[Durham INC] INC mintues

Wed Dec 9 16:22:44 EST 2020

I think I neglected to send these out earlier.

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.

September Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham

Via Zoom

September 22, 2019

Attending the meeting were:

Neighborhoods

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen

Falconbridge – Richard Ford

Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias

Morehead Hill – Bruce Mitchell

Northgate Park – Keith Cochran, Debra Hawkins

Trinity Park – Philip Azar

Trappers Creek / Greymoss – Will Wilson

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell

Visitors

Annette Smith – DPR and Durham Parks Foundation

Dan Hickey – City of Durham

President Will Wilson Will Wilson welcomed those present.  Phil Azar moved to approve the minutes, Pakis Bessias seconded, and they passed.

Dan Hickey, Durham Tree Planting Coordinator, gave an update on what is happening with trees in Durham. The emerald ash borer, which kills ash trees, has been here for more or less a decade.  Alex Johnson treated some trees, which was expensive and needed to be done again and again; we quit doing treatments and parks are losing some trees.  We really don’t have a lot of street trees that are ashes, so it is mostly in the parks.  In some parks, there is replanting of trees.  Durham has an on-going street tree inventory; you can go on line to look at Open Tree Map (https://www.opentreemap.org/durhamnctrees/map/ ), which has green blobs for trees and purple dots for future tree spots.  You can filter by species and size so you can see where all the big willow oaks (the ones planted in the 1930s and coming to the end of their life cycles).  The city has big goals in terms of expanding our tree canopy.  Using the mapping tool, we can see where the big deficits are in order to prioritize planting.  There is data behind the purple dots to show what kinds of limitations there might be to planting there (power lines, for example).  The tool will also show ecological benefits like stormwater filtering that the trees are providing.  As you get beyond the center of the city, the inventory is less complete.  Over 16,000 street trees are recorded; it is possible to filter to all those in poor condition and export the data to a spreadsheet to plan resources needed in the future for these trees. Overall about 70% of the trees are in good condition, 18% in fair condition, 3% poor, a few failing.  As a rule of thumb, a city doesn’t want to have more than 20% of its trees of one genus; our percentage of oaks is a little high but should fall over time as we plant other species.

Elections of new officers – We still need a vice-president.  The following officers were re-elected.

Past-President                           Rochelle Araujo           Morehead Hill

President                                   Will Wilson                 Trappers Creek / Greymoss

Sec.                                            Pat Carstensen             Cross Counties

Treas.                                         Susan Sewell               Tuscaloosa-Lakewood

At-large Executive Comm         Don Lebkes                 Colony Park

                         Philip Azar                  Trinity Park

                                                   Tom Miller                  Watts Hospital Hillandale

Merrick Moore neighborhood development – E-mail to the list-serve reported, “Merrick Moore's rezoning case was in special session before the planning commission.   I am happy to say that we received a unanimous no vote on the rezoning request. This case is being forwarded to the city council for review.”

The city passed the Development Agreement way to change zoning passed. The Comprehensive Plan is moving forward but significantly slowed.

NEW BUSINESS:

There was a discussion of outreach to neighborhoods.

Parks and Recreation will have a new director starting October 5th.  Drive-in movies are happening once a month (free but you need a reservation for a parking spot).  They have been looking into providing supervised space for kids.  It seems most families have figured out a way to get internet service, but still need a place to get away from the house; further planning will depend on what the School Board decides about re-opening schools.   As soon as they hear from lifeguards, they will be opening indoor pools.

National Night Out is going to be virtual on October 6th.

Northgate Park has started food truck rodeo pop-up – a single food truck with pre-order on line and pick-up in the park.

Appendix: Annual Treasurer’s Report

Inter Neighborhood Council

Treasurer's Report

As of Sept 23, 2020

2020

Beginning Balance:       4,884.94

Income:

Dues and Donations        730.00

Other Income

TOTAL Income:              730.00

Expenses:

Mailbox Rental 118.2

website/domain fees

listserv fees                      75.00

Thanksgiving in Spring

Forum

banner

printing

bank charges                     27.15

TOTAL expenses:           220.35

Ending Balance:           5,394.59

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