CHAPEL HILL - For the first time in a new development, a local housing agency has offered private real estate brokers a $1,000 referral fee to help sell affordable condo units.

That's because after six months of marketing, the Community Home Trust, formerly Orange Community Housing and Land Trust, has only been able to sell half of the 22 condo units in East 54's first phase.

"I was concerned," said executive director Robert Dowling.

Interest has picked up since the homes were posted on the Triangle Multiple Listing Service, where real estate agents share information about available properties.

But Dowling is convinced the town is going to have to start accepting cash payments instead of actual units as developers attempt to comply with the town's affordable housing requirement. The cash would go to developing and maintaining the town's stock of affordable housing.

When East 54, the mixed-use project across from Glen Lennox, was approved two and a half years ago, Dowling asked the town to require East West Partners to make 20 percent of its units affordable to those earning $30,000 to $50,000 a year and to accept the equivalent of another 10 percent as cash payments, approximately $900,000.

The Town Council insisted on East West building the entire 30 percent in exchange for permitting a uniquely dense development along the highway.

"If the town could do it over again, I think they would have taken the original deal," Dowling said Monday.

In January, after two years of lobbying by Dowling, the council agreed to make payments an option for complying with the town's minimum 15-percent affordable housing policy. The council also agreed to alter the affordable housing plan at East 54 to include 10 percent payments in lieu for the second and third phases. That means East West will build approximately 22 additional units and pay about $1 million cash in lieu of 11 others.

"I think we got it right," said project manager Lee Perry. "I'm optimistic we'll be filled up on the affordable units by the end of the year."

The Home Trust has started marketing the East 54 condos to student households after a few months of targeting local workers.

"We exist to serve people who work here who can't afford to live here," Dowling said. "If the only people we served were graduate students, I don't know that there'd be a lot of public support for the work that we do."

Dowling thinks the subsidized East 54 condos, which range in size from about 600 to 800 square feet at $77,000 to $105,000, only appeal to singles and couples without children. Other Home Trust units are larger and sell for about the same price.

Dowling said his staff may also have trouble selling the 15 subsidized condos at Greenbridge next spring, though some will range as large as 1,100 square feet.

Dowling would advocate changing the affordable housing program there as requested by neighborhood activists, but so far the only option appears to be reopening the entire permitting process, which would set the developers back six to eight months. Local black leaders and student activists have pushed for affordable housing in Northside and Pine Knolls, not in the Greenbridge complex itself.

"If the council and the developer agree that there's a better plan, it would seem that you would make it easy to change from the existing plan and not make it a six-month long process," Dowling said.

Town Council member Mark Kleinschmidt, a candidate to replace Mayor Kevin Foy, said he stands behind the council's decisions on affordable housing. Just because few people want small condos in 2009 doesn't mean they won't in 2020, he said.

"Lifestyles change," he said. "Without integrated affordable units within the development, they become vertical gated communities."

Augustus Cho, one of Kleinschmidt's campaign opponents, said the town needs more flexibility to encourage developers to refurbish existing homes, as Greenbridge had proposed; build adjacent duplexes; support Habitat for Humanity or pay cash in lieu. Attempts to reach mayoral candidates Matt Czajkowski and Kevin Wolff were unsuccessful.

"Commercial contractors rarely have the personnel, the experience, or the desire to manage affordable housing programs," Cho wrote in an e-mail. "The Town of Chapel Hill should not place them in such a position."