Will Durham Developers Be Permanently Unleashed? New State Law Makes This Election Pivotal

Durham’s election for Mayor and City Council ward seats is happening right now, and it’s a lot more important than you think. You are voting on whether to allow developers to erase Durham as we know it.

A little-known new state law makes who controls the City Council pivotal for Durham’s future, potentially changing the city—and county—dramatically and permanently.

In the next year, the City Council will vote on a new development ordinance (the “UDO”), with a draft now on City Hall desks, that would make it much, much easier to build extremely tall and dense development. For example, in the current draft, Broad Street could go to six stories, with up to 10 stories allowed in some circumstances.

Downtown stretches of Broad Street. Image credit: Google Maps

And that new state law? It would make such changes in the UDO permanent. Last December 11th, over Governor Stein’s veto, the North Carolina legislature gave the real estate industry a big holiday gift: Tucked 131 pages into the Hurricane Helene relief package was an unrelated provision that makes it practically impossible for cities or counties statewide to tighten regulation of development.

The law turns planning and development regulation on its head, by saying that before a development ordinance imposes new restrictions on property use, every single owner of property affected must agree in writing to the new rules. Each and every owner.

It makes development regulation into a ratchet that can go only one way: loosening laws to allow denser and taller development.

Durham’s new draft UDO, under direction of the pre-election four-member City Council majority of Mayor Leo Williams, Mark-Anthony Middleton, Javiera Caballero and Carl Rist, has entirely new zoning districts which allow much denser and taller development, most of it “by right.” This means most development will not need a rezoning. Approval will be an administrative check list.

You won’t have any say in the new development, even if it backs up to your yard. No public hearings. No public input. No notice given to nearby property owners. No City Council leverage to negotiate for better development or affordable housing. You will know a big new demolition and development is happening when you see it happening.

And there will be no going back so long as the new state law remains. If dense development causes your yard to flood and your foundation to crack — well, that’s your problem. You can try to sue the developer, because the City will not help you.

Mayor Leo Williams’ frequent refrain is, “We will build.” Without any more nuanced development policy, the environmental destruction has been massive. Rampant sprawl in southeast Durham has clear-cut and mass-graded thousands of acres of forestland. So much red clay has eroded into Lick Creek and its tributaries that they run tomato red. Many of those creeks are dead. The fish have died of clogged gills and the freshwater mussels have suffocated under silt.

Williams, along with Mark-Anthony Middleton, Carl Rist and Javiera Caballero, preach we need more affordable housing — which is true — and that more building will drive down rents and house prices — which is not. Durham’s recent history has shown that to be a fiction. And national studies prove it.

Like the regularly disproven supply-side economics argument, building willy-nilly doesn’t bring down house prices or rents. Instead, the relatively small additional housing supply that results from loosening development regulation accelerates gentrification. No lowering of prices has been found.

A massive study looked at data from 1136 cities from 2000 to 2019. The conclusion? “[W]e find no statistically significant evidence that these reforms lead to an increase in affordable rental units within three to nine years of reform passage.” A 0.8% increase in housing stock was found, but, “This increase occurs predominantly for units at the higher end of the rent price distribution...”. Land-use reforms and housing costs: Does allowing for increased density lead to greater affordability? Urban Studies 1–22 (2023).

Worse, loosening development rules fuels demolition, displacement and gentrification, disproportionately hitting lower income African-American and other minority neighborhoods, as found by recent studies of several cities. For one example, see Upzoning and gentrification: Heterogeneous impacts of neighbourhood-level upzoning in New York City, Urban Studies 62(10) (2025).

The findings of these studies are mirrored in Durham’s experience. Durham Dataworks found that Durham’s loss of its African-American population is accelerating. Meanwhile, more affordable houses are common targets for tear-down, with 3 to 4 houses often built on a city lot, and each of the new houses selling for 30 to 40% more than the house that was torn down.

High materials’ costs makes it very difficult to build new housing units that will sell at affordable prices. For affordability, preserving existing housing units is the better public policy.

It should be noted that most development votes by the Durham City Council are unanimous. Over the past two years, there are about a dozen votes that split 4 to 3. However, those votes have been crucial, causing great human and environmental damage.

Durham is getting the worst of both worlds - deregulated density along with rampant sprawl - without adequate infrastructure to support either. The alternative? Tell your City Council and County Commissioners that you want a more balanced approach to planning and development. And tell them to hit the brakes on deregulating development by loosening regulations while a state statute says there will be no going back.

Sherri Zann Rosenthal is a former developer, and created Eno Commons, a 22-home cohousing neighborhood. She retired from her position as Deputy City Attorney for the City of Durham in 2020.