“Don’t Shut Us Out!,” is former attorney Katie Ross’s message to Durham City Council. 

On September 25, City Council Member Javiera Caballero and affordable housing finance specialist Ramsay Ritchie, released an Op-Ed in INDY week titled “We Can’t Address Durham’s Affordable Housing Crisis One Rezoning at a Time.” 

Ross and other local advocates, many associated with the organization Preserve Rural Durham, which is aimed at conserving and protecting Durham’s land, oppose its messaging. 

Ross, who frequently publishes pieces on her blog, SaveDurham.com, interpreted the underlying message of the piece as an attempt to shut the public out of housing decisions. She argued City Council wants to move rezoning cases forward, out of the public eye, in an attempt to expedite the development process. 

A “pro mass-development” mentality is one without citizen input on individual projects. Ross said this is being seen across the country as an attempt to benefit planning departments, rather than citizens.

Ross said she anticipates this trend toward efficiency won’t cut out the public entirely. It  could, however, lead to citizen perspectives only being heard on “general” policy issues, rather than specific projects. Planning departments will oversee the projects. The public and even elected officials, she predicts, won’t know the extent of the building until the bulldozers arrive. 

“I conservatively estimated that at least double the number of applications are processed within the planning department without any input from the public or the council,” Ross said. 

Justifying this mass-development mentality by claiming it as a pathway to “affordable housing,” Ross added, is off base. With a 12% vacancy rate, and enough units being built to last Durham until 2050, she claimed that Durham isn’t building units to benefit low-income residents.  

Pam Andrews, the president of Preserve Rural Durham, a local organization which pushes back against high-density development without proper infrastructure, said that mass development displaces long-term residents. 

“When you look in the dictionary, besides gentrification, you see Durham as the definition,” Andrews said. “Because it truly is making people leave their homes because they can no longer afford to stay in them.” 

She added that the homes being built aren’t at a price point that average Durham citizens can afford. 

“People who have these large new developments being built beside them saw significant — and I mean doubling and tripling of tax value on your homes — to the point a lot of your elderly people don’t know how they’re going to pay the bill,” Andrews said. 

Additionally, Andrews said that current mass-development poses serious environmental concerns. Damage of local creeks and waterways, specifically sediment pollution, stems from constant development and the rezonings of critical watersheds. 

“There’s not a lot of land left that’s not already developed, or that’s not in a critical watershed area. And even now, they’re coming after some of that area, trying to get variances around it or waivers around it,” Andrews said. 

Andrews said that in Durham’s Lick Creek Watershed alone, over 4,000 acres have been destroyed. 

Members of Preserve Rural Durham consistently advocate at City Council meetings, begging the question “When is enough, enough?” 

Ross added that Unified Development Ordinances (UDOs) have been altered to favor developers, getting rid of the requirement of graphic development plans and replacing them with general descriptions. These descriptions often leave out key details about the area being built upon, both historically and environmentally. 

Without appropriate citizen input and oversight, development cases can lead to lawsuits like Barefoot vs. Durham County, whereRobin Barefoot sued the county for approving a rezoning that broke their own zoning rules and moved to approve development on a “conservation subdivision” called Mason Farms. 

Barefoot said the approval should be voided because the development did not meet all 12 criteria listed in Durham County’s UDO. 

According to Barefoot, the biggest concerns regarding the development revolved around the fact that it would drastically increase traffic in the area, and could negatively impact underground water capacity. This would lead to deforestation and would pollute creeks and rivers that lead to Lake Michie, a Durham water supply. 

A lower court initially favored Durham County, which argued that the 12 criteria were not actual requirements, but various reasons as to why a conservation subdivision may be appropriate. However, the North Carolina Court of Appeals issued an opinion vouching their support for Barefoot.

Following the appeal, Durham County amended their ordinances, ensuring the language served as a guideline rather than a requirement. 

“They’re playing fast and loose with the ordinances,” Barefoot said. 

The appellate court’s opinion, favoring Barefoot, has since been withdrawn.

“[City Council’s] not heeded the legitimate protests and evidence being brought to them,” Barefoot added. 

Barefoot said cases like hers, and the efforts of Preserve Rural Durham, aren’t asking for no development, but more thoughtful development.

Ramsay Ritchie, co-author of the aforementioned op-ed, tends to agree.

Ritchie said that most areas are developed without City Council approval to begin with. His concern was that some of the only times affordable housing in Durham is discussed revolves around these rezoning cases, when the percentage of affordable housing in the parcels being rezoned is debated. 

“If that’s our strategy for increasing affordable housing in Durham, then it’s simply not enough,” Ritchie said.

Ritchie added that creating a “political flashpoint” around certain affordable housing developments, at times somewhat randomly, isn’t addressing the root of the issue. The best way to keep citizens’ rent from increasing is to keep a steady supply of new housing on the market. 

“I don’t think that we should end public hearings,” Ritchie said. “And I want to be really clear again, that is not what the piece was advocating for.”

The point, he said, was that using public hearings to advocate for affordable housing won’t solve the problem. 

Taking a creative and aggressive approach to the issue by adopting strategies like supporting mixed income neighborhood trusts, establishing a housing trust fund, which would provide loans to local developers creating affordable housing, and fast-tracking the city review process, is what Ritchie views as the solution. 

“I think both sides are doing far too little to actually address the fundamental problem,” Ritchie said. “You have one side being like, we just have to build more. You have one side being like, we can’t build more because developers are greedy. And the truth is something in the middle is much more true.” 

Durham City Council Member Caballero said that she’s opposed to the divisiveness being caused by the issue, and that the central takeaway of the op-ed was that housing cannot simply be diminished to rezoning cases.  

Caballero also said that density isn’t something to shy away from, and can help to build a city that feels more accessible to Durham’s residents.

“A 15 minute city won’t be accomplished without density,” she said.  

She added that public hearings are required for rezoning cases, and never under threat of being taken off the table. Additionally, citizen feedback and input was taken into account when creating Durham’s “Comprehensive Plan,” meant to guide city development in a way that meets residents’ needs. 

A plan, she said, that now needs to be honored. 

“We can’t make decisions based on people wanting their neighborhoods to never change.” 

Edited by Harry Crowther and Ada Green