[Durham INC] Draft April meeting minutes

Sat May 22 07:47:07 EDT 2021

In advance of next week's meeting, I am resending these

________________________________
From: INC-list <inc-list-bounces at lists.deltaforce.net> on behalf of Pat Carstensen <pats1717 at hotmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2021 6:58 PM
To: inc listserv <inc-list at lists.deltaforce.net>; tobin freid <tobinlf at hotmail.com>
Subject: [Durham INC] Draft April meeting minutes

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

April Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham

Via Zoom

April 20, 2021

Attending the meeting were:

Neighborhoods

Bragtown – Constance Wright, Vannessa Mason Evans

Colonial Village – Charles Giamberardino

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen

Falconbridge – Dick Ford

Forest Hills – Sarah Morris

Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias

Northgate Park – Keith Cochran

Old West Durham – David Eklund

Trappers Creek / Greymoss – Will Wilson, EIleen Sarro

Trinity Park – Philip Azar

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell

Visitors

Annette Smith -- Durham Parks and Recreation

Nate Baker -- Planner

Tobin Freid -- Sustainability Manager, Durham County

Stephen Knill -- Leesville Road Coalition

President Will Wilson called the meeting to order, and those present introduced themselves.

We added to the agenda a discussion of all the resignations/retirements of high-level city and county employees.  The March minutes need to be changed to get the speaker’s name right; Sarah moved to approve both the March minutes with this change, Pakis seconded, and the minutes were approved.

Nate Baker has been bringing up innovative ideas about planning in Durham.  The street grid is the backbone of a metro area; it lasts a long time and shapes the city.  Before WWII, we built highly-connected, short-block streets.  Distances have become a lot longer as we build with a low-connectivity, wandering-around-till-you-get-to-a-main-drag pattern of streets.  Furthermore, everything is divided up -- single family, commercial, multi-family -- which disconnects us into pods.  Then we don’t have sidewalks or sidewalks that don’t go anywhere or sidewalks with nothing of interest along them, which makes walking or biking uncomfortable and even dangerous.  Cars are expensive and carbon-intensive.  Better is to have shops, parks, civic spaces like schools integrated into the neighborhood.  The current patters need cars (so we have more traffic accidents than other high-income countries), are corporate-friendly, are inefficient in use of land, and are not terribly sustainable.  The air pollution is disproportionately caused by higher-income travel and also disproportionately affects lower-income folks.  The sedentary life-style has health implications.  Density has much lower infrastructure cost, makes tax value of each acre higher and makes affordability easier.  People want transportation options.  Transportation costs for the average family in Durham is $12,000 per year.  Zoning code is the “DNA” of the built environment.  Under our current zoning code, we are building thousands of acres of sprawl a year.  We are asking about 5% of what we could ask developers to do to cut sprawl.  The Policy Committee of the Planning Commission is working on mixed use, block length, green building standards, and other improvements in the zoning code.  More generally, we need to improve the UDO, Comprehensive Plan, and Planning Department; we also need to really engage the community, so that residents are empowered and supported rather than just having the community simply re-act.  Gentrification of traditional-form neighborhoods is at least partly because they are highly desirable and we aren’t increasing the supply anywhere close to the demand.   The way to get density is to get real neighborhood “buy-in” to changes happening around their homes.

Tobin Freid gave an overview on Durham County’s draft Renewable Energy Plan.  In 2018 the BOCC adopted a resolution for a transition to renewable energy for the county’s operations, to get to 80% renewable by 2030, 100% by 2050.  There is a recognition of the need for equity -- who pays and who benefits.  The plan relates to the greenhouse gas plan we have had for a long time.  “Renewable” means natural and rapidly replenished, and includes solar, wind, energy efficiency, geothermal and possible new sources; it doesn’t include nuclear.  Looking at current growth and capital improvement plans, “business as usual” has not much change in energy use and a slight decrease in greenhouse gases.  In alternative scenarios,, we could

  1.  Switch to electric vehicles, use renewable diesel and decrease vehicle miles travelled;

  2.  Use roof-top and large-scale solar;

  3.  Increase energy efficiency;

  4.  Replace gas-fired boilers with electric;

  5.  Purchase renewable energy credits (RECS) which are an annual expense rather than something we pay for and then have as installed base to use going forward;

  6.  Change policies overall; and

  7.  Engage in creating change at the state level.

Using more electric only gets more renewable to the extent that the Duke Energy fleet (ways of generating power) gets greener (off coal); we would also need to consider resiliency (for example, having batteries in case the power goes down).  They considered 3 scenarios: phased (doesn’t meet goals without RECS), accelerated (still only 71% renewable by 2050 but accrue benefits faster), and high-impact solar (requires either faster evolution from Duke Energy or other change in external conditions).   The Sustainability Department is reviewing the plan internally, with approval maybe in August.

Sustainability Department with others got a grant to do a heat-mapping project, which will put sensors on cars to get temperatures on a hot day and find the heat islands; they need volunteers to drive the planned routes.

OLD BUSINESS

Comp Plan Revision Updates -- The revised draft is out.  It isn’t clear what they did with our comments.  The hearing is next week.  Pat will try to get the committee together to figure out our comments, if any.

Bylaws Revision Update -- They met and made progress on a draft.  The Duke Law student will work with Tom and Phil on some technical issues.

Development Project updates -- No reports.

An INC Vice President needed.

NEW BUSINESS:

Many upper-level city and county employees are leaving.  How does this affect the community?  Do we want to be involved?

Neighborhood Reports and Announcements

  *   There will be a socially-distanced Earth Day celebration.

  *   Parks and Recs is adding programs all the time, and opening Rec Centers.  See https://www.dprplaymore.org/463/COVID-19-Coronavirus-Updates

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