[Durham INC] DRAFT January Minutes

[Pat Carstensen]

These are slightly corrected from the first version.  Regards, pat
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January
Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham

First Presbyterian Church

January 24, 2012

 

Attending the meeting were:

Neighborhoods

Cleveland-Holloway – Matt Dudek

Colony Park – Don Lebkes

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen

Downing Creek – Dick Ford

Duke Park – Bill Anderson, Ian
Kipp, Loren Webster

Falconbridge – Rosemarie Kitchin

Golden Belt – John Martin,
DeDreana Freeman

Hope Valley North – Martha
Wilaby, John Horton, Debbie Lidowski

Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias

Magnolia Park – Darius Little

NECD – L’Tanya Gilchrist, Carrie
Hall, Stevanya McCrea

Northgate Park – Mike Shiflett

Old East Durham – Chloe’
Palenchar

Old Farm – Fred Foster

Old North Durham – Peter Katz

Old West Durham – Eric Heidt

Parkwood – Mike Brooks

Trinity Park – Philip Azar

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan
Sewell 

Watts Hospital Hillandale – Tom
Miller, Mike Woodard

Woodcroft – Scott Carter

 

 

Visitors 

Jim Wise – N & O

Tobin Freid – City / County
Sustainability Office

Will Wilson

Aaron Cain – Durham Planning

Sara Young – Durham Planning

Lisa Miller – Durham Planning

Steve Medlin – Durham Planning

Hartmut Jahn – Neighborship

Lynwood Best – City of Durham,
NIS

Wendy Jacobs

Kevin Dick – City of Durham,
Economic and Workforce Development

 



IMPORTANT NOTE: The
February meeting will be at the NIS meeting room at Golden Belt.



 

John Martin called the meeting to order, and members
introduced themselves.  

 

Tobin Freid (560-7999, energy at durhamnc.gov),
of the Sustainability Office (www.greenerdurham.net),
gave an overview of two programs:

·      
Home energy saving program – The first round was in
15 neighborhoods, but now it is opened up to any location and the criteria for
getting into the program are expanded. 
The homeowner pays the first $400, but after that, the program pays up
to $1600 for things like installing insulation and sealing leaks.  More details are at:  http://durhamnc.gov/ich/cmo/sustainability/Pages/Home-Energy-Savings-Program.aspx  

·      
Electric vehicle charging stations – The county is
putting in facilities at the libraries, judicial building and human
services.  Link to map is here: http://durhamnc.gov/ich/cmo/sustainability/Pages/Environmental-Initiatives.aspx  

 

Members of the Planning Department gave an overview of the
Compact Design District.  What
Council passed was both an update to the UDO to add a new type of zone (durhamnc.gov/ich/cc/Documents/TC1000005.pdf)
and a re-zoning of the Ninth Street area to the new zone.  This was based on several years of work
with all the interested parties. 
The new code is a hybrid of form and use ideas, with

·      
Sub-districts – A core area, stepping down in height
and density through 2 support areas. 
These aren’t the generic circles, but are tailored to the specific
details of the district.  Ninth
Street has a “Pedestrian Business” sub-district, and other Compact Design
Districts may have different special considerations.

·      
Form – Meant to make streets that form “rooms” in
which people want to linger.  For
example, there are a variety of frontage types, limits on the length of blocks,
and step backs of the fronts that depend on the width of the street.

·      
Use – Still controlling what can go on, but uses are
“unified” – can go anywhere in the district, with restrictions as you
transition to the surrounding neighborhood.

A couple points that were discussed:

·      
Planning is still discussing the next Compact Design
area to work on.  It won’t be a
6-year process, but they will be involving community to get details right.

·      
When any property is re-zoned (including to Compact
Design), all the old zoning, including any “-D”, disappears, so neighborhoods
working on a Compact Design zone need to pay attention to it.  

·      
Having developers provide open space in compact areas
has resulted in a lot of unusable fragments, so we are starting to look at more
holistic open space ideas.

·      
What are the infrastructure needs of these compact
districts (water, etc.), and are we prepared to meet them?

·      
We may want to have some kind of Citizen Commission
to share what worked in various Compact Design Districts and spot issues early.

 

Don Lebkes and Dick Ford presented a proposal for a
candidate forum.  Assuming there
are primary races for both Republicans and Democrats for Board of County Commissioners
in May, we would need to do 2 nights in late March.  Everyone needs to commit to bringing 2 friends to the
forum.  They have found a number of
possible venues. Tom Miller moved that we spend up to $400 for rent,
refreshments, etc. and this passed.

 

John Martin and Bill Anderson reported on their meeting with
the new postmaster about the poor service in East Durham and the attempts to
confuse people into moving their mailboxes to the curb.  Now that the East Durham Post Office is
no longer understaffed, service should be better.  The postmaster also committed to stopping the confusing
letters on the mailboxes.

 

The INC officers are trying to clarify what has gone on with
non-profit status for INC. 
Hopefully, what they learn can be put together to help neighborhoods
contemplating getting non-profit status.

 

John Martin and Lynwood Best reported on the availability of
the NIS room at Golden Belt for our delegate meetings.  We will have more certainty about being
able to start at 7PM and it has audio-visual equipment.  Mike Shiflett moved and Pete Katz
seconded that we should move the meeting there in February.  This passed and there will be reminders
and directions sent to the list-serve.

 

Mike Woodard and Kevin Dick led a discussion of the City
Incentives Program and the Sav-A-Lot Store.  On the Sav-a-Lot, folks in the areas deserve the choice of 3
stores (Sav-a-Lot, TROSA, and Los Primos), they hope the store will be a
catalyst for other revitalization, Sav-a-Lot does not get incentive money until
the criteria about jobs and so on are met, and the site has been vacant for a
long time.  In terms of public
discussion of incentives, the general plan is made publicly, but detailed
negotiations need to be private. 
The Office of Economic and Workforce development will be changing their
process to do engagement with neighborhoods first, then the PAC (when most of
their work was downtown, there were no neighborhoods involved so they did civic
engagement with PAC5, but they now see that the process needs to be different
where there are neighborhoods). 
One way to keep up to date on what is going on is to subscribe to the
manager’s weekly update:  http://durhamnc.gov/ich/cmo/Pages/City-Manager%27s-Report.aspx


 

 




Appendix A: 
Treasurer’s Report

INC’s current balance is: $3134.48

 

Dues have been paid by:

Bay Pointe at MLK Homeowner's
Association

Fairfield

Golden Belt

Morehead Hill

Cross-Counties

Old West

Parkwood

Burch Ave

Colony Park

Duke Park

WHHNA

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood

Long Meadow

Woodcroft

Trinity Park

Magnolia Place

Old North Durham

Northgate Park

Downing Creek

Falconbridge Community
Association

Old Farm

 

Please note: If you’re
association mailed a check this month it may not be reflected in the list until
next month.  If your neighborhood hasn’t paid yet, you can bring payment
to the monthly meeting for $25 (or more) or mail it to: 

1005 Morning Glory Ave, Durham
NC 27701, care of John Martin.

 

Please let me know if
you have any questions or concerns.

 

 		 	   		  
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