Hello everyone. Welcome to city hall. It's great to see everyone in here. And [clears throat] I'll start out by letting you know that the agenda is going to be a little uh different.
I want to make some changes. Uh for the sake of so many folks here, we'll move some things around a little bit. But madam, excuse me, madam clerk, we are called to order one o'clock. Could you please call call the role?
>> Mayor Williams, >> I'm here. >> Mayor Prom Cabayro here. >> Council member Baker here. >> Council member Burrus here.
>> Council member Cook here. >> Council member Kopac here. Council member Wrist, thank you. >> Thank you so much.
All right, I'll now uh entertain any announcements by councel. Mr. Baker, >> just want to say thank you all for for everyone who's here and watching at home. Uh welcome and welcome to uh all my colleagues, including my new colleagues, uh Council Member Bur and Council Member Kopac. Looking forward to
a productive meeting. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Kobach.
>> Hello everyone. Great to be here. >> Mr. Burus.
>> Good afternoon everyone. Um, just want to express gratitude to the city staff and my colleagues as I've onboarded this week and I'm appreciative of all your support and hospitality. Um, I found another Panthers fan and the city manager. So excited about a great season.
Um, and thank you all so much. >> So, it's three Panthers fans in a row here. I'm I'm clearly a hopeless romantic, but they are doing much better. Council member Rrist, welcome.
>> Uh, good afternoon everyone. Good to see you. Apologies for the tardiness. We doing announcements.
Yeah, I just got a couple of things. Um, good win for the Panthers against the Rams. Huge win. Um, [clears throat] also want to say just as a I want to um acknowledge the city manager, our agenda today is packed with really meaty stuff. we could talk about each of these items, you know, at
length. So, like I think giving you the contract authority to actually get the contracts off our agenda to have us actually dig into policy work is really is good stuff. So, thanks for that. Sorry, I'm out of breath since I biked here.
Um, the last thing I want to note is, sorry, I've been pulling my nose up here. I did want to give a shout out to the Carolina Theater for their star member Suare last was it >> Tuesday night? >> Tuesday night. Yeah.
So, the city attorney was there, the mayor was there. May pretend we're all there. Um, fun evening, but this is also some serious stuff. [snorts] Um, the city owns the Carolina Theater.
We contract with the Carolina Theater of Durham to program the building, right? Um, the building turns 100 years old next year, which is great news, and there's lots of exciting programming, but it's also a big responsibility to maintain a 100-y old facility. Um, we're doing our part of the city. I think we approved a contract maybe a couple cycles ago to replace the Hback. [snorts] Um, but the Carolina Theater is also doing their part. So, I
want to thank Randy McCay. I don't think Ry's here. And their development team, Rebecca Lee, Abigail Bates, and Tiffany Jeter. 9 million so far.
Sorry, catch my breath. Thanks in large part to a gift from the Barnes Family Foundation. Um, they've also got a year in campaign where the Barnes Family Foundation is matching donations dollar for dollar. And [snorts] the point of saying all this is not this is not a fundraising pitch for the Carolina Theater.
What I want to say is this is a real model partnership for the city where we get a lot of we got a lot of requests from folks in the community. The Carolina [snorts] Theater is one of them because we own the building and we got to maintain the building. But they're a model partner. They're being aggressive and entrepreneurial about raising dollars from folks like you all and other community members to meet the needs of the theater for their programming. So, I just want to say that's a model partnership and one we should we should affirm and also support as a great way that we sort of the public and the private sector can work together on community institutions like the Carolina Theater. So, thanks Mr.
Mayor. >> Thank you. It's great to see you that night. Let's go.
>> Thank you. Um good good afternoon. I don't know what time of day it is. Good afternoon, everyone.
Thank you for being here. Those of you watching online, thank you. Uh one quick announcement which is just to say that participatory budgeting closes this weekend. So, if you have not already, please vote.
Please, uh, tell all of your friends and neighbors to vote. Anyone who is above the age of 13, 13, 13, >> uh, anyone who's 13 and older can vote, um, as long as you live in the city of Durham. So, please encourage folks to do that. Um, there are many of us floating around with, um, actual uh, written voting options, but uh, this at this point, I don't know any that are coming up this week.
So log online. It's super easy to do. Um and I would encourage everyone to make their voices heard. And those are my announcements.
Thank you. >> Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim. >> Uh good afternoon everyone. Welcome to my new colleagues, uh Council Members
Copek and Burus. Good to see you all. Uh I have no further announcements. Thank you.
>> Thank you. I have uh unusually very long announcements today. um that will be sort of into some procedural things. So, uh I'm going to take a unique amount of time to read through this stuff.
But yes, it was great to uh be at the Carolina theaters suare and the other maybe 15 gaylas and receptions and holiday saries that are coming up including the FOP tonight. Um, so I think what Museum of Life and Science is tonight and um, Habitat for Humanity is tonight and I have Metro Mayors tonight and um, >> LB Creek Watersh Water Shed Association. So yeah, there there's a lot um, I am in two places at one time today. I'm currently sitting in a meeting uh, three places. I'm
currently in a meeting with the African-American Mayor's Association Board of Trustees right now and also Metro Mayors uh one on Zoom, one in person, but the most important one I'm here uh with you all today. [snorts] That being said, um I'd like to address a few things uh in how we'll be functioning the quorum. [clears throat] So, the quorum in the chamber uh in the council chambers and in the community, I'd like to start this meeting off by addressing the elephant in the room. Uh Monday's council meeting was a stain on the great work we continuously do here in the city of Durham. Transitions in leadership should not take uh should take place with respect and decorum by all those who are in in participation for our council [clears throat] meetings. To behave in a manner any other way does nothing but display a lack of civility that we will
not tolerate. The people of Durham deserve better. All people of Durham. They deserve a city council meeting where newly elected officials can be sworn in and begin their service without disruption.
What transpired on Monday evening during what should have been a celebratory and dignified moment for our city fell short of that standard. These council chambers are a sacred space in our democracy. It is where the people's business is conducted, where difficult decisions are made, and where the future of Durham is shaped. While we absolutely welcome public participation and encourage residents to make their voices heard, there are standards of conduct that must be maintained to ensure this body can function effectively on behalf of all Durham residents. Passionate advocacy is not only welcomed, it is essential to our democratic process. But disruption, this courtesy and behavior that prevents this council
from conducting the people's business crosses a line. When the quorum breaks down, it doesn't just disrespect the officials in this chamber. It also disrespects every resident who needs us focused on the critical issues for our city. While we always appreciate nuance, this is not broken down by racial lines, gender lines.
This is simple decorum in how we respect each other mutually. So I don't accept excuses on this is just toward black people. I don't accept excuses toward this is just toward women. And those are some of the things that I've seen and heard.
This is simple decorum and how we treat each other respectfully and mutually. So the city council is committed to conducting the city's business in a respectful and orderly environment. All attendees are expected to follow the rules of the quorum. Disruptions that hinder the meeting may result in removal
until the individual can gain composure. And more serious or persistent conduct may result in trespass from the city meetings as authorized by chapter 46 article 8 of the Durham City Code. If necessary, the council will recess until order is restored. And I appreciate everyone for supporting a space where everyone may be heard respectfully.
In regards to us colleagues, uh we have made some adjustments to uh to the point where we can get more information that we need to discuss more policy on our agendas. Um, but out of respect for us being able to get through these agendas, uh, we are going to, uh, I'm going to really encourage us to utilize our resource, uh, individuals on our agendas. Uh, with that being said, I'm going to start allocating time to
agenda items, line items, uh, so that we are not spending an hour, an hour and a half on a single item. Uh so therefore it will be on us to do our homework. It would be on us to make sure we reach out to our resource people. Uh so in the interest of ensuring productive, efficient, and equitable council meetings, we're implementing a clearer time allocation for council discussions moving forward.
Effective immediately, the following time limits will apply to all item discussions on our agenda. And this is specifically to our general body meetings. I'll allocate five minutes for council members uh including myself of course uh in our uh initial remarks, questions, and comments on any agenda item. This allows us sufficient time to thoroughly present positions, ask substantive questions of staff, or raise concerns that require detailed explanation. There will be a second round, if needed, of three minutes. Should a council member wish to speak again on the same
item, they will have three minutes to respond or to pre to previous comments, ask follow-up questions, or provide additional perspectives based on the discussion that is taking place and if needed an additional one minute round. [clears throat] We may take uh as a third round, third and final comment limit to one minute. Uh this is intended for brief clarifications, closing remarks, and final thoughts before a vote is called. And lastly, again, as I stated, to ensure efficient and effective council meetings, all council members are expected to thoroughly review the agenda items when agendas are released prior to each meeting.
This advanced preparation allows council members to identify questions or concerns early and reach out to the relevant depart city departments, staff, or the city manager's office for additional resources. background information or clarification before the meeting. When
council chamber when council members come prepared with answers to preliminary questions, we can focus our limited meeting time on subst subst subst sub substantive policy discussion and debate rather than basicformational inquiries. This approach respects the time of staff, fellow council members, and community members and demonstrates our commitment to informed decision-making on behalf of Durm residents. So, I appreciate you all for uh hear me out on those things. It is for us to be able to get more work done and have more efficient meetings.
So, that being said, those are my announcements and we will get to work. Thank you all. All right. Priority items.
Merag. Good afternoon, mayor, mayor prom, members of council. The city manager's office has a few priority items and then
uh two short announcements I'd like to make. Uh priority items are just to announce that we have presentations today uh on both 505 West Chapel Hill on the third quarter crime report and also the finance and budget report. Uh also uh learned just before the meeting that uh DHA has requested that staff refer item 10 back to the department so that we can incorporate some late changes to that item. So we are requesting that [clears throat] item 10 be referred back to staff.
Uh those are my priority items. Would uh appreciate your indulgence of two quick announcements. Uh the first is an introduction and I will ask Shanetta Burris to come to the podium uh for a brief introduction. Uh we are very excited to announce and welcome uh Staratana as our first uh permanent director of the community partnerships and engagement department. Uh we are very thank [applause] uh as you know this is a a new department that's carrying on a lot of
great work uh from throughout the city. And it was a crucial hire for us to find someone who had all the requisite skill sets uh and an incredible plus that we found someone with uh such great deep history of engagement in Durham and the Durham community and a career uh that uh has shown uh a a strong alignment with Durham's values. So I'd like to give Star an opportunity just to introduce herself briefly and again want to say how pleased we are that she's joined our team. >> I mean LinkedIn has did it for you.
You're everywhere. >> Welcome. Thank you so much for >> all the new things, right? Thank you again.
Thank you, um, Manager Ferguson and Mayor Williams and council members. It is my deepest pleasure to be back in Durham, a place that I called home for many years, a place that I metriculated through North Carolina Central University, Eagle Pride Amplified. I am glad to be back here. My um I have a daughter that graduated from DSA and a husband who's a native of Durham who
graduated from Durham High and taught at Durham High. And so my roots are are here. Uh granddaughter, grandchildren, family members, stakeholders, community partners, business partners, all of those are already here for me. And so I am excited and ready to work with this new department.
I'm honored. I mean, Durham is is certainly ready and putting this department together to make sure that we're strengthening our engagement with the community and partners. I've been meeting my team. They are absolutely wonderful.
Uh DCM Wimbush has has done a great job on boarding me. Today is day four. And again, I'm pleased pleased to be here. Thank you for such such a warm welcome.
>> Welcome. >> Thank you so much. We're so glad to have you. Uh my final announcement is just that we are uh monitoring our first threat of winter weather. uh participated in the National Weather Service update at 11:30 and and right now the forecast is only for the potential for about a half inch of snow. And if that holds, that would not uh be anything that would interfere with or
impact city operations or city business, but we will so uh so for all the employees listening uh right now, [laughter] no change uh in our operations tomorrow. However, we will monitor that this evening uh and if that uh needs to be adjusted, we'll make that decision as soon as possible and notify through all our normal channels. But, uh we are we are watching and as of right now, the National Weather Service predicts that uh about a half inch of snow uh and with fairly warm temperatures recently, the the roads uh shouldn't be too heavily impacted by that. >> Thank you.
That's all my priority items. >> Thank you. I'll formally uh state that if we do get over an inch, then I'll host the first snow fight downtown >> and I'll invite everyone. All right.
Okay. Thank you. All right. Uh Madam Attorney, >> thank you, Mr. Mayor, Madame Mayor Prom,
members of the council. It's good to see you. 11a3 for attorney client consultation to discuss as yet to be filed litigation ation. >> Okay.
Thank you. Um, I'll enter Well, I'll do it when we get to it. >> Okay. >> All right.
>> All right, Madam Clerk. >> Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Madame Mayor Prom, and council members. I have our board and committee report. The participatory budgeting steering committee appointment is for the category of youth is Frederica Cadeno.
For the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau Discover Derm appointment is Doug Pender. And those nominations will be put on the next upcoming council agenda. And that's the end of my report. >> Thank you so much.
All right. At this time, I'll read the administrative consent agenda. Item number one, participatory budgeting steering committee appointment. Number two, Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau Discover Durham appointment.
Number three, hiring practices performance audit November 2025. >> Like to pull that. >> Item number four, uh, cooperative group purchase contract compact rear loaders. Item number five, update on redevelopment of 505 West Chapel Hill Street. Presentation item number six, tennis court lighting purchase contract at Whipper Whipper Will Park with the Miscoco Sports Lighting LLC. >> Like to pull that.
>> Um, Mayor Proim, can you continue your duties you already had by writing down what's pulled for me? I can't sneak and look on your notes, so you might take that on, too. >> [laughter] >> Oh, we got to get you a notepad because I need to look on your notes sometimes. >> All right, that's what I did with Javier.
She sat there. So, uh, number seven, proposed lease with Durham Regional Association of Realtors Incorporated at 4238 uh, University Drive. >> I'd like to pull that one. >> Number eight, tennis court lighting purchase contract with Rock Corey Park with Mexico Sports Lighting LLC.
Number nine, home subreient agreement with preserving home for the homeowner re rehabilitation program. >> Mr. May, I don't want to pull. I just want to say like I mean this is a big part of our homeowner uh rehabilitation program.
This is a big part of forever homes. This is important work to stabilize neighborhoods and preserve existing homes. So, thank you. Thank you.
>> Absolutely. To the manager and staff. >> Number 10, redevelopment loan agreement
with the Durham Housing Authority for the redevelopment of Tribute Rousing. Refer back to staff. Uh there was a speaker. It's been referred back to staff, so we'll address it when it comes back.
Number 11, 2025 third quarter crime report. It's a presentation. Number 12, uh fiscal year 26, Federal Transit Administration, section 5303 GO amendment. Number 13, amendment number one to contract number 21430 with Schnebola Engineering South PC for professional engineering services for dam inspections and maintenance activities.
Number 14, fiscal year 2025 2026 first quarter financial report presentation. Uh number 15 [clears throat] public hearing number two on the fiscal year 2024 2025 consolidated annual performance and evaluation report. Number 16 consolidated annexation 3306
page road. Number 17 consolidated edexation Hamlin Reserve. Number 18 consolidated edexation Lee Village Center. >> I'd like to pull that one.
>> I'd like to make comments on it. So, however I need to do that. >> All right. Number 19, downtown Durham blueprint 2020 2035.
Number 20, zoning map change 3404 page road amendment. This is our consent agenda. I will address uh citizens matter which we have one Mr. Mr.
Doug. Um 13. Okay. 13 is pull.
All right. And I have one citizens matter speaker, Doug Hodes. Welcome. >> One of our community youth lifesavers of giving them amazing work.
>> Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate
those kind words. I'll keep it short and keep it brief. My name is Doug Hodgeges. I'm the executive director and founder of Swing Pals.
It's a nonprofit in Durham serving underserved youth, helping to build resiliency through mindfulness and golf. And we help them build emotional regulation skills so they can uh develop the ability to unlock the incredible potential that resides in each and every one of them. So they have the freedom to be um the reason so the reason I volunteer my time in Durham. I serve this great city.
I probably volunteer 35 to 40,000 hours in the last [snorts] 14 years. Uh I stand before you because there are many new members of the council. I wanted to introduce myself to you and introduce Swing Powers to you because you may not be aware of Swing Powers, the work we're doing in Doran Public Schools. Appreciate I only have two minutes or two and a half minutes left.
So, I did make a package up for all the new all the new council members so you're aware of what Swing Powers is. Uh we go into Doran public schools. We're a school-based program. We deliver programming inside Doran public schools, Neil, Lowe's Grove, Shepard, Brogden,
Githens, and Rogers her. And we deliver coaching after school at Hillenddale Golf Course and and in parent and in these students homes. Um my ask of you is that well firstly want to thank the council for the support of investing in Hilldale Golf Course to provide swing powers more space so we can bring more children to the after school program. So, thank you to the city of Durham and to the council for doing that.
Uh, my ask of the council is that you review the materials and learn a little bit more about what we do in Swing Pals. And I would like to invite each of you to come to Hillenddale to meet with Kyle Kimble and myself so you can you can really understand what what Kyle Kimell is doing at Hillindale. It really is a crown jewel of Durham. It's got amazing potential. uh he delivers programming to uh uh pediatric cancer uh patients uh to special Olympics to veterans and this is our home. This is Swing Pal's home and
we're investing heavily in ensuring that underserved Durham youth have the opportunity to develop those skills in school and after school. So please uh take the materials. New council board members, I thank you for being here. I thank you for allowing me to serve the city.
Please come visit with us. I'm going to send you a personal invitation to come join Carl and myself for breakfast at Hillendell so you can fully appreciate the work that he is doing for the community that swing pals is doing for the community and the huge potential for Hillendell to be a real crown jewel of this city. So thank you very much. May I leave these with you >> uh to uh Doug send it give it to Madam Clerk over there.
>> Thank you >> and thank you for your work. Uh, I am just trying to now get into golf and I played because someone invited me uh the two days after the election and they made me play 18 holes. I'll never do that again. >> Well, Mr.
Mayor, come come come see us. We'll be happy to support you. >> Gosh.
Just for those new to golf out there, 18 holes is not what beginners do. All right. Um, So, we are going to uh >> I [snorts] think this will be fairly quick then we'll do that one. Um well, number item number 13 was pulled by >> Oh, I'm sorry.
Yeah, it was I scratched that. >> So, we'll just start with uh Yeah, >> I forgot to write down who I forgot to write down who pulled us. So, who point number three? Okay, go ahead. >> Thank you. Um, waiting for
staff. >> Oh, there she is. >> While she's coming up, who pulled number six? >> Me.
And uh council member Cook pulled number seven and the to gearing one. I forgot the number. >> 18 and 18 and five. >> Good afternoon, Mr.
Mayor, Madame Mayor, Pro Tim, council members. Germaine Brewington. I don't sound like this all all the time. Uh director of the audit services department.
>> No worries. You've had an adventurous time. [laughter] >> Go ahead. >> Thank you.
Good afternoon. Good to see you. I was just curious. This was a really helpful report.
Um, and I I we we've long heard some of the challenges in HR around hiring. Uh, we sometimes get emails as council members from folks who've applied to jobs talking about um some kinks within the hiring process. So, I appreciated the audit and I appreciated the recommendations. I was just curious when when is council going to get I you know the table at the end
was really helpful around the implementation around recommendations and so I was just curious when council would get to see an update on those implementations and if it's um helping us shorten that 85day period from uh I guess publicizing the job to hiring. So um the audit services department gets a quarterly update um and so they will receive an update in January and they will receive another update in April that doesn't really necessarily come to council but we can get you that information if you would like. >> I would love to see that. And then I'm curious because this came up for maybe it was a year or two ago around lifeguards.
Is there going to be a conversation around if there's targeted jobs within the organization that don't need that kind of full um what we had heard from folks is like the the application is quite long. Uh it's ownorous especially for that type of job. And so was curious if there was any conversations on on
I get that there's a standard now but is there going to be conversations around and this probably a conversation more for HR than for audit. We don't have a HR director quite yet. Um but if we can expect to see some of those kind of nuanced approaches depending on on the type of job. >> So we do have a representative from HR.
I'd like to bring James up to answer that question. >> Thank you. And those are all my questions. Hi, I'm Jim O'Donnell.
I'm the HR manager in charge of talent management and acquisition. And I think I believe the crux of the question was whether or not we're able to tweak each application toward specific jobs. >> No, not necessarily each application just types of jobs. So like what a what a lifeguard needs to do or what they need to prove is very different than uh another type of job. And is our process um too ownorous for those for specific job titles? Essentially, >> from what I understand about lifeguards,
there are very specific certifications that need CPR and and life-saving uh certifications. So, I'm not sure that those can be bypassed. >> No, >> that's not what I'm asking. I'm saying is it I'm said employee, right?
I'm applying to or said applicant. I'm applying to a certain type of job. Does it make sense if my application for a life type like a lifeguard or something like that where it's very clear? Do you have the certifications you have some of those whatever kinds of questions the automatic kind of um >> I forgot what it was called in the question. , etc. And I I don't know if I'm not making sense, but I think that folks can get the gist of what I'm saying.
ju just to hopefully I I get it this time. Um there is an option to bypass putting in your education and your work experience. So a candidate can take so to speak a short path if they wanted to attach a resume or attach uh any additional information onto the application and shorten up the process. >> Thank you.
And then um as a council member, I would love to see how implementation of those recommendations are going. >> Thank you. We'll definitely follow up with that information. I'll just follow on.
A few council members have raised questions to me before about uh certain types of positions and whether or not the standard screening and standard application process across the city uh is necessitated. Without making any firm commitments, I'll just say I think that continues to be an area that that we'll investigate to make sure the process is as efficient as possible. uh it's a balance between uh making sure that that uh we treat everyone fairly and uh make sure that we don't apply certain standards to some employees and not to
others, but also that we're not unduly burdening the process with review and uh information requirements that then hinder us getting the great candidates we need. So, uh, I'd like to commend the current work of the human resources department who I think understands that balance pretty carefully, but also to acknowledge that there will continue to be a need to, uh, to focus on that and with our incoming, uh, human resources director, uh, we will continue that conversation and look for improvements wherever we can. >> Thanks, M. I just want to say thanks to Dr.
Brewington and and the audit services team for this latest report. Um, as you know, I'm a proud member of ASOC wearing my proud like ASOC swag, right? But I think this is really important. I hope my new colleagues and everyone on the council as well as the public recognize that we have these reports almost every or every other work session.
These audits, these process audits that ASOC does, I'm sorry, the audit services does. And um I think what's important here is that I mean we hear the comments from from citizens, oh it takes too long the process HR. But the truth is, as your report shows, this is a complicated process, right? And
there's a lot of things we're getting right about the hiring process and some things we're not quite right on. And that time to fill piece is we're not quite there. And so I think what you've given us is a really nuanced understanding of how the practice works and how we can improve that. So I just want to thank you for that for giving us the real nuance details because a lot of times folks, you know, it's great or it's bad or but I think the nuance is what really matters and what we do as a council and as a city government really is around this kind of nuance, right?
That's really the the reality. It's not all bad, but there's things we can improve. So thanks for that nuance understanding. I look forward to working with you, the manager.
And actually part of the recommendations you had is that this is not just on HR, right? There are also departments that have their own hiring practices that are also part of what's delaying things. So look forward to working with your your staff, the manager staff and HR to make sure we get this right and we do improve that uh time to fill metric and I look forward to getting data from from from the staff about that. >> Thank you very much.
>> Thank you. [clears throat] >> Thank you so much. Item number six also coun. >> Thank you. Um, this is just really quick and it it I think it refers to both
items six and eight because it's it's both of them are lighting contracts. There have been conversations at JCCPC joint city county planning around Oh, I'm going to wait for staff. Hold on. I might be planning.
Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Madam Prom, members of council, city leadership. My name is Mike Boyd and I am the project manager for these two locations. >> Thank you.
Good afternoon. Um, just really quickly, there's been conversations at joint city county planning with the updated UDO around lighting standards and dark sky initiatives. And so I was curious about have there been conversations with planning when we're doing these um lighting projects that are led by parks and recck or in this one. Yeah.
>> Right. Yeah. to that response. Let me introduce Dena Neie.
She's with Musco Lighting. She's our a senior field consultant with them. She'll explain. >> Good afternoon. Thank you all very much
for your time today. I'm also known as the light lady. So, um if you can't remember my name, you will remember that. So, currently in the state of North Carolina, there are zero parks fields that have gone through the dark sky organization certification.
So, dark sky, real quick. um was organized in 1998. Um it's a nonprofit organization that really seeks to protect the night sky from skylow. Musco right along with that in our 50 years has had that same mission.
So up to this point we haven't put any of the designs through the certification. There's two different levels of certification uh phase one and phase two. Um, it's something that's initiated by the city and we work right alongside you with the design. Phase one certification simply says the design is dark sky approved. Phase two, you actually bring out um
folks from the dark sky organization and they verify that what we said was it was going to look like actually gets delivered. So, excuse [clears throat] me. Um, with that being said, understand that my first LED project with you was in 201 12. So, all of our fixtures that we've used from that point on with regards to LED are the same fixtures that we would use for the dark sky um certification.
What dark sky does is simply pull it in much tighter. So, it eliminates lighting potentially out to the parking lot. Anything um beyond that 150 ft um is going to be just dark. Um and then then the glare gets reduced down to about a thousand candala. So, I don't want to get too much into the weeds. Um but yes, that's something we could take a look at at your request.
>> Thank you, colleagues. I know this is a conversation that hasn't gone much further than JCCPC um but it is something that I am interested in doing and it has been those conversations have started in the new UDO um update and so not sure what we need to decide here but as we get these kinds of contracts it's going to matter what kind of lighting we put in our park facilities. >> Yeah, thanks for those comments, Mayor Pam. Um and thanks I'm glad to have the light lady here as well. Um again this is an issue of like this is about this is about balancing various needs across the city right so I have a one foot in the bird world and the and the new her bird alliance understand the importance of dark sky lighting for migratory birds also have a big foot in the tennis side so I've played on these courts at whipperwill and at rock corey they're in need of new lighting and those courts are used by recreational players competitive players instructional play all that stuff we're having a meeting I think couple a couple weeks I and the tennis community with DPR are because there's increasing demands for tennis
court space for the folks who play tennis and so these are trying to balance this is exactly what our job is on the council and I look forward to working with you and my colleagues and sort of figuring out a way we can meet all these goals. So thank you. >> Uh thank you Mr. Boyd and madam light lady um for being here.
So, just want to make sure I understand. You said that the fixtures you've been using since 2012 are the same ones that would be used to be able to comply with a Dark Skies uh certification or initiative. Does that mean if they're already installed, the adjustments can be made or does that determination need to be made pre-installation? Determination needs to be made pre-installation because oftent times what will occur is we will use additional poles, sources of light in order to shorten that aiming point out onto the courts. And so the technology is the same but the number of poles, the location of the poles, um addition of of underground circuitry, additional cost might get incurred in
order to make that be in compliance. Plus, not to mention your control link is also a part of dark sky organizations um need to make sure that lights are not on when they shouldn't be on. And control link is a product of Musco that you have on over 50 different facilities. And that makes sure that lights aren't on in the middle of the night when they shouldn't be burning.
>> Are you uh Madame Black lady? Um, are you familiar with the Lucy Association? >> So, we are uh somehow I was selected to speak in London. Uh, they flew me over there and I was a a panelist for it and the our city department provided me all of the information to brag on in Durham.
Uh, I'm interested in in looking further into this, but we have access to a lot of international resources around this. So, I would love to connect with you uh to bring those resources to us. Um I it
caught me out of left field. Um but whenever I get a chance to brag on the city, I do. Um but that was an interesting time u being amongst cities from around the world talking about lighting. Um and Durham is quoted as u lighting as an amenity and lighting as a utility, the necessity of both.
And um so I'd love to just bring that conversation back up and see what resources we could utilize from this organization. >> Yeah. Cons consider 99% of North America and Europe is living under light pollution. So that's what they're trying to get a handle on.
>> Yeah. >> Thank you. And this is probably a question for you, Mr. Manager, but what would we need to do to give that direction?
And would there be costs associated that we would need to know about? Uh if this has been uh Thank you for the question, Council Member Cook. If this has been a topic of discussion at JCCPC, I would I'd follow the process coming out of JCCPC to bring recommendations
forward to the full council. Would probably, this is also something I think we'd want to do in coordination with Durham County, just uh seeing as how our our land use regulations we we try and do in concert with them, would bring those forward. Once council gave us direction, uh we would take whatever steps necessary to implement that. I suspect if this were something that the council were to adopt, we you know, so I I am given comfort and I appreciate uh Mayor Prom Caviierro brought this to my attention uh a couple days ago so we could uh be prepared for the questions.
Um it gave me comfort that the fixtures themselves uh can be adjusted to light to dark sky compliance. The the mounting of those fixtures and the aiming of those fixtures. So it it feel my preference would be that this item move forward so that we can implement the the product and then if that direction is received that we would uh bring council options for what it would take to go back and bring uh existing facilities into compliance. Um, at this time I don't know that we have designs available or what the delay might be and
I'll ask the project manager if if council if council's intention were to delay to redo the design uh for dark sky compliance. Could you give us a sense of what that might look like so they can have a decision about that? >> I would say it would be 60 to 90 days. Just to follow up, I I what I thought I understood from um I'm sorry, I did forget you said light lady 17 times and then I did forget your actual name.
>> Um okay, sorry. [laughter] Um your response to Commissioner Cop or uh Council Member Copak's >> question sounded like that it would have to be done pre-installation in order to meet those guidelines. And so that's I guess why I'm asking. we've got these two pretty expensive projects on the on the agenda today and so it doesn't sound like it can be done retroactively.
So I guess that was my concern. I think my implication was it could be done retroactively. I did did not mean to imply it would be done without cost that that there might be additional cost to go back and and retrofit or
reinstall. But given that that guidance has not yet been given to staff, this project was not designed to that standard at this time. Yeah, we would need to redesign. C >> could I I know that um Bo Dinsky from planning is here and I'm just curious because I was wondering what happened after the presentation and direction because it does impact UDO um the the UDO update.
>> Yeah. Boinsky planning and development. Um, as [clears throat] uh, Mayor Prom Cabo mentioned, this was a memo and an item that um, came forward to the joint city county plan committee where we uh, talked about um, our current code and the proposed draft and how they currently align with dark sky certification and what that would look like if we wanted to move forward with that. At that time, um the discussion was, you know, uh citywide wouldn't necessarily be appropriate, but we did have a discussion about how uh city
owned um parcels and our projects certainly may look at having some some of those uh projects or parks look at certification at that at that time. Um in terms of the guidance that may come forward as a part of the new UDO, I don't expect a uh let me back up. our lighting ordinance, current and proposed, will align with many of the standards um that are set aside for dark sky certification. But in terms of specific requirements on um on parks, uh we're including additional ones as well that will uh ensure that they um will reduce glare more so than today, but it is not currently drafted so that every single park existing or proposed would necessarily meet those qualifications. I think as um was mentioned there's a whole lot of other factors besides just the ordinance requirements that would would play into that and so the UDO alone wouldn't ensure that.
what what goes into the design [clears throat] process and if you could uh break down a a cost analysis of design versus I just don't want us if we're going to be going to change this why would we go forward right now and then have to go and redesign and reconfigure and pay that cost if we can do it right the first time. So, I'm just trying to get a little clarity on that >> and and certainly for new projects going forward, we could put it through that filter and say, is this an appropriate use and is it is it good for the community to design these tennis courts, these soccer fields, the different play, the different level of play all comes into factor. Um so certainly going forward it's something that we can as Musco we provide the engineering if if you said go today I would go back to our engineers have them put that filter through on the engineering design make
sure that we know that that's something that would get approved give it back to the project manager and then have him take steps to move forward with that phase one certification process. So the cost Musco we that's just what we do. So we will design it until it's right to get it approved by dark sky. Okay.
Any other questions? >> Say again. >> You're good with that? >> I I'm I'm good.
I just I I'm more so asking my questions intentionally. just sometimes we're so bureaucratic that we we tend to be like I don't know moving with so much momentum that we can't make a digestment. I also don't want to get caught up in government contracting. No offense to you all but it's like planning a wedding.
You know, you buy toilet tissue for a wedding, it's $100. You buy toilet from home, it's $5. So I
just do not want to get into the price inflation on something that I may be ignorant on that seems like something simple. So that's why I was asking what is what goes into the design. Is this something that we can do now uh to meet what we're looking to do? I just don't want to later go back and say all right now we're going to you know redesign and meet these standards when we are in a pivotal moment right now on an agenda about to make a decision that's very close to a million dollars.
It's It's almost cost the same cost of an election. >> Hello, Stacy Poston, City of Durham General Services Department. A couple of other things for consideration. So, we, you know, we have a funded CIP for this activity and there's various funding sources that have been approved for this.
We know we've got a project that's fully funded. Musco is holding pricing for us this year. There are some price increases coming in the next calendar year. So, if we made a determination that we needed to go back and do redesign, we would probably looking at higher pricing. um from the vendor. Additionally, you know, there are going
to be additional poles needed to achieve the dark sky uh things. 5. As we look at that, we have trenching and lighting and poles and all of those sort of things. So, I think while um you know, additionally we would need to go to the third party organization and have them you know, look at the designs and certification and so there's another player in this in this factor.
So I think sort of all those things together cumulatively are going to be you know additive to the schedules and we'd be looking at more like you know a four to six month adventure in order to get past and get more funding and you know get more pricing and sort of go through these things. So I would just offer that for council's consideration. >> That's very helpful. Thank you.
Let's go back. >> I guess question for the vendor and question for staff. um wondering about the relative cost of redesign now um and making the changes pre-installation versus once you have an
installation making adjustments uh to that to to circle back and meet dark skies and for staff just wondering about just sort of process right now like this is something that hasn't been implemented as a policy u you know do we have the discretion on individual contract to uh add an additional stipulation at this point in time that isn't currently a criteria that was being reviewed for. So those are my two questions. >> So the excuse [clears throat] me the incremental cost on whipperwill for example right now we're utilizing six poles and my 23 years of doing this makes me think that most likely we'll have to add three additional poles in order to make that work. I can't confirm that until we push it through that engineering evaluative process. If that were to >> if I can interrupt. So when you say make that work, that would be to design the lights to what appears to be the new
>> dark sky standard. We're moving towards >> certification in order to be able to pass that certification. So um >> 20 30% potentially. And is that the same if you build it in versus if you have to come back and retrofit and add it after?
I understand there may be some cost increases due to pricing in the new year. But that aside, >> it will always be less expensive to do it on the front side. >> Uh period. [laughter] >> So I'll answer the second part of your question, Council Member Kopac. uh the you know obviously uh we bring these items to to council for for your direction and feedback and and if if council would like this project designed to a different standard that's the prerogative of the council the you know our our baseline is going to be to use the rules that are in place now uh when we're screening projects developing projects and bringing them forward and as dark sky was a conversation but not a policy directive and this project has been in the works for some time uh most
of the work on this project predated any of those conversations and so it was designed to that standard. Um and but it is within council's prerogative to make this change. Uh would just acknowledge that you know staff normally won't be won't be uh trying to guess where council's going most of the time. I think we we hope if we see concerns about uh potential policies that might be coming down the pike, we'll try and raise those where possible.
But uh in instances like this, you know, this was developed under the the guidelines that we have now. So uh it is certainly within council's prerogative to do so. I guess one for my for context, it might be helpful with the vendor present to talk a little bit about should council move forward uh without mandating the dark sky sky compliance. Can you just talk in general about how these fixtures as designed do or don't come close to uh what you consider to be good practice, good hygiene in terms of dark sky. I know
frequently in conversations around green buildings. We talk about the fact, you know, just in in different conversations that you can design a really a really green building and not necessarily go for lead certification. I'm wondering if Dark Sky is similar. Do you consider your products or can you describe how your products comply with dark sky philosophies and you know and does this product if they've moved forward does it severely violate dark sky principles or would you consider it largely compliant but not to the standard that dark sky puts forward?
I think that context would be helpful. >> Absolutely. So it is in large part very compliant with it. So the first dark sky project happened in Arizona with Musco and it was one where they required it was an observatory sports lighting facility was getting installed 25 miles away. The observatory folks didn't want it ruin the night sky with the soccer complex. And so that's
where dark sky and musco first came together. And it was through the technology that we put on every single uh city of Durham project. [snorts] Those same fixtures, they're fully shielded, which means LED is a really intense light source. And so imagine when you're driving down the road, you know, a mile away if somebody has their bright headlights on, correct?
Or you think you do. With LED, it may be they're on low, they're just really brighter. So by pulling the phototrics and that shielding down to protect the eyes from the perimeter um adjoining neighbors playability etc. Um, that's not only in compliance with your UDO, but it's in complian compliance with dark sky organization, which says there can be zero uplight above 90° horizontal.
>> Thank you colleagues for for raising this important issue. I think at at this stage I support the contract as is and moving forward with it. Um, as I said, I I appreciate uh my colleagues raising this. I I would I would be open to exploring moving forward um what does that look like with dark skies um with an informed uh background on any decisions that we make and any policy changes that that we make or if we can move forward with a we're getting pretty close, we're getting closer to what Dark Skies is.
um maybe that's maybe that's an option as well as we move forward. So um definitely open to having that policy conversation. I think at this stage I uh I support the existing contract um and I appreciate um the expertise that that you bring to this and the fact that uh that while this may not be dark skies compliant that it is getting close to
what that is. you know, the the lead silver or the lead, you know, what uh gold without stated uh having having that. So, thank you for for being here and for providing that information to us. >> Thank you.
I was just about to pretty much make those same remarks. I think we're close uh for the for the weighing everything out. Um also, I'd like to, you know, if dark sky compliance is going to be a part of our future, then we'll enact our practice at that point. Um but right now, we're close.
that that that works for me. >> All right. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Can I just say can we can not for today but can we just bring that back as a because to um planning staffs it's both and it's what your UDO is but there's other pieces of that and the reason this came up is because there was a reasonzoning and and we are trying to push for parks near uh yeah I mean it's part of our comp plan
is is that goal and so this it's not just about um it's also about public health and lighting. There's a lot of research around how lighting affects um endocrine systems and other things. Um so I would like to to at least think about um having that conversation. What are the steps because it some parts are in the UDO, some parts around a certification.
Um there's different um pieces to it. Heard what colleagues said about the contract. I'm comfortable with that, but I don't want to not return to the conversation. Thank you.
>> Absolutely. Thank you all. [clears throat] Item number seven, Council Member Cook. >> Good afternoon, uh, Mr.
Mayor, Madame Mayor Pro Tim, members of council. This is, uh, this is an item from general services. My name is Selena Jones from the real estate division.
>> Um, thank you for being here. I just was wondering about this parcel of land and and I know it's it's kind of a large but also maybe kind of an awkward parcel of land. Um we've had some conversations about paper streets. We also had a presentation maybe about a year a year and a half ago of like city-owned land and whether we could put housing for example on those plots.
And I'm just wondering if this piece of land because it's been encumbered by a lease has been included in those conversations and and why maybe it was determined that it wouldn't be a good use for other city practices. >> Okay. Yes, it was included in a parcel inventory analysis I think like in 2024 and at that time it was classified with a future land use of transit opportunities. So, while we do have a five-year lease, if it's later determined that we want to re-evaluate the property for use for affordable housing, we do have um an out in the
lease agreement um that's hyperfocused on right ofway and transit. And then additionally, we have the option to deny any request to extend the lease um beyond the initial 5-year term. >> Yeah. I mean, five years seems like it's a long it's a long lease and it's um it's rent controlled, right?
It's a rent controlled lease. >> Um and I I guess I'm just wondering like how we got did was there a conversation about potentially using that before signing this new 5-year lease. Did was there >> you took into consideration the findings of that property analysis? And so if if it's later determined that this property would potentially fit housing then rough it would take you know a few years to make that determination and do the proper designs associated with that. So we did take that into consideration which is why we opted for a 5-year term instead of a 10-year term for the initial term.
>> Okay. And was there conversation about having an even shorter term or five years feels like the standard? Five years kind of felt like the standard. Okay.
>> For a lease of this nature. >> Um, and is there going to be are we going to start because by what you're saying by the timing it would take like a few years to maybe think about this. So, is that something that we will be starting for this plot of land? >> I don't believe that that's the current plan.
Um, but if it's decided by the city that this property becomes in that package of properties we're looking at or re-evaluating for housing, then we would >> Okay. and and I saw Stacy kind of popping up. Maybe could you just talk a little bit about like which parcels of land are kind of in that list and >> maybe why this one would or would not be in it right now, especially because it is encumbered. I just what I don't want to happen is that like we think about it and then it gets added last minute and then like we sign a new lease and then it's encumbered again, right? Like it just feels like we I don't want to get off cycle, right?
>> Sure. Makes a lot of sense. So Stacy Poston and General Services Department. Um so we had a package of um properties that we worked on and with HRA advisors that we presented to council and council declared surplus.
So there were plus or minus approximately 20 properties in that parcel in that package of uh properties. This one is um a piece of property that we purchased as a part of light rail because we were going to need like an off-ramp over there. Once the light rail um went uh once we decided we were not going to do light rail, we had this twoacre parcel with this sort of strange shape that was under a lease um that was being used by the Durham Association of Realtors for parking for their facility. And so there is an opportunity and we did um initial studies where we were going to have the ability to put 20 to 30 um units of housing on this property under the current UDO. I think as we think about adopting a UDO, there's an opportunity to have up to an eight-story building on this parcel. So, if the UDO became adopted and we wanted to do some pre-esign work or some development work, there's an opportunity in the next couple of years to look at, you know,
the funding source for that. Is it part of our strategy? Is it something the housing department would want to do? Is this their priority location?
Would we want to issue a solicitation on that? All those things could happen even as the existing lease is in existence. There is an out in the lease. Um, the language says for transportation or rightway.
So, if we wanted to put affordable housing on here, parking is a transportation function. So, there is an out for us should we decide prior to the five-year term to get out of the out of the lease. >> Okay. Thank you so much.
I appreciate that. >> Yes. >> Those are my questions. Thanks.
>> Thank you so much. All right. And number 18, you wanted to make comments about that? >> I do.
Yes. Um, sorry, let me pull them up. Um, so 18 is a textual development plan. It's um just under 90 acres and um there is no traffic impact analysis
that is part of it. Um, this is and I I don't know if Bo or somebody else wants to pop up and talk about this, but um I watched the planning commission meeting again about it last night. U Commissioner Kopac actually asked the question about the traffic impact analysis. There was some commentary about how it's going to be done at site plan and in phases.
Um, and there were several comments made about it being an owner applicant as opposed to a developer applicant. uh which I haven't found anything in the UDO that separates those two or has different requirements for those. Um and the traffic impact analysis is required for all changes in zoning that and I can read the language I've got it up but all changes in zoning that meet a certain threshold which implicates in my mind that we would have to determine if a project meets that threshold because we have to know whether we have to do a traffic impact analysis or not. um this did have uh
numbers associated with it at the beginning of its of its life and then those numbers were actually taken out later. Um but even with the range that was talked about by the um applicants agent um it far surpasses the need for a traffic impact analysis and I'm concerned that it's coming before us without one. And so I'm just raising it right now because I don't think that in my reading there doesn't seem to be an exception for anything that's met here. Um I think we're well over the threshold of needing it.
And if we don't know then we need to figure out if we're over the threshold of needing it. And then I just don't want it to be on our agenda to be making a decision if it's not complying with the UDO. >> Sure. >> So the uh the whether the assemblage is one owner or multiple owners. I think that was just in the context of them not knowing the uses that would be proposed which those uses of course would be what uh provides the uh generated trips. Um the TAS would be required at site plan.
Um TAS are submitted all all the time for by development. Um those requirements are uh met at that time. Um so in this instance the uh they don't have those generated trips. They don't have the number because there's not specific uses um for the particular zoning district that is proposed.
There's a lot of flexibility in terms of what could be uh built design district, right? It's um mix of uses could be could be fairly dense could could not be and so um the anticipation is that the TIA would be submitted u stage. >> Yeah. " It then goes on to talk about when or there's exemptions for when it's not done, but it it talks about a development plan or any plan to change the zoning. And this is a plan to change the zoning. I know it's a textual
development plan, but it is still a plan to change the zoning. Um, and like I said, there there actually was there were numbers associated with it um originally, but my media my reading of this um is shall be required. Um, and so I'm I'm just concerned that we're getting this shall be required without the required traffic impact analysis. Um, I don't know of any reason why this project should be exempted.
So, it's it's concerning to me that we're going to be voting on it. >> Sure. We um we did vet this uh and I don't want to put madam attorney on the spot here, but we did go through um this exercise as a part of the the process and so um I can uh certainly go back and provide the confirmation to you. I mean, obviously, we wouldn't want to bring anything that wasn't compliant forward. Um so, I don't know if u you have if you can recall the decision point on that. I'm not going to advise from the DAS.
>> Understand? >> Yeah. But we can follow up on that. >> Yeah.
I mean, and and I've actually read some of the correspondence actually. Um and there Yeah, there it's interesting because your department actually asked for a traffic impact analysis and stated that it was needed on this project. Um and then there was a project resubmitted. The uh density was taken out of it.
Right. the the number of uses were removed from the project but they were there originally and that was why your staff had prompted the request for an impact a traffic impact analysis. Um and then even in the presentation there was a there was a range given for just residential and even that would put it over the threshold. So um yeah I mean I'd be happy to hear some thoughts on it but at this point I mean I the project seems really good. I just to me I'm like feeling very lerary of voting on it and having it on our agenda with this piece that feels like pretty non-compliant. >> Understand those conversations were obviously centered around the accuracy
of of those numbers and if it would be appropriate to to tie requirements to the numbers that uh the range that wouldn't actually be uh committed right through because of the the various uses. >> Yeah. And I think that my concern too is like a more extensive concern which is that if we are requiring our UDO requires a traffic impact analysis, but we're saying, hey, if you don't give us numbers, then we won't require you to do one at all. Then it would be advantageous for developers not to give us numbers at all. If for some reason they did not want to perform a traffic impact analysis. So this is allowing a loophole which like does not seem to be allowable in the code um that I think is problematic for um the yeah the extent >> yeah I think I think the >> beyond this project I should say >> the difference being just the proposed district being a design district form based rather than a residential developments that are typically um where the commitment around
density is is very clearly um a basis for much of the district itself. Um, since this was a design district, it's obviously um much more flexible in terms of those uses. So, >> I'm going to chime in. >> That's the difference.
>> We're getting really into the weeds on a case that's going to be a public hearing and >> and I mean, my concern is that it should not be a public hearing. So, that's why I'm bringing it now. >> As of right now, it's in queue for it and I don't want to get us in trouble. I feel like we're getting really close to that because we're we're getting the details of the public hear without the actual applicant.
So, um, I'm going to bring us to a close on this one and I'll ask that we kind of follow up there, uh, because we're we're getting into a public hearing right now and it's not officially a public hearing. >> Yeah. My issue is around the the legality of having the public hearing without the proper mechanism. So, I'm just trying to make sure that we are not opening ourselves up for liability in 10 days from now.
>> Okay. Thank you. All right, colleagues, I'm going to make
sure we go ahead and close discussion on this one. Um, but I am I I'll ask that you follow up with the attorney's office and the planning department for those questions. And I think that was a good example also of why we we're really careful on how deep we go into public hearings. Uh, I mean, not public hearings, but the the cases during work session.
Um, we don't want to get ourselves in trouble here. All right. Uh, I'm going to go ahead and get to number five. Uh, update on redevelopment of 505 West Chapel Hill Street.
to talk about the redevelopment of 505 West Chapel Hill Street. I have with me today Mark Kbachic from HRNA Advisors who's going to be presenting to you. We also have Kathleen Turner from Preservation North Carolina who's going to also be presenting to you today. And we're available as staff to answer questions.
I also believe the parks and recck department is here as well as the plan department to ask her any questions that y'all may have. And with that, I will pass it over to Mark. And um we're gonna make this microphone a little higher for him. All right, here we go.
All right, Mark, off you go. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate the help on infrastructure. Uh hello, uh Mr.
Mayor, Madame Mayor, Prom, uh council members, Mr. City Manager. It's a pleasure to be in front of you again today. Um and and happy to be entering into this conversation, reopening the conversation on 505 West Chapel Hill Street. Um I will this presentation there number of parts to it and so we'll be going into some amount of detail. I understand that you know we're we're trying to move things along.
This is a longer presentation so happy to entertain questions and provide additional context for helpful. We've done a lot of analysis thinking about how to move forward from the disposition planning that we were um going through up through this last June. Uh and so I think there's a lot of analysis that's been done, a lot of considerations, a lot of trade-offs. We're happy to discuss those in detail.
Uh I'll provide an introduction uh provide a little bit of context of of why we're here today and what were some of the points reiterate some of the points that council asked us to review for this conversation provide some additional development context that part of which we've already discussed previously but some of which will be new uh again grounding our our approach and how we're thinking about recommendations in the current development context. Um there is a I think a meaningful conversation here about the what we're prioritizing in the short term and how that reflects for the long-term potential of the site. And so in a lot of the scenarios that we'll be discussing today, there'll be this weighing of considerations and trade-offs between what we're proposing today and what impacts it has on the future for five of Highway Chapel Hill Street. Um, so there's a lot of a lot of
again detail in that and and we'll go into it in as much detail as we can, but notably I think as we get into this conversation, there's so many scenarios that we could have considered. We wanted the scenarios to reflect I think what we've heard from you uh in previous conversations. And so, um, I think again just in considering the var variety of scenarios and trade-offs, I think we're trying to ground it in the priorities that we've heard from you over the course of the the two or three years that we've been working on this iteration of, uh, repurposing and redeveloping the site. So um quickly u to provide a little bit of context. I know we have new council members so I'll go very quickly through the history of this site which has included eight years of of planning and soliciting developers for consideration for redevelopment of the site. Um there were six priorities that included everything from uh affordable housing, preservation of the building, uh retail uh an active retail environment, commercial development upwards of 250,000 square feet, um inclusion of the heritage of the Hay
Thai cultural district and and that neighborhood and and community as well as some revenue opportunity for the city. All of these have been in consideration as a part of this process. Uh HRNA advisors, my name is Marco Botek. I'm a director with HRA Advisors.
We uh are a real estate economic development and public policy advisory firm. We've been working with the city 48 years going through this process trying to find a developer. We have run into COVID, we've run into cost increases, capital cost increases, a number of challenges that have made, uh the prospect of redeveloping the site more and more difficult. And so in June of 2025, uh we worked with the city and ultimately considered ending negotiations with the most recent chosen developer um to to advance redevelopment.
In doing so, we considered these four potential paths forward and thinking about both short-term and long-term improvements of the site, which included pausing any further efforts to redevelop the site, considering some form of site investment and activation, pursuing smaller scale redevelopment, or at that stage continuing negotiations. Council decided to end negotiations. So, uh, that brings
us here and the nature of our presentation really focuses on these items. site activation, smaller scale redevelopment with a focus on Milton Small and affordable housing. In in consideration of all those things are surface parking, open space, and really the future of the site. And so that is the focus of today's conversation.
We are hoping to focus your attention on building preservation, interimm activation for the site, smaller scale redevelopment in the short term with a lens on what this council and city prioritizes and believes the potential for the site to be in the future. And so as we get into the development context that we see today, so uh one of the benefits of having evaluated so many developer proposals on the site is that we've got a lot of data on what it costs to develop different types of uses and potentially introduce different types of uses into the site. Um what you see on the screen here is our analysis of those terms that have been presented to us over time. And so when we evaluate the potential cost to not only to develop but also the cost potential cost to the
city and being a development and supporting development on the site, we want to understand what the potential upside andor city contribution would be to make a site or development plan viable. And so because we've received so many proposals, we've seen the conditions that would support everything from market rate housing to affordable housing, office, lab, commercial development, retail. So everything you see on the screen here is indicative of what it would require to develop these uses and make them viable for a developer to move forward with that type of development. Uh the only use that is currently viable from a financial perspective.
That means no additional city support and for all of these numbers that you see on the screen. It's important that to just understand that the basis of our analysis was an assumption that the city would be effectively donating the land. Right? So the city would not receive any anything in return for the land. Given that the only use that receives any sort of positive land value would be low-rise market rate housing. So in so beyond
that when we start to think about we know that affordable housing has been a priority for this council and we've seen I think especially going back to June and the most recent proposal the request for subsidy which at that stage was around $87 million. 40 million of that $87 million subsidy request was to make affordable housing viable as a part of that development plan. And as you can see here, when we start to take when we take out some of the other subsidies that are there, LITC, when we start to remove um other other potential sources that could be involved in making affordable housing viable, that still creates a need for additional city subsidy. And so in all of these uses, there is a requirement for city subsidy. we factored in what what it would potentially um the impact of potential tax credits or other subsidy uses from either a state or federal level uh to support development on the site. So I think the the cutaway point here is that unless it's low-rise market rate housing, the city will need to participate in financial support of redevelopment of any of these individual uses uh to pursue development in the
short term. And in addition to that, when we think about development conditions and everything I mentioned from cost increases to um capital cost increases, economic uncertainty, these are all projects that are at what at one point considered to be viable and entered planning stages with uh with the city, with the county, they are all paused and and this is not all that strange. I work in cities across the country. Most of them are facing this exact set of conditions, right?
and um increasing costs, increasing capital costs, even with interest rates coming down, grad broader economic uncertainty make it difficult for developers to see a a a straight line path forward to advancing development. And so altogether given these concerns, cost increases, questions, um I think there are a lot of suggestions that that broader scale redevelopment of the site is difficult to do at this time. juxtapose that or at least provide the context that I think there's always been a consideration that greater density on
this site is is envisioned by the community. It's envisioned by our planning department. the uh all developers have come forward and put forth proposals for uh density that includes buildings that go as high as 27 stories, introducing hundreds of affordable housing units, hundreds of thousands of square feet of commercial space on the whole 4 acres, including open space and meeting all the other community priorities that have been issued as a part of these solicitations. In the revised UDO, uh, as I currently understand it, the suggestion is that this site can is is will be zoned to support buildings upwards of 30 stories with the inclusion of affordable housing that could go higher. So, there's a belief that this site has the potential to deliver a certain amount of density and that's including a requirement to include acreage set aside for amenity space, which really I think aligns with the open space requirements that we had baked into the RFP from the last two goounds at the very least. So I think there's a strong suggestion and belief that there is an aspiration to develop density hundreds of affordable housing units, commercial space,
uh community space, etc. as a part of the vision for this site. So it's this I think alignment or misalignment of current development conditions and and what is being proposed. And I think it's this trade-off that we have to consider and evaluate today.
>> Yes. Yes. >> Real quick on the second bullet point about surface parking. Can you explain that one?
>> Yes. So, this is part of our conversation today is going to involve consideration around surface parking and how it gets incorporated into the site plan. This is just to point out that um it based on how the UDO is currently written, you can't extend surface parking to the road. Right now, I believe there's a sidewalk and a patch of grass that that currently breaks uh or sorry, prevents surface parking from extending to the road.
So this is just to say that depending on how you were to orient the site, if you were to extend surface parking, that would be considered a nonconformity, which is not in alignment with the code. But Bo, if I got anything wrong there, please let me know. Okay. Right. >> And that's under the current code, but would be ameliated under the draft
proposal or the other way around? >> In the future code. >> Okay. Thanks.
>> Great. So um we're going to talk about some short-term options. Before we get into it, I just want to provide a preview of our recommendations so we can have those front of mind as we discuss the different options we'll be presenting. Um the city staff is recommending to not advance full-sight redevelopment at this time.
Uh we believe that advancing development would require significant subsidies and that there is a risk of underdeveloping the site based on current conditions compared to what could be developed and what is I think always envisioned as a part of this process being developed on this site. Um, as Stacy mentioned, u, Kathleen Turner from Preservation North Carolina is here. They have put forward in our last meeting, they they put forward a letter for consideration for for Preservation North Carolina to play a role in finding a a developer who could rehabilitate the Milton Small Building. And so, our recommendation is to permit staff to enter into negotiations with Preservation North Carolina and u subdivide the site to enable the
preservation of the building separate of the remaining acreage on the site. And then in addition, we'll talk about interm activation, the benefits of it, where it comes from, why we're, you know, putting it forward for consideration, um, but ultimately recommending pursuing interm activation, uh, while preparing the site for longerterm redevelopment. So, with that, um, a few there are a few short-term scenarios. We'll talk about them.
We'll we'll run through some of the trade-offs. We want to connect them to longer term scenarios, which we'll present later in this conversation. uh for each of these based on our conversation from last June um I think we understood that council wanted to see what does it look like to advance building preservation and so just as a baseline each of these scenarios will include the preservation of the building this isn't a decision this is just how we wanted to approach uh considerations for site planning right [snorts] um through these three scenarios um starting with scenario one in a lot of ways we're treating this as a baseline scenario it's a null hypothesis of sorts
If we're assuming that each scenario uh preserves the building, I think uh scenario one suggests the lowest scale intervention. Preserve the building, set aside surface parking to support that use and then otherwise do nothing. Scenario two suggests a path forward with interimm activation. You are bringing you're enhanc delivering some sort of enhanced programming making investment in the site to facilitate activation bringing people to the site or uh again based on what we heard from council priorities around affordable housing entertaining what it would look like to introduce low to mid-scale affordable housing very much in that scenario we're trying to tie this to what where we believe the market sits today and what would most likely be feasible. So starting with the building preservation um again this being the sort of lowest scale intervention for the site redevelopment preserving the building you would maintain the remainder of the site for development outside of the parking that's needed to support the Milton small building u because this is the lowest scale of intervention it is the lowest scale of activation you preserve the building you
return it to use whatever that building generates provides the activation on site uh and and at least in the short term leads to an underutilization of the site given that again it is the lowest scale of activation. We've considered lots of different uses for the building over the course of the eight years. We've talked about market rate housing, affordable housing, hotel, office. This suggests that developers see a versatility to the building and this can be repurposed in many ways.
Um Kathleen can speak a little bit more about the different uses and and how they'll they'll work with that and Preservation North Carolina can move forward with moving towards the preservation of the building. In 2023, the city commissioned a study how much would it cost to return the building to use. Um, but that report is now two years old. So, we've taken the cost outcomes from that study, inflated them, adjusted them based on the cost increases that uh that that I think we've seen.
And then there's a little bit of variability. Each use will require a different cost to to to bring back to market. So, our estimate is that in order to rehabilitate the building, the overall cost for this will be around 25 to $30 million. That is the overall
cost of the building. I think we've seen from the most recent round of developer proposals that for you to do that, the city would likely still need to provide subsidy. Even in a case where it's affordable housing and you can access some form of low-income housing tax credits and historic building preservation subsidies, there's likely still a need to subsidize further by the city. So, yeah, I I'll try to wait.
Uh, but I want to just ask while we're on this, does that mean uh rehab as in occupying, amenitize, or is it just getting it back to code? That's a good question. Um, when we evaluated this, there was a a an element of it that was bringing it back to shell form and then also bring it back to use. This reflects the cost to bring the building back to use. the overall cost of improving the building and and some version of the tenant improvements are always negotiated, right? So, um any sort of finishes or investments in sort of the internal environment of the building that is sort of pending further, you know, conversation
negotiation >> and and just the other side of that question, do we know what uh I know the decision around preserving or versus versus not preserving uh was a topic of discussion. Do we know that cost compared that um the cost comparative there? Um if if we >> as in like the cost to demolish the building. >> Demolishing.
Yeah. >> So if I remember correctly, the cost was about 2 million roughly $2 million. >> Yeah. And several years ago, right?
So they're subject to similar cost inflation considerations. >> So to demolish the building is 2 million. To bring it back up to code and use is between 25 and 30 million. Right.
Okay. >> Is that demolish and build a comparable building >> for the the two the 2 million would be to remove the building and effectively have a a a clean slate. >> Okay. >> Um [snorts] the 25 to 30 million represents taking the building as it is
and returning it to some form of productive use. >> I think you had done it modeling off of like a hotel for example, right? That is that is the baseline because that's the most recent um evaluation for the for the building. >> Mr.
Mayor, if I understand your question, you're trying to get a good comp to compare the cost to get it to in this case a hotel >> with or without preservation, which wouldn't be just demo. It would be demo plus construction of a new hotel. >> Well, >> compared [snorts] with preservation to get for me, I'm looking at, you know, we choose to maintain the building, preserve it, you know, get it back up to code. that shows us 25 to 30 million versus if we were to demolish it and have a blank slate of 4 and a half acres and do back to the original mass develop master plan development what that cost contribution would be for just that portion of the site um that because >> if I can jump in too so so the 25 to 30 million is not the cost of the city that's total cost >> total cost >> so so you were saying there would be some city subsidy can you give a rum
hotel as the baseline sort sort of model. What would be the city subsidy there? >> So from the last round I can provide um the people's projected that the cost to return to a hotel would be about $25 million. 7 million in subsidy.
The cost now that's based on a certain set of assumptions. Those assumptions could change right so in a new market it could be a different number. I do want to make that clear but that's I think a baseline for what was >> considered previous. >> So comparing apples to apples.
So it's like 2 million to demolish it or like three something maybe to sort or subsidy to like actually do the renovation, right? So that that's the apples of apples. >> Well, if it's demolished then there's no subsidy required from us. >> No, if it's if it's demolished then it's demolished but the city would need to be pay.
So it's either Yeah. >> demolition. >> Okay. >> Yeah.
And that's if we maintain the land lease at 99 >> assuming the city can maintains ownership of the land. >> Okay. >> Yeah. And the building. >> Thank you so much. That took care of one of my questions, but I do want to back up for a moment where you talk about the market conditions in downtown for a
building. You list those five properties out. Those are all market rate properties as well. >> Uh I believe so.
I I I >> Okay, so none including affordable housing for that. >> I don't remember if any of those in particular have affordable housing. I will say though that if they include affordable housing, um again the financing becomes more complicated. >> Okay.
And then my second question to you is in reading I see that it was only mentioned about the 9% LITC. Um why wasn't there any escalation of 4%. >> It's a it's and that's that's a great question because each of the developers even when we reviewed these back in 2023 uh there was sort of a breakdown of who offered 4% versus who required nine before we were done it all trended towards 9%. So I think what the takeaway that we had was that you cannot or the expectation was those development plans could not be realized without 9% LITC.
>> Okay. And then yeah and then further exploration in that is um were there any considerations for community partners to help offset that? If there's anything that was out like DH um IC or just any other groups that we know have Duke has
contributed I think to Willard Street was a $5 million investment. So just want to know like were those considerations made in your um research process? >> So I can say that when Poples was exploring how to finance some of these there were considerations for partnerships around you could they access vouchers for certain levels of affordability. Um they certainly you know tested the market to understand whether community partners were there to enhance the viability of the development.
Uh I won't speculate as to whether or not there are others that could be currently applied. I think you know if if there are partners out there who are interested in investing in these to bring cost down for developers I think that's a you know fabulous approach. Um but yeah anything that we haven't heard anything necessarily around that. So I think that'd be speculation at this point.
>> All right. And then you know of any developments in Durham that we where we previously used 9% LITC? do >> several. >> Oh, no.
>> Um, hey Stacy Poston, General, I'm happy to get that information for you. I do not have it top of hand. >> I know I have a list. I don't think we we have any recently and so it just feels like we're leaving money on the table. So, I just want to acknowledge
that there are um resources to support us in making our affordable housing goals happen, but I just feel like in reading this document um it didn't feel very objective. Um, so I just want to make sure that we are actually just being really transparent so folks can make an informed decision about what we want to see at that site as well. >> Thank you. 4 million versus the 2 million to demolish the 2 million is our sort of first pass at what we know.
What we don't know is then what the subsidy would be required to redevelop that piece. So I it's a plus number. 4 plus two. It's two plus whatever the subsidy that would be required for whatever the thing would be f in the future, right?
Whether it's parking or something else. Does that make sense? >> Okay. >> Yeah.
I'm going to stop asking questions. Let you get to your presentation then ask the rest of my questions. Go ahead. >> So, um, again, I mentioned that Preservation North Carolina is present and Kathleen will come up and add some context to this. We've received a a
proposal from them to take really take ownership of the marketing and developer selection associated with the Milton Small Building. And so, uh, they have a plan. It's attached in all the packets and public materials that were issued. Um, just to simplify what their approach would be, they would, um, negotiate an option to purchase agreement with the city.
Once that's complete, this the preservation of North Carolina would have the right to market the site to developers and also to do so more publicly. Ultimately coming to a place where they can evaluate different visions for um purchasing and redeveloping the or rehabilitating the building. Uh and then ultimately if once they find a developer once terms are solidified with the city, exercising an option with the city to sell the building uh for future re uh rehabilitation and returning the building to use. Um and in just in understanding what the um what Preservation North Carolina requires in order to do that work in addition to signing the option agreement, they would require really all the due diligence that's been done on the site, surveying the property, having access to the surface lot for future construction staging, any sort of reports,
environmental assessments, cost estimates, etc. Anything that's been done to sort of evaluate the potential for the building. Um with this, I'm going to ask Kathleen to come up and just explain to you all a little bit about Preservation North Carolina and what they intend to do. Thank you, Mark and Stacy.
And good afternoon, uh, Mayor Williams, uh, Mayor Prom, uh, Caviierro, members of council and staff. We really appreciate this opportunity to discuss with you uh some ideas and proposals that we have introduced over time and think that this is a very timely way for us to really look forward uh on a path forward uh for the home security life insurance building. Uh as Mark mentioned, the details of this I'm going to have to adjust this a little bit. Uh the details of of more details were included in the uh proposal packet. Um, so I'm just going to give you a brief overview. Uh,
first a little bit about us. Um, we were founded in 1939. We're a statewide nonprofit whose mission is to protect and promote buildings, landscapes, and sites important to the diverse people of North Carolina. We're nationally recognized for our endangered historic properties program.
Many of these buildings have been governmentowned structures. And so we uh we've been working with uh local governments for for decades now. Local governments and other public agencies oftentimes end up with historic properties uh either because they were originally built as municipal or county structures or they end up with them uh under a typical government real estate disposition sale uh is handled through sealed bids, negotiated offers uh with upset bid periods, public auctions uh or exchanges. Uh these methods can create uncertainty especially when the property is historic and an upset bid may result in an un unintended use or destruction.
Disposition of historic properties like the former home security life insurance building requires special care to ensure that uh the preservation of the historic structure uh happens and that it respects its surroundings and that results in a new use that benefits the community. In 1979, uh, the general assembly passed a bill that allows local governments to handle the sale of historic surplus properties in a more thoughtful way, uh, by selling them to nonprofit preservation or conservation organizations at a negotiated price rather than through the protracted, uh, uh, bidding process and the uncertainty that that might result in. Uh I've I've provided in your packet uh an excerpt of uh state statute 16A 266 uh so that you can dive into that if you're having trouble sleeping. Um but the general gist is uh it allows for sale by private negotiation to a nonprofit preservation organization and
that organization can then dispose of the property so long as protective covenants or preservation easement is attached uh during the transfer and this provides your certainty that it will go into the public good and be around for future generations. Through this process, conditions of the property's sale can be developed and a sympathetic purchaser found without the uncertainty that surrounds uh the bidding process. Preservation North Carolina has purchased and resold dozens of uh historic public properties across the state, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of local investment in many of these communities that it's uh sorely needed. And these are a variety of projects. And I'm just going to give you um an idea of some of the building types we've worked with over time. Uh and they also show uh not just the variety but the uh condition issues of some of the properties that we've worked with and how they've become meaningfully uh
contri meaningful contributors to the local communities. Here's here's one that uh should be familiar to y'all. Um this was an early one that we worked with frankly and it and it's a stunning building and serves as a law offices and is up for sale by the way so if anybody is interested. Um many were developed as affordable housing um multiuse um and just a myriad of uses.
This is a slow clicker. I was going to just breeze right through this. Um here's uh uh this is in Lumberton. Um and the Maria Pum Hospital.
Both of these structures are affordable or workforce housing. The Wilick Hotel in Sanford stunning be building and it was a wreck and is now a beautiful landmark and contributing to the downtown of Sanford schools. Most recent uh Dunar School in Lexington that is now underway as workforce housing in that community.
And then here is an example of condition issues. We are not shy about the buildings that we take on and uh nonetheless their outcomes are extremely positive become a point of pride in the community. Um now a little bit about how this process works. Uh again, more detailed uh uh information was included for you to look at, but um first we negotiate and finalize terms of the option to purchase typically with the city manager or county manager's office and staff.
Uh and it includes property details, u option period, option price, and any other relevant factors and contingencies. A sample of that option to purchase agreement was in your packets. Um once an option to purchase agreement is executed, we advertise the property in local and state national media on our website, outside websites. Um we it runs the gamut. Um
PNC has a network of vetted developers uh that we've worked with successfully that come with historic preservation experience. This is not the first time they've taken these things on and they generally have the financial and resource wherewithal uh to finish the job. Preservation North Carolina provides information to prospective buyers and takes them through the property and uh we oftentimes also use city representatives or staff uh if approved uh by the city. Preservation North Carolina evaluates the prospective purchasers as to their experience with historic properties. the Secretary of the Interior standards for rehabilitation um and historic tax credits, willingness to purchase the property subject to protective covenants uh and a rehabilitation agreement, their proposed use uh to ensure compatibility or other considerations is required and financial capacity to undertake the project. Once an experienced preservation-minded buyer
is identified, we exercise our option with the city and acquire the property with basic covenants as prescribed by the state statute. And then we place more specific customized protective covenants on the property and our transfer to uh the the developer. And I just wanted to show you some some images of this building um uh archival images uh from when it was first built uh to just really demonstrate um what an architectural and cultural asset it it is to Durham in the state of North Carolina. It was the first Misian high-rise built in the state.
Uh Milton Small was uh a North Carolina staritect uh hired by two national and international starchitects out of New York to handle the local job. And they used very high quality materials. And this is a landmark building if ever there was one in in North Carolina situated next to another landmark building that has been successfully rehabilitated, the North Carolina Mutual
Building. Um so that that basically uh uh covers uh what we wanted to bring to your attention and and again the details were included in your packets and uh thank you very much for your consideration. >> Thank you Kathleen. So um that covers the first again scenario really baseline scenario preservation of the building.
Next, we want to put forth in front of you a scenario that considers intermactivation of the site. And so, this is preserving the building and making available space to utilize for some form of interim activation um until the building until the site is really ready for for larger scale redevelopment. This I think ideally would would reflect community oriented programming that reflects the needs of of what community have spoken um and and articulated whether it's in the recent open space comprehensive plan or or through an understanding of of what folks what types of spaces they're looking for to promote events and
activities. Um I think there's a a really good thesis here. We've seen it executed nationally of how to use interim activation to create site value and and change the brand that a site has. And so we'll go through a little bit of that.
I think naturally with interactivation that means some version of open space investments that will require some um degree of public investment and oversight by the city for the land that it owns. Um and then I I should point out that obviously with you introduce open space or activation community will get attached to it. And so in the future there needs to be consideration for if you pursue interm activation and then in the future at some point think to redevelop the site there will be questions about what do you do with the the programming that takes place there the space itself does it move somewhere else what does the transition look like? So um we've seen this hold up projects elsewhere and so I do want to present that to council for consideration. I want to move through these fairly quickly, but I think again this is a formula that we've seen used in different cities across the country. Um, when there's a site and there's a desire to to bring people to the site,
activate a site, sometimes it's a parking lot, sometimes it's a patch of grass, but this is um an attempt by cities or land owners to bring programming and activities as a way to showcase what could be the future of a site. prove to developers, prove to investors that there's potential to take what could be a parking lot or a patch of grass and turn into something more meaningful. Um, you can attract tenants that can be um retailers, pop-up retailers today that could eventually occupy brick and mortar space in the future, make over the brand of the site, and potentially create a demand and and potential investment that could remake the site in the future. Um, there are lots of approaches to activation, everything from permanent installation to events. I think in some ways the model of Durham Central Park is is instructive. Farmers markets, um, food truck rodeos, other types, events, concerts, movie nights that that suggest that you can have temporary programming, activated space and make it beloved alongside of types of investments like landscape that that make it unique and
can bring people to the site for lots of reasons. >> [snorts] >> Um there's a there's a planning process that if the city were to decide to move forward with this, creating a vision, defining a budget, understanding who your partners might be, curating something that fits the vision for the site, and then ultimately beginning activation. We've seen this again national examples, and some are more active, some are more passive, sports fields, mobile parks, pop-up parks, landscape, food truck rodeos, public art, furniture, uh community beer gardens, or other food and beverage type activations. There are lots of examples where open space can or activation can bring energy to a site while also maintaining flexibility for the long term.
Um again, you can draw from um Durham Parks and Rex recent uh comprehensive plan to draw ideas from what people across the community have requested and align future activation with what the community has already asked for. Uh [snorts] and I I think it's worth pointing out that the scale of activation can vary. So, we've seen smaller scale activations anywhere from zero to a few hundred,000 of of upfront
capital investment and then lower scale operating costs. But depending on how much you want to invest, um there's an opportunity to go higher and and bring more activation to the site. Various approaches have have worked in different places and we're happy to go through a few of them. uh the Lawn on D which is a roughly 3 acre site in in Boston, Massachusetts, one of the upand cominging districts in in Boston, the Seapport District.
Um they had this patch of land, they didn't know what to do with it. They installed grass, they installed furniture, and now it's one of the most activated pieces in all of Boston. Um since they installed this uh really a piece of open space with furniture, they've seen over 500,000 square feet of new development take place within about a quarter mile around the the the area. And this was initially owned by the convention center authority in Boston.
So a public authority that moved forward with redevelopment of that space and contributed to broader activation, reinvestment. Uh the farmer >> is that one permanent or temporary? This this the uh the the >> Good question. It has been made permanent because it's so popular. Yeah.
>> Uh moving forward to the farmers market in San Antonio. This was a property owner who bought a significant piece of land wanted some form of um activation to create excitement and buzz. I think it's arguable, but in San Antonio, I think most folks would say this is the hottest real estate market in in or submarket is within the city. And it started with this farmers market introduction.
And since it was introduced in 2010, uh it's it's contributed to delivering over 700,000 square feet of new development from a a multitude of uses. So, just to give you a sense of what this could be, uh, here are some graphics that show you, I think, popular local activations and how that compares to the site itself and specifically the area activation, which is around 80,000 square feet. If we were to overlay the um, Dur Central Park farmers market, you can see that it would fit within the space with additional space to boot. If we were to look at the other examples from San Antonio, Boston, we also included a small um activation in San Francisco
called the Proxy Theater, which it's is repurposed a parking lot. Uh and that um Proxy and Pearl Street both fit within the area for activation. London D is a little bit larger, but London D being about 3 acres is about the same scale for the entirety of the site. And uh this uh all of these images are being provided by Durham Parks and Recreation.
also the suggestion that you can break the program the area up into different program areas and so just to give you a sense of the range of activations that could be introduced. So, um, moving into affordable housing. Again, this was something that council brought. They wanted to understand, you all wanted to understand what it could look like to introduce affordable housing on site.
And so, moving from interimm activation to consideration for what development today could look like. Again, we wanted to reflect, I think, what we've learned from the market today. Um, so in this scenario, we're again preserving the Milton small building. Um there is the the presumptive delivery of affordable housing to meet the community needs that have been articulated. Uh and then introducing surface parking to minimize
cost. There's a real push pull here of when you introduce housing, you need on-site parking. And this is actually restriction with low-income housing tax credits. We'll go into some of that in a little bit.
But so as you introduce more housing and more units, you also need more parking. And so as you add more units, you take up more space with more parking. And so there's a natural um limitation to the amount of density that you can introduce on a 4acre site. And as I understand it, uh NCHFA, the North Carolina Housing Finance Authority is really prefers having parking on site.
And so not across the street, not elsewhere, um but having it on site. And so there's Yeah, please. >> Is there a ratio of parking like determining how many spaces per unit? Can you expound upon that if there's one? So in this in these images we're using a baseline of one space per unit in terms of how fungeible that is. I you know would ask for anything on the UDO or >> um so it's something that you can negotiate as a part of the QAP with
NCHFA. 2 um as a standard. >> Yeah. So is there any consideration that that spot is um close to a railway station as well as our bus terminal?
So is there any impact on that when um thinking about the building of housing there at that place? >> Yeah, I see. I think what happens is as developers develop their projects, they have those conversations with NCHFA and try to make those those cases whether it's, you know, if they're doing micro housing for instance, you might not need as many parking spaces. So that's all something that developers discuss with NCHFA as a part of the tax credit process.
Yeah, >> I prefer we wait to the end, but if you have a burning question in on a particular slide, then you can ask. >> I think it's a quick one. Uh so in terms of the options around parking uh that's
also depends on whether if we're doing low- income housing if it's a 9% versus a 4% tax credit but as you said you you felt like the more likely option was the 9% but if it's 4% there's more flexibility right? >> Yeah. Absolutely. Yes.
4% carries more flexibility. Again I think we were in the conversations we were in the negotiations everything ended up trending towards 9% because they needed more support. Great. So, some considerations.
Oh, sorry. Council member Cook, >> can you just go back to one slide? Sorry. >> Yes.
>> So, that little spot, the black dots in the corner, this is the idea that otherwise we would potentially put parking here and we will not be able to put parking here, >> right? I mean, parking provides a natural limitation. So, that's part of it, the parking component, but also again, we try we wanted to reflect as much as we could what the market would bear and and what we see as viable. As you go above five or six stories, you enter into a different level of construction materials which increases cost per unit which increases your need for subsidy. So reflecting current
conditions, what we're trying to say is if the city were to pursue affordable housing today under better development conditions, you may be able you where there's better financing, lower cost, you can build taller and there may not be the same sort of financing constraints. >> Okay. Okay. So, when you say density loss to surface parking limitations, that's maybe not exactly accurate.
>> No, no, no. There's still the trade-off of density of space to parking. That's that's included here. But in addition to that, there's also from a financing perspective, as you go taller, the subsidy also increases.
And so, that's another trade-off and another consideration that um again, as you introduce more density, there are other costs that that move alongside that in parallel. >> Yeah, that graphic is not super clear, but I'm following what you're saying. The implication is I think we understand the the desire that we have heard from council in the community is to build as much affordable housing as possible. I think what this graph is is intended to show is that in dense development scenarios if when the economics would
allow for surface for structured parking to be possible more dense affordable housing would be possible. When considering surface parking only, the difference between the massing showed by the uh dashed black lines and the actual building is the constraint that that is the amount of affordable housing that could be parked on that site with surface parking. So the the difference is the density of the affordable housing product and the amount of units limited by the existing surface parking on the lot. Am I saying that correct?
Okay, >> I think so. the the we're we're assuming surface parking here. there is a you know an alternative where in structured parking could be introduced that also increases the costs borne on the site and if you remember I know we have new council members when we were negotiating with Peebles this became a point they wanted to introduce structured parking there's a cost associated with introducing the structured parking which led to higher subsidy requests at the end of the day in order to make that
work so much of it was built into how the city could support that development and it was by purchasing effectively structured parking which drove up the subsidy request. >> Uh and just one more question. So is there was there a rationale for the in option three the affordable housing to be located in the southeast corner whereas in the proposals that were given previously by developers most of them located uh on the west side I think the northwest corner. Was there any reason for that or was just this is just a mockup?
>> It's a mockup. We wanted to show I mean initially we had the parking on the western side of the site just because it was most approximate to the Milton small building and so we thought just reasonably you'd likely extend the parking you know connected down the site as you introduced affordable housing. I don't think you'd want to have two separate parking lots in that way but again just a mockup concept. Yep.
Great. So, um, we've talked about the 9%. I do want to reiterate this. You know, we we spoke with developers. Two of the three developers who proposed for the RFP
proposed 9% credits. People's initially only proposed four. As negotiations went on, they changed their position to 9% credits. This is how they were planning to subsidize the proposed density of affordable housing.
In addition to that, we also saw beyond the credits requests for subsidy. And so I think adding to the point that even with the highest level of low-income housing tax credits, there was additional requests from the city to support development to make it viable, not respective of any other community partners who could have provided, you know, some sort of gap financing. Um, we've talked a little bit about the LITC, but there so around the 9% there are a lot of restrictions about parking, where parking sits, whether it's displaced. As I understand it, there's a 15-year compliance period. So that parking would need to remain there for 15 years. So in some ways when we think about future redevelopment options it doesn't necessarily preclude them but it does suggest that it's on a timeline and so when those compliance timelines end is it a good time to develop and and what other sort of restrictions are in place uh to ensure future affordability.
These are considerations for again how affordable housing is maintained long term. >> Yes. >> And again just briefly the third bullet point about the technical requirements of the of LITC that would make it difficult to deliver truly mixed use. Can you just give up just a reminder?
Yeah, that >> No, no. Thank you, Councilman Bris. Um, so from a mixed income standpoint, I think what we heard from developers is because the 4% is much more flexible. It's much more easily easily applied to mixed income buildings. When you get to 9%, it's much harder to apply those credits to mixed income and it leads towards more strictly affordable housing buildings. It's not we did hear it's not impossible but technically it becomes very difficult to apply 9% housing tax 9% low-inccome housing tax credits to mixed income buildings >> because >> because of the restrictions that are in place with 9% credits >> such so what can you I don't want to go way way deep but >> yeah I I I I myself am not an expert on the application of 9% credits this is what we heard from developers
>> afford and I should say affordable housing developers specifically Okay. Okay. Um so, um I we wanted to provide some additional context here. Since we started this process eight years ago, um there's been at that time, as I understand it, because I wasn't on this project when when um when the project began, there was not a lot of affordable housing downtown.
In fact, I think it was very much envisioned that this would be the first frontier into downtown affordable housing. And so, we wanted to provide the context that since this kicked off in 2018, city county have done a really great job of investing in delivering affordable housing downtown to the tune of around a thousand units either built or in the pipeline. In addition to the public investment in affordable housing for downtown, there's also been a similar focus and concentration citywide investment from again city county in new units in preserving units that were about to pass through their affordability covenants
and or reszoning units from um developer agreements that were in place, reaching higher density or or other sort of agreement details to create new affordable housing units by virtue of their agreements. So, it's a long and short way of saying um since 2018, as you can see on the screen, a thousand or so units planned or built in downtown with over 4,600 units planned, built, invested in, public action taken to support over 4,600 units citywide. >> Yes. >> But just to clarify, this is a result of I remember the RAD conversion as well as a downtown Durham I think it's DDNP that happened.
So what we're essentially doing is like we had DHA affordable housing downtown and we're renovating those housing units but they had to come back onetoone rate. So we're actually essentially replacing a lot of housing from our DHA housing stock because I think it kind of gets lost a little bit when we had the $95 million housing bond and it kind of kind of works together. >> Yeah. I I believe the numbers though do go beyond ride conversions. So, I know
rack conversions may be inclusive in those numbers, but a number of the projects and and we'd be happy to break that down by project. Uh, and we can ask housing and neighborhood services to provide that. Um, a good number uh you know, the Forever Home Durham bond program was was not exclusively the RAG conversion. [clears throat] There was a number of other projects.
So, if if council would like that data, we can get it. >> Right. And Mr. Snell's not here anymore, but I but I know we've just I sort of cited this data at a recent meeting.
There's more units at Liberty and Commerce Street now or in in the pipeline than there were before. So it's in addition to the replace units there also are more [snorts] >> no some that's mixed but but all below 80%. So it's not like yeah >> and then in addition to this uh this is information provided by general services. These are parcels that that through some initial analysis are identified as other parcels that are downtown that could also support affordable housing. Um and varying size and some of these are assemblages of different um different order. But um I think there's a suggestion that these
sites could also be studied for additional affordable housing beyond the 505 West Chapel Hill Street site in case you know affordable housing today doesn't fit in the same way that that folks expect. So part of this analysis and I see that I have a minute left so I don't is >> you're good. >> Okay. I was texting the clerk to have more time but [clears throat] >> I was going to speed through these.
Thank you. Uh so in um in evaluating the short-term options, we also wanted to give a sense of how this connects to the long term and different considerations of how the site's been positioned over time. And again, I think it in many ways in advancing this work looking for council's guidance on how do we think about this relationship between the two. So um you see the three short-term scenarios on the left as presented. on the right. These are three concepts that we came up with and this is working across many city departments to think
about what the site could be in the future. Try to have sort of an open perspective as to what it could be and and in many ways in shaping this moving forward. Again, looking to council to provide guidance as to how you interpret the long-term potential for the site. The first one that we want to offer as as a suggestion is taking interimm activation and effectively translating it into a a signature park of some kind on the western side of downtown.
Um I again speak to a number of examples nationwide of how open space has been used to generate value, create activity, become um in some ways a town square for either a downtown or part of a downtown. Uh, as I understand, I think there are a lot of um developments, parcels on the western side of downtown that could be considered underutilized or underdeveloped. Could this investment be a jump start to other activity on the west end of of downtown? And so, taking the activation that you would invest in as a part of interim activation, making it more permanent, repurposing this site
as a focal point of the west end. Uh, I think the the ideal outcome is you create that signature park. I think some of the drawbacks would be that you don't achieve the density that you set out to to achieve on this site going back to 2018. And again, because it becomes effectively a park now, it's unless you find a different operator for it or somehow make it private.
This is requires city investment and city oversight. And so in considering how the short-term scenarios connect to that long-term scenario option scenarios one and two, the preservation and interim activation do lend towards it. Once you develop the affordable housing and build the associated parking that really takes up the space on the site. So the there is no opportunity to develop that sort of signature open space. Although as shown in the graphic, there is enough space for a little bit of green space on the site, probably akin to what we had in the um required as part of the RFP process previously. The next is in many ways I think most
aligned with what the priorities were going into this last um last round of developer solicitation. um thinking about how we could use how how the city can use this site to attract some form of headquarter tenant office or lab tenant that would support a a major commercial space alongside high dens high density residential mix of um of of market rate and low-inccome units. So again pursuing that mixed income building again this is in the future very far in the future where um development conditions improve and again to support the uses you would have the structured parking to to meet the density on site [snorts] and so this I think shows again the mix of uses that were always envisioned you deliver the sort of on-site user activation through different parts of the day um with the con being that again you know I think we've saw the challenges with office and lab uses I think there are lots of suggestions this isn't achievable in the near future future unless conditions change dramatically. So um taking apart that I think this achieves the initial vision but is likely far off
and again how we achieve that I think that number one that clean relatively clean site option where you only the building is preserved that you can connect that to a future where the that west end commercial hub scenario 5 is realized with the interactivation again you preserve that space so again you have the flexibility to develop it it's again because of the space restrictions from option three it's it's just not very conceivable without a certain amount of tear down and rebuild. So additional cost to realize option five. And then uh scenario six is really I think centralizing residential understanding that there's an office market that that you know may not come back for a long time but thinking about how this site can advance other city objectives around retail or entertainment anchors. And so this could be you know again some different types of entertainment spaces.
This could be a grocery store. This could be other other types of amenities that are really attractive for downtown. Um, but in thinking forward in that, it's it's difficult to understand what that type
of anchor would be. Um, what fits in this market, I think retail and entertainment, this fluctuates, especially now more more so than other uses. And so, what those needs could be might change over time. And what fits this site, you know, may not be clear at this moment.
Um and then I think speaking again to the residential density absence significant subsidy that's likely not achievable in in the near term. And so again I think around this long-term scenario scenario one with the building preservation scenario two with the interim activation both lend themselves with certain flexibility to the realization of this vision. Again, pursuing affordable housing now ties up a lot of restrictions around how the site is oriented. And so you you just can't deliver that form of density in the same way.
[snorts] Although again, you know, compliance periods end um and and there could be costs to deconstruct and reconstruct. The city can bear those costs if they choose to, but it would be difficult. just a quick summary of the different
options and then um to close I think we we just want to reiterate the recommendations that we put forward at the beginning and then we're happy to take your questions. Um, at this stage, city staff uh recommends that the the city does not move forward into advancing fullsight redevelopment at a time based on market conditions, based on what we what we imagine based on all the all the developer proposals. We've seen significant subsidy requirements uh and potentially I think moving now you are potentially sacrificing more units down the line more residential development downline greater density downline for a site that I think everyone to this point and including the current you know UDO planning process um considers this to be a site that could bear that level of density. Um we heard from Preservation North Carolina and they put forward an agreement in front of you to think about how they would reposition the building. Um the recommendation is to move forward in negotiations and understand you know what some of those terms could be and work towards an agreement. Uh and that would include creating enough flexibility on the site and subdividing
the site for access to preservation North Carolina to do u to move forward with the rehabilitation and then also pursuing interim activation at this time to bring activity to the site. [snorts] And with that um any questions we are happy to field. >> Thank you. Thank you so much.
>> Thank you for listening. This this is >> a lot a lot of information but definitely needed. >> Madam clerk, can you put 15 minutes on the clock, please? >> Mayor, if I could just add 60 seconds of kind of closing the loop, especially for the benefit of of our new council.
>> 15 minutes on the clock. >> Thank you. Um, so I just I want to connect the dots back to our June conversation and I think this is how our this presentation started and and circle back. So we we took direction in June uh that I've uh translated for all of you that that what we heard was number one stop negotiating with peoples. Number two pursue immediate conversations with uh preservation NC to look at what uh their ability to market the site would be. Number three to consider interim and
master plan considerations for the site. So to to do a little blue sky thinking um and then to bring back and as a through line through all of that to consider uh the possibility for the site to support affordable housing now or in the future. Um what we've attempted to bring back to you today was that full range the short-term options that allow uh consider consideration of the Milton Small Building and affordable housing now and long-term considerations that uh respond to your direction to do some master planning. That's what we've attempted to lay out.
uh we have provided recommendations based on things we have heard from the council. Those recommendations are simply our best attempt to react to what we've heard. I want to make it clear that all six of the scenarios that we showed you today are scenarios we're prepared to move forward with regardless of whether or not they they reflect our recommendations. And so we we're happy to answer questions about any of those scenarios. uh but wanted to frame that because I think this is the best way we could find to be responsive to the various elements of the direction we got from council in June. Thank you.
>> Thank you. All right, colleagues, Mr. Baker, you want to start us off? >> Yeah.
Uh first of all, thank you so much for that incredibly in-depth uh presentation and all the work that you've that you've put into this. It's a very complex issue and one that um our entire community has been watching that has been playing out for years that has gone through numerous RFPs that has gone through COVID and hot markets and slow markets. So, um there there's a lot of moving pieces here and I I appreciate all the analysis that's gone into it. Um I wonder if we could I wonder if we could pull up again the sight specific development conditions slide.
It's one of the earlier slides in development context. >> Um, and I'll just start asking my question here. So, >> we'll get there.
>> So, we're looking at the high-rise market rate housing, lowrise, high-rise affordable, etc. Um, obviously the the market that we're in right now is is challenging, is odd. We saw you presented all of the uh projects in downtown that are currently paused um for for those reasons and various reasons. Um high risk, all of that.
Um we do know that affordable housing is in demand even if office isn't in demand, even if market rate housing were at we're at record levels of vacancy. Um, and so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think uh part of what was appealing, I don't know, three, four years ago in that market was that uh we could build some of these other uses on the site and that would on that same site help subsidize the affordable housing, >> right? >> The demand has, we'll call it demand, but the market has changed for all these things. The market might not have changed for affordable housing. We still
have a large demand for affordable housing in our in our city. And and I appreciate your your presentation about all of the units that have been that have gone into um um downtown with the the caveat presented by uh council member uh Burris. Um so just wanted to walk through that. So some of this is almost a timing issue.
Uh we could make a deal on the site where portions of the site pay for the affordable housing. we could uh also proceed where we pay upfront for affordable housing and the rest of the site remains developable developable into the future. So part of this is correct me if I'm wrong if you have anything to add there. >> No, I I I think it's it's it's a really important observation that we've seen with this site how cycles change.
Cycles will change in the future. I know right now it feels like costs are high and that'll never change. But I think this last eight years can show you how quickly that that dynamic can change. I also think it's worth drawing on on an important discrepancy. The difference between demand and feasibility, right? I
couldn't agree more. In every major city in America, there is demand for affordable housing in every AMI bracket, you know, across every housing type. [snorts] Um, but the feasibility of that is what's called into question. And that's why you see a lot of movement towards creating new sources to find supportive financing and and subsidies to create and and support affordable housing.
Um so there is great demand and it's really just a question of feasibility and the city can go forward and build whatever it chooses to build. What we're seeing right now is that that's a not insignificant uh or forgive me that's a double negative a significant subsidy lift to do so. Um so previously we were able to uh in the proformas um look at subsidizing that affordable housing with other uses on the site market rate uses on the site. >> Can you just very briefly what are the proforma inputs that are uh causing the issues with the the change in the current market with affordable housing which is in demand? >> Yeah, we confirmed this with the planning department. There's real estate
data that suggests this. you know, when costs increase, rents need to increase comparably, right? And on the market rate side. And so what we've seen is a period where construction costs have well outpaced the rent increases that are associated with it.
[snorts] Uh and so in order again like four or five years ago, we could say market rate housing given the great demand will help subsidize the the the need for affordable housing. I think what we've seen is that and there are also great indicators around absorption for new multif family rental spaces downtown has has slowed down. Uh it's given pause to other developers is another one of the reasons why those developments haven't moved forward. Um so so there's not as much demand for downtown multif family.
The rents aren't increasing fast enough to keep up with the costs. So that makes against construction cost increases against net interest rate increases over time. I know they're coming down, but they haven't offset where where they were before. Um, and so given that and that rent hasn't kept up with those increasing costs on the market rate side
that when that turns that side of the proform red and affordable was already red as well, it's just additional subsidy that's needed to make it work. And as I understand it, there's really no pathway to subsidize market rate housing. [snorts] So, um, again, with great subsidy, uh, this is achievable. But again, that's to your point current market cycle.
>> Okay, I appreciate that. So, and so that that comes back to kind of other things subsidizing the affordable housing. >> Yeah. >> Throw in kind of material costs.
>> And it's it's worth saying that um you know, again, the market rate uh lowcale market rate housing has a positive land value. And so, you know, there is an area where that you don't need subsidy to make market rate happen. But again, it's the question of the the trade-off of delivering that kind of housing and sacrificing the density that was envisioned and also authorized for the site. Thank you. I've got one question for um preservation North Carolina.
7 million. Do You've got you have a lot of experience in this area. Is are those numbers that you would necessarily agree with? >> Um >> public subsidy, sorry.
>> Oh, public subsidy. Well, well, I'm not sure. I mean, I I would have to look at their proarma and what they were factoring in and what they weren't factoring in. if they were factoring in uh federal and state historic tax credits, you know, that provides uh tremendous equity to a project where you can't get in new construction, for example. So, um if you break down, uh what Mark presented uh cost per square foot, even if you look at, you know, the 25 to $30 million, you're looking at $350 to $375 a square foot, which is still half of new construction. That's
before you factor in demolition costs, which that $2 million uh from several years ago is pretty stale and doesn't even factor in the 2500,000 tons of debris that you'd be carting off to to to somewhere. So, so we need to take a closer look at apples to apples. Um and new construction is going to, you know, be a much higher cost. >> Yeah.
Than that. >> No, of course. Of course. >> So, yeah.
So, so yeah, I'd have to look at really, you know, >> I mean, they had a weed. Yeah, you have to do some some analysis, of course. Um, yeah. And yeah, condition issues.
>> I was just chatting with uh someone who's done numerous um historic preservation projects throughout North Carolina who who was very surprised to hear that number being so large of of public subsidy. So, just >> it struck me as high, too. Um but again, it depends on the use. So if you're going to do something that's more higher intensive in terms of plumbing uh individual units and so forth are going to be much more expensive than in if you
do you know the lower hanging fruit of office for which we've already lamented the softening market right but um so you know a mix of uses would change that trajectory again so again it just depends on what the uses are >> so and and assuming we would move forward with u having staff engage with with you all >> um you would you would look for at all of the options uses including affordable housing. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I I think Mark and I were talking, you know, use agnostic. I mean really what we're looking for ultimately preservation North Carolina is looking for a project that meets the Secretary of the Interior standards for rehabilitation, right? you know, use the historic materials, um, you know, in kind and that sort of thing, but be able to rehabilitate it for a new use, which includes, as you saw in my presentation, uh, you know, uh, upfitting it for residential or hotel or first floor uh,
restaurant, which it was at one point. You know, the lower hanging fruit is utilizing the building for what it was uh, originally built for. So, again, it's all over the map. You're welcome.
>> Thank you so much. Um, yeah, I'll just make some initial comments, but I I really want to hear what other colleagues have to say. Um, I fully agree with the analysis that, uh, we shouldn't advance to full site redevelopment at this time. Um, I fully agree with permitting city staff to enter into negotiations with Preservation North Carolina.
Um, I'm I'm interested in what comes back from that. Um, I'm hopeful, uh, especially based on some of the conversations I've had with other folks who do historic preservation work. Um, I would say one, uh, one difference that I have with the recommendations is that I am interested in uh, looking at uh, some additional short-term the the scenario with short-term affordable um, affordable housing. And part of the reason is because um this this site has seen numerous
attempts to go through full redevelopment uh in a hot market and it hasn't happened and um we know that affordable housing is in demand. Um I I think it would be worth our time to do a deeper dive and explore what is possible around affordable housing. So, um those are those are my um those are my additions to the recommendations that have been provided. But overall, I just want to say thank you so much for the the presentation and and the analysis and I look forward to um the additional questions and comments by my colleagues.
Yeah, I'll second uh thank you to the years of work that has gone into this uh by HRNA, by city staff, by community residents who've advocated along the way. Um and also just thank you for your patience as we've gone through this process and there's been so many changes and so I'm glad this is coming before us again here today. Um like many of you, I followed this for a long time as a community member. uh and also went back
and rewatched the June 5th uh work session and really tried to pay close attention to the discussion and and I I want to thank the heroic effort by staff to try and translate the direction uh and the discussion because I I'll say you know uh transparently is as somebody you know who was looking at that is still off this body um it did not close in a way to me that seemed like really clear and concise direction uh on uh what the option should be uh going forward. And when I uh kind of listened closely and sort of you know documented and even heatmapped what I heard in terms of comments from uh all the members of the council on that day and also reflecting on what I see as my priorities for this. I I do think there's room for uh there's opportunity for improvement for options that do reflect what I heard at that time. maybe folks, you know, feel differently about, you know, how they they heard that discussion, but how I heard that discussion about what should be included. And I think that, you know, at
the core of it, at the crux of it, it gets down to what Council Member Baker said is having an option that includes affordable housing in the short term, but also connects into a longer term option that, you know, does reflect other priorities of the council and we've heard from the community. Um, I I don't know this for sure. I wonder if that um that affordable housing, you know, development is placed in the northwest corner, if that changes how you think about long-term commercial development opportunities. Uh it's something to think about, but I would like to think because, you know, there were the three options only the third one included affordable housing.
And that one is the only option that did not connect into a future option that was desirable. And maybe that's just the reality, but I would like to to ask staff to work with HRNA and I can get back to a question of process to make a request, right? um to to look at what the short-term activation option for affordable housing is. That also allows us to look at priorities into the future. Um and uh and when I listened to what council member said, every member of the council said that affordable
housing was, you know, a number one priority, you know, tied with, you know, others perhaps, but was up there as something that that we wanted that was folks wanted to see. Um but it does not look like the options that presented you know really provide that clear pathway forward for that and in fact seem to wait the preservation piece uh much higher in terms of the work being done and granted I would really like to see the the preservation of the Milton Small building and have that be built in uh as part of this plan but it just it looked like the options reflected that as the overall top priority versus what I heard in council comments is that the affordability piece was the number one priority and I'd love to see a way to have those uh work together. Um, so those are some uh initial reflections and comments. At the right time, I'd like to to to to suggest uh more specifically to try and get really crystal clear about what that might look like and get reactions from my fe fellow council members.
So there like isn't any doubt. Um, and I have as some other comments or questions, but yes, C. >> Thank you. >> Is there is there a hand up?
>> Um, >> okay. I just saw a hand up. I wasn't sure if you were trying to ask me to to to wrap up. So [snorts] >> Okay.
Um, second, in terms of the preservation piece, I had uh a couple questions. Uh, just in terms of like the the evaluation of the sale to Preservation North Carolina. Um, you know, what I heard as some of the the important benefits of doing that are avoiding a contracted a protracted government process, uh, bringing needed investments into communities, uh, and access to a network of developers. And so, uh, my question is, are those, uh, are those, um, are those things that the city does not have access to, uh, and therefore in order to have access to those benefits, the sale would be the way forward for preservation?
Um, you know, and are those the reasons why we would make this sale? Uh, or is it because we feel like it would be more effectively delivered than perhaps the city would be prepared to deliver? And
so that's a it's a question I think is a combination for preservation and perhaps staff about like the reasons why we would make that decision um preservation North Carolina uh is just offering a pathway forward. I mean you all have been involved in this um you know this city has and looking at this site uh the Milton small building at all uh for more than eight years now and certainly uh you know you've had the ability to do that all along. Um what we're suggesting is uh because this is this is what we know how to do. Uh we know who to go to do it.
uh we know the financing nuances to get this project done. We know what to look for. Um if we can help problem solve this portion of the larger site so that you can focus on the complexities of the other site of
the other portion of the site. Uh that's what we're offering to do is to try to get this ox cart that's been stuck in the ditch for a good long while. Um, so, uh, uh, the government surplus property, uh, statute allows for a local government to say, "Here, Preservation North Carolina, do what you do. " Uh, that's all we're saying.
>> And I'll just add for context. I think I think as this came forward to council in June, um, we had not been in conversations with Preservation North Carolina. Um I think uh there are uh people who gave feedback to us that the development proposals that had come forward in prior iterations that included renovation of the Milton Small Building uh were underperforming as far as the potential outcomes for the Milton Small Building because we were not dealing specifically with a historic preservation community and developers who had historic preservation expertise. Uh I I believe one of the propositions
that preservation NC brought forward is that they do have that expertise and they have that network working with developers who have spec specific expertise and that as a broker on behalf of the city they would be more successful than the city had been in going out to master developers who were looking at the whole site and including historic preservation as a subset of the development. So I think um we the uh to to your prior comment about whether or not uh these scenarios reflect an interpretation that historic preservation was the primary focus of the council. I would not say that that that's direction that I took. I think one of the however what this reflects is that what we brought as a primary concern for council in June is that a a decision about historic preservation is um is needs to be imminent because a a decision to delay a decision about historic preservation
leads to further deterioration of the building. So the options there there is an option the council could direct us not to perceive preservation of the building that that is not on there as a preference of staff but rather council's direction at that time was we are interested in what historic preservation north preservation North Carolina has brought forward. We'd like to to continue that conversation and that's what came back today. So there absolutely is an option for council to direct us not to preserve the building.
We don't preserve that as we we did not perceive that as your primary or council's primary interest, but one that did need a decision right away because the building continues to deteriorate. >> I just want to thank you all for your patience and time as we've navigated this. And this I'm nervous, too. It's my first work session, so I just wanted to really appreciate you for allowing me to lean in.
Um I do just ask a question. I think it may be from Miss Poston. So, um, just want to know if you can provide any context or details or at a later point around the vacancy rate for
commercial spaces in downtown Durm, particularly in those newer buildings that we're building. Um, how on average how long do they remain vacant and how long does it take for you all to occupy and find um, a retailer for those spaces as well? >> Um, I'm going to, uh, encourage Nicole Thompson from DI to come and speak to that because I think she has some of those statistics that are more current. >> [laughter] >> Hi, Nicole Thompson, Downtown Durham Incorporated.
Um, vacancy right now in downtown Durham um sits at, let me get this right, occupancy is about 85%. Um, that is not terrible. Um, back before COVID, we were at 97%. Um, and that wasn't good because we didn't have a lot of product. Um, but but we're trending right now about 85%. >> And sorry to put you on a spot in the
cold. Thank you so much for the information. >> Sure. That's it.
>> Yes. >> Okay. I'm going to turn it back over to my good friend Stacy. [laughter] >> So, no, it's Stace.
It's not anything. I just want to um express that I am really passionate about affordable housing at the site just for everyone to hear and I think this is ideal location for affordable housing due to such close proximity to the um MRA station which I ride a lot as well as the bus terminal which some folks may ride you know the bus um so I really want to focus on that but thinking about how the interconnectivity and how this sustains businesses downtown so thinking about that we want people to be able to actually walk to work um people who actually live in close proximity to enjoy because we're hearing a lot about how downtowns has become so like highly inaccessible to people. So just really want to consider and like uplift that we want to make sure that we have like these mixed income and make sure we have housing at this point I think is really an optimal moment for our council. >> Thank you Mr.
Rrist. >> Thanks Mr. Mayor. Um I have more questions. So, so I think I think as you were alluding to earlier, I think this question of timing is a big question,
right? And we got we've got a lot of folks in the room. We care a lot about affordable housing now on this site. And so, and I think you've g given a pretty clear recommendation that if we do the sort of low-rise affordable housing now that we're going to we're going to prevent some opportunities for future development, right?
So, I wonder if you can break that down and sort of give us a sense of so like when you had that that sort of the image there, there's the orange and the kind of black hashging. Sure. like what are like because I think this ultimate well because we talked a lot about this back before I think the the developer people had like 92 affordable units we were pushing for more like 120 so in that schematic there like how many units total units are we talking about >> I mean that roughly sort of like a range >> roughly so I get that's only in the orange building right >> I think we had that at about five or six stories and so our our best interpretation that's about 100 units >> okay and so and then in the in the sort of the long-term scenario where there's more dense development where there's housing potentially mixed housing, how many of that sort of larger schematic that includes a mix of uses, how many
total units there might be affordable just again relatively a range. >> Sure. Uh I think what we've seen and the only way I can really contextualize this is by looking at what we've seen previously which was you know about 300 to 400 units introduced on site with about 80 to all I think we've seen as high as 101 units baked in and that was that was again market conditions how you trade off between market rate and affordable we also saw from people's how that number increased right and so >> three or 400 yeah and so you can increase the number of affordable housing units of course and and then and then it's just a question of where the financing comes from that to support that, right? Because rents will come down.
You'll need to find either upfront construction costs to offset what you're losing in revenue down the line >> or subsidy >> or some form of subsidy, right? And and you know, people's talked about there were conversations about vouchers because I think initially they had some 30% AMI. So again, like there are lots of ways to assemble that financing to make it viable, >> but against that in that long-term scenario, there could be anywhere from 100 to like 300 years, right? It's all it all depends on, right? Initial cost,
subsidies, so forth, >> right? And then I I do um so uh on the revised UDO slide in particular, I think one of the the first bullets really important because right now as I understand it, it's zoned to go up to 30 stories. If you deliver affordable housing on the site as part of the plan, you can go I don't know if there's actually a height limit beyond the 30 stories. So I I don't want to say it's infinite unlimited that feels out of scale, but I think there's a suggestion that in the future again on if this becomes a hot market again um that you could introduce a significant number of affordable housing on site as part of a mixed income approach.
Again, if we go back four or five years, there were developers who put forward that exact um set of programming options. >> Chris, but I wonder if P could come up real quick because I want I want to ask about this whole issue of density. So just kind of checking. So, this is the downtown design district, right?
This parcel, [cough] >> uh, but Rinsky Planning, yes, it's downtown core. >> And so, what does the downtown design district say? I know it talks a lot
about walkability and transit and pedestrian friendly. Like, what does it say about density if anything? >> That it's form-based and so it's uh regulated by height and not number of units. >> So, so it's so it could be dense and it could be higher or all it's form based.
It all depends on form. It could be dense, could be higher. In some ways, some of the requirements in the code uh encourage that. Yeah.
With minimum um uh podium heights. Now, not extremely high, but yeah, it encourages a more dense challenge. >> Okay. Thanks.
" Which I'm a big fan of. I think that makes sense for our city. I think we hear a lot of a lot of feedback that like Durham is growing fast. This stuff all looks the same. So I think I think preserving a uniquely as as Kathleen said this misian sort of like architecture preserving that in Durham as we're changing and getting more modern to sort of preserve some of this existing high quality amazing unique stuff makes sense but I also hear concerns on on the staff that we talked
about back in June and we're talking about now about like affordability and so what you've given us in that schematic was sort of like 100 units that but that may that may block any further denser development on the site in this district. I guess I'm wondering is there like is there a middle ground like would we if we did 40 to 50 units right would that sort allow us to have some amount of housing there still activate open space and still not completely frustrate our efforts to develop this more densely long term >> I mean it becomes a little bit of a puzzle exercise how many units how does that translate to parking what kind of parking what's in the Milton small building right because different uses will necessitate different parking expectations uh so it's a little bit of I mean how you skin the cat right and what are the details that you pull together to to consider what the future of the site is and also with you know the changing number of units does that change the scale of development does that change whether you pursue 9% or 4% like these are all the little levers that change when you reconsider the site so I think my answer is you know I think there's >> we can we can sort of talk to you know
people who plan sites every day and think about how these things are laid out to get to a deeper answer on something like that but um I think it's the the question is always going to like as you move these different pieces. There are other sort of implications of how that impacts your financing, how it impacts density, how it impacts the sites use. So, it's really how all the details come together. >> I know that's not a clear answer, but I think that makes sense.
Yeah, >> there are a lot of trade-offs here. >> Yeah, >> I guess for for me what I and because we this is our now our like fifth crack of this or sixth one or whatever. >> Uh we've gone through three >> three. >> Yeah.
And so so and my concern is that every time we've done this, we wanted everything. We wanted the we wanted the sort of like the everything bagel, right? And so my concern is if we try to do everything right now again that we could is that we could frustrate our efforts to get the sort of long-term what we want on the site. So that's a big concern for me. So yeah, thanks.
>> Um, so a lot of my questions have been asked already, but um this is maybe a staff question, Stacy. Uh so what is what do what do the next steps look like if we do um move forward with preservation and see like what I know like previously we had like y'all would come back to us with items and then we would decide if we were actually going to contract. What are the steps that look like that? What does that process look like here?
>> Sure. I think um based on the motions that we've gotten in front of council today, we would um engage in a conversation with them to enter into the documents um that would allow us to allow them to advertise um the uh on our behalf for a 12-month period. The manager would be able to go ahead and execute those documents and we'd be able to go ahead and allow them to begin um to try to find a development partner at the point at which they found a development partner or partners that they believed um would be, you know, the appropriate uh developer to to have conversations with this with us about,
we would then um be bringing those proposals or proposal back to council for consideration. So, for instance, if we entered into a contract for them for 12 months, they, you know, in in month four, they had already kind of done some pre-work on the ground, which I think they probably have, um, and came to us with a developer proposal, then we would engage in conversations about that, try to frame that up in a way that we could bring that back to council. And then if council was amanable to the framework for that, um, we would then, um, you know, sort of execute formal documents. So, if it was going to be x particular thing for x particular time, we would do that at that time.
Also, if we need to subdivide the parcel, we would be working, you know, to subdivide the parcel off based on what would be needed and what parking was appropriate for whatever the um potential use was. So, I think there's some pieces that kind of work together, but it would allow them to go ahead and execute documents with the city so they could begin advertising this on our behalf. >> Okay. Yeah. I mean I I think so previously when we >> I was just asking Katherine if she would like to add anything to that um as well
if I've got that framed up correctly. >> Okay. So that >> that that's okay. I mean that was good.
I mean that was what I was asking and I'm more interested from the city side. I just um previously when we did our original conversation with Peebles we like the baseline was that we will be working with Peebles moving forward like we're just going to have a conversation about specifics and so if we moved forward today we would would we be locked into moving forward with uh a proposal from preservation and c understanding that we like have some flexibility in terms of like what that looks like or is it or is it not is it totally dissimilar in process. >> So we would be entering into contract with President North Carolina which they would be marketing on our behalf. They would then go and um identify a developer they thought would be the appropriate partner to redevelop that building.
We would then have to come back and say okay in order for this developer to redevelop that this building. This is what the developer would need to have or the parts and pieces related to that. Um we would need
to come to council to do that activity because we need to do a double closing. you know, recording the restrictions for the historic piece and then doing some kind of deal that allows us to move forward and advance that. So, >> okay. I think for for further clarification um you council uh you know can have some obviously uh have input on on whatever we we work with local governments who want to have very little and let the staff deal with it and those who want to be uh more involved but really what we're looking at is an option to purchase agreement with Preservation North Carolina who would be the buyer of this property. So um uh so so beyond that um you know the getting back to the benefit uh to council members uh copac question really what the attractive thing for developers is is the certainty of being able to go through the expense and the time of due diligence and know that it will yield something at the end they will be able to go to closing. Uh
we've had local governments who you know they definitely want to meet the developers and know what what's going to be but but the at the front end is is what we really want to dialogue with staff and council on of what's going to go into that option understanding the expectations and that way we can just streamline that process and activate this site uh as soon as we identify um an experienced vetted uh developer and I hope that makes sense to y'all. Yes, I mean it has opened up a few more questions for me which is so we would then be moving into an option to sell the land and then I mean I hear you saying that y'all work with local governments and that's awesome but I'm just like what what like legal say do we have over the use of the land >> once it is sold? >> Um >> nothing. That would be a zoning question, right? Uh probably what I think what we're we're really interested in is uh what
will work on that site. Uh the more conditions we put on the site, uh the more roadblocks you're going to get to finding someone to take on the project. And that probably is applied to the entire 4acre site. >> Totally.
>> And that's part of the complexity of what's been happening over the last several years. we're we're offering an an an opportunity uh for one corner of this site to open it up and get it done. And and this is not mutually exclusive from the priorities and visions laid out from the city. In fact, this building can check all those boxes.
Uh you know, you've got a landmark building, placemaking, that sort of thing. And a lot of the projects we work on are housing, many of them affordable housing. If it pencils out and it works, great. Um, if there's another use that works great and benefits the community as well, we want to keep that door open as well.
>> Yeah. I mean, that's the part that's like giving me a bit of pause to be honest. And and it's nothing and I don't want it to feel personal because you know, you are not going to be in doing
preservation North Carolina for the rest of time. Um, and honestly, we've seen this go on for a long period and like whatever. Anyway, this is not it's not personal to y'all, but um it does give me a little bit of um a little bit of pause. We had a whole long conversation about not wanting to turn the land over to Peebles at the time.
Uh that was a big request of theirs was to sell the land and we were very uh staunch about not selling the land. And I think that you're right that part of that does put up roadblocks for us because there are so many unknowns and there's councils that change as we're seeing here. um and priorities change. And so I'm sure that that does not make any developer feel super excited. Um but yeah, it's it's just causing me a little bit of pause because I'm like, okay, like I would really like to see um I would really like to see this building preserved and sounds like that's probably the most cost-effective method. But the reality of it is that we could come back and we could hear instead that what's required
is a really large subsidy in order to build what we'd like to see on the land. and then it might not be the smartest choice for us moving forward, right? like if we if we come back and I found that affordable housing is sounds like what most people up here are kind of interested in seeing. But if that doesn't make sense with the developer on this for this building or if it does make sense but the the subsidy is massive in order to create that then like I feel like that puts us kind of into a into a weird position where we sort of have to choose something that maybe doesn't align with our priorities uh due to cost.
So, that's my only that's a concern for me, but I'm willing to kind of hear what others have to say and and think about it a little bit more. Um, I guess I I this is a consultant question. Um, I I'm really stuck on the parking. Um it to me I'm and I've heard from a lot of different uh folks who've worked in
affordable housing and it does feel like maybe the parking isn't quite as restricted as it's being put. I mean it's like a third of the site on the first well in all almost all of the options actually it's it's about a third of the site from the design. Um, and so I was just wondering like what what conversations were had about you said that earlier that y'all talked to affordable housing developers. I'm curious about those conversations and what they entailed.
>> Yeah. Well, so I especially with the images go back to um at least one of them so we can know what we're referring to. Sorry. Here.
Um so what we did was we we understood the variability of the uses from office to hotel to residential. What would different typical parking ratios look like? And so um what we did was we used the parking as it's currently allocated on the site and reflected an average of those parking
ratios for the number of spaces that you see sort of offset on the western side. Um we're not I should say that you know in developing these again these are concepts we're we're you know so when we start talking about the additional parking that are needed to support either the open space activation in the in the future looking um uh concept or the affordable housing this is it's an approximation of roughly 100 units add roughly a space per unit. So I don't want it I don't want anything to be sort of attributed here as like super precise in terms of its design or layout. However, we are trying our best to again steer close to what we see from developers and the expectations of how much parking they want to have on site.
Um, so we're I I in terms of its design and how it's laid out, we're going by rules of thumb, not by precision architecture design. That makes sense. >> Yeah. What >> can I ask a clarifying question that I think gets what you're asking? So, so I think one of the key questions that that
I'm hearing in thematically from several council members is is diving into this this presumption that the low-rise affordable housing developers place an expectation on parking. So, I think the question for you is what what data did you use to reach that conclusion? Um, are there examples you can provide? because I think the question is could we not find some more creative solution with less parking and I think that sounds really critical for the conversation the council's having.
So I just as much information as you have about why we think around a space per unit is what pencils for affordable housing developers uh because it sounds like some council members are hearing that they're not sure that that's the case. Yeah, I I think we've seen more flexibility around parking ratios, especially recently, connections to transit. Absolutely true. A lot of this is something that gets negotiated and also something that when developers go
for financing, they're subject to certain restrictions. I can't speak to um what conversations developers have had on the site with lenders and what their expectations are for on-site parking to ensure the success of the uses that are on the site. >> [snorts] >> Um but again we're going based on I think what we understand what we've heard from developers about typical parking allocations. I think we've seen across the country uh you know there cities where that are leveraging like public parking that are near sites right and that's within their zoning codes within their expectations.
I am totally for reducing parking expectations or um you know creating more efficient design. Um, but I think again in some ways this is reflective of how we understand how developers would prefer to move forward in terms of minimizing costs while also thinking about how the city subsidizes. Um, which is surface parking is the cheapest. If again we're I think we've seen plenty of examples across different cities of how to look differently at those parking
restrictions andor like typical allocations. Yeah, I for me and I I want to echo what I've heard actually several of my colleagues, I think uh Council Member Bur and and Kopac stated it previously, which is that I um I feel like we've all sort of got this interest in affordable housing. And it feels like we have one option that doesn't really have a lot of details. And this was my concern back in August or September the last time and y'all were not here, but um I brought this up because I I wanted to have more specifics on affordable housing when it got to this point we were having this conversation about parceling off um and an and activation.
So, uh for me, I'm still looking for that additional level. Um I know that y'all done a bit of a dive on affordable housing and I just want to appreciate that because you heard that that was an interest in the council. Um but but we didn't maybe give clear direction or whatever about having options like multiple options around affordable housing or doing a deep dive with an affordable housing developer and
seeing what those details would actually look like when hashed out. >> So um I'm I'm prepared to support that as a um movement forward. >> Um and I have one more question but it's back to the sale of the land. Sorry, just the plot of land where the building exists, just the building.
Which what what are we looking at? >> So, we would we're the consideration would be to to to parcel off the building and the land for that corner piece so that Preservation North Carolina could market that piece on the city's behalf. >> Okay. Because earlier you said that we didn't have to do whether we were going to segment out.
We didn't have to do that till later. But if we're having to talk about a sale of a part, we're talking about segmenting today potentially. >> Yes. >> Yes.
Yes. >> I I do believe that, you know, so the UDIO So the parking so the the rub about all this stuff we're talking about today is really this parking piece. So I want to kind of just kind of crystallize a
little a couple of these parking pieces. So So the UDO does not because of where this is located require us to have any parking. Lenders want to have parking so that they can have tenants at these buildings so that they're the the tenants can park at the place and go into and have occupancy, right? So the lenders like to have, you know, more parking so that they can have uh less risk because they have units that are rented to tenants.
Um when we think about um also NCHFA is going to want to have parking, right? So they are going to require parking. 2 parking spaces will be required for a 4% or a 9% tax credit. If you add a hundred units on this site, we are essentially saying that the part where the orange is and the part to the left of the orange, that half of the site, that two acres of this site is going to
be required to build that 100 units of housing and to park that. If we don't do it that way, we can build um a parking garage that the city could pay for because it has a public benefit, but there is a significant cost for that. So if we came back to us with a housing focused activity, uh it would look like the optionality of structured parking, it would look like carving off the the lower end of that parcel for a 100 unit or whatever the number of units is and the accompanying parking required by a private lender and by NC HFA. Um or we could look at something which is do not do affordable housing development on this because of that consideration.
Right? So this is the rub that we have been trying to sort out. And so I think what we tried to do today in this presentation is to show that friction optionality around other things besides doing that that orange
orange affordable housing. So I is if that's helpful, that's that's part of the rub we've really been trying to sort through and it is it is the the challenge, right? >> Yeah. And and I hear you.
I just I think for me I'm I'm looking for I'm looking for more detail around that. Particularly, I'm thinking about our the city's most recent the city ourselves most recent project of Willard Street and the parking situation there, which is not remotely close to sizable surface lot that we're looking at for this project. So, um, for me, I'm looking I'm looking for more information and I'm going to leave my comments at that. >> Okay.
>> Thank you, Mayor Proen. >> Thank you. I appreciate all the information and, uh, I really appreciate the conversation about the rub of parking because that's essentially what it is. It doesn't really matter what our UDO states because this has come up over and over again with what's required uh of 4% and 9% tax credit projects, which is the only way with additional subsidy. Let's be clear, there's probably going
to be additional subsidy besides a 9%. And we get one of those a year. Um Durham gets one of those a year. We actually don't have any identified subsidy right now.
So that's number two. Uh, and I think that, um, for me, the the the urgency around the deterioration of the building makes sense. Um, I'm not a huge fan of parceling out the site, but I understand that that's going to be requirement. If there was a way to just do a 100red-year um, lease or whatever, and then it just gets rever reverted back to city ownership or something.
I have no idea if Preservation North Carolina has ever structured anything like that, but I'd be curious. I understand from investment standpoint people want to see it but in a 100 years your investment would have had to be updated anyway. So like that's why I think a longer uh looking at that tool I'm interested in even if it hasn't been done before that's lots of things haven't been done before. Um but I I think my concern is we're going
to end up with two acres of parking in prime downtown real estate. That's it. If we move forward with the current idea of affordable housing, and let's be clear, I keep hearing affordable housing now. There is no now because we don't have an identified funding source.
If we had money, we would have be putting it somewhere already. Um, we don't have an identified funding source to put an affordable housing project. It would have to be probably through a bond, which means you have to build a bond together. You have to bundle it.
You have to identify what it is. The county is going to be putting a b a bond soon. We just passed a bond last year. So, you have to time these things and you have to have it in a time where folks, I would say economically, are feeling pinched.
Uh you don't want to risk putting a bond, especially on housing, in front of voters, that they're going to turn down. Um and so those are all the real constraints. Uh I think the idea of while I don't love it, I'm at least open to the idea of moving
forward with the preservation part. however it turns out because I get the the risk of the deterioration of the building. That seems like a very real risk um on the on the programming of things. I am open to kind of the I don't want to park here because if we put a park here, we're never going to get housing here.
Let's be real. Uh once somebody seen something green and nice downtown, it doesn't matter that oh well 10 years ago or 5 years ago, I think it's great to activate the space so that it's not unappealing. Um, but I I don't want to do whatever San Antonio or I don't remember which one that pretty slide that somebody had that then exactly it was supposed to be interim open space. " Um, if some of the site is dedicated to open space, that's great, but we have to meet our housing goals. Um, I think that the the the adoption of the UD the new UDO actually gives us even greater flexibility on what we can accomplish on this site. Um, and then at some point that also gives us greater flexibility on additional affordable
housing units and being able to potentially put some structured pro parking on here, not surface parking. So that's those are all I think the reality that we are facing and it and I'll just say it, it sucks. Like it I understand that it sucks, especially for those who've been advocating for housing. I think I remember taking the poll as a community member back in 2017 before I was on council and I'm the only one left from that era.
So, um, I think this is my fourth goound on this thing. Um, so I and I think that the complexity of the site speaks for itself. I always point back. We did have a developer who did meet all of our goals back five years ago and it didn't go forward because the market reality in that moment was already chaotic and it's only gotten more chaotic.
Um, so that's where I'm at. I understand the urgency that's met. I'm hearing it. I I get it. Um but I I am not comfortable and I get that I might be one of there's seven of us and I might be the one who's like no I'm not I'm not doing it that way. Um, but I
want more. And more to me means, okay, let's move forward on the historic piece of this because of the pressure of the deterioration of the building. And we really have to think through what is that rest of that site look like and what our options are. And I just want to if that's where we land, I really do want to stress whatever we do as activation of the space, it really has to be lent as this is really interim so that we're not not being clear with residents of what what's to come.
Um I 200 affordable units is better than 100 even it means I got to wait a couple more years. >> Um so in terms of the funding source I think that's an important conversation. Um and uh and so is that like definitive that there is no existing funding source? Like are there is there not $5 million of non-desated um forever home funds? I mean just curious like you know because I know that there's programs that we haven't been able to spend down right because
they haven't been able to really find a market in the community. People want to demand them like so but but in terms of the ability to designate that's that's a no. >> Yeah. every single dollar that we have either with the uh dedicated housing fund, Forever Home Durham, um or CDBG dollars.
So the the kind of pool of money that we have is is allocated, meaning maybe it's not built, but it is a dollar tied to a project. >> Um Mayor Port, I have a follow-up question for you. So just um based on this presentation since we it doesn't feel like we have thoroughly explored the options for the creation of affordable housing. So just trying to get um around how we are at a hard no when it feels like we didn't do a deep dive into what the funding possibilities structurally look like. So just a little bit more context since you are the most senior person here. Uh I'm saying that I think that the work the reason that we're getting something that we feel uncomfortable with is because the work has been done the analysis has been been done by staff and they're showing us that that's that the last few slides in
a way that I really actually appreciate because it's it's hard to as much as we may desire a thing the the analysis has actually been done and the analysis is that matrix at the end is if this then this and the if this then this is if we move forward with the low-rise affordable housing housing. That's it. It's going to be parking and that for the next generation and whatever gets put on the historic site. That's been my interpretation.
>> And a concern related to uh Mayor PM's comments, you know, is you know, you you talk about like, you know, the the you know, the the clear benefits, right, of having more units, right? and you know 200 units however many years from now versus 100 units now. But the question of like how much those will cost and will we end up spending the same amount for you know for for like yeah just [clears throat] like how that's going to shake out and if it's going to be basically spending the same amount of money um or or a lot more money you know
um relative to the number of units that that we get. So based on the just the time value of of of waiting you know. >> Yeah. And that's that's the we've been waiting you know it's in in this way it's >> a lot more expensive now because >> right and and you know a few years ago interest rates might come back down now we have tariffs now we have um different parts of our you know macroeconomic issues that we didn't create and there's also not necessarily clear um signs on the other side of what's going to happen.
So, it's a risk either way. But I think that in this case, what I do know because I' we've had to deal with the parking issue. The parking issue to the point that Stacy made is not because of our own land use policies. It's because of the constraints that are put um from other entities and and that is that is a real um it could it could be that they give us some more flexibility. Sometimes that happens. Uh but that's up to an
organization that we don't control at all. I think what was Oh, I just >> you know obviously affordable housing is such a huge ch was huge concern right this was the part of the discussion in June is still the discussion now I think the data that that you all provided about affordable housing in Durham was really helpful so in the last like eight years we've delivered what is it like 4,000 plus some odd units right so that's about that's like five or 600 affordable units per year if I do the math properly right >> and so for me so this is it is a numbers game right so would we would we essentially for 20% of that production we've been doing every year and with with additional dedicated housing fund additional funds for for public housing redevelopment we're going to keep doing that and profiters as well we're going to keep doing that so would we for 20% of our production in one year dramatically influence what the future of that site is as you said with like you know Milton small affordable housing and and half of it parking would we do that for 20% of the production we've been doing every year for the last eight
tough trade-off for me. >> Go ahead. >> We have speakers on this issue. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Quite a few. >> Okay. So, we we don't have to make a decision quite yet.
I I just to counter your point and I understand I understand like not wanting to block us off but for me this is why I keep saying that I don't feel like I have enough information because we don't really have a projection on what it would take to build in the future and we also don't really have a good sense of what it would take to build now because we really haven't broken it down. we've just gotten this. We probably will need a 9% LIITC, but like that's that's as much detail as we've gotten because that deep dive wasn't done. And for me, I'm like a 100 units now is better if they are done more cost-effectively and then in 10 years we find that we literally are out of the market for building any units at all.
Right? Like what might happen, what's just happened on this site is that like we've changed direction three different times and we have no units. whereas if we had built eight years ago, there's
like the possibility that we would already have people housed. And so, um, I understand that it's a tough trade-off, but for me, it's like we've got folks who are imminently facing homelessness right now. And, uh, we do have added potentially added, but uh, to me, like we don't know the breakdown of all of those numbers that we got. Uh, some added stuff in downtown Durham, but like we've got this SP space.
It's close to a transit that everyone wants to see affordable housing on. And so like if we have more information about what it looks like right now to build those 100 units, that really might be a better policy decision for us than waiting to see if we hopefully can maybe build 200 in the future. So I mean I to me it's like I don't have enough information to like make a determination here. So >> a question for me would be like based on what what you're hearing in this discussion and the desire for potentially more information about an option that has affordable housing. Now uh if you could pull up the slide actually with options one through six would be helpful you know just to think about how to
interpret this. [snorts] Yeah. And with the arrows. >> Okay.
Yeah. The last one. Thank you. So, you know, it I guess is the way that I should interpret this is that like three option three is basically the short-term and the long-term scenario and there's nothing to build off of that in your current estimation if 100 units are placed anywhere on this site because of the parking needs or is there some other future that could be considered where there is something else that can be done on the site um with like a really rapid uh consideration of what that other option might be. >> So it's possible >> you I mentioned before the LITC compliance period which is 15 years. So the restrictions around parking that
Stacy, you know, I think very very clearly spoke to. Um a lot of that's tied up into that compliance period, right? And so that parking needs to be maintained. and they can't be displaced >> unless it's a 4% LITC and there's just more subsidy from the city that's required.
>> That could be a trade-off. Yes. >> Because it'd be helpful to have that before to see, you know, how much would it cost and then be able to weigh that and say, okay, well, maybe it's really not worth it, right? But like at least to be able to consider that if the city were able to find a path forward with the developer with a 4% LITC, you had more flexibility around the parking. And then could you you know leave the because what we're talking about is optionality like could we leave open in the future the option to do other things as the world changes and is there something that builds on three that provides us some optionality even if it leads to some trade-offs that we don't want to accept. So I can speak to um going back to I think what we saw from people's the introduction of you know structured
parking and what that meant for the site and and so in a lot of ways like part of um they moved from a 4% to a 9%. Part of the reason for that was the increase in the number of units and the cost to deliver each of those units. Um part of that was the additional need to park those units. Part of it was the changing site plan where we wanted to locate affordable housing and what that meant for the density of the building which led to increasing cost.
Anyway, what I'm what I'm getting at is that again I I I really want to speak to how these factors interrelate and the costs that are associated with them and how difficult it makes evaluating the the the the changing factors that you're describing. um to the question about cost and how do you could is there a future from three to one of the long-term scenarios or at least the the denser ones with development. >> Sure.
>> So I mean again it's all in the approach right? So if 4% LITC is less um cumbersome to overcome some of these you know parking displacement issues uh certainly then you need to invest in that delta. I don't know what that delta is offhand but we can go look back at the numbers that we have from 2024. So that would already be a little outdated but they would give some perspective.
Um either the city or somebody else would have to close that gap. There's also the the sort of like practical consideration of uh building taller on a site like this, which is naturally limited by costs to either deconstruct or build on top of an existing building. Um, which gets into a whole lot of other complicated construction approaches uh and issues. So, the answer is yes.
It's probably really expensive to be simple, >> Mr. Manager. So I I want to try and create some paths forward for council. Uh obviously we we presented some recommendations today. We presented six options any of which you could tell us
to pursue. Uh and then I think there's been a fair amount of discussion that all comes back to what about affordable housing now and and testing these assumptions about what sorts of um what sorts of restrictions that places going forward. " And so I think what I would offer if that is the uh if that is the prevailing sentiment of council that that that you refer this back to us for a deeper dive on short-term affordable housing options. uh that that a and I I hear an interest in a full vetting of of the matters around parking supply. Uh and and what evidence I think you know I think we brought summary evidence of our conversations our our consultants who don't have a dog in the fight but whose job it is to just kind of understand the
market uh brought us their evidence. uh if if there are specific developers that you'd like us to talk to, developers that you've heard from who believe that that we're making inaccurate assumptions. Um, and we bring forward a future agenda item that that captures that information for council uh with more information about about uh you know uh comments that Miss Poston has made about what we believe to be the requirements of the North Carolina Housing Finance uh the requirements of of vendors because I think what I'm hearing from council members is is you're you're not prepared at this point to rely on the the presumptions that we've we've made about about council member Copak's question which is scenario three seems in in the math that we have done seems to preclude future scenarios and I think that's what I hear council really wanting to test and feeling discomfort that that you accepting that at this point. So, a path forward would be for council to direct
us uh to to show the math uh to basically come back with either other outside experts who you would like us to talk to or that we identify who come back and say this is what we are basing our our information on. Uh and certainly to develop different scenarios if that comes back and says no, you don't need the parking. Therefore, you could do X in a in a in a current affordable housing makeup and leave a certain amount of the site for future development. Um, and and we would certainly, you know, obviously that that sounds like the the winner for council is that you get a both end.
Obviously, we don't think there is a both end and that that's why we brought you the recommendation here. Uh but I I want council to feel confident in that and not you know not presume that that is something that is generated by the staff or promoted by the staff. I want I want to find the people who inform your decision-m that that you would find reliable in that space. So that that would be an option. Certainly along with
that we would seek direction on whether or not you want us to do any of the recommended steps on the Milton small building. Uh certainly happy to go in another direction, but I want to offer you that we are certainly prepared to provide more of the information that it sounds like council continues to discuss and and be concerned about. >> I mean, could we put some boundaries on that like about what the level of request is, level of time, level of detail, because I don't want to leave it open-ended to go out and have to because I'll say that this has been a super helpful presentation. Um I do believe what has been shared. It's more getting a question of like what would need to be true uh in order to have an option to weigh against the others to to to you know to really prioritize the thing that you know we've all said that we want to prioritize which is the affordability piece um and and and so is it like setting a certain amount of time that will be spent and and and no more is it like um you know a level of analysis that we go into um you know is the answer just it's a boat but of money and
that's enough you know but like I think it would be helpful to know what would need to be true for an option that that would extend from option three. >> [snorts] >> you know, my best offer at this point would be we would go to people we have worked with uh and who are active in the development space and seek their, you know, kind of their voluntary feedback and to sort of create a little bit of a of a advisory council of, you know, of affordable housing developers who have delivered projects in Durham, who have been partnered with the city or who have been partnered with other people who deliver affordable housing projects. Lay out this conversation for them. Let show them the site.
tell them some of the assumptions we've been working under, ask them if they agree or disagree with those assumptions. I would welcome I know uh we have a number of advocacy groups in the room who uh who maintain those conversations as well as I would I would welcome them to bring uh those experts to us. I don't at this point I'm not able to predict how long that is. I certainly understand the urgency of getting it back as quickly as possible.
Uh we have a new housing director starting on Monday and and we can make it a top priority for them to help convene these conversations. But um I I don't envision that being uh hiring a consultant, putting money more money into it, but I do think we could at least have the conversation with affordable housing developers to say these were our assumptions. Council wants to make sure or wants to understand if those assumptions are valid or not valid. Would you be willing to inform that conversation for them?
and and certainly would welcome you guys telling us who you would like in the room for that conversation. >> Well, I don't actually if I look at the recommendations from staff, I don't think we're that far apart actually. Um I mean you you've recommended not advancing full site redevelopment. I think we're all in agreement there, right?
You recommended permitting staff to enter into negotiations with preservation at C. I think we're I think as since we're all on board with that. Three is subdividing the site. That would be part of that process. And then four is pursue interim activation while preparing for longerterm redevelopment. I think we're we're in this we're essentially in this phased redevelopment
piece. And I think what we're saying is we want to we want to continue these conversations about that interim activation which would include if we could if we if it make if the numbers make sense some level of affordable housing that we want to that we want to investigate with folks whether we can do that in a way that doesn't involve a whole lot of parking. seems to be that's what we're that's kind of where we are >> and and that's pretty much what I was about to say after listening to everyone uh and speakers I am going to get to you um and then I'll we'll take a break after that um but I I just want to be a bit like just very direct about about this but I do have some questions um just for public consumption and myself as well to the consultant maybe Um, going back to the very beginning, we sold this whole plot of land, what is that value? >> What was the proposal? >> If we just if we just outright sold this plot of land, what would be that value?
>> Uh, I mean, today >> Stacey may know that. >> Yeah. >> Um, so we have some appraisals. Let me get my notebook out.
Appraisal. Um so we um have had a number of appraisals on this property. I think the I want to give you the accurate number. So um so we've had three appraisals on the property.
3 million for the land and the building. 3 million. 5. 8 8 million.
>> All right. So, land and land and billion land and building 38 plus million. Uh
but we've chosen to retain the land. We we've cho chosen to keep the land into a lease, right? So >> I'm saying if we were to if we were to develop on it and we we were say like we would we would basically maintain ownership and work with a a partner to build and develop the property >> in the previous scenario. [clears throat] Correct.
In the current preservation North Carolina scenario, we're proposing selling the a portion of that land >> as a public benefit. >> All right. Um to PNC, Preservation North Carolina. What would be what what would be in this for um for your organization?
Uh what what would and I don't mean that to be in an invasive way, but um you know what what could you I think this question may have been asked earlier. What could you provide that the city could not in in regarding I guess you would be like our broker? Like do we need to sell the property for us to get
out of it what you're going to do for us? >> Preservation North Carolina is not a real estate firm. we would not be acting as a broker or an agent. We're a nonprofit that fits within the state statute uh as defined.
So, we are able to uh get an option which then the city would convey the building to us subject to minimal protective covenants and then we would convey the building with stronger covenants to um our our buyer. Um the benefit uh as as suggested a little earlier would be to um provide the lion share of certainty for at least this portion of this 4acre site that can be activated sooner rather than later. >> Yeah. >> Um you know the value of that would be subject to negotiation and several varying factors but we appreciate >> and there are tax credits we get out of I mean there that that would assist with this. Correct. There are tax well there
are tax credits that a for-profit developer would be able to earn in order to facilitate the development of the building. Um as a as a local government you all wouldn't be able to benefit from that unfortunately. Yeah. >> Right.
And you would be able to help find that specialist in that type of development. Yes, sir. Correct. >> Yes, sir.
>> All right. Um so what what I'm looking at here is uh and I just wanted to put that that both sides out there. Um, I what I'm struggling with is I I feel like we're only looking at, you know, just this site and I feel like we're only looking at just this building. Now, I can get into what are the possibilities of this building.
Uh, you know, I'm thinking micro apartments and condos, you [clears throat] know, just smaller footprints. It's right there in downtown Durham. Uh, the the flexibility or creativity we can get around that. um you know and and that's if the building is preserved, right? [clears throat] Um but the what my
hangup is is this is very close to the head of the rail trail. Uh it is a lot of development that's going to be happening in this part of downtown. And I think the worst type of buyer is an impulsive buyer where you just buy it just just boom, I just want it right now because we need it, you know, rather than having a little patience and and you know um this this land is going to provide us um significant dividends. It really will because it's in the heart of a growing city.
There is no such thing as we may not get anything in the future. not in not in Durham. So I I feel really confident uh that you know we we have a responsibility to to make this this responsible this this responsible decision uh rather than you know just I I'm I'm not in favor of taking a little bit here just because we need it. We're we've gotten a lot more than we had when
we first bought this on on board. thousands of units and there are thousands of units in the pipeline and we're going to continue to get more. Um, we have a new UDO that's going to be completed soon which is going to give us a lot more flexibility here. What I do not want to do is make an impulsive decision and stuck with a bunch of parking just to say look what we did.
We did 100 affordable units and just because we're saying affordable units does not mean it's affordable to build. It's going to cost the same thing. [snorts] It just means that we're going to have more supplements to go with it and we're going to have to pay for that. And I don't want to get in the habit of continuing to bond our way through things because that has invisible debt.
That debt service is going to cost. We don't talk about that. But that is what's driving our taxes as well. So I don't want to say look what we did. We did a few affordable units and then you have to pay for it on the back end and you start pricing people out. So you can look at an asset and say look what I did
while you watch them leave the city because they can't afford to stay here. So my point is it's all connected. It is complex. There is a lot of nuance with it.
Uh and I just rather be um and I know there's a lot of urgency around getting this done. Uh but I also believe that you know housing is one option. It's the most important option right now, but it's one option of what we need. We have teenagers right now that don't feel welcome downtown.
And this is a beautiful site to be able to do housing, the hotel if you want. It's a lot we can do with it, but I don't want to be impulsive in a bad market. So I uh and also I I I I don't want to uh you know, we we pay our staff, pay professionals to get the best information possible. I don't want to and I'm colleagues, I'm not saying any of us are doing this.
Um but it it felt like we were about to go there. Mr. manager based on your comments. I don't want to get in the habit of making it seem like we don't trust our staff to do the job.
>> So, I I uh I trust you all. I trust information, but also, you know, if our colleagues, if my colleagues want more information, I think it's a matter of, you know, just getting more concrete information um so that we can, you know, make those um informed decisions. But I'm looking at, you know, the trajectory of Durham. I'm looking at all the things we need.
I'm looking at what's possible. What is the bigger picture? Uh I'm a little hung up on the fact we're just looking at one. We're looking at the site in a vacuum and also uh you know I'm we haven't talked to state employees credit union and what they're going to do with their site.
We haven't talked to BB&T truest and what they're going to do with their site. We have residential around it. You know we have the uh um mutual tower right there. You know what are who are the potential partners that are adjacent spec like right adjacent to it.
Have we bought them to the conversation? You know, I would love to have this building preserved and, you know, tell a continued story of the mutual tower. You know, it's so much more we can do than just impulsively
get settled with a bunch of parking surface parking when that could actually be activated space for something. And it could be more than just where someone is, you know, I I just I don't want to get in the whole like look, I did 100 affordable housing and then be happy with it. uh 100 affordable housing units and and when it could be hundreds more mixed in with uh you know other other housing types and other housing income levels. I do not want another McDougall Terrace or another Cornwallis.
The federal government just put one level of homes and they just they just neglected people and the people who live there don't deserve that. That's why we're moving them out into better living conditions. We don't need that again. And to be honest with you, it always ends up being the same type of people and they look just like me.
So, I think we deserve something nice and I think we have an opportunity to do it. And that's what I hope we can do here. So, I I'd like to go ahead and we
don't have a lot of speakers, but I do want to make sure we give our speakers some time here and then we'll take a break and we'll go through our other two presentations plus close session >> after we get after we get direction. Right. Uh let me uh go ahead and >> All right. Um I'm going to go ahead and call the speakers up.
James Blake, Mick [clears throat] Rainer, Jane Williams. Then I'll call the other two other three. >> Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Pro Tim. >> Good afternoon. >> Um, so I'm my name is James Blake. I'm pastor of Fisher Memorial United Holy Church, a member of Durham Can and a member of the strategy team of Durham Can here today to emphasize that we are here in support of affordable housing
for the site at 505. We've been working with this site since about 2017 with the promise that there would be affordable housing on this site. And so as a pastor, I have a unique experience in that at the corner of Fagatville and Umstead, I have a group of homeless or unhoused people who are building fires every day to stay warm during the night or even during the day. And there is absolutely nothing that we can do about getting them off that property because every time we move them off the property, they come back to the property.
And one of the things that that that stems for us is that there's not enough housing in Durham. And not just for those who are unhoused, but for those who are working in Durham and cannot afford to live in Durham. They are living in cities outside of Durham and driving [snorts] in each and every
day to come to work, but they cannot live in the city in which they work. That is a problem that we have here in the city of Durham. And the only way that we're going to do that is to have some affordable housing. Often we say the word affordable, the question is affordable for whom?
And oftent times that does not preclude those who look like me as it is affordable housing. So we are saying today just as we said years ago that there needs to be affordable housing on the 505 West Chapel Hill Street site. >> Thank you Mc Rainer. >> M Mr.
Mayor, Madame Prom Council members, thank you for the opportunity to address you today. Uh my name is Mick Rener. I'm one of the pastors at Duke Memorial United Methodist. Uh as you may know, that's directly across from the 505 site. In our faith tradition, uh we are in the first week of Advent, a time of waiting and expectation. Uh but
Advent consists of four Sundays. Um our congregation and our community have been waiting for eight years. Um looking across the street from our sanctuary at a vacant lot, a lot with a promise of hope, of new neighbors, new opportunities for our city. Alongside Durham Can and many other organizations here today, we have been advocating to use a portion of the 505 site to build affordable housing.
The need for affordable housing has continued to grow. At our church, we have a ministry that helps with rent or utility requests. Since I've been there, those requests have gone from seven or eight a month to 18 to 20 a month. We are in an affordable housing crisis. At Duke Memorial at 504 West Chapel Hill Street, we are seeing people being turned away each month for rent assistance as they look at 505 West Chapel Hill Street directly across the street from them at a at a vacant lot that could be used for safe, clean, and affordable housing to 100 or more families as soon as possible. This could be done by through
through using LITEX funds uh by not waiting on the restoration of the Milton Spin to push forward because we cannot afford to delay. There are folks who literally cannot afford for us to delay. Today is a new day. Each of you in some way have said yes to building affordable housing.
And six weeks ago at CAN's candidate assembly, um Mr. Mayor, Council Member Cook, Council Member Kopac, and Council Member Burus each said yes to the question of will you vote to direct city staff to fasttrack the construction at 505 by a qualified affordable housing developer of at least 100 units of affordable at 60% AMI. [clears throat] Now, we are encouraged by the questions that are being asked today, by that yes to that question. And we are inviting as a congregation directly across the street and as your community uh to turn that yes into positive action uh to act on what is possible for affordable
housing today for 100 affordable units as soon as possible. Thank you, >> Jane Williams. and after Jane Williams, Whip Gully, uh Julian Patterson, and Nicole Thompson. >> Mr.
Mayor, Mayor Potam, Council members, thanks for your time. >> Thanks, Stacy. On behalf of the Coalition of Affordable Housing and Transit, the Walk-in Ministry of First Presbyterian Church, and the 505 Consortium, I want to express our deep appreciation to the council for making affordable housing the number one priority at 505 West Chapel Hill. The council reaffirmed their support last year in directing a developer uh to significantly increase the number of affordable units. It is important for
the site plan for the property uh and affordable housing developers can be very effective in an overall plan and they're creative solutions and I'd like to suggest that we be creative in this. If we go down Main Street and we look at what the county did, they had a parking issue. They had an affordable housing issue. So they built a parking deck and wrapped it with affordable housing.
I would ask for us to look at creative solutions because with it they addressed both of these issues and they were also effective with the use of that land. So the proposal of number three does not follow the council's number one priority at 505. Our request is simple and straightforward to fasttrack the exploration of affordable housing on the site. And today we actually have with us in the audience um Greg Warren who has 30 years of experience with affordable housing building. And I would suggest
that he be one of the people who's consulted in in putting together this task force that's going to uh look at affordable housing on the site. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh, interesting comment.
Stacy, do we know who owns that land? Does the county own that land or they uh where uh Miss Williams was just speaking of they own it? >> Yes. >> Okay.
Thank you. >> Both sides. Okay, good. [clears throat] Mayor, welcome.
>> Mr. Mayor, thank you. >> You still look just as young as your picture in the hallway. >> Not at all, but I appreciate you that flattery will get you everywhere. I appreciate the opportunity to be with you and special of congratulations to newly elected members of the council. Appreciate your public service uh as as
with the whole of the council. " So, let me try and just at this late date, at this late moment, share a couple of things. you've got a lot of information that's come your way. Uh we appreciate, as Jane said, the many years that this council has said number one top priority is affordable housing.
Um and we're hopeful that continues to be the case, but it's not clear. We're we're disappointed and bewildered by frankly the the the staff and consultants report because as we read them, we think they misleadingly and negatively slant against affordable housing. Let me give you a couple of quick examples. You've heard some about how the report conflicts the 4% and the
9% liitex. They're very different things and one has a lot of uh competition and requirements and uh limitations and the other one doesn't and they're not the same and yet you read the report and I I give examples in what you'll see in the remarks about how they appear to say that they all have great difficulty. So affordable housing is going to be very difficult. Also, the numbers in the chart about affordable housing units since 2018 in there.
I got information from the housing authority about just four of those uh units. And what is clear is that they've included in new affordable housing units, both affordable housing units that don't meet the city's policy def definition of affordable housing because they're over 60% AMI and then a good number of them that are replacement units. That is, we tore down some units, we replace them. Those are not new units.
Those are replacement units and you can't count them as new additions. And in these these four examples, there's almost 400 new units counted in to the thousand. Uh that really shouldn't be. That's
something that you all can look into and get figures from DHA and see if that's really the case or not. Um so I would suggest to you that the chart showing other city properties that you could go build affordable housing. Sure. But the chance in the future that you might build affordable housing doesn't mean you shouldn't do something now if you can.
And we're hopeful that the council will say we want to take steps now. And I appreciate the manager's efforts to try and find some way to do that. Mr. Manager, I would hope there's a couple just like you have Preservation North Carolina, there's a couple of good housing developers that you all have worked with that are here.
Sit down with one or two of them. You don't need counsel. Just ask each one of them or one of them. We want to get the best shot at affordable housing.
We can get the best opportunity. " And then come back and see if council likes it or not. So we're grateful for all your work. look forward to continue to work with you.
>> Thank you. >> Welcome. >> Thank you. Uh Julianne Patterson, executive director of Preservation Durham. Uh good
afternoon, Mayor Williams, Mayor Prom Cavayiero, um and the Durham City Council. Welcome to our new council members, Baris and Kopac. Uh, Preservation Durham is here today to support the staff recommendation to subdivide the site and begin negotiations with preservation North Carolina on an option to purchase agreement for the historic home security life building. This is the path we advocated for um this summer when negotiations with Peebles um ended and we continue to believe it's the best way to ensure the building receives the specialized attention it deserves and frees up the rest of the site for development in line with other stated priorities like affordable housing.
Um, I feel like the conversation has gone around in a bunch of different ways. So, my my comments I've um I'm changing them. Um, but I think what we have asked for and what Preservation North Carolina has presented is really just make this a little bit more of a simple process. Subdivide out the historic building, have uh Preservation North Carolina work with that. Um, just focus or just commit
to the rehab and subdivision of that site. It does not limit future development on the rest of the site. In fact, we believe that subdividing allows uh the rehab of the historic building to move forward um unencumbered by the rest of the site. And we believe that that also allows um looking at further development options for affordable housing on the rest of the parcel.
It'll make that a clearer thing to look at and um talk with affordable housing developers directly on. Um, I did have a question I think for Mark. Um, on the the rehab cost of 25 to 30 million, does that incorporate the historic tax credits? >> It's just a cost.
>> Okay. Um, so incorporating the historic tax credits, which I keep coming and talking about, um, which if Preservation North Carolina is involved, would not be optional. That would be, um, a required part of that process, working and utilizing the Secretary of the Interior standards brings that rehab cost down to 16 to 20 million. Um, so and that is a it's not a 4 percent, it's not a 9%
credit, it's not competitive. Um, it is a 35% historic tax credit and that is only available if the historic building remains there. Um, so that I think using real numbers to evaluate the rehab of this building and kind of what we're we're looking at is important. And I think engaging Preservation North Carolina's expertise ensures that the tax credits will be used.
Um, and that minimizes the costs and need for public subsidy. Um, and then finally, we also believe that it puts the preservation focus in experienced hands with a nonprofit uh community partner. Um, bringing them to the table. And to the question of like what's in it for them, this is just mission alignment.
They do this work all the time. Um, and I'm grateful that Kathleen is still willing to work on this. Um, she has been with Preservation North Carolina much longer than this period. And I am done.
Thank you. Thank you so much. And and that's why I
asked that question, just just to put it on the record, there there's going to be values in this, you know, and um if preservation is one of the values and just want to make sure we all hear it. Um I do have to poll the council. I know that there are like 20 gaylas and stuff things going on tonight. I don't know who's going, who's not, and who's going where.
Do you all want me to order food? >> Yes. >> Okay. [laughter] Yes, [sighs] >> Madame Clerk.
Uh, is every everyone is going to eat? >> Okay. >> Chelsea, >> everyone's eating. Coke.
>> Yeah, that's fine. >> Yeah. Yeah. [clears throat] >> Go ahead.
Go ahead and place the order. >> Uh, colleagues, let's take a 10-minute break and uh then we'll come back. >> Oh, yeah. I'm sorry.
Yes. Yes. Uh, one more speaker and then we'll take a break. [laughter] make them give you dinner, too. >> I know. Nicole Thompson, Downtown Durham
Incorporated. Um, and I'm so glad I'm coming after you all know that you're getting ready to be fed. So, that's good. Um, I just have a few quick moments, uh, quick quick comments.
Um, I have not spoken before you all about this particular, um, parcel. Uh, but in February of 2017, I arrived in Durham in this position. And I believe in March or April of that year, I had one of my first meetings and it was about this piece of property, this property, and what to do with this property. And I think Stacy was at that meeting. Um, we sat around and we talked what could we do, what should we do, what could we do, what can we do throughout that entire conversation and over the last eight almost nine years, it has always been that it has been a catalytic opportunity for Durham and for downtown. It sits in a place that you drive by, you see as you're coming in, as you leave, whether it's on Chapel Hill Street or whether it's 147.
I ask you all to think big. What is next for Durham? Some of you all have heard that question, but what is next for Durham? What is next for downtown?
This site gives you the opportunity to think big, to think beyond the boundary of Chapel Hill Street, Gregson, Jackson, and Duke. And I'll just remind you that two one-way roads that parallel sit on either side that make mobility a challenge right now. But think big about what this site could do for future development in downtown. how it could partner with the expansion of the American Tobacco Campus, phase three, whatever you want to call it.
Sure, that hasn't happened yet, but it doesn't mean that it's not. We're in a moment here. It's just a moment. It's not the beall endall. This is this is just a moment as we look at what our
downtowns, and this is not just unique to Durham, but what our downtowns become in this new world. and you all could lead the way as you all have done time and time again. Going back to having a Black Wall Street in downtown that was successful given that it was a terrible reason that we had to have it. Building a stadium in downtown, keeping the Bulls in downtown, building a DACA in downtown.
Creating spaces. Think big about what you can do and how what you do on this site helps trigger what happens at the mutual building. There is developable land around that that site. I'm not be very clear.
I'm not saying that building is going anywhere. Very clear. There is land around that that sits adjacent to what happens here. It could be so much more.
And your question is probably like what, Nicole? I don't know. But it it needs to be thought about as intentionally as it was
thought about eight years ago. And DDI asked that we sit and work with the city on how to do that because we have a blueprint that you all um heard about. Thank you. >> Thank you.
All right, colleagues. Uh we'll [clears throat] come back at uh 555. 455. 455. Yeah. >> Fun answer.
All right, guys. Let's uh bring it back. Please take So, it's been a lot of rich discussion around this and um I've really [clears throat] appreciated it and uh just you know listening to everyone. Uh the good thing is I don't think we're too far off base.
Okay, I can stop rambling and now she's here. I was going to ramble until Javier walked back in. May pro Tim walked back in. Uh because she took the notes down. Uh I am If you will go ahead and give us a uh
like a consensus of what you heard based on what our direction will be for next steps and we can debate to see if that's what we're actually uh all saying. >> Thank you. And um we were doing the very important thing of making sure our new council colleagues know where the snacks are. um which is we've learned how we get along so much better when we get snacks.
Um what what I heard that I I felt there was at least consensus around was moving forward with preser preservation North Carolina on that path. Um and then there were essentially and this is I think what council member Copek said which was the option three. Um sorry y'all I got to pull up my presentation. um the option three, but um uh with the idea that to get more information on like testing the affordability presumptions that were made and the parking presumptions that were made and that staff would then pull together kind of a small advisory group to do some more um investigation on
those assumptions that were made in the presentation to us uh based on conversations from speakers. There was also a suggestion of adding Mr. Warren if he's amendable uh to that group. And my suggestion is maybe adding Nicole um Thompson from DDI uh to that working group or that advisory council as well.
But the idea was that they would come back to council. Um unclear on timeline, but I think sooner rather than later and I think maybe that's the one question that I have uh specifically testing the both the the what are really the parameters around affordability and what is parking um really going to be there or at least a better understanding. That is where um I landed but not sure where others were. So, how does that relate to the three like of the four staff recommendations? The first three are all about not doing like full-sight redevelopment and the second two are like are essentially like related to preservation North Carolina
and Milton Mall Small. So, those >> Yeah. So, it's basically the preserve pursue interim activation while preparing for longerterm development. I'm interpreting the pursue interim activation as instead of just interim activation, pursue affordable housing um in pursu but also considering preparing for long-term redevelopment that folks did not feel that the case against affordable housing was made as strongly affordable housing now.
uh that folks thought that that needed to be um cha basically folks were challenging that and they wanted more information. And what we needed to have what we needed to have was both um a better understanding of what the parking requirements actually are um and how does that affect uh the affordable housing project >> and >> and council member I'm going to call in council member Cook and then you council member Rrist go ahead. >> Um just two questions. The first one is um I I what I'm hoping to see is like multiple options for affordable housing now with a long-term option. Not and I just don't want to limit us to just the
issue on parking um or the option that's listed as number three um because I just don't feel like that one >> What do you mean by long-term? Can you >> Yeah, I mean I I want to with with number three sort of being the guideline of like we are interested in in our our short-term interest is in affordable housing, but seeing what options are available to us there, not just sort of understanding the parking, although I do think that that's like a big part of it, but also like getting ideas from staff about solutions for affordable builds more specific. I just I don't want to limit it to the parking issue, I guess, is what I'm saying. >> I'm sorry. And I didn't mean to limit to the parking issues. I'm saying that the determining [snorts] the parking issues helps us understand the affordability whatever yeah matt whatever comes from that you can't get to the affordability question without figuring out the parking question first I guess >> sure I just yeah I just want to make sure that was it was clear that I was looking for something more broad and then also >> can I ask a clarifying question real quick when you say that I think the thing is that we're not going into contract with anyone so we're not going
to have any real numbers and so when you say I want more information I I think the question becomes What is the information that would be sufficient? >> Yes, thank you for asking that because I think that is more clear than what I was saying, which is that I would love for staff to sit down with affordability affordable housing developers and see what our options are moving forward. That's what I would like to see. >> And can I ask what you mean by options?
, etc. So like >> we're pursuing different types of litec. >> Yes. Or whatever it would or if it's diversity subsidy.
>> Right. >> Yeah. Um that's my interest is having them sit down with an affordable housing provider because I know they did but not with an eye towards having that have multiple options around it. So, and then my second question is, do we have an amount of land that is for the preservation Durham or preservation
North Carolina piece or is that something that comes back like what are the parameters? >> Aren't they gonna >> Can you come to the mic, please? Kathleen Turner, Preservation North Carolina. We were proposing uh initially an acre which encompasses the building as well as surrounding um uh architectural landscape features as well as driveway into uh basement and subb.
Do folks feel comfortable with that? Just can we just do a thumbs up with the acre that the preservation folks are saying? I've got three. I'm I'm looking at a couple more because that doesn't >> in terms of how much would be if that is the decision. >> Correct. So on the historic preservation
piece, what we are deciding is that we are moving forward with North Carolina preservation North Carolina. That only means that they move us down a process. Eventually that does mean subdividing the parcel if that's what we decide to do. But we actually have to have an understanding of what what part of the parcel.
And what they're saying is it would need to be an acre. If we're comfortable with that, then that part has been determined that yes, we are going to move forward with Preservation North Carolina at least investigating further subdividing the lot. And I'm getting a headnod from Miss Poston. So I'm going to say that that is that one recommendation. if folks could say yay nay or we need further discussion so we know and then I can call on folks if we want further >> discussation uh within that acre that's like considering the parking as as well you all might want to stay close to the mic so we get through this by the way
>> yes that does encompass uh some potential surface parking uh But the land behind the building is integral into driveways into the basement and subb. I've seen some preliminary drawings from way back in the day that could uh possibly integrate some uh minimal parking in the basement. So that acre after talking to planning department and others it seemed like it worked for that site. any smaller, you start constraining and that building and its rehabilitation and future use would really have to lean on uh structured parking provided by others.
>> Thank you. So, it seems like an acre is sufficient for what Preservation North Carolina is envisioning. Are folks comfortable with that recommendation or do we need to have further discussion? Just give a thumbs up down or >> I'll go with that.
>> Okay. So on the preservation North Carolina, does staff have what they need? >> So I think if we could do approximately an acre that could be helpful. I want to
make sure that DOT one way entering that piece and the subdivision could work. So just approximately one acre generally in that in that area. >> Okay. So approximately one acre um would be what would be subdivided and we would be moving forward with that um conversation with Preservation North Carolina.
>> We're all good. Okay. And uh before we move on, so uh Stacy, can you confirm for me in order to move that forward that will come back as a separate agenda item for council's consideration to exercise the option? Uh and there may be details in that conversation that aren't being settled today, but that come back before the council for adoption as it to move forward.
Yep. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. On the question of affordability, what I have heard from colleagues is that they would like to the MA manager's point earlier a small um advisory group that is working with staff to further test out um uh the affordability question meaning subsidy
stack. Is the 9% something that would work or 4% or something? Uh and even if it's just broad numbers, what would the city subsidy maybe have to be? And again, we understand that it's broad, but that there was at least something a little bit more thorough than what we have currently.
And Council Member Copek, I see you. And I think Council Member Burus, I think I see you, too. >> Council member, I think you >> Thank you. >> Um Um I I think that to me that makes sense. I think testing these assumptions around like 4% 9% with city subsidy how many units right parking all that kind of stuff that makes sense to me I want to make sure that it's and we're talking about some kind of working group some kind of folks Greg Warren potentially Nicole and others involved in that for me it's important is to frame this properly so we're not we're not looking long term this still like what we can do in the immediate term short and
immediate term to do affordable housing as part of three so we're not so I want to make sure this doesn't get too big for that group >> thank you Can I ask a clarification really quick on that? When folks say affordable housing now, we know that that doesn't that doesn't mean now. So what what is the time parameter for that? Two years, three years, I think that was going to help this group decide, you know, real options.
>> I think it's contingent upon information presented. So when we have more information about the LITC and all those other things, then we can probably like give a time more defined timeline. So I don't feel comfortable making that as we know the market and what everyone else has uplifted already. So we don't have a magic wand to say we know obviously it's not going to happen tomorrow but we do need to see like based on and we also need to understand a lot of texts are um highly competitive grants and so if we're looking at that you may not receive it in this cycle so I think it's going to take us to have additional information to make an informed decision.
Are we at least comfortable with under year under five years? [laughter] >> I would say like as soon as as soon as practicable, right? Be it's it's it's more it's less a question of specific timing even though we want to move
quickly but more about prioritization and it's a decision if that is something that we do first that it may have a trade-off where we don't get something else that we want uh more so than the specific timing. And and that's what one thing I want to kind of amend or add to your summation of this recommendation is that I think in exploring the the the different stack options of having affordability done, you know, as a priority, how much of the site do we think that takes up? because then [clears throat] that helps us to evaluate how much is left over or not at all which then preempts some of the other long-term thinking we might want to do. So it's like with the affordable housing stack options like how much might be left to activate in some way in the future I think would be uh important to see.
>> Council member wrist. >> Yeah, I think that'll make sense. I I also think having some kind of seems to me like you know end of the first
quarter of this group comes back to us. So it's not like this is not a 6 n what it's like first quarter of next year. >> I was going to put a secondary timeline. I would I would propose that if it's something to council member Burrus's point the 9%s are competitive.
There's a clear clear prioritization that's already happened on some of those things. So I actually think we need to do an under over five. So we're saying that we would want something to move forward within under five years and that would be the maximum length. >> Council member Burrus.
to go back to the advisory group formation. Can we be sure to include someone from Durham Can, maybe one of the pastors to be a part of that group as well? >> Yes, I believe Mr. Warren is also part of Durham, but I could be wrong on that.
>> Yeah, but just in addition to make sure from the clergy caucus or someone is also a part of that group as well. >> Um, and they've all left. So, I'm hoping that staff is capturing. Okay.
So, we've heard um a recommendation from somebody from the clergy caucus of >> Durham Can, >> Miss Mr. Warren, and Miss Thompson. Let's do this. Uh, colleagues, if you
all have suggestions, let me know and staff, I can give those names to you because we do want to make sure it's just not a whoever raised their hand want to make sure it's a legitimately formed um, [clears throat] >> yeah, >> it seems like the specific task here is very ba is based on technical skills around understanding of affordable housing development. And so I want [clears throat] to make sure it doesn't grow into like a broader stakeholder group about input into this process because we've had those opportunities. I think if it's somebody you know and we have can folks who are also I think very well informed. Um but you know in terms of sending suggestions to you I just wanted to since you raised that to have parameters it's like this is about answering an affordable housing question u is how I would would see it if feathers >> correct.
So for example I I would suggest someone like Sherard Banks who does he's an attorney that does only affordable housing. I also want to get a little clarification. We're saying affordable housing and affordable housing as soon as possible. That doesn't mean just affordable units,
correct? >> I think that depends on the conversation, but it seems like yes, just affordable units. >> AMI, though. >> Yeah.
I I don't know who's going to do that. [clears throat] >> Yeah. >> So, when I proposed this, here's what I was trying to get at. Um I you know we we brought forward a construct today that I think was based on a presumption that we saw to be based in in fact and that was this notion of short-term decisions and long-term decisions.
And we brought a recommendation based on a presumption that we made that long-term decisions precluded that that some of that the long-term options precluded one of the short-term options. And I think that that presumption has been debated. And so my intention in the advisory group is primarily to test those assumptions and to bring you uh you to bring you the feedback from that group. So my uh my
primary goal is to give you the information you need from experts in the field um that that come back and say staff was right or staff was wrong or we disagree with staff and we believe if you move forward with a with an RFP this is what you'll be able to do. And critical to that and what I would like, you know, to to be part of the objective is to be talking to those developers about what their vision for a project might look like and how much of the site would it control because that's that was what we were bringing forward as a concern. Um because this question is can we do more later or are we deciding now and that's that first recommendation about are you master planning or not? our our presumption coming in was that affordable housing plus Milton Small speaks for the site. I think that is that question and so I think that is a question we are trying to answer for you
because many of you have said I'd like to do affordable housing housing now but I I do think we can do more later and so I think we we want to lean into that. Um if the mandate is also and we'd like to know all the different types of affordable housing I would just say that is a larger scope that might take longer and we are happy to do that too. Um but that is more of almost like an RFP process or an RFQ process where we are so I think the shorter question is testing these assumptions and saying you know and so we we can ask the 4% 9% questions but you know for me I I think we're trying to help you answer the question does affordable housing lock up the site or not because I think that respectfully and I I I've told several of you this isn't a defensive thing for me it's just like if that's the question, let us answer that question with more people and more voices in the room. You know, not just the consultants that that we have relied on and the
staff, but let's bring some of the developers who I think are contributing to this conversation and talking to KN and that Ken is talking to and let us build out that dialogue and then revisit the question of whether or not you want to move forward. >> Yeah. >> With more information. >> Thank you, Council Member um Kopac.
And I think I think the important question is does affordable housing plus uh Milton small building preservation lock up the site because I think another important presumption that we're making is that that in any scenario we're doing the preservation and it may be that we're making a choice as a council which we have to acknowledge transparently that like that may preclude us from being able to do the affordable housing. I hate being able to you know choose between my children. I don't have any favorite children. Um you in this case like you know preservation and and affordability are two things I feel very strongly about. But you know if we are because of the urgency of acting on on the Milton small building we may be in a position where we we we are um you know
prioritizing that explicitly over the affordability piece. And so I just think we need to be clear about that. So >> I mean [snorts] I think the recommendation is pretty clear. We can do preservation and affordability.
It may lock up the site. We may be able to do preservation now and affordability long term that wouldn't lock up the site. So, I don't think there's I don't think there's necessarily a trade-off between preservation and affordability. I think we can do both, but it may it may like with the recommendation from the experts is it may take up the whole site.
>> We have to but I was just going to say also I if if part of this is as Bo is describing it is kind of testing this assumption, right? I think someone either either someone from NCHFA or someone who has clear awareness of like what those requirements are because that's a as I looked real quick online there's clear requirements about whatever type A units or whatever that are that are in addition to whatever our local regs or local ordinances say about parking they have clear requirements for spaces and so we need to know what those exactly are. >> That's what I was getting at earlier. I know I know that there are some [clears throat] legitimate >> associations within those restrictions.
Um, yeah. So, I think we'll rely on you guys to do that. I I don't want to do an all call >> guidance or you >> Well, I mean, what I'm speaking specifically to is this this this group of uh folks tech that look at this technical assumption or assessment. Um, I'm not going to do an all call of suggest.
I'll just rely on you guys to do that. And and just to put on record that I I've said this before, I don't want us to be overly prescriptive and then have all of this, you know, uh expectations that we can make so many things happen. If we're saying that it's going to be only affordable housing, do know our subsidy is going to go higher. So we can't restrict a developer to just build what we want and not expect them to put market rate on and balance it out.
I mean, they're going to get they got to get something out of it themselves. They have to all >> I think that that's where we actually are getting too prescriptive. They that's why the that's why staff's going to come back. Um do you um
>> Manager Ferguson, do you feel like you have enough based on what I don't know if that's possible? >> Uh I believe that You know what I'd like to do? I'd like to uh I'd like to summarize with I'd like to confer with staff after summarize a process for you all and send it out uh happy to make that available publicly as well to say this is how we'd proceed. What I what I think I hear is that what I think I'd like to propose is we meet with affordable housing developers, have a representative from can you've asked for uh DDI to be represented that we test the major assumptions coming forward. The the part where that sounds different than what some of you said is that we explore a variety of opportunities for affordable housing which sounds more like a discussion of mix of uses mix of financing mechanisms and I've we have approached this more from a space planning perspective and so if the desire is to have a more thorough
analysis of how this site can support affordable housing I'd like that to be the direction And therefore, we could lean into more of what would look like an RFP process on offering as much of the site as an affordable housing developer might want to use to be able to provide the most options to council about what those products look like. To me, those are two different things. We are prepared to do either, and I would like council's direction on which you want. >> Council member Baker.
>> Yeah. I mean, to me, that sounds like part A and part B. I do think that you can't do one without doing the other. Um, so you've laid it out a couple times, the approach that you all would take as next steps.
It seems like something that you could act on relatively quickly. Um, and then the longer piece is the exploration of actual development of the affordable housing, but we wouldn't want to pursue that if that locked down the rest of the site. We couldn't do anything with the rest with the rest of the block.
>> Um, right. I think that I'm >> saying what everyone agrees with. Um, so kind of part A is quick. Uh, you know, uh, is our understanding correct?
Is our hope correct that we could potentially from a physical standpoint develop some affordable housing on let's say another acre? um using the uh rest of the site for parking shortterm and then for example in the future build a parking deck, park the uh affordable housing there, develop something great that's abuing um Chapel Hill Street or something like that moving forward. So part A, part B, I I think coming back more more urgently and more quickly with the answer to that first big question of does it preclude other things from the rest of the site. And I imagine this will be also part of it is I think there's there were questions about well don't we have some resources to do this? So like being clear with us about like what resources might be available if any right now to do this as well. That's got to be
>> my Yeah. I think I'm going to rely on staff from uh general services from uh housing and neighborhood services uh and our connections with the community and rely on uh the the uh participation of folks in our community. I'm just talking about staff time at this at this point. I I don't envision us commissioning any funded studies to support this, >> but I just mean bringing in the sort of like the the sort of the dollar side of it as well to sort of we'll get some >> Sorry.
Yes. There'll be a range of costs or whatever and then like what do we currently have that could support that and what would we need to >> Yes. I I think critical to the discussion of how much site is required. We are making assumptions about structured parking versus surface parking. You know, I think because of the extreme cost of structured parking, I think we can come back. I mean, you can definitely support housing with a smaller footprint if you build structured parking, which is very
expensive. And so bringing back numbers is what I hear you saying on, you know, if we propose a smaller footprint due to structured parking, can we tell you what that would cost and what the subsidy would need to go up because of that? Is that what you're asking? >> I wouldn't even go to structured parking.
Even just even just the cost for to do whatever we're whatever they're testing assumes, I'm assuming some kind of city subsidy. >> How much that would be? And do we have those dollars now or do we need to find those dollars to do that? Like where?
Yes. Yeah. Anyone else? Council member Cook.
>> Yeah, I just want to say I mean I don't I understand the the concern and I think that every time you keep saying that it might be an RFP cavier next to me is doing a sharp intake of breath. Um and I don't think anyone really wants to see that. For me, what I'm looking for is like comps, right? Like I know that we have information on other on other sites that have been developed and that sort of thing.
Like exactly what council member Baker has said, like what of the site will we need to use? What are like cost effective options? Theoretically, I know that obviously like if we were then to move into like putting a bid out for
a developer that we would have to make different decisions, but if we could get enough information to think about whether or not that is in that is in line with our values, I think that would be helpful. So, >> are we good? Okay. >> All right.
And and then I think the last thing that I I do want to emphasize is that everyone has agreed on a much shorter shorter timeline that this is not going to >> be a long we're not going into any deep exploration of anything. This is just to test some theories out >> in the first quarter. >> Do um manager Ferguson, do you feel like that's reasonable to come back with something in the first quarter of 2026 which sounds like science fiction? tenatively say yes and then I will update the council if after talking with staff they convince me otherwise.
>> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Well, that was one agenda item. [laughter] Cross that off.
Three more to go. All right. Uh next is our next presentation number 11. uh the uh uh 2025 third quarter crime report.
20 minutes for this one, Madam Clerk. >> Well, it is now evening. So, good evening, council. Um, I just want to take a moment to welcome uh to say welcome to council members Burus and Kopac, the men and women of Durham Police Department.
We look forward to working uh with you and um working alongside you on some of the issues with the city of Durham. So, welcome. Looking forward to it. So, uh, good evening, Mayor Williams, Mayor Pro Tim Cavayierro, um, Council, uh, Manager Ferguson, city
staff, um, that are here in the room, and also our community members that are watching. This is your 2025 third quarter crime report. Next, please. All right.
Um, some of these slides you'll you've seen before. there going to be a couple different ones that you haven't that we've created based upon some previous conversations that we've had um at questions that you all have asked um of us in previous council meetings. So um as you know our part one violent crime for this quarter covers through uh September so January to September 2025 and it covers homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. And so, as you can see, um, we are down in just about every category with the exception of our homicides. And as you have always heard me say, and I'll say again, what we are reporting here tonight is data. This is certainly not meant to convey feelings um, of the
heart that occurs every time we have a violent crime. Let's look at our homicides briefly. So through the third quarter, there were there were 33 reportable homicide offenses. To date, we've had 36.
Um breakdown it goes. Uh we've had 29 of the criminal homicides. Unfortunately, four of those have been domestic incidents. We've seen kind of an increase in domestic violence related homicides um uh in the third quarter to date.
Um or negligent manslaughter. So those three of those are going to be traffic related. And then we had two justifiable homicides. So our forcable rapes are starting to trend down.
Those are our reported forcible. So 25% as in previous years, 25% of our reported rapes generally occur in years prior or they're very belated. So um and that's generally the
trend for us. um 17% of those reported um offenses did involve intimate partners, so known partners. And then 13 of our 31 clearances or about 42% were cleared from prior years. Um and those are generally some of the hardest um cases to clear.
Now, look looking at our robberies, um we are noticing again a downward trend in our overall robberies. So, robberies from individuals, those were down 5% um from 2024. as were our commercial robberies. Those were also down and they were down 17% um from this same quarter last year.
Um and then um you know we always track how many of our robberies involve the use of a firearm. So 51% of all of our robberies involve the use of a firearm and then eight gunshot wounds resulted from from those. Um the average rate for the state of North Carolina uh agencies in North Carolina in 2024 was 50%. Um so
we are just above average um to date. Our aggravated assaults again trending downward. So we continue to see fewer incidents. Now we are seeing fewer victims with those incidents.
So 26% of those incidents that we did have were domestic. Um and again that is trending down from quarter 3. 24 of our incidents um were non-domemestic. And then 57% of all of our aggravated assaults did involve a firearm.
That's about 85 gunshot wounds. Okay. Next, please. And please, if I'm going too fast, just please tell me to slow down.
Um so this is a graph that we prepared um that you've seen before. This covers all of our violent crimes through the third quarter, but it covers it for a 10-year period. It's always interesting to see how you how we've trended over the last 10 years with
respect to our violent crimes. So, as you see, um the blue line is homicides. We are typically trending um about same length, same line all the way across um for our homicides. um our sexual assaults or our rapes um reported rates, we we start to see have seen those trend upwards over the last three years.
Um however, as you've seen, there's a it appears to be a downward trend in the number of sexual assaults, rapes that are being reported. Um our robberies and aggravated assaults are generally the ones that you'll see that are kind of all over the place that have the peaks in the valleys. Um there were 44% fewer robberies this year than in 2016. So um that was one of our highest uh years for our robberies. Our aggravated assaults, which is your purple line, you'll see that it is trending downward and very quickly. Um this year we had
the lowest total um over our 10-year period. and intimate partner domestic violence incidents were about average with 26% of those um of the total. And then our incidents with firearms again are about average. Next, please.
This is a combined graph. So, we've heard um in previous councils that you'd like to kind of see how does how how do our shooting incidents bode out? What does that look like citywide? created uh side by side here.
So what you see is by quarter. So quarter one, two, and three all of our shooting incidents and what that looks like coded um depending on certain areas and where they are in the city. Um and then it and then it shows you our shooting incidents just breaking down the number of shooting incidents from January to September. So, of all the violent crimes through the third quarter, 24 almost 25% involved a gun being fired. Our shooting
7% as did our shot per incident. 4%. um our our fatal gunshot wounds um there was not a percent change in in that category but our non-fatal also are continuing to to come down. So of note and we do track how many firearms we are seizing every uh year um and also by quarter.
So through the third quarter we've seized 654 firearms and those are all calibers of firearms. Now, that is actually trending downward. So, our seizures are going down. So, either people are carrying guns less or um we're just we're just not great.
We're we're not getting them all right. They're getting by getting by us somehow. Um and the seizures themselves did come from 495 incidents um in which
those guns were seized. So, multiple multiple guns still being seized in incidents. Next, please. Thanks.
So this chart here does measure our cumulative gunshot wounds. Uh so this is fatal and non non-fatal by week. And again this is um calendar year 2020 through uh September 30th, 2025. So as you'll see 2023 did have the fewest total gunshot wounds with 207.
The most was in 2020 and that was that was about 318. We have seen year-over-year de declines though uh since 2024. So we've we're starting to see and this is actually on trend nationally um with a decline in uh violent crime specifically gunshots. Next please.
So we talk about violent crime but we also have to talk about part one uh property crime. So those are your your big three the burglary, lararseny and motor vehicle thefts. Um typically what
we have seen in these categories we have we have seen um our burglaries are starting to trend down but of note is also the significant continued downward trend of our motor motor vehicle thefts. If you recall couple years ago we saw a huge increase. So in 2022 um in the amount of motor vehicles being stolen and that was driven by your Hyundai Kia um thefts and so that is trending down. Our burglaries are also trending down.
So, our residential burglaries as well as um our retail um I'm sorry, retail businesses are trending upward. So, we're seeing a lot more businesses um that are becoming victims of um of burglaries. So, those are the your specialty stores, convenience stores, money, tobacco products, and also merchandise are some of your biggest um items that are being taken. Our motor vehicle theft again down uh almost 11% in this category. Um
87% of the vehicles that were stolen have been recovered. So we are still recovering um stolen mo motor vehicles and that's that's a good thing because stolen motor vehicles often are used in to commit other crimes. Um 24% of those vehicles stolen they were left running or unattended and had the keys left somewhere in the vehicle. So, as we start to get um the weather starts to get cold, people are leaving their cars running outside, those vehicles, even if you bring the key fob with you, can still be stolen.
Um all it takes is that that that key fob, that car to still sense that key fob um to uh drive away with it. Next, please. All right. Again, same same chart as you you saw with the violent crime.
This is your property crime chart. So, it's um our lines um as you see. So, our our burglary is your blue line. That has trended downward steadily overall. U with 2025, we've had the lowest um total over the 10-year
period. And then residential burglaries were slightly lower. And then again, burglaries to retail businesses were just a little bit higher. We did have a pretty significant series um I talked about it very briefly first quarter that that drove some of our numbers up um to our convenience stores um after beer and lottery tickets those kinds of things.
So that that was a significant series that we made some greater arrests in. Um so we should start to see that trending down and leveling out hopefully. Our larsenies um have trended upwards over the last three years with 2025 is our highest and it could be a sign of the times of what's happening right lararsenies are are are beginning to trend um upward motor vehicle thefts >> on just on the ly so so a burglar invol involves like going into someone's property entering correct whereas larseny simply means >> I just take it I take it and take it away or um it could be a theft um you
break into someone's motor vehicle and you steal something that or a lararseny from a motor vehicle >> that would be lar that that's >> that's correct. Okay. Yeah. >> And is that part of what's going on in those those increasing numbers for lararseny?
>> Yes. Correct. Correct. We're starting looking for a hand.
So easy. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's it's it's it's a it's quick, it's easy.
Um and typically those that are doing it can get away very quickly. Um and most of what they're looking for are firearms. are starting to leave other things that they would have typically have taken and only taken the firearms. Okay.
All right. So, um we want to just show you what it looks like the guns stolen um by week uh for from calendar year 2020 through 2025. And those are again represented by color. And so 2025 is your your yellow there. And um there have there has been a year-over-year increase ever since 2024. Um 2020 uh
2020 2024 experienced the most significant increase of 29% over the previous years. Of all guns stolen that were stolen in the first quarter, 73% of those were from motor vehicles. And that was that's pretty high. Now here's the good news.
There has been a reduction that we have noted. So, um, in the second and third quarter, it was 61% of, um, of guns that were stolen were stolen from motor vehicles. So, they're starting to trend. That's a good thing.
Trending downward. That's what we want to see. And then of all guns stolen from the vehicles in first quarter, 68% were by breaking a window. So, that was definitely like three times our normal rate, which was about 23%.
now into the second and third quarters is 24%. So we're starting to see a reduction and we're hoping that that continues. Next, please.
Okay, so this is something a little bit different. You often when we were when we report out to you all, we report on more of a cumulative trend. We wanted to show you what it looks like actually quarter by quarter by quarter. So, and and how sometimes if you start out really low in in a quarter, um you you could trend upwards and it does have an effect on what your numbers look like.
So, that's the intention of this chart is to to show you that we've experienced reduction in crime quarter by quarter um every individual quarter of the year. So for example, the aggravated assault was down um 29% in the first quarter compared to the first quarter of 2024. So it was also down 17% and 23% in the second and third quarter uh quarters. Now if you have a and this is if you know that you have for homicide we had five in the third quarter of last year.
Now this quarter we had 13 in the same quarter this year. So that's where you have that huge that's where that 160% increase comes from is is is you see the the increase and that does have an effect on what your overall cumulative year-toate numbers look like. Um and that shows us where we're up 14%. Next, please.
Thank you. All right. So, this is our Durham violent crime rate. We um we we put this in here because um we had some conversation about it last quarter, I believe, during our crime report.
And so, this chart shows the number of violent crimes over the last 13 fiscal years reflected as the rate per 100,000. So, it's 700 uh violent crimes per 100,000 um residents. So our target is to always have we want to have below
700. Um which is you can see that that's like the orange line there. The dash the blue shaded area shows that the range where the likely rate is expected to fall this fiscal year based on the prior period. So we're doing try we're doing a little bit of what what did it look like in prior periods?
How did that rate start to come down? Um and obviously we have not finished this year but we're hoping that we will continue to trend downward in our violent crime compared to other years. Okay. So, clearance rates is always one of my favorite things to talk about because clearance rates is where you actually see the result of the work done by um our investigative teams and also our patrol officers and all of our units that that really do uh the great work out there um when when a crime happens. So just so that you know that a clearance rate is calculated by uh
dividing the number of offenses cleared in the period by the actual number of offenses reported for that same period and that's where you get your clearance rate. So on the left hand side you'll see what the FBI national clearance rate is uh for 2024. So typically they're about a year behind with clearance rates and you'll see where we ended up last year and then you'll see where we are now for third quarter 2025. So we actually are clearing higher um our clearances are higher in uh homicide, rape, um robbery, and we're clearing uh just lower in our aggravated assault category, but overall we are just higher in violent crime clearances.
And so when I talk about clearances, um, I'm talking about cases that are either that are cleared by arrest where we actually make an arrest. Um, or they're they're exceptional exceptionally cleared. And so that means that there was sufficient evidence to uh to support
an arrest, but there was some element that was beyond the investigator's control um that prevented that from occurring. And that could be anything from victim's willingness to cooperate with prosecution um and or you could have something where you know the suspect is known but there just wasn't enough um to to tie the suspect to the actual crime. And we do have that happen from time to time. So 80 88% of the violent crime cases cleared were cleared by uh by arrest and that was either by the Durham Police Department or by another agency serving that physical warrant.
98% of our property crime cases cleared were cleared by arrest. Next, please. Thank you. Another really great thing I like to talk about is our staffing. And I'm extremely uh proud of this team uh both behind represented behind me but also in our recruiting um
and training units as well as officers that are really talking about the Durham Police Department. 4% staff. That's to date. Um and that was that's upwards of where we started from a couple years ago.
we were at 71%. So that's huge. 6% vacancy. Um and we currently have 395 positions filled out of 531, but this also includes we have 59 recruits that are somewhere in their training.
Whether they're in the academy or they're in a car, they're somewhere in that whole training spectrum. We had eight new officers that have graduated um in academy 61 in September. We started um academy uh 62 which is our current academy. That academy started uh shortly thereafter and we started 36
and so we were we're we're moving forward. So we started at 36, we're now at 31. Um and that's generally you're going to lose some along the way. We our goal is to with this next academy that will be starting I think in March is to have 50 starting and so we are well on our way.
Staff feels really good about hitting that number and these are qualified very qualified applicants. So we are I'm very very proud very proud >> chief. >> Yes sir. >> Uh can you remind me about two years ago those numbers the starting academy numbers were >> 12.
>> Yeah. Thank you. Maybe that's one of our highest and we'd graduate five. So, it's it's a lot of good work.
It's the it's the pay. It's just how people feel. It's the incentives. It's just officers feeling better.
Um, and that also goes for our nonsworn, too. We're ste starting to see more people coming to work for the city of Durham and the Durham Police Department. So, [snorts] we have a couple of recruiting
initiatives, and certainly this is not an all-inclusive list. This is just the really fun stuff that these these folks came up with that um um I wish I could take credit for. Um we continue to uh to really work towards our 30 by30 initiative. As you know, four years ago, we signed on to that initiative that says we would increase um our our um women in law enforcement to 30% by 30 by 2030.
Suppose we're almost there. 7% of our staff are female and um we're actually trending way above the national um number which is uh 12%. So we're trending much higher. Um we have a softball now that is this is all a part of recruiting. So, they wear really cool shirts that have QR codes and all sorts of really stuff and we like to go to other agencies and jurisdictions and show them up um and win. So, we do we participate in the
Battle of the Badges tournament in Wilson. And then we have our DPD run club. That is a run club that's made of Yes, that's you got a great shirt out of that and you're doing it. Uh that is uh that is made of um our sworn and nonsworn staff.
And we also want to encourage um also city staff to to join us. We have uh we have staff that participate in uh 5ks, marathons, half marathons, and they go around and they've got the shirts with the QR codes and you can see people trying to scan the QR codes. So, it's a really great um way to get Durham's name out there, Durham Police Department's name out there simply by just showing up. >> The dates of the the Blue Moon 5K or the Love Durham one?
Do you have a We can get it for you. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, we'll get it for you. >> Um and if you participate, we'll give you a really cool shirt.
So, it's very cool. Um and there's there's no no pressure at all. Um we also have I don't and I've talked about this before. We
have one of our officers that is that is a pitcher for the Glow Emojis. Um you've seen him. He'll he'll he'll go [clears throat] out first inning, I think, and pitch in his Durham Police Department uniform. and um and so he's been people follow him and they follow the Durham Police Department and he's been a big hit.
Um I talked about our softball team. Uh our lateral officer initiative, we're starting to see more officers coming from other agencies coming to the Durham Police Department. We swore someone in last week or two weeks ago from an agency who has now turned around and pulling in two of his co-workers from that other agency. Um, so listen, it's a doggy dog world out here.
So, >> I just want to say just just three years ago, three or four years ago, a gentleman came. I think he does recruitment and he was like, I can't recruit with this. And he's just we were getting criticized heavily >> and you know the the we were losing officers significantly. It was an exodus and now
>> yeah, >> now this fun group. We have a good time and and it's nice to see because the lateral officers or the alets, they are they go through a few weeks and then they're ready to go. um they're ready to to be released out onto the street. So um next slide.
So we also want to show you what it looks like. So since Academy 49 um to now, this is um your your blue line is where we started from. Uh the number of where we start. Your orange line is where we end up.
So um as we increase, we know that we're going to have um our officers that are not our recruits that are not able to to make it through and we understand that. So, we'll lose a few, but I do want to just shout out a groundbreaking program that our recruiting staff has started. When we do prehire, so when we hire you for our academy, you start in um a um a program, it's called the Durham Police pre-ac academy training, DPAT program. And so what we do is we prepare our
recruits that have not yet started the academy, but we prepare for the academy. So they start their PT, we start really focusing on studying. Um, and I wish I had that when I went through the academy, but different time then. So we we figure out how do they study and how do they learn best and then we we help them with their their studying and their study habits and we really impress upon them.
We also start pairing them up with officers that are currently working with the PD um and really start the mentoring there. So, it's produced some positive results and um really just very proud of this team. So, next. >> All right.
Please follow us on all of our social media uh Facebook, Instagram, and X. And that's all I have and I'm going to stop for pres. >> Thank you so much. Uh just one thing. Um an article came out this morning, I believe, or yesterday morning. Uh, I
could be wrong, but I think 300 like unemployment amongst black women across the nation is down is like up significantly. I think upwards of 300,000. >> And I'm wondering if there's any like renewed uh push for the 30 for30 and and and where we can, you know, grab their attention earlier. >> Yes.
So, am I on? I can't. Okay. Uh, so I I I believe that we are starting to see um people rethink where they are in their lives or their careers because of some of the instability that we're seeing.
Um, unfortunately, this is where we are, but we are we're starting to see more people make that shift, but um, we are constantly figuring trying to figure out really innovative ways in which to recruit. CU, whether it's here or in other states. Um as well as really partner with the agencies
here. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Um colleagues, any questions?
Yeah, go ahead. >> I just have one question on on slide three that was the violent crimes reported through third quarter 2016 through 2025. >> Um >> sorry, just >> just real quick, by the way, the food is here if you want to just kind of step out, but not all at once, of course. That's fine.
>> So on on that slide, so obviously as you said, aggravated assaults way down, um robbery way down. The one that and and and homicides pretty flat. Still still numbers we don't want to see, but but flat. >> But the one that stood out to me was the rapes, which had been between 2016 and 20 2022 was kind of in the 7590 range and then the last three years up above 100.
Is that a real Is that a change or is that a reporting thing? Like what what do those numbers those those seem like they've inched up? And >> so it's a reporting it's a reporting thing. We've we saw a lot more reports um as even last year we were seeing more
reports and then this year those reports are starting to to decline. I mean I could speculate what I think it might be. Um I think people might just be afraid to attach their name to a report. Um but we we want to continue to encourage people to report um if something happens.
>> But you don't see a trend there in those numbers. >> No, we we have not had we have not seen uh any trends that that drive our numbers focused around uh serial rapists or assaults or anything like that. There has not been any a definitive trend with our sexual assaults here. >> Thank you, Chief.
Appreciate the report. Yes. >> Hi. Hi.
Thank you for your presentation. Um I just have a few questions that I'm just like curious about the >> sort of followup from presentations past. >> Um there was we had a few times a conversation about guns per incident
>> and also about the number of incidents versus the number of victims and I was just hoping you could break those down for me. >> Yes. Um thankfully I have a smart team that anticipated that. So um so guns per incident.
29 guns per incident um is kind of the way it shook out. >> It's like a slight decrease. >> Yes. So it's it's a slight decrease.
And then I also had the people per incident. I the people per incident was about the same. But hold on, let me just double check here. 25 victims per incident for through the quarter.
>> Okay. Thank you. And then >> um are they do we still are we still seeing like a large majority of them surfacing at hospitals or are we seeing like any change in >> Yes. >> place reports?
>> Yes. Got that too. Um, so what we we
still have um people arriving by private transport. So it's about 32 that we've had through the third quarter. I need to do a comparison and see what that looks like uh from the previous quarter. I think it's probably going to be around the same.
Uh but we do we do see those folks arriving and and it could be one of you know two reasons. It could be simply that you know they just it's just for them. they feel like that's the quickest way of getting folks to the hospital or it could be um wanting to uh tamper with evidence and not wanting us to find where it actually happened at. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. >> Um and then the like sad question that I would love to hear an answer to is the we had seen an increase in youth both in perpetrators and in victims. We still seeing that increasing. >> Yes. So, we're still seeing um our our um kids um being involved at at a much higher rate um than we have um before.
And um specifically, so we've we've got some juvenile offense information that does cover pretty much most of the part one violent and property crimes. Um but what we what we see is the aggravated assault. So we're seeing from ages for this for from January to September um specifically um the aggravated assaults are 11 um between the ages of 11 and 17 and then homicides from 14 between the ages of 14 to 17 four that were either involved or victim. >> Wait, sorry.
Can you just do that one more time? >> Sure. Yeah. So, um, and I'm just I'm just pulling this information up. So, our homicides from January to September 2024, um, the ages of either a victim or an involved person, a suspect between the ages of 14 to 17.
>> Um, we had four there. And then our aggravated assaults, so those are, you know, your the guns. Um, so we had 11 between January and September. And uh that's going to be from ages 11 to 17.
Now I do you know I do want to just I want to shout out and say um you know city of Durham and the Durham Police Department we have been doing a lot we have for years done a lot of work around diversion and participating in the misdemeanor diversion program. And so you know when we started we were we were diverting ages 18 to 21 but in 2019 basically we opened that and expanded that that that age up where where they could be and anyone can be diverted but specifically focusing on those key ages. And so um since October 2015 to September 2025, there have been 463
participants in the diversion program and it's such an incredible program. Shout out to Kelly Andrews um that does a lot of work and everyone else with justice services. Um so of those 463 participants enrolled to date, they have had a 99 completion rate. >> Wow.
and or they were on track to su successfully complete the program. So, it works. Um I just wish we could get them a little bit younger or get them >> Yeah. >> so that we don't have the homicides or any of those things.
>> Yeah. Thank you for that. Um I have only one more question which is that previously power tools were the number one thing that was stolen and you mentioned other things not power tools. Is it shifted?
>> Yeah, it's well power tools is still up there. Okay. Uh construction equipment is is a big thing because there all of those things are hard to track uh to track. Now we're seeing um so there was a there was um a we're seeing apparel,
merchandise, um >> sneakers. Yeah. Anything that you can grab and go, >> you know, and it's it's um we're seeing and those are easy things to move. >> Yeah.
And you mentioned like tobacco products and such. >> Yes. So, cigarettes, vapes, um beer, kind of sort of, but mostly it's the the things you can quickly offload. >> Yeah.
>> And get rid of. >> I watched a very fast uh lararseny that included beer one time. So, >> it's quick. You can just go.
Yeah. >> It wasn't actually that fast, but there was a long line in the cashier just like over it. So, >> yeah. I don't have time today.
>> Anyway. Okay, cool. And then um just as an aside over to you at the table which is like maybe we could revisit the X as our one of our places that we are living on our uh >> I kind of committed and I saw that and I was like ah >> I know it's okay. I mean we're using it.
We should we should be publicizing that but just uh you know just revisit that idea. >> Okay. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. >> Thank you.
>> City communications has stopped using X. I know there was a conversation in uh in the police department just because we had a number of followers, but we'll we'll continue that conversation and consider that. >> Yeah. >> Position.
Thank you. >> Other questions? Yeah. Go ahead.
>> With the diversion that was a we've had that program for a long time. What happens? Is it because they're under 18 that they go through the ju juvenile system and so it's just a very different >> Yes, it's a it's a different it's a different experience. Um but they still go through a diversion program. Have we done any analysis on like our like the success there versus the success for the 18 and over so that we can see are there things that we're offering >> in the over 18 that could be beneficial doing that kind of comparison because I think we're all aware that our our kids right they're not and and um as a mom of those age children they don't make the best decisions sometimes um
>> and so that that's just something I'm curious about now that because I know it's a super successful program. >> Yes. >> Um and and just incredible results, right? Really changing the course of people, individuals who have made bad decisions and then the impact on community because of that.
>> Yes. Because everybody makes mistakes, you know, everybody makes mistakes. Um I do know that there was a comprehensive report um within the last two or three years about misdemeanor diversion. I need to see if there was any information in that.
If not, I feel quite certain that Kelly and her team have that information. So, we'll we'll reach out. Yeah, >> that's the only question I have. Um, and then just I know that we're in the middle of the big um violence study and that y'all are deeply embedded in that and just looking forward to the outcomes of those conversations and what recommendations will come forward. Thank you. >> Thank you.
Um, Chelsea took my question, but I just want to thank you for your warm welcome and also commend you as well in the progress you've made in hiring, retaining, recruiting more officers for our forces. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I just had some exploratory questions real quick. Do you know um I guess cities our size uh do we have comparative data on how we're um sizing up on where we are in these categories?
>> Yes, we do. I can get that for you. >> Okay. >> I can get that.
>> Um you have the data to age range. I have been wrestling with this whether we put this in our presentation or not. Um, I'm not going to ask for it to be just placed in this presentation, but only because we're about to go into this major overhaul of a public safety strategy. And um, I I'm looking forward to like the age data you just read off. In order for us to address it, we have to know about it, >> you know, and I just don't want it to become, I guess, so under the radar that no one
realizes that we do have, you know, a bit of a problem in that area. kids that age should be in school and being able to grow up not out killing each other or harming people or being harmed. >> Um, and it's just a silly question, I guess. Um, oh well also other demog demographic data, you know, based on Thank you for putting the geographical data in there, but like uh when it comes down to gender um just being able to follow the data to tell us what story we need to listen to so we can know what solutions to provide through policy.
I I do have if if I mean I I do have some demographics of shooting victims. We we always kind of put that we don't put it in the slides, but I do have it as supplemental information um uh of the shooting victims. Would you Do you want to me to go over that now or you want to >> No, you don't have to. I'm going to I'm going to look at it here. You can just make sure I have it. Um
>> I think you might have it in your supplement. >> Yeah, it's in the in the items here. >> If not, I'll look and if you don't, we'll send it along. >> Yeah.
because it's just it's really hard to create policy ideas without knowing the problem that the policy is trying to address. But I know we have it. Um and lastly, have we ever do do you have any cities that partner with uh what do you the um the location um towel? Do has a city ever explored, you know, like a program where you get maybe get a free towel to add on your car or a tag or something?
Um, >> oh, you are you t like a >> you know how we give out gun safety kits? >> Yes. Yes. Yes.
>> So, when it comes to stolen cars? >> Yeah, we do. We have um where we would do wheel um not wheel locks, steering wheel locks. >> Yeah, the the jacks.
[clears throat] What do you call them? The u >> what do you What kind of nefarious thing are you? >> The thing. Yeah, the thing the wheel lock.
>> The wheel lock. Yes, we do. We actually partnered with And we still might have
some leftover. We still might have some left over. Um, when Kia and Hyundai having all of those things going [clears throat] on, >> they actually sent us a lot of wheel locks, steering wheel locks, and we did give some out. But we certainly, those are free just like the gun locks are free.
We can give those out, too. Okay. We can provide those >> because I know, you know, somebody stole a car, that towel will track where that car is, but I don't know if anyone's ever uh >> ever uh given those things up. >> Tile.
>> Tile. A t i l e. I think that's what it's called. >> A towel.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. A towel [laughter] or >> a tile. Yeah.
Like a almost an air tag, but not. Now, we don't have that. We've got the uh the wheel locks. >> Thank you.
Thank you, Chief. Just one other quick question because you're talking about the lock box. What kind of work do we do with the schools around that and and maybe partnering with them to get parents and schools? Um I I just think that that might be an opportunity.
with gunlocks. Yeah. You know, we we we tried we have not directly reached out to the school to have that conversation. We did try and and we'll probably start it back up again.
We were going to do it quarterly, which was have just a safety, you know, during evening time, just having a just showing you what a what a this is a gun. These are the parts. This is how a lock is applied. And then everyone that participated would get a free gun lock.
Um, but yeah, I mean I I definitely think we could talk to schools. They're they're great working with us. >> Thank you. And then just overall I mean it's always hard to see numbers any numbers go up, but it's always great to see that we're seeing some great trends down, too.
So, thank you for everything. >> Yes, of course. >> Okay. Thank you all for your time.
>> Thank you so much. Oh, I'm sorry. One more. >> Yeah.
Um, thank you for being here, Chief. Uh, how many more years do we have you? >> It's not years. >> Sorry. Sorry. Um just want to say thank you uh thank you for all your work and
um you know of course as as you mentioned for for every one of these numbers that we see there's a horrific story and maybe the worst moment of somebody's life and of course um difficult and potentially traumatic uh situations for our emergency services workers. So um you know deep appreciation for the work that happens there um and you know feeling feeling heavy for everyone who who is is constantly in our city um having these tragic moments. Um but yeah just want to say thank you. Thanks for all the work that you do and for coming in and chatting with us.
Um and for being available whenever I do have questions or want to have meetings sometimes directly through you or sometimes through the manager. I appreciate that. Thank you. Of course.
>> So, I have to call someone and apologize because someone told me that earlier today and I was like, you're freaking >> I have not officially announced yet, but you all will be the second to know. I'll tell my staff first, but y'all will be the second to Oh, no. You will be the first to know.
>> Sorry. [laughter] >> And a half. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Don't don't don't make up things like that. And Okay, sounds good. We're not going to talk about it. I deal with separation anxiety.
So, [laughter] >> all right. Well, thank you so much. Uh and lastly we have our final um presentation before close session. >> Yeah.
>> Thanks to the whole team. Thank you guys. Okay, >> welcome. >> Welcome.
Thank you. Um, uh, good evening, Mayor, Mayor Prom, and members of council. Uh, Christina Rearden, budget and management services director. Um, I want to, uh, thank, um, everyone.
I know it's a bit of a long evening, so I will try and be as brief as possible. And I also want to welcome our new, um, council members. Um this uh quarterly report is one that um you will see um I usually follow the chief often um but uh we'll do it four times a year for council. We work with our um partners in the finance department and I know um my colleague uh Sheila Faucet is here from our finance department to help me out tonight in case there are questions that I'm not able to answer.
But I will get started. So the first thing I want to talk about with the uh Q1 report is just to kind of make a few disclaimers. Uh this is uh very early in the fiscal year. We only have three months of data and as you can um guess uh three months uh as we get further on the in the fiscal year, we get better at predicting where we're going to be at the end of the fiscal year. Um but you will be receiving another quarterly report in February um when we come back around the time that we are doing um budget retreats as well
too. So, I'll start out by talking about um the city's general fund, which is where most of our department sit and it's the um largest portion of our uh budget. uh this um as as I talked about this is uh this part of the year is um the least indicative but um it also just as a reminder our general fund the majority of the revenue source in that fund is our property taxes. So those do not get we do not receive any property tax or do not receive many property tax until December and January because those bills are not due until early January.
Um, also sales tax, which is our other largest revenue source in the general fund. Um, we don't receive a payment until our first payment is in October. It's on a three-month delay. So, um, that makes predicting revenue sources a little bit more, um, a little bit trickier for um, the general fund.
But this chart will give you kind of a sense of where we are. I want to compare where we were with Q1 last year to Q1 of this year. Um you'll notice that there is um you know we have uh more property tax this year at at this time of the year than we did last year. That is also um I think um I would caution that we also had a tax increase last year.
So we were anticipating more um property tax this year. So but we do feel like we're on track to be um to meet our property tax budget for the end of the year. Um the other uh big revenue sources that we have is Powell Bill which is um a state funding that we receive to do streets street maintenance. Um charges for services which are the um charges that our departments uh collect.
And then um we have intergovernmental revenue which is majority of that revenue source is comes through our Durham County. And so that is sometimes a timing issue. So if you see a difference between one fisc one quarter and the other it it normally
we expect that revenue source to come in at budget um but sometimes the timing of it um may be less in one in one year than than the next. And then occupancy tax um so you'll notice that there is a decrease in occupancy tax from FY uh 25 uh to 26. uh that is because uh occupancy tax is um that revenue source will be kind of moving from the city to um Durham next and so that's something we budgeted for. So uh end of year projections um you will see notice that we project that property tax will be on budget by the end of the year.
Occupancy tax um it is uh going to be at budget as well. Our POW bill is going to be slightly under budget. Um but that is really not something that we control. That is really something that is set by the state.
And then intergovernmental revenues we expect to be on on budget. And then charges for services we are seeing um are coming in very strong in our first quarter. Uh a
lot of that is due to some um changes that our planning and development department had made to some development fees. And so those are coming in very strong. And so we do expect that that um revenue line will be um come in over budget. So all in all good news.
We expect um there to be kind of a positive um budget variance in in revenues in the general fund. So moving on to expenditures um we are uh we have kind of you know obviously we look at expenditures um personnel and then operating and capital costs. 7 million um under budget uh for our personnel and operating. 9 million.
Um the personnel number is slightly less than where we were last year at this time. 9 million. And I think that what that
is telling us is that we are seeing a really strong um kind of hiring and we are also seeing um a lower vacancy rate. So I think that's really good news. It means that we are hiring more people and we are keeping them in the city. This is just a comparison to show you from one quarter um last year's uh Q1 to this year.
And um you know there's not much of a story here. we are seeing similar um kind of uh we are expending money at at the same rate as we were last year. And then this shows you a breakdown of expenditures for the general fund. Uh these are um a a compilation of all our departments.
We are not anticipating any departments to go over budget and we are expecting to have kind of a positive v variance um at the end of the year. So moving on to our enterprise funds. The first fund I want to talk about is our water and sewer fund. This is our largest enterprise fund. So for this fund, revenues um we are projecting them
to come in slightly above budget and personnel expenditures are are expected to come in around $863 um,000 lower than budget and that over budget, but that's due mostly to um a vacancy rate. Their vacancy rate is lower than we expected when we um budgeted. So that is good news. That means that they are they are also keeping their people.
Um operating expenditures are uh expected to come in at budget and so there is a slight negative budget variance of $232,000. And this um is a snapshot of the fund um the revenue sources in the fund. You'll notice that the largest portion of the fund are operating revenues which which are um kind of the fees that people pay for their water bills. And they're doing they're doing well. looking at >> can you remind us there there's also a significant fund balance isn't there for water and sewer if I'm not mistaken >> there they do maintain a significant fund balance um and you'll also notice
that there is a you know um they do uh when we go to the expenditures you'll notice that there is a transfer to other funds and that is mostly because they are doing capital funding that is funded out of a different fund so um this fund um they need that fund balance in order to do some large capital projects that they will be putting So uh moving on to expenditures. Um this is uh the expenditures for the water sewer fund. As I talked about they've had really strong um kind of personnel and so they we do expect them to probably it's early in the year so this this projection may change. We are expecting them to be slightly over budget with p uh personnel.
Okay. Moving on to our transit fund. Uh and um revenues in this fund are expected to come in close to budget. 7 million over budget.
This is due mostly to a uh a contract that council has approved earlier in the year uh related to uh go uh the access paratransit. And so um this we will be making um a budget amendment to kind of correct for this in the future. But um this is something that we were kind of aware of. There was um that contract was came in when they went out for bid higher than we anticipated.
But they but they will have the fund balance to cover it. 1 million. As a reminder, this fund does receive a portion of the tax rate for uh this fiscal year. 6 million.
And also um this fund also receives funding from our Durham County transit plan. 8 million in this fiscal year. And that is um that funding is kind of on a re reimburseable basis. So we have to kind of perform service enhancements in order to receive that
funding. So these are um and you have all of these exhibits in your packet, but this is just showing you the exhibit for the revenues which we expect to come in um very close to budget and expenditures um talking about some of those negative budget variances that I kind of talked about before. So the next fund I want to talk about is our solid waste fund. Um revenues are currently projected to come in slightly above budget and personnel expenditures are expected to come in at budget.
Their operating expenditures um are projected to come in under budget and that's due to some um you know uh contract um incumbrances that they have. They um are not expected to kind of spend all of the amount that they had in encumbered for a contract. And then um I do want to also kind of point out for this fund, this is another fund, our solid waste fund that receives a portion of the tax rate. 11
4 million into the solid waste fund to provide solid waste services. So this is um showing you uh the revenue sources in the solid waste fund and those um you can see the top is the operating revenues which are um projected to come in slightly over budget. The rest we are predicting that they will come in at budget. Um and these are expenses.
8 million. um under budget. So that's a positive budget variance of about $4 million >> for year end. >> That's for the year end.
So so by the end of the year um so they had you know expected to sometimes contracts don't um they they may have to have some savings depending on what and they're projecting at this point to have some savings in contracts. Okay. Uh the storm water fund is the
next fund I want to talk about. Um revenues in this fund are projected to come in at budget. The expenditures for personnel are projected to come in under budget by $282,000. Um, and that is due to some vacancies in this fund.
Operating expenditures are currently projected to come in at budget and so that leaves the fund with a positive budget variance of $282,000. Um, this fund provides for the maintenance and operation of the storm water activities in the city which include street um, cleaning and the fund is self-sufficient. So that means it does not receive any tax support. So this um this shows you uh the revenues in the stormwater fund. Operating revenues being those um fees that residents pay for storm water services and these are the um expenses. Um as I said they are expecting some savings in personnel but for the um other expense categories we're expecting them to come in at budget.
So, uh, parking fund is the next fund I wanted to talk about. Uh, this fund, um, operating revenues are currently projected to come in, um, below budget, uh, to the tune of 527, um,,000. Some of that has to do with some, um, parking violations uh, that are coming in a little less and some special event um, revenue that they were anticipating that they don't anticipate to have by the end of the year. Personnel expenditures are projected to come in um $41,000 below budget and operating expenditures are also projected to come in under budget um to the tune of $46,000.
Um so and this uh this fund is also subsidized with a portion of our debt service fund pays for some of the debt um obligations for parking. >> And does that show up as transfer from other funds on the on the revenue side? Is that what those >> uh >> payments? Yes, because it shows up as a revenue source. Yeah.
And so this shows you some of that operating revenue. This is showing that negative budget variance that I talked about. And then looking at the expenditures, um this is showing you uh we have some positive a positive budget variance in expenditures. But with the negative budget variance in um revenues, you're seeing an overall negative budget variance for the fund of $83,000.
Um the next fund I wanted to talk about is the inspections fund. So um the revenues are currently projected to to come in over budget by $925,000. Personnel expenditures are projected to come in um slightly over budget at $348,000 and operating expenditures are projected to come in at budget. So this um kind of looking at those two numbers that leaves you with a positive bud budget variance of $585,000. And this um is the fund that provides for the support of the building and safety department. And so um it is looking good and that is um a positive
thing. So their their revenues uh are are positive and this is just showing you some of those license permits and charges for services that they um receive in that fund. And then this is the expenses. Um they are expected to come in um slightly over in personnel.
Um again strong hiring and um retention and so but there is still a positive budget variance in the overall for the fund. Okay so those are all the um numbers that I wanted to talk with you about tonight. The one thing I did want to highlight as part of our um packet is our CIP stoplight. So, we spent some time talking last time about we provide a quarterly stoplight as part of the um financial update and so we have kind of done some work in the budget department um to kind of update that report. So, what you're seeing currently in your packet um and it's posted online as well too is that um we have made some slight improvements and um of course this is a
work in progress. So I want to, you know, emphasize that this is something that we will be kind of continuing to work on. But right now, um, you're seeing that you're getting, um, in the past, we were reporting on projects at what we what we call a major project level. So you were seeing, um, large projects um were not broken out.
So a lot of times department will break projects out into what they call sub projects. So, we're trying to provide you with this information on a sub project level, which means that you're getting about 250 additional projects that you weren't seeing and getting more information on. We're also um collecting spending forecasts, which is something that we were kind of doing on an annual basis. We're going to start doing it on a quarterly basis.
So, this is really important, especially for our friends in finance who are going out to debt. And so knowing when we're going to spend the money is very important to kind of predict how much um cash flow we have and how much capacity we have for other projects that we have going on. We have also standardized our stoplight criter
criteria. So you will see a red, yellow and green which you've always seen. It's based on the phase that the project is in. So you know if a project is um each phase is you're only going to see the green, red, yellow depends on the phase that they're in.
And um the what we have standardized is the ability um in the past it was project managers who were based on some kind of loose criteria choosing whether something was red, yellow and green. This spreadsheet itself um has kind of a formula base in it. So the there is no choice. You kind of put in the dates and then it will tell you whether you're red, yellow or green.
Um you'll see a lot of green right now because we have um we have asked it's kind of a reset. We've asked people to start with um what phase they're in and what the deadline is, but we have also collected what they believe the other future deadlines are as well for other phases of the project. So, as they move forward, you'll also see that. So, if you get really behind in one phase, it it it may show up red when you
enter the next phase because if you've gone too far beyond something. So, that's some one of the improvements we're making um for ongoing for FY27. um there is still some work to be done. So, we're going to be filling in some data gaps that we have, some things that we, you know, um didn't get to or some things that we would like to improve on.
We're also going to um be looking at the project update text. So, the kind of information that you're getting from project managers and kind of giving some more guidance on that. And then I think what we also realize is that this quarterly stoplight is really just one piece of information and that there are probably many ways especially on really big very visible projects that the stoplight cannot provide you with all the information you might need. So we have also been working with our um communications department. We're going to be making some changes to our website so that we'll have more information on some of these projects. Um, and I know that um, you also have been getting updates in your um, meetings and so we're going to try and work to um, make
sure that you have um, more up we know that this one report can't do everything. And then the other thing I did want to mention is that we do have some new systems coming online which I also think will help with some of the CIP reporting that we're doing but also just some of our financial reporting. Uh, my staff has been spending a great deal of time working on kind of our Oracle implementation. So, we're expecting some of that to start going live for both um budget and finance.
And so, as those things come online, I think we'll have more ability to do more um forecasting and some other things that some other improvements that we're really excited about. And then I do know that um some of our project delivery departments are also working on getting some project management software that's kind of in the early stages. So, how those things work together, I think that's something that we're looking forward to and think that will have um a big impact on how we present information to both council and residents on where we are with especially our big CIP projects. And that is all I have. So, I'll open it up for any questions.
>> Thank you so much. And council has no questions. >> Great. >> No, I'm joking.
[laughter] Let me look to my right to see. Let me check with Council Member Cook first. I never escape going first no matter where I'm seated. Um I I am actually just curious about and we ended right on the stoplight.
Got some things come emails come that have come in. I I think everyone's read them. So um I'm sure we're all kind of wondering the same things, but as you were just talking you said that there was a reset. We've got now almost all of our projects at green.
The community is like how is that a reflective tool if we're like [snorts] sort of doing this reset? So, I was hoping you could just like talk a little bit more about why we chose to do that reset and like how the >> Well, I mean, we've asked people to put what their what their phase that they're in and the date that they think that they're completion. So, not every project is green. There are, you know, but but there are a majority of projects that are I think on the stoplight that are green at the moment. And so, I think
that what we're as we ask people to say what's your best guess right now um as we kind of start this new process. So when you were saying earlier that if they are behind when we move into a new phase that it might the red might roll over but we're not rolling over anything right now. We're not looking at past deadlines. >> We we've asked people to to to give us their best estimate right now.
>> Right now. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um and then people have questions about some specific projects um which I think we can probably forward to y'all and get answers on.
Yeah, I am probably not the best person to answer a specific project, but we can definitely get that information for you. >> Okay, so the the whole thing is that >> on these the project managers have now set a date that they think the project will be finished as of >> well not the not finished it's what what what they expect to finish that phase. So the percentage of the phase is finished and the date and then we do have we but we also have asked them to give us the phase dates for the other phases. So we're showing you still the phases.
>> Okay. and do we have anywhere like the past history of those projects? I think that was kind of one of the parts that people were worried about last time was that they felt like there wasn't a lot of transparency because the dates kept changing and this feels like we've kind of done it again a little bit. So, >> well, I think I mean we we do not um we have made a commitment to not have dates change since now we have them.
We'll know what the dates are for all the different phases. So I don't think we had all of that information in the past in in the system that we had anyway at least I wouldn't say that that's budget. So but now we have collected all the dates for the phases >> is that okay I'm going to leave it if anyone else wants to follow up they can I have just one one other question um which was that can you gave us fund by fund which was awesome and very detailed. Can you give us like an overall variance feeling about the budget? So I don't look at the budget like >> as a whole. >> I mean not
not in that way. I we look at different funds I guess is because each fund has a different revenue source. So the budget variance will depend on the revenue source. The we balance each fund.
>> That makes sense. Yeah. I guess when I think about it I'm like okay the general fund is like so much bigger rate than some of these other funds. " But I'm like, I don't know what that means in terms.
>> I think it depends on the different funds. So, and probably their um their health, you know, the health of their fund, their uh fund balance as well too sometimes, you know. Uh but >> I think overall things are trending good is what we would expect. And so what I do like to point out is the places where we have property tax because that is something that goes across all funds and so would affect a lot of different places.
So if that or you or if a different particular revenue source is having an issue um that is something we look at on a citywide basis. >> Gotcha. And I know we'll know more next quarter. So thank you for the report.
>> Thanks Mr. Mayor. Um two questions. So first is and this goes back to the stoplight report because we did get a emails about that and talked to a number of folks.
So the first thing is on the standardized like so it sounds like you standardized that process right? And I was looking at the report and it seems like especially I think this part of what people are responding to a lot of the like the trails, sidewalks, greenways are all kind of green and we know there's some that have been on the books for a long time. Um I noticed that some of on the water management side actually there are probably more reds in there, maybe even bigger projects. So I'm wondering if when you say it's been standardized, does that mean that that project management staff across or there must be some standardized criteria for evaluating what's red, yellow, green, right? And is it but is is that also standardized across departments or do they maybe looked at these somewhat differently in different departments? >> Um well it's standardized in that it's it's based on the phase and it's based on you know whether you're kind of by the um completion date that you've given us and then whe like whether you've gone beyond whether you're on track for that
or not whether you're on track for that. >> So it should be standardized across departments. it should be. Yeah, because it's it's it's now built in other words, it's built into the kind of um the spreadsheet that we wrote.
>> I guess my other question was more for the manager. So, just for as a as a management tool, if like everything I know we've reset, which we just talked about, but like what does it mean for you either as a city manager or for a department heads? If something's red, what does that what does that trigger? Right.
So I mean I I think uh you know department by department you know our project managers leading up to their DCMS and myself our expectations are to understand when things are falling behind uh and to figure out if there are barriers that we're supposed to be working on or removing. I think the the use of the report um by those departments is probably secondary to the regular updates that supervisors are having. I haven't been in the details of the reset of the report, so I don't want to speak specifically how department directors are using the the green versus
yellow versus red. Um, I think that is more an attempt to show sort of organizationwide uh information to the council and to the public about where things stand. So I would I would say that the primary accountability tool is between supervisors and project managers who should be talking about these projects on a weekly basis or or more often than that. Um if you know to the extent that the report doesn't capture or reflect uh original dates of the project, I mean I'm happy to ask our staff to continue to see if there's a way to capture that. I think what I understand and I don't want to put words in director's uh mouths mouth is that this was an attempt to sort of say this this data was not standardized. We need to start from a fresh standpoint to to keep the same process going forward but that going forward u we will not reset deadlines that will
show as yellow and red going forward. So I think I think this is their attempt and correct me if I'm wrong Christina to to try to get back to a place where that is managed centralized as opposed to by departments because I think the frustration we heard last time is a department would update a target and then everything would get changed. So that has been taken away such that now going forward this represents the best estimate from departments about when things will be completed and that we will now have a better centralized tool for seeing across uh across all projects whether or not they're falling behind. >> That's helpful.
It may be important because that that data the stoplight appears in the appendix your report right does it also appear somewhere on that city website? So, we do we do post it on our um budget and management services website. And so, that's we've been doing also um that's why I mentioned we're talking with communications to also kind of flesh out that site a little bit so that um it's not just the stock so that we have more information about projects there as well
too and can link people to more um other sources of data on different projects as well too. >> That's helpful. might recommend to Miss Block and you and the manager also like providing some context because I think when people saw that they're like okay it's been updated and standardized and everything's all green and we know there's some projects that have been like taking years to finish. So I think having some kind of clear messaging about the new system you know that we've reset this um and yet as you're just saying Mr.
manager that that part of this is that we that we can't then continually just kind of push back deadlines and sort it just somehow appears that we're it's a way to fix this even though right now it looks like everything is on target which may feel a little bit off for folks who've been tracking these projects for a while. So >> appreciate that. >> Great. Thank you.
Yeah. >> Is that all? >> All right. Thank you. Thank you so much [clears throat] colleagues at this time. Um, actually, do you mind reading the uh the close session language so that I can entertain a motion, please?
>> Absolutely. Um, Sophia Hernandez of the city attorney's office. 11 A3 for attorney client consultation concerning a yettobe filed federal suit. I'll entertain a motion.
>> So moved. >> Second. >> It's been moved by council member Cook, seconded by uh council member Rrist. All in favor?
>> I. All opposed. All right. Thank you so much.
m. We're [clears throat] going to go to the uh council chamber suite and we will dismiss from there with the time being recorded to you, madam clerk. Oh yeah, we got >> settle the agenda. >> Oh yeah.
Gosh, that's right. Um, we will proceed with what I just stated after settling the agenda. >> Thank you, mayor. Uh, to settle the
agenda, we have consent items 1 through 9 and 11 through 13 from GBA public hearings. Items 15 through 20. Item 10 was referred back to staff. >> Thank you.
I entertain a motion to settle with the agenda. >> Some second. It's been moved and probably seconded. All in favor?
I. All oppose. All right, we're now proceeding to close session. What a short day.
Ryan, were you just bored? You want to just hang out with us? >> He's in close. >> Oh gosh. Okay. Oh boy.