Keith Walker and Rob Campbell are among those working to create affordable housing in the Wilmington area.

Walker, president and CEO of East Carolina Community Development Inc., recently developed Cypress Cove, a 200-unit workforce housing apartment complex off North 30th Street in Wilmington. He is currently working on another Wilmington project.

Campbell (left), pastor of New Beginning Christian Church in Castle Hayne, is chairman of ECCDI’s board of directors and has been working on a separate affordable housing endeavor, a 68-unit complex for seniors. The units are open to individuals ages 55 and older with no more than 60% of the area median income. 

A new plan led by Campbell met with opposition earlier this year. The New Hanover County Planning Board voted against Campbell’s proposed 128-unit apartment complex that would be built on nearly 11 acres on Blue Clay Road. The New Hanover County Board of Commissioners, however, approved the rezoning Campbell needed to bring his latest project to fruition.

For this year’s real estate edition of WilmingtonBiz Magazine, Walker (right) and Campbell shared their responses to questions about the state of Wilmington’s affordable housing shortage and how the more than $1 billion New Hanover Community Endowment, created by the sale of county-owned New Hanover Regional Medical Center to Novant Health in 2021, might be able to help. 

What do you think it will take to make a real dent in Wilmington’s affordable housing shortage?
Walker: “ECCDI has been involved in affordable housing creation for the last 27 years in the Wilmington area and Eastern North Carolina. To make a real dent is twofold. 
No. 1:  Having jobs that employ individuals at a rate greater than $22.50 an hour, which equates to $46,080 annually, would allow a family of four with two incomes to be able to buy a home in New Hanover County. 
No. 2: Appropriate municipal zoning, which would allow the maximum housing to be created on an available lot of land. There needs to be a regional coordinated effort in zoning and planning to utilize land not only for affordable housing but also market-rate housing in our community.” 
Campbell: “I think that the county has to have the political will to face the fact that Wilmington is changing. … We just got voted the No. 1 (rising) city in the south (in a Southern Living survey), and you know what that means? It means that our problem is going to increase because more people are coming here.
So, we need the political will to face the affordable housing crisis in our community. And it’s not just in our community. It’s across the country. … When they (local leaders) hold onto the status quo and use exclusionary zoning principles like saying that this is a single-family housing development, and there is no diversity of types of housing, they’re not willing to allow the density that an apartment complex would bring or townhouses would bring. 
That keeps us locked. We can’t create more land, so you can’t go out. You can only go up.”  

Do you think local governments are doing enough to address the issue?
Walker: “In the last 20 years, there has been greater cooperation to create affordable housing in the Wilmington area with the creation of Cypress Cove in Wilmington. 
This is a new 200-unit multifamily apartment complex built with the support of (the) county and city using 4% bonds from the county and low-interest loans from the city to create this affordable housing. 
The county has been an avid supporter of senior housing with the creation of Covenant Senior Housing off of Robert Campbell Loop Road located in Castle Hayne. 
None of this would have been created if it was not for the desire from both municipalities to support creation of this type of housing.” 

How is a lack of affordable housing impacting Wilmington’s economy?
Walker: “It is difficult to entice major industries and small businesses to Wilmington community without availability and affordability of housing stock.”
Campbell: “I think the lack of affordable housing is having a negative impact on businesses and in our schools. It’s having a negative impact on the public working people. 
Your nurses, your teachers, your young professionals, they come here and get a job, great job, but they’re starting out making $55,000 a year. … 
(People moving to Wilmington are) coming from the North, and they’re coming from high-valued houses. They’re selling them for hundreds of thousands of dollars. They’re coming down here, and they’re purchasing the houses that the middle class would have been purchasing. 
So it’s driving up the price of housing, which inadvertently impacts businesses. It impacts that young college student that just tries to stay in Wilmington, but he can’t afford to get an apartment by himself. So, he may leave and go somewhere else where he can find affordable housing.” 

Do you think the New Hanover Community Endowment can help provide some affordable housing solutions, and if so, how?
Walker: “Yes. The New Hanover Community Endowment can help and has given ECCDI $250,000 for the building of Covenant Senior Housing in Castle Hayne. 
However, my recommendation would be to leverage their dollars like we have with other investments to create affordable housing. 
With every $1 the endowment has given us, we brought another $74 of direct private capital investment to the development, which shows a private-public partnership to develop affordable housing.”
Campbell: “Yes, I do. This last round of grants, they said that they were going to. They didn’t give any funding to affordable housing. … And now with the change of leadership (the endowment announced CEO William Buster’s departure in February), they have to decide if affordable housing is a priority. 
They’ve said that it is in their ethos and their values.” 

How big of a problem is Wilmington experiencing when it comes to the loss of existing affordable units on top of the shortage?
Walker: “The loss of available housing stock because of the owner/investor converting affordable units (60-100% AMI) over to 100% + AMI only speaks to the lack of all types of housing in New Hanover areas. 
This is why I advocate that zoning needs to be addressed not only for affordable but also market-rate needs of our community, which would be reflective in single-family/multifamily affordable housing.”
Campbell: “The need continues to increase. It can’t be done by the public alone. It’s got to be a private-public partnership. 
It can’t be done just by people like myself who are trying to address it. I can’t do this without some government funding. 
I got the land. And that’s a start and I’m willing to use the land, but I’ve got to have investors and contractors and bankers and government to help me get there. And if they’re not, then the problem will just get worse. 
Even as our community overall increases, those who need affordable housing will continue to see a decrease of that affordability. The more we prosper as a region or as a city or county, the greater the problem will become.”
 
What are your hopes/predictions for the affordable housing shortage in Wilmington this year? In the next five years?
Walker: “With the creation of 2,000 units within the city and county, my prediction is until the city and county start joint regional planning and zoning with efforts to recognize that they need a joint strategy to create diverse housing, we will be fighting a losing battle to create the needed housing. 
There needs to be a concerted effort for regional coordination dealing with public infrastructure, roads, water, sewer and telecommunication.”