by Leo Suarez

Municipography: Moore Square, Parking and Food Trucks

Municipography is a summary of current issues going through the Raleigh City Council and other municipal departments in the city. The point is to try to deliver any video, photos, and text associated with the discussions happening at City Hall or elsewhere. Since this is a downtown Raleigh blog, the focus is on the center of the city.

Moore Square Redesign


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The Moore Square Draft Master Plan was presented to the Parks, Recreation and Greenway Advisory Board (PRGAB) on February 17, 2011, at which time the PRGAB heard public comment and asked questions of the consultant and staff. On March 17, 2011, the PRGAB continued discussion of the Draft Master Plan and voted unanimously to recommend the Draft Master Plan for Moore Square to City Council for approval as presented with the recommendation that the PRGAB have the opportunity to review and comment at the 30% Schematic Design phase. The motion includes keeping the restroom and café kiosk in the master plan although they have been objected to by the State of North Carolina Department of Administration which owns the property.

At the April 19, City Council meeting, Christopher Counts Studio and City staff will present the following information:

  • Summary of the Master Plan Process
  • Moore Square Draft Master Plan

Recommendation:
Adopt the Moore Square Draft Master Plan as presented, with the recommendation that the PRGAB have the opportunity to review and comment at the 30% Schematic Design phase as recommended by the Parks, Recreation and Greenway Advisory Board.

Parking Management

The current parking management fund is in the red. For some background, jump to the last Municipography post on April 6, 2011.


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The Committee recommends removing the stipulation in the City’s booting ordinance that requires that a bootable vehicle must be found in contravention of a parking ordinance before it can be booted.

The Committee further recommends adding a tax intercept amendment to our current Parking Management Service contract to collect delinquent fines for anything $50 and over on tax refunds.

The Committee further recommends that the City seek authority for DMV holds on delinquent citations.

The Committee is holding the item to receive a report from Downtown Raleigh Alliance relative to advertising and increasing revenue in our parking fund by not charging fees for evening and weekend parking in the City decks.

Food Trucks


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TC-5-11 Food Trucks. Amends the Zoning Code to permit ‘Food Trucks’ to locate on commercially-developed properties subject to specific conditions.

Issue moves to planning commission to be discussed and make a recommendation to the city council within 30-45 days.

by Leo Suarez

Spring Downtown Eats Update

Spring is in the air and so are restaurant openings. There are a handful of places that we are currently waiting on but here are some more to add to that list.

  • Wilmoore cafe will open very soon on Wilmington Street directly next to The Busy Bee. I’m very interested to hang out here as they have used the old shop front windows for seating. Those deep walk in entrances are nice and cozy, great for sitting outside but staying under some shelter.
  • The Astoria Cafe & Lounge will go in The Hue where White Rabbit Books used to be. It looks like this is the same place that previously went by Tribeca Cafe, as highlighted over on Goodnight, Raleigh. According to the Facebook page, there will be an opening date around early July.
  • Ruben’s Downtown may finally open soon, as highlighted by the Raleigh Philosophical Society.
  • Spy Raleigh is a new club on Davie Street that will also open soon. Any fans of the old Ess Lounge across the street should be right at home, as their description on their website is similar to what Ess Lounge used to bring to the warehouse district.
  • The Raleigh Wine shop will open at the corner of Glenwood and Jones Street.
by Leo Suarez

New Seating and Space At The Moore Square Bus Station

Recently, construction has finished on some new walkways and seating areas at the Moore Square bus station. The fountains that used to go along the sidewalks of Blount Street have been bricked over and now have a few more benches. More amenities are always welcome at the busiest transit stop in Raleigh. As a frequent bus rider, I see the station being pretty busy at the rush hour times during the week.

In the future, the station will become a major compliment to Union Station so look out for more improvements.

by Leo Suarez

The Comprehensive Plan’s Number 2, The UDO

The draft for the Raleigh Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) was released yesterday. Jump right into it at this link or keep reading as I’ll attempt to introduce it and explain why this is important.

For those that aren’t aware, the 2030 Comprehensive Plan was adopted in 2009. This plan is a guideline for how the city should grow over the next two decades. Different areas of the city are zoned differently and suggestions are made on how to handle many topics like parking or open space. The Comprehensive Plan was simply that, a plan.

So how do you get this plan to actually happen? The plan has some areas being higher density than others. Do you just ask developers to build and hope out of the goodness of their hearts they will oblige? In comes the UDO, the tool to get the Comprehensive Plan to happen.

Let’s compare two situations involving developer A, let’s call him Issac, and developer B, we’ll call him Walter.

Present Day

Isaac and Walter come to Raleigh and want to build stuff to make money. They take a look around Raleigh and read up on the development codes to decide what and where they should build.

After looking through all the codes and regulations, Isaac decides he can make the most money by building single family homes on 600 acres off highway 70 in Northwest Raleigh. He even notices that a development like this doesn’t require much city approval and he’ll save money by not having to gather impact studies or public comments about the development.

Isaac presents his plan to the city and the plan is approved because it meets all the requirements.

At the same time, Walter is looking at building near downtown. He too wants to build single family homes but there isn’t enough room for a neighborhood like the one Isaac is going to build. Walter decides to build a medium density townhome complex along Person Street. He thinks his townhomes being close to Krispy Kreme will be a hit.

Walter has to meet the same requirements that Isaac has to but a higher density development like the one he envisions requires a bit more study. Walter needs to get his development approved by more city commissions and he needs to spend more money on gathering the right information to present to those commissions.

In the end, Walter’s development takes much longer to get approved and he spent more money to build his townhomes. He is also lucky that the nearby neighbors didn’t complain too much because the neighborhood’s opinion could have slowed things down even more.

You see, the current state of things in Raleigh almost encourages these sprawling developments because developers, like Isaac, go after the easy build that will get approved with little cost to themselves. The denser developments that Walter wants to build have to go through so much more scrutiny that its amazing people are building downtown today.

Here comes the UDO

Isaac and Walter’s development will change after the UDO is approved and implemented in the next few years. Rather than developers looking around Raleigh for what to build and then having to get it approved, the UDO will tell all developers what we want, where we want it, and if they want to deliver it will get approved very easily.

For example, if the UDO specifies that we want medium density townhomes along Person Street, Walter can come into Raleigh and say that he is willing to deliver that. Since it’s in the UDO, Walter gets the approval and he can start building. No big review, no long discussion, done and done.

This UDO is important because it now encourages developers to build what we want by cutting out all the red tape. Low density housing in the suburbs or mega-high skyscraper in downtown, it doesn’t matter. Whenever the developer steps up and says they are willing to build what is in the UDO, it’ll be approved.

Now this is a simple way at looking at the UDO but I hope it paints a picture of what the new process will do. You need to care about this, especially if you are a property owner, because development around you will essentially be pre-approved and if someone is willing to build it, it will get done.

RaleighUDO.com

I’m working with Philip Poe and some others at RaleighUDO.com to help digest the draft document that was released yesterday. There are a lot of picures in the document but it stills stings to go through over 300+ pages of development code.

I can see the most comments about the UDO coming from transitions and how dense downtown skyscrapers would step down to neighborhoods with historic housing.

I plan to write up some posts on specific sections of the UDO on RaleighUDO.com so follow along over there.

I also want to highlight some UDO workshops that are coming up soon. This is a great way to learn and ask questions. The kicker about this UDO draft is that public comments on it are only being taken for two months, ending June 6th, so writers seem to be scrambling to try and go through it and get the word out.

Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll try my best to help out.

Three meeting times to choose from—
SAME MEETING, DIFFERENT TIMES FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE

Wednesday, April 20, 11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Fletcher Opera Theater, 2 East South St.
Consultant’s Presentation begins at 12:00 noon

Wednesday, April 20, 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Fletcher Opera Theater, 2 East South St.
Consultant’s Presentation begins at 7:00 p.m.

Thursday, April 21, 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Optimist Community Center, 5900 Whittier Drive
Consultant’s Presentation begins at 7:30 p.m.

by Leo Suarez

Introducing Municipography!

This is an idea that I’ve always wanted to do but haven’t because of the amount of time it would take. However, it wasn’t until recently that I noticed the video streams on the city’s website had a spiffy update I never noticed before. Joy!

Videography + Municipal issues = Municipography. (Connoisseurs like big words) The idea was to take the entire video feed of every Raleigh City Council meeting and cut out the issues that are relevant to downtown. This is a great way to tap your inner municipal geek or just hear the discussions taking place on issues you are interested in.

I’d like to attempt this experiment a few times to see how it turns out. If there are technical issues, let me know. I’m nervous about the Silverlight requirement but it could be worth it. Also, readers subscribed to the e-mail will most likely have to jump to the main site to view the videos.

I’ll include the agenda items with each video and add any other relevant information. As mentioned, the videos are there also to see how it went down.

City Council Meeting on April 5th, 2011

Review of the City’s Parking Program


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The Finance and Public Works Departments have maintained an ongoing work group to evaluate the current status of the City’s enterprise Parking Funds (442 and 444). This is based on the premise that the Parking Fund is intended to be entirely self-sufficient beginning in FY06, with revenues coming from the parking fees and fines generated within the on and off-street parking programs. The stagnant commercial development and the closing or downsizing of many downtown businesses and corporations has made a significant impact on revenue projections. A detailed report and copy of the updated fund model is included in the agenda packet.

Recommendation:
Refer to the Budget and Economic Committee to review the revenue options.

—-Additional information—-

The projected parking revenue shortfall, if no corrective action is taken, is $1,432,040. The plan cited the weak economy and subsequent loss of off-street parking contracts, lower transient on-street parking revenue than anticipated, and an increase in the debt service as the main causes of the projected shortfall.

The options offered by the plan for correcting the projected shortfall include:

  • Charging for use of parking decks in the evenings and on weekends and installation of automated payment equipment, to facilitate payments from evening and weekend patrons;
  • Focusing on collecting $2,558,746 of unpaid and recoverable parking fines;
  • Receiving legislative approval to boot vehicles with outstanding parking tickets or fines;
  • Initiating a tax refund intercept to collect unpaid fines from state tax refunds;
  • Obtaining Department of Motor Vehicle holds on vehicle registration renewals;
  • Selling advertising space in City-owned parking decks;
  • Reimbursing the enterprise Parking Fund through a General Fund subsidy for the revenues foregone by the fund in support of City activities, such as;
    • Street closures due to City-sponsored or supported special events;
    • Non-charged use of parking spaces by City guests or employees; and,
    • Other City-sponsored or supported activities resulting in loss of revenues.

Urban Agriculture and Community Gardens in the City of Raleigh


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During the 2030 Comprehensive Planning process, staff recognized the importance of the urban agriculture movement as a national trend, and flagged the issue for further study. A long-term action item regarding community gardening was adopted in the Plan (Section C.9 Environmental Education Awareness and Coordination). Additionally, City Council has received citizen petitions requesting public land for the establishment of community gardens. In 2010 the City established a working group of community garden advocates and City staff to look at ways to remove obstacles to City-wide community gardening efforts on private property and examine opportunities for it on public lands. There will be a presentation of the findings and recommendations.

Recommendation:
That the report be accepted.

Options for CAT Service between Moore Square and Union Station


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The Passenger Rail Task Force was asked to evaluate options for providing service between the Moore Square Transit Station and the proposed Union Station. The Task Force has evaluated this deliverable as requested by the City Council and will present recommendations regarding this proposed future service. A copy of the Task Force’s resolution is included in the agenda packet.

Recommendation:
Endorse the findings of the Passenger Rail Task Force regarding this future service.

by Leo Suarez

Rising Steel All Over Downtown Raleigh

This is a small gallery showing construction around downtown Raleigh. Click the photos for a larger image.


The Justice Center appears to be topped off and is taking shape into the Raleigh Skyline.


A family poses for a portrait in front of the globe, a part of the upcoming Nature Research Center, now being pieced together.


The new AIA headquarters is being built on Peace Street.

by Leo Suarez

Battistella’s Coming Soon to City Market

The old Angelo’s space at the corner of Martin and Blount Streets will be home to Battistella’s, a New Orleans style restaurant. Opening in May, chef Brian Battistella brings his cooking experience straight from New Orleans to downtown Raleigh.

There are plans for outdoor seating and a full bar. If popular, this could bring more activity to a growing Martin Street scene. The sidewalks around Blount and Martin already get a little foot traffic so a place that is open at night will keep pushing the nightlife up a bit around Moore Square and City Market.