September 17: The week ahead in Raleigh
The City recently announced the hiring of Emila Sutton to lead Raleigh’s Housing and Neighborhoods Department, which handles housing affordability issues, among others. She replaces Larry Jarvis, who served in this role for many years. For more about Emila, click here.
Raleigh rolled out a new program to help residents determine what they can build on their property. It’s called “Can I Build it?” Click here for more information.
City Council meets on September 19, 2023. As was the case for Council’s last regular meeting, this agenda is fairly light. There are only 3 rezoning cases on the agenda and none of them involve development that will have significant impact. Here are a few agenda items of interest:
In a fairly unique situation, Council is being asked by a nonprofit affordable housing developer to initiate a rezoning on property where 11 tiny homes are proposed as transitional housing to aid people experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity. The property was originally put up for development by the City through an RFP process. For more information about this rezoning, click here.
Next up, the City is being asked to acquire property to help with financing the development of 144 units of affordable housing. By acquiring the property and leasing it back to the developer, it will ease the financing burden and allow the project to move forward. The acquisition also ensures that the community will remain affordable permanently. For more information, click here.