INC neighborhoods endorse maintaining existing billboard restrictions

Tuesday night's INC meeting contained much of the usual fare -- an update from Neighborhood Improvement Services, an update on school partnerships, a presentation from City-County Planning on the department's web site.

All of which led to the evening's main event: two competing resolutions on billboards in the Bull City, the night's final agenda item, and the one that drew a crowd of a few dozen residents to the Herald-Sun's community room for the monthly Inter-Neighborhood Council session.

And it was a night for debate, between residents who've been longtime advocates for Durham's existing billboard limitations, and those who've advocated for some loosening or re-examination of the restrictions.

In the end, though, all the neighborhoods' delegates present, with four exceptions, voted to support the first INC resolution, which calls for maintaining existing restrictions on billboards in the UDO. As adopted:

1. It is the policy of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham that no changes should be made to the laws and ordinances of the City and County of Durham which would alter the nonconforming status of billboards, allow any billboard to be relocated, or allow any billboard to be upgraded or improved in anyway; and that
2. The officers of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham, or such other persons as may be delegated, shall communicate this resolution an [sic] the policy created by it to the governments of the City and County of Durham, to other officials, and to the people generally as may be necessary to accomplish the purpose of this policy.

Only one neighborhood's delegate voted against the resolution; Falconbridge's Rosemarie Kitchen opposed the ordinance on her neighborhood's behalf.

On a second, competing resolution that would have endorsed "the conversion of a limited number of billboards in Durham to digital billboards and the aesthetic upgrade and relocation of billboards to enhance the image of Durham," Kitchen's yes vote was joined by Thelma White, a southeast Durham resident living near Riddle Rd/NC 55, and the treasurer of BOCC member Joe Bowser's campaign finance committee.

Neighborhood delegates supporting the winning status-quo resolution included (among others) Watts Hospital-Hillandale, Trinity Park, Tuscaloosa-Lakewood, Cleveland-Holloway, Old West Durham, Lakewood Park, Parkwood, Duke Park, and Northgate Park -- the latter after a vote change from abstention after delegate Mike Shiflett amended his vote at the end of the session, clarifying in doing so the Northgate Park Neighborhood Association's guidance on the matter.

Old North Durham abstained from the vote; so did Grove Park and Rockwood Park, both of whose delegates are employed by the law firm representing Fairway, the billboard company most prominent in advocating for rule changes. Grove Park's Craigie Sanders recused himself from this part of the meeting, with INC vice-president Colin Crossman chairing the billboard resolution vote. (Rockwood Park's INC representation is also the subject of this blog post at the Indy's Triangulator site.)

W-H's Tom Miller -- who helped found the INC a quarter-century ago, and who was active in the initial fight to outlaw billboards in the Bull City -- spoke on behalf of the winning resolution, which his neighborhood sponsored.

Miller recounted the history of the billboard ban, which originally helped to remove half of the billboards in Durham as non-conforming structures under zoning rules, before the General Assembly banned such amortization rules after industry lobbying.

Still, Miller stressed that the existing ordinance would eventually impact most current structures. "Every billboard out there is living on borrowed time," Miller said, noting that NCDOT road widenings would eventually claim most signs.

He added that his own neighborhood parallels I-85, and spoke out against what he seemed to describe as the inevitable presence of billboards in close proximity to neighborhoods such as his.

"Living next to I-85 ain't the best place to live. And the notion that you'd have a billboard on the other side of the noise abatement wall would be insult to injury," he noted.

"If we change the rules... those billboards come off their status as non-conforming uses, they get a reprieve, they're no longer on borrowed time. They're legal, they confirm to the zoning code."

INC treasurer and Tuscaloosa-Lakewood resident Myers Suggs noted he had driven throughout the state recently, and noted the presence of electronic/digital bilboards in Greensboro and Charlotte. "And frankly, I can't think of anything more obnoxious," Suggs said.

Falconbridge's Rosemarie Kitchen spoke in favor of the competing resolution and was the most vocal proponent for allowing changes to Durham's billboard regulations.

She noted that a quarter-century was a long time in general, and for the billboard restrictions in particular. Kitchen -- who's advocated loosening current billboard restrictions in the Herald-Sun's letters to the editor -- noted Durham's reputation as a creative-class city, and said that the use of digital billboards would be fittingly high-tech in that regard.

Kitchen also stressed the importance of digital signage and improved billboards to help market Durham's cultural assets, such as performances at the new Durham Performing Arts Center. "I see some economic benefit" to allowing upgraded billboards, Kitchen said.

Her arguments led to a brief exchange with W-H's Joshua Allen, who replied that Kitchen's own neighborhood abuts I-40, a corridor that would not be allowed to have billboards under the ordinance changes under discussion.

Kitchen rejoined that Falconbridge residents use the corridors that would be allowed to have billboards, including the Durham Freeway, before acting chair Crossman called the discussion out of order.

Pat Carstensen took exception to the idea of modernizing billboards as a sign of a high-tech, creative class city. "If you really want modern... a billboard is really a 20th-century solution. If you want something 21st century, you're going to want something that runs on PDAs, cell phones, that sort of thing," she said.

Northgate Park's Mike Shiflett noted initially that Northgate Park had taken an official position "not to vote either for or against it," and suggested that it would be opportune to wait for an actual proposed UDO text amendment before taking a stand. Shiflett also noted the idea of a citizen's committee to look at height limits or PSA distribution for the signs. (Shiflett at meeting's end clarified the NPNA's position and voted to support the status-quo resolution.)

After the first resolution passed, INC delegates briefly discussed the competing anti-billboard resolution. Patrick Byker of Rockwood Park noted that there were silver alert and amber alert provisions for the billboards' use that could be valuable -- a point that Thelma White took up in expressing her support for changes to the billboard ordinance.

White described her own participation in an amber alert searching for a relative the previous day. "I think that if we were to have had these [digital] billboards up yesterday, it would have been very beneficial."

Still, OWD's John Schelp encouraged the INC to make no changes. "Any effort to tinker or change the ordinance would open the door to making these signs legal, and that's a Pandora's box," he said. The resolution supporting billboard modernization failed to win more than Kitchen and White's votes.

Miller also pointed out the city and county attorney's office's opinion that the proffer of public and service announcements and amber/silver alerts would not be enforceable under First Amendment provisions.

.....

In other news, Fairfield's Melissa Rooney, a staunch advocate on development issues in South Durham, called at meeting's end for an emergency action by the INC board to support the resolution voted on by a number of Durham Co. Democratic Party precincts recently, calling for an independent survey of Jordan Lake.

Thelma White spoke up to challenge Rooney, alleging that some of the claims Rooney had made about the water supply impact of the project in question were unproven, a point Rooney took exception to.

This reporter (noting he was stepping outside his blogger role) noted that his neighborhood's INC representative was asked to clear positions and votes with their neighborhood association board, and called for an opportunity for neighborhood associations to weigh in on the point before an INC vote took place.

After some debate, Tom Miller proposed a special INC delegate meeting in the first week of April, to allow neighborhoods to discuss their positions on the matter. The proposal passed.

Comments

[Joshua Allen]

Very nice reporting, Kevin! Thanks for taking the time to provide such in-depth coverage of the community activity.

[Phillip]

If the advocates for using digital billboards as Amber/Silver Alert platforms are right, and such blinking LEDS truly are the most effective way to convey these important messages, then why haven't they noticed that DOT has already installed their own digital alert signs on the Durham Freeway?

I work in RTP and have seen the signs (near the Ellis Rd and Swift Ave exits) lit up at least twice, each time for an Amber Alert.

[tina]

Kevin, it is my hope in your other INC neighborhood discussions about the Jordan Lake Survey that INC representatives consider what the City of Durham's Planning Department Steve Medlin has to say regarding this matter. He has gone on record stating there are concerns about the number of points gathered on the Developer paid survey. He has recommended an independent survey. We, not just So. Durham or Durham, but we all in NC need transparency in our government. When we allow developers to pay for research that local government then uses to change our zoning laws we no longer are governing by the people and for the people. Instead, we are governing by the developers and for the developers. This survey that impacts South Durham has major implications for our ENTIRE state! Most of us here in South Durham just want the County to do the right thing and represent it's citizens by paying for an independent survey. If that survey shows Jordan Lake has moved then so be it. But we must have tranparency in our government or there is no trust!