Raleigh Zoning Limits What Can Open Next Door

Are Raleigh’s zoning laws protecting neighborhood charm—or zoning it out?

By Abigail Celoria Francis & Melissa Howsam

Raleigh loves to talk about preserving neighborhood character. But here’s the irony: Some of the very places that give our favorite neighborhoods theirs might not be allowed under today’s zoning laws.

From corner groceries to neighborhood cafes, the businesses that once dotted Raleigh’s residential streets are now far harder to open. And as the city continues to grow, and the debate over what that growth should look like heats up, so does the question of what we’re actually trying to preserve.

And while Raleigh’s growth has sparked plenty of conversations about what belongs in residential areas, the question of whether a neighborhood should include a few businesses of its own is a different kind of development debate.

At-Large City Council Member Jonathan Lambert-Melton has long argued that allowing more retail in residential areas could mean fewer car trips, easier access to groceries, and neighborhoods where there’s more to do than just lay our heads. Some of Raleigh’s most popular ones, he points out, already have it.

Case in point: “Rebus Works in Boylan Heights, and SmokeStacks Cafe, which was a corner store called Quality Grocery in Oakwood,” says Lambert-Melton. “Those are things that existed before we implemented modern zoning laws and carved up how our cities are built.”

While Raleigh zoning regulations date back over a century to 1923, the lean toward mixed-use districts comes thanks to the latest major overhaul in 2016 via the Unified Development Ordinance—thus allowing more residences, offices and retail to coexist. 

But mixed-use doesn’t mean anything goes. What a property owner can actually open in the 10% of those designated residential areas still depends on the zoning specifications—which, in this case, largely dictate what kinds of retail businesses can operate and where. For someone hoping to open a small business in—or bring one back to—a neighborhood, that can mean navigating a process far more complicated than simply renovating a building and hanging up an “open” sign.

Cities like Austin, Minneapolis and Charleston make room for neighborhood retail through more detailed mixed-use zoning. Raleigh already has a similar framework, but expanding where and how small-scale retail is permitted could help bring more everyday shops and services within residential neighborhoods. District A Council Member Mitchell Silver supports using the next Comprehensive Plan to further identify neighborhoods where small-scale retail and services could make sense. 

As it stands, Oak City’s current zoning laws can leave longtime neighborhood businesses in a tough spot as well. Raleigh native Jessica Peacock went through the arduous process of rezoning Peacox’s Community Market, a property her family operated as a corner grocery since the 1960s.

“I thought it was just a matter of fixing it up and opening up the doors,” she recalls. But because the store had been closed for a decade, its grandfathered status had expired—and reopening meant navigating the new rules.

Paperwork, fees and community meetings eventually paid off when Peacock got the property rezoned from residential mixed-use to neighborhood mixed-use in 2023—which would allow retail at the location. But bringing the building up to code proved too costly, so this summer, her family sold it instead.

It’s a particularly telling outcome: Peacock ultimately secured the zoning change she needed, but the family business still didn’t reopen. The property could once again accommodate retail, yet the financial hurdles remained. And for anyone hoping to revive a similar neighborhood institution, her experience illustrates how clearing one regulatory hurdle doesn’t necessarily mean reaching the finish line.

Of all the issues he’s championed, Lambert-Melton says neighborhood retail has seen the least progress during his time on City Council. The sticking point? Residents’ concerns about crime and preserving neighborhood character.

Peacock, however, argues that the conversation is missing something. “It’s about ownership,” she emphasized. “It’s about how the store is operated. It’s about somebody’s investment in their community.”

And that’s where the conversation gets complicated. A neighborhood coffee shop might sound charming in theory, but the prospect of commercial activity next door raises a different set of questions for the people who already live there. How much change is too much—and who gets to decide? After all, preserving Raleigh’s neighborhoods shouldn’t mean zoning out the very things that give them character.