[Durham INC] October Delegate Meeting Minutes -- Draft

[Pat Carstensen]

As usual, please let me know about corrections or additions.  Regards, pat


October Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham
Via Zoom
October 27, 2019

Attending the meeting were:
Neighborhoods
Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen
Falconbridge – Richard Ford
Forest Hills – Sarah Morris
Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias
Morehead Hill – Rochelle Araujo
Northgate Park –Debra Hawkins
Old West Durham – David Eklund
Trinity Park – Marc Phillips
Trappers Creek / Greymoss – Will Wilson
Watts Hospital Hillandale – Tom Miller


Voting in Durham:  On Saturday, lots of people are coming out to vote or voting by mail.  Significantly more young people are voting this year, and more women are voting than men.


Those present introduced themselves.


Yahoo Groups is disappearing on December 15th, and different neighborhoods and the PACs are moving in different directions: NextDoor, Google Groups, Facebook.  There are different issues with different platforms, such as being found when people use old addresses and keeping “stuff” accumulated from the list-serve.


We discussed topics/activities that would be of interest to neighborhoods.  Some topics:

  *   Host or co-host program on equitable development (panel, 2.5 hours).  It would cover topics such as transforming cities, displacement/gentrification, role of people, who profits (not just a discussion of planners, developers and elected officials, but something the public participates in)
  *   Comprehensive plan and the change process to create it (the effort to get direct input from people – especially those who have not traditionally participated – is good, but the effort needs to be complemented by engaging interest groups like neighborhoods)
  *   Recruiting Walltown and Braggtown into INC
  *   Planning Commission recruitment that keeps neighborhood voices on it – the body is a much more “interesting” than in the past, in what they are engaged in and how
  *   Policy Subcommittee of Planning Commission -- asking Nate Baker to talk
  *   Invite Sara Young (new Planning Director) to an INC meeting
  *   How do we reach out to renters, how do we do better at encouraging home ownership (Durham isn’t doing well at getting new market-entry housing)
  *   Homelessness
  *   Mutual aid organizations -- neighbor to neighbor to ask / offer help of various kinds, sometimes using outside organization to distribute food aid or money
  *   Update on COVID
  *   Energy (clean energy, efficiency)
  *   Gun violence
  *   How neighborhoods can organize to get changes (sidewalks, slow streets)
  *   Street lights
  *   New census data -- what it means
  *   Economic development and innovation
  *   New bylaws


Bylaws discussion – Phil Azar has been trying to connect with Duke Law Clinics on re-writing the INC bylaws, particularly the definition of “neighborhoods.”  The original 7 neighborhoods were quite similar – voluntary organizations with a defined geographical area – but it was always seen that HOAs could be members.  There weren’t a lot of big apartment complexes in Durham.  Have we defined “neighborhood” in a way that excludes some entities?  The request is to take a look at the bylaws to see what is needs to be modernized.  More generally, do we have the right form.


A new development is proposed for Guess and Latta Roads, which was where the Publix was proposed; the new proposal may be worse.  Watts Hillandale has a fight before the Board of Adjustment and is finding BOA to be a problem.


Pat Carstensen mentioned the billboard rules before the Rules Commission.


Sarah Morris reported that Forest Hills and Northgate Park bought a lot of trees and are planting them.  They want to know what is a slow street.


Northgate Park 2020 activities are done except for luminaries which is strictly for them. Other neighborhoods are doing socially-distanced luminaries, some still figuring out how to do it.


We didn’t decide on a day for the combined November/December meeting.  We decided to try December 9th (Wednesday), and if we get push-back, we will do a doodle poll.














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