August 17, 2025 Newsletter
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Policy Brief #2: Understanding What Property Value Maps Reveal About Raleigh’s Past, Present and Future
Raleigh has grown enormously over the past two decades. That growth is clearly visible in these new property value maps developed by the City covering 2004 to 2024. Drawn from Wake County’s tax assessment data and visualized using total assessed value per acre, the map helps tell a much larger story about where the City invests, who benefits, and what that means for Raleigh’s future.
At the heart of the map lies a dramatic truth: property values are not distributed equally across the City. The highest per-acre values are clustered around Downtown Raleigh, North Hills, and several key employment and medical hubs like NC State University, Rex Hospital, and WakeMed. These spikes in value (shown as tall, dark spikes) are concentrated in walkable, mixed-use areas that combine housing, jobs, shopping, and convenient transportation.
RaleighForward Coverage & Updates
The N&O recently cited a RaleighForward breaking news alert from our July 27 Newsletter. The article discussed a recent court decision that ruled against a developer seeking to invalidate residential restrictive covenants in an attempt to build 12 townhouses under Raleigh’s Missing Middle reforms. Read the N&O article here.
Will Choi, a member of RaleighForward’s Advisory Board, spoke at a recent Planning Commission meeting in support of a rezoning Z-12-25 seeking to build up to 30-stories for a mixed use project located near the future Smoky Hollow Park along West Street at Peace Street. His comments perfectly summarized why higher density housing in Raleigh is critical for supporting transit improvements, bike and pedestrian safety and the City’s continued socioeconomic vitality. Despite a substantial effort by defenders of the status quo, the Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval to Council. Will’s comments were quoted in this N&O story. You can also watch a clip of Will speaking before City Council here.
As Will so effectively points out, housing supply is one of the key ways to improve transit and make housing more accessible to more people. The point about supply is further highlighted in this Pew Foundation article.
Articles and Resources of interest:
A recent article published by the Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law titled “Transportation for the Abundant Society” discusses how transportation reform is crucial to achieving an abundant society, yet remains difficult due to entrenched institutional and technical barriers. While land use reforms and infrastructure investments have gained political momentum, transportation systems face high complexity and safety risks in managing millions of vehicles, necessitating broad regulatory discretion. These dynamics foster a strong status quo bias within key agencies, impeding change. The authors propose targeted reforms to the environmental review process and institutional decision-making to better align transportation planning with abundance-oriented goals. They emphasize that these measures will not fully resolve the problem but can make intractable challenges more manageable. By grounding reform in a clear understanding of transportation’s purpose and tradeoffs, this framework aims to unlock the sector’s potential to advance housing affordability, climate action, and roadway safety nationwide, contributing meaningfully to the broader transformation toward abundance.
How States and Cities Decimated Americas’ Low-Cost Housing Option. Also from Pew.
Utah created a novel low interest loan fund dedicated for builders seeking to build affordable housing. Because of slow uptake, the General Assembly tweaked the enabling legislation so the fund could also be used for affordable condominiums. Read about it here.
Downpayment Assistance is a Growing Tool for Homebuyers, the New York Times reports. Raleigh has a similar program, but likely needs an injection of funding as the City has nearly exhausted the bond authority for its most recent $80 million dollar housing bond. There are early discussions about another housing bond for the 2026 election.
Montgomery County, Maryland, Passes ‘missing middle’ Housing Plan, the Washington Post reports.
This “Mixed-Income Housing Model” produces permanently affordable housing without direct public subsidy. Here is an explainer about how it works.
Converting Boardrooms to Bedrooms in New York City. Read about it in Bloomberg.
5 Policies to Help Curb Housing Costs Immediately, from Pew.
Opinion: True Tenant Power Requires Housing Abundance. Read the op-ed in IndyWeek.
New Home Construction Falls to Five-Year Low, Bloomberg reports.
From the Data Department:
Wake County’s median real estate cost dropped by $35,500 to $460,000, according to the Register of Deeds.
The Atlanta Federal Reserve recently updated their housing affordability tool.
Items of Interest in the Week Ahead:
Raleigh City Council will meet August 19, 2025. Here are some items of interest from Council’s Agenda.
During Council’s 11:30 Work Session, staff will provide an update on Raleigh’s assessment program for allocating the cost of street and sidewalk infrastructure improvements. Click here for the agenda materials.
Staff will present Council with the FY 26 transit funding for continued implementation of the 2016 Wake Transit Plan. Click here for the agenda materials.
Other items of interest:
RaleighForward is a supporter of emerging community engagement tools like civic assemblies. Last Spring, RaleighForward, the City of Raleigh, WakeUp Wake County and the National Civic League hosted an event exploring emerging community engagement tools. The National Civic League’s Nick Vlahos published this article about more ways to use civic assemblies to address the sense many residents have of being left behind by government policy makers.
Wake County recently announced a new $5,000,000 fund to help finance new affordable housing.
Oaks and Spokes, a local bike advocacy group has this cool crowd-sourced mapping tool to help navigate Raleigh Greenway conditions when there are significant weather events like those over the last few weeks. If you get a chance, check it out here.