INC NEWS - Stop a proposed Adult Establishment in East Durham

[John Schelp]

Hi Melvin,

We've worked with the Development Review Board. The
article below provides some background on the DRB.

I'll give you a call this afternoon.

take care,
John

****

Getting decked in Old West Durham
Independent Weekly (Feb 12, 2003)

It's not that Terry Sanford Jr. can't build a gravel
parking lot in Old West Durham if he wants to. Indeed,
the zoning is appropriate, and as long as the plan
meets specific design requirements about landscaping
and other details, planners say it's likely to be
approved later this month.

But to an active group of neighbors who've taken a
lead role in how their corner of the Bull City grows,
Sanford might as well have picked up a handful of that
gravel and flung it across the negotiating table at
them.

"It was a real slap in the face," says Kelly Jarrett,
vice president of the Old West Durham Neighborhood
Association, a group that in recent years has worked
closely with developers on projects that affect their
everyday landscape. In a reverse of the NIMBYism of
which citizens are often accused, Jarrett and her
neighbors even supported a high-density apartment
project now under construction just off Ninth Street,
near a planned commuter rail station. "We went out on
a limb, because we believe in mass transit, and to
have this be the first thing proposed afterwards . .
." Jarrett trails off in frustration.

The apartments adjacent to the Erwin Square office
complex represented an unusual partnership between
Sanford, who owned the land, Wood Partners, who
developed the project, and the Old West Durham
neighbors, who actually lobbied for the
60-unit-per-acre high-density apartments throughout
the public process. The group has participated
consistently in many development plans within its
stomping grounds, including Ninth Street North, a
recent commercial/retail project.

The neighbors' active involvement and record of
working collaboratively with developers makes even
more onerous Sanford's sudden plan to build three
acres of parking--450 spaces--between Hillsborough
Road and Main Street, says group president John
Schelp, aggravated by the notification letter arriving
in citizen mailboxes after the deadline for written
comments from the public.

"It's frustrating when neighborhoods work with
developers and both sides bend a little bit, and then
this is the next thing out of the gate," says Schelp,
pointing out that there are already 688 parking spaces
in the adjacent vicinity. And though the proposed
parking lot currently hosts an open field where people
fly kites, citizens aren't romantic about gazing at
grass forever. Situated smack dab amidst 340
apartments, a rail stop, retail stores and
restaurants, they acknowledge the kite-fliers will
eventually have to yield.

"When that land is developed, we will support it. But
we don't think a parking lot is beneficial," Schelp
says. Because Duke University, which leases a lot of
parking in Old West Durham, has promised the group it
would not contract for more off-campus parking there,
and the new apartments will have their own parking
deck, the neighbors are baffled about what Sanford's
target clientele for his stand-alone lot might be.
Sanford couldn't be reached for comment.

The plan is tentatively scheduled to go before the
city/county planning department's Development Review
Board on Feb. 21, says planner Steve Medlin. The
original Jan. 24 date was postponed after staffers
learned they goofed by sending notification to
neighbors too late. Still, the review board, made up
of city and county staff and one representative from
the Planning Commission, is essentially a rubber-stamp
process for smaller projects that already essentially
fit the established zoning and other regulations. The
board's jurisdiction is limited to "technical" issues.

"This is not a public hearing," says Medlin. "If a
project meets the letter of the standards, the DRB is
legally bound to approve it."

The indignation of the Old West Durham neighbors over
that process is understandable, says Medlin, who
believes the best way to address the problem--and open
debate about what defines an appropriate project--is
through the rewriting of Durham's planning standards.
That revision is currently under way, but the results
are at least 18 months away, he says.

In the meantime, Durham's citizens need to keep being
vigilant, says Jarrett, who has lived in Old West
Durham for a decade.

"The planning process is not made to be
user-friendly," she says, recalling the night she and
Schelp happened to be attending a public hearing on
the apartment complex and stumbled into the asphalt
industry's plan to move their factories closer to
houses, a proposal that gained a lot of steam under
the citizen radar last year, before environmental and
social justice activists--led by Schelp--stopped it.
"We've learned how to be a little bit proactive and
how to have connections, but if we were finding out
about this so late, what's happening in neighborhoods
that aren't as organized? They're going to get
railroaded."


[Update: The Development Review Board later voted to
reject the parking lot (which was intended to lease to
Duke for 450 additional off-campus parking spaces.]