HIGHLIGHTS Work Session – Apparently the Office of Community Engagement spends a lot of time engaging with City staff and people who serve on Boards and Commissions – not necessarily with the actual larger community. They also spend a lot of resource on branding....
The election is over and people have spoken. Baldwin and Council have forced unpopular and failed policies on Raleigh. With very few financial resources, challengers pushed back and have taken back Council despite incumbents and candidates endorsed by, and heavily financed by, wealthy developers and realtors.
With this win, let the citizens of Raleigh look forward to better days as well as to more changes in 2024.
The mayor and other councilors SAY that Affordable Housing is their number one concern. Let’s take a look at the smoke and mirrors going on here. This first slide shows that in Fiscal year 21-22, council has FAILED, for the 3 rd year in a row, to meet the paltry goal of providing 570 affordable housing units. This council only accomplished providing 156 units, just 27% of their goal!
HIGHLIGHTS Many public hearings scheduled for November 15 afternoon meeting despite a question about whether mailed notice would arrive in time and despite Councilor Cox bringing up concerns about it being difficult for members of the public to attend afternoon...
The first camp favors letting the market work without regulation, arguing that it will serve rich and poor alike – but knowing that it won’t – while the second camp favors using the powers of city zoning to assure that growth occurs and serves the interests of all.
Former Planning Commission Chair Bob Mulder highlights the need to improve Raleigh’s missing middle housing rules. Focusing debates on criticisms of pro and con stakeholders only diverts attention from what we all (except the greediest) agree on: Adding density in the right places is good, but the missing middle rules should be improved – with a more open, public engagement process about how to actually retain, replace and produce housing that’s affordable to current working families and households.
The issue is not growth or no growth. It is out of control development and infrastructure as an after the fact band aid to a poorly designed, oversized project.
What Raleigh needs right now is well planned, well executed development that includes actual affordable housing at every turn and incorporates transportation and environmental infrastructure up front.
Many attendees (including single mothers) were disappointed in the event because they had high expectations for housing solutions that they need NOW. So, this appears to have been no more than a manipulative ploy to generate attendance numbers for positive press in advance of the election, without producing any real results.
City Council Meeting – September 6, 2022 HIGHLIGHTS Authorized acquisition of land for the New Bern Crossings affordable rental development project (192 units) City Attorney reports that local governments can restrict public comments from being used to campaign for...
Council’s sledgehammer efforts at planning have been both thoughtless and undisciplined. Density does not improve quality of life or lower housing prices.