INC NEWS - Fwd: [oldnorthdurham] the wrecking ball and old five points streetscape

Wed Nov 29 14:00:03 EST 2006

>To: oldnorthdurham at yahoogroups.com
>From: "leslXe frost" <leslief11 at hotmail.com>
>Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 16:56:43 +0000
>Subject: [oldnorthdurham] the wrecking ball and old five points streetscape
>
>
>Dear Neighbors, This email is a request for your help. The 
>Neighborhood Improvement Services Department (formerly Durham 
>Housing Department) is poised to tear down historic buildings in Old 
>Five Points and while Lenora Smith, Carrie Mowry, and I have been 
>trying to bring neighborhood input, so far our letters and our phone 
>calls and our arguments for renovation rather than demolition seem 
>to have fallen on deaf ears. We need the whole neighborhood to rally 
>round. In fact, we need all of the neighborhoods ringing the 
>downtown to rally round.
>
>None of us in the historic neighborhoods should face this kind of 
>city action without strong neighborhood input.
>
>I am requesting that OND neighbors write letters to the council and 
>call council members. SOON. To send an email to the council: 
><mailto:council at ci.durham.nc.us>council at ci.durham.nc.us. To call 
>council members, look up numbers on individuals: 
>http://www.ci.durham.nc.us/council/.
>
>I'm also requesting that you forward this to other neighborhood 
>listservs and request that people you know write and call. What we 
>need is for people to request that NIS halt its rush to tear down 
>the buildings until the neighborhoods have a chance to become 
>involved in the process. We aren't just working to change the 
>outcome of this particular situation; we're working to change the 
>city of Durham's approach to historic buildings and development.
>
>A personal story: We moved to OND from Old West Durham. Before we 
>found our house, I used to drive around looking at the neighborhood 
>and one day I found Old Five Points. I fell in love. This could be 
>just like Portland, I thought to myself (and said to everyone I 
>could convince to come over and see the neighborhood where I wanted 
>to live). "Just like Portland" was shorthand for lots of things. For 
>thriving, walkable neighborhoods. For thriving neighborhoods that 
>are diverse in every way -- income, race, age, profession. For a 
>city that did things right.
>
>So I care about that streetscape. I really believe that we will not 
>thrive if the City continues to tear down the past to create vacant 
>lots or little faux streetscapes. I believe that the residents of 
>Old Five Points, and Old North Durham, and Duke Park, and Northgate 
>Park, and Trinity Park, and Old West Durham, and Watts Hillandale 
>will be BETTER SERVED by a city that respects all of the city's 
>history and works in a smart and coherent manner to help us build a 
>future. I believe that the ONLY way for Durham to do this is to 
>listen to the neighborhoods and work to preserve our history and our 
>historic buildings.
>
>The buildings are just south of the M&M mini mart. They are the 
>white building on Corporation, the corner building on Mangum, and 
>the two buildings to the south of the corner building. The corner 
>building is from 1895. They are in terrible shape, but they are not 
>unsalvageable. Their biggest problem is that they are owned by the 
>White family and are in a similar state of disrepair to other 
>properties owned by that family.  BUT, Teesa White has hired a 
>consultant to propose renovation, and the consultant has met with 
>representatives of the Durham Historic Preservation Society and an 
>architect.  All agree the buildings can be renovated.
>
>We want the City to keep up the pressure on the White family.  But 
>we do not want the City, either in this situation or in other 
>situations where buildings are abandoned, to use demolation as a 
>quick-fix tool to temporarily solve the social ills that occur in 
>boarded up properties.  We want to the city to involve the 
>neighborhoods in a process to find other solutions that will 
>preserve the buildings for the development of thriving neighborhoods.
>
>UDI, helped by city funds, has proposed building on the vacant lots 
>that would be created by demolition.  ONDNA and OFPNA opposed 
>this.  For background, see the following story:
>
>http://www.newsobserver.com/145/story/488013.html.
>
>UDI has no public plan for what to do with its new buildings, no 
>architectural drawings (what we saw as a possible model looked like 
>those faux Cary-like streetscapes). It doesn't own the buildings; in 
>fact the city owns one and evidently that one is promised to UDI, 
>which employs our
>mayor. UDI, furthermore, has no publically expressed plan to do this 
>project in any way that clearly benefits the residents of Old Five 
>Points, unless you would believe that just the presence of faux 
>streetscape buildings like in Cary necessarily uplifts a community. 
>And if the city supports the tearing down of those historic 
>buildings, what is to stop others from doing it to the rest of the 
>streetscape? What incentive is there for people to value what is there?
>
>Lenora Smith, president of Old Five Points Neighborhood Association, 
>has asked that the city consider proposals for rehabbing the 
>buildings that include an apprentice plan for some local young 
>people. Studies have shown that rehabbing is more economically 
>beneficial to an area than demolition, and that rehabbing skills are 
>more marketable than construction skills.
>
>Please help us fight for our neighborhoods. Please become involved 
>to the extent of writing to your council members and alerting other 
>neighborhoods. We have so much potential over here in northeast 
>central Durham. But how we move forward depends in large part upon 
>the actions of each and every one of us.
>
>Thank you.
>
>Leslie Frost
>neighbor and ONDNA President
>
>
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>do not necessarily represent the views of Old North Durham Neighborhood
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