Author: marynewsom

Planners are always coming up with Utopian ideas. Then those ideas get heaved against the plaster walls of the real world and shatter like porcelain teacups. (Feel free to share your war stories on that front, below.)

“Live-work units” – they’re all the rage among planners, and some developers, all over the country, especially (but not exclusively) in New Urbanist-styled neighborhoods. They’re buildings with retail or business space on the first floor and homes on upper floors.

It’s easy to see why they’d be popular: They’re an unfilled niche in the development market, aimed at people who own small businesses and don’t want to have to pay to rent/own both a home and a business site, or who don’t want to have to commute. Planners like them because they’re “mixed use” and, among other praiseworthy attributes, cut down on how many auto trips people have to make.

Plus, they can increase a city’s stock of affordable housing if you figure that not having to shell out for a separate space for your business gives you more money for your home.

Here’s the wall that they hit: Building codes don’t recognize them. If you’re a developer trying to build live-work, you’ll probably have to build the whole building under the commercial building code, even residential floors. That pushes your building costs so high that – guess what! – it isn’t affordable any more, and the units may not be able to compete with other residential development on the market.

I wrote a column in the Observer a few weeks ago about the difficulty developers have when applying the state’s building codes to mixed-used buildings. It spurred a call from Jim Bartl, Mecklenburg County’s director of code enforcement. He knows all about the live-work problem. “We’re getting pummeled by it all across the country,” he said.

Bartl, an architect, is one of North Carolina’s unsung heroes for his successful push to revise North Carolina’s state building code to make renovating older buildings dramatically easier. (That change, first enacted as a pilot project, was made permanent last year. Builders, planners, historic preservationists and downtown revitalizers all over the state should applaud Bartl and state Sen. Dan Clodfelter, D-Mecklenburg, among others.)

Turns out Bartl is working with a national committee to change the International Residential Code and the International Commercial Code – the documents that underpin North Carolina’s state building code – so they recognize live-work units and make it easier to build them without compromising safety and fire standards. The committee will submit its proposal to the International Code Council in March. It could be adopted by spring 2007, and North Carolina’s building code would likely adopt the changes after that.

It wouldn’t get us anywhere near Utopia, of course, but it should make mixed-use and New Urbanist development a bit easier in the state of North Carolina.

Planners are always coming up with Utopian ideas. Then those ideas get heaved against the plaster walls of the real world and shatter like porcelain teacups. (Feel free to share your war stories on that front, below.)

“Live-work units” – they’re all the rage among planners, and some developers, all over the country, especially (but not exclusively) in New Urbanist-styled neighborhoods. They’re buildings with retail or business space on the first floor and homes on upper floors.

It’s easy to see why they’d be popular: They’re an unfilled niche in the development market, aimed at people who own small businesses and don’t want to have to pay to rent/own both a home and a business site, or who don’t want to have to commute. Planners like them because they’re “mixed use” and, among other praiseworthy attributes, cut down on how many auto trips people have to make.

Plus, they can increase a city’s stock of affordable housing if you figure that not having to shell out for a separate space for your business gives you more money for your home.

Here’s the wall that they hit: Building codes don’t recognize them. If you’re a developer trying to build live-work, you’ll probably have to build the whole building under the commercial building code, even residential floors. That pushes your building costs so high that – guess what! – it isn’t affordable any more, and the units may not be able to compete with other residential development on the market.

I wrote a column in the Observer a few weeks ago about the difficulty developers have when applying the state’s building codes to mixed-used buildings. It spurred a call from Jim Bartl, Mecklenburg County’s director of code enforcement. He knows all about the live-work problem. “We’re getting pummeled by it all across the country,” he said.

Bartl, an architect, is one of North Carolina’s unsung heroes for his successful push to revise North Carolina’s state building code to make renovating older buildings dramatically easier. (That change, first enacted as a pilot project, was made permanent last year. Builders, planners, historic preservationists and downtown revitalizers all over the state should applaud Bartl and state Sen. Dan Clodfelter, D-Mecklenburg, among others.)

Turns out Bartl is working with a national committee to change the International Residential Code and the International Commercial Code – the documents that underpin North Carolina’s state building code – so they recognize live-work units and make it easier to build them without compromising safety and fire standards. The committee will submit its proposal to the International Code Council in March. It could be adopted by spring 2007, and North Carolina’s building code would likely adopt the changes after that.

It wouldn’t get us anywhere near Utopia, of course, but it should make mixed-use and New Urbanist development a bit easier in the state of North Carolina.

Big news – and good news – out Central Avenue.

The developers who wanted to build an Aldi grocery store at a key intersection – Briar Creek Road – are withdrawing their request for rezoning.

Chris Ogunrinde of Neighboring Concepts, one of the developers, told me Friday they decided to cancel the plans for the Aldi after a meeting with neighbors Jan. 26. “We had a lot of resistance from the residents,” he said. “I told Grey (Poole, the other developer) we should just fold and come back again.”

The property is owned by longtime East Charlotte resident and activist Nancy Plummer, whose husband, Ray, died last year. It’s 4.5 acres, zoned for 22-units-per-acre multifamily.

It was an unfortunate proposal for a key site, just beyond the funkily reviving Plaza-Central business district. The neighborhoods nearby, Merry Oaks, Briar Creek/Woodland, and the fringes of Plaza-Midwood, have in the past 10 years attracted a lot of younger, “creative class”-type residents.

But Aldi is a low-cost chain store that caters to, well, people looking for low-cost groceries. In and of itself, that’s fine. But one way retailers keep costs low is to build fast, cheap, unattractive stores. That’s why they’re called “big boxes.” Look at Costco. Look at Wal-Mart, and Target. Aldi is no exception. Unlike Harris Teeter and the locally owned Reid’s – which built stores uptown in mixed-use buildings – Aldi has no “urban” prototypes, at least, none in Charlotte.

So that key spot was going to get a one-story, suburban-style store catering to low-income customers. And what it needs is a well-designed, urban-style project with mixed-use buildings, good sidewalks and one-of-a-kind shops.

Ogunrinde says he was upset that some of the opposition focused on Aldi’s perceived clientele. That’s a fair point. City planners, as well, aren’t supposed to take such things into account in assessing whether to recommend for or against rezonings. And Aldi customers come from all income groups, surely.

But come on. In the real world developers set “price points” for their developments, and retailers do, too. That’s why Nordstrom didn’t plop itself down next to Target on South Boulevard. An Aldi would signal to every potential Central Avenue retailer and home-buyer, “downscale neighborhood here.”

Given that Aldi would build only a one-story building and needed a big parking lot, from what I saw of the site plan even a good urban designer like Ogunrinde couldn’t do much with the site.

The city plan for the area calls for something different – “neighborhood-oriented businesses” along that stretch of Central. It specifically recommends a coordinated development of the Plummer property and the property across Central, owned by the Renfrow family. It envisions two- or three-story buildings, with retail below and office or residential above.

That’s one reason a lot of neighbors felt betrayed by the development proposal. You can feel the heat, just reading the transcript of the Jan. 26 meeting.

The good news: Ogunrinde said he and Poole plan to simply buy the property outright from Plummer, and come back with a different proposal. There’s a lot happening in the area, and property values are rising. The proposed Morningside development, less than a mile away, is expected to set a much higher standard for design. I suspect Poole and Ogunrinde can sit on the property for a year or two and still make a pretty penny.

One other thing: At one point in the neighborhood meeting, Poole referred to the proposed development as “New Urbanism.”

It wasn’t. Not close. I hope people who heard him know the difference.

Want to know who’s trying to get the corner lot rezoned to build a Wal-Mart SuperCenter?

Want to know which City Council members voted for a stronger tree ordinance? Want to know who donated money to candidates in last fall’s City Council election? (Answer: Probably developers.)

Want to know how much the top staff in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ superintendent’s office are being paid?

You can find out all those things and plenty of other stuff, because government records in North Carolina are open to the public. They have to give you the information, even if they don’t approve of how you might use it.

Government meetings are open, too. They have to let you in, unless the meeting’s about a few very carefully defined topics, such as hiring/firing, or legal advice.

That’s why the Observer’s reporters have been able to write about the lengthy list of violations found over the years at Liberty Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, where resident Mary Cole went missing for four days, and died shortly after she was found in a storage closet. (Today’s coverage )

That’s why Observer reporters could find out that the Synthron Inc. chemical plant in Morganton – which exploded Tuesday – had been assessed $87,600 in state fines in the past five years for serious hazardous waste violations.

That’s why an Eastover couple fighting a developer’s plans to build houses in the floodplain could inspect every floodplain development permit issued in the county.

In other words, if you care to learn what your elected officials and governments are doing with your tax dollars, open records and open meetings laws ensure that you can.

Of course, governments now and again try to get around the law, because sometimes they don’t want people to know what they are up to, either because they’re up to no good, or – as is more often the case – they suspec what they’re doing could get them in political hot water. Most reporters have war stories about county boards holding illegally closed meetings, or bureaucrats who refuse to give you public records.

That’s why neighborhood activists should think strongly of joining the other folks who’ll be among the crowd – historians, librarians, lawyers, elected officials, etc. – at a March 13 conference in Raleigh, “Are We Safer In The Dark?”

Sessions include forums with top lawyers who deal with open government issues, as well as the broadcast of a panel discussion from Washington, D.C., of experts from around the country discussing government secrecy and other open government issues.

The March 13 conference is sponsored by the N.C. Open Government Coalition, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to ensuring and enhancing the public’s access to government activity, records and meetings.

The conference is at Exploris, 201 E. Hargett St., in Raleigh. Cost is $30, including lunch. A registration form is on the coalition’s web site.

Did you hear that Atlanta has halted the teardown-McMansion syndrome that’s overtaking its popular intown neighborhoods?

As an Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jan. 20 article reports, it’s a temporary moratorium that stops construction permits in five intown neighborhoods: north Buckhead, Virginia-Highland, Morningside-Lenox Park, Ansley Park-Sherwood Forest and Lake Claire. On Feb. 6 the Atlanta City Council will decide whether to extend the moratorium 120 days and study proposed regulations on height, how close to the street houses can be built, and how much a lot can be raised by adding dirt, among other things.

Dang right it’s controversial. One person’s so-called right to do whatever he or she wants with his or her property (to wit: building a 7,000-square-foot home to tower over the neighboring ranch houses, thus reducing them to the visual status of doghouses) collides with the so-called right not to have one’s historic neighborhood devastated by bloated, out-of-character houses. But is that really a right? (I’m pretty sure it isn’t, though it may well be an admirable and useful goal in some cases.)

What’s in Atlanta’s best interest, long-term? And should Charlotte consider anything similar?

To answer the second question first, yes – but qualified. Some of Charlotte’s most valuable, historic neighborhoods – Myers Park, Eastover and, to a lesser extent Dilworth – are being ravaged by teardowns. Parts of Dilworth are in a historic district. That can delay a teardown and requires new construction to try to fit in.

But old Myers Park is being dismantled, house by house. I wrote two years ago about the David Ovens home (yes, the auditorium is named for him) on Ardsley being demolished. The out-of-proportion 17,000-square-foot house on Queens Road West at Princeton has damaged that street’s once harmonious proportions and has become the butt of numerous jokes. Those are just two examples among many.

Even more insidious if not as well-publicized is that smaller, older houses are often the targets. I know Myers Park is more expensive than a lot of neighborhoods, but it’s losing any vestiges of economic diversity, as the small and older houses are bulldozed. And the inflated property values are pushing taxes beyond the reach of people on fixed incomes. Wiser heads should step in, before one of Charlotte’s few nationally known neighborhoods is obliterated.

I don’t know if the answer is a historic district, as in Dilworth, or design review before construction (akin to what Atlanta seems to be proposing), or a neighborhood conservation district. I do know one of the city’s treasured neighborhoods is at risk.

But overall, are teardown McMansions a bad thing? A good thing? Inevitable?

It’s good for a city when lots of people want to live close in. It’s good for the taxpayers that the property values are being inflated – that may help make up for all those high-foreclosure neighborhoods where values are sinking. Better for us in Charlotte if those big, expensive houses are paying taxes here, not out in Weddington.

However it’s not good when neighborhoods lose economic diversity – which seems to be happening.

And it’s not good – it is, in fact, appalling – that perfectly good, solidly built houses are just being thrown away. I’ve been watching a two-story brick home on Wendover Road – the kind of house that when I was a kid, we used to daydream about living in – being knocked down and its remains carted away, presumably to the landfill. It’s a waste of natural resources that verges on criminal. This is a city with painful housing needs – hard-working people can’t find decent places to live that they can afford. But we’re simply throwing away houses – and all the wood, bricks and metal that were grown, dug up and mined to build them – at a time when houses are badly needed. Something’s bad wrong.

Should the whole process be stopped? Probably not, unless, as I said above, it’s destroying a historic neighborhood. However, the city should ease up on its single-family-only zoning requirements, so some of those $750,000 lots can be filled with duplexes or quadraplexes, instead of $2 million houses on steroids. That might keep a few somewhat-more-affordable places in those areas. And the city should require builders of teardown McMansions to build sidewalks if they’re being built on streets that lack them, such as in Foxcroft and Cotwold. Obviously the extra few thousand for the sidewalks won’t matter to the buyers.

Personally, I think those huge houses are just kind of weird. I mean, who in their right mind wants to look after 7,000 square feet of floors, furniture, trinkets and window treatments? (And what little kids really like to sleep so remotely from siblings and parents? Kids like togetherness.) Life’s got too many fun things to do. Why shackle yourself to the upkeep of a monster house?

I keep hoping people will miraculously come to their senses. Maybe soaring heating, electrical and lawn-watering bills will get their attention. But then again, if $3-a-gallon gas hasn’t made folks rethink those idiotic and unsafe SUVs, I shouldn’t hold out hope. (Note: Nothing I’ve said about big houses applies to the occasional family with six or seven kids, who really needs all that space.)

Some great comments on the Middle Class Squeeze (see below).
First, kudos to “chilton” for coining a great term: “Pulturbia: cheap, on-slab housing with faux ‘community.’ ”
An anonymous commenter tossed out a challenge:
Mary, pick a side of the fence, please. When talking about the problem of sprawl, you note, “That’s not the way cities evolve naturally when left to their own devices.” Then you criticize “arriviste mansions,” which, of course, are the result of intown neighborhoods evolving naturally when left to their own devices.So, which is it? Should we let market forces prevail, or should we have the government tell us what to do? And if the latter, just curious: are you prepared to put historic preservation status on your own intown home, which would prevent a McMansion but severely limit your resale value?
And then “chef” commented:
I’m not sure what you’re asking for. Do you want mandated housing – force people to live certain places so they are integrated? Do you want to force developers to build $800k subdivisions next to $150k subdivisions? It seems like you want to force some sort of “solution” but fall short of saying what it is. If people can afford $800k houses, why not let them build and live where they want?
A few comments: This is a topic that could justify a research-paper length discourse, but I’m trying to keep the blog entries shorter, so I apologize for giving short shrift to some complicated situations. And bear in mind there are no easy solutions, because whatever you do, some negative consequence will emerge. Cities are complex organisms.
But it’s a misconception to think those “arriviste mansions” are a pure result of natural economic evolution. They’re not. They depend on government regulation, specifically on zoning laws that keep development at lower intensities. Without single-family-only zoning, some of those mansions would be apartment or condo buildings. Or stores, offices, or factories. Without that government meddling (a.k.a. zoning), when we’re forced to vacate our intown home in 15 years because we’ve retired and our tiny journalist pensions won’t cover the property taxes, we’d sell out to a high-rise condo developer for a lot more than even Simonini and brethren would pay us. (I’m pretty sure our humble ranch isn’t eligible for historic landmark status, especially since we replaced some of the drafty-but-vintage 1950 metal casement windows in front. We’re less authentic, but warmer.)
In a city evolving “naturally,” that is, without the government constraints of zoning, etc. etc., we’d see much more intense development in the desirable areas. That condo project at Carmel and Colony that the Giverny neighbors fought so intensely would be dwarfed by the nearby high-rises and office towers.
All that said, I don’t think we’re going to have that mythical-but-pure, dog-eat-dog free marketplace, where you can build anything anywhere and I can put a Starbucks in my front yard next to your McMansion. We don’t have it now. And on balance that’s a good thing. A totally free market would pollute the water and air and we’d all pay a lot more for street paving, among other things.
So I have to opt for a government regulatory system, but with different regulations, in some instances, from what we have now. Not more regulations, necessarily, just different ones. For example, current regulations require certain lot sizes and setbacks and limit the placement of your carport and won’t let your aunt bake pies to sell at the farmer’s market if she lives in a neighborhood zoned for residential only. I’d ease up on the single-family-only rules (and let people bake those pies!). BUT I’d force developments to have a small percentage of housing affordable by people who aren’t rich. Every development, even ones with $800,000 houses, would have to comply. You’d be free to buy an $800K house and move in. But on the corner might be a duplex where your widowed grandmother might live, or your niece who’s a kindergarten teacher.
That’s because it’s in the larger community’s best interest to have housing for people who aren’t rich, and it’s been proved over and over that a small percentage of less-affluent families don’t hurt property values, when they’re dispersed through higher income neighborhoods. But large collections of very poor families clustered in one neighborhood do hurt property values there. So it’s in the larger community’s best interest to encourage economic integration in ways that don’t negatively affect other areas.
Several Virginia and Maryland counties have adopted those “inclusionary zoning” ordinances, as has Davidson, and they seem to be working fine.
Interestingly, Myers Park – designed 100 years ago before Charlotte zoning laws – had deed restrictions that dictated that on certain streets the houses couldn’t be too expensive. John Nolen, who planned the neighborhood, thought it was important to mix housing sizes and prices. So Myers Park (and to a lesser extent Eastover) has huge houses, smaller houses and even garage apartments (a form of “affordable housing” that’s been all but lost due to overly restrictive zoning rules).
What about all those starter home neighborhoods? That’s trickier. I’m not sure what the best solution would be, even though I worry that they’ll be our slums of 2036.
Allowing more affordable housing in higher-income areas would ease some of the market pressure for starter homes, but probably not enough. Stronger design rules – like the ones Cabarrus County recently instituted – would be appropriate. And if the high-interest-rate mortgage business were forced to clean up its act, I bet a notable percentage of the starter home market would evaporate.

Some great comments on the Middle Class Squeeze (see below).
First, kudos to “chilton” for coining a great term: “Pulturbia: cheap, on-slab housing with faux ‘community.’ ”
An anonymous commenter tossed out a challenge:
Mary, pick a side of the fence, please. When talking about the problem of sprawl, you note, “That’s not the way cities evolve naturally when left to their own devices.” Then you criticize “arriviste mansions,” which, of course, are the result of intown neighborhoods evolving naturally when left to their own devices.So, which is it? Should we let market forces prevail, or should we have the government tell us what to do? And if the latter, just curious: are you prepared to put historic preservation status on your own intown home, which would prevent a McMansion but severely limit your resale value?
And then “chef” commented:
I’m not sure what you’re asking for. Do you want mandated housing – force people to live certain places so they are integrated? Do you want to force developers to build $800k subdivisions next to $150k subdivisions? It seems like you want to force some sort of “solution” but fall short of saying what it is. If people can afford $800k houses, why not let them build and live where they want?
A few comments: This is a topic that could justify a research-paper length discourse, but I’m trying to keep the blog entries shorter, so I apologize for giving short shrift to some complicated situations. And bear in mind there are no easy solutions, because whatever you do, some negative consequence will emerge. Cities are complex organisms.
But it’s a misconception to think those “arriviste mansions” are a pure result of natural economic evolution. They’re not. They depend on government regulation, specifically on zoning laws that keep development at lower intensities. Without single-family-only zoning, some of those mansions would be apartment or condo buildings. Or stores, offices, or factories. Without that government meddling (a.k.a. zoning), when we’re forced to vacate our intown home in 15 years because we’ve retired and our tiny journalist pensions won’t cover the property taxes, we’d sell out to a high-rise condo developer for a lot more than even Simonini and brethren would pay us. (I’m pretty sure our humble ranch isn’t eligible for historic landmark status, especially since we replaced some of the drafty-but-vintage 1950 metal casement windows in front. We’re less authentic, but warmer.)
In a city evolving “naturally,” that is, without the government constraints of zoning, etc. etc., we’d see much more intense development in the desirable areas. That condo project at Carmel and Colony that the Giverny neighbors fought so intensely would be dwarfed by the nearby high-rises and office towers.
All that said, I don’t think we’re going to have that mythical-but-pure, dog-eat-dog free marketplace, where you can build anything anywhere and I can put a Starbucks in my front yard next to your McMansion. We don’t have it now. And on balance that’s a good thing. A totally free market would pollute the water and air and we’d all pay a lot more for street paving, among other things.
So I have to opt for a government regulatory system, but with different regulations, in some instances, from what we have now. Not more regulations, necessarily, just different ones. For example, current regulations require certain lot sizes and setbacks and limit the placement of your carport and won’t let your aunt bake pies to sell at the farmer’s market if she lives in a neighborhood zoned for residential only. I’d ease up on the single-family-only rules (and let people bake those pies!). BUT I’d force developments to have a small percentage of housing affordable by people who aren’t rich. Every development, even ones with $800,000 houses, would have to comply. You’d be free to buy an $800K house and move in. But on the corner might be a duplex where your widowed grandmother might live, or your niece who’s a kindergarten teacher.
That’s because it’s in the larger community’s best interest to have housing for people who aren’t rich, and it’s been proved over and over that a small percentage of less-affluent families don’t hurt property values, when they’re dispersed through higher income neighborhoods. But large collections of very poor families clustered in one neighborhood do hurt property values there. So it’s in the larger community’s best interest to encourage economic integration in ways that don’t negatively affect other areas.
Several Virginia and Maryland counties have adopted those “inclusionary zoning” ordinances, as has Davidson, and they seem to be working fine.
Interestingly, Myers Park – designed 100 years ago before Charlotte zoning laws – had deed restrictions that dictated that on certain streets the houses couldn’t be too expensive. John Nolen, who planned the neighborhood, thought it was important to mix housing sizes and prices. So Myers Park (and to a lesser extent Eastover) has huge houses, smaller houses and even garage apartments (a form of “affordable housing” that’s been all but lost due to overly restrictive zoning rules).
What about all those starter home neighborhoods? That’s trickier. I’m not sure what the best solution would be, even though I worry that they’ll be our slums of 2036.
Allowing more affordable housing in higher-income areas would ease some of the market pressure for starter homes, but probably not enough. Stronger design rules – like the ones Cabarrus County recently instituted – would be appropriate. And if the high-interest-rate mortgage business were forced to clean up its act, I bet a notable percentage of the starter home market would evaporate.

You heard it here first: Charlotte slowly becoming a city of stark haves and have-nots?
Two different bits of recent news coverage might sound a warning bell.
First was Michelle Crouch’s article Jan. 11, “Homes’ sum is greater than parts” about the Montibello Crossing neighborhood. A developer wants to buy the whole 47-acre neighborhood – all 63 homes, vintage 1970s – and tear them down so he can build much pricier houses (or, as one Eastover resident I know calls them, “arriviste mansions.”)
Last year the average sale price for Montibello Crossing houses was $257,000. Several neighboring subdivisions are much ritzier, with average sale prices last year in Gleneagles at $610,000, Quail Hollow at $690,000 and Seven Eagles at $851,300.
The second piece was the excellent series, just concluded, on the problem of foreclosures in Mecklenburg County. Did you look at the map? Since the foreclosure problem is primarily tied to entry-level (i.e., inexpensive) housing, the map shows a large band of neighborhoods, sweeping east to west across the county, generally north of downtown, are being filled with new subdivisions holding nothing but entry-level housing.
Don’t get me wrong. This city needs housing that people who aren’t wealthy can buy. We don’t want everyone who isn’t making a six-figure income to have to move to Union, Cabarrus or Gaston County. I’m not saying it’s a problem that those houses are being built (although if you read the series, you’ll see it’s a problem when mortgages are given to people who shouldn’t really get them, and foreclosure results). The problem comes when too much housing for low-income people gets concentrated, instead of being sprinkled throughout the city amid higher-income housing.
Here’s market reality: If you cluster too many subdivisions of low-cost houses, you can’t sell higher-end houses in that area. People think it isn’t a good investment – and they’re probably right. All those starter-home subdivisions may well be condemning large chunks of Charlotte to a foreseeable future of nothing but low-income residents. It’s an economic monoscape in the making, and not one that will be healthy for the city.
If there’s anything we’ve learned from the past half-century, it’s that neighborhoods housing only large concentrations of poor people are more prone to crime, drugs, social problems and joblessness.
Then, in south Charlotte you’ve got people in moderate-level housing being squeezed out by super-expensive housing.
Catch my drift? Does this not sound like a future of economic apartheid?
What will that kind of future mean for public schools? Once the courts threw out the old, court-ordered student assignment plan, the schools rapidly splintered by income and race – reflecting the way the city’s neighborhoods are segregated by income. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is staggering from large, and unexpected, increases in low-income and immigrant students. (Yes, many do very well, and being poor shouldn’t mean any student gets a worse education. But statistics show that as a group, kids from poor homes don’t do as well as kids from wealthier ones, and they require a disproportionate amount of public money in order to give them an equitable education.)
Meanwhile, the slow attrition of affluent kids into private schools or home schools continues as the rich get richer, and the influx of poor and immigrant kids tilts formerly middle-income schools into the high-poverty category.
Can the middle class even hold on here? It’s not a comforting vision of the future.

All those people buying up condos in those uptown towers ’cause they love the view? Guess what. Nothing in city regulations can stop the owner of some parking lot next door from putting up a tower to block the view.
I guess it’s only a major point if you’re one of the people buying in to places with names like “the Vue,” but it’s a great example of our city planning policies being a day late and a dollar short.
The point came up Tuesday night in a forum called “Towers: Is Charlotte Losing Or Finding Its Soul?” at the Levine Museum, put together by an interested group that calls itself the Civic By Design forum. Architect/developer David Furman, who’s building Courtside among other uptown projects, was asked about the problem of shadowing, which you get in places with a lot of tall towers.
The questioner wanted to know what’s being done here?
“I think nothing,” said Furman.
City planner Kent Main, in the audience, confirmed that. We do not have any regulations on that, he said. One reason buildings in New York City are terraced back from the street, he said, is because of those kinds of regulations requiring sunlight and shadow studies. But, he said, he didn’t think Charlotte had reached that point yet.
He’s right. We haven’t. But here’s the problem with that kind of thinking: By the time Charlotte has reached that point, with everyone wanting a tower on every uptown plot, how hard is it going to be for City Council to buck the pressure they’ll get from all those developers planning to build all those towers? Setting sunlight rules and viewshed rules will limit the ability of some property owners to build everything they want, wherever they want it.
The time to adopt regulations is now, before the pressure gets so intense.
How important is the view to potential condo buyers uptown? Patrick Kelly, a young architect who works with Civic By Design forum coordinator Tom Low, went around to a bunch of for-sale condo tower projects uptown to hear their sales pitches.
His conclusion: “They’re all selling the view.”
Betcha all those buyers will be a tad ticked when they learn their “view” has no protection. Welcome to Charlotte.

All those people buying up condos in those uptown towers ’cause they love the view? Guess what. Nothing in city regulations can stop the owner of some parking lot next door from putting up a tower to block the view.
I guess it’s only a major point if you’re one of the people buying in to places with names like “the Vue,” but it’s a great example of our city planning policies being a day late and a dollar short.
The point came up Tuesday night in a forum called “Towers: Is Charlotte Losing Or Finding Its Soul?” at the Levine Museum, put together by an interested group that calls itself the Civic By Design forum. Architect/developer David Furman, who’s building Courtside among other uptown projects, was asked about the problem of shadowing, which you get in places with a lot of tall towers.
The questioner wanted to know what’s being done here?
“I think nothing,” said Furman.
City planner Kent Main, in the audience, confirmed that. We do not have any regulations on that, he said. One reason buildings in New York City are terraced back from the street, he said, is because of those kinds of regulations requiring sunlight and shadow studies. But, he said, he didn’t think Charlotte had reached that point yet.
He’s right. We haven’t. But here’s the problem with that kind of thinking: By the time Charlotte has reached that point, with everyone wanting a tower on every uptown plot, how hard is it going to be for City Council to buck the pressure they’ll get from all those developers planning to build all those towers? Setting sunlight rules and viewshed rules will limit the ability of some property owners to build everything they want, wherever they want it.
The time to adopt regulations is now, before the pressure gets so intense.
How important is the view to potential condo buyers uptown? Patrick Kelly, a young architect who works with Civic By Design forum coordinator Tom Low, went around to a bunch of for-sale condo tower projects uptown to hear their sales pitches.
His conclusion: “They’re all selling the view.”
Betcha all those buyers will be a tad ticked when they learn their “view” has no protection. Welcome to Charlotte.