[Durham INC] Draft February INC minutes

[Pat Carstensen]

Resending in advance of the meeting on Tuesday.....

________________________________
From: INC-list <inc-list-bounces at lists.deltaforce.net> on behalf of Pat Carstensen <pats1717 at hotmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2024 5:23 PM
To: inc listserv <inc-list at lists.deltaforce.net>
Subject: [Durham INC] Draft February INC minutes

Please let me know about any corrections or additions.  Regards, pat



February Delegate Meeting

InterNeighborhood Council of Durham, Via Zoom

February 27, 2024


Attending the meeting were:

Neighborhoods

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen

Leesville Road Coalition – Herman Sperling

Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias

Merrick-Moore – Bonita Green

Morehead Hill – Bruce Mitchell

Old North Durham – Mimi O’Brien

Trinity Park –  Mimi Kessler

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell

Watts Hospital Hillandale – Tom Miller



President Mimi Kessler called the meeting to order and welcomed everyone.  After introductions, Tom moved to approve the January minutes, Mimi O’Brien seconded and this passed.  Five neighborhoods have paid their dues.


There were no neighborhood report.  It was recommended that folks look at the county’s survey of resident satisfaction (https://www.durhamnc.gov/Archive.aspx?AMID=40); we may discuss at a future meeting.


 The Planning Department’s has initiated an effort to improve the quality of developer meetings with neighbors and generally neighborhood involvement with development.   Under the UDO these meetings have to happen for certain kinds of zoning changes.  Planning has  recognized these meeting could be more effective as there have been no rules about what has to happen and some neighborhoods have been better equipped to benefit from the meetings.  There was an in-person meeting and a (mostly technically frustrating) on-line meeting with stakeholders; there were no developers at either meeting.  Some ideas are that the meetings need to happen earlier, we need to look at who is invited and who facilitates the meeting, and we need to work harder generally at supporting the neighbors to a proposed development.  We need to encourage staff in this kind of effort and continue to follow it.  We would also like to have someone from Planning to clarify some points about SCAD, maybe in April.


Planning no longer keeps a list of neighborhoods.  The DurhamHoods map is out of date.  There is an opportunity to do something and it would have value.


Administration Stuff:  Susan has created a neighborhood registration form, and we are working on getting it onto the website.  We have the old brochure, but it needs to be updated and perhaps looked at with more of a “marketing lens.”  The website should eventually look like the brochure; we need to have more information about the organization, to add a section on the issues, and to make the site more dynamic.  There is also an INC Facebook page.  In the long term, we might want to look issues such as having better back-up for various jobs.  The point is to get more people (and new neighborhoods) coming to meetings, whether the meetings are in person or on zoom or hybrid; if it is in person, it helps to have food to get people to come and also pick topics / meeting objectives where being in person is most useful.  With the better weather coming up,  could we do a community picnic or block party or something fun?


A list of topics / guests for meetings: conversations with individual members of council, the Planning Department , NIS/Equitable Engagement, the UDO, the methodology of property tax revaluation, election plans, pedestrian / bike safety and generally transportation, crime, the County budget, the Fayetteville Street Corridor process and Haiti ReBorn, and ozone gardens / other methods to improve air quality.


Work on lead in the parks is going forward.


There was a virtual meeting on the process of revising the UDO, as well as a live meeting packed with developers.  There was a lot of talk about engagement, but the consultants are deeply connected to development and they seem to talk more than they listen.


The meeting then adjourned.


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