[Durham INC] Revised Jan INC minutes

Wed Feb 20 07:54:59 EST 2019

In advance of the meeting on Tuesday, here are the draft minutes from Jan and Nov/Dec
Regards, pat

January Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham

NIS Conference Room, Golden Belt

January 22, 2019

Attending the meeting were:
Neighborhoods

Braggtown – Vanessa Evans

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen

Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias, Stevie Daniels

Morehead Hill – Rochelle Araujo

Northgate Park – Debra Hawkins

Old North Durham – John Martin

Old West Durham –Vicky Welch

Trappers Creek / Greymoss – Will Wilson

Trinity Park – Philip Azar

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell

Visitors

Lynwood D. Best – City of Durham, NIS

Annette Smith – DPR

Andre’ Vann – Sesquicentennial Honors Commission

Ryan Vincent – Durham Tax Office

Teresa Hairson – Durham Tax Office

Gineen Cargo – Durham150

Shade Shakur – Durham150

President Rochelle Araujo welcomed those present, and folks introduced themselves.

There were no adjustments to the agenda.

Ryan Vincent and Teresa Hairson gave a presentation on Revaluation (2019 Reappraisal), which is being done to figure current market value of properties in Durham County so that tax burden is distributed equitably across county.  Market value is the most probable amount that the property would go for in an open and competitive market.  New market values go into effect 1/1/19 and will be used to calculate tax bills that go out next summer.  Updated appraisals will be sent out about January 30.   Someone checked out every property over the last 2 years, making sure information is accurate about things like the number of bedrooms as accurately as one can from the street; also they are studying all the sales to determine market areas, trends, etc.  These go together to develop tables from which to get the value of properties.  Fee appraisers do things on a much smaller scale; since the Tax Office needs to do 116K properties as of 1/1/19 and can not get to look inside to figure out such details as whether it is an extended garage or not, they need to use statistical tools and some assumptions.  Homeowners should review the data on their property to make sure the description is right.  Some areas are changing in value much more than others.  Appraised rates set by Tax Office, rates are set based on budget by the governing bodies – together they make the tax bill.  There will be information session at the libraries to go over any questions about the process or the new valuation of their property; you can schedule a 15-minute session on line or by calling.  For appeals, make sure data about property is correct, make comparisons using the tools on the website, and appeal if you still disagree. Note that the amount of change, affordability of expected taxes or level of service provided are not issues that the tax office can consider, but there are programs to address affordability.  An appeal could include other valuations or market comparisons, or pictures to show that the interior condition is not as good as expected.  You must appeal by 5 PM May 3, 2019.  Their phone is 919-560-0300.

Gineen Cargo and Shade Shakur gave a presentation on Durham 150, which is a celebration of Durham’s 150th birthday, based on when Durham was incorporated by the General Assembly.  It will be a year-long event, with 4 themes: history and education, innovation and entrepreneurship, social equity and robust democracy, and arts and leisure.  The website is Durham150.org.  Opening celebration is April 13th.  Please help plan events – they would like to have at least 150 events (https://durham150.org/submit-an-event/).  There are grants for events or projects, like a mural (https://durham150.org/grants/).  Andre Vann talked about the Sesquicentennial Honors Commission which getting names of people who should be lifted up and celebrated and recommended to council for suitable ways to honor (www.durhamhonors.org).

Rochelle asked that we do something about history of various neighborhoods as part of the celebration.

There is also Bullcity150 (https://www.bullcity150.org), which has a more social equity focus.

We are transferred to the new website.

We will send a request to the Planning Department to delay the expanding housing choices hearing so the public has time to look at a stable documents and come back to talk about it.  The messing with the NPO hasn’t been scheduled but it is still a mess; Old West Durham and Tuscaloosa-Lakewood report that Planning Department asked for a meeting with them to warn us that changes in UDO may change part or all of our NPO.

There was a motion (Philip Azar) and a second (John Killeen) to hold the February meeting in the ReCity space so that delegates could see the BullCity150 exhibit and have greater context for discussion of zoning issues. No vote was taken. Rochelle and Philip agreed to look into it.

Neighborhood Reports

  *   John Schelp’s neighborhood hike will be March 30.
  *   Chesterfield Building tour is tomorrow at 6.
  *   There is a wonderful exhibit of photographs at the Nasher.

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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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