A North Raleigh Publix continues to be the focal point of an ongoing debate about the city’s zoning code and how it should be applied. <\/p>\n
City staff and area residents seem to have different interpretations of the code, or Unified Development Ordinance. The UDO’s purposefully vague language has led to a slew of controversial new developments since its implementation last September.<\/p>\n
The two groups were pitted against each other during Tuesday\u2019s\u00a0Comprehensive Planning Committee meeting. The language and effects are confusing, so much so that even Council members Tuesday agreed they could not make any final decisions. <\/p>\n
Neighborhood Mixed-Use<\/strong> The UDO does not specify a maximum square-footage for stores within the NX designation; the only prohibited retail use is a pawnshop. It is this final phrasing \u2013 \u201cother than super-stores\u201d upon which North Raleigh neighbors have based their argument against the Publix. For example, North Carolina state statutes require that all rezoning requests \u2013 such as the one for the Publix \u2013 be consistent with an adopted Comprehensive Plan or, if not, to be both \u201creasonable\u201d and \u201cin the public interest.\u201d The guidelines for how to make this determination are laid out in the Comprehensive Plan itself, and city staff follows these guidelines. Therefore, staff says a change in methodology is unnecessary. Travis Crane, a planning and zoning administrator with the city, said recent changes to state law regarding development review procedures affected the way the city handles the site plan approval process.<\/p>\n The new law provides only two options for development review: one that uses objective standards and another that uses more subjective, generalized ones. <\/p>\n The city chose to go with the former, meaning that the generalized standards found in the Comprehensive Plan can only be considered when there is a Special Use Permit required.<\/p>\n The matter is somewhat confusing, even for Council members; Chairperson Stephenson said he had difficulty understanding the edge transitions. \u201cGiven the complexity and long-range complications of what we\u2019re talking about, we shouldn\u2019t be rushing to conclusions on these items. These are not simple issues that you can put out one omnibus memo and then let\u2019s all go home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very pleased with effort put forth, but that doesn\u2019t mean that they\u2019ve found the perfect solution the first time out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Members of the city\u2019s Comprehensive Planning Committee Tuesday reviewed a number of items dealing with inconsistencies between the Comprehensive Plan and the kinds of development the city has allowed to move forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24061,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[41,69],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21837"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24061"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21837\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe Publix application calls for a new, 50,000-square-foot store in a North Raleigh shopping center off Falls of Neuse Road.
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\nThe land is designated under the new code as Neighborhood Mixed-Use, abbreviated as NX under the UDO.
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\nNX is defined as an area that is \u201cintended to provide for a variety of residential, retail, service and commercial uses all within walking distance of residential neighborhoods.\u201d <\/p>\n
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\nRaleigh\u2019s Comprehensive Plan, on which the UDO is based, is more specific about the intent of the NX district. Notably, it states in part that \u201ctypical uses\u00a0would include corner stores or convenience stores, restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets (other than super-stores\/centers).\u201d <\/p>\n
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\nDavid Cox, who leads the Grow Raleigh Great coalition, was on hand\u00a0Tuesday\u00a0to make the case, once again, about why a 50,000-square-foot grocery store has no place within a NX district.
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\n\u201cThe Comprehensive Plan disallowed super-stores from Neighborhood Mixed-Use, which the industry defines as 30,000 square feet or greater,\u201d Cox said.
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\n\u201cStaff has effectively turned all supermarkets into one entity, when the comprehensive plan distinguishes between them.\u201d
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\nInterim Planning Director Ken Bowers said nearly all the grocery stores in Raleigh are greater than 30,000 square feet.
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\nCox began ticking off a number of counter-examples \u2013 Trader Joe’s, Aldi \u2013 before Bowers cut him off.
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\n\u201cI said almost every one, not all of them,\u201d Bowers said, sounding slightly exasperated.
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\nRuss Stephenson, chair of the Comprehensive Planning Committee, noted that on this and other issues \u201cboth sides gave great reasons for why their interpretation is right.\u201d
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\n\u201cIt seems like if two experts in interpreting data got together and looked at each other\u2019s notes, they\u2019d both end up with a better understanding of the data,\u201d he said.
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\nPlan Inconsistencies<\/strong>
\nAlthough the Publix and its NX label was just one of four items reviewed by the committee Tuesday, the key issue at play \u2013 inconsistencies between the city\u2019s Comprehensive Plan and future development \u2013 was a common theme throughout the meeting.<\/p>\n
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\nIn a report prepared for Tuesday\u2019s\u00a0meeting, city staff analyzed whether the process of determining whether fits those criteria is inadequate, as some have suggested. <\/p>\n
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\nAlthough staff reports can influence the decisions of the Planning Commission or the City Council when it comes to new development, these two bodies can and have disagreed with their conclusions, allowing inconsistent projects to move forward and consistent ones to be reworked or scrapped altogether.<\/p>\n
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\n\u201cI ultimately want clarity,\u201d he said. \u201cI would like to have staff go back and look at case studies.\u201d
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\nStaff Report<\/strong>
\nIn fact, staff had already conducted a good deal of research on all the items brought before committee this month.
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\nThe detailed report they prepared identified nine issues arising from the four planning items the committee was reviewing.
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\nFor each of these issues, staff made a recommendation. To deal with the NX issue regarding grocery stores, for example, it suggested an amendment to the comprehensive plan that would limit retail stores within this designation to 50,000 square feet.
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\nIn a few cases, the recommendation was to change nothing, but more often than not, the staff offered up a multitude of suggestions on how to deal with issues arising from Comprehensive Plan inconsistencies.
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\nThe committee, however, took no action on any of these recommendations.
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\nCouncilman and committee member Eugene Weeks noted that while the committee had gone over \u201ceach sentence and every word\u201d of what the staff reported, it didn\u2019t opt to go along at this point with a single recommendation.
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\nStephenson countered that the complexity of these issues, combined with the fact that not everyone is going to reach the same conclusions, meant more time was needed to go over the staff reports.<\/p>\n