[Durham INC] Former Durham planning director "ready to help Raleigh embrace rapid growth"

Sat Sep 3 17:03:41 EDT 2022

As a real estate agent I see different needs for different family makeups. Mixed usage is becoming the most efficient overall for many but not necessarily cheap. Just look at North Raleigh. I can’t speak for the developed Durham neighborhoods but many undeveloped topographies aren’t good for higher density based on buffers, stream, tree saves etc. We’re seeing some of that out here. Also finding developers who will build mixed use in SE Durham is very hard in that Durham abdicated Commercial development by sitting idly by and watching Raleigh/Wake build Brier Creek and take all the retail tax receipts with it. The area has been built to be car centric with zero buses and no contiguous bike lanes or sidewalks. And a bunch of homes in between developments are on County land. The Planning Departments approach has been to support building wherever developers can purchase the land, leading to a hodgepodge footprint. 

Stephen Knill
Mobile +1 917 620 4941
knillsj at gmail.com

Sent from my iPhone

> On Sep 3, 2022, at 4:50 PM, Pat Carstensen <pats1717 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> A second thought is that I'm on a national list-serve for anti-sprawl folks, who can be sort of dismissive of reality that gets in the way of visions.  
> 
> This is the statement from an e-mail today:
> "The vision that people still have of the great life in the single family detached home.  It may have been true in 1946.  It is no longer, but the real estate industry is still selling it and the MPOs are supporting it."
> 
> I agree that sprawl is bad and that we are getting lots of attractive dense housing, but the messy reality is that saying single-family homes are "passe" doesn't change aspirations of a lot of people. 
> 
> From: INC-list <inc-list-bounces at lists.deltaforce.net> on behalf of Pat Carstensen <pats1717 at hotmail.com>
> Sent: Saturday, September 3, 2022 4:08 PM
> To: INC list (for posting) <inc-list at lists.deltaforce.net>
> Subject: Re: [Durham INC] Former Durham planning director "ready to help Raleigh embrace rapid growth"
>  
> Well, if all you have is a pair of pliers, you tend to use them to pound away at nails even if it isn't very effective, (an even worse situation than having only a hammer and treating everything as a nail).
> 
> Housing is increasingly unaffordable and good people are being pushed out of Durham and we all want Someone to Do Something.  However, the root problems are pretty intractable -- increasing wealth gaps, the new corporate buyers of real estate, and the fact that Durham is the most "affordable" part of the Triangle (because there are so many poor people that could be pushed out -- the analysis just looked at how many middle-class people could afford to live here).  Planners being "we're the people who solve problems" makes them look around in their tool box to see what they can do.
> 
> I think everyone understands that intensifying the use on the land makes the land get more valuable, and there is a lot of whistling in the dark and hoping that you get a slightly higher land value spread over more units (lower cost of housing) as opposed to (higher land value + more granite counters and other upscaling to make the smaller space feel more "worth it") so even spread over more units, a higher cost of housing
> 
> From: INC-list <inc-list-bounces at lists.deltaforce.net> on behalf of Stephen Knill <knillsj at gmail.com>
> Sent: Saturday, September 3, 2022 2:29 PM
> To: Mimi Kessler <mimikessler1 at gmail.com>
> Cc: INC list (for posting) <inc-list at lists.deltaforce.net>
> Subject: Re: [Durham INC] Former Durham planning director "ready to help Raleigh embrace rapid growth"
>  
> Well since our ex Mayor wanted new housing at any cost the current planning director would have to “embrace” rapid development and not necessarily manage it well. We should see if her job description is the same. With a changed crew maybe that job description might have to be updated.  
> 
> 
> Stephen Knill
> Mobile +1 917 620 4941
> knillsj at gmail.com
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On Sep 3, 2022, at 1:38 PM, Mimi Kessler <mimikessler1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Yes, they wanted him to make things like EHC happen as fast as possible -that's why they hired him. And it was through the requisite approvals in record time. At least the public had an opportunity to know that it happened because it was actually covered on local TV news. In Durham, it didn't get a mention. 
>> 
>> Mimi Kessler
>> 919-599-2892
>> 
>> 
>> On Sat, Sep 3, 2022 at 1:24 PM Ed Harrison <edcharrison at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Executive Voice: He’s ready to help Raleigh embrace rapid growth
>> 
>> <https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2022/09/01/raleigh-city-planning-patrick-young-rapid-growth.html?>
>> [currently a paywall is in place]
>> 
>> The headline is in this week’s Triangle Business Journal about one-time Durham Planning Director, Patrick Young, who lived in Raleigh for most if not all of his years working in Durham. 
>> 
>> I’ve dealt with planning directors for many decades. This includes the time (16 yrs) I served on the Chapel Hill Town Council from our Durham County home, in part to make sure that CH and Durham coordinated on the rapid development happening at the western edge of Durham. 
>> 
>> It’s never been my impression that a planning director has a job description that includes an “embrace” of “rapid growth.”  Seems to me that this would minimize the ability to **manage** rapid growth,  something that Triangle local governments certainly need to do.
>> 
>> Ed Harrison
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