Durham residents confront city council over DHA’s plans for Fayette Place in Hayti
Dozens of Durham residents filled the pews of Monument of Faith Church in Durham’s historic Hayti neighborhood Monday night for a special City Council meeting.
They came to say their piece on the Durham Housing Authority’s plans for developing the rubble-ridden, 20-acre Fayette Place property off Fayetteville Street, between downtown and N.C. Central University.
“This is an important topic for us to talk about,” Mayor Elaine O’Neal said. “We are here for a community conversation with Hayti.”
Anthony Scott, chief executive officer of the housing authority, explained the nearly $189 million plan for 774 housing units and 21,600 square feet of commercial space.
He described the steps the authority took to select its project partner, Durham Development Partners, a joint venture team of F7 International Development, Greystone Affordable Development, and Gilbane Development Co.
Since the decision was announced in January, people have asked DHA to rescind its plan and reconsider a proposal it rejected: one named Hayti Reborn that reimagined Fayette Place as a hub for Black business and equity research that also included housing.
Then and again Monday night, DHA was criticized for a perceived lack of community involvement.
“The last meeting (before the Request for Proposals) we had was May 21, 2018, for the Fayette Place site in which we got the last round of collective feedback,” when people requested more housing and a grocery store included the current proposal, Scott said.
After Scott’s presentation, more than 20 residents spoke, with the allotted 60 minutes for comments running over by about a half-hour.
The majority of the speakers addressed the urban renewal project that destroyed hundreds of Black-owned businesses and homes in Hayti for the construction of the Durham Freeway in the 1960s and ‘70s.
“Fayette Place is my concern,” said Gordon Matthewson, a Hayti native. “The people who lived in this community know before urban renewal, before the Durham (Freeway) was going to cut through a predominantly Black neighborhood, this was a thriving Black community.”
Several speakers said DHA’s current development plan will likely cause history to repeat itself.
“This slideshow presentation is an example for why we need to establish equitable processes in this City of Durham,” said Angel Iset Dozier, who has lived in Hayti for 23 years. “Displacement of people is a crime which the city of Durham will repeat if this process to award this developer — this contract —doesn’t stop now.”
Lavonia Allison, a longtime former leader of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, also criticized DHA’s plan.
“Those 20 acres have got to be used for the benefit of Black folks who have lost everything,” Allison said. “We cannot turn it over to the housing authority. It will not be successful.”
Two people who signed up to speak yielded their time to NC Central University professor Henry McKoy, the leader of Hayti Reborn, the group whose proposal was rejected.
“Hopefully some folks don’t think this is sore-loser syndrome,” he said. “For me, this is about the future of this community. I have no doubt that with 774 apartments across the street here, what you will end up with is a gentrified Fayette Place and Fayetteville Street.
“It’s just going to put a nail in the coffin,” McKoy said.
‘The input that we need’
After the public comment section, Scott responded to the community’s feedback. He brought up a previous community meeting requested by Durham CAN (Congregations, Associations and Neighborhoods) which, he said, asked the housing authority “to commit to Fayette Place being housing.”
“I am encouraged — not disappointed — by what I’ve heard, because this is what we need,” Scott said. “This is the input that we need in order to see a more successful development over there. Because, at the end of the day, the residents of Hayti need to be benefiting from that site first and foremost.”
While no clear course of action was indicated, after hearing the community’s pleas, Durham City Council members DeDreana Freeman and newly appointed Monique Holsey-Hyman said they were concerned about what they heard and would push to make sure that residents’ voices are heard moving forward.
Mayor pro tem Mark Anthony Middleton took a different approach in his closing remarks, telling the community that the selection process was out of their reach and that the purpose of Fayette Place as a DHA property was always meant to be housing.
“We don’t have the authority to cherry-pick an RFP,” he said. “If we find that this process has been corrupted somehow, then there should be action taken.”
O’Neal closed the meeting with a fervid speech about her upbringing in Durham’s Black community repeatedly stating, “I am Durham.” She asserted her intent to see Hayti “go back to what it was,” and pledged to continue meeting with residents to “get it done.”
What’s next
DHA will hold a second community meeting to meet the Fayette Place developers at 6 p.m. Thursday, June 16, at the W.G. Pearson Center, 600 E. Umstead St. Two other meetings are scheduled for July 14 and 28.
Laura Brache is a Report for America corps member and covers diverse communities for The News & Observer and The Herald Sun.
This story was originally published June 14, 2022 at 12:22 PM with the headline "Durham residents confront city council over DHA’s plans for Fayette Place in Hayti."
