Raleigh City Council: Jonathan Melton AMA

That’s a good question that I’d also like to know. I wouldn’t want to put anyone’s political career in jeopardy.

Hi everyone, thanks for having me back to answer more questions.

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Thanks for joining us today!

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I think we’ll see some new structure for neighborhood-based meetings. I’ve had discussions with many of the new members about their ideas and goals, as well as mine. I want to provide a menu of engagement options: online, in-person, and direct person-to-person (to help bring city issues to areas and folks who have traditionally been disengaged, the Community Engagement Bus will help with this issue).

I don’t anticipate reversing any previous decisions. Overall, I feel we all agree on many issues and there’s consensus on continuing work to address housing affordability, affordable housing, and transit. We did a lot of zoning reform last terms, I think the next step is incentivizing construction of the types of housing we made “legal” and working to find ways to encourage and ensure affordability. I think that will be a focus you see this term. I look forward to more discussions at our retreat.

I’m excited to be in more leadership positions this term; serving as our representative to the League of Municipalities https://www.nclm.org/ and as Mayor Pro Tem in 2024.

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I remember!

These reference photos are helpful. I also typically walk (or scoot) to my destinations. When walking, I of course rely upon sidewalk access. To be honest, I haven’t noticed this issue personally, as the projects I walk by have extended sidewalk access in some manner similar to the photos you sent. I believe this is a requirement of our city code. If you know of any projects in particular (you referenced 400H) I can flag for staff for review. Please send via email to jonathan.melton@raleighnc.gov

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Thanks. Will do! There are actually a lot of projects that don’t have any pedestrian access around their sites.

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No, for the Council public hearings there were staff errors with the notices in both December and January. Our planning director has implemented a new program in his department to address this issue and (hopefully) prevent it from happening again.

I don’t really follow the Planning Commission workflow that closely. At times they will ask Council for additional time to review a case (usually 30-90 days) and we usually grant the request. We had 1-2 of these asks at our last meeting. There’s just been a lot of rezoning activity the past few years.

Regarding backlog, I asked the planning director about this issue recently and this is what he said:

“Thanks very much for sharing – we have hired new intake staff since November and have reallocated other staff to assist with intake to reduce the referenced backlog. We’ve also moved additional permit types to “self-service” (ie: you can load the application yourself into our review system rather than having an intake tech have to do it) – please continue to share any/all feedback you get and thanks again, it really helps us improve – regards, Pat”

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It’s part of the Midtown-Saint Albans plan as an idea/guidance for future development in the area. I believe the Exchange project (formerly Midtown Exchange) which is under construction has plans to incorporate this waterfront into their development, and I think Kane’s Innovation District does as well.

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This is really a question for the County/a County Commissioner as they build and maintain our library system. They do have a library in the County Building on Fayetteville Street next to the courthouse, but it’s not very big.

On the city side, I know the planned new Civic Tower is intended to serve as a community gather space, with places to work/hang out, etc.

I haven’t received an update in a while, I’ll ask. I know last spring the plan was to see if material costs come down to avoid any value engineering. They were also still finalizing all the technical details. They did some of the underground infrastructure upgrades last year too. But the city can’t demo the old police HQ until they’re ready to move dirt on the new Civic Tower. When you see that building demo you’ll know the tower is incoming.

I think I’ve answered most of these. On non-car infrastructure, I hope to see an increase for those projects in our city budget this year (I think 2% from transportation department budget was allocated there this fiscal year; we can do better).

Smokey Hollow Park was mostly funded in the parks bond. I believe the city is also seeking some private funding (we might have an opportunity with the developer of the adjacent properties). In the meantime, there’s a crowd-funded skate park that will activity the north end of the property while work gears up on implementing the park master plan!

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That’s awesome! I’ll ask transportation department about plans/opportunities to implement here. Our West Street cycle track might be a good place to start.

I don’t have any information about the MSA, and there’s been no discussion about merging. We do take a regional approach on many issues, like business recruitment and development, and transit (big focus on commuter rail right now).

We do.

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I think the planning department and community engagement office are doing a great job engaging with the affected residents and businesses. Ideally, all issues are resolved before it comes to council for the public hearing. That said, I agree, the land use around transit is critical and we need to push through any of these growing pains. I think there’s consensus on this Council to get it right, and I believe we will also touch upon this issue at our retreat.

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What is the city specifically doing to attract more retail? We seem to have the housing game running on autopilot, but retail is sorely lacking and storefronts remain empty.

I think it’s a both and… There’s some key parcels along New Bern Avenue corridor that the city has addressed (duplex village) and hope to address (DMV). As for land that is privately owned, unfortunately at times land use planning doesn’t keep pace with private development. We saw this issue with the old KMart site on Western. Decades ago the state did buy some land in the Glenwood South area for a proposed rail line that wasn’t funded. They’re actually selling that land now (it’s a vacant lot near the West Condos as well as some mostly vacant warehouses across the street near Mulino). If a private developer owns other land and plans a hotel, I assume they’re building with the known risk that sometime (in the likely distant future) that the land/building could be subject to imminent domain (but I guess that could be said for many properties as plans often change/shift for infrastructure).

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How can the city do a better job of managing its own brand? It seems to me that Raleigh has woefully neglected its brand by letting others define it.

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  1. Yes, I believe this issue was partially addressed in our updated Greenway Masterplan. More work to be done there as well.

  2. I’ll check with BPAC on this issue. They really help lead policy on these text changes. I’m supportive!

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I’ll flag this issue for our planning director; I talk to him often about these issues and shared his response to a similar question above. We’re fortunate that in Raleigh we have (in my opinion) one of the most urban progressive planning directors. I know he’s receptive to reducing barriers to construction and improving processes.

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Yes! I raised this issue early during my first term, and I know a lot of work went into addressing some of these points in the updated greenway masterplan; we need to position the greenways as transportation corridors and connectors, which includes updated wayfinding, markings, lights, etc. Unfortunately, unlike Charlotte, we don’t have a rail line to follow for a “rail trail” but BRT will bring a similar environment along those corridors with a 15-foot multiuse path and art planned along the New Bern route to start.

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Do you have any thoughts on better synchronization between Triangle cities’ policies (should we do that, how you’d ideally go about it, etc.)?

It’s starting to strike me that there can be negative feedback loops that can emerge at a regional level because different municipalities approach things differently. For example, Orange County has a rural buffer that puts a geographic barrier for how much new housing can be built without very targeted and drawn-out rezoning cases, which has the downstream effect of straining housing supplies in Chatham and Durham counties. And now that Durham’s mayor is acknowledging her hesitance (bias?) against approving new single-family homes in southeastern Durham, it’s not a stretch to expect that this can also impact housing developments in Raleigh, too.

As a non-public servant who still loves policy issues, my first instinct is that our cities’ planning agendas, standards, and incentives need to be harmonized across our borders. Do you think the city-by-city approach (plus informal, working relationships between select agencies) is enough, or could there be more done?

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Folks have sent/mailed books to the Council office and we’ve all received them.

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Downtown Raleigh Alliance works on this issue constantly, and they’ve had many successes, but there are also a lot of challenges. There are many empty retail spaces in most new developments; I believe once we hit a certain population density the scale will tip and we’ll see a lot more activity. We’re getting there! A lot of residential units under construction now. Retail follows foot traffic.

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