Young Raleigh philanthropists support innovative green building & workforce development project

The Beehive Collective, a group of nearly 50 young people in Raleigh who joined together this past May to raise money for good causes, has made its first grant: $9,314 to Passage Home's Just Greening Communities Initiative.

The project will hire and train unemployed neighborhood residents to help build and landscape affordable and environmentally advanced homes south of downtown Raleigh, near Passage Home's Safety Club on Branch Street near Garner Road.

The Beehive Collective chose economic security as its giving theme for the year -- a theme that became increasingly relevant as North Carolina's unemployment rate jumped from 4.7 to 7 percent and foreclosure and poverty rates climbed. Collective members will also contribute sweat equity to the project by volunteering for Passage Home's community building efforts.

The Beehive Collective will meet early next year to draw up plans for 2009 and choose the year's giving theme. Its fundraising efforts will kick off with Raleigh Undercover, a cover band extravaganza that will benefit the collective's work. It will take place the weekend of Jan. 30 at Tir Na Nog on downtown Raleigh's Moore Square.

If you'd like to get involved with the Beehive Collective, e-mail buzz@beehivecollective.org.

Public invited to comment on Raleigh's draft comprehensive plan

This week Raleigh released for public review the draft of 2030 comprehensive plan guiding the city's development. The Planning Department will take comments from the public through Jan. 31.

City officials held a public forum at the Convention Center Wednesday evening to unveil the 380-page document, drawing a substantial crowd.

The News & Observer reports that the plan takes aim at sprawl, calling for the city

to funnel 60 percent of its growth over the next two decades -- about 72,000 residential units -- to downtown, seven urban centers and a number of major road corridors.

City Councilors Russ Stephenson and Thomas Crowder shared some preliminary thoughts with the Independent Weekly:

Crowder liked the plan's "general framework," which emphasizes sustainable development patterns, coordinating land uses and transportation options, and curbing sprawl. He questioned, though, whether the specific policies it proposes are strong enough to achieve its visionary objectives ...

But Crowder wondered whether the "balance" struck in the existing plans between density "bonuses" for developers and the contextual quality standards they were supposed to meet to obtain them has been lost in a drive to build bigger in older neighborhoods.

Stephenson raised concerns about whether the city's plan to create seven "urban centers" in addition to downtown -- West Raleigh, Crabtree Valley, Cameron Village, Triangle Town Center, Brier Creek and New Bern/ Wake Med -- would homogenize development in those very different areas.

For a copy of the draft, more on the approval process, and supporting documents, click here.