The Durham County Board of Commissioners voted Monday to decrease the prescribed density of houses and apartments in a northern Durham neighborhood. But most commissioners said they thought the density should be made lower still.
The commissioners amended the existing land use plan for North Durham--which recommends that an area to the north of Hebron Road be used for high-density residential developments--to call for only medium-density development, with four to eight units per acre. New developments that do not meet a land use plan's prescribed density must get special approval from city or county authorities.
Commissioners, neighborhood residents and the potential apartment developer who applied for the change all agreed that the density of the area needed to decrease. But residents and commissioners argued that the density needed to be lower still to prevent low-income single-family homeowners from being overwhelmed by a large number of relatively high-rent apartments--even medium-density ones--springing up around them.
"They are going to be surrounded.... We are going to squeeze these people out with apartments," commissioner Becky Heron said. "That's the right direction, moving from high density to medium density, but we're just not there yet."
Homeowners in the neighborhood, like Lillie Izi, agreed. "We are being squashed out. We are just [treated like] nothing; we are [treated] like the lower-class poor people," Izi said. "All we are asking is to be given the fair chance to live a decent life." She also expressed concern that building new apartments could exacerbate flooding problems in the area.
Although the commissioners agreed that even medium density might be too high, they decided it was better than high density and therefore voted for the amendment even though neighborhood residents had initially asked them to oppose it.
"The old plan will be worse for the neighbors, in my opinion, than the new plan," commissioner Joe Bowser said, explaining that it would allow for even more dense apartments to be built.
So the board directed the county's planning staff to look into the possibility of making the plan call for a lower density, and suggested to residents that it would be wary of approving medium-density apartments in the area, even though the plan now allows for those.
"The applicant must come back, show us his plan, and we will then have to take a vote," board chair MaryAnn Black said.
IN OTHER BUSINESS: The board heard debate on whether to approve a rezoning request for a new 224-unit multifamily development also located in northern Durham, but took no action on it after neighbors raised objections about storm water runoff problems.
The commissioners also approved a site plan for improvements to an old plant in Durham to be made by AW North Carolina, an offshoot of the Japanese automotive manufacturer Aisin AW. Earlier, the county offered a $2 million incentive package to attract the company to the area, a practice that has become increasingly common for local governments to offer to industries.
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