Redevelopment firm sets confabs to get residents', officials' input

By Ray Gronberg

gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648

DURHAM -- The company spearheading the latest effort to redevelop the Rolling Hills neighborhood plans a round of meetings with officials and residents in the coming two weeks to get a bead on what people want from the project.

The confabs will occur at the Hayti Heritage Center to ensure that people who live near Rolling Hills can attend and have their say. There will be a neighborhood meeting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, and a weeklong design workshop beginning Nov. 16.

Executives with the St. Louis firm of McCormack Baron Salazar have also been conferring with a committee of local officials and activists. They and city leaders are pushing to get a plan together quickly to qualify for federal economic-stimulus money, along with tax credits channeled through the N.C. Housing Finance Agency.

"We agreed to meetings on steroids," said Councilman Farad Ali, who's on the project's steering committee. "The more community outreach activities we can have, the better."

The $745,000 planning effort, paid for by the city, is supposed to yield plans for a development that would include 350 or more units of housing and cost some $80 million.

It would mark the third major effort to redevelop the site. The previous two, headed by local groups, failed to deliver on their promises.

The project would replace the housing that now exists on the site, and also may target property in the adjoining Southside neighborhood controlled by the Self-Help credit union. The city is in the process of buying the parcels at Rolling Hills that remain in private hands.

Architect Tom Gallas said the job facing him and other planners is among other things to figure out how to link Rolling Hills and Southside, figure out how dense a project the area can handle and what mix of housing types and incomes would work.

The workshop, which will begin early in the evening Nov. 16, will include meetings with city administrators to discuss zoning and other technical issues, and sessions with clergy, homeowners and youth groups.

Gallas said the planners would hold a "mid-term" meeting with neighbors the evening of Nov. 18 to "ask the community have we gotten it right so far." A final presentation is scheduled the evening of Nov. 20.

Council members were with one exception pleased with the schedule.

The exception, Councilman Howard Clement, was annoyed that the kick-off session for the design workshop overlapped a scheduled council business meeting, making it harder for elected officials to monitor the work.

But administrators assured Clement and other council members that they'll keep close tabs on what happens. "You'll have a full accounting of what takes place," said Larry Jarvis, assistant director of the city's Community Development Department.

Mayor Bill Bell indicated that would suffice.

"We've got the whole community to deal with," he said. "If we're going to meet the kind of timetable we've got, I assume this is the earliest you can start."