The following letter was sent to all Raleigh City Council Members on Thursday May 17th.
Honorable Council Members, Mayor Pro Tem Branch, and Mayor McFarlane,
I am writing you all today hoping to hear your positions on both the upcoming ADU text change, and the recent water rate increase.
I have had the pleasure of meeting many of you in person, and in those meetings, you have all been very forthcoming with your opinions on many of the issues that the Council faces. Admittedly, there have been times where my personal opinions did not align with the ones expressed to me in our discussions together, but I firmly believe that our leaders should be open to hearing alternative viewpoints, and respectfully debate their positions where appropriate.
Although it is often that controversial issues end in compromise, it is rare that citizens are able to learn each of your individual opinions on an issue before the final terms are voted on.
I own the website Raleighite.com, and recently published a blog post on the water rate increase and its effect on how well our city maintains its water/sewer infrastructure. To date, I have had three corrections requested from Councilor Cox’s supporters and I worked diligently to accommodate each request. Additionally, in the past I had provided each of you a seven-day opportunity to send feedback on a post ranking your usage of social media to engage with citizens, and I accommodated the one change requested from Councilor Mendell.
I am writing today to ask for your response on the two questions below. Your answer may be as comprehensive or concise as you wish, but I respectfully request you respond directly to the questions being asked.
1) Did you Support a full, partial, or no water rate increase prior to the compromise reached and voted on in last Tuesday’s City Council session?
2) For ADUs: do you support not allowing ADUs, allowing ADUs but only within an -ADOD overlay, or allowing ADUs to be built without an overlay requirement?
Because I am asking your opinion, it feels that it is only fair I share my own:
1) I support the full water rate increase. From my point of view, it makes financial sense to raise the rate a small amount now to cover pipe replacement, than to risk raising it a much larger amount due to pipe failures in the future. I also believe that the environmental impact of sewer pipe failures are highly damaging our natural resources, and are also costing superfluous additional funds for abatement and fines.
2) I believe ADUs should be built without the need for an overlay. The minimum radius of 15 acres to establish the overlay is excessive in my opinion. I also believe forcing someone to go through a rezoning process to establish an ADOD is unfair. Unfortunately, there is no panacea that addresses the affordable housing issue, but allowing ADUs to be built will play a significant role in a process to alleviate the problem. Placing the ADOD overlay requirement only adds cost, time, and complexity to utilizing this tool to provide more housing opportunities in Raleigh.
I plan to publish my post explaining the ADU text change being discussed in Wednesday’s Growth and Natural Resources meeting, as well as an elaboration on my own opinions outlined above on the text change Monday, May 21st. This open letter will be published Friday, May 18th at 12:00 PM.
For the water rate issue, I have heard from Mayor McFarlane and Council Member Stewart, who have both expressed support for the full increase. I know through Facebook that Council Member David Cox has opposed the increase.
For the ADU overlay, I understand that Mayor McFarlane supports allowing ADUs to be built without the overlay requirement; I have heard from Council Member Mendell on Twitter in the past she favors the overlay as part of the ADU compromise.
Given the tight timeline, if you’re unable to provide a response I will simply mark as unable to reach for comment. Should you provide a response after I posted the article, I will be glad to update it accordingly.
Thank you for taking the time to hear my concerns.
Respectfully,
Travis Bailey
