This sad irony of this statement is that the yellow house at Boylan/Hargett and it’s brick nextdoor neighbor are both currently naturally occurring affordable/workforce housing that will most likely disappear forever regardless of the outcome of this effort.
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It is kind of interesting to see a non profit talk about how hard it would be for them to commit to making something affordable even when they get a deal from the city on the land. Maybe it’s not all just “greedy” developers, and it is really hard with land and labor costs to build/restore truly affordable housing.
Another side thing (not really making an argument) is how historic preservation seems to play out as a force against affordablility. The story I always hear about Oakwood is that in the 70s it was run down and homes where chopped up into multiple units. Then the process of history preservation started which brought the homes up to their amazing states today, but also turned it the super expensive place. I am truly conflicted because I love the architecture there, and really love what they do for Halloween. But, the talking points from the people trying to preserve these houses align with a general feel that preservation and making housing into really expensive restored places seem to be way more aligned than anything related to affordability.
I was trying to think of what a win-win might be and the best I could come up with was if they have moved the houses , gave them to the Raleigh Area Land Trust, which turned each home into a fourplex for 8 total land trust units. Kind of a complicated plan.
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Plus you’d still lose the historic layout and usage of the interiors when they’d have to be chopped up and include bathrooms and kitchens in each unit. It’d just be a historic shell and maybe a room or two that look relatively similar.
In a city as short on historic buildings as Raleigh I’m inclined to support something like this that combines increased density on the original site, a surface lot biting the dust, and pretty authentic preservation of the homes. Affordability has to come from somewhere else.
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Restore the houses to their original beauty & stop the nonsense talk of turning them into affordable housing….THEY ALREADY SERVE THAT PURPOSE!!
The cost to move them & “restore” them only for lower income house is insane & unrealistic.
They proponents of this should go build something themselves….to get a reality check. Just go price bringing these 2 homes up to code for only electrical & plumbing….then show me how that math makes sense on any planet.
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Raleigh already has a pretty good architectural survey, which determines what’s worth keeping, and has been updating it:
https://rhdc.org/architectural-survey
Historic preservation can be a tool to reinforce and built upon an area’s urban past, often that built in the pre-auto era – which is now receding into the distant past (the Interstate Highway Act was passed 67 years ago!). The danger is that it can become a willy-nilly “super-zoning” that reinforces NIMBYs’ worst status-quo biases, especially if it’s not guided by things like architectural surveys.
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if anyone hasn’t seen the N&O yet, some jewish ‘non-profit’ has outbid Oakwood for that corner lot…let’s hope Oakwood can up their bid & outbid them to move the 2 historic houses. Another religious based ‘non-profit’ is NOT what we need downtown.
and no, this has nothing to do with the type of religion before any of you start…
Maybe let’s just call it a non-profit. Whatever their affiliation, is really not an issue.
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Oh no, fully agree - downtown Raleigh is overstuffed with churches that sit empty most of the time as it is, and not to mention that complete waste-of-space Christian “Science” Reading Room that is never open and wouldn’t be of interest to much of anybody even if it were. Would much rather this lot go to either mixed-use, or else space to move these historic homes. But Oakwood Preservation Society is kidding themselves if they think the city will just accept their lowball offer simply “because” - this is reminding of the sad day when some Christian org. bought the Shaw jazz radio station and gutted it to become yet another crappy christian rock station (or whatever the hell they’re doing with it now, I no longer bother to listen to it obviously)
Can we really stop with the church bashing on this forum? We all have different beliefs, and should be respectful of those who have different beliefs from our own.
Historically, faith based organizations (churches/temples/mosques/etc) have been very important to human society over thousands of years. Faith based organizations are falling out of favor with the main stream society, but the constant bashing is uncalled for.
Full disclosure, I do regularly attend a church and am on the church board. We have had/are having discussions concerning the decline of Christianity in the US (and the world). That said, those who do attend/participate/etc deserve all the respect that you would give to anyone else. Quit saying it is a waste of space to have a church in a specific location. To those who use the space, it is very important.
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Its just like any other organization. Is there a NEED for a religiously affiliated organization in that space? Its not bashing if you are analyzing a need. If there were 6 dry cleaners in the surrounding 1 sq mile, is there the demand for a 7th? Its the same thing from a development standpoint.
It is a fine line to walk and I agree we need to be cautious not to stray into either side of the pro vs anti religion realm.
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I’d say amen to your reply, but that would be religious. 
That said, I completely agree that it is irrelevant who the non-profit is. Frankly, it’s irrelevant that they are even a non-profit. The only relevant issue is that they were outbid.
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I think we can all agree a Jewish nonprofit fills a different “market” niche than a church!
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With all due respect, there is a difference in “bashing religion” and simply stating that there are an objectively high number of churches/faith-based organizations in the immediate downtown area, enough to where it’s difficult to justify yet another (though to your point, I’m not quite sure how many, if any, Jewish affiliated spaces there are, so perhaps this would be filling a need for that community). I certainly could’ve used less passive-aggressiveness in my wording, however, so apologies for perceived disrespect, but it’s most definitely not personal.
I also only referred to the Christian Science Reading Room as a waste of space, and I hardly think that’s a controversial statement when it literally is never actually “open” so ultimately serves no legitimate function in downtown Raleigh, and thus, one could reasonably consider it to be wasting the (inarguably) prime location on that corner. All that said, it does feel like a tough-sell to use a vacant lot for a strictly single-purpose building for an organization that would serve a likely small portion of the community when there is a legitimate housing crisis happening at this very moment, not to mention an epidemic of historic building loss in this city when the other bid is offering to move a few historic houses to this lot - but as others (and even myself) have stated, if they win the bid, they win the bid - and the Oakwood Preservation society isn’t doing themselves any favors with a lowball offer just because they think they deserve the lot. That’s all.
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Religious organizations do not need to “justify” their existence to anyone, nor does a “need” for more space have to be apparent to anyone other than the religious organization itself.
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The blog hits 16 years and I reflected a bit on teardowns. What do you think of my point?
The opinion spectrum is wide on this topic but I have a working theory that the loss of the business inside an older building is more valuable than the building itself.
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16 years is quite an accomplishment. Congratulations and thank you!
I think it is an interesting question about the loss of a local business vs the loss of a building. I think it really depends on the specifics. In the two cases you cite, I agree that the business would probably be a bigger loss than the building, but in other cases, I think the building would be a bigger loss. For instance, no insult to Dogwood Properties or the Capital Club 16 restaurant, but I’d rather lose either of those businesses than the NRHP-listed Capital Club Building, which, IMO is one of the best buildings downtown.
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I liked your point, and as always I like your writing. Congratulations on 16 years. For a blog, this is ancient, it does not show its age. 
I believe it is that balance between building lost and business lost. It can much harder to fight to save an unused building - though it is often important to try. The Dodd-Hinsdale house stood largely abandoned for years - as did a number of homes on N. Blount. The loss of a local business can be as or even more detrimental to the fabric of a town/neighborhood/community. After all, a building is just a building, but they give us the fabric of life, the background, the atmosphere. A business is people and community that animates the inanimate. Losing a business and a building is usually the greatest tragedy of all.
Change is unrelenting. It is the only thing in history that remains constant. It cannot be stopped. The best we can do is to try to guide, manage and direct the change in a way that preserves some of the fabric of the past while invigorating the life of the community and the neighborhood.
Thanks again for all you do here Leo, and for creating this place, this space and this community.
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I’ve been reading Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities and she has a great chapter on this point. I’ll save a long post for another day when I have time to consider her thoughts with respect to Raleigh, but for now, her point boils down to: older buildings allow for cheaper leases which allows for riskier businesses which don’t look the same as the other businesses around them, and more vibrant and lively streets.
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*Unless you’re the owner of City Market. Then you charge way above market rate while sipping drinks in California.
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*drinks made with liquor that he bought at the grocery store, no less