City Council: City projects, millions in bonds highlight this week's agenda

This week's City Council meeting won't likely spend much time on the subject of the much-discussed development review process, with the consent agenda carrying the only mention of the City staff's proposal, and that being limited to the chance to "review and provide comments" on the first stage, a task that largely happened in other meetings of late.

To be honest, the manner in which this whole matter is coming before Council is puzzling. The inclusion of the proposal to kibosh the Planning Commission's ability to defer hearings by that advisory board on projects for up to three months has been as so much bloody raw meat before neighborhood interests, who've raised significant concerns about whether this particular recommendation takes away a real chance to bring developers and neighborhoods together.

All in all, in fact, the timing of this hitting the public debate right now is odd. For one thing, the annexation, utilities, street closure and Planning Commission changes represent just one-eighth of the sum total of proposed changes to the development review process; the remainder will be rolled out over the next eight months to Council all the way through December.

As we talked about here last week, it's a bit odd not to see the Council focus on development practices per se that have drawn so much ire from residents, be it mass grading or stormwater treatment practices. And while the Council has separately gotten recommendations on how to tighten up water use practices by new developments, the timing of this discussion on the heels of the recent drought -- that is, at a time when even the perception of changes that could increase development's rate here in Durham is likely to draw heated controversy -- is also a bit odd.

Realistically, I doubt that any of these practices would draw significantly more development in Durham. If I could get instant entitlement permission from Person County to build a neighborhood of twenty million-dollar homes on quarter-acre lots, I still wouldn't build it; the market has to be there. Similarly, the slowing market locally and the general preference of many relocators to settle in Wake County (thanks in no small part due to Durham's ongoing image challenges) suggests we'd be unlikely to be overrun with new residents anytime soon.

All of which is by way of saying, we're getting a vigorous public discourse on a subject that's not fully baked yet. No one on the panel at our radio show last night was ready to give into the conspiratorially-minded bent, but you have to admit this to be an inauspicious start to what could be a very long discussion indeed.

Still, it's not a discussion you should expect to hear much about -- at least directly -- at tonight's meeting.

Only one major development project is on the general business agenda for Monday night, and that's the Fairfield at Hillandale apartment complex proposed between Hillandale and Guess just north of I-85. This could be an interesting discussion tonight, as the Herald-Sun points out at its web site.

On the consent agenda: thirteen annexations, all of which were submitted as voluntary annexations by January 1, but which are making it just now to the Council for review. (I'd be curious to hear more about what delays such discussions almost five months -- and whether moving to a quarterly schedule would help alleviate this delay, or whether other factors hold up such annexation discussions this long.)

The Council will also take public input on the proposal we discussed here recently to execute a development agreement for the Rogers Alley portion of Greenfire's major downtown master plan. The project work, already underway, would receive some minor incentives from the City, while the remainder of the incentives deal continues to be negotiated

The body is also expected to pass the "two-thirds bond" issue -- so named because of N.C. statute allowing a municipality to re-issue bonds when existing debt issues are retired, but only up to two-thirds the retired bonds' face value. Major recipients of funding would include the Phase E project for the American Tobacco Trail ($1.5 million towards the I-40 bridge), $3.5 million in City Hall renovations, $2 million in required local matching funds towards Federal/state road dollars, $2.1 million towards renovating the Durham Armory, and $1.8 million in solid and yard waste facilities.

The proposed two-thirds bond issue would also coincide with the next drawdown for 2005 general obligation bonds. An eye-opening number from the report to Council: as ofnow, $99,997,000 in approved 2005 bonds remain unisssued.

Mind you, that's out of $110 million approved back in aught-five. The City's press release announcing the bond P.R. campaign in September 2005 noted that "most of the projects covered by the bonds would begin within one to three years." Of course, many of those are in design phase right now, but I somehow suspect many residents assumed that there'd be more progress on many projects than the "Starting Soon" signs that popped up around town before last fall's election.

But, hey, as of this summer that's another $40 million drawn, meaning that we're only $60 million left to go.

(Lest I seem to cynical on the above: there's a perfectly good reason for delaying the issuance while in design phase -- namely, that you want to have design done on projects before you take the capital money for them, so as to avoid paying interest on borrowed funds sitting in a bank account somewhere. The point is, however, that that's a much harder and more nuanced fact to sell Jane Q. Public on when they wonder why Project X hasn't started work yet.)

One bit of bond issue good news: The Council is expected to approve via tomorrow night's consent agenda a construction manager at risk deal with Skanska for the renovation of the circa 1955 Old Lyon Park Recreation Center, which received $500,000 of funds in the '05 bonds (along with $200k in the two-thirds bonds and a share of deferred maintenance funds out of the 2005 issue, too.) The renovation to the old facility will expand office space for Parks & Rec and Durham Youth Council along with some programmatic space for both, plus ADA and restroom improvements.

Comments

[barry]

"The proposed two-thirds bond issue would also coincide with the next drawdown for 2005 general obligation bonds. An eye-opening number from the report to Council: as ofnow, $99,997,000 in approved 2005 bonds remain unisssued.

Mind you, that's out of $110 million approved back in aught-five. The City's press release announcing the bond P.R. campaign in September 2005 noted that "most of the projects covered by the bonds would begin within one to three years.""

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Tell me about it.

Duke Park renovations: approved in 1996 bond fund.
Begun in 2004. "Completed" in 2005. I put completed in quotes because 905 of the design proposals presented to the community by the Parks and Rec department and its consultants were simply dropped between the presentation and the construction. Duke Park received a nice, $400,000 playground. Meanwhile, the city still has a 3,000 square foot building that it has kept unused and unmaintained since 1993 in the park. It has dragged its feet for nearly 5 years in figuring out a way to allow a neighborhood group to lease the abandoned bathhouse and turn it into a community center. It converted the old parking lot at the north end of the park where the large picnic shelter (damaged in the 1996 hurricane and finally torn down in 2001) into a storage yard for old and busted playground equipment, and found the money to secure that area with a new, lockable fence.

But as far as enforcing it's regulations of keeping vehicles out of the park, and its hundreds of young users safe, the city remains clueless.

http://dependableerection.blogspot.com/2008/05/end-of-my-rope.html

[barry]

that "905" should be "90%" above.