Frequently Asked Questions
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- What is Old North Durham Park?
- What is the controversy regarding Old North Durham Park?
- What is the current status of Old North Durham Park?
- What city plans for improvement of OND Park existed prior to efforts by CPSC to implement a different plan?
- How does the CPSC/FOND master plan privatize public space?
- Are you against improving the park and your neighborhood? Isn’t any kind of development and investment better than the current state of the park?
- What is wrong with making money through real estate development?
- Why can’t El Kilombo and FONDP work together to make a plan for everyone?
- If I agree that the city should upgrade ONDPark according to its original plans and that the park should be kept under public, democratic control, what can I do?
- What is El Kilombo Intergaláctico?
- How has CPSC and its private partners attempted to privatize OND Park?
- To what would the November 8, 2007 lease have entitled the CPSC if Durham residents had not prevented the execution of the lease?
What is Old North Durham Park?
OND Park is a vibrant and vital space for community gathering and recreation in between Geer St. and Trinity Avenue. OND Park’s full-size soccer field is the only field of its kind in the downtown area, and it is one of few remaining publicly-owned and managed fields available for soccer or other sports. Durham already has an extreme shortage of soccer fields; as written in the 2003-2013 Durham Parks and Recreation Master Plan, based on national “Level of Service” standards, Durham lacks nearly forty soccer fields given its population. OND park is used by the long-standing low-income black and Latino communities adjacent to the park, as well as by other residents of Old North Durham, for community-organized after-school soccer programs, adult and youth pick-up games, neighborhood festivals, general family social activity, soccer league games, and other sports-play. Public parks like OND Park serve as an essential resource for youth and teens in our neighborhood and across the city, since it is on this soccer field that they are involved in parent- and community-organized youth programs and where they can stay engaged in community life. Taking away the sole full-size athletic field and public space in the downtown area would be detrimental to Durham’s youth and families. Substantial community use of OND Park continues despite the Central Park School for Children (CPSC) Board’s efforts since 2003 to reduce public access to OND Park, in one instance to privatize it completely, and currently to eliminate the regulation-size field, the park’s most notable and valued feature.
What is the controversy regarding Old North Durham Park?
Durham Parks and Recreation has for over seven years had a plan and budget for the upgrade of Old North Durham Park. These upgrades were sidelined by interest from the board of the Central Park School for Children (CPSC), a charter school next to the Park, in implementing a privately-developed and privately-financed plan for the Park. Most notably, the plan developed by CPSC and its coalition of private partners known as “Friends of Old North Durham Park” (FONDP) would reduce the existing regulation-size soccer field to a small “practice field.” This would eliminate one of the primary recreational spaces used by our neighborhood’s lower income Black and Latino families. We believe CPSC’s plan would undermine the current use of the park by those families in favor of its own particular interests. It seems apparent to us and to others in the community that CPSC/FONDP’s plan fits into a larger downtown development plan that will ultimately displace Black and Latino communities from the neighborhood.
In internal memos in 2005, Durham Parks and Recreation cautioned against CPSC’s proposal saying “the park is for the whole city, not just the CPSC, and the whole city desperately needs more athletic fields.” Durham Parks and Recreation later began to argue against the regulation-size soccer field and in favor of CPSC’s private plan. We are concerned with this shift by DPR, as well as by the fact that the capacity of some private actors to raise funds–actors that also stand to benefit financially from the CPSC-proposed development of the park–have provided them with privileged access to city staff and officials. Many neighbors, including we at El Kilombo, want the city to address public, rather than private, demands, and upgrade the existing full-size soccer field which, as city documents show, is desperately needed.
What is the current status of Old North Durham Park?
At the recent October 21 City Council Work Session, City Council chose not to vote on CPSC/FONDP’s “Master Plan” for Old North Durham Park (which among other things significantly reduces the size of the 330’x 220’ soccer field) and instead sent it back to the City Manager. The decision was based on the following concerns: the potential loss of a soccer field that the city desperately needs; the fact that there had been no public participation in the planning process; and the fact that there were a large number of residents present who protested the Master Plan based on concern over both the reduction in the size of the soccer field and the control of the park planning process by private actors with access to private investment.
What city plans for improvement of OND Park existed prior to efforts by CPSC to implement a different plan?
City officials and staff have stated repeatedly, in the 2003-2013 Durham Parks and Recreation Master Plan, in City Council meetings, in correspondence, and elsewhere, that the city desperately needs more soccer and athletic fields suitable for league, youth, and adult play. As stated in the DPR Master Plan, based on national “Level of Service” standards, Durham lacks nearly forty soccer fields given its population. The Master Plan states, “It is in those areas where the City’s targets are lower than the national recommendations that citizens have most strongly noted a lack of facilities (e.g. soccer/football fields)“ (p83). Further, “Several parks have plans in place for playing field upgrades and rehabilitation: Campus Hills, Valley Springs, and Old North Durham” (p32). After concluding that the upgrade and maintenance of the Park as an athletic field would best serve the public interest, public funds for its renovation were earmarked in a 1996 bond and again in a 2005 bond. $887,954 had been allocated for the renovation and installation of irrigation and sod for six fields, including OND Park. As of October 2006, according to the General Services Projects Management division, $222, 879 was still budgeted for such OND Park renovations. Then Director of Parks and Recreation Darrell Crittendon reiterated in 2006 that upgrade of the full-size soccer field at OND Park had been approved, Capital Improvement Program funding had already been authorized, and the Storm Water Services had committed to help pay for a damaged storm water line under the field as part of the upgrade. As late as November 15, 2006, engineers had already submitted a design proposal for the repairs under review by Storm Water Services. Drainage repairs by Storm Water Services were waiting on coordination with other aspects of field construction under the General Services Department. The drainage repairs extended the scheduled completion date for the renovations, but the overall plans for the Park remained unchanged.
City Council adopted Resolution #9281 on September 6, 2005 reaffirming the city’s original plans to upgrade OND Park, including: “The Athletic field in the park (330ft by 180 ft) will be renovated with grading, sod, and irrigation. The field will serve tournament level and adult soccer as well as junior-level games, several of which can be played simultaneously across the width of the field…With the current shortage of athletic fields in Durham, DPR staff feels that we cannot afford to reduce or lose one of the existing fields.” Other commitments had included ensuring full public access to and public parking for the park, especially an entrance from Geer St. In November of 2007, the city reconfirmed its commitment to upgrade the park according to its 2005 plan.
How does the CPSC/FONDP master plan privatize public space?
While under the proposed “master plan” they would not technically “own” the park, FONDP/CPSC’s proposal undermines the meaning and intent of public space by effectively “paying” the city to develop/design the park according to their private interests. The abandonment of publicly-determined plans in favor of the needs/funds of private entities constitutes an effective concession of public resources to a system where only people who can raise large sums of money have a voice in “public” planning. In other words, in order for anyone besides FONDP/CPSC to enter into a “public/private partnership” with the city and therefore be able to have Old North Durham Park changed according their wishes they would have to match or exceed FONDP/CPSC cash contribution. Given that a good number of communities in Durham do not have the resources to raise these large sums of money accepting such a “partnership” exposes every public space in the city of being reshaped according to the needs of very narrow financial interests that are likely to be the highest bidders.
Are you against improving the park and your neighborhood? Isn’t any kind of development and investment better than the current state of the park?
No. We are not against improvement of our park and neighborhood. In fact, we have insisted that the city maintain its commitment to improve OND Park with its full-size soccer field, which it has the funds and ability to do. Additionally, it has been the low-income Latino and black community that has for years cut the field’s grass, and otherwise maintained the Park. It is important who gets to decide what is “improvement,” and how it benefits residents.
We are troubled by the oft-repeated description of our park and neighborhood as “blighted”, “empty,” “dead,” “desolate,” etc., which we feel is a highly racialized lens and ignores the strong and deep community ties and community life that already exists in our neighborhood. The gentrification process bolstered by investors, developers and businesses is serving to destroy what genuine community already exists in our downtown neighborhood, but which speculators eye only as empty frontiers to be conquered and developed.
Often what is presented as community-friendly “revitalization” is in fact development ventures that provide large financial benefits to a few at the expense of many who get priced out of their homes and community, and for whom the new residences, restaurants, stores, and parks are not intended to serve. The resulting effort to attract new patrons/neighbors who have extra income, causes some homeowners, businesses, and investors to rally police and other punitive resources to protect their investments, measures which often target poorer, racialized “others” in the community. Truly democratic development benefiting all residents requires breaking from a
model that destroys (the existing) community for profit-making ventures. Although individuals have a right to do business and invest in our neighborhood, as in any other, investment that usurps public resources will only exacerbate existing inequalities, and therefore cannot lead to a more socially just arrangement.
What is wrong with making money through real estate development?
Nothing. People have a right to make as much money as they like in real estate. What they do not have a right to do is usurp public resources and subvert public process, at the cost of the most vulnerable parts of our community, for their own financial gain.
Why can’t El Kilombo and FONDP work together to make a plan for everyone?
Some people, including the media, are portraying the OND Park issue as one of lack of inclusion of our particular organization, El Kilombo, in the planning process. At issue is not whether El Kilombo was at the table. No genuine public deliberation about OND Park since CPSC’s failed attempt in 2007 to lease the park and the subsequent public meeting in 2008 has occurred in any city-sponsored meeting with Durham residents affiliated and not-affiliated with El Kilombo.
What we have received instead have been aggressive and antagonistic visits at our community center and events by people affiliated with FOND, as well as two emails in early September (less than two days before a noon meeting on a workday) from representatives of Friends of Old North Durham Park inviting “participation” in helping to create a legal entity, “Friends of Old North Durham” to implement a “Master Plan” they had already finalized. It was clear that those affiliated with FOND had already been meeting extensively with DPR employees. Residents or private-entities organizing meetings to craft their own plans for the park does not constitute a public meeting.
El Kilombo has chosen not to respond to the private invitations by private parties working to privatize the park. We’ve seen in the past with park-specific and with city-wide issues that these meetings are constructed largely to falsely create the image of community consultation and support. The city, not private entities, should be organizing and sponsoring meetings if there is to be genuine public deliberation about the future of OND Park – a public resource- rather than nominal consent.
In the lead up to the recent Oct. 21, 2010 City Council meeting, no city staff have reached out to El Kilombo or neighborhood residents living next to the park for input on OND Park’s future since a December 18, 2007 public, city-sponsored meeting, in which residents condemned efforts to privatize the park (via lease or otherwise) and to eliminate the full-size athletic field.
If I agree that the city should upgrade ONDPark according to its original plans and that the park should be kept under public, democratic control, what can I do?
1. Write a letter to the City Manager, the Mayor, Durham Parks and Recreation, and City Council informing them that you would like them to upgrade the park, especially its full-size soccer field, using public funds and to keep the park under direct city management. Letters should be sent to Bill.Bell@durhamnc.gov, farad.ali@durhamnc.gov, Cora.ColeMcFadden@durhamnc.gov, Eugene.Brown@durhamnc.gov, diane.catotti@durhamnc.gov, Howard.Clement@durhamnc.gov, mike.woodard@durhamnc.gov, tom.bonfield@durhamnc.gov, and Rhonda.Parker@durhamnc.gov.
2. Ask your neighborhood associations and local businesses to withdraw their support for the FONDP Master plan. The neighborhood associations have endorsed the CPSC/FONDPs proposal in the name of all of the residents of the neighborhood. Ask your association to withdraw its support either unconditionally, or at least temporarily until residents have a chance to access more information regarding the park and debate the potential plans as a community.
If you have any further questions, please contact us at info@elkilombo.org
What is El Kilombo Intergaláctico?
El Kilombo is a community organization that brings together primarily low-income Black, Latino, student, and other residents of our neighborhood to tackle the challenges we face in Durham. Since opening our Center in 2006, El Kilombo has dedicated thousands of hours to our community, offering free services and classes (including ESL, computer literacy, adult and child literacy classes, among others), and providing a space for community gatherings, neighborhood festivals, and more. We are an all-volunteer organization and fund our programs with grassroots fundraising efforts and events.
How has CPSC and its private partners attempted to privatize OND Park?
CPSC’s most explicit attempt to privatize the park occurred in November 2007, when it proposed to the City Council a 10-year, $10-a-year lease of OND Park to the The Central Park for School Foundation (a private entity whose sole purpose is to “hold real property” for the school) at the November 8, 2007 City Council Work Session (See details on CPSC’s proposed 2007 lease). Old North Durham residents, including El Kilombo, halted that lease by expressing serious concerns at the Nov. 8, 2007 work session, and requested, on record there and again at a December 18, 2007 meeting sponsored by Durham Parks and Recreation, that the city follow through with its original commitment to upgrade the full-size soccer field under direct city management.
Even prior to seeking the direct 10-year lease, however, CPSC had reduced public access to OND Park, thereby discouraging the park’s use by the general public. CPSC’s purchase of the 2-story, city-owned building and plot on Foster St. (PIN 0822-10-90-2692) included the only at-grade, vehicle-access entrance to the park, which had previously served as a main public entrance to the park. Upon purchasing the building, CPSC closed that entrance to public access. CPSC also insisted that city maintenance staff only use the entrance after 4pm and give CPSC at least 10 minutes notice every time the city staff itself desired to use that entrance, demands which the city staff found to be ridiculous and to hinder city duties.
At the same time, city documents show that CPSC, between 2003 and 2007, consistently pressed the city to abandon its commitment to upgrading the full-size soccer field and instead implement CPSC’s plans. Internal documents indicate that while DPR staff repeatedly stated to CPSC that the full-size soccer field must remain, CPSC hired designers to draft plans that specifically eliminated the full-size soccer field. Developer Bob Chapman, CPSC board member, has been a primary point person behind CPSC’s building acquisition and OND Park plans.
Other indications of CPSC’s attempts to establish claim to OND Park are reflected by the private patio constructed on public property in OND Park, as an appendage to the Trotter Building, owned by CPSC board member and real estate developer Bob Chapman. Additionally, patrons of the Trotter Building have on at least one documented occasion put up signs in the park declaring that the entire park was closed for a private event, without reserving its use through the city. When neighborhood residents objected, as the field had been reserved through the city for a neighborhood festival that day, the event was moved inside the Trotter Building. It is highly objectionable for the Trotter Building to reserve or “rent out” the public park as part of its private facilities.
Since neighborhood residents halted CPSC’s plan to lease OND Park in 2007, CPSC’s board has sought, through a series of private meetings with Durham Parks and Recreation, to get the city to adopt its “Master Plan” for the park without any city-sponsored public meeting. Indeed, CPSC gathered an impressive, but exclusive, list of businesses, business associations, neighborhood associations, investors, and other organizations to endorse what CPSC has presented as its positive, community-friendly plan for improvement of what they mischaracterize as a desolate and underused park. These organizations and businesses are not representative of the entire neighborhood and their recruitment does not constitute public voice or democratic process. Additionally, it is our belief that CPSC has failed to fully disclose to these entities the legitimate concerns voiced by residents to CPSC’s “master plan” and the strong community opposition to the elimination of the full-size soccer field. The transfer of control over use, management, OR development of OND Park from the city, which is accountable to Durham residents, to unaccountable private entities like the Central Park School Foundation and/or Friends of Old North Durham Park, is simply unacceptable.
To what would the November 8, 2007 lease have entitled the CPSC if Durham residents had not prevented the execution of the lease?
Note that the lease is between the City of Durham (“Landlord”) and Central Park School for Children Foundation (“Tenant”), not the school itself. Under it’s 2006 public reporting 990 Form, Part III: Statement of Program Service Accomplishments, it is written: “The Central Park School for Children Foundation holds title for real property. There is no program associated with the foundation.” Also note that according to correspondence with city staff available in the public record, the original OND Park lease was drafted by CSPC’s private attorney, which the Senior Assistant City Attorney found to be unprecedented and of concern.
The lease would have entitled CPSC to:
- Control who could use the park at most times. This was especially concerning since CPSC is a year-round school from mid July until mid June, with private, 7:30am-6pm intercession and summer camps. See Section 9b: “At all times during daylight hours, the Premises will be open to the public unless the Premises is rented for an event pursuant to paragraph 17. During school hours, and when the Premises is rented, areas of the premises that are being used either by the Tenant or the Tenant’s invitees may be monitored by the Tenant and Tenant’s staff, and any members of the public who are interfering with or causing a detriment to the Tenant’s legitimate educational interests may be asked to leave the Premises.”
- Decide who could rent the park, rather than having residents go through Durham Parks and Recreation’s established public process AND receive the revenues from the rentals: With the lease, anyone desiring to reserve use of the park must reserve it through the School, not through the Department of Parks and Recreation. See Section 17: ASSIGNMENT AND SUBLETTING: “The Tenant shall have the right to sublet the Premises to organizations that sponsor cultural, athletic, recreational and/or arts related events. During the rental period, the organizational shall have exclusive use of that part of the Premises rented to it…”
- A priori approval of any of CPSC’s unspecified park plans, allowing CPSC to bypass traditional city protocol of approval of park plans: See Section 9: USE AND CARE OF THE PREMISES: “…The Tenant shall submit a master plan and any major changes thereto to the City Manager, or his designee, for review and approval. Provided these plans are developed in consultation with recognized professional park planners and meet N. C. Public School Safety Standards, such approval will not be unreasonably withheld…”
- Full control over the park’s East entrance, including the city-owned parking lot, which the city unusually leased to TROSA for 20 years for $1 on December 5, 2005: See Section 11d: LANDLORD’s RESPONSIBILITIES: “Assign to the Tenant usage of TROSA access easements and provide the Tenant with documentation for TROSA’s use of the Geer Street parking lot.”
- Limit city access to the park, specifically to trash collection, tree maintenance, and policing. See Section 20: ACCESS AND USE OF PROPERTY: “The Landlord and its agents and contractors, may enter the Premises to undertake those responsibilities placed upon it under the terms of this Lease, in the case of emergency or with the consent of the Tenant.”
- Extension of the Lease: In a June 11, 2007 email to city staff, Real Estate Division Manager Sandra K Harper wrote, “Section 6 (Extension of lease term): keep in mind that any extension will exceed a 10 yr. lease & will need to be dealt with by the same procedure as would apply to a sale…” See Section 6 of lease: EXTENSION OF LEASE TERM: “…Provided that the Tenant has met all obligations of this Lease during the Lease Term, at the end of the Lease Term the Landlord shall negotiate in good faith with the Tenant for an extension of the Lease under similar terms and conditions of this Lease Agreement, subject to applicable state law procedural provisions and approval of the City Council”
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