https://go.boarddocs.com/nc/raleigh/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=D5XPRY6393CD
Missing middle is back on the Council’s agenda for this week. Will have to see what staff presents but would not be surprised to see some calls from some of the council to rollback missing middle policies.
Probably gonna force through unreasonable provisions so that MM is effectively banned.
wouldn’t the council just deadlock 4-4 on that?
There’s going to be a faction that wants to reign it in, but with patience (and perhaps some guideline modifications to the code text) - MM will work to provide more in-between spaces.
Look at Portland. The code fostered some reasonable creativity.
Sadly, ours has not yet fostered the creative aspects - just the speculative.
We may still find the purpose, patience and simpler permitting pathway to make it work.
Nope. More like 4 anti density, 2 grey zone, 2 pro-housing.
WHY? Literally what harm has this done?
iT’sRuiNinGtHeChaRaCTerOFtHeNeIgHboHoOD!
Ohhhh well now that you put it that way… I DEMAND A REFERENDUM ON MISSING MIDDLE HOUSING!!!
Why are we thinking this update may bring about rollbacks to the policy? If so, shouldn’t that go out for study/public comment?
Update from today’s meeting. The meeting was mainly about these two subjects. The Council of No doesn’t seem to want to teardown Missing Middle–yet; Patton even seems supportive so far though she’s on a crusade to make every project small (hates massing that is bigger than surrounding houses).
And of course about the Missing Middle lawsuit.
Don’t you just love when a squishy narrative like character is the cornerstone of an entire movement? Trying to hit it is like playing whack-a-mole. It’s like judging ice skating only by the artistic component. It’s whatever they want it to be.
I agree about tree preservation. But that’s not a missing middle issue. That should be implemented across the board.
I honestly think Patton has been excellent in general. But, seems like this meeting topic was nothing to be concerned about.
Love to see so many MM applications!
This talking point was stolen from a false alarm raised by NIMBYs in suburban Maryland.
It’s like saying that our libraries should have their acquisition budgets cut to zero, because we already have all the books that we could ever read. Which sounds plausible, but:
The thing that people don’t understand about zoning is that it’s meant to be a very outward bound to what gets built – to prevent buildings whose use or impact would harm public health. Zoning needs to be lenient, to allow markets the room to adapt buildings to changing social/economic needs. Over time, it’s become something very different: an outlet for control freaks to micromanage the world around them.
Note this graph of LA’s zoning capacity; when zoning switched from being an outer boundary to being a tight constraint coincides with when a housing affordability crisis really set in
Important context: over the past month in Raleigh, detached houses sold for a median price of $600K, and townhouses sold for a median price of $375K. So – we’re getting 4X more townhouses! For the 1/3 of Raleighites who can potentially afford $350K (and even many of the 1/3 of Raleighites who can afford $600K, but prefer to spend money on other things), that’s superb news.
Indy’s summary of yesterday:
Raleigh’s missing middle housing program is one of the most productive in the country, Raleigh planning and development director Pat Young told the city council at its meeting Tuesday.
Since the council enacted its policy to allow a broad variety of housing types to be built across the city in 2021, more than 2,800 units have been built that previously would not have been allowed, or about 30 percent of the city’s new housing stock during that period. Those new units include about 2,400 new townhouses, 180 duplexes, and about 150 accessory dwelling units (ADUs). Of these new units, 203 are considered affordable.
Still, the policy has been controversial. Last year, several homeowners in the wealthy Hayes Barton neighborhood sued the city in order to try to modify or overturn the policy. The lawsuit is ongoing. Due to the litigation and other disgruntlement, the council indicated it would be amenable to making some revisions to the policy.
The first steps to doing that came at this week’s meeting. Based on feedback from the community and an assessment of the legal challenges, city staff presented the council with two options to modify the missing middle policy.
The council voted unanimously to authorize staff to bring back incentives for tree preservation and ADU initiatives to consider adding to the policy. And the council voted to authorize city staff to bring options back to the council for consideration that would regulate form and scale of new missing middle development—or infill—to keep with the character of existing communities.
Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin objected to the use of the term “character” to describe how infill housing would interact with existing form in neighborhoods, calling it too subjective.
“I feel very strongly about the word character and how this is portrayed and I don’t want to be that person who judges other people with ‘character,’” Baldwin said.
The motion passed 6-1 with Baldwin dissenting. You can watch the discussion here.
Baldwin is correct. “Character” is vague and obtuse. Either articulate a hardline definition of what you’re trying to “preserve,” in writing for future consideration, or else you do not get to dictate what someone else gets to build on property they have purchased in your neighborhood.
Agree. I’m sure city staff will do just that though, so I’m not concerned about a vague description of “character” at this point when they are just identifying the intent of what they want to accomplish. When it’s codified into actual guidelines, those will be explicit about exactly what that means when it comes to scale and form.
Regardless, Baldwin has a point that it’s important for council to be careful about how they refer to text modifications like this, because there’s a risk of the public perceiving it as broken promises if the result of the text change doesn’t align with their expectations.
She is absolutely correct here.
Exactly. Every single person will have a different definition of what is or is not the “Character of the Neighborhood”.
