North Carolina native George Jeter is a former reporter and retired state government writer and editor. He and his family have lived in Raleigh’s Crabtree Heights neighborhood for over 30 years.
Mr. Jeter submitted the following for publication in regards to Raleigh’s proposed Affordable Housing Bond:
So I guess Raleigh is playing the “we care” card again and making noise about some kind of “affordable housing” bond?
Just my opinion: the greatest most devastating loss of affordable housing in the past 20 years has been the city constantly greenlighting the destruction of vast numbers of small brick ranches, duplexes and mom and pop apartment buildings in the older parts of town to give way for McMansions and “luxury” apartment towers.
These small house neighborhoods were where blue collar people, retirees, store workers, teachers, etc used to live in town.
Maybe PRESERVE the last remaining such neighborhoods and structures/zoning so that regular people could still find a 1600 square foot house or modest two bedroom old school apartment to live in.
That would do way more to keep folks on a budget from being forced out of the city than building 100 units of something crappy or whatever token showpiece of “we care” they plan to create.
Just stop the loss of existing affordable housing–that would help thousands of people stay in Raleigh.
Just my take if the city is serious about it. And no bond needed.
And remember kids, a bond is just a sneakaround tax.
Intentional or not, staff’s interpretations of the Comp Plan and Missing Middle rules are not promoting affordability. Instead they promote the destruction of existing affordable units in favor of market rate and luxury units that drive up land and housing costs. Over 4,000 units lost each year according to the city’s own data, making Raleigh’s affordable housing crisis worse, not better.
You could have negotiated to include the same number of 56 affordable units as a community benefit for the increased entitlement given to the applicant while allowing them to benefit financially from 254 additional market rate units. Maybe even go crazy and ask them to increase from 56 to 60 affordable units while still gaining 250 units at market rate. A WIN-WIN for everyone.
In response to the 17,000 unit deficit I noted that between Dec 2019 and Mar 2023 Raleigh’s City Council approved zoning cases for over 70,000 residential units. Over 4 times the reported deficit. Unless those cases were speculative and only to raise the property values for resale purposes, Raleigh is NOT lacking the entitlement to build residential units.
The facts show that of the 303 zoning applications submitted and resolved from 2020 to today, only 5 have been denied including the previous version of the 30-story tower. 298 have been approved. An approval rate over 98.3%. In the same time council has approved cases for over 110,000 housing units. What is clear is that Raleigh does not suffer from a lack of entitlement to build housing. You approved over 98% of requests, over 110,000 units. BUILD THEM!
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