboro for my children to grow up has driven me ever since. At the same time, as lucky as I consider myself and my family, keeping up with housing and childcare costs is extremely difficult in this town, and especially so for the working class people staffing our major regional employers and Carrboro’s distinctive downtown businesses. I am fiercely committed to making sure the town that has given my family so much remains accessible for families of every race and income level, and as a young working dad in Carrboro, I think I’m uniquely qualified to represent that perspective among this year’s candidates.

This story was originally published October 4, 2021 at 8:58 PM with the headline "Danny Nowell, candidate for Carrboro, NC, Town Council."