Lead the witness to discover a better path. Always as Humbly and Honestly as possible…
Damn the Torpedos…
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On a similar note, the City dropped a short new video for the latest Missing Middle text change.
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Edenton Street 40 story rezoning hearing is heated AF. lol Lots of accusations and infighting from some owners at the Quorum Center. It will likely pass but just imagine if downtown gets this much NIMBYism I feel bad for the non-downtown upzonings.
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I know we’ve beat this dead before but most of downtown should just be a blanket 40 story zoning (really more but….)
With the exception of historic sites and the capitol etc
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People living in downtown high rises pitching hissy fits about new high rise zoning will never not be funny.
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City staff member called on before the vote basically said the same thing. It’s downtown. It’s ridiculous to make any suburban type of demands on developers like 50 foot buffer zones (I think that was one of the demands from one of the condo owners). If you demanded 50 foot buffer zones for all projects in downtown nothing tall can be built at all.
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Its already zoned 20 floors! Whether something is 20, 22, 25, 30, 35, or 40 - it would probably block them all the same.
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It’s a hot market and there’s plenty of people looking to buy downtown because they want to be DOWNTOWN. If they really have an issue with it, they can move. No sympathy here.
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My favorite part of the meeting was when Council Member Cox suggested that the owner of one of the units on the west side of The Dawson “might have to sell their unit for a loss”… Said owner bought their unit in 2013 for $655k. Zillow lists the unit to be valued at over $1mm now. If they think a 40 story building next to them with >25ft setbacks is going to drop their value by over $300k, when the by right would be 0’ setback at 20 stories… I just don’t know what to tell them. Not for Cox suggesting this…
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Funny story. Out here in Wendell Falls, someone said the McDonalds proposal in our commercial district was going to destroy our home values 
Like the 9000 moms here leaving soccer practice won’t have that line around the block and that it isn’t the highest selling neighborhood in the triangle.
Some people really think the world revolves around them. It’s a dang downtown wouldn’t you want it to grow?!
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A while back someone on another website was talking about how $400,000 condos near them were not really affordable and people shouldn’t describe them as good for that. I was thinking they must be looking for a home under $250,000 or something. I looked up their home and it was bought in 2015 for $500,000 and is worth $1,200,000 according to Zillow (but only tax assessed for $800,000).
It just seemed odd to be the one who bought at $300,000 defending a $400,000 condo to the $1,200,000 homeowner on an discussion about affordability…
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Check Wake County Real Estate website for comps. Zillow is very inflated.
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Alcohol corner stores primarily in east DTR became hubs of crime (drugs, prostitution, etc.) and some of them were also small gas stations that had cheap, leaky tanks and were bought to remediate. Not defending the decision to use zoning as the tool, but I’m pretty sure that’s where it came from. The City even bought some of them to raze and turn into parks (like the one at corner of Lane and Idlewild).
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What’s interesting here is that the video talks about the “break-even rent for apartments”; They list 3 vs 7 vs 12 stories, but I’m curious about what would happen once you hit 20+ stories. I’ve seen videos that discusses where costs rise exponentially once you hit 20 stories. They also talk about 3 vs 7 vs 12 stories in San Antonio. The costs for rent with the 12 stories was higher than 3 and 7 stories in San Antonio which has a bigger metro population than Raleigh.
I completely agree that they should legalize 3-6 story developments “everywhere”. Since I know people will throw a fit about that, I think we are on a good way of allowing townhomes everywhere with the text changes in Raleigh.
I’m not against Raleigh having tall towers, but I don’t think we need them everywhere. Technically I don’t think Raleigh needs them at all since we aren’t that big of a city yet (again I’m not against Raleigh having them). China has severely limited high-rise development. Tokyo has limitations as well (although it is known not to have the most impressive skyline). There also needs to be more plans vs letting 20+ story buildings anywhere. Tysons, VA has way more skyscrapers than DC (which isn’t hard), but the area is car oriented. Dubai has tall skyscrapers as well, but it also is car oriented.
Was an interesting video to watch. Thanks for posting.
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The costs for rent with the 12 stories was higher than 3 and 7 stories in San Antonio which has a bigger metro population than Raleigh.
That has more to do with land cost than the size of the metro.
Yeah, but 20+ story towers look cool and are fun to be in, so there 
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https://community.dtraleigh.com/t/the-raleigh-wire-service/748/1611
I’m so glad to see this ordinance moving forward, but one point I definitely disagree on is the lack of a parking maximum for single family, duplexes, and townhouses, and another is the lack of a parking maximum for places of worship. I mean have you seen that mega church on Capital Hills Drive, the sea of parking there is just disgusting, and the church by Pleasant Valley isn’t much better.
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yeah, good luck putting any restrictions on anything religion (read: Christianity) related in NC. I mean we JUST started allowing alcohol sales before noon on Sundays last year. Bass ackwards.
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That the obstacle Raleigh needs to go over, one or two meetings after that. Let it up to the people in charge.