INC NEWS - Public update on Duke's planning process re. Central Campus -- Meeting 6 Sep. at 6:30 p.m.

[Susan Kauffman]

Duke University will host another community update on plans to develop its
Central Campus on Wednesday, 6 September, at 6:30 p.m., in the Fellowship
Hall at Asbury Methodist Church. The church is located at 806 Clarendon
Street (off Markham, near East Campus). Everyone is invited to attend this
meeting, the fourth that Duke has held on this topic. Provost Peter Lange
and Kemel Dawkins, Vice President for Campus Services, will lead the
discussion. For more information, call Michael Palmer, Assist. Vice
President for Community Affairs, at 668-6274 or mpalmer at duke.edu

Please forward this to whomever you think might be interested.

Also, for your information, attached below is a copy of an email from Frank
Duke, the planning director for Durham City-County. He wrote it in response
to issues raised by  two neighborhood leaders (Tom Miller and John Schelp)
regarding the university's request for rezoning Central Campus. Frank Duke
distributed the memo to members of the Planning Commission this week after
sharing it with others, including John Burness, senior vice president for
public affairs at Duke, the second "John" addressed in the email. :-)

Best wishes,

Susan Kauffman
Director of Special Projects
Office of Public Affairs & Govt. Relations
Box 90028
Duke University
(919) 681-8975




From: Duke, Frank
Sent: Friday, August 04, 2006 8:30 AM
To: 'John Schelp'
Subject: Proposed Duke Committed Elements

John,

Below is the material I sent to John Burness at Duke as I described in my
earlier email to you. These are an elaboration of what I sent to you and
Tom earlier. Forgive the typos; this was done very quickly. Call me if you
have any questions.

Frank

___________________________________________________________________________________________


John,

Attached are my comments on the proposed committed elements from John
Schelp and Tom Miller. I have previously conveyed the gist of these
comments to Robert Shunk at HadenStanziale and generally discussed then
with George Stanziale and Michael Palmer. I have also generally described
my comments with John Schelp and Tom Miller. In each case, my comments (in
red) will follow the request from the neighborhoods.

1. We would like for the development plan map and notes to provide that
future development of the property west of Oregon Avenue to a depth of 200
ft and east of Oregon to the extent of the subject property may be
developed only in a manner consistent with the regulations governing RU-5,
RU-3 and RU-M. Where these provisions may conflict with each other then the
more permissive would control.

This area is currently zoned as a combination of RU-5, RU-M, and RS-10. It
is not at all clear why the neighborhoods requested that Duke rezone this
area to UC if the desire is to impose alternative standards on it. The
requested standards that Duke is being asked to commit to would eliminate
the provisions of the UC district that give Duke greater flexibility within
its internal campus; among other things, this would impose height
restrictions of 35 feet on the entire area, require that 5% of the area be
set aside as open space, and require a Major Special Use Permit for any
college or university use – that seems a very odd requirement to impose to
impose on any area being zoned UC from RU-5, RU-5(2) and RU-M. If the goal
is to ensure that development in this area follows the standards of the
proposed zoning districts, then Duke should have initiated a zoning map
change request to RU-5, RU-5(2), or RU-M rather than UC.

2. Development plan notes should specify that for any property in the
public access for which is Swift Avenue, development should be governed by
the regulations for RU-5.

You cannot do this. The area within the “public access” of Swift Avenue is
labeled on your development plan as public right right-of-way. You cannot
zone property with a development plan that you do not own and you do not
own public right-of-way. If Swift Avenue is, however, a private street and
the notation on your development plan is in error, you would need to
withdraw the street as a private street in order to develop it using the
standards of RU-5.

3. The development plan maps and notes should require that the three
stream-bed "hollows" should remain natural, open space.

Doing this would be possible in one of two ways: (1) Determine that the
area of the “stream hollows” exceeds the width of required stream buffers
(50 feet from the top of the bank on each side) since ordinance provisions
for environmental purposes such as stream protection continue to apply
within the UC district and does not meet the standards for protection of
steep slopes (a grade of 25% or more in an area of at least 5,000 square
feet within 100 feet of any intermittent stream or 200 feet of any
intermittent stream). Where the width of the hollow exceeds areas required
to be protected by the environmental standards of the ordinance, Duke could
commit to that greater width remaining natural, open space. (2) Given that
the ordinance permits stream buffers for streams that are in the Urban and
Compact Neighborhood Tiers but not in the Neuse basin (which is the case
for these streams) to be landscaped rather than left in a natural
undisturbed state, Duke could commit not to use the landscape provision and
to leave the stream buffers in this area in a natural, undisturbed state.

4. The maps and notes should also specify that at least 10% of the property
west of Anderson Street should be natural open space. This space
requirement would be over-and-above the open space protecting stream-bed
hollows and any open space incorporated into design development (such as
landscaped and manicured lawns, gardens and yards). It may include man-made
ponds.

There is no open space requirement within the UC district. Any commitment
for open space would be a valid committed element. A glance at the map,
however, suggests that there may not be 10% of this area that is currently
natural open space. At the same time, Duke may want to provide some of the
open space in the form of plazas or patios, that would get use by students
as well as visitors to the campus and help create a more urban form for
those areas of the campus in proximity to the proposed TTA facilities; this
would be more in keeping with the provisions of the Unified Development
Ordinance and the Durham Comprehensive Plan which would typically require
that 1/3 of required open space be usable open space.

5. The maps and notes should require natural open space similar to that
contemplated in number 4 equalling at least 15% of the property located
between Anderson Street and Alexander Avenue.

The same comment as made above would apply here.

6. The maps and notes should require a 75 foot wide vegetative buffer
surrounding all lots within the subject property which currently contain
buildings with are single family residences in their design (however they
may be used). The notes should require a similar buffer around property
within the subject property which may in the future be developed for
residential use (however it will not be necessary to provide such a buffer
between residential properties). Finally, the map and notes should require
on the subject property whenever it shares a boundary line with an adjacent
property which is zoned RU-5, RS-8, RU-3, or RU-M, or which is currently
used for residential purposes however it may be zoned.

A 75-foot wide vegetative buffer is a lawn. Adding this as a committed
could require the demolition of existing  structures adjoining other that
were designed as single-family structures, even if Duke has converted the
structures to other uses. This would be disruptive to the existing pattern
of development and could force greater development of other areas that Duke
controls. Such expansive buffers are completely out of character with
Duke’s urban setting (imagine demolishing two out of every three house in
Watts-Hillandale or Old West Durham to create the expansive yards that this
proposes) and would be incredibly energy inefficient (forcing more people
into cars to avoid the long walk that could result from simply having to go
to a building that is theoretically only a few doors away).

The last sentence of this proposal makes no sense. It is clearly missing
some language.

7. The maps and notes should specify that the height limit for buildings
located west of Anderson Street will be 80 feet. The height limitation for
the property between Anderson and the line 200 feet west of Oregon Avenue
(see number 1 above) should be 65 feet. These height limits should be
treated and interpreted in the same way the height limits in the Unified
Development Ordinance are treated and interpreted.

This could be a valid committed element. The height caps in these areas
would typically be 120 feet without a Major Special Use Permit. This would
eliminate the ability to seek the major special use permit and cap height
of structures at roughly seven stories (west of Anderson) and five stories
(between Anderson and Oregon).

8. The maps and plan notes should identify and protect the historic fabric,
location, and appearance of the handful of historic houses still remaining
in the proposed district. We would also like to see provisions in the notes
which would require these houses to be used exclusively for single family
residences.

Within the area covered by this rezoning, there are no historic
single-family homes identified in the Durham Architectural and Historic
Inventory. The Inventory does identify several historic homes on the Duke
campus, but they are all located in the area that was covered by the prior
zoning and, with one exception, they had all been converted to
nonresidential uses prior to 1984. Such adaptive use of structures is
consistent with preservation of the structures and should not be
discouraged in any area...

9. The maps and notes should contain provisions to limit the size,
locations, and uses for all retail, entertainment, restaurant, and other
non-residential and non-university/academic development planned for the
proposed district. These notes and drawings would also govern the siting
and presentation of such uses to reinforce the requirement in the UDO that
such uses support and promote the academic mission of the university. We
acknowledge that these issues are somewhat complex. The regulatory calculus
necessary to accomplish our aims in a way that will be comfortable for all
parties is challenging to us as laymen. We hope to be able to work with
Duke, its planners, and the city planning staff to articulate in the
development plan a common understanding concerning these issues. To date,
our discussions have focused on regulating these uses by means of area,
location, and spacing limitations for identifiable uses and categories of
uses. To this we might also add regulations on facing, public presentation,
access, and signage.

This proposed committed element proposes to limit the “size, locations, and
uses for all  . . . non-university [uses] . . . planned for the proposed
district.” You cannot have non-university uses within the UC district,
meaning that this cannot be a committed element since it would violate the
requirements of the UDO. If this is intended to limit the described factors
as they relate to non-academic university-support uses that would have to
be much more clearly spelled out than has been done to this point.

10. The maps and notes should describe the location, function, and profile
of all public and private roadways running through and adjacent to the
proposed UC district.

Duke cannot control the location, function, or profile of any public
street; that will be determined by the City or State, as appropriate. Given
that all private streets must be designed to City standards, laying out
these locations, functions, and profiles simply regurgitates ordinance
requirements and serves no purpose.

11. The maps and notes should describe the location and number of parking
spaces planned for the property and whether that parking will be surface
lots or decks.

Determination of the location and number of parking spaces based on the
conditions shown on the development plan would preclude Duke from adding
additional spaces in the future, as well as preclude the City from
requiring additional parking as the university continues to grow. This
would only serve to exacerbate the parking problem that the neighborhoods
feel at present. The tools that are used by the ordinance today (the
requirement that Duke regularly submit a parking study for approval by DRB)
ensure that parking requirements are adjusted as Duke continues to grow.

12. Finally, we would like for the maps and notes to describe a scheme for
street trees and other streetscaping for the principal public and private
roadways serving the proposed district.

One of the few landscape requirements that Duke must comply with, even on
the internal campus, is the provision of street trees. The only thing that
Duke could add as a committed element in this regard would be a limitation
on the species of trees it will use as street trees. I would not recommend
this, however, as you have no way of knowing how future disease issues
might affect this landscape (many communities in the Northeast found
themselves losing all of their elms that were planted as street trees as a
result of blight several years ago) . The decision on species should be
made at the time of planting based on the particular conditions of the site
proposed for planting.

Duke could provide details regarding other streetscape issues, such as
street furniture and light fixtures, but this would require additional
language indicating when such streetscape features might be provided. I
would not recommend that at this time; the City is beginning a small area
plan for the 9th Street area and whatever streetscape design is used there
would, ideally, also be used within Central Campus in order to create a
seamless transition between the 9th Street area and Central Campus.
Committed elements on this issue at this point would make such a transition
unlikely.

Frank Duke, AICP
City-County Planning Director