I hope this new Council does more than Looking but not Seeing the poor and houseless, Listening but not Hearing those who advocate on their behalf, and remembers the words: “That what you do for the least of these, you do for me.”
Add a buffer zone and noise ordinance around reproductive care clinics. Our requests are reasonable, legal, and in line with the type of city we would all like Raleigh to be. One of love and respect for all.
Planning Director Pat Young states that a driver for Missing Middle is housing affordability, but Raleigh’s Missing Middle ordinance doesn’t seem designed to achieve affordability unless you believe in trickle down and their metrics haven’t looked at affordability.
To paraphrase Myrick Howard of Preservation NC, you can’t tear down an existing structure and expect to get affordable housing in its place. If we continue this process of tear downs, Raleigh will become a city where only citizens working in the professions and other highly compensated tech workers will be able to live.
Mayor Baldwin knows the most important goal of City Council’s upcoming 2-day retreat is to set strategic priorities for action in the coming term. She also knows that the chances of her priorities prevailing will depend on her ability to prevent other competing Council priorities from being adopted. That is why the first line of defense in Baldwin’s retreat agenda this year is to make sure it is chock-full of plausibly interesting things to see and do, minimizing the time available for other Councilors’ ideas about the future of Raleigh.
Whatever aspirations Raleigh has for the Missing Middle, affordable housing is not one that will be realized. As a principal catalyst, the Missing Middle in other cities has shown the opposite effect—higher taxes, less affordable housing, higher land costs, rent increases, and higher house prices.