Durham's New UDO on the Ballot in 2025 City Elections

Image credit: Engage Durham, New UDO Zoning Comparison Viewer

After Durham adopted a new Comprehensive Plan in October 2023, the city began to rewrite its Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), which includes the city’s zoning rules. The new rules will guide the Durham's physical growth for at least the next decade, although UDOs can be amended. The rewrite will have a major impact on housing costs, gentrification, sprawl, and other issues. The city council would approve the final UDO after the 2025 elections.

To help the public understand the proposed changes, Engage Durham launched the New UDO Zoning Comparison Viewer, last updated in early 2025. The tool includes a side-by-side map that shows how the new rules would simplify and transform zoning in many neighborhoods. An important change is the introduction of "Residential Neighborhood (RD)" zoning, shown in bright yellow across large areas of the city.

Under the proposed RD zoning, a landowner could choose from three development paths. RD-1 would allow a single primary house and one accessory dwelling unit (ADU) on a standard 5,000 sq. ft lot. The second scenario, RD-2, would allow greater density on a similarly-sized lot, allowing up to four compact housing units (such as smaller houses or duplexes) in buildings up to three stories tall. The third and most dense option, RD-3, would permit one housing unit for every 625 sq. ft. of lot size, but only for projects that meet an affordability requirement that has not yet been defined. For example, an eight-unit, three-story apartment building could be built on a 5,000 sq. ft. lot.

Proposed "Residential Neighborhood" development options. Image credit: City of Durham [x, timestamp 34:00]

The proposed RD-2 and RD-3 zoning options could fuel two kinds of problematic growth on cheaper land in Durham. In centrally located, lower-income neighborhoods, the new rules may accelerate displacement of current residents through rising rents and property taxes. On the city’s outskirts, the construction of dense 'by-right' projects could speed up a costly pattern of suburban sprawl. While this model of growth is highly profitable for developers, it creates long-term financial strains on the city, as delivering services like roads, water, and fire protection to dispersed areas is far more expensive than servicing a dense urban core. In southeast Durham, sprawl has also been environmentally destructive [x].

It may be prudent to restrict the more intensive RD-2 and RD-3 options to within a few miles of downtown Durham. This geographic limit can also be paired with community benefits agreements and inclusionary zoning to encourage housing that serves low-income and working-class residents. This approach would channel investment into a higher-density, less car-dependent urban core, create fewer long-term financial liabilities for the city, and blunt the forces of gentrification and displacement.

Durham’s struggle to balance developer investment with the housing needs of working-class residents is is currently being faced by many US cities. A promising idea from Louisville, KY is an anti-displacement ordinance that uses an algorithm to check whether developer projects aligns with neighborhood income levels. If a project would price out current residents, then it cannot receive city subsidies [x].

The proposed UDO could reduce the Durham city council’s oversight of a major commercial project close to downtown, the Heritage Square redevelopment. In August 2025, the Sterling Bay company withdrew a rezoning request for the vacant shopping mall in the heart of historic Hayti. The company initially sought council approval to build above 175 ft. Under the new UDO, the site would be zoned as CX-8. Like the RD-3 zoning, CX-8 includes an undefined affordability requirement [x]. If Sterling Bay meets that future requirement, the company could build with no height limit and without a public hearing, proceeding a ‘by-right’ project and bypassing the city council.

Current zoning for residential areas. Image credit: Engage Durham [x, slides 23-24]

The contents of the new UDO will be heavily influenced by the outcome of the 2025 city elections. The current council is divided 4-3 on development issues, specifically on annexation and rezoning requests.

A four-member majority of Javiera Caballero, mayor pro tempore Mark-Anthony Middleton, Carl Rist, and mayor Leonardo Williams have voted in favor of virtually all developer requests. Their approach to the UDO is expected to focus on maximizing housing construction with no affordability mandate or protections against displacement and sprawl.

A three-member minority of Nate Baker, Chelsea Cook, and DeDreana Freeman has used the annexation and rezoning process to negotiate for community benefits. This group has voted to approve developer requests around two-thirds of the time. The priority of the council minority for the new UDO would be to strengthen the city’s leverage to control sprawl, secure affordable housing, and prioritize community needs.

Two members of the pro-developer majority, Middleton and Williams, are being challenged by Shanetta Burris and Anjanee Bell, respectively. Bell, Burris, and the minority incumbents (Cook and Freeman) have been endorsed by the city workers union, UE Local 150. Neutral in the mayoral race, the Durham Progressive Democrats also endorsed Burris, Cook, and Freeman. 

The business-oriented Friends of Durham group has endorsed the challengers to Cook and Freeman (Diana Medoff and Matt Kopac), while backing the incumbents Middleton and Williams. Major organizations such as the People’s Alliance, the Durham Committee for the Affairs of Black People, and the Indyweek newspaper split their endorsements between the two camps.

Durham city council votes in 2024 on zoning changes and consolidated annexations

Image credit: BCPI

Work Cited

1. City of Durham NC. (2024, October 30). New UDO Oct 22 Virtual Community meeting [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIzQ-FexhxY

2. Durham developer settles pollution lawsuit, protecting Raleigh’s drinking water. (2025, September 23). Raleigh News & Observer. https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/durham-county/article312144711.html

3. Draft Zoning District Standards (Fall 2024). (2024, September 30). Engage Durham. https://engagedurham.com/DocumentCenter/View/646/Draft-Zoning-District-Standards-Fall-2024

4. Unified Development Ordinance Code Audit & Approach. (2024, May 1). Engage Durham. https://engagedurham.com/DocumentCenter/View/601/Durham-New-UDO-Audit-and-Approach-Presentation-JCCPC-20240501

5. ‘Anti-Displacement Tool’ to Direct City Funding to Projects that Won’t Price Out Residents. (2025, June 27). Shelterforce. https://shelterforce.org/2025/03/06/anti-displacement-tool-to-direct-city-funding-to-projects-that-wont-price-out-residents/