On Tuesday evening, residents packed into the Durham City Hall lobby to hear (and have their voices heard) about a rezoning plan that may never come to be.
Local officials had intended this to be a formal hearing on proposed development codes, which fast-growing Durham hasn’t updated since 2006. But 11 days earlier, Durham attorneys received a letter from a lawyer representing Marvin Lee Barnes Jr., whose company oversees Family Fare franchises across Central and Eastern North Carolina, including more than 30 stores in Durham.
Barnes’s attorney threatened a lawsuit if the city and county proceeded with their joint rezoning rules, saying the codes “blatantly ignore” a 2024 state law that restricts local governments from downzoning properties — including reducing the number of allowable uses on land — without getting written approval from all affected property owners…