Durham pushes vote on new development rules to after the election during chaotic meeting
“When are we going to be allowed to speak?” Mimi Kessler called out from the audience Monday night in City Hall.
The public hearing on changes to Durham’s building code, proposed by developers, had dissolved into chaos after the applicant proposed a 90-day delay.
Mayor Elaine O’Neal called Kessler to the podium so she could be heard over the noise.
“A lot of us came here tonight to have our two or three minutes,” Kessler said. “I don’t hear in your voice and your plan that we’ll be able to talk to you tonight.”
“Yes, yes you will,” O’Neal said. “But not tonight.”
Laughter engulfed the room, which had been packed with residents for the SCAD hearing — short for Simplifying Codes for Affordable Development — since 7 p.m.
The meeting was adjourned five minutes later, before 9:40 p.m., and the hearing postponed until Nov. 20. Only seven people were called upon to speak. Dozens more were in the chambers or tuned in virtually.
Nov. 20 is after the election — voters will choose a new mayor and three City Council members this fall — but before the new council will take its seats.
Asking for an extension
“Here’s the idea: 4% of the ideas, the planning department said they cannot support unless changes are made. We’re willing to make changes,” Durham developer Bob Chapman explained after the meeting.
Chapman, who is working with Raleigh-based developer Jim Anthony, said they were advised by a “well-respected former mayor” to ask for an extension. He declined to name the former mayor.
Anthony said they want to make sure planning staff can get behind more of the proposed changes.
“It was very obvious that there would be a lot of commentary that was irrelevant,” Anthony said late Monday night. “That just became a light that went on for me today.”
Stephen Knill, the cofounder the Leesville Road Coalition concerned about development in southeastern Durham, opposes SCAD.
“I think Jim made a really smart decision,” he said. “I do think it’s clear they’re betting that the new council will be as or more supportive than this one. But who knows? We’ll see who votes.”
What is SCAD?
SCAD was written by a team of real estate professionals and submitted by Anthony in 2022.
It aims to make infill development easier by eliminating parking minimums, encouraging building on small lots, and allowing more creative design of accessory dwelling units and townhomes.
Designer-builders Aaron Lubeck and Dave Olverson, who wrote many of the proposals in SCAD, embrace new urbanism, a design movement that promotes walkable blocks with houses built close to shops and public spaces.
Some of the city’s longtime residents have united against it, suspicious that it could accelerate gentrification, change the look and feel of the city’s oldest neighborhoods and benefit the people who wrote it.
A group of homeowners in the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham have been some of the most prominent voices organizing against SCAD. Kessler and Stephen Knill are both active in the INC.
“The vast majority of SCAD’s provisions have nothing to do with housing affordability,” Knill wrote. “Instead, they are designed to make redevelopment of Durham more profitable for the development community — usually at the expense of Durham’s existing residential communities.”
The planning department recommended most of the changes in SCAD. It tweaked a handful of them and said the rest could be allowed if they are evaluated for unintended consequences when the city rewrites Durham’s unified development code beginning next year.
The largest sticking points that remain center on two proposed amendments:
- Eliminating parking minimums
Last year, Raleigh dropped parking minimums citywide.
“That’s controversial,” Anthony acknowledged. “Durham’s not ready for that. Raleigh was, but Durham’s not.”
Durham planning staff members are largely onboard, they wrote in a detailed analysis provided to city leaders, but they recommend keeping minimums for some infill developments where there is not enough street parking.
- A new affordable housing incentive: Exempts projects of 20 units or less from the requirement to distribute affordable units throughout a development and make them indistinguishable from market-rate units. Builders are only eligible if over 25% of the units are affordable. The bonus allows them to build taller and on smaller lots.
Planning staff recommend the program, called PATH, “in order to make financing easier” but want a commitment to keep the units affordable for longer than the proposed five years.
Anthony told The N&O that five years was always meant to be a negotiating point.
Bonita Green, INC president and candidate for City Council, said the city should accept no less than 30 years.
Postponed until November
The Nov. 20 date penciled in for the City Council vote will make SCAD an election issue.
Four of the sitting City Council members are actively campaigning: DeDreana Freeman and Leonardo Williams are running for mayor (though they’ll hold onto their seats should they lose) and Javiera Caballero and Monique Holsey-Hyman are aiming to keep their seats. Two current members whose terms are ending — O’Neal and Jillian Johnson — are not seeking re-election.
The fields will be narrowed in an Oct. 10 primary before Election Day on Nov. 7.
“People have asked for us to wait for a new council. That’s what I would like to see,” Holsey-Hyman said during the meeting.
Mayor Pro Tem Mark-Anthony Middleton said that was problematic and would be akin to the U.S. Senate refusing to take up Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee in an election year.
“We’ve got about five or six months left on this council. Is there anything else we shouldn’t be doing?” he said sarcastically. “We have a job to do.”
Williams said he is eager to debate the content of SCAD.
“That’s what I thought we were here to do tonight,” he said, visibly frustrated. “We have not had a lot of honest conversations community-wide.”
Many other candidates attended Monday night’s meeting.
“It’s very frustrating because the only person who can make changes to the text is the applicant,” said Sherri Zann Rosenthal, who is running for City Council. “It’s fundamentally antidemocratic.”
Nate Baker also is running for City Council. He voted against SCAD last year in his role as a planning commissioner.
“For complicated, large-scale, land-use changes, we need to trust those who are shepherding it through,” Baker said Monday night, also calling for a delay until the elections are over.
But there are implications beyond Nov. 20 being one of the current council’s last meetings.
“That’s Thanksgiving week,” Kessler said. “How are we going to get people to come out?”
This story was originally published August 22, 2023 at 8:29 AM with the headline "Durham pushes vote on new development rules to after the election during chaotic meeting."
