Chapel Hill, NC Homelessness & Encampment Rules: Encampment Sanitation (2026)

Chapel Hill has no separate homeless-encampment ordinance; the operative rules sit in the general park regulations at Sec. 12-3 of the Code of Ordinances, which Sec. 12-2 applies to every town-owned or town-controlled park, greenway, open space, playground, recreation and community center, and swimming area, whether inside or outside the town limits. Sec. 12-3(i) prohibits camping or staying overnight in any of those areas unless the person has obtained written permission from the parks and recreation director in advance; the ordinance itself sets no separate permit fee or written procedure, so permission is a discretionary written grant from that office.

Sec. 12-3(h) separately bars dumping, depositing, leaving or placing trash, rubbish, garbage, ashes, wastes, broken glass or other rubbish anywhere in a park, greenway, entranceway or open space except in the receptacles the town provides, and specifically forbids disposing of household garbage or rubbish in a park at all. Both prohibitions can be enforced together against an unauthorized encampment: an occupied campsite with accumulated trash violates both subsections at once. Enforcement runs through any law enforcement officer with jurisdiction, the parks and recreation director, or a department employee the director designates and empowers, per Sec.

12-2. Sec. 12-3(v) also lets the parks and recreation director or a designee order any person to leave park premises on a reasonable belief that the person has violated Sec. 12-3, and bars that person from re-entering until they comply with the park rules.