
Matthew Brown has restored three historic houses in Raleigh, and has assisted with the restoration of many others. He has financed renovation of six houses for affordable housing.
Matthew spoke to City Council on May 20, 2025:
Good afternoon. Thank you for your service and thank you for letting me speak.
I am going to talk about Raleigh’s development, construction, and real estate industry.
Some of these folks do wonderful work. But we can’t believe everything these industries tell us. They are promulgating a view that the more housing units the City approves, the better.
But if you ask Raleighites who are NOT in those industries if they agree with this, most will tell you,
“Hell no! Raleigh is getting too crowded. The traffic is getting bad. We are losing too many trees. We have too much flooding. Our neighborhoods are getting torn down. Our taxes are too high paying for infrastructure.”
They will also tell you that housing is getting too expensive.
The developers will say, “The more units we build, the cheaper housing will be.”
But this is not true.
Almost invariably, the places they build are more expensive than the places they tear down. Just up the street from me, they are about to tear down three old houses that were affordable apartments, to put up luxury townhouses. And further up, they are going to tear down an entire affordable apartment complex to build a larger unaffordable complex.
The City’s response is to build more taxpayer-funded low-income housing. That helps. But many people don’t want to move into low-income housing. They just want to rent an affordable apartment, or to buy an affordable house. And those are exactly what the industry is tearing down.
These industries will always be the loudest voices in your ears, because they make a lot of money by getting property upzoned. And they use the money to fund organizations that spread their viewpoint.
Last week, one of those folks told you that there is a shortage of 60,000 housing units in Wake County. But there is no scientific basis for that number. According to Zillow, there is a shortage of just 17,000 units in Wake plus Johnston plus Franklin Counties.
Also according to Zillow, there are over 10,000 apartments available for rent in Wake County right now. And that is just those listed on Zillow. There are well over 10,000 more units under construction. And well over 30,000 that have been approved, but construction has not begun.
The late great James West served on this Council from District C for ten years. Dr. West said “It is not the duty of City Council to ensure developer profits. The duty of City Council is to serve all the citizens of Raleigh, to improve their quality of life.”
I believe that is why each of you decided to serve on Council. Please evaluate each rezoning request based on whether it improves the quality of life of the citizens of Raleigh, not just whether it increases the number of housing units allowed.
If you appreciate the kind of reporting we bring to you
Please donate $10 or $20, Thanks for supporting |
![]() |