As more and more people from across all sectors and neighborhoods discover how the Missing Middle, and its various iterations, is dangerous to their wallets and single-family neighborhoods they are rising up to challenge the base thinking.
Intentional or not, staff’s interpretations of the Comp Plan and Missing Middle rules are not promoting affordability. Instead they promote the destruction of existing affordable units in favor of market rate and luxury units that drive up land and housing costs. Over 4,000 units lost each year according to the city’s own data, making Raleigh’s affordable housing crisis worse, not better.
You may be creating more density for increased ridership for public transit but you are destroying the reason that people continue to live in a City of deep, rich culture and historic heritage. Let’s not lose our past and present character while making room for a ridership that may never develop, especially if it does not provide for the housing needs for the population that actually depends on public transit for their livelihood.
Last week we explained why you know in your heart that the Shaw rezoning application should not be approved. Now we will explain how in your head you can understand the proposal is not in line with the policies of Raleigh’s Comprehensive Plan.
Many of Raleigh’s residents have been reaching out to their representatives on City Council hoping to have a discussion about the city’s Missing Middle policies and what can be done to modify them to make them less harmful to established neighborhoods. But, they are being told no discussion can be had.