I can understand not wanting goats and stuff running around in a residential zone since even homeowners aren't allowed to do that in city limits if I remember correctly.

I'm guessing these sorts of fences would be acceptable?

12/13/2012 10:27:40 AM

Don't know, mate.

http://www.raleighpublicrecord.org/udo-2/2011/05/05/udo-day-19-legalizing-community-gardens/
The code is listed here though.

The city website is still out of date and states that a garden cannot be the primary use of a property.

12/13/2012 10:31:56 AM

if fencing is not open design, you have to follow UDO guidelines for a wall. you don't want to have to do that.

12/13/2012 10:35:40 AM

Good fences make good neighbors...and hide the manure pile.

12/13/2012 10:38:27 AM

^^ Makes sense. If they're having issues with people just walking up onto the land it seems a picket fence would deter most people.

12/13/2012 10:40:28 AM

One chicken per 1000 square feet? Wow. My apartment isn't even 1000 square feet. Those are some free-range chickens indeed.

12/13/2012 2:30:17 PM

And those locally raised, organic, free range chickens will have 1000x the amount of heavy metals. I have no idea why people would want to farm in downtown, when almost any of the other land in North Carolina would be much more suitible and result in much less polluted produce and livestock.

12/13/2012 4:15:28 PM

No concerns with produce if you aren't planting in native soil. Most gardens I've seen have been raised bed or they had topsoil delivered.

12/13/2012 5:07:33 PM

It's in the rain and the air too.

12/13/2012 6:03:16 PM

Lead never goes away. It was in gasoline(exhaust) and paint dust, which is likely to be found in an abandoned lot along a city street.

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/DG2543.html

Quote :

"Lead may reach potentially toxic levels in soils close to busy streets and highways or near old buildings where lead-based paint has peeled or been stripped off. Plants generally do not absorb or accumulate lead in quantities that would be of concern. The greatest danger of lead toxicity from soil is direct consumption of lead-contaminated soil or dust."

Concentrations of 300ppm or higher require a new layer of topsoil to be brought in. Washing the produce is beneficial, and some vegetables accumulate more than others. Arsenic from nearby old graves is another basic element that will never disappear. I would be very interested in hearing about other pollution concerns.

12/13/2012 8:29:43 PM

Out in the country, they add arsenic to chicken feed to get a better color in the meat.


"Country farms" have just as much likelihood for contamination as the city.

[Edited on December 13, 2012 at 8:48 PM. Reason : arsenic . . . . . among other things]

12/13/2012 8:46:33 PM

^^ good thing they trucked in new topsoil for the city farm.

12/14/2012 12:02:51 AM

well this thread got boring in a hurry.

12/14/2012 8:41:14 AM

^^

and

Quote :

"No concerns with produce if you aren't planting in native soil. Most gardens I've seen have been raised bed or they had topsoil delivered."

[Edited on December 14, 2012 at 8:59 AM. Reason : i know more about this than you]

12/14/2012 8:54:59 AM

Quote :

"It's in the rain and the air too."

It's not just in the rain in the cities.

12/14/2012 9:40:22 AM

^exactly

12/14/2012 9:55:15 AM

Another update on what the neighbors are doing as Charlotte just broke ground on its first streetcar line this week. The full line as planned will be 10 miles but the first phase will be a 1.5 mile "starter line."





Charlotte is well on their way in transforming their transportation system and now Durham and Chapel Hill will be following with their recent ballot referendums. When will Raleigh step up?

12/14/2012 10:55:41 AM

Quote :

"Charlotte is well on their way in transforming their transportation system taxing the crap out of people who live 5+ miles away so they can build nifty "look at me" transportation stuff in uptown"

12/14/2012 1:45:39 PM

I will assume then that you also get angry when $100 million is spent building a single highway interchange, or $265 million spent building an arena for a man worth $500 million.

12/14/2012 2:05:43 PM

Quote :

"Charlotte is well on their way in transforming their transportation system taxing the crap out of people who live 5+ miles away so they can build nifty "look at me" transportation stuff in uptown"

The hill people got 485 and they are still complaining?

[Edited on December 14, 2012 at 2:28 PM. Reason : ]

12/14/2012 2:27:19 PM

Not sure who the hill people are, but I doubt much city of Charlotte tax money went into 485...

I don't see where a streetcar line is going to help transit that much vs buses (the damned things are fixed route buses?!) and they'll be raising taxes AGAIN to pay for it.

12/14/2012 8:11:51 PM

I don't know if any money from the actual city budget went into it (probably not since it is an interstate highway, though the residual traffic effects it causes has almost certainly resulted in the city needing to make other road improvements), but given the billions of dollars spent on it and the fact that Charlotte is almost 8% of the population of the state, certainly a good amount of money came from Charlotte taxpayers.

You are right about the streetcar operating similar to a bus in many ways, though they often have dedicated lanes (not sure if the Charlotte one will have any or not). There are smaller arguments here and there that can be made for streetcars (such as marginally lower operating costs and higher capacity), but those really miss the big picture. Streetcars are attractive to cities for two main reasons:

1) Proven to attract more new transit riders than buses (there are a variety of reasons for this some of which are not particularly pleasant but that's the reality of the situation)
2) Capable of shaping land use patterns and stimulating economic development in ways that buses cannot (and this is the big one for Charlotte, which aspires to be "the premier city in the country for integrating land use and transportation choices.")


[Edited on December 14, 2012 at 9:03 PM. Reason : .]

12/14/2012 9:02:13 PM

Quote :

"I don't know if any money from the actual city budget went into it (probably not since it is an interstate highway, though the residual traffic effects it causes has almost certainly resulted in the city needing to make other road improvements)"

I'm not arguing with you, but I don't understand this reasoning. Interstate means "more than one state". 485 doesn't do that. So why do we call it an interstate?

12/18/2012 9:44:49 AM

Very true. I don't know the exact history of it, but I remember having a conversation once with someone about this. It seems like at some point in time, it became considered acceptable to use the Interstate Highway Act to create local roads that are not in the spirit of the original intentions of the program (thereby still getting the feds to pay for 90% of the project). I'm not sure what the first project was to establish that precedent, but it definitely resulted in a lot of beltways and bypasses being constructed by the feds that do not actually serve the purpose of the Interstate program.

There's probably a traffic engineer on here that knows more about the history of that.

[Edited on December 18, 2012 at 10:01 AM. Reason : .]

12/18/2012 9:58:57 AM

Yeah, just seems wrong to me. Also the planning of 485 was just plain stupid. Whose idea was it to build it with 2 lanes?

12/18/2012 10:01:21 AM

Raleigh

12/18/2012 10:05:13 AM

Quote :

"Additional spurs and loops/bypasses remain under construction, such as I-485 in North Carolina, which has been under construction since the 1980s. "

these are part of the whole "Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways" system

(according to wikipedia)

12/18/2012 10:17:45 AM

I don't know about this:
http://www.wral.com/80s-themed-bar-downtown-raleigh/11893669/

12/21/2012 10:50:32 AM

12/21/2012 11:09:13 AM

I always have a good time at the one in Athens, GA

12/21/2012 11:28:16 AM

At this point 80s nostalgia has been around for longer than the actual 80s lasted. It's the M*A*S*H of decades.

12/21/2012 12:03:46 PM

An 80's themed diner today would be exactly the same as a poodle skirt/rockabilly 50's themed diner in the 80's.

12/21/2012 12:37:24 PM

Houses of nostalgic lies.

12/21/2012 1:42:31 PM

I'd totally go there and order a pepsi. and listen to beat it.

12/21/2012 9:35:49 PM

I hope they have new coke.

12/22/2012 1:52:40 AM

I hope they're into the idea of losing a bunch of money

it's something that could be interesting to visit once, but that's about it. something like that can turn depressing quick

12/22/2012 12:11:24 PM

All of the bar going 21 year olds who were born in 1992 will appreciate it.

12/22/2012 12:50:20 PM

http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/12/31/2576824/raleigh-revelers-set-first-night.html

1/1/2013 5:51:22 PM

http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/12/31/2576824/raleigh-revelers-set-first-night.html

Trophy brewing opening by the end of January!

1/1/2013 8:26:55 PM

^http://www.newraleigh.com/article/trophy-brewing-company-raleighs-newest-craft-brew-pub/

1/2/2013 12:51:39 AM

^thanks, copy/paste clearly was too much for me on new years day!

1/2/2013 7:15:03 AM

Are there any plans to revitalize Hillsborough Street east of Glenwood?

1/2/2013 7:18:16 AM

It doesn't seem to be a priority (or at least I never see or hear anything about it), but it should be IMO. That stretch of Hillsborough from Glenwood to the Capitol is a key link between the different areas of downtown.

1/2/2013 10:06:54 AM

NewRaleigh.com is shutting down. Was a good source of generalized raleigh info, hope someone with the time and skill fills the niche.

1/2/2013 2:30:51 PM

seriously?

1/2/2013 2:35:38 PM

Quote :

" In late Summer 2007 the founding editors of New Raleigh met in a backroom at Mitch's Tavern. The agenda for the evening was a few rounds of beers and conversation about the then nascent online venture. Although our backgrounds were varied, we all shared a love for culture and the up and coming city of Raleigh. New Raleigh was created as a way to celebrate and support localism and highlight the many individual contributions to the growing city. We think we succeeded at a scale we never could have imagined. While that love for Raleigh has never faded - the time to stop publishing New Raleigh has come. We are excited to move our focus to new professional projects and growing familes. Thank you to all of the writers and editors that have contributed over the years. To the local community and everyone who has read the site and created a lively conversation in the comments section, we owe you a huge 'Thank You.' This simple website has opened many opportunities for us. We have made great friends and created so many professional relationships that made New Raleigh possible. We will continue to be involved in the local scene and look forward to seeing Raleigh's future. Thank you so much for your support, Jedidiah Gant & David Millsaps"

1/2/2013 3:03:01 PM

well that's no good

1/2/2013 10:58:49 PM

I can't believe they didn't hand it off to someone else. Why kill it?

1/3/2013 9:08:14 AM

^agreed....

seems like they could have just slowed the posting, and offered a few other people some publishing ability to keep it going.

1/3/2013 1:09:10 PM

They have a large enough community that they could continue on with assisted leadership and other writers--they just don't want to. I've seen it before with small publications like this--they don't want to see their "legacy" publication put into someone else's hands (I can't entirely blame them for that). So yeah... they could keep this going if they really wanted to. Seems they don't.

1/5/2013 1:45:41 AM