Election changed half the Raleigh City Council, but so far peace has prevailed | Opinion

The November election put four new members on the eight-member Raleigh City Council amid tensions over what some saw as a council that put the interests of developers over neighborhoods.

It looked like a recipe for turmoil as the newcomers pushed neighborhood interests and the council veterans tried to channel growth into denser development. But six months later, the newly configured council is characterized by cooperation and compromise.

The membership change was not an ouster of the previous council. Three incumbents did not seek reelection and a fourth was narrowly defeated. Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin was reelected, though her race against Terrance Ruth was tighter than expected.

The new members are taking time to learn how city government works and the mayor, a longtime council member before becoming mayor, is eager to help.

“We have not seen that sparring,” Baldwin told me. “It’s been more listening and actually having conversations with each other.”

Baldwin said lawyers representing developers are surprised that the new council members are not automatically adversarial to their proposals. Baldwin said, “Some land use attorneys would say, ‘OK, I was expecting the worst and that hasn’t happened.’ ”

One reason for the calm is that the main irritant between Baldwin and neighborhood representatives – the abrupt elimination of Citizen Advisory Councils (CACs) in February of 2020 – has been reversed. The three-year hiatus – compounded by a general loss of in-person city meetings and hearings during the pandemic – fed a perception that the previous council was not listening to citizens. Now the CACs have free access to city community centers and a key line of communication has reopened.

Christina Jones, a first-term council member and a former chair of the CAC serving northwest Raleigh, said the council is doing a better job of assessing public opinion before acting. That contrasts with what neighborhood advocates considered rapid-fire approvals of development projects under the previous council.

“We’re not just saying yes to everything,” Jones said. “We are having longer public hearings because we want to have a conversation.”

Activists want quick votes on zoning changes and developments they oppose and affordable housing ideas they support, but Jones said it’s better to be deliberative. “Those are issues I wish I could just snap my fingers and solve,” she said, “but it takes a long conversation.”

Jane Harrison, who is new to the council after being a citizen advocate for west Raleigh, also said voting on city actions is different than calling for change from the outside.

“I’m just more aware of how difficult this job is, how challenging it is to get to a decision that takes care of everyone in the process,” said Harrison, a coastal economics specialist with North Carolina Sea Grant based at NC State University. “The trade-offs are tough. It’s not always possible to find the optimal answer.”

Baldwin said the new council members, Jones, Harrison, Mary Black and Megan Patton, have shown a willingness to learn about city operations and the patience to withhold judgment until they’ve considered various perspectives on issues.

“I’ve seen, ‘I want this held for more information,’ I haven’t seen, ‘No, I just don’t want that,’” the mayor said.

A slowdown in growth may also be helping prevent tensions. Baldwin said interest rate hikes have cooled the pace of new projects. Meanwhile, the permitting of projects is being slowed by a shortage of city planning staff, a situation Baldwin called, “One of our big challenges.”

The council’s relative peace may fray as new members gain experience in their roles or as more contentious issues arise. But, for now, even critics of the previous council are complimentary about the current one.

Stef Mandell, a former city council member and vice chair of the neighborhood group Livable Raleigh, said the council is “spending more time looking at rezoning requests and making sure they are appropriate.” She added, “They’re off to a good start.”