Mayor Bill Bell and urban renewal experts addressed Durham residents’ concerns about plans to redevelop the Southside community at the Hayti Heritage Center Wednesday night.
The redevelopment project will create more than 350 mixed-income housing and retail units and will involve 100 acres of the Rolling Hills and Southside neighborhoods of the Hayti district across from downtown Durham, Bell said. Work is set to commence in August.
“This is a project that has evolved since I was elected mayor in 2001,” Bell said. “It didn’t happen overnight.”
One of the goals of the project is to provide quality and affordable housing to all residents and to create living spaces that would not indicate the income level of the homeowner, Bell said.
He also emphasized the importance of transparency in the construction and development process, reaffirming a statement in an April 6 update on the city of Durham’s Web site.
During the 1960s, the business districts and the oldest neighborhoods of the Hayti district were demolished to make room for the NC-147 expressway. As a result, the district, made up largely of black residents, became increasingly dilapidated.
Durham has since been working alongside the Durham Chamber of Commerce Steering Committee, composed of residents and other community representatives, and with McCormack Baron Salazar, a for-proft St. Louis-based development firm that rebuilds deteriorated communities across the country.
As part of Bell’s project, the city has identified a list of run-down properties around the neighborhood. For each house it identifies, Durham will pursue rehabilitation, clearance or acquisition, Bell said.
Bell also announced that he will not exercise eminent domain, or turn the properties into buildings for public use. He added that eminent domain is only applicable to individual homes and does not allow for the collective takeover of residences.
“We [won’t] make anyone move—if you’re happy where you are, you stay there,” he said.
To complement the project, Bell’s administration will introduce a series of social programs for the Hayti district, said Sandra Moore, president of Urban Strategies, an organization that facilitates community improvement across the country by working with residents and civic leaders.
During a question-and-answer session, Durham resident Zonita Scarlett asked if there will be a significant disparity between new structures and the remaining older buildings.
“We are not going to build houses that are going to be significantly different than the ones that there are now,” said Karl Schlachter, senior vice president of McCormack Baron Salazar.
David Lee, who has lived in Southside for five years, asked what efforts the police force is implementing to make the area safer.
“What are [the] plans to keep people from stealing an [air conditioning unit]?” Lee asked.
Captain Rick Pendergrass of the Durham Police Department said the police presence in Southside Durham has increased in the last few months. He added that residents need to be more involved and report any crime that they might witness.
Pendergrass also noted that the crime rates of Rolling Hills and Southside are not so different from the rest of Durham’s neighborhoods.
“We have the same issues that we’ve got all over town and the district with poverty and violent crime, but this occurs throughout the city,” he said.
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