If you start a podcast on this (and urban development issues for the Triangle, in general), I’d totally listen to it! It’s probably less overhead for you, and you can still put in a solid amount of depth into your work that’s accessible.
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Have you guys heard about SB349? It’s a bipartisan bill that will drastically curtail cities’ ability to enforce single family zoning.
I’m not really clear yet what it means. Does it mean any lot that would currently be legal to build a SFH, will become legal for quadplexes and townhomes? Or would density requirements still have to be followed meaning a quadplex would need 4x as much land?
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From what I understand, it’s pretty comprehensive, but it’s not without its caveats. While I don’t know the particulars, I think that there’s exceptions for very small lot parcels, etc. Essentially, where we will likely see infill density is in older neighborhoods with larger lots that can hold 2-4 units. Even still, if a neighborhood will be more financially productive by replacing a small one with one giant expensive house, that will still go on.
This Tuesday, a subcommittee of the Planning Commission will be talking about how to make it legal/easier to build multiple units in a lot by changing residential zoning ordinances.
I haven’t had the time to read into the upcoming slide deck more closely, but it seems like they’re looking into two ways to do that:
For example:
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Next Tuesday’s City Council will start discussions on potentially removing parking minimums and using more targeted rules/language for parking maximums. This is something lots of urbanists and smart-development experts around the country have been calling for (see Strong Towns, Bloomberg/Citylab etc.) since it can make it harder for developers to create denser, more walkable, car-independent developments including more affordable urban houses.
The Council could either choose to start amending the UDO to remove this requirement (unlikely?), ask city staffers to give them more information, or let a committee handle the investigation. The first link above has more details, including a list of what some other cities have done about this issue.
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Has anyone else seen this? According to ABC11, a few hundred? people are required to relocate from a low-income neighborhood in Southeast Raleigh near MLK boulevard because the owner is redeveloping the entire property (I’m guessing a few acres) into more expensive housing. My main concern is that these families will most likely become homeless given the lack of affordable housing. Does anyone else have concerns?
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Unfortunately this happens all the time, this one just happened to be one that made the news.
In Atlanta, most times they just go to the suburbs where it is cheaper. The population of City of Atlanta increased 100k since 2000. But the black population of city of Atlanta decreased since 2000. Not the percentage, the actual amount. Meanwhile suburbs of Atlanta (Douglas county, Clayton county, Rockdale county) that were once predominantly white are now predominantly black because that’s where housing is cheaper.
I fear here, this will happen to areas like Garner, Clayton and maybe even knightdale as people are forced out of the city.
It’s not just a Raleigh thing and it’s not just a race thing. This is something playing out in every city in the US (probably the world) where city centers are becoming unaffordable so most common people are forced to the suburbs.
It is why Initiatives such as the 15% affordable units at RUS we spoke of earlier are so vitally important if we want to keep a diverse city.
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Following up on what @atl_transplant wrote, this is why I think it’s important to make a distinction between buyers and renters in the housing crisis we’re starting to face, and recognize that the displacement of renters, not homeowners, is the big source of the dumpster fire. Renters just don’t have the same market pressures and leverage that buyers get to take advantage of. If anything, the tenants could’ve gotten lucky if they were on month-to-month leases since state law says Trademark Residential could’ve legally given them just seven days to move out.
To repeat what Phil said:
People will talk about this in the context of race since, let’s face it, the United States is still far away from being a racially equal society -even if individual people may not feel that way. But it’s not like there’s evidence that Black people are the only people being kicked out of this apartment complex. After all, this is a problem of housing displacement (not necessarily gentrification); the race lens is just one of many contexts that have to inform a good solution.
As for what we could do about it? I’m not sure, but it’s possible to make it harder for things like this to happen if you paid attention to (and affected) local policies. For example, City Council could write an ordinance to require extended deadlines or other kinds of moving support for displaced low-income residents, though I’m not sure if they have the power to do that.
It doesn’t look like there are any rezoning cases around 1107 Garner Rd., for anyone who’s curious. iMaps just lists the owner of parcel 1703945164 as some person’s name instead of a company name.
Here’s the South Park thread if, like me, anyone thought “wait don’t we have a thread for this area alraedy?”
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When I was a kid my dad used to say “affordable housing, is the housing our ass can afford today” Plain and simple.
i know many decades ago some of the textile corps in NC had employee housing near their large facilities. if their are numerous people who work in downtown at low wages,(those far below affording a market rate dwelling) tempering the market with buildings or areas with modestly priced shelter probably isnt such a bad thing versus a crazy cross county commute… the towers made their way to north hills and highwoods and all downtown land doesnt have to be maximized for profit. there are good salaries at all the hospitals and none of those are downtown.
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i guess brentwood and longview (possibly others) neighborhoods in which i used to live in many years ago are good values now. in longview in the early 80’s i, being only 1 percent black, had a black wral news reporter that lived 4 or 5 houses up from me on clarendon crescent. there were 3 black families that lived on lord ashley across the street from me whom i knew well, one a member of of wake tech’s board. longview elementary always seemed mixed race to me. i remember somene told my dad that the area was going ‘south’. but my folks were blind so we moved to get better bus access for downtown state govt jobs from longview to brentwood. another wral employee…rasulala bought our old house in longview. call it racial or call it plain old conveinience for some depending on circumstance.
i dont know how all this shakes down as far as housing prices and demographics. i vaugely recall someone telling me that somewhere off of Guess Road? in Durham changed in quality as i trained them for a delivery job. 20 plus yeas ago though.
City Council will have a work session later today which will, in part, talk about how to renovate Heritage Park (the rent-controlled apartments on the corner of South and Saunders) alongside the city’s Housing Authority. Feedback from this conversation, according to the city’s memo, could eventually become a part of a rezoning application “that will be filed in the coming weeks” and the overall game plan for the Heritage Park redevelopment.
It’s interesting because the city is making a genuine effort to find ways to redevelop this complex while keeping the number of people being relocated low, both now and in the future. Some of the suggestions by city staffers to pull this off is to let residents:
- take a Housing Choice Voucher (section 8) to move into participating market-rate houses;
- move into a similar open room in another city-operated unit, or;
- stay in their current residence (which is possible since construction may happen in phases)
…and let current residents stand in the front of the line when moving into the new apartments.
Furthermore:
We’ll see what City Council thinks of this, though.
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I am really really scared about how Heritage Park is going to go down. In another thread I posted the preliminary plans:
Rebuilding the complex and increasing the number of affordable units is great, but they could probably build even more if they partner with a for profit developer and include a bunch of market rate and workforce housing…
Ditch the surface parking for structures, Ditch the 3-5 story buildings for towers, and move the single-story child care center into a retail space on the bottom (or second!) floor of one of the towers. Partner with a private for-profit developer to make it work. For 4 full downtown city blocks, a total of 2000 units would be fitting. Anything less than 1000 is just dumb.
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I agree that that’s the best approach in the long run. I think there’s some serious problems that have to be worked out, though (click each to expand and see what I mean):
Can denser developments be built in the minimal-footprint phasing approach they're talking about here?
Making sure as few very-low-income households here (who likely don’t have the means to rent out moving trucks, look for temporary housing while their unit gets replaced etc.) are displaced as possible is not just a “nice-to-have”; the memo’s language makes it sound like minimizing displacement will become a priority and a constraint for the whole project. This means the amount of land needed for construction always needs to be taken at a minimum, which I assume could raise costs and be politically toxic.
Do all parties also understand that Heritage Park is a downtown development project too, and it could be more than JUST a public housing renovation?
The city’s Future Land Use Map, as well as the Urban Form map, say this area should become more downtown-like, but it’s not clear if the housing authority received this memo.
Is it morally okay (and even legal) to make market-rate profits in public housing?"
After all, if you build market-rate houses, that means the Housing Authority will directly make money off of people who are already indirectly giving them money via taxes. (I assume you can set up a dedicated trust fund or something so that profits flow right into improving Heritage Park and other public housing properties, but I’m not sure if city staffers can handle that…)
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This might make it easier? You would have to rebuild a smaller footprint of the complex to have enough total units to relocate the 122 existing residents. Could easily fit over 122 units in the footprint of the Dawson-MLK cloverleaf, if we’re talking about 12 story buildings, for example.
Not sure I follow? Mixed-income housing is commonplace. Even here in Raleigh, most of the public housing redevelopments that have happened here over the years have included a market rate component involving a private partner (Chavis, Halifax Court aka Capitol Park, Walnut Terrace…) - is this substantially different? I would think that any proceeds RHA gets from bringing in a for-profit developer here, should immediately be plowed back in to providing more (or more deeply) affordable units on this site?
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I’d love to see much more density here as well (the surface parking lot backing up to the Western/Saunders intersection and BRT station/Dix Park makes me particularly nauseous), but it’s entirely possible the current residents are a little gun shy of such a thing (for reasons both financial and perhaps QOL related) and the city might be acquiescing to their wishes on this one. This would require the city and housing authority establishing both trust with the residents and education about the benefits of densifying the area. At least that’s my theory. It’d be interesting to hear what the residents have to say. Based on the history of these types of things, I wouldn’t blame them for being skeptical, and that’s where the education part comes in.
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This council has been pretty consistent with their messaging that more housing = better, and have made a point of not prioritizing NIMBY concerns.
I wonder if they will make an exception for public housing residents. I guess that could be a satisfying inversion of the usual power structures, but to me that would be unfortunate.
Because in the end, more housing is better.
That’s asking for a pretty big step up in per-unit costs, and the federal dollars used for subsidized housing financing(1) can’t always accommodate that.
- A more precise term than “affordable housing development,” since all housing development is surprisingly similar
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