Bringing The World Home To You

© 2024 WUNC North Carolina Public Radio
120 Friday Center Dr
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
919.445.9150 | 800.962.9862
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Durham Rescue Mission Questions Historic District Boundaries

Durham, Durham Rescue Mission, Golden Belt Historic District
Leoneda Inge
/
WUNC

Despite opposition, it’s looking more like the Golden Belt Local Historic District will include a controversial block of property owned by the Durham Rescue Mission.

Durham’s Planning Commission and the Historic Preservation Commission support protecting the last of the old mill houses near the historic Golden Belt manufacturing factories.

But the historic district would hinder growth of the Durham Rescue Mission, which serves hundreds of homeless people, according to the group's  Founder and CEO Ernie Mills.

"The historic district would stop us and forbid us from building a community center to help the kids," Mills said. "This community is a very poor, poor community and we need a community center."

Proponents of the Golden Belt Local Historic District want to keep the proposed historic designation boundaries. They said the district could help preserve the mill village character and help slow down gentrification.

But Mills said he hopes the Durham City Council will exclude the block across from the rescue mission when officials vote on the historic district designation in September.

The property the rescue mission wants excluded from the proposed historic district is on the east side of Alston Avenue, which will soon be undergoing a major widening project.

The rescue mission owns 13 of the 15 properties in the 1200 blocks of Morning Glory Avenue and Worth Street.  They asked the officials with the Durham City/County Planning Office to draw those properties out of the historic district.

Mills said there is probably only one property in the block worthy of a historic designation.

"As you look at these properties, I don't see anything that valuable that a person would want to live into," said Mills. "I don't see where they would take that much pride into it.  We believe the homeless deserve something better than this."

Mills said a community center would have a gym, offices and rooms for community organizations. But it would be hard to get such a project off the ground with new historic preservation rules.

Leoneda Inge is the co-host of WUNC's "Due South." Leoneda has been a radio journalist for more than 30 years, spending most of her career at WUNC as the Race and Southern Culture reporter. Leoneda’s work includes stories of race, slavery, memory and monuments. She has won "Gracie" awards, an Alfred I. duPont Award and several awards from the Radio, Television, Digital News Association (RTDNA). In 2017, Leoneda was named "Journalist of Distinction" by the National Association of Black Journalists.
More Stories