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July Delegate Meeting
First Presbyterian Church
July 27, 2010
Attending the meeting were:
Delegates and Alternates
Burch Avenue – Jennifer Skahen
Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen
Duke Park – Bill Anderson
Long Meadow NA – Chuck Clifton
Old North Durham – Peter Katz
Old West Durham – Brett Walters
Parkwood – Mike Brooks
Watts Hospital Hillandale – Tom Miller
Visitors
Jim Wise – News and Observer
Lorisa Seibel – Durham Affordable Housing Coalition
Jack Preiss – DAHC
Stephen Hopkins – Campaign for Decent Housing
Darius Little – Organizing Chadsford subdivision
Tom Miller opened the meeting. Delegates introduced themselves.
Housing Issues
Lorisa reported that the city is making progress on lien collection; the list is longer but the average amount owed is lower and they are doing smarter targeting on of collection efforts. Also, city has continued to fund special needs housing, not enough but pretty good in a tough budget year.
In other news, the city is looking to put all its federal community grant eggs for years into the future (from CDBG and HOME) into one Rolling Hills/Southside basket, leaving nothing (OK maybe promises) for other areas and for services such as weatherization, Teen Court, and community kitchens. Also, this flies in the face of long-time community efforts to develop 5-year plans based on looking at needs across the entire community. Everyone agrees that Rolling Hills/Southside desperately needs to have something done on it, but we need to find a bigger pot of money (like from the developer?) or scale the work down.
A proposed resolution:
Whereas historically the City and County have used federal HOME and Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) to house the homeless, feed the hungry, and improve the quality of neighborhoods, and
Whereas the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham (INC) supports continued funding for affordable housing and for community services needed by families, youth, disabled, homeless, and residents of working class neighborhoods, and
Whereas the INC believes in honoring plans developed by citizen committees, and
Whereas the City has proposed to redirect most of the federal HOME and CDBG funds to the redevelopment of Rolling Hills/Southside,
Therefore, the INC asks that before committing more funds to the Rolling Hills / Southside redevelopment, City Council and County Commissioners commit to continued funding of affordable housing and community services across Durham.
Billboards
There was an energetic discussion of the PAC meeting that discussed the Billboard Ordinance. The dates to remember are August 2 at City Council and August 9 at the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC).
751 Assemblage Rezoning Report
Tom gave a summary of where we are; we could have had INC meeting in the lobby of the BOCC meeting because so many neighborhoods were represented at the hearing. It’s important that the process works right (in spite of the vigorous attempts of some to mess it up) because no-one will be able to afford appealing the unfairness or blatant illegal aspects of the process because of the cost of the appeal bond.
Other business and neighborhood reports:
· The August meeting will look at forming a committee to do neighborhood awards that celebrate a new class of heroes (eg. maybe public employees)
· The August meeting will have a presentation on assessing how the UDO is doing for neighborhoods.
· Old North Durham got great press from working with a realtor and Calvary United Methodist Church to try to find a buyer for the historic McCracken-Mize house, which has been vacant but has great potential. The neighborhood had a historic water balloon fight as part of an open house for the property
The meeting was adjourned.
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