Janet Cowell, former Raleigh city council member, state senator, and NC treasurer is jumping back into politics with a run for Raleigh mayor. 

Cowell, now president and CEO of the Dix Park Conservancy, threw her hat in the ring on Monday, joining a crowded field of declared candidates that includes city council member Corey Branch, Republican mortgage lender Paul Fitts, community activist Delmonte Crawford, and William Peace University student James Shaugnessy IV. 

Sitting Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin is expected to seek re-election to a third term but has not yet made an official statement as to whether she will run again in November. With some residents critical of Baldwin’s laissez faire approach to growth and development across the city, the INDY spoke to Cowell about how she would work to address housing, preservation, displacement, community engagement, and other issues. 

What made you decide to run for mayor? 

I love the city … and I feel like my skills lend themselves well to the current situation. There’s been a lot of growth and development in Raleigh, which causes tensions … opportunities and wealth for some and displacement and burden for others. 

So just having someone who can help mediate, facilitate, convene, listen. All of those issues need partnerships, and the relationships and understanding of the General Assembly, the state, the treasurer’s office, the finance, as well as just all the people here in Raleigh.

What issues do you think the current city council needs to address? 

With all that growth … I think there’s a lot of surprise and a lack of predictability that people are feeling. We have a really good Comprehensive Plan—trying to really adhere to that plan and not rapidly depart from it or do site rezonings. 

I know all of this is challenging, and none of this has some simple answer, but investment in technology—that would allow more interactivity, more channels, more ability for that engagement—would be the goal. 

What I’m hearing is that you see some problems in the way that the city is currently approaching development. Can you expand on that?

The city has been good in many ways because we’ve always done really good planning. [It’s about] analyzing the impacts of these investments and thinking ahead to ‘What are the secondary impacts?’

It’s easy to say, ‘Well, we should land bank more so that we could have more affordable housing’. Or, you can anticipate that this particular road widening will have a certain ripple effect. But then, how do you anticipate that so that you have assistance for people who are impacted?

One example that I see … is you’ve got all this really aggressive expansion and growth coming in South Raleigh, and yet we have Western Boulevard that really divides a lot of Central Raleigh, South Raleigh. Thinking ahead that there’s going to have to be pedestrian walkways, bridges, facilitations of ‘How do you knit these neighborhoods back together?’” None of that’s easy or cheap … but [it’s important to] have that really long term approach.

What else do you think the city can improve?

If you read the City of Raleigh’s strategic plan, it’s good. It’s aligned, it’s thoughtful. Actually executing that is hard. 

This goes back to this idea of partnerships, whether that be working with DHIC on affordable housing or working with Wake County to get more permanent supportive housing for folks that really need some assistance. All of those partnerships take a certain mindset, and the city has those partnerships, but how can we strengthen them? How can we make them easier? 

What particular issues do you think need a little more attention?

Growth and development is clearly a really big issue. The level of capital investment and attention and growth and newcomers is all pretty intense for a city this size. There’s a lot of data that the city has … but are we able to access that data, understand that data? 

One of the other local press outlets did a story on private equity investment in Raleigh that has had a lot of impacts on traditionally Black neighborhoods. Do we understand how that has impacted Raleigh? Do we know how much is this institutional ownership? Is there any way to mitigate that, to address that? 

Similarly, with housing … I think the city has been proactive in the past of working with apartment owners. How can we make investments so … they won’t raise the rents? Are there barriers to doing that further? Could we enhance those efforts by the city? So data, information, then starting to figure out where there are potentially solutions. 

You’ve talked about protecting Raleigh’s character. What do you mean by that? 

There’s definitely some balance and tension between building new and then deciding, what do you preserve? As a community, trying to figure out, what do you really want to preserve that is historically significant? This is something at [Dix] Park that we’re dealing with. We have 80 buildings, and you could say some of those buildings are really worth preserving because of the shape they’re in, the re-use potential. But you have to look at the economics of that.

What are your other priorities if elected?

The other issue buckets for me are public safety and helping our neighbors. This idea that if you can have better social service partnerships with the county, with the state, with the nonprofits, you’re not sending the police in for things that are inherently not criminal. How can we better do that so that you’re doing the most economic and humane intervention with your force? 

Also, environmental protection and community resilience. How do we, in the midst of this growth, think about trees? The city is a member of the Biophilic Cities. But do we have an inventory of all the trees, street trees, trees along streams, trees along railroads? Do we know what we’ve got, how we’re taking care of them, keeping the trees we have? There’s just more information needed.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Follow Staff Writer Jasmine Gallup on Twitter or send an email to [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].   

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