Public Forum: Will New Bern’s Mass Upzoning Revitalize Neighborhoods or Eliminate Them?
2024-01-21 14:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | Tarboro Road Community Center
Join us on Sunday, January 21st at 2pm at the Tarboro Road Community Center (121 N. Tarboro Street, Raleigh) to learn how you can help stop the city-sponsored urban renewal of New Bern Avenue. Stand up for Raleigh’s Black history and for revitalizing existing neighborhoods and businesses along the New Bern Avenue Bus Rapid Transit line rather than forcing them out. [Background facts]
On December 12, in a landmark vote, the Raleigh Planning commission rejected the myth that local race-biased government policies have been cleansed from our nation’s urban renewal past.
While supporting the New Bern Avenue Bus Rapid Transit Project, the Commission majority voted against Z-92-22, the largest ever city-initiated upzoning of 744 parcels of private land for multi story redevelopment along the New Bern corridor. The Commission maintained that the mass upzoning was premature and would force out existing Black and low wealth residents and businesses long before any revitalization initiatives could take hold.
The Planning commission’s action comes in the wake of a national awareness, led by the publication of Richard Rothstein’s ‘The Color of Law‘ (National Book Award finalist) and ‘Just Action.’ These books document the author’s findings that we still live in an apartheid society (Economic Policy Institute: How to challenge segregation), where Black household wealth is only five percent of whites’ due to segregation policies created at the national level and sustained at the local level. (Just Action p.4)

Rothstein: Black household wealth is only five percent of whites’ due to segregation policies created at the national level and sustained at the local level.

The Planning Commission’s action in rejecting Z-92-22 reflects Rothstein’s call for local action to “control urban gentrification, which too often ends with massive displacement of black and Hispanic residents from communities where they’ve benefited from established social networks, churches, and extended families — places they considered home.” (Just Action p.6)
Join us on Sunday, January 21st at 2pm at the Tarboro Road Community Center (121 N. Tarboro Street, Raleigh) to learn more about the local actions you can take to stop Z-92-22. Learn how you can help preserve Raleigh’s Black history and revitalize existing neighborhoods and businesses along the New Bern Avenue Bus Rapid Transit, rather than forcing them out.
NOTE: On January 30, 2024 the City Council will hold a Public Hearing on Z-92-22, the city’s proposed mass upzoning of 744 parcels of land in the New Bern BRT corridor.
