Citizen’s Rebuttal of Caballero/Ritchie OP-ED:
Ramsay Ritchie, who is employed in the building industry, and Javiera Caballero, a city council member who has voted for developers in over 95% of the development applications decided by the council co-authored an opinion piece in INDY week, published September 25th.
The title of the OP-ED is “We Can’t Address Durham’s Affordable Housing Crisis One Rezoning at a Time.” You don’t need to read the body of their opinion to get their message. In fact, the full piece obscures Ritchie’s and, especially, Caballero’s true objective. They want to end public hearings on development applications which occur “one rezoning at a time”. Shut the public out of development decisions. Even though the council majority approves almost every application they see, Caballero does not want there to be a record of citizens testifying to the damage that has been done and will be done by any particular massive development. When wells are collapsed and foundations cracked by irresponsible blasting, when the runoff from mass graded acres turns waterways into “tomato soup,” when cheaply constructed subdivision houses start falling apart, Caballero and her fellow yessers (Middleton, Rist, and Williams) don’t want a video record of their complicity.
Caballero and Ritchie intentionally don’t spell it out, but what they are really doing is shilling for passage of a pending amendment to the UDO that will universally upzone all of Durham, including land beyond the city limits at least up to the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB). The plan is to rezone all of Durham, and beyond, to allow up to 200,000 new housing units. Height limits and other design requirements will be relaxed if not eliminated. In fact, getting rid of regulations is the point. Because extreme density and every building type will be baked into the UDO, there will be no need for council approval or public input. Almost all development will “by right,” processed behind the closed doors of the planning department. NO PUBLIC HEARINGS, regardless of the size of the project.
Keep in mind Durham has already approved more units in five years than the number both the State Office of Budget and Management and the Durham Planning Department project are needed by the year 2050. Pretty strange that the planning department and the pro-development interests are pushing an upzone to allow 200,000 more units when Durham has already approved enough new units in five years to satisfy the projected need over thirty years.
Also, keep in mind that for the last two years Durham vacancy rates for multi-family rental units have hovered around an astounding 12% (that’s a glut of rental units).
As the numbers prove, (numbers Caballero and Ritchie ignore), counting new units already built, under construction, and already approved, there is no shortage of housing units in Durham. For years we have had far more than enough rental vacancies. If there is an affordability “crisis” it’s due to builders and landlords artificially inflating prices (sometimes while intentionally keeping a percentage of units vacant).
When developers were allowed to write their own ticket to ravage Durham with the SCAD amendments in 2023, we citizens were told giving developers what they wanted would solve the “affordability crisis.” Some of us (I was on the SCAD task force) warned the developers would not be satisfied and would be back for more. Now they, and their council collaborators, are back. The increase in density and decrease in regulation they achieved with SCAD only whetted their appetites. Just in case our elected officials might occasionally be inclined to listen to their public, now they want to eliminate the voices of citizens most affected by their plans.
Keep the council accountable. Save our right to be heard. Preserve public hearings. Change the majority on the council.
See: https://savedurham.com/2025/09/17/vote-this-way/ and
Save Durham 