I think that we need to step back and ask ourselves what our goals are and then think about our decisions vis-a-vis those goals. Why do we support missing middle housing? What outcomes do we want to see from increasing housing density? What are we really trying to accomplish? What does success look like?
At the end of the day, I fear that this fight in Hayes Barton is going to continue to be a distraction because I don’t see how it accomplishes enough of the real goals. There’s not going to be any affordable housing coming out of it. It isn’t going to create car light/independent density. It isn’t going to increase ridership on current or future transit. What it will unfortunately do is spread a narrative among all single family home owners across the city that they are all under attack. Guess what? There are more of them than there are those of us who support the goals that density provides us for our future. This could end in disaster if the city isn’t careful. At the end of the day, the townhouse project in Hayes Barton is not about any of the goals that the city has. It’s just about making money for the developer. Sure there will be increased tax revenues for the city, but that’s about it.
I’ve said it before but I think that the city needs to fight for density at low hanging fruit locations first and start with ADU’s in single family neighborhoods as a first step. We should be pushing development in key locations to create more car-light neighborhoods and at future locations for transit stops. We should be shaping dying strip center locations to be more mixed use and dense. We should be looking for places to demonstrate how successful mixed use projects will improve neighborhood experiences and not “ruin” them as the Hayes Barton narrative is presuming.
To me, missing middle is about diversity of building scope within neighborhoods to increase housing stock with ‘light density’ without drastic change ( which, irony…right?). Some secondary benefits are possible, which in my mind yield greater vibrancy of the neighborhoods…Totally agree that this HB example is an outlier to the goals of MM and that a better discussion / rollout around what we hope will happen with MM was / is needed but opposition in this world is often binary rather than nuanced, so part of me wonders if it matters anyway. If the town barkers only show up when they rail against something, you never hear the quiet sound of approvals in the background…Maybe it would’ve been smarter to try this as a pilot program in some but not all neighborhoods but that approach is fraught with its own issues at inception, so I’m kinda behind the rip the band-aid off approach here with the caveat that more education sh/could’ve happened on the front end to maybe salve some of the misunderstanding that exists…
People are just going to have to get over it. If you take missing middle away, effectively, this is what it does. It creates only one mechanism of increasing density in the city. That mechanism is assembling multiple lower value properties together and then rezoning, recombining, and building a massive multi-million dollar development… It takes power from small to medium size developers and concentrates it in the hands of large developers with deep pockets.
Eliminating missing middle also consolidates density into those areas that are easier and cheaper to assemble properties. Those are predominantly rental properties in lower income/lower value areas, which are more likely to house folks that are struggling to live here, let alone buy a property. If anyone cares about displacement, gentrification, and affordable housing, then they care about reducing the redevelopment pressure that has been concentrated into the hands of large developers with deep pockets, hunting, cheap property that can be assembled easily.
Hayes Barton needs to be canceled on this topic
It would be wonderful to cancel Hayes Barton on this issue, but I think it would be unwise as it’s currently the epicenter of the resistance community and the mechanism that is currently being used to unwind policy that moves us toward more housing density across the entire city.
And missing middle is the epitome of Density. By erasing it affordable housing erased and would give them what they hate.
Agreed. I’m not a cancellor (lol). Just making a point
Not really. It’s just that they are more vocal. The majority don’t really care or have an opinion. The ones who support it don’t really have a motivation to go and speak in support of it. I’m not sure how many people showed up at this meeting, but I’d take into consideration the amount of people who showed up only as a percentage and compare it to the residents within the area. There’s data for this, but from what I have recollected years ago, I would expect there to be more than 50k (on a very conservative guess) within 2.5 miles of Hayes Barton. If only 500 people showed up and spoke against the meeting, then that’s only 1% of your population.
Please explain because I don’t see how this could end in disaster. Worst I could see is city councilors not being voted back. What I’ve stated before, councilors were voted in because of what they campaigned for. If you campaigned for “greater housing types”, then you should push for it even though a vocal few complain.
This could end in disaster if the city rolls back the changes because of the vocal few. It’s not going to solve anything by rolling back the text change. The text change isn’t allowing big complexes to be built so the complaints are overstated. There’s no affordable homes in Hayes Barton so there’s minimal gentrification going on there (if any). They have the funds to move someplace else if they don’t like it. In lower income areas, some residents don’t have this luxury and are still forced out.
This sentiment I believe is on the racial and ethnic lines, I said that awhile go. Hayes Barton I know is a white neighborhood,
True but again, it’s all about race. But the city will pass these zoning text.
Showed her WHOLE ass with that line. Also “enjoyed” this:
"Kathleen Payne, who lives in East Mordecai, said some of the missing middle changes are worthwhile, but she’s unsure how much they will matter. “I think it’s a good idea,” she said. “But I don’t know if the city’s housing stock is ever going to get to the volume that housing prices will come down. … It’s a market force. How do you address a market force?”
Uhhhhh, by building more housing? These people have been sh*tting in their gold-plated toilets and eating off a silver platter just living comfy for so long, they’ve completely lost touch with reality.
I’ve got one of the next Missing Middle meeting on my calendar, going to try and make it to try and support. This one.
Thursday, February 2, 2023
6-8 p.m. Dix Park, the Greg Poole, Jr. All Faiths Chapel
1030 Richardson Dr.
There’s more to housing affordability than just building more housing. Land, materials, and labor costs play a big part in affordability and nobody is going to take a loss or break even to build more housing.
Existing housing that is in need of some TLC is likely one of the market’s last options for affordability, but it too will be driven upward by the costs of new housing.
That said, restricting housing construction will only exacerbate affordability, so I am not saying that building plenty of housing doesn’t have its place in managing the issue.
My point was that her basically saying “housing supply will never meet the demand enough to bring prices down so let’s not build any new housing in our neighborhoods at all” is uhhhhhh just about the dumbest thing she’s probably said this week (I assume she says many dumb things that don’t align with reality on a daily basis, judging by her actual INSANE quote).
as a person born in raleigh in 1969 the half steps to meaning affordable housing for…cashiers, quick stop employees, dairy stockers at Walmart might mean some type of 5 percent of ‘every new thing’ built being 80 percent to 60 percent of ami. doable? maybe a fantasy. it seemed years back that Westinghouse assemblers, nortel solderers etc got a pretty good wage to meet the housing available. if the past paradigm has disappeared where tech draws in many at higher wages were assembly drew in some at modest wages at the modestly growing housing rate, maybe things have really changed.
Interesting article on the pros (and cons) of the “15-minute city” zoning and urban planning concept: Is the tiny little neighborhood the city of the future? | Cities | The Guardian
I read the article and would say the “cons” are overstated as far as a 15 minute city goes. The cons listed are: “tyrannical bureaucrats can decide by fiat where you’re ‘allowed’ to drive”, no guarantee that you can find work a short distance away, rich people won’t shop in poor neighborhoods, many black and brown neighborhoods in this country don’t have those amenities, and the 15 minute city will damage downtowns (“With commuters already more or less gone from downtowns, those once-booming hubs may need to diversify most of all. The 15-minute city may fulfill the desire for convenience in the suburbs. But for every half-empty office district, it’s a lifeline.”).
The cons listed are acting as if these are things that will be caused by a 15 minute city. The problems mentioned are issues that already exist. As it is already, there is no guarantee that people can find work a short distance away. Some of this is on choice. It is well known that some people will choose to live 45+ minutes away if it means they can have a bigger yard or a bigger house. Other reasons will be to save on housing costs due to the shortage of housing. With improved density, the job opportunities within an area will increase. The main point is that a 15 minute city will not prevent people from finding work a short distance away. It is not a new problem.
Another point is stating that 15 minute cities could entrench urban segregation. Again this presents the idea as if this doesn’t happen already. I would be curious how many rich people drive to poor neighborhoods to shop. I wouldn’t expect less rich shoppers in poor neighborhoods with a 15 minute city.
Again with the proper density, poor neighborhoods will have access to amenities. If we take a poor area like West Oakland, we can find that on the west end of West Oakland, there is a 15 minute (admittedly 16 minute according to Google) bike ride to Summit Health Center. There is another closer option as well. West Oakland does have grocery stores but I will admit that you are going to have to go 3 miles (about 20 minutes) if you want to go to a rich Whole Foods Market.
If we look at a rural town of Scottsbluff, NE (pop ~ 14k-16k), you fill find that one edge of the city to the other is less than 3 miles. This means that a vast majority of the city should be within a 20 minute or less bike ride of any other part of the city. I am pretty sure that not every neighborhood in this city is rich. This shows that both large and small cities are able to provide amenities to rich and poor neighborhoods alike.
Finally when discussing the “prosperous enclaves” to stay in place and having their case stay in the suburbs too, sure, let those dollars stay out in the suburbs. At the same time, let’s disinvest in the infrastructure that allows those commutes to be convenient. Let’s see if living arrangements change and if people still decide to live so far away from work. Let’s also keep the tax dollars local.
In reality, the only thing that’s blocking successful 15 minute cities is appropriate density and bad zoning. Cities were not always sprawling and had smaller city limits. In another reality, suburbs technically could be 15 minute cities as well. If people were to choose to work in their town, then this would also be a way of a 15 minute city as many cities do have amenities they need in town. It’s the sprawling areas where a 15 minute city will not be successful.
im not quite sure about what improved density means. in the early 80s, acre lot longivew was about a mile walk, and if you drove to longview sc, a piece of cake to get groceries, drugs store scripts and hand tossed pizza. in Brentwood in the mid late eighties, a walk or bike or drive was EASILY accomplished within tamed neighborhood streets to a grocer, a radio shack, a dry cleaner, a seafood restaurant, a gay bar (for a while), a Mcdonalds and a shoneys. i know, not nearly as shiek as today but it served a purpose. in the late 80s and early 90s in quail hollow…ok 2 mile walk within a neighborhood to old north hills and maybe a fraction of a mile to a wendys, an outback steakhouse, a darylls (applbeees like menu), a grocer, a dunkin doughnuts and a bojanagles. in the 2000s on larkdale court in north ridge villas…christ, we had a french restaurant in walking distance, a harris teeter, chinese, hardees biscuits, chipotle, a gym, a card shop, and 3 banks. granted…if you lived on fox run you had a bit longer trevail…but it was minutes or fractions of minutes. at dinner, from near larkdale court a drive to Boston market (years back) took 5 minutes, if that. i get it…it wasn’t esoteric highly crafted foodstuff. it was dinner. i don’t know how raleigh compares in commute times to other similar places now. but after work amenities always seemed relatively easy. while there was some challenges in the morning and at 5pm, though likely less worse than some other locales, i thought raleigh still had mid 20s (minutes) on average with regard to commute times. i know…some of the far flung stuff off of battle bridge and perhaps tw alexander might need tweaking. the improvements are likely in the works from what i have seen in council meetings.
We need to do all of the above, and more.
-
SFH-zoned land is 10X more plentiful, and 10X cheaper, than retail-zoned land. It’s unrealistic and unfair to continue exempting the 70% of land that’s SFH-zoned from inevitable change – especially when we’re getting so little of societal value from all that land. Low-density SFH-zoned land produces only houses that are unaffordable, unsustainable, and even do a terrible job at meeting our actual 21st-century population’s housing needs. Most of the changes that are legally allowed in SFH-zoned areas (McMansion teardowns, fix-and-flips, illegal rooming-houses) are socially harmful, and that policy failure demands a policy response. There’s little that can be done to make SFZ more sustainable without, well, upzoning it or abandoning it.
-
Getting us to a place where all places are changing slowly, rather than a few places changing quickly, requires casting the widest possible net for redevelopment. Redevelopment happens slowly: <10% of properties change hands every year.
-
The streetcar suburban fabric (e.g., Hillsborough by NCSU) was always low-rise or even single-story retail in front, with low-rise multifamily behind. The 1990s planners’ consensus of shoving apartments onto arterials to placate SFH-owners (a) is patently ahistorical and (b) hasn’t worked - note that most of Raleigh’s strip malls and office parks have already been zoned for mixed-use for 10+ years, and yet here we are still talking about it as an eventuality.
-
That consensus focuses on the two costliest housing types: corridor apartments (with high construction costs) and large-lot SFHs (with high land costs). The “missing middle” types that economize on materials, labor, and land, were left out of that consensus, and therefore we’re facing both an overall housing shortage and more specifically a mid-priced housing shortage.
There is a whole seminar of unpacking to do here.
Improved density meaning not limits on housing of 4 per acre. If we mainly talk about 15 minute city for biking, the density doesn’t need to be great for the majority of people’s needs. I did mention the city in Nebraska that has about 16k people. The city next to it is about an additional 8k. So if we add in that amount then we could say that about 24k people would be enough to generate jobs/shopping/medical. Even if we just add more to be safe, then we can say 30k (I know it’s an exaggeration, but it’s to be safe). Even at 30k, within a 2 mile radial area (since 15 minutes biking 2 miles at 8mph), then the density would be about 2,386 people/sq mile. (Area of a circle with a radius of 2 = 12.57; 30,000 divided by 12.57 = 2,386.348 people per square mile). Of course this is based on residential density alone, however if we compare areas with similar density, we can find that there are jobs in the area. Part of this depends on zoning.
If we want a 15 minute walking city, then the density is higher. If we say it takes 15 minutes to walk 3/4 of a mile, and we keep our estimate of 30k population required for all needs, then the density becomes about 16,949 people (Area of a circle with a radius of .75 = 1.77; 30,000 divided by 1.77 = 16,949 people per square mile).
This is all generally a rough estimate. Given the low density required for a 15 minute city via bike, I wish there were a lot more multi-use paths where pedestrians and bikes can use. The sidewalks I see are quite narrow for pedestrians and bikes to use. Some are even quite narrow for 2 people to walk next to each other.
So ideally it could be argued that a lot of places could be 15 minute cities already (at least via bike). What we are lacking is the infrastructure.
Edit to add. This is my opinion. I am not a city planner or a data scientist. I’m sure there are discussions that probably dive deep into discussions beyond this. I’m only basing my assumptions off the populations of small towns as well as the services they have as a baseline of what could be done.
If anyone is out there this evening, make sure and say hi. 