Planning Commission to hear UDO change for downtown nightclubs/bars

Durham's Planning Commission will get a crack this month at a proposed amendment to the Unified Development Ordinance that would ease the separation requirement for nightclubs and bars downtown.

The text amendment would reduce the required 250-foot separation between churches and such establishments to 50 feet within the downtown tier. The separation would remain 250' outside of downtown, and between non-downtown churches and such in-downtown establishments.

The change was requested by Eddie Belk of Durham's Belk Architecture, which has done design work at American Tobacco among other projects. We here at BCR are curious whether this change comes at the behest of any new businesses on their way downtown.

The most logical area where a church-bar conflict could occur today would be the buildings near the intersection of Parrish and Church St., which abut Trinity United Methodist Church. There's been talk for some time about a bar possibly setting up shop in one of these storefronts.

The amendment is one of several to appear at the October 14 Planning Commission meeting.

Comments

[Ben Greene]

Hi - my name is Ben Greene, and I serve on the Durham Planning Commission as the representative for the downtown Durham district. Please let me know what your feelings are on this proposed text amendment, either through posting a comment here or by email at ben.m.greene@gmail.com. Although I unfortunately will be out of the country for the upcoming meeting, I will be sending my comments (and your comments) to the other commissioners in advance of the Oct 14th meeting.

[tk]

As a person who has actively participated in urban living for the past 20 years in many different cities (Austin, New York, LA, DC), I think it is absolutely critical for this distance to be reduced to 50' if downtown development with any meaningful mix of nighttime uses is the goal. To hit a critical mass of users, storefront churches that lie unoccupied for all but 2 or 3 hours of the week cannot dictate where nightclubs can be so stringently. This is a zoning issue whose roots creep back to the prohibition era, and has no business being on the books in 2008.