New Citywide Poll of Raleigh Voters Reveals Council is failing on Affordable Housing, Transportation and Citizen Engagement
Council showed a complete lack of interest for residents’ concerns
It was hard to process the complete lack of interest or support by this City Council for the concerns repeatedly raised by residents. Countless emails, phone calls, meetings, and petitions were met with silence. Council was misled—partly by a Planning Department analysis that failed to identify any policy inconsistencies, and partly by Council member Silver’s one-sided defense that dismissed legitimate concerns raised by residents.
Raleigh approves over 98% of Zoning Requests – BUILD THEM!
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!
Mayor Cowell: “It’s going to take focus, attention and every tool in the toolbox.”
Day two of Council’s annual retreat kicks off on January 25th with a discussion of affordable housing. It will be interesting to see if Mayor Cowell can convince her fellow Councilors to move beyond the kinds of fuzzy math that has concealed the real size and causes of Raleigh’s affordable housing crisis. Effective solutions will be fact-based, data driven and will reform current growth rules that promote the loss of five thousand affordable units each year.
An Open Letter to Mayor Cowell
Open letter to Mayor Cowell. Our proposal is a simple one: Council should not vote immediately after the hearing on the matter addressed by the hearing. Instead, it should take time to consider what the hearing was about, and what was said – and give the public a chance to think about it also, and to react.