During the March 17th Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission (BPAC) meeting in Durham via Zoom, City Council members Matt Kopac and Carl Rist stated the importance of reforming Durham’s land use policies in the new (but stalled) Durham Land Development Code (LDC, née UDO).

Per Action 1 of the unanimously passed Vision Zero Action Plan, “Update Land Use Policy,” changing land use practices to limit vehicle miles traveled will be critical in achieving Durham’s Vision Zero Goals.

Vision Zero is a a global strategy aimed at eliminating all traffic fatalities and severe injuries. Durham adopted a Resolution Committing to Vision Zero in September 2017, aiming to reduce traffic deaths and serious injuries by 50% by 2035 and achieve the goal of zero fatalities and serious injuries on Durham roadways by 2045. Durham is not on track to meet these targets.

Land Use regulations dictate which uses – agricultural, industrial, commercial, residential, etc. – are allowed which locations. Critically, land use regulations are also used to determine how much of these uses are allowed in those locations, and have been used to enforce low-density development patterns (AKA sprawl). Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) refers to how far people drive in their cars. Scholars and advocates agree, we can decrease traffic fatalities by decreasing VMT, and we can reduce VMT by increasing density.

During budget discussions at a recent BPAC meeting, an advisory commission member noted that any debates affecting transit, parking, and street safety must be considered in the context of Durham’s unanimously adopted Vision Zero Action Plan.

The commission member reminded those present that the Action Plan identifies reducing vehicle miles traveled as one of the most important ways to reduce deaths and serious injuries from traffic violence, which makes land use, parking policy, and transit investment central to achieving the city’s stated safety goals.

While acknowledging that funding gaps and process constraints make progress harder, the commission member argued that Durham has already seriously committed to ambitious Vision Zero targets, and needs to commit to making steady progress, rather than falling further behind.

Councilmember Kopac Responded:

In response, a commission member explained that the BPAC’s LDC Task Force had focused mainly on bicycle and pedestrian provisions, including infrastructure and parking, but not land use changes, nor questions around where growth should go – not because BPAC members opposed Vision Zero’s tactics, but because they focused on design elements that were more tied to BPAC’s scope.

Councilmember Rist Responded:

CITYBUILDER agrees. To advocate for our communities to be places where we can walk and bike safely cannot be disentangled from the work of remediating the land use standards that created our current sprawl and car-dependent development patterns. We need more housing, and we need it close to other housing (and shops! And Work! And parks!). This is the density needed for us to bike and walk safely through our cities and towns.

Be sure to stay tuned to CITYBUILDER for updates regarding Durham’s new LDC, and for innovations and insights from across the Triangle to find out more about which local places are successfully supporting land use that allows for more housing located closer to places of employment, education, and services.

Stay safe out there.

Durham is in the middle of rewriting the rules that shape how the city grows.

Those rules are called the Unified Development Ordinance, or UDO. The new version is now being referred to as the Land Development Code, or LDC. Whichever acronym you use, it is the same thing: the zoning code that decides what can be built, where it can be built, and what kinds of neighborhoods Durham makes possible.

Most people never read a zoning code. But everyone lives inside the decisions it makes. Zoning quietly determines whether a neighborhood can add new homes, whether a corner store can open, whether a church can build housing, or whether an apartment building is allowed. As such, zoning directly shapes housing affordability, neighborhood change, and who is able to live in a growing city.

Durham’s current UDO was adopted in 2006 to implement the city’s 2005 Comprehensive Plan. The city that code was written for is not the Durham we live in today. In 2023, Durham adopted a new Comprehensive Plan with clear goals around housing affordability, walkable neighborhoods, and accommodating growth.

The proposed LDC is the set of rules meant to implement that vision.

CITYBUILDER has been following Durham’s zoning rewrite for more than a year. In a series of articles last year, Dave Olverson explored many of the ideas that good zoning reform can unlock, including neighborhood commercial spaces and small-scale housing options that allow cities to grow incrementally. Those pieces looked at what Durham’s new code could improve upon, and many of Dave’s ideas have shown up in the current LDC draft.

Overall, the draft code represents a serious effort by Durham’s planning staff and their consultants, Code Studio, to modernize the city’s zoning framework. It incorporates many best practices for form based zoning codes. And it builds on the pro-housing reforms Durham has implemented in recent years, including policies that allow more small-scale housing and more flexibility in residential neighborhoods.

One of the most significant changes in the draft is the proposed R-D residential zoning district. R-D would replace many of Durham’s existing residential zones and allow a broader mix of housing options by right across much of the city. Instead of locking neighborhoods into single-family-only rules, R-D allows both traditional large-lot homes and smaller, more compact forms of housing.

In practical terms, that means duplexes, townhomes, and small-lot homes can be built in more places without years of rezoning fights. These are the kinds of incremental housing options that allow neighborhoods to evolve over time while still maintaining their character. Durham has already started moving in this direction with reforms like Expanding Housing Choices (EHC) and Simplifying Codes for Affordable Development (SCAD). The draft LDC attempts to carry that progress forward.

If Durham wants more housing choices and more attainable homes, rules like this need to exist and they need to be usable in the real world.

At the same time, a code rewrite this large will always contain provisions that deserve improvement, clarification, or debate. That is exactly what the public review process is supposed to do: surface the parts that work well, fix the parts that do not, and refine the final product through open discussion.

But just as the public conversation was about to start, and people were finally preparing to weigh in, the timeline changed.

Public hearings on the draft code were scheduled to begin on February 24th. Those hearings were intended to be the first opportunity for residents, neighborhood groups, builders, and advocates to weigh in on the full proposal.

Shortly before those hearings began, lawyers sent strongly worded letters to Durham’s government, concerned about potential downzoning.

And before you start guessing who favors upzoning and downzoning in the new code, here’s where it gets weird.

One letter was from the owners of several Family Fare convenience stores and related commercial properties. Their attorney argues that portions of the proposed code would constitute illegal “downzonings” under North Carolina law. The claim centers on a state statute that restricts when local governments can reduce development rights on property without written consent from the affected owners. We talked about the potential ramifications of such a sweeping state preemption last year.

Just a day earlier, the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham sent a letter raising the same downzoning concern as the gas station owners. The very same InterNeighborhood Council that has consistently fought every upzoning and zoning reform to increase density is now suddenly concerned about downzoning, and is emphatically asking that the new code process be paused while the legal issue is reviewed.

And the City responded by doing just that, pausing the whole process.

In response to the letters, city officials cancelled the LDC hearing schedule and have not placed any further public meetings on the calendar for Durham Planning Commission or City Council.

Instead of conversations about the new zoning code taking place in the public realm, legal debates deciding whether the code can move forward are (presumably) occurring behind closed doors.

It’s an unusual moment, and one that deserves attention.

Neighborhood groups that often oppose new housing development are walking in step with commercial property owners who want to protect development rights. Right now they’re aligned around the same legal argument. The similarities between their letters, and the timing of their complaints being sent one day apart should be pointed out (as the INDY did).

The public process meant to debate Durham’s next zoning code has been stopped without ever starting.

There is no scheduled public hearing, and we don’t know when there will be. For us at CITYBUILDER, this is frustrating because we believe truth and transparency are essential to public discourse. A zoning rewrite of this scale deserves a full and open public process. Residents should have the opportunity to hear the proposal, debate its merits, and suggest improvements. That robust public process is what should guide council as they ultimately decide what kind of growth Durham welcomes.

No single interest, whether a neighborhood organization or an individual property owner, should be able to short‑circuit the public conversation before it even begins. Durham’s draft code deserves scrutiny, debate, and improvement. What it does not deserve is for the public process itself to be shut down.

For most Durham residents, this might sound like insider baseball. Zoning acronyms. Legal letters. Planning Commission hearings. It can all feel far away from everyday life.

But these are the rules that quietly decide whether Durham can add more homes, whether neighborhoods can evolve, and whether new people can afford to live here. In other words, even if the process feels technical, the outcome is very personal.

Recent reforms like EHC and SCAD have already helped produce hundreds of new homes across Durham. The proposed LDC attempts to incorporate many of those ideas into a clearer and more consistent zoning framework. Because zoning codes tend to stay in place for many years, the decisions made in this rewrite will shape development patterns for a long time. That is why public engagement in the process matters. The code will ultimately reflect the voices that show up and participate.

For now, the hearing schedule is paused while the legal questions are being reviewed. People who were ready to show up, comment, and participate don’t yet know when that moment will come. While the pause is frustrating, it’s clear that the conversation about Durham’s zoning future is far from over.

At CITYBUILDER, we will continue following the LDC process closely.

Over the past year we’ve explored many of the ideas that zoning reform can unlock. In the coming weeks, we will publish a series explaining key parts of the draft zoning code, highlighting what we think will work and where improvements are needed for more and better housing to be possible. These policy choices matter for housing affordability and everyday life in Durham.

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The public process will come back. Whenever it does, Durham residents deserve a real opportunity to weigh in.

We’ll keep you posted as the process moves forward and the hearing schedule comes back into view. And when the moment comes to participate, we’ll make sure you know when and where to show up.

Jenn Truman is a designer with experience in architecture, civil engineering, and interior design. She has worked in the Triangle for small, local architecture and civil engineering firms for over a decade, bringing to life some of Raleigh and Durham’s favorite retail and restaurant projects.

Jenn has a passion for designing experiences and places, and believes in building things together. As a young designer, leader, and advocate based in Raleigh, she is embedded in the local community through her professional and volunteer work. Jenn is the Founder of CITYBUILDER.

This piece is authored by Jason Cox, a restaurateur and small-scale developer based in Graham, NC. You can follow him over on X @jasonc_nc where he frequently writes about real estate, urbanism, hospitality, and where they collide, including regular debates about fire code and small fire trucks.

My experiences here are specific to Durham, North Carolina, but broadly true in many fast-growing Southeast metros. Anyone in Durham who works in the service industry knows the pain of finding housing.

As the city experienced a renaissance with local restaurants and bars at the vanguard, housing prices took flight. Now the very people who helped put Durham on the culinary map are increasingly forced to live elsewhere.

It’s important to me that our team members can live where they work. As Bull City continues to undergo a population boom, we must ask: “Will the ones who help make this place what it is also be able to live here?”

Durham is failing in this effort.

I fear we will all lose something from the outcome. Where’s the famous Bull City localism when it comes to housing choices?

Infill development is increasingly just two types: “scrape and build” construction of >$1m new homes for sale, or new 200+ apartment buildings on primary corridors.

Where are the options for those without 6-figure household incomes?

LOCALISM vs. THE STATUS QUO

On the topic of localism: The current status quo assures us large development. I emphasize large because everything about it must be large under the current regulatory framework. Obtaining approval to build anything not allowed by right can easily cost six figures and 1-2 years. Development is, therefore, almost exclusively large, with large pools of outside capital shaping the city.

There is nothing local about it.

Meanwhile, there are members of the community who want to build. They want to build accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in backyards. They want to build cottage courts and small missing middle projects. These neighbors would start building in a heartbeat, if only it were feasible to do so.

No person building a cottage court can afford $100,000 of entitlement costs (permitting, site plan reviews, etc.) for an uncertain outcome.

More so, the math doesn’t work for the small-scale. Two hundred units can absorb those entitlement costs. Four cannot.

I’ve watched zoning reform in Durham be mischaracterized to the point of caricature for months. Is any proposal perfect? Certainly not. Can issues as found be addressed with amendments? Absolutely.

What we can’t do is keep kicking the proverbial can to some future utopian outcome that will never arrive. This path benefits a select few at the expense of very, very many.

It’s also disingenuous to pretend there aren’t incentives for select homeowners who claim to represent the city writ large. Legalizing ADUs, smaller homes on smaller lots, and Missing Middle developments reduces the artificial monopoly on housing that homeowners enjoy. It means allowing neighborhoods to be what Durham claims to want: a melting pot of people (and yes, incomes) that have the option to live where they work, where they have built lives and friendships.

The reality is that a vote against reform is a de facto approval of the status quo.

a note from our team:

Jason wrote the words written above just a little over a year ago, in support of the Simplifying Codes for Affordable Development (SCAD) ordinance. A series of amendments to the development ordinance that made small commercial and small housing projects easier, ultimately passed by Durham City Council at the end of 2024.

We’re re-printing them today because there is still more work to do.

Durham is currently rewriting its Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), which will dictate what can and cannot be built for years to come.

CITYBUILDER has been hard at work analyzing the proposed code, which you can read about in our Durham’s New UDO series:

• Mixed-Use and the 15 Minute City

• Supporting Small-Scale Affordable Housing

• How We Encourage Sprawl Without Meaning To

• Small Rules, Big Problems

Unfortunately, the same individuals that assembled to oppose SCAD are colluding to stop our new UDO. They understand that even if they can’t prevent City Council from approving it, they can lobby to sneak in policies that undo the progress we achieved through SCAD, and even the Expanding Housing Choices (EHC) amendment from 2019.

So if you want better neighborhoods, more housing, and cheaper rent for service workers, please show up to a UDO engagement session and let our city planning staff know. And when the time comes, we hope you’ll join us at city council meetings to express our community’s support for the new reforms.

We need your voice, because plenty of people are fighting for the status quo that got us into the housing crisis.

We’re fighting for a better Bull City.

Jason Cox is a restaurateur and small-scale developer based in Graham, NC. This piece was originally published as a tweet @jasonc_nc . Over there Jason frequently writes about real estate, urbanism, hospitality & where they collide, including regular debates about fire code and small fire trucks.

Other posts in our Durham’s New UDO series:

• Mixed-Use and the 15 Minute City

• Supporting Small-Scale Affordable Housing

• How We Encourage Sprawl Without Meaning To

The next UDO may have the best intentions, but the details matter. We can envision better, more inclusive communities. We can strive for more walkable and resilient neighborhoods. But if a small detail trips up the type of development that Durham wants to see, we may keep getting more of the same: sprawling, exclusive, single-family housing. Crucially, the effects of those small but prohibitive policy details will never be uncovered, because we don’t have insight into why any given project did not move forward.

An example is the recent rule that you can’t grade within 5 feet of your property line. On a half-acre, single-family lot, that’s no problem. However, on denser infill sites where every foot matters, local builders will struggle to navigate this rule. A regulation that has great intentions is inadvertently telling builders that in Durham, constructing larger, single-family homes is just a whole lot easier than trying to add density and missing middle housing.

The proposed UDO has a ton of these “gotcha” rules that discourage dense development in favor of sprawl. We need to flip these. It should be easier to build small infill development and harder to build McMansions. While we won’t uncover some of these “gotchas” until we see how they operate in practice, it is up to us to anticipate as many as possible. CITYBUILDER has an ongoing list; below are just a few examples:

Places of Worship as Housing Providers
The proposed UDO reclassifies places of worship and other civic institutions under “CIV” zoning, which may mean that they can’t create housing! There is such great potential for these organizations (which have no profit motive) to create mission-based housing. They also have an abundance of under-utilized parking lots. This may be Durham’s best hope at affordable housing outside of federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) projects.

Finding the Right “Small Lot” Square Footage
If the proposed “R-D Option 3” zoning category is amended to include units of 800 square feet (sf) or less (see previous blog post), we should consider slightly bumping up the square footage for Option 2. On our current “Small Lots”, 1200 sf units have been great, but frankly, they exist in a middle ground. A “family starter” 3-bedroom house works much better at 1400 sf, while 800 sf houses would fulfill the starter home needs of small or emerging families. Not to mention, Durham is seeing a boom in inventory of houses that are exactly 1200 sf, and some variation in housing size at the small end would be welcome.

Unintended Consequences of Parking Design
While I completely understand the desire to keep cars out of the front yard from an urban design perspective, there is a tradeoff. Those rules mean longer driveways (that have to extend all the way to the back of the house), more impervious surfaces, and simply more space in our city dedicated to cars. The city could consider a rule that allows for extremely small front yard parking pads. Under such a scheme, total car use area could be limited to around 480 sf, and our city’s flood-prone streets would be better for it.

Site Plan Review Exemptions
Similar to the way that 5-foot no-grade buffers burden small infill more than sprawl, site plan review restricts development to larger projects. Site plan review (SPR) is a long, expensive process. It is simply not financially feasible for a tiny coffee shop or a handful of houses. Only developments that are ten times larger justify the time and expense of an SPR. So that’s what we get: big, expensive projects. Commercial and residential projects smaller than an acre in size should be exempt from SPR altogether.

For most of our code’s history, only single-family houses were exempt from site plan reviews. We gave preferential treatment to mansions over both missing middle housing and small commercial firms. If we want more small-scale, missing middle development in Durham, we need to start by putting it on equal footing with single-family homes.

Consistency with State Regulations

Stream buffers and their protection are important. Consistency is also important. The State of North Carolina sets robust stream buffer regulations based on research from the Department of Environmental Quality. The new UDO should align with NCDEQ buffers. Extra no-build zones and local buffers cause confusion and reduce housing while not aligning with the research and science provided by NCDEQ.

Final Thoughts

These details might seem technical, but they’ll decide how Durham grows for decades. If you’re a resident of Bull City, then you have the ability to shape our new UDO directly at a New UDO engagement session. Show up, talk to city planning staff about some of the policies we discussed today, and create a lasting impact on Durham’s growth! Thoughtful input today can prevent years of missed opportunity. We build better when we build together.

Dave Olverson is an incremental developer and zoning advocate in Durham, NC. He has an undergraduate degree in economics from Duke and a planning degree from the University of North Carolina. In 2021, he got his GC license and works specifically on infill projects in Durham.

CITYBUILDER organized this event because we believe housing isn’t just policy; it’s people. Every councilor vote, zoning case, ordinance, and plan affect our lives and our futures. Voters deserve leaders who are willing to talk about these decisions publicly.

We know first-hand that the people of Durham want to talk about housing.

This forum was just one night, but it’s part of a growing movement. In the past month, CITYBUILDERS’ readership and membership have surged, following tens of thousands…

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Every September, city dwellers around the world roll out sod, set up café tables, and haul planters into parking spaces for Park(ing) Day — a playful reminder that the way we allocate space says everything about what we value. In public acts of reclamation, citizens commandeer curbside spots and declare that streets can be for people too, not just cars.

At CityBuilder, we’ve been talking a lot about how to better use our urban spaces. First, we called for ending parking mandates so we can build more housing and better neighborhoods. Then we looked at how “No parking, No problem” relies on creating diverse, multimodal transportation options where people live and work. Today, we’re discussing how parking policy and density connect to bikes, and why the future of bikeability isn’t just about paint on pavement.

The Feedback Loop: Density + Bikeability

Density makes bikeability practical; bikeability mak…

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Every election shapes the kind of city we live in. As we wrote in Every Vote Builds a City, local races are where decisions about housing, growth, and neighborhood stability get made. These choices determine whether Durham welcomes new neighbors or shuts the door. That is why we are grading candidates on housing.

We reviewed candidate questionnaires and public records to grade mayoral and city council candidates on their housing positions, understanding of Durham’s current housing landscape, ideas for increasing housing supply and support for key zoning policy reforms. Grades reflect the candidates' consistency, urgency, and clarity of support for new homes, affordability, and growth.

Housing is Durham’s defining issue, and these grades show where each candidate stands. Your vote this election will decide whether our city continues to say yes to homes and new neighbors.

So, who made the grade? See for yourself.

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Over the past year, Durham has been rolling out its “Small Area Plans” (SAP) initiative — described by the city as “a way for residents to influence the future planning and development in their neighborhoods.” Just last month, the City Council adopted its first SAP, the Walltown Small Area Plan. Other neighborhoods are clamoring to start their own SAPs — the public engagement process is now underway for Lakewood, West End, and Lyon Park. SAPs aren’t a direct or immediate change to the UDO, but much like the larger Comprehensive Plan, they set the vision for the development of a neighborhood. Neighbors and councilors will judge future rezonings and developments against the SAPs, making them a powerful public instrument.

Neighbors coming together to develop a collective…

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On June 16, 2025, Durham City Council heard a case to rezone a small property for an equally small townhouse development. It was by a local builder who was going through his first rezoning and cleared the planning commission unanimously. One Council Member asked several questions about the lack of additional proffers despite the small size of the project. Council Member Caballero’s response is published in full.

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Prior to the completion of the development, the parcel was empty, owned by Duke University but not yet put to use. When they wanted to create housing for faculty and staff, Duke turned to local developer, Bob Chapman, of Traditional Neighborhood Development Partners, which has developed dense, mixed-use, infill, walkable neighborhoods across the county.

However, creating a similar environment to the existing neighborhood, which was built from around 1895 to 1905, had been effectively outlawed by zoning codes by the 1990…

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Other Posts in the Series

• Mixed-Use and the 15 Minute City

• Supporting Small-Scale Affordable Housing

• Small Rules, Big Problems

So much of life is tradeoffs and zoning codes are no exception. Whenever a policy is proposed, it is important to:

1. Think about what tradeoffs there might be.

2. Think about the policy holistically – how does it affect the rest of the system?

In both the current and proposed UDOs, there are a lot of requirements that seek to create a better city. However, it is important to look at both sides of the coin. Let’s examine thes…

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The following was a response to the rezoning case for apartments near the Sandy Creek Trail. While inside the Urban Growth Boundary, opposition argued it was too close to the trail. It was approved 4-3 after debate. His comments are republished in full, with particularly interesting parts in bold.

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Other Posts in the Series:

• Mixed-Use and the 15-Minute City

• How We Encourage Sprawl Without Meaning To

• Small Rules, Big Problems

Read more

Other Posts in the Series

• Supporting Small-Scale Affordable Housing

• How We Encourage Sprawl Without Meaning To

• Small Rules, Big Problems

In its current form, the UDO excludes many important community and commercial uses. We have a mandate from our Comprehensive Plan adopted by City Council to work towards a 15-minute city, where amenities and daily needs are no more than a 15-minute walk or bike ride away. It isn’t sustainable to continue creating sprawling development patterns by not integrating a wide variety of uses.

One of the greatest joys o…

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Planners and urbanists love to come up with technical terms. For example, growing up in Hawaii, I lived in a house with a small cottage on the property. We called it our “ohana” unit.

Many years and one planning degree later, I now recognize that as an accessory dwelling unit (ADU). I can’t imagine a more technocratic shift, from ohana, meaning family in the Hawaiian language, to the robotic and jargony idea of a “dwelling unit.”

Likewise, there has been renewed discussion of accessory commercial units (ACUs) recently. A hundred years ago, these were simply referred to as “neighborhood groceries.”

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Written By Gwen McCarter Nagle

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