Carmen Cauthen spoke at the Raleigh City Council meeting about the rezoning of property at the corner of New Bern, Poole Road, extending back to Bart Street. While the New Bern BRT is in process, the developer has asked for this property to be rezoned for a 4 story, 40 unit apartment complex. The neighbors are against the proposal for several reasons.
To be clear, we support development, but we do not support the scale of development that would result from this Rezoning Application. At both of the neighborhood “meetings” held by Parker Poe on behalf of the Applicant, there was a consensus among residents that the Rezoning Application was simply too much. These comments have not been provided to the Commission in any materials I reviewed. However, the public comments included in the Staff packet echo many of these comments and concerns. In addition, I am a proponent of the idea that you “Plan the Work and Work the Plan.” In this instance – that “Plan” is the Walkable Midtown plan.
First, I would like to address a statement Councilor Stewart made at a recent meeting. She said that it’s the same people who participate in public comment time after time, but this simply is not true. I collected data from City Council minutes for September 4, 2018 to September 7, 2022 for a total of 64 meetings: 32 meetings before Council began meeting virtually and 32 meetings after. You can see this data displayed in the bar graph. During the virtual meetings, participation in public comments increased 17%, and the number of individuals that spoke only once before council increased 23%.