February 4th’s Council session was a day that’ll be talked among #ralpol politicos for a long time. The afternoon session had the usual lengthy agenda packed with presentations, committee reports, and rezonings. However, it’s not a rezoning people were talking about after the Council meeting.
Police Oversight Review Board
Council proceeded smoothly through the agenda until reaching the Special Items section. The first topic was the “Police Oversights Review Board – Update“.
Police oversight is a very sensitive topic in cities across the US. Local advocacy groups in Raleigh have been pushing for an oversight board for RPD, with one group pushing specifically for the board to also have subpoena powers. Police unions have pushed against demands for an oversight board. Both groups participated in six community dialogue sessions held in various locations around Raleigh.
City staff presented the feedback received from the community dialogue sessions. Questions arose around attendance numbers, and Councilor Martin was surprised that the responses in the report also included responses from RPD.
In the video above Council moved forward with creating a board that didn’t satisfy the wishes of local police oversight advocates, or Raleigh police unions. However, a middle ground solution seemed likely since the process began in the September 3rd City Council meeting. The main reasons boiled down to two things. Granting a civilian body subpoena powers is something only the North Carolina General Assembly can do. Creating no board at all would have gone against the feedback Council had received from citizens.
Several Councilors acknowledged the board wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was a start.
Starting Work on Expanding Housing Options in Raleigh
Missing middle housing is a topic that frequently comes up in local politics. Missing middle describes types of housing between single-family homes and large condo/apartment towers. Many local governments have zoning ordinances that make several of these housing types difficult or impossible to build.
The February 4th presentation “Regulatory Strategies for Housing Affordability and Choice: Quick Fixes and Bigger Steps” focused on duplexes, and what barriers Raleigh’s zoning (UDO) places to make them difficult to build.
Staff highlighted one fact about “missing” middle housing many cities in the US have in common. Many of these ‘missing’ housing types can be found in Raleigh’s older and more desirable neighborhoods.
In the map above the green dots indicate duplexes, triplexes (blue), or fourplexes (red). You can see clusters of these housing types closer to Raleigh’s city center, where older neighborhoods are present. Outside of older neighborhoods, the housing type is nearly non-existent.
You can view the entire presentation (and motions) above. Council moved forward with drafting text changes to allow duplexes in R2/4/6/10 areas of the city, by removing lot size requirements that currently make creating the housing type financially unfeasible to developers. Mayor Baldwin made a follow-up motion to also start the discussion around allowing triplexes and fourplexes in Raleigh, but ensured it wouldn’t hold up efforts on duplexes.
The discussion finished with both Mayor Baldwin and Councilor Jonathan Melton commenting on how this type of housing is already in Raleigh’s most desirable neighborhoods. They found missing middle housing enhanced the communities it was located in and added to the neighborhood’s attractiveness.
CAC System Disbanded to Form New Citizen Engagement Program
The most controversial decision came during the “Individual Reports from the Mayor and Council Members”. After several attempts to reform and change CACs, the most recent being the 2017 Citizen Engagement Taskforce, resulting in failure, Council voted to disband the CAC system.
Citizen engagement is a topic very important to me, and I’ve discussed it extensively on this blog and on social media. However, my own opinion, details, and background on this decision, and what is on the horizon for citizen engagement will be left for a different post in the future focusing on the subject.
However, let’s break down at a high level what happened. First the controversy over how the subject of citizen engagement was not on the agenda. Many found themselves uneasy with such a large decision being made without any notice to the public it was going to be voted on. Truthfully, those who follow Raleigh City Council happenings are very aware the most controversial topics are not always on the agenda.
The “Individual Reports from the Mayor and Council Members” is part of every afternoon Council meeting’s agenda, and it’s open-ended where the Mayor or Council Members can bring anything forward they wish to discuss. Topics range from discussing upcoming events and thanking people and organizations for things they do to improve the city, to voting on if the City of Raleigh should enter a lawsuit over a rock quarry or push back against an NCDOT road widening. It was during Councilor Saige Martin’s individual report that four motions were made in regard to citizen engagement.
The entire report and motions were just over 30 minutes long. It started with a speech from Councilor Martin where he aims to get Raleigh on another top 10 list for the most innovative citizen engagement program in the country.
CM Martin’s motion echoed his desire to build a more inclusive engagement program, and hire a consultant to start work on creating it. The ultimate goal was to create a “City Office of Community Engagement”. The program would be built with both input from city staff, and Raleigh residents. The motion passed with CM Cox being the lone dissenting vote as he citied the motion was too vague for him to understand what he was voting on.
However, the next motion from CM Martin would make it quite clear what he intended to do.
“The Citizen Advisory Council framework was created by the Raleigh City Council in 1974 when the original CAC was appointed in order for the City’s energy and resources to be singularly focused on creating a new and more inclusive community engagement process. I also move the Council’s 1974 decision which created the original RCAC be repealed as well as all other subsequent actions of any entity that have flowed from or which relied upon that 1974 action and that all activites and City funding and staff support of the RCAC and its attendant 19 Citizen Advisory Councils cease effective immediately. However, any rezoning case which had already been noticed, and is scheduled to be heard at a CAC meeting may continue and be considered, but in no event may any rezoning case appear on a CAC agenda any later than 45 days from today [Feburary 4th 2020]”
Councilor Saige Martin’s Motion on Disbanding CACs
As part of the motion, Mayor Baldwin added a friendly amendment ensuring there is a public participatory process with the consultant to create the Office of Community Engagement. The motion passed 6-2 with Councilors Branch and Cox dissenting.
CM Martin made two additional motions to expand citizens’ ability to have a voice in rezoning hearings in the absence of a YES/NO vote at a CAC. Firstly by adding an additional required neighborhood meeting by the applicant, and also expanding the area that residents are notified by the applicant of a rezoning. The final motion clarified that rezoning applications would not be held at Planning Commission awaiting a CAC vote.
What are your thoughts?
I’ll post about CAC’s specifically, and my own thoughts around citizen engagement later on. However, I’d like to get feedback from the community on what happened at Tuesday’s afternoon Council meeting. Leave your comment below or the blog’s Facebook page.
