[Durham INC] Fw: Draft minutes from February delegate meeting

[Pat Carstensen]

I am resending in advance of next week's meeting.
________________________________
From: INC-list <inc-list-bounces at lists.deltaforce.net> on behalf of Pat Carstensen <pats1717 at hotmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2022 7:07 AM
To: inc listserv <inc-list at lists.deltaforce.net>
Subject: [Durham INC] Draft minutes from February delegate meeting

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


February Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham

Via Zoom

February 22, 2022


Attending the meeting were:

Neighborhoods

Bragtown – Vannessa Mason Evans

Burch Avenue – Richard Ziglar

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen

Emory Woods – Thelma Glenn White

Falconbridge – Richard Ford

Leesville Road Coalition – Steven Knill

Long Meadow – Michael Throop

Merrick-Moore – Bonita Green

Morehead Hill – Rochelle Araujo

Northgate Park – Keith Cochran

Old West Durham – David Eklund

Trinity Park – Philip Azar, Mimi Kessler

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell


Guests

Annette Smith – Durham Parks and Recreation, Durham Parks Foundation

Will Wilson – Past President of INC

Constance Stancil – NIS

Faith Gardner – NIS

James Davis – NIS

Lynwood Best – NIS

Daniel Singer

Deb Hawkins

Dereana Freeman

Thelma Glenn White

Elaine


President Bonita Green called the meeting to order and welcomed everyone; those present introduced themselves.  There were no adjustments to the agenda.  Vannessa Mason Evans moved to approve the minutes of the last meeting, Susan Sewell seconded and this was passed.


Neighborhood Improvement Services (NIS) now has 49 people on staff, in 5 divisions.  They are part of the city’s equitable and green infrastructure efforts, by engaging communities to promote equity in discussions of new infrastructure.  As part of NIS’s work is in code enforcement (structure codes, junked cars, overgrown yards, etc. since “safe housing is everyone’s right”), they are trying to help low-wealth home-owners bring their property up to code and are periodically reviewing processes to make sure it is racially equitable.  They are looking at code enforcement in the county.   The Impact Team does proactive services such as removing graffiti and illegal dump sites; they also support neighborhood clean ups and other public events.   The Human Relations has added new responsibilities for non-discriminations in public accommodations (expanding from fair housing and making some protected classes explicit), is doing multi-lingual education about fair housing and non-discrimination and is examining the data on the eviction crisis though an equity lens.  NIS is the source and champions of the community engagement process, which is key to good business, good governance and quality service delivery.  The Community Engagement Division has done community stories, an NCCU course, neighborhood matching grants, police and community relations, and many other programs.  They have re-imagined services with COVID, with education about masks, virtual cooking classes, blood pressure clinics and other grants; they also did community out-reach for things like the 2020 census.  State statute now says a city can’t put specific efforts into quality of rental housing, and renters fearing eviction may not be willing to make complaints, so NIS’s efforts are concentrated on education.  Also violations are no longer a misdemeanor, which limits power. NIS’s website is:

https://durhamnc.gov/4212/About-Neighborhood-Improvement-Services<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/durhamnc.gov/4212/About-Neighborhood-Improvement-Services__;!!OToaGQ!8oQrjfCAmz3h9BXTNZClKL1SepCtfZRyYBM9L3_egVK2WIIajcLQW6fkJThB_SF40JY$>





Committee Reports

Bylaws – Philip talked to the Duke Community Law Clinic about finishing up the bylaws; Andrew Foster will work on it if no student is available to work on it.



Neighborhood Reports and Announcements

  *   Emory Woods – A developer is using Emory Woods streets to get to their work site; they have noisy big trucks carrying big trees out and carrying concrete in, not to mention blocking their street with these big trucks.  This is dangerous for the walkers with children and dogs.  They are supposed to come in a different route, but choose not one. The developer hasn’t provided green space (so the residents of his community use Emory Woods park and it would be more equitable if he paid for improvement to the park).  He also did not provide a left turn in the entrance to NC55 from the new development, which will push traffic to entrances of other neighborhoods. He put in as little sidewalk as possible.  Crime is coming in through the street he opened up.    Emory Woods has been trying to get City Council to do something. Planning and Zoning does no policing.  There are no standards for how developers interact with their neighbors, and this is not the only neighborhood with the problem.  The trucks in the neighborhood may be a noise ordinance issue, but enforcement of the noise ordinance has been difficult.  Generally the City doesn’t have a good process for all of this; a single contact for this kind of issues would be helpful.

  *   There was a very raucous student party in TLNA that has gotten some media attention after one neighbor started a petition to remove fraternities from neighborhoods. The multiple calls to police were not handled according to the DNU/Durham Police Dept protocol and the Durham Police are working on why and fixing the issue. The news coverage has brought several other neighborhoods into contact with DNU. We hope the coverage will bring more movement with Duke and help us educate our new City Council Members. We had not been watching as closely since the parties had been reduced due to the new protocol in 2018 and then covid.

  *   Bragtown’s is asking for support on gap funding for the affordable housing in the recently approved development.

  *   Parks and Rec got a grant from KABOOM! to build a new playground to Burton Park; in conjunction, Parks and Rec plans some other work in the park, such as re-routing walks.  Look for calls for volunteers to help on this project.  Annette is moving to General Services where she will be doing work with public art.

  *   On the Duke omnibus rezoning, Burch Avenue worked very hard to develop a list of committed elements to ask for.  The meeting with Duke was horrible since they didn’t seem to be willing to listen to the neighbors until Tom Miller spoke up; we will see how much far the “Duke gets whatever it wants” attitude goes.

  *   On the small house/small lot applications, the map was shared on list-serve; reach out to David if you have ideas on data or analysis to help us understand what is going on.

  *   The development next to Merrick-Moore is back, all town-homes, fewer units.  The “conservation” part is in the northern part that they couldn’t get annexed, leaving the units crunched against Merrick-Moore, and especially the area they are developing into a garden park.  A concern is the flooding due to the topography.  It is by-right so there is no rezoning, but the community would like to have protection against a 200-year flood.



Adjourn





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