Raleigh’s need for growth and development must be balanced with keeping our neighborhoods vibrant and our roads navigable. This, however, is not going to happen by itself.
Right now you can add your voice to those living in the neighborhoods bordering Glen Eden and Country Club Hills who believe they have no choice but to respond to concerns of size and scale proposed by Grubb Ventures for Glenwood Place development on Glenwood Avenue.
The Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) will become effective on February 14, 2016. In the UDO the City has zoned commercial properties throughout Raleigh with the intent that sustainable growth could occur if the limits of the UDO were not arbitrarily changed. Consistent with earlier land use plans, most all of Glenwood Place was zoned OX-5 (a small part is OX-7). The OX-5 zoning district limits buildings to five stories. In its zoning petition, Grubb Ventures wants to rezone the property to allow 3 buildings of up to 12 stories. It also plans up to 800 apartments, a hotel with up to 250 rooms, up to 787,600 square feet of new office space and a maximum of 140,000 square feet of retail space. (Refer to our Glenwood Gridlock Facebook page for more information.)
The only access to Glenwood Place is Glenwood Avenue. But drive around just a little and you will see that even small shopping centers have multiple entrances; for instance Glenwood Village can be entered and left from Oberlin Road, Glenwood Avenue or Lake Boone Trail. And not only will the proposed expansion of Glenwood Place cause more and longer gridlock on Glenwood, it will push frustrated motorists looking for shortcuts into our neighborhoods, ultimately disrupting safety and property values. For this reason we believe that the proposed rezoning is just too much for a property so close to the Beltline. If you agree that City Council should uphold, and Glenwood Place should respect, the building height limitations, we ask You to sign our Glenwood Gridlock petition on Change.org and help us reach 300 signatures.
Anyone who cares about this issue can sign the petition, so consider sharing this email with your family and friends.
