Local developers say a sweeping, privately initiated change to Durham’s zoning ordinance would reap a host of benefits, including more affordable housing. Critics say it’s the fox guarding the henhouse. By Lena Geller, p. 8
6 With Raleigh's population booming, the city is struggling to keep up with growth through annexation. BY
JASMINE GALLUP8 Local developers say an amendment to Durham's zoning ordinance would reap a host of benefits. Critics say the privately initiated proposal is like the fox guarding the henhouse. BY
LENA GELLER12 Teen girls in North Carolina face violence, sadness, and trauma in growing numbers. BY
JENNIFER FERNANDEZ14 Hip-hop artist Reuben Vincent talks love, dating, newfound fame, and touring with Pusha T. BY KYESHA
JENNINGS15 Four stars for the new Sumner James release, I Could Just Go On Forever
BY JORDAN LAWRENCE16 At new Chapel Hill restaurant Bombolo, it is technically possible to adhere to a single cuisine with your order—but why would you? BY LENA
GELLER18 The storied South Carolina artist Aldwyth gets her due with an enchanting retrospective at the Gregg Museum of Art and Design. BY
THE REGULARS
SARAH EDWARDS3 Backtalk | Drawn out 20 Culture Calendar W E
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CORRECTION In our Backtalk last week, we misidentified former Raleigh council member and letter writer Stef Mendell as representing District D. Mendell represented District E. And in the story Creating Black Spaces, the photo for Jumeekah Ingram, the manager of the Raleigh M&F Bank branch, was incorrectly captioned. We apologize for the error.
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Last week for the web, Jasmine Gallup wrote in thorough terms about Raleigh’s projected budget shortfall.
TOMMY GOLDSMITH , a former reporter for INDY Week and The News and Observer , sent Gallup the following letter via email:
… At various times I covered Raleigh City Council, Wake commission, Wake schools, and other stuff. Did similar jobs at the Tennessean in Nashville, where I live now.
You did a good job detailing the fine points of the money the city of Raleigh has available and why the budgeteers have a hard time making it stretch.
at least in the circles where such things are compiled for being a glittering city and wonderful place to live.
er-income people. But how about increased property tax rates for people buying houses in the million-plus range?
IN BOLD? indyweek.com backtalk@indyweek.com
@INDYWeekNC @indyweek
However, now that I no longer cover city governments, I am seeing things from the point of view of just a regular guy who looks around and says: “Why isn’t there enough money? You can look around and see unbelievable sums being spent on new business and residential real estate. Developers are making out like bandits, often on projects that require public approval.”
Raleigh, where I grew up and have lived about half my life, is famous
But how can that be if the employees who provide services and keep the wheels of government spinning are being squeezed to the point they can’t afford to live in Raleigh? It’s no wonder that so many are quitting and so many positions are available.
You of course don’t have to consider a word I write. But I think it’d be worth looking at key revenue sources for specific places that could help fill these holes in the budget. Shouldn’t developers, especially those who need variances, pay for the general welfare as well as the effects of each new project?
Raising sales taxes would be counterproductive for middle- to low-
I’d also look at other cities that do a better job providing a decent living for the people who do the work. Your sources who say employees don’t make enough to afford decent places to live and meet other needs are exactly on target.
Where is the glory for Raleigh in having the gleaming new business towers and multi-million-dollar homes financed by squeezing the lower-income people who do so much of the real work?
If you’re wondering, yes, I’m a grouchy old man …. But I hope there’s some value in my suggesting other ways of thinking about these issues. D R A W N O U T
Raleigh’s November 2022 elections were the first of their kind in modern history: for the first time since the early 1900s, voters elected a mayor and city council in an even-numbered year.
This change, which required the North Carolina General Assembly to pass a law, came at the request of the Raleigh City Council and Mayor Baldwin. Lawmakers obliged. It had the effect of nearly tripling the notoriously low voter turnout from former municipal elections previously held in odd-numbered years (a vestige of Jim Crow in several Southern states). In 2019, 54,566 votes were cast for Raleigh mayoral candidates. In 2022, 153,472 votes were cast for the same race.
Realigning the municipal elections was a step in the right direction for more democratic reform, albeit an imperfect one. The decision should have been made with public input and included a 2021 special election for a one-year term so that local leaders weren’t awarding themselves an extra year in office. Nonetheless, it was a net win for voters since it allowed us to be a part of the most inclusive election in our city’s history, with more voters participating in our local democratic process than ever before.
Unfortunately, Raleigh still has a long way to go. The recent municipal election saw an increasingly concerning stain appear on our democratic record: money.
Raleigh’s 2022 election saw unprecedented amounts of cash flowing into candidate coffers, with nearly $2 million raised across all local offices. While this kind of money seems completely off kilter to elect our part-time mayor and councilors, possibly the most troubling part of this trend is how wildly unbalanced the finances became between certain opponents.
According to the NC Board of Elections Pre-Election Report ending on October 24:
• Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin raised $730,802, more than 11 times that of her second-place opponent, Terrance Ruth, who raised $64,093.
• David Knight raised $219,308, more than 19 times that of his opponent, Councilor Christina Jones, with $11,390.
• Cat Lawson raised $77,253, almost 8 times as much as her opponent, Councilor Mary Black, with $9,897.
• Councilor Corey Branch brought in $68,616, nearly 15 times that of his closest opponent, Wander Hunter, with $4,707.
Raleigh’s campaign contribution limit was $5,600 per individual for the 2022 election. From Baldwin’s $730,802, she received 40 unique max-out contributions. Baldwin also had 56 unique donors give at least $5,000 and 524 unique donors, making her average donation $1,394, while Ruth had 222 unique donors, resulting in an average donation of $288.
Since the General Assembly raised North Carolina’s statewide individual campaign contribution limit this year to $6,400 (done automatically every two years in accordance with inflation rates), we now must prepare for a 2024 municipal campaign cycle that could see even more galling sums injected into our local democratic process. Should Raleigh leaders ever decide to introduce a primary election for municipal offices (as Durham has), state law would allow an individual to donate $6,400 to a candidate during the primary, then another $6,400 to the same candidate should they reach the general election, resulting in $12,800 per election cycle.
Individual donations of this size and frequency stand to significantly sway our local elections. The most recent median household income measure for Raleigh was $72,996. One $6,400 contribution amounts to almost 9 percent of what
the median Raleigh family brings home in a year. A system that effectively drowns out the contributions of even the median income Raleigh citizen dampens the ability of regular citizens to participate in a government that is supposed to be run by and for the people. And a campaign finance system that allows the extremely wealthy and profit-motivated interests to force this kind of undue influence over our local elections is simply undemocratic.
This year, Raleigh’s council will likely recommend several changes to our local electoral processes. While there are many ways to improve campaign finance laws, Raleigh should begin with lowering our individual campaign contribution limit to an amount that doesn’t drown out the voices of lowand middle-income residents. But if we as a community decide we want to start limiting campaign contributions, where is a good place to start?
Other U.S. cities and even Southern states showcase smart ways to limit the influence of extreme wealth over local elections, such as:
• Seattle, WA: An individual contribution limit of $300 for city council and $600 for mayor
• Austin, TX: A $450 individual limit for local offices
• Portland, OR: A $508 individual limit for local offices
• Chapel Hill, NC: A $378 individual limit for local offices
• Minneapolis, MN: A $600 limit for offices representing districts with fewer than 100,000 people and a $1,000 limit for districts with more than 100,000 people. Minneapolis also limits donations in nonelection years to $250.
• Florida: Limits all municipalities to $1,000 per individual, while state-level offices have a $3,000 limit
Creating policies that consistently foster a fair and transparent process will do the dual work of strengthening the community’s trust in both Raleigh’s and the state government’s elections and will drive more citizens to participate in elections and vote. There is no reason Raleigh shouldn’t be the role model for the rest of the nation.
Austin, Texas, has been one such role model in outlining democratic values. Its city code states: “The proper operation of a representative democracy requires that elected public officials exercise independent judgment, act impartially, and remain responsible to the people …. Citizen participation in the operation of City election campaigns will enhance a broad based electoral process accountable to all citizens rather than a privileged few …. The public should have justified confidence in the integrity of its government.”
We must continue to foster fair and transparent elections that don’t favor a particular party, class, or demographic. By moving municipal elections from odd to even years, Raleigh took a step toward doing just that. But we can still improve.
Let’s enumerate our principles and values that are so vital to a functioning and fair democracy. Let’s build a strong foundation for future generations who will vote, volunteer, organize, and run for office years from now. And let’s write smart policies that create a more level playing field for present and future generations. W
consistently foster a the dual community’s trust government’s citizens to paris no reamodel for role model city code represenelected pubjudgment, responsible to the the operaenhance accountable privileged few …. confidence in and transa particuBy moving even years, just that. and values and fair foundation vote, volunyears from that crepresent and organizer who lives in
Fields and forests around Knightdale may soon be home to new Raleigh residents as developers build more and more neighborhoods in rural, undeveloped areas east of the city. With Raleigh’s population booming, though, the city is struggling to keep up.
BY JASMINE GALLUP jgallup@indyweek.comE veryone who lives in Raleigh knows rent is going up, traffic is getting worse, and a cup of coffee costs more than ever. But growth isn’t just happening inside the city limits.
From 2021 to 2022, the city received 74 annexation requests and expanded by more than 1,000 acres. That’s a big jump from a decade ago, when the city received only 35 annexation requests and grew by 337 acres between 2012 and 2013.
Annexation is when a property owner, often a developer, requests their land be made an official part of the city and pays taxes in exchange for water connections, trash pickup, road maintenance, and other city services. When an annexation request is submitted, it goes before the city council for a public hearing with an estimated price tag. The council then votes to approve or deny the request.
“Overall, there has been a constant but gradual increase in annexation petitions submitted,” city spokeswoman Katie Dombrowski wrote in an email. “This is especially shown in the years following 2016, where [in] each year but 2019, [the city] received [more] than 30 petition submittals.”
Much of the growth on the outskirts of Raleigh is happening northeast and southeast of the city limits, near Rolesville, Knightdale, and Garner, said Pat Young, director of Raleigh’s Planning and Development Department, at a city council workshop last week.
Undeveloped land in these areas is cheap and plentiful, which makes it a tempting prospect for developers looking to build new neighborhoods.
Last year, the city council approved the annexation of about 280 acres of woodland near Knightdale, north of Buffaloe Road. The developer plans to turn the undeveloped plot into hundreds of townhomes, single-family homes, ranch-style houses, and duplexes with a pool, playground, and tennis court.
Just three miles west, another developer plans to turn nearly 50 acres of woods outside Raleigh’s borders into a neighborhood with up to 400 homes. Even farther west, inside I-40
but not officially part of the city, yet another 200 acres of undeveloped land is set to be turned into a mixed-use development with up to 1,100 homes. The list goes on and on.
The growth is being driven in part by the expansion of I-540, the outer beltline, which will eventually run through those areas, Young said.
New sections of I-540 are expected to make driving to and from rural areas outside of Raleigh a lot easier for people who live or work in other parts of the Triangle, said Young. Garner, one town on the planned route, has already seen a huge boom as people buy homes there that are much cheaper than in other areas of the county.
Next month, the city council is set to hear six more annexation cases, with another two in the pipeline. The largest annexation request, which covers about 531 acres near the intersection of Poole and Hodge Roads (just south of Knightdale), would add some 4,000 single-family houses and townhomes, and perhaps 10,000 residents, to the city.
While these annexations will help grow the city’s tax base (adding money for important projects like affordable housing or transportation improvements), the city is already struggling to keep up with its growing population. The Raleigh Fire Department (RFD), in particular, is spread thin, said Lorraine Eubanks, RFD planning officer.
“In the past seven years, Raleigh Fire’s call volume has increased 36 percent, but we’ve had 0 percent increase in new fire station infrastructure,” Eubanks said during the city council work session last week, noting that the number of fire stations, 28, has remained the same since 2015.
In addition, nearly 11 percent of calls RFD received in 2022 were for incidents outside of the city limits, where it’s difficult for the fire department to respond quickly, Eubanks said. With no new fire stations currently planned for these areas, RFD will continue to have trouble responding quick-
ly (in accordance with national safety standards) to the developments proposed north and southeast of Raleigh.
In order to adequately serve these areas, RFD needs a new fire station in the northeast and two new fire stations in the southeast, Eubanks said. The problem is, building these fire stations is expensive. The cost of one new station, including land acquisition, construction, staffing, and equipment, is more than $30 million, Eubanks estimated.
For a project like building a new fire station, the city council typically provides funding in phases, said City Manager Marchell Adams-David. After funding is approved, it takes three to four years to finish the construction of a fire station, said Raleigh fire chief Herbert Griffin. That delays the city’s ability to annex property.
When a city prepares to annex a property, it’s kind of like they’re a landlord getting ready to rent out a house. Eventually, they’ll make money off of the property. But before that, there are all of these up-front costs they have to pay. They have to clean the house, hire a real estate agent to put it on the market, and fix anything that’s broken.
Per state law, the city is required to provide some services—like fire, police, and sewer—immediately, as soon as a property is annexed. If they can’t afford to provide those services, it becomes much more difficult to annex property and ultimately receive the property tax revenue that goes with it.
Without services, the city has three options when it comes to annexation requests: First, to deny them and lose future tax revenue. Second, to delay them and possibly lose future tax revenue if developers decide to pull out (because they’re losing money every day the project is delayed). Third, to approve them and look for a temporary solution to providing services, like partnerships with the county or other municipalities.
“The bottom line is, approval of any of these [annexation requests] within the next several years … [means] we’re not gonna meet the fire service standards,” Young said. “So I think we would probably have to talk about both interim service agreements [and] partnerships, temporary
service, and then also a capital plan to put in permanent infrastructure.”
In a case study of the costs associated with a “highgrowth” development southeast of Raleigh—one that is dense and includes different types of homes as well as retail or commercial space—researchers found that costs to the city could total close to $235 million. Over a 30-year period, operating expenses would add another $25 million to that bill.
On the other hand, over the same 30 years, the new development might bring in about $275 million in tax revenue. In addition, if a new fire station is built, it could serve more than one high-growth development, which means even more tax revenue could be added to the city’s coffers in the future.
It sounds good, but Bynum Walter, a senior planner with the city, was careful to add a caveat during the city council work session.
“The property tax revenues are very, very hard to estimate here,” she said. “This is a range, not a certainty. The costs are much more predictable than the revenues.”
In addition, for the city to get peak revenues, the development has to be dense and mixed-use, Young said. However, a lot of developers in the last few years have passed that up in favor of building only traditional or ranch-style homes. For example, “when 540 was extended in western Wake, the communities out there decided to allow almost exclusively single-family development,” he said. “[That type of development] is often revenue-negative growth.”
As the city expands, staff are making “intentional efforts to try to move towards that higher-growth side,” Young said. Ultimately, it’s a race between how much money the city can make off growth and how much money is required to sustain that growth.
“There is a cost of growth,” Adams-David said. “We just need to figure out what that balance is and what we’re comfortable with before it gets to a point where it’s financially unstable and not sustainable.”
“Greenfield” development in particular—construction in empty fields, grassy lots, and wooded areas—is the least expensive for real estate moguls and the most expensive for the city. These undeveloped areas are where Raleigh is seeing the most demand for annexation, but they’re also the areas where the city has the least infrastructure in place, according to Young.
The struggle RFD is facing “is one of the very obvious examples of what happens when we sprawl,” said council member Jonathan Melton. “We’re pushing farther and farther out and it makes it harder to provide the services that are required. It’s a greater strain on the city and our budget.”
The practical problem of providing fire service is just one of the issues created by urban sprawl, Melton added. It also makes the city’s aspirations, like providing public transportation, more expensive.
“I understand land is cheaper in these areas and that one size doesn’t fit all for housing, but this is why it’s really important to continue our policies that allow for infill and other types of growth in our urban core,” Melton said. “This is not a sustainable way to grow the city.” W
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Local developers say a sweeping, privately initiated change to Durham’s zoning ordinance would reap a host of benefits, including more affordable housing. Critics say it’s the fox guarding the henhouse.
BY LENA GELLER lgeller@indyweek.com
If you haven’t heard of the 87-page text amendment proposal the Durham City Council will vote on this month—a proposal that, if approved, will have a colossal impact on the city’s future housing landscape—some might argue that you haven’t been paying attention.
Others would say you’ve intentionally been left in the dark. The proposal, Simplifying Codes for more Affordable Development (SCAD), is the largest privately initiated text amendment the city has received in at least two decades, if not the largest of all time, according to eight people who have spent years tracking and advising on such proposals in Durham.
SCAD proposes a series of sweeping changes to Durham’s Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), a document that spells out local regulations for zoning and land development. Most notably, SCAD’s proponents say, by loosening building and zoning regulations, SCAD would uplift small, local developers and deliver vastly more units of affordable housing.
Opponents say that by enabling developers to circumvent many of the standards, review mechanisms, and community engagement processes typically involved in equitable development and planning, SCAD will open the floodgates for development to occur in ways that accelerate gentrification and displacement.
“It uses attractive language like ‘affordable housing’ that are platonic goods on their own to mask a whole host of changes that have nothing to do with affordable housing,”
says Tom Miller, a former Durham planning commissioner who spent three decades working as legal counsel for the North Carolina Real Estate Commission. “Unless, of course, you buy into the trickle-down theory that if we let developers build more housing, it will all be cheaper.”
Last May, two applicants—Jim Anthony, who helms the Raleigh-based development firm APG Capital, and Habitat for Humanity of Durham, the local branch of a global nonprofit housing organization—submitted the original amendment. It has since undergone several revisions. Members of Durham’s planning department, city-county planning commission, and joint city-county planning committee (JCCPC) have weighed in on SCAD’s numerous drafts, as have the community members who have attended the applicant team’s public and private presentations.
While Anthony and Durham Habitat are the primary SCAD applicants, neither had a direct hand in penning the proposal’s text. Instead, a team of local practitioners whom Anthony hired (and declined to identify) took that on. Anthony and the writer team declined the INDY’s interview requests and wouldn’t answer specific questions related to community concerns but wrote in a statement that SCAD’s content includes “new programs for creating affordable housing, while leaving existing programs intact” as well as “new paths specifically for small-scale commercial buildings, allowing local entrepreneurs small spaces from which to launch or grow their businesses.”
A spokesperson for Durham Habitat wrote in a state-
ment to the INDY that the organization is “the primary provider of affordable homeownership opportunities in Durham,” building and selling around 25 houses a year.
“The tight land market, combined with inflexible zoning, threatens this important work,” the spokesperson wrote. “SCAD gives us a path to continue building homes and changing lives.”
When the INDY asked if the organization supports all of SCAD’s provisions, the spokesperson wrote that Habitat “broadly supports the proposal’s goal” but “would prefer not to comment on specific provisions.” The organization has played an “advisory role” in the proposal, according to the spokesperson. (In the original SCAD application, Durham Habitat wrote that it supports four specific elements of the proposal, including parking requirement modifications and the allowance of residential construction in nonresidential areas.)
The Durham City Council will cast votes on the proposal after a public hearing at its March 20 meeting. The Board of County Commissioners will also vote on SCAD this month, but its decision, which will determine whether the amendment’s provisions apply to unincorporated areas of Durham County, is less consequential than the council’s.
In December, the planning commission—a body that reviews, recommends, and sometimes initiates plans and policy changes but does not have a final say in approving them—voted against approving SCAD, with some commissioners raising concerns about the proposal’s
intentions, scale, timing, consequences, and community engagement process.
“This proposal contained no system of checks and balances to ensure affordable housing programs like Habitat for Humanity would be the main beneficiary and not large developers,” commissioner Sarah Chagaris wrote in an advisory comment to the city council.
In staff reports and in emails obtained via a public record request, planning department staff highlighted similar issues and urged the applicant team to revise SCAD in a way that better prioritizes community interests. The planning department did not respond to requests for comment for this story.) While the proposal is being continuously tweaked, the November and January drafts of SCAD that the INDY used for reference during two months of reporting still contain many provisions that planning commissioners, planning staff, and community members have contested, such as offering incentives for developers to create affordable housing while only requiring the housing to remain affordable for five years and allowing certain residential uses within industrial zoning districts.
Some planning commissioners do support SCAD, such as Garry Cutright, who advised the city council in a written memo that “SCAD doesn’t make [the UDO] perfect, but pushes Durham towards a more efficient use of land.” Cutright wrote while some of his colleagues’ concerns are valid, “we should not throw out the proverbial baby with the bath water.” In a phone call with the INDY, he highlights provisions that would eliminate parking minimums and reduce regulations around accessory dwelling units (ADUs) as particularly appealing.
“We’ll have a little more density in areas that, today, prevent that density from happening,” Cutright says. “You’ll have neighborhoods that are a little more walkable.”
Like Cutright, who owns a commercial real estate firm, planning commissioners and members of the public who voted or spoke in favor of SCAD at the planning commission’s December meeting are primarily real estate and development professionals.
Developers, realtors, builders, and civil engineers are clearly key stakeholders, and SCAD will open doors for them. Their praise, as experienced industry workers, speaks to the efficacy of that intention.
But many with the expertise to comprehend and comment on the proposal also have a level of self-interest. SCAD is meant to open doors for people who need affordable housing, too.
So how do city leaders get real community engagement for an amendment of this breadth? And why are developers afforded the opportunity to not just advise on but rewrite the ordinance that regulates their work—and, correspondingly, their profits?
In Durham, city and county governing bodies, the planning commission, or the planning department typically initiate text amendments to the UDO, but private entities, such as in this case, can submit them for review and potential approval for a $3,838 application fee. For lengthier proposals, it’s not uncommon for an applicant to hire practitioners to write and revise the text.
Motivation to change the UDO coupled with financial barriers to entry means that nearly all privately initiated text amendments come from developers, according to former and current planning commissioners.
Nate Baker, an urban planner who serves on the planning commission, says that many developer-led proposals are limited to requests for small tweaks that would help their companies do business.
“For example, Top Golf came, and they wanted to change some provisions [to the UDO] about lighting in the middle of the night,” Baker says.
SCAD’s unprecedented length, though, speaks to a troublesome and atypical “everything but the kitchen sink” approach wherein the applicants seek an undue amount of influence on the ordinance that regulates their companies, according to Baker.
Several SCAD critics who spoke with the INDY equate Durham’s allowance of privately initiated text amendments to “letting the fox in the henhouse.”
“It creates a huge equity issue,” says Wendy Jacobs, who serves as the vice chair of Durham’s Board of County Commissioners. “Especially with something like this proposal, which is unprecedented in size. It circumvents the government process and the public process.”
Others argue that there are adequate checks and balances for private proposals.
“Developers can’t write their own regulations without it being voted on and approved,” Cutright says. “They can propose things, just like anyone. Any member of the community can do this.”
doesn’t allow privately initiated text amendments. Wake Forest requires consent from property residents who could experience impacts from a privately initiated development.
Baker also notes that developer-initiated text amendments often seem to move more quickly than proposals that come from the planning department or commission.
Three years ago, he says, several planning commissioners formed a committee to identify the most glaring discrepancies between the regulations in Durham’s UDO and the goals laid out in its comprehensive plan for growth and development. After formulating a list of requested changes, the committee submitted a text amendment to ask for the “lowest-hanging fruit”: maximum block regulations, which are often used to improve connectivity in communities.
“The process has taken so long,” Baker says, “that we gave up on all the other items on the list.”
Much of the public discourse around SCAD, particularly online, relates to the character of the applicant Anthony. A wealthy developer, Anthony is prominent in local GOP circles and has donated thousands of dollars to right-wing politicians—Madison Cawthorn, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Jesse Helms, to name a few—whose politics harm the communities Anthony says SCAD will benefit. On his personal social media accounts, Anthony has repeatedly posted transphobic remarks and voiced support for January 6 insurrectionists.
This paper trail has elicited the expected pushback from residents of a staunchly progressive city like Durham, but it also highlights the complexity of the proposal at hand. For those looking to drum up resistance to SCAD, publicizing screenshots of Facebook posts and campaign finance reports may seem more efficient than writing explanations of the proposal’s provisions.
Durham City Council member Javiera Caballero seconds this, adding that the “fox in the henhouse” metaphor speaks to the public’s tendency to hold developers, architects, and builders to a different standard than workers in other industries.
“Somehow, we have decided that their opinion on the thing they’re trained to do is invalid against our opinion,” Caballero says. “Teachers shouldn’t have input into education? Doctors shouldn’t have input into medicine? Mechanics shouldn’t have input into the automotive industry?”
Baker emphasizes that while the development industry’s input is valuable, the text amendment process could have better safeguards to prevent abuse and heighten accessibility. The city could get rid of the application fee, for instance. Since an existing UDO provision is what enables privately initiated text amendments, the language could be tweaked in a way that limits the scale of developer-initiated proposals, requires signatures from applicants, or gets rid of the application fee. Or Durham could just do away with private proposals altogether.
“There are quite a few communities that have either long not allowed for private applications or are eliminating that procedure,” says Baker. Morrisville, for instance,
Still, a handful of people have taken the latter approach. Over the past month, a group of eight community members with varying backgrounds in planning, tenant advocacy, environmental justice, and real estate law have met on Zoom every few days—for hours at a time—to comb through SCAD line by line (see box below). All eight are neighborhood delegates to the InterNeighborhood Council
Bonita Green, Merrick-Moore
Stephen Knill, Leesville Road Coalition of Communities in Southeast Durham
Donna Frederick, Braggtown
Sherri Zann Rosenthal, Watts-Hillandale
Mimi Kessler, Trinity Park
Tom Miller, Watts-Hillandale
Vannessa Mason Evans, Braggtown
Richard Ziglar, Burch Avenue
“We’ll have a little more density in areas that, today, prevent density from happening. You’ll have neighborhoods that are a little more walkable.”
of Durham (INC), a coalition of communities and homeowner’s associations across the city and county.
The line-by-line team’s primary concerns center around SCAD’s proposed Progressing Affordably Toward Housing (PATH) program, which offers residential density and height bonuses, as well as setback relief, for projects where 25 percent of rental units are affordable at 60 percent of the area median income (AMI), or where 25 percent of for-sale units are affordable at 80 percent AMI. For projects with 25 percent or more affordable units, developers would receive considerable relief from regulatory compliances—and for projects like Habitat’s, with 100 percent affordable units, regulations would be further relaxed, with SCAD removing all dimensional requirements and density restrictions.
After taking these incentives, though, developers would only have to keep their rental units affordable for five years. For-sale units would have no cap on affordability beyond the initial sale. (Durham already has an affordable housing density bonus with a 30-year cap on affordability. While the existing bonus is rarely used, several planning commissioners tell the INDY it could easily be tweaked to be more appealing.)
Miller, a member of the line-by-line team, calls the PATH program the “fig leaf” for the entire text amendment.
Five years is a trivial shelf life for affordability, he says, and the text doesn’t account for situations that are bound to arise: For example, if a developer sells a property during the five-year affordability period, is the new proprietor bound to the same affordability timeline?
The PATH program would also lead to a downgrade in the quality of affordable units, according to the lineby-line team.
“Historically, when developers take any kind of afford-
able housing bonus, they’ve been required to make the affordable units indistinguishable from market units,” Miller says. “But if [SCAD] is adopted, the affordable units can be smaller—they can be accessory dwelling units—and the market units can all be primary.”
While one SCAD provision would allow ADUs to be larger—up to 1,200 square feet and two stories tall, as long as units are not larger than the primary structure, versus the current cap at 800 square feet and one story—Miller says this tweak would come with its own issues: by allowing bigger ADUs, their virtue as a source of relatively affordable housing would be lost, he says, particularly given that SCAD contains no affordability requirements for ADUs.
SCAD would also allow ADUs to occupy large areas on the grounds of “places of worship:” up to 75 percent of grounds in downtown and urban tiers.
“Under the definition, that could be a small building with a concrete seahorse labeled the ‘Universal Temple of Neptune,’” Miller wrote in a December note to the planning commission.
For many SCAD proponents, though, loosening regulations around ADUs is key to broadening Durham’s affordable housing options.
Topher Thomas is a high school theology teacher and tiny-house developer who serves as a volunteer adviser to SCAD’s writers. His affordable housing company, Coram Houses, would thrive under some of the provisions that SCAD proposes, he says.
“There’s a small lot that I’m working on right now,” Thomas says. “With the current code, by-right, I could build three [ADUs]. And if I wanted to sell them and give somebody a homeownership opportunity, I would only be able to sell all three to the same buyer … and that would not be affordable.”
With SCAD’s changes, though, Thomas says he would be able to build more—and larger—tiny houses on the lot, and sell each for around $125,000 apiece.
“The changes in [ADU] size requirements are really exciting,” Thomas says. “If we can do 1,200 square feet, we could have a three-bed, two-bath. You’re talking about a family of five, actually having access to housing at an affordable rate.”
Thomas acknowledges that relaxing regulations around ADUs will invite some developers to “scam the system.”
“The ways that we put guardrails around that are important,” he says. “But, whether we have that figured out or not, not having [more flexible ADU regulations] as an option is troubling.”
Unless the team drastically alters SCAD in the next 20 days, critics say the city council will vote on a proposal whose applicants have not figured out those guardrails— on ADU developments and otherwise.
“Small developers are not shaping the built environment,” Miller says. “But in order to get advantages to offset the impact of a dramatically rising land market, they’re proposing rule changes for everybody.”
Proponents and critics do seem to see eye to eye on some SCAD provisions.
Several officials who broadly support SCAD have called one proposed change that would allow certain residential uses within industrial districts a “nonstarter.” At the planning commission’s December meeting, for example, vice chair Kimberly Cameron voted yes on SCAD but noted that allowing residential development in industrial areas has “a very storied history of racial segregation” and raises environmental justice issues.
Another provision, which would eliminate parking minimums for new developments, has received support across the board as a way to improve Durham’s walkability.
But taken in tandem with some of SCAD’s other proposed changes, like removing buffer requirements in certain areas, even this tweak would be complicated in practice, according to Miller, who says the amendment’s lack of clarity and regulatory commands would lead to various unintended consequences.
“I’m better positioned than most people, and I admit that I have difficulty keeping up,” says Miller. “And if I have difficulty keeping up, what about the majority of the people who have to live with these decisions?”
Besides a handful of planning commission and JCCPC meetings, the public has had two formal opportunities to view the SCAD team’s presentation on its proposal and ask questions. Both took place last year at the St. James Family Life Center on West Club Boulevard.
Regina Mays, a mental health coach and longtime advocate for equitable development, describes the St. James presentation she attended as informative but was discouraged by the homogeneity of the crowd, which, she says, mainly comprised development industry figures and vigilant activists.
“The lives that will be affected by these proposed changes did not have equal representation in the room,” Mays says.
For the handful of laypeople in attendance, Mays says the presentation’s rhetoric came across as exclusionary.
“A few years ago, it used to be a space and time where you would hear [developers say], ‘We don’t want to rewrite history. We want to learn from our mistakes,’”
Mays says. “But I don’t hear that anymore. I hear more of the language of ‘This is going to happen anyway and you can either be part of the process or not.’ I hear, a lot of times, they say residents [are] not coming out to the meetings, and, well, could they find the meeting?”
According to city emails and documents the INDY obtained, SCAD’s applicant team relied solely on the planning department’s “outreach platforms and newsletters” to publicize the two open meetings at St. James and specifically requested that there not be an option for citizens to join via Zoom.
As far as other community efforts, the SCAD team has engaged five churches in a design charette related to mission-based housing and delivered private presentations to more than 30 groups including local civic organizations, nonprofits, educational institutions, and industry practitioners.
In an August staff report, planning staff wrote that “a majority of the identified groups appear to be development affiliated.” Soon after, one staff member emailed SCAD’s applicant team with a plea to “spend the time with impacted community members, especially historically marginalized, underrepresented, low-wealth, LGBTQIA+, the disability community, [and] rural communities,” among others, noting that “the reporting requirement for affordable housing is not more of a burden than the ability for low-wealth community members to attain and retain housing.”
INC president Bonita Green, also a member of the line-by-line team, invited the SCAD team to present its proposal to the INC after she attended one of the meetings at St. James.
“There were a lot of things in their proposal that were troubling,” Green says. “Since INC has such a broad reach across the city and county, we thought it would be a good platform for people to hear and to ask questions.”
The SCAD applicant team agreed, but things didn’t go well during the presentation—which Green describes as an “overly simplified slideshow”—nor the Q&A session that ensued.
“Someone asked a question about gentrification,” Green says. “[Anthony’s] response was ‘gentrification was necessary.’ I could see the shock on people’s faces. At the end of the meeting, I revisited the question, and that’s when he leaned in and said, ‘Gentrification is necessary to weed out crime and to push out the undesirable.’ So he was very clear on that.”
Donna Frederick, a community advocate and line-by-line team member who owned and operated Durham’s now-closed Playhouse Toy Store before retiring in 2021, attended both of the SCAD presentations at St. James. Frederick echoes both Mays’s sentiments on lack of representation among attendees and Green’s remarks on the slideshow’s reductiveness but adds that even if SCAD’s applicant team were checking those boxes, there would still be issues with the sequence of the larger process.
“It’s backwards,” Frederick says. “It’s like the product comes first, then the community. What really would have made sense is if the developers were asking, ‘What would you like to see improved about building in Durham, from a layperson’s view?’ and then writing a proposal based around the input. That was not done here.”
One thing most stakeholders agree on is that Durham’s UDO—last comprehensively updated in 2006—is in dire need of a rewrite.
In fact, planning staffers are slated to conduct a substantial rewrite later this year, after the city puts the finishing touches on its new comprehensive plan: a longrange vision, rooted in a robust community engagement process, that lays out future goals for growth and development in Durham. The plan is used to guide subsequent updates to the UDO, and its upcoming iteration has been in the works for more than five years.
The notion of adopting SCAD within the month, then, raises some timing questions.
“To move forward with this 87-page, very, very impactful text amendment before the comp plan is adopted is inappropriate,” says Jacobs. “I would request that only the
portions of the text amendment that are in conformity with the proposed comp plan should move forward.”
(In a document, the SCAD team outlined 22 ways in which its proposal aligns with the new comprehensive plan, including “SCAD is going through the approved process for a text amendment, making sure to go above and beyond when it comes to community engagement meetings and listening to the citizens of Durham.”)
Planning department staff, too, named SCAD’s timing as a concern, stating in an August report that “enacting far-reaching zoning changes in advance of a new UDO may be viewed through one of two perspectives: as premature or as an opportunity to test out the effectiveness of these ideas before they are incorporated into the new ordinance.”
Councilwoman Caballero takes the latter perspective.
“That’s the beauty of it,” Caballero says. “It’s like, let’s do it. And if we don’t like it, or if it’s bad, in three years you just say, ‘No, we can’t let them do it.’”
Caballero, along with city council members Leonardo Williams and Jillian Johnson, all expressed strong support for SCAD in conversations with the INDY but said their votes will hinge on the provisions in the final draft. The mayor and other council members did not respond to the INDY’s request for comment.
While the scheduled UDO rewrite could indeed fix some of the issues SCAD seeks to remedy, critics argue that planning staff shouldn’t have to spend time engaging in a retroactive runaround.
If SCAD is passed, its ramifications would come not only from its provisions, Baker says, but from the message that approving it would send.
“Right now, we’re even putting aside the comprehensive plan, and delaying it, so that we can bring developer-initiated amendments forward,” says Baker. “This chaotic environment empowers developers who have the time, the resources, and the understanding of how all the moving pieces work. It empowers them to set the agenda.” W
“It’s backwards. It’s like the product comes first, then the community.”
Teen girls in North Carolina, like their peers across the country, face violence and trauma, a new study shows; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer or questioning students are especially vulnerable.
BY JENNIFER FERNANDEZ backtalk@indyweek.comLike their peers across the country, North Carolina’s teen girls weather an increasing amount of violence, trauma, and feelings of hopelessness.
And the state’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer or questioning students say they feel less safe at school, get bullied more, and face sexual violence more than their peers, according to data collected for the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
North Carolina’s data mirrors what is happening across the country.
“These data show a distressing picture. America’s teen girls are engulfed in a growing wave of sadness, violence, and trauma,” Debra Houry, chief medical officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said in a media briefing on February 13.
And the findings confirm “ongoing trauma” among the nation’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer or questioning students, she said.
“These data are hard to hear and should result in action,” Houry said.
The national Youth Risk Behavior Survey—performed every two years—compiled the responses of more than 17,000 students from 152 schools in the country who filled out the survey in fall 2021.
The survey touches on such topics as violence, personal safety, physical activity, sexual behavior, nutrition, mental health, and use of tobacco, drugs, and alcohol.
While the data summary and trends report, which looked at national trends
from 2011 to 2021, shows improvement in some areas, others have gotten worse:
• Risky sexual behaviors are decreasing, but so are important protective behaviors like condom use, HIV testing, and testing for diseases spread through sex.
• Substance use is generally decreasing, but the authors said it is too high. Marijuana use, for example, dropped from 23 percent to 16 percent in the latest survey. The percentage of high school students using certain illicit drugs (such as cocaine, heroin, or Ecstasy) fell from 19 percent to 13 percent.
• Experiences of violence, including sexual violence, are not declining and in some cases are increasing.
• Poor mental health and suicidal thoughts and behaviors are increasing for nearly all groups of youth.
In 2021 the survey asked for the first time questions to measure social determinants of health (unstable housing) and protective factors (school connectedness and parental monitoring).
The CDC report released last week does not include state-level data. However, individual states such as North Carolina have their results already. In December, state officials shared some of that data at a meeting of the Child Fatality Task Force.
Physical dating violence nearly doubled from about 7 percent in 2019 to just over 13 percent in 2021, according to the NC
Youth Risk Behavior Survey for 2021.
Those numbers stood out for Ellen Essick, section chief of NC Healthy Schools and Specialized Instructional Support at the Department of Public Instruction.
“This really shocked us, and it has us worried,” she told the task force, EducationNC reported. “We’re scrambling to figure out where we need to change our intervention and prevention efforts, at least in public schools, from our perspective, and we’ll work with all of you on how to do that.”
The national data showed that several areas of adolescent health and well-being, such as risky sexual behavior and drug use, are continuing to improve overall.
However, the data also showed female students reporting they are faring more poorly than male students in almost all measures of substance use, experiences of violence, mental health, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors.
“These differences, and the rates at which female students are reporting such negative experiences, are stark,” the authors wrote.
Similar to national rates, North Carolina data show the percentage of students in the state who reported feeling sad or hopeless rose from 28 percent to 43 percent over the past decade.
During the 10-year time period, the percentage of North Carolina students who said they skipped school because they did not feel safe jumped from 7 percent to 17 percent.
More female and LGBQ+ students reported being affected than students were overall in the state.
The survey did not have a question assessing gender identity, which is why when referring to data, the report’s authors do not use the acronym LGBTQ, which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer and/or questioning.
LGBQ+ students in North Carolina schools were about three times as likely as their heterosexual peers to report seriously considering suicide, making a suicide plan or attempting suicide, the data show.
That mirrored the national trend in the 2021 survey.
The authors of the national report noted that although Black students were less likely to report poor mental health and persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness than some other groups of students, they were significantly more likely than Asian, Hispanic, and white students to have attempted suicide.
The levels of poor mental health and sui-
cide ideation are the highest they’ve ever seen, Kathleen Ethier, a psychologist and director of the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health, said at last week’s briefing. The numbers for LGBQ+ students are alarming, she said.
“Tragically, almost half seriously considered suicide, and nearly one in four attempted suicide,” she said. “This is devastating.”
“These data are clear,” Ethier said. “Our young people are in crisis.”
In North Carolina, the survey showed 9 percent of high school students reported being forced to have sex. More teen girls in the state reported being raped—15 percent compared with 3 percent of teen boys.
That’s slightly higher than what female students reported nationally, with 14 percent saying they had been forced to have sex at some point in their young lives.
“This is truly alarming,” Ethier said. “For every 10 teenage girls you know, at least one of them, and probably more, has been raped.
“This tragedy cannot continue.”
About one in five lesbian, gay, or bisexual students in North Carolina reported being forced to have sex, a number four times higher than their heterosexual peers (5 percent). Students who identified as questioning or other were more than four times (23
percent) as likely to report being raped as heterosexual students.
“We know sexual violence is associated with mental health issues, substance abuse, and also long-term health consequences,” the CDC’s Houry said.
At UNC-Chapel Hill, professor and researcher Dorothy Espelage said that as she discussed some of the data on suicide risk with one of her classes last week, it dawned on her that some of them had been high school students when the Youth Risk Behavior Survey data was collected.
So she asked them about some of the survey’s results, such as sexual violence.
“We talked about consent. They said there were no programs in their high schools focused on this, and my students are from all over,” Espelage said. “They only remember a list that went around: ‘100 ways to refuse sex from a guy,’ and one of them is ‘Tell them you’re on your period.’
“They couldn’t remember any prevention program or where it was taught in sex ed.”
And her research across the country shows that many students aren’t aware of their rights under Title IX, the federal civil rights law, that prevents sexual discrimination in education institutions. That can include sexual harassment, rape, and sexual assault.
People often think that Title IX is just about equality in sports, Espelage said. But the legislation also requires schools to have a Title IX coordinator and a process students can follow to report sexual violence, she said.
“We find that even when they understand consent, they don’t know how to report [sexual violence] in their schools,” she added.
The biennial survey has its limitations, Espelage said. It does not track the same students over a period of time but rather offers just a snapshot.
And it doesn’t talk about why something might be happening.
“What this doesn’t tell you is, are there differences based on district policies and practices?” Espelage said.
Researchers have used past survey data in conjunction with other data to show, for example, that rates of bullying victimization in districts and states varied depending on the definition of bullying and policies to address it, Espelage said.
That 2015 study published in JAMA Pediatrics showed that compliance with Department of Education–recommended guidelines in anti-bullying laws was associated with lower rates of being bullied and cyberbullied among high school students from 25 states in the United States.
The CDC expects to publish on its site the full national survey from 2021 and local and state reports in April. W
This story was first published online at North Carolina Health News. North Carolina Health News is an independent, nonpartisan, not-for-profit, statewide news organization dedicated to covering all things health care in North Carolina.
Charlotte native Reuben Vincent’s Jamla/Roc Nation debut album, Love Is War, is a conceptual, subtly constructed project—one that continues to prove he is among rap’s newest class of greats.
Released on January 27, the album features profound reflections on love through the lens of family and self-love. The 22-year-old also grapples with today’s unconventional dating standards for twentysomethings.
With polished, varied flows, Vincent weighs the time spent on love against the hours needed to pursue art and dreams. Besides demonstrating that Vincent is a skillful rapper—one who doesn’t need to be compared to every lyricist who’s come before him—Love Is War also reveals him to be an equally talented producer.
The album receives production support from Vincent’s home team: 9th Wonder, The Soul Council, and Young Guru. As expected, the resulting production is soulful and situated within the depths of boom-bap rap; the album also features guest appearances from Rapsody, Reason (TDE), Domani, Stacy Barthe, and Sonny Miles, a rising star of soulful North Carolina music.
Since his introduction with 2017’s critically acclaimed Myers Park, Vincent has always been wise beyond his years. The album is inspired by his parents’ escape from Liberia during the country’s first civil war and their relocation to Charlotte and also takes inspiration from André 3000’s The Love Below and Black feminist literary icon bell hooks’s seminal text All about Love. His vulnerability, wisdom, and
emotional maturity are on full display in Love Is War
Over the phone, he spoke to INDY Week to discuss his new record deal, being on tour with Pusha T, his BET hip-hop performance, navigating new fame, and more.
INDY WEEK: Let’s talk about you signing the deal. Was the moment what you’ve always imagined it to be?
REUBEN VINCENT: A lot of people, I feel like they come in the game thinking the label is supposed to do everything, but I already had in mind what I wanted to do. The label’s job is to amplify what you already have created—you know the brand that you already have established. They’ve been able to amplify me and my music.
I’m grateful.
Two specific ways your label has been able to increase your visibility are your participation in Pusha T’s It’s Almost Dry tour and the BET Hip-Hop Cypher. Tell me a little bit about your experience going on tour and having a well-received cypher performance.
Pusha welcomed me with open arms. He embraced me from the first day when I met him. He just told me to keep going, and that [fans] want to hear bars. He was really down-to-earth and humble, which is something I value because he has longevity. I gained a lot of fans from that tour.
This was a lot of people’s opportunity to hear me for the first time, and by the end of my 30-minute set, they were locked in wondering who this kid is.
What gems, if any, did he give you? Or what did you learn from him watching how he moves and his set?
I noticed his professionalism. Everyone on his team was on the same page and it was clear they had a mission to accomplish. On tour, we had a number of opportunities to talk and he told me, “Be true to yourself and what your brand is.” And he’s the epitome of that.
How did you prep for the BET Hip-Hop Cypher? And do you pay attention to the reactions on social media?
Some people sent me a few comments. For me, it was dope, because, you know, that was one of the things that were on my list of goals. I think it’s a rite of passage. And I feel like the beat wasn’t a conventional
Was this your first Grammy weekend?
This was my first Grammy weekend. Just a few years ago you were a regular kid with a dream. And now in the blink of an eye, you’re rubbing elbows with celebrities at the premiere brunch during Grammys weekend presented by Jay-Z. Do you find that you’re comfortable navigating industry spaces—you know, the celebrity-ism of it all?
It’s definitely still weird to me, especially because people are starting to look at me in a different light. But, you know, it was just beautiful to be in the same room with some of those people just having regular conversations and enjoying each other’s time and company. It just showed me how far I can take it and allowed me to see more clearly where I want my career to go.
Like, you know, we got our foot in the door, but how are we gonna stay here and maintain value in the room? But it was beautiful, especially coming from Charlotte, North Carolina.
What did you learn about love on your own? And what were you taught about love growing up?
What I was taught and experienced is the same thing: love is definitely not easy and it’s hard to do. Especially real love. It is going to try you. It’s going to expose things that you don’t want to be exposed. I’ve learned from my parents that you shouldn’t run away from love. The more I pushed away from it, the more the feelings continued to be present. Things are not gonna be any better if I continue to run away from it—I have to face it.
Why do you think, specifically for Black folks, that we’re scared of true commitment and love?
Many people feel most comfortable in a “situationship.” But when it comes time to actually be committed, honest, and vulnerable about our feelings there’s often hesitation.
I feel like the reason why we hesitate with love is because we don’t know how to feel. In my observation, with this whole love thing, the reason why people start to hesitate is oftentimes we’ve been through so much hurt, pain, and trauma.
It’s like, “If I show you my real self, will you love me?” And then, “I don’t know if I truly love myself enough to show you my real self. How do I know you’re gonna love what I show you?” Because we all have insecurities.
We have to, as people, get to the point of loving those things so that when we are in a relationship we’re not running away from the things that hide within. As Black people, we carry so many burdens on our backs and that makes it harder to commit because sometimes we don’t have the space to even commit to ourselves. W
BY JORDAN LAWRENCE music@indyweek.com
If the notion of a member of a local indie pop band named after a character from The Lord of the Rings releasing homemade electronic records on the side doesn’t fill you with overwhelming confidence, I totally get it. Long is the list of tedious side projects from musicians who would be better suited to dedicating effort toward their main band.
But James Phillips’s Sumner James is not such a project.
Over the years, James and steadfast Bombadil member Daniel Michalak have stuck together in the winningly quirky and deep-thinking Durham band, keeping the project above water during multiple obstacles, including lineup shifts and a period when a nerve condition sidelined Michalak. But James has also spent the past decade-plus in solo work, cutting his teeth on charming electro-pop before moving onto a succession of increasingly engrossing ambient records.
I Could Just Go On Forever—Phillips’s third ambient album and the first release for Bathysphere Records, a new imprint he is starting with two friends—is a testa-
ment to what Phillips has become during his time releasing music as Sumner James: a seasoned electronic musician with a composer’s touch for harmony and melody.
Phillips doesn’t just layer up vistas of arresting, trance-inducing sonic texture; he lets melodies emerge and play out across the various elements. Tunes flit from skittering clicks to airy synths in the way an orchestra might toss from violin to viola, with other themes emerging in the background, giving his music uncommon richness and depth.
The album spans various shades of bittersweet calm—from the apocalyptic chill of “Rainy Friday” and the digitized ennui of the title track and “Hard Drive Detritus” to the expansive yearning of the 14-minute epic “Just the World”—lulling the listener into its reverie and then wowing with the emotion-rich intricacy of each track’s construction.
In other words, it sounds like the work of a fully realized project operating at its highest level. Maybe, after all, we should call Phillips an electronic musician who also has a band. W
At the age of eight, during a family trip to Italy, Garret Fleming rejected a restaurant server’s warning that the tomato, guanciale, and chili-loaded all’amatriciana sauce he’d ordered was troppo piccante—“too spicy”—for a child of his age.
“I swear to God, the waiter told the cooks to ‘light it up’ because a little kid didn’t listen to him,” Fleming says. “I was sweating profusely. The hair on the back of my neck was standing up. My face was beet red.”
Nevertheless, the dish was delectable, he says—as was his first taste of defiance.
Twenty-five years later, both all’amatriciana and a heaping portion of nonconformity can be found on the menu at Bombolo, the new restaurant that Fleming and his sister, Eleanor Lacy, launched last week in Chapel Hill’s Midtown Market complex on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The restaurant fills the space formerly occupied by the French bistro Kitchen, which closed in December when owners Dick and Sue Barrow retired.
Bombolo’s name is distinctly Italian, as are a number of its dishes, but the restaurant’s ethos is perhaps best captured—albeit cryptically—by the text emblazoned on its front wall: Ceci n’est pas un restaurant Italien, which is French for “This is not an Italian restaurant.”
Despite what it states explicitly, the phrase doesn’t mean that Bombolo lacks Italian menu items; rather, it speaks to an emphatic resistance—contrariness, even—toward categorization that seems to have emerged as a growing trend among Triangle food ventures.
Oscar Diaz, for instance, who owns the forthcoming Durham restaurant Little Bull, recently told the INDY that Little Bull’s cuisine will eschew traditional labels and instead center around the “melting pot of the flavors in my
lexicon.” Max Jr’s, another Durham eatery slated to open this year, sports the official title of “sausage bar and Biergarten” but was alternatively described by co-owner Joe Schwartz as “a representation of the foods” its three owners “know and love,” given that Southern and Jewish dishes, as well as German ones, will feature heavily on the menu.
This shift toward more varied cuisines may be attributable, in part, to the COVID-19 pandemic, when the restaurant world was struggling to stay afloat. Genre, for some restaurateurs, became secondary to serving a menu that worked within their constraints.
Fleming and Lacy launched their first venture, a Chapel Hill barbecue joint called Big Belly Que, in 2019. The timing was less than ideal.
“The pandemic screwed it up because we had to immediately pivot and start doing takeout meals,” Fleming says. “Barbecue is such an ‘experience’ that we weren’t really looking to box it up. So we started changing up our menu.” Lasagna, pizza, and sautéed rapini became mainstays.
“It was a little strange for a barbecue shop,” Fleming says. “But we’d always had the desire to open up a restaurant that would be indicative of all the things we love.”
In January 2022, the pair closed Big Belly Que to pursue a more ambiguous concept that would allow them to showcase their mixed bag of culinary influences and experiences.
Fleming, a Culinary Institute of America graduate who appeared on Season 13 of the reality television show Top Chef, drew inspiration from the stints he’d worked at restaurants in Maine, South Carolina, and Washington, D.C. Lacy keyed into the skills she’d developed as a selftaught baker and sommelier. They both called on dishes from their upbringings and travels.
As a nod to their setting and to Big Belly Que, the sib-
lings dubbed the new concept “Bombolo”: an Italian word that directly translates to “squab”—a farm-raised pigeon widely produced in North Carolina—and also functions as an idiom to describe someone “short and fat and jolly,” according to Fleming.
“I love game,” he says. “And I love fatness.”
While adhering to a single cuisine during a dinner at Bombolo is possible, it’s not recommended.
The menu—which features dishes from Italy, Indonesia, Turkey, Thailand, France, and the American South, among other regions—is a cohesive hodgepodge that offers diners the opportunity to create a balanced meal that speaks to them. Eating at Bombolo is sort of like shuffling all of your most-played songs on Spotify: you wouldn’t have thought to listen to “Clair de Lune” right after listening to “I Like to Move It” (the Crazy Frog version), or to eat halibut khao soi (a Thai curry dish with rice noodles) in tandem with polpette (pork and veal meatballs), but man, they’re both bangers—and what a great palate cleanser.
That said, each dish on the menu is fairly balanced in its own right: pine nuts and persillade add crunch and herby brightness to the buttery, briny “anchovy-stuffed anchovies”; salted cucumbers and tamarind glaze cut through the earthy richness of the beef-cheek rendang; and orange zest and hazelnut praline feuilletine round out the chocolate bombolo, a ball of mousse that would feel illegal to eat without the additions of citrus and crisp.
Dishes are served on mismatched plateware, a quirk that aligns with the restaurant’s cozy, familial backdrop. Bombolo is tiny—the dining room seats 36, and 10 at the bar—and the funky wall mosaic is suitably distinctive to the owners.
“This is an intensely personal and family operation,” Lacy says. “That’s going to have to be our niche.” W
THIS
The Gregg Museum of Art and Design, Raleigh | On display through October 2023
South Carolina artist Aldwyth’s expansive retrospective at the Gregg Museum of Art and Design is filled with delightful contradictions.
BY SARAH EDWARDS sedwards@indyweek.comAldwyth wishes that her shadowboxes weren’t behind glass.
At 87, the South Carolina artist—who goes by only her last name—sees most of her work as dynamic; material to puzzle over and form a relationship with.
Mark Sloan, curator of the exhibition This is Not: Aldwyth in Retrospect now on display at the Gregg Museum of Art, explains this as we observe an encased piece called “Rolodex: History, Condition, and Prospects”—a small, weathered box on wheels. Inside it, spliced by a key, is a Rolodex of intricate photos. Aldwyth’s pieces tend to have esoteric titles like this, though it’s also clear that the artist—whose prolific, enchanting body of work gives a middle finger to the art world—also wants to give audiences a chance to engage with it. To wit, ost pieces are accompanied by detailed indexes identifying each aspect of the art.
But from a curator’s perspective, of course, the delicate
boxes need at least a modicum of protection—so, behind glass they go.
This is Not: Aldwyth in Retrospect spans nearly 70 years of Aldwyth’s work, featuring pieces from 1953 on across numerous mediums. On March 2, the Gregg will also screen athe documentary Aldwyth: Fully Assembled by the Chapel Hill-based filmmaker Olympia Stone.
“We were thrilled to be able to have this work because I feel like it’s very accessible,” Gregg Museum director Roger Manley says. “This is a great example of a woman who’s working by herself, following her own nose, so to speak— just really doing what she wanted to do without too much regard for what other people would think about it.”
This is Not contains dozens upon dozens of shadowboxes, still lives (including a series of egg paintings with the emphatic Magritte reference “Ceci n’est pas an egg” and a series of eighty-some watermelon paintings), and collages
that are, at once, sprawling and surgically precise.
Repetition and references are abundant throughout Aldwyth’s work and there is always more than meets the eye: In the same square of a frame, a collage may contain both a cutout from a Sargent painting and a cutout of Jennifer Lopez in the famous green Versace dress. Even the watermelon paintings, which replicate a slice of the fruit in the same dimensions over and over again, are working at a “color problem,” Sloan says.
As is evident by the retrospective’s title, Aldwyth likes to put her work in relief against what it’s not. Nowhere is this more evident than in “re-su-mé/re-sume,” the piece that, in 1999, first introduced Sloan to Aldwyth’s work.
“I’m sitting in my office and I get a call from my colleague and friend at the South Carolina Arts Commission,” Sloan says. “She says, ‘We received a fellowship application for the South Carolina fellowship, but the artist didn’t follow the rules. We asked for a work sample and a résumé. This person sent a work sample that was a résumé.’”
The résumé-slash-work-sample is a box that unfolds to show glass shelves with 48 boxes. Inside each box is a piece of paper with a word on it, all accolades that might otherwise belong on a typically “accomplished” résumé of the art world: “NEA Grant,” “Art in America review,” “M.F.A.,” “Manhattan art dealer.” Each box has a declarative X over it, designating it as something Aldwyth doesn’t have—and maybe, from the defiance of the gesture, doesn’t want.
Only one box has a check mark on it: inside, written on a piece of paper, is the word “work.”
If Aldwyth’s style is defined by playful engagement with the world, her own life has been tertiary, at times, to that world.
She lives in a small octagonal house on the edge of a South Carolina salt marsh with an interior decoration style that could accurately be described as spare: no real kitchen (just a hot plate, refrigerator, microwave, and coffeemaker) and no bed (just a foam pad).
Until 1999, when Sloan encountered her work and tracked Aldwyth down—while her application to the South Carolina Arts Commission hadn’t included a phone number, it did contain an address—she’d lived as a near recluse for almost two decades, encountering few people outside of visits from her grown children (Aldwyth also declined an interview for this piece).
If these hermetic tendencies seem contradictory to the
energetic, omnivorous cultural appetite on display in her work—so omnivorous as to feel social—that’s just another tick mark in Aldwyth’s catalog of contradictions; another “this is not.”
Aldwyth was born in California in 1936; her father was in the Marines and the family moved around frequently. When she was 18, believing that she was pregnant, Aldwyth married; then came art school and three sons, then years of inactivity as her husband forbade her to practice art on her own time. By 1973, she’d had enough and left him, working a series of odd jobs, including as a meter maid, housecleaner, and realtor. In 1980, when her sons had left home for college, Aldwyth moved into her octagonal home and began an art practice that quickly became all-consuming.
“I walked into this 900-square-foot house and it was like walking inside a Joseph Cornell box—every surface was exquisite and just perfectly worked,” says Sloan, recollecting that fateful 1999 first meeting. “There were little drawers marked ‘eyeballs’ that you pull out and with all these cutout eyeballs and nude figures facing left and nude figures facing right and, you know, dogs, and cows—this whole world all cut out of magazines.”
Between 1980 and 1999, Aldwyth did begin to submit her work. Her style of assembled work was atypical to the art world market, though, and she found it difficult to make inroads. In 1989, when she exhibited a mirrored box that contained a bottle of cadmium red paint, a male critic glibly interpreted it as a commentary on menstrual blood. From then on, Aldwyth would go only by a mononym
This is Not: Aldwyth in Retrospect is the most comprehensive Aldwyth exhibition to date and a much-deserved recognition of a brilliant artist of the Carolinas.
You could attend it multiple times with a different mission for each visit—to locate her muse, the “zombie ant,” which makes its way into almost all of her work; to trace a critical history of the art world that she weaves between pieces—and have a different experience.
And while the shadowboxes are mesmerizing, Aldwyth isn’t only interested in scenes of enclosure: the collages, with references as infinite as the internet, sprawl and delight. Visitors to This is Not can expect to have their expectations contradicted, curousity nurtured, and creative boundaries expanded.
“There’s so much art, and so many different ways to do it,” Aldwyth says in the Fully Assembled documentary “I’m just one little twinkle in that sky. I’m not Duchamp—but then, Duchamp is not me.” W
Beat Kitty x Mr Jennings: Maximum Bounce Tour $20. Thurs, Mar. 2, 8 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.
Daniel Zamir Jazz Duo: 20th Anniversary Celebration Thurs, Mar. 2, 6 p.m. Moeser Auditorium, Chapel Hill.
Duke Wind Symphony: Tanz mit mir! Thurs, Mar. 2, 7:30 p.m. Baldwin Auditorium, Durham.
Mellow Swells Album Release Show $10. Thurs, Mar. 2, 9 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
Muscadine Bloodline $30. Thurs, Mar. 2, 8:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.
Power in Purple $10. Thurs, Mar. 2, 7 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
Sam Grisman Project Presents: The Music of Garcia/Grisman $20. Thurs, Mar. 2, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
Bailen $20. Fri, Mar. 3, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
Boulevards / Blue Cactus / Charly Lowry $15. Fri, Mar. 3, 8:30 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
Chatham County Line $20. Fri, Mar. 3, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.
GRL PWR: A Dance Party Dedicated to the Women of Alternative Music $15. Fri, Mar. 3, 8:30 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
Hemlock $15. Fri, Mar. 3, 7 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
The Kruger Brothers Celebrate Doc Watson’s 100th Birthday $125+. Fri, Mar. 3, 11:30 a.m. Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.
The Maxell 90: 40th Anniversary of R.E.M.’s Chronic Town $14+. Fri, Mar. 3, 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.
Moodboard $5. Fri, Mar. 3, 10 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.
Ryan Hanseler Trio with Gabrielle Cavassa $30. Fri, Mar. 3, 8 p.m. Sharp Nine Gallery, Durham.
Alan Doyle and the Beautiful Beautiful Band $20. Sat, Mar. 4, 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.
Dalibor Cruz / Permanent / Floor Model / Copula $10. Sat, Mar. 4, 8 p.m. Duke Coffeehouse, Durham.
The Defacto Experience: Producer Showcase Sat, Mar. 4, 9 p.m. Durty Bull Brewing Company, Durham.
Gay Agenda: The Safety Dance $5. Sat, Mar. 4, 10 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.
Mean Habit $10. Sat, Mar. 4, 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
NLE Choppa $40. Sat, Mar. 4, 9 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.
Patrick McGrew Duo Sat, Mar. 4, 5 p.m. The Oak House, Durham.
Rent Due Dance Party $5+. Sat, Mar. 4, 10 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
Soul Glo $17. Sat, Mar. 4, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
Martin Sexton $35. Sun, Mar. 5, 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
Matty Frank $10. Sun, Mar. 5, 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
Mikaela Davis $15. Sun, Mar. 5, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
Pop-Up Chorus: Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” and Soccer Mommy’s “Circle the Drain” $12. Mon, Mar. 6, 7 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
HIDE $15. Tues, Mar. 7, 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
Switchyard Theatre Company
Presents: Present
Laughter $25. Feb. 23–Mar. 5, various times. Durham Arts Council, Durham.
Jagged Little Pill $30+. Feb. 28–Mar. 5, various times. DPAC, Durham. They Do Not Know Harlem $20+. Mar. 1-12, various times. PlayMakers Repertory Company, Chapel Hill.
Out to Lunch Improv Comedy Wed, Mar. 1, 7:30 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.
Jeff Dunham: Seriously!? Tour $40+. Thurs, Mar. 2, 7 p.m. PNC Arena, Raleigh.
Humber Lecture— Michael Richards: Are You Down?
Curators in Conversation Wed, Mar. 1, 7 p.m. NCMA, Raleigh.
Duke School of Medicine Student Faculty Show: Doctor Mia! $15+. Fri, Mar. 3, 7 p.m. Reynolds Industries Theater, Durham.
Nikki Glaser: The Good Girl Tour $37+. Fri, Mar. 3, 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.
Felipe Esparza: Unmasked $33. Sat, Mar. 4, 8 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.
Je’Caryous Johnson’s New Jack City $107+. Sat, Mar. 4, 3 and 8 p.m. Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.
Outrageous: A Burlesque and Variety Show for Abortion Rights $15. Sat, Mar. 4, 7 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
Lectures in Art
History: Andrew McClellan, Tufts University Thurs, Mar. 2, 5 p.m. Phillips Hall, Chapel Hill.
Crape Myrtle Festival Drag Brunch Fundraiser $35. Sun, Mar. 5, 12 p.m. Clouds Brewing, Durham.
The Girl Who Swallowed a Cactus Sun, Mar. 5, 2 p.m. NorthStar Church of the Arts, Durham.
Terrible, Thanks for Asking: Bad Vibes Only Tour Hosted by Nora McInerny $35+. Mon, Mar. 6, 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
Stand-Up on the Roof: Isatu Kamara Tues, Mar. 7, 7 p.m. The Durham Hotel, Durham.
Advait: Through the Lens—Meet the Artist Reception Mar. 3-4, various times. LaMantia Gallery, Raleigh.
Aldwyth: Fully Assembled Thurs, Mar. 2, 6 p.m. Gregg Museum of Art & Design, Raleigh.
Far East Deep South with Filmmaker Q&A $6. Thurs, Mar. 2, 7 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary.
The most recognized award throughout the Triangle is back for 2023— STARTING WITH WAKE COUNTY!
Vote for your favorite Wake County bar, veterinarian, bookshop, museum—whatever it may be, there are over 100 categories in which you can profess your favorite Wake County treasures. Have no fear: Durham and Orange/Chatham Counties will have their own nominations soon.
Michael Richards: Are You Down?
Mar. 3-4, various times. Wake Forest Renaissance Centre, Wake Forest.
Silverado and Three
Amigos $10. Fri, Mar. 3, 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.
Sat, Mar. 4, 2 p.m.
NCMA, Raleigh.
Rosé & Roses: Bachelor Mondays
Mon, Mar. 6, 8 p.m.
Durty Bull Brewing Company, Durham.
If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “puzzles page” at the bottom of our webpage.
720 Ninth Street, Durham, NC 27705
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this week’s puzzle level:
There is really only one rule to Sudoku: Fill in the game board so that the numbers 1 through 9 occur exactly once in each row, column, and 3x3 box. The numbers can appear in any order and diagonals are not considered. Your initial game board will consist of several numbers that are already placed. Those numbers cannot be changed. Your goal is to fill in the empty squares following the simple rule above.
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Beginning Zen Practice
A class at the Chapel Hill Zen Center with David Guy. Monday evenings, 7:30-9. 6 weeks, March 13th to April 19th. $60. Must be vaccinated and wear a mask. Scholarships available. 919-641-9277 davidguy@mindspring.com www.davidguy.org
919-416-0675
Software Engineer
Software Engineer, F/T at Truist Bank (Raleigh, NC)
Deliver technically complex solutions. Perform system integration support for all project work. Lead & participate in the dvlpmt, testing, implmtn, maintenance, & support of highly complex solutions in adherence to co. standards, incl robust unit testing & support for subsequent release testing. Must have Bach’s deg in Comp Sci, Comp Engg, or related tech’l field. Must have 3 yrs of progressive exp in s/ware engg or IT consulting positions performing the following: applying in-depth knowl in information systems & ability to identify, apply, & implmt IT best practices; understanding of key business processes & competitive strategies related to the IT function; planning & managing projects & solving complex problems by applying best practices; providing direction & mentoring less exp’d teammates; & utilizing exp w/: Rally, Visio, AWS, GIT, Maven, Jenkins, JavaScript, Angular, HTML, Java, Springboot, Splunk, REST & SOAP Webservices. Position may be eligible to work remotely but is based out of & reports to Truist offices in Raleigh, NC. Must be available to travel to Raleigh, NC regularly for meetings & reviews w/ manager & project teams w/in 24-hrs’ notice. Email resume w/ cvr ltr to: Paige Whitesell, Paige. Whitesell@Truist.com. (Ref. Job No. R0073213)
Energy Policy Assistant Durham climate justice nonprofit, NC WARN, is hiring a motivated professional to help implement our energy policy at the state level. Salary commensurate with experience. FT or PT. www.ncwarn.org/about-us/our-board/ for more info. We encourage women, BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ candidates to apply.
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