[Durham INC] Resending DRAFT minutes for October INC meeting

Fri Nov 25 06:32:47 EST 2022

I am resending the DRAFT October minutes in advance of the meeting on Tuesday
________________________________
From: INC-list <inc-list-bounces at lists.deltaforce.net> on behalf of Pat Carstensen <pats1717 at hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, November 4, 2022 6:23 PM
To: inc listserv <inc-list at lists.deltaforce.net>
Subject: [Durham INC] DRAFT minutes for October meeting

Please let me know about changes or additions.  Thanks, pat

October Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham

Via Zoom

October 25, 2022

Attending the meeting were:

Neighborhoods

Bragtown – Vannessa Mason Evans

Burch Avenue – Richard Ziglar

Colony Park – Don Lebkes

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen

Leesville Road Coalition – Steven Knill

Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias

Merrick-Moore – Bonita Green

Morehead Hill – Rochelle Araujo, Bruce Mitchell

Old Farm – Trey Gilmore

Old North Durham – Mimi O’Brien

Trinity Park – Mimi Kessler

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell

Watts Hospital Hillandale – Tom Miller

Guests

Jim Anthony

Javis Martin

Frank Hyman

Jessica Sheffield – Eno River Association

Tiffany Elder

Eliza Mathew – Duke Partner Neighborhoods

Dave Olverson

Steve Toler

Nicole Tyra – Habitat for Humanity

Dot Doyle

Mary Helen Moore – News and Observer

Leonardo Williams – Durham City Council

Debra Hawkins – Communications Committee

President Bonita Green called the meeting to order and welcomed everyone; those present introduced themselves.  There were no adjustments to the agenda.

SCAD Amendment to UDO with Jim Anthony – Mr. Anthony said there has been no “conspiracy” with the Planning Department, and the proposing team has used paid consultants but no lawyers.  Mr. Anthony was not a leader on Expanding Housing Choices but thinks it has been good for Durham.  The Planning Commission created a subcommittee to work on the proposed text amendment; the subcommittee has been making a lot of changes and will bring the proposal back in December.  The text amendment has a lot of pieces, and the proponents gave details on only the big pieces.  Some of the issues they wanted to address are that entry-level houses aren’t being built, small business are not able to own their own premises, and the process is complex for simple projects, making small projects too risky.  Some of their solution include eliminating minimal parking requirements, creating a commercial infill code to make neighborhood commercial mixed-use more feasible (which would create more commercial spaces for small business), and allowing affordable housing to break up the ownership of what would be an ADU/duplex complex.  Responses from the audience included:

  *   Unfortunately, the proposal relaxes code across the board, and it isn’t likely that the worthy people that the team talks about will be the ones who can afford to take advantage of the changes, because these worthy developments are not where the money is.

  *   John Killeen’s data is showing that Enhancing Housing Choices has created a lot of housing, but it generally is not for entry-level, working-class home-owners.

  *   Changing the zoning doesn’t create a desirable neighborhood; investing in the infrastructure / streetscape does.

  *   What has happened around Guglhupf shows that restaurants often have a regional draw and customers will need to park their cars somewhere (probably blocking someone’s driveway).  We don’t have a lot of alternatives to cars in Durham County – and won’t them for years – so we should not pretend that we can snap our fingers and make the need for parking disappear (response: look at the rise of ride-sharing).

There was a discussion of next steps in terms of how to delve into the details of what is being proposed, in order to enlarge the community of people looking what is being proposed.  Mimi Kessler agreed to contact Tony Seese, who is chairing the subcommittee on the Planning Commission regarding this proposal.

Tom moved to approve the September minutes and seconded by Mimi O’Brien.  This passed.

We are talking to the Duke Clinic about implementing the changed bylaws.

Report of the Nominations Committee for INC Slate for the next year -- The committee has nominated:

President: Bonita Green

Vice President: Stephen Knill

Secretary: Pat Carstensen

Treasurer: Susan Sewell

At Large: Pakis Besais, Vannessa Mason-Evans, Sarah Morris

There were no additional nominations from the floor.  There being none, Tom moved to close the nominations, Mimi O’Brien seconded.  Tom moved the slate by acclamation, which passed.

A proposed letter in support of Hayti Reborn was sent with the agenda.  Tom moved to authorize the letter and have leaders send it to appropriate parties.  Susan seconded and it passed.

Frank Hyman talked about the continued issue of rental houses full of poorly-behaved Duke students.  This probably represents as many as 500 houses in transit-friendly areas.  A solution might be to build more housing on Central Campus for these undergraduates and require more students to live on campus; this would free up a significant amount of housing.  He would be happy to talk to any neighborhoods that is interested in the idea.  His contact is frankhyman2020 at yahoo.com<mailto:frankhyman2020 at yahoo.com>.

Jessica from the Eno River Association (ERA) talked about the tenant issue that has been in the news. ERA is  a community land trust, protecting land for a number of reasons; they have been around a long time.  Mostly they buy land and transfer it to entities like State Parks, supporting a continued increase in the  property of the state parks.    On Open Air Camp Road, they bought 8 parcels of land, 7 of which had single family houses, over 25 years ago, intending to turn those properties over to the park when conditions were right; those properties are in the long-term plans for the park.  In the interim, they have been using a property management company to manage the rental of the houses.  The rent on the houses was very affordable and the tenants had the impression that they could stay in those houses indefinitely.  State Parks had a windfall of money to add to parkland, and the Eno River Association was going to transfer the properties to the Parks, which wanted to have some of the houses for their staff.  The abruptness of the end of the ability to live in the houses has been very upsetting to the tenants; ERA has been listening to families and extending the leases (rent-free) and generally trying to work with the tenants.  Jessica’s contacts are jessica at enoriver.org and 919-451-1578.

Burch Avenue Neighborhood approved a formal position opposing Duke’s rezoning of 400 Gaddis Street (“the old laundry”).  Duke has committed not to put a clinic, a hospital or a sports facility there.  With the drop-off for Immaculata, the traffic in the area is already bad.  Burch Avenue has a lot of small kids on bikes in the streets.  They are concerned about Duke putting a parking structure there. Duke wouldn’t need to do a traffic study if they got the rezoning approved (with SCAD, there would be no more traffic studies for anything).    The overall zoning request has been split into a East and West part, and Duke has dropped one property in Crest Street area and another Burch Avenue property.  Richard asked INC and individual neighborhoods to make comments (using Planning’s comment site).

Leesville Road – At the last public hearing on annexation, it was revealed there is no more fire-fighting capacity in SE Durham for new development, as well as concerns about speed to fire trucks can maintain with the traffic in the area.  They are also interested in how the ward system works – do we get better or worse representation with our at-large election for people with residency requirement.

Debra – The final food truck rodeo in Northgate Park is this Thursday; you can see the results of the pumpkin-carving contest this weekend.

Everyone was urged to go vote.

The next meeting will combine November and December, on November 29th.

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