Over 50 members of the ONE Wake Affordable Housing Team met on Thursday (12.3) and made the following decisions on our ongoing campaign on eviction prevention, building affordable housing on county-owned land, and negotiating community benefits in exchange for Downtown South. 

Eviction Prevention

In May, ONE Wake organized 753 public comments (and over 180+ turnout to a press conference) to urge the Wake County Commissioners to support the allocation of federal CARES Act funds to prevent COVID-19 related evictions in our county. This effort helped to create the largest eviction prevention program in the state, House Wake Phase II, with $15 million earmarked for eviction prevention in Wake County. 

This program has already helped over 600 Wake County households avoid eviction, and roughly $11 million in funding remains available. Wake County needs to spend down these funds by the end of the year, or the funds will have to be returned to the feds.

Please help spread the word about this resource in your community by sharing the below communications with heads of relevant ministries and outreach committees. 

House Wake Phase II Flyer (English)
House Wake Phase II Flyer (Spanish)
House Wake Phase II Applicant FAQ 

Affordable Housing on County-Owned Land

During our public launch on October 13, 7 of 11 candidates for County Commissioner committed to work with ONE Wake to champion the construction of affordable housing on county owned land (.  

Recently Pastor Wolfgang of Christ the King Lutheran Church has identified denominational funding sources that could potentially help catalyze housing construction on this land at a time when most county resources are targeted towards homelessness and eviction prevention.

The Housing Team has the opportunity to meet with County Commissioners in the new year to follow up on their commitments. In the meantime, a small group committed to meet with Wake County housing staff to learn the latest updates on the county land to help us prepare for this conversation. 

See Map of County Land Here
Longer County Report Here

Downtown South

For the last month, ONE Wake has been negotiating with John Kane regarding community benefits in exchange for our public support of Kane Realty’s rezoning application for Downtown South, which will soon be heard by the Raleigh City Council. 

John Kane has made an affordable housing offer in his latest zoning conditions submitted on November 25. The offer is very low for a rezoning of this unprecedented size and value. 

Kane is offering 10% of housing units to be affordable for residents earning 80% AMI, for five years. Our interpretation of the zoning condition is that this offer is only for the first 1,000 dwelling units built, or 100 units total. 

Most concerning to us is that it appears that enforcement will be triggered only when Kane seeks a certificate of occupancy for the 1,000th unit, which suggests a long timeline before the City can enforce this agreement (and a possibility, however unlikely, that Kane will not have to build any affordable housing as long as he keeps residential dwellings at or below 999 units).

ONE Wake is organizing a Downtown South Action Meeting Tuesday at 7:00 pm to brief participants on this campaign, why this campaign is necessary, and the tools we have at our disposal to secure binding commitments from Kane.

All participants will be invited to take action together at the conclusion of our meeting in support of our goal to send at least 600 emails to the Raleigh City Council to ask them to support our vision for community benefits. There will also be an avenue for Wake County residents who live outside Raleigh to take action as well. 

Registration Link: https://www.onewake.org/dsp_action_mtg