In October of 2022, we reported on the lack of improvement the city had made in attendance at Neighborhood Meetings for rezoning cases. You will recall when the city defunded Citizen Advisory Councils (CACs), they replaced the CAC meetings where rezoning cases were discussed with a 2nd, legally required Neighborhood Meeting to take their place. We analyzed the data for all the rezoning cases which held the newly required Neighborhood Meetings and found the average attendance for meetings held between 2020 and the spring 0f 2022 was 15. The average attendance at CACs meetings during the time period leading up to this change was 27. You can read our previous report here: Lack of trust is well deserved
Now that CACs have been reinstated with recognition from the city, we think it’s a good time to review the latest data for the Neighborhood Meetings.
During 2022 and 2023, there were 112 rezoning cases finalized with data available on the city website. This data includes the attendance records for the 2nd Neighborhood Meetings. One caveat, the only cases we can find on the city website are for cases which were either approved or withdrawn. There are no records available for cases which were denied.
Of the 112 rezoning cases, 8 of them did not require a 2nd Neighborhood Meeting. There is a threshold based on acreage, height or increased density that must be met to require a meeting.
This means 7% of rezoning cases were considered too inconsequential to require community engagement. We have left those 8 meetings OUT of the rest of this analysis and are only considering the 104 rezoning cases which were required to hold a 2nd Neighborhood Meeting.
What we found is quite disturbing. The attendance at the meetings is getting worse, not better, over time. Of the 104 rezoning cases that held Neighborhood Meetings:
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- 13 had ZERO attendees
- 42 had 1-5 attendees
- 29 had 6-10 attendees
- 20 had over 10 attendees
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104 meetings had a total of 927 attendees, which is just under an average attendance of 9. This is a 40% drop in attendance from our previous reporting in 2022.
Over half the meetings had 5 or fewer attendees.
Under 20% of the meetings had over 10 attendees.
We don’t view these statistics as a record of success.
Livable Raleigh Editorial Team
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