George Farthing: City Council’s planning problems

Regarding Ned Barnett’s June 21 column “Growth presses Raleigh’s controls”: I applaud Raleigh for taking a proactive approach. It’s important to get this right.

Unfortunately, the Unified Development Ordinance fails to protect neighborhoods, an unintended consequence that must be fixed. Consider the well-publicized North Raleigh rezoning proposal that many refer to as the Publix case. This was for a grocery-anchored strip mall in a residential neighborhood. On May 12, Raleigh City Council voted 8-0 to deny the rezoning for sound policy reasons.

Guess what? Under the UDO, the Raleigh planning department proposed to rezone four acres of the property to the exact same zoning district that City Council just unanimously denied.

If remapping this property is approved, developers will be able to build what council voted against just weeks ago! Approval will be administrative by the unelected planning department with no council role and no citizen input. This is only one troubling example of how execution of the UDO fails Raleigh’s neighborhoods.

It’s City Council’s responsibility to get this right. Raleigh residents need to beware of what might happen to their neighborhoods and plan to attend the city’s public hearing for this case on July 7.

This story was originally published June 28, 2015 at 2:00 PM with the headline "George Farthing: City Council’s planning problems."