Raleigh taxpayers said ‘Yes’ to funding affordable housing through an $80 million bond Tuesday despite a campaign of neighborhood activists campaigning against it.
As of 10 p.m., with 80 percent of precincts reporting and 72 percent of ballots counted, the housing bond seemed poised to pass with 73 percent of voters in favor of the referendum.
“This is what we ran on, the council campaigned on this issue and it was our number one priority when we got elected,” Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin told the INDY. “Really, more than anything I just want to thank the voters for taking a strong stand on this issue and supporting the bond the way they did.”
“It’s a landslide,” Baldwin added. “People care, and I think that came across tonight.”
The bond is the city’s largest investment in affordable housing in two decades. It will fund developments through private-public partnerships and tax credit projects, land banking along transit corridors, and financial assistance to homeowners.
Raleigh City Councilor David Cox was the only council member against the bond, claiming it did not do enough for residents making under 30 percent of the area median income. A political group operating under the name Liveable Raleigh, which includes former council member Stef Mendell who lost in a landslide to David Knight in 2019, campaigned against the bond on social media claiming it was a thinly veiled handout to developers.
But the bond isn’t unlike the $95 million measure Durham votes passed last year, and experts will tell you that partnering with the private sector allows the city to stretch its investment as far as possible.
You can read more about why INDY supported the bond here.
Follow Raleigh News Editor Leigh Tauss on Twitter or send an email to ltauss@indyweek.com.
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Leigh Tauss needs to stop pulling her hair out over David Cox and Stef Mendell! Her bizarre obsession is out of control. The present Raleigh City Council has so many more great stories itching to be investigated by a real journalist. Most glaring is Mayor Baldwin’s sweetheart deal working for Barnhill Contracting and starting this job weeks after voting to give them another multimillion contract. This council has also destroyed CACs, raped the environment at Shelly Park and Azaleas Falls, given $80,000 to an obviously inept “consultant” to explore community engagement, cow towing to John Kane, Meeker Family, and extreme Republican Brent Woodcox among others.
Sure do miss when “Indy Week” was a progressive voice and not an echo chamber for Raleigh City Councilors who are Republicans in all but their self chosen label as progressives.