INC NEWS - Kudos to Duke (re-zoning will limit retail, today's N&O and Herald-Sun)

[John Schelp]

Duke zoning would limit retail
(Herald-Sun, 6 May 2005)

Duke University officials said Thursday they will seek
a university-college zoning that would limit retail
businesses on Central Campus, handing an olive branch
to critics of the planned redevelopment.

Duke Provost Peter Lange made the commitment during a
community meeting at Asbury Methodist Church near
Duke's East Campus that was attended by about 30
people.

"That's good, that's great," John Schelp, president of
the Old West Durham Neighborhood Association, told
Lange. "We've been asking for that for a long time.
That's wonderful news."

Schelp, one of the development's most vocal critics,
has maintained a vigilant watch on the university's
still-evolving plans for retail operations on Central
Campus, charging that the university seeks to profit
at the expense of nearby private enterprises such as
those on Ninth Street. The university-college zoning
designation limits retail activities to those serving
campus populations. And despite Duke's overture,
Schelp told Lange he and others would continue to keep
an eye on the university's retail plans.

Lange said the university will seek to include Central
Campus with East and West campuses, which have been
given the zoning designation, as soon as related
studies on the latter two areas are approved by the
city. Frank Duke, director of the Durham City-County
Planning Department, said storm water and
transportation studies required to implement the
zoning have been delayed by technical revisions for
about a year but are near completion.

Thursday's community meeting was the third since
planning began to replace aging student apartments on
Central Campus with new housing for upperclassmen and
graduate students and to integrate the area, now
something of a no-man's-land between East and West,
more into the life of the university as a whole.

But the university isn't ready to compromise, Lange
made it clear, on another sore point for some
neighborhood representatives: Membership of a
university committee brainstorming features for
Central Campus will remain just that -- exclusively a
campus body.

"Because this is our project," Lange said after
community member Josh Parker raised a suggestion
voiced at the last meeting in February that the
committee include non-Duke people who live or work in
the area. Besides, Lange said, the public does have
input, through a university Web site, by e-mail and
through such meetings as the one Thursday.

The campus committee has collected subcommittee
recommendations and is preparing a report for
university trustees' consideration within about a
week, Lange said. No official action by trustees is
expected, however.

University officials also said they have delayed plans
to start replacing student housing on Central Campus,
which eventually will increase it from 1,000 to 1,200
beds. Earlier, Duke said it would start new housing
next summer and complete it by August 2007.

"We're now of the opinion that is way too ambitious,"
by at least a year, said Kemel Dawkins, vice president
of campus services.

Duke also is more sure than just a few months ago that
one or more academic departments will relocate to
Central Campus, Lange said. Like its retail plans,
those prospects are still far from certain, he
cautioned, but gave as some examples moving language
or international studies there. Another possibility
that has been discussed is theater arts and dance,
with possibilities for new venues there, he said. 

****

Central Campus rezoning backed: Duke's provost says he
wants the area to be reserved for facilities tied to
the university (News & Observer, 6 May 2005)

Duke University Provost Peter Lange announced Thursday
that the university will seek to have the area known
as Central Campus rezoned so only facilities that
support the university's academic mission can be built
there.

Lange's announcement may have assuaged some community
fears that a fully redeveloped Central Campus will
become a property tax-free haven for big-box chains
and other operations.

The provost is overseeing the university's plan to
redevelop a 200-acre area that is home to 1970s-era
dorms, an electrical substation, green spaces, parking
lots and mill worker housing dating to the early
1900s. Central Campus sits between Erwin Road and
Campus Drive, closer to East Campus than West, but is
nestled between the two better-known and more
frequently trafficked sections of Duke's campus.

The university has indicated that Central Campus will
become the center of a university village where school
officials hope a growing number of senior students
will choose to live near graduate students. Lange has
said the university has an interest in offering its
students educational and social guidance along with
increasing levels of responsibility.

This year alone, student parties in the neighborhoods
closest to campus have brought national attention to
social life at Duke. In January, police broke up a
party at which bikini-clad girls had wrestled in baby
oil. As university subcommittees have brainstormed
about what to put in the redevelopment area, a theme
has emerged. The campus will have to include certain
amenities in order to overwrite Central Campus'
less-than-cool reputation and draw seniors to the
area.

The university college zoning designation, which Lange
said Thursday that the university will pursue, limits
the use of land to buildings such as auditoriums and
classrooms and limited retail operations such as
bookstores and restaurants.

Central Campus was pulled from an April 2003 Duke
rezoning effort in which East and West Campus were
limited to university college uses. Lange said that he
hoped the step announced Thursday would also put an
end to what he called, "the bash, bash," and a "ping
match," between university administrators and Durham
residents.

Kay Robin Alexander, a Duke graduate and former
employee who now lives in a neighborhood near the
school, said that the bashing was well-founded.

Alexander said a Duke official had purposefully
misrepresented community concerns when talking with
reporters and tried to backtrack from agreements made
two to three years ago. Alexander said that the 12
neighborhoods closest to campus and area business
interests agreed to meetings between one or two
community representatives and a Duke official, who was
not present Thursday. These meetings limited the
number of people who were witness to Duke's
commitments, she said.

"If some of us come here distrustful, it is because of
years of disappointment," she said.

Lange acknowledged Wednesday that the university has
played a role in nurturing community mistrust. But,
Duke is committed to an open and inclusive process,
Lange said.

Josh Parker, a Durham resident, asked the university
to consider making two more commitments. Parker wants
Duke to charge businesses on Central Campus market
rate rents and make in lieu of tax payments on any
commercial facilities built there. Alexander said a
Duke official had already agreed to these ideas. Lange
said Parker's requests were duly noted along with
others, but that he could not make any additional
commitments Thursday.