Southeast Raleigh mixed-income housing project breaks ground near downtown

A long-promised affordable housing push in southeast Raleigh finally moved from planning to dirt-turning Friday, with 25 mixed-income rental homes set for nine city-owned parcels near downtown and along the Rock Quarry Road corridor. The project is aimed at households earning between 30% and 80% of area median income, including a family of four making about $39,800 at the lowest income band and $104,200 at the top end.

City leaders say the development, called Promise of Home, is designed to do more than add units. Raleigh approved $3.3 million in gap financing and used public land to move the project forward, and the city says the homes will stay affordable for 75 years. The plan includes duplexes and accessory dwelling units, along with one single-family home, giving the project a mix of building types on lots that sit within walking distance of downtown Raleigh.

For southeast Raleigh, the project lands in a part of the city where rising land values have intensified fears of displacement. Local leaders framed the development as a test of whether growth can happen without pushing out longtime residents. Southeast Raleigh Promise said the goal is to improve communities and infrastructure while avoiding the kind of neighborhood turnover that has reshaped other parts of Wake County.

The housing effort is part of the broader Southeast Raleigh Promise initiative, which also focuses on education, economic mobility, health and wellbeing. Yvette Holmes, the group’s CEO, has described strong mixed-income communities as places where stability, connection and belonging can hold even as neighborhoods change. The organization said financing closed after more than three years of planning and coordination, clearing the way for construction on its first affordable housing development.

The project has been in motion for years. Raleigh had already approved a pilot in 2022 that opened city-owned lots to affordable housing, including 20 lots and up to $2 million in bond proceeds. An earlier concept called for 27 affordable rental units across 10 city-owned parcels. The version that broke ground Friday scaled to 25 homes on nine parcels, a sign of how the proposal evolved as city staff, developers and community partners worked through the details.

Timeline differences remain in the public descriptions of the work. Southeast Raleigh Promise said construction was expected to begin in November, with completion by the end of 2026, while the city put completion in early 2027. Either way, the project now sits beyond planning documents and into actual construction, giving southeast Raleigh one of its clearest examples yet of how Raleigh intends to use public land to defend affordability near the city center.