Dear Mayor Williams, Mayor Pro-Tem Middleton, and Councilmembers Baker, Caballero,  Cook, Freeman and Rist:

The organizations listed below believe that the Durham City Council’s decision at its June 5 Work Session to end negotiations with the Peebles Corporation creates a unique opportunity at the 505 site to address the City’s worsening affordable housing crisis without further delay.  At the Work Session, we were pleased to hear that a majority of Council members expressed a desire to proceed now with building a significant # of affordable units at 505.

We call on the Council, as our duly elected representatives, to direct City staff to move forward immediately with a plan to build a minimum of 130 units of rental housing affordable in perpetuity to families earning 60% of AMI.  Specifically, we call on Council to direct the City Manager and City Staff to:

1.  Within 90 days, select a qualified affordable housing developer with a successful track record in Durham and North Carolina to partner with the City to develop and implement a plan to build a minimum of 130 units of affordable rental housing at 505;
2.  Work with the selected developer to create a plan acceptable to the City and the developer for building the affordable units and sufficient parking facilities on a portion of the 505 site; and 
3.  Within 90 days of selecting the developer, return to City Council with the plan and a proposed contract with the developer for Council’s consideration and approval.

The following points inform our request:

• An RFP process is not required for the City Council to move forward with affordable housing, which it has named as its first priority at the site. The City Attorney clearly indicated at the June 5 meeting that the City could enter into a sole source agreement with a developer to address a public need.

• At least two highly qualified affordable housing developers with experience in Durham and NC – Laurel Street Partners and DHIC – have indicated an interest in engaging with the City to proceed with construction of affordable housing on the portion of the 505 site that does not include the Milton Small Building (MSB). 

• This approach was one of the 3 possible pathways outlined by City Staff in its memo to Council: “Pursue Smaller Scale Redevelopment” (a) Solicit a developer for Milton Small and/or affordable housing and b) Add surface parking and open space.”

• We are concerned that yet another extended planning process for the 505 site – such as a master planning process -- will cause unacceptable delays in addressing the City’s affordable housing crisis.  The best time to build affordable housing is now, when the market for commercial office space and higher endor market rate housing is “soft.” 

• For this major tract of City property strategically located in Durham’s downtown, we continue to favor a long-term ground lease to the developer, or equivalent protections for the City’s interests and for the welfare of the residents of any affordable housing built at 505.

• We remain committed to building units affordable in perpetuity at 60% of AMI.  We encourage the use of DHA project-based vouchers to make a portion of the units affordable to families at 30% AMI.

• We take no position on the advisability of preserving the MSB. Adequate space exists on the remainder of the 4.4 acre site to accommodate 130+ units of affordable rental units and sufficient parking, while leaving room for other forms of development (housing, retail, commercial) as market conditions improve. 

We would appreciate the opportunity to meet with you in the next few weeks to discuss this request. In the meantime, thank you for your consideration of this opportunity to address Durham’s critical need for affordable housing.

Sincerely,

Rick Larson, on behalf of

Duke Memorial United Methodist Church

Durham Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit

Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People 

Durham People’s Alliance

June 16, 2025

Dear Governor Stein:

The People’s Alliance urges you to veto SB 153 and HB 318 quickly and decisively. Immigrants are an
essential part of our community. They are our neighbors, coworkers, and friends. We all want to live in safe
communities, but scapegoating immigrants, who research shows are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.
citizens, is not the answer.

The Durham People’s Alliance (PA) is a grassroots membership organization that has been advancing a
progressive vision for Durham and NC for over 40 years. We advance progressive issues and policies through
research, organizing, advocacy, and democratic engagement.

The requirements in SB 153 are overly burdensome for state agencies tasked with providing social services
and ensuring North Carolina residents are able to access public benefits for which they are eligible.
Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for the vast majority of public benefits, and agencies already have
procedures in place to verify eligibility, making the requirements of the bill not only discriminatory, but also
redundant and overly bureaucratic.

HB 318 would sweep up even more people who are accused, not convicted, of a crime -- including non-violent
crimes -- in cruel immigration enforcement activities that tear families apart. Delaying the start clock would lead
to longer periods of incarceration, raising 4th amendment concerns. These laws will also likely lead to increased
surveillance and racial profiling of Black and Brown communities, harming North Carolinians who look or speak
a certain way regardless of their citizenship status, and erode the trust between communities and the
protective services they should be able to rely on.

Requiring local law enforcement, the state highway patrol, or other state agencies to enter into agreements
with ICE or otherwise participate in immigration enforcement distracts from their primary obligations and forces
our state to play a role in the inhumane immigration enforcement actions we have seen on the national stage.
Elected officials and law enforcement are sworn to protect and uphold the U.S. constitution. The People’s
Alliance is concerned that ICE officers across the nation are ignoring due process and violating the
constitutional rights of U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, and undocumented immigrants alike.
We urge you to uphold North Carolinians’ constitutional rights by vetoing SB 153 and and 318.

Respectfully,
The Board of Directors
People’s Alliance
____________________________________________________________________________

Town-Gown Unity Against Trump Attacks

The People’s Alliance joins our allies in the Durham community in urging the Duke administration to pursue a budget adjustment process that is fair, transparent, and minimizes harm to Durham’s most vulnerable residents, who should not be asked to shoulder the heaviest weight of Donald Trump’s unconstitutional and authoritarian attacks on higher education.

We recognize that Trump’s ongoing assault on our nation’s universities has jeopardized at least $500 million in federal grants, contracts, and other funding sources at Duke. Hundreds of millions of dollars in existing Duke research grants have already been cut, frozen, or eliminated. Taken together, Duke is facing a loss of almost 15% of its roughly $3.5 billion budget—a massive hole that must somehow be filled.

Given the magnitude of this threat, some level of painful budget cuts and staff layoffs are likely inevitable. However, People’s Alliance is deeply concerned about reports that the Duke administration has designed and rolled out these cuts without any meaningful input from key university stakeholders, including Duke unions, faculty, and rank-and-file staff. Even worse, Duke’s leadership is asking many of its lower paid and most vulnerable workers to bear the brunt of these cuts, while apparently shielding the highest-paid staff and administrators. This is deeply unfair.

Duke is Durham’s largest employer and our residents are a critical customer base and source of revenue for the Duke hospital system, so what happens to Duke’s workers deeply impacts the Durham community. Given the consequences for Durham, the People’s Alliance calls on Duke to open up their budget adjustment process to key stakeholders, minimize the pain inflicted on its lowest-paid workers, and require the highest paid administrators to share the burden of any cost-saving measures the university adopts.

Finally, we urge Duke administrators, Durham community leaders, and elected officials to explore avenues for cooperation in the face of Trump’s assault on American life. We can no longer afford to bury our heads in the sand and hope that he will somehow forget about progressive cities like Durham or that Duke will be the one university that he miraculously decides not to target like he’s already targeted Harvard, Penn, Columbia, and the rest.

This President is coming for all of us. It’s only a matter of time. Fighting each other—instead of fighting back—will allow him to pick us off one by one. The only hope for American democracy is that we hang together, or we shall assuredly hang alone.