The UDO opens a Pandora’s Box

Paula Hoffman, a concerned citizen, spoke at the November 14, 2023 City Council meeting regarding UDO rules that allow builders to circumvent zoning rules and drastically change our neighborhoods. Her comments follow: 

In my view, the UDO opens a Pandora’s Box for our neighborhood and likely other neighborhoods in Raleigh. The Sunset Hills neighborhood was platted in the early 1940s using the narrow, deep, 40-foot-wide lots typical of many older Raleigh neighborhoods.

The lots were the building blocks, but not the way the neighborhood was built or ever intended to be built. The land-seller imposed covenants that required each structure, whether a single-family home or duplex, to be built on two lots. The result is a grid of properties today with 80-120 ft frontages and a third to half acre each. Sunset Hills was not zoned until later, when our area was zoned R-6, between two areas of R-10 and R-4. The covenants protected our lot sizes until they were allowed to expire around 2008. In 2009 Sunset Hills property owners had the neighborhood re-zoned R-4, matching the way it is built. Support was overwhelming with 84 of 106 owners signing the petition.

In my view, the UDO adopted in 2013, perhaps inadvertently, opens a back door to undercut the zoning rules. My example is the 1435 Duplin Rd property.

As you can see, this property where a house has  stood for 70 years with 120 ft of frontage, is made up of three 40-foot frontage lots, shown by dashed lines pointed out by red arrows.

Based on the UDO, the city has allowed the owner – a builder – to divide the property into two 60-foot frontage lots, where R-4 zoning requires a minimum of 65 feet. All other properties on the street have at least 80 ft. frontage. This UDO exception also allowed these lots to be less than a quarter acre in surface area as required by R-4. The reasoning for this goes back to the original 1944 40-foot lots that existed on paper only. The city’s argument is that allowing two non-conforming 60-ft lots is preferable to having three non-conforming 40-foot lots when we started with an existing conforming lot. Such an approach will open a Pandora’s Box for my neighborhood and other Raleigh neighborhoods as well. What will be the breaking point in an R-4 neighborhood, 55 ft? 50 ft?

This is what our current neighborhood is built like.

Within a block of our R-4 zoning is R-6 and R-10 zoning where duplexes and small homes were built. This provided for a diverse neighborhood and a diverse population in our schools.

This is what is happening to our neighborhood today and what will become of our R-4 zoned neighborhood if this backdoor is left open.

These new row houses do not diversify the neighborhood nor address any missing middle, because these new row houses cost more than a million dollars apiece.

For many of us our homes are our largest financial investment. These row houses are exactly what the 84 out of 106 property owners wanted to avoid when they fought for R-4 zoning.

Thank you.

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