[Durham INC] Draft April Minutes

Thu May 17 16:30:24 EDT 2018

In advance of next week's meeting.  Regards, pat

________________________________
From: Pat Carstensen <pats1717 at hotmail.com>
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2018 5:05 PM
To: inc listserv
Subject: Draft April Minutes

Please let me know about any additions or corrections.  Thanks, pat

----

April Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham

NIS Conference Room, Golden Belt

April 24, 2018

Attending the meeting were:
Neighborhoods

Colony Park – Don Lebkes

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen

Falconbridge – Dick Ford

Forest Hills – Matt McDowell

Golden Belt – Rama Darbha

Lochaven Hills – Keith LePage

Long Meadow – Matthew Pait

Morehead Hill – Rochelle Araujo

Northgate Park – Debra Hawkins

Old North Durham –Peter Katz, John Martin

Old West Durham – John Killeen, Vicky Welch

Trappers Creek / Greymoss – Will Wilson

Trinity Park – Philip Azar

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell

Watts-Hillandale – Tom Miller

Visitors

Lynwood D. Best – City of Durham, NIS

Tom Dawson – Durham Parks and Rec

Annette Smith – Durham Parks and Rec

DeDreana Freeman

Antoine Freeman

Peter Katz opened the meeting; those present introduced themselves.  John Martin moved to approve the March minutes, Susan Sewell seconded and the minutes were approved.  Susan Sewell, the treasurer, reported 16 neighborhoods are paid up; dues are due.

Neighborhood Reports and Announcements

  *   With skies clearing for this Thursday, a special evening of food, celebration and fun is on tap for the Northgate Park Food Truck Rodeo and a very special celebration/ceremony at Lavender House (next door to the dog park entry).

  *   Golden Belt is looking at plans for the building north of the place where we meet.  It would be re-developed for restaurant and office space.  They had another meeting with the developer and learned about a proposal for a parking deck, which is mean a huge number of new people will be coming into the area daily.
  *   Please patronize the Durham Roots Farmers Market.  They have 13 vendors this year, plus room for 2 educational booths each week.
  *   A long-term property tax relief program is doing outreach to select neighborhoods.
  *   There is still time to vote on Meet me at Park grants.  One of 3 parks will get $20K for improvements; Durham is one of 15 cities selected for this program by the National Recreation and Park Association in collaboration with the Walt Disney Company (Disney, ABC Television Group, ABC 11 Eyewitness News and ESPN).   Visit https://www.meetmeatthepark.org
  *   Old West Durham Neighborhood Protection Overlay – City Council votes on May 7th; the neighborhood is hoping for a large turn-out in support.
  *   Forest Hills – The developers came to Durham to present an updated plan for Pinecrest.  It would have 48 total units, some larger houses and some 3-unit townhome buildings.  There was also some information on entrances to the development.
  *   Preservation Durham’s Historic Home Tour is May 5 and 6.
  *   Beaver Queen season will begin soon.

Tom Miller continued his overview of the Planning Commission.  On how to make your case to the Planning Commission:

  *   Letters and e-mails count for a lot since some commission members use a decision criterion of “if no-one objects, the proposed action must be OK.”  Keep the message short and clear on which side you are on.  Use your own words – don’t copy and paste the “talking points.”  Letters (the ones where you spend your money on postage) are particularly effective; send an individual letter to each member.
  *   It is effective to meet with the commissioners so you can to show them on the ground what your concerns are.  Meet with commissioners individually.
  *   At hearings, you have 10 minutes so organize to make sure your best points all come out and make sure it is one simple story.
  *   Argue from the UDO and the Comprehensive Plan.  Don’t exaggerate (40 units will not make average traffic congestion become like LA).  Mentioning the wildlife is a big turn-off.
  *   Win the battle on who is the “white hat” in the case; show that you bent over backwards to come to a win-win solution.

Other agencies are quasi-judicial in that your opinion doesn’t matter; instead of lobbying you need to present relevant evidence.  These other bodies include:

  *   The Board of Adjustment handles variances (to solve cases where the rules get in the way of accomplishing goals and to fix real hardships), use permits (to handle nuances where allowing a use depends on the specific situation), and appeals
  *   The Historic Preservation Commission, which decides on Certificates of Appropriateness
  *   The Housing Appeals Board, for when there just isn’t an alternative to tearing a place down or a property needs to be cleaned up

Durham is the only county in NC that has development plans, which add conditions that narrow what is allowed on a property; these conditions go into the zoning plan and don’t change if the property changes ownership.  Site plan approval is a review to make sure that what is planned on a property meets all the rules.  Tom also talked about density, affordable housing, the compact neighborhood tier, design districts, and accessory dwelling units.

Tom Dawson of the Durham Parks and Rec Department talked about the process of planning; they work hard at involving the public, look at the park system as a whole and have some big capital expenditures (such as $100K for new playground equipment in Indian Trails Park).  With more predictable funding, they have been better able to plan out maintenance.  He went over a number of park projects that in the works and asked folks to become members of the Durham Parks Foundation.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.deltaforce.net/pipermail/inc-list/attachments/20180517/38e04dda/attachment.html>