I’m glad to see they’re taking my suggestion and using that site for affordable housing even though it was labeled eco apartheid by livable Raleigh. Surely at this point they are very conceptual and will rely on the expertise of DHIC or another affordable housing developer to design the units
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Oh, there’s all sort of nimbyism masquerading as social justice right now in public comments from people who live in the Caraleigh neighborhood to its north. I am trying to be open minded with regard to the public comments, but it’s difficult to listen to a bunch of this. Another truth comes out from time to time with regard to the narrative/comments shifting into neighborhood character and such.
The commenters are also painting themselves as victims of housing affordability because they will lose their affordable SFH neighborhood over time as it gentrifies, which is more true with regard to the renters of these homes or other housing in the neighborhood. For the resident homeowners, they’ll just make bank over time.
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With growth and economic progress comes change (or sacrifice in these folks’ eyes). I think most of us would rather be in a prolific environment and are ready for the change that comes with it. Responsibilty shifts to different areas to bear the weight of these changes and the citizens you mention are kicking and screaming now that it is their turn.
I dont want this haphazardly approved but todays presentation by the environmental engineer boosted my confidence. I would like to see a downstream flooding analysis and data on site erosion prior to approval.
Side note Mary Black asked about the finer details of affordable housing. It was one of many questions that made her come off as super unprepared for being a council member. Calls herself a “subject matter expert” on stormwater treatment and asked a question (that the presenter had already gone over) for the audience to make sure they understood.
Mini City Council of No will vote to not approve the Dix Edge Study without removing these properties per the meeting. Ironically removing the only property that has affordable housing potential.
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What is being signaled as social justice that might keep affordable housing out of this property will eventually end up as high-end “waterfront properties” in the future.
It’s easy to imagine a tower or two in a park-like setting that sits on garage levels that are below street level but above the 100 year floodplain.
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We demand affordable housing! (just not in our neighborhood)
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Also heard the quote “you are putting poor people on top of poor people” which I assume is about density. So they’d rather have affordable housing for 10 than 150? Some of their arguments are flat out absurd.
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Much of the messaging from neighbors seemed like signaling to me to sound like advocates for the poor while ultimately preventing them from living in THEIR neighborhood. “Putting poor people on top of poor people” will undoubtedly trigger the memory of failed urban housing tower projects in major cities across the country. It’s a way of talking about the need that leads with a negative.
That said, the city continues to do a terrible job envisioning good urban solutions that address the breadth of the current and future needs. They seem to not be able to look beyond car dependent suburban models. Even the proposed Heritage Park replacement is just more of the same. Why does the city seem incapable of proposing urban model solutions for its most urban areas?
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It’s just arguing in bad faith. If you try to build a high-end apartment, they’ll be upset there are no affordable units. If you try to build affordable units, they’ll be upset that “you’re stacking poor people on top of poor people”.
They don’t care about affordable housing or poor people. They only care that nothing gets done. And they’ll try to have this circular argument until they sell or die.
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When land value is $1M an acre in the core areas, it’s impossible to have any sort of affordable housing without subsidies or serious government regulation. The market prevails. We have been a single family place for too long. We can slowly make progress with townhomes, condos, ADUs, triplex, quadplex etc. In other words, more units per acre. But even this alone won’t solve the problem.
I was at a missing middle city event where it was explained that providing NEWER move-up housing would leave more affordable OLDER existing housing. Personally, I don’t totally buy into that way of thinking. If you have an existing property that now becomes available, it will still be out of reach for most. It is now also ripe for potential redevelopment. Some “rich” person buys the land, tears down the old and replaces it with as much as they can fit on the lot. That property will never be affordable again. That is the reality.
No easy answers. Developers aren’t incentivized or regulated to build affordable, so they don’t. The City Is scrambling to come up with “alternative” allowable housing types. But at the end of the day you have escalating land prices, a tight labor market, and 63 people a day moving to this area. People can’t even afford the rent here, much less figuring out how to buy.
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just curious…are there current us examples of affordable housing operating counter to the ‘failed towers’ that i guess would be considered successful? and house as many as the towers did? i often look at yonkers ny subsidized housing projects https://mhacy.org/ (12k ppl/m2 ~220k ppl)…most of those units seem tower like and rather close to each other. would a different paradigm have affordable housing scattered around a city more? with the potential of the former dmv site possibly being affordable housing…are we looking at a likely tower there?
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If I had to guess, I’d say that failed housing towers of yesteryear had as much to do with them not being maintained as it did with the designs themselves, if not more. I clicked your link but didn’t find the site terribly informative for visually understanding what they provide. I suppose that I have to go to Google earth to take a look?
To be clear, I am not against the city providing affordable suburban style housing; I just don’t think it’s appropriate for that to be built on its most valuable urban land. If they want to build suburban style, and if the residents that they serve want a suburban style environment, then build that in the suburban areas in the city, not the city center.
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My friendly annual reminder, if you want to see more density in affordable housing projects, to please talk to your state legislators and provide comments and feedback to NCHFA on the Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP) scoring system for Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) projects. Here’s a sample from Self-Help’s comments on the 2023 QAP:
"We hope NCHFA will consider substantial changes to the scoring system this QAP or soon after that further differentiate projects, starting at the site scoring stage, while allowing for urban sites to better compete with suburban greenfield garden-style apartments even if the site score is not perfect…
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Set a substantially higher cost per unit cap for Metro areas, which generally have higher construction costs for regulatory and market reasons regardless of whether a project is Chart B eligible. Please also consider extending the suspension of maximum project development costs for the 2023 cycle.
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Increasing the maximum allowed contingency (perhaps to 10% on new construction) and/or allowing greater construction escalation to be held in project budgets would help alleviate post-award budget issues.
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Provide a separate cost per unit limit for projects with (necessary) structured parking in downtown/urban areas where such parking is appropriate, perhaps limiting this to a couple-few projects per year across the state.
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Automatic reductions to parking ratios should be available for urban sites and sites with frequent public transit, as well as for developments with a unit mix emphasizing smaller bedroom counts where fewer cars per unit are likely.
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Eliminate or edit the new prohibition of retaining walls being near foundations, as it could pose a major challenge to more urban locations. For example, Willard Street Apartments would not have been allowed under the language of the draft 2023 QAP. Perhaps one solution would be to require an additional certification from a structural engineer or similar “iron clad” approach?
There are also other comments from organizations such as DHIC that have the same gist.
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This could go into a variety of threads, but I’ll put it here due to the topic.
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I wanted to branch off from the rezoning thread starting from here.
@paytonc, I agree with you 100% but I kept thinking about that “who gets to live here?” question. Surely it comes from a desire for affordable housing on this very spot (Gale Street) I feel like the answer is that, as a result of our competitive, capitalistic society, those with money get to live where they want. It’s not a comfortable answer to some people but that’s America for you.
I feel a better question would be “who gets to access downtown Raleigh?” and that is the realm that I think civic advocates and leaders (council) can actually make a more impactful difference. As far as access goes, we’re talking about mobility. That means transit to me and fortunately 99% of our streets are managed by the city or state. If they want to be more equitable, it goes more than just connecting streets so that cars can get there eventually.
Yes, Affordable housing is needed but other people just need to bring their household costs down. Alternatives to driving and access to more parts of the city most likely will open up opportunities to others.
(note: this thought is a work in process 
)
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1000000% agreed here. To understand the root of the question that Jane has, I would ask her “Why do you want to provide affordable housing options in Downtown Raleigh?”
Whatever way you slice it, it comes down to access. Giving people affordable options to live downtown is a way of giving them unfettered access to the city. Why is that important? Because right now, access to downtown is difficult. Why is access difficult? Because there aren’t enough diverse or quick options to access downtown.
The property is privately owned. They can build up to 20 stories by-right at this very moment if they want to without having to allocate anything to the affordable housing fund. However, that means fewer tax dollars for the government (that can be used for affordable housing). The property tax bill will be less. The businesses below that property (and the ones surrounding it) will make less money because there will be fewer patrons living in those buildings (which also means fewer tax dollars).
I’m not sure if Jane knows it or not. But, her quest to bring affordable housing into every developer’s privately owned land case is hurting the local government’s ability to provide affordable housing and, if they so choose to allocate funds to it, access to downtown.
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https://outreach.design.ncsu.edu/ah+sc/resources/white-papers/zoning-reform-and-housing-choices/
Couple excerpts from the article, which focuses on unlocking zoning laws, missing middle, etc…
"The affordable housing crisis is due to a constellation of issues including a shortfall of housing units, income disparity, and insufficient subsidies. After decades of diminishing federal support of affordable housing and economically stratified development patterns, broad-based coalitions, public-private partnerships, and zoning reform are required to solve the housing crisis.
Missing middle housing is one piece of the affordable housing puzzle. One effective way to stabilize housing costs is to simply build more housing. Developers are often negatively characterized, but cities are recognizing that they can be allies in addressing the housing crisis. By utilizing the private housing market and diversifying housing types and where they can be built, missing middle housing provides housing options to address a worsening national housing crisis. Duplexes, triplexes, quads, townhouses, multiplexes, accessory dwelling units, and cottage courts provide smaller, affordable choices and ownership and equity options – live-work and shop-house units can support home employment. Compact urbanism can reduce household transportation costs – compact housing energy costs. There is no guarantee that the new housing will be affordable, especially in states with weak housing laws. However, many agree that over time as more units are built, housing diversity can open a broader range of housing price points. At best, it produces naturally occurring affordable housing at no cost to municipalities and taxpayers.
The recognition of histories of zoning laws used to enforce racial and economic segregation are also driving zoning reforms. Growing attention to housing discrimination and the affordable housing crisis have spurred land use reform in many cities and states. There is growing consensus that single-family zoning and minimum lot sizes erect economic barriers that prevent lower income people from accessing schools, employment, and services of higher wealth areas. Limited transportation modalities determine the ability of communities to access jobs, schools, and services and often results in missing, scarce, or inflated goods and services in low-wealth communities. Zoning reform advocates recognize that the commodification of housing, generational income and wealth disparities, and other social and economic systems have resulted in unequal access to safe, healthy, and affordable housing."
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I meet her and she told me she was gonna do that! I thought she was insane, she knows nothing about developers.
my folks retired right at 2000. both visually impaired and both worked in or near downtown and and commuted from near spring forest road at falls of neuse. i know…a lot of dwellings have been added since then. but falls was rearview to rearview even then and they both commuted via CAT. it wasnt pretty but my dad just took the #2 falls route straight into salisbury, hopped off and went to work. my mom took the oddly figured # 2 falls route to the applebees at six forks at wake forest, and from there made a monthly deal with cardinal cab to scoot her over to capital just east of crabtree blvd to the library for the blind where she worked. this worked pretty good for a few years. i just ask how much to be spent for how much better than existed then for how many people? with current Raleigh transit ridership at 2 percent? are many of the new citizens eager for more daily commuting via transit in a possibly similar fashion no flaming, this was legit experience.
Here’s an idea: don’t build luxury apartments in the center of the most expensive area (downtown). How bout building non luxury apartments in other neighborhoods, or housing units that can support apartments.