Council OKs Central Campus

Rezoning means boom at Duke

DURHAM -- In a unanimous vote Tuesday, the City Council effectively cleared the way for Duke University to add a massive new Central Campus that will be its biggest expansion in nearly 70 years.

The council rezoned more than 128 acres situated between the university's existing East and West campuses for what Duke officials estimated would be $500 million in new development. The university will still need to return to the council with detailed site plans before construction can begin.

The 7-0 vote came after the university made several key concessions to appease critics from nearby neighborhoods.

"In this year when so much that has been unfair, inaccurate and at times downright false about how Durham is supposedly divided against itself, overcome by community tensions and driven by supposed town-gown conflicts, it is noteworthy that we can come to you with this consensus proposal," Duke Provost Peter Lang told the elected officials.

"How can it be that a city so maligned in the national press as a cauldron of conflict can produce an agreement so important and difficult? Perhaps, no not perhaps, certainly, it is because the characterization -- really one should say caricature -- of our city has been so wide of the mark."

Over the next 40 years, Duke plans to transform the property into a mix of new student housing, university buildings, arts centers, classrooms, student eateries and other campus-based shops.

It was the commercial components of Duke's plans that most worried neighborhood advocates. They expressed concern the new development would further isolate the university's students from the city, giving them few reasons to venture off campus and hurting established businesses on nearby Ninth Street.

Concerns also were raised last fall when the university pledged to provide a $2 million "gift" to the city's coffers, but only if the council approved Duke's plans for revamping Anderson Street, the public thoroughfare that runs through what will be the heart of the new campus.

Duke won over its critics in the past month in a flurry of negotiations that continued right up to the start of Tuesday's council meeting. University officials agreed to a dozen legally binding conditions that will limit the height of future buildings, curtail the amount of retail space, require the planting of bigger trees and other concessions.

"A Congolese proverb says: 'No matter how long the night, the day is sure to come,' " said Old West Durham Neighborhood Association President John Schelp, who until about two weeks ago had opposed Duke's rezoning. "Well, the day has finally come. After a long, oftentimes difficult journey, we have reached agreement on all 12 committed elements, and we support Duke's rezoning case."

But lest anyone think it was all hugs and kisses, community activist and frequent Republican candidate Victoria Peterson took to the lectern and delivered the meeting's only negative remarks on Duke's expansion.

Peterson invoked the spector of the Duke lacrosse sexual assault case and colored the university's student body as a universal threat to public safety.

"We've had rapes on Duke's campus, several rapes on Duke's campus. We've had other violent crimes. Persons living around that campus have complained about the Duke students and their behavior," said Peterson, a staunch supporter of Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong. "I'm very embarrassed, and this community should be very embarrassed, how Duke has put shame on this community, nationally and worldwide. ... We cannot allow a university to have rapes on that campus, many times, and nothing has ever been done until we have a young woman go public trying to have justice and we rake her across the coals. No. We cannot have no more expansion of this university until they clean up their mess."

Peterson's comments drew the immediate ire of several council members, who sought to invoke rules limiting comments directly to the rezoning matter as she loudly asserted her First Amendment rights to free speech.

After Peterson interrupted council member and Duke employee Mike Woodard when it was his turn to speak, Mayor Bill Bell said he would ask her to leave if she opened her mouth again. The board then quickly voted to approve the measure as Peterson sat silently in the front row.