INC NEWS - Please keep in mind for the Neighborhood liaison...

[John Schelp]

folks,

Please keep these things in mind about a Neighborhood
liaison...

* Durham depends upon neighborhood organizations to
collect public opinion on planning issues. Why not
foster and help neighborhoods in this effort? Why not
have an educated, informed city office where
neighborhoods can go for information and help?  

* Under the current process, developers work with the
planning department shaping their plans long before
citizens find out about what's going on. By then, the
staff has staked itself out on what it likes and
doesn't like long before they find out what citizens
like and dislike. By then the developer has altered
his plan to make staff happy and the staff feels
committed to back the developer because they have
influenced the applicant's plan. This is human nature,
but it puts a neighborhood -- which is already unsure
where the racecourse goes -- standing at the blocks
because they can't hear the gun go off. 

* A Neighborhood liaison can help neighborhoods facing
a project in the pipeline. In essence, the new
position can turn the planning process from the
reactive/confrontational dynamic we often see today --
to a more proactive/cooperative environment.

* City Council members can refer questions from
neighborhood groups to the Neighborhood liaison to
help community groups understand what's happening.

* The Planning Dept has several staff members working
to help applicants with their projects. Neighborhoods
also need someone to turn to with questions about the
process. 

* The Morreene Road warehouse controversy could have
been avoided with a competent Neighborhood liaison on
the inside -- looking for potential problems (thereby
avoiding problems for City Council, the community and
the developers).

* The Trinity Park condo controversy could have been
avoided with a competent Neighborhood liaison on the
inside -- by suggesting a Development Plan that would
have clarified so many of the issues that later become
conflicts among neighbors. (At the time, the Planning
director discouraged the neighbors from establishing a
Development Plan.)

* A Neighborhood liaison could help other
neighborhoods avoid the tension in the community that
may arise when developers change their plans (as in
the case of the Trinity Park condos).

* The Planning director worked against a Development
Plan for Duke's Central Campus (a move that
strengthened the hand of the applicant -- and weakened
the hand of the neighborhoods). In this case, the
neighborhoods were smart enough to reject his advice
and worked out 12 committed elements with Duke. When
Duke later changed its campus plans (again) the
neighborhoods felt comfortable because the Development
Plan was already in the books. 

* Just like developers, neighborhood associations, no
matter how organized, often need solid advice to avoid
pitfalls and misunderstandings down the road. 

* Durham's Neighborhood College was established
following a successful grassroots campaign against the
asphalt industry. At the time, Planning staff were
quietly working with the asphalt industry for months
-- getting everything ready for swift approval. A
Neighborhood liaison could have helped avoid the
controversy that came up around this contentious issue
of environmental justice and public health. (A
one-hour Neighborhood College class on zoning issues
doesn't replace a legal expert who can effectively
answer questions from the community about a certain
case.)

* According to INC leaders, the InterNeighborhood
Council of Durham serves an a place to hold a
conversation. We're told it cannot advocate a specific
issue for a specific neighborhood. By this definition,
the INC can not advocate for individual neighborhoods.


* The new Unified Development Ordinance is so
complicated that it serves to exclude ordinary
citizens from the planning process as effectively as a
high wall. (Neighborhood groups often find themselves
waiting for staff to offer an interpretation what the
UDO meant to say.) 

* Why not have a neighborhood ombudsman to sound out
neighborhood complaints before there are disasters
like Trinity Park and McPherson Hospital and
Fayetteville Street and the compact neighborhood issue
in the new Comprehensive Plan and the Morreene Road
Warehouse and the 751 assemblage and Eno River-Eno
Drive tract? 

* Are not neighborhood organizations, and the citizens
they represent, constituencies that the city should
serve?

warmest regards,

John Schelp
(with thanks to Tom Miller for his input)