Design Lunch by Raleigh Planning 02.16.11

Please join us at the Raleigh Urban Design Center (133 Fayetteville Street, Suite 100)

Lunch Forum on Wednesday, February 16, 2011 from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. for the following presentation.

Quality Design and Affordable Housing

Georgia Bizios, FAIA, Professor of Architecture, College of Design and
Katie Wakeford, NCSU Home Environments Design Initiative

• How can design guidelines empower a community?
• Why is quality design so important in affordable housing?
• What are the opportunities to collaborate with NCSU Home Environments Design Initiative?

Contact trisha.hasch@raleighnc.gov, 919-807-8480, with questions or concerns
or visit the Lunch Forums website for more details. All events are free and open to the public.

City of Raleigh | One Exchange Plaza | Raleigh, NC 27602 | United States

Raleigh's Union Station

SHARING THIS TASTY TIDBIT:

Union Station

Raleigh's Multi-Modal Transit Center

A draft report for Raleigh's Union Station has been completed for public review. The objective of the design and development strategy is twofold: first, to prepare a conceptual multi-modal transit center design that coordinates the location of various existing and future transit service areas with convenient connections among service platforms; and second, to prepare a development strategy for properties within and in the vicinity of the transit center.

A public open house will be held on May 12 to present the report findings and answer questions. The Raleigh Urban Design Center (133 Fayetteville Street) will host two opportunities to attend:

12:00 to 1:30 p.m. - Informal information session with City staff available to answer questions

6:30 to 8:00 p.m. - Formal presentation followed by question & answer

After the open house, a 30 day comment period will be provided followed by the preparation of a final report. Comments must be submitted to Martin Stankus by June 11, 2010.

How to Save a House and Create a Home

The current Independent Weekly has a cover story on Builders of Hope. Bob Geary begins the story this way, embedding the beginning of the real story here.

It wasn't only the spike in Raleigh teardowns, though the sight of perfectly habitable homes being reduced to rubble helped Nancy Murray settle on a strategy. She already was on a mission to learn all she could about affordable housing and how to build it. Call it audacity, call it a ministry, but Murray—an advertising executive turned builder and social activist—thought she could supply top-drawer, affordable houses in good neighborhoods to working-class families.

Then it clicked: Murray would save the homes imperiled by teardowns and have them moved to a new location. She would upgrade them using the best green techniques while preserving as much of their old wooden bones as possible, then sell the houses at prices high enough to recapture the costs but below their new appraised values.

Such was the genesis—the biblical as well as temporal meaning—of the nonprofit organization Murray created in 2006, Builders of Hope.

This most amazing story of hope becoming reality can be read here. The chance for hope to recycle itself into the future is the best development of all.

An Over the Top Award to Builders of Hope for this Positive Development.

Hopes for a Happier Hillsborough Street

News & Observer has a story on the Hillsborough Street Renaissance Festival held yesterday.

Rhodes' association joined campus environmental groups, local restaurateurs and bands, and student chefs on the street Saturday. In one tent, people formed a drum circle, banging empty water jugs and detergent bottles. In another, they tasted barbecue prepared by the school's fraternities.

The idea for the festival started with three NCSU engineering students who wanted to raise money for campus charities and draw attention to environmental causes. But as they began organizing, a grander concept emerged.

They saw it as a way to erase the street's image as a divider -- home to rowdy bars that irritate nearby homeowners -- and turn it into a place where families, business owners and students could come together for a day.

Looking forward to that day to become real life again. Many of us remember the simple life -- where a trip to the A&P was just one stop that could be done on foot or bike from your home.

Extra credit for remembering the names of the places that Hillsborough was home to.

I'll start: Hamburger Hut. Gateway Restaurant. ...

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.

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/