| Morehead Hill Neighborhood Association Historic Preservation Committee |
Our neighborhood is a Local and National Historic District and it's undergoing a lot of gentrification. We've formed a committee to monitor development in and around the Morehead Hill neighborhood. We have an ongoing conversation among neighbors and with Durham City Council and the Planning Dept. about what the historic district should be accomplishing. Questions like, what is the local historic district designation doing for current and future residents? How do we prioritize affordable housing? How can we encourage the installation of green technologies? What are we trying to preserve and how do we convey our neighborhood's historic character into the future? Should we even be concerned about this given the social and climate challenges that we're facing? Recently, we decided to gather neighbor input and understand the experiences and current sentiment of neighbors relative to the benefits and burdens of Historic District designation and the accompanying responsibilities. I produced an online survey and we used it to collect the experience and sentiment of the neighbors in the Morehead Hill Historic District. Out of ~290 occupied properties in our Historic District, 86 residents completed the survey. We've made the survey available to other National Historic District neighborhoods in Durham as well as City Council and the Planning Department. We're currently in discussion with the Planning Dept. about how to modify the Historic Properties Local Review Criteria to encourage the installation of green technologies. The survey results are compiled in this report: Survey_Results_09_29_2017.pdf |