[Durham INC] Rolling Hills

Wed Mar 9 13:01:35 EST 2011

FWIW, I agree wholeheartedly with Mike on this.

I find myself scratching my head that the City won't consider landbanking
the site.  Personally, I'd support a housing bond of $10m to 15m or so to
pay for the City to do new roads and utilities on the site, and to do
form-based zoning on the site with affordable housing requirements to
dictate what gets built.

Then: open the door through RFP to national developers willing to build
what's asked for.  No, there's not going to be anyone willing to do it this
year or next.  But the housing crisis is not going to last forever.  Durham
continues to grow and downtown to boom.  And that land will make for a great
neighborhood.

But I'd much rather see the city building out infrastructure and then
letting a quality developer -- even MBS, if they bring capital rather than
relying on us -- do the project.

Kevin

--
Kevin Davis
ksdavis at gmail.com
www.bullcityrising.com
(919) 323-8432

On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 12:34 PM, M. W. Shiflett - Hotmail <
mwshiflett at hotmail.com> wrote:

>  I completely disagree with the thought of having this prime piece of
> Durham property turned into a park!
>
> And I agree a lot with Pat on this.
>
> From my perspective,  the City ought to consider land-banking Rolling
> Hills, and at some point in the near future, opening it up to the highest
> bid private developer to build market priced housing that might include a
> percentage of mixed income residential units and true mixed uses that
> will benefit both the residents of that area AND the surrounding
> neighborhoods!
>
> In my mind,  relegating the first phase as low income rental (as reported
> in the Herald Sun this morning) is just another failure waiting to
> happen.
>
> But I have to defer to the intelligence of our elected officials (and
> staff) who obviously know more about what needs to happen there (politically
> speaking) rather than using common sense while considering cost/benefits
> over time.
>
> If downtown Durham is looking for prime green and park space,  it ought to
> be considering the potential benefits of converting the old Duke Diet and
> Fitness Center into a Sustainability Campus with educational, recreational
> and storm water mitigation infrastructure that could truly benefit not only
> redevelopment in the surrounding neighborhoods but also provide
> opportunities for higher density projects in our downtown.
>
> This could be accomplished by creating a sort of 'storm water transfer
> credit' mechanism that would allow private development to happen where we
> want it, increase the tax base and create higher densities where there
> already is the infrastructure in place to accommodate it.
>
> I'm a supporter of higher value greenspace in strategic locations that can
> serve multiple functions when spending precious tax dollars, not just create
> (and have to maintain) more pocket parks that might look cute but don't do
> more than fit just one piece of a very complex puzzle.
>
> This makes more financial sense, doesn't it?
>
> Mike Shiflett
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Pat Carstensen <pats1717 at hotmail.com>
> *To:* inc listserv <inc-list at durhaminc.org>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, March 09, 2011 6:42 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [Durham INC] Rolling Hills
>
> I don't know that we would want to have the whole area being a park because
>
>
>    - In the long run, we want to have population density near downtown and
>    any rapid transit that goes through downtown
>    - Pragmatically we want to have opportunities for local folks to make
>    money building there
>
>
> But re-thinking how to develop the area with significant open space and
> perhaps denser development where we do build has a lot of advantages
>
>    - There's little greenspace near downtown and this would be a great
>    place for it (going to the open house today on downtown open space plan
>    would be a great first step)
>    - There might be significant savings in building the infrastructure
>    costs
>
>
> Regards, pat
>
> Info on the Open House to talk about the downtown open space plan:
>
> *When:             *Wednesday, March 9, 2011, from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. and
> 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.**
>
> **
>
> *Where:            *Golden Belt
>
>                         807 E. Main Street, 3rd Floor
>
> (Large Conference Room in the City’s Neighborhood Improvement Services
> Department)
>
>                         Durham, N.C. 27701
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 06:21:37 -0500
> From: Ken at KenGasch.com
> To: inc-list at durhaminc.org
> Subject: [Durham INC] Rolling Hills
>
> I would suggest making Rolling Hills a city park. We have plenty of housing
> stock that is empty and simply boarded up.  Local folks can fix them up
> thereby creating local jobs.  Additionally, a high concentration of
> low-income housing does not work.  You have to "mix it up".
>
>  Ken Gasch
>
>
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