Durham's City Council voted 4-3 to approve a 50-home subdivision on Sherron Road in southeast Durham, overriding a planning commission recommendation against the project and warnings from opponents about ambulance delays and gridlock on the rural two-lane corridor. The vote annexed and rezoned 10.9 acres at 416, 426 and 430 Sherron Road, clearing the way for M/I Homes of Raleigh to build Oak Grove Landing off N.C. 98, with homes sold at market rate and no affordable units included.
Mayor Leo Williams, Matt Kopac, Carl Rist and Javiera Caballero voted yes, while Chelsea Cook, Shanetta Burris and Nate Baker voted no, according to The News & Observer. The same publication reported that the Durham Planning Commission had recommended against the project in June 2026, with commissioners voting 7-2 to oppose it. Attorney Juan Montez, who represented the developer and also sits on the planning commission, recused himself from that June vote; he later said the developer had listened to residents' concerns and made adjustments, according to the outlet.
Those adjustments included scaling the plan down from an initial proposal of 76 townhomes to the 50 single-family homes ultimately approved, per the same account. Oak Grove Landing will also include right and left turn lanes on Sherron Road, a 10-foot landscaped buffer along parts of the property, a separate 100-foot buffer, and a maximum impervious surface limit of 55 percent. No construction date has been specified.
Emergency Response Times Loom Over the Debate
Council member Shanetta Burris said no city of Durham or NCDOT road improvements were scheduled for the area, the report noted. That concern lines up with separate reporting: NCDOT concept plans show long-discussed safety and capacity upgrades at the NC 98 and Sherron Road intersection remain unfunded and are not projected to reach construction until the mid-2030s or later, according to a discussion among local commuters on Reddit describing rush-hour gridlock on the corridor.
Resident Melissa Fissel said a six-minute trip to Southern High School can take 23 minutes during peak traffic, per the same account from the News & Observer. EMS Director Mike Lockhart said Durham County ambulance response takes about 35 minutes on average, a figure that tracks with broader data reported by JEMS, which found countywide average response times of eight minutes and 911 hold times reaching approximately 35 minutes in 2026 amid regional growth, traffic congestion and a shortage of staffed ambulances.
Durham County EMS is projected to process a record 60,000 emergency calls in fiscal year 2026, a jump of more than 24 percent since 2018, even though the county has added zero new staffed transport units over that same eight-year span, according to a report cited by Firefighter Close Calls. That outlet also noted that emergency services leadership has reported holding up to 35 non-critical calls in a single day shift.
Developer Contributions Draw Skepticism
M/I Homes offered $96,000 to Durham's dedicated housing fund, $15,000 to Durham Public Schools, and $15,000 to Durham emergency services as part of the project, according to the News & Observer's reporting. Council member Carl Rist said the housing-fund contribution represented about 4 percent affordability across the 50-home project and could subsidize two affordable units, per the outlet. Rist also said adding housing supply can help limit rent increases broadly.
Community advocate Adam Shiffman said development is adding while road, sidewalk, connectivity and local-service deficiencies remain unaddressed, the outlet reported. Sammy Henry, who owned property included in the project, said selling the land would allow him to buy a small farm, according to the same account.
Part of a Larger Pattern in Southeast Durham
Oak Grove Landing sits near the Lick Creek watershed, which is designated on North Carolina's 303(d) list as a federally impaired water body due to severe sediment pollution and impaired biological integrity, as Hoodline previously reported. Lick Creek flows into Falls Lake, Raleigh's main drinking water source, and environmental groups Sound Rivers and the Southern Environmental Law Center secured a $350,000 federal Clean Water Act settlement in September 2025 against the developer of Durham's nearby 216-acre Sweetbrier subdivision over unlawful sediment runoff into that same watershed.
The Oak Grove Landing vote reflects a familiar split on the council. In August, the same four-member majority — Williams, Kopac, Rist and Caballero — voted to strip formal consistency-scoring language from several Comprehensive Plan policies governing annexation and rezoning reviews, a move Hoodline covered in its report on rural advocates crying foul. M/I Homes has also pushed development along the Sherron Road corridor before: the company's 2024 proposal for 100 townhouses at 433 Sherron Road received a 7-3 vote of opposition from the planning commission, according to Southpoint Access.
Durham's population has grown to an estimated 367,000 residents, with roughly 400 new residents arriving every month, continuing to push the average single-family home price in the county to between $410,000 and $429,000. That growth pressure has fueled a wave of competing housing proposals across the city, including a 321-home pitch on Roxboro Road that Hoodline detailed in its report on neighbors fearing gridlock.
