Durham City Council approved construction on newly annexed land within city limits and recognized changes to the conditional development of Lyons Farm Elementary School at its Monday evening meeting.
Approval of new developments
Over 800 new apartments were approved to be built in Durham city limits Monday.
The first property, located at 5802 South Miami Blvd., is an infill development site in Morrisville between Raleigh-Durham International Airport and Research Triangle Park.
The developer appeared before the council twice prior to Monday’s meeting. Both times, the development request was deferred back to the city planning commission for further deliberation. The developer ultimately amended the plan to accommodate increased affordable housing and upgraded environmental standards.
In spite of the upgraded development plan, council members continued to raise concerns over the affordability of the units. Of the proposed 432 multifamily residential units, only 15 are income-restricted, making up just 3.5% of the total units. Council members noted that new developments typically include “5% at a minimum” affordable units.
“3.5% is laughable,” said City Council member DeDreana Freeman.
Council members also voiced concerns over the walkability of the neighborhood where the housing units were proposed to be sited.
“I'm looking for 15-minute walking neighborhoods,” said City Council member Chelsea Cook. “That is a huge priority that Durham has, and that means you have all of the things that you really need — pharmacy, grocery store, childcare — within a 15-minute walk of the place that you live.”
Freeman questioned how the new property would impact schools in the surrounding area, noting that the construction could affect children’s ability to “navigate that space” when walking or biking.
Ultimately, the council voted 6-1 to approve the annexation and development, with Freeman casting the sole opposition vote.
The other property was located at 5304 Farrington Rd, south of a condominium development in a rural residential area of Durham County near Chapel Hill. Out of the 415 multifamily units, 21 will be rented at affordable rates to those making 80% of average median income, representing 5% of the total units.
City Council member Mark-Anthony Middleton stated that he was “appreciative of the [project’s] commitment to green standards.”
In response to developer claims that meeting tree coverage standards raises the cost of new property construction, which is then passed off to consumers, Cook asserted that “there are real consequences to destroying the environment.”
“In the long term also, we’re talking about affordability,” she said. “If you are polluting all of the trees and then your places are getting flooded every five years from these major storms that we're creating, that is also a cost that gets passed down and one that we can't really fix.”
The other property annexed into the City of Durham was on Hurley Road and will be developed into 12 affordable, single-family units.
All developments will be built on the newly annexed land following the approval of the Durham City Council.
Changes to school site plan and permits
In 2022, Durham Public Schools built a new elementary school to support growth in southern Durham County. Lyons Farm Elementary School now serves around 650 students from kindergarten through fifth grade.
City Council previously approved a Major Special Use Permit, a Transportation Special Use Permit and a Major Site Plan for the project on Dec. 3, 2018. In June 2024, Durham Public Schools requested the removal of special conditions related to constructing additional lanes on Fayetteville Road near the school.
The original plan and permits were designed to address traffic impacts and included the construction of necessary improvements and provisions for safe and efficient traffic flow and adequate pedestrian access. However, recent analyses of the school's current traffic and necessary roadway improvements indicate minimal impact on local residential streets. An engineering contractor concluded that the proposed construction that had been approved at the 2018 meeting was no longer necessary.
The proposed amendments to the major site plan were approved unanimously by council members.
In other business
Several meeting attendees read out ceremonial announcements from Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams at the start of Monday’s council meeting.
Williams proclaimed the week of Sept. 16 “Welcoming Week” in Durham, which aims to “provide individuals and communities the opportunity to proclaim and exercise their welcoming values through events and initiatives that build stronger relationships between native-born and foreign-born residents.” In the proclamation, he noted that the city of Durham’s population includes 14.7% foreign-born residents, greater than the national proportion of 13.5%.
Williams also designated Sept. 21 “World Alzheimer’s and Dementia Awareness Day” and Oct. 1 the 41st annual “National Night Out,” part of a national movement aimed at “promoting cooperative police-community crime prevention efforts.”
Lastly, he proclaimed the week of Sept. 16 as “Adult Education and Family Literacy Week” in an effort to combat the high national rate of illiteracy — with over 43 million Americans unable to “read or write at the most basic level” — by supporting adult education programs that aim to help Americans “move along the continuum in their educational journey to achieve basic goals and get prepared for [a] career and college.”
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