{"id":21984,"date":"2014-09-24T06:36:51","date_gmt":"2014-09-24T10:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=21984"},"modified":"2014-09-24T06:42:13","modified_gmt":"2014-09-24T10:42:13","slug":"city-council-holds-udo-work-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/udo-2\/2014\/09\/24\/city-council-holds-udo-work-session\/","title":{"rendered":"City Council Holds UDO Work Session"},"content":{"rendered":"

City Council members last week held a special work session on a series of amendments proposed for the city\u2019s Unified Development Ordinance.<\/p>\n

In place for a year now, the new UDO has led to a series of contentious development projects, including a student housing project on Hillsborough Street that exceeds the area\u2019s recommended story limit.<\/p>\n

\"Several

James Borden \/ Raleigh Public Record<\/p>

Several properties on Hillsborough Street, including Two Guys Pizza and Amina’s Cafe, will be torn down for a new student-housing development<\/p><\/div>\n

All of the items staff presented to council had previously been brought before the Comprehensive Planning Committee, which had recommended their presentation.<\/p>\n

These items ranged from the required transitions between residential and nonresidential areas and the potential need for a zoning designation that falls between neighborhood mixed-use and community mixed-use.<\/p>\n

Councilor Russell Stephenson, who chairs the Comp Planning Committee, said there is one consistent theme that has come up every time he discusses the UDO with his constituents.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow are we going to balance sustainable growth with neighborhood preservation?,\u201d Stephenson said.<\/p>\n

Councilor Thomas Crowder was concerned that certain amendments or exceptions to the UDO could unfairly tip the scale in favor of growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me you should always err in favor of neighborhoods,\u201d Crowder said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to decide, are we going to let the market erode our neighborhoods, or are going to try and protect our neighborhoods?\u201d<\/p>\n

As all of the items presented to council were the result of citizen petitions, each of them were tied to examples of past or present development that sparked a lively discussion among the councilors.<\/p>\n

Speaking in favor of height restrictions for buildings located in transitional space between a commercial and a residential area, Crowder noted that the architects designing these buildings should have no problem complying with the regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cDesigners are creative \u2014 I\u2019ve been one since 1973 \u2014 you can get creative and make it happen,\u201d Crowder said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the major tenets of our mission,\u201d as councilors, Crowder said, is to \u201cprotect neighborhoods, if we\u2019re willing to do that we should come up with a right solution in doing so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not all Councilors were as engaged in the discussion.<\/p>\n

\"Raleigh's

Raleigh’s Unified Development Ordinance<\/p><\/div>\n

Councilor John Odom noted that the work session’s UDO talk seemed familiar; \u201cWe\u2019re discussing the same thing today we did over a two-year period.\u201d<\/p>\n

Odom asked staff whether many projects had been built under the UDO guidelines, and was told that they aren\u2019t \u201creally out of the ground\u201d yet, and that staff \u201chadn\u2019t seen a lot in terms of build results.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re talking about changing [the UDO] before we see results?\u201d Odom asked.<\/p>\n

Interim Planning & Development director Ken Bowers told council that when it comes to approving any given project, \u201cit\u2019s a judgment call. It\u2019s always a judgment call when you\u2019re legislating; there isn\u2019t any way you can get rid of judgment calls.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t replace City Council with a CouncilBot 3000,\u201d Bowers said.<\/p>\n

Of the nine issues presented to council, which also included height limit guidance and development adjacent to an alley, councilors voted to send all of them to the planning commission for further review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

City Council members last week held a special work session on a series of amendments proposed for the city\u2019s Unified Development Ordinance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24005,"featured_media":21931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[134],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21984"}],"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\/24005"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}