" The Planning Commission is currently discussing TC-12-21 which would allow commercial activity in residential neighborhoods, effectively eliminating residential zoning.
While the purpose of the text change ostensibly is to provide for “fresh and healthy food choices” in food deserts, the City would have no enforcement power as to what could be sold. In fact, it’s possible that alcohol, tobacco, vaping products, and the sale of firearms and guns would be allowed."
If I’m reading between the lines correctly, the mayor wants to give my kids guns and tobacco? /s
These people are insane (Livable Raleigh) - who in their right mind truly believes a GUN SHOP is gonna open up in, say, OAKWOOD or something? They are borderline PARODY at this point.
After the recall “efforts” (LMAO), what else do they want? Literally JUST to block any new zoning? I mean I know you don’t have an answer to this either (haha) but I just cannot understand what their long-term goal is. ZERO CHANGE? Do they honestly think that’s realistic in a growing CITY?
I’d be interested to hear more about why commercial/retail was removed from neighborhoods in the first place. Would we be making the same mistakes from the past? Why do we think this time it’s different?
I am for retail and commercial in a neighborhood but since we essentially banned it at one point in time, what negative consequences am I missing?
Answering this might actually open up an intelligent conversation with LR but I just don’t see it yet.
The original laws separating businesses from residences were racist laws targeting Chinese laundries around the Bay Area, e.g., the one my great-great-grandfather worked at.
In a landmark of 14th Amendment jurisprudence, initial laws that specifically or implicitly targeted Chinese residents and laundries were overturned. Instead, cities like Berkeley learned to make their laws facially neutral, by banning all commerce instead.
Remember that, for most humans throughout history, workplaces are not separate from homes. Farms are both home and workplace. Not until the Industrial Revolution does the commute begin to exist. Most countries don’t have exclusively residential zoning, and almost none (besides US, Canada, and Australia) have exclusively detached-house zoning.
This is how certain “Livable Raleigh” luminaries were on the council. There was absolutely no nuance, everything was a catastrophe to them. The only lesson they’ve learned is they now need to cloak their reactionary nonsense in an “equity and social justice” agenda to get people to stop laughing them out of the room (and that’s still not a given, as our forums have shown). It’s like having Chicken Little as a council member.
I feel like they’re not capable of intelligent conversation, and if they were they still wouldn’t be interested. Would love to be proven wrong, though.
That’s the real problem, in my opinion. You can’t get a good faith argument out of them, and you never will. Personally, I think they know exactly what they’re doing. They “champion” whatever hot-button issue currently exists (affordable housing for minorities, for example) to hide a NIMBY agenda. I hate to give them credit, but it’s a good strategy. It’s just a malicious one.
Think this discussion is more appropriate in this thread - Missing Middle 2.0 text change
The “Frequent Transit Development Option” is pretty ambitious: would allow townhouses and apartments in R-4 and R-6, with up to 54 DUA in R-10, 21 DUA in R-4.
But the area where it could be applied is as yet unmapped: per the city’s website, the “City is in the process of developing a map.”
Maybe this is meant to replace the “TOD-R” overlay that was recommended by the EDAT report for Residential zoned areas near BRT, but not directly on corridors. The Comp Plan already defines a Core/Transit Area (which is on iMAPS), and table LU-2 grants substantial additional density - but it’s not operationalized unless you feel like subjecting yourself to a rezoning (aka gathering all the neighbors to verbally harass you for an entire year). Map LU-5 shows these C/TAs + Frequent Transit routes, but not any areas around said routes.
New Video about some frequent transit adjacent zoning changes from the city.
Something I have really been noodling on is the idea that the majority of feedback and comment people give to stuff around transit is not about how to make transit work, and so much of the pressure given to planners is about how to make sure a change doesn’t upset people. In a lot of ways the feedback is about how to make things that make transit work harder. So actively against making transit work!
There is a need for strong voices to say, “We should do this in the way that makes transit work the best!”. Anyhow, just my 2 cents and wanted to share.
