‘City Council has lost trust.’ Neighbors speak out on Raleigh’s ‘Missing Middle’ plan
The red and white checkered tablecloths, ceramic mugs and flowers on the tables at the Raleigh community center were meant to mimic a cafe where conversations flow easily.
They didn’t.
The city held its second event to hear from neighbors about the new “Missing Middle” rules that will make it easier to build denser types of housing in mostly single-family neighborhoods.
Thursday’s event was held in one of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods, less than two miles from where developers plan to replace a 100-year-old home with 17 townhomes, each with a roughly $2 million price tag. A yellow sign with “Save Our Neighborhood” greeted the more than 100 attendees as they entered the community center.
City staff touted the benefits of the new rules: Not everyone wants or can afford a single-family home; Duplexes and townhomes use less energy than a single-family home; City buses need denser housing along their routes; More housing will help housing affordability.
After the 45-minute presentation as the meeting began to move into small groups for discussion, tensions started boiling over.
Some people shouted for a public question-and-answer forum. Tiesha Hinton, the city’s community engagement manager, said there would be a time to address the entire group at the end, but she was talked over.
“People should be able to ask questions in a forum where everyone gets to be heard and hear the other questions,” Margie Case, a Five Points resident, said in an interview with The News & Observer. “Going from table to table, then only talking about the questions that are preplanned by the city doesn’t address the questions about missing middle that we all came here to talk about.”
This meeting was more about “process and less about information,” said Terry Henderson.
“They’re asking you for input on something they’ve already decided,” he said. “And they’re trying to make you feel happy about it. With happy talk. They’re trying to make you feel good, about a very bad process. And this process is divide and conquer.”
At the tables staff members promised to write down neighbors’ concerns but were interrupted. The large room made it hard to hear, especially for some in the mostly older crowd, with neighbors talking over one another.
The forum was “intentionally designed to capture a lot of feedback from as many people on the topic” Hinton said after the meeting.
“I definitely validate people’s feelings about anything because it’s your truth,” she said. “And I think that level of pent-up frustration may have prevented some from hearing it. But there were so many people who said, ‘Oh, this is what she meant’ When they stayed around, they stuck around and they participated. They said, ‘Oh, thank you.’”
With 15 minutes left in the two-hour meeting, community members summarized for everyone what they’d heard in their small groups.
“We’d like for the missing middle to go back to being missing again,” said Elaine Gordon. “One thing that I have heard a lot is that the City Council has lost trust. And when you lose trust in a relationship, you’ve lost something really basic to your working relationship. And it happened because of the way things were done.”
Kathleen Payne, who lives in East Mordecai, said some of the missing middle changes are worthwhile, but she’s unsure how much they will matter.
“I think it’s a good idea,” she said. “But I don’t know if the city’s housing stock is ever going to get to the volume that housing prices will come down. ... It’s a market force. How do you address a market force?”
Many residents brought up the city’s former Citizen Advisory Councils that were defunded by the Raleigh City Council in early 2020, though some have continued to meet independently. It would have been easier to get community feedback at the start instead of after the rules were in place, said Becky French.
“Bring back the CACs because you have taken away individual neighborhoods’ ability monthly to talk about our problems and send it back to City Council and staff,” she said.
Raleigh City Council member Christina Jones, who was elected in 2022, said the previous council should have held these meetings before adopting the rules.
“I think we heard a lot of frustration from residents who were not included in the initial process,” she told The N&O. “It got a little heated. And I don’t think that city staff should have to deal with the anger. But because we didn’t start this process earlier, and make it transparent and open to all we’re seeing what that’s resulting in. And it’s a lot of neighbors saying, ‘I don’t feel included. I don’t feel like my voice is heard.’”
It’s unclear, she said, what the City Council will do with the feedback since the rules are already adopted.
Karen Ridge, the former long-time executive of WakeUp Wake County, a nonprofit advocating for growth and transit policies, told the attendees she didn’t hear any solutions Thursday night..
“I think the questions were to help us try to think a little bit outside of our own property line about our community,” she said. “And how are we going to grow. We are all part of the growth, and people are still coming. So how can we add more housing? Because yes, we have a huge housing crisis. Nothing is affordable inside the Beltline anymore. So how can we make some changes that would be in context with single family home neighborhoods?”
Upcoming meetings
There are three more in-person meetings and one virtual forum scheduled in February.
- 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 2, Dix Park, the Greg Poole Jr. All Faiths Chapel, 1030 Richardson Drive
- 6-8 p.m. Wednesday Feb. 8, via Zoom, https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81960898972
- 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 14, at Sertome Arts Center, 1400 Millbrook Road
- 10 a.m. - noon Feb. 25, Barwell Road Community Center, 5857 Barwell Park Drive
This story was originally published January 20, 2023 at 11:35 AM.
