I was referring to the Penmarc site (i.e. Downtown South) in regards to developing vacant land and think the issue in Cary with the mobile homes is probably a real injustice but I don’t know much about the situation there.
The information is easily available if you’re willing and interested in learning about gentrification. Many have pointed out the concerns repeatedly in the threads here – displacement seldom has to do with direct/forceful removal of people from their homes for redevelopment. That doesn’t make it any less real of a concern. This is the first I’ve heard about the situation in Cary, but I think these are BOTH issues worthy of attention and careful planning.
1 Like
Retired homeowners on fixed incomes who own their homes outright (or even have a mortgage) complaining about rising RE values making their property taxes unaffordable rings kinda hollow to me.
They can tap into that increased equity through things like equity loans or reverse mortgages to pay those taxes. Does that cut into the eventual inheritance they pass on, sure - and I suppose that’s maybe sad, but then again it’s kind of just life too. I just have a hard time buying the story “My home just increased in value by a whole lot - woe is me, now I’m poor, disadvantaged, and at risk of displacement!” Is there something I’m missing? Am I just heartless?
There are also some avenues for property tax relief from the county.
Again, I may be missing something, but I think this group is pretty well taken care of. They may feel threatened by higher property tax bills, but if their assessment value goes up, the amount of property tax they pay each year will go up by like 1% of the value increase (which is effective Raleigh tax rate.) If a house’s value goes up by $200k, that’s a $200k increase in equity out of thin air, and a $2k increase in annual property taxes. Yeah, um, just tap into that $200k (equity loan etc) to pay the $2k. NBD right?
Renters are the real issue. Renters are undeniably people, and definitely do get caught in the crosshairs of displacement. I’m interested to see if any proposal for how to address that concern comes out of this process, and if it will be a sustainable solution that can be applied elsewhere.
14 Likes
This. Renters are always the issue. And the reality is that a not-so-insignificant number of the single-family houses in Southeast Raleigh are actually rented out by the owners to lower-income families. As demand grows in an area, rent slowly climbs up, and, even if the family is able to keep up with the rate, eventually the “right offer” comes along, and that owner sells the property, forcing the family to move. By then, they can’t afford to move to another place in that neighborhood anymore, so they’re forced to move somewhere else. In Raleigh’s case, as of right now, that “somewhere else” is generally a) further away from their jobs and/or downtown, and therefore b) has sparser transportation options. Suddenly you have to own and maintain a car to get to work, your commute takes longer, and you might even be trapped in a food desert. This stuff matters to people, as it should.
As a middle class white millennial, I like the idea of Downtown South. I like breweries and restaurants and soccer/baseball stadiums and arts districts and BRT and all of the fun stuff that comes with it. Part of me really wants to see this project come to fruition, and all of me wants to see that empty lot reach its full potential. But we need to be a lot more careful than cities like Portland when it comes to nice new amenities. That’s why the Equitable Development Around Transit project and others like it are so critical to developments like this.
I want this project to work. I’m excited about it. I don’t want it to stagnate for another five years. I even like Kane’s ambition and what he’s been doing for the city with projects like The Dillon and Smoky Hollow. And I’m no expert on any of this stuff. But I do know that we run a serious risk of screwing over a lot of people if we do this wrong. And I also know that we can’t become a city that’s regularly strong-armed by a single developer. I think Kane is testing the limits here. He knows he can do better, but he wants to see what he can get away with. From a development perspective, it’s a good strategy. But we can’t let it slide, either. We have to be listen to and be considerate of the locals. Not a NIMBY group from another city, but the folks who actually live there. And we have to force the developers to do the same.
It’s a fine line, and it may even seem like all these interests are at odds with each other. But I think it’s doable with a little more communication. I hope it is. Because I like my breweries and soccer stadiums, and I want my city to thrive, but I don’t like my interests being the reason that folks are forced to move away. I guess we’ll see.
12 Likes
coblyjd3
He knows he can do better, but he wants to see what he can get away with. From a development perspective, it’s a good strategy. But we can’t let it slide, either. We have to be listen to and be considerate of the locals. Not a NIMBY group from another city, but the folks who actually live there
I agree with you on the not listening to a NIMBY group OneWake from Durham about what Wake/Raleigh ought to do
On the Kane “wants to see what he can get away with” that’s complete speculation and a low blow, frankly. You (and I) have no idea what his motives are. COULD that be his motive? It COULD. But it’s certainly not a fact. It’s honestly offensive, perhaps you meant it less harsh.
3 Likes
That’s fair, and I’ll take that criticism. It was speculation. And I do like Kane. I guess I’m just trying to put myself in his shoes. And I think, if I was a developer, I’d probably keep pushing my luck with every new project until somebody stopped me. I don’t think he’s necessarily being malicious. I just think we should keep his ambitions (and the ambitions of every developer) in check, however well-intended they may be.
6 Likes
It is offensive to think that Kane is trying to minimize what he can get away with offering for this rezoning? I would be very surprised if he did not. It is literally a negotiation. Why would we expect Kane to not negotiate hard?
3 Likes
Some of you are on this listserv and probably saw this, but here is the question I currently have posed to the staunch naysayers:
Zainab and other critics of market rate construction, how do you respond to the research from Asquith, Mast, and Reed finding that adding luxury construction actually decreased adjacent rent in 11 metros compared to placebo gentrifying areas that did not receive new luxury apartment construction?
Preliminary results using a spatial difference-in-differences approach suggest that any induced demand effects are overwhelmed by the effect of increased supply. In neighborhoods where new apartment complexes were completed between 2014-2016, rents in existing units near the new apartments declined relative to neighborhoods that did not see new construction until 2018. Changes in in-migration appear to drive this result. Although the total number of migrants from high-income neighborhoods to the new construction neighborhoods increases after the new units are completed, the number of high-income arrivals to previously existing units actually decreases , as the new units absorb a substantial portion of these households. On the whole, our results suggest that—on average and in the short-run—new construction lowers rents in gentrifying neighborhoods.
12 Likes
Thanks for the update. Do you have a link for the study? 'cuz I think this listserv is drawing some conclusions that don’t match the data.
That’s interesting, and I wonder just how strong that trend is?
With that said, though, I don’t think this helps much with the DTS affordable housing debate. Induced demand and luxury housing unit occupancy changes will show gentrification (rich people moving in where poorer people already live). But I don’t think this hits back against OneWake’s messages. Their supporters are usually talking about displacement, which is a related but different effect:
Isn’t a 5- or 10-year timeframe more appropriate? After all, they’re trying to apply these conclusions to Downtown South, which probably won’t be finished until then (let alone nabbing a pro sports franchise). I feel like the authors are jumping the gun by only looking at what’s probably a 2-4 year range.
3 Likes
In my mind, building luxury units helps because those with the means to basically live, build wherever they want will buy these units and be less incentivized to tear down housing that would otherwise become naturally-occurring affordable housing. But politically, you can’t advocate for more luxury housing.
9 Likes
Study attached!
The major reason this doesn’t apply to DTS perfectly (at the moment) is because the study areas were above City average wealth at the time of study, which suggests new luxury units tend to be built in later stages of gentrification. However, that may actually be the case for the Penmarc location by the time these units are actually delivered to the already gentrifying South ITB market!
To Leo’s point, new apartments available on the Penmarc site may prevent a few homes from being bulldozed in Fuller Heights/Caraleigh, for example.
3 Likes
Politically, I think the answer is to disentangle “New” and “Luxury” as it relates to housing. Because every brand in the Western World is now offering luxury as a standard, from Buick to Holiday Inn. Anything that is new will be luxury in relation to housing stock just a few years old.
[EDIT] one might describe the features of new housing as progress
7 Likes
I’m purely speculating, but I wonder whether or not this conclusion applies to a city like ours where urban-adjacent housing is so incredibly limited. The housing stock in the urban core is so small compared to the demand that when neighborhoods that were previously seen as undesirable and/or unsafe go through drastic changes, pretty much all the housing is going to be seen as an opportunity for investment, tear-downs, flipping, etc.
Once Central Durham became saturated with flipped houses, all it took in East Durham was a bake shop to open for the investors and developers to move in, and now housing prices have skyrocketed. The construction of luxury housing would further the shifting perception of that neighborhood, and likely accelerate the rate of the demographic change and displacement for renters.
It’s a really, really complicated issue and I constantly read conflicting information and conflicting studies. Even the question of if gentrification actually leads to displacement is unclear/complicated. (EDIT: oops, looks like @keita posted the same article above).
7 Likes
In general, Raleigh is an anomaly when it comes to existing older-stock of housing compared to many other cities. It’s almost as if anything built pre-1950 now carries a premium in the city due to location alone. Most other cities seem to have naturally occurring affordable housing that Raleigh seems to lack in any useful abundance. What is left of that affordable housing tends to be fairly far away from the city center and extremely car dependent. Then again, car dependency seems to be the common denominator among nearly all city residents.
6 Likes
I think a lot of people forget how few cities of a similar population have had a comparable growth trajectory. If you look at cities in the 400k range, Omaha had 250k people by 1950. Kansas City had 450k. Tulsa had 180k. Wichita had 168k. Raleigh had 65k – literally a third of the size of many of our peers, and this isn’t even looking at former industrial cities or very old ones like Richmond.
9 Likes
This is very true. In that way, Raleigh has more in common with fast growing cities in places in the Southwest and Florida than it does with similar sized cities in its own neighborhood.
To put this in perspective, in 1950, Raleigh was smaller than Macon, GA. To get an idea of what Raleigh would look like if not for the rise of RTP, go to Google maps and look at the aerial of Macon. It’s not difficult to imagine Raleigh being similar.
Since Raleigh was quite small through the mid-Century, the city has a lot of SFH neighborhoods that immediately wrap most sides of its core. For better or worse, this has contributed our affordable housing issues, as urban living has increasingly become more in vogue since the 90s. In a fast growing city with lots of highly paid professionals, the highly paid have the means to escalate the prices to levels that only the top x% can afford.
I can imagine that this feels very unfair to many, including Raleigh’s poorer residents who “had” to live in the neighborhoods that they are now losing. I say “had” because the poorer residents that lived particularly on the east side were relegated to this part of the city, often under slumlord management, that largely went ignored for decades as the suburbs flourished.
So, the question that we grapple with today is likely whether or not there’s an entitlement for residents to remain in a community that was built on their presence when nobody else wanted to live there? Or, do we believe that the free market dictates what happens in the community regardless of displacement? Or, do we believe that there’s a compromise to be had that honors a community while not stopping progress? These are not easy questions to navigate.
10 Likes
you lost me at “This”
1 Like
Why?
Seriously, why did I lose you at “This”?
2 Likes
I guess I’d argue that because of our (possibly) lack of NOAH (naturally occurring affordable housing), it makes the preservation of what we do have even more crucial. I’m thinking of duplex village on New Bern Ave. We’ve already lost larger plots like the homes that were on the NW corner of Oakwood. I’m not saying the existing units have to stay as they are, but if possible, AH units should be incorporated into redevelopment even if it takes additional public subsidy to make that happen, and especially on transit lines like the two sites I’ve mentioned.
4 Likes
brevity brother. we all need to work on making our points on this site much more succinctly…myself included at times
3 Likes