[Durham INC] Draft April Minutes

[Pat Carstensen]

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



April Delegate Meeting

InterNeighborhood Council of Durham, Via Zoom

April 23, 2024


Attending the meeting were:

Neighborhoods

Burch Avenue – Jennine Privat

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen

Leesville Road Coalition – Herman Sperling

Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias

Morehead Hill – Bruce Mitchell

Northgate Park – Keith Cochran

Old North Durham – Mimi O’Brien

Trinity Park –  Mimi Kessler, Mary Molina

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell

Watts Hospital Hillandale – Tom Miller, Catherine Risgby


Guests

Nate Baker

Adam Klein, Duke University

DeDreana Freeman



President Mimi Kessler called the meeting to order and welcomed everyone.


Nate Baker wrote an OpEd<https://indyweek.com/news/opinions/op-ed-on-its-centennial-its-time-for-duke-university-to-strengthen-its-partnership-with-durham-through-direct-payments-in-lieu-of-taxes/> about Duke University being tax-exempt as an educational institution; many other universities elect to make significant “payments in lieu of taxes” to support their cities and to strengthen their partnerships with their communities.  Duke does have a number of activities and grants that support the community, and they make some payments for services like fire; Duke’s presence also has some negative effects like the party houses.  There are a number of models from other universities, and the idea would be to look for ideas that would be win-win, such as helping with work-force housing.  Adam Klein said that at the highest levels at Duke, there is commitment to find ways to work in partnership between Duke and Durham.  The Burch Avenue rezoning was also brought up; Burch Avenue expressed thanks for all the support for the Planning  Commission hearing.


Council Member DeDreana Freeman led a discussion of the city budget, taxes and the upcoming reassessment.  She said the budget process started in September, and they are now whittling and adjusting; there are videos<https://www.durhamnc.gov/204/Budget-Development-Process> on the process on the city’s channel.  We can make comments at the hearings, but to advocate effectively for services or projects, one needs to start in September.  There may not be any savings from unfilled positions if other employees are getting overtime since the work doesn’t go away.  Property taxes have been going up with rising property values, but the upcoming revaluation will re-set things. If we are looking at the relationship with Duke University, we should also re-look at the non-tax-paying status of RTP.  We need to put the budget on the agenda in the summer to see what we might want to be advocating for.  Similarly we need to start thinking about what we want to get into the re-write of the UDO; there is an assessment of what is working and not working with the current one that will go the the JCCPC on May 1 at 9:30 AM.


Tom Miller moved to approve the March minutes, as amended in Appendix.  Someone seconded and this passed.


Mimi O’Brien showed two alternative drafts of a re-designed website, one with more substantial changes.  Changes were mostly on a new front page for the website, as well as the Issues and Projects page; other pages are not changed very much.   The committee will continue to work on this.  The brochure and the website committees are being merged.  Mimi is still planning to reach out to NIS and Planning as our outreach effort.  Be thinking about going to PAC meetings to recruit neighborhoods there; Tom found a list showing which neighborhoods are in which PACs.


New business.  One new issue we might want to tackle are the way that ward-council members are elected at large, not really representing a given ward.  We will ask Planning to give us the presentation about the new UDO.  Neighborhood meetings presenting developers’ plans that do not let the neighbors see one another don’t really meet the needs of the neighbors.


Tom moved that INC support Burch Avenue with respect to the Duke University rezoning.  We will vote on the motion at a later meeting.



Adjourn.



Appendix: Corrected March Minutes

March Delegate Meeting

InterNeighborhood Council of Durham, Via Zoom

March 25, 2024


Attending the meeting were:

Neighborhoods

Burch Avenue – Richard Ziglar

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen, Ed Harrison

Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias

Merrick-Moore – Bonita Green

Morehead Hill –Rochelle Araujo, Jess Pollard

Northgate Park – Debra Hawkins

Old North Durham – Mimi O’Brien, Ann

Old West Durham – Daniel Singer, Kate Young, John Wood

Trinity Park –  Mimi Kessler. John Hodges-Copple

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell

Watts Hospital Hillandale – Tom Miller, Sherri Zann Rosenthal, Deborah Horvitz, Catherine Risgby


Guests

Aidil Ortiz

Angel Iset Dozier

Susan Schaeffer

Nicole Hablenk

Antoinette Joyner – Hillandale

Leah R.


President Mimi Kessler called the meeting to order and welcomed everyone.


Angel Iset Dozier and Aidil Ortiz introduced themselves as the Community Partners Team of the Reimaging the Durham Freeway project; their job is to listen intently to find out what the community wants, and document these views – to make the work community-led.  There is also technical team (in the Transportation Department and with a consultant) to do look at “little nuts and bolts” to do transportation (not just cars!) analysis and develop alternative plans.  The federal DOT program to reconnect communities is making grants to try to remedy damages to communities made by freeways construction (for example, in Durham, the freeway took out 34 of the 50 community connections that used to exist).  The program is called “pathways to connection” since they don’t want to presume that the answer has to be to continue to have a freeway.  The objective is to get community input and use it to create a plan.  A group of institutional stakeholders is also  meeting quarterly.  The study area is from Swift Avenue to I-885, roughly. Hayti Reborn has some powerful videos on how building the freeway disrupted communities.  There are a number of events (tours, concerts, etc); sign-up is on the website.  There is also a survey on the website: https://www.durhamnc.gov/5201/Reimagine-Durham-Freeway.


Tom Miller moved and someone seconded to approve the February minutes; this passed.


The website committee met and decided that we need a page that has issues and projects and that the home page needs to be livelier.  The brochure committee didn’t meet.  Thanks to Susan Sewall for the creating a form for neighborhoods (or other organization) to fill out to become members (or confirm membership); even current memberships should fill in their information.


Please pay dues; seven neighborhoods have paid.


John Hodges-Copple is part of group that is concerned about moving Durham School of the Arts out of downtown.  The cost of the new building has gone way up, and it now sucking in money that would go to elementary schools.  There is a petition to at least pause and reconsider.


Sherri Zann Rosenthal has created a development score card, working with a Public Policy student. They found that most of the information for scoring isn’t on Durham’s development rezoning application.  Perhaps the Neighborhood Meeting process currently being revised by Planning can be a context to get developers to voluntarily provide information. Other ideas to implement? Sherri will share the v.2 draft of the Scorecard with INC delegates who want to provide feedback.  She also asks if INC might take a role in implementing the Scorecard.


Richard Ziglar reported that the Duke University rezoning is going before the Planning Board; the proposal contains none of most important committed elements that Burch Avenue wants to protect them from high traffic.  The site in the Burch Avenue is the old laundry and is full of asbestos.  Please write the Planning Commission to press them for committed elements.


Neighborhood Reports

  *   Northgate Park food truck kick-off is this  week.

  *   There are now Pauli Murray quarters and Susan has some.


Adjourn.   We may have an in-person meeting in May.




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