This meeting of the Raleigh City Council on March 17, 2026, covered a wide range of topics including public comments on greenway projects, zoning changes, affordable housing, property tax losses, leaf-out initiatives, stormwater programs, and several annexations.
Welcome everybody to the city council meeting. Uh, first item of business is the Pledge of Allegiance. And uh, Councillor Lambert Milton, can you lead us in the flight? Pro Tim Harrison back for this meeting. Baby cadence is in good hands with Doug for a few hours. Yeah, we hope. Okay. We had nothing pulled from the consent agenda. So do we have a motion to approve? All in favor of the motion. Aye. All opposed, nay. And that passes. Next, we have public comment. And it is three minutes per person. First sign up is Elizabeth Scott. Good afternoon, Honorable Council members. My name is Elizabeth Scott. I'm speaking on behalf of myself and my Anderson Forest neighbors. At September's Greenway Committee meeting, City staff said they had no big branch creek cost estimates, but confidently proclaimed that the project could be completed within the $4.48 million parks bond allocation. However, estimates dated over a month before the meeting tell a different story. They show that the cost of a segment 1B a segment 1B route through Anderson Forests would alone exceed the entire park spond allocation for this project. These bond funds were meant to finance three trail segments, not just one. They show that the cost of a segment to mass these cost overruns, staff announced that Stormwater's pledge to contribute 1.2 million dollars towards a uh towards stream bank stabilization in support of a segment 1B route through Anderson Forest. However, there will still be significant cost overruns, even with this hefty contribution. In response to a recent public records request, the city has produced a February 2026 project cost estimate that exceeds $8.65 million. That's nearly double the park spond allocation, and almost $3 million over the city's revised budget that includes the stormwater contribution. And litigation costs were not included in this estimate, which means that connector costs could well exceed 11 million dollars. What's the driving factor behind the projected cost over ones? Segment 1B, a budget-blowing half-mile stretch of greenway that will threaten a Zone 1 riparian buffer, destroy tree canopy, endanger trail users, infringe on private property rights, and violate long a long-standing conservation easement. Forty years ago, this city accepted a conservation easement that prohibits the building of greenway trails through Anderson Forest. Yet after reaping the benefit of this easement for dec decades, the city is proposing to break the very terms of the easement it accepted. The city needs to keep its promises. Forty years ago, excuse me, there are less expensive segment 1B routes that can be built without threatening riparian buffers, infringing on private property rights, or breaking long-term promises. Thank you. Next we have Chris Crewe. Happy St. Patrick's Day, ladies and gentlemen. If you missed the St. Patrick's Day parade Saturday, it was my 15th. It was a whole lot of fun. It was downhill and ended at a pub. What could be more Irish than that? I'd like to talk to you today about preservation. Growth is inevitable. It can be transformative, but it's up to us to see that it's not destructive. Zoning and land use planning are tools that we use to meet this challenge. With considerable public input, we developed and adopted a comprehensive plan so that our growth could occur in a healthy and predictable matter. If you routinely overturn publicly supported zoning on demand and by whim, you might as well not have the comprehensive plan. You will soon be asked to make a decision concerning three zoning change requests that will have a decided impact on the character, culture, and history of Raleigh.