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Residents tell board rezoning and slow housing projects threaten Midtown representation and progress
Summary
During public comment at the Sept. 9 meeting, residents urged support for mixed‑use investment, praised recent demolition decisions and raised strong concerns that recent rezoning dilutes Midtown's historic Black representation and stalls affordable housing projects.
Peter Lewis, a Midtown resident, used public comment at the Sept. 9 Midtown Redevelopment Board meeting to praise recent redevelopment decisions and to raise concerns about city rezoning and delayed affordable‑housing projects.
"I think you made the right call on that," Lewis said in support of the board’s decision regarding the Campbell Street Hotel, which he described as a redevelopment opportunity. He urged the board to continue pursuing mixed‑use projects that pair ground‑floor retail and housing above, saying such development would bring shoppers and taxable investment to Midtown.
Lewis also criticized recent city rezoning, arguing it divides Midtown into multiple council zones and could dilute Black representation on the city commission. He described the change as splitting a historically contiguous community into four zones and said that, in his view, the effect would be fewer commissioners who represent Midtown residents. Lewis said planners "took 2,000 blacks to put them in 10 zone, that dilutes Midtown" and warned that shifting population counts could reduce Midtown's political representation. He attributed these statements to his observations during recent commission actions and his reading of a nexus study referenced at the commission level.
Other public commenters echoed redevelopment priorities and housing concerns. John O'Connell (who identified himself as being associated with Beachside) said an older nightclub building on Campbell/Camel Street was unlikely to be financially viable in its current form and supported redevelopment that restores commercial activity with more housing above.
Board members thanked residents for their comments and said representation and communications are topics they will continue to discuss. Because the board lacked a quorum at the Sept. 9 meeting, no formal votes or changes to city zoning were made during the session.
The public comments combined calls for rapid reinvestment, questions about housing authority projects that have not been built, and warnings about the political effects of rezoning. Those remarks were presented as residents’ opinions and calls to action rather than board decisions.
