East Raleigh got pummelled by the tornado
My favorite hyper-local news source, the Raleigh Public Record, has a Google Map showing the damage in Raleigh from last week’s tornado. My initial conclusion that no area was hit harder in Raleigh than East Raleigh’s Lockwood neighborhood are confirmed here, with whole strings of homes completely destroyed by the storm.
I’ve driven through multiple times now and each time I’m pleased to see more and more storm debris piled up at the curb and out of the yards. Driving down Marlborough Road, one still finds a sea of blue tarps as many homes await repair.
Now the concern among the neighbors is that the property owners of the damaged homes have no incentive to rebuild as single-family homes and might be tempted to push the neighborhood’s R-10 zoning to the limit. This doesn’t sit well with many who want the neighborhood’s character to remain the same.
While I think that’s a valid concern, I’ve heard that condominiums are currently the worst real estate investment one can make. So maybe the lackluster economy is a good thing, after all.
The other thing I’ve been thinking about is that many of these homes will be repaired using lumber supplied by Georgia-Pacific, owned the Koch Brothers of the Tea Party movement. I find it sad that these folks will soon be putting money into the pockets of people doing everything they can to disenfranchise them. Of course, Koch Industries could always donate the building materials out of the kindness of their heart, right?