Durham is Run By Developers

Admission is the first step to Recovery.

A Jun 22, 2024, article in the Durham Dispatch summarizes a persistent and historical problem in Durham: the unfair and societally and environmentally damaging influence of developers on Durham governance: https://www.durhamdispatch.com/post/how-to-destroy-a-councilwoman-the-attack-on-dr-holsey-hyman.

When I first read of DeDreana Freeman’s “physical assault” of two other city council members, I was immediately suspicious. First of all, excepting some heated audio somebody managed to record from outside the room, the accusation against Freeman was based solely on the hearsay of two opposing city council members. Second, the incident was publicized in multiple outlets (for weeks) with no real evidence. Third, I knew DeDreana quite well years ago (via Durham’s Interneighborhood Council and People’s Alliance). I told my husband that if the physical assault allegations were true, then something bigger had to be going on to make DeDreana fly off the handle like that. “They are gaslighting her,” I was sure, because I had experienced it on the government level, myself; and, like DeDreana, I looked like the crazy one.

I’m not a fan of most of Durham’s elected officials these days, as I think Durham votes based on political popularity and lacks the collective experience and bureaucratic discipline required to optimally guide our community forward.

But I am grateful for every Durham elected official’s service. I do not ever want to put myself in that environment again, at least not in Durham, where I was once reminded (by a man from California) that “yelling is still communicating, which is better than most places.”

I identify with developer Jarrod Edens’ alleged and unsuccessful attempts to bribe then City Councilwoman Holsey-Hyman to vote in favor of his Carpenter Falls development. And I identify with allegations that he subsequently accused her of trying to extort him. Over the years, I have been warned by multiple people not to meet privately with Durham developers (or anyone on their team)— “they will take your words and turn them around so you lose credibility.”

Developers have run Durham for a LONG time. Lewis Shiner’s historical novel, Black and White— which details the destruction of black Hayti for the sake of “urban renewal” — is a great read in this regard.

As their direct hold on local government was increasingly called into question, in 1989 a group of Durham developers and their attorneys formed The “Friends of Durham, a Political Action Committee whose “core issues are Crime, Education, Taxes and Race Relations.” But don’t let the name confuse you. The PAC was founded by supporters of Durham businessman Nelson Strawbridge to ‘counterbalance a perceived “liberal” dominance in city and county government.’

In 2002, then Friends of Durham chairman and development zoning attorney Patrick Byker said of Durham’s Committee on the Affairs of Black People PAC (formed 90 years ago):

"The committee doesn't care about black people; and it certainly does not care about white people or brown people. It cares only about getting its hands on the County's budget, finding government jobs for its otherwise unemployable insiders, and obtaining power over you. It is counting on your apathy and failure to vote to help it gain and consolidate its control over Durham ... We will not be 'taken over' by the Durham Committee... Let's make the Durham Committee's efforts as big a fiasco as their boycott of Northgate Mall."

Ironically, in 2010, the Friends of Durham got the Committee on the Affairs of Black People (which isn’t squeaky clean either) to support them in getting Durham to redraw the Jordan Lake Boundaries to make way for the dense “751 Assemblage,” a project for which Byker was an attorney. Durham citizens objected en masse and even raised money to obtain an independent survey to consider in addition to the developers’ clearly biased one. But, in the end, the developers managed to “influence” enough county commissioners to get their rezoning approved. Then, the developers SUED Durham for holding up the project! When the City of Durham voted against annexing the development, the developers got state legislators to pass a law that forced the City of Durham to annex the property and provide City Water. It took until 2023 for the city to annex the property, and— now that the majority of the city council is pro-development— “the developers are trying to amend the project to add 453 residential units to the 1,300 initially planned, and to pay cash instead of including some affordable housing and providing promised land for a school and fire station.”

All this is to say that the development decisions coming before Durham elected officials today are not black and white. Even if they unanimously vote against rezoning or annexation for new development projects, the developers can simply go to the rigged Republican state legislature and force Durham to give them what they want. If you are a Durham elected official, you cannot ignore this fact. You must consider whether adamantly opposing a development rezoning/annexation, on any grounds, is worth the cost to Durham taxpayers (staff time, public hearings, attorneys, lawsuits). Which means that, in the long run, the most Durham’s elected officials can hope for is to get some meaningful concessions (affordable housing, conservation easements, etc.) from the developers before their projects go through.

All THAT said, if things are going to improve the slightest, Durham must sincerely investigate the allegations of Edens’ attempted bribery and slander, and their intended affects on Holsey-Hyman’s and Freeman’s (re-)elections. If true, Mr. Edens should be stripped of his developers license.

Final thought: Is any of this really surprising? Land ownership has been the source of power for millennia. Not that long ago, you used to have to own land to vote in American elections and take part in governance in any way.

Here’s the Dispatch article again. If you haven’t read it, you should, Right now.

https://www.durhamdispatch.com/post/how-to-destroy-a-councilwoman-the-attack-on-dr-holsey-hyman