Developers rewrote Durham’s building rules. Some residents are rallying against them.
Durham is one of the largest cities in one of the fastest-growing states in the U.S. As residents flock to the city, housing prices have spiraled upward.
Some developers say they have the solution to the growing demand: make infill development easier by eliminating parking minimums, encourage building on small lots, and allow more creative design of accessory dwelling units and townhomes.
But their rewrite of Durham’s planning rules has pitted them against some of the city’s longtime residents, who are suspicious of their motives and of what could happen to their neighborhoods.
After months of simmering tension, it all comes to a vote Monday night, when the Durham City Council will consider an expansive amendment to the city’s building code known as SCAD.
Raleigh-based developer Jim Anthony submitted a lengthy rewrite of the code called SCAD — short for Simplifying Codes for Affordable Development — in May 2022.
“There was a time when the city of Durham was legendary in the Triangle for being probably the most gummed-up and worst place to try to get a project done,” he said at the time.
Anthony praises the Planning Department’s efforts over the past 15 years but says “sticky spots” persist, making certain sites “undevelopable.”
That’s why the changes are needed, he argues
The opposition
A group of homeowners in the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham (INC) has united in opposition, objecting to both the process and content of the proposed changes.
Tom Miller, a former Preservation Durham board member and planning commissioner who represents the Watts-Hillandale community, wrote a series of essays detailing their concerns.
“The vast majority of SCAD’s provisions have nothing to do with housing affordability,” he 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 INC, a coalition representing more than a dozen neighborhoods and HOAs, has encouraged its members to write to City Council members. Miller said developers shouldn’t be allowed to rewrite the code.
“SCAD is extremely complex. Not only are hundreds of individual changes proposed, the changes often work together to compound impacts,” he said. He takes particular issue with eliminating some buffer requirements, shrinking lots and awarding bonuses for affordable housing that lasts five years or less.
Anthony worked with local designers and builders Aaron Lubeck and Dave Olverson on the proposal and outreach. Lubeck said 28 people wrote the various amendments. Bob Chapman has also joined the effort, becoming the group’s spokesman after critical news coverage and delays from the City Council.
They embrace new urbanism, a design movement that promotes walkable blocks with houses built close to shops and public spaces, even publishing a magazine — Southern Urbanism Quarterly — to that effect.
Their team has met with the INC and planning staff several times this summer to refine the proposal, but was unable to win over the INC.
“We thought this was going to sail right through,” Chapman said. “They’re excellent at tactical maneuvering.”
What’s behind the delays?
The proposed changes were submitted 15 months ago.
Local advisory boards talked it over in 2022 before the Planning Commission deadlocked 6-6 against it.
Nate Baker, a planning commissioner running for City Council, voted no. He said there was good and bad in the document but that Durham should take more time to get it right.
“Durham’s zoning regulations are broken,” Baker said in December. “We should be making good, walkable, sustainable, inclusive development easy to build. We should make everything else hard to build.”
SCAD had the support of Habitat for Humanity at the time, but lost it after turnover at the nonprofit. Habitat wrote to ask that its name be removed from the application in March and has since issued two statements saying its support was unauthorized.
“HFHD supports sensible changes to the (unified development ordinance) that align and promote our mission and most importantly the overall community good,” the agency wrote Aug. 4. “The Board of Directors of HFHD does not support SCAD as it is currently written, will not apologize for actions related to SCAD, and will not reverse decisions made in March and April.”
The item was initially on the City Council’s agenda in March, then pushed to May.
“We would like it to be broken down a little bit farther for easier reading,” Mayor Elaine O’Neal said March 9. “I’m still learning, and I am still very much conscious that ... this is something different. This is something new, and it’s coming in packaged different.”
The mayor wanted all seven members to vote, so when the May meeting arrived and council member Javiera Caballero couldn’t make it, SCAD was pushed back again.
What does the planning department think?
The planning department recommended the vast majority of the changes proposed in SCAD. It tweaked a handful of them and said the rest could be allowed if they are evaluated for unintended consequences when the code is rewritten, a process scheduled to begin next year.
“The proposed amendments will provide greater flexibility and encourage compact residential development,” the planning department concluded.
The changes also will encourage development that takes advantage of existing infrastructure instead of sprawling into the countryside, where there are no water or sewer lines and first responders are farther away, staff wrote in their analysis.
O’Neal said she valued input from the planning department, which she considers a “neutral party.”
“They’re sort of the stabilizer for me,” she said in the spring.
What would SCAD change?
The unified development ordinance, or UDO, is a highly technical document that dates to 2006. Alterations have been made over the years, perhaps most notably in 2019 when Expanding Housing Choices made it easier to build denser housing by allowing building on smaller lots and making duplexes and accessory dwelling units easier to build.
SCAD expands on that. Here are the highlights:
Eliminates minimum parking requirements. (Planning staff recommend keeping them for some infill developments where there is not enough street parking.)
Lets housing be built in certain commercial and industrial zones where it isn’t allowed today. (Planning staff made some tweaks and if passed, recommend evaluating the impact during the UDO rewrite.)
Establishes minimum residential densities of five to eight units per acre in commercial, industrial and office zones and eliminates maximum residential densities there. (Planning staff recommend both.)
Allows places of worship to build ADUs for anyone, not just their staff, and places some limits on their location and level of review. (Planning staff recommend.)
Requires projects with over 100 units incorporate at least 5,000 square feet of civic or commercial space. (Planning staff recommend because the change “begins to implement the 15-minute neighborhood concept.”)
Allows planned residential developments that incorporate commercial or office uses to build the components in any order. (Planning staff recommend.)
Garages will no longer be counted in a home’s square footage. This only applies in the Old West Durham Neighborhood Protection Overlay. (Planning staff recommend.)
It also establishes a new affordable housing incentive program.
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 “in order to make financing easier” but want a commitment to keep the units affordable for between five and 30 years.)
Allows 100% affordable projects some leeway in how they subdivide lots and what gets treated as a yard. (Planning staff said this enables “creative site design” and recommend evaluating the impact during the UDO rewrite.)
More changes encourage infill, the process of developing vacant or under-used parcels in urban areas:
Eliminates site plan review when there are 10 or fewer townhomes and 20 or fewer ADUS. (Planning staff don’t object.)
Permits a new housing type, the “detached rowhouse,” a hybrid between a townhome and single-family house (Planning staff recommend.)
Clarifies the height and size restrictions on accessory structures relative to the main building, plus allows them to be built out back. (Planning staff recommend.)
Increases the maximize size of an accessory dwelling unit from 800 square feet to 1,000 square feet on single-story units and 1,200 square feet on multiple stories (Planning staff recommend not moving above 1,000 square feet or evaluating the impact during the UDO rewrite.)
Allows single-family homeowners to have a duplex ADU if it’s smaller than 1,200 square feet. (Planning staff recommend reducing this to 1,000 square feet.)
Allow an ADU to be built first, before a primary structure. (Planning staff recommend evaluating the impact during the UDO rewrite.)
Allows for much more parking than is currently permitted on infill lots larger than 20,000 square feet. It would increase from a 400-square-feet cap to 25% of the surface area. Lubeck said establishing this maximum “is designed to prevent backyards from turning into parking lots.” (Planning staff recommend evaluating the impact during the UDO rewrite.)
Allows any lot with a structure built prior to 1950 be subdivided into small lots. Lubeck and planning staff say this will help prevent save old homes from demolition. (Planning staff recommend.)
The proposal would also reduce yard and buffer requirements, so neighborhoods can get denser:
Eliminates requirement that houses on corners have two front yards. (Planning staff recommend.)
Clarifies that only one side of a duplex has to have a front yard. (Planning staff recommend.)
Changes many of the limitations around yards, driveways, garages and lot size for infill development (Planning staff recommend keeping height standards, but evaluating the impact of the rest during the UDO rewrite.)
Removes the requirement to vary the length of the yard in a row of townhomes. (Planning staff recommends evaluating the impact during the UDO rewrite.)
Exempts clusters of townhomes from yard and building separation requirements. (Planning staff recommend.)
Reduces the buffer requirements around some residential projects. (Planning staff recommend.)
Lubeck emphasized that density maximums in residential neighborhoods will not change. The modifications will instead allow neighborhoods to reach their full potential.
What’s next?
Barring further delay, the City Council will vote after the public hearing Monday night. It begins at 7 p.m. in City Hall.
Members have indicated they’d like to vote on the proposed changes in sections, not as one document.
The county’s Board of Commissioners must also approve the changes.
Durham is in the final stages of updating its comprehensive plan for the first time since 2005. (A joint public hearing between the City Council and Board of County Commissioners is scheduled for Aug. 31.)
After that, they’ll rewrite the UDO, which lays out the actual rules for development.
SCAD critics say that should come first.
“Why would the city entertain something like SCAD now, if a better, more democratic and inclusive process is to begin soon?” Miller wrote.
Chapman said that could take years.
“Delay is a great tactic. At some point, people just get tired,” Chapman said. “They may win simply by wearing us out.”
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