The American Community Survey’s report chronicling where brainy college graduates have moved to in the last ten years seems to mirror reports on where the housing market has remained stable.

Any list of good housing markets will include Raleigh and Austin. These areas are gaining in population. They came into the decade with low-priced housing. They have an ideal mix of (more…)

Residents at Raleigh’s Homestead Village Mobile Home Park are ecstatic over news that WJ Properties is dropping its request for a rezoning of the park’s 38 acres.

Cary Joshi of WJ Properties told IndyWeek that the firm would instead look elsewhere. The zoning request, to be heard Tuesday, remains active in a formal sense.

Claudia Shows, a resident at Homestead Village for more than 30 years, rejoiced.

“As long as it is still a mobile home park,” she said, “we don’t care. We have still got to be cautious, I suppose. But, I am so excited, I just want to burst! This is the best news.”

The park’s owners still want to sell. This news, though, means that they will not be selling to WJ. WJ had sought a rezoning to build a shopping center, several housing developments, and some open land on the tract. It would have introduced many new homes to the area. Estimates by The City of Raleigh predicted that more than 500 children would be assigned to the area’s elementary schools as a result.

Shows organized some of the residents. She was able to generate support from her college classmates, as well as to generate some good media. That said, the rezoning decision may be a product of larger forces in the financial markets. Joshi tells Bob Geary that the decision to drop reflects a lack of available financing for shopping center developments.

H1700, the bill that provides a tax deduction (of 5 percent of sales price) to park owners that sell to non-profits, passed in the budget bill before the end of the short session in the 2008 NCGA.

A new rezoning hearing data has been established to determine the fate of the 160 households living in Homestead Village Mobile Home Park in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The Committee of the Whole, under the Raleigh Planning Commission, will meet at 9 am on Tuesday, July 1st, in the Municipal Building in Room 305.  The group will consider the merits of Rezoning application Z-006-08.

The zoning change would allow a proposal by a developer to build more than 1300 homes and an assortment of retail and commercial buildings on the 38 acre site, off of Capital Boulevard, near the 540 interchange.  Katherine and Robert Binns, owners of the park, filed the request for a zoning change on October 19th of last year.  The petitioners suggest that the region would benefit from a rezoning because a classification would provide the area with flexibility in the 4 types of land use (Shopping Center, O&I-2, Residential -4, and conservation management) that are otherwise “lacking in areas” .  They disagree with the notion that the development would cause significant impacts to traffic.

An initial analysis by the planning department suggests that the rezoning would create demand for an additional 599 seats in the area’s public schools.

A previous hearing was delayed pending a traffic impact study.

Raleigh’s Planning Commission has elected to wait on the rezoning application for Homestead Village Mobile Home Park.  As noted earlier, no study of the impacts of traffic has been completed.

The new rezoning would accommodate a proposal to build 1,355 new residences on the 38.58 acre tract in North Raleigh, near 540 and Capitol Boulevard.

The Commission indicated that the study should be completed in no more than 90 days.

This week, the City of Raleigh, North Carolina may approve a rezoning that would evict more than 160 families from Homestead Village Mobile Home Park.

The rezoning would clear the way for the redevelopment of the 38.58 acre site into a mixed use retail and residential site along Capital Boulevard, immediately north of 540.  Homestead Village is currently zoned for Manufactured housing and residential-4.  It can have as many as 230 homes, although it only has about 180 lots on the site.

The rezoning would allow the developer, who has not been identified publicly but is represented by attorney David York, to build 1,355 new residential units.  The submitted plan would allow a 30,000 square foot office building.

The City of Raleigh Planning Department notes that the plan is not consistent with the Capital Boulevard Corridor Plan.

The traffic impacts are significant.  Currently, there are no mass transit options in this area.  Having so many people using Capital Boulevard as their neighborhood thoroughfare makes little sense.  The plan would include a buffer as well as the construction of new access roads.

The 2020 Plan almost included a transit corridor for this area.  There is discussion now (by the Special Transit Advisory Commission) of making the area one of the chief priorities for transit spending in the 2035 plan.  This might include commuter rail and/or enhanced bus service.

A traffic impact analysis will not be prepared prior to the rezoning decision on May 21st.

Full details of the plan are available here.