Quick Update: Missed Opportunities
I typically eschew national media/national issues on this site, but I was struck by the contrast in today's papers between Leonard Pitts' column about a program called YouthBuild USA, that provides job training/experience to young people by rehabbing vacant and abandoned housing and our housing policy. Per his column, the organization started back in 1978, when a elementary school teacher in Harlem asked her students what they would do to improve their community, "One of the answers was, `We would fix those abandoned buildings and we would make them fit to live in.' "
Which makes those students smarter than our city council, which approved a demolition-centric budget "after touring East Durham." The budget reinforces the NIS push to demolish rather than repair - in particular the housing that NIS has labeled 'unsafe' - which can mean just about anything NIS wants it to mean.
Essentially, the response from the city to the citizens who aired a bevy of concerns aired at the 'code enforcement summit' has been a collective obscene hand gesture. Moreover, they've ignored the evidence from cities near and far that rehab is the preferred strategy for neighborhood revitalization. They have failed to comprehend downstream costs in favor of superficial math to conclude "wow, rehab costs more than demolition." They've missed win-win opportunities like the one highlighted by Leonard Pitts; think East Durham could use YouthBuild?
I can't express, with the exception of Mike Woodard, how generally disappointed I am in this council. I voted for - I believe - every one of them. I couldn't have imagined that I would look back on the Nick Tennyson days with nostalgia.
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11 comments:
Gary, that is a great article and a wonderful program. Has there been any communication from NIS, Council or the City Manager's office since the code enforcement public meeting? I was there and the only thing I have received since was an email with the meeting minutes, but nothing in regard to follow-up meetings as they promised. They should know that no communication leads people to assume the worst, in this case, business as usual.
This is an incredible program. One would like to think that something like this could happen in Durham.
All of us, of course, have no time to do anything, but at the same time, I wonder what it might take to get something like this started. We've lamented in the past the divide that NIS has put up between the East Durham advocates backing demolition and the preservationists opposed to it. This is the kind of program that could unite people. A bit of Googling looks like YouthBuild and Habitat have partnered in the past.
Carey
Very little communication, except from Mike Woodard. NIS had their 'Neighborhood Revitalization Meeting' - I could not attend, but my understanding was that there were a broad range of people present pushing for creative rehab strategies, and a lot of reasons why they couldn't from NIS. I'm running out of ways to say the same thing to the city again and again and again. They just don't care.
Michael
I've mentioned this possibility in the abstract before. Just another one of those good ideas that the city can't slow down long enough to let a volunteer figure out. They couldn't even live with a 2 month moratorium.
GK
Where is the outrage from Preservation Durham?
there are three youthbuild programs in NC. I am going to call UNC-G and invite them to Durham.
I don't have my budget book (600 plus pages) in front of me, so I'm kinda shooting blind here. But let me address a few points.
1) I respect Gary's opinion that the housing budget is "demolition-centric." But let me point out that the budget also includes $300,000 for repairs of dilapidated and vacant homes.
The reality is that the City will continue to tear down houses and properties that it deems unsafe. The funds in the FY08 budget will demolish (this is where I need my budget book, but I'll try to recall anyway) 56 unsafe houses and clean up 100+ weeded lots.
What we(those of you who read End. Durham, Pres. Durham supporters, and me) need to keep doing is push for a healthy balance of demo-versus-rehab. Which leads me to:
2)I did not attend the first meeting of the Task Force. (I got the notice the night before the meeting and didn't have a chance to read the email. Needless to say, I expressed *great* displeasure to the administration and staff.) I heard positive accounts about the meeting...from non-staff members. That seems to be in contrast to what Gary heard.
Staff told me about some of the good ideas they heard (after getting chewed out by me about not giving sufficient notice). I shouldn't speak for them, but my sense is they view this as an on-going dialog that is just getting started.
Speaking for me, I intend to hang in there and keep pushing for other ideas. Given the mindset that is present now, moving this toward the center is going to take some time.
And yes, we will lose some buildings along the way. But please understand that the pressure to demolish is just as intense (maybe more so) as the pressure to rehab. And it is constant. And a majority of Council support it. But we need to work on them too.
I understand the cynicism and doubt given many people's experience over the years. I intend to keep working on this, and I need all the help I can get.
3) The next Task Force meeting is Tuesday, July 19, at 6 PM in NIS' office, Heritage Square, Lakewood Avenue at Fayetteville. I'll be there.
Sorry for the long post.
Mike Woodard
Thanks Mike - I appreciate the additional information.
I say "demolition-centric" because the NIS budget for "demolition, tipping fees, and weedy lots" was $1,192,475. I don't know if this the exact final figure that was approved, but I certainly haven't heard anything about it being decreased. I'm glad there is some money for rehab. But in Goldsboro, crossing the $1,000,000 mark for demolition was the figure that made them rethink their policy, and begin a progressive program to rehab in partnership with Preservation NC.
We know nothing about those 56 houses - their importance to making a neighborhood feel like a neighborhood - their historical significance, etc. That research burden is shifted onto community volunteers.
Because the evidence suggests that demolishing accelerates decline, how much neighborhood decline am I going to pay for? As one example, the loss of one particular house, 501 Oakwood (which NIS very much wants to demolish) would be a huge loss for the neighborhood. It's a great house in bad shape with a lot of ne'er-do-wells hanging around in the block. I can understand neighbors grasping at anything to try to alleviate the cornucopia of crackheads, but I expect council - more that just you - to be able to separate the issues and dig more deeply into the evidence. If someone can produce a well-controlled study that demolition is responsible for the criminal reform - or even the criminals moving to Charlotte (just kidding) I will acknowledge and highlight it. But even if you tear down the house that these folks are squatting in, a drug dealer / user will find another venue from which to perpetrate. The mindset seems to be that - well, we'll keep tearing 'em down until they have no place to go. Not only is this impossible - there will always be somewhere in an economically-depressed neighborhood - but because demolition creates a more desolate neighborhood and lowers property values, you create more opportunities for drug domiciles.
I harp on the crime issue because it seems to be what is driving the desperate push to demolish here. NIS acknowledges that no one (in the city) has done the most simple GIS analysis of crime and housing in Durham. The basic groundwork - the kind of analysis that council should demand - hasn't been done. The majority of council members seem to accept the intuitive, and erroneous, logic that 'cleaning up' (i.e. demolishing) the neighborhood = fixing the neighborhood's myriad ills. I think if council members went beyond the information presented by NIS (which is, I'll use it again, demolition-centric) to read about the issue, they'd realize the perverse logic here.
I'm not aware that other council members are asking anyone in the community to present them with information on alternatives. Maybe I'm wrong, but if it had happened locally, I would probably have heard about it. Oh, and they would probably respond to email from people who offer it.
I hesitate to comment any more on the revitalization meeting, as I wasn't there. The tenor I heard was that people had the chance to get ideas out there, that there were a lot of people there interested in rehab, and so the meeting wsa 'good'. Staff seems to respond to the idea of receivership positively - which I worry is distraction. Did NIS ask council to pursue receivership strategies with the state delegation? Receivership is a great idea, but a long-term, difficult path. It's one we should take, but it's the housing policy for 2015, not 2008. More creative, practical, short-term strategies - such as repair+lien were, I've heard, met with skepticism. All hearsay.
My concern is that we just don't have the housing stock to spare to screw this up for another 5=10 years. We won't be able to repair the damage done. The city is weed-whacking in the flowerbed, gunning the engine with one hand cupped to an ear, saying "I can't hear you, I'm too busy tidying up this unruly lawn."
GK
Gary,
When you refer to "basic GIS analysis," what would you like to see done? I'm completely serious about this -- I've got an R&D funding code here at work to look at ways of analyzing crime data using widely available data. I've got every incident report in the city from 2002-2005, and if I can ever get RTI's bureaucracy out of the way, I'll have the street and parcel layers from the city.
What question do you want answered? Since I can do this at work legitimately, it's got a much higher chance of getting done than my usual, "we should do that" remark...
501 Oakwood could be a beautiful house again one day. The HAB issued an order for the owner to repair the dwelling. So it is currently in the owner's hands to rehab the property which includes replacing most of the foundation.
NIS has been working with the various owners to keep the property secure in the meantime. This property represents why NIS is pursuing a Neighborhood Revitalization initiative. In a stronger market neighborhood (i.e. Trinity Park) someone would jump at the chance to totally rehab this property. They would jack the house up, tear out the foundation, re-level or rebuild the left side of the house, etc. and the market would support the great expense.
We were successful in getting the house next door up to the MINIMUM Housing Code but the repair work is more extensive on 501 Oakwood.
We chose to start our efforts in small 4-6 block areas around where 1) investment is going into communities, 2) other City departments are focusing their efforts and 3) there is an abundance of vacant properties. Out of our three focus areas, only the St. Theresa is currently a community that is still experiencing a visible high level of crime and drug activity (yet all of the areas have shown improvements due to the Police department's efforts). We plan to expand our focus area outward as we achieve our goals in the initial area.
The Neighborhood Revitalization Task Force that is meeting next Tuesday at 6pm as Mike Woodard mentioned will be a chance to build on current initiatives and collectively look at how we can revitalize these communities (which goes beyond just houses...there are people involved also).
One thing should be to ensure that if a house is dilapidated to the point of demolition that someone is able to build a new house or relocate a house on that land.
I hope to continue to be able to positively investigate ways to provide sustainable revitalization of these communities that make up the heart of Durham.
Sorry for the long post...
Khalid Hawthorne
Correction to Mike Woodard's post...
Neighborhood Revitalization Task Force Meeting
Tuesday, JUNE 19 at 6pm
Heritage Square Shopping Center
401 E. Lakewood Ave.
Khalid Hawthorne
Khalid
Thanks for your perspective. I've heard from folks at Preservation Durham that they were told they had one month to try to find a better future for 501 Oakwood, which seems at odds with a rehab strategy.
I'm glad to hear that we agree on focusing on neighborhoods that have the most problems, and on trying to align efforts with other departments. The difficulty comes from trying to fix the neighborhood problems through demolition, which does not help the people living in the neighborhoods. It decreases housing stock when we have a homelessness problem, it lowers homeowners' property values, and it destroys part of the culture that makes a community a community.
I don't believe in selling folks a bill of goods that demolition is going to fix their neighborhood when the evidence says that it hurts. You can't build up a neighborhood by tearing it down. If you have vacant land, you have no people, and that is not a neighborhood.
In short, I generally like the thrust you put out there for NRTF, because it sounds like you're worried about what happens to the people in the neighborhood, not just about tearing down their houses as has been standard procedure. I would hope that the NRTF/rehab would be the dominant strategy of NIS. We should be trying to bring the 56 'unsafe' properties up non-code, but 'safe' status, and then trying to get them rehabbed. Demolition should be a rare event - not the tool-of-choice.
Thanks for stopping by.
GK
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