[Durham INC] Fw: Draft Nov/Dec minutes

[Pat Carstensen]

I am resending in advance of the Delegate Meeting next Tuesday (yes, it already will be the 4th Tuesday!)

Regards, pat

________________________________
From: Pat Carstensen
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2018 6:16 AM
To: inc listserv
Subject: Draft Nov/Dec minutes

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

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November/December Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham

NIS Conference Room, Golden Belt

November 27, 2018



Attending the meeting were:
Neighborhoods

Braggtown CA – Vannessa Mason Evans

Colony Park – Don Lebkes

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen

Forest Hills – Matt McDowell

Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias

Morehead Hill – Rochelle Araujo

Northgate Park – Debra Hawkins

Old North Durham –Peter Katz, John Martin

Old West Durham –Vicky Welch, Ginger Blubaugh

Trappers Creek / Greymoss – Will Wilson

Trinity Park – Philip Azar

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell

Watts-Hillandale – Tom Miller

Woodcroft – Jose Sandoval





Visitors

Lynwood D. Best – City of Durham, NIS

Annette Smith – DPR

John Killeen

Steve Schewel – Mayor of Durham





President Rochelle Araujo called meeting to order.  A report from the committee on Neighborhood Protection Overlay was added to the agenda.  Phil moved and Will seconded approval of the October minutes, and they were adopted.  Folks introduced themselves.



Mayor Steve Schewel talked about the importance of neighborhoods and the constructive and powerful influence of neighborhood associations.  One thing on his mind right now is light rail – there’s nothing more important than getting this transportation backbone done, but it will be a hard challenge to meet the deadlines and address the concerns of affected parties (downtown, Duke, the huge cost, general politics, risk assessment).  Another thing on his mind is expanding housing choices, which is difficult and important.  Finally, we have great plans for affordability, transportation, and solid waste (they are hard and expensive, but we have a plan); we don’t have an economic development plan (and we need one to solve the affordability issue).  Such a plan would include:

  *   developing the middle-skill workforce (with both hard and soft skills) so people who live here can get the jobs people are driving into Durham to do,
  *   developing Durham’s minority- and women-owned businesses so it’s not businesses outside Durham getting contracts with the city (this will require capital and skill development)
  *   doing better at “economic inclusion,” so even those who earn very little can build credit, start saving, have affordable and safe banking services, and otherwise build assets
  *   removing barriers to work such as revoked drivers’ licenses and dismissed charges still on people’s records

We can’t protect neighborhoods from gentrification, but we can help those made most vulnerable and make sure that what braking mechanisms we have are available to all neighborhood.  Neighborhoods find the expanding housing choices proposals alarming, especially since our affordable housing is the older housing stock, not what is getting built.  Expanding choices will give us the ability to build more densely and meet the demand of people who can afford to gentrify in central Durham; however, neighborhoods don’t have confidence in any implementation.  It’s not necessarily the zoning, but things like financing rules, that makes duplexes hard to do.  Mayor Schewel also talked about the multiple mechanisms being employed or investigated for housing for those at the lowest end of the economic spectrum.



Committee Reports

  *   Tom will be nudged to look at the by-laws.
  *   The NPO committee talked about the onerous process that was proposed in the omnibus UDO changes for getting an NPO.  It would more than double the burden on the neighborhood.  The proposal was pulled from the UDO changes, but it is coming back and we will want to take a position and show up at hearings.  Also the Comprehensive Plan draft says that the planning staff would automatically recommend against an NPO if it negatively affected affordability (by whatever planning staff decides is the metric). Rather than complex NPOs, it might be better to have either a change in the UDO to incorporate ideas from the NPOs we have, or develop a “standard NPO” which would have parameters that could be set for each neighborhood.  There will be a contract for public engagement for the Comprehensive Plan (http://durhamnc.gov/3786/The-Durham-Comprehensive-Plan).  Also neighborhoods should look at the bullet points in the Expanding Housing Choices of what could be done and answer the questionnaire (https://durhamnc.gov/3679/Expanding-Housing-Choices).





















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