September 1st Newsletter
Hello,
There’s lots of work to be done, particularly as the City Council election approaches, so please DONATE or reach out to donate your time at eric@raleighforward.org!
REMINDER: RaleighForward will be publishing candidate responses to its Inaugural Candidate Survey soon. Look for it in your inbox.
RaleighForward’s next Happy Hour is set for Wednesday, September 25 at the home of RaleighForward’s Founder, Eric Braun. We look forward to seeing you between 5:30 and 7:30. The address is 3316 Rock Creek Drive (27609). All Council candidates have been invited to attend.
Be on the lookout for another Happy Hour announcement coming in October as early voting kicks off!
Eric Braun, Founder
Articles of interest:
The National Alliance to End Homelessness released its 2024 State of Homelessness Report. The report contains a wealth of data and information regarding homelessness across all 50 states. If you want to get a better understanding of the homelessness problem in North Carolina and across the Nation, take a look at this report.
This edition of HUD’s Cityscape publication takes a deep dive around using “local data for local action.” Better use of data is something that could really help drive local decision making in Raleigh, not to mention the greater Triangle.
Here’s an interesting NYT article exploring why more homes are not being built in America “Why too few Homes get Built in the US.”
Highways built during “Urban Renewal” tore neighborhoods apart across America. Now, Boston is starting to use “air rights” to allow building on top of some of those highways in an effort to stitch neighborhoods back together. This is the kind of innovation the NCGA and cities like Raleigh need to embrace. Here is a link to the story.
“What Kalamazoo (Yes, Kalamazoo) Reveals about the Nation’s Housing Crisis.”
“A Look at How Federal Plans Could Make Housing More Affordable.”
“The Movement for Improving and Expanding Home Repair Programs Enters a New Era.”
Reports and Data Analytics:
A Review of Barriers to Greater Use of Manufactured Housing for Entry-Level Home Ownership
For those interested in learning about the history and impact of Federal Housing Vouchers, take a look at this symposium exploring 50 years of housing vouchers.
Items of interest in the week ahead:
Council meets on September 3, 2023. It’s a fairly light agenda, which is typical as an election approaches. However, there is a significant rezoning case to consider:
Rezoning Z-55-23 seeks to upzoning approximately 18 acres located along Computer Drive near its intersection with Six Forks Road and also bounded by the 440 Beltline. The property is separated from North Hills development by the Beltline. The applicant is seeking Office Mixed Use 20-stories with SHOD-2 Overlay rather than the current 3-story maximum. There is a relatively meaningless condition related to the potential inclusion of affordable housing units because the developer is unlikely to build over 954 residential units. Even if it does provide them, they are only required to be affordable to people making 80% of Area Median Income. Raleigh needs to find ways to build deeply affordable units. The market can address housing affordability for people making 80% AMI by simply adding more supply.
Another issue of concern is how close this potentially intense development will be located to the on-ramp from Six Forks to the Beltline. A development with the potential for this amount of intensity will significantly impact Six Forks Road in this area because no planned improvements are contemplated for this portion of Six Forks Road. Adding a traffic light is also problematic due to the proximity of the existing traffic light at Ramblewood Drive and 440.
Other items of interest:
1. On August 17, the City of Raleigh Hosted an Affordable Housing Summit. The keynote speaker was Greg Colburn, author of “Homelessness is a Housing Problem.” We highly recommend watching the video replay. You can also review speaker presentations here.
2. Back in March, City staff provided a presentation about housing and homelessness to residents of District A. The presentation contains some interesting information and data regarding where and how the City deploys resources to address housing affordability and homelessness. Here is a link to the presentation.