'Renewal' plans upset residents

Durham aims to sell land in Cleveland-Holloway area to agencies that house the needy. Residents are trying to block the sale

DURHAM -- The city of Durham, as a matter of official policy, believes in revitalizing neighborhoods and providing safe, affordable housing.

City Council members now face a situation where fulfilling one goal might conflict with the other.

Caught in the middle are residents of Cleveland-Holloway, an neighborhood on the eastern edge of downtown, and the operators of two nonprofits who want to build homes for needy people there.

The issue might be resolved today at a City Council work session, when leaders will decide whether to move ahead with selling two city-owned tracts to the nonprofits for $1 each.

Residents say their neighborhood already contains more than its share of social service facilities, including homeless shelters and halfway houses.

Natalie Spring, a Cleveland-Holloway resident active in the fight to block the land sales, said the neighborhood is about to turn a corner in its push to revitalize.

"The city coming in putting more social services in our neighborhood is counterproductive," she said.

Officials at Housing for New Hope and Dominion Ministries want to build, respectively, housing for disabled homeless people and a lockdown facility for young people with severe behavioral problems. They say they'll be good neighbors.

Councilman Mike Woodard acknowledged the clashing aims.

"It's really where two of our important goals have come to a head-to-head conflict here," he said

Woodard said Durham's agreement to sell the two parcels for $1 each was reached only after the tracts had gone unsold for years.

But Cleveland-Holloway residents say many inquiries were made about the two tracts in recent years, and the city didn't give anyone a chance to make an offer.

Woodard said the city had earmarked eight tracts, including the two in question, to be transferred to nonprofits in a one-time-only bid to hand the properties off to worthy charities.

City staff members screened applicants and settled on New Hope, Dominion and Habitat for Humanity. During that time, staff members told anyone who asked about the properties that they were not available for sale.

At issue is whether the city staff later notified the inquirers, including many neighborhood residents, about the transfers.

Spring, the Cleveland-Holloway resident, said that didn't happen and she and other residents felt blindsided by the lack of formal notice of what the city was allowing in their midst.

Council members are sympathetic.

"These people feel like, 'Geez, it's circle-the-wagon time because of everyone's coming after us, including the city,' " Councilman Eugene Brown said.

"If you've got a lockdown facility in your neighborhood, that's not exactly the way to embellish your neighborhood."

It's not clear whether the council will consider canceling the land transfers.

Woodard said he might propose a meeting including neighborhood residents and nonprofits to find out the best way for them to co-exist.

"I would like the city to help lead a process where we sit down and say how much is too much for this one neighborhood," Woodard said.