I can’t say I’m surprised by how the Housing Justice Coalition isn’t being precise with their words or research, especially when they’re calling this project a “genocide” on Twitter. I’m glad you found my stab at fact-checking helpful!
Before people start throwing verbal Molotovs, let’s remind ourselves that city officials, traditional YIMBYs, and activists in the HJC and elsewhere agree on the core idea behind this project: using the Heritage Park property to help more people live in DTR is a good investment for the City. The disagreements come from the "why"s and “hows” of doing so, but our interests are aligned even if it doesn’t always sound that way.
As for recent updates... (click me!)
I couldn’t find anything directly about the Heritage Park project or Housing Authority policy changes from the 10 minutes I searched on Google and the city’s meeting agendas. My understanding is that city staffers would:
- Formally write policy recommendations
- Add them to City Council meeting agendas as an “action item”
- Review the proposed policy in one or more committees (optional but common)
- Vote on it to make it a law. I couldn’t even find a formal draft, so
The recording of City Council’s discussion for the memo you’re talking about is on YouTube now, though. You can see how, for example, David Cox is asking the more careful practical questions while many Patrick Buffkin wanted to push for denser, taller public houses. …but I’m not sure if you care for that sort of legislative drama.
There is a sorta-related update, though: the Western Blvd. BRT corridor study is asking for several changes to the city’s street plan, one of which is to include Heritage Park into the city’s grid layout. You could say this implies the City’s interested in making Heritage Park somehow better-integrated with its future urban neighbors. That shouldn’t really be a surprise, though, since the whole point of this controversy is to modernize and expand Heritage Park.
So, in order of the concerns you listed:
I’m personally sympathetic to how difficult it must be to move houses and resettle when you’re poor. After all, a majority of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck and, according to this survey, maintain less than $500 in savings. I can’t imagine it’s easy when you’re in that situation and your own hometown is about to tell you to get lost. And when that’s happening and it’s the city that wants to renovate its facilities for its own purposes, I think it makes sense for the city to “make up for it”.
I can think of a couple of approaches, but they all have their downsides too... (click me!)
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The city directly gives public housing residents a grant to use for moving and relocation expenses. I think this is what activists like to push for. I’d be curious about the cost of doing this, but I’m not sure if the city’s allowed to do this (see next question) or
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The city moves all displaced residents to existing vacant units in other city-owned properties (as I mentioned in the post you’re referring to). This is obviously hard, though, since the city is also short on housing units.
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Heritage Park gets developed phase-by-phase. The developer could start by building new buildings on unused land first, move impacted residents into the new building for its next phase, etc. etc. …though planning for this sort of multi-phase project could get unwieldy and expensive very quickly.
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The city dedicates staff to help with applications for moving grants. Lots of resources for relocation assistance exists, but distressed residents might not know about them or have the means to apply for the help they need. The city could help lighten the workload for its resident-tenants, though it seems like this could take quite a bit of FTEs as well:
- HUD: they do more than just Section 8 vouchers!
- move.org
- moving.com: this page has lots of cost-saving tips and resources
- 211: it’s like 911, but non-emergency referrals to experts and local resources
- Passage Home, a local nonprofit dedicated to homelessness prevention
- Other resources outlined by this page on RocketMortgage’s website
Is that true? If so, why?
I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know if the State of North Carolina pre-empts (overrules) cities on tenants’ rights issues like that. That seemed like a common obstacle for the “renter’s bill of rights” attempt in Durham (see post above), though, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens here, too.
What do the current residents of Heritage Park make with respect to AMI? I’d be curious if the speaker actually has the data to back up his claim.
For reference, the US Dept. of Housing and Urban Development defines AMIs by region, not by city boundaries or census tracts. Extrapolating from the city’s own webpage on public housing, a household of three making up to $25,850 would qualify. That’s like a single parent with 2 kids making $10.77/hr.
I’m curious as well! …though when you said “this situation”, did you mean development-based displacement in general, or specifically for people in lower-income public housing? If you meant the latter, I’m not sure if we have many users on here who’d identify with that… 
There’s a lot of homes east of DTR interspersed throughout the different neighborhoods that have been similarly developed by the city over the past decade or two. Some were also acquired for the city’s rental portfolio (for low AMI renters) like some of those shotgun homes next to the Exploris school on Swain. 
