The Planning Commission is still looking at it, and City Council was not scheduled to meet again until January. You know, "Deck the Halls?" Until, that is, Mayor Baldwin and her band of Council followers stepped in to fast-track developer John Kane's "Downtown South"...
The Wake County Housing Justice Coalition gives voice to Raleigh residents threatened by a perfect storm of pandemic-magnified racial, environmental and economic injustices
Kudos to the Wake County Housing Justice Coalition (WCHJC) for their Virtual Public Forum on November 23, lifting the voices of those who would be most impacted by John Kane‘s Downtown South project. With the decline in local, independent investigative news reporting,...
Bob Geary on the Downtown South rezoning: City Council’s 3 shady moves that need to STOP
To put it mildly, this is what you call bass ackwards. The benefits should be offered and agreed to first, before the rezoning is considered, and while the city still has leverage.
Give It Up for John Kane: His Downtown South Plan is a Power Grab, Money Grab and Tax Grab
What do we know about Kane Realty's Downtown South (DTS) plan after a 3-hour long Planning Commission meeting on Friday? The answer is, we didn't learn one thing on Friday that we didn't already know; and going into Friday, all we knew about developer John Kane's...
Kane’s Downtown South Up-Zoning Case Z-13-20: A Primer. (Short Version: 40 Stories, Could Be Anything, Starts Thursday)
Affordable housing included? No. Enhanced Stormwater Controls? No. Low-impact Development promised? No. Is there a Community Benefits Agreement? No. Are ANY design or details offered? No. None.
City Council votes 7 to 1 to destroy Azalea Falls.
At the October 6 Raleigh City Council afternoon meeting, David Knight led a spurious, yet successful effort to destroy Azalea Falls, one of Raleigh’s designated National Historic sites. As usual, the development-driven Council majority voted 7 to 1 (David Cox being the lone dissenter) to perpetrate another environmental disaster in our community.
Save Raleigh’s Azalea Falls
(This is the full version of the abbreviated op-ed published in the News and Observer on October 2, 2020) Azalea Falls is a hidden Raleigh gem that has recently been designated by the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources as being an ecological habitat of...
Council threatens ‘Darth Vader Scenario’ in developer’s bid to destroy Azalea Falls, an ecological habitat of statewide significance.
The steeply wooded hillsides above Azalea Falls are, as detailed in the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources designation of statewide ecological significance, INTEGRAL to Azalea Falls’ unique forest ecology and aquatic habitats. No wooded hillsides, no Azalea Falls.
Council Plans an Environmental Disaster to Benefit a Construction Conglomerate
Despite overwhelming evidence that this upzoning should not go forward, this Council seems determined to approve the destruction of our most precious environmental assets for the insignificant benefit of one of the largest construction conglomerates in North America.
Weasel Conditions: A Zoning Tool for False Council Promises
Weasel Conditions. This is a case study of how the Z-41-19 zoning applicant and complicit Councilors falsified the meaning of zoning condition #8 to create a misleading narrative, suggesting it offered significant environmental protections, when in fact, it did not.