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Renée Johnson

Council Member, District 4

District 4

Renée Johnson

District 4 · Term 2025–2027

Renée Perkins Johnson represents District 4 on the Charlotte City Council. She is the founder and executive director of Triumph Services, a nonprofit serving survivors of trauma. Johnson has served on council since 2019 and won re-election in November 2025.

Johnson has been active in discussions around the Citizens Review Board, shelter policy, consulting outsourcing, and displacement-related zoning votes. Her district covers West Charlotte, where affordable housing pressure, community investment, and equitable development are central issues.

Background

Perkins Johnson founded Triumph Services, the behavioral-health nonprofit she leads, to serve trauma and brain-injury survivors and their caregivers. Her policy posture — preservation and production of housing at or below 60 percent AMI, paired with services — tracks with that work. She first won the District 4 seat in 2019 and was re-elected in 2022 and 2023, the latter despite a rare mayoral endorsement against her in the Democratic primary. She returned to office in November 2025. Earlier in her tenure she championed adding ASL interpretation to council proceedings, adopted in 2022.

In The Mercury

Renée Johnson Brought a CMS School-Utilization Report to Council Monday. She Has Been Making This Argument for Five Years.

CMS school utilization · May 20

Charlotte Council Deferred a Conventional Rezoning 5-4 Monday. Renée Johnson Led the Opposition.

Conventional rezoning deferral · May 19

What The Mayor Pro Tem Vote Reveals About Charlotte's New City Council

Council dynamics and alignment

Charlotte City Council Approves $4.3M Transit Authority Start-Up

Transit authority funding and infrastructure

Charlotte's Watchdog Board Seeks Teeth, Time, and Transparency

Citizens Review Board reform

Charlotte City Council Zoning Meeting, Dec. 15

Displacement vote, Brookhill overlay, TOD disputes

Sheltering Dignity: Charlotte's Non-Congregate Shelter Plan, Metrics, and Guardrails

Homelessness response and shelter policy

← Back to City Council

Coverage (5 articles)

Vi Lyles Chaired the May Zoning Meeting. It Was Her First This Year and Her Last.

Jack Beckett·

Mayor Vi Lyles had not chaired a 2026 zoning meeting through her current term — Council Member Ed Driggs (District 7) handled each of the four held earlier this year. On Monday she took the chair for the May 18 meeting. The calendar shows no other zoning meeting will fall before her June 30 resignation.

Charlotte Council Deferred a Conventional Rezoning 5-4 Monday. Renée Johnson Led the Opposition.

Jack Beckett·

Council Member Renée Johnson pulled petition 2025-136 — a conventional rezoning at 1800 West Sugar Creek Road by Larry Cooper — off the consent agenda Monday, citing her standing concern about conventional petitions filed without site plans. The 5-4 vote that followed fell short of the majority needed for approval. The council then unanimously deferred the petition.

Charlotte Council Approved a 41-Acre Atrium University City Rezoning Monday. The Vote Took Two Tries.

Jack Beckett·

Charlotte City Council unanimously approved a 41.26-acre rezoning of the Atrium Health University City hospital campus Monday, switching the property from Institutional Campus 1 to Institutional Campus 2 with Exception provisions. The approval vote needed two tries — Council Member Danté Anderson made the motion before discussion had occurred, and the body re-voted after Council Member Renée Johnson spoke about her family's recent care at the hospital's ER.

Renée Johnson Brought a CMS School-Utilization Report to Council Monday. She Has Been Making This Argument for Five Years.

Jack Beckett·

Council Member Renée Johnson (District 4) brought a manually-compiled CMS school-utilization report to Monday's council meeting to argue that the conventional rezoning process is not tracking the cumulative impact of new growth on Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. Her central data point: Mallard Creek High School was projected at 113% of capacity in 2024 but a year later showed 110%. The math, she said, is not mathing.

Manufacturing Land Near Woodlawn Station Just Became TOD-NC

Jack Beckett·

The Charlotte City Council on Monday rezoned a 0.16-acre Verbena Street parcel from ML-2 (manufacturing and logistics) to TOD-NC, 7-2. Council Member LaWana Slack-Mayfield and Council Member Renée Johnson voted no — not on the parcel, on the trajectory it represents. Council Member Victoria Watlington voted yes but asked staff to map Charlotte's remaining manufacturing-zoned acreage.

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