A Citizen’s Response on the State of Durham
Is Durham “Dope?” That’s what Mayor Leo Williams told us in his State of the City speech, eight months ago.
Was Williams’ characterization of Durham as “dope” accurate?
For developers? Yes, Durham is dope which they buy, repackage, and sell at huge profit. Influential, wealthy, developers literally wrote their own law (SCAD) to enable themselves to further exploit Durham properties within and without the City limits. They achieved their goals of reducing regulation, zoning restrictions, oversight, and costs of development to maximize their own profits. A compliant majority of local electeds accepted the developers’ pitch that SCAD, and removal of all obstacles to development, is a panacea for housing ills. So, yes, developers are high on Durham.
Developers’ success in removing environmental and zoning regulations in Durham reminds me of big pharma “influencing” federal law makers:
… big pharmafought to create legislation that would limit the DEA’s ability to go after drug wholesalers. The efforts were effective; more than 100 billion pills were manufactured, distributed and dispensed between 2006 and 2014, during the height of the opioid epidemic.
Yes, Durham is dope for developers, and dope money talks.
For small business? Durham is bad dope. Small businesses in the City are closing as downtown construction blocks streets and makes parking impossible. Customers don’t want to shop, eat, or party in construction zones. Business owners have begged the City for help to no avail. Developers are making millions plundering Durham but Durham officials don’t hold them accountable for the harm construction is doing to its citizens and existing businesses.
For City residents? Durham is dope sick. Unchecked development has degraded the quality of life for many long time Durham residents. Planned gentrification has raised taxes and rents in formerly affordable neighborhoods, forcing residents to move away from their family homes. Older homes on treed lots are replaced with tightly packed urban houses on “flagpole” lots. Building on or paving every square inch of residential lots creates treeless neighborhood heat zones. Developers are building many of these small lot houses to rent at rates far higher than existing residents can afford. This is not helping families to build generational wealth. This is intentional. SCAD point man, Jim Anthony, candidly stated, “gentrification is necessary to erase the ‘blight,’” The Indy 09/06/2023.
For County residents? Durham is a bad trip. Longtime residents’ lives are upended by rabid development. Local roads, inundated with new traffic, have become wreck zones. Sidewalks are few and not required. Walking or biking is dangerous. Forests and the animals they shelter are ruthlessly eliminated.
Residents’ homes and wells are cracked and collapsed by irresponsible construction blasting. Blasting victims on Junction Road have been without drinkable water for almost two years, and they are not alone in being harmed. Neither City nor County officials have helped. The blasters smirk knowing very few victims can afford to hire lawyers. Even if a blasting victim can afford to pursue a lawsuit, it will take years for a court decision during which the victim will have no water (like the Junction Road residents). If a victim wins in court, the many tens of thousands of dollars a blast victim must pay for attorney fees and expert opinions are not required to be reimbursed by the guilty parties under North Carolina law. Knowing this, developers stonewall construction victims, confident that injured residents will spend whatever resources they have to repair their wells and homes while the developers laugh their way to the bank.
To meet developers’ insatiable craving for more, the City readily approves urban metastasis beyond City limits (and into the Future Growth Area). For the council majority it seems Durham’s Comprehensive Plan is only a pacifier for the masses, honored in the breach. Objections from Durham’s volunteer Planning Commission, composed of citizens with a strong interest in Durham and educational and professional expertise in relevant aspects of urban planning, are routinely ignored by the council majority. Like the Comprehensive Plan, the Planning Commission is seen by the City Council majority, and developers, as a show for the public, not to be taken seriously.
https://abc11.com/post/virgil-road-development-durham-planning-commission-member-tony/14966371/
Too much is not enough: Developers jones for more of Durham. A few years ago, southeast Durham was known for its woods and farmland. Its waterways were welcoming escapes for swimming and fishing. Now, former country roads feature bumper to bumper traffic. Where woods and farms recently thrived, there are now tightly packed townhouses. Aerial views reveal massive red dirt scabs and scars on deforested land. Tomato soup flows. As developers have consumed almost all available land in southeast Durham, north Durham fearfully anticipates voracious developers coming for north County woods and farmlands. It’s already started (i.e. Latta Park within the Urban Growth Boundary and Mason Farms in north County). The conservation subdivision ordinance was intended by lawmakers to protect rural parts of the county but it was gutted last year in a developer friendly amendment requested by the Planning Department.
For the environment and future livability? Durham is toxic. Precious waterways and reservoirs are polluted with construction runoff sediment. This is our drinking, bathing, fishing, recreational water. Our electeds do nothing to hold developers responsible for the degradation of our water. Some electeds belittle the scientific evidence. One council member blames trees.
The pro-developer electeds claim they allow all the above in service of “affordable housing.” They know, but ignore, the fact that the combined number of housing units built, under construction, and already approved since 2020 meets or exceeds the Planning Department’s projection that Durham will need 60,000 new units by the year 2050. In other words, in less than five years Durham has approved developers’ applications to build the number of new housing units Durham is projected to need in thirty years. Furthermore, there is a huge and growing glut of rental units. According to the Triangle Apartment Association rental vacancy rates are ideal at 3%, to balance need with supply. In Durham the vacancy rate is now an astounding 12.9%.
See also: https://bcpi.substack.com/p/is-there-a-housing-shortage-in-durham.
Yet, the council majority continues to encourage and approve virtually every new annexation and rezoning application. Many more building applications are approved administratively behind the closed doors of the Planning Department without any public input. When questioned, Durham officials say they are “balancing” the need for more housing against gentrification, environmental, traffic, and other concerns. Since Durham is already overbuilt (see above), the only need apparently served is developers’ need to acquire, grade, sell and profit.
Detoxing? In his Dope speech, Mayor Williams concluded by saying “problems faced by our community are solvable…” What have he and his pro-developer Council cohorts (Middleton, Caballero and Rist) done to solve any of the problems raised here?
Correct information is a necessary foundation for recovery. It’s time for a pause in applications to study the damage being done and what efforts may mitigate the harm. Durham should seek public input from uninvolved explosives engineers, hydrologists, wildlife experts, and other appropriate experts readily available in our local universities. At the same time, electeds should hear publicly from insurance experts and plaintiffs’ attorneys as to why the developers deny liability, even in obvious cases such as Junction Road, and why expecting blasting victims to bring private lawsuits for justice is both callous and futile.
Durham offering waterless blasting victims a connection to City water for a cost of $600,000 is contemptible. Why aren’t the developers and blasters who cause the damage required to pay for the remedy? If holding developers directly responsible cannot be done under current law, then application fees should be raised so local government can extend the necessary remedial services without burdening taxpayers. If new ordinances are needed, get drafting.
Interestingly, Williams announced he was launching “industry-specific and self -sustaining mayoral guilds whose purpose is to advise [him] while designing plans for the short and long term implementation of our community’s priorities.” (Are those a thing? Are they different from lobbying groups?) Mayor Williams, will you launch a citizen’s guild or guilds to advise you on the issues raised here. I know many active citizens who will gladly volunteer and would appreciate having more than two minutes to explain how Durham can be “the best place to live, work, and play,” a great environment for everyone, not just developers and their LLC investors. That would be dope.
Katie Ross
Save Durham 