Fayetteville Street Planning Group
908 Fayetteville Street Suite 201
Durham, NC 27701
ph: 919-680-2878
info
What's Up on Fayetteville Street in 2011?
It has been over a year since the Fayetteville Street Planning Group and other community organizations such as Unity in the Community for Progress called for the City of Durham (City) to remove the blight designation from properties in Southside that occurred at its January 12, 2010 Planning Commission meeting. Although community groups have continued to press the City to reconsider its redevelopment plan for Southside and declare the area a rehabilitation area, the City has declined to do so. The City has also neglected to share key facts about its proposed redevelopment plan with citizens which could lead to eminent domain abuse.
First, the City has not yet presented its redevelopment plan but has only advanced the plans of its two developers -- McCormack Baron Salazar and Self-Help. This is a key fact since the City's redevelopment plan must be approved by the Durham City/County Planning Commission as a requirement of the State of North Carolina. The only plans that have been presented to the public so far have been the two developers' plans.
Second, the City has still not officially notified Southside property owners about the blight designation and rating that it placed on their properties. In fact, the City has never provided a copy of the public notice for the blight hearing that the UCP requested over a year ago on January 21, 2010. The blight designation was applied to 451 parcels of property in the Southside community without the community's knowledge. This means that property owners may have been denied the opportunity to publicly object to the blight designation being placed on private property without the owner's knowledge. Blight is defined by NC State Urban Redevelopment Law as …..
"Blighted area" shall mean an area in which there is a predominance of buildings or improvements (or which is predominantly residential in character) and which…substantially impairs the sound growth of the community, is conducive to ill health, transmission of disease, infant mortality, juvenile delinquency and crime, and is detrimental to the public health, safety, morals or welfare…”
Third, the City has not told property owners that the blight designation is the first step toward including their property and the Southside community in a redevelopment area. Even so, twenty one property owners in Southside sent signed letters to the city in October of 2010 requesting that the blight designation be removed from their homes and property -- but have received no response to this specific request.
Fourth, the City has not told property owners that inclusion in a redevelopment area gives the City the right to use eminent domain in certain cases to force property owners to sell their property – whether property owners want to sell or not. The City has the right to use eminent domain in a redevelopment area as a result of “enabling legislation” from the State of North Carolina and blight is the trigger that starts the redevelopment process rolling. Another way to describe this threat is:
Blight + Redevelopment Plan = Right of EMINENT DOMAIN for economic development
In light of the City’s failure to provide information to property owners about its proposed redevelopment plan, we wonder what else the City is not telling property owners?
The City is not telling property owners that its “new vision” for Southside may not include current property owners. Here’s why. If the City approves a redevelopment plan and decides that it wants a particular property, the City could use eminent domain to force property owners to sell. Despite verbal promises that it will not use eminent domain, the simple truth is that the City will have the legal power to take a property if the redevelopment plan for Southside is approved.
The City is not telling property owners that it has used eminent domain in another redevelopment area. The City used eminent domain in its Eastway Village (formerly Barnes Avenue) redevelopment area to force a resident to sell her property for $ 20,300.00. This action is reflected in the city council minutes dated August 16, 2004 (page 7). This means there is already a precedent for the City’s using eminent domain in a redevelopment area.
The City is not telling property owners that the blight designation may lower property values in the blighted area. This means property owners would get less for their property – even if property owners wanted to sell – because other properties have also been blighted and reduced in value. So after the City has devalued properties with the blight designation, it could force property owners to sell for even less through the eminent domain process. The blight designation also discourages people from improving their homes out of fear and uncertainty that their homes might be taken in the future by eminent domain – thus speeding up a community’s decline.
The City is not telling property owners how to remove the blight designation from their properties. City Manager Tom Bonfield failed to provide an answer to this question in his Dec. 15, 2010 response to the UCP’s Oct. 19, 2010 letter to him.
The City is not telling property owners whether rehabbing properties will remove the blight designation. Although we have heard that the City is offering money to rehab Southside residents’ properties, the city manager also did not answer this question. Allowing Southside residents to spend rehab money on homes potentially slated for removal is a false promise.
The City is moving ahead with its redevelopment plan because its financing depends on the approval of Southside as a redevelopment area with the right of eminent domain.
We encourage property owners to attend the city council work session to hear the council's discussion on the redevelopment of Southside/ Rolling Hills. The meeting will be held on Thursday, April 7, 2011 at 9:00 am at City Hall (second floor conference room).
We encourage all property owners and interested citizens to attend to hear the discussion to gain a better understanding of the redevelopment process and to learn how your property might be affected by the city's plans. A copy of the City’s blighted property list by street address showing the blight rating for all the blighted Southside properties can be found here.
Ms. Robinson's discussion focused on the efforts of her organization, the Chicago-based Bronzeville Community Development Partnership, to revitalize this historic African American community in that city. After a thorough discussion of the challenges her group encountered, Ms. Robinson shared information and recommendations about preserving African American communities that are under threat of disappearing.
City's Land Use Update Resumes for Fayetteville Street Corridor
The City of Durham's land use update for the Fayetteville Street corridor resumed on February 24, 2011 with a review of public input from two meetings held in 2010. Members of the Fayetteville Street Planning Group, other community organizations and interested individuals attended the review session which was well attended by all counts.
It is important to note that the Fayetteville Street Plan first proposed land use and zoning changes six years ago in 2005 and that this plan was submitted to the City of Durham for review and approval. It is unfortunate that the city has taken a piece-meal approach to the Fayetteville Street Plan's comprehensive approach to planning with the ultimate goal of ensuring the continued growth of the Fayetteville Street corridor and its surrounding neighborhoods in a neighborhood-friendly context.
An initial review of the 2011 draft document yielded corrections, concerns and questions. Some of the initial comments are listed below. Overall, the move toward maintaining the land use and zoning of the Fayetteville Street corridor for residential use is a good one. But questions and concerns remain on some of the draft plan's proposals, particularly when resolving inconsistencies between land use, zoning and current uses. Written comments will be provided after group members have completed their review of all pertinent issues and concerns.
Concerns
The draft plan's proposal that the Scarborough property's land use and zoning become Office & Institutional (O & I) does not allow the owner to use the property as a funeral home or mortuary -- its family business for over 100 years. This is of great concern since one of the fundamental property rights in this country is an owner's right to utilize his/her property for their beneift. The proposed designation of O & I does not allow the owner to do this for the family's 100+ year old funeral business, which is not only the oldest African American business in Durham but a community treasure due to its longevity while under the threat of continued relocation.
A funeral home is considered a “retail use” and is permitted under the Commercial Neighborhood (CN) designation. Additinally, commercial parking is not permitted in CN but is allowed in O & I, which is problematic in several ways. We urge the city to look at ways to balance the owner's benefits with those of the surrounding community in considering designations other than O & I. Other concerns involving O & I land use/zoning are:
- Commercial parking is allowed under O & I zoning and would not be compatible with the surrounding residential community. CN zoning does not allow commercial parking and might be a better choice.
- Some O & I uses may be too intense for the neighborhood and generate more traffic than the street grid would allow -- such as government offices and banks in this particular section of Fayetteville Street.
- It is NOT TRUE that the community’s preference was O & I for the Scarborough property. The ability of the family to use the property for a funeral home/mortuary was raised at both of the previous public meetings by Fayetteville Street Group members and marked on one of the land use maps.
Add “businesses” to list of stakeholders in first paragraph of Introduction (page 1).
Add “local business development” to last paragraph about plan compatibility with historic Fayetteville Street neighborhood (page 1).
Corrections
1. Fayetteville Street Plan was completed in 2005 (not 2004)
2. Change “Simmons St.” to “Umstead St.” as the northern boundary for the Fayetteville Street Local Historic District
Need More Information
1. List the properties in the local historic district that meet the 20,000 SF threshold for O & I zoning (this assumes all others would not)
A copy of the Fayetteville Street - University Land Use Update Draft can be found here.
A copy of the Fayetteville Street Neighborhood Master Plan can be found here.
Blight label used by City to secure bonus points for City's developer
Fayetteville Street community members discovered, through talks with the NC Housing Finance Agency (who is providing tax credits for the McCormack Baron Salazar), that the Rolling Hills/Southside neighborhoods were blighted just so that developer could score "bonus points" on its tax credit application. Imagine, blighting an entire community so that one developer could improve its financial outcomes.
This is fact and was confirmed by then-City Housing Department Director Michael Barros in the Herald-Sun:
"Having an area declared blighted adds bonus points" to applications for low-income housing tax credits, which officials hope to use to help pay for the Rolling Hills project, Community Development Director Mike Barros said. "It was done for that reason." (Our bold italics)
Although Fayetteville Street advocates brought this fact to the attention of the Durham City Council on, our request to remove the blight designation was ignored again and the council approved the financing for its developer. The City's land use and rezoning for the Fayetteville Street local historic district concluded on September 19, 2011 with a unanimous vote of all city city council members in attendance. The bulk of the changes had been agreed on in prior sessions but neighborhood advocates still opposed the inclusion of University-College zoning (UC2) for North Carolina Central University without a thorough discussion of the changes and their impacts on surrounding property owners.
908 Fayetteville Street Suite 201
Durham, NC 27701
ph: 919-680-2878
info
