This news analysis first appeared in Steve Harrison's Inside Politics newsletter, which comes out weekly. Subscribe here to get it first in your inbox.
In the 15 years I’ve covered politics in Charlotte, a handful of votes have sharply divided the Charlotte City Council and captured the public’s attention.
Most followed months-long debates. Some are still continuing to this day.
This news analysis will look back at five of them: What was debated then, and what we know now.
The controversial decision to override a voter referendum and build the uptown arena in the early 2000s was before my time, so Inside Politics will fast-forward past that. We’ll start in 2009.
2009-2011 — Building the streetcar
The streetcar debate started under former Republican Mayor Pat McCrory, who opposed it even though he was a staunch advocate for light rail. Democrat Anthony Foxx followed him as mayor and made the streetcar one of his biggest priorities.
He said it would connect east and west Charlotte and would be an important transportation project for equity, stitching together lower-income neighborhoods with the booming city center.
Critics — who lost several close votes — said the streetcar didn’t make sense because it was an outdated technology. They noted the streetcars would get stuck in traffic.
After the second phase of the streetcar opened in 2021, it appears the critics had a point.
The streetcar often gets blocked by cars that are illegally parked in its path. It’s not very fast. And ridership hasn’t met projections (although part of that is due to the city not running the trains frequently enough — though they did just increase frequency to every 20 minutes, from 30).
All that means the city spends a lot of money to move very few people. In fiscal year 2022, it cost Charlotte nearly $19 to move a streetcar passenger one mile! For the Lynx Blue Line light rail, it was $2.10.
Undeterred, the city wants to build another six miles of streetcar. It says it’s working to make it more reliable.
2016 — I-77 toll lanes
The city of Charlotte had long supported a plan to build privately managed toll lanes on Interstate 77 in north Mecklenburg.
But as the project neared, opposition from residents intensified. They hated the idea of having to pay variable tolls to a private company for 50 years.
That led McCrory — who was the governor — to push the City Council to vote on the project, which he backed, in a show of local support.
In early 2016, the City Council voted, 7-4, in favor of the toll lanes.
Elected officials at the time said they were under intense pressure from McCrory and state officials, and were told the city would be on the hook for millions of dollars in fines if they voted no.
The project opened three years later. Congestion has decreased. Travel speeds are up.
But turning the project over to a private company has its downsides. I recently compared toll lane prices on I-77 to I-85 north of Atlanta, which is managed by the state.
Rush-hour toll prices in Atlanta are higher on a per-mile basis (perhaps due to the region having more congestion). But during offpeak times, the state charges minimal toll rates — roughly 12 cents a mile. That same offpeak trip on I-77 is roughly 55 cents a mile.
Another thing worth noting: The state said it needed to partner with a private company because it didn’t have any money to improve the highway. But in the seven years since that key vote, the state has not entered into another similar public-private-partnership contract to build and manage a highway.
Charlotte is all alone.
And more private lanes may be coming. The North Carolina DOT is considering partnering with another private firm to build and manage toll lanes on I-77 in south Charlotte.
2016 — Expanding the city’s non-discrimination ordinance to protect the LGBT community
Of all the controversial votes, this one has had the biggest ripple effects.
There was broad support on the City Council in 2015 and 2016 to give protections to gay, lesbian and transgender individuals in places of public accommodation.
At the time, the debate focused on whether the city should allow people to use the bathroom in restaurants and stores that matched their gender identity.
Under the leadership of former Democratic Mayor Jennifer Roberts, the City Council ultimately backed the bathroom protections in a 7-4 vote in February 2016.
That led the GOP-controlled General Assembly to pass HB2, which required people to use the bathroom that matched the sex on their birth certificate.
After a year of trench warfare between the city and the state, the City Council repealed its ordinance at the end of 2016. The General Assembly repealed HB2 in the spring of 2017.
HB2 is fascinating because, at the time, public sentiment was mostly with the city. Businesses, artists and sporting events boycotted the state because of HB2.
The city’s ordinance was a mission statement, with Charlotte planting a flag for a progressive cause. Council members arguably helped launch a nationwide movement for greater rights and visibility for the transgender community.
But in recent years, public opinion has gone in reverse on transgender issues. The public is less supportive of providing health care for children to transition to a different gender and for people to play sports on the team that matches their gender identity.
What’s also noteworthy: Since 2016, there have been no specific legal protections in Charlotte for people to use a bathroom that matches their gender identity.
But despite having no legal protections, there have been no news reports that I remember of people denied the right to use the bathroom of their choice. In the end, Charlotte helped kick off a debate that’s still raging nationwide, but one that ultimately had a surprisingly short local shelf life.
2018 — Hosting Trump’s Republican National Convention
Early in Donald Trump’s presidency, the City Council gave Mayor Vi Lyles the go-ahead to bid on the 2020 Republican National Convention. Only one council member — LaWana Mayfield — had reservations, despite a 9-2 Democratic majority on the council.
But when it appeared more likely the city was going to win the RNC — in part because no other city wanted it — council members got cold feet.
The opposition, led by former council member Braxton Winston, said they didn’t want to host and platform an “avatar of white supremacy.” (Winston was OK with pursuing the convention initially, even when Trump was president.)
Lyles, who had defeated Roberts in 2017, tried to quell a potentially embarrassing mutiny.
Rejecting the convention would infuriate the city’s hospitality industry. It would enrage Republicans in Raleigh.
In the end, Lyles pushed the final vote across the finish line. She won in a 6-5 vote, arguing that hosting the RNC would show the city was inclusive, willing to attract people with different viewpoints.
We’ll never know how this would have turned out, because of the pandemic. The Trump campaign only held a skeletal meeting here.
Would the Trump campaign have paid its bills to the city? Would there have been violent protests?
But we can assume that voting the convention down would have likely ruptured the city’s already shaky relationship with Raleigh.
2022 — Allowing duplexes and triplexes
Two years ago, in another 6-5 vote, council members approved the 2040 Plan. It eliminated zoning that only allowed for single-family homes.
The duplex/triplex vote was emotional.
Winston said keeping single-family zoning was preserving segregation. Other council members, including Black members such as Renee Johnson and Victoria Watlington, said traditional neighborhoods should be preserved.
The debate was essentially about what kind of city Charlotte would be: Large lots and single-family homes or denser housing built into smaller spaces?
It’s too early to know the impact of the change.
But it appears the city underestimated public opposition to eliminating single-family zoning. After developers started building about 20 triplexes in south Charlotte neighborhoods, residents howled.
Less than a year after the new rules went into effect, city staff have recommended triplexes only be allowed on corner lots.
