Two weeks ago, a group of young men were parked on a Cameron Park Street and at 3AM one of the group tried to kick in the front door of a house. The house just happens to be the personal home of Governor and Mrs. Cooper. I want to read to you how the First Lady of North Carolina closed her listserv post: “This is not what “vibrancy” looks like to me.”
They say we can’t have “self-selection” (aka opposition). They say we need to do polling and let others not affected by their proposed development make the decision.
Is it worth it to devastate a neighborhood and deviate from the comprehensive plan because we have a developer that wants to build but needs to go big to make it economically viable and conveniently has a willing partner that is unfortunately in bad financial shape (St Marks UMC)? Raleigh can con5nue to be great and growing but it cannot be at the expense of our exis5ng neighborhoods and our quality of life. Our neighborhoods matter, the families that call these neighborhoods home matter.
People want to believe that eliminating single-family zoning restrictions will significantly increase housing supply for middle and lower-income families. But the building body of real-world experience and increasing research is showing this simply isn’t true or the effects are minor and often just benefit the most well-off.
Should the 30-story zoning case at Peace and West (Z-54-22) be approved by city council? Is it needed? Is it good for the surrounding residents of an historic residential neighborhood? Is it good policy for the city and its residents? The simple and most straight-forward answer is, no. It is not reasonable and it is not in the public interest. City council should vote to deny Z-54-22.