Speaking before Council Tuesday, Nov 7, Mitchell Silver repeated a false claim he previously made at the Planning Commission – that the Glenwood-Brooklyn neighborhood cannot have Transition Area protection from 30-40 story buildings without first completing an expensive city-mandated Area Plan. But when a Councilor asked city staff if Silver’s Area Plan requirement was true, the simple answer was ‘No’.
Raleigh is growing rapidly. Where are we headed? Most Raleighites like the idea of growth that is more economical, environmental and equitable. To succeed, we’ll have to grow in ways and in locations that bring fewer cars, more trees and more equitable prosperity.
A message from Robert Steele. Councilman Jonathan Melton has submitted his mid-year campaign finance reports, and as expected, it’s more of the same. 50% is developer and real estate money. In almost every email the Councilman sends out, he toots his own horn on affordable housing, but can we trust him to have the interests of housing strapped residents at heart when HALF of his campaign is funded by for-profit, and not for-people, developers? I don’t think we can. That’s why I won’t be accepting developer money in my campaign. I want you, the residents of Raleigh, to be absolutely SURE that I am not bought and paid for. We can’t say the same for Councilman Melton.
City Council is on Summer Break. So, we are re-running this blog as part of our Missing Middle Week. There has been a lot of talk about missing middle housing since the city council approved a text change to legalize it (duplexes and townhomes) city-wide. This is...
Last week we explained why you know in your heart that the Shaw rezoning application should not be approved. Now we will explain how in your head you can understand the proposal is not in line with the policies of Raleigh’s Comprehensive Plan.
Years of Jim Crow segregation and neglect have given way to a new era of gentrification. Unimpeded, it will soon sweep away any sense that freed African-Americans were here, emerged from slavery here, lifted themselves up by their bootstraps here, created communities here, and mattered greatly to the Raleigh we became and the Raleigh we hope to be. Unimpeded, it’s entirely possible that Shaw will be swept away too, or moved to a distant place not central to the city to make room for “higher value” development.
They say politics makes strange bedfellows. Not so strange, however, when the thing they have in common is big-money backers like our good friend developer John Kane.
This is all pretty gross. As Peeler wrote to me in an email, “it’s astonishing that certain candidates can get by with claiming they are for more affordable rental housing, for less displacement, and for supporting low income tenants, when they are being funded heavily by an organization, which is essentially a landlord lobbying firm, who is vested in ensuring none of those things occur.
After the 2019 election, we reported to you how much money the development industry poured into the candidates’ campaigns. Those developers found out how easy it was to buy council seats for their preferred candidates. It appears they plan to run the same playbook again in 2022. When you ask yourself, why do councilors vote the way they do? You will always find the answer when you FOLLOW THE MONEY.
First we “Showed You the Money.” Then we “Followed the Money.” In this third of our series about the money in Raleigh’s politics, we examine the effects of Special Interest money pouring into the campaigns.