And no complaints of them destroying the character of the neighborhood?
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It took a single family home and made it a more expensive single family home, the neighbors probably helped out.
Others of us were less happy to see a Milton Small designed international-style residence that was listed in the National Register of Historic Places get renovated so heavily, although it did try to stay in character.
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Didn’t that ‘Small residence’ also get the ‘Love it or List It’ treatment before it was sold and the current owners did the reno with In Situ ?
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Yeah. From what I heard from the neighborhood grapevine, the house looked cool but was really hard to live in in its original form.
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I suppose hard to live in for rich people who “need” lots of space.
Yeah. I bet poor folks would not find that place hard to live in. It’s all perspective.
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Really good podcast on a new paper that analyzes how building heights change the cost of a building. Lots of good info on the idea of “donuts” where costs jump up between for example 7 to 8 stories. These “donuts” end up being heights where no one builds because it’s so much more expensive that you would really want to build 12 if you are over 7. Just an example but stuff that has been discussed here on the dtr community a lot. Would be cool to dig into the paper because they apparently have the data regionally where it is different across the country. Makes you wonder if our zoning height could be tuned to this for our regional costs. [UCLA Housing Voice] Ep 78: Building Height and Construction Costs with Anthony Orlando #uclaHousingVoice
UCLA Housing Voice - Ep 78: Building Height and Construction Costs with Anthony Orlando - Podcast Addict via @PodcastAddict
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This provision that could limit how cities downzone property is being framed as a limit on transit-oriented development. Maybe I’m having a case of the Mondays but can someone explain this? I’m not seeing a major issue here.
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Some opposition to the TOD zoning overlay has come from retail landlords who have existing auto oriented buildings (like drive throughs or strip malls) and don’t like the -TOD ban on expanding those. The -TOD restricts those because they’re detrimental to people walking and taking transit.
For instance, the owner of an existing bank with a 1-lane drive through currently could add a second lane by-right. If it gets a -TOD overlay, they could keep the 1 lane indefinitely, and they’d gain the right to build more vertically, but they’d lose the right to add more drive through lanes. Even though the number of land use rights is increasing, other specific land use rights are being taken away.
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So if this bill limits downzones how is TODing those auto shops and drive thrus a problem?
" Raleigh, for instance, is worried the ban could retroactively affect its transit overlay district on New Bern Avenue’s bus-rapid transit route that prohibits some future uses."
Oh god. Leave it to the General Assembly to screw over cities whenever they have the chance. 
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Of course, and being anti-transit is squarely in the project 2025 playbook. We better get used to the transit and density hostility.
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I usually try to stay clear of the ‘us vs them’ political banter stuff. However, I see this as a potential win for cities like Raleigh. When one side leans too far, the other side inevitably comes in like a pendulum at a wrecking ball party.
It’s basically the city planning version of a teenager yelling, “IT’S NOT JUST A PHASE, MOM!” and then two weeks later, coming back with a different haircut and a fresh existential crisis.
I guess that only works if the items the state government put in place aren’t too restrictive (I hope they’re not), but I could see this blowing up in their faces.
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I’d say that it could be a win for Raleigh at this point because zoning has been so generous. Future attempts to reduce densities within the city would thus be nullified. Usually, though, vesting development rights early on (e.g., in the Lucas vs. SCCC case) results in more sprawl.
There’s a legal doctrine of “vested rights” (see #8 here for a comparison of Maryland vs. Virginia) where different states have different rules about when development rights can be considered to be property rights (which are protected by the Fifth Amendment). In many states, development rights can be taken away up until the building permit is issued. This legislative change would essentially vest development rights before development plans even exist, putting property rights on a one-way escalator upwards.
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The state legislature will no longer has a veto proof majority after the new government is sworn in, so anything that they want to push through with their current veto proof majority will happen this month.
I wonder if the cost of building highrises in Raleigh is higher than elsewhere, at least relative to wood frame.
We build fewer high rises → fewer local contractors with that capacity → less competition → they cost more to build.
Could this be a factor in why places like Nashville, Atlanta, or Charlotte seem to have more high rise construction than Raleigh?
Or, is highrise construction a regional thing where the same contractor building a tower in Nashville or Atlanta would also potentially be a bidder in Raleigh? Or is the lower demand here for highrises (office and/or resi) the main factor pushing the economics away from this and into 5+1 midrise?
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Don’t think the cost is much higher but you just have a lot of high rise units which are more expensive coming on the market. You have the Mauve, two 20 story towers at the Weld plus the Lifetime Fitness Lifestyle tower to start soon in Midtown and another 20 story high rise at North Hills. I think it is the current financing market right now and rents have soften a bit in Raleigh too with more apartment deliveries (as they have in Charlotte too and Nashville too).
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Highrise construction in Raleigh no more expensive then elsewhere. Raleigh’s problem is its neither a large corporate market or a leisure travel market which keeps pricing generally down here. We don’t have the attractions in the downtown environment (be it jobs or entertainment) to command the high rents that are needed to support more highrise. The depth in the non discretionary spending market isn’t there. Its the same reason our hotel options are so bad for a City of our size and compared to these peer cities. People don’t prioritize and thus wont pay for a high rolling “skyline” lifestyle like other places and are more content to try and get by on the cheap here. We are the boring, family, and lifestyle sunbelt boom market that lends itself more to cheaper midrise construction in the core and a general preference skew to the suburbs.
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I think this hits the nail right on the head.
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It is not reasonable for Raleigh to expect to compete with the sort of tourism that comes to places like Nashville, Austin, New Orleans, or other similar sized cities that have a built-in tourism base. The real opportunity is for Raleigh to take purposeful steps to make downtown a place for its residents, and the city should prioritize the residents that are already downtown and should plan for many, many more of them. When people go to places like NYC, and as fun as the tourism stuff is, it’s the urban neighborhoods that vibe with an increasing number of people. We can build these sorts of places, but we need to be laser-focused on making that happen.
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