Board of Commissioners · Regular Meeting · December 11, 2023

the Pledge of Allegiance uh commissioner Carter would you lead us thank you so much commissioner Carter are there any adjustments to the agenda that anyone would like now moving on to announcements I'll pass it on to our clerk good evening Commissioners and public I will read the announcements that are published in tonight's agenda Durham County Board of Elections phase one information session in mwbe Outreach will take place on

m. com if you're interested in future Highway bicycle rail pedestrian and Transit projects for the triangle region over the long term now is your chance to give feedback on the goals and objectives that will guide the planning process the DC hcmo which is Durham Chapel Hill carboro Metropolitan planning organization and the Capital Area Metropolitan planning organization are working on destination 2055 an update to the triangle Region's long range Transportation plan the 2055 Metropolitan Transportation plan MTP you

can take a survey through January 10th 2024 there's a link for both English and Spanish and you can also visit their website there is a link for the website as well um you can email at destination 2055 ATU input. or you can contact 855 925 2801 code 5731 the Durham County Department of Social Services is taking applications for the lowincome energy assistance program for applicants who are aged 60 plus as well as those with disabilities or who receive food and nutrition services the application opens to all Durham County residents on January 3rd um there is a link to apply you can also contact 919 56081 92 to make a virtual appointment the durm County Tax Administration allows citizens the option of making partial payments on

gov Tax or you can call 919 563000 residents are encouraged to give feedback on the Durham County Government website as well as the process of a comprehensive website redesign tell us what you're looking for in a website if you can can find what you need on the current site and what you like and dislike about it we've launched a 5minute survey to gather input the survey is available in English and in Spanish and there are links published watch the InTouch with Durham

County TV show hosted by Chief communication officer Deborah Craig Ray this month's show features a conversation with Durham County Department of Social Services Maggie s viiin about Medicaid expansion in North Carolina and the office of emergency services director Jim grow discusses his Deco career which ends in retirement in January the show is available on The Deco YouTube channel the durm County website and the Durham television network and lastly most Durham County offices will close for the winter holidays beginning Monday December 25th through Wednesday December 27th reopening on Thursday December 28th most offices will also close on Monday January 1st 2024 and reopen on Tuesday January 2nd for impacts to specific services including convenience sites and library locations you can visit our website at

gov that concludes the announcements published in tonight's agenda thank you so much clerk Wallace um I have one not announcement but just a request of the board commissioner Howton uh is not able to be here today so she's requested a um excused absence so if before we move on with the voting materials of the agenda I'd like to uh offer anyone would like to introduce a motion to excuse her from this meeting move to excuse commissioner Howton and then I'll take a vote commissioner Burns I commissioner Jacobs commission Carter I and I'm an i motion passes for to Z and then I'll pass it do any of my colleagues have any other announcements okay I would just like to wish everyone a happy holidays before we start this meeting and also a Merry Christmas to folks who celebrate and a commissioner Jacobs correct me if I'm

wrong K SAA all of our uh community members who are celebrating Hanukkah right now with that we will move to the ceremonial item where we have the Eno River Association 2024 calendar presentation I'll ask Jessica Sheffield the Ed of the Eno River Association to please join us good evening it's nice to see friends here at the table thank you for allowing us to join you my name is Jessica Sheffield I have the privilege of serving as executive director at the Eno River Association and with me is a colleague who I'll have the pleasure of introducing in just a moment um but as

m and of course we always invite you on the 4th of July out to the park for the festival for the Eno now entering 2024 it is a year where we are rededicating ourselves to the Community Based work that we're known for in the community and also advocating for the

folks who need that resource of clean water and um healthy access to Natural spaces and in that vein I am pleased to introduce you to our newest team team member we've recently created a new position at the association Community Partners manager which was recently filled by my colleague Natalie Wallace who is here tonight wanted to make sure to introduce you but again we're here to share with you the 2024 annual wall calendar the theme this year is the people's River we're taking an intentional pause from our 40-year tradition of highlighting all of the beauty of just the natural world we've made sure to include the community spaces in this one too young and old the million plus visitors that enjoy the en know and the trails that we've helped to protect these past 40 years perhaps you'll find any pictures of you and your family in there as well so again Natalie and I are here simply to wish you a happy holiday leave these calendar with you to share amongst yourselves as you see appropriate and to thank you for all the work that you've done and will continue to do in the areas of land and water conservation we

look forward to working with you in the new year thank you thank you so much Miss shefield I always enjoy the Eno River Festival in July even in the scorching hot I learned my lesson this past year to bring a water bottle we have any other comments commissioner Jacob well I just want to thank you the county is a partner with the Eno River Association and I just really appreciate all that you do for all of us in the community and this is always a highlight for me uh for you coming and sharing this beautiful calendar with us every year thank you so much thank you so much again with that that is our only ceremonial item we move to our consent agenda these are items that we have discussed and reviewed at our work

session uh and staff have provided attachments and uh madam can we just go back to the minutes approving the minutes thank you my first meeting appreciate it um can we move to if anyone want to move to approve the November 6 2023 work session so moveed second thank you I will now take a vote commissioner Burns I commissioner Jacobs I commissioner Carter and I an I minutes approved 4 to Zer now I move to the consent agenda items which are items that were been discussed and reviewed at our work sessions um you can look at them in the agenda packets at the door um but staff have given very detailed uh synopsis of what each item is with attachments that you can review if you want to on your computers with that I'll any questions or I'll entertain a motion to approve I did want to throw out before we uh approve the motion uh I see that

there a lot of people in here tonight who are not in here for the consent agenda and that's okay um but I would ask you uh take some time to look at this consent agenda there are many municipalities and counties around the state that did not take the time to look at this arpa funding with a very serious eye to put an equity framework where we put rule upfront where we put um diverse UPF front we put Urban upfront but we we really laid everything out on the table and took in some great applications so shout out to our County Manager shout out to our chief deputies uh Jones and Hagar on on their work on these and so the only reason why I bring this up there's about 20 Milli I might be sure I know it's over 10 because I think we added some things but just short of $20 million and offer funding that is about to go out into the community into some of these nonprofits I see some of the nonprofits sitting here in the audience we look forward to you all being good stewards of this m money and also helping us pivot out of the pandemic so even though it looks like we're rushing over this piece just like my colleague

just said we we've it's been painstaking work to go over these and this is just our love letter back to Durham saying that we love you we trust you and we we want to help you all move forward so that's what is in this consent agenda and I can motion for us to approve it if need be so I'd like to make a motion that we approve the consent agenda as is second motion by commissioner Burns seconded by commissioner Jacobs take a vote commissioner Burns hi commissioner Jacobs hi commissioner Carter hi and I'm an I uh consent agenda is approved four to zero this moves us down to medic our public no not our presentation on Medicaid expansion if we can have our resource people Maggie our DSS director I will not butcher your

last name uh Kelly Inman chief operations officer Department of Social Services Margaret Faircloth assistant director of Department of Social Services and Maggie can you remind us the pronunciation of your last name yeah let me teach you a little tricket and teach nenet teach nen okay when to get it if you ignore the C and do it as an S it works a bit better um thank you Commissioners I app the opportunity to present tonight and with me is our assistant director so we're going to just backy can you pull the mic toward you a little bit more there we go perfect so again thank you again for allowing us to present and with me tonight is our assistant director of Medicaid Cynthia KAS so as you know on December 1st 2023

Medicaid expansion started um and we at DSS Durham um hit the ground running running with that um we have seen an increase in calls and in our lobbies and we had staff that were on site um we actually did not see a wait time go over 30 minutes so earlier this year um North Carolina became one of 44 states that expanded um Medicaid and that is all eligible adults ages 19 through 64 with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level will be eligible for Medicaid so that's an annual income of about 20,000 for a single individual or 34 for a family of three and the great thing about this is it covers preventative care treatment for chronic health conditions such as um kidney failure um cancer maternal care it also includes physician and Hospital Services uh critical prescription drugs Behavioral Health and more so it really did expand that and it um again it

increased the age is from 19 through 64 years old the health insurance provides high quality and affordable health care options for people that have um Financial uh difficulties and challenges and as we know if you are trying to decide whether to pay for your rent to pay for food on the table or to pay for a life-saving medication that increases the stress on your family and so this is critical that North Carolina was able to do this it allows families to be together it allows them to be healthier andow allows them to be less stress free less stressful so the only thing that changed is who is eligible everything else has remained the same so I'm going to let Cynthia talk about that because I think a lot of times when we talk about Medicaid expansion people think that it has changed the entire look of Medicaid and it has not it has just changed who is eligible so good evening I just want to share that Medicaid expansion is not a Medicaid Program separate and aside from

gov but we also still take paper applications which we um have the staff to process those definitely in person everyone is welcome to come to the DSS office and apply in person or by phone so again there's several different ways and the reason we say the easiest way is online is again if you have all of the information available to you it allows you to do it from wherever you are in the privacy of your home your doctor's office your school um and and not having to come to

the office but again coming to the office paper application in person and by phone and as I said I'm extremely proud of our team because we did not see a wait time over 30 minutes with expanded medicaid um so that was critical I think for us that was our goal so what does this mean for Durham County so Durham County um our expected enroll Le was um to be new enroll Le was about 2,622 meaning as of December 1st we were expected to enroll over the next next year 2,622 new enroll e currently we have about 745,000 beneficiaries in Durham County I want to be very clear though what this means this is new enroll Le meaning those that qualify for Medicaid we have no idea the amount of applicants that we will be getting and that's what um was the unknown factor and we have to treat everyone the same so whether you know we think they might qualify or not we have to do it timely we have to process their applic just as we would anyone else and so that was really the

7% so a lot of our community members are going to be able to qualify for Medicaid which again is going to give them life-saving coverage and be able to keep that stress um off of their life and their family of do they have to pay for rent health insurance or um food on the table as I said there's no way to

predict the number of new applicants if someone wants to apply we cannot refuse them we do believe we will see an influx as I said the state kind of estimate around 50,000 total which includes that 23 and a half thousand new applicants or 22 and a half that we would be getting um we have seen an increase in our phone calls so have doctor's offices and other Community Partners um and we will continue to see that that is why in some of the positions that we requested was additional um call center positions for dorham County DSS medical providers so we have reached out to some medical providers to talk to them about what they can expect from us we want to make sure that when they have someone come into their office that should um apply for Medicaid that they have that ability that they know how to do it that they know where to tell them to go in all of the different ways we' let them know that they will see an increase in phone calls just as we have we have done some great community outreach we have um talked to different populations that maybe the state has not reached um as we know Durham better than

um anyone else because we're Durham um and so we also reached out to the Hispanic population Latin population through um radio and we did Durham um what DM one yes but sorry it's been a very long you did because I heard the ad on the radio yes okay thank you sorry it's been a bit of a long day but um so yes so we made sure that Durham DSS did our own Outreach and we did not rely on just the state I will say the state has done a tremendous job we've used a lot of their um advertisements and printed materials that they've used and um they've done a lot of great things for social media but we wanted to make sure that we reached our own population and it came from Durham DSS which makes it a little bit more friendlier um our clients we as I said our goal is to seek clients within 20 to 30 minutes of coming into our office um cynthy and I are very dedicated to that um our staff is as well and we have been

working with them to make sure that that happens um as we know calls might be coming in for applications but also recertifications and just questions in general what we did ask um from the community and partners that we've talked to is just some understanding of some things that sometimes are out of our control things um I think the first day we were getting calls that the state system was down so again that was out of our control but it seemed to come back online very quickly and did not impact again people being able to apply timely but just understanding that we were going to be getting staff onboarded and we did not know what we would be facing because again we did not know the number of applicants that we would actually get and so our commitment to the people of Durham is that our staff want to provide excellent customer service to the citizens of Durham County we want to ensure that we determine and eligibility in a timely manner that looks like 45 days that that was what we will tell people and that is the state standard is

that it takes about 45 days to process we're going to work as hard as we can to meet the current needs of our clients and the clients that are already um that we will be on boarding as well and we have increased the and enhanced the way that we train a Durham DSS for new staff and so I wanted to talk a little bit about that just to let you know what that looks like so one of the things that when I came on board as the new director in April I did some focus groups with the staff and on both sides of the house we have a training department and then we have of course our Medicaid staff and I did separate focus groups and both of them said that they really wanted to see an enhancement in the way that we train staff they felt that staff needed to be on the floor more uh more weeks and we were doing it and also be able to have um mentors so and I know coming in I did um a couple of applications I sat down with staff and pro tried I tried to process a couple of applications I will say I have my hats off to staff that can

do that because it is a lot there is a lot of policies processes rules and it takes a while and so one of the things is a foreign language um to people when they come in and they do not know it and so it's really hard for them to sit in a classroom and learn that and then be expected to go on the floor and be immediately able to take all of that knowledge and be able to process and app application timely and without mistakes and that's our goal we want to make sure if there's a mistake made that can hinder the timeliness of it and so what we did is we changed things around and we have staff now going right onto the floor to sit and Shadow that way when they get into the classroom some of the language that they're hearing is not new to them because we have to understand everyone is different how they learn I'm a visual learner so if I'm sitting in a classroom and then I go out on the floor I'm I'm going to have a disconnect there so that has seeming to work really well we started that a couple of weeks ago with our new class we've also changed the time that um staff are on probation it gives them a longer time to be able to learn and

m. all 22 um packets for new staff have been processed or in the in the queue to be processed so we had a class start today um new staff and then the remaining unless there's any issues will start um the first week of January but I want to give recognition to Cynthia we did an amazing job fair um we interviewed about 103 people in four and a half hours one Saturday the staff came from all

departments not just Medicaid aging and adult our fiscal people were there everybody was there and Cynthia two days after the job fair had staff sitting and checking references which played a huge part in us being able to get this done so all 22 positions their packets are in the queue to be filled and some of them started today and the rest will start on January 8th the next class so I think that's that's huge we also um the same thing four of our call center positions their packets are also in the queue to be hired so those positions were not part of the job fair they were positions that we posted um and so our goal was to get some bilingual as well which I believe we were able to do um but that is the status of our new positions and then we um have posted for the supervisor and other leadership positions as well and we will work to fill those and that's it any questions thank you so much for this presentation and I have a few questions but at first just want to congratulate you on the success thus far

in rolling out a program that I know the state didn't really provide much support in the roll out so congratulations to youall for making it happen um and that 22 positions is quite an accomplishment and thank you Cynthia misset and your entire team it sounds like like that this was a team effort yeah so I do have some questions but I'll pass it along to my colleagues first there okay commissioner Carter or commissioner Burns have any questions okay I'll go relatively quickly um it's funny when people say they want to go last I don't know what that's about um I will say 145 days I'm happy you all told us that so that we can set realistic expectations for people um for those in the audience um I really don't think y'all it well I hope let me not say that let me not make an assumption that is 21,000 more of your neighbors that will have access to health care there is 21,000 more people

in this community that do not have to suffer in silence or have to choose between bread or going and getting a spot checked out on their leg that's huge so whether or not you supported or not that's 21,000 more people that might be able to have a better outlook on the new year like we've talked about that number I remember when I first asked but we didn't have that many people in here I think the the the big thing I want to give a shout out to y'all on a job fair because I remember I asked that questioning work session I don't sit on that board and I said you know what was the algorithm how many people do you think we're going to need how many people you all knew the state has spit something out and I just want you to know under your leadership I sent a lot of people to that job a matter where I was at I said you looking for a job and let me tell you who's hiring right now I mean I was in the mall telling people about a job fair I said oh they're not going to be doing to this afternoon you got time to make it down there but at you know one of the things I heard back not even from people I S is that they were treated with dignity doing this job fair so I do want to say thank you because a lot of times when you have big job fairs it sometimes comes off like a

cattle call and that's absolutely not what we want it because we also want the people who come in looking for services to be treated with dignity so I'm thankful for that you listed you said some of the jobs that did not go up on um that did not go up that down a job fair were which ones I know some of the supervisory ones yes our supervisor program manager and our call center positions as well as um the positions that help process the paper applications those the call center and the processing of the application positions those are on continuous hire so we left those up and then of course with supervisors you know we needed to do that um differently so those were posted as well as the program manager okay and my last thing there are already 70 some thousand people who are on Medicaid here all of those folks are not seniors so there's an income requirement so the only thing I would say to the folks sitting here hire one of your neighbors and I'll leave it at

that I just wanted to offer up you know my uh deep appreciation to the whole DSS team for pulling together AC cross departments for this uh jobs fair that was so so successful UC f um and just for all the work that you're doing to uh reach out to our community members who are now eligible um and thanks for being successful at reaching them and trying to you know have no errors and and all the things that you have to do I also think it is just unbelievable that before expansion one if an individ if an individual made $20,000 they made too much money to qualify for Medicaid M that's just unbelievable and the same thing for a family of three making 34,000 um it it just it it really it it should really instill worry in all of us about uh the number of people in our community that are are are really um

working hard and having trouble making ends meet anyway thank you so much DSS for all the work that you do thank you I go to commissioner Jacobs ask my questions um but piggybacking off of what commissioner Carter was just mentioning about the um wage or income requirement I was wondering has anyone calculated either at the state or at the county level how many people are still being left behind that like if Medicaid was fully expension if we had health care for everyone like between that 20 something thousand to like what the cost of living is in Durham of like 5,000 I believe now where that Gap is of how many people still need you know or if we want to come back to that yeah that's a good question but no not at this time but yeah I'm writing that down because I think that's really something to look into I think for us that'll be really important like after

we show the success all the counties coming together show the success of this expansion going back to our legislators to say now we need to do more um and then my second question was I saw the slide that you had mentioned like the working with citizens and organizations are there partner groups like in Durham like say the urban ministries or other organizations that we know are individ has individuals that would benefit from enrolling in Medicaid have there been conversations with them to make sure that they are properly referring people to DSS to enroll yes that we have had that and also we have also had convers ations um to ensure that if you know we are able to play staff um in the community in these organizations that we can do so appropriately of course we'd have to have the correct space and it would have to make sense making sure that the right you know that we had staff there at the right times the right days of the week and that there were a number of people coming in to apply so we're using that staff time adequately but yes we have

we've had numerous conversations across to make sure that again they know exactly how to tell people how to apply the state also did a training um to help um providers with that process and we also made sure that our providers and our Community Partners received that training as well and it was quite a good turnout from the state level from what I heard and um a good training so yes you commissioner Jacobs thank you so much um Maggie and Cynthia and it's it's really amazing that at this point already 22 packets are signed because we we know how challenging the h our process can really be and you all have just blown all of the um kind of preconceptions out of the water about how we can actually get things done and I think you've set an example for us with other departments as well other models of how we can hire people because the other thing which I

didn't think you mentioned was how we also expanded what we look at as the as actually the prerequisite for these positions and how we broaden what we look at um as experience and maybe you could just touch on that for a minute so I I think um well we have to go are you saying for the imc's yes level two yes okay so we did look at um level of Education experience and so we did Braden that a little bit I don't have the exact details to say the number of years versus education but I do know that that will was um something that we looked at as well and also experience as different types of jobs that may have transferable skills correct so for instance somebody who might work in a bank that we might not have looked at before those types of organizational and technical skills can transfer to an imc2 um so yes we did look at different kinds of experience yeah and I think that's

informative for all of us as people move around the job market into different types of jobs um that you know that's what's happening today in our country and to be able for us to Value some of the skills and their ability to apply to different types of jobs so I noticed that when I saw people coming in um to the job fair it looked like we were getting very diverse people yes because it's a it's a skill set and it doesn't mean you have to know Medicaid because not everyone does but if you can be organized if you can have that um attention to detail those are things that will transfer easily into an IMC too right and one thing that I would like to add is that in doing the job fair what we have seen is that there were times when we were get uh individuals that had Direct experience but we're not seeing that now so we're looking at skill sets and right thanks yeah and I want to acknowledge you Cynthia coming out of retirement to help us through this process which is huge um and Maggie when

you showed that slide of the change the process Improvement side I I just think that's so amazing because you know talking to the staff getting their input this this all came directly from staff um and listening to the staff and you are as we heard tonight handson um and I really appreciate that I know that the staff does too but you know this is transformative for our community um the fact that we are going to have another you know 25% of people it will be over almost 100,000 people in our community which is almost a third of Durham's population uh receiving this benefit and there are so many things that we do um that I'm really excited to see what the impact is going to be on our um just our mental you know people who suffer from mental health substance use our crisis system uh what we see so often in our

community is people who who interface with the justice system who are homeless who um you know impacting families because they haven't had access to the care they need and I'm I'm really hopeful that we're going to see uh people's lives really transformed through this um one of my questions was um related to the Partnerships and are we I know we've just gotten started now but um will we be able to do things like um training of librarians um I'm just thinking about some of the county staff that regularly interact with people um if you could talk about that and then also one of our big Partners Lincoln Community Health Center because I think for me part of it is okay we're going to get people access to this um benefit but then you know for some some people they may not even know how they can actually get access to the

services and the provider so just how how are we helping to make those connections sure and I want to say we had a great discussion with um Lincoln Center a week or two ago about again placing our staff there if um the need was there and appropriate so that people could you know once they're there automatically um start applying for with our staff on site um and so there're those are ongoing conversations as well as I hope to have them with other Community Partners because I do think our staff to be in the community if it's appropriate and works is another great way for us to reach the community and not always have everyone have to come into us because that can sometimes be a burden and a challenge um I think that you know starting in January as one will probably do some more of that training we wanted right now to focus on getting the staff on boarded um and see where we landed but yes we absolutely will continue to be training and doing Outreach um it didn't just um start with expanded medicaid my goal is to continue to do that throughout the year thank you you um and

lastly um I just want to emphasize that and I know you've been trying to get the word out but there are um some immigrants and refugees will also be eligible um for for this benefit um and I also want to mention um just for I think for Dwayne for you to know um that uh in 2025 um and this just was triggered by hearing this tonight is that uh Jiles who are actually in our justice system whether in the youth home or in our Detention Center also will no longer be able to be denied Medicaid um so that's something that is also a positive change that we're going to be seeing happening is that only for juveniles or only 21 and under right now yes thank you thank you so much you're welcome and I would just like to take a

moment um we would not be here today if it was not for all of you um I will say that um I was nervous because I came into this in April and I did want to be very responsible with asking for positions and we were um we were still not at full capacity we still had to hire a lot after covid and I met and I just want to thank um County Manager Dr soel because I met with her soon after I started um and we I asked for some time to truly assist and make sure that we were going to be requesting the appropriate um number of staff and using funding correctly um and she agreed and um by the time that we did I can tell you that a couple of directors around the state were a little worried about me they're like uh this is a little bit late um because they had um some challenges I guess getting those positions and I did not have that um I did the assessment um Dr swell you immediately put it forth and all of you um stood behind DSS and supported us and gave us those positions and then um our team and it was a team effort got those positions hired and we did the job fair

and I also want to thank um the director of Public Health um Rod because he has been a true partner to me um as I said I've moved to Florida I mean moved from Florida we did not have expanded Medicaid in Florida so I'm very proud to be in a state that does um but Rod Jenkins and cynthy case and coming out of retirement have been a huge support to me and I would not be able to do this work without you but I I did want to thank you because you made this process seamless and I feel extremely to the uram um and so I thank you very much wait wait wait wait wait wait well one year ever I don't know who said it somebody said will said and thank you so much we get a shout out I think my colleagues bought up something really important something that commissioner Al referenced and something that uh commissioner Jacobs referenced um you know no one sitting up here right now is on Medicaid so some of the Outreach might not be making it to our pool pit she mentioned the caveat about some of our folks who are immigrants and another caveat about um individuals who

are in our Juvenile Justice System I know that right now there's single individuals that can apply That Couldn't apply before what does the Outreach look like because it's one thing for a family to I've applied to commissioner alam's point and it was the $20,000 that kept somebody so that family would know I'm going to apply again to these folks who for decades well that let me not say decades that's long for folks who have traditionally not even thought that this was within the realm of possibility what do our Outreach efforts like I've seen the handouts that the state has but what does that look like for us especially because we're in the holidays right so people are not seeing everything yes sorry y'all no no that's okay so when schools um come back in because I know they're about to go on break like um durm Tech and some of the local universities um my plan is to get staff out there to make sure that th that that population knows because that's a population 19 and up that um probably would not know so that is our plan in January once classes start back is to make sure that we have some staff on site that are um going to some of those

community events that they have for new students or returning students to make sure that we're there we've also been going to different um community events Cynthia and her team have been invited to some Churches um in the area and have been asked back um we've also met with some of the um covid-19 African-American population group and the latinx group so that we can make sure and they've invited us to some of their community events as well so our plan is to and keep going to community events but also to go to the schools and to go into the communities that um as you said um some people might not even be aware um and to me that's going to really be the younger population I think the older population um were do a good job between us and the state and and senior homes and things like that to put the word out we're still doing that but I think we have to think outside the box and that's why we also um did a contract with um Latin radio to make sure that they were also getting the message out because um again the state was doing it but we know where our population listens to radio reads a paper and we want to make sure is online

that we know that we're getting the word out there so it's going to be an ongoing effort and we are welcome to anyone reaching out to us and letting us know that uh maybe we're missing an Avenue of where we can go but we are looking at churches and schools and community events where we might not normally U be able to reach people you're welcome and I was talking to commissioner Burns because I was reflecting on one of the comments she made about you know hiring your neighbors and I was wondering manager Dr soell and um director San and Cynthia would it be possible for us to look at like you know as we have people coming in to apply or even after the fact how we can partner with the organization not the organ the companies that are in Durham to host job fairs even for the people who you know you know there's going to be some people on Medicaid who are not able to work but some people who are able to work but you know don't have access to these jobs and we have so many companies that our Mr

Miracle has been working on bringing in that you can have certifications to get that you are entry level positions how can we get more of our residents plugged into those we can certainly I will tell you it's not a small feat but it's something that we can certainly explore and work with our HR team um our DSS team has certainly employed a great model and so we can we can work with our HR team to see how we can expand this yeah like job fair where all of the companies coming to Durham just come and set up a table and hire some of our Medicaid enroles thank you so much again for all of your work for thank you that that moves us into our public hearings uh for tonight's agenda we have three public four public hearings uh on tonight's agenda um if you had the

opportunity mon there were signin sheets of the individuals who have signed in we'll have the opportunity to speak um and the first one I want to remind everyone before we get started of the public charge that we read in the beginning of the meeting um they are available on the top of the agenda also but that I will pass it on we will start our public hearing for the unified development ordinance text Amendment and I would like to open the public hearing and pass it along to our County staff and we have Alexander kahill senior planning manager and Sarah Young somewhere in the crowd also good evening thank you thank you chair Alam Vice chair Burns uh honorable County Commissioners Alexander Cahill with the planning department and happy to be here this evening uh for the record planning wants to state that all of the public hearing items have been noticed in accordance with state and local law and Affidavit of those notices are available upon requests from the

planning department um the first for we'll see if it's gonna work there we go awesome thank you Monica um so you're GNA see several text amendments tonight so I just quickly want to talk about what that is because over the course of the year you don't usually see a lot these and you're going to see them all tonight so a text amendment is a proposed change or revision to existing zoning rules and regulations and Durham the unified development ordinance or as you'll he'll referenced several times tonight at the Udo is a tool that regulates how development looks feels and sounds in the city and county um this specific Amendment Omnibus is something staff brings forward usually about once a year uh and its goal is to do twofold it is to uh usually clean up technical revisions these are things that we've learned from applicants community members staff review uh throughout the year that we know is a problematic um and then this year we also added comprehensive plan

implementation section so we can slowly start implementing some of the things that we uh that this commission adopted within the comprehensive plan so the first section is the comprehensive plan implementation and the first part is um a change to the mailing notification range from 600 to 1,000 ft this is coming out of several things um one of the biggest things is that when you live in the county there's often a lot more distance or space between properties so this thousand foot distance will help reach additional Property Owners um and make sure that everybody's informed of the public hearing process this will apply to applications that are submitted after January 1st uh we have had some applicants use the thousand foot no ification already and it seems to be a very positive thing this also puts us on the more uh expansive end of our fellow peer jurisdictions and as one of the the furthest uh notification

areas the next thing is something that uh I think the board of County Commissioners has brought up and we have heard from community members is that we haven't had the best way to notify renters or people in multif family units and so we this change allows for resident sign postings for multif Family Properties and this is when address information is not available so often times we'll send direct mail per state law per our local ordinance we will get a lot of those mailings back for multif family units this is going to require us uh and uh applicants to do a sign posting both for the neighborhood meeting and for the public hearing notification uh these signs will go actually in front of the multif Family Properties uh and this is when we are unable to notify via the USBs mailing addresses the next thing is some changes uh to align with the comprehensive plan in terms of dayc carees we know that um daycare and child care is a uh a huge

need in Durham um and one of the ways that we in planning can help contribute to this in terms of land use is ensuring that our regulations align and they're flexible with state law around childcare regulations and so we are proposing a change to the ordinance to change to child care and match to the child care standards that are identified by the state of North Carolina another change that is in line with the comprehensive plan implementation is a change in how Durham Public Schools obtains um their entitlements to build right now they are permitted uh to build schools elementary um middle and high High School in non-residential uh zoning districts but they have to have a special use permit to build in a residential area we've heard from Duram public schools in collaboration that that special use permit um it it can be a little hard for

them to navigate can also be hard because it's quasi judicial meaning that community members can't uh participate in a public hearing it's quasi judicial so you have to have evidence-based testimonies whereas if we change it to they require a rezoning to the district that they will building the school in uh a non-residential district there'll be a public hearing process people will be able to participate provide their input and hopefully help during Public Schools Implement their 10-year Capital uh uh plan that they have for their schools so that's uh just some things that jump ahead on implementing the comprehensive plan and then there's some technical updates that again we learn from applicants staff community members throughout the year where we run into Stags with the the ordinance so the first one is uh the Durham County Tax Administration change from parcel ID to real estate ID um so we need to update to match that language uh the next thing is coming out of a situation uh essentially that wouldn't

occur with Board of County Commissioners but occurs with city council and that is when an annexation comes in and is denied right now there's no way to treat the concurrent zoning map change it just kind of sits there and waits until another annexation comes in so we have added a provision where when a annexation is denied the zoning map change will automatically withdrawn um we're also including 80-day grace period for subdividers to file and record approved exempt PL statuses this is to be in line with state law and then we're going to allow Street closing applications to come to the planning department instead of going to the clerk's office to align with Provisions to the city code this is actually something we already do we're just cleaning up the code to make sure we match our process um we are also updating the public and Civic use categories uh to include the Care Centers Child Care Centers educational facilities and some medical facilities we're also updating the commercial use categories to include retail sales and services and research

and development and then we are removing the accessory structure requirement to construct a fire obstruction wall for structures located less than 5 feet from the property line that last one is in line with building code the next is we have heard um from Builders developers uh those that uh contribute to our housing Supply that one of the reasons that we don't see a lot of duplexes is that we don't allow two driveways um and so we are going to increase the maximum we're proposing to increase the maximum number of driveways allowed for duplexes from one to two uh this is so people can park in their own Drive driveway and uh be good neighbors without having to share where they they store their vehicle uh the next thing is removing this current exemption for tree coverage for one and two family dwellings that are required to meet the infill standards um we believe in line with you know the past amendments that have been

passed that tree preservation is important and so encouraging tree coverage in infill areas with single family and duplex units would be allowed under this change or required under this change this is to increase the tree canopy in line with the comprehensive plan goals of environmental policies and Justice couple more things right now we have a situation where when there's a project right on the county line adjacent to another County there isn't actually a necessarily a buffer requirement so we're proposing to add a buffer requirement that's a0 6 opacity so that would be say you know between Durham and chadam Durham and orange U that way if a project is built right on the proper uh the county line A6 opacity buffer will be required um also we're cleaning up the we're proposing to clean up the non-conformity section um right now it doesn't explicitly say anywhere in the ordinance that non-conformities cannot be created so we just want to clarify that nonconformities cannot be created and then lastly we updated some

definitions um one of the things that's super important in planning is that we Define things accurately when we Define them accurately then we can regulate them and mitigate um potential impacts and also help convey messages and information to community members a more accessible ways so we have changed the definitions some to align with State statutes um specifically the Care Centers um and then also the uh bars distilleries uh nightclubs um that way it's in line with what what the state regulates and how they regulate it and with that I am a available and director young is available for any questions that you might have this evening thank you so much Mr pill very good I'm glad that we're talking about I know we've had previous meetings where folks have come to us they especially shared the concerns about you know the the infills and the lack of uh restrictions around you know

clear cutting and how we're going to protect our tree canopies I'm really glad to see that that's being included here um I will pass it along to my colleagues for any questions or comments starting with Vice chair burn thank you madam chair mine is just really quick one thank you for this Yan's job on this work I Cher Joint City County planning so I've already poked you um many times about this language so um and if if anything there's no public comment on this item so no one's mad at you or me right now which that is not how the rest of this night is going to go um but I did I did want to make it U really really clear um that I appreciate your work I'm I'm always excited when we try when we are working to um make sure our language lines up with other language um I remember even on the child care language I was a little thrown off I was like well what's the difference but of course depending upon who you talk to what you're applying for and and and what you're actually doing the language does change so the fact that we're opening ourselves up to it the fact the

staff did this work and they saw it coming nobody from the outside had to tell y'all to do yeah I'm I'm messy early this evening um I just want to say thanks and I and I let my colleagues um go ahead and go but thank you for this work thank you to you and to Sarah and I appreciate y'all and I just think that this is all going to be for the better manad Duram no I have no questions uh we have reviewed this at Joint City County planning committee and uh there's very good ration and justifications for all these recommended changes thank you so much I agree with that I'll Now open up our public hearing and as Vice chair Burns mentioned we do not have any public

comments and no one has signed up online so following that I will close the public hearing and ask again if my colleagues have any other questions or comments they thought of during that rigorous debate we just had no okay then this item has uh two motions that would be required for its approval uh Madam chair I'd like to make a motion to adopt an ordinance amending the unified development ordinance incorporating revision to article three applications and permits Article Five use and regulations article six District intensity uh intensity standards article 7 design standards article 9 landscaping and buffering article 14 non-conformities article 17 definitions and second been moved by Vice chair bur seconded by commissioner Jacobs take a call vote Vice chair Burns hi

commissioner Jacob I commissioner Carter and I and I Motion One passes 4 to zero I'll now entertain the second motion Madam chair I might like to make a motion to adopt the consistency statement as required by North Carolina General statute 160d 605 second mov by Vice chair Burns seconded by commissioner Jacobs take a vote Vice chair Burns hi commissioner Jacobs hi commissioner Carter and I'm an i motion passes 4 to Zer and with that the Udo text Amendment Omnibus 18 has passed um May I just wanted to say it is really neat to see us already making changes in the Udo to implement our comprehensive plan that we adopted so uh thank you for that it's really exciting wonderful now we're g to move to our second public hearing item 23-

0894 public hearing unified ordinance text Amendment pedestrian malls and the board is requested to conduct a public hearing and receive public comments on the Udo text Amendment pedestrian malls and if appropriate approve the amendment and adop the appropriate consistency statement and we have again Mr Kill thank you cheram this is the last time I'll bug you tonight I promise it feels weird not to be dressed as a snowman either we like you up here it's you have the easy ones y' had to be to meeting on Tuesday he was indeed dressed like a snowman he was dressed like with a tie and everything yeah Alexander you should have come dressed that way tonight because not everyone had the opportunity to experience that I'll send pictures Pam Andrew saw me she can attest to it um thanks y'all so this next

amendment is a privately initiated text amend so that means uh an applicant or someone from the community has initiated in this CA is a applicant from um a firm Thomas and hudon um this is a Amendment for pedestrian malls to potentially make them wider um so I'm going to go over two definitions tonight because as I said defining things is super important so the first is the general definition of a pedestrian Mall a pedestrian mall is character rzes a number of blocks of public downtown streets design designated for pedestrian only use and closed to vehicular traffic um our definition in the Udo slightly more technical um a public or private improved area intended for public pedestrian and non-motor use that is permanently preserved for such use through limited easements or rights of enforcement granted to the city or other similar legal techniques so uh applicant proposed to change The Pedestrian Mall width uh part of TC

2304 this is to change the width from 50 to 75 ft or potentially 100 feet and I'll cover cover those two scalable distinctions in a second at the jccp on October 4th 2023 staff were provided direction to potentially include options for wider pedestrian malls with the inclusion of additional amenities so the applicant initially proposed changing from 50 to 75 ft JCC PC members would like to see potentially going wider if there are additional amenities included in that Pedestrian Mall um staff reviewed with that applicant and made some changes to the the potential ordinance language these potential additional amenities would include a public art feature would include additional Landscaping uh and additional tree coverage and additional outdoor seating as potential amenities if the applicant went 200 feet if they did not provide those additional amenities the maximum of allowed width would be 75 ft um staff did do some research and compared to other jurisdictions there

runs a range from 13 foot maximum to 137 foot maximum so not a good clear standard across the industry or across jurisdictions um in what is appropriate for Pedestrian Mall you the reason you wouldn't want to get too wide is you want to create that pedestrian feel that sense of safety you want to really activate and engage with the space so show a couple of images of what the different widths look like so the current maximum is 50 ft and this would be what bright leaf square is for a pedestrian Mall the next one is CCB Plaza on the East side this is what a 75 foot Pedestrian Mall looks and feels like of course there's an adjacent um RightWay or roadway so it has slightly different feel that's what 75 ft looks and sounds and feels like and then lastly if you go to American Tobacco campus down towards the kind of water tower Silo area you come up to what 100 ft would be so that's what a pedestrian mile would feel like if they provided additional

amenities So based on these other successful pedestrian modes in the country and across the state increasing the width from 50 to 75t appears to be reasonable um however only with additional design commitments and that is what we've included and proposed in this text amendment in front of you tonight staff and the applicant are available to answer any questions this evening so much Mr Kill for another agenda item with no public comment signed up uh I will pass it along to my colleagues to see if anyone has any questions I see commissioner Jacob thank you so much um I would when we get to the public hearing would love to I don't if it now is appropriate or during the public hearing just hear directly from the applicant what their um planned use is going to be but I think this is a really important issue because as our Urban fact gets more and more densely developed um you know this

concept is going to become more and more important um not for things you know connectivity being able to use what we normally might think of as Alleyways you know we already see people creatively using spaces like that downtown anyway but even it came up with our development at 500 East Main Street because we're going to have two separate um apartment blocks and we we're going to have a p a pedestrian mall going between the buildings and so I think even just how do we even make a successful uh Pedestrian Mall so that it is a space that people want to use that does benefit the community and I think one thing that we did forget to talk about um at joint city county is around safety and lighting um and so I know we talked about this a lot at our 500 at East Main Street but just wondering how how that factors into um you know especially ones

that are more narrow how that would factor in and are we addressing that currently yeah that's a great question thank you commissioner Jacob so the ordinance actually already uh regulates and requires a lighting for these spaces there's certain of course like fixture types you have to use and height requirements um so crime prevention through environmental design is essentially what you're getting at is our already kind of baked into the Udo but I I'm assuming we'll be looking to expand some of those when we work to rewrite the Udo great thank you um and I can wait to hear from the applicant or now whatever is appropriate okay great good evening Jeremy Anderson Thomas and Auten um need to sign

up um just to address your question we we have a project in design that this kind of came up from um It's a larger scale in the downtown um in excess of 8 to 10 acres so as we're getting to a project at that scale the buildings are getting a little taller and that 50ft space started to feel very narrow so so to address lighting down into that space activate the space give more opportunity for outdoor dining and activity wider on a project of that scale just seemed right so on some of the projects that Alexander pulled up like bright leaf square that 50 foot feels very right because the buildings are smaller but as you get larger developments and um that scale goes up you want to get a little wider just to make that space feel right so there is a project that's designed around but we think it benefits a lot of projects on some of these larger sites as thank you that's really helpful and that totally makes sense and I didn't even you know light is and the proportion and

scale thank you so much I I just wanted to say it's interesting that tonight we have two agenda items that are related to privately initiated text amendments and it's just I don't I don't know that's happened before but anyway it's an interesting phenomenon tonight and I thought it was funny too now that new leadership took over but go ahead girl it's I I not sitting on the JCC PC I I really um you know can I I really benefit from these very specific examples these concrete examples and loved hearing what you were going to do and how this applies to it and also just watching how our processes work and this one seems like it's working really well M um yeah and look look forward to approving this and hanging out in your Pedestrian Mall sometime there's no other comments or questions from the Commissioners I will

go ahead and open up this public hearing and we had no one signed up to speak again on this item so I will move to close this public hearing and bring it back just in case anyone has had any questions or comments come up wonderful this item also will have two uh motions necessary for its adoption do I hear anyone for the first motion Madam chair i' like to make a motion to adopt an ordinance amended to UniFi development ordinance incorporating Provisions to article 16 Design District section 4 streetscapes RightWay block lot standards moved by Vice chair Burns seconded by commissioner Carter take a Voice vote Vice chair Burns I commissioner Jacobs I commissioner Carter and I'm in I the motion passes 4 to zero and now we have the second motion commission Jacobs uh Madam chair

I'd make a motion to adopt a consistency statement as required by North Carolina General statute 160d d605 here move by commissioner Jacob seconded by commissioner Carter take a Voice vote Vice chair Burns hi commissioner Jacobs I commissioner Carter I and I'm an i the motion passes two to sorry four to zero um with that uh agenda item 23894 has passed and we will now move to our next agenda item which is 23- 0895 public hearing unified development ordinance text Amendment conservation subdivisions the board is requested to conduct a public hearing and receive public comments on the Udo text Amendment conservation subdivisions and if appropriate approve the amendment and adopt the appropriate consistency statement I see our attorney ctis Massie

coming up and Mr Kill sneaking up closer my adult supervision Madam clerk does this me and I can drive the screen can he control the screen that okay all right uh good evening Madam chair Commissioners um here tonight to talk about an amendment to the Udo concerning conservation subdivisions and I'm rep I'm presenting this matter instead of planning because the impetus for this change arises from litigation and attempting to address a situation which has result in current lawsuit against the county um essentially this is an effort to preserve the status quo as section

4 regarding conservation subdivisions has been interpreted and applied by the planning staff now as you know planning conservation subdivisions are a planning tool and the goal is to preserve sensitive environmental areas or other significant features by permitting the concentration of development in some areas and preserving others now the initial obligation is to preserve at least 50% of the open space which is part of a subdivision and that's to be reserved as either natural or open space but beyond that general statement of 50% then there are very specific categories of land to qualify as a

conservation subdivision now in the ordinance 624a you have the general purpose statement now there are 12 purposes listed there and the litigants currently suing the county have taken the position that the language in the ordinance both in A and B requires that all 12 of these have to be met in order for property to be preserved as a conservation subdivision on its face there is an understanding of that but when you read the ordinance when you consider the implications you realize it does not work it would prevent any conservation subdivision from ever being approved and that's why to clear this

matter up planning has proposed an amendment but I want to go through these 12 quickly now what you will notice is that the very first one to provide flexibility of design in order to promote environmentally sensitive and efficient uses of the land that's your typical purpose statement but is that actually a standard to be met or is it an explanation for why conservation subdivisions are allowed similarly when you look at numbers four 4 6 7 8 and 10 what do they talk about they talk about permitting and promoting certain things those are not specific standards those are vague General goals number nine which is in blue to encourage Street design that

reduce traffic speed and Reliance on Main arteries really has nothing at all to do with conservation subdivision for preservation of PL so you've really got in terms of a purpose and a goal 2 three5 11 and 12 and again what do you see vague general statement typical of a purpose but not a standard which must be met in fact the way planning traditionally has interpreted 624 is they go to the requirements of 624h which provide I'm going to let the train pass which provide very specific standards now whereas in 624a it talks about preserving unique and sensitive

natural resources or in Woodlands here it talks of about first you'll notice that of the 50% of the land to be reserved As Natural or open space 80% must constitute what are listed as primary conservation areas special flood hazards repairi and buffers Wetlands protected by the Army Corp lakes and ponds excluding created storm water control measur areas of at least 5,000 contiguous feet with natural slopes greater than 25% forests in which healthy hardwood trees at least 10 in in diameter at breast height comprise at least 50% of the area that's a specific standard as opposed to

Woodlands which are mentioned in 624a now and then there are more of course these are the specific standards and if you can't once you've met 80% in primary if you can't do the full 100% you can get into secondary conservation areas and other open space but again they still have specific standards now this slide is intended to illustrate the Practical effect of the litigant position they say all 12 must be met now what planning has done is they have put on this map a few specifics got the flood planes first of all the yellow area is rural residential

areas which is where you can have a a conservation subdivision have the flood planes you have the historical and archaeological sites defined in 624h you have the existing Greenways and the scenic views which by 624h must be either state or federal Scenic byway and what you'll see is all of those requirements do not exist together anywhere in Durham County so even if you limit it just to the things that are actually purposes or identifiable standards in 624a they don't exist no conservation subdivision can exist in Durham County under their standard and what that means is is it's

a construction of the ordinance that would basically eviscerate the goal which is to preserve certain areas by permitting concentrated development on part of a land as long as you can preserve other significant feature that was how we defended the lawsuit in court we were upheld by the Superior Court they've now appealed it to the court of appeal basically our arguing their construction of the ordinance is correct there's an argument there but even if their arguments upheld it leads to an absurd result and it's a result that can be easily addressed by a simple Amendment to the ordinance because right now if somebody else comes in and applies for a conservation subdivision that meets the requirements of 624h it will be approved somebody else could sue over it we'd be

right back in court until we get either final Appel action or we amend the ordinance and res and remove the ordinance construction the language that they're pursuing so here are the amendments and you'll see they're very simple conservation subdivision standards are established for the following purposes we're going to remove number nine which talked about designing streets we're going to drop the word an and the other change is in 624b remove the language that looped in 624a now the language in 624a was added in February of 2008 and as explained it was an interim

action while a more substantial rewrite of 624 conservation subdivisions was ongoing that substantial revision which was adopted in November of 2008 is what created 624h those specific standards I showed you earlier but again 624a are not truly standards half of them aren't standards at all they're aspirational it promotes and encourages and if you were to give the construction that the opponents in the litigation want and which some will argue you should hold tonight that's what it would look like that's what it mean you could not approve planning could not approve any conservation

subdivisions but that's not the way they've been interpreting it for years if you have any questions I'll do my best to answer them thank you so much as always attorney messie uh for your thoroughness as well as for keeping the county protected than I will'll pass along see if any of my colleagues have any questions or comments around this one I shurn oh no I just it on with that um since there are no questions for my colleagues we will move to open this public hearing and we have two individuals who have signed up the first one is Katie Ross Miss Katie Ross if you can join where Monica our clerk is standing and you'll have three minutes for your comments and then following Katie we have Robin Barefoot if you want to come line up hello Katie Ross B

and um my background is that uh I practice law for 45 years I was an appet attorney uh I understand statutes and I understand how the court of appeals work I was in Washington state but there's they're pretty much the same everywhere Mr Massie was addressing you like you're the judges of the court of appeals he doesn't want to wait for the court of appeals to render their decision in a few months so you we will all know what the current statute what the proper interpretation of that current statute is you know what the results are uh as to what's been going on what Mr Massie is urging as a correct interpretation and that's the horrific uh destruction that almost all of you have seen when preserver Al Durham took you out to uh developments

that were undergoing that were approved as conservation subdivisions under the exact Provisions that he is proposing that you adopt tonight as the amendment what I suggest that you do is wait for the court of appeals in a few months to tell us whether the planning department has been interpreting the statute correctly or whether it these standards actually mean something I want to tell you something very important that uh Mr Massie did not tell you and that's that all everything in the law all ordinances all statutes are viewed Through The Eyes of the reasonable person so anything uh in the stat statute that is that can't be done like in those purposes like say preserve a a historic building if it's there and you can preserve it you must preserve it but if it's not there then that requirement

would not apply that's what a reasonable uh person would see so conservation subdivisions that actually mean something and preserve and conserve our natural resources can in fact uh be built under the current statute um the Amendments that were made in 2008 and 2009 they were made specifically to strengthen the conservation subdivision and that's when they specifically added the provision that those uh purposes the part that uh this amendment wants to render totally meaningless that those could be applied and that the planning department would have the uh statutory authority to reject uh applications that didn't meet that uh my time is up but

what I would say is if no more conservation subdivisions could go in like the ones you've seen that would be a good thing not something to avoid but if this the statute that we have can be interpreted by the court of appeals for you thank you Katie then appreciate your comments and it's good then we will have better conservation subdivisions thank you thank you Katie Robin Barefoot hey thank you so very much I love following Katie Ross she's my wingman um I am the plaintiff in the lawsuit against the county um so the one thing I want to disabuse this um audience of is the fact that there would be another litigation I can tell you that the amount of time and energy and money that has been spent in order to bring this matter to the court as been extensive and in the 12 months that have elapsed there has not been another lawsuit so I really don't think that the county is at risk for another uh lawsuit I also am not going to repeat the ecological damage that has

happened you've all seen it preserve durm has educated uh this body and the city council over the last 12 months to show what has been the result and that definitely is tied to conservation subdivisions there have been 16 of them that have been ped as 15 or 16 I could be wrong um what I want to say is that if the county has an appetite to amend this ordinance um then I'm all in favor of that and uh I'm prepared to work with Sarah Young and the planning department in order to uh propose an amendment that gives meaning to the word conservation and that actually is based on the legislative history which Katie just mentioned to you through 2008 and N was to strengthen this um if an amendment is what the county wants let's do that but this is not the correct amendment to absolutely um he used the word eviscerate he took my word but I'm going to use it again to eviscerate the statue by taking away those purposes and giving the planning staff the ability to say no

to a project um that it believes is detrimental to the county I think is what we want to do um don't be frightened into approving this amendment by a fictionalized risk that Mr Massie proposes in on an onslaught of litigation um don't be complacent either thinking this is is a minor cleanup um or that it's somehow promotes an absurd result because it would not uh promote that absurd result um the ordinance was intended as protection and Safeguard and guard rails when developers come for our land and they damn sure have come um so say no to this text Amendment do not relinquish political ground that your predecessors in these seats made sure was protected um put your hands on the steering wheel of Durham's future and vote no thank you Robin Barefoot that was the only two individuals that we had uh signed up to speak on this agenda item before iose public hearing want to ask

4 right now there are 12 things listed correct yes so can we go back 624a a yes can we go back to that slide uh yes ma'am and I'm not trying to relitigate it because I I you know I'm not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV so that's not what I'm trying to do here but the argument that I'm seeing right right right so there's 12 of them uh the argument being made is that that end makes this inclusive of all and there is language before the number that says shall um right I got that part okay so and then we go back to so the I don't

even want to say reasonable prudent person I don't even want to get bogged down in all of that but what I do want to say is historically and Sarah you can correct me if I'm wrong we have not either approved nor denied nor required that somebody meet all 12 correct right so that for those of y'all who can't see the planet director is shaking her head uh to negate that statement so it is not an affirmative uh we have not set the standard and so the only thing we're doing now is upholding the standard that we've had historically she is shaking her head the affirmative for those of you all who cannot see her um it this is a and I'm G say this on camera it is mighty funny that we got all these Udo on the night that uh Netta and I get in the leadership but I I'll deal with that later that's not for anybody else to deal with I just want to put that out for public consumption uh conversations that could have been had previously or being had tonight on the eve of an

election but you know it's it's that's the heavy is the head that wears the crown of leadership uh but I do want to throw out there um Mr Massie uh back to you go back to the map again yes ma'am thank you sir if you could and Sarah I might pull you in also um so no the other one well it might be this one where we said in the event that we did overlay all 12 of these requirements as opposed to the sh we would have how many I did not I did not have them try to figure out the all 12 I had asked for some selected ones right six or even seven of them five of them yes ma'am because if you'll notice this goes back to when you talk about promoting or encouraging that's not really a standard you can put up there right it's like so what we've got here are the scenic byways and there's no federal ones but you have two State ones you have the flood zones you

have Greenways and trails and but you're kind of making my point sir like you couldn't even overlay six so how in the world could we overlay 12 I'm trying to bring it back down here because we've had the lawyers to talk thank you Katie thank you Robin thank you Mr Massie but trying to bring because we got to deal with this every day but you could the the thought process of this litigation is that 12 could be overlaid and we couldn't even overlay four five three of these things and find where it could actually be a a conservation subdivision under those stand Sanders so I did just want to kind of sort of showcase that I'm going to Yi the rest of my time in the event my colleagues have something that they want to say thank you so much um is Dan juel still sitting here yeah you're back there uh Dan juel and I were both served on the uh eudo was it 2000

what year was it 2008 okay uh when we uh with a large group of residents um all different stakeholders that that came up with the conservation subdivision ordinance so it was it was actually created with um for the most part this language and um you know the intent sometimes we don't get language right and I think what we've seen is that we obviously did not directly We There was issues with the language um but you know the intent when the conservation subdivision ordinance was created um was to try to meet some of these purposes and with the different standards the primary and secondary features um I actually was the first person and I was uh I was project manager for the very first conservation subdivision ordinance the pool Farm Road project with the company I worked for at

that time time um which was focusing on preserving Farmland in Northern Durham but I think what I would say is that um the way I interpret what our attorney is as is is recommending that we do is you know we have a responsibility as elected officials to protect uh the county that's actually one of the one of our responsibilities um and um to make decisions that does not put the county at risk so that is part of the obligation of our office um but I hear you all about some of what we see is related to um we've had some changes in state law since this ordinance was first created um and we've seen that there are things that need to be addressed so one thing I'd like to so for me there's two they're two separate issues um and so what I guess what I'd like to hear from staff from you SRA um

I know if you could respond to the I where we are right now I know we have passed some in the past few months some revisions to our Udo to address some of the issues that we've seen on the ground um in East Durham and to and I just want to thank you all because you have brought us out there you have really lifted up these issues for for our entire community and for all us so um and has led to concrete results so just want to hear from you how will some of those new uh ordinances actually will they have an impact moving forward on how the conservation subdivision ordinance is implemented moving forward if something comes forward to you today how how will we see any changes sure that's a really good question um Sarah Young with the planning department so the text amendment that you're referring to was a phased development and tree preservation

text amendment that was passed a few months ago that also that would apply to any subdivision including conservation subdivisions so even though in a conservation subdivision you're you're preserving 50% of the land um as open space or or what whatnot um the other 50% it would still have to come in as phases and each phase would have to have its its proportioned amount of treat coverage and basically conservation so you would no longer be able to just massg grade for instance the entire 50% unless it was teeny tiny conservation subdivision um but for all intents and purposes those amendments that were just passed about B's development will apply to conservation subdivisions so you would not see conservation subdivisions um constructed in the same way that we have seen them up until now and um are there any other you know

as we look at the rewrite of the Udo um can you do you foresee any other changes that we would make um related to the conservation subdivision ordinance um where we've seen any issues and also secondly could you also explain what how State Statute has has also impacted the way this is currently being implemented sure there is a provision in state law that requires that we allow uh raring buffers so stream buffers to count for a variety of things we have to let them count for uh density calculations for the gross land area we have to let them count for any required open space for any required tree coverage and for any conservation areas so you know there have been a lot of concerns about developers ability to double dip basically count the same you know stand of trees for multiple things that is baked into state law state law

allows them to double thank you and related to any other potential changes to strengthen this yeah as we look to rewrite the Udo you all know we have a consultant that we have hired and is working on that um we've given them a laundry list of topics that we would like them to revisit and bring to us kind of best practices and most upto-date thinking conservation subdivisions is definitely one of those topic areas so I do foresee that we will probably get some recommendations from them in terms of you know if we want to um change the proportion you know is 5050 the right proportion of developable land to preserved land um if that percentage changes does that mean there's also changes in density or design requirements um or housing type or whatnot so those are all things that we're we're hoping to have a conversation with them and get their best recommendation

on thank you that's really helpful I'd like to request that that's something that gets prioritized um for us because frankly we we don't get we don't we don't do a lot of development in the county anymore a lot of stuff doesn't really come to us anymore um but this is this is something that we do still see uh being used in the county um so especially we're seeing so I I guess is it possible that this be something that we um that we prioritize I know um I think it would be important to County residents yeah so in the schedule from the consultant their first deliverable to us is an evaluation of our current ordinance and a report that basically um charts out their recommendations for kind of the the big things to change and how to change them in a direction um we will be bringing that forward when that comes out this spring after that the

very first deliverable after that is uh the rewrite of residential districts and since this is residential districts that's kind of already prioritized so okay I'm glad to hear that thank you that then I will close this public hearing and we already at commissioner's already asked questions but in case there's any other additional comments or questions that anyone wants to make before uh we move forward with this item okay this item is also another item that will have two motions um if the board so chooses to approve them do we have a motion uh yes I um move that we adopt an ordinance amending the Udo incorporating revisions to articles six District intensity

statements second we have a motion by commissioner Carter second by commissioner Jacobs take the roll call vote commissioner Burns I commissioner Jacobs I commissioner Carter I and I'm an i motion Motion One passes four to zero and now we have a second motion for this one on the consistency statement I move that we adopt a consistency statement as required by North Carolina General statute 160 D- 605 second moved by commissioner Carter seconded by commissioner Jacobs roll call vote commissioner Vice chair Burns hi commissioner Jacobs hi commissioner Carter I and I'm in I second motion passes 4 to zero uh with that 23- 0895 uh passes and now we move to the big Feast for tonight which is 23-

0896 uh public hearing for unified development ordinance text Amendment simplifying codes for affordable development for short and to scad so the board is requested to conduct a public hearing to receive comments on the Udo text amendments applying codes for affordable development and if if appropriate approve the amendment and adopt the appropriate consistency statement and we have presenting to us today is bo uh our assistant planning director and he will be assisted by our planning director Sarah young as needed awesome Bo now wait a minute Alex didn't dress up like a snowman but you was dressed up like a Christmas tree y'all just didn't care to come in here dressed for us today came in here all professional I appreciate it Be Ready for War you look good go ahead I I figured uh I was talking about my sweater and the elevator on the way here so here somebody to say something uh good evening uh Madam chair Commissioners um this uh is a privately

initiated uh text Amendment um the applicant uh Jim Anthony of the Anthony Property Group um application was received May of last year uh the intent and the focus of the uh the provisions to be modified uh according to the app um was to allow additional flexibility in sighting and design uh to develop additional infill housing opportunities and housing types increasing small scale commercial opportunities talk a little bit about that in a moment and to promote different housing types throughout uh the jurisdiction now in your staff report you you were provided a detailed analysis that staff put together and it's organized by the proposals topics I'm going to go through those topics here just sort of at a high level for the room uh included in this text Amendment um there's some exemptions for small site plans these are uh Town Homes

town home developments of 10 or less units and Commercial developments uh in some non-residential districts on lots that are 20,000 feet or less uh the proposal um adds a new housing typee this is the detached row house uh this is a good way to to describe it would be uh a a detached townhouse um these would be uh individual Lots um with communal land around them um it would be multif family development we currently allow something very similar uh where you the housing type would be an apartment um but those were not be for sale and these would essentially have the same form um but would be a a for sale product uh there's some modifications to accessory structure setbacks and increasing the allowable size for accessory dwelling units uh the proposal uh changes the way that we or would change the way that we

uh measure Residential Building height so uh currently we uh take an average um of the corners of the structure and go to the midpoint of the roof um this proposal uh references the apex of the roof so sort of simplifies um height measurement calculation but doesn't functionally change or increase High limitations uh there's some modifications to residential infill standards um an example of this uh is the setbacks for Corner Lots um right now you'd have to meet two Street yards this allows for one of those to be a side yard uh development standard for small non-residential Lots um this really expands the uh use of the commercial infill um District standards in various commercial districts for small uh small Lots uh some minor changes to the uh PDR

District standards um looking at incorporating more non non-residential um specific uses in the pr development I'm driving uh some additional topics flag lot standards um some changes to the setbacks for flag Lots uh expanding the use of the reduced flag pole um flag lot option and some other minor changes that would encourage more flag lot um modifications to the setbacks and the small lot option um removing some of the additional requirements that uh small lot small house currently have uh project boundary buffer exemptions this is uh a topic that uh you'll see in the analysis it it uh removes project rounding buffers in instances where the same use is being developed adjacent to a property that is U similar use so for example residential to residential a project Bounty buffer

would not be uh required uh there's uh some changes to the nonform structures section um this would reduce uh the number of minor special use permits that we have uh coming in uh for existing opor structures when they want to expand the height this would say um that the additional height as long as it conformed with Udo um could be approved by right there also some other um miscellaneous Provisions uh modified and some adjustments to minor incs into setbacks so there's the sort of the the high level topics that are being proposed to and uh removal of parking minimums is one as well so here in the slide I we uh took a look at the provisions um they all would uh many of them would apply in both the city and county but due to the where

particular zoning districts are located um tried to highlight here the uh pieces of the scat Tex amendment that we would see the impacts uh in the county jurisdiction most likely um of course the removal of parking minimums the increasing the Adu size you know we see Adu is developed in uh our district quite often and so that increase would impact in the county the height measurement method applying of course um as we review uh residential construction and then of course the removal of the project boundary buffers between residential uses we do see that that um instance would would most likely come up in the county jurisdiction I I will note uh one caveat um if there was a subdivision that chose to mass grade um there's an exemption in the in the Udo that requires a buffer in that instance and so that would still apply um if this if this were

adopted so the Planning Commission recommended denial uh back in March by voto 66 um it was originally heard by city council March 20th was uh continued on two separate occasions uh both times to allow for additional engagement um once during that that time frame there were several meetings hosted by staff with the Inc and the applicant uh which resulted in some changes to the application um subsequently uh there was a task force appointed by the mayor that held three meetings um with the applicant ultimately the uh proposal was adopted by city council November 20th they the city council did um and uh just wanted to to note that there were several um Provisions that staff had recommended uh not be adopted as a part of the analysis uh and and you'll see these listed here uh the city council did not adopt uh one of them um is the path program uh this was a sort of an

incentive program uh that was in their original application that I'm sort of offed offered a tradeoff if if there was a percentage of affordable units as a part of the development um some of the standards were relaxed and so this was not adopted um there were modifications to the application of the neighborhood protection overlays specifically old west Durham uh the original application had uh a a provision that would allow an accessory structure to be built prior to the primary structure um the sequencing was uh removed or this allowable sequencing uh relaxing at the residential infill standards um the the infil standards uh have mostly stayed the same in the city's uh recently adopted version uh residential uses in various non-resident districts this was uh not adopted um density exemptions for CI commercial infill projects uh there was a uh additional flexibility for setbacks

um with mechanical equipment um we maintained uh the current standards for the councel did um flag flag Lots with poles that would get as low as 5 foot for the purpose of utilities to the the RightWay uh that portion was not adopted and then the elimination of reard setbacks in the CI District we maintained um the rear yard setbacks in the the city's version that was adopted and that is it for the staff Port um the applicant is here I can probably uh potentially answer some questions about um the proposal and if you have any questions for staff here and available thank you so much um and thank you staff for all the work in months uh I know yall have been putting into this and all of the public that's been engaging in this process over these long long several months um you discussed so the items that

are that that had been removed from the the final adoption from the city but also just wondering so now that the city has adopted um these amendments essentially all of that since the the city area that falls into the county um that automatically is the precedent correct so this us adopting the or not rejecting it tonight will only impact the areas that are outside of City Limits that is correct main question right now I'm gonna pass my colleague commissioner Jacob thank you madam chair I want to just follow up on what you just said just for clarification um could you define because um now with the adoption of the urban for the future land use future Place type map um could you define now so in starting what date does the um the

scat Amendment be what is what is the date of implementation it'll be effective in the City January 1st okay so January 1st 2024 and could you define for us where it will be implemented the uh the various Provisions would apply throughout the the city limits so is that within the urban growth area or I'm just thinking about the urban growth boundary that we just adopted did that would all be within the or further within the urban growth boundary okay so basically our decision tonight is only pertaining to the county land that is outside of the urban growth boundary yes okay that's helpful okay and I have I do have some questions but I'm going to um well I guess going going back to your slide could you go back to the slide where you specifically listed the um

impacts of the county um could you just um explain a little bit more um I guess you know some of some when we think about the way the county land is developed a lot a lot of it is rural where we you know some of the restrict there aren't as many restrictions anyway on what people can do in rural areas so I guess um how do you I mean if you could just tell us a little bit more about what these impacts really mean to Residents because I think that's you know we've gotten a lot of emails and concerns from and some met with citizens who are concerned really specifically about the impact to the county I mean I think that's what we really want to zero in on is um you know the impacts to the county areas so if you could help us

with this a little bit more sure I I'll I'll explain on these topics a little bit so the proposal removes parking minimums um in the county obviously uh that would remove um parking requirements for you know majority of his RR or for a residential you know residential development they would uh most likely provide parking when a when a home is constructed on site uh even without the minimum requirement and then of course uh RTP bulk the non-residential development that we see in the county jurisdiction is RTP they frequently provide you know they're usually uh bumping up against the parking maximums uh for their developments which would still be in place so so the impact um for the removable parking minimums we don't foresee uh you know great deal of development that would still provide same parking um in terms of the accessory dwelling unit size so the size increased to 1,000 square feet um we do think that we would see larger adus constructed uh in the Count's jurisdiction many of the Lots

residential lots in the county are larger um so you know from a scale standpoint this is actually maybe uh more appropriate in the county um than elsewhere um so that but that would be certainly an impact that you see uh the height measurement method we actually don't expect the measurement method to result in development um looking any different in terms of the the actual height Heights that are allowed um so that that's really more uh a simplification for the applicant and for the the review team for staff um and then the last one the removal of the project ground re buffers so th this is one um where uh so the current Udo requires project boundary buffers in many many instances many times with similar uses adjacent to each other um staff feels that it may not always be appropriate to have project browny buffers if you've got a like use adjacent to another use in

that they would still have tree coverage requirements there would still be uh the basing and Grading requirements that were discussed earlier um there would still be open space requirements and uh streetscape and Landscape requirements so the project Bounty buffers um in many instances uh you know you'll you'll still be you'll still see very similar landscaping and and tree coverage tree preservation um also because of the provision um for Mass grading I think for a lot of subdivisions we'll still see that uh the 6 opacity buffer however um if a subdivision does not choose masquerading and is adjacent to residential development then there would not be a buffer around the boundary but they would still have the same percentage of coverage required is that helpful any any more yes that's very helpful um and again again just to reiterate the the the new ordinances that we've passed related to storm water uh buffers um the phasing all of that

that would still pertain no matter what it does not supersede this good question uh that is correct yes all those would still maintain um the existing Provisions that have been adopted okay thank you I sh firms than commissioner Carter I'm going to have a lot more to say um after the public hearing but I do want to go back for a second go to the slide where you show everything that was gutted out of this 80 page that not yeah since we want to go over what affected the county Bo if you would iner if you would educate folks could you go through because I had the same question about how it would impact the county and I'm going go back to that in a second I'm not going to punch at it right now but could you maybe take some time to say why each one of these pieces was gutted out of this gutted out of this amendment or at least the top could

you do the top four like why was this taken out why were they taken out um now not not in aggregate if you could just do the first four about why they were taken out yeah I will I will do my best of course and then you got help it's help over there call them up there they don't like to so the the uh the path program um staff had some serious concern about the proposed uh length of time for the affordable units um we we didn't feel that it was an adequate length of time um providing those affordable units in given the uh the trade-off for some of the the regulations that would be relaxed um in terms of the modifications to the neighborhood protection overlays um specifically old west Durham that that would not impact the county because of course uh both um or the are located within the city's jurisdiction that was removed um certainly the old west durum NPO for example fairly recently adopted um you know staff felt that after all all the engagement efforts and since it was recently adopted uh we were not in

favor of a provision that would um remove those requirements allowing an accessory structure prior to primary structure the concern there was if uh let's just say that you've got a vacant residential lot they came through and they built the uh accessory structure say say it's an Adu and it would meet the Adu uh standards and setbacks and then in the future they were going to build primary structure well what if they didn't build that primary structure and so staff was concerned that uh that provision would result in some non-conforming structures um and and situations on those lots uh relaxation of residential infil standards um staff was in opposition to that particular um and it was a suite of changes that would Rel some of the residential info standards or allow for some options um staff in the interest of neighbor character and uh preserving the um current infal standards uh recommended that we didn't adopt city council not adopt that of course that uh

particular provision or Suite of Provisions uh is relevant within the city that's where the residental standards would would would mostly apply and would not impact the county should I keep going I want stop you right there only reason why you see you you all clearly there was some advocacy done right there was some advocacy done so thank you to to the folks who raised their voices there's a reason why we have public hearings there's a reason why we have public meetings there's a reason for transparency there's a reason why we make sure that ourselves and our staffs are made available to the public and again we've seen three other Provisions where like these are the outcomes like we want to work together in tandem so that we can make this community better and so you saw some examples like this is what we're going to pull out could you go to another slide if you wouldn't mind the slide that shows how much public comment we had how much how much public engage that right there see because there might be there might be a tide of folks who want to prolong this process even further I would not be in support of that for a myriad of reasons um I've not always

been privileged enough to go to a lot of public hearings but by the grace of God this past election cycle I've had the opportunity to go to the public hearings that you all had there I had the opportunity to take time off from work and do the uh the work session that we had here during uh the last election cycle there were a myriad of uh of uh of debates and I got to go and sit and listen into in during the debates uh I got to look at the recordings from the task force so this has been going on let's see the Planning Commission first denied this y'all can call it a tie if you want to it was a denial denied this in March of 2020 so I mean March 20th of 2023 so here here it is you know nine months later and anyone who says we need to hear more about it I got a problem with that because we've been dealing with this since then additionally uh I want you uh I want us to go back um that application was put in could you go back to the very first slide thank you is there supposed to be

a owen property it it is y' killing me call me out I'm sorry that but I I do want to throw so that is the applicant right MH that's the applicant yes so that says May 5th 2022 yes all right so I just want to put and and we don't have anybody else on there there's no habitat there's no less fake another black woman signature there's none of that that's the applicant correct okay I just want to put that out there for public consumption um so those are the three things I just want to elevate how long this process has been going on since May of 2022 where your staff has had the opportunity s staff as had the opportunity to kind of sort of go through it climb through it then it came up to to the Planning Commission made its way out into the public sector the community's had opportunity it's been a task force created they've come to work session so I just want folks to know that no matter what happens tonight commissioner Burn's ready to vote so y'all can go ahead on that commissioner Carter yes I I'll

probably hold most of my questions for after the public hearing but I I did want to ask um either one or two now um let me ask this one so well first of all I want to say thank you to um the proponents and opponents I feel like uh the community's reached out to us and and given us such wonderful opportunities to get together with you to talk to you on the phone um and you know to hear both sides and there's always so much to learn on both sides and so I want to say I really appreciate that chance um my my question is related to the fact that it seems like many many of these text amendments are related to small lots lots that are less than 20,000 Square ft um is there any way that that requirement could be uh gamed or worked around through an exempt subdivision action where a larger lot is then

subdivided into lots that would meet the less than 20,000 foot requirement so the 20,000 requirement um yeah all right so I'll back up um so an exempt subdivision or one of the ways the most applicable way would be if you had a existing lot that was less than two acres and it was being subdivided into less than three lots um so I don't exactly know what you mean by gamed but I do think an exempt subdivision by state law could be applied and approved and a a 20,000 lot could be created um and then subsequently the uh development could could meet those exemptions or or standards um and that would that would uh but they would be bound to that 20,000 foot maximum in terms of the development and the lot does that answer your question so it could it could an exempt plat could be approved to create the lot that would then benefit from those exemptions

yeah and so um if there are no buffer requirements on these lots for like use that's right is that correct um could want could a developer you know then have this one acre lot they divide it into four 20,000 square or two two 20,000 or let's say they have two acres and they divide it into four of these lots and then without a bu you know any sort of buffer requirement they could actually be contiguous and that you know that someone could build a big mansion or a Shopping Center yeah uh commiss C so the uh if there were four lots that would not be an Exempted flat and therefore it would um trigger a storm Water Analysis and and most likely s plan review and and um but if it were three lots uh yes each individual lot could subsequently be developed individually the 20,000 foot standard and and I and I forgive me I don't remember specifically what those standards are I believe it means that

they would meet the commercial infill standards which are uh reduced setbacks and reduced uh buffers yeah I was going to ask you a little bit about commercial infill standards too but director um they could not be combined into a larger development to circumvent the rules which I think is your that really was my question yeah that that would not be the case okay not not possible to circumvent the rules on that by combining okay thank you and and just to to follow up on yeah they would because storm water code isn't changing they're still the same uh thresholds in terms of impervious surface and disturbance limits and all those same mechanisms can I just ask a real quick that's a great question commissioner Carter related to that though where in the county would someone be able to do that um when they don't when we they

would need they wouldn't have you I mean you can't build a septic system and a well on less than an acre so I'm trying to understand how where would that be able to happen I don't think there is an area in the county where that would occur pretty pretty I'm pretty certain I'll also add that you know uh most of the property in the county is zoned RR has very LGE large minimum lot size requirements a lot of the property in the county is also in our Watershed districts which make the minimum requirements even bigger and impose other limitations so I don't staff does not foresee this really playing out in the you and I had um two follow-up questions also before we open up the

public hearing so Mr wondering how much so when I looked at the slide about how this impacts the county thank you a lot of what I was thinking and wondering is most of the time that we see larger scale development or all of the time really in the county that typically has been land that first is annexed into the City and so if that is the case then the city having approved scad already will supersede and become the president since it's no longer County only jurisdiction um is that correct that's correct okay and so around the concerns about like you know how is this going to impact larger size Development coming into County areas because those areas County areas don't have access to water or publicly available Water and Sewer typically developers will come and request annexation um just wanted to

that clarified and then I know that this the items that were removed before the city voted on it going back to the planning commission's vote um how many comments were made by I know since we wouldn't have a Planning Commission meeting after the vote had happened or after those City had decided to remove those items is there any understanding or knowledge of where the planning commissioner's concerns were were they aligned also with staff's concerns around the items that were essentially that were eventually removed from the final adoption that is correct and yes they were there was actually a a subcommittee um the plan commission had uh put together and they um agreed with staff's recommendations and Analysis that was a subcommittee of the Planning Commission members that's correct and did they ever take like a vote on that subcommittee about you know after the removals or anything just just wondering okay they just put together the the report for the for the commission thank you there's no

other comments or questions from my colleagues I will open up the public hearing we do have quite a number of folks signed up to speak I believe we have 22 people no one has signed up online and for the sake of everyone's time we're going to have two minutes uh instead of three per comment and so we will start with Sebastian uh fet I know this Sebastian F to lack what you lack oh yes over here on this side next to the clerk and then after Sebastian will be Mimi Kesler and I'll call youall up two at a time to give you more time to sit good evening um I just wanted to Echo some of the comments i' I've spoken at city council as well um but I think this is important to also share here um my name is Sebastian petlac resident of Durham County off of Irwin Broad near Duke Forest I do represent uh building

trade members Craftsmen working on actually a lot of infrastructure projects across our state and in our cities um but I did want to State uh my support for the scad amendments to the Udo to increase mock ability density and access to uh more affordable housing uh I do represent hundreds of members and young apprentices in the construction industry who may not afford to live in a city or county lines while they work here because of housing costs but I do believe as many um other cities across the country and already in our state have done that these amendments can help move the needle uh towards affordable uh affordability and density nationally we are seeing that increased Supply and denser housing has helped to reduce the rise in rental costs and allowed new and young families to buy homes in the cities and neighborhoods they live in if we don't continue to improve our development plans we'll leave all future housing affordable only for wealthy uh individuals lastly the Amendments can help uh create greater walkability reduce traffic on our roads helping us reach environmental sustainability goals

and reduce uh overburdened uh requirements on developers such as parking minimums I implore the board uh to approve these amendments without hesitation or delay thank you after Mimi we'll have Jennifer Franklin and Pamela Williams good evening Commissioners um my name is Mimi Kesler I live in the city of Durham um we want to talk to you about due process um there have been many times and ways for the proponents to have been asked to work with us to find Common Ground I started trying the day after the August 30th 2022 community meeting which was the first of two where they actually presented to people who did not have a Financial incentive in the building or real estate market so

understand that they think that it's been going on a long time and we think it hasn't because of all those opportunities and repeated failure to engage in good faith negotiations I believe that there has not been adequate Community engagement on sweeping changes to the building codes that will fundamentally change the fabric of the city and our quality of life the proponents have had had protected presentation time with the governing bodies and in fact twice before JCC PC before that August meeting 2022 and and they then and yet that was the first time that we learned about it in contrast the residents have only had their two or thre minute pieces and like in this present in this situation how can our voice be truly heard and con considered before it's time for you to vote proponents have told us many times

they have the votes on Council they said that at that August meeting presumably that was a deterrent for us uh but it hasn't worked out that way um but not sitting down with us they have created sides and making this issue a political issue and indeed many voters have told me since November 20th vot vote on scad that they would vote differently if they had known I sincerely believe we have more common and we have more in common than the other side thinks I believe we are trying to achieve the same goal the goal density and add added adding more housing units but thank you Mimi but differs in the means of getting there thank you thank you good evening we come to you now if you can uh

share your name please Jennifer Franklin sorry your address we come to you now because you're last hope there's still even after changes have been made ambiguous language in the document and several sections that are simply illogical there are opportunities for developers to game the system and avoid over it and the city attorney's office needs to review it before it becomes law when we appealed to the planning director for help in improving the document she explained that with a private Amendment staff were not authorized to make changes but she was receptive to the idea the city council voted on a motion that was seemingly only understood by councilwoman Johnson who made it when asked they had followed what was in the motion the planning director said that it fortunately it was being recorded neither those present nor

5 part a item three reads following the public hearing the governing body May approve the amendment deny the amendment or send the amendment back to the Planning Commission or a committee of the governing body for additional consideration please send this back to the Planning Commission who will work with the residents and the staff to find compromise in the specifics with language that is not ambiguous and not so extreme please save Durham from being overrun thank

you and please remember to announce your name and your address when you come to the mic thank you and after this we have um Joseph F human and then Donna Stein back good afternoon my name is Pam Williams I'm on record my address is I'm a resident of Durham I'm also an engineer uh for over 40 years I was an engineer I did Land Development uh for 16 years I have read the ordinances and uh uh I worked for ncdot for quite a few years writing rfps and policies and even legislature changes uh get through legisl for CDOT um and as I read these ordinances that we have now there's already loopholes and flex well there's already flexibility in these ordinance to get higher density I mean have you driven around have you looked at what's being done things are being done and there is

flexibility already and I feel like that if uh I I'm requesting you to say no to this one is they they've said it doesn't really apply to Durham but as you know as each acre of land is uh annexed into the city then that acre of County Land now all these ordinances are applied I am also very upset about the buffer rules being uh taken away just because it's a a small acre you know it's four acres of land so they're not going to do math grading but you don't have to provide any buffers everybody needs trees and there needs to be a break between the residents I don't care if it's on one acre or 4 AC or 20 acres let's not have this continuous housing um houses from one subdivision to another subdivision without a break between it you saw Olive grow you saw um Sagewood you saw uh nickels Farms where they're continuous but the only break

they have is between the two subdivisions and everything you have 20 some Acres of nothing but roofs uh concrete so I ask you to please uh vote no on this I see a lot of flexibility in this and we're working on the Udo now they are to match the comprehensive plan let's let it match the comprehensive plan and not move forward on this thank you Joseph and then Donna Stein back my name is Joseph Fleming J 2104 C The Grow Drive dur North Carolina most of the time when a entity comes to durm and want to develop something normally you will see what type of work in which they will do I think we have seen the type of work in which the

developers have done here in Durham let me speak for a particular group this particular time let me speak for our rural area of Durham in our rural area of Durham we have seen carcinogen build up and dust particles build up in their neighborhood why this so significant because we have many people who cannot sit in their own front nor backyard because of these uh particles built up we have seen our neighbors in the neighborhood uh whals have been destroyed by this development we have seen our neighbors well been destroyed also they cannot help them fix because the insurance have refused to deal with the situation they have told them in essence that if they come back there again they will drop them as a client these are a couple things that these are not rich people these are regular dermit regular people trying to

live we are talking about a couple things that's have been afflicting them we have been told that scar will build will make more homes that is not true habitat for man have been the main entity nonprofit entity that have built more homes affordable homes that's the issue affordable homes we should be talking about affordable homes because that's the main element that need to be dealt with here in dur let me give you a couple statistics for for example durm has stated that they need a certain amount of affordable homes we still have not met that quota now who has met a certain quota to build affordable home habitat for her manager not out developers so that the elements that needs to be developed has not been met yet thank you after Donna we'll have Steve Toller and Pam

Andrews good evening Madam chair and County Commissioners I'm Donna stach a lifelong resident of Durham County I live on 4825 Jimmy Rogers Road in Redwood Community I am opposed to scad for many reasons um and I'll list just a few but I would like to state that I was at one of the meetings where everybody in the community there on Club Boulevard that came was seemed to be against scad and the fact that it was being developed by developers versus coming from the planet on department but they were told and I was there and witness it that the Habitat for Humanity did support them and did want to um you know this to go forward and and then that got the crowd kind of changing but that was a false

premise and it it really should never have been stated now I'm looking at the fact that they State it's not that applicable to the county well if it's not applicable do not pass it the one of the statements they said was this affected this only the part outside the ugb but I think it also affects the um land in the future growth area because that still in the county and and hasn't been annexed so it's the future growth area and the land outside the ugb I am handicapped I get around with short distances okay but I am scared of reducing the minimum of parking spaces in Durham County you have to have a car you know that that part is really not applicable you we spread out

and well uh M I think this can be used and abused um by developers because of the way it's written in the ambiguous statements so I again would ask you not to approve it I have other points but I think I've ran out of time thank you Donna yeah good evening Madam chair Madame Vice chair commissioners and fellow citizens my name is Steve Toller I reside at 8709 Milhouse Lane in Baha I've lived in Northern Durham County since 1977 I'm no stranger to this chamber I've LED two successful Bond referendums advised two more that a very successful 2011 education sales tax referendum was a county appointee to the RDU Airport Authority for 10 years and helped lead the terminal 2 construction and increased minority firms participation

in construction I married a northern I'm married a northern Durham County girl which is probably the best but anyway um and I was one of three County residents that helped create the Little River Regional Park and raised over $300,000 for Park infrastructure and I was honored to be one of the County's volunteers of the year to say that I'm passionate and protective of Northern Durham and Durham County is an understatement I help lead the county engagement process for the amendment none of my past Durham County campaigns had more Community engagement than this process not one after the first amendment there after the amendment was submitted the planning department made 93 revisions then an additional 61 revisions were made as a result of input from public and from Planning Commission to say this amendment came from one man for just developers is simply misinformation in the end at least 29

citizens wrote parts of the amendment including local Architects local Builders local Carpenters Local nonprofit leaders and local planners keyword local the version you're considering tonight is probably the 43rd or 44th version of this amendment I'm very proud of our community engagement and Outreach efforts led by the best local talent in our community thank you for your respectful consideration and leadership in passing this tonight after Pam Andrews we will have uh Tammy SOA and Rebecca Freeman good evening my name is Pamela Andrews live on Wake Forest Highway I've heard tonight that there's been a lot of Civic engagements regarding scad but there has not been outside the city limits a especially in

southeast Durham you know we come to everything and we have not been a part just like we had to fight to have engagement meetings out in the county when we work on the comprehensive plan those initial engagement meetings only after we requested them did we get to be a part at the table we really have not been a part of the table for this amendment although the mark the market scad is primary allowing infield development within the city limits out of 132 scab Provisions 122 new Provisions expressly apply to city and county when this was pointed out at one of the task force meetings the response was the HOAs would limit dense development in the county that's simply not true everyone in the county does not live in a community with an HOA in fact most of the County residents do not live in an HOA we have whales we have septic tanks very expensive septic tanks that require land if scab were intended to be limited to infield within the city limits it would say that but it does not preserve R Durham has stood and met with you guys over and over again you cannot

ever say we did not standing for over a year against damage to the environment and the citizens along the perimeter of these massive developments I have asked a number of attorneys and other officials including some of the planning department today how would this co-mingle with the two amendments that have been written particularly the tree preservation Amendment and the storm water Amendment we have all in this room from planning department to our citizens worked extremely hard to protect the environment and the citizens of Southeast Durham so I ask you again there were some little loopholes today when you were speaking earlier we are concerned about those loopholes with scan a project boundary buffer won't be required at all anymore is what I was told today however the phase grading and tree preservation amendment requires a 30 foot buffer I was at the Creeks today they still look like blood check my Facebook page we need help please say no to this

hi tamy sea at Baptist Road um basically you've heard all the other comments as a County resident I feel like this will open the floodgates and will um allow more development and not not not um reasonable development in the county and when you talked about Wells well think about Community Wells that's how one way you can get around the water and the issues but I wanted to take your attention to the comprehensive plan plan where there was a statement where the triangle J Council of government estimates by 2050 dur will need additional 60,000 housing units if you break that down into 10year increments that's about 20,000 housing units each every 10 years um so I also went to the triangle J Council government's website now called Central Pines Regional Council and they also note that the population growth between 2020 and 2030 is about 44,000 and going to the planed website

3 people per um per unit per housing unit that translates within a 10-year period from 2020 to 2030 we need about 19,000 units which is close to about the comprehensive plan about 20,000 units um so then you know preserve World Durham we've been looking at all the uh developments in southeast Durham and so I personally went to every city Council minute meeting and added up all the other developments um for Durham between 2020 to October 2023 that doesn't include any uh by right buildings or any uh buildings that are being built in zones already designated for high density so the total that I came up with is that we're about 23,000 built from 2020 to 2023 we're not even at 2030 yet we have overbuilt at this point time so my my point in saying this is why do we need scad we don't need it in the county and we don't want it thank

you after Rebecca we will have Jacob Freeman and cuff kle Cliff kle sorry hi I'm Rebeca fre and I live in the county and my addresses on file and I'm a little bit um nervous because I had a three minute speech so let me try to get this in uh I am opposed to scad starting with the name scad simplified codes for affordable development affordable development not affordable housing affordable development that's a key element to start with there are the scat application was submitted with the Habitat for Humanity as a co- applicant I think I just saw a while ago that the only applicant was Jim Anthony of Riley but according to the to the letter that was sent to the city council and the County Commissioners the uh Habitat for Humanity is formally withdrawing our name from the SC application proposal and revision process that was that was

sent to yall in uh a March of 2023 not the 2020 I think was or 22 that was the application shown but unfortunately they got uh a a a letter back from the director of um the planning departments informing them that their name could not be removed from the uh uh SC the amendment application but their letter would be added to the file for review however in in this continuous document that that you folks got as well as the city council it did say that Habitat for Humanity Durham's Habitat for Humanity the premier group that provides and builds affordable housing in Durham could not support the scad document I think you really should investigate why they cannot support the scad document before you go ahead and vote Yes on something like that tonight um please consider this important withdrawal of support for scad document and the other thing is that good grief the comprehensive plan was just passed and there's a lot of work to be done to get the udo's in alignment

with the SC with the uh comprehensive plan that's a mammoth document and Mammoth rewrite and why preempt that with something else to start with thank you so very much my name is Jacob Freeman um my address is on file and I'll start by saying that I'm a resident of Wake County um and at first I wasn't planning on speaking on this um topic because you know I was thinking well I don't have standing as a member of a citizen of w County um you know but you know when you actually when you consider the applicant you know maybe I do have standing in this in this matter but but the other thing too was today I was coming home and I drive 98 to Kemp Road quite a bit and and I looked at the where Martin Creek comes in with lit Creek and as Pam Andrew stated tomato soup and I was just

compelled to come down here and speak tonight about the destruction that's going on in Southeastern Durham County and why that matters to me as a Wake County resident is because that is Wake County's source of drinking water is Li Creek amongst other the map that was shown there is pretty compelling about how much surface area of Falls Lake is in Wake County but then how much of the drainage area of Falls Lake is also in excuse me in Durham County how much surface areas in Durham County but also how much of the drainage basin is also in Durham County as well so from from those um those standpoints you know I would definitely be against the amendment um and uh propose that you vote in the in the same manner the destruction that's going on in southeast Durham cannot continue uh there are going to be severe environmental repercussions cleanup and other things that will be required because of it thank you for your time after Cliff we'll have um Mr Walter Jackson and Adam

Lang good evening my name is Cliff cradle with cradle engineering at 204 East Markham Avenue where we've been here for over a hundred years serving this community I want to speak to you this evening as since my primary job is helping individuals figure out what they can do with their land I want to speak to you about the positive benefits of this ordinance there's quite a few rules and standards right now that we're dealing with with individuals being able to build their H build their homes that is added greatly to the cost of building that home um over on on East End we've had a situation where they were building a house that we had to survey 14 additional houses to meet the standard we have to go into the adjacent people's yard to survey the height of that the adjacent house because that's what the measurement standards call for we need

these changes we're asking for these changes if you don't think it's affecting the county then the if you if you remember the bahima park that was next to the fire department on Baha Road it's not there parking requirements were too strong for them to build that Park this does affect the county I have one individual built a single family house in the middle of 13 acres the additional surveying to to locate this is a fully wooded lot the additional surveying to locate his 13 Street trees and then protect those trees was quite a quite a quite a shock to them when it come to the surveying bill in addition to that he lost four more weeks because in the review process we didn't put the HVAC on the plan the middle of 13 acres that HVAC is nowhere near the rear setback we need

these changes please make these changes thank you Madam chairwoman Madam Vice chairwoman commission members County Manager soell fellow citizens my name is Walter Jackson I'm here representing the Durham committee on the Affairs of black people there was an old saying that I think almost all of you have heard fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me there's a car once burned twice cautious the African-American community of Durham has been burned and is very cautious going back 50 or 60 years to urban renewal promises were made about the what would happen as a result of urban renewal how it was going to improve our communities it did not as a matter of fact many believe that it led

to the devastation of key communities in Durham what we have this evening is a proposal uh being put forth saying oh this is going to help you you can understand that we in the African-American Community to a large degree degree are saying I don't know about that we think this thing is being rushed through prematurely we think that additional time and study would be in order I won't go against uh County Commissioner uh Burns who say Well I'm not going to support any further delays because I was going to ask for a delay based on the fact that the city in fact delayed its consideration on the absence of a council member tonight uh commissioner howon is absent and I don't know that I I think you should not pass this without a full commission basically there are too many outstanding questions it might be that when I get back to the Durham committee they would say to me

Having learned tonight that since it's already passed by the city it would not affect the county perhaps there are those who would say to me well Walter you should have let them go ahead and pass it because uh all that bad stuff will only be coming to the city now as opposed to the whole County thank you after Adam we have Tom Miller and uh Dan juel good evening Council uh my name is Adam Lang 633 Swift Creek Crossing um I came out tonight to speak in support of scad um I think that these text amendments Foster increased density and enhanced portability which is crucial for creating vibrant accessible Urban spaces um I'll be brief tonight because I know a lot of but I know a lot of the um amendments in scad don't affect the county as much but I think as our city grows I would love to see the positive

fundamental characteristics noted by scad walkability Spirits Incorporated Madam chairman members of the commission my name is Tom Miller I've lived in Durham a very long life after a career of 30 years in the Attorney General's office and 40 Years of volunteering in Durham I have devoted myself to advocacy for the interest of ordinary people in their homes and neighborhoods have grown old in this work and what can I say about a 60-page set of complex legal changes to the Udo in two minutes you've seen you've cut people off you can't say hardly anything the answer is very little and this is part of the problem that arises when we allow a profit making industry to rewrite the rules that govern them uh on

matters that affect the lives of everybody in Durham so what does scad do then nutshell it increases developer opportunities at the expense of quality of life of ordinary people and for the vast majority of people in Durham their interest in Planning and Zoning is the protection of their homes their neighborhoods the places where they live they're not in it for the money to the extent that our rules protect this interest the rules are a success when we tear those protections down we fail the people as members of the Board of Commissioners it might be tempting to say oh well the city has already adopted most of it and the county doesn't do much zoning what's the point of voting no but this is wrong under our unified countywide approach to the development regulation you have a great deal of influence the county is an equal partner in shaping the rules that govern development in Durham all of Durham you

represent the whole County not just its fringes beyond the city limits the county is not a dog wagged by the city's tail if scad has problems and it does you should vote against it voting scad down will keep the issues uh it presents alive and for stakeholders who have been unwilling to make concessions to come to the table your representatives on the jcpc can urge changes to rebalance our code and uh rewrite scad uh as quickly as we possibly can thank you very much for the opportunity to address you again please just vote this down and let us fix it later thank you m um after Dan we have Morgan Haynes and Brian Callaway good evening Madam chair fellow Commissioners my name is Dan juel I'm a landscape architect and private practice I live at 1025 Gloria Avenue in Trinity Park uh very much like to speak in favor

of this and tell you about the benefits of a simpler entitlement process which this will bring for many smaller projects during my 38 years of working on approvals in Durham for clients and individuals we've gone through four zoning ordinances each more complicated than the one prior in the early 90s I could get a site plan approved in four or five weeks now it takes five or six months to get that same site planner and because of that and that that increased complexity it means there are longer and more thorough reviews too many small Builders and even nonprofessional regular citizens now call me asking for advice on how to navigate their way through the system our current code is way too complex small practitioners individuals can't understand it it's way too expensive to interpret and Implement and way too risky for many small people to make that investment um what I am end up with many times is people are angry they are

incredulous and sometimes they are sobbing at the end of the conversation and most importantly many times they don't move forward with building a home or a duplex or a townhouse something like that these are good intentioned folks just try trying to provide some more housing sometimes for a family member sometimes for some income sometimes to put a kid through school they need a more simplified code they deserve a more simplified code code and that's what we're asking you to approve tonight the Amendments we before you this evening will make it easier for small practitioners and individuals to do really interesting stuff it'll be bad for my practice because that's how I make a living doing site plans but I'm okay with this because we need more housing and Durham and simplifying this as a way to provide it so uh please vote to approve this amendment thank you

good evening C council members my name is Morgan Strider Haynes I am a durm resident who lives who has lived in the same location at 701 West Trinity Avenue for the past 15 years I'm here tonight to speak in favor of scad I am an architect I recently founded my own firm Monarch Studio a small practice specializing in residential and small scale commercial architecture largely as a byproduct of the demand for these types of spaces that this Amendment seeks to address many of my clients are homeowners in the urban tier with growing families seeking to expand their existing footprint others have added the existing housing stock by building adus on their property and renting the top floors for much less than a new typical apartment one of the last major amendments expanding housing choices did just that it expanded the opportunities for the same type of smallscale residential development making Common Sense changes to the Udo in order to increase density in the urban tier and create more more responsive and well-designed architecture and urbanism the arguments against EHC were

the same we're hearing these days against scad big bad developers will swoop in and game the system in order to destroy our neighborhoods I don't think there's evidence for that and I don't believe that's going to happen should these text amendments pass more importantly in many cases regular citizens will be able to more effectively make sensible and reasonable improvements to their own property I have one such client that under the proposed text amendments will now be able to constr construct a modest new carport in his driveway which would not be allowed under the current ordinance while I recognize this is an anecdotal uh piece of evidence I think these kinds of Common Sense changes abound in scat removing minimum parking requirements is another example that I think has been pretty well summed up by others that support scad creating more walkable communities starts with de prioritizing the car while there always be nimius and naysayers the positive impact that new development has had on the walkability of the Foster Street Corridor for example is UN deniable over the past 15 years I've watched surface parking lots and industrial buildings with Barren

blank facades transformed into Living Spaces that engage the street with public amenities and much needed retail spaces so with that I'd like to thank you for your time council members and thank you to the planning department for your ongoing work to improve this wonderful Community we live in thank after Brian we have uh Sher xan Rosenthal and Katie rth hi I'm Brian callway of 307 gram Avenue uh there is evidence that gentrification has been uh happening at an expanded rate since expanding housing choices uh scad we are concerned will will continue to exacerbate that you can just look at the people who have been moving into this community and the people who' been moving out of this community um I was also part of an analysis of all the public speakers uh both for and against uh the scad amendment at the uh Planning Commission and at the March 20 meeting the on average the average proponent of scad owns over 12 sorry over 11

properties valued at more than $2 million uh per proponent the average opponent owned less than one property valued at under $300,000 uh scad is an amendment created by Developers for developers it is uh you know we saw a tapestry of opponents at the City Council meetings uh from the Durham Community as you see a small group here today too uh that are quite concerned about the the the damage that scad can do uh and and will be doing now to the city U granted the economic forces of speculation and gentrification don't exist with the same uh potency in uh rouan and Gorman as they do in Hyde Park and and Walltown um but this uh this community deserves to know where you stand you know the city council deled this so they could have an election uh one of the council members paraded around at forums that they were not supporting they're not going to vote for scad and its forum and then promptly

voted for the majority of scad uh they received Applause during those forums um and there there's a disconnect right now of democracy and Durham so please um let us know you guys are all on the the hot seat here in a couple more months and uh the community wants to know um and uh so yeah I encourage you to to not accept scad tonight thank you hi there Sher xan Rosenthal 2205 Wilson Street in beautiful Durham been debating with myself what to say to you because after so many months of working on this on something that does not make the code simpler and the code does need simplification when Frank Duke led the planning department and giving us this Udo uh it made uh it gave us a very complicated code that's difficult to understand I don't like the organization

of it I think it was a downgrade from the compreh from the code that we had previously when the proponents talk about affordability that's such a red herring because we know from this massive analysis of 1136 cities that passed you know this is a nationwide Push by the real estate industry to get exactly this kind of thing past deregulation um elimination of setbacks are very short setbacks which by the way makes it very difficult to have large Street trees just of the time where we need them most because of climate disaster looming so this analysis was done appeared in urban studies in January of 22 I've given some of uh that article to many of you and it showed that there is no verifiable statistical evidence within 9 years after passage that this results in any affordability whatsoever if you look at the provisions and you've read it I'll also say that reading it is

not the same as understanding it I have spent well over 30 hours uh with colleagues reading and trying to do hypotheticals about different provisions and I will tell you that there's still things I don't completely understand how they Ricochet off each other and I heard both say things I like Bo very much I appreciate our planning staff I heard him say things tonight that I do not believe are true I do not believe that it's a technical change that has no substantive effect for example the new measurement oh I want to leave you with this you have a specific role to play You're the only elected officials for the whole County and in the face of looming climate change deregulation is not the way to have a conscious uh preparation for what's to come as far as fire or storm resilience after Katie we have Robin Barefoot and then Bob

Chapman hello Katie Ross bah so um it's very important point that you commissioner sitting here are the only representation we in the semi- rural and rural area areas of this County have uh I can tell you from being on next door and uh walking around my neighborhood and talking about this issue that people in in North Duram County anyway the ones that I Ted do not want this amendment very very concerned about the effect of unrestrained development and less regulated Development coming in where we depend on our wells and septic assist um you have a golden opportunity because that has passed the Judo total revision is is already underway coming up you can watch what happened with scad within the city

5 A3 which has already been referenced to you uh but it says a governing body following a public hearing May approve an amendment may deny the amendment or send the amendment back to the planning Comm there's no Authority there to

change the amendment as as it lik so earlier you voted in a way that I didn't like because you said it would avoid lawsuit for the county I don't agree age with that but this this right here puts the county at risk because if you vote for what the couny what the city sent you you're voting for something uh that they didn't have the authority to do thank you Robin Barefoot again I'm on record um scad has been a costly exercise for Durham it has consumed a disproportionate amount of the planning Department's work hours it has diverted a disproportionate amount of the city council's attention away from the people's business it makes a show of solving our dire lack of housing for essential Workforce with the least effective strategy for affordable housing which is to build new units rather than to repurpose existing

inventory and naturally occurring affordable housing it offers no strategies for reversing the egregious displacement of Durham's communities and of course it doesn't because scad is the brand brainchild of the same private equity-backed development professionals who displaced our communities in the first place you know all this you know the city council's approval was a circus and potentially unlawful you know there are no good you good reasons to follow the lead of a hijacked Council and you know only harm and Devastation in profit mongering is going to result if scat extends to the county you know all of this so tonight the question is do you have the political will to say no reject scad from cover to cover demand regulatory Integrity instead of zoning Bingo put your hands on the steering wheel and direct Durham's future vote

no my name is Bob Chapman I've lived in Durham for 48 years I'm a new urbanist real estate developer um I've developed uh quite a few affordable units probably over half of what I've done uh I was uh board chair of the North Carolina smart growth Alliance I found I signed the charter of the new urbanism for Congress of the new urbanism and was co-founder of the smart uh of the national Town Builders Association I was asked along with half a dozen other small develop ERS to participate in something called the practitioners panel for the expanded housing choices uh text amendments when that was done it made a big difference we're talking about small incremental developers no National developers nobody has uh hedge fund money this is all

people who do one at a time uh and look at ways to reduce cost in order to offer a better place at a lower price when we finished that there were things that were still barriers in the code and so a group of the people who were in The practitioners panel got together and said what can we do to finish the job of making it simpler for people to build wonderful desirable and less affordable and less less expensive and more affordable homes for people in Durham and we um found a planning graduate who read the entire code went through it line by line and we submitted it to the um planning department since then there have been 44 separate versions the planning department proposed suggested that the council

pass part of what we submitted and they did uh about 90% male we'd like for you to do the same thing um and hope that you will thank you very much thank you with that that has concluded the uh people who have signed up for public comment I would like to thank everyone so much for sticking with us and all of the engagement they've provided throughout this entire process and all the comments that they have shared yeah you did have a sign up ending at the at the end of the consent agenda being approved to be able to give time to our clerk staff to be able to collect everyone's information if you would like to provide your comments in a written format to the clerk you can share that with the

Commissioners if you can walk over if you can walk over to Monica and we'll have your comments uh we no one can hear you when you're not at the mics good evening my name is ibraim Sai and I've been living in dor for the last 22 years uh probi Durham County Durham city I've lived in ront before and after ront I moved into the the city of Durham and now I live in in by South Point mall area and we just being an next we used to be County now we are city right there by South Point on 751 South uh so I have several thing I always call myself a West as West African calist progressist

um uh and the reason why I say this is because I came to this country with nothing I've watched the city grow when I pack myself a few cents in my pocket and say I'm coming to the United States I was not coming for studo I was not coming for things to stop I'm coming for progress and I understand the concern of some of the people but I watched the community I'm part of I'm inside the community I've been teaching in dur Public School School uh k12 and I've been at North Car Central University as a professor for the last 14 straight years I speak eight languages I know 13 I speak Spanish French Italian Portuguese wof Arabic fani and S I'm inside the community I've been in Big Brothers I've mentored I've Ted I am in the community I listen to the community I hear the community and everything is beautiful as it was said but our community need a place to live believe

our community need affordable housing in this place and I'm the dummy I revealed that scan I've read these lines I just show out of nowhere I didn't know anybody here and I get the chance to talk to some of the people some of the documents was given to me and I went over and it boils down to this thank you so much if these people are talking about building when you understand building something for our community our community above all the African Community CU we getting bigger able to leave so your time is I would really ask you and I think it's needed it's a it's really really I'm begging you to vote for this thank you thank you so much if you can make sure to fill out a form with our clerk Monica you and for future public comment periods want to remind folks that the sign up period ends at the right before consent agenda is passed to make sure that you know everyone who comes by that time has the ability to sign up because they are individuals that you know were

told that they were passed that deadline and um weren't able to sign up so you want to be fair folks uh with that I will close this public hearing and bring it back to the board uh to ask questions and comments of Staff think so I'll start I had I first wanted to raise one question that we had all of course mixed up my cards so I can't remember who exactly it was that raised it but just wondering around the parking minimums um there was a concern raised about the accessibility and how it impacts accessibility for individuals and residents that um have disabilities I just was hoping that you could address that if that has been something that's been taken into consideration and how you see the inspections department um is the department that enforces the accessibility code I will say that uh if

parking is provided the um the accessible spaces required uh but if parking is not provided then the spaces would not that is actually how uh it's applied today as well so that would not change thank you um do any of my colleagues have any questions commissioner Jacob thank you I first of all want to thank everyone who came here tonight and who spoke uh we heard a lot of really heartfelt comments and people uh feel obviously very passionately about this issue and about our community and frankly that's what makes Durham a great Community is because people care um I want to try to um you know what I

listen to everyone's comments and took notes you know I I heard a lot of grievances about a lot of different things and I just want to be really clear about what what we're being asked to vote on tonight because I don't want to mislead people that what we may what what we are being asked to vote on will necessarily address um a lot of the things that I heard that people are upset about um and I think that would actually be really misleading of us to give you all the idea that we have the power to address things that we don't have the ability to address and things that are in our jurisdiction or not in our jurisdiction or whether we by this vote are are going going to impact issues around affordable housing um or

the lack of trust about certain decisions or I think what I hear a lot of confusion misleading information and I don't want to add to that in terms of my responsibility as an elected official um I want to be really really clear about that and that's why you hear us trying our best um to to ask questions to to get things clarified we're trying to clarify things not just for ourselves because our responsibility is to make the best most informed decisions possible to listen but also we want to make sure that we get information clarified for the public for the community um that that is our responsibility as well um so I I'm going to ask a lot of questions um to follow up and so one is again just to going back to the the fact um that we

do not what we are voting on is simply the application of the scad amendment as it exists today since the city council voted on it a number of Provisions were removed where the application of it in within the county limits and so you know I guess one of my general questions to ask to our staff um is because the scad the purpose of the scad was to create more opportunity to build more housing within the city limits and to remove some of the regulatory constraints and some of the um burden that that puts now we did hear from Mr creedle uh about how it it is also impacting County residents because one of my questions is really like how what benefit does scad really even have to the county if those were

really you know focusing on more urban you know development compact NE you know comp compact neighborhood development Urban tier um all of that so I guess I would like to understand you know somebody somebody an elect official from the city actually um reached out to me and said why are you guys voting on scat um so you know I think just understanding what is the what is the thinking around why you know we have a joint City County Planning Department we have a unified development ordinance um so I think getting clarity about how why is it important that we vote on on this or not um or have this benefits County residents or not getting getting a better idea of that since it really was constructed more to be focused on

you know the city Bo before you answer that I Just Want to Thank You commissioner Jacob for that question I just want to make note of time it is 10:15 and we're scheduled to end at 11 so I'm just going to keep that in mind colleagues uh that if we reach 1045 and it looks like the discussion is going to go on further we'll need to entertain a motion to extend the meeting longer thank you um commissioner Jacobs uh I will I'm unable to go back to the slide with the uh the likely impacts but I will I will say that um your your the point you bring up is uh very much um I think correct in the sense that much of it um because it uh the the infill and the small scale commercial wouldn't apply into the county that many of the many of the benefits and many of the um the recommended proposals aren't there these four things that I had highlighted here I will say that the increased size

for the adus prob it is our belief and certainly the the applicant um their intent is that they they become more viable if if it's slightly larger um the 800 being limiting so we we probably probably predict that we will see more adus constructed as it you know with that increase and so you would probably see more adus in the county jurisdiction uh the height measure measurement and the removable parking minimums are going to be inconsequential um most likely uh and so in terms of the benefit to the county I mean I think that's really uh where we would stop thank you I have a few more questions but I'm going to wait and let my other board members can go go first okay okay um so and and again from a just a very practical point of view from a governing point of view because that's a we are

supposed to be doing here um what would be the impact of us not approving the scab besides the fact that it could possibly actually help um County residents I know there when we think about why people will build an Adu for a family member for um you know not just a child but you know an aging adult family member actually and we see this out in the rural areas often family members do live together that's very common either side by side or just the benefit that that could provide uh to people um to have that ability but but related to just governing being a joint City County Planning Department what would be the impact the actual practical impact if we voted no on this the result would be we would have two versions of the unified development ordinance um one with the county standards and the other with the city and do we have this in any other situation currently

no okay oh yeah um of course there yeah storm water regulations have different standards obviously city has their own code and the county has their own code um so there are different different documents but uh in terms of the Udo right now it's one document okay and then related to how what will happen because we're we're starting the rewrite of the udio right now right how will this be looked at as part of this process because I did notice when you did that explanation from the staff of every single um text Amendment item and then you gave your um feedback about it the last page the very last page there were a number of items on page I think it was 44 whatever the last page was I don't I don't remember page number but anyway you that last very last page those items you said

these things should be monitored now again that's going to be on the city Side not our side but I guess my question is number one how is this actually going to be monitored you know we had a process for expanding housing Choice how will the positive negative impacts actually be monitored what will you be looking for and then how will this be rolled into the rewrite of the Udo and and taking a second look at all of these things anyway sure so we had there were uh particular Provisions where we we said that we' monitor it those were instances where the the concept was uh some something that was fairely consistent with the comprehensive plan and um is an idea that we would have uh analyzed moving forward with the Udo rewrite I'll use the example of uh removing parking minimums um that's something that we've probably uh talked about internally at the staff level um for several years and if we were to

initiate that you know we would probably accompany um maybe on street parking enforcement uh analysis with our transportation department um and there are other uh caveats that we may have placed on if You' seen the analysis we talked about some concerns about residential infill uh in those instances and potentially requiring on street parking there so so there are some of the provisions that if adopted or since City adopted we will be taking a look at to see you know what those negative impacts are that will include uh looking at quantity of development you know adus we're going to take a look and see you know uh do we have more and how many more of those are larger than 800 square feet um now there's a significant number of those Provisions that we will not be able to uh capture data like we did for expanding housing choices um just by the very nature of the changes um but uh I think for several of the ones in that last page um we'll take a look at that how they that'll be incorporated in the Udo rewrite uh certainly um a mix of housing types and dens or walkable

neighborhood walkable neighborhoods and small scale commercial are things that we uh will be a priority as a part of UD Udo rewrite and looking at ways to make those things more possible um we'll evaluate uh you know these provisions and how effective they are over the next two years or 18 months so I'll also add to that that one of the things that staff does routinely that we've always done is it's not necessarily data metrics type tracking but as we see issues come up with ordinance Provisions the way they're playing out on particular projects we make note of those things and those things typically become the substance of a future Omnibus so what we're going to be doing um between now and the time that the Udo is rebit is doing the same thing in essence keeping track of anything that we see as an you know unintended um outcome of these provisions and passing that along to the consultant so they can address that in the rewr thank you and um last two issues

one is could you explain what one of the residents brought up about impact to F future growth areas um and also uh because the future growth area is it is still with I'm trying to remember it is still within the Udo right now I mean I'm sorry the urban growth area but it's designated as a future growth um area um and then the second question last question is about development TI because in our current Udo we have development tiers but with the H with the new Udo we may we we we probably won't because our future Place Type M our future yeah future Place type map getting mix mixed up here uh will is not it does not correlate to those uh different de uh development districts

that are referred to in scat so could you also so talk to that because that in itself means that scab would need to change wouldn't it yeah absolutely so to tackle the the urban growth boundary and future growth area question first there is certainly uh portions of uh unincorporated County even within the urban growth boundary and certainly that is future growth area um in some instances in other instances it's just unincorporated County so the urban growth boundary is intended to be the extent to which the city will grow that doesn't mean that it's the city limits now so certainly yes I think to comments that were made there is some applicability inside the ugb um because there is some unincorporated County still inside the ugb some of that is future growth area did that answer that question would the would the land have to be re um annexed into the city for

the scad to apply yes okay and then the second question about development tiers certainly the we do not expect that the development tiers will continue on after the rewrite we expect there will be a new um organization um regime of of districts and how they work together and because the development tiers were really a a construct of our old 2005 comprehensive plan keeping them around um just to make the ordinance function until we get a new ordinance but we are expecting that they will go away so yes scad the way that it is is presented now is certainly not something that will survive in that way past the Udo rewrite um but there are Concepts in it there are some Provisions in it that may be translated forward into the ud rewrite does that help yeah I I think it's really helpful

to note that that will absolutely be changing because it's just it's not possible for it to move forward the way it is um okay that that's very helpful thank you sherbs I do apologize I have a lot of notes up here actually you know you usually I want to type out what I want to say tonight um but I had food poison this weekend so whoever in here tried to take me out before this meeting it didn't work um and I also wanted to hear from everybody I try to be fair um I know that that's not what you were used to for some of your elected officials but I try to be fair uh when I sit and I think about uh and I'll let the train go by

when I sit back and I think about uh just how this has progressed over the past two years um I was somewhat of a novice when this first started that is no longer the case um and and that has to do with people who have spoken on both sides of this issue um you don't always know how commissioner burn is gonna vote I get mad at y'all I get mad at y'all um because I don't want people to come into this space and Tain it and then it go out into the community and worse off than what it was uh one of the things I want to bring up I I get it we have not passed the Udo in quite some time and because we have not it has been overly burdensome in some in in some instances uh to build in this County I get that but what we have not seen from this amendment or any of the other 44 revisions and let's be very clear I went and I reached out to folks in the Planning Commission you don't even

really see this many revisions so you almost have to ask yourself why the word need 44 in the first place so I'll just let that sit because there was some problems with it uh I think usually it probably would have passed if folks hadn't to notice some of the problems in it I see some people rolling their eyes it's fine I don't care um folks came in this room they sat in front of us they started out their presentation with a Martin Luther King quote if you really want to get me right start off something by taking a Martin Luther King quote out of context uh then we went over to a lot of the joint not even some of the Joint City County meetings but then I looked at some of the meetings that were going on over at the city council and everybody kept saying this is going to help black pastors so much and I get it the path portion is taken out it's GNA help black pastors so much no one in this room has met with more black pastors than I have over the past 12 months I promise you you haven't and same thing I kept hearing over and over

again was what is scad and I made sure to go to the pastors that had a whole bunch of land churches that had 12 15 20 acres I went to the pastors that actually already were doing things in affordable housing space and the issue wasn't regulation the issue wasn't land the issue was access to Capital but I digress but in all of these meetings and I even asked the folks who submitted this or the folks who were working with the person that submitted this show me Me One Pastor that can attest that this is going to help them I ain't never seen it show me one church congregation where this is going to help them build affordable housing I haven't seen it show me one city where these types of codes have been implemented and they have seen a significant upti and affordable housing they could never give me nobody could say Boston Austin Detroit Atlanta anything because if You' have came to me with that I could have stood up here 10 toes down and said you know

I could have stood up here and been in a position to say okay this has worked in Austin and Boston I feel good about it in my gut it will work in Durham and for two years now almost two years now none of that has been brought to us and I've sitting on the presentations I really seriously have another issue I have I'm I I hate that somebody on the city council actually asked you you know why is the County voting on this I don't get that I I don't get that privilege I have to know what's going on in the school board meeting I have to know what's going on the city council meeting I have to know what's going on here because whatever we vote on here affects everybody else often times we don't work in tandem but the regulations work in tandem what affects one affects the other if I take money from S one place it might affect money going somewhere else if I make a rule here so it's almost scary to me that somebody voted for something two weeks ago and did not know that it was going to affect this space and before folks sit up here and make this about an election I ain't get no votes in rule Durham probably

won't get no more either I ain't get none you can go back and check that so that is not a me up here politically posturing and then we want to make this argument about affordable housing brother I believe you when you say you in the community I done seen you out in the community I absolutely believe you want affordable housing because I want affordable housing too but what I don't believe is this is what's going to get it for us what helps us get there is some beautiful public private Partnerships they're developers that this board works with all the time so I don't want to become a dirty word because it has become one under the tutelage of that woman sitting over there and this woman sitting right here this board has been able to move forward with about 2,000 units of affordable housing just this year just this year and that some of it's been with support from this we jumped me to do Gap funding for the city we've jumped in the partner if you look across the street every time people are upset about the novice going up on Main Street I have to tell them walk two blocks down because across the street we doing something on Queen and we doing something on Maine so that means in dur we can walk and you at the same time so there are some people who are actually being honest Brokers about

this affordable housing discussion I just don't think that this is one of them another thing that was brought up uh people keep saying that oh they're trying to make this road easier well the city already voted on it so it should be really easy for you all to vote on it because it's just a county I'm a Durham County Commissioner I represent Ry and not parts of Raleigh because some of Raleigh's here I represent RTP Butner morisville bahim Rougemont Durham Redwood so when people come in here and they want to say well you don't need to worry about that because no everything is within our domain everything is within our do and that doesn't mean that we're on a power strike or a power struggle but that means that we are held to a higher standard and we have to understand everything that's going on in this community so that is a little scary for me I I I wonder why are we doing some of these things when we have a Udo coming we have a Udo coming we have hired a consultant I know how I I feel bad for y'all cuz I I work a job

and and this has taking a lot of your your time taking a lot of your effort and I can't sit here in good conscience I'm chair of joint City County Planning Commission and we had a discussion at the end of the meeting and the discussion was based on how hard scad has been on them on this community based on the heart attacks based on folks losing their job based on folks being Terri AP part in the media and all of that is part for the course because as elected officials we showed up we we signed up for it sadly but they actually wanted to know did we want to move forward or did we want to limit private amendments until the Udo was passed as chair of that board I put that question to the table and I didn't let nobody skirt the issue some folks didn't want to I asked everybody around it all save one said that until that Udo is passed we would limit our taking in text amendments so I can't sit here in good faith as the vice chair of this board when as the chair of that board I directed staff to go back and find ways

that we could limit this from happening I can't do that like that would make me an honest broker it was enough of y'all sitting at that meeting and it was enough people sitting around this table that was sitting that meeting that also said they wanted to limit text amendments until the Udo was passed so I don't know why we doing some of this political posture in tonight um another thing uh we and y'all again I got food poison so my notes they looking kind of squiggly um I I I brought up a point about the removal of parking minimums thousands of cities thousands upon thousands of cities exist uh in the United States not from Murphy to mano but from mano to LA County from Maine to Miami and only nine of them don't have parking requirements during the work session when I brought up that I didn't want to move forward I didn't I didn't feel comfortable about the parking minimums I'm not going to say what I heard one of y'all say about me when I was walking out the door but I'm going to say what I said that day I've pushed my grandma in a wheelchair I pushed my

daddy in a wheelchair I pushed my sister in a wheelchair in this County you cannot imagine how many times I've been kicked out of Jersey mics for trying to find out who is in that handicapped parking space when I need it more than anybody else and so no I'm not for the parking requirements and to the individual who said that that doesn't make me stupid it makes me conscious it makes me caring it makes me compassionate and in the only three words that you need to use to describe me when I'm voting on this issue as I move on the other thing you all brought up was um aha I I don't have any examples of affordable housing here and what is the ability for us to move past this once the Udo has passed right now the story storm water um bu the storm water buffer supersedes this am I correct Sarah like that question was asked earlier so the new rule around the storm

water buffer the new new rules about um sorry storm water is a separate thing but the new buffer rules do thank you yeah so both of those that supersedes that so if we already got something that's going to supersede it while passing something else if the storm water rules are going to supersede it while we're passing something else and then I said and I thought about it you know we're sitting here making this about the C County and making it about the city the city's in a position to Annex at will so why they're annexing at will we can sit here today and say oh we're passing this and it's just the county and it's not going to matter that's until they Annex another piece of the county and then it does scad does apply and then they Annex another piece of the county and then scad does matter so I I I just want y'all to understand I don't have a problem with affordable housing I don't have a problem with us making it easier for folks to be able to do what it is that we do endur and let make a good place to live but I I got a durm is open for business I said it the other day but durm is not open for piracy um and the things that I've seen happen around this amendment and I

imagine the things that are going to happen to me after this little speech turned my stomach but um I'm not embarrassed about my record on affordable housing not embarrassed about my record on education not embarrassed about my record on um on the environment so um I look forward to after this uh vote goes down now to continuing to meet with y'all and to meet with y'all and hopefully y'all can give us the respect that we haven't gotten up until this point Thank you madam chair and thanks to everybody for speaking tonight um just want to say there are a lot of people I respect out there on both sides of this issue um and that's because this in my opinion is a a technical and complicated um you know policy decision and usually those aren't clear-cut uh usually the the the

relative benefits and and drawbacks are pulling us in both directions and we're going to do we're all going to do the best we can up here I think and and you know make a decision that we think will be in the best interest of the most people over time in in Durham County um I'll just say that I think um that the vast amount of community engagement that happened with our comprehensive plan did put forward a vision that would support the intent of of the scat amendments um I think people want small scale locally built housing and small scale commercial development to be viable um and they want the these sorts of uh you know small scale developments to be welld designed and interesting architecture and and not the things that we're seeing in in southeast Durham um

by the corporate developers um and so all it to me it feels like if we're in favor of preserving rural Durham we we should be supportive of scad we we should be encouraging density in the urban tier and and expanding you know housing Cho choices by infill rather than than sprawl um and I I think that the opportunities for uh expanding housing choices through mechanisms like ads on Church property um makes good sense and and I think that there are some some church some churches that will be interested in that I mean I think some have already participated in shetes um with the with the the group of people who initiated the text amendment I think that was one of the things in one of our attachments um I am so for removing parking minimums I want us to

deprioritize cars I want us to make our communities more walkable safe for walking rolling I want us to make our transit system the best we can and we're working on that simultaneously I think our comp plan had a lot of emphasis on the 15 minute neighborhood I can't remember if that's really what it was called but you know what was it the 50-minute community where you you live somewhere but you live next to everything else that you need that's not residential um and and I think this plan can help facilitate movement in that direction um I think the U if we wait for the Udo rewrite that's you know I don't know how long that'll take a couple years three years two years so you know there might be a lot of interesting housing that meets our community's values that could be built in that amount of time if we can simplify some of the code I I think that in a unified spirit with the city we sh

should vote to approve this I think we should be unified and I um uh for the reasons I've mentioned support approving this tonight thank you I I do and I'm not going to prolong this as we I'm not going to reiterate this you're right there was a church listed when that application was submitted you know who else was listed on there a number I asked this during the work session I said have you met with all the people who are on this list go back and look at the video and I was told yes I went to a number of those groups had not met with them I do not know if Walter Walter Jackson is still here but they listed the durm committee on Affairs of black people actually spelled committee wrong I remember that um I might not talk the best some but I can check spelling and Walter had not met with them nobody in the leadership had met with them so yes there was a list presented to us of who they had met with

but when we went back to verify that list they had not met with these folks so so I I hear you like we get stuff put in front of us all the time we got to start fact checking this stuff they fact check me they show show up at my job and we not showing up at theirs like I I want to be very clear about like where I where I stand on this issue I don't have I it like I don't want this to become a conversation about adus because we have passed amendments on adus I don't want this to be a conversation about affordable housing because we sit over here and do the heavy lift on affordable housing I don't want this to be a conversation about we having something unified for the city and the city didn't even know we had to vote on it so those like let's just I I'mma stop because this is not my meeting and I'm not going to roll this thing off I'mma sit back y'all already know how I'mma vote I'm marshan Lynch y'all know why I'm here I want to work with y'all on affordable housing but I'm not GNA be held hostage by it I had a question for staff of just following up on commissioner actually

before I do that since we're likely going to be going over 11 I'd like to entertain a motion to extend the meeting 30 minutes 15 15 start with okay we'll start with 15 second go for it we have big goals here okay moved by commissioner Carter seconded by commissioner Jacobs um I'll take a roll call vote Vice chair Burns yes commissioner Jacobs I commissioner Carter I and then I'm an I so meeting is extended till 11:15 and at 11: we'll revisit extended um first staff when Wendy you commissioner Jacobs was asking a question question about the impacts of whether scad is passed or not you had mentioned that with the udio rewrite some of these changes or the scad Amendments wouldn't live or continue as the scad Amendments currently will happen is that correct

that's correct okay can you explain that a little bit well I mean I think like director young said I mean we're going to have different zoning districts we won't have the Urban you know there's a lot of references to the urban tier in the changes and we're not going to have the the tiers so just the formatting um would be completely uh different um there may be some Concepts that are maintained certainly I mean I you I can't say that um but yeah in terms of the the way that you see is it more like the language would be different or the actual fundamental policy was would be different so uh the language would certainly be different in terms of of the policy yeah I mean I imagine that some of them would also change um are there parts of scad that staff I know that there's a consultant who's been hired and that's going to be helping with the ud udite um that wouldn't make it into the udite

like if this wasn't approved today that this was something that staff are looking into sorry we had to confer there for a minute um I think all of the things that really had concerned staff staff would not have supported going into the Udo rewrite were removed by Council so the things that we have left are things where we either fully support the idea and again it may get translated into new language you know a little bit differently than what it looks like today or things that we and I think this was said earlier you know we agree with the concept but maybe not necessarily the exact way it's been executed and so we're going to keep an eye on it and see what happens um you know particularly there's for instance

you know how buffers are working or how you know parking is working things like that um so it's that's my best kind of attempt did an answer there then and I know um there's been conversations about like how the city had changed what was and amended what they initi finally voted on do you think that staff has had time to review it and like know eventally how they would have worded or changed some of those items if they had written this themselves or would you think that would take the consultant's advisement and everything we decide that I I would think that would take the consultant's advisement and you know sort of the holistic changes but you don't anticipate like there being any detrimental impact like from those like is just something that you know we haven't really seen a test case or that that is correct I mean obviously

some of that's just speculative but the provisions that we we were uh opposed to outright they were all removed so thank you um yeah I I do think that's important that we also we are we are again we've heard from staff that the things that they were very concerned about have been removed at this point I I just want to clarify something the comment that I made about uh uh somebody from the city being surprised is related to the point that I was trying to make was just that this amendment was was really pertaining mostly to the city itself um and I think that's why I asked the staff and um point is that we have a unified development ordinance so normally we will approve things even if they are not

really as pertinent to the county just because we don't have any separate ordinances so um I I just want to put that back into perspective that I I didn't want to misrepresent that um U and I do agree with what my colleague said about affordable housing I think that we uh need to be clear that why this may help with some affordable housing um of the challenges that we we need to be uh looking at every single tool that we have and that means uh and that's why the county is taking a leading role the city is um Everybody um they you know affordable housing needs to be incorporated into every single private development um that uh it you know we we that that is a given and just want to emphasize that the new uh comprehensive land use plan calls for I think 15%

across the board and at least 20% in Transit opportunity areas um so we're is that correct can you correct me if I'm wrong on that Sarah I I need to double check that but okay yeah yeah so uh but we we um that is something that it's going to take everyone to be responsible of trying to actually meet that goal um so um I will stop here and I appreciate the comments that you made commissioner harder um about this uh process and um again I I don't want to misrepresent what us voting this down would do I don't think it would actually uh address a lot of the concerns that I heard from the community tonight and I don't want to misrepresent that it will not change um we are not going to be influencing I know I think I heard one person said you

would be making a statement um to the city council by voting no on it um again I think what I'm interested in is how it could impact the county and benefit County residents um so one of my questions is I know we heard about um the impact of setbacks parking requirements the adus to um this have this could help County residents would that also be something that could be possibly addressed in the ud a rewrite yes and that would be Our intention okay thank you you uh commiss Jacobs with there's no more questions or comments what is the pleasure of the board this motion if this is um if the pleasure of the majority of the board is to approve this there are two motions that need to be made for this one as well the others

youve uh yes I'll make a a motion um we can then have a vote got to move forward somehow or other here um I mean basically I want to make the motion to adopt the ordinance that our staff brought to us I don't want to say the scat Amendment but I can read this whole thing I guess to adopt an ordinance amending the unified development ordinance incorporating revisions to article three applications and permits Article 4 zoning districts Article 5 use regulations article 6 District intensity standards article 7 design standards article 8 Environmental Protection article 9 landscaping and buffering article 10 parking and loading article 12 infrastructure and public improvements Article 13 additional requirements for subdivisions article 14 non-conformities article 16 design districts and article 17 definitions I have a second moved by commissioner Carter seconded by commissioner Jacobs I'll take a roll call vote commissioner Burns

no commissioner Jacobs yes yes and I'm an i the motion passes 3 to one that moves us on to the second amendment or second motion Madam chair I move that we adopt the appropriate consistency statement as required by North Carolina General statute 160 D- 605 second it's been moved by commissioner Carter seconded by commissioner Jacobs I'll take a roll call vote commissioner Burns no commissioner Jacobs I commissioner Carter I and I am an i motion passes 3 to one with that the board of County Commissioners has approved 23- 0896 the udio text Amendment thank you all so much again that brings us to to our final item uh which is the board and commission appointments uh we are

appointing for two seats the city county appearance commission Durham open space and trails commission I will pass it on to our attorney Andrews uh if everyone can please make sure you leave quietly and continue conversations in the lobby thank you madam chair uh tonight for the ballot of the members for the uh two two uh boards and commit positions for the city county appearance commission had a vacant position the selected uh additional person is heat Desai for the Durham open space and trails commission we have a um vacant position the the the candidate is Jeffrey Bleu who has been recommended by the board so those two that concludes the voting thank you thank you so much attorney Andrews with that um no items were pulled from the consent agenda so that

brings us to our final item which is adjournment if I have a motion so move okay move by Vice chair Burns seconded by commissioner Carter roll call vote commissioner Burns is a yes she made the motion hi commissioner Jacobs hi commissioner Carter and I'm an I so we are adjourned thank you all so much