everyone uh seconds as our mic test as well, so if you can hear me raise your hand. Nice. Alright, thank you all for joining us this evening. And those who of you at home watching on W. R. E. L. We appreciate the opportunity for you guys to check us out. Um uh Tonight we are hosted by wake up Wake County, which I’m executive director. My name is Nathan Spencer were a 15 year old nonprofit working on growth and we’ve been uh partner, we’ve partnered with about 15, I’m sorry, 12 other incredible nonprofits that are doing wonderful work who came together uh for this event series because what we found was that those who are uh making the decisions on council are usually not elected by those who feel the most impacted by it. So we wanted to make sure that we got out to everyone that we possibly could um and uh really get the word out about why city council elections are so important. So part of what we’re going to be doing this evening is really asking those questions about the go to the heart of what you are running to do and why it affects people every day. Um So uh we appreciate everyone joining us here today. Um There are note cards on the table that you can submit questions for. We’ve also got sign up sheets to keep you informed about getting out to vote as well as um uh flipping your ballot and also changes for future uh forums if there are any, we want to make sure that we’re keeping you all informed. so please, if you get a chance, sign up either now or on your way out. Um and you can also do it online at our website bit dot L Y slash uh 2022 R A L forums. Uh, so now you’ve heard me speak for long enough, I’m gonna introduce our wonderful esteemed moderator for this evening. Um Aaron joined uh casa as director of Kings Ridge in january of 2022. Aaron has over 25 years of experience working with neighbors who are homeless in south Carolina and Virginia, but she is happy to return home to north Carolina to continue her work here. Uh she is most recently, she most recently worked Triangle Family Services, managing a covid response shelter and expanding the prevention and rapid rehousing programs. She has spent her career working uh to ensure that our neighbors have support that they need and is excited to return to her permanent supportive housing roots. Uh She is literally an expert in housing and we’re so excited to have her join us as moderator of this panel as it is a big piece of what we care about and what we work on Aaron. Thanks Nathan, I’m an expert in housing but not sitting apparently. Um Good evening everybody, I’m so glad to see everybody here. Um as Nathan said, my name is Aaron Nate and I’m honored to be a few this evening as we explore matters important to this day. Before we get started. We do have a few housekeeping rules. Um please turn off or silence your cell phones. Um I really want to make sure that everyone’s present and focused here tonight um In order to respect the flow of dialogue, please remember to refrain from applauding or commenting when the candidates speak and respond to questions presented. You’ll have the opportunity at the end the cards that you have in front of you in times afterwards to make sure you have time with our candidates. Um Again, candidates from speaking, please pace yourself at a consideration for interpretation and please be curious to your opponents and your exchanges, we’re gonna have a good time, so I’m not worried. Um forgive me for reading all candidates for city council run for two year terms tonight. We’ll meet the candidates running for the office of district A. This is an open seat being vacated by incumbent councilor Patrick. Um With three candidates running in addition to voting in a district seat. All voters in the city of rally vote for two at large candidates positions. And mayor. All candidates in these forums are nonpartisan meaning they do not represent a political party. We appreciate the three candidates running for city council district a seat. All were invited and we’re glad to have mary Black Branch Whitney Hill and Kathryn Lawson. Um This past saturday we held our first forum for District B and we’ll hold our next forum on sunday september 18th for the candidates for city council. District C early voting runs from october 20th to member november 5th with official election Day being on Tuesday november 8th. Um The deadline to register to vote online, I’m not perfect. Don’t forget to the deadline, sorry. Um it’s October 14, but you can also register in person. Thank you. Now for the rules, candidates will have an opportunity to give a two minute opening introduction through the first question following that we have questions formulated around the themes of transportation, housing, climate change, environmental justice, and equity. Um We received many of these in advance and will have present in the first half of the event um In the second half the audience will be able to ask questions in the order established um as we go, questions will be directed to a district, not to an individual individual candidate, so be sure that you’re asking questions for all, Not just the one specific candidate. Um Each candidate will have one minute to respond to questions. Please keep an eye on the timer straight ahead of us there. Thank you. Um and we’ll give you a 32nd warning and please end from your signal to do so. So I stated following around to prepare questions, We will address audience questions upon entry. Everyone should have received a note card. So please be thoughtful about questions you wanna ask if things come up as we go, feel free to add them. I know I don’t think of questions until I’m already in the middle of it, so there’s no stop time. Um we do reserve the right to question if more than one person asked sort of similar questions at the conclusion of the question period, that the candidates will have one minute for a closing statement. We recognize that not all candidates will be able to address every question for every issue, so you may wish to use your closing statement to do that. Thank you now for the good stuff and why you’re all here. Um, what I’ll do is I’ll start by asking my question with you first and then we’ll move down the line. Um, and then the next question will come to you, Whitney and then we’ll sort of, everyone gets the opportunity to start and in the with the questions all writing. Um, opening question candidates, please talk about your work you’ve done in your professional and advocacy life that propels you to run for office, and how does your area of expertise contribute to benefit all people in Raleigh Hi everyone. So, my direct work experience is as an environmental and community organizer, um, I think this work is really burning me into wanting to run for office, because I’m considering, like, the future of sustainable development and the future of where this city is going in general, and I wanted to make sure that it’s grounded in and violence of equity and equity that also includes people power and power that represents the future of what we want to do. So I am coming into this as an organizer bringing in the idea that you know sustainable development development in general doesn’t have to come at the expense of the quality of life in the city for the people that live here and what we are what we are willing to develop what we are willing to create. So uh as an environmentalist I just think that is sort of what’s bringing me into this. Yeah. Yes. My name is Whitney Hill and my background uh I came to Raleigh the N. C. State, got a degree there and moved into the corporate world. Was in there in and out for uh upwards towards about 20 years. Uh At that time I got experience in the boardroom experience as a project manager, experience a lot of different areas. I’m working with people, find out why things don’t work and how to get them working uh in an I. T. Environment. I’ve left the corporate world and was actually in a landscape maintenance business for five years that I’ve bought and turned around for a profit. And uh for about the last 27 years I’ve been in web marketing with a business that I started called Caroline webb consultants and I also done a lot of work in payments and that type of thing. But that’s just sort of my background. Uh the reason I’m running is I love Raleigh, I love Raleigh, this is a great place. This is, I don’t think we necessarily sell ourselves at a high enough price a lot of times. Uh the trees, the greenways, the downtown area, all these things have come about since I’ve lived here and it’s just a really super great place to live and I want to see it stay that way. It’s going to grow and I want to make sure that we have the right type of policies in to protect it and keep it uh make it a top destination place to live. Good evening everybody. I’m cat Lawson also obviously running a district a thank you all so much for being here. First of all, it’s a big thing to decide that you’re gonna take your monday night to come out and listen to a bunch of like local people running for office and not even like the really like interesting, you know, high coverage elected office. Right? Like we’re talking about municipal codes and zoning here tonight. So thank you all for being here. My interest in the government and politics and advocacy is kind of rude in my care for how do the little things work? What are the complicated realities in which decisions get made and how do those decisions impact us at a very real ever present level. So I am an attorney, an attorney for over a decade I’ve also an advocate and I am now a law professor as well. So I come to politics with a lot of institutional background care how we structure power, how those of us who want to serve, ask for the trust to carry power is something that’s incredibly important to me. I understand that this is an exercise in public trust. I also know that it’s about a lot of really complicated statutory regulations and nursery stuff, but I like a lot and I’ve chosen a career where I get to do all of that and I care about the education piece, which is for me about connecting with folks, understanding that it’s not enough to say, here’s what we want. We have to understand how are we going to accomplish that goal? What’s the context in which those decisions are being made? Are there limitations on it? Are there impacts that we don’t force? How do we make sure that the decisions we’re making are thoughtful, are careful and are inclusive of everybody that they’re going to impact. So that is the background that I bring here. My advocacy also includes a lot of understanding that our political system does not always serve the partisanship is something that is, I think most of us agree, really tearing us all apart. So I am here to be on the community’s side. I care most about connecting with you, listening to you and hopefully serving you. Thank you all that lovely answers from all of you keep thinking about questions you might have as you go along um near and dear to my heart, housing, um what initiatives and programs will you promote and implement to address the rental, the rising rental and homeownership costs in the city of Raleigh. And how will you measure measure the success of your initiatives as well? Not only the, what are the programs, but how do we know they’re working? I’m gonna I’m sorry. So this is a problem that’s been exacerbated with housing supply I think is the number one thing, what uh combination of different things, covid affecting the city uh planners, uh city uh okay, uh the city permits uh the uh supply for the builders, uh different uh labor problems and that type of thing have been contributed to us getting behind on housing that has a trickle down effect and generally people get pushed out the bottom of that. So I believe we need, it’s really about numbers of supply, we need to focus on doing the things, it’s going to increase the supply of housing, whether it’s at the top or bottom, it’s got to be balanced so that it serves all levels. But what ends up happening is people get pushed out the bottom because even at the top, there’s not a supply there, people go into apartments which pushes people down and then ultimately people get pushed out the bottom. So it truly is a supply problem that we need to work on all aspects of what’s going on with. So as we all know, yeah, affordable housing, both in this term of low cost subsidized housing, but also in terms of just like entry level housing, that folks who maybe aren’t making poverty for low wages, that are younger professionals or folks who are new to home ownership, we have problems that kind of both ends of that spectrum. And so for me, when I think about the different tools that we’re going to need to address both subsidized housing, low cost housing, right? And also just broadly affordable housing, we’re going to need a whole lot of tools like if there was a silver bullet, I’m pretty sure like new york and SAN Francisco and like the kind of the cities that really have this, these problems would have found one by now. So we need to focus, yes, on availability, we need to have a broad option many broad options of availability that’s only going to happen if we get density and smart chosen density specifically along transit spots, so that folks can also be reducing the overall cost of living because they’re not having to rely on cars, they’re not having to travel a whole bunch to get places right. We need to make sure that there are multiple options for folks, we need to continue to oversee the expenditure of the two 2018 affordable housing bond funds, making sure that the city is partnering with groups like which I know that they’ve done on the expenditure of funds for specifically subsidized housing um for the most vulnerable members of our community to make sure that they have a place that is safe to live, that is a home that they are building here right out there. Living in our community also needs to be addressed in terms of metrics, making sure that we’re kind of keeping tabs on all of this. Obviously it’s going to be that increase in numbers. How are we making sure that we are increasing those numbers? The lowering of the actual cost is gonna take a long time to see, unfortunately, like these are lagging indicators of decisions that get made years in advance, but we still need to be seeing how that works overtime. This is a great question I have, I think on a community organizer side, seeing the direct impact of the rising cost of housing across the city. Um and kind of, what what cat was saying, there’s really no, like one solution to dealing with this, but I do think that the city and the city can be doing more to push people that are coming here if you want to develop to actually provide affordable housing at rates that needs people at particular income levels. We have a habit in the city of selling public housing and then hoping that the developers will uh supply affordable housing and they are not, We’re seeing that on so many levels. We’re seeing that the city council, whereas they are, you know focusing and saying on a public level that they have a grounding in wanting to provide affordable housing and fix our affordable housing crisis. We’re not seeing how that’s actually showing up in policy. I think it’s um more than just a supply issue. I think it’s a pricing issue. I can remember videos of uh A house that was priced I think $350,000 in the city and over 70 to 100 cars showed up because we just don’t have houses priced at that anymore really in the city. So um I think we should be pushing the people who want to come here to develop to do more and also focusing in on the ways that we can um institute inclusionary zoning across the city and build density in a way that works for people at multiple income levels. Thank you all sticking with housing for a little bit longer. Um What is your position on the missing middle changes which a dismantled traditional zoning protection such as R. Four and R. Six B. Allow the construction of duplexes, triplex is and quadra flexes in all neighborhoods and Romney and C allow apartments for half mile zones along frequent bus routes, can we start now. So when we’re ever talking about these kinds of very big broad changes. I think it’s helpful to kind of define what we are liking and not liking about them. So as a general bias, I think that more density is a good thing. I think the more we get to fit onto the first square feet of land, the more land we get to safer parts and get to safer trees, right? The less commuting we’re relying on, that’s a good thing. Individual projects are still going to need to be approved on different bases. Right? Not all of the changes are making automatic. You now have a right to build right? This incredibly dense, dense structure in the middle of the neighborhood. Right? I think in general we like to see you have like your circle, right? The inside of the circle is might still remain your um single family dwelling units. Your smaller neighborhood is like your coldest acts and all of that. But then the closer you get to the outside of that circle, the closer you get to, especially major transit corridors and access points for getting around not just the city of Rally, but the triangle broadly. That’s where you want to see density go up. That’s where you want to see some higher points going. That’s where you want to see me major access points to broader thoroughfares and that’s most important. That’s going to be most useful really. Most beneficial, especially for folks who rely on things like busses and the new bus rapid transit routes to get around the city who are reliant on that kind of access. Um, so broadly as a general bias very in favor of it. Individual projects might require working with the community and that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be all, all, all of one thing or nothing of the other. We can both have a crow That prioritizes growth that prioritizes density, that prioritizes right, the version of rally that we know we are building to 2050 while also making sure that the method in which we are growing is inclusive, that it listens to folks and that is so respectful of existing neighborhoods and that especially takes into account, right? The equitable histories of our city context don’t get made in historical vacuums. We are inheriting a lot of realities from, from in our history that aren’t necessarily fair and that needs to be taken into account. Um, so yeah, I think the, you know, there’s a nuanced understanding around the missing middle, I think, you know, we are missing housing that is priced for people that are in that particular tax back in particular income level. And whereas I do think that density is important, I would like to see, especially with the duplexes, triplex is um, quad flexes. I I think those are like ways to create density without harming the character of the neighborhood. I think what’s happening now with the way they are addressing building density, it’s happening in a way that’s lacking community engagement. Um, and we’re seeing zoning and buildings that are going up 20 stories, 40 story, 10 story buildings that they’re trying to place in particular areas in the community. Members have no say and what is happening. They have no um aspect to be able to engage with city council on these things. So I think the missing middle is a good tactic for addressing housing affordability and creating housing in a particular market, but we need to make sure that we are doing it in a way that’s inclusive in the way that is representing the voices of the community. And I think that’s something that’s really missing across the board here in the city of Raleigh. So this is housing is the top issue is I’m out knocking on doors and talking to folks on, which was a little bit of surprise when I got out of there because I didn’t think it would be, but we are pro high rise where it makes sense to put high rises, we need to our downtown area. There, there’s a big market for folks who are information workers and that type of thing, who want to live downtown and walk to places and that keeps cars off the road. Uh, but we also have to respect the zoning of particular areas. For instance, I’m not in favor of a high rise going up on Shelley Lake. Uh, it’s a traditional community and it has, you know, uh, medium density in there and those people have bought into that and they should be protected on that if they’re standing up and saying we don’t want that. Uh So there’s a lot of tough decisions on this, on how we do this. We are gonna have to come up with creative solutions that I agree with cat on that, that we have to come up with creative solutions to address address density. And that may mean that, you know, if you got a really big lock, you can put a second house in the back of it. Uh and and some types of neighborhoods. I’ve seen that done where that fits in with the zoning and looks real good and might not fit to the letter of the law with the Sony, but we’re gonna have to come up with creative ways. One of the things up for is putting small communities outside the beltline where they got everything right there in the community. You got apartments, uh you know, lower density housing and that type of thing. And people can walk to restaurants, walk to shops, walk to the grocery store like they can downtown. Thank you all sticking with housing zoning. Even more fun. How will infrastructure be addressed to account for the uptick of requested and ultimately approved rezoning requests, interested more in the impact of midtown and further north. So following right up with what you were saying with me. Okay, so I’ve been watching as many city council meetings, I can’t get up to speed with what’s going on and I do see that as a problem, I don’t what I think uh is sort of going on here to some extent is they just blanket changing the rules may not be the solution of with some of the role changes that I think I’ve seen uh folks don’t want to wake up one day to find out that there’s a major zoning change that’s going on next to them and they haven’t gotten any kind of input on it. Uh that type of thing. Uh This is an area that I’m gonna have to to go to school and learn on but the way I’m gonna address this is to reach out and I’m already starting to do that to uh you know organizations like the home builders and business leaders that I know who are wrapped into this, who are involved in projects and zoning changes and get my schooling on really how to address these types of things. What the hold ups are, what the uh you know, is it permits, what whatever it is to work with getting solutions that aren’t going to rob the people who are already in those places of how they want to live. Yeah. Um So yeah, I think infrastructure is an important topic as we’re talking about development and zoning um specifically with the things that I’ve heard at least a lot of conversation about is around impacts to traffic and as well as the stormwater management part. And I think those are two things that you need to really be centered in the aspect of development and sustainable development and infrastructure. I know here in the area they were trying to rezone the area there to put some apartment buildings there without doing much uh impact, an impact statement to how the development and runoff is going to be affecting our drinking water. Um the same thing with the apartment that they’re mentioning around Shelley Lake that they want to build that are affecting the natural habitat that’s there. So I think, you know, as long as we are incorporating the aspect of how it relates to community, the impact on community and allowing community voices to be centered in that as well as the impact to the environment, just the future and the quality of the neighborhood itself. That’s important. So when we’re talking about, you know, building in North Hills, how like it’s already such a dense area there, specifically in north coast area as we are getting on and off with the beltline and they want to do more density there and their accounting for the traffic as it impacts the community that lives there, but not the community as a hold the people who are also coming to that area on a daily basis for work um to shop to do other things besides just live. So the question is always going to, I think center around the aspect of community engagement and centering that within the development process and how it’s understanding how things are affecting people’s communities from traffic to flooding to just the what type of building they want next to them is in a Starbucks or you know, something else. So I think about infrastructure for me, that means, what are the core things that the city is responsible for doing and that there’s pretty much no other entity that can do it right. The city is responsible for managing stormwater runoff is responsible for water quality and sewage. It is responsible right for road maintenance and there might be other partners, other government partners at the county and state level that are also responsible for these things. But if the city drops the ball on planning for this growth in these core services, like there’s really no, nobody else is going to be able to pick that ball back up. Right? And so then we’re going to be playing catch up because things have started going wrong and like nobody is happy when sewage doesn’t work right? Like that’s a very bad day for everybody involved. So for me, when I think about what the city needs to be prioritizing as it looks at, especially the density lying areas of development around north hills, up and down capital in atlantic, right, then it has to be okay, what is the impact on the infrastructure we have here right now. What’s the capacity? Right. How many tens of thousands of gallons of water this system handle right now. What does it mean going forward? What is that gonna cost at what point will we actually have maxed out the capacity we have right now and it will be a really problematic process right up to her, but that’s not the right term but to convert right that system to have the greater capacity. So looking at these issues for me to the council, it’s not just about okay, well what do we make need right now or three years? This is the note, this is 15 years planning, this is 20 year planning and making sure that the cat of investment in the city’s part is keeping track with that projected future growth. Not only what’s happening right now, it’s like the six forks corridor plan is currently kind of finally hitting that moving spot where they were going to be making the changes that the walkable midtown plan wanted the six forks, but we’re a couple of years behind schedule and it’s more expensive now because we have supply chain issues right? And big old pandemic, but that’s the kind of thing that the city has to make sure that it is keeping an eye on because nobody else is going to be paying attention to that stuff. Great, thank you all very much. Start with you on this one is a little bit we were saying last um, what efforts are you making to incorporate the new neighborhoods that were put in your district in the most recent redistricting redistricting process. The neighborhoods around the green red community center, the majority people of color. And it moved into District Day, which is majority white. So actually I was just out there canvassing yesterday if you see me scratching because I have mosquito bites from the time I spent canvassing out in that community. Um a lot of people there aren’t uh you know, fully aware about what’s happening. So I think, you know, it’s uh it’s part hitting the ground doing canvassing, but it’s educational outreach as well because of the nature of our city is changing and people who have been in particular district for the decades that they’ve lived in this particular community different district and they don’t really know how that’s impacting their quality of life. So it’s been interesting to knock doors in those communities um talk to people here, how the types of issues that they care about the things that they want to see within our city council and I plan to be doing more of that more, more door knocking in that area, more mosquito bites. So can we go to you next? We’ll go backwards. Yeah. So the beauties of census, right? Like every 10 years our lines kind of have to change. So for me that I am very much in agreement with Mary right? It means showing up, meeting people saying Hi, welcome to the neighborhood, right? Your neighborhood didn’t move like these kind of really artificial lines moved. Um, what, what’s on your mind, what concerns you? So showing up meeting people, introducing myself, introducing, that’s what they need to know about the city and kind of what’s going on in their new district. They’re probably also a targeted mailing. That’s just again, welcome to the district. Here’s what’s new. So my primary campaign strategy has been to go out and knock on doors and I can’t get to every precinct, can’t get to every door. So one of the areas that I will definitely be knocking on is at least one precinct over in that area. Uh, maybe a couple of precincts and getting to know what the problems are your problems as you go from a section of town and set your town are different conversations different. This has been my way of really honing in on what folks need is to go in and let them talk and just ask them what’s important to them as far as the city and you know, I said before housing is the big one, but uh, that, uh, talk with folks and everything, but I need to get out to that particular section two and I’ll find out what’s important to them. Um, you have seen Lindsay walk around. So do make sure that if you have questions or if you think of something, keep writing about, uh I didn’t mean to make you um as you see her walk around, she’s definitely here to collect your questions. Um So I’m gonna come to you and then we’ll come back down the road. Um How would you address investors buying houses, redeveloping and renting also known as compositional change in neighborhoods? Yeah, so I think we report a couple of months ago right, that we have like hedge funds, you are starting to buy properties and rally um and either just hold it or end up kind of math converting it and we just don’t have a lot of visibility into what that looks like what the scale that we’re talking about is. So my understanding is that council has already kind of tasks staff to kind of try to actually get real data around this so we can actually get better visibility into what’s this, like why is this happening? Where is it happening? Right. Is it are there particular reasons it’s happening in certain neighborhoods and not others? And can we correct for that? So for me a solution requires having that kind of information like until I have more visibility and more data, I can’t make a prescription for how to fix it. Um I think that once we do have better information though, there might be some way that we can limit that kind of, especially if it is um investment in purchases, right that end up kind of hopscotching over the interests of the community, right? We don’t, that’s not serving our city. Um, so for me figuring out there are ways that we could cabin that limited restricted, provide more transparency around it. However, we don’t, what we don’t want to do is end up creating a really overbroad response that then shuts down a lot people who individually might create, write a personal LLC because they buy secondary home so they can rent it out personally. Like that’s the lawyer in me that’s like, what are the unintended consequences of trying to solve this particular problem? Um, So wait for a little bit more information but kind of threading the needle on those two sides of that issue is what the priority is gonna have to be. Yeah, I agree with cat, most of what she’s saying there. Uh, and to add on to that, we need to, you know, once we understand what’s going on with all this, we need to determine, well, is this productive or not productive? A lot of times bringing money into a community with investors and that type of thing is productive, but if it’s destroying the neighborhoods and it’s hurting the folks that live there to keep their traditional neighborhoods and that type of thing. And, and the plan is to tear houses down and we’ve got a lot of houses that are sitting there unoccupied, uh, we get beyond the bubble. Is that gonna end up being unoccupied homes that are sitting there with, you know, weeds growing up in the front yard and stuff. So we do need to find out what this is all about, why they’re coming in, what the plans are. Uh, city zoning is a very powerful tool and I would imagine there’s some other tools that we can use uh to deter the negative activity and that type of thing with this kind of thing. Um, but you know, we sort of need to get the facts together, find out what’s going on. And one other thing I’ll say is I don’t like unoccupied real estate, especially when there’s a housing show shortage and we, when we don’t have enough businesses out there. I’ve noticed with a lot of our commercial stuff that landlords just aren’t putting people into the stores and I sort of know when some of this stuff they not renewed leases with tenants and that kind of thing. So what I really want to see there is that we start looking at that having policies that keep occupation, whether it’s residential commercial, Yeah. Um how would you address investors buying houses, redeveloping and renting? Also known as compositional, changing neighborhood. Got a little strategy in my brain, you’re gonna see me talk a lot about prioritizing being in right relationship as a community organizer. It’s like the grounding of where I show up in the world. I don’t know everything, but I know that I can be in right relationship with people who know the information and being in a position of power, quote unquote comes to the council, you’re able to utilize that information in a way that creates equity. So I think in, you know, joining what Whitney and Cat have said, I definitely think, you know, there is space to be grounded more in the information as it relates to this issue. But I also think that we should be looking to what other cities are doing to address the problem. I think, you know, Atlanta recently just put out some rules around capping the amount of investor properties that can be bought in the city. So I think there could be bottles that can be represented around the things that are happening in progressive ways in other major cities across the country. So I think it’s a two part of educating ourselves on the issue at hand, but then also doing really proactive things to address what is happening because it’s a very perverse issue. I know people fundamentally who are unable to afford some of the housing that in District A they actually were bought out by an investor. They were the highest offer on the house. And then an investor came in and bought the house right off from underneath them and they haven’t been able to find another house. We were talking about a young couple right here in Raleigh that just wants to have the opportunity to be able to live here and to be able to drive here and the real reality is that we have people that are coming in because Raleigh is a great place to live, it’s a great place to be and they see the opportunity to make money and it’s making it harder for people who have been here and want to just live here and not not have investment properties here. So I think, you know, we should be focusing on doing more and looking at the ways of other cities across the country, are solving these issues and seeing what we can do more up here. Great, thank you. So, we’re gonna go into our last sort of housing questions so other than what y’all might have come up with, so we’re gonna shift after this, but I’m gonna start with with you mary and we’ll kind of go down the road um with housing and land use, ranch style homes are being torn down and replaced with huge single single family homes priced at 4 to 5 times the original house given the city and voters emphasis on density and affordable housing, what could or should be done if anything by the city to change what’s happening. I think it’s important to preserve existing housing infrastructure. You’ve heard me talk about how we have a housing shortage, I think the issue is more that we have an affordable housing shortage. So, um I think we should be doing more to stop people from knocking down these houses and building these more expensive houses on these, on these lots. I’ve seen that happen a lot in district actually in the different neighborhoods up six forks um um along the uh like near Falls Lake as well. So uh I think there should be some some rules in place about the specific number of percentage of how we are preserving housing that is already available and keeping that as an option for people who want to live in particular neighborhoods. I’m not necessarily against a house and let’s say North Hills getting knocked down in a larger house being put up. But I do, I agree with the fact that we have to have a balanced way of Sony so that we have the right numbers of houses built in different income levels so that we have enough houses and corsets for for lower income, that type of thing. That is that sort of uh you know, if there’s gonna be cheating done, it’s gonna be on that end where we don’t provide that. So I’m sort of in the camp here, we’re married that we we need to make sure we’ve got enough affordable housing and maybe it doesn’t get position in North Hills, but it’s over here where we’ve got mass transit access and uh you can walk to businesses and that kind of thing Raleigh has always been a somewhat when you compared to other communities, integrated community and with income levels and that type of thing and I’m not saying that to perfection, but uh that to me provides a healthy environment when you have that type of thing. And so um yeah, but you have to have proper planning and you got to do it right? And it doesn’t mean you plop down lower income housing in the middle of higher income neighborhood and that type of thing, you have to plan it out properly and put the, it’s especially critical with the lower income housing where they’re gonna be able to get transportation and get access to businesses. So I used to live on Shelly Lane off in six works. So I know first hand what it is to watch the neighborhood kind of go from these really cute 19, late 19 forties, early 19 fifties ranch homes to you know three story larger, more modern homes. On the one hand like yeah, it’s really sad because I think Rachel’s are really cute and they were really adorable and I like how they looked and I like the feel and that was where my husband, I got to make our first home and that was awesome. However, there is also that is also true, right, that housing doesn’t last forever. There’s a functional obsolescence points right? It’s the nerd word that I learned recently um housing sometimes gets to a point where it’s not worth it anymore to keep up fixing it, to keep repairing it, it’s time for to replace And sometimes especially happens when the tastes and preferences of homebuyers changed. People wanted bigger homes, they didn’t want to live in a 1600 square foot home on a half acre lot. They wanted a bigger house and maybe a smaller lot. That’s okay. It’s okay for neighborhoods to kind of transform naturally and it’s okay for us to change what we want out of our communities. And so when I think about how do we affect this, change it? Stop it. For me, it’s not so much about trying to stop it or trying to say that like I know what a community ought to look like, right? The seller wants to sell and make get the money off their investment in their home. That’s their call. That’s their right. So for zoning, it’s more figuring out. Okay, are we using the land properly? Do we have Right, can we make maybe lots a little bit smaller so we can have jets have that kind of gentle density inside single family units and homes. Is that maybe also true that entry level home ownership might not be a single family home anymore. Maybe entry level home ownership is going to look like a condo. It’s going to look like a town home. How can we make sure that that affordable entry level point might have other options and make allowances for that. So for me, this is a big kind of both and we can mourn the things that are changing that we are going to miss that we loved and we can also be excited and be creative about what’s coming next. So we’re gonna shift a little bit from housing. So if you have any more questions we haven’t answered, feel free to go ahead and put them down for those at home. Nathan’s watching the questions. So you’re getting yours as well. Um We’re gonna switch over to Equity now. Um, I lost track with um how do you feel about the recommendations of the study committee regarding four year staggered terms? That’s interesting. One thing that I am for is term limits. Uh, it uh I think that two years is plenty of time. If someone’s in, You know, campaigning is a really tough thing when you first get in, but you’re doing a good job, then you ought to be able to hold on to that position and not have to knock on 2000 doors. Uh and you should have been knocking on those doors anyway while you were in office. Um on the other hand, uh, for campaign limits. Uh if we did go to four years, I would say that we have to put some type of, you know, two term limit or or something like that on it. And you’re gonna get into the box here too. If you stagger them. Well, okay, who’s who’s gonna get to four years who’s gonna get the two years, that type of thing is gonna have to be figured out. Um You know, I’m not, not really, not really wholeheartedly for someone staying in office that long just because I think there you’re gonna have to keep public support while you’re in there or if you don’t then maybe it’s time to go out. So full disclosure, I was on that set group, so spent over a year working with a bunch of different folks from kind of different personal backgrounds, political backgrounds, professional backgrounds and like all of them all over the city. And we went into the study group deciding that like we were only going to make recommendations that we could reach again Leslie. So we all knew that that meant that we were all going to be about a little bit unhappy. So we got something that we were all 80% okay with, that was what we were going to do it and it took us longer. We see a lot of time talking about things, but I think we ended up with recommendations that were incredibly thoughtful. Um and had been debated. Um And so I think that a four year staggered terms for council makes a lot of sense. Rally is growing, there’s a lot going on, we’re a city of about 500,000 people just about now and we have a budget, billion dollars. That is a lot to learn from a how does this work? What does this look like perspective, There is a learning curve to any job and this is a job. Um and so giving Sagara for your terms, allows time for people to learn to understand and get comfortable and make their decisions and I fully agree this is not a get out of jail free card for two years and not talking to people. You still have to show up in your community. And the recommendation for staggering that the study group landed on was that the mayor and the at large run on 14 year cycle. Right? And then all the city council members, the district representatives would run on a separate for your counsel, which means that every person in Raleigh would always get some to vote on somebody every two years. So that election cycle would still happen. There would still be that outlet for how do you feel about your council overall, give that input, have a course correction if we need to. Um and that that would be the correct kind of feedback. And in terms of yeah, who goes first is always going to be like really complicated. I’m personally in favor of just point flip random chance that it’s the only thing that’s fair. I mean, I think this the staggering of terms is a very nuanced sort of solution and at least I have a nuanced feeling about it because the question becomes of what, how do we address people with unchecked power and I think we can look to the city council for the last two years. And we’re talking about a city council that in the last two years has eliminated the citizen advisory councils. They gave themselves an extra year in office. Um They have allowed for the redevelopment of our city to really start to neighborhoods in very material ways. So I think, you know, much to what people are saying, I think, you know, it’s it’s an interesting idea. It is important to understand to have people that have right knowledge being in positions of power and not constantly have to worry about re election, but how are we making sure that they aren’t they don’t have unchecked power. And you know, I think uh I would love to see terms that are like maybe limited but also uh people having full time rules. I think it’s kind of hard to talk about a city running a city with a billion dollar budget and it’s a part time position. So I don’t know. I think there’s nuance to the answer. I think, you know, it’s not necessarily a bad idea, but it definitely gets into a sticky sort of situation or it’s a very slippery slope. Just looking at the direction that our city council has gone with unchecked power in the last two years. Thanks. Okay, so how will you help end Raleigh’s current shortage of firefighters, transit workers and 911 call center of professionals can start. Yeah. So we have the lowest number I’ve seen is 100 and 29 vacancies on the Raleigh Police Department Police force. I’ve also seen as high as I think 100 and 68 is the highest I’ve seen. Um, and then in the sixties for the fire department and that is just not very reassuring for a city of our size. Um, in order to address that right again, this is gonna be one of those, There’s not one solution to this, right? The cities around the country are having problems filling all of their emergency response personnel positions. Raleigh is like congratulations to us. We are a national level city. We are competing against other big cities, competitive cities when it comes to hiring the best right. And I think we can all agree that like we only want the best people who are entrusted to walk around our community with weapons and with authorization to use them as necessary. You don’t want that to go to somebody who is poorly trained who’s not overseen properly or who is not kind of playing at like a top level, a level right version of their, of their profession. So we have to be competitive. We need to be competitive against Kerry and wake and um, Apex who currently pay their officers more than Raleigh does. Um, we need to be able to retain the one the officers that we do have, especially when they are good officers. And then we need to balance that with actually making sure that we are providing one non lethal training nonlethal resources. The Raleigh Police Foundation, which is a new nonprofit partnership with the Raleigh P. D. Is currently spending money and making requests with the city for more tasers because not all of our officers had those because they didn’t have the option of non lethal force all of the time. So making those kinds of investments right in modern policing standards and making sure that chief Patterson has the support she needs for community based training, community based work in order to make sure that we have trusting relationships between our our emergency response personnel. I think it’s really key to making sure that they feel like they are part of our community and that also that our community understands that they are part of us and that we trust them as well. Yeah. So I don’t know if this is cross, but one of the most basic answer just be paying people more. I think a lot of people, at least of the members that I’ve met in the community is at canvas. The reason why they’re leaving the city is that they just can’t afford to live here anymore. So I think that’s like the most simple sort of solution just paying people more making it a city that is more competitive compared to the areas that are around us um specifically for our emergency response personnel. Um, and then I didn’t like that idea actually partnering with non violence and non legal trainings that are like backing these sorts of paris’s. Additionally uh I think we should also be looking into like the commune, the lead models that we are developing across the city with acorns developing that out more for um like looking less for outside aspects of um community and policing and enforcement and looking more for community like models and building those aspects of more through a deep lens that is actually based off of uh vision coming from the community members. So I think we’re probably all agreed the police officers. The firefighters need to get paid more money. We’re in competition, the biggest competition’s not nationally but here locally uh we train these people, they peel off, they go work for other departments Raleigh is the toughest city in wake County to work in period and case. And we have to keep the best people officers coming down are people who moved here from new york who have experienced should not have to start at the bottom. They should be able to start where their experience uh warrants for them to be paid. Uh We need to uh But but money, it’s not the only part of it is there’s a morale problem in the police department. Uh I’m not sure what all the ins and outs of it are but we do need to make sure we treat these folks right that they are given the most amount of respect the police, firefighters E. M. T. S. Number one thing in the number one responsibility of the city is to protect its citizens. Everyone should expect that that 911 call that someone is gonna show up. One of the things I think needs to happen with the police is that we need to start getting them integrated into the community out of the cars, knocking on doors, meeting the citizens. Uh we need to get police out on the greenways. I know I saw some pictures that they were some police out on the greenways on bikes but I don’t think we’ve really fully committed to that and with the head count that we have right now, that’s probably one of the reasons. So those those are things I think are important with police. Great thank you again. If we’re not answering your questions, make sure you’re putting them in here and those at home, make sure you’re sending your questions, you’re all talking about paying people more so this is gonna flow nicely. Um uh mary earlier this year, the north Carolina budget and Tax center reported that a family of four must make at least $81,000 a year to afford to live in Wake County were two adults making $20 an hour working at least 40 hours a week. How will you address the dire need for affordable housing in Raleigh to keep people who provide services from hospitality and retail to teachers. Police, firefighters able to live in the city. Yeah, I think there’s gonna be some creative solutions that are really implemented. I think it starts, you know, just with actually being a city council member of City council in general that really is focusing in on prioritizing aspects of affordable housing and how that looks for the different areas across the city. I think in um district a it’s with the developers and making sure that they’re actually prioritizing housing that is affordable and not just based off of sizes. Um recently at a city council meeting that they had last week, they are trying to price houses, apartments in the north coast area at that are 600 square feet at 15 dollars a month. And I really don’t think that’s very affordable or like really reflective of many of the people who want to be able to live in that area, so just putting the onus more on the people who want to come in to develop this area, on how they are doing it, and actually holding them to a particular standard and also, like I said, preserving the affordable housing that we do have in building density in ways that works for neighborhoods within the North Raleigh area. Could you give me the question again? Yeah, sort of talking about how expensive it is to live in our community, how will you address the dire need for affordable housing in Raleigh to keep people who provide services from hospitality um and retail to teachers, police and firefighters able to continue to afford to live in the city. Okay, so, you know, zoning is one of the most powerful tools that the city has and what what needs to happen is that we’re conscious from talking, you know, I’d like to see the C. A C. S come back in because they provide a place where you get the type of information you need to get from the citizens to be able to understand what’s needed in that particular community and that includes lower income housing, all types of housing. Well, what should built, where, you know, this is all zoning decisions and working with the developers. Uh and the city council has got to be on the citizens side of the table with this. I think sometimes the city council might be getting too far over on the developers and and you know, they’re part of the community too, but they’re not gonna have the big plan that the city is supposed to be a variety and the city needs to be there negotiating for the citizens at all income levels. So I think it’s just rolling up your sleeves and work with the citizens to really understand what the needs are. I think we’re sort of all agreed that every income level should be taken care of in your city. Yeah, so we’ve obviously talked a lot already about horrible housing and we just need a lot more of it all over the place. Um all but all over the place. I mean all up and down at different income brackets and wealth levels. But then also we need to have it in strategic places and locations that are going to be most useful for the folks, right. That need to get around our city easily and at low cost. So you don’t have to say that we’ve already covered on that. But I do think it’s something that the city could explode that I’d like to see the city explore, especially for um, city employees, especially, right, for emergency response personnel. Other cities of experimenting specific targeted housing grants, right where to actually support city employees living in the city and to use that as a form of a benefit or compensation that goes in addition to salary. I think that would be worth exploring to figure out what the cost of that might be, how other cities have made that work. I think it’s worth seeing. The other half of that of course is going to be okay. What else goes into a high cost of living? Right? Yes, rent or mortgage is going to probably be the number one budget expenditure that person makes for a month, but it’s not the only one. And for folks who especially are reliant on like public transportation and getting around. How can we make sure that that is an easy thing to do. How can we make sure that grocery stores are allowed close to communities, right? The neighborhood stores are nearby, but they have access to medical care and doctors, right? There’s an entire ecosystem that goes into living a healthy, cost efficient life. And sometimes only isn’t our zoning in the way that we’ve allowed cities to build, especially the highly suburbanized kind of process doesn’t make that easy for people. It doesn’t make it accessible for people. Um and so we need to be mindful of that also. How can folks get to the support they need, the services that they need and do it um with that kind of lower cost opportunities in mind. Great. Y’all got the hard questions either way, let’s switch to something easy transportation. Um you, what will you do to help increase public transportation infrastructure such as light rail, more bike accessibility? Well, I’m a big greenway writer now. Uh I got into that about a year ago and I love it. And the greenways are great and I think we do some more on connecting those and that type of thing, but that’s not really solving the big transportation issue. Uh look, the number one thing right now that we do and that has the most short term prospects for uh improving transportation is the busses. Now, if I, I’m looking at busses all the time now because I was getting ready for this question. Uh I noticed that they’re generally about 20% filled. I guess the question is why do we have a big bus that we drive around and contribute to global warming and all that type of thing, when, when it’s 20% full and and the complaints I’ve heard is the busses don’t show up on time, they’re too far space, all this type of thing. To me, it’s a very simple thing that, and, you know, there may be reasons, I haven’t researched this, why you can’t do this, but can we go to smaller busses, you’re gonna have to pay more drivers, it’s gonna be a little more expensive maybe, but you’re burning up less gasoline, these busses are filled now, you got more flexibility, you can run more, you know, have busses show up more often at the stops, you can extend routes, you just really sort of get, you know, with smaller into being able to uh, do more possibilities with uh, I’m not expert on public transportation, but I’m gonna become one. And that would be a suggestion I would make. Yes. Yeah, so I agree with Whitney. Right, like having actual, reliable, useful public transportation and a useful bus system that’s reliable, that serves with excellence. Right, is necessary. So, I would take the bus every now and then from my stop in midtown North hills, right to downtown, where my offer was the problem was I can only do that on days when the weather was nice because that particular bus stop on Shelly and six works had no cover and had no bench so I wasn’t going to stand out there in 100 degree weather in my suit and I wasn’t going to stand out there when it was raining or snowing or very very cold because I’m a wuss. Um So I only took it when the weather cooperated and I only took it when my schedule was completely in my control and I didn’t have to be in my office at a particular time. I didn’t and I knew that I was gonna be able to leave before it got really dark. That is not useful and reliable public transportation, right? And I that was for me just that was optional for me, I didn’t have to do that. Like if you have to rely on public transportation that time, cost of unreliability has really material impact on how you were able to actually exercise agency over your life agency over your schedule. So for me, when the busses have to serve a standard of excellence for all of our citizens um and that’s going to be especially true right? As the BR. T. Starts right going out if the rollout of our new bus rapid transit throughout is anything less than excellent, it’s going to be really hard to convince people that they can trust it and they can use it and they can build their life around right believing that that’s going to get them where they need to go. So having that city just a little laser focused on providing again this essential for service well is incredibly important. Um, the other thing that I especially am excited about in district a right, so y’all may or may not know yet about the S line. It’s an old railroad track that kind of goes from north to south for us and it is already working on being connected with the north Carolina department transportation and the federal government on what will eventually be a light rail commuter rail setup connecting us to Richmond and then also to D. C. So the federal and state side of that is already underway, which is super exciting. It’s going to create a connection point between right and force and us keeping an eye on that my time is out, but it’s such a nerdy fun thing. I want to talk about more. Um talk to you more about it later. That’s gonna be a fun I think, new edition. Yeah, I think faster reliable transportation is like the most fundamental thing here faster. We need, we need busses that are coming more often. Um, and we need them to be reliable. That they’re going to actually get there on the time that they say that they get there. I think it’s also important to keep transportation free. I think right now we have something going on where actually is three. I would like to see that continue into the future. Uh, and then a cat actually brought up a great topic around the transportation equity and justice wins and I think it’s awesome missing here. Uh, there’s a, there’s a bus stop right in front of my apartment complex, right on six sports, there is no bus cover. So how are we really creating um, Equity and Justice for people that do use these bus systems and need to use them And also like inviting people to have our cars to actually come in and want to use our transportation system. I think we need to address some of the lines and we work some of the ways that the city is connecting itself. Um, and then also working for the light rail commuter thing is very interesting thing. I’ve been looking into that as well, but uh, specifically like working with other cities, um, and doing our part as, as our local part for partnering with what the federal and state level are doing to work on this light rail work with other students that are also working on the light rail across the city because it’s something that’s very important. Most people in the Raleigh area in the Wake County area are living in one part of the Triangle and working in another part. So we really have to be intentional and thoughtful about how we are connecting these cities. People across within the city in different, in different cities and different townships within Wake County. I only have a few more questions. So I definitely think through if there’s anything else you want us to make sure we’re asking you want to make sure that we get all of your questions answered tonight. Um Catherine cameo um how would you advocate with N. C. D. O. T to reduce speeding on its roads running the rallies, residential and small business sounds what quick build, cost effective solutions are you aware of that works such as the ones down by done by Greenville north Carolina vision Zero Task force. Yes, neighborhood speaking. Um, so my understanding that one of the most efficient things is actually stop signs, I know that people really love the idea of speed bumps but those can actually, if not done right can cause a lot of damage and also especially might not see them always and they’re more expensive than putting in a stop sign. So big fan, especially neighborhoods like just make everybody stop. Um, the other side of this is going to be enforcement right? I know that the city has been rolling out different kind of yeah, we call them speed traps when they catch us right? We call them like traffic monitoring when they don’t they catch people don’t like um so making sure that that kind of targeted projects are being done in places where we do have problems, especially in neighborhoods, right? I mean I’m the oldest of five kids. I grew up playing like all in the streets growing up. I know that’s not safe, but like that’s what people do and you need to look out for your communities in that way. That also that of course is just gonna bring us back to, okay, well, you need enough police officers to be able to have those kinds of traffic monitoring if you don’t have human bodies to do that. Those human bodies are going to get used to respond to domestic violence calls. Right? And immediate projects. Right. The actual type of enforcement that is prospective looking that tries to problem solve, going into the future requires investment, it requires. Um, so this is one of those where I know people do a lot of like really creative work here. One of the quirky things that actually has a good, that has a weirdly positive impact on reducing eating is public intersections, um, totally counterintuitive. But it’s something that some studies have been done, you’d actually just like paint crosswalks and a really pretty pattern traffic slows down. So, you know, maybe I’ll just have some massive beautification efforts. Okay, I think there are, you know, the simple solutions, stop signs, speed humps the little mediums that are in the neighborhood, but I would really be interested in seeing and at least ensuring that the neighborhoods are centered in the designs of what’s happening with the traffic in their neighborhoods because there are people who have to drive in the neighborhoods more than anybody else and they know what would work, what wouldn’t work. So I actually think that art idea is pretty interesting. It sounds pretty cool. Um, but you know, my whole goal would be just making sure that the people who are living in that respective community are centered in what sort of traffic development and installing, they would like to see in their negatives. I like that part of the uh, and not just for that, but there’s a lot of places that we could paint that would make Raleigh look a lot better like overpasses and tha
Click Here For This Articles Original Source.
