DURHAM, USA

Durham CAN Fayetteville Street Projects Place Silent Vigil Walk | October 14, 2020

Until 2007, the Durham Housing Authority (DHA) owned and operated 168, 2-story brick duplex homes on nearly 20 acres - the Fayetteville Street Projects. In 2007, DHA sold the property to Campus Apartments, a Philadelphia developer that demolished the apartments, leaving the cement slab foundations.

In 2017, due to the organizing efforts of Durham CAN, the City of Durham gave DHA $4.2 million to repurchase the property with the goal of redevelopment that includes affordable housing.  The restrictive covenants attached to the development grant also require DHA to maintain the Site in a good, sanitary and safe condition (including mowing the grass, removing weeds, trash and debris and repairing fencing) and creating and implementing a community engagement program to provide meaningful opportunities for the Durham community, including but not limited to the Hayti and NCCU communities, to contribute input in connection with the redevelopment of the Site and the surrounding area.

Before there was ‘Fayette Place’ there was Fayetteville Street Projects: a public housing community developed by the Durham Housing Authority in 1967. And before there was the Fayetteville Street Projects, there was the historic Hayti community.

Although the buildings are gone, the land remains, and the people and stories shaped there are still very much alive.  This audio tour is a small collection of the people connected to the Fayetteville Street Projects that to affirm that Durham’s future cannot move forward without remembering its past.