Growing Pains

Cash Michaels has put together a PSA on the coming event for diversity in our schools.

HERE



And Steve Ford of the N&O explains how the clash of the cultures began.

HERE



Mayor Meeker certainly stepped in it when he recently tried to describe the problem facing older neighborhoods in Raleigh when it comes to the effect of this new school board's education policy. Quoting Steve Ford's article:

Don't be shocked, but Southern resentment of Yankees once was focused on the Northerners' determination to stamp out the Confederate rebellion and the practice of slavery, on which the ruling class of Southern whites believed their way of life depended.

Now we see a Southern mayor - albeit a District of Columbia native educated at Yale and Columbia - articulating that familiar cultural tension, but from the standpoint of someone convinced that the perspective of long-time Southerners (of whatever race) is more closely aligned with black residents' interests.

There is of course a disconnect in Wake between 1) the old-timers who went through desegregation of the schools, merger of the former city and county school systems and the crafting of diversity policies, and 2) the many newer arrivals, often settling in the rapidly growing suburbs, who put prime importance on stability in school assignments and on having their kids attend school with kids from the same kind of background.

No matter how it is pointed out, it is an important point. So hooray for the Mayor with goo on his shoes. Let's make sure all this sudden growth in Raleigh leaves no family behind.

Candidate Forum

2009 MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS

CANDIDATE FORUM

Sponsored By

WAKE UP WAKE COUNTY
LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS
RALEIGH DOWNTOWNER
RALEIGH CITY COUNCIL
CANDIDATE FORUM

Thursday, September 10th
6:30 - 8:30 pm
Doors open at 6:15

Temple Beth Or
5315 Creedmoor Rd. Raleigh


Election Day is coming up quickly and I sincerely hope that you will either vote early starting September 17th at the Board of Elections, or on Election Day which is October 6th!

Please consider attending this upcoming candidate forum to learn more about current local issues, as well as get your own questions answered!

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Raleigh's Hillsborough Street

Keep Hillsborough Street funky
Independent Weekly | 27 MAY 2009 • by Bob Geary, rjgeary (at) mac (dot) com
After the city's open house for the Hillsborough Street roundabouts project last month, some of us walked over to Players Retreat, a 51-year-old neighborhood saloon, to watch our Carolina Hurricanes battle the brutish New Jersey Devils. It was Game 7, and the Canes stole a 4-3 victory that night with two goals in the final 80 seconds, which caused everybody in the place to go completely nuts.

This, I thought, is what Hillsborough Street must've felt like in the glory days. ...


Virtually everything that gives Raleigh its identity is on Hillsborough Street or connected by it: The Capitol, downtown, the university, the old fairgrounds, the new fairgrounds, Glenwood South, Pullen Park, the Oberlin community, the Democratic and Republican state headquarters. I could go on, but it usually clinches such arguments to note that the YMCA where Andy and Barney stayed is on Hillsborough Street—or it used to be. There's a new "Y" where the old, Andy-era one stood, and the new one bares its back to the street.

Explore here.

or here.

Bob Geary Writes Again!

Please see the Independent for the complete article:

Imagine Raleigh without sprawl

18 MAR 2009 • by Bob Geary, rjgeary (at) mac (dot) com

In the run-up to this week's public hearing on Raleigh's draft comprehensive plan, the advice to city leaders from a stream of visiting experts has been remarkably unified. Success, experts say, depends on taking city life "back to the future."

The era of suburban sprawl is ending, these planners maintain, not simply because of high gas prices, but because it is fundamentally unsustainable. As Christopher Leinberger, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., put it in a recent talk, the more "drivable suburban" neighborhoods a city allows, the lower the quality of life becomes for everyone living in them. The fastest-growing market now, said Leinberger, a developer, is for "walkable urban" places: the kind Raleigh doesn't have, yet needs to create, that are modeled on what cities were before cars took them over.

Such places are far more complicated to build and manage than the suburbs, Leinberger said. But done right, these areas improve as they grow. They have more cultural diversity and housing options—and with public transit, the chance for people to save money by owning fewer cars, or none. If Raleigh fails to create them, Leinberger warned, "You will be left in the 20th century."

The question for Raleigh is where these walkable urban places should be. ...

Hope you will be at the Comp Plan Hearing tonight: details follow, courtesy of Bob's article:

• What: A public hearing on Raleigh's draft comprehensive plan
  
• Where: Raleigh City Hall, 222 W. Hargett St.
  
• When: Thursday, March 19, 6:30 p.m.
  
• What to expect: Raleigh Planning Director Mitch Silver will present the draft plan, a blueprint for the city's growth over the next 20 years
• What's next: After the public hearing, the plan goes to the city planning commission. It is expected the commission will consider the plan this spring, then sent it back to City Council, which could adopt the plan as early as June.
  
• More info: Read about the process at Planning Raleigh 2030: tinyurl.com/6l8myd
  
• Learn more about the plan for the city's neighborhoods: tinyurl.com/dldeyc
  
• Leinberger's analysis and the other experts' jibes with the basic goal of the comprehensive plan to curb sprawl and guide development into designated "growth centers." Yet it also raises the issue of whether the plan identifies too many centers—including some in places that can never be urban.
  

Love this:

At the same conference, Mindy Fullilove, professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, said true urbanism is characterized by a sense of connectedness that allows people of diverse backgrounds and incomes to nonetheless feel that they live in the same community and share an identity with the same "great place."

At a time of rapid upheaval in the world, Fullilove said, people yearn for the kind of stability and belonging that existed—before urban renewal cut through it—in the Hill district of Pittsburgh where her parents grew up. It was a relatively poor, predominantly African-American community of row houses, storefronts and apartments. There were no high-rises, nothing fancy. But it was a place where people believed "whatever problems you have ... you can get together and solve them."

Bob Geary covers affordable housing initiatives

Click for larger image • North Hills East, the massive mixed-use development under construction in Raleigh, could have bus transit in its future. But the city didn't require affordable-housing units in exchange for a rezoning that allowed higher density. A task force says that policy must change. Photo by Bob Geary

Pushing Raleigh on affordable housing initiatives
It's time for inclusionary zoning, advocates say
11 FEB 2009 • by Bob Geary | INDYWEEK.COM

A task force appointed by the City Council wants Raleigh to become the first major city in North Carolina to employ inclusionary zoning as a way of boosting its supply of affordable housing.

Inclusionary zoning—which would require that large housing developments include some percentage of units affordable to low-income buyers—is a critical tool given Raleigh's worsening shortage of such housing, task force members and advocates say.

"The question is, are we going to include people of different income levels in all developments of a certain size?" asks Chris Estes, a task force member and the executive director of the N.C. Housing Coalition, an advocacy group. "Not doing so now has led to a variety of problems, including concentrations of poverty, lack of entry to jobs and the whole school reassignment issue."

A new housing analysis published by the Wake County Human Services Department shows roughly 46,000 Raleigh households (35 percent) are paying too much for their housing, using the generally accepted federal standard that housing should cost no more than 30 percent of family income. The main reason: There's not enough housing available at lower prices.

Most of those overpaying are renters with incomes below 50 percent of the median household income for the Raleigh-Cary metro area, which in 2006 was $69,800 a year. At the low end, for families with incomes below 30 percent of the median—$21,000 a year or less—the housing shortage is growing by some 1,300 units annually, according to the county's analysis.

The latter is a countywide figure, but other data in the study indicate that fast-growing Raleigh, which has accounted for about two-fifths of Wake's new housing this decade, is a major contributor to the affordable-housing problem, not the solution.

Lack of housing options has also hobbled Raleigh and the county's ability to serve a growing special needs population, including persons with mental, developmental and physical disabilities, according to the report. Some 10,600 such folks live in the county on incomes below the federal poverty level, which is $9,310 for a single person, $18,850 for a family of four—and most of them depend on services only available in Raleigh.

Thus the task force, created in connection with the development of a new comprehensive land-use plan for Raleigh, is preparing to recommend that the City Council take a series of aggressive steps, including:

Writing new zoning laws for transit-oriented development near commuter rail or bus stops, requiring "housing diversity and affordable housing choices."

Using incentives to encourage all new mixed-use developments, regardless of location, to be "mixed-income" as well.

Creating a new local funding source (a tax or impact fee) to help fund affordable housing—along with a land trust or other vehicle to assure that it remains affordable.

Targeting more of the existing funding—which includes federal housing funds as well as periodic city bond issues—to housing that's affordable at the lowest income levels, rather than to those at or near the $69,800 median.
The task force is chasing a moving target. When it met last week, it was still debating exactly how to word its recommendations, which are intended to be included in the comprehensive plan. Meanwhile, however, the comprehensive plan, issued in draft form in December, is being rewritten by the city's planning staff in anticipation of a public hearing March 3.

Task force members were divided on whether to call for "mandatory" or "voluntary" inclusionary zoning, but most were either in the first camp or else searching for a policy that would require results—actual affordable units in all large developments—without using red-flag words like "require" or "mandatory."

Their fear is that the City Council, which shelved an inclusionary zoning initiative by Councilor Thomas Crowder five years ago and has shown no inclination to take it up again, will reject any policy that seems to lean too hard on developers, especially in today's sad-sack economy.

"I'd like to see us make some progress on this issue," said member Gregg Warren, executive director of the Downtown Housing Improvement Corporation (DHIC), a city-supported low-income housing developer. "I think if we say 'mandatory,' we're going to get shot out of the saddle."

"As a builder, 'mandatory' to me means where else can I [build] where it isn't required?" member Richard Gaylord added. "It's something my heart wants to do, but my pro forma [financial statement] won't allow it."

On the other hand, Gaylord said, if Raleigh ties an inclusionary zoning requirement to incentives like density bonuses or other subsidies that would boost the returns to investors, not cost them money, they'd be better received.

According to Estes, most communities that have inclusionary zoning do just that, allowing builders to go taller or denser in exchange for including units they agree to sell at prices affordable (with payments of less than 30 percent of household income) to low-income buyers.

About 400 communities around the country have inclusionary zoning ordinances, but only a handful are in North Carolina. Davidson, the college town near Charlotte, was the first to adopt a mandatory ordinance in 2001. Chapel Hill has a non-mandatory program with guidelines that encourage developers to include 15 percent affordable units in rezoning applications, which are otherwise not likely to be approved.

"You can always work backwards," said Claude Trotter, a former city planning commission member, "but if we're not out there pushing for it"—an ordinance with teeth, that is—"you'll never get it." Trotter urged the group to "hold firm" for a mandatory approach.

One group that is pushing is Congregations for Social Justice (CSJ), a two-year-old coalition of 35 faith-based groups and 19 nonprofits in Raleigh that has made affordable housing one of its two top priorities. (The other is alternative, community-based corrections programs.)

Alan Reberg, a minister at Raleigh Mennonite Church and chair of CSJ's housing committee, has been a regular attendee at the task force meetings. CSJ helped persuade the City Council to create the task force; he thinks it's worked well, and should be succeeded by a permanent affordable housing commission that can advise the city on what an inclusionary zoning ordinance should say, and what else it should do to tackle a serious problem.

"With 46,000 households paying too much, I mean, good night!" Reberg said. "The shortages are horrendous, and the city and county do—I want to say they do a good job, but it's just woefully inadequate.

"And it's a job government can't do all by itself," he added, which is why an inclusionary policy is vital. "We need every segment of housing providers contributing, because no one sector is going to be able to pull it off."

Raleigh Comprehensive Plan

Where we are in the process:

The Public Review Draft is here!

The City of Raleigh is pleased to announce the availability of the Public Review Draft of the 2030 Comprehensive Plan. This is a complete draft, made available to all interested individuals and parties for review and comment. The Department of City Planning will be taking comments from December 1, 2008 through January 31, 2009. Click here to browse the document on-line, comment directly on the Plan's text, and download a printable version. This page also contains information about where to browse a paper copy, and how to provide input on the document outside of the on-line tools.

What's next in the process?

The Public Review Draft has been released, and a variety of meetings and workshops will be held throughout the months of December, 2008 and January, 2009 to brief the public and appointed boards and commissions, and to receive input. The official roll-out of the Public Review Draft was held on December 3, 2008 at the Convention Center downtown. Most significantly, three citywide Public Workshops on the Plan will be held on January 13, 14 and 15 at various locations throughout Raleigh. Click here for a full schedule of meetings and briefings. All meetings are open to the public.

Begin your research HERE. You may be pleasantly surprised. Or not. Review period ends on January 31.

Triangle Tribune on Cameron Village Development

Community fights to protect integrity of Oberlin Village
Published Tuesday, November 4, 2008 | The Triangle Tribune | by Sommer Brokaw
RALEIGH - Neighbors are concerned that a six-story building at Cameron Village shopping center will increase traffic and encroach Oberlin Village, a historically black community.


Fallonia is a big fan of Oberlin Village. Nothing says Raleigh better than this nestled community.

Oberlin Village was founded after the civil war in 1865 when farmland west of Raleigh owned by Lewis Peck was divided into 175 acres bounded by Cameron Park, Glenwood Avenue, Fairmont and Hillsborough streets, and sold to newly freed blacks from slavery. By 1868, Oberlin had 750 residents. The community became a part of Raleigh in 1920. The population started to decline as the Great Depression descended on Oberlin as well as the rest of the country, and aging citizens with no social security lost their property. The next wave of property loss was during the 1950s with the widening of Wade Ave.

Nibbled around the edges, property lost for roads, the park, and office buildings, we are down to remnants.

Fallonia believes the the greatest danger to the integrity of Raleigh's heart is Not Paying Attention. If powers that be wrestle publicly with the past, the present, and the future, informed decisons will at least be made with intention. This is why process is so important.

Raleigh is traveling down a slippery slope with blinders on. We need more Community Involvement, not less, to make this the City we say we want to be. These are not NIMBY issues, but historical issues. Once the heart and the history are replaced with generic development, where will we be? Who will we be? Are we who we envision being?

CITY OF RALEIGH

2007-2009 RALEIGH CITY COUNCIL MISSION STATEMENT

We are a 21st Century City of Innovation focusing on environmental, cultural and economic sustainability.

We conserve and protect our environmental resources through best practices and cutting edge conservation and stewardship, land use, infrastructure and building technologies.

We welcome growth and diversity through policies and programs that will protect, preserve and enhance Raleigh's existing neighborhoods, natural amenities, rich history, and cultural and human resources for future generations. We lead to develop an improved neighborhood quality of life and standard of living for all our citizens.

We work with our universities, colleges, citizens and regional partners to promote emerging technologies, create new job opportunities and cultivate local businesses and entrepreneurs.

We recruit and train a 21st Century staff with the knowledge and skill sets to carry out this mission, through transparent civic engagement and providing the very best customer service to our current citizens in the most efficient and cost-effective manner.

Adopted: June 3, 2008

Turning our need for a community conversation into a political hot potato is another way of ignoring the issues. To be part of the conversation is to be a part of improving our future, not a roadblock to it.

Judith Guest, executive director of the Latta House Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes the history of the Latta House, which is a part of Oberlin Village, disagrees. "It's not that we're against development," she said. "The main thing is it needs to have some further review prior to the city saying there's a free pass to ignore the Wade/Oberlin small area plan."

Continuing to project that neighborhood groups are against development is misleading, untruthful and downright damaging to our collective future. We all rise or fall by decisions made by individuals, business interests, and the communities that support them. Thinking long and hard, and aloud, is required before we displace more of our valuable long-term residents.

It is a one-way street from destroying the past to an unconnected future. Planning is the process by which we do better.

Being PC about the PC

Todays N&O runs an update on the stalled Planning Commission nomination process.

Expansion of planning panel may end standoff
DAVID BRACKEN, Staff Writer

Bracken reports:

RALEIGH - When the City Council announced a proposal to increase the size of Raleigh's Planning Commission last month, it was a creative solution to a festering problem.

For several months, the eight-person council has been divided over two candidates nominated for one open seat on the 11-member commission. The division has spilled far beyond the council table and into Southeast Raleigh, a predominantly black area of the city that has been represented by council member James West since 1999.

It is about time the composition of the Planning Commission undergoes some public scrutiny. Thirteen members would certainly be better for a city the girth of Raleigh. As an observer of the process for several years now, Fallonia still cannot figure out what qualifications gets one nominated. And, FP must add, her up close and personal observation of the deliberations of the PC left her wondering how a concerned citizen knew more about zoning codes in Raleigh than some of its members.

Looking for the right word here, would the Raleigh PC be a shame or a sham for a city with this amount of talent and expertise? Researching other cities for their solutions to growth problems show either the Planning Commission, the Planning Department, or both, to be very involved in looking at long range consequences of rapid growth. While there is expertise on this PC, there is not always a majority of expertise making the quorum. Are daytime meetings a problem with this concept too.

You can begin your own research here.

From the N&O:

RALEIGH PLANNING COMMISSION

* Members serve two-year terms and no more than three consecutive terms, or six consecutive years.

* The City Council's proposal would increase the size of the Planning Commission from 11 to 13 members.

* Under the proposal, the City Council would appoint 10 city residents, and the Wake County Board of Commissioners would appoint three people who live in Raleigh's extraterritorial jurisdiction, or ETJ. (The council currently appoints eight Raleigh residents to the Planning Commission, and Wake County commissioners appoint three ETJ residents.)

* The proposal will be discussed at a public hearing Nov. 18 at City Hall.

Comprehensive Planning Committee Votes to Pave

City committee recommends paving Broughton lawn
BY DAVID BRACKEN, Staff Writer | News & Observer | Raleigh NC

RALEIGH - Raleigh's Comprehensive Planning Committee recommended Wednesday that Broughton High School be allowed to pave most its front lawn to add up to 100 student parking spaces. ...

The Comprehensive Planning Committee is the third city body to weigh in on Broughton's plan to turn its tiered lawn into a parking lot. The plan has received the support of the Raleigh Historic Districts Commission, but was rejected by the city's Planning Commission last month. ...

At one point during the meeting, Baldwin asked Mitch Silver, the city's planning director, how the Historic Districts Commission and the Planning Commission could have such different positions on the same plan.

"We're dealing with the memory of a place, which is not covered in a code," Silver said.

The full City Council is expected to vote on the recommendation during its Tuesday meeting.

Last Hope for Stanhope

View Larger Map

Letter to the Editor | News & Observer | Raleigh NC

In your Oct. 15 article "City approves two projects," council member Nancy McFarlane said, "I feel I have a real fiduciary responsibility to the city to make sure we have good development that would help the city as a whole."

McFarlane's comment suggests that she would be abdicating her fiduciary responsibility by honoring the city's comprehensive plan. The two are not mutually exclusive, and the councilor knows they are not mutually exclusive. To suggest that they are is dishonest.

The problem is that the corporation in question wants to make more than a profit. It wants to make a killing.

A profitable student housing complex could exist comfortably within the bounds of Raleigh's comprehensive plan.

--Tom Hennessy, Raleigh

Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Raleigh any more

FROM THE N&O | David Bracken | 10/07/08 | 2:53 PM

Raleigh Council OKs development proposals

RALEIGH - The City Council approved two development proposals today that have drawn intense interest from residents who live nearby the projects.

The council voted 6-2 to allow a developer to build a private 10-story student apartment building and a parking deck off Hillsborough Street for N.C. State University students. The project, called the Stanhope Center, was first submitted to the city 10 months ago. ...

The council also voted 5-2 to approve Crescent Resources request to rezone 2.67 acres at Clark Avenue and Oberlin Road in the Cameron Village shopping center in West Raleigh.

The rezoning increases the height limit on any building it constructs from 50 feet to about 85 feet. The building could include up to 28,000 square feet of shops and 232 apartments or condominiums. ...

More information about developments in Cameron Village can be found here at New Raleigh dot com.

Oberlin Village Needs You ...

Oberlin Village -- on the edge of Hayes Barton, Wade Avenue, Cameron Village, and University Park -- is on the verge of becoming a historic marker. When you know the story of this community, you have learned also about the history of the areas surrounding. This placard gives a glimpse of the rich history that Oberlin Road connects.

LATTA HOUSE FOUNDATION’S MISSION
As a steward to the community; we will serve as a vessel to promote the history of the Latta School, its founder and other historic facets of Oberlin Village. These offerings will be rendered through educational and cultural
opportunities for all.

A PROUD PAST BRIDGING TOWARD THE FUTURE

Following the Civil War, parcels of land were subdivided and sold to freed slaves. Oberlin Village would be one of Raleigh’s first communities of freed slaves. The land had belonged to a wealthy plantation owner, Duncan Cameron who was a North Carolina state politician and state banker. Former slave, James E. Harris, established Oberlin Village in 1866. He graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio for which the community was named after due to its opposition to slavery. It was also an institution that opened enrollment to African Americans. The 149 acres primarily consisted of farmland where its new citizens pursued self-sufficiency by erecting schools, businesses and places of worship. Some of the original homes were quaint and of Victorian style. Today, few can be found along Oberlin Road, Wade and Clark Avenues.

PLACES OF PERTINENCE

• Wilson Temple United Methodist Church- Founded in 1865, the church was established to meet spiritual needs and to provide ministry to the Oberlin community. The church continues to this day to be a refuge with open hearts, open minds, and open doors. All are welcome! - W. E. McLeod, pastor.
  
• Oberlin Cemetery- Located on Oberlin Road behind RE/MAX, the 142-year-old cemetery has laid to rest generations of Oberlin Village’s earliest residents. Some born unto slavery. The last burial is as recent as 2007.
  
• Latta University-A former school and orphanage for the children of freed slaves. Founded by Reverend Morgan London Latta in 1892. The former slave of the Cameron family was one of Shaw University’s first graduates. The historic landmark was lost to a fire in January of 2007. It was the last of remaining of 26 structures. The 2-acre site is currently owned by the City of Raleigh. It’s the Latta House Foundation’s desire for it to be converted into a memorial teaching park and cultural center.
  
• The following are some of the privately owned homes listed with the National Registry of Historic Places: Willis M. Graves House, Rev. Plummer T. Hall House and the John T. & Mary Turner House.
  

PEOPLE MAKE A COMMUNITY

A FEW OF OUR MANY CONTRIBUTING ASSETS

• Dr. James E. Shepherd – In 1909 founded North Carolina Central University. Formerly known as the NC College For Negroes, it was one of the first state supported colleges in the nation for African Americans.
  
• John H. Baker (1935- 2007) -served as North Carolina’s first black sheriff for nearly 2 decades. He was also a former pro football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
  
• In 1956, Joseph Holt Jr. and his family would be one of the first to challenge Raleigh’s segregated school system. www.joeholtstory.com
  
• Historic Oberlin Village had a host of educators, doctors and those who served in the military. Some honorably sacrificing their lives for our country.
  

MEMORY LANE

• “As a child, I can remember the early morning visits from the milk truck and the ice man. The neighbors who had farms would come by to sell fresh vegetables.” – Mrs. Minnie Pearce Turner Williams
  
• “Easter Sunday everyone would visit Mr. Arthur Sheppard’s flower garden for a corsage or lapel. They would also pick flowers to place on the graves of loved ones passed.”- Mr. Joseph Holt
  
• “There was a pond off lake Boone Trail where people would walk down for baptisms.”- Mrs. Rose Morgan Goode
  
• “I do remember during the summer months when gypsies would set up camp in Cameron Woods. (Location of Harris Teeter) They would come in their wagons and were dressed in colorful clothing. They would stay for weeks.”- Mrs. Mamie Haywood
  

FOR MORE INFO

• Contact the City of Raleigh’s Historic District Commission
• Visit your local library or book store to read Culture Town by Linda Simmons–Henry
• Tour the Raleigh City Museum
• The senior residents are your best source yet. Make an introduction today!
  

This outreach placard was brought to you by
THE LATTA HOUSE FOUNDATION
and sponsored by the
RALEIGH GRADUATE CHAPTER
OF
SWING PHI SWING SOCIAL FELLOWSHIP, INC.
www.raleighgradswings.org

Oberlin Village has been vigilant in its civic participation to protect its heritage, key buildings, and cemetery. This inside-the-beltline community has given up homes for the city to build Jaycee park, the Wade Ave overpass, and has negotiated with developers on Oberlin Rd to protect their cemetery and a way in. It is giving up many of their old homes one lot at a time for business development, on Oberlin south, and new homes, on Oberlin north, of Wade.

Having recently resolved a way to coexist with the new developments across the street from Wilson Temple, they are sounding the alarm again, the problem now being the Crescent project at Cameron Village.

The City Council will be hearing this zoning request at 1:00 pm on Tues, October 7. Research the issue here at http://www.savecameronvillage.com. See ya downtown on Tuesday.

The community’s history is often overlooked, and the village is often erroneously referred to as Cameron Village, a shopping center built in 1949 within Oberlin’s parameters. In recent years, development has erased much of Oberlin Village’s physical and historical landscape. While welcoming economic opportunities and urban growth, many descendants of the original villagers are ensuring that Oberlin Village is preserved and its history told.

Source:  Linda Simmons-Henry, Culture Town : Life in Raleigh's African American Communities (Raleigh, 1993) By Judith Guest, Latta House Foundation

Which Is It?

Bob Geary, over at Indyweek.com, has a piece on the current quagmire known as the Raleigh City Council. In the news recently have been several bones of contention: the Planning Commission nomination process, and a couple of development issues in the old town. Is a recommended read....

The real irony lies in these quotes, tho.

The problem is defined here:

While these issues were being debated behind the scenes, The News & Observer reported that the four councilors have been meeting and talking as a group throughout the year, a practice that is completely legal but which Meeker nonetheless called "improper" if they were plotting to block a development project.

Under the state's open meetings law, five members of the eight-member council cannot meet in private because they constitute a majority capable of making decisions outside of public view. There's no bar in the law, though, against four councilors talking together—and such meetings, in various combination, are common in Raleigh City Hall.

And a suggestion from the Mayor to solve the other problem goes this way:

The initial council vote, two weeks ago, was 4-1 for Vance, with Meeker among the three declining to vote. His MM allies want the mayor to follow his past practice of "governing from the middle," which meant joining four-vote pluralities to make a majority. Meeker was noncommittal in an interview Tuesday.

"I'm encouraging the councilors to resolve that issue informally," he said.

Exactly how does he envision that happening?

The Week in Preview

From the N&O:

VOTES COMING UP ON RALEIGH PROPOSALS

Two historic areas in Raleigh are the subjects of votes this week.

Today, residents of the Glenwood-Brooklyn neighborhood across from Fletcher Park near downtown will be watching how Wake County commissioners vote on the George's Mews apartment proposal. Many residents oppose an effort to convert the 26-unit complex into low-income housing, including eight units for people with physical and mental disabilities. The $2.14 million project is to be funded by the city, Wake County and state agencies.

On Tuesday, the Raleigh City Council will consider the Wake schools' plan to make a parking lot out of the front lawn of 79-year-old Broughton High School. This is an appeal of the Planning Commission's 6-3 rejection of the school's plan last week.

More Glenwood-Brooklyn stories here:

Bracken

Sheehan

North Raleigh News

Broughton's front lawn is covered here:

Sheehan

Planning Commission decision

Further reaction

Jenkins

Letter

NIBMY, LULUs, NOPEs and CAVEs dissected

The Social Functions of NIMBYism

United States Community / Economic Development Features Government / Politics Land Use

25 August 2008 - 5:00am
Author: Matthew J. Kiefer

Matthew J. Kiefer observes the full flower of NIMBYism today- no longer just satisfied with their backyard, NIMBYs have become NOPEs (Not On Planet Earth). This article originally appeared in Harvard Design Magazine, Spring/Summer 2008.

Opposition to new development is fraught with so many acronyms that you need a lexicon to decode them. The catch-all term is NIMBYism, sufficiently well known to merit an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, which identifies its first use in a 1980 Christian Science Monitor story. The term arose to describe opposition to large infrastructure projects undertaken by public agencies or utility companies, such as highways, nuclear power plants, waste disposal facilities, and prisons. (These are known as LULUs, Locally Undesirable Land Uses) It has now extended outward in concentric circles of opposition, each with its own acronym: NOTEs (Not Over There Either), NIABYs (Not In Anyone’s Backyard), BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone), and even NOPEs (Not On Planet Earth!). It is also possible to find references to CAVE people (Citizens Against Virtually Everything) and NIMTOOs (Not In My Term Of Office).

In any event, opposition to development has long since entered its second phase, targeting not just LULUs, but also ordinary development projects. It is now a standard feature of the development landscape, a form of ritual performance art. As a citizen activist and author of a NIMBY handbook unapologetically observes, “Everyone is a NIMBY, and no one wants a LULU.”

Interesting read. Whatcha think?

So far in Raleigh Central this month, Boylan Heights got the message for Central Prison's new hospital when the trees went down, Sunnybrook Road residents awoke to find blasting notices for a 200 ft water reuse irrigation tank in their backyards, and Glenwood Brooklyn learned of new CASA plans. We have heard "we did what the law requires" a lot in these weeks.

The scale of new development projects and our ability to measure their impacts have also increased over time. As the burgeoning land use regulatory regime has gradually supplanted planning, the effectiveness of public agencies in establishing publicly accepted templates for growth has also diminished. Perhaps more importantly, we have come increasingly to rely on private actors to build public infrastructure as a component of their large-scale development projects.

These factors combine to almost mandate wider citizen participation in development decisions. While civic engagement may be dwindling generally, it has undoubtedly risen in the development arena. Filling the vacuum left by minimalist government, atrophied land-use planning, and an eroding social contract, NIMBYism is the bitter fruit of a pluralistic democracy in which all views carry equal weight.

I beg their pardon.

When it gets to the heart of it, the author does say this:

First, although it goes against the grain of every project proponent’s deepest instincts, to overcome their sense of oppression, the neighbors must be invited to actually influence development outcomes within the bounds of feasibility. Ceding some measure of control over the design of the project eliminates the “zero sum game” negotiation that characterizes most approval processes. It often leads to creative solutions and empowers the problem-solvers and constructive participants more than the extremists.

and this:

A second element is compensation. Every project has impacts, and most fall disproportionately on an identifiable subset of people within a narrow geographic radius, who generally believe, whether they state it publicly or not, that they are entitled to some special consideration for allowing some broader social need to be met at their expense.

And the grand finale:

NIMBYism serves many social functions. In an improvised and very democratic way, it forces mitigation measures to be considered, distributes project impacts, protects property values, and helps people adjust to change in their surroundings. It is a corrective mechanism that, if allowed to function properly, can even help to preserve a constituency for development. We owe the continued existence of many memorable places, from Washington’s Mt. Vernon to the Cape Cod National Seashore, to the efforts of past NIMBYs. In fact, if the forces that animate NIMBYism – attachment to place, increases in homeownership, and public participation in government decision-making – were waning, we would lament this more than we now bemoan NIMBYism. Though it’s not so easy to do, the only constructive approach is to accord development opponents the presumption of good faith and to engage with them.

Is worth a read.  Good faith would go a long way in the actions this past month. 

R E S P E C T ... 

             --Aretha

A Positive Development

Raleigh City Council voted in the expedited NCOD on July 1. A round of applause is in order...

The OTT/ITB Award for June goes to the Raleigh CIty Council for this Positive Development.

WTVD:
Victory for McMansion opposers
Tuesday, July 01, 2008 | 4:37 PM

RALEIGH (WTVD) -- Raleigh homeowners hoping to protect their neighborhoods from so-called McMansions can claim victory.

The infill debate about how to regulate tear downs in older neighborhoods has been going on for more than one year.

Tuesday the city council agreed to adopt new rules about how neighborhoods create standards for homebuilding in their communities.

Until now it took neighborhoods two years to amend guidelines for how new homes could be built. The process has been streamlined to take about six months.

Under the new rule, older neighborhoods are able to have a say about nine different categories when it comes to rebuilt homes. Among the categories are housing height and the distance homes are set back from the road.

For more information, visit the City of Raleigh's Website.
(Copyright ©2008 WTVD-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=6239195#bodyText

N&O:
http://www.newsobserver.com/front/story/1127168.html

WRAL:
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/3136711/

NCOD Vote on Tuesday, July 1

In spring of 2008, an expedited NCOD process was proposed to the City Council by the Planning Department. After an unexpedited trip through committee land, it has arrived on the City Council floor (again) for a vote.

The text removed below was some cumbersome additions from the planning commission. It looks like it did when it left planning department without these cumbers.

Letting the City Council know of your support would be a fine reassurance at this time. Email addresses below. Our city council does not get visible and tangible reminders of the neighborhood support like it does the notes of resistance.

A. REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION OF THE COMPREHENSIVE PLANNING COMMITTEE
1. TC-4-08 - Neighborhood Conservation Overlay District
The Committee recommends upholding the Planning Commission's recommendation for approval of TC-4-08 as outlined in CR #11209 with the following changes:
a. In paragraph (2)b. on page 5 of the ordinance, removed the underlined language so as to reflect the original proposal as presented at the March 18 public hearing. (To not require immediate notification to all property owners if the Council initiates a neighborhood analysis, at the applicant's expense.)
b. In paragraph (2)f. on page 6 of the ordinance, revise the text to reflect the original proposal as presented at the March 18 public hearing. (To not require the property owners of an existing NCOD to file a new rezoning if the neighborhood built environmental regulations are revised or amended.)
A copy of the revised ordinance is included in the agenda packet.

Expedited NCOD Vote on Tuesday, 1 PM

1:00 P.M., TUESDAY / JUNE 17, 2008 / THE COUNCIL CHAMBER

. . .

D. REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION

(THE FOLLOWING ACTIONS WERE TAKEN BY THE PLANNING COMMISSION AT THEIR JUNE 10, 2008 MEETING,
BY UNANIMOUS VOTE)
...

4. TC-4-08 - Neighborhood Conservation Overlay District
This text change proposes to amend the Zoning Code and Subdivision Regulations by revising the process for individual neighborhoods proposing to establish zoning and lot size regulations specific to their neighborhood. The ordinance proposes to eliminate the lengthy Comprehensive Plan element (creation and adoption of a Neighborhood Plan) from the process and replace this with a neighborhood built environmental characteristics analysis. Additionally, the ordinance proposes to include within the Zoning Code the previously adopted and future built environmental regulations specific to the individual neighborhoods.
CR-11209 from the Planning Commission recommends that this text change be approved, as revised.

We have come a long way baby, but the pushback has begun.

In an effort to avoid what many perceive as a slippery slope, the heat is on to increase the slipperiness of the entrance ramp to this process.

According to those who covered the negotiations in the Planning Commission, Text Change Committee of the Planning Commission, and Committee of the Whole of the Planning Commission (moi included), there was a high degree of misunderstanding of the NCOD process; some did not understand that this was city policy before the increase in re-development activity (that was matched by a hold on this tool for the neighborhoods). This belief is supported by the idea that the town will-dry up if we allow pesky residents any tools, and some felt that allowing this would be a sweeping change.  

Somewhere - sometime - somehow - the following issues became a major concern: number of notifications (beyond the original one inviting the neighbors to a public meeting to disuss), who pays for the notifications (beyond what the fee already was required to cover), what is a majority (beyond how we define a majority currently), how to count landowners (more if by land or once if by person).

The COW voted to recommend adoption of TC-4-08 with the following changes:

• Notification of all property owners when NCOD application is approved by City Council for study by the Planning Department.
  
• Require property owner list with initial NCOD application. This is similar to requirement for a rezoning petition.
  
• Require NCOD applicant to pay for/process additional initial mailing. It was not clear if the COW was recommending that the applicant also be responsible for the notification of the neighborhood meeting. 
  

The COW also included in its motion that the following be considered separately from the current NCOD TC.  Only changes in the existing NCOD TC can be considered at this time. 

• Consider future Text Change to increase majority for NCOD rezoning - 60%. 66.7%, 75%, etc.- to protect "property rights."
  
• Consider future Text Change to increase number of signatures (beyond the 3 now proposed) required for submittal of NCOD application. 
  
• Consider future Text Change to make the requirement for NCOD zoning petition to be majority of owners of property (area) not parcels.
  
• Consider future Text Change to remove requirement that building permits on property with a pending zoning change meet both the existing and proposed zone requirements.
  

It does not take a NASA engineer to see what is going on here. 

Please let the City Council know what you think. Links are provided below. Anyone who comes to the City Council meeting will get a warm fuzzy feeling from being an advocate for preserving the past for the enjoyment of future generations. 

Best Quote of the Month:

Because we're growing,we can truly be selective about what development we allow. We ask, does this project really have the long-term potential to enhance the quality of life? 

--Debra Campbell, Planning Director for the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County

How about it Raleigh? Can we do this the right way, where everyone's rights are protected?