RALEIGH - About 70 Boylan Heights residents turned out for a meeting Tuesday night, many of them angry to be learning about a massive expansion of Central Prison only after construction got under way.

The $151 million project, which includes a five-story inmate medical center and mental hospital, won unanimous approval from the Raleigh City Council in June 2007 with little debate.

Minutes from that 2007 meeting show that only one person spoke at the required public hearing.

But many of the prison's residential neighbors said Tuesday they received no notification. Otherwise, they would have been at City Hall to speak out against the project, which under zoning rules required the approval of a special-use permit.

The neighbors said they were unaware of the expansion project until last week, when trees and old prison buildings were bulldozed to make way for the 315,000-square-foot expansion.

"No one had heard of it at all," said Chris Johnson, a member of the Boylan Heights Neighborhood Association. "Had the public been informed about this, it would have been controversial."

Mayor Charles Meeker, who lives on Boylan Avenue, voted in favor of the project. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Raleigh Planning Director Mitchell Silver said homeowners whose property is within 100 feet of the prison boundary should have received letters notifying them of the project and the public hearing. A legal notice also would have run in The News & Observer classified ads, he said.

"We did what we are legally required to do," Silver said. "The public sometimes wants more notice than is required."

Who was notified

A list of names and addresses provided by the planning department show that 62 letters were mailed.

About 50 of those letters appear to have been mailed to landlords with addresses outside Boylan Heights -- including Jesse A. Helms, the recently deceased former U.S. senator.

Landlords who own multiple houses received more than one, including one Raleigh property management firm that was sent eight copies.

Absent from the list, however, was the Boylan Heights Neighborhood Association.

When Johnson and others learned of the project in recent days, a neighborhood association meeting was hastily scheduled for Tuesday night.

As it became clear that dozens of people wanted to attend, the location of the meeting was changed from a neighborhood house to a large room at the prison, which the warden offered for the event.

Neighbors' worries

The residents peppered officials from the state Department of Correction with questions, such as what kinds of trees would be planted and whether they will still be able to hear announcements broadcast over the prison's speaker system.

The new 336-bed facility is to replace an aging prison hospital and cellblocks for mental patients, which correction officials say is overcrowded, outdated and has safety problems.

The medical center will treat the state's most seriously ill inmates. A second new building will expand the prison's capacity to treat and house prisoners whose severe mental problems make them a danger to themselves and others.

The building boom effectively snuffs the hopes of some in Boylan that Central Prison would be phased out in the near future and moved to a rural location.

A scale model of the project on display Tuesday showed the new buildings will be the tallest at the prison complex, making them visible from a number of vantage points outside the property. The new buildings also will be closer to neighboring homes.

The state intends to plant a single line of trees to offer a thin buffer, the minimum required by city code. The new trees are to be planted within 14 months, but will take years to grow to a mature height.

Better view promised

Prison officials said Tuesday the new buildings would actually improve the view compared with the old castlelike granite walls dating to 1844 that are now visible along the prison's eastern side. The buildings will be made of pre-cast concrete with narrow bands of horizontal windows.

"It will be aesthetically pleasing," said Jake Freeman, director of engineering for the Department of Correction. "This will be a state-of-the-art facility. We're trying to improve the neighborhood as we go."

The addition also will improve security, Freeman said. Care will be taken to ensure new lighting fixtures to be added as part of the project will point away from neighboring homes. Mountford Avenue, which now serves as a delivery entrance at the back of the prison, will be permanently closed.

Freeman said the state saw no need last year to inform nearby residents of the project beyond what the city required.

"We followed the city's prescribed procedures," Freeman said.

Johnson, who can see the prison from his West Cabarrus Street home during the winter, said he recognizes that the project has already won city approval and can't be stopped.

He and other Boylan residents said Tuesday they now hope to persuade the state to go beyond the minimum requirements to add additional trees to make the new buildings less visible and to dampen noise.

"We've all been caught off-guard by this," Johnson said. "Our goal now is to get the buffer restored."