In his young career, Tai Huynh, 25, has already amassed quite the list of accomplishments.
Huynh was elected to the Chapel Hill town council in 2019 while still an undergraduate student at UNC-Chapel Hill. He served a four-year term, working on the town’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and supporting new affordable housing initiatives. He chose not to run for re-election last summer, citing the growing needs of his business, ACTA Solutions, a Durham-based government-services technology company he co-founded and where he serves as CEO.
Now, Huynh is ready to leap back into the world of local politics. This time, he is serving eight miles down the road in the Bull City.
On September 9, the Durham City Council voted to appoint Huynh to the Durham Planning Commission, filling the seat left vacant by former commissioner Tony Sease.
“I think the city has so much untapped potential,” Huynh says. “And I think a lot of folks in the community feel that out of the growth, we’re seeing those positives overall, but there are some negative externalities that I think the city as a whole could do a better job of contending with.”
During his tenure in Chapel Hill, Huynh participated in the rewriting of the town’s land use management ordinance, Chapel Hill’s version of the unified development ordinance (UDO) used in Durham. The Durham planning department is in the process of updating its UDO–the set of regulations that guide development–to better align with the city’s comprehensive plan, which is a long-term vision for Durham’s future.
“The UDO is such a good opportunity to help ensure, or, if you want a more aggressive word, enforce those highest standards,” Huynh says.
Chapel Hill went through a similar process of updating regulations last year, after amending its long-term vision in 2020. Both Chapel Hill and Durham have focused on balancing development and affordable housing.
“We wanted a framework to help our community, developers and other stakeholders be able to better understand, ‘Okay, how are we going to evaluate projects, and what kind of vision do we have for specific areas in the community as a whole?’” Huynh said.
Huynh’s seat became available when Sease abruptly resigned from the Durham Planning Commission in June in protest after criticism from city council members, most notably councilor Mark-Anthony Middleton. The planning commission is a voluntary board that supports city council by analyzing development cases and making recommendations on whether projects should move forward. Middleton questioned how much weight should be given to the commission, which is made up of community members with varying levels of expertise, when considering zoning cases. Sease and others said their time and expertise were not being valued.
Huynh says he recognizes that the council has no obligation to follow the planning commission’s lead.
“I was on the other side of that equation in Chapel Hill, where a lot of our board members were angry that we were, you know, I wouldn’t say dismissive, but didn’t vote the way that they had recommended,” Huynh says. “I’m not going to have any hurt feelings if my comments are not taken into account.”
But Huynh brings a different perspective than someone who has worked only in the private sector. He has sat on a dais and had to make the tough decisions about how to effectively and equitably build a community. Council member Javiera Caballero—who voted to appoint former city council candidate Khalilah Karim, not Huynh, for the open seat—says she recognizes Huynh’s experience and track record in Chapel Hill as an asset.
“He did really good work in Chapel Hill as a town council member,” she says. “I think it’ll be great to have a former elected as a planning commissioner who has real-world experience.”
Huynh says one of the biggest successes during his time on the Chapel Hill town council was creating a system to expedite the development review process for much-needed affordable housing.
“Essentially, if certain affordable housing conditions were voluntarily met by the developer, they could go through a more expedited review process, which worked out really well for a lot of our affordable housing partners, and helped make a lot of projects viable,” Huynh said.
Those affordable units are just one piece of what the town calls its “complete communities” initiative. Durham’s comprehensive plan and the city’s small area plan–essentially long-term visions for specific neighborhoods–layout similar aspirations for city staff. Many residents have asked the city planning department to create zoning that promotes a blend of development types that intertwine single and multifamily housing with commercial space, especially in neighborhoods outside the downtown area. Huynh says Chapel Hill had some success with developing those blended communities and looks forward to helping build similar projects in his new role.
“How can we create more mixed-use projects where each area has its discrete set of amenities, all within walking or biking distance to a grocery store and different commercial amenities, neighborhood retail, things like that,” Huynh says. “I think those are some things that we started getting due to our policies in Chapel Hill.”
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