Demolition by neglect?

So, let's see if i understand this:

DURHAM, N.C. - The Durham City/County Planning Department has received a written request to suspend the Demolition by Neglect investigation and determination process regarding the condition of the Liberty Warehouse.



Paragraph 3.19.2B of the Unified Development Ordinance stipulates that the Demolition by Neglect process may be suspended if the property owner agrees in writing to rectify the alleged conditions of neglect within a reasonable timeframe.



The property owner, Durham Liberty, LLC, has committed to rectify the Liberty Warehouse’s deficiencies within a timeframe determined as reasonable by the Durham City/County Planning Department. Therefore, the pending Demolition by Neglect investigation has been suspended, and the public meeting scheduled for Thursday, June 16, 2011, at 5:30 p.m. is cancelled in recognition of that suspension.



Failure to make the necessary repairs to the structure within an approved timeframe will be cause to reinstate the investigation in accordance with UDO paragraph 3.19.2B.

So, apparently, the city attempted to invoke a provision of its zoning ordinance (an occurrence so rare that it ought to be circled in red on the calendar lest we forget that it actually happened) prohibiting "demolition by neglect," in the case of Greenfire's Liberty Warehouse building, which sustained serious damage during a rainstorm last month and had to be condemned, forcing all tenants to scramble to find new digs. Greenfire responded by agreeing, in writing, to make all necessary repairs within a "reasonable time frame." I don't know what's "reasonable" in this case, do you? Six months? 18 months? 18 years?

What action would the city take if Greenfire left this historically significant building vacant and unmaintained for 18 years, right in the heart of a thriving downtown district?

One need look no further afield than a mile north, where the Duke Park bathhouse has sat, idle, vacant, and decaying, since it closed just after Labor Day, 1993. Despite earnest and repeated efforts by several community organizations to take the building on as a project and turn it into a community use center, the landlord has not only failed to negotiate in good faith with those tenants, but has used the building to store out of date paperwork and other fire hazards, while completely neglecting any maintenance issues.

Of course, since the landlord is the city of Durham itself, one hardly imagines that the neglect by demolition portion of our development ordinance will be invoked here.

If i was someone who gave a shit, i'd probably let City Manager Tom Bonfield know just how bad something like this makes the city look.

But i'm pretty much done with that part of my life. I figure i'll check in on the bathhouse in another 18 years, and see if any progress has been made.

Continue reading Demolition by neglect?

Another reason to hate Duke

I'm 54 years old, and i'm still not quite sure what it is i do best in this world. I know there's a couple of things i suck at besides blogging. One of them is asking people for money, which is why i'm especially proud of the fundraising effort i led to raise the $1500 we used to build this sign at one of the gateways to our neighborhood.

It was bad enough when the copper letters D U K E K A disappeared a couple of years ago. (The P & the R were removed several days later either by a copycat or by someone wishing to distract attention from who might have committed the vandalism.) I heard second hand that they'd been spotted at a certain frat house on a certain nearby campus, but since the authorities at the campus declined to actually look for the letters, we let it slide, and remade the sign with gold paint.

This latest low class act of vandalism is just, well, stupid and tasteless.

Our neighborhood shares a name with the University, but that's about it. We're not one of the partner neighborhoods, we're too far from campus to have hardly any students living in our neighborhood, we never see any Duke students come by to volunteer at any of our cleanups or other events. But it sure looks like the Dookies know where we are, doesn't it? Wonder if whoever did this knows, or cares, that a Durham native and Duke alum designed and built this sign, based on a design originally drawn by the late Grace Richardson?

Wonder if anyone from Duke is going to be willing to pony up to repair this damage?

Continue reading Another reason to hate Duke

Duke Park bathhouse

I don't blog about the old bathhouse in Duke Park very often despite that it's consumed a disproportionate amount of my waking hours the past 6 years. Long time readers know the story - the old pool sat on top of a culverted branch of the Ellerbe Creek. The culvert, built probably back in the 1910s, didn't always do it's job. Sinkholes under the pool cracked it and forced its relining several times over the years. After the 1993 season, the city decided it would be ineffective to reline the pool yet again, and probably too expensive to replace the pool. So they shut it down to think about what to do with it.

For 11 years.

It wasn't until 2004 that the city, after a fairly lengthy effort on the part of neighbors, finally removed the pool and replaced it with the meadow which now hosts the annual Beaver Queen Pageant. (They didn't do such a hot job with the meadow either. After 5 years of complaining about the piss poor job of filling the hole and the drainage problems created by the substandard work, it looks like the city will be getting around to redoing the meadow sometime in the current fiscal year. Yay.)

The bathhouse, a structure that dates back to the Great Depression, was shuttered when the pool closed. We (meaning both the Duke Park Neighborhood Association and the Duke Park Preservation Initiative, a small 501(c)3 based in the neighborhood) have been attempting to negotiate a lease with the city since 2004, in order to renovate the bathhouse and turn it into a community center. So far, we've been unsuccessful.

Gary ran a particularly great post on the pool and the bathhouse early this year. Go read it if you have few minutes.

So, why write about the bathhouse today?

Sometime over the weekend, the building was broken into. Two members of Citizens On Patrol noticed some damage to the Acadia Street side of the building on Sunday, and upon closer inspection determined that someone had pried off the wooden slats in one of the windows, and then busted two of the doors in the back of the building.


This was the first time i'd been in the building since, i think 2004. At that time, it was being used by the city of Durham as a warehouse for old parking tickets. Probably 2 dozen boxes of them, maybe more. No idea if they had been paid or not. We did indicate to the Parks and Recreation Department that this probably wasn't the best use of a historic structure. We were told they'd be removed promptly.

Apparently they were. Although we have no way of knowing for sure that they weren't carted away by whoever broke in to the building.

I got to inspect the damage with some other DPNA board members when the police responded to the report of the break-in. Here's what we found:

Busted bathroom fixtures.


The remains of a swimming pool test kit and first aid kit. Note the GTE phonebook in the background.


A City of Durham "Counter Deposit" from 2002 for $20, 033.50. There's some identifying information if anyone wants to try some identity theft on the city. Assuming they're still using the same bank account.




Some utility bills from 1996. (Names blurred out in Photoshop.)



Actually, a lot of old utility bills.


Not sure if this is just mold, or if someone tried to use this as kindling at one point in time.

So, now we know why the city hasn't wanted to lease the bathhouse to a community non-profit in order to have a community center. They've been using it for overflow file storage. I think we can all agree that storing 13 year old water bill receipts and 7 year old bank deposit receipts constitutes the best possible use of one of Durham's few (and possibly only) surviving WPA projects.

I will bow to the superior knowledge of our city administrators, and withdraw from the process of trying to build a community center in the old bathhouse. I am clearly barking up the wrong tree in wanting to do something like that.

Continue reading Duke Park bathhouse

Mardi Gras parade

We had our annual Mardi Gras parade on Saturday, hosted as always by the gracious and talented Richard and Sally. There were a lot of new krewes on hand this year; but as always, balloon animals, kids' floats, and silly hats were the order of the day.

And sazeracs.

As Peter says, the best part of drinking a sazerac is you get to say "sazerac." In your best Satchmo voice.

Here's some pics:

Continue reading Mardi Gras parade

Duke Park bathhouse featured on Endangered Durham

I hope my readers got to check out Gary's post on the Duke Park bathhouse yesterday. I especially like this photo:

from 1949. As others have pointed out, the Beaver Queen Pageant is right at home in the Duke Park meadow.

Thanks to Gary for this wonderful post, and stay tuned for future developments on the bathhouse renovations.

Continue reading Duke Park bathhouse featured on Endangered Durham

DPAC

So everyone who i know who was at last night's premiere performance at the Durham Performing Arts Center had a good time. Of course, everyone i know who went sat in the orchestra, so i don't have any first hand feedback on what those second balcony seats felt like.

And i haven't had a chance to talk to any out of town guests who might have followed the new signs through my neighborhood to the DPAC.

As i've been trying to point out to our City Council for the past couple of years, this route to the new Arts Center runs right through what city traffic engineers have called "possibly the worst designed intersection in the state," namely the Roxboro, Markham, Mangum crossover.


Now that we're inviting people from northern Wake County to come into our fair city from I-85 along Roxboro St., maybe now's a good time to think about redesigning this calamity with a little bit more than paint and construction grade Rhino barriers.

Those water filled plastic walls went up as a temporary measure ("one year, two years tops") until a permanent redesign could be installed. And it's not just to please our visitors' aesthetic senses that this needs to happen. If you live north and east of this intersection, walking to points south and west is just damn life threatening. (I'll be featuring the north west corner of Roxboro and Markham in an upcoming episode of "Curb cuts to nowhere." and fully 50 % of all traffic drives right through the painted "pedestrian safety zone" on the Mangum curve, as shown above.)

All of this wouldn't be so bad if city staff and the neighborhood association hadn't been talking about how to get this done, oh, 7 freaking years ago.


As far as i can tell, our City Council will continue to forget that this has ever been discussed with the Neighborhood Association until they either suddenly receive 500 emails reminding them, or someone gets killed trying to walk across this intersection.

Let's hope it's the former. You can write to all seven members of Council with one email at Council@durham.ci.nc.us.

While you're at it, maybe you can remind them that, despite the lovely crosswalk and signal lights that have been installed across Roxboro at the entrance to the nicest playground in the city, virtually no one driving on Roxboro ever actually yields to anyone who's walking through the intersection with, say, a baby stroller, or toddlers in tow. And forget about letting your 9 year old cross that street alone. It's not as though there's any evidence out there that the simple act of walking more might be an effective tool in the fight against childhood obesity.

And as an aside, this sure as hell isn't going to help enhance anyone's perception of downtown Durham, is it?

Continue reading DPAC

The awesome power of DE

I've written in the past about the issue of crossing Roxboro St. to get to Duke Park. The combination of NCDOT widening Roxboro to 7 lanes just north of Knox St., and the city installing one of the most modern playground spaces in the region at the park creates a major safety concern for parents who'd like to walk their kids from the east side of Roxboro St. over to the park to play. It's also not that great for joggers, dog walkers, or anyone else who likes to simply get around the neighborhood on foot.

Getting the crosswalk striped last year was a great first step. Although many drivers remain unaware of it, state law does require that they yield to a pedestrian in a marked crosswalk.

One of the additional features we've asked for was a pedestrian activated signal that would alert drivers to the presence of someone crossing the street. We got that this week. Now, when you're at the corner with the dog and the kids in the stroller, you can push this button,
and this light will start flashing for about 30 seconds while you cross.

Whether or not drivers will stop for you remains to be seen. I'd still love to see signage at the intersection reminding drivers of the law. But for now, i really need to thank Phil Loziuk and Mark Ahrendsen of the city's Transportation Department for staying with this project. I know that NCDOT, which has operational control of Roxboro St. because of its business 15/501 designation, has resisted most efforts to prioritize pedestrian safety on the road. So kudos to Mark and Phil for this installation.

Continue reading The awesome power of DE

Thank you, Parks and Recreation

What a pleasure to write a post complimenting someone in the city for a change. In the two weeks since i first encountered and wrote about some selfish idiots driving over our neighborhood plantings to bring their cars into Duke Park, we've had a lot of behind the scenes discussion with Parks and Rec director Rhonda Parker about how best to prevent recurrences.

Yesterday, Durham police officer Taylor visited me on my block to talk about the new boulders that were installed yesterday afternoon, and to provide the neighborhood with contact information to call (outside of 911) if we have more morons trying to figure out ways to bring their cars into the park. I got a chance to check out the boulders this morning.

I'm sure we ended up getting more media coverage than we sought (Ray Gronberg of the Herald Sun and i talked at length about Duke Park, the current problem, and historical problems for a piece that appeared on Tuesday, and i turned down interview requests from two TV stations), but i'm hopeful that these steps are in the right direction.

Thanks again.

Continue reading Thank you, Parks and Recreation

Neighborhood sustainability

I wish i had known that today was going to be link to Kevin day at DE.

He's got a great post up on the issue of neighborhood sustainability today, inspired by some of the discussion regarding "gentrification" in Cleveland-Holloway neighborhood (and elsewhere in Durham) as well as news reports this morning of what may have been a gun battle in East Durham.

I live in the Duke Park neighborhood of Durham. It has a reputation of being one of the more upscale in-town neighborhoods. We're just south of I-85 off of exit 177. But here's the deal. If you take the intersection nearest my house (Markham and Shawnee), and draw a circle of 1/4 mile radius using that as the center, you probably have about 140 - 150 houses of which between 35 and 40% are rental properties. some of these properties are well-maintained, and owned by people who live in the neighborhood, or who used to live in the neighborhood. some of them are owned by people who obviously don't give a shit about Duke Park neighborhood, Durham, or even, apparently, protecting their own investment.

I've been thinking over the past two weeks about running a series on DE, featuring one of these houses at a time, showing photographs of the deterioration that's been allowed to take place, giving a brief oral history, and calling out the landlords whose greed and thoughtlessness is behind all of this. I say thinking about it because, to a large extent, i have a policy of not naming or identifying individuals on this blog without their permission, public figures excepted. I'm not sure if i want to proceed with this.

But it's clear to me that, at least the eastern portion of Duke Park neighborhood, the part with Avondale Drive as its central corridor, is at risk of falling into the same kind of decline that other parts of East Durham have experienced over the past years. I really don't want that to happen, and not just because i own a home here.

What do you think? Do these slumlords deserve to have their privacy respected, or do the needs of the neighborhood and the city to stop this "demolition by neglect," as Gary so aptly describes it, outweigh their privacy rights?

Continue reading Neighborhood sustainability

A little more about Duke Park

I mentioned below in the brief history of Duke Park that the park used to be the home of a swimming pool. When i moved to the area in 1993, i chose Duke Park because the idea of having a public pool in walking distance for my two young children was appealing.

Alas, the pool closed for the season on Labor Day that year, and never reopened. The reason why the pool had so many structural issues is that it was built over an unnamed branch of the Ellerbe Creek, which is, in theory anyway, culverted where it runs through the park. But water kept eroding the soil structure under the pool, opening sinkholes and cracking the concrete. Eventually it reached the point where the pool could no longer be repaired, but instead needed to be either removed or replaced. Fortunately, it only took the city 11 years to get around to removing it.

Here's a shot of what happens, though, when you don't deal with drainage issues caused by building your park on top of a creek.

During the swimming pool removal, the Neighborhood Association offered numerous suggestions to city personnel in charge of the process as to how to deal with the issue of water on the site. Steve Hiltner, then of Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association, had some especially good ideas about creating a larger scale aquatic garden modeled on the one at Indian Trail Park, but P&R and General Services weren't remotely interested in talking about it. Instead, sod was laid on the old swimming pool site over a bed of clay and industrial grade fill, complete with concrete chunks 8 inches across, and broken glass. Since this was done in August, a sprinkler was set up to keep the sod watered 24/7 for about two weeks.

It was all dead before mid-September.

Oh, well.

At least we still have bathrooms. But if you want to let your daughter use the ladies room, better make sure she knows what poison ivy looks like. This tree is about 15 feet from the door to the ladies room. I first reported it to Parks and Rec after the 2006 Beaver Queen Pageant.

Finally, i mentioned that the old parking lot had been fenced in and turned into a storage yard. It's great that the Parks Department was able to find the resources to buiild this fence to keep people out of their yard.

After all, those busted basketball goals have to be kept safe:

Too bad the department hasn't figured out where to find the money to keep park users safe from morons who drive their cars over gardens and into the park.

I've posted a bit about my trip to NY last weekend. I did a lot of walking, including through much of Central Park. The park has around 6 miles of roadway that is open to vehicular traffic. Except for the following times:

When are Park Drives closed to motor traffic?

Weekdays: 10:00 am – 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm – 7:00 am.
Weekends: 7:00 pm Friday – 7:00 am Monday
Holidays: 7:00 pm the night before – 7:00 am the day after.

Somehow, even though cutting through the park is incredibly convenient for motorists, the folks in New York City are able to keep cars off of the park drives during these hours, allowing tens of thousands of people to enjoy the park on their bikes, skates, wheelchairs, or feet. How hard should it be to keep a 1/8th mile loop in a small neighborhood park vehicle free?

Continue reading A little more about Duke Park

End of my rope

I haven't written about Duke Park recently. Let's make up for lost ground.

If you're new to Durham, here's a very brief, recent, oral history. There used to be an outdoor swimming pool at Duke Park. It closed after the 1993 season, and never re-opened. The concrete liner had cracked for the third time, relining the pool yet again was expensive and probably futile. Eleven years later, after using the abandoned pool for a time as a storage area for trees soon to be planted by Parks and Recreation the department, the pool was finally demolished after a neighbor spent months negotiating with several different city agencies to get them to figure out a way to work together on the project. The old swimming pool space is now the "Duke Park Meadow," and will be the site of the Beaver Queen Pageant on June 7th and, we're excited to learn, a "Cool" John Ferguson concert sponsored by Durham Parks and Rec on June 21st.We're hoping it doesn't rain for a few days before either event, but that's an entirely different blog post.

In 1996, Durham voters passed a municipal bond authorization for park improvements. Duke Park was slated for major upgrades. By the time the city got around to actually building those upgrades nine years later, inflation and other projects had reduced those upgrades to a single aspect, a modern playground area which could accommodate a hundred or a hundred and fifty kids at a time. And it does. On Weekend afternoons like those just past, there are easily that many children from all across Durham enjoying the park in our neighborhood.

ONe of the major complaints that park users had before the renovation began was the paved loop through the park that went around the picnic shelter. It was used by too many people who would drive their cars into the park as soon as it opened in the morning, use the immediate vicinity as a bathroom, and then sleep in their vehicles all day. Or conduct the occasional drug deal or sexual tryst. None of these activities are illegal*, but they were keeping the intended users, namely parents and small children, out of the park. Our neighborhood association was very happy to learn that Parks and Rec shared our concern about these activities, and agreed to close the loop to traffic. This would give all those youngsters a safe area to learn to ride bicycles or roller skates as well, and the loop gets heavily used for that.


But from the beginning, many park users have seen the closing of the loop as an inconvenience for their party needs, and driven across the lawn, or taken the bollards at the foot of the loop apart, and driven through the park heedless of the new regulations. That happened again this weekend. Our neighbors have been instructed by Parks and Rec to call 911 when they see cars in the loop. At least three of us did that on Saturday afternoon between 4 and 5:30 pm. Durham police were, apparently, busy with higher priority calls, and no officer arrived at the park until all the vehicles were out. Members of the DPD have been attempting to get Parks and Rec to install more effective means of blocking vehicular access to the park, but Parks and Rec hasn't implemented any of them.

This particular group simply removed the paving blocks that form the border of the small garden planted between the loop entrance and the stone pillars at the foot of the loop, dug up the sign that says "Dogs must be leashed," and drove over what remained of the hostas that were planted there last year to bring their cars into the park.



I'm really getting sick and tired of this nonsense. Why is our city prepared to wait until one of these assholes drives over someone's kid before they do something? Why is our city willing to allow its investment in our parks to be degraded in this fashion by people who obviously don't care a whit about public spaces?

As an emailer to our neighborhood listserv wrote:

Raleigh, Cary and Morrisville all have extensive rental agreements that people must sign to rent park shelters. Cary has a minimum $50 deposit, Morrisville has a $100 deposit. The rental agreements include information about parking. Citations are given for those not following the parking regulations. Deposits are not refunded to those who break the rules, do not clean up, or do any damage to the park or facilities. I expect no less of Durham.

We won't know until later this morning whether or not these users rented the pavilion at Duke Park, or were merely fortunate enough to claim it on a day when it was unrented. The question remains whether or not Parks and Rec will seek to recover damages from them if it turns out that they did have a rental agreement.

Even more importantly, why should we as a neighborhood association and as individuals, continue to put our own time and money into maintaining and improving the appearance of our neighborhood park if, by its inactions, the city is going to allow a small group of park users to constantly trash our work. And still more importantly, is the city going to wait until one of these selfish assholes actually injures or kills someone in the park before they figure out a way to resolve this problem.

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* Brian helpfully points out in the comments that, maybe some of these activities are a little illegal. Sloppy writing on my part. Apologies to my readers.

Continue reading End of my rope

The awesome power of Dependable Erection!

Last month i kvetched to City Council about the idiotic intersection near my house, which features a Yield sign mounted to a piece of tin that turns into a kite whenever the wind blows above five miles an hour.

Well, whaddaya know!




Maybe next year they'll get around to putting a sidewalk at the Avondale Drive bus stops and figuring out how to enforce the friggin' noise ordinance?

Continue reading The awesome power of Dependable Erection!

Road work?

I wrote last week about the presentation i made at Coffee with Council, citing the embarrassing condition of the Roxboro/Markham/Mangum crossover. It's especially embarrassing as this is the main "gateway to downtown" for folks coming to the ballpark or the new expensive theater on Mangum St. from North Raleigh or North Durham. Actually, it's more than just an embarrassment. It's dangerous, too. so far there haven't been any fatalities there, but lots of property damage accidents, including a couple in the past 4 years that have knocked power out to the surrounding neighborhoods for a couple of hours at a time.

I was surprised to see that work had started on the intersection already.

Although i have to admit that based on the visual evidence, it's entirely unclear exactly who is doing the work. It sure doesn't look like it's either the city or the state.

Continue reading Road work?

Traffic circle blogging - pre-Valentine's Day edition

With luck, this will recoup some of the money we lost when luminaria were canceled a couple of months ago due to the drought. If you hurry, you might still be able to get in on the action and have your Valentine message posted for the world (or at least that part of it that passes through the intersection of Glendale and Markham) to see on Thursday.

Continue reading Traffic circle blogging - pre-Valentine's Day edition

Signposts

Gary's been blogging Vickers St. all week over at Endangered Durham. On Monday, he pointed out that the old concrete street sign at the corner of Jackson and Vickers may be the last of its kind in Durham.

These guys aren't being used for their original purpose anymore, but there's at least a couple of dozen along Knox St. at the south entrance to Duke Park. They're there ostensibly to keep idiots from driving over the curb and into the park. Most of them have lost their name tags, but not quite all.



This one once occupied the corner of High St. and Moreland, about a mile or so southwest of the sign Gary featured.

UPDATE: Welcome Endangered Durham readers.

Here's one more photo showing how many of these signposts have made it over to Duke Park.

Continue reading Signposts

Mardi Gras in Duke Park

Photo courtesy DL Anderson

Continue reading Mardi Gras in Duke Park

Beaver Lodge adventures

Looks like members of Beaver Lodge Local 1504 have been busy gnawing on some doughnuts in Raleigh. They got it hot and now. Ginny's got the video.

Continue reading Beaver Lodge adventures

The world is my closet

A couple of photos from our neighborhood park cleanup today.

I left the boots on the tree. They looked like someone might be back for them sometime.


On the other hand, Luann Young's 1984 Christmas bonus check is in safe hands. If anyone knows Luann, let her know we found the check. Maybe it's still good.

Continue reading The world is my closet

Happy New Year

From our neighborhood to all of you.


photo credit Ben Rocap

Continue reading Happy New Year

Dirty rotten scoundrels

That's a picture of some folks in my neighborhood a couple of years ago at the installation of our neighborhood sign. The sign was based on a design created by Grace Richardson, an artist who used to live in the neighborhood. Her life was cut short in an automobile accident, and she is remembered as well by her friends who have built the Grace Garden, in Durham Central Park.

Andrew Preiss, another neighborhood artist, (pictured front with the white t=shirt and baseball cap) created the sign in his studio on Foster St. two years ago. Andrew is a 1991 graduate of Duke University. The construction of the sign was financed by many months of fundraisers held by the neighborhood association. Upwards of 15,000 people drive past it every day.


That's what neighbors noticed on Tuesday.

Initial speculation centered on the theft of the copper letters for scrap metal, and area scrap dealers were alerted to be on the lookout.

DE has learned that is not the case, at least as far as the initial theft is concerned. (The remaining letters were missing as of Thursday afternoon in what may have been a copycat theft inspired by the original reporting. We're still looking into that.) Negotiations for the return of the missing letters are apparently ongoing. We're not prepared at this point to name the culprits, but we will say this: When all is said and done, this will probably not mark a high point in Duke/Durham town/gown relations.

Continue reading Dirty rotten scoundrels