From Tom Miller, former planning commissioner and member of Mayor’s SCAD Task Force;
About SCAD Task Force Convened
This is the fifth of a series of short pieces about problems with SCAD. What is SCAD? It is a developer-proposed re-write of Durham’s zoning code or “UDO.” The SCAD acronym was coined by the developers to stand for “Simplified Codes for Affordable Development.” Of course, this naming is strategic because it is meant to make us think SCAD is about affordable housing. While there are a couple of things in SCAD that are directed toward affordability, most of SCAD’s provisions have nothing to do with housing affordability. Instead, they are designed to allow developers to build more, bigger, and higher. It will make redevelopment of Durham more profitable for the development community – usually at the expense of Durham’s environment and residential quality of life.
In August, the Durham City Council opened a scheduled public hearing preparatory to voting on SCAD. The council chambers were filled with SCAD opponents signed up to speak. After just a few speakers, the lead SCAD proponent, Raleigh developer Jim Anthony, asked for a ninety-day delay. He suggested that perhaps the proposal could be studied by a “Task Force” of interested citizens. The council granted Anthony’s request and a number of citizens in the room signed up to be considered for the task force. Nothing happened for about six weeks until mid-October when the city announced the appointment of a SCAD task force made up of about a dozen citizens evenly divided between proponents and opponents.
Three meetings were held during the week of October 23rd. Mayor O’Neal and council members Freeman and Williams shared the gavel. Discussion during the meetings consisted mainly of opponents expressing their concerns about SCAD and proponents dismissing them. No areas of real agreement were identified and the group was not able to get much into the details of the proposal. SCAD is very fine grained and multilayered. Two things did emerge from the meetings, though. First, the only thing that the developers offered to eliminate from SCAD is its program for affordable housing. Because of the shortness of its period of affordability – just five years for rental units and one sale for ownership units, SCAD’s affordability program has been criticized even by Durham’s housing nonprofits. The second thing SCAD’s developer proponents revealed is that they have a number of real, on-the-ground, projects lined up waiting for SCAD to pass. This news was disturbing to SCAD’s opponents. Over and again, they asked the developers to say where these projects are and what they planned to build on them, but they got no response.
To SCAD’s opponents, these two revelations indicate that for the developers, affordable housing is just window-dressing. Of all of SCAD’s provisions, affordable housing is the only item they are willing to abandon. SCAD isn’t about housing affordability; it is really about getting the developer’s lined-up projects passed without public scrutiny. Instead of asking for conventional rezonings, they have asked that the whole zoning code be rewritten. All rezonings are legislative actions. A rezoning is someone’s request to change the public law to their private advantage. In an ordinary rezoning, i.e., a change of a property from one zone to another, the public learns about the project and what the developer has in mind. Neighbors get notified. There’s a public hearing about the project. The public can measure the impact of the project against the public’s interest. Rather than change the zoning and face public scrutiny and oversight, SCAD’s proponents prefer to just change the rules and keep their projects secret.
The developers have argued (with some planning staff support) that we should adopt SCAD blindly and measure the impacts afterwards. But now that the developers admit that they have projects waiting in the wings, wouldn’t it be better to know what the projects are and measure their impacts and SCAD’s impacts before we adopt the developer’s changes? Don’t the neighbors of these projects have the right to know about them?
Durham has just put together a new comprehensive plan and has already begun the process to completely rewrite the zoning code to conform to the new plan. Planning and code writing consultants have been hired. Citizen focus groups have been created and are meeting. The process is open. Everyone is represented at the table. SCAD opponents are asking why are we considering SCAD at all? Why would we change the current code in its twilight at the request of a handful of private developers to benefit their undisclosed projects just before changing the rules all over again? Where is the public interest in this?
At the conclusion of the third task force meeting, there was some discussion of holding more meetings, but no more meetings have been scheduled. The city council is supposed to take SCAD up again at its meeting on Monday, November 20. If SCAD concerns you, let the council know how you feel. You can e-mail Mayor O’Neal and the council members at Email the Council Members. Please make sure your messages clear and polite. Come to the council meeting Monday evening and sign up to speak. The meeting convenes at 7 p.m.
Walltown neighbors on SCAD:
Dear Walltown neighbors and Durham residents,
The Walltown Community Association is calling on Durham residents to tell City Council to vote down the controversial and undemocratic zoning amendment called SCAD.
SCAD is a major rewrite of Durham’s zoning laws that was written by a small group of developers, who refused to incorporate most suggestions from Durham’s residents. Walltown is likely to be a target location for many new SCAD developments. For Walltown residents, some of the main concerns with SCAD are:
· False affordability. New affordable rental units would only have to be affordable for 5 years, and affordable for-sale units only have to be affordable for the first sale. But developers would still get affordable housing incentives from the city! This means your tax dollars will be subsidizing market-rate housing in Durham.
· Removal of buffers protecting homes from new developments. Buffers reduce the impacts if a large apartment building or a bar is built next to your house by requiring the buildings be set back from the property line. SCAD removes all buffers for large residential buildings, so something like a 5-story apartment building could be built just a few feet from the property line, and lets many commercial developments, including bars, be built without the larger buffers currently required when next to a house.
· SCAD will accelerate gentrification and displacement in Black and working-class neighborhoods. As members of the Fayetteville Street Corridor Planning Group have highlighted: “while the SCAD amendment would create more density, this density will not be evenly distributed throughout the city/county.” Read more on their opinion here.
· SCAD was written behind closed doors. The public was not allowed to give input until after they had written SCAD and discussed it with the City’s Planning Department. They even used Habitat for Humanity’s name on the proposal without their approval! And they have made no changes to the affordability requirements–despite the community demanding this over and over for more than a year. (Read more about this in the summary from a SCAD Task Force member ) Durham is almost finished with its new Comprehensive Plan, which has engaged thousands of Durham residents. The Comprehensive Plan should be the document we use to guide changes to the UDO (Unified Development Ordinance), not SCAD.
SCAD is so long and complex, City Planning has spent days and days of staff time evaluating it, much more than the $4,396 application fee the developers paid to submit SCAD. This means Durham taxpayers have subsidized the review of a plan we don’t want, and they won’t listen to our input on.
This is not how democracy should work, and we need to tell City Council to Say No to SCAD! We are calling on the City Council to reject SCAD during their Monday, November 20th public hearing. It currently looks like a close vote, so Walltown is asking Durham residents to do 2 things:
1. Fill up City Council chambers for the public hearing on Monday, November 20th at 7 pm. You can register to speak here (in person or remote). Whether or not you attend in person, you can also provide written comments to the City Council.
2. Contact the Mayor and other Councilmembers to let them know you disapprove of SCAD. You can email the entire council at council@durhamnc.gov or using the individual contact information below (see also City directory).
· Elaine O’Neal (Mayor): 919-560-4333, ext. 10269; elaine.oneal@durhamnc.gov
· Javiera Caballero: 919-560-4396, ext. 10272; Javiera.Caballero@durhamnc.gov
· DeDreana Freeman: 919-560-4396, ext. 10276; DeDreana.Freeman@durhamnc.gov
· Jillian Johnson: 919-560-4396, ext. 10278; jillian.johnson@durhamnc.gov
· Mark-Anthony Middleton: 919-560-4396, ext. 10277; mark-anthony.middleton@durhamnc.gov
· Monique Holsey-Hyman: 919-560-4396, ext. 10274; Monique.Hyman@durhamnc.gov
· Leonardo Williams: 919-560-4396, ext. 10273; Leonardo.Williams@durhamnc.gov
Thank you for your time and support. Please let us know if you want to learn more or help the Walltown Community Association make our voices heard.
On behalf of the Walltown Community Association,
Rafe Mazer
Save Durham 