Staff at the planning department and their very capable Code Studio and other consultants have been working on a total rewrite of Raleigh's zoning ordinances for the better part of two years. The new zoning code — a Unified Development Ordinance, or UDO — would give life to the concepts embodied in Raleigh's 2030 Comprehensive Plan, which City Council adopted in the fall of 2009. The UDO exists now in draft form online.

Only a very few have read even part of it.

Done well, a new UDO would describe — and show with specificity — the type and scale of development allowed in any given place in the city. Implicit in that idea is the goal of ending the constant battles between developers and neighborhoods over whether a project complies with the code ... and the Comp Plan .. or not.

It could be the best thing that's happened in city government in 25 years. Or the worst disappointment.

The current zoning code, to put it mildly, is so "open to interpretation" and riddled with exceptions, work-arounds and overlays that it's more of a Rohrschach test of what's permissable ("I see 93 units!" "But the comp plan says 14-28!") than it is a useful planning tool.

Will the new UDO be better? How specific is it? How will it be applied to a given site — or is that open to interpretation too? A few weeks ago, I organized an informal meeting of about a dozen folks who were following the UDO process to see what they thought. Like me, they have their fingers crossed on this thing, but they were unanimous that they have more questions than answers at this point.

In that session, we named 19 issues that one or more of us encountered as we [attempted to] read the draft UDO. We went on to rank them, leading to a top 4 issues — and three more with multiple votes. The list of 4 & 3 is spelled out below.

Next Wednesday, Sept. 7, we'll get a chance to discuss the most important issues with planning staff, including Christine Darges, who's managing the UDO effort for Planning Director Mitch Silver. This will be an open public forum, organized as a meeting of the City Council's UDO Advisory Task Force not as an official meeting of the task force, because the task force was time-limited and no longer exists, the planning department tells me, so consider it an ad hoc meeting that some task force members will attend — but the point is that anyone who comes can participate.

The meeting is at Pullen Art Center, which is in Pullen Park by the intersection of Hillsborough Street and Pullen Road. It starts at 6 pm and we should wrap up by 8.

If it's productive, more such sessions will follow.

Below is a summary I wrote of the issues discussed — the 4 & 3 — at that first gathering:

After everyone voted on their top concerns, our list of 19 issues devolved to four main ones:

Issue No. 1: Context and transitions

There's quite a bit of uncertainty about how the UDO categories will be interpreted by staff and/or City Council, especially with regard to the always critical matters of context and transitions. We're not seeing in the code enough clear standards for assuring that neighboring developments are compatible in terms of form, height and so on. This issue collected 7 votes, and there were 3 more cast for the issue of protecting historic neighborhoods from incompatible infill.

Issue No. 2: No Mapping

This might be considered the prime reason why Issue No. 1 arises. Without a map showing the specific UDO zoning categories for specific properties, it's easy to imagine how the various "RX's" & "NXs" & CXs" could be compatible in a given place; but it's also very easy to imagine that, misapplied, they will NOT be compatible in a given place. The no-map issue received 4 votes, but it was generally perceived a major thorn in our sides.

Issue No. 3: No Modeling or Case Studies/No 3-D Tools.

A variation on Issue No. 2. There was a strong sentiment expressed that the UDO should be accompanied by models showing the scale of buildings, existing and proposed, to give people visual evidence of whether a project is compatible with what's around it — or not. If I understood correctly, some felt the model should show the scale of buildings that would be allowed by the new UDO as mapped. No modeling received 5 votes, and a separate issue of No 3-D tools received 3 votes.

Issue No. 4: Absence of Quality

This received 5 votes and reflects the view that the code consists of form, height and frontage standards but lacks standards for assuring that the new building next to yours will be a boon to your neighborhood and not a Vernon J. Vernon special.

Not covered in this category, but another concern about quality in relation to the mixed-used zoning categories: Why isn't mixed-use required in a mixed-use zoning category? Otherwise, it was felt that the incentives for mixed-use (greater density) could easily be abused.

Other issues receiving multiple votes included:

* Accessory dwellings.

* Building heights (definitions are too expansive — e.g., 3-7 stories max. in OX category, 3-12 stories max. in NX, Neighborhood Mixed-Use, category).

* TOD requirements (It was felt that, in areas of such intensive public investment, some "must-do" elements should be required — not simply allowed — by developers). [TOD is short for transit-oriented development, i.e., what's the proper zoning for land near a rail- or bus-transit station?]

Thus ended our first meeting.

(Update, 8/18): Poor Mr. Carr is officially off the ballot and in hot water for registering to vote while he was still on probation. The N&O was at the Wake Board of Elections today.

The original post from a week ago:

This really is more sad than anything. Lent Carr can sound quite rational, but he's obviously got some serious issues. Carr was on the ballot to run for City Council in District C. A judge waylaid those plans and sent him to prison for violating his parole.

WRAL did some reporting on him, but credit goes first to the anonymous author of BelowtheBeltline.org, who told the truth about Carr's inability to tell the truth back in January.

• Courtesy of Billie Redmond for mayor campaign

The Republicans also announced their slate of Board of Education candidates and endorsements in other municipal races — no surprises. (See the list below.)

[Adding a bit to what I wrote earlier, it's worth noting that the Wake Republicans split their endorsement in District A — or rather, they endorsed both of the Republican candidates, Brian Tinga and Gale Wilkins. Not so in the mayor's race, where Redmond is endorsed and Williams isn't.]

I've heard more than one Republican refer to the Redmond-Williams contest as an unofficial primary (the elections are officially nonpartisan), with the goal of getting the GOP front-runner into a runoff with McFarlane.

If any candidate wins 50 percent of the votes in October, it's over and she — or he — wins.

But if none do, the top two finishers move on to a November runoff. For purposes of getting to a runoff, it may help the Republicans to have a pair of candidates out rounding up votes. But it usually doesn't work that way: Two candidates from the same party make it hard to either to reach critical mass in terms of fundraising, volunteer help and general enthusiasm, leaving the door open for a single candidate from the other party to take off and win.

Not sure which will be true in the case of Redmond & Williams.

Here's the statement from the Wake GOP:

Wake County Republican Party Presents Its Slate of Endorsed Candidates for 2011 Elections

WakeGOP Unified as 2011 Municipal Elections Approach

The Wake County Republican Party has made its official endorsement of candidates in the scheduled October 11 and November 8, 2011 elections. The action came last night, when the Executive Committee voted to endorse the candidates listed below.

“The Wake County Republican Party is pleased to present these well qualified candidates on our endorsed slate. The process of recruiting and endorsing took over a year, with hard work from a strong recruitment committee. I am pleased with the final endorsements by the Wake County GOP Executive Board. The Party is unified around this slate and we are looking forward to helping them achieve victory in the upcoming municipal elections this fall!” - Wake County Republican Party Chair Susan Bryant.


Wake County Republican Party Endorsed Candidates for 2011

Wake County School Board Candidates
School Board District 3: Heather Losurdo
School Board District 4: Venita Peyton
School Board District 5: Cynthia Matson
School Board District 6: Donna Williams
School Board District 8: Ron Margiotta

Apex Municipal Candidates
Apex Mayor: Keith Weatherly
Apex Council: Darren Eustance
Apex Council: Scott Lassiter

Cary Municipal Candidates
Cary Mayor: Michelle Muir
Cary Town Council At-Large: Zeke Bridges
Cary Town Council District B: Don Frantz
Cary Town Council District D: Don Hyatt

Fuquay-Varina Candidates
Fuquay-Varina Town Commissioner: Sean Hearn
Fuquay-Varina Town Commissioner: Charlie Adcock

Garner Candidates
Garner Town Council: Becky Matthews

Holly Springs Candidates
Holly Springs Town Council: Cheri Lee

Knightdale Candidates
Knightdale Town Council: Dustin Tripp
Knightdale Town Council: Doug Taylor

Morrisville Candidates
Morrisville Town Council At-Large: Mark Stohlman
Morrisville Town Council District 1: Michael Schlink
Morrisville Town Council District 3: Gary Martin
Morrisville Town Council At-Large: Tara Mylenski

Raleigh Candidates
Raleigh Mayor: Billie Redmond
Raleigh City Council At-Large: Paul Fitts
Raleigh City Council District A: Brian Tinga
Raleigh City Council District A: Gale Wilkins
Raleigh City Council District B: John Odom
Raleigh City Council District C: Paul Terrell

Rolesville Candidates
Rolesville Mayor: C. Frank Eagles
Rolesville Board of Commissioners: Gil Hartis
Rolesville Board of Commissioners: Shannon Whitley

Wake Forest Candidates
Wake Forest Board of Commissioners: Zachary Donahue
Wake Forest Board of Commissioners: M. Greg Harrington
Wake Forest Board of Commissioners: Anne Hines

Wendell Candidates
Wendell Board of Commissioners: Tillie Turlington

[Update No. 2, 4:10 pm: Just spoke to Gary Sims, deputy director at the Board of Elections. He confirms the gist of the story. The erstwhile candidate came in at 11:59, according to the sign-in sheet in the lobby, but he didn't have a check and the elections staff cannot take cash over $50 (the fee is $100), nor are they set up to take credit cards. By the time the fellow got back with a check, it was after 12 noon, meaning that, by law, the filing period had ended. No one else was ahead of him to file, so he couldn't argue that he was in line waiting when the filing period ended. Sims said he followed the law as he understands it and turned the fellow away, but Sims did tell him that he can seek to have Sims' decision overturned when the Board of Elections meets on Tuesday. "I'm not the last word, the Board is," Sims said.]

[Update, 3:30 pm: Just heard that someone tried to file to run in District E, learned that he now lives in the redrawn District D. This happens close to noon. He thinks about it, says OK, I'll run in D, but then he's not allowed to pay the filing fee with a credit card — checks only. By the time he gets back with a check, it's slightly past noon and the filing period has ended. If he appeals, if he wins, if he runs, Crowder could have an opponent.]

[Crowd-sourcing, I love it: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brad-johnson/b/2/890]

Crowd-sourcing is the newest thing in journalism, a variation of open-source methods of product development. In this instance of crowd-sourcing, we seek to gather information on candidates I've never or barely heard of who are running for office in Raleigh. I can call around, and eventually will see these folks at candidate forums, but that's the slow way. Quicker — and the digital way — is to ask for your input:

Do you know these people? What can you tell us about them?

So with the filing period ended, the list of candidates running for City Council seats is below.

(N.B., the mayoral field didn't change — still District A City Councilor Nancy McFarlane vs. brokerage CEO Billie Redmond vs. Dr. Randall Williams. As promised, I went to Williams' ice-cream kickoff last night, so I can now say that I've met/know all three. More on them in next week's printed Indy and maybe here if I get time.)

So let us know, either here or by email to rjgeary@mac.com, if you can shed any light on the candidates, especially the ones marked with a * — which means they're new to me.

At-Large (vote for 2)

Russ Stephenson — incumbent, Democrat
Mary-Ann Baldwin — ditto
Paul Fitts* — met him briefly last night, Republican challenger

District A

Randy Stagner — unaffiliated voter; retired military & McFarlane's choice to succeed her on Council
Gale Wilkins* — voter registration says: Republican
Brian Tinga* — he ran for a state House seat last year, lost the GOP primary

District B

John Odom — incumbent, Republican
Bradley Johnson* — {UPDATE — Johnson withdrew on 8/15] — voter registration says: Democrat; town planning background, works in Knightdale

District C

Eugene Weeks — incumbent, Democrat
Lent Carr — in prison for parole violation
Racquel Williams — vied with Weeks for appointment to this seat when James West vacated
Shelia Jones — ditto
Corey Branch* — crowd-sourcing reveals, bright young-ish Democrat & engineer
Paul Terrell — conservative, Republican, white; not the profile of past District C winners

District D

Thomas Crowder — incumbent, Democrat, unopposed

District E

Bonner Gaylord — incumbent, unaffiliated, unopposed

• photo by Bob Geary
• Billie Redmond's announcement; that's John Odom behind her.

Redmond's claim to the job: She'll be the best salesperson the city could have. Off a very successful career in real estate, she does know how to make a sales pitch. Her announcement this morning drew a big crowd — maybe 200? — to the Occidental Building on Wade Avenue, which she bought and renovated as part of the deal for the property where the ill-fated Coker Towers project would've been. Redmond's a Republican, and she was surrounded by same: City Councilor John Odom, County Commissioner Joe Bryan, Wake school board candidate Heather Losurdo and Wake GOP Chair Susan Bryant were among the notables, along with the Chamber of Commerce crowd of bankers and builders.

Redmond's entry into the race makes two announced candidates, both women, both energetic business owners and neither a Democrat. Redmond's bio we went over in a previous blog post. Her campaign website is a work in progress. City Councilor Nancy McFarlane, who is registered as an independent, is a pharmacist and the owner, with her husband, of MedPro Rx, Inc., a "specialty infusion pharmacy that provides medications and services to clients with chronic illnesses." According to her campaign bio, MedPro Rx did $54 million in revenue in 2010.

Seth Keel, a 16-year high school student, is also running but isn't old enough to hold the office and won't be listed on the ballot. Rumors of other Democrats getting in are just that right now. I still don't know of any.

Raleigh's had one previous woman mayor, the late Isabella Cannon. She was a feisty neighborhoods advocate, the always interesting "little old lady in tennis shoes." Redmond, who is diminutive for sure ("about 4' 11," she said after cracking a couple of jokes about her "short speeches") is roughly Cannon's height. Not at all the same politically, however, nor is McFarlane — both would rather be known as moderate, whereas the very progressive Mayor Cannon was never moderate about anything.

Redmond said the election will be about jobs and leadership. If I remember correctly, McFarlane said the same thing. Both promise to offer a vision for Raleigh's future growth. No doubt, a vision is what's needed. Transit? Housing? Community development? Raleigh has succeeded, over the past decade, in executing some visionary plans made in the '80s. (In the '90s, courtesy of Republicans Tom Fetzer and Paul Coble, neither of whom attended Redmond's announcement, by the way, no plans were made.) Time for some new plans. The upcoming campaign offers a good chance to get started on some.

• from SouthwestRaleigh.com

A quick update on this story from last week: The City Council voted 7-1 today to let the Southwest Raleigh economic development study go forward at a cost of $150,000 (plus $40,000 from N.C. State University).

The lone no vote today, as she was at the Budget and Economic Development Committee a week ago, was at-large Councilor Mary-Ann Baldwin.

This is the study that many Southwest Raleigh-ites hope will result in the branding of their part of the city as the Creative District — together with some creative approaches to transit, housing and other programs to spur economic growth.

Councilor Thomas Crowder, whose District D spans SW Raleigh, has been pushing for the study for more than a year.

• from the CBC Trademark Properties website

I put a call in to Redmond this morning and sent her an email. [Update: I just talked to her — 4 p.m. — and she confirmed, she is considering it, called it "a daunting decision" that she hasn't made as yet.] Wake GOP Chair Susan Bryant did respond to say she has no comment yet. I'll update as needed. I know this much, McFarlane's supporters are taking the idea seriously. They were before, but some more bells went off yesterday when it was announced during the City Council session that Redmond was removing her name from consideration for one of the Council-appointed seats on the very plum-ish Centennial (RBC Arena) Authority.

The filing period for City Council elections begins July 25. Election Day is October 11. (Ditto for Wake Board of Education seats.) I've been hearing that Tea Party candidates are preparing to run for one or more Council seats, and it's entirely possible a TP Republican will run for mayor, Redmond or no Redmond.

Thus far, no Democrats are considering a mayoral run — that I know of. Seth Keel, one of the students active in N.C. HEAT on the pro-diversity side of the Wake school board debate, says he'll announce his candidacy soon. But he told me the other day he isn't 18 yet and won't be by December, when a new mayor would take office. So if I understand the law correctly, he's not eligible to hold the office and would therefore not be listed on the ballot. Which doesn't mean he can't launch a campaign.

McFarlane, owner with her husband of MedPro Rx, a pharmaceutical services business, is an unaffiliated voter with a good deal of Democratic support and, because of her centrist views and business background, some Republican backers as well.

Redmond is a Chamber of Commerce-style Republican (not a TP type, that is), and in the parlance of "pro-neighborhoods" or "pro-developers" candidates she's the latter. She's wired in the Raleigh business community; for example, Redmond completed 10 years on the WakeMed board in May, and she was board chair for the last two while Bill Atkinson cooked up his Rex Hospital takeover bid.

Here's a bio of Redmond from the Wake County government website (she was on a county advisory committee):

Billie J. Redmond is President of Coldwell Banker Commercial TradeMark Properties, Inc., a Raleigh based property management, leasing and brokerage services company. She is a native of North Carolina and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, majoring in business. Ms. Redmond is married and has three children.

She worked with Edward Weck and Company, Research Triangle Park, in the International Marketing Division. Ms. Redmond then joined with Don Walston and Alton Smith of Howard Perry & Walston Realty to form a commercial real estate company. Ms. Redmond acquired a majority of the ownership in 1994 and changed the name of the company to TradeMark Properties. In June 2003, TradeMark joined the national affiliation network of Coldwell Banker Commercial and is the largest woman-owned affiliate in the network. TradeMark Properties represents a variety of asset and facility management clients, with Ms. Redmond maintaining the corporate relationship directly with Coldwell Banker Howard Perry & Walston, the City of Raleigh, Centrex Properties and Plaza Associates.

In 1998, she was named the Top Woman in Business in the Triangle, to the Business Leader Impact list in 1999, the Top 25 Women-Owned Businesses in North Carolina, was named Tar Heel of the Week by The News & Observer in 2002, and named a Woman Extraordinaire in 2004 by Business Leader magazine.

Ms. Redmond serves in several community efforts. She served as the 2002—2004 Chair of the Board of Directors of the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce, an unprecedented extended term. She serves on the Executive Committee of Communities in Schools of Wake County, Research Triangle Regional Partnership, Kids’n Communities Foundation, WakeMed Hospital system, and Paragon Bank. In 2002—2003, Ms. Redmond served on the Fayetteville Street Revisioning Committee and continues to serve on the Convention Center Steering Committee. She was previously a Board of Directors member for Triangle Family Services, North Carolina State University Humanities and Social Sciences Board, the Board of Directors of Wake Education Partnership, Habitat for Humanity Board Development committee, YWCA Board Development committee, CIAA steering committee and President of the Board of Directors for The Women’s Center. She is a member of the Triangle Commercial Real Estate Women chapter. Billie is a member of Pleasant Grove United Church of Christ and Bible Study Fellowship.