We agree on a lot, but have to disagree with you here. When I first heard this was going back out a year or two ago, I thought the same thing, why don’t they just put an apartment building there, especially since satellite city was a 16-unit apartment complex on this site before it was condemned and demolished.
However, there’s no way the land trust (198+ yrs affordability) was going to be able to make a condo (or even larger apartment complex work) financially, especially on the front end. During the RFI stage, which asked builders to come forward with nearly any idea, only one of the 34 submittals proposed an apartment building, and it was a senior tax credit one, which would have been like extra double subsidy on land that was already being sold for a $1, and it’s arguable that seniors would have been best served by this location. Booker Park North is nearish-by and appears to be doing well at serving that need. It also would have been affordable for 20 years max or something similar to the Gregory Oaks apartments right across the street, which the City saved 15 years ago with a large loan to fix it up with condition to rent to low AMIs.
Also, No way to park this (even w/ reduced minimums for affordable units) as much more. Take for example the condos right up the street on Edention/New Bern, all above on-grade parking underneath and still not near the kind of density you seem to want here. I don’t like parking minimums but in a purely residential area this still makes some sense to not to overly fill the streets with all of the parking that would surely come with a denser development.
Most of the cases you reference where Council approved rezonings despite neighborhood opposition 1) did not include an NCOD that’s been guarded fiercely by community activists in this area (which resulted in the arros project on New Bern to be condos instead of apartments after the (previous) council rejected proposed changes to the NCOD). 2) likely would have drawn out the process for a long(er) period of time and AH units are needed ASAP.
In the end I think the land trust model, amount of amenities they’re going to put on site, ability to move a little quicker, and still use recent changes in the UDO to get nearly double the density that was ‘by-right’ just last year are positives that outweigh getting a handful more units on this site (due to various constraints). This has nothing to do with density, but I think RALT having Lavelle Moton, the NCCU basketball coach that grew up on this site and had the park renamed for him directly across the street, as part of the development and outreach team, along with some other hyper-locals on the team, potentially provides a bridge between new and existing residents both on this site and nearby.
All that said, I will keep pushing for more density out of AH and normal projects, and it probably wouldn’t hurt if others that care about this also (continue to) make their voices heard.
