Subscribe now

On that on note, I wanted to update on where we are on fundraising. Here’s a quick recap:

• July 21, 2025, we kicked off a $100k fundraiser to help with the ongoing legal bills as we fight on two fronts (original post here)

• Dec 8, 2025 - we announced that we had reached 40% ($40k) of that goal AND an anonymous neighbor had committed $10k here with a match. Therefore if we hit that $10k goal, it would effectively double with the match and get us to $60k (or 60%).

This is a great time to remind you to: DONATE HERE.

We Did It!

Right at the end of the year - around December 28th we received $10k in commitments after Dec 8 and were able to match that and now we’re at $60k - (the green bar in the tracker above).

I, on behalf of Frank Gordon, the directly next-door neighbors fighting this in court → The Solic’s (912 Williamson) and Bennett’s (1517 Iredell), the neighbors living on Williamson and Iredell that will face the worst impact from the parking, traffic and decreased property values and the entire neighborhood I want to thank everyone for your support. We’ve seen over 40 different donors from all over not only Hayes Barton, but Raleigh. There’s even donors who had parents or family members that lived in Hayes Barton that want to save the neighborhood.

DONATE HERE.

What are our neighbors saying?

Each donation comes with a message. Here are some of what people say (anonymously):

“It’s terrible what they are doing to our beloved neighborhood, I am happy to support the fight.”

“I am former neighbor, but still interested in saving our beautiful neighborhood! Will send check.

“Heartbroken the beautiful house is gone. Prospective condos look ghastly. Let me know where to send the check.”

Another $10k Match!

Today I’m excited to announce that the same Anonymous Neighbor Donor that helped us get from $40k to $60k with their $10k match on Dec 8 was so pleased and impressed with the speed and energy generated by the initial $10k match that they have decided to doubling down and has committed a second $10k match. You’ll notice the yellow area on the tracker. If we can hit this $10k match, donation that will get us to $80k. - 80% of our goal.

Neighbors, the finish line is in sight, if we can knock down this next $10k goal, that will get us to $80k and from there it’s all downhill.

DONATE HERE.

Save Hayes Barton Fundraising Update - We’re Soooo Close!

Great News! Of the $10k match that was announced last week, we have $9,000 committed and have collected $6000 of that! A couple points here:

• If you want to help close the last $1k of this match, DONATE HERE.

• If you signed up for a donation and haven’t delivered it yet - I’ve emailed you and haven’t heard back - check your email for “save hayes barton” to find it or email me at scot@tweenerfund.com. We’re waiting on $3k in collections which I’d like to get done by end of this week.

Another Neighborhood Joins The Battle Against Raleigh’s Aggressive Rezoning

This week an interesting development happened as detailed in this TBJ article which is behind a paywall, below I’ll provide the highlights:

You’ve probably seen the signs up and down Glenwood about Z-12-25 - that’s where developers want to build a 30 story building at Peace+West where the Endless Grind is located right in the Historic Glenwood-Brooklyn Neighborhood.

Brief History of Z-12-25

Below is a simple, big-milestones timeline for Case Z-12-25 (a rezoning request for ~2.6 acres at/near Peace St & West St that sought to shift zoning from IX-12 to DX-30-UG-CU, enabling much taller mixed-use development). Engage Raleigh+1

• 2023-05-02 — A previous rezoning attempt on the same site (Z-54-22, IX-12 → DX-30-UG-CU) is denied by Raleigh (listed in the City’s finalized rezoning cases). Raleigh NC

• 2025-04-23 — First neighborhood meeting held (meeting report notes the date and ~92 attendees). City of Raleigh

• 2025-04-30 — Rezoning conditions document dated (includes items like use limits, height/placement rules, and an affordable housing fund contribution structure totaling $1.2M if unit milestones are reached). City of Raleigh

• 2025-06-25 — Second neighborhood meeting scheduled (per the notice). City of Raleigh

• 2025-07-02 — A public opposition effort expands with the creation of the “Stop Z-12-25” Change.org petition. Change.org

• 2025-08-12 — Z-12-25 appears on the Raleigh Planning Commission agenda as “New Business” (“Rezoning Z-12-25 Peace and West”). Granicus

• 2025-08 (month) — The Planning Commission gives unanimous approval (as reported by Axios). Axios

• 2025-10-07 — Raleigh City Council votes 6–2 to approve the rezoning (the key “decision night” in most reporting and public commentary). Axios+1

• 2025-10-12 — The adopted rezoning ordinance becomes effective. City of Raleigh

• 2025-12-10 — Residents are suing the City over the zoning request/approval tied to the proposed 30-story building. WRAL News

Articles on the Z-12-25 Lawsuit

Back to the TBJ Article, the best part is this bit about the neighbors law firm and their lawyer’s quote on the rationale of their case, which should sound somewhat familiar→

Kevin Hornik of Brough Law Firm, representing the plaintiffs in the suit, said the three neighbors — Roy Attride III, Connie Upchurch and David Knight — represent the “interests of many residents within the Glenwood-Brooklyn Historic District and surrounding area.”

“They support responsible development on these parcels and would welcome an appropriately designed project, consistent with the policies and intent of the 2030 Comprehensive Plan and sound urban-planning principles. They are also committed to ensuring that any development mitigates its impacts on the surrounding homes and the character of the historic neighborhood,” Hornik said.

Residents of the neighborhood have said a high-rise building would, literally, cast a shadow on their homes.

The lawsuit states the plaintiffs will “suffer a decrease in property values, an increase in vehicular traffic, an increase in crime, an increase in noise and light pollution, an increase in glare and a decrease in sunlight that is unsurpassed and unique in the community.”

Here’s a short video on WRAL about the legal battle as well→

Want to Learn more? Resources on the Z-12-25 Lawsuit

• Raleigh Neighbors United - They’ve created their own ‘Save Hayes Barton’ over there called Raleigh Neighbors United. They are raising funds for their legal battle (sound familiar?)

• Livable Raleigh - I haven’t figured this one out, sometimes they seem pro crazy growth in Raleigh and other times they seem to be against it. They have some good content about how the City Council thinks and votes (basically for all rezoning proposals as does the Mayor in their ‘growth with no considerations for citizens/neighborhoods approach- my opinion).

Conclusions

I’m not a lawyer, but strategically the more the City of Raleigh oversteps their power, violates obvious zoning laws to further their desire for never-ending development and the more legal battles they have to fight, that increases our chances of one of these battles winning and turning the tide against the rampant over-development.

I view this as a positive for Hayes Barton. A 30-story building next to a two story historic house is an obvious dumb transition as are 17 Townhomes in a 100+ yr old single home neighborhood with a 5 foot shrub as a transition, no parking and no regard for the clear rules that the City created in their own UDO. We’re all making the same arguments, but from different ‘angles’.

Donate Today: here.

Fundraising Update

If you recall, back in July we kicked off our $100k fundraising challenge with $20k in matching funds. Great news, we’ve reached 40% of that goal and matched all the original $20k. But good news…

Announcing: New $10,000 Challenge!

After the news last week of the Hayes Barton appeal of the BOA rubber-stamp approval of the updated plans for 908, an engaged and concerned Hayes Barton neighbor has decided to throw $10k into the ring for a new 100% matching challenge. I’ve talked to the donor, they live in the neighborhood and are100% committed to the match and winning this battle, however they would like to remain anonymous.

DONATE TODAY! LET’S GO!! 🚀

Until this $10k has been matched up to a total of $10k (resulting in $20k donation), your donation is DOUBLED. $500=$1000, $1000=$2000, and so-on. If we can hit this matching goal, that puts us well past our fundraising target at 60% ($60k/$100k) and we can push to the finish line.

Thanks to the anonymous donor!

Pledge your donation here TODAY!

We will continue to keep you updated on both cases (both in appeals waiting for movement) and fundraising. Also, there hasn’t been any activity at the lot since the fence, house removal and plotting of the roads and giant townhomes.

Latest Legal Volley in the 908 Williamson Saga

On October 8, 2025, adjacent property owners (the Bennetts at 1517 Iredell Drive and the Solics at 912 Williamson Drive) filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari in Wake County Superior Court. This is their appeal of the Raleigh Board of Adjustment’s (BOA) September 2025 decision upholding the City’s April 2025 approval of a revised plan. If you’re new to this, it’s all about pushing back on dense infill that petitioners say violates the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) and threatens our historic neighborhood’s character. Here’s the breakdown.

Quick History Recap

• Original Plan (Dec 2022 Approval): City staff greenlit a compact subdivision with 17 townhomes on 2.43 acres in R-4 zoning. Petitioners appealed to BOA, focusing on missing Transitional Protective Yard (TPY—a vegetative buffer) and street setback issues. BOA affirmed, but Superior Court Judge Bryan Collins reversed in Sept 2024, citing no TPY, and gave developers 6 months to revise.

• Revised Plan (April 2025 Approval): Developers (908 Williamson LLC, RDU Consulting, Concept 8 LLC) submitted changes adding a TPY but shrinking central open space and shifting it to the perimeter. City approved it quickly.

• BOA Appeal (July 2025): Petitioners challenged the revisions. City moved to dismiss on res judicata (claim preclusion) and collateral estoppel (issue preclusion), arguing issues were already litigated. BOA agreed, affirming the approval in a Sept 2025 order (attached as Exhibit 1 in the petition).

No one appealed Judge Collins’ ruling last year, but petitioners argue the revised plan introduces new violations, so the old ruling doesn’t apply.

Key Arguments in the Petition

Petitioners claim the BOA’s decision was riddled with legal errors and was arbitrary/capricious. They’re seeking reversal and voiding of the April 2025 approval. Main counts:

• Count One: Errors of Law

  • Open Space Issues: Revised plan fails UDO’s minimum 1-acre open space (20% of site) and 60% contiguity requirements. Open space must be at least 50 feet wide, but developers count narrow perimeter strips (e.g., 20-foot TPY) as qualifying—petitioners say this is illogical and defeats the purpose of breaking up density. They argue this wasn’t litigated before because the original plan appeared compliant.

  • TPY Violations: Internal road is too close (<10 feet) to TPY, and non-screening walls are inside it, breaching UDO §7.2.4.D. “Structure” (undefined in UDO) should include roads per common dictionary meaning.

  • Res Judicata/Collateral Estoppel Rejection: Not applicable because revised plan is “substantially different,” creating new facts/claims. Prior rulings were reversed or limited to old issues; BOA lacked jurisdiction to apply these doctrines here.

  • Other points: Fairness weighs against preclusion; burden on City/developers not met.

• Count Two: Arbitrary/Capricious Decision

  • BOA’s findings (e.g., Nos. 10, 13, 16) are mislabeled conclusions without evidence support.

  • Three BOA members’ deliberations showed misapprehension of law, undue deference to City staff, violating de novo review under NCGS §160D-406(j).

How you can help!

Once you read the petition, you will see this isn’t a simple cease and desist letter, this is very involved zoning law that requires intimate knowledge of the state/county/city level rules - our counsel is great and doing awesome work, but we need YOUR help covering the legal fees.

We kicked off this round of fundraising in late July here. I’m happy to now report we have just crossed $45k of our $100k target, but we need to keep the momentum up. If you haven’t donated, everything helps.

Donate HERE.

The Petition

If you want to read the > 20 page Petition for Writ, it’s attached here→

23cv025381 910 Filed Petition For Writ (2)

1.81MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Next Steps

The court will issue a writ commanding the City to submit the full record within 30 days. We’ll watch for hearings—stay tuned for updates. There’s no ‘set time’ that these things are acted on and it could take quite a while to work through the courts for the next step.

Apologies to everyone for the delay, my day job has been quite busy and I finally have time this week to catch everyone up on our Save Hayes Barton initiative.

Two Part Update

Because of the delay, I have two updates coming this week back-to-back:

1. We’ll start today with an update on our opponent’s nefarious activities.

2. Later this week, I have an important update on the Hayes Barton side too 💪

Sept: 908 Williamson House Totally Razed

Back in the Sept 6 update here I showed the sad and aggressive destruction of the beautiful old home that sat on 908 Williamson.

Oct: 908 Williamson Survey + Staking Activity

After the demolition of the big beautiful stately house there was a break in activity. Then in mid October they were back. This time they started doing internal survey work, marking out the property using wooden stakes for the roads.

Psychological Warfare Ramping Up

In the Sept 6 update I introduce the concept that our opponents are trying to break our spirit and fight by making this feel inevitable. This is not true and in fact there is important case law, that the opposing side knows about and has been reminded that if they build on the land while there’s an ongoing dispute, they run the real risk of having to demolish their $$$$ new construction. I also personally believe due to this risk if they are getting a construction loan, no bank will finance due to exposure to this risk.

The staking and signs of activity are all performative to try and get us to stop fighting. Ironically, I think this, the staking especially is having the opposite effect, it has motivated me, because thanks to the staking, I can now clearly visualize the project and it’s worse than I imagined from the drawings.

Donations Open!

I’m not an expert surveyor, but I’ve spent enough time looking at their plan and the staking in the lot that I think a picture of what this is going to look like, should it be allowed to progress is going to look like.

In the rest of this post, I’m going to walk you through how to visualize it and see if you have the same reaction. Before that, I want to remind you that if we don’t come together and fund the legal opposition to this, they are sure to win. We kicked off this round of fundraising in late July here. I’m happy to report we have just crossed $35k of our $100k target, but we need to keep the momentum up. If you haven’t donated, anything helps.

Donate HERE.

Why donate?

• This project is going to decrease our property values

• We’re going to have 30-60 cars all up and down Iredell+Williamson

• Those cars are going to 3-5X the traffic on our streets and impact the walkability and safety of the neighborhood

• As you’ll see by the end of this post, these townhomes are going to be extremely ugly and all stacked together on this lot an dramatically change the character of our neighborhood for the worse.

In the kick-off post I pointed out that if everyone donates $500 we’ll get to the goal, so if you haven’t donated yet, fill out the form and we’ll send you details on how to make your donation.

Donate HERE.

Using the New Stakes to Visualizing the Project

Lets see if I can help you ‘see’ what I ‘see’ by building up to a visualization of this ugly monstrosity that will be a blight on our neighborhood should it be allowed to continue.

The V2 Plan

Let’s look at the updated plan they presented at the BOA hearing, I’ll call this V2 for version 2:

In this plan the upper left is the back corner of the lot that runs along the 912 Williamson property line on the left and on the top you have the 1517 and 1527 Iredell property lines. You can see it on Google maps here which I’ve got in the same orientation as the above drawing. I’ve put thicker lines on the property line so you can mentally line them up.

Another way to think about it is the road they plan to install that connects on the left to Williamson and on the right to Iredell, will run in a horse shoe shape back where the house was and all the townhomes are on the INTERIOR of that loop.

Here’s what it looks like on satellite view→

In the above, because of all the big trees, I’ve drawn Williamson and Iredell in black and red is the property line. This is a rough approximation so you can visualize it.

17 Big Ugly Tall Townhomes (B.U.T.T.)

Now that you can visualize that, you can start to imagine where our opponents are going to put their 17 BUTTs. I’ve numbered them in red on this zoom in of their V2 plan:

Matching Stakes to BUTTs

Now when you walk by iredell, what you can do is stand at the corner of Williamson and Iredell and look in and start to visualize how this is going to look. It’s only logical the BUTTs front is on the new road and the back of the BUTTs will be facing each other forming an alley full of 34 garbage and recycling cans and HVAC units.

Therefore the view from the corner will be down this nasty alley, no more beautiful golf-course quality grass green area.

As you walk the property from Williamson to Iredell or Iredell to Williamson, the gates they have put in are where the road is going to go, I believe. You can stand at the Iredell gate and look in and and to the left, butted right up against Iredell, you will see front right corner of unit 17 and beyond that you’ll see a sea of 8 units side-by-side jammed together with no parking. I don’t think there will be any room to park on the new road, so cars sill have to go up and down both Iredell and Williamson. Some of ConceptEight’s units have a garage on the lower level, most do not. If there is a garage down, the units will be 3-4 stories tall so you won’t see any trees in the neighboring properties.

Here’s some pictures of the stakes to help you visualize the lot. Here I’m standing at the corner of Williamson and Iredell, slightly on the Iredell side looking down the middle of the lot. The 17 BUTTs are numbered from left to right.

I believe the stakes on the left show the actual unit layout. For example the stakes you see on the left of the picture are the back of the unites and the fronts are marked by stakes over right up against the gate where the road is going to go. The stakes on the right are the fronts of those (closest to the gate which is how you know where the road will be). It’s hard to know where the backs of the units are as they are not layed out, but if you eyeball it there’s maybe 20 feet at the start of the BUTT alley, and then it will narrow down to a sliver with the units backing right up within inches of each other

Interior Road Iredell Side

Looking to the right and zooming in a bit, you can see they have layed out the path of the interior road. On the drawing it looked almost like a 2 lanes road. In the stakes it looks like 1.5 lanes - it’s going to be a very tough fit.

Thinking About Trees

I did see several guys out last week from ConceptEight trucks taking detailed measurements of trees and lots of pictures. That got thinking that we’re going to see them bring a bunch of trees down next.

Here’s a wide shot from the corner of Williamson/Iredell:

From left to right, in the back left there is big oak tree and several smaller oak trees lining the back of the lot (one of them may not be in the 908 Williamson property, I didn’t go back there to look at it. On the right is a big magnolia that must be 100-125yrs old.

Thanks to the stakes, now that I can better visualize the layout, I don’t see how any of the trees on the property survive this project. Therefore, I think they will take down all the trees as the next step in their psychological warfare. They have put orange fencing around the magnolia, but I don’t see how that road and house are going to work with at least a chunk of it cut back that will probably kill it.

The trees on the left and back are definitely going to have to come out. They were also looking at the trees carefully that are close to the intersection of Iredell/Williamson so I wouldn’t be surprised if they take them down just to be spiteful.

Here’s a visualization without the interior trees:

Now if you look at the Concepteight site, on this type of build, there is no room between the units and they are favoring modern stylings 4-stories tall with dark brick like this→

Now you can fully imagine what this will look like from the curb:

Talk about curb appeal! 🤪

From the corner of Williamson/Iredell, we will look into an alley of 17 units backed up together. On the left you’ll look at a side-view of unit 1 and on the right, a mirror image almost back-to-back of unit 17.

The front of the units will face away towards the interior road. There’s no road access to the back of the units due to the jamming in of the 17 BUTTS into the space, so there’s no reason to put windows on the back and it’s sure to be paved as I don’t see how grass can survive back there with no light.

Back to the satellite view, here’s a very rough rendering of what this will look like→

It’s past my abilities to make this 100% and there’s too much grass left on this one , but you get the gist of how jammed up all this is going to be.

There’s Only One Way to Stop This

Donate TODAY HERE.

Coming Soon…

Part II: Hayes Barton Strikes Back,

Fundraising Reminder

I’ll provide an update on Fundraising in a separate post soon, but it’s going well for having launched in the slow period of late July.

As a reminder, we are raising $100k and for the first $20k there is a matching donation, so your donation is effectively doubled. There are two ways to donate:

• Complete this simple form and we’ll be in contact to pick up a check (details going out tomorrow for those that are waiting).

• Several folks mentioned they would prefer not to fill out a form. If that’s the case, you can write a check made out to Hayes Barton Legal Fund and deliver it to Frank Gordon at 802 Williamson Dr - you can either drop it in the mail slot or mail it to Frank if you prefer. Any checks received after the 7/21/25 fund raising kickoff will received the match.

If you missed the fundraising kick-off the detailed post is here.

908 Williamson Developer Activity Updates

Most of you have seen the activity at 908, but if you don’t happen to go down Williamson or Iredell frequently, here’s a summary of activities since our last update from the BOA meeting.

The developers that own 908 have been busy creating what I call an aesthetic fusion between ‘prison yard’, ‘urban blight’ and slum landlord’.

Window-less Look…

First, around August 12-14, they took out the windows from the upstairs of the house, giving it a ‘welcome drug dealers looking for a place to stay’ vibe:

which it turns out, was just the beginning…

Chainlink Fence Goes Up

Then, August 14 to August 18, they put up a chainlink fence. We were thinking, hmmm, the only thing that would make this look more sketchy is some barbed wire, or even better, some razor wire, or, even BETTER, both.

Blackout Chainlink…

Turns out: we guessed wrong! They chose the ‘black out’ ratty fabric addition to the chain link fence. Note this doesn’t mean they can’t still add razor wire, we’ll see….

2 Story→Ranch Conversion

Then after putting up the lovely blackout screen to enhance the chainlink fence, they moved in some heavy equipment and started a semi demolition of the house, leaving us with this current state of things as of September 5:

Psychological Warfare

From the disparaging language used by their lawyers and their body language at the BOA hearings, it’s clear to me that Chappell, Singerman and Concept8 view our neighborhood as their enemy. They have no intention to honor the legacy, design aesthetic or care about our neighborhood. They think they can do whatever they want, wherever they want and are furious that a group of concerned citizens are stepping up to stop them.

We’ll show you…

What these moves the developers have undertaken in the last 30 days say to me is: You want to fight? Ok, we’re going to take this property and make it a blight upon your neighborhood. You don’t like the idea of condos, what about the idea of a prison yard smack in the middle of your neighborhood. We’ll give Hayes Barton a big black eye. See how you enjoy that. We’ll show you!

They want us to give up. They are creating an alternative that they think is worse than 17 giant modern condos all slammed together with zero parking. (note: it isn’t).

They want us to ‘think past the sale’ - that they have won and are developing the land.

That’s not true and, and if anything, I believe it shows the opposite - it shows that we are winning, they are acting desperate. They know we are fundraising. They want that to fail.

OUR Story…

The Hayes Barton counter narrative to what the developers want you to think is simple:

We are just beginning.

They can put up razor-wire and a shanty town made of cardboard on the 908 lot. Heck, go ahead and convert it to a landfill - they are proving our point that they plan to strip-mine the Hayes Barton neighborhood’s beauty and ‘brand’ that has been carefully built by craftsmen that care deeply over the last 100+ years.

As the stewards and caretakers of our neighborhood, we’re not going to roll over that easily. They acquired the house in December of 2022 and in in 4 short months we’ll be at the 3yr anniversary. We’re not even past the first inning of a game we expect to go extra innings. What’s 3yrs to protect 105? Not even a drop in the ocean.

Why is there a sense of urgency on their side? I don’t know the developer’s economic situation, but anyone having ~$4m tied up in a project is either experiencing a huge drain on liquidity, or, if financed, has significant carrying costs. Building the prison fence - more costs.

We are living 100% rent-free in their heads. Keep spending.

Second Appeal Coming Shortly

I was able to catch up with the Hayes Barton legal team this week and they have not filed an appeal yet, because the BOA hasn’t published in writing their findings and won’t until their next scheduled meeting. A written opinion/finding/vote/decision is a pre-requisite for Hayes Barton filing an appeal. You can’t appeal something that doesn’t exist yet.

The appeal is coming soon and well within the timeframe required to file an appeal. We are still very much in this fight. Don’t let the psychological warfare persuade you otherwise.

What’s Next?

Remember that our first appeal succeeded. The result was a reversal of the first BOA decision and the permit was revoked. We intend to do this again.

At the second BOA decision meetings in July, it was clear to a lay-person like me that the developers did not work within the spirit of the Judge’s order to make one minor change - they changed the entire plan. Facts and the Town of Raleigh’s own rules they keep running roughshod over are on our side.

After we file our appeal, we’ll have to wait to see which judge picks it up and my understanding of the appeals court is they do not have a deadline or timeline on when they act on appeals. As a dapoint, for our first appeal, it was filed in Feb of 23 and the Judge ruled 17 months later.

For appeal 2, it could take more time, it could take less. I will say that you can’t drive around Raleigh without seeing signs that other Raleigh residents are fighting a plethora of 908-like projects everywhere across the city, so I have to imagine the appeals courts are full of activities like ours.

What Happens if They Start Building?

If the builders decide to start building, and the NC appellate court revokes their permit, there is a substantial risk they will have to tear down whatever is built. There is strong and clear case law to support this position.

The builders are aware of this, we’ll see how far they are going to take things at 908.

You know what’s more expensive than carrying costs? Building something that has to be torn down.

We Need YOUR Help…

As mentioned at the top, our main need right now is to shore-up the legal fund so we can keep pushing through the next steps not only for the 908 BOA-level battle, but simultaneously, we are fighting the deceivingly named ‘Missing Middle’ invalid text changes that have made projects like 908 Williamson possible.

There are two ways to donate and have your funds matched:

• Complete this simple form and we’ll be in contact to pick up a check - you can make it out to Hayes Barton Legal Fund.

• Several folks mentioned they would prefer not to fill out a form. If that’s the case, you can write a check made out to Hayes Barton Legal Fund and deliver it to Frank Gordon at 802 Williamson Dr - you can either drop it in the mail slot or mail it to Frank if you prefer. Any checks received after the 7/21/25 fund raising kickoff will received the match.

If you missed the kick-off the detailed post is here. Every dollar helps. If you’ve given already - thanks! We’d love you to consider another donation here for this next battle in the war.

Thank you!

Hayes Barton Neighbors: thank for your continued support - more frequent updates coming now that we are past the Summer.

Quick Fundraising Update

This weekend, I’ll reach out to the folks that have agreed to donate for next steps. If you missed it, we announced the launch of a $100,000 fundraising campaign with a $20k match commitment. We already have some good momentum out of the gate, but after personally witnessing the BOA hearing, it’s clear we are up against a City structure that is heck-bent on building anything anywhere and nobody is going to come in an advocate to save Hayes Barton. We have to band together, pool resources and prepare to continue to fight this using the rule of law at higher levels where our voices can be heard.

Details of the fundraising are here.

Summary of the BOA Hearing

Part 2 of the My wife, daughter and I had to tag team this one and as a reminder, I’m not a lawyer or named in these actions, just a concerned neighbor like you sharing what we’re seeing and helping out however we can.

Reminder of the Hayes Barton arguments

If you are just joining us, there’s much more background in these 2 posts:

• July 11 - Update on the battle to save Hayes Barton.

• Report from July 18 BOA meeting

I’ll summarize the Hayes Barton argument to arguments with pictures.

Hayes Barton Macro Argument 1: This is a new plan and we should reset

While the Wake County Superior Court Judge did point out that the one thing in the original 2022 plan that needed a change is a TPY, if you clearly look at the 2025 new plan (the one currently contested), you’ll see they changed the entire plan. All the parking is gone, the open space in the middle, the single thing not changed is the 17 townhomes. The developers are not willing to sacrifice one penny to make this plan compliant:

The City says their interpretation of the Wake Superior Court ruling is that they just had to add a TPY and could change anything else in the plan. Therefore they filed a motion to dismiss that would take out any argument but the TPY argument.

In his closing, our counsel, Mr. Justus, had another great metaphor - he said they took the 2022 plan which was an apple full of worms and swapped it with the 2025 plan that is a watermelon full of snakes. Just because they changed one thing doesn’t fix the internal problems with the plan. Said another way, the 2022 plan violated UDO with the TPY and the new one didn’t fix that right AND broke a bunch of other rules.

Hayes Barton Arguments 2-6: The City Violated it’s Own UDO Rules by Rubber-Stamp Approving the 2025 plan

Somewhat ‘underneath’ that macro argument are the 5 areas where the 2025 plan violates the UDO - Open Space, TPY encroachments, TPY height 1, TPY height 2 and parking.

BOA Ruling

The meeting started late and had a bare minimum of 3 BOA members show up and even though agreeing to a 1:30 start they didn’t show up until after 2pm (showing a naked lack of respect for the BOA, the citizens and everyone’s time).

The members that did show up were:

1. BOA Chair Swink

2. BOA Member Midgett

3. BOA Member Torrey

Finally around 4hrs of the hearing at 6pm, we got to a vote:

• Motion to Dismiss - the BOA voted unanimously 3-0 against Hayes Barton - this negated the Open Space argument (number 1 in the above picture)

• TPY Encroachment - the BOA voted unanimously 3-0 against Hayes Barton. (seeing a trend yet?)

• TPY Height 1 and 2 - the BOA voted unanimously 3-0 against Hayes Barton.

• Parking - The City changed the UDO to get rid of all parking requirements so this section was previously agreed to not be an issue (legally, but ethically let all this sink in - you can build anything you want now in Raleigh without parking requirements 🤯)

City Lawyer’s Closing Argument Personal Thoughts

I’m a business person and have been in a lot of meetings and lot of heated negotiations. Sometimes you see people drop their facade and show you what they are really thinking and ‘who they are’. Another common pattern I’ve seen is when you are in a debate and the opposing side knows you have them, and they can’t argue something on the merits of the argument, they default to personal attacks.

Robin Tatum Drops the Facade

Mr. Justus did his closing first and argued the case on the merits. He did a great job and I’ve covered the meat of his arguments above.

Then it was Ms. Tatum and Mr. Birch’s turn…

This was a long session and in the closing arguments, Robin Tatum was clearly frustrated with how long the hearing went and Mr. Justus’ arguments and in her closing I feel she dropped her already thin veneer of professionalism.

She launched into her closing by attacking the neighborhood practically shrieking: “You people wanted a wall and we gave you a wall!” She then proceeded to mock Mr. Justus extremely unprofessionally poorly imitating and saying things like” oh you had an apple and now you have a watermelon, two bites of the apple, blah blah blah”.

She then said - “I want to make it clear, I am here representing the City of Raleigh and this idea that we are somehow in cahoots with the developer” (after spending both sessions of the hearings whispering in his ear the whole time and then he would run and check in with Chappell and Singerman).

She further mocked Justus: (she did this in kind of hillbilly-ish interpretation of Justus’ accent “Oh you need 50 feet everywhere, you can’t point to another example blah blah”

Then after spending days arguing parking doesn’t matter, she spent a big chunk of her closing on parking (??) saying our expert had no idea about how to calculate parking spaces (very interestingly the only item she argued on merits was parking -one she had already won).

She then turned to the neighbors in the galley and said: (practically shrieking)

“YOUR problem is you don’t want townhomes in your neighborhood. Well! I suggest you go to the ballot box and not come back to this court to argue this. The one thing they wanted they wanted they got (she’s referring to the TPY wall, she said this like 8 times over the 2 days) and now they are back and they don’t like the wall either.

After that Mr. Birch (Developers lawyer) got up and, again, didn’t address the merits, just personally attacked our expert witness.

Personal take aways from Ms. Tatum’s closing/rant

Ms. Tatum revealed a lot in this 3-4m ‘closing:

• The city is 100% in cahoots with the developer

• Their strategy was: Tatum goes after Justus and the Neighborhood, Birch disparages the witness.

• The city+developers knows it doesn’t have a good argument on anything but the parking

• Even on parking, I thought it was very odd that she purposely brought it back up, almost as if she was still worried about it?

• The city is frustrated that citizens don’t just lay down and let them change what they want and get builders to build what they want where they want how they want

• The developers are frustrated and want to break ground, build their 17 townhomes, destroy the character of Hayes Barton, make their $17-20m and move on to the next neighborhood.

The one area I think we need to take Ms. Tatum to heart on is her advice to “go to the ballot box”. We need to get much more serious about elections at the Mayor and City Council level, that needs to turn into our third front on this battle. More on that later.

At the end of the day, outside of the closing, the City’s argument is:

• The city interprets the UDO to be quite different that is what written all the time - e.g. the 50-ft minimum and the 30-ft TPV setback is a ‘recommendation’ and 20 is fine, and so on.

• Structures aren’t structures

• Open space can be any little spot of green on the plan

Next Steps - We lost this battle, but WILL win the war!

I’m sure that Mr. Justus and our neighbors on the case will file an appeal to the Wake County Superior Court. I have a lot of questions on the process here and will sync with Frank and share what I learn. This battle is far from over, as a novice, I feel there were 5-8 areas where we have a valid appeal argument.

Hopefully in appeal, common sense will prevail and the Judge can look at these two plans and the city’s capricious arguments based on word definitions and ‘interpretations’ and see that the City is clearly in the wrong here.

I’ll keep you posted on what’s next, as a reminder, this is the best time to donate so we can push hard into this next phase. Details here.

Detailed Outline of the BOA meeting

The above was the highlights, here’s our more detailed notes from the very long meeting in outline format. There are three sections that represent the times between breaks in the session.

• Section 1: This was the continuation of the expert testimony preceded by a lot of waiting for the BOA members to show up.

• Section 2: There was a lot of questions raised by Mr. Justus about how the city rammed this through and is changing the definitions of words to justify that fast-tracking.

• Section 3: Final session ending in the disappointing, but not surprising vote.

In the notes Defense is Hayes Barton.

Section 1: July 22nd Continuation of Special City Raleigh Board Meeting

General Notes

• No official court reporter present; meeting recorded.

• Continuation from previous hearing; witness still under oath.

Key Witness: Keegan McDonald

• Land Development Manager, City of Raleigh (since Dec 2018).

  • Former Senior Planner (2018-2021), Supervisor Zoning Amendments (2021-2024).

• Education: BS, University of Maryland; Master’s in Planning, USC.

• Certified with American Institute of Certified Planners.

• Approved and signed subdivision plan on April 4, 2025.

• Reviewed appeal after approval.

• Testified plan complies with UDO requirements; no discretion to deny compliant plans.

Open Space Requirements Dispute

• Requirement: 20% of site or 1 acre (whichever greater) → 1 acre applies.

• Width: 50 ft minimum with 60% contiguity.

• Plan provides 1.137 acres in two open space areas.

• City's interpretation:

  • Each open space must include at least one 50x50 ft block.

  • Connected areas to 50x50 block count toward total.

  • Methodology used for 12+ years, including prior 908 Williamson approval.

• Appellant expert argued entire space must be 50 ft wide or pass "football throw" test.

  • City rejected this interpretation.

Transitional Protective Yard (TPY) Issues

• Type B1 TPY included (20 ft width).

• UDO Section 7.2.4 governs:

  • Walls allowed per 7.2.4.D2.

  • No distinction between retaining/screening walls.

  • No limit on number of walls.

  • Buildings/structures prohibited within 10 ft of TPY.

  • Walls not considered "structures" for TPY.

Legal & Procedural Issues

• Defense objected to legal interpretations by witness.

• City argued McDonald is a qualified fact witness.

• Exhibits introduced: approved plans and city affidavit.

• Hearing must finish same day due to prior delays.

Comparative Plan Analysis

• First approved plan (2022) used same open space methodology.

• Similar TPY configurations cited:

  • Bradford Subdivision, Laurel Hills Townhomes, Stonebridge.

• Site plans must meet UDO.

Cross-Examination Highlights

• Defense questioned "minimum width" interpretation.

• Argued city added qualifiers not in ordinance.

• Pointed out TPY widths are 20 ft, not 50 ft.

• Challenged logic of narrow connectors counting.

• City defended interpretation as consistent with 13-year interpretations.

Section 2: Legal Definitions & Development Process

These are Mr. Justus arguments:

Structure vs. Building Interpretation

• Webster's: "Anything constructed" = structure.

• City: Context from ordinance matters; cites Article 12.1.

Road Construction Standards

• Raleigh design and construction standards apply to alleys.

• Exhibits 11-12: road design requirements.

Setback Requirements & Exceptions

• Section 1.5.4: prohibits buildings/structures in setbacks.

• Exceptions: driveways, fences, walls.

• Attorney: if walls weren’t structures, no need to exempt.

TPY Requirements Recap

• 10 ft distance required from buildings/structures.

• Walls have specific height/compatibility rules.

• B1 TPY: 6.5 ft minimum wall height from neighboring side.

Approval Process Timeline

• Plans submitted March 20, approved April 4.

• 2 pre-submission meetings attended by:

  • Justin Rivera, Jason Meadows, Daniel King, Zachary Manor.

  • Eric Hodge not included in current plan.

Open Space Calculation Changes (city’s argument is you can piece together, don’t need 50 ft - ‘min’)

• Previous: 1 acre with central 50 ft strip.

• Current: larger area but some narrower sections.

• Contiguity met through perimeter areas.

Procedural Objections & Time Pressure

(there was a discussion about continuing another day, that can’t happen as has to be by 8/2)

• Ongoing lawsuit related to approval.

• August 2nd deadline.

• Agreement to limit remaining testimony time.

Part 3: Hearing Format & Final Arguments

Hearing Structure

• Board of Adjustment hearing.

• Time limits: 30 mins/witnesses, 10 mins/closings.

• Res judicata motion addressed before merits.

• Board aims to finish in one session.

Res Judicata Motion

The city lawyer pointed out that the Res Judicata motion (motion to dismiss) was sitll open→

• City: prior Board decision covered same open space grounds.

• First appeal (2022) included:

  • Townhouse use, compact standards, open space, TPY.

• Superior Court reversed only on TPY issue.

• Other findings remain binding.

Open Space Calculation Details (City expert argued you can connect pieces to get to 50x50)

• Method: Each open space must include 50x50 ft block.

  • Connected smaller widths allowed.

  • Total area must still be 1+ acre.

  • Three open space areas identified.

  • 60% contiguity also met.

Witness Testimony - Justin Rometta (Zoning Administrator)

• 5.5 years in role.

• Reviewed original and revised plans.

• Same open space methodology used.

• BOA previously found compliance; court did not challenge method.

Engineering Testimony - Jason

• PE since 2010; 95% work in Raleigh.

• Familiar with UDO.

• Used 50x50 block method for both plans.

• Identified two open space areas.

Opposition Testimony - Mr. Justus

• Argues res judicata inapplicable due to plan changes.

• Claims "minimum 50 ft" means entire open space.

• Opposes block methodology.

• Disputes whether road is "structure" under setback rules.

• Argues open space reduced to fit 17 units.

Technical Compliance Points

• TPY revised per court.

• Wall heights challenged.

• Road placement questioned.

• Parking issues withdrawn.

Board Decision

• Motion to grant res judicata dismissal approved 3-0

• Prior decision found to cover open space issues.

• Hearing continues on TPY questions only

• Three-vote majority needed for board action.

• Board votes 3-0 against the 3 TPY questions

Adjourned

$20k in Matching Funds Committed

To kick-off the fundraising, Kris and I plus the Claytons (Katie and Zach - they live on Vance St) are each committing $10k of matching funds for a total of $20k. For each dollar donated there is 2X the impact up to the first $40k. If we can do this quickly we’ll be at 40% and surge to hit the goal quickly. Thanks Katie and Zach for the commitment!

How to Donate:

If you’d like to donate, fill out this form and we’ll be in touch for next steps immediately. Any amount is welcome and helps us continue to fight to save our neighborhood.

Donate HERE.

Frequently Asked Questions

Even though it’s only been 10 days since I first posted, I’ve had an opportunity to talk with many about donating and gathered some frequently asked questions.

Why You?

All I can do is share our reasons for donating:

• As mentioned in my first post here, we chose Hayes Barton for a specific reason, the social contract between us as real-estate buyers making a large investment and the City is called ‘Zoning Laws’, the City violated that commitment by changing the zoning based on fundamentally bad logic (more to come on this).

• Financially, I believe everyone in Hayes Barton either from the 908 Williamson or eventually there will be other even worse (imagine a 30 story building plopped on Cowper), is facing a 5-10% decrease in property value from the negative impact should the 908 Williamson project proceed.

  • What would you pay to make sure you don’t face a material decrease in your investment?

• Not only does the text changes threaten to destroy Hayes Barton, it’s running rampant all through the city. As the first impacted, we feel the work Frank and Craig have started gives us the best shot at successfully overturning the pernicious text changes not only for Hayes Barton

Want the Details?

As part of the BOA hearing, real estate appraiser, Nick Kirkland completed the following affidavit analyzing the decrease in value do the 908 Williamson 17 Townhome project:

Nick Kirkland Affidavit Exhibit 1

7.71MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Why Now?

Both of the battle fronts in the fight to save Hayes Barton are entering expensive phases of appeals and escalations. I’m convinced our counsel, Mr. Justus is providing the best tactical and strategic advice and counsel available. It was quite impressive in the last BOA meeting how he ran circles around opposing counsel

Where does the money go?

100% of the money goes to cover our hard legal costs. There is no credit card processing, gofundme fee, none of that 100%, means 100%.

Do I get a tax credit for donating?

We’ve looked into the process for creating and maintaining a non-profit organization and given our need for funds to go to creating and managing a non-profit entity to be cost and time prohibitive. If anyone is or knows a lawyer that practices in this area interested in pro-bono work, we’d love to engage them.

How Can I Donate?

Donate HERE.

If you’d like to donate, fill out the simple form linked above and we’ll be in touch for next steps immediately. Any amount is welcome and helps us continue to fight to save our neighborhood.

I’m Not Able to Donate, Can I Help Other Ways?

Yes this LINK, has a form that you can fill out and volunteer to help in other non-monetary ways (just enter n/a for the donation amount).

Thanks!

Thanks for considering donating - there are 252 of our fellow Hayes Barton neighbors subscribed to this newsletter, if each of you donate $500 or more, we’ll exceed our goal and be able to focus our resources on the fight at hand.

-Your neighbors Katie and Zach Clayton, Scot and Kris Wingo

As a reminder, like you I am a fellow Hayes Barton neighbor who has a strong vested interest in making sure we win the battle for 908 Williamson and for the character of Hayes Barton. But, I am not a lawyer and all these opinions are mine and you can assume I will either avoid legal jargon or give you my layman’s version that may not be technically true and certainly not what a lawyer would use.

If you are new and want some background before jumping in, in the last post, I covered the players and and the timeline we got to this second developer plan and appeal that landed us up in the BOA a second time.

Executive Summary

• Win: Biased Board member recusal - BOA member Suzanne Prince made obviously pro-developer social media posts which were discovered by the Solics and used by our counsel to force her recusal with a surprise motion to start the hearing. Note: Great video included in detailed portion. Ms. Prince literally said: “Good on Chappell for pressing on” and expected everyone to believe that she’s totally impartial.

• TBD: Motion to Dismiss - The Developer’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss arguing that all the points had been argued and supported by Judge Collins except the TPV argument. Hayes Barton counsel pointed out that it’s an entirely new plan and this was a restart. The board didn’t officially vote and decided to hear testimony. The fact we got our testimony in felt like a win, but this one is still open and may come up again.

• Loss: Parking - This was new to me. The Town of Raleigh has removed all parking requirements for subdivisions like that proposed at 908 Williamson, so the developers, not wanting to lose a single townhome, removed a ton of parking. Guess where they are going to park? You can expect Williamson and Iredell to be full of 20-50 cars if 908 Williamson moves forward. 🤦‍♂️ To handle the Motion to Dismiss, Hayes Barton counsel conceded this one.

• Win: Legal Standing - I’ve read the prior minutes and in previous hearings the opposing lawyers spent a lot of time challenging the legal standing of the Bennets and Solics in the case. Justus went through this quickly without objection from the opposition.

• Win: Technical expert testimony - Our expert, Jose Martinez did a great job. The city’s experts were Justin Booker and Keegan McDonald. Justin Booker didn’t say much other than he was there from Planning and Development. McDonald, from the planning office made it seem that the city had to do lots of ‘triangulation’ and ‘interpretation’ of parts of the UDO that, to me a layman, don’t really leave interpretation for this. It seems like ‘contiguous open space’ is pretty well defined.

• Time ran out Friday, continuing Tuesday 7/22 : Finally, at 11:30 time elapsed and a part 2 had to be scheduled, which is Tuesday July 22 at 1pm. My understanding is what is left is some final questioning of the experts, and closing arguments. I’m sure there will be more talk of this motion to dismiss and finally a board vote.

Personal observations:

When you read the minutes or email updates you don’t get a lot of the body language and nuance.

• Our expert, real estate appraiser Nick Kirkland, did an analysis that the 5 adjoining homes to 908 will suffer at least a 6% property value impact due to the 17 townhomes, the traffic and chaos this project brings to our neighborhood making it less desirable. I 100% believe this and I think it’s going to be 10%, but outside of what Mr. Kirkland was asked to do, I think it has a bigger impact including surrounding streets beyond Williamson Dr. and Iredell Dr.

• It’s clear that the city and the developers are very aligned here.

• BOA member Ms. Prince is clearly aligned with the developers and was very disingenuous if not outright lying when she stated she had no bias in the case. Her hypocrisy and duplicity was embarrassing - I don’t know if there’s an ethics board for city employees and BOA members, but if there is, someone should make sure they aware of her shady behavior.

• I was pleased that BOA chairman Swink and member Butler were paying attention and didn’t show any partiality.

• Member Midgett wasn’t paying any attention, slumped in his chair and just played with his phone the whole time. Member Midgett (not 100% sure as I couldn’t see his name tag) was paying attention the first hour and then as we got past 9, he was increasingly on his phone. Were I chairman of the BOA, I’d remind members that there breaks for checking your phone and this matter requires 100% of your attention, or step aside and let a board member that wants to do the job, do the job.

• The developer’s counsel are several tiers below our counsel in professionalism, preparedness and understanding this part of the law. The developers are very rude to our witnesses and our counsel, Justus. Ignoring that, Justus was able to slice all their motions, arguments and objections to shreds, blow up their case law and run circles around them. It’s clear to me we have great representation - thanks to Frank for finding and recruiting Justus.

• The biggest suprise to me is seeing with my own eyes how obviously aligned the city and the developers are to make 908 Williamson townhomes a reality. I was especially disheartened to see that BOA member Ms. Prince clearly has bias and seemed to have communications with the developer and didn’t recuse herself. I researched and found the ethical standards that the BOA signs up for are in City Council resolution 995A passed back in 1988. They are part of the training handbook here:

Boards And Commissions Training Handbook

13.9MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

You’ll see that 955A clearly calls out Bias and ex-parte communications as important ethical considerations for the BOA.

• I feel the City and the developers see their own rules - all the way back to missing middle and now the UDO as being something they don’t have to follow if they don’t want to or, even worse, they can change things they want without citizen/voter input. The change of parking is a good example - it feels like they said ‘oh citizens are using this UDO parking rule to stop our steamrolling Missing Middle, let’s just remove that pesky parking rule too. ‘

That’s the highlights and some personal thoughts, now for all the details.

Detailed Account of 7/18/25 Board of Adjustments (BOA) meeting

Team Hayes Barton

On our legal team we have Craig Justus who sat on the right (from the rear perspective) of the room with Frank Gordon assisting.

pictured: Craig Justus at the podium and to the right opposing counsel Michael Birch and Robin Tatum

The Opposition

Opposing counsel

• Michael Birch (pictured above) - lawyer for the Developers. He was clearly out of his depth on mostly kept going to the developers and whispering like this→

He’s also the first lawyer I’ve seen not dressing appropriately for court.

• Robin Tatum - She was new to me and not listed in last week’s post. She’s with Fox Rothschild and was previously the City Attorney of Raleigh. My understanding is she was representing the City, but I could be wrong and she was for the developers. I’m 90% sure she’s for the City.

Developers:

• John (Johnny) Chappell - John is partners with ConceptEight CEO Shawn Donovan (who I did not see at the hearing) and he was there sitting next to Nathan Singerman.

• Nathan Singerman - Singerman made the trip up from Wrightsville where he moved to after throwing our neighborhood under the bus to watch the proceedings. Chappell is on the left, Singerman is on the right.

  

I had been assuming that Chappell is a small player in this, but given his rapt attention and other body language it now feels to me that he’s got some bigger economic investment in this deal.

The BOA Members

BOA Chair Swink

I wasn’t able to get a picture, he’s the chair and did a decent job running things. They do spend a lot of time asking the City’s counsel questions.

BOA Member Suzanne V. Prince, Recused 👋👋👋

More on Ms. Prince below, here’s her picture

BOA Member Torrey

Pictured: Mr. Torrey asked good questions and was engaged in the discussion.

BOA Member Midgett

Mr. Midgett did not move from this position - he’s looking at his phone if you can’t tell.

Opposing Experts

• Justin Booker - City of Raleigh, representative from planning and development.

• Jason Meadows - Civil Engineer for Concept Eight (908 Williamson lead developer)

• Keegan McDonald - City’s Land Development Manager

Booker is in the white shirt and tie, Meadows is in the upper left.

Acronyms reminder

That’s the players and the setup heading into the hearing, before we get into it, three acronyms that come up all the time are:

• BOA - Board of Adjustments - A quasi-judicial board that is part of the City that hears appeals.

• UDO - Unified Development Ordinances - Outside of zoning, these are the rules that govern developments in Raleigh. The builders and city seem hellbent on ignoring these rules now that they have essentially eliminated zoning.

• TPY - Transitional Protective Yard - Specified by the City of Raleigh UDO and not honored by the developer’s proposed 17 townhome project.

Part I: Board Member Recusal Motion by Justus

The hearing started off with fireworks. Justus dropped a motion to recuse Ms. Prince from the hearing. It turns out she had been on social media (a facebook group discussing missing middle I believe) under the alias “svp” which, not too cleverly, are her initials. A Hayes Barton Neighbor saw this, did some investigation and realized that a BOA board member was actively discussing our case on social media and her comments clearly revealed her extreme bias for the developers.

There were many posts, but the most damning was where she said: “Good on Chappell for pressing on.” She also posted about the city fast tracking the approval of the new plan and had seen the plan before the public, which was asked and not clearly answered how she got this information.

Here’s the social media posts. These are Ms. Prince’s (under the svp alias) comments. BOA members are supposed to be an unbiased BOA members. What do you think?

In this first post, she is very aligned with the city and developer lawyers who, according to Justus, are misinterpreting what Judge Collins ruled (more on this later, this is quite important for us):

My read of this one is she’s very much on board with missing middle, thinks and wants this to move on and she’s eager to see construction begin. I’ll speculate why in a second.

This is the big one→

Yep, she’s 100% independent, no preference at all 🤣🤣🤣

I don’t know exactly, but this post basically reveals she’s in the BOA. In addition to not being good at pretending to be impartial, Ms. Prince is not good at anonymous posting. She also misrepresents the UDO here, so she’s also not good at understanding that.

There’s another participant in the forum that is somewhat anti-missing middle and you can tell that irritates Ms. Prince and she’s wanting to get into an argument on the benefits of the terrible missing middle policy, revealing her lack of indepence on this broader topic as well.

Ms. Prince declares independence, board votes to recuse.

After this shocking revelation, the lawyer for the BOA (City provided) asked three questions to Ms. Prince asking if she could remain independent and she swore up and down she was 100% independent (even though she did not dispute she literally said: “GOOD ON CHAPPELL FOR PRESSING ON!!!”)

The board discussed this, my notes;

• Butler: questioned ethics and ex parte communication

• Swink: not comfortable with situation

• Butler: doesn’t like the “encouragement to push on” statement

• Midgett: concerns about appearance of conflict

Prince’s response (note she did not at any time say she is not SVP)

• Claimed no fixed opinion, she made these statements made after thinking case was over

• Offered to recuse herself voluntarily

• Board voted to recuse Prince

  • Created potential quorum issues with remaining members, that somehow didn’t end up being an issue. That was a weird confusing discussion, but minor.

Ms. Prince then stomped out in quite a huff shooting daggers 👀 at our side of the room and Mr. Justus.

I captured a ~8m video of the courtroom drama that I think you’ll enjoy.

Part 2: City Motion to Dismiss

This one is important and it got super legal-ese so I’m going to do my best to explain it→

The city filed a motion to dismiss our appeal to the BOA. The City’s argument resides on a legal concept: res judicata and collateral estoppel

• Their argument is the case was already decided in previous 2023 appeal

• They argue that the Superior Court found developer plan correct except for B1 transitional protective yard requirement

• City then claims that since we are adding stuff or re-visiting (open area) that was not in the superior court that we’re trying to get 2 bites of the apple.

Justus Pushes back

Mr. Justus then argued that to solve the B1 problem, they changed everything in the plan, violating many new UDO rules.

This picture does a good job of showing the plans side by side - ignore the green dot - Ms. Tatum touched her computer’s touchscreen and it was there the whole time, I’m pretty sure she didn’t know how to undo that.

To Mr. Justus’s point, I’m not a land use expert but the left plan and the right plan are completely different. You can tell they moved the townhouse lots (the rectangles all intot he middle, getting rid of all that area in the middle and putting it on the edges. They also had to tilt and move every single unit. In fact the only thing not changes between the plans are the fixed items - Iredell, Williamson and the size of the lot.

Mr. Justus had a great analogy, he argued that this was like you went to buy a car and you realized it didn’t have a steering wheel. Then to get the steering wheel fixed, they had to take out the speedometer - even though you addressed one issue, your change in addressing the first issue still does not give you a working car.

Applying that here, in accommodating the Judge’s order to solve one major UDO problem, they have introduced many other problems - it’s a completely new plan that violates all new UDO rules, we need to restart the entire process, therefore it’s not a second bite at the apple, it’s the first bite of a plum.

Here’s a table (presented by opposition) that shows the 5 claims in the Hayes Barton appeal:

5 Items of appeal:

1. NEW Open space UDO issues created from plan 2

2. NEW TPY 10-ft border UDO problem created form plan 2

3. NEW TPY height UDO violation 1

4. NEW TPY height UDO violation 2

5. NEW Parking UDO violation

I won’t go into each of these as Mr. Justus made great arguments on all of them and the opposition just kept saying either, “two bites of the apple” or “you wanted a wall and now you aren’t happy” - clearly misrepresenting and ignoring Mr. Justus’ points that were very clear to me. (I’m clearly biased, but I think anyone would see this as a completely new plan).

The one that’s super annoying is parking. Turns out in March of 2022, the city updated the UDO (does this get voted on or the city can just change anything they want - maybe it’s a city counsel thing, idk) to eliminate any parking requirement - now reflected in UDO section 7.1.1. Also, no bicycle parking is needed.

The Version 1 plan had plenty of parking in the middle and that has now been totally removed in Version 2 (again illustrating this is a completely different plan).

Where are they going to put 15-23 cars?

Here’s what is really annoying - If there’s 17 units and they will have 1.5-3 cars per unit, that gives us a range of 25-35 cars that are going to need somewhere to park. I need to go measure the edges of 908 Williamson, but at most it can hold 10-12 cars, probably less with all the roads they are putting in. Where are the additional 15-23 cars going to go? They are going to be all down Williamson and up Iredell creating even more disruption to the character of our neighborhood on top of the dramatic increase in traffic, the AirBNB short-term renters coming in/out, etc.

Mr. Justus conceded this point given the UDO changes, so we are down to 4 areas we are righting in this appeal process with the focus now on open space and all the TPV issues.

Part III: Legal Standing Establishment

To avoid some cute trick by the opposition around an appeal, Mr. Justus insisted that the BOA hear the legal standing argument. This was a heated topic in past arguments by the city (that the Solics and Bennetts are impacted by this and thus have legal standing). This went quickly as the opposition seemed resigned that the issue was dead, but it was smart of Justus to put a bunch of nails in the legal standing argument coffin. My notes:

• Nick Kirkland (real estate appraiser expert)

  • Testified 5 adjoining homes would face 6% or greater negative property value impact

  • Includes the Solics and Bennetts as affected parties

• Samantha Solic

  • Lives directly next door on Williamson Drive side

  • Submitted affidavit on property impact

• Rebecca Bennett

  • Lives directly next door on Iredell side

  • Submitted affidavit on negative property impacts

• Board granted standing to all four appellants

Part IV: Technical Expert Testimony

After legal standing was confirmed, Justus presented our expert testimony:

• Jose Martinez (licensed professional engineer)

  • 25 years experience, multiple engineering degrees

  • Licensed in multiple states including North Carolina

  • Practice leader for site development at KCI

  • Hired to evaluate approved plans against UDO requirements

• Developer’s attorney objected to Martinez as expert

  • Argued lack of recent Raleigh residential project experience

  • No compact subdivision experience in Raleigh

  • Questioned expertise on UDO interpretation vs. city staff

After all that back and forth, Martinez shared his feedback on the UDO which basically re-enforce the Hayes Barton position in the appeal.

Part V: Open Space and Buffer Requirements Arguments

There were a lot of arguments around open space. As mentioned in the exec summary, the City’s planning and planning representative Justin Booker, did not seem to know much and there was more confusion than anything around this 50-ft square concept. Basically my conclusion was the city just put Version 2 of the plan through because they believe or want the Judge Collins ‘one minor change needed’ concept to be true.

The opposition continued to bring up the two bite at the apple argument, then argued that just because the moved the TPY to a B1 transition that even though they changed everything else, that’s all they had to do.

The original had an ‘Open Lot’ TPY and now they have a B1. this is all confusing so I read the UDO and it actually has a helpful picture:

You can clearly see here that our appeal (pictured earlier) correctly calls out the many area they are NOT following the B1 TPY rules as outlined in the 5 areas of appeal.

McDonald Testimony

Keegan McDonald, Land Development Manager, was an expert witness to discuss how the City approved ‘plan 2’ so quickly. Justus asked McDonald a series of questions about the UTO that got super technical, but my novice feeling was that there was a lot of ‘aggressive’ interpretation of the UDO rules and ‘triangulating’ to justify approving plan 2.

Conclusion

At this point it was 11:30 - 3.5hrs after the start. The hearing is set to continue Tuesday July 22nd at 1pm.

For Tuesday, opposing counsel will ask McDonald their questions and then both counsels will make closing arguments.

This is a good time to update you on the 908 Williamson side of the two-front battle we’re waging agains the City of Raleigh. The 908 Williamson battle is through an administrative appeal process, while the battle on zoning changes vs. the City of Raleigh is through a lawsuit. Note, the next update will be an update on the larger battle against the overall zoning changes, the lawsuit, this update is focused on the administrative appeal.

In this update:

• Summary timeline of the 908 battle history and where we are today to get you up to speed

• Next steps in the 908 battle including details of the 7/18/25 hearing - spoiler alert, we need a big group there!

• Key People and businesses on both sides of the battle

• Alphabet soup - where I keep track of all the acronyms used in this part of the law.

Summary of the 908 Battle (Admin Appeal) and Where We are as of 7/11/25

As I’ve come up to speed on everything, I’ve found a timeline format to be the most helpful format for understanding ‘how did we get here and where are we going’.

For the sake of brevity I’m going to focus most of this update on the current phase of the battle, but I thought it would be helpful to share my notes on how I’ve pieced together the big phases of this battle and the key events in those phases. In future posts, I will refer back to this post and be updating the timeline of Phase IV as it plays out.

Phase I: City adopts Missing middle text changes: 2021-May 2022

• 3/27/02 - Posts acquire 1527 Iredell

• 3/19/21 - Solic’s acquire 912 Williamson from Nathan Singerman

• 7/6/21 - City Council adopts Text Change TC‑5‑20 (“Missing Middle 1.0”)

• 5/10/22 - Council adopts TC‑20‑21 (“Missing Middle 2.0”), *effective 8/8/22*

Phase II: First site plan and first appeal: May 2022 - Sept 2023

• 5/16/22 - Concept8 Holdings submits prelim plans for SUB‑0045‑2022 - a 17 townhome development on 908 Williamson. Updates happen on 9/6/22 and 11/23/22

• 7/15/22 - Bennetts acquire 1517 Iredell

• 12/13/22 - Rebecca Thompson sells 908 Williamson to “908 Williamson LLC”, John Chappell of Compass is the buyer agent. Shawn Donovan is both president of Concept Eight and 908 Williamson LLC. Nathan Singerman is his partner in the LLC. (Details on these gentlemen in the ‘Players’ section). Recorded as $3.75m

• 12/30/22 - Administrative approval by Director Dan Stagall (City BOA approves)

• 1/24/23 - Appeal filed by Solic’s (912 Williamson), Bennetts (1517 Iredell) and Posts (1527 Iredell) - docketed as BOA-0011-2023 **Note This is the beginning of our administrative appeal - the first shots fired in the Battle for 908.

• 5/8/23 - 8/9/23 - Board of Appeals (BOA) hearings (4 sessions)

• 8/14/23 - BOA votes 3-2 to affirm City staff and re-issues the permit

• 9/1/23 - Hayes Barton Neighbors seek judicial review

Phase III: Superior Court Proceedings and Remand (2024 activities)

• 7/8/24 - Judge Bryan Collins releases Memo of Opinion, announcing intent to revoke permit for failure to provide the required protective yard.

• 9/23/24 - Judge Collins releases final order, vacates SUB-045-2022, gives developer 6 months to file compliant plan, remands back to BOA

• 10/14/24 - BOA enters Collins’ order, formally revokes permit

Phase IV: Revised Plan and Second Appeal (2025, current day)

• 2/14/25 - Developer files updated plan SUB-0045-2022 -adding a 25ft perimeter attempting to satisfy Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) section 2.3.1(C).

• 2/21/25 - City immediately approves (all evidence points to the city being very eager for this project to proceed 🤔).

• 4/18/25 - BOA-0036-2025 appeal is filed by our Hayes Barton neighbors the Solics and Bennetts

• 7/18/25 - BOA has scheduled a special meeting meeting solely to review BOA-0036-2025

Next Steps in 908 Battle

For next steps:

• The BOA meeting Friday 18th of July will be held at 8am in the City Council Chambers of the Avery Upchurch municipal Building at 222 West Hargett Street. Where the BOA will decided if the revised plan (SUB-0045-2022) is compliant with the UDO. I plan on being there for the first 2hrs of the meeting, I’m new to this so I don’t know how long they go, but I want to see what these BOA meetings look like and make sure the BOA sees there are concerned neighbors. I hope to see all 200+ of you there. Note a list of the BOA members is provided in the Players section along with the other representatives of the City that seem intent on pushing this through.

• Whoever loses this BOA vote, will certainly file an appeal to the Wake Superior court and potentially NC Court of appeals. I don’t know how it works and if it goes back to the same judge (Collins) or it’s a complete restart.

• The presence of LOTS of concerned Hayes Barton citizens at the hearing will show the BOA that we are engaged and willing to continue to fight this development as long as it takes to win.

Details of the July 18 Hearing

Note: You can find all of this on the BOA website here, it’s a bit tedious to find everything, so I’ve included the relevant PDFs here for your convenience.

Here’s the latest/current administrative appeal the Solics and Bennetts filed:

Administrative Appeal BOA-0036-2025

7.11MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

and if you want it here’s the updated plan the developers submitted after losing the last appeal.

Sub 0045 2022 Developer Plan

14.4MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

To summarize all this for you (this is my laymans summary), refer to the documents above for full details:

The second/current administrative appeal surfaces four areas where the developer’s updated plan continues to not meet the UDO requirements:

• Open Space Requirements Not Met: The project was approved as a compact development under UDO Section 2.3.1B, which requires at least 1 acre or 20% of open space, with qualifying open space meeting minimum width and contiguity standards (50 feet wide and 60% contiguous). The appeal shows that the project does not provide the necessary contiguous or adequately-sized open space. You can look at the plan and see that it’s basically 17 townhomes and asphalt edge-to-edge.

• Protective Yard Violation: The development must have a transitional protective yard (TPY) conforming to Sec. 7.2.4D—no building or structure should be within 10 feet of a protective yard, and no buildings or other structures except certain screening walls should be within the TPY. The appeal points out that the project's internal road is too close to the TPY, and retaining walls are built in or within 10 feet of the TPY, violating this code section.

• Retaining Wall Height and Placement Issues: Even if a retaining wall were allowed in the TPY, the appeal assert that the plans show varying wall heights that exceed the 8-foot maximum permitted in both the TPY and in the rear setback area (Sec. 7.2.4D2a and Sec. 7.2.8.B.9).

• Parking Not Demonstrated: Under Sec. 7.1.2C, sufficient on-site parking (including bicycle parking) must be provided for multi-unit projects. The appeal shows that the submitted plans do not show adequate parking or space for it.

Participants in the Battle to save Hayes Barton

Let’s start with the ‘good guys’ - the folks fighting every day to Save Hayes Barton, the Tip of our Spear:

• Frank Gordon - Hayes Barton neighbor that lives at 802 Williamson, and is the main contact for the Hayes Barton Legal Fund. Think of Frank as the Quarterback of both the 908 administrative appeal and the zoning law suit.

• Craig Justus - Attorney who specializes in the area of real estate and zoning litigation representing Hayes Barton in both the law suite and administrative appeal battles.

• Solics - John and Samantha Solic are at 912 Williamson Dr. (Adjacent to 908 on the Williamson side) and filed the first and second appeal.

• Bennetts - Marvin (Bob) and Rebecca Bennett are at 1517 Iredell (Adjacent to 908 on the Iredell side) and filed the first and second appeal.

• Posts - Reside at 1527 Iredell Dr. and filed the first appeal.

Neutral Party:

Wake County Board of Appeals

• Judge Bryan Collins - Wake County Superior Court - revoked the first permit 9/24

Hayes Barton Opponents:

908 Williamson Developers

• Concept Eight - Based in Apex and led by Shawn Donovan, Concept Eight is a developer that takes a relatively small piece of property and jams as many tightly packed modern $2m+ townhomes in as possible (example above). They are tightly affiliated with Chappell.

• 908 Williamson Dr. LLC - An LLC formed by Shawn Donovan and Nathan Singerman to buy and develop 908 Williamson

• Shawn Donovan - Owner of Concept eight, resident of Apex in a non-townhome single-family house that sits on a .45 acred wooded lot.

• Nathan Singerman - Director of marketing at Pfizer for their Chantix/Champix (smoking cessation drugs). He acquired 912 Williamson in 2015, then sold it in March 2021 to the Solics. Months later the City changed the zoning laws, Singerman facilitated the sale of 908 and the attempted building of 17 townhomes jammed into the lot right next store to the home he sold. 🤦‍♂️ Mr. Singerman now resides in Wrightsville Beach in the Shore Acres neighborhood. Shore Acres is strictly zoned for residential (R-1/R-2) and is a very high-end area of Wrightsville.

• Johnny Chappell - NC LIC #267248 - Real estate broker, has his on firm called Chappell. He represented the builders on 908 as a buyer agent. The way they continue to be involved, my speculation is they are counting on being the agent for the multi-million dollar townhomes that hopefully won’t be built.

• Maggie Sparling - She works with John Chappell and and publicly posts frequently on LinkedIn like this trying to connect the 17 multi-million townhome project to affordable housing 🤣

• Longleaf law partners - this is the law firm representing the developers. Specifically Michael Birch and Sam Morris.

City of Raleigh

• Daniel Stegall - Land Development Manager - has testified on behalf of City at previous BOA meetings regarding 908 Williamson

• Justin Rametta - Zoning administrator whose 12/30/22 approval triggered the first appeal

• Keegan McDonald - the current Land Development Manager for City of Raleigh (Daniel Stegall was previous)

• City attorneys office - Robin Tatum (resigned) and Catherine Hill have been in previous BOA hearings. The new city attorney is Karen McDonald (lives in Fayetteville)

• Janet Cowell - Raleigh Major who was elected in 2024, replacing Mary Anne Baldwin

Board of Appeals members

You can learn more here. On the site, the BOA is described as a ‘quasi-judicial body appointed by city council that reviews zoning variances, special use permits and appeals for City of Raleigh.

• Rodney Swink - Chair - Seems to be a landscaping and environmental person that was in the NCSU college of design.

• Cathy Rudisill - Vice Chair - Commercial Real Estate and Finance Member at Rudisill PLLC

• Marvin Butler - County - no information found other than he is also on a extraterritorial jurisdiction board.

• Suzanne Prince - City - Senior Consultant at SVP Inc - seems as if she’s a real estate broker that specializes in helping people navigate the permitting/zoning process.

• Ryan Torrey - City - Director of Legal, Privacy and Compliance at Trupanion.

• Kay Crowder - City alt - former member of City Council (Dist D, 2014-2020)

• Antione Terrell Midgett - County alt - not much is available online about this BOA member. On LinkedIn he says he is with ‘Raleigh Raised Development’ and is COO of a Chicago based pool company called Mega Pools, Inc.

• Keith Satisky - City alt - Attorney at Satisky + Silverstein LLP

Misc

• Rebecca Thompson - Sold 908 Williamson to the developers

Alphabet Soup

To help keep track of all the acronyms:

• BOA - Board of appeals- a quasi-judicial board that is part of the City that hears appeals.

• UDO - Unified Development Ordinances -outside of Zoning, these are the rules that govern developments in Raleigh. The builders and city seem hellbent on ignoring these rules now that they have essentially eliminated zoning.

• TPY - transitional protective yard - specified by the City of Raleigh UDO and not honored by the Developer’s proposed 17 townhome project.

Up next…

That’s it for today’s update, I hope to see you all there on the 18th. Up next - an update on the lawsuit and our big fundraising kick-off.

Greetings neighbors 👋, I’m Scot Wingo and we moved to Hayes Barton in 2007 and have been here 18 years now. We live on Iredell (1534) in the ‘elbow of the bend’. I’m a technology entrepreneur in town and have founded five companies (you may have heard of ChannelAdvisor or Spiffy). My wife is Kris and we have three kids and two dogs.

I’m from Aiken, SC, went to USC 🐓 for under-grad in Computer-Engineering and then got a Masters in CE from NCSU 🐺. We fell in love with the Triangle and have been here since 1995.

20 years ago, as we were thinking where we wanted to move (we moved from Cary), we chose Hayes Barton for many of the same reasons I’m sure you did:

• The single family homes

• Sidewalks and walkability

• Proximity to Five Points

• Schools

• Light auto traffic.

In short, Hayes Barton offers an oasis of calm in a city and World that are increasingly chaotic. Hayes Barton delivers a quality of living that’s hard to find anywhere else.

We believe that what we have here with Hayes Barton is very special and rare - and that makes it worth fighting for.

Getting involved in the battle to save Hayes Barton, wasn’t top of our priority list, but after watching the incredible leadership that Frank Gordon has shown in the battle to save our neighborhood and in talking with him about what he needs, the time has come to escalate the battle and marshal our resources.

What is ‘Save Hayes Barton?’

I am a fellow concerned neighbor. Talking to Frank and other neighbors, what I believe we need to support Frank in the legal battle are 3 things:

1. Split the Battle

2. Up-level our communications

3. Launch a new fundraising effort

That’s what ‘ Save Hayes Barton’ is - those three new strategies added next to what Frank is doing on the legal side.

Let’s dig into each of these in a bit more detail:

Split the Battle

Note: I’m not a lawyer, this is my interpretation of what’s going on from a ‘business strategy’ perspective. Because of this I may not use the exact language a lawyer would use. If you want the legal-ese, Frank’s your man.

There are two fronts to the legal battle Frank is fighting. They are:

• 908 Williamson Battle - This is the battle to stop the 17 townhome project from moving forward in our community that will destroy the character of Hayes Barton.

• City of Raleigh Battle - As you’re probably aware, there’s a bigger issue that was the root-cause of the 908 Williamson project - the City of Raleigh made text changes to the zoning laws in 2021 and 2022 that have enabled just about structure just about anywhere in Raleigh. The City’s PR take on this is it will fill the ‘missing middle’ and offer more affordable housing. There are many reasons this doesn’t make sense, making it seem like there are other hidden motives at play.

From a legal standpoint, this is a smart two-pronged approach, from a PR standpoint which has focused on both and mostly the Zoning battle, I believe it has diluted our message and hampered our fundraising efforts locally.

I’m launching Save Hayes Barton to re-energize our defense of the neighborhood and make sure we win the 908 Williamson Battle. When we do that, it will show other neighborhoods how to fight and that you can fight. A win here will also support and strengthen the city-wide effort while sending a clear message to the City of Raleigh leadership.

Up-level our communications

Like me, Frank enjoys a morning coffee, and you’ll frequently see him at Third Place meeting with neighbors updating them on what’s going on 1:1, or stopping as he’s out walking his dogs. He also has the ‘mega cc’ updates. Both of those are great and appreciated, but they take valuable ‘Frank time’ away from the battle (note: this is not Franks full-time job), and it’s also not efficient.

I volunteered to help modernize the communications and this message is the first-step of that process. What you can expect is more frequent updates, building out of online resources and ultimately a push to make sure the local press hears our side of the story. We are fighting a David vs. Goliath battle here and our opponents have been clever at making it hard for us to tell our story. I’ve fought these battles in business for 30yrs and have some ideas for how we can escape the enemy’s traps and spring new ones on them. More on this later.

What’s a substack?

Substack is a company that has a free platform for running modern newsletters - they have very high deliverability (don’t go to spam folder) vs. older 'systems like Mailchimp and they also allow us to eventually turn on some community features should we want to.

Substack will make it easy for you to help promote the effort - you can forward articles, recommend people subscribe and send your feedback and thoughts to the central location.

Transparency

Substack also gives us transparency. I believe we are on the right side of this issue and have nothing to hide. Of course, legal strategy and other areas should be kept close to the vest, but what got us to this place is the City of Raleigh acting secretly in an opaque way. The same is true with 908 Williamson, the chain of actions that led to where are were based on misrepresentations, duplicitous motivations and greed without consideration for the overall community and asset that is Hayes Barton.

Launch a new fundraising effort

Fighting one legal battle is expensive, fighting two simultaneously is VERY expensive. While Frank is the plaintiff on this case, he should not solely bear the burden for all the legal fees. We need to support his efforts.

More on this in a separate communication coming soon.

What’s next?

That’s the Who, What, and How of the Save Hayes Barton initiative. If you have any questions, you can reply to this message directly, leave a comment or join the chat.

What’s next:

• Detailed update on the 908 Williamson case is coming this week

• Fundraising announcement and launch by end of the week of July 7th.

Thanks for reading. Let’s Save Hayes Barton!

Leave a comment