May 2022 meetings summaries, Happy Pride Month! Fundraising deadline
Happy Pride Month! Below is a summary of our May 2022 City Council meetings:
1. We partnered with Campbell Law School to create a program to assist residents with eviction prevention. The program is called "City of Raleigh Housing Justice Project" and is intended to provide legal services to low income individuals and families on the verge of homelessness. You can read more here.
2. We allocated approximately $7 million in funding for 3 new affordable housing developments totaling 335 affordable units, including 44 units for households earning no more than 35% of the area median income and 72 units of supportive housing.
3. We continued our efforts to expand housing options by adopting a text change titled "Missing Middle 2.0- More Homes, More Choices." This text change builds upon the zoning reform we passed last summer to allow duplexes, townhouses, and apartments in areas where previously only single-family homes were allowed. I wrote about that text change here.
This new text change builds upon that work as follows:
- Reduces lot size requirements and increased allowed building size for Tiny Houses;
- Permits tiny houses to be used for either single-unit or two-unit (duplex) living;
- Permit flag lots in residential districts for the construction of tiny houses;
- Permit two-unit townhouses in the R-2 and R-4 zoning districts;
- Synchronize lot dimensional standards across most residential building types;
-Allow denser residential development within proximity of planned high-frequency transit;
-Allow accessory dwelling units (ADUs) on townhouse lots and two ADUs on a lot when proximate to planned high-frequency transit.
4. We voted to approve the creation of a Community Engagement Board in our continued efforts to increase access. Last year, we funded and created the first-ever Office of Community Engagement. Now, to assist the office with their work, staff recommended creating a new Community Engagement Board that will review existing community engagement policies, practices and provide recommendations for improvement. We're accepting applications until June 10. You can apply here.
5. We approved a rezoning for a new development in the Warehouse District, basically directly behind Parkside Restaurant. This rezoning included conditions to preserve the historic, existing buildings in the warehouse district, with plans to build a new tower on the surface parking lots behind them. This is exactly the type of project needed in this area, and across the city- preserving historic or important existing structures and replacing parking lots with buildings.
Our next City Council meetings are Tuesday, June 7 a 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.