City Council has scheduled a special meeting for the Public Hearing on the Downtown South Project. You have only two days to provide your input into this important discussion.
If you would like to send an email to the members of City Council, their email address is CityCouncilMembers@RaleighNC.gov
Or, you can follow this link for details and a Sample letter to City Council
Some members of City Council prefer personal contact over emails or form letters. Here are the contact details we have for them. You could call or text them.
- Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin – 919.632.1099
- At-Large Councilor Nicole Stewart – 919.607.2482
- At-Large Councilor Jonathan Melton – 919.749.7105
- District A Councilor Patrick Buffkin – 919.971.2786
- District B Councilor David Cox – 919.817.7736
- District C Councilor Corey Branch – 919.673.5016
- District D Councilor Stormie Forte – 919.600.3714
- District E Councilor David Knight – 919.389.3181
If you want to read more details about the project before contacting council, you can find those here:
Residents prefer a new neighborhood
What’s missing is the Public Interest
Three important points about DSP
Lastly, here is one more sample letter that was recently sent to District A Councilor, Patrick Buffkin. Feel free to use these points in your own message.
Councilor Buffkin,
Your email notes that council is being asked to make a decision on this project by the end of the year. I will note in response that it is an arbitrary deadline being imposed by the applicant. I’m sure you are familiar with the phrase, poor planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine.
Please listen to the professionals of your planning commission. They are the only ones who have had access to all available data, did all the fact finding and analysis and heard from the community. Their result was a unanimous NO noting that a vote for this project is a vote against equitable development. In fact, the theme of the final commission meeting was the lack of equity in the project. They also noted the project should be a Planned Development so that it could address specific details and contain conditions that currently will require outside agreements that don’t yet exist for review. I will remind you that this Planning Commission is one of this council’s making. You removed at least three members from it who asked to serve again and were qualified to continue serving in order to replace them with commissioners of your choosing. This was your right as a council. But, now that you have done it, you should listen to them. The commission is NOT made up of NIMBY reactionaries.
I’d also like to address the claim that affordable housing is being addressed by the conditions in this case. Housing units at 80% AMI are NOT AFFORDABLE. They are market rate units for middle class residents. This project is located where there will ultimately be a BRT station. Raleigh’s policies call for equitable development on BRT lines. That means 3-5-7 story multi-family residential apartments with much more ACTUAL affordable housing than anything being offered in this proposal.
Lastly, the applicant has said the project will not happen without the stadium and the stadium will not happen without the TIG. Let’s take him at his word. Therefore, the entirety of this project depends on the TIG. Tell the applicant to go get his TIG and come back for the rezoning once he has it in hand. Because if he can’t get the TIG, he has no need for the rezoning.