{"id":4171,"date":"2010-05-31T12:08:12","date_gmt":"2010-05-31T17:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=4171"},"modified":"2013-02-11T20:40:35","modified_gmt":"2013-02-12T01:40:35","slug":"council-talking-budget-gardens-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/city-council\/2010\/05\/31\/council-talking-budget-gardens-this-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Council talking budget, gardens this week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tuesday evening will kick off the official budget deliberations for city council members. The council will hold a public hearing on the proposed $620-million budget starting at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>The city has a projected $7.5-million shortfall for the fiscal year starting July 1 and councilors have to have a balanced budget passed by the end of June.<\/p>\n<p>City Manager Russell Allen made his budget proposal two week ago, which includes no property tax increase but does add $5 to the city\u2019s vehicle tax. Read an analysis of the proposal <a href=\"..\/..\/..\/..\/..\/news\/city-council\/2010\/05\/19\/city-budget-maintains-line-on-property-tax-5-increase-for-cars\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>State legislation threatens Little River Reservoir<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Companion bills at the state legislature have the city Public Utilities Department worried about the future of the plan for the Little River Reservoir, where the city hopes to build a new dam to meet Raleigh\u2019s future water needs.<\/p>\n<p>The legislation on the table at the General Assembly would create hydrological models for North   Carolina\u2019s river basins and set minimum flow rates for the state\u2019s major rivers. Flow rates dictate how much water can be diverted from a river. The bill could also prevent new reservoirs in the state.<\/p>\n<p>City staff wants council approval to lobby for changes to the proposed law. Read the full report to council here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Community gardens<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Gardens are allowed in the city zoning code, but only as what planners call an \u201caccessory use.\u201d Having a garden as the primary use for a property, such as a community garden on an empty lot, is not allowed.<\/p>\n<p>Planning Director Mitch Silver will give his take on how to change the city\u2019s zoning code to allow community gardens in a report to council this week.<\/p>\n<p>The issues over community gardens have come up twice in the past month during the council\u2019s regular public comment and petition session.<\/p>\n<p>The report says people should be encouraged to use private land for community gardens. As the city rewrites its zoning code this year, the report says the new code can take out barriers to gardens. But Silver\u2019s report also says that city-owned land for public gardens would face a number of legal issues, including problems with runoff, pollution and other liabilities.<\/p>\n<p><a style=\"margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block; text-decoration: underline;\" title=\"View City Council Agenda June 1 2010 on Scribd\" href=\"http:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/32271361\/City-Council-Agenda-June-1-2010\">City Council Agenda June 1 2010<\/a> <object id=\"doc_360383499261799\" style=\"outline:none;\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"name\" value=\"doc_360383499261799\" \/><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"opaque\" \/><param name=\"bgcolor\" value=\"#ffffff\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"FlashVars\" value=\"document_id=32271361&amp;access_key=key-j3b4klhpd4dkzyysqiv&amp;page=1&amp;viewMode=list\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/d1.scribdassets.com\/ScribdViewer.swf\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed id=\"doc_360383499261799\" style=\"outline:none;\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"100%\" height=\"500\" src=\"http:\/\/d1.scribdassets.com\/ScribdViewer.swf\" flashvars=\"document_id=32271361&amp;access_key=key-j3b4klhpd4dkzyysqiv&amp;page=1&amp;viewMode=list\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" bgcolor=\"#ffffff\" wmode=\"opaque\" name=\"doc_360383499261799\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Raleigh City Council will hold its annual budget hearing Tuesday evening. During the afternoon council members will tackle community gardens, the Little River Reservoir and more. Photo: The Wedge Garden in the Pullen Park neighborhood. Photo by Jessica Tisdale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,15,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4171"}],"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\/24002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}