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Budget Priorities for Affordable Housing
This budget does NOT adequately provide for affordable housing, despite the $80 million bond. The parks bond is $250 million. Apparently the Dix Park and Smoky Hollow Parks are more important than making sure our residents are properly and affordably housed. The small amount allocated for rehabbing naturally occurring housing is not getting the job done.
Councilor Harrison reverses course on making decisions based on policy
Councilor Harrison parted ways with the other three new members of Raleigh’s City Council (Black, Patton and Jones). The group usually forms a coalition that is more skeptical of intense development outside the Central Business District and close to established neighborhoods. Instead Harrison provided the swing vote for the pro-developer faction of Council and voted to approve the controversial rezoning of Shaw University. Minutes after being instructed by the City Attorney that this case is a LAND-USE decision, Harrison tossed out the land-use policies that should have guided her decision and based her decision on an irrelevant point about the Prince Hall Overlay District.
Scale Matters
The City is its people, and we have not asked for this rezoning. This neighborhood is a City success story in saving a historic neighborhood from previous urban renewal rezoning policies. It is a kick in the teeth now for us to be once again fighting for our neighborhood.
Heard it through the grapevine
I heard that since the City Manager was named Interim City Clerk, she has stopped the practice of recording and filing minutes of closed session meetings. And, she has stopped allowing anyone from the Clerk’s office to attend closed session meetings.
City Council June 20 Work Session and Afternoon Session
Public comments focused on gentrification, homelessness, crime, Glenwood South, transit, traffic calming, historic preservation, and several criticisms of Mayor Baldwin and her actions or lack thereof.
Precision or Maximum Carnage? Your Choice.
One of the greatest problems with Missing Middle is that it takes a machete approach, chopping through city neighborhoods. A scalpel would be a better instrument for cutting out areas where denser development would be promoted. There is no appreciation for context.
Vibrancy – Part 3 – Now onto Noise
I have been coming here since December 2022 to talk about Glenwood South crime and noise issues. When I was here May 2nd I brought up the recent issue which happened at Governor and Mrs. Cooper’s personal residence. Now onto noise, for about 1-1/2 years the city has been talking about revising the current noise ordinance which is horrible and almost impossible to enforce. On Dec 6th the previous city attorney said, in the council meeting, the new noise ordinance would be out in about 2 months.
City Council Work Session – June 13, 2023
Survey results from biennial survey were presented.
Council approves FY24 budget
Council unanimously approves FY24 budget.
Carmen Cauthen: I am not advocating for the haves, but for the have nots.
I follow a listserv to see what people are saying about building, growth and change on the New Bern Avenue corridor since that is where I live, The latest conversation is about the city purchasing the DMV building at more than the appraised price. If I talk about the evils of putting more unaffordable housing in the community, I am called a NIMBY (not in my back yard). They never seem to understand that I am not advocating for the haves, but for the have nots. If you have no back yard – that is who I am fighting for. I could be one of them.
More neighborhoods are rising up against the Missing Middle
As more and more people from across all sectors and neighborhoods discover how the Missing Middle, and its various iterations, is dangerous to their wallets and single-family neighborhoods they are rising up to challenge the base thinking.
Raleigh must refocus its vision for affordable housing
Intentional or not, staff’s interpretations of the Comp Plan and Missing Middle rules are not promoting affordability. Instead they promote the destruction of existing affordable units in favor of market rate and luxury units that drive up land and housing costs. Over 4,000 units lost each year according to the city’s own data, making Raleigh’s affordable housing crisis worse, not better.
June 6 City Council Meetings
June 6 City Council Meetings HIGHLIGHTS Several councilors asked that rezoning case schedules be managed to limit the number at each meeting so that each case receives appropriate time and attention. Planning staff will come back with schedule suggestions. Unanimously...
TOD needs a DO-OVER
You may be creating more density for increased ridership for public transit but you are destroying the reason that people continue to live in a City of deep, rich culture and historic heritage. Let’s not lose our past and present character while making room for a ridership that may never develop, especially if it does not provide for the housing needs for the population that actually depends on public transit for their livelihood.
Budget Work Session – June 5, 2023
Highlights from June 5 Budget Work Session — focus on budget notes and parking rate/fee changes
Shaw rezoning, use your Head and your Heart
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.
Mayor Baldwin & Councilor Melton violate City “Gag” order
Many of Raleigh’s residents have been reaching out to their representatives on City Council hoping to have a discussion about the city’s Missing Middle policies and what can be done to modify them to make them less harmful to established neighborhoods. But, they are being told no discussion can be had.
Shaw University: An historic campus in trust? Or just another downtown development play?
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.
In Loving Memory of Conen Morgan
We at Livable Raleigh are mourning the loss of Conen Morgan. Conen was instrumental in launching Livable Raleigh 3 1/2 years ago.
There’s a right way and a wrong way!
Please tell our Planning Department to stop dedicating staff time to demolishing our historic neighborhoods, and instead work on redeveloping these parking lots. I’ll bet Planning staff would rather be doing that anyway!