On January 30th, City Council should vote against the current rezoning case and send City Planners back to the drawing board to redo the map. Wide support of the TOD can be accomplished by strategically applying it to commercial properties and open lots. You cannot reduce the displacement pressure on the existing neighborhoods when you include those very neighborhoods in the TOD!
Livable Raleigh’s position is that while adding density along BRT corridors is a desirable goal, the impact of the $97M New Bern Avenue BRT project alone will create a tremendous incentive for dense organic redevelopment that incentivizes economically viable affordable housing height bonuses up to 5 stories – and not above. The effect of the proposed 744 parcel upzoning, Z-92-22 (which ironically leaves out the zero-density Raleigh Country Club) will not only eliminate most opportunities to incentivize and negotiate affordable housing units, but will also accelerate the displacement of all low wealth and Black households in the corridor – in direct conflict with the city’s adopted ETOD vision to reverse displacement.
Livable Raleigh supports BRT. We do NOT support proactively upzoning 744 properties on New Bern Ave in a giveaway of the city’s only bargaining chip to negotiate for affordable housing. BRT can be built without the upzoning.
Join us on Sunday, January 21st at 2pm at the Tarboro Road Community Center (121 N. Tarboro Street, Raleigh) to learn how you can help stop the city’s urban renewal of New Bern Avenue. Stand up for Raleigh’s Black history and for revitalizing existing neighborhoods and businesses along the New Bern Avenue Bus Rapid Transit line rather than forcing them out.
In 2017, ‘The Color of Law’ landed like a bombshell in progressive housing policy circles. In Raleigh, powerful development interests saw the opportunity to adopt — some would say co-opt — Richard Rothstein’s anti-segregation message by promoting pro-density zoning rules that not only lifted exclusionary zoning rules, but went much further. By 2020, a new alliance of developer money, self-righteous Council aspirants and their white privileged adherents provided the lubrication to fast track pro-density zoning proposals. Novice Councilors were assured that pesky public input needn’t impede this sweet deal to meld profits and equity.
Let’s stipulate a couple of points up front. Missing Middle, done well, is a good thing. But….What the previous Council produced is MM done deviously, and sloppily. Much of it, in fact, undermines the whole premise of MM, which is to offer an increased number of affordable-housing options than would exist without it.
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.
Every month Councilor Jonathan Melton publishes a newsletter summarizing the actions of City Concil for that month. In his April report, he included a bonus from the May 2nd meeting which was an explanation for his vote on the zoning case Z-54-22, Peace & West Streets. It’s filled with misinformation.
Should the 30-story zoning case at Peace and West (Z-54-22) be approved by city council? Is it needed? Is it good for the surrounding residents of an historic residential neighborhood? Is it good policy for the city and its residents? The simple and most straight-forward answer is, no. It is not reasonable and it is not in the public interest. City council should vote to deny Z-54-22.
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