Yes, she seemed like she was trying to bridge the two sides.
On the comp plan vote, there was surprise in the room that Forte voted no with Jones and Black. Several audience members near me gasped at that one.
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Agreed, she is surprisingly deft at stringing together complex ideas into easy to understand statements. She came to the very YIMBY housing summit I helped organize back in August.
Jones and Black are always going to be no’s, but I think Melton, Patton, Harrison, Branch, and MAB can get the big parcels and underutilized commercial sites rezoned soon, which will hopefully be a slippery slope to further height and density allowances.
I especially appreciated Melton’s urgency to get the TOD restrictions in place that prevent autocentric uses directly on the bus line. I know @John wishes the city had had that kind of foresight on peace Street with the McDonald’s…
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At the end of the day, the land that McDonald’s is sitting on continues to grow in value. I wouldn’t be surprised if it and the adjacent parcels to the west were assembled for a mixed use project sometime before the end of the decade.
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i watched some of it. i looked at realtor.com and form downtown to out beyond sunnybrook there 8 properties form 0 to 380 thousand dollars close to newbern ave…all over 300k. median household income in raleigh is 80k? reno nv did a brt lite. one long articulated bus made only 5 stops on viriginia street and ran every 10 minutes at the major casinos…think wake med and the county social service buildings. a good chunk of new bern is Country Club Hills and longview…acre size lots. unlikely bus riders. in reno, they also on the same street, had the Virginia street route…i think every twenty minutes but stopped at many more stops. with existing roads would this system work as well as a multi million dollar brt?
Thank you to all the supporters (in person annd email) and those that provided a bit of status/recap here. It sounds encouraging that there are a few more people in this city that are intelligent and can make sound decisions for a growing city vs drones that are only out to please the loud/NIMBY crowd with no justification and data, only emotions. Stupid arguments like sweater sizes baffle me mostly because they do nothing to actually relate to the situation but worse, I expect some people actually think it makes sense. I hope we get this fully passed in March and we can move to the next important city topic that will continue to need all of our support!
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I actually liked the sweater analogy that the proponent mentioned but I was disappointed how it was then misconstrued by a council member. Many of those in opposition had good points (need trackable metrics and historic displacement) but hardly any facts suggesting that the rezoning will do more harm than good.
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For those that want to take a look at the sweater retort by Christina Jones:
In my opinion, it shows her true colors. She either didn’t understand the public comment or she doesn’t think that we are in a major housing deficit. Someone who makes every conversation about and really drives home the need for affordable housing should know better.
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We should all send her some emails explaining how sweaters work. Or better yet, start a viral campaign to send her sweaters. She’ll at least take notice.
Don’t send sweaters she’ll think we’re too privileged lol
I was thinking from Goodwill. She’s not worth Gucci sweater money.
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It’s kind of like buying a sweater but not caring what’s under the sweater then you overheat and you’re not sure why but it’s because you didn’t pay attention to what’s underneath.
Or something….
(Taking a page out of Christina Jones’ attempt at a “logical” analogy at the TOD meeting 1/30/2024)
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The analogy was from Will Choi. He spoke just before me and had such a great analogy I decided to ditch my prewritten comments and make more of a personal appeal on the spot
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Oh! I was just going by the comment from the TOD thread. Sorry for the incorrect reference!
Walking to places should always be the best option, it’s a shame the city will downzone the ‘western’ portion of the line—literally the part closest to downtown. The only people that will benefit from this are of course mostly rich people in Oakwood and maybe a dozen people in east Raleigh that bought their homes pre-2010 and will get more money off the sale of their homes when they sell to the highest bidder, of course.
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You did great too 
I think it’s important for folks to hear that no, perhaps not every developer just wants to get rich at the expense of others. Some are just “regular” folks interested in building and making our city a better place.
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Thank you! I had a whole comment written up about car centric development, cost of car ownership, blah blah blah, but hoping that the personal touch resonated more. I think those personal connections are always more impactful for the council members
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Getting the supportive programs housed in the Comp Plan amendments rolling are an important part of this, so very glad they moved to do that last night. The rezoning aspect of this still feels clunky to me (…and I’m supportive of it) - glad to hear Patton voice sensible ideas around breaking it up into more digestible pieces that can be actioned now — and to Councilor Melton’s point - moving on the big pieces of develop-ready land around existing centers / parking lots (that’s already most averse to walkability) gets things moving while other discussions are made more deliberately around the neighborhoods of individual plots / histories along the corridor. Wanted to hear a bit more from one of the last few presenters in support last night who was getting into the specifics around mixed use development finances (his example was around metrics to achieve affordable and market rate residences over a grocery store on something like 6 acres…) but time didn’t allow. Hopefully he returns for future discussion of what’s possible. Kudos to everyone who showed up to communicate support last night.
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Yes, I felt like he “got it” when he said that! When I had mentioned towards the end of my speak that the OTB portion was all zoned back when New Bern was THE highway (before 87/264) going east from Raleigh and since it’s no longer a major outbound highway, it is extremely overdue for updates; at that moment I noticed his eyebrows perked up in a realization moment. (Branch & Patton kinda did too.) This is why I’m so glad I came, I feel like that was something none of them had even considered yet.
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Seeing the reactions and talking to some of the ‘no’ people, a lot of them also welcomed the comments from Patton and Melton. It’s like Patton said, she didn’t hear anyone unhappy about parking lots or strip malls getting redeveloped. There’s A LOT of lots like that along New Bern. Sure, you’ve got your people that will say no to any and all redevelopment, but I think those are in the minority.
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