The Rolling Hills/Southside redevelopment project got a much different reception from the Durham Planning Commission tonight than it did a month ago.
Where a request to accept a "blight" report brought sharp criticism at the commission's Jan. 4 meeting, a rezoning and plan amendment for part of the Rolling Hills site won unanimous approval and warm words for the project overall.
"I really feel like this is the time for this area of Durham," said commissioner Wendy Jacobs. "It's going to happen, it's going to happen now. We need to really get behind this project and support it."
Unlike the January meeting, several members of the project's steering committee attended the committee meeting and spoke in favor of the rezoning and plan amendment, which would bring about seven acres along Lakewood Avenue under the new downtown zoning system.
The change allows higher residential density, and for some planned residential units to be used for home-based businesses or converted to commercial use if there is market demand in the future.
Larry and Denise Hester, owners of the Phoenix Square shopping center adjacent to Rolling Hills, objected to the changes. Among other concerns, they mentioned a traffic increase that could require widening of Lakewood Avenue and the possibility of new retail establishments in the area.
However, commissioner Melvin Whitley said the project could benefit the Hesters' business.
"By moving this project forward we give people a reason to comer to this area and when they come they're going to be buying goods and services," said Whitley.
Denise Hester compared the area, just south of the Durham Freeway, to "the continent of Africa under colonial times” due to the number of street-improvement and redevelopment projects potentially affecting the area along Fayetteville Street from the Freeway south past the American Tobacco Trail.
She also called the Rolling Hills/Southside project "a Trojan horse" that would continue the process begun with Freeway construction in the 1960s that leveled most of the Hayti area, Durham's original black neighborhood.
Commissioners, though, said the issues that bothered them in January, particularly the possibility of the city using eminent domain to acquire property and lack of communication with the area's current residents, had been largely addressed and relieved by city staff in the intervening weeks.
Commissioner Jackie Brown said, "Things [are] much clearer than they were last month."
