The Raleigh City Council met on April 7, 2026, to consider a range of items including the HUD Action Plan, a bond anticipation note for the convention center expansion and Red Hat relocation, and several rezoning and annexation requests. Key topics included affordable housing, traffic safety, historic preservation, and neighborhood conservation overlay districts. The meeting featured public hearings and votes on multiple items.
I just hope it is Bill I'm too low. All right. All right, welcome everybody. We're gonna play a video just around the microphone. Not that this is rocket science, but it is a little tricky at times, so we've got a video that we'll play just to make sure everybody knows what's happening. Hi, Raleigh. Welcome to Council Chambers. At today's meeting, your elected leaders will have the opportunity to hear from you. Before the gavel, let's make sure everyone can hear you here in the room and watching online and on TV. When you step up to the podium, adjust the microphone so you're speaking right over it. If you lean in too close or pull back too far, or turn your head, we'll lose your voice. Just speak clearly, and we'll hear you. If the podium mic is out of reach, no problem. Our staff will bring you a handheld microphone. Want to speak at a future session? Head to Raleigh NC.gov and search public comments. Or sign up to speak when your item comes before council as a public hearing. Thank you for sharing your time and ideas with us. We're glad you're here. The meeting starts now. Okay. First item, we have the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development Action Plan, and we have Ashley Tucker from Housing and Community Development. So today we'll be talking about the funding priorities, accomplishments, and next steps for the annual action plan. So increasing affordable housing options, preventing and reducing homelessness, and increasing housing stabilization and supportive services. Under increasing affordable housing options. And these are where our grants, community enhancement grant, and human service agency grants, as well as home buyer counseling fall. So to conclude, I just want to briefly outline our timeline. We're currently in the comment period phase, which includes a combination of in-person and virtual meetings as well as a 30-day comment period. The next step is to incorporate the feedback that we receive into the plan that'll come back to council for adoption in May. That concludes my overview, and we just ask that council over the public hearing. Great. Thank you. We will go ahead and open the public hearing, and we have two uh members of the public signed up. Octavia Rainey is the first, and we have uh three minutes per speaker. Good afternoon. I'm gonna start off and I'm gonna stick to my three minutes. First of all, the NRSA. The plan sucks. It really sucks. Larry did not follow any fair housing guidelines. Number two, the city don't enforce the fair housing act. So I don't even think how you can move forward with any of your policies and housing without enforcing the act. It's terrible. Number three. This is a report from North Carolina State University on Newman Avenue. I was the co-chair of the Newman Avenue Alliance. So I know what went on and I know what happened to the city. So it was Edison Street and College Park. I went through my storage and bought this personally tonight because I wanted you to know that you didn't follow any of the guidelines in this either. Something is wrong with that picture.