Keep coherent neighborhoods like Boylan Heights (Infill them with ADUs and redevelopment of non contributing buildings)
Surrender isolated groups of houses to complete redevelopment, with high rises on the table most everywhere, especially in or near downtown.
Enact policies to encourage moving isolated houses, to shore up neighborhoods that might otherwise be candidates for demolition/redevelopment. That is the best outcome because you get both new, coherent neighborhoods, AND more intense redevelopment where it counts.
This is plopped down like gospel all over this board. I suppose this specious argument would mean you support razing all of Boylan Heights? I completely disagree that its worth tearing down historic homes for 5 more train trips a day. The architecture and materials are irreplaceable. Raleigh permits thousands of SFHs on the outskirts along streets that connect to absolutely nothing that are supposed to go shop at single use shopping districts and drive to work…its seems like everyone completely caved to this…its easier to fight the 5 guys who like old houses than the 100,000 people who like Tahoes and a 5/4/door on a cul-de-sac. If you want train trips, require north Raleigh to double its density, send express busses up Six Forks and Falls of Neuse and bring people down to the station, and whisk them to RTP. They can observe some beautiful historic homes on the last leg on the bus before entering the station.
I’m not sure of anyone who is in favor of destroying Boylan Heights (or any similar neighborhood) just for increased density without making it context-sensitive. Those neighborhoods are the closest thing we have to a true urban experience in the city, anyway. There are tons of other locations where it makes more sense to clear out what already exists so that we can add density, namely brownfields. It sounds like you’re making a straw man argument.
There is enough redevelopable plots of land available in the city that rapid development could happen for decades without touching Raleigh’s most treasured historical neighborhoods.
A friend of mine this week said in conversation about the street scale of that deck:
‘All the better to house JoCo revelry…’
And I close with the GloSo conundrum - grow up into an all day district or not…? I hope so.
Not making a straw man at all. If anything, people who think a historic house is less important because its close to a train station are making a straw man argument. It’s either important or it’s not if it’s substantially a similar house. You either understand these are finite in number or you don’t give. You either understand the value is in the fact the materials and building techniques cannot be replaced or recreated or you do not care. A priority way down a priority list is not a priority. Any pretense that it is when it appears convenient or easy, is a strawman’s attempted prioritization. In the case of the brick one at the corner of Hargett and Boylan, it’d be the second most important in Boylan Heights after Montford Hall itself (older, and larger and only the one with that styling). 200 yards difference is all we’re talking. And yet that 200 yards renders that house *not in Boylan Heights and thus disposable. Total crap if you ask me.
