Category: Raleigh

One N.C. city aims to protect older buildings with a height limit. (Hint: Not Charlotte)

Tall new buildings surround Romare Bearden Park in uptown Charlotte. Photo: Nancy Pierce

As discussion in Charlotte continues on how to protect the unique character of some older neighborhoods from intense development pressure, [Can Plaza Midwood save the places that matter?] one N.C. city is using a tool that’s been available all along. That city is Raleigh. [With height caps, Raleigh hopes to protect historic buildings]

It’s not a tool beloved by people who make money from building tall buildings. By limiting the heights of buildings, the city is, at heart, limiting the profitability of any development on that dirt. Note that overall, Raleigh wants to encourage tall buildings downtown, and density.  But with a cluster of 19 old, iconic buildings along its main downtown street, Raleigh wants to add a level of protection.

Most of the buildings that will get the height limits are on the National Register of Historic Places and Raleigh historic landmarks.  Under state and federal law, neither of those designations can prevent a building from demolition.

Charlotte also has height restrictions in some of its zoning categories, especially the transit-oriented and mixed-use development districts. But those height limits are so tall that they don’t, effectively, deter demolitions of older buildings, and there is an “optional” zoning that lets the city OK pretty much anything if the developer can make a good case for it.) Of course, the single-use-only districts have de facto height limits as well.  (My graduate student, Jacob Schmidt, recently analyzed the proportion of mixed-use vs .single-use zoning inside Charlotte city limits. More than 90 percent of the land area is zoned for single-uses.)

But if you own a property in uptown Charlotte zoned UMUD (uptown mixed use district) you can build as tall a building as the FAA will allow. That’s right — the only limits on height are based on whether airplanes might run into the towers. The
development-encouraging UMUD zoning was developed during the 1980s, when businesses were fleeing to the suburbs and the city wanted to encourage development uptown. At the time, it was a much-needed tool. UMUD zoning, coupled with several uptown bank leaders’ determination to keep uptown healthy, prevented uptown from dying completely for a couple of decades. So while Raleigh, Greensboro, Winston-Salem and other N.C. downtowns are finally reviving nicely, with their older buildings intact, in Charlotte the side effect was to demolish virtually all the older buildings, including designated landmarks. With some welcome exceptions, our uptown is mostly shiny and new. 

I have heard at least one planner say that at one point the idea of uptown height limits was mentioned in a planning department meeting. But it was quietly buried.

It will be interesting to see, over time, how or whether Raleigh’s use of the height-limit tool makes a difference in its downtown development. 

More recognition for Raleigh’s pedestrian enthusiast

Matt Tomasulo, who instigated a creative way to highlight pedestrian issues in Raleigh, makes the big time. Bigger than the BBC? Well maybe not. But this planning-landscape architecture graduate student at N.C. State University is the (Raleigh) News & Observer’s Tar Heel of the Week. I first wrote about Tomasulo on Feb. 6, inviting similar guerrilla urbanism in Charlotte. So far, I’ve heard of none.

However, what’s has happened here has been a tragic string of pedestrian deaths, including two children on a section of West Tyvola Road that lacks sidewalks, and a Garinger High School student at an intersection at Eastway and Sugar Creek roads that lacks any crosswalks or pedestrian lights. I’ll write more about that one later, but it’s worth pointing out that the deaths at Garinger and on South Tryon Street were on state-maintained and state-designed thoroughfares, and the injury of a Butler High School student was in the town of Matthews.

All those deaths and injuries, including others that don’t get much media attention, point to how complicated it is to encourage people in Charlotte to walk more and drive less – for reasons that include health, obesity-reduction, air pollution and saving gas money in household budgets.

We lack sidewalks, of course. But many streets that have sidewalks don’t have safe and convenient street crossings, even where bus stops are heavily used or outside places like high schools where people are routinely walking. Another example of that is Wendover Road behind the rear entrance to Myers Park High School.

Drivers are so unused to seeing pedestrians they’re often oblivious, and pedestrians have to be extraordinarily careful. I have personal experience with this one. Some drivers are aghast when you make them realize they nearly mowed you down. Others are mad you’re there at all and get hostile, apparently unaware state law gives pedestrians in crosswalks the right of way.

In other words, making life safer and more comfortable for pedestrians means using a lot of tools: more sidewalks, more and safer crossings and more driver and pedestrian education. 

“Prudent Growth”? Multifamily McMansions?

A Coconut Grove, Fla., McMansion circa 2003. Are McMansions destined to be apartment houses in the next decade? (Miami Herald photo)
I came away from last week’s New Partners for Smart Growth conference with a notebook full of interesting ideas, factoids and thoughts:

• Can we scrap the term Smart Growth? It insults people, which doesn’t help anyone make needed political and business changes. But “sustainability” isn’t much better. For one thing, the way a community develops is much more complex than buying fluorescent light bulbs, which is what “sustainability” means to a lot of people. “I try to avoid using the word ‘sustainability,’ ” Raleigh Planning Director Mitch Silver, who is president-elect of the American Planning Association, told the crowd Saturday. The term means too many things to too many people, he said.
I vote for not calling it anything, since any good planner/urban designer/policy maker worth her or his salt knows what to do anyway. If a term is absolutely required, what about “Prudent Growth” or “Responsible Growth”?

• Two different planning/development experts predicted that many of the McMansions built in the past decade will end up being broken into multifamily housing. Arthur “Chris” Nelson, who gave an interesting demographics presentation, even offered floor plans for converting a 6,000-square-foot-house – “modest by McMansion standards” – into three apartments. He noted that multifamily’s share of the demand for new housing 2010-20 will be 50 percent. Considering population, age and market-demand projections, the U.S. is overbuilt on single-family housing, he said, and underbuilt on multifamily.
Silver, of Raleigh, also pointed to that likely result. “What are we going to do with those 4,000-square-foot mansions out in the suburbs,” he asked.
• Silver gave an excellent talk about Raleigh’s planning and zoning efforts. He self-deprecatingly noted the city’s “Sprawleigh” nickname and described a wide-ranging effort Planning Raleigh 2030, that aimed to get residents to envision what they wanted their city to look like in two decades. (They used different outreach methods for different age groups.) The city’s new comprehensive plan was adopted in 2009. Unlike Charlotte, that isn’t all the city did. “If you just have a policy plan sitting on a shelf, it has no value,” Silver said. “It’s important to have the one-two punch” of adopting the plan and then codifying it.
So the city is completely rewriting its zoning code, which will be, in part, a form-based code. That’s a code that worries less about what you’re doing inside the building (office? store? apartments?) and more about how the building behaves in its surroundings. “Sprawl is fiscally irresponsible and frankly, too expensive to maintain,” he said. (I guess he doesn’t have to worry about REBIC and influential suburban subdivision developers complaining to his bosses when he says things like that, right out loud and in public.)

• The Atlanta BeltLine project was described as “the most transformative project in Atlanta since the airport was built.” (quote is from Atlanta City Council member Joyce Sheperd). It’s a $2.8 billion redevelopment project to create public parks, multi-use trails and transit along a mostly abandoned 22-mile railroad corridor that encircles downtown Atlanta and connects 45 neighborhoods. It’s a huge partnership, and involves a 6.500-acre tax increment financing district (covering 8 percent of the city’s land area). Along with local, state and federal money expected to be spent, a nonprofit Atlanta BeltLine Partnership is raising money from philanthropic and private sources, as well as local, state and federal funds.

Almost half the right-of-way has been leased, optioned or purchased. So far 3.5 miles of permanent trails have been built, as well as 8 miles of interim hiking trails.
Brian Leary, CEO of Atlanta BeltLine Inc., told the conference gathering, “For the last 14 years Atlanta has been looking for its next Olympic moment.” He clearly thinks the BeltLine is it.

Walking? Hazardous duty in Raleigh, Charlotte

This morning’s topic: the hazards of walking in Charlotte. One recent horror story: On Election Day my husband and I walked to our polling place, and then to the cleaner’s – which meant crossing the vast Providence Road-Sharon Amity/Sharon Lane intersection. Even after we waited for the crossing light, we couldn’t set foot into the crosswalk for fear of becoming grease spots on the asphalt, as vehicle after vehicle sped around the generously curved corner, designed to make it easy to turn at 30 mph (and making it easier to destroy anyone on foot). Knowing state law gives pedestrians in a crosswalk the right of way, and thus my heirs might at least get a nice settlement, I ventured into the crosswalk. A monstrous black SUV nearly creamed me. The blond driver, on her cellphone, never even saw me.

When we made it across, then we had to cross the other street. This time, we edged into the crosswalk so drivers could see us, and stop for us. A driver wanting to turn right (into our path) kept edging forward. I made eye contact, which usually signals to drivers to stop. So far so good.

The light changed. We stepped farther into the crosswalk. Zoom! She drove right in front of us. I am here to recount this only because we are reasonably spry. My husband shouted at her so loudly she – get this – stops her car in the left lane of Providence Road and sits there for several minutes. Hmmm. Driver safety class needed?

Which brings me to this: Although most Charlotte drivers aren’t thinking about pedestrians, we are NOT the most dangerous N.C. city for pedestrians in the state. Raleigh takes that ranking.
(Here’s a link to the Triangle Biz Journal article on the same ranking.) The study, by an advocacy group, Transportation for America, used an index based on the number of pedestrian fatalities relative to the average amount of walking by residents. The deaths came from 2007-08 data; the walking stat was based on the percentage who walk to work in 2000. I.E., it’s not a perfect measure – but it’s probably relatively close in terms of rankings if not absolute numbers.

Orlando, Fla., was the most dangerous city for pedestrians, followed by Tampa, Miami and Jacksonville, Fla. Memphis, Tenn., was No. 5. Charlotte was No. 12 on the list. All are in the Sun Belt (well, Louisville maybe is borderline), until you get to No. 14 (Detroit) and then to No. 20 (Kansas City). Here’s a direct link to the rankings. And here’s one to the study, called Dangerous By Design. That reflects the reality that most Sun Belt cities grew during the 20th century, when pedestrians were discounted completely in street and highway designs.

Pedestrian safety starts with safe sidewalks, of course. But there’s more. Traffic speed is a huge factor, and for the last half of the 20th century even in-town streets were designed for speed, not for pedestrians. Another factor is turning radius of corners. If they’re wide, pedestrians are endangered by speeding cars turning. A huge factor is enforcement. Where police take pedestrian safety seriously, drivers get the message. I don’t think Boston drivers are more courteous or innately kinder. Yet in Boston they stop for pedestrians. Police enforcement (and seeing other drivers do it) trains you. In Charlotte I’ve seen police cars almost mow down pedestrians uptown.

‘Kudzu Jesus’ – De-Vine?

I was all set to write about the plans for a transit-tax referendum in the Triangle (stay tuned, I’ll get to that later today) when, upon researching the News & Observer’s stories on transit I found, instead, the story about Raleigh’s Kudzu Jesus.

What can I say? It’s August. We live in Kudzu Country, the South. Here’s a link to the article, and you can check out the photo, by reporter Josh Shaffer, above.

It’s a spot where the kudzu has climbed across a wire. Says reporter Shaffer, “From the rear, he looks like Christ the Redeemer, the 100-foot statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro from a pointed mountaintop.” It’s just off Raleigh’s Boylan Avenue bridge.

Random act of nature? A message from on high? Your call.