City Council · Regular Meeting · June 6, 2024

in chair mayor Williams mayor Williams is going to be about 15 minutes late he said May Pro Middleton has received an excused absence council member Baker here council member cabayo here council member cook here council member Freeman pres and council member R here thank you um we'll begin with the announcements by Council and I'll start to my right council member do [Music] thanks council member kabier council member Baker sure I was just um following up on some of the conversations that we've been having up here um reached out to the county about their um about the Wake County out of school

Time study that they're being that they're conducting between North Carolina State and the uh Cooperative Extension and um it sounds like um the the Durham Cooperative Extension is also similarly uh uh anticipating conducting a an out of school Time study and so they'll probably be reaching out um for potential partnership opportunities in the future so I just wanted to share that and put that on your radar that's all thanks thank yeah c m cook uh just briefly again happy Pride everyone and excited to go to the pride night at the dur Bulls game this evening I hope to see many of you there if the weather holds um and that is all thank you I would just add to um happy pride and uh I'm glad we had a chance to raise the Jun teen flag yesterday at the courthouse and I want to thank the county for pulling that together with uh Phyllis Cy and spectacular magazine and then I also just wanted to share just a

couple of thoughts from Monday night's uh budget hearing and just noting there were a few requests that were made and I just want to see the kind of um where we are as a council around if if some of those items might be possible if they could end up in the PB process I think um we've held off on asking for Community projects and I think now might be the time to try and push in that direction so that some of those projects that are not reoccurring that are just one time if it might be possible to kind of push in so that I mean they're under two million so I think that some of them might be able to fit in that process and I think whomever is the PB L on might be able to ask the question if that so I wanted to remind the council that you know certainly the PB process is you know it is when there's a presentation made from the previous site cycle and authority to

kind of move forward with the new cycle um we have been focused those projects on Capital Improvements that was only one cycle uh where it was service type um agreements and and the funding that we do set aside for it is in our CIP so I did want to you know go on the record to say that as it stands right now you know there could have been some of those asss that were CIP typ ask on public property but um if you will recall the previous cycle all of the um projects that were voted on were public improvements and that's a great point I think with all the CIP projects we have had in the past and then also with the CIP projects that will probably move into the bond um if it passes through um I think it would give us some space and it's an opportunity I just offer it as a suggestion that's all thank you I'll move on to Priority items by the

city manager thank you madam presiding chair um I do have and council members I do have a few priority items for you for your work session today agenda item number 28 is the durm rail trail project design update and Professional Services contract Amendment with the John R McAdams Company Inc a presentation will be made during this work session today today agenda item number 39 US Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration airport Improvement program Grant offer 3-37 d56 d67 D2 two 2024 a supplemental item has been added to your agenda today um like similar agenda item number 40 which is a US Department of Transportation federal a avation Administration airport Improvement program Grant offer 3-37

0056 D68 d224 another supplemental item has been added agenda item number 41 which is American Rescue plan act arpa project subrecipient agreement with affordable Community residents Association for the Fitz power affordable housing project a supplemental item has been added and finally agenda item number 42 on call Executive recruitment Services list a supplemental item has been added to your agenda that is all I have uh for you this afternoon thank you madam manager we don't need to approve those it's just yes I go okay so I'll just uh moved second thank you I think it's been moved in properly second all in favor raise your right hand is unanimous and uh priority items from the city attorney's office thank you for

citing chair Freeman good afternoon uh Madam man excuse me Madam manager and members of the city council uh just a matter of personal perich I was hoping to introduce the city attorney's office some are interns to you today um that are here in attendance so probably ask them to stand be recognized we have three amazing interns with us this summer Alis Barkley she is a rising third year at Duke Law School she's originally from Charlottesville Virginia and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since college she has remained in the triangle and she's a dual degree student with a MERS in public policy as well as a law school degree that she's pursuing her last two summers she's um interned with the Durham Community safety department and the North Carolina uh doj Office of the solicitor general in her free time she enjoys writing reading and Hiking so that's Alison we also have brindavani uh muda muda excuse me mudati brinda is a

C she also holds master's degree um in appalachin studies and geography with concentrations in sustainable development and Community planning and those degrees are from appalachin State University she has spent the last 15 years in the environmental nonprofit sector so we're very excited to have them join us this summer and wanted to introduce them to you today welcome we happy to have you any no other priority items thank you and Madam clerk thank you Madame

presiding chair and good afternoon council members the city clerk's office has no priority items today thank you I'll go through our administrative consent items and uh starting with uh number one Durham Board of adjustment mayoral appointment uh number two human relations commission appointment number three the durm open space and trails commission mayoral appointment I do have a question um for the clerk around that one um so I don't want to pull it but the form that we're using doesn't allow us to not select and I didn't want to select so I do want to make sure we fix that if we can and then number four the Carolina Theater of dur Derm Board of Trustees appointment number five durm open space and trails commission appointment number six the Duram bicycle and pedestrian

advisory commission appointment number seven Duram workers rights appointment number eight Duram City County Environmental Affairs appointments number nine racial Equity commission appointment and number 10 Duram homeless Services advisory appointments I have a question that one as well I think maybe I should just go ahead and pull that we P that one Madam and you have that number 11 durm cultural Advisory Board appointments number 12 participatory budgeting steering committee appointments number 13 approval of city council minutes number 14 contract agreement with St Joseph's historic Foundation Inc to provide funding to support core programming facility rentals salaries benefits and contracted services number 15 contract agreement with the Museum of durm History to provide funding to support Museum operations number 16 fiscal year 2425 20

20 2425 budget and 25 through 30 Capital Improvement plan and CIP ordinance and other related ordinances pull that one and to pull that one did you catch that m number 17 uh contract with El Central Hispano to provide salary and operating support number 18 number 17 please number 18 contract amendment number two with moss and Ross LLC for communications consulting services i' like that one that's pulled number 19 contract Amendment with corporate facts fcts for technical assistance on affordable housing project thanks P that one as

well number 20 First Amendment to contract with Volunteers of America for of the car Carolina's Inc for provisions of coordinated entry with diversion Services P that one as well number 21 contract with North Carolina coalition to end homelessness NC to provide homeless management information systems lead agency Services number 22 American Rescue plan act arpa revised commit commitment letter to Bradley housing developers LLC for the Sandy Ridge station project number 23 resolution providing approval of of a multif family housing facility to be a portion of the lofs at Southside and the financing thereof with multif family housing revenue bonds for General Services number 24 First Amendment to the Geo geotechnology geotechnical Engineering Services contract with e ECS Southeast

LLC for the durm station Transit Center Improvement project number 25 United States Department Of Agricultural USDA Forest Services Forest Service inflation reduction act in urban and Community Forest Grant which is phenomenal number 26 United States Department of Agriculture USDA Forest Services inflation reduction act Urban and Community forestry grant subrecipient grant the grant agreement with keep durm beautiful which is also phenomenal number 27 Third Amendment to the sublease with Duke University Health Systems Inc and sublease agreement with Lincoln Community Health Center at Holton uh at the Holton Center number 28 Duram rail trail project design update and Professional Services contract Amendment with the John R McAdams Company Inc that's a presentation number 29 Old Chapel Hill

Road Park field replacement project purchase contract with field Turf USA Inc number 30 amendments to the city durm city of durm classifications and compensation pay plan and number 31 contract with rebuild together of the triangle for neighborhood preservation program number 32 fiscal year 2024 through 25 agreement to fund Economic Development programs and services operated by downtown durm Inc using city of durm funds number 33 contract amendment number four with downtown durm Inc for the fisal year 2024 through 25 city of city services and programs for the downtown durm M Service District number 34 is that 34 uh contract for the pre-employment polygraph examinations of police applicants P that one number 34 is pulled number 35 contract amendment number contract Amendment Three to the

professionals Engineering Services contract with Haven and Sawyer PC for the East durm Water and Sewer Rehabilitation and belt Street Regional storm water Improvement project number 36 Amendment one to Professional Services contract number 18853 with shemel engineering South PC for design of Little River Dam settlement and seepage improvements P that one number 37 uh unified development ordinance rewrite audit report that's a presentation that's a is it a presentation today okay this presentation and we have our public hearing items uh 2024 General obligation Bond referendum and we'll move to supplemental items the US Department of Transportation Federal Aviation administration's airport Improvement program Grant offer 337-5745

Federal Aviation Administration airport Improvement program offer 3-37 0056 068 d224 and for Community Development the number 41 American Rescue plan act arpa project subrecipient Grant agreement with affordable Community residents Association for the Fitz Powell affordable housing project and number 42 on call Executive recruitment Services list and that completes our agenda with items pulled 10 16 17 18 19 20 presentations for 28 number 34 is pulled 36 is pulled and 37 is a presentation okay and I think we'll move to our uh citizens items residence items

public comments thank you I look forward to that happening so we don't want to exclude our residents who are not citizens thank you madam Cy attorney so we have three online and three in person we'll start with those online first Madame clerk if you want to call the first name out the first speaker is Jacqueline Wagstaff thank you former council member wag staff are you you unmute it I sure and how many

minutes do I get nobody told me oh you have three minutes okay thank you uh good afternoon Madame presiding chair and council members um I come to you today on two matters one is on a citizen matter and the other one that should be on file that I've signed up to speak on the uh Bond referendum but this one is about citizen matter I'm going to start off by saying that the last time and I did some research that the city council procedures were revised was November the 8th 2012 and to this day I can't find any revision since then with that being said uh in section number two city council meeting section 2-6-7 A and 2-6-7 B citizens and public hearing I have not found any mention of limitations on Virtual citizen comments time restrictions on when a citizen has to be signed up to speak on a matter on the citizen agenda on the council agenda

m. m. inperson sign up deadline but makes no mention of the virtual audience 2m sign up deadline so unless

there has been a revision of the November 8th 2012 city council procedure rules that have not been made available to the general public speaking on behalf of myself I feel that my rights because I did sign up to speak on the public budget hearing on Monday night were violated and I think that we need to have a clear understanding of what virtual speaking and sign up entails as it relates to the current the current the only procedure revision ordinance is from November the 8th to 2012 so that's the one that I'm looking at anything outside of that it may be a practice but it's not a procedure and I'll follow a procedure but I'm not going to follow somebody's practice that they just pulled out of the air or out of somewhere else so we need to I need to have a clear understanding of what is what is required of virtual speakers and why we're not entitle to the same Provisions that you give the in-person

speaker because we're speaking on the same item so that is my concern today thank you Miss wxa thank you Miss wxa I just wanted to acknowledge that mayor Williams has joined us and we'll be taking over thank you for the acknowledgement council member Freeman uh thank you Miss WX for your comments um procedures are not ordinance they are practice and if I'm Pres officer then uh it'll be the chair's prerogative to enforce those procedures moving to the next speaker Raven Smith welcome Mr minutes Mr Mayor there's no Raven Smith but there is a Luke Smith I have Raven here um so therefore the next speaker will be Dean Langley Langley Mr Langley can you hear me good afternoon mayor Williams and members of the city council I initially was not going to speak today because as

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m. and the next message was thank you again for helping me and the screenshot said congratulations on your full-time employment offer at Microsoft when we are talking about transformative work I don't know how much more transformative than an employment opportunity after four years in undergraduate at Microsoft can be and so again I play with you all uh as you all are finalizing the budget for $25,000 and I've been uh going more in depth into you all's agenda and I'm seeing where organizations get money for rent which I didn't even know the city would pay rent for an organization but I will be revising my request next year and asking for additional support but you all pay rent you all pay salaries and I'm not asking you all to give me money to compensate myself because that every volunteer opportunity that I have

done throughout my entire life in Durham I have not been compensated because I've always been employed that covers my living expenses but what I do need is you all to invest in the work that is being done that is transforming the lives of these boys and young men thank you thank you uh Mr Langley uh Madam Clark want to send you a message about uh Luke Smith there was a mix up in the the names here so I'll un send that to you and they should be getting on 17 yeah all right uh next I have Angela Le no that's the resource person okay so this is an agenda item okay all right uh moving to inperson Dan Nei welcome you have three minutes and John warilla will be right after name is

D Street it is where M tempora and velvet hippo restaurants all reside and it's also become a major thoroughfare between Paris and West East chavel Hill Street uh I'm here talking on behalf of the residents and businesses uh my main purpose is just to inform you and update you on what we consider a decaying and declining situation with the garbage uh uh Bin that H houses garbage cans and recyclables uh for the many businesses and residents uh of Orange Street um and also to ask your help Council in trying to help to rectify and I'll make a very specific comment on way we think it can happen uh there's a handout with some pictures that uh hopefully you have in front of you and we'll reference a couple of those but I'm going to speak very quickly uh my guess is many of you know about the fire that occurred on

Orange Street um early Monday morning about 2:30 and it was the recyclable blue bins that caught fire and and immediately spread doing five other bins and melted them to the ground and you can see a picture there in the aftermath of it uh it was the wakeup call for us to come to you and to say look we need some help quickly uh we've been trying to go through uh the regular process of trying to rep in increase and to help with the expansion of the the recyclable bins but have had very little luck so far so the problem is this the Orange Street has exploded and when that re the uh enclosure was built 10 years ago there was one restaurant one bar and a couple residents today it's quadrupled in that number and but the uh the bin has not been expanded at all and recently because there's no room for the recyclable bins they were moved out to

the sidewalk the blue bins the garbage is still there and the uh oil and from the restaurants cooking is still in the bins um so what is the problem uh it's too small and we need to you know improve it to get it larger uh this along with the Overflow from the garbage containers has created a real isore and residents going back and forth to the restaurants and from East Chapel Hill to East Parish will see that uh the mess that you the bins have created um the third part of the problem is there's no secure door on the ex existing enclosure and you know so it has become a magnet or unwanted individual so to speak uh to enter and rummage through the garbage uh they sleep there they defecate there and so we're we're trying to thank you Mr Nan thank you okay that's it okay all

right next I have John warilla good afternoon Council thanks for your time mayor um following up on Dan's comments I was brought into this discussion uh because we're property holders on Orange Street as well and I walk up and down that street quite often it was interesting to me that this situation parallels events that are happening near the Armory as well where there's another solid waste center so I got involved in that one because we happened to be stakeholders over there as well and during that process we came across a system that Raleigh was considering where those kind of centers are really most of the the waste in them is housed underground in a retrieval system and we brought that to the attention of some of the solid waste folks I don't know where that's finally landed or ended up but both of those locations strike me as ideal places to be setting up Solid Waste centers based on that model um to

Dan's point one of the issues we're having in Orange Street is we have a recurring problem with a homeless individual lives on that street pretty much in that trash Center we've had multiple meetings with the heart team other folks DDI H how do we deal with this and last week it literally erupted into a fire so that that's what kind of prompted Dan's uh immediate response to like hey we need to escalate this and figure out how to get this solved so it's a very real problem I think it probably happens in multiple locations in the city and at this point I think we're all fortunate that that fire didn't spill over to the grease centers that the restaurants use that are there that fire probably would have been 10 times worse so it's a very real public safety issue that I think I don't know what the mechanism is for getting that escalated and dealt with but it it's there and it's real so

thanks thank you we can have staff kind of follow up on that thank you you have to put items oh it's a for item number 17 it sign up in the wrong place all right number 10 council member cook yeah I just pulled this because I have a quick question about it um we were tasked with filling two vacancies one representing faith community and one representing former homeless person uh to appoint to the Durham homeless Services advisory committee um at no point on the applications were applicants asked to select um if they fit either of those two categories um their applications some of them talked about it but many of them didn't all four of the applicants were listed for

both of those positions um because there was no request in the application um asking if they fit those categories um so I guess this is my question um in terms of moving forward when we are meant to select an individual who represents a faith community and we don't know of the candidates if any of them actually fit that category and to someone who is formerly homeless um that was in a couple of the applications but not asked for specifically and so we don't know um of those applicants who fits either of those categories for certain um how we are supposed to select for those vacancies thank you council member cook for your question I'm going to defer to Javon Pratt she's an assistant clerk who handles the the boards and committee process and um I'm going to ask her to come online good afternoon mayor Williams um members of the city council Javon Pratt assistant city clerk with the city

clerk's office um so the application um has been updated for applicants to choose categories for Durham homeless Services advisory um committee but at the time applications were pulled that wasn't an option and cannot be retroactively done um this was actually my first time having to pull applications for this board since I've been in this role so I wasn't aware that this um was the application process for this board but moving forward you will be able to see the category that I want application for this um thank you Miss Pratt I appreciate that um and and this is just again I'm going to voice my concern I don't believe this council is able to fill these positions without knowing if the people were putting in the positions meet the categories of the position um so and I understand that this is going to be burdensome but um that I think

it's worth talking about whether or not we reissue um both and and I I would ask that we specifically reach out to the four applicants who have already applied and make sure that they know that that reissuance is happening um so that they can update their application I don't think it will be too much of a verden on them since they will be able to submit the same application just with selecting one extra box but um in my opinion even if we have cast votes today I don't think that we are able to make a call on that seeing as we we don't know if they if they meet the criteria for the position would you like this referred back to the department item 10 yes that will be my request I guess then thank you I will definitely um make sure I reach out to these candidates to make sure um I can receive a category that they would like to represent this bo uh I I want to make sure that's an that's a council order so before we I there are

some comments on it council member yeah thank you m Pratt thank um thank you council member cook for your comments I I agree 100% I think we um and this is not the first time this has come up in some of the appointments where there's a particular particular Community or uh group that's intended to be represented on a boarding commission we get the application and sometimes it's clear that that that that person qualifies in that group it's not always clear and so I think right now we have the option of either voting for that person or referring it back to like so I think it would be helpful to have a little more more um specificity especially when these different groups are are specified by boards and commissions so I know that um that may be complicated in terms of the application how you adjust that but I think some more guidance that would help us make good decisions because right now we just vote up or down based on what we have thank you question I I don't do this always but I do try to do it as much as possible are you all reaching out to the applicants at all to uh like or or do you just read the uh application

um thank you for your question oh no that that was to the council Miss oh I'm sorry you're fine and it's just a it's just a general question I I I can't do it because there's so many of them but I do do it sometimes yeah I mean I was gonna say we had I think we had what 12 different items and and one of the items had 20 people I did not do all of them time no I I have not reached out to them and and I I'm interested by that because I actually didn't know that was an option it it does seem um that then if we were able to reach out that we would have supplemental information that the rest of our colleagues would not have um so I had I had never done that yeah it was just uh just something I I think I started doing that when I first got on Council in 21 I would just contact them and call them if they were interested but also it was like when it was a short list and I needed to get a little more context Beyond um beyond the uh the application itself

so it's just trying to help me be better informed on the decision it's it's a lot of busy work if you if you're doing that but I was just curious that's Baker yeah I would also encourage applicants to reach out reach out to us as well um yeah um one one question I've got is do we need to completely read vertise or can we reach out and just figure out which category they should or could be in is there a shortcut here that we could that we could use typically we go back and read vertise the position okay also I think one of the reasons that we have and you'll see on this list in particular that many of them have recommended people because the folks who sit on those boards and commissions and actually do the work um spend a lot more time with those applications and have often built relationships with the folks who are applying which is why it's really important when we see those list of recommended folks I tend to honor because I know that that that the folks

who are doing the work have have really thought through it in a way that as Council either we don't have time or it's not our assigned board or commission so we don't really know um what their work is so I will say that was really helpful with this list which was very long is that several of the folks several of the items in front of us had recommendations from that border commission about the read vertising I you know folks took a took time out to fill out these applications I I don't just because it's typical I don't know if that needs to be the practice um can we not just reach out to get the clarification um I'm sorry Diana may I just comment on this please sure hi I'm sorry hi uh mayor Williams members of city council uh Lola Roland here city clerk's office can you all hear me yes I just saw Miss Pratt's lips not moving and it wasn't Diana so I was confused so I'm just I'm just hopping in really quick because I I I do think that Javon would reach out to me um but uh

according to city council procedures we only have to minim uh advertise for any vacancies a minimum of 30 days so we've already done this with this particular item so if the council's asking us to refer this item back to the administration Javon would just reach out to these people ask them which categories they'd like to be um um you know thrown in for the pool and then what we would do is we would just put the item back as an agenda item because if we were to advertise for a minimum of 30 days the item wouldn't come back to council for at least another two months but if if all we're asking is for them to choose their categories um then she could actually put it onto the next onas agenda deadline assuming that she heard back from all the applicants I I think that would be the the best you know way to go forward considering the residents have put in their interest um does that satisfy the pleasure of the council yes Mr Mayor also just to point out too that these boards and commissions also need people they need to fill capacity so to do the work they do they we want to as

gov do we need to have a thumbs up for having them Reach Out And yeah bring it back all right I've shared that email

quite a bit folks email me yelling at me like no send it to the whole Council here's the email all right uh number 16 is that council member wrist I believe counc member wrist um thank you Mr Mayor I just had two quick questions um I did have a comment from a citizen asking about the the fiveyear CIP so we approve every year the one-year CIP right do we do we have a copy that full the full plan because and that we may have seen some of that at the budget retreat in the spring I assume that's changed as well so will we see a full full I if it's a spreadsheet or full plan for the full fiveyear CIP um so um I will ask the um the budget Management Services director to certainly the ordinance only includes the current year uh we we say plan in in particular because it it is it is a plan and it's

subject to re you know to re reshuffling and every budget year but we do have a presentation of a plan and I will allow Christina to talk about how that actually gets distributed and is made transparent Christina ween um budget and Management Services director yes so the council is approving um the initial year one year so the ordinance is for one year and then um if we have updates throughout the year you will approve amendments which happen um as well too and so um the longer range plan is something that we are um constantly working on and so um that is something though that we um traditionally um don't um you know provide as part of the budget materials but something that um we can uh share at a later date with Council as we kind of work towards that that' be great to see that obviously what's in the plan even though it's evolving is it's helpful to know what's in there what we're envisioning for that five-year period um the other question I

had if I may was also I think we at the last work session I think we also did request sort of a like a um an accounting or itemized list of like what changed in in the one-year CIP from the presentation in April or whenever that was the budget Retreat to the to the new CIP that's been amended right if we could see that that would be great just to know like what's what's what's new what's changed yeah what's yeah I I I don't think that I heard I I may not have heard that request but we can provide that for you just to know like what's yeah again like what's new what's changed what's what's out that kind of thing okay so what you're asking for just on clear is that when the Council budget Retreats what changed from the initial request to what was is actually in the recommended adopted budget is that what you're asking exactly yeah okay yeah okay thank you may I speak I want to make sure the administration is clear on what we're bringing back because you did receive additional information that I thought was

responsive to exactly what you just asked so I just want to make sure that was a slide that was part of the um additional information that we that we provided and I didn't want us to provide the exact same thing if it's not what you what you're asking for now so Christina do you want to respond to that yeah that I did not yeah that's why I'm clarifying because I'm not sure exactly if we provide because we did you did have the list of what was initially in the budget and then what was recommended but you're asking us to well just and just that it's simply it's a long list and so we could go through there and one by one say okay this one was in the spring is that still in there now just but that's a pretty tedious process to go through that's a log number of items in the CIP so just knowing from that from the presentation we had in the spring I think there's 104 million was the total of projects right just knowing which ones are still in the CIP which ones are taken out if there's new ones that have been added in so just to without us having to go through line by line to try to figure out ourselves it' be helpful just to have like a guide to understand what has changed since that

initial presentation did that make sense yeah so so when we met uh in our budget workshops back in um middle of February in in the first week of first day of March uh there was a list provided of all of the departmental asks or requests and at the time in the budget process those were just requests that had been made that had not been um you know vetted by our CIP you know PRI prioritization teams or anything like that so what I think I hear you saying is that was a list of total requests and ultimately you received a list um that is part of the ordinance that we are are representing and you just want to see what was requested compared to what was in the ordinance as well as the items that ultimately we are anticipating may be funded by the bond uh proceeds this fall is that is that right because as as

you've described to us that part of the change there was that with the with the bond ordinance being approved to go to the vote there were some things taken out of the CIP because we' G we have more capacity now with those moving to the bond so just knowing again what's been what's moved around how with with the so I think we did um add a slide that basically just had a listing of projects but we did not presented in the format that you're asking for it now you're asking just for a list of asks and then how that list of asks compares to the ordinance that is the C CIP ordinance uh with kind of a side note of the projects that uh would potentially be funded if the bond is approved in November is that the request that's correct yeah and I just I just will preface that you know the the list that you get at the retreat is a very early list from departments and so sometimes in going back and forth with departments there are changes made based on what they feel like their need is or what they you know they gain more information as we go forward with that so I just

want to caution that that list is sometimes has changes yeah and I will also say that you know as the finance department works with the delivery departments and a timing of the project the phasing of the project is um is discussed and agreed upon that also sometimes changes where the Project funding falls in the in the you know in the future in the future CIP so sometimes a department is putting a brand new project on the list but they don't need that to be included in the ordinance because they're in predesign or they're in design um and and not in construction so that is part of the reason that you might see the same project name you might see a different number but I did want that to be on the record um on the record as one of the things that changes between the original ask or request and what ultimately gets um included in the proposed ordinance

for for this year just because I respond yeah so I simply so I understand you've got your process that's and I understand that's an evolving process and that's important that you all go through as council members we get requests from the community hey how come that thing is not in this budget anymore so we just need to be able to explain to people what is changing and have some visibility about like how this process is evolving and why things may have changed that's all we need but yeah thank you and then additionally I think part of it is because there's a bond folks really want to understand what is shifting from the CIP so I'm certainly starting to get questions around and that's something that staff isn't really having those conversations and y'all can't but part of the the importance of the bond is the capacity it gives in the CIP because projects are moving out um and so to be able to clearly communicate that to residents as council members start to have those conversations out in the community is just going to be really really helpful thank you all right thank

you I'm here for the next one too okay all think there's a resident who signed up [Music] 16 oh um Miss can you hear me I can good you have three minutes item number 16 okay um just to get back to just to correct something Mr Mayor about what you said when I made a comment about rules and procedures and ORD is this item number 16 Miss waxa right but I have to address it I'm go to item number 16 you don't have to address it has to be the it of 16 okay well I'll put it in writing so that you can send me the ordinance that gave to change the rule to a practice so I look forward to reading it okay I will send it to you but uh item number 16 the budget again I'm going back to the

comments that were made by Council council member Cooks while I respect council member cooks and I'm so happy that she's there representing War 3 I do not agree with the comment about the parks and the parks being safe places for you and that's why this B referendum is so important I've worked in this community for years and parks in the neighborhood I worked in have normally never been a safe place and we can go look at that now if you go to Long meal Park which has the only pool that has a water slide that used to be a place where lowincome people could take their children during the week free of charge and have somewhere for them to be in a safe place well we don't have that anymore and actually the parks and the the most deprived neighborhoods are being used as encampments for the homeless and I don't think it's one youth in durm that would be in a part without being supervised and it would be a safe place for them so I don't I don't

get the correlation of a referendum of $200 million for a general maintenance fund balance that Parks streets and side walks are supposed to be in your general maintenance budget that is something that you have to do every every year year constantly throughout the year just like I get up every morning and I take it Val I don't call up the mortgage company every time I turn on the water and say I need to refinance the house so I can turn the water on this makes no sense that we're increasing the taxes on the taxpayers and people's incomes are not increasing just because y'all want to increase things and find another Revenue stream of money and the same way with that ordinance that's not free money that's the city going out borrowing money on the taxpayers dime and then it has to be paid back and I don't care what the interest rate how low the interest rate it still has to be paid back through the taxpayers we need to look at those pet projects that are being funded through the taxpayers that we're not getting reports on and put

that money back into general maintenance and do the business of the city and take care of the obligations that the city has on a daily base and not have to run bond referendums to take care of General operations and and maintenance bills it it just makes no sense so while I respect you councilwoman Cooks I think you're doing an excellent job and keep inquiring this is the one thing that I may disagree with you on so thank you for listening to me thank you Miss W staff we are now on number 17 council member cavero thank you Mr Mayor I just would like to um I think there might also be a resident signed up for this item um so that's one I just want to know um if we could get a list of all the nonprofits who are just put in our uh budget the way that this item is does that make sense it's usually you know go ahead I'm sorry sorry Christina

Weir um director of budget and Management Services so uh I don't have a list of every single nonprofit that is funded by the city because some are funded directly through departments there is a list in your budget book under the Community Building section which does have um a listing of some of the nonprofits that receive funding thank you and I can provide you with that page number if you would like that would be great thanks thanks M Bren um it also looking at the items in the budget I see we have good information on contract scope of work um sort of um sort of a progress report or I guess a sort of prospective progress report for 20 this year 25 um do we routinely get in reports from these groups and does council see those just to get a sense of not only what the contract would be funding going forward but also how they've performed to date in terms of you know being a recipient of City funds do we do we get that regularly or could we have that information just so we have some visibility and sort of performance of the of the folks were we're funding uh

yeah I think it um varies depending on the contract so with this particular contract there is um a request for quarterly updates they do provide a quarterly report to um budgeted Management Services for uh this particular contract manages this contract and so for this contract per se we do receive a quarterly report in our office right I think and prob I'm not sure it would vary you know other other nonprofits throughout the city would vary depending on the contract they have with the city for me quarterly reports might be a little too much but it seems like on some annual basis to have some visibility on performance of these contracts okay yeah so I don't know if that's something we can in the future add just so we have like a report in report going backwards as we look into to to approve a contract going forwards that'd be very helpful thank you mam manager so so uh you bring uh thank you Miss mayor so you bring um to to the table uh multiple different um issues around the folks that we contract with uh anytime we have a contract that contract uh because we are the

government it requires uh monitoring and accountability for the way that the funding is being spent so on an administrative basis those details are worked out with the City attorney we execute the agreement as to what level of reporting is required whether they are monitoring visits whether they are quarterly reports and sometimes it does include an annual report that may be written sometimes it is an a voluntary annual report that the organization just wants to uh request uh through the department that is overseeing the um the you know the contract itself just as an update to both the council and the community um as we talk about the historical contracts or the contracts that we're in the middle of certainly any new requirements would be you know would have to be negotiated with you know with the the the organization that we're in a contract with but I do hear you it saying that like all of your most of your boards and commissions have the

requirement to make an annual report they usually make that written and it comes it comes to the council in a report you've probably seen agenda items where those annual reports are present then you have actually seen um you know nonprofits that we may have a contract with or may not have a contract with that just want to come before the council and talk about the work that they're doing and then we have the agreements that are already in force as to what type of reporting uh that needs to happen you know if the council you know wants reports that are not required by the organization it doesn't mean we can't work with them and and have you know some type of presentation made but I wanted to make it really clear that once we have something in the form of a contract that's what we you know that is the expectation we have of the of the nonprofit yeah just to be clear so I'm not asking for a new set of reports but as you're describing I appreciate that the staff is is monitoring all these contracts and I understand that's happening on a monthly quarterly basis or whatever I think the the question for

me is does the council get some benefit of the work of that work you're doing to get a sense of like what has the staff what have have the staff learned from these reports over the course of a year this has this contract been effective at and the goals they've identified or or not so having some visibility in how these contractors are actually performing relative to the analysis your staff is doing would be quite helpful again high level visibility on that um since we do have a number of folks we are Contracting with right number um yeah do you see him yet Luke Smith okay so I know we we're having looke if you can hear me um you are Mr technical difficulties today so uh we have two of you one of you can you speak up wow that's there you go hey welcome man you have three minutes have many identities well it's good to see you mayor Williams members of the council and Mrs Paige

it's a privilege to speak with you right now about this topic uh we El futuro is the organization I represent as the Director we have a location our base location is in the Lakewood shopping center we've been there for number of years and Durham for 15 years we're the uh Latino serving organization with the largest footprint here in Durham and the reason why I'm coming to you is because I'm first of all excited that mayor Williams is coming to visit next Wednesday morning at nine o'clock and I want to invite all members of the council Miss paig you're all welcome to come on that visit we'd love to see you for the 30 minute visit we're just going to show you what we do we'll probably have a line out in front of people waiting to see us because that's how it is in the mornings it's a very needed service that we offer in mental health substance use counseling um case management we work closely with a lot of the funded partners that you fund um Alliance uh is one of our main Partners

but also Lincoln Duke the schools when we see an item like this on the agenda we want to support our colleagues at El centano but also the other organizations that are serving the Latino Community um in other counties where we have our work we are um part of a funding process where we go into the county to the city Siler City Chapel Hill carbo um we go in and we have a a very Equitable Fair transparent uh process of applying for funds and then we report on those funds and uh we've been very fortunate to be able to secure those over 20 years of service in those locations but we've never had that opportunity with Durham city and uh the arpa funding process was a possibility for us but it didn't work out uh for many reasons um that we wish it had when it was voted on back in February by the council we would have loved to have had that funding but now we see this and it's going to our our

colleague El centes Bano just like those arpa funds went to that organization and we have questions and we want to we want to understand how we can also um engage you in a way that would allow us to provide more services at a time when we're having to make a real decision on whether or not we can continue the services we are offering uh based on funding levels going down so thank you for your consideration of this item but also please consider other organizations like ours and and others that I could name that um are doing good work in the community thank you so much uh for your comments and also telling everyone where I'm going to be on Wednesday at 9:00 am. thanks for um on up all right next is number 18 council member hook you and director Johnson I think he knows [Music]

um all right I just have several questions over the next few ones um this first one number 18 um I saw that there's specific deliverables in this contract are they are those deliverables tied to the bond in some way or were those deliverables that we as a city set can you just tell me where those came from uh Reginal Johnson director Community Development Department uh the primarily related to the federal Home D affordable housing program so is a bond in part but it's also really related to the entire $160 million uh investment so this is are I mean I guess the reason I'm asking is because we gave ourselves the option to extend the contract there are kind of discreet deliver deliverables which I assume we

sort of knew we would need to continue getting and I'm just wondering why I guess why it was contracted this way and whether or not those were deliverables that we were required as part of the bond to receive or if that was just our city that was well to the extent that I'm understanding the question let me try to answer it in this way uh one of the things that was important before the bond passed was communication and that was one of the important values that we had and so what we put in uh as part of The Proposal might I say the proposal the discussion uh was a way to help the community development department argument how we communicate the results of forever home Duram and so we need it helped to be able to do we were not able to do that through just the Communications Department with the city or Community Development staff in terms of uh person power or expertise and so we set resources aside to be able to

uh communicate for example if I have a home web Duram website that is uh from Maron Ross and French West vaugh the the design of the entire website the bus uh decals on forever home durm that's part of the uh French West V uh the stories that we have on the um website about the projects and different ways that we talk about the work that we've completed that's also moss and Ross and French West fwn so I don't know if I'm answering your question but that was a part a key part just as the uh minority in women own business was also a key part a tenant uh with the uh passage of the bond referendum um and even the name itself uh Bel home Durham that comes from uh the collaboration that we had with Marson Marson French West f yeah I mean I think you're actually touching on my second part of my question which is

sort of why we why we needed a contractor here I mean I think I heard you say that it felt out of our scope as a city to do um but I am just curious about why and and I I do want to say I read the background information on this and it sounds like an awesome group you just said it's a and yes and it's um it sounds like a great organization I'm just curious why we weren't able to do that in house and and sort of the specifics that made that too complicated for us very much so I mean the website it's itself uh they were key they were key in that and a manager if I might I will add just a little context you know certainly you know proud to when you were part of the council when the original um priorities in the forever home Durham program started uh the city did determine that certain components of that you know certainly the largest um you know

housing Bond we' ever um ever in North Carolina along with the biggest project that the city was putting into place not just for one year but for multi years decisions were made back then of whether or not we were going to staff up or or do these services inhouse or contract them out so I understand your question Reginal understand your question but it but it really was a decision um made at the time to contract these particular Services out instead of doing them inhouse the amendment that you have in front of you is an amendment before this Council but the priority of having that service outsourced was part of the decision-making um for the for The Five-Year Plan yeah I mean I think I'm just I'm particularly thinking about it in the context of the fact that we're about to pass two potentially really large bonds that um and and sort of just seeing the the continued expenditure in

terms of communication and um I mean that's what I think most of these deliver deliverables are around right like how are we communicating and what is our transparency and just thinking about that in terms of down the line with our bonds as well um those are all my questions thank you member um ask to two questions is the Moss and Ross contract or the Evans conglomerate of it is it counting towards mwbe numbers in some place like is this a tally in the in the bond language that you're trying to reach a certain goal in this mwv with oh that's a good question Council I'm going to have to go back and check okay that because the mcnc United minority contractors of North Carolina

is their primary work is on the the investment of the bond in the projects and that's where they're getting their in in the data that's been reported to you because that's data but well let me go back and check that okay and then just a followup I think to council member Cook's question uh brings a question up for me around in this next iteration if there is a focus on you know Communications in the next Bond at what point would you determine uh because that would be in like November you'd be within the budget year how would you determine that you needed to add staff for that as opposed to continuing because 6,000 a month is is quite a reasonable amount but 6,000 a month for the next five years seems like Overkill so at what point would you determine that you need an additional staff on so I I would just like to point out that we've done um bonds before

forever before the $95 million housing Bond and certainly if these bonds are approved we would you know we've done them we'll be doing them after and we always try to look at the actual need and the expertise that we have in house for how long we might need those services when we are determining whether or not we're going to hire you know FTE in the city or if we're going to contract this to you know to make or buy we're going to contract it out I will tell you today sitting here a decision has not been made about how we are going to communicate and Market the results of the bond projects and those and those kinds of things but you know most likely um you know we would just have that decision would just have to be made based upon what is needed and I'll just share because it's not I understand the bonds have been here long before I was here what I'm concerned about is that I don't want to be in the same position where

you use contractors to lower your rate and so if we're having the conversation around livable wages I don't want to see contracts just floating around um to kind of get the rate lower I don't know what what the person is paid I don't know what like there's a person behind that contract and I want to make sure that those rates are actually um competitive in a way that actually represents what we've been talking about as far as having city employees paid a livable wage the same thing would would for me and I'm just one council member would make sense to make sure that we're tracking for our contractors as well and so just making sure that we're not um cutting our costs by hiring contractors um as a way out is where I was going um thank you I I I think that's morally a really good you know focus and and goal um I I I want to be careful at least from my prview that we're not you know

85 cents tax increase and the county is proposing

5% tax increase so those little areas where you all can make up I I'm going to trusted you in that trust you in that thank you I I appreciate that because I don't want it to seem like it's it's a matter of trust I do want to be very clear that when we talk about minority and women owned businesses that often they are um and it's not by intention but often they are not paid at the same rate as others and I want to be very mindful that we don't take our eyes off of that so I don't want to leave it to just the city manager I think all of us as a council should be paying attention and so making sure that there's a way to track that is probably the best way to go forward and um I appreciate council member risk question about you know the nonprofits that we're working with but it's also cool it's probably a good idea to make sure we're looking at the contractors as well so I know that earlier um in the year we discuss you know picking winners and losers in that sometimes we pick the same winner

repeatedly and we don't adjust based on their skill set when they know who we are and what we do very well and so I just want to make sure we're not losing that especially because it's a women own bu business that um has been in this community for a long time thank you so so I do I I am listening to this conversation but I did want to bring um the the the finance department Finance directors here um the city does have values and those values require our contractors that we hire that do the same or similar work that we do inh house when they're hiring their employees that they are paid minum livable wage as we pay our own employees minimum livable wage now hopefully when people negotiate we negotiate contracts with people they can pay more than that but I did want to go on record that there are certain contracts that are identified um that we contract when we

make the decision to contract um those Services out we we evaluate whether not that is something we would do inside and when we determine that it is something we would inside as we negotiate those agreements U those those contractors generally um would agree that if they hire employees this different from contractors but if they hire employees that those employes are paid at the city's minimum livable wage council member thank you Mr Mayor um I just like to ask a question to uh Miss Hernandez who's here representing the city attorney's office could you confirm my understanding is we've been preempted at the city level of requiring contractors to pay a living wage isn't that correct yes correct that it is a preemption but it is a language in our contract that we hope will require or will uh motivate voluntary compliance and it is something that staff does consider in their

review and what does that language say to to encourage that volunteering compliance I'm sorry can you repeat the question yeah so what is you said there's the language that encourages voluntary compliance with our living wage so what does that language yes we have a provision within the contract which I'm happy to provide to council um that says you know it's the city's expectation that contractors will pay the city of Durham level wage as identified in chapter I believe 18-h something or other um so I'm happy to provide that language I'm sorry I don't have it fully at recall thank you though thank you uh that's you have a comment question go ahead yeah and I actually just want to follow up Council Shanetta Burris because I was going to ask the same clarifying question I did a deep dive on that statute um at some point in time and um and particularly for services over a certain amount I thought that we were actually required to take the lowest bid and we were not able to look at those other indicators is that is that

true is it it's just for goods so the lowest responsible responsive bidder you know would be our construction and repair contracts it would be our purchase contracts those kinds of things and our the values that we have in you know in what our expectations are about our vendors that goes out when we are actually requesting services so when those are when those folks are presenting to us they're they're presenting to US based upon the values that we have as an organization that they're built in to any any proposals or bids that they're giving to us but you are correct once those bids come in we do we're required to select in certain procurements the lowest responsible responsive bidder thanks I think that's where I was sort of going with that you know we have a value statement but I don't know how far into out there we can actually um

control but thanks for those clarifying questions yeah uh Council M cook 19 um great well this actually was a lot of the conversation that I wanted to have around both of these items but this was a really qu quick one on 19 so this is um technical assistance and I know you and I have talked a great deal about um how complicated sometimes it can be to fit within multiple City or sorry uh Federal restrictions and that we don't always have the expertise it makes sense to the then um get a recommendation to have an outside contractor help us with that expertise that we just do not have in house but my question was more around timing it it said in the memo that HUD actually had advised that we get this assistance did we know that ahead of time and and was that part of the budgetary thought when we were planning

this or or was this like HUD sort of came back later and said by the way we should get some no so just to be clear the item that is before you is basically a contract extension they were already doing work with us before uh related to Commerce Street when we basically elected to share that we were making investment of $8 million uh of course we shared our our thoughts with and home funds on on commor street we of course know with our partners at HUD which which they are they uh let we let them know and after some discussions and interv they said that uh uh we advise you because of the level of investment the complexity because this was a r that commer Street was a red deal uh became a choice neighborhoods also had home funds in it uh those are three sets different sets of rules and the concern was from the HUD

Greensboro field office is that with the complexity of that that that we might run the risk of being not in compliance in some part because some small part can have a big result right uh and we didn't want to be and they didn't want us to be in the position of having any and all of the uh money recapture right that totally makes sense to me but is this and is this something that we will need to continue extending as we're sort of these projects are moving down the line because no don't think so uh not at least not in this for this for Commerce Street and for these home funds this is the extent actually we've gotten to a close and one of the reasons we needed to extend uh is because the deal took longer to mature than what was initially planned I see and then they had some changes that occurred uh that actually uh lengthen the time and provided more complexity

one of the things that I would also share is that we required by home the home funding to underwrite the project okay that's an example where I having the expertise of a firm that does that is help us not only underwrite it but make sure we have our guidelines in place because what HUD does they don't come to to see um you know that you spent the money in the right place they also uh come to see what documents and policies you had in place at the time the manager signed I see are there other projects coming down the line where we will need to consult that could be okay that could be part of this Arrangement it would be part of another Arrangement sure yeah I mean I understand it's by project but still within forever home Durham we might be looking at yeah yeah yes absolutely but one of the things I would just share with you sometimes HUD does provide the technical assistance oh interesting uh yeah so uh we had

actually done business with C pack before but it was actually paid for by Hood because they recognized uh the complexities that be involved and and even in the homeless Arena we actually have two other Consultants that HUD pays for to help us interesting yeah I mean it does feel like if we're getting obviously like they're going to be giving those grants to municipalities and local governments who are all not going to have experts in these exact the way that all of these things layer on to each other but seems like they should give us the technical assistance but I understand it doesn't always happen that way and they do and part of it comes from the the Greensboro field office so this a part of the the natural relationship but sometimes we have things at the extreme this is one of those just because the risk that the city has by putting this level of investment in terms of $8 million in one project that itself is has uh complexities to it that doesn't happen

often I see those are all my questions for thank you we keep right on going all right great um so this is number 20 um this is also a quick question so um coordinated entry is housed at DSS which is a county operation can you just help me understand where Volunteers of America fit in to coordinated entry I'm going to ask Colin Davis to uh respond to your question thank you Colin Davis uh manager of the homeless system Community Development Department what was your question council member cook um I was just asking about where Volunteers of America fit in so we've got coordinated entry is housed in DSS which is Durham or County County um organization and I'm just wondering how this I know that we have um that we do homelessness services and that we have funding to do homelessness services

I'm just wondering how specifically Volunteers of America fits into the DSs and coordinated entry system sure great question so coordinated entry serves as our entry point for anybody experiencing homelessness or homeless crisis in Durham they start there when coordinate entry started in 201819 Department Durham County's Department of Social Services was already doing sort of a screening in intake system for adults and their Adult Services so they it was a natural fit for them to sort of be able to do some because they were already doing a piece of it but there wasn't enough capacity in Durham County so Volunteers of America through an RFP process was brought on board so our coordinated entry process and program is actually a joint venture between a few staff of Durham County Social Services in their

um in their program and Volunteers of America has staff as well and the county was kind enough to donate the space to Volunteers of America to work out of that space so you would have a collaborative group of people working in the same office together to share information share referrals and uh communicate easily so that's why Volunteers of America is there uh as there wasn't the coordinated entry piece falls out side of the state required uh Social Services mandates that Department of Social Services have a lot of mandates that come from the state this is not one of them this is kind of like a we do it because we're nice but they're not compensated for it I see so so the county contributes some folks and also the space and then we are responsible for the full contract with Volunteers of America correct we pay the salaries of volunteers of

America's staff who staff that the phone lines and are onsite at Department of Social Services on Main Street so if people who can walk in are able to to see people do you have do you have an idea of how many folks are from the county as opposed to how many folks are coming through Volunteers of America if I remember corre I have to go back and double check but the county it might be to okay so it's not and it's not substantial no no yes and they're the ones who are responsible for training coordinating so when we have meetings uh with our coordinat entry Partners both Volunteers of America supervisor and the DSs uh person are part of those discussions and meetings to make sure we're have solid coordination great thank you let go all right oh I didn't

you have 22 that a presentation oh it's a board item here all right yeah I uh next I have item number 22 [Music] Ted someone that was been person no I mean the department not no yeah is that Ted Hein or H hin bur director Johnson could you also ask Colin to step back in oh okay so there was an item ped number 22 uh it wasn't announced earlier um so

66 uh million of that for just the triangle region and um Colin could you just share a few remarks on it this is this is really impactful um the um deputy director of

Hud uh she and I spent some time in Atlanta so we're going to work together and her field office Dr claxon we've been really building some great relationships together and uh just having those relationships and they send you that text hey this is available make sure you you guys apply um that that those relationships really pay off so could you just briefly while we're talking about this item any way on the initial one 20 but go ahead sure uh Colin Davis Community Development department manager of the homeless system so thank you mayor Williams this was a Grant application that came out late 2023 Lloyd schmidler who has retired from our team and I talked about it and our data that we find in our point in time is really not showing huge numbers of 18 to 24 year olds experiencing sheltered homelessness in 2024 I believe there were 12 so we're like but we keep hearing from the universities we've got

6 million none of that money will come to the city that money is going to the nonprofit entities who will be working with uh that youth homeless those 18 to 24 year olds we're working with uh Lara

and the office on youth to bring folks in and we'll develop youth advisory councils of people with lived experience to hear what are the challenges why is this sort of our most invisible homeless population um or one of the most invisible there's number that are harder to find than others and help us to develop resources and options that may be able to help us find solutions for that 18 to 24 year olds to exit homelessness thank you so much that yeah this was um some time in to make and it's just great to see it come to fruition Council M cover thank you sorry now I have questions sorry um first congratulations thank you so much um and um this is great it's a great example of the the work that Central Pines does and and why it's a critical partner in in our ecosystem um I'm assuming y'all are talking to our schools to DPS while we don't have a ton of 18-year-olds in DPS there are several folks who are and then um also speaking

with um our joint City County immigrant um Refugee coordinator position um because we also know that that's a that's a hard population to reach immigrant youth who are on the streets um and um we also know our uh queer kids are often also on the street so I know lgbtq Center and um equality NC thank you yes thank you I and yeah this this is how we can really invest in giving voice to our youth and our young people uh so it was it was great and Durham was well represented in the room today well represented um even saw council member Freeman's face on the wall on a picture thank you as a former chair I I appreciate you highlighting anything that Central does um it's been a long um hard push to make sure that it was coordinated across the region and making sure that it wasn't just Derm you know I think um chadam and orange were really

easy and uh wake is a little bit different so I'm glad that it's all coming together thank you eventually we'll get to Johnson and the rest of those in the area too yeah so thank you thank you Ken that that you know this region receiv received the Lion Share the other six 980 what was it 980,000 950 980 it was for 20 counties out west and um but this is this is a it's a good start and they did announce another uh notice of funding today I can't remember what it was but let's just make sure we're ready to apply your demonstration project yes there it is 72 million across the country yep so let's let's let's get this money thank you so much it's a pleasure to be with you this morning thank you all right back on agenda okay sounds good number 28 wait are these po 34

manager C member cook yeah so item 34 C member cook so good afternoon Mr mayor council members manager paig Melissa Bishop deputy chief over administrative Services all right um I'm actually glad you're here because I had this question when you presented last time and then I got sidetracked um but I am curious about the use of polygraphs I know you mentioned it before uh and I know that you'll use it as a tool for hiring largely and that my this is my background as a as an attorney and just learning it through law school that largely we don't use polygraphs in terms of um in terms of like as evidence in lawsuits and those sort of things that they've been there's ways to get around them or people who are experiencing traumatic events then also I'll just trigger the the signs anyway and so

there's like an inability to tell what is truth and what is not um I imagine it's different in terms of hiring but I'm just wondering if you could speak to um our use of polygraph why we why we do it and and whether or not that's something that's consistent across other departments or if that's a Durham city specific okay so we use them as part of our basically it's a checks and balance for our hiring system it's not a catchall so we don't just rely solely on the background doing a personal history form is one of the state requirements we add in the background and then the background the polygraph will submit a report where it says shows signs of um like possible lying or and so it would be a we would look at it and look at it as a totality we don't use it as a if they fail this then they're automatically disqualified or not and other agencies I don't know exactly how many off the top of my head that do use

them but one of the larger ones they do use them as part of their background process other like a larger Department Raleigh does use it um I know Greensboro I believe they use it Charlotte mackenberg they use it I could get you a full list of who uses it but I don't don't know kind of curious I mean I of course as soon as I I heard you say it last time and then I read it again on the agenda and went on a deep dive because I just only learned about it in that law school context and had always heard that they were like not not trustworthy um in my deep dive that is not what I found I found that no one has any idea whether they're trustworthy or not it seems like some proponents are like they're great and other people were like they're not and so I'm glad to hear that we're not using them as any sort of decision making that that was my only question just out of curiosity thanks thank you thank you thank you all item 36

hi I'm not sure your mic is on Just for moving forward there we go okay um so this is a an item on remedial measures this is something that we're doing so that we don't have major issues down the line we have some some minor signs of things that might lead to major issues down the line and so we're doing some some minor fixing or planning to do some bigger fixing in the future so my questions are all around uh um can like giving us a sense of these repairs like what's needed what we're doing now what that might avoid in the future sort of just give us a little summary sure I'd be happy to um we've noticed issues in and around the seepage and around the dam especially the um the East Side Wing wall the last several years um you know with the Earth and dams we have um natural seepage through the clay that's in the the core of the dam um the natural migration of the water and the water pressure is it if it's

going really slow through that that's normal what you don't want to have is water actually going through the the clay at a faster rate because if it's going through a faster rate it's starting to bring material with it so we've noticed issues in and around the drainage on that East Wing wall um we've done substantial research with this project to find that there's a there was a substantial flaw during the construction that has led to us um determining that we do need to make um some um serious investment in the wing wing wall so we will be lowering the lake so we can excavate down almost to the core of the dam to do these repairs and replace the wing wall on the east side currently it's we're in good shape now um what we want to do with this project um we've done some you know intermediate remediation to slow the process but with the research that we've done to determine that that there was a flaw during construction that we need to remedy that FL that flaw so the

the remedy is going to be roughly between 4 and $50 million um we want to go ahead and complete the um design um that we need to do that remedy as soon as possible so if the D the dam continues to degrade we can go ahead and make those repairs rapidly um if we don't see that degradation then we'd like to do that after the Jordan like project comes online so we have another water source so we don't have to buy a lot of water from our neighbors because we' have to take we'd have to drain Little River yeah that actually was my next question which is that I saw that there was a plan for when that facility went online but it doesn't go online until 2031 and so I was wondering about the timing of those fixes but it sounds like we're going to keep our fingers crossed right we're going to have the we're going to have the design ready which is what this amendment will provide us for do some intermediate remediation between now and then to and continue to inspect it very

closely on the you know a quarterly and annually basis to make sure that we're not seeing accelerated degradation in the dam um and if we start to see those signs then we'll immediately advertise construction and start the work okay thank you those are all my questions thank you yes M thanks Mr Mayor Mr gy thanks for those comments I just want to say thank you again for the the trip we did about a month ago so the East Side Wing wall at at Little River Dam is a thing I think you showed me that right so so appreciate you and your staff being on top of this and encourage other members including the newer members on Council to to um to seek Out Mr gy and his staff to do a water tour it's quite fascinating and quite instructive about the level of engineering and the level of um um yeah the level of water signs that that you guys are involved in every day so it's quite quite astounding thank you right thank you right I'll be coming to you for waiver soon I'm overdue thank you y all right thank you we are now going back up to item

number 28 welcome good afternoon John poas Wes general servic department uh this item today has two parts to it there's a um there's an amendment to the design contract with our civil engineers McAdams and that is for the completion of the Bas trail design as well as the design of the uh the recommended enhancements for the trail and then the second part of this item is a presentation that McAdams is going to be giving so um I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to mcadam's now for the presentation and then staff is here for questions afterwards okay so this is Iona Thomas with Adams thank you John my name is Iona Thomas I am a proud and longtime Duram resident and I work for the design firm McAdams um can I do the clicker all right so we're going to start out um not

in Durham but by talking about what our um sister cities and communities around the country are doing with similar spaces to the rail trail so you might recognize this uh this is the Highline in New York City this was one of the first projects that reached into its own community and reclaimed infrastructure that had divided that community that was not contributing to the community anymore reclaimed it and turned it into something vital um and a really iconic part of the future of New York City and this is happening all around the country this is the Skoal River Trail in Philadelphia this was a very heavily industrial industrialized Waterfront that has been turned into the skook river trail which is one of the top destinations for downtown uh Phil Philadelphia and has also become a really vibrant part of The Nightlife daytime uh activities if you live um or

work in downtown Philadelphia this is an exciting Park uh this is the Clyde Warren Park in Dallas um which is beautiful I just got back from there it is really nice I went two weeks ago awesome it's awesome so this project is actually a capped freeway um project there was um a sunken freeway that went through this part um and they reclaimed five blocks of the city and turned it into this what's happening okay sorry um so the uh side Warren Park is uh a heavily programmed park it also connects to the linear Trails on either end of it and so at any moment um and the mayor be may be able to tell us more about this but you can find um food trucks um different uh art activities um community

events all through this park uh this is the Tennessee River uh um the Tennessee River Walk in Chattanooga um a lot of our communities are divided by infrastructure but some of them are divided by natural um elements the downtown River walk um creates a safe way for people to make it across the river and really connects two vibrant parts of uh Chattanooga folks don't have to go on to uh roads with vehicles to be able to make this connection now uh this is the underline in Miami um this is underneath the metro rail line and so again claiming this space for uh biking and walking and programming and economic development and attracting people who want to live in these communities and also visit these communities by investing in these spaces um that have tremendous potential but might not look like it at first

glance uh this is the Belt Line in Atlanta which I'm sure many of us have heard about this project also was one of the in the Forefront of how reclaiming rail projects and turning them into bike ped corridors can transform I picked this picture um because this is Fourth Ward Park which uh the belt line goes through but this is also a storm water um facility and it is uh um a piece of Atlanta's resiliency um strategy and so these projects can help us um Advance our environmental Vision our Equity Vision our vision Zero vision can I say Vision Zero vision around safety um and when it comes to public art our neighbor in Greensboro the downtown Green uh way in Greensboro if you all haven't visited this project I urge you to this project has one of the most highquality public art um installations around the entire Loop um

in the country and they really are leading on public art um along uh linear parks and Greenways this is the rail trail as it goes through the Uptown Park in uh Charlotte um Charlotte's rail trail project is now a massive commuter facility helping people get into Uptown Charlotte um and so that's another thing that we need to be thinking about ra this rail CH project connects with Transit um and so making sure that people have ways outside of a vehicle to get to destinations for for work for recreation um and for leisure in our communities without having to share that space with a vehicle and so this is our project um and our question is what will we do with this opportunity um this is what our Corridor looks like and many of you were uh on a trip to Indianapolis where we visited the mon Trail um and wanted to do a

little glimpse of a larger case study that we've done um this is the mon Trail um before the project was built in 2018 um so you can see this looks a lot like our American Tobacco Trail south of um the ballpark and so this is what it looks like before keep an eye on that water tower and the cell tower because this is what it looks like now um there was a $20 million investment made in 2018 um and this was not a transportation project this was an economic development project um the goals of this project was to transform Carmel Indiana into a a destination for employer for retail for residents um and they did that by making this incredibly Rich biking and walking cordor so this is what it looks like some of the things that are very inspiring about this project um that uh you'll see in some of the ideas we bring

forth today for our project uh separating the biking and walking zones and then um blurring the lines between the the corridor the transportation corridor and the adjacent retail the adjacent residential opportunities so it becomes a very vibrant and there are no real hard boundaries between those opportunities so this is our quarter on the left and we have um what we've done here is taken the exact Corridor that we have um in in in man and snugged up those buildings to show you what our level of space looks like so our Corridor ranges between 100 and 50 ft wide but we can take the core of this project um and it fits really well inside um our Corridor so tremendous opportunity to be inspired so with that um we have a

video yeah I need that and we're going to hit start down here well come on we practice this uh any ideas my apologies we were in here on Monday practicing oh I'm glad to see somebody so far that you went on the inner city visit to carel as well what the city hall looks like a beckingham palace yes yes all roundabouts yes and I've also visited at least four of those underline the hotline yeah and uh it's all right so

I'm gon to just narrate over this and pause it at certain times or the volume oh on yeah if you can do that there's too much tinkly music okay thanks all right so before we go too far um from this view on the bottom of your screen there you see the transit station this entire project and our vision for this project um is really about maximizing all of the Investments that the city is making along this Corridor so we have very thoughtfully tried to integrate into every everywhere we come up to the edge of a project that the city is investing in to be very thoughtful about that so you know that the transit station um we received a $16 million Federal grant to upgrade this um facility very exciting many of you also have probably experienced if you're at this facility there's no real clear way

to connect to downtown or to the Amtrak station and we looked at some pretty outrageous and expensive ways to make this connection um and as you know dealing with the railroad is very very challenging um so what we are proposing is an on Street connection but you'll see what we're doing um on this parcel which is a city-owned parcel is creating a visual connection so for the first time you'll be able to leave the transit station and look across and see where downtown is see where the Amtrak station is um so this is a really important part of connecting downtown and so this bridge Tower here you will be able to see this from uh the transit station and it really will be a visual anchor for how you will make your way to safely um make it um either to continue your trip in along the rail trail to a downtown destination or over

to the Amtrak station so what we've envisioned here there's a lot of topography change on this parcel so there two uh distinct zones there's an upper Plaza here which is a flexible Plaza it has a performance space with um some uh facing kind of terrist seating um we tie that in with a bridge across the rail trail facility itself to a micro retail um location here so this could be uh coffee uh or other micro retail as you all know there's tremendous amount of residential Development coming into this part of downtown Durham so this uh a micro retail spot like this could really be a great um way to activate the space so this is what that looks like coming across that bridge the micro retail and then as we go follow the

trail under underneath that and now we're making our way onto the block with the north with the Durham History Museum and our approach here um there there's some unknowns with the history museum so what we've tried to do is to um limit uh not color outside of the lines of the rail trail of the rail Corridor um but make this be a very uh forest and flexible boundary for whatever comes here um so preserving the opportunity for the museum or development or whatever happens next with this parcel um so you can see some of the design ideas here are to mimic uh that kind of rail station feel and then we also have um a little Plaza here and you'll see in your board packet and in the cost estimating um information that I share with you in this presentation we have what's called a base Trail um which is what uh

the raise Grant will fund the construction of so that base Trail includes the uh the trail The Divided trail with the biking and The Pedestrian Zone uh the safe Crossings uh the lighting but then we have an amenity package that would include improvements like this uh this Plaza here some additional lighting um and then some pieces at the lb watershed project as we're moving through here um you get a glimpse of what the lighting looks like this lighting shows both the base Trail lighting and the enhanced amenity lighting where we're getting more Lighting on the actual surface of the trail as we move on um you'll see um we're coming up to Corporation and the measurement ink building and we've preserved places along the trail um for future development so this is a pocket

that's not included in the base Trail or anything that you're making a decision about today but I want you to just um take in that the base Trail alignment leaves the opportunity for this and other moments on the trail these projects have a long life in many phases um and so we wanted to be very thoughtful about how we used the rideway in the corridor so that we didn't cut off future opportunities um in these special places there's an a closer look at one of our crosswalks one of the things that we heard very clearly um from our public engagement is that safety is a very very high priority this is a really special part of the trail and this is included in the base Trail you can see the trail widens out the quarter widens out and the Topo is working with us and so we're able to really spread out and create some greenstorm water INF structure moments um use more natural plantings

that's also something people wanted um to see this is The Trestle bridge over uh Trinity which has been deemed to be a historic structure so we're working with shipo to um select uh Design Elements for the rehabilitation of this project um that reflects um the historic nature of the structure and as we move this is the lrb project project here um the community we did a lot of work with the community around um how we would access this project um and so what we heard was that there was a desire to have stairs a quick way to access both on the close to Trinity but then also from these neighborhoods they wanted uh a stair access that complements the Ada access ramp um so in your enhanced package that you have um and we'll talk about this

additional ramp I mean this additional set of stairs is included in that enhanced again this project is really designed to complement seamlessly with the Watershed project here so these two Derm Investments really will feel like one well thought thought out consistent experience when you're there now we're moving more into the neighborhood section of the trail and this is where our topography starts working against us um it's no longer um as as flat and it gets a little more narrow so you'll see that the alignment um comes together we still have the separation of the biking and the walking but we don't have it separated by planting and in this area we're really concentrating on making the connections that the community wanted um to the trail and so we did a lot of work with the community and where they wanted to connect to the trail and those are reflected in this

design um and as we approach Avendale um we did take a look at what the Avendale uh this parcel and the turn lane and pork chop would look like um if a community park were envisioned there there is enough room to accomplish that and then we're also on the safety Vision zero side doing something important at Avendale um if you know the Avendale Bridge there are not adequate sidewalks to make that Crossing and so very hazardous if you're biking or walking to cross Avendale so this project includes a pedestrian bridge that really provides safe separated Crossing on Avendale whether you're using the trail or you're making your way um to uh to one of the neighborhoods or down to Beauty World or wherever you're going you now don't have to cross that Avendale Bridge and so that is a look um at the project

and this is where it always gets hung up when we're not able to move to the next slide hopefully it'll work question real real quick the uh Roxboro Crossing was that a bridge or was the street level Roxboro is at grade and grade yeah well it's at grade and we've been working really closely with durm transportation department the feasibility study that recommended the two-way of Roxboro and Mangum our Crossing designs that were recommending work with that it will be a signalized crossing um it will either be a hawk signal or a fully signalized what we call a red ball signal there and the two-way of those of those roads actually helps us because that decreases the speed um just naturally a two-way road is slower um in town than a one-way Road um so we have some things that are working really to complement um each other from making those Crossings as

safe as possible we did look at grades separating them um and it was prohibitively expensive because it is very flat there so there's really no way to go above it or under it without having to start your ramps way way way back far because we have to be um 17 1/2 ft above the road and then if we went below it there was no way to keep the water out of it but we did look at it we wanted we wanted it yeah that that was only starting part but uh transportation department has been um a very strong partner throughout the life of this project so um I talked about the base Trail and hopefully that video gave you a sense of what's included in the base Trail it is the separated biking and walking Zone The Bike Zone will be asphalt The Pedestrian Zone will be um concrete to help delineate those spaces

3 million with a $12 million construction budget which is within the existing construction budget with the $9 million raise Grant oh I've got it now the enhancement package is um if you will layered on top of the base Trail so the these are special seating areas and Furnishings so this is bringing up the level of the uh furnishings and the uh material selection on the project um enhanced

5 million um in addition to the base Trail and then in the Gateway Park project the status of this parcel this is a Durham owned parcel um the lease had been with ncdot for additional parking at for Amtrak that lease expired about 18 months ago I believe um and the cities had talks with ncdot since then um and there is adequate parking there are about 40 spaces there and we've been assured that there's adequate parking to serve those needs without this parcel um

4 million do with the base Trail the enhancement package and the Gateway Park um and then just that information up in the top is the past expenditure um the bulk of that was in

the uh acquisition of the cordor itself a little bit on Project history um the project actually began well before 2018 it took a very long time to acquire the corridor um in 2018 the uh master plan um was adopted and it identified a 34 million project for all of the elements that were in the master plan um in 2019 the Equitable engagement blueprint was adopted by the city of Durham um and then Durham began the funding Pursuit um which McAdams we're very pleased to have partnered and to help um when the raise Grant which was awarded in 2021 McAdams was selected to do the design in 2021 and one of the first things that we did was we took the Equitable engagement blueprint and applied it to this project so we have gone through engagement

basically twice on this project some of the things that we heard through that is that there is a lot of excitement about this project um and about having you know Investments made in East Durham um the ability to get into downtown um for jobs and Recreation all of those things that our sister and brother cities around the city around the country are doing people are really excited about that opportunity um people want um moments along the trail to rest and and recreate um one of the funny things we heard is that people really enjoy people watching just chilling and hanging out um so we've tried to create those moments um we've also heard that water is really important and that could be water features like a splash pad or something else like that but it also could be uh storm water features where water is growing things um and uh the

safety of crosswalks is very very important U we heard that loud and clear and have taken that very seriously throughout the life of the project um I'm sure I know I'm forgetting a lot but you do have the con the public engagement compendium attached to your work session package so I'd encourage you if you're curious about some of the specifics um we did work with two community-based partners um when we reapplied the blueprint this second time and uh they did a an amazing job connecting uh with the community so we submitted the 25% plans for the base Trail and those were approved by ncdot um in uh the winter of 2023 summer of 2023 we worked really hard to Envision what the potential could be so that video that you just saw um we were asked to really um we've got 25% approval on

the base Trail the base Trail is asphalt and concrete and nothing else what could it be and so we worked on that what could it be part and so that brings us up to um the approval of the basee concept uh the CIP planning process that you all have been through and then today the 65 to 100% design supplement approval now that's a little misleading because our first contract was up to 65% um so it was always intended that we would come back for a supplement because we didn't we wanted to make sure we knew we didn't know everything we needed to know and so we're were going to come back at 65% but some of this is not at 65% at this point because it's new stuff that's been added so there's some stuff in the supplement that will is is zero to 100% um and so that is the presentation I think um on the rest of this on the

yellow part of the schedule um we do have on the raise Grant we have to have our uh Federal Transit Administration agreement in place by October of 2024 we are on track for that we have um uh shipo is being a little slow in their comments and requirements for the Trinity Bridge that's the last piece of the puzzle to be able to Ink the deal with FTA um we will be advancing the design and the actual City permitting um we expect final design to be done in the summer of 2025 bidding in early of 2026 um uh Council action to approve a contract with a contractor and then construction would be begin in Spring of 2026 Trail opening fall of 2027 and I think that that's it thank you so much now you said this is going to be done by next year and

we'll be able to enjoy the amenities of what we saw in that video done next year and it's all free gotcha man this is I sort of wish you had not shown the video because like the anticipation um colleagues any comments that's from cook just so one question on this last slide so I'm looking at says is the bidding early 2026 is that correct or is that meant to be bidding early 2025 no it a weiding and we expect construction to start in the same yeah so um the bidding will be 2026 and then spring we would so the bid would be open for probably uh 45 days uh select the contractor negotiate the contract and then in Spring uh begin that construction so bring it for Council approval um you

know end of first [Music] quarter 2026 oh just seems like a really really fast turnaround which orid and construction within three months but I mean yeah just even to break ground to like have the bid come out that year and then have construction starting within fast okay I mean that's pretty normal so the the way the process usually goes is we have the bids advertised for a certain number of days 30 or 45 days depending on the complexity of the project we'll have a a pre-bid meeting with the contractors they'll submit their bids we'll open the bids um and then hopefully there will be a qualified low bidder um and then we negotiate the contract and bring that to council for approval and then at that point all of the the permits are in place and the contractor is ready to

go remember Baker yeah that was an amazing rendering um the the fly through and all the people moving um and uh I will just say I humans are are visual creatures and and I do think it is really important that um when we when we have Consultants that um that we do get renderings of that quality that helps us imagine uh a future that is different from from the present um I I love the proposal um the kiosk in the park um the uh the examples that you showed I thought were really compelling as well Carmel and sort of taking this opportunity to the economic development element of of trails transforming areas um not just in the right of way um that is owned um publicly owned but transforming the area and and the edges of of that right of way and um you know

we're about to get the the uh quick update on the the Udo and I think these two pieces go to together very well because um the edges of the trail are also going to be very important um the rendering showed sort of these white buildings uh on the edges um just because you know to direct the eye to to the actual project that that you all have been working on um we also need to think about what those edges will end up looking like um we need to make sure they're not just blank walls and we're not just allowing Construction of of blank walls and that we are creating a a complete cohesive comprehensive built environment um where people can see in and see out of the edges and of those buildings um and can walk in and walk out of of those edges and of those buildings so I think that's that's going to be on us to make sure that that we that we do that I was going to ask um in your experience and maybe from looking at some of these examples um obviously

making transformative invest public investment of this size is a great thing for our entire city the areas directly adjacent to this massive investment um probably going to experience some Rising uh property values so um so one thing I think that another thing I think that we need to think about is the fact that the Val the property values in these areas are going to get are going to Skyrocket right everyone's G going to want to live and work um uh adjacent to uh the the trail have you did you see in any of the examples uh value capture and um the one um being able to capture some of the increase in value whether that's taxing financing or a municipal servic or whatever that might look like in in our context um and two uh in those growing

land values did you see examples where new developments and developers were helping to pay for and offset some of the costs toward the construction that led to their property increasing in in value so lots of questions in there um I'm going to try to take them in reverse order so in terms of the development community and we did uh workshops with the development community on this project they're very excited about this project what we've seen is not so much them having skin in the game for construction but having skin in the game for uh the maintenance and operation and so that's something that we need to continue to work hard to make sure that we understand and have agreements in place and strategies for how we will operate and maintain to get the most out of this so that's what we've seen on the investment side now yes um property values very likely will increase along

this Corridor um and I'm going to step a little out of my Lane here but you know the folks that we've talked to want nice things in their Community um they it's not like we can't not invest in places because of of this issue what we've seen in other communities that have successfully done stay in place policies and I stress the word policy and programs here because this is not a design we can't design around this um so Palm Beach I think Palm Beach is Palm Beach the one that's in Florida okay um sorry so Palm Beach did a stay in place program um that was very effective at identifying um people who were renters and transitioning them into home ownership and wrapped programs and services around that so I think in a situation like this those are the kinds of of tools that it will take to avoid

uh what you're describing these projects however we have to be realistic these projects have been on the books for a long time speculation has already happened on this Corridor buyout has already happened on this Corridor so we we can't kid ourselves about the reality of um what's out there but I I think we can get very engaged in the policies and programs um and then also really build and serve something great for these folks in this part of town um they deserve it I'm not sure that got all your questions no no I mean it's a it's a complex topic so um I I appreciate that um I think it's just something that that we as this highly anticipated and very exciting project moves forward um that that we as a council and and we as a city remain cognizant and uh take intentional uh effort to um make sure that we are um capturing some of the

value to and directing it towards the public to the that's what I wanted to say overlay districts so there are different um strategies with with overlay districts for something like this where you could capture for the maintenance and operations so we did run into models that were overlay districts that's what I wanted to say okay than yeah and the presentation after you is about the UDS I think these two pieces go together well so um and we when can we get our our next update whenever you ask I will be here thank you thank you Council Mist thank you m mayor thanks for the presentation exciting stuff um I should say thank you in particular for the bridge over avenil Street I just was on the Dos tour Trail a couple weeks ago and a couple of us did a by bike and we went over that sidewalk and AV by bike not a great experience having a separate rer would be great um I don't know if it's a question for you or the manager I just want to on the money side of things so we so as I understand your

4 million and then fiscal year 26 captures the balance which is for construction and that'd be the full then

27 million correct okay here's next question I want to ask and I'll and I'm gonna keep asking these questions so bear with me so we've talked about this before we're gonna be going to the voters for for a lot this year tax increase and a bond referendum and so whenever I talk to voters um and these are folks who love city of Durham they love City G these are not sort of folks who don't want to see us invest anything what they say is like great I love the plan for the referendum but what happened to the we've already what happened to the stuff we've already funded right where is where's delivery on that so my question is for you is or or um ma'am from yeah yeah Iona yeah is like what would it take what would it take just sort of big picture what would it take to deliver this project one year earlier we would have to get the funding all approved within fiscal year 25 so if with if we had more funding we could do this quicker well I don't think the project would happen quicker but it would get it on the books when we still have to go through the design what would be what

what what would it take to show the citizens of Durham we can deliver this one year faster than playing because because probably the likelihood is with the with the timeline you showed delivery in 27 probably into 28 right I know how things go that's 10 10 years maybe this does take 10 years to deliver a major infrastructure project like this but I'm but for the citizens I'm asking like so what would it take for people and dollars to deliver this one year earlier you know we still have to go through the design process we still have to go through the approval process site plan approval we have to go through approvals for the uh for the raise I understand they're all details but I'm saying like like how could we could we do it one year earlier and if so what would that take I think realistically it would be difficult just based on the the the way that the design process goes we haven't even started the design for the any of the enhancements yet so typically the design process takes about a year and then we have you know three to four months process for the bidding right so again my question is like what does it take to speed that up is it people is it

dollars you don't have to answer that but I'm gonna keep asking this question people want because people are frustrated they love Durham they love all that we represent what frustrates them is like it takes so long in these projects and so I'm saying on behalf the citizens what can we what can we do and show them to deliver this stuff quicker that that's that's what people want to know so so um council member I know that that you that you continuously ask this question and and sometimes we talk about you know if money is available that has to speed it up and I just want us as we're talking through this as a group that the folks who actually do the predesign and design and getting us to 100% construction drawings that we we separate out what having you know an additional $25 million in the current budget if we can't get to that point to spend it it doesn't speed it up so I'm just I'm just yeah and I'm not saying Happ money I'm saying is it like people money prioritization what like what what would that look like as a hypothetical I'm not

saying we have to do that but like I think people want to know like how do we hey if we do this we could actually deliver it one year early and really please you all as a citizen so that's I think I think people would like to know that is it is it more cranes more contractors more um yeah because I don't think I don't yeah I don't think more money speaks to process up I guess what you're asking is does it take more like excavators cranes yeah so welcome to government let me just jump in here um so I'm I'm a Durham resident and I feel you like I we want it to um I think that's I'm ask the question because people people are thinking this like yeah what what I would recommend the design schedule and the approval process um has been very thoughtfully put together and it's realistic we don't want to put an aggressive schedule that we can't deliver it's not a sandbag schedule but

it is a realistic schedule what I would encourage us to do potentially is to um do a little more messaging on this project when it's coming get people excited about it start um we have a lot of work to do to work through maintenance and operations discussions and things like that um but I think we can get people excited about the project while keeping their realistic their expectations realistic because we don't want to you know overpromise and underd deliver but there's not um this is not a money problem it's a time machine problem yeah um thank you um so the next time you come present and you show us all those other lovely projects when you tell us how much time it took those communities because I think that would actually be oh okay I can definitely do that because what we hear to council member RIS point is people go to Carrie and they see the new fancy thing or they go to Apex and they see the other new fancy thing they don't see because they

don't live in Apex they don't live in Carrie how long it took car how many Park bonds did it take Carrie how many Park bonds did it take Greensboro to get that cool public art so as consultants and it's not just you anyone who's coming to present to us if you were showing us an example show us what it cost that other community because UR so many folks who are new and they go well I was here and I visited there and I went here and I went there and it's like great did you know it took them 20 years to deliver that wonderful thing you spent your weekend on while getting a beverage um so that that is my um uh and that is not to use personally it's just like General because people just see the shiny new thing and they never want to know how long we are instant gratification we are social media and um I I think it would be really really helpful um and and also you know values aligned so if we're also act asking contractors to pay minimal livable wages well did that Community pay their folks livable wages what was the what was the price tag for that 20 years ago when you so that that's um that's one thing and

then I'm just really glad that this is happening um and to council member Baker's point this project is actually what redid our community input in Durham it was because Advocates came specifically around green gentrification I was on dos when I think I was on do as a resident not even as a council member when folks started coming saying hey the way we do community engagement the way we who we're centering around our community engagement who we're talking to who gets to show up who gets to do things completely changed because of that Equitable uh blueprint and that is the model that this that city of Durham has done since then and it's the model that is now getting lifted up not just in Durham but in other places to really get that deep Community engagement and and centering all kinds of folks um not just the folks who've been traditionally engaged thanks dur Durham is very notorious for being highly engaged which is great but also I'm very pessimistic because people pay attention to what's the the outcome elsewhere whether it's Amsterdam or Europe somewhere to even

here and say why can't we have that right now and that communication would be would be key and engagement then takes time and slows a project down so folks want the both and so the the both end is if you want to be engaged and you want to make sure everyone's heard then you have to listen to that there's nuance and complexity and guess what then you're you're in community engagement for six months to a year maybe that other community that you're highlighting didn't do engagement that way and they just put the thing down in the ground that is a great point because we did apply the blueprint and it took us nine to 10 months to to do the whole process again on this project so that's an excellent point council member Freeman thank you I I've really appreciate the last point and I just want to start there because I do want to um just be the be the one in the room who always asks us to slow down because folks don't always know what we're doing and pushing it a year earlier I hear you and I think on my side of town things get pushed so fast that we never even know what's

happening to us and so I I do want to make sure that I I highlight both not just the equal engagement but also the fact that in the even in just water management the construction faults that occur because you're rushing to get something delivered before it's anyway I just don't like that I I just want to make sure I say that I'm one council member but I want to make sure I state that and then I I did want to just kind of ask the question I guess in more of a example kind of way because you're Consulting are there because I heard you and I visited Carmel I don't know that folks understand just how impactful it is to do an economic development project and so we're talking about the displacement of folks um and and you're saying like in reality folks have already been displaced but what does it look like to make sure that that overlay is in place and the programming is in place to make sure that we're supporting businesses that are local and small and and minority and women-owned like what examples have you seen around that that

that would be helpful to to hear more about and then also um I'm just mindful that because I know uh G Services tends to lead on this where what will be what will the are there any ask on the economic development side of this that we should be paying attention to because there is a serious lack of focus on the shared economic prosperity and how we're trying to do certain plans and processes and I want to make sure we don't push forward without that um there's a lot in there um I think we are you know we're designing the project and I'm going to speak frankly you know the leadership um of of staff and the council you know needs to say this is

you know around these policies and programs that we're talking about that's stay in place stuff or an overlay District um you know that as you point out you know General Services delivers projects we design projects we do a lot of planning we can facilitate planning projects and that kind of stuff too um but I think the you're right in highlighting that this um that there is a policy and program piece um that someone needs to be waking up every morning trying toig trying to figure out and to that point I think what I'm saying is I think we're the ones who are doing that if you have examples oh that have followed through yeah yeah yeah yeah that's because the stay in place policy is one right but there has to be a program that's tracking who's in there like is there any examples any software any like technology we should be all looking at like yeah so um there is um

so there's the recapture model um where the um increase in tax value uh percentage of that is captured for reinvestment or or other programs so that um is something that was actually identified in the original master plan um as a potential technique for this project so you would Baseline tax values and then as as they increase a portion of that would be allocated back to this Corridor or however the council decides to use it um the overlay district is a little slightly different Twist on that it's similar to like the bid where you would have folks paying into it um it would be weird because then the bid would be overlapping um with this Corridor so there would be a lot to to flesh out there um those are the two things that

come come to mind um as examples that I've seen done in other communities now the mon trail that we visited that you know is using something we don't have access to here in North Carolina which is the tax increment funding the Tiff um and so they have a whole tool in their Arsenal that we don't we don't have here in North Carolina thank you and then just to that point um Madame manager are we tracking it all is I don't know what department that sits in is there any information that we're gathering around the tax b or the Baseline taxes at all no so that's something we might want to consider looking at as a council and then I would [Music] um I've lived with this project so I want to uh say that in 2017 when I got elected uh this was the first big like wow um thing going on and I want to say that it was mayor shul who was like really steering this process in a way

that uh I appreciate now more than I did then and to be at 27 million left sounds so do so doable right now I am excited that you've broken it out the way that you have I really do appreciate the base model just to make sure that we get it done because we have it and then kind of the enhancements that is a really good way to kind of bring a project to fluish so I want to thank um our general services for for really being mindful of you know I think there are projects that don't kind of come to fruition in any time that's um been put forward and so I feel like this is something that's going to happen and I'm excited about it I I know I appreciate um council member Baker's questions and I know where it's coming from I just I mean I just remember all the the oh my gosh I have so much Trauma from the Duke die in Fitness and then also I want to say from the equital engagement that is really from the county and the way that they were doing their um Community

assessments so so I know when they got involved um with Derm children's initiative they were really trying to make sure that they were doing a real engagement process and I'm really glad that the community appreciated it but I don't think that they get enough credit on it and so I do want to lift them up and saying that the health department really did um highlight how we could engage our community in a really um healthy way across language across ability across I mean even developmental abilities absolutely and um there's just a lot here that I don't think is really present because everyone's new around around the table and I I mean there's so many people who have been involved in this in the community from nonprofits to just serving on the the Dos board or the environmental Affairs board or the I mean because the Duke died in Fitness was really nasty then and just the storm waterer aspect of this this is a huge opportunity for the city of durm and I'm

I'm excited to be a part of it that's all thank you I just have one plug part of the reason that this fits in the CIP is because we have an amazing Bond uh with amazing projects and so when we say to the community the bond really allows us to do different things with the CIP this is an example of that this is this project fits in the CIP over a couple years it's fully funded uh because that amazing bond is coming before you in November and I will add to that that the amazing Bond takes into to the account I want to say the eastern part of Avendale all the way through to um Long Meadow that was brought up earlier today and I think that that there's not enough Communications which is also why I was tagging on to the to um director Johnson's you know if they have Consultants that are already doing short messaging and we need more messaging we got to figure out how to bring some of the inhouse where we can and then um make sure that people

understand like these are huge wins for the community because they're not just projects the maintenance and operations are jobs that will be added to the roles and they eventually will be at a liable age that folks are excited about and I know that this is I mean it's painstakingly slow and each piece is often its own universe but as they come together like this it's really exciting I'll say that again I think uh I think um council member cabier I I just 2018 is seems like a a universe ago and pre pandemic I was you know this is yeah I'm just glad we have it funded so that's great thank you thank you um so I'm really excited about this simply because of the opportunity that it can bring uh I will say that you know

I I think that while we may not see it up front the sort of the revenue generating um components of it um I think it's going to naturally draw that and I think what I'm going to say the hard part out loud um I don't know how we keep keep cost down as far as like cost of living around it when it's such a it's such a a high value amenity and but that's Durham you know we're gonna say we don't want prices to rise we don't want to you know we don't want people to be displaced from these areas but we're putting a very high value um amenity there so I just want to be realistic in saying that markets are not some composite that you can tweak and and go in and you know turn the Val turn the turn the Val up or down it's a natural effect of these types of actions and in cities grow cities develop and you know and it's it's going to be up to all of us to evolve with that uh so that's that's the the the matter of fact

in this uh I believe we can get creative as you know we possibly can around that um but you know if we're looking at you know programming to keep something leveled that programming cost and then we'll have to pay it on the other end you know you may not be paying directly in the cost of a home but you'll be paying in taxes to keep that program in place I just want to be realistic about that um the clot Warren Park that I that I recently visited uh in Dallas it it's six it's five and a half acres and they're extending it and it was an ugly and I have a lot of pictures here I was showing I was showing council Member Caballero it was an ugly eyesore of a highway Going Through The Heart of the City and now it's a they they put these decks over the freeway beautiful Green Space water it's like a little water park and the park alone generates $6 million a year just that 5 and a half Acres they sell they sell they will sell you a chair with your name on it you can

sponsor a chair um they I mean they have dut shops out there they have the food truck road that happened by mistake because of covid and they just made it intentional turn parking spaces into it Elon Elon North Carolina did the same thing um with outdoor dining but uh but they also once they built that Park which was like the arts district on one side but this park is placed in the the middle of Uptown and downtown downtown was poor and dilapidated Uptown was you know you know all the expensive stuff they placed this park there they connected it to JP Morgan Chase put up shop uh they put a restaurant on it that generates $3 million a year the uh Bank of America is consolidating in Charlotte and now putting up in Dallas at Clyde War Park so it just it generated all of this Economic Development just by uh proximity and um I think that's just the effect that we're going to have the uh

the the the underline in atlan no the belt line or the underline is the Belt Line underline is Miami right yeah so I'm not sure who in here if anyone went on the inner city trip did you go on that one I was on every inner city trip okay so so we've walked those trails and it's like it's beautiful they they generate and attract so much Economic Development around them uh so uh and I don't know you know of course you can quantify it but that's the impact but of course if you live next to it it's going to cost you know um the um the underline there the Highline in New York is really cool as well the um the Atlanta belt line you know Google played a huge role in that and now Google is here you know and and um Clyde who uh who is the the CEO of the Atlanta belt line I know we talk probably about twice a month now

Ione to yeah I mean he's like here here's the formula this is how you guys should do it Economic Development wise uh so I'm really excited to see what can come of this I would like to see more I know there was a there was a segment there the end by the transit station where it's uh the micro uh the micro shops yeah the micro retail um I I I don't I don't know if that has to be the only space where we have that you know and if there's possibility to where you know we can have some type of outdoor you know Amphitheater space that could connect I mean I'm thinking about not just the one lesson he was telling me about the Atlanta belt line was don't think of it as just a trail think of it think of it as a trail and everything around it that you can possibly acquire to to activate as a public a public good a public space um so uh I I do like the idea of uh just you know really seeing how this can be complemented by our Udo uh to council

member Baker's Point uh but as we're going through all of this we we do have to be very realistic and and and I don't want to sell anyone any false hope that you know we're g to have this amazing amenity going through the city and if you live close to it nothing's going to change economic I don't think anybody's really saying that but I know that that's just not reality um and and you know and also being clear like Carmel Carmel is one of probably the most ambitious small cities or or towns in America they said we're going to get rid of stop lights and just put roundabouts they have what 140 something roundabouts so the traffic can just keep going yeah that costs a lot of money and their City Hall looks like beckingham Palace and uh also the tax base there makes carry seem cheap you know um so so there are realities that come with this excitement and I just want to make sure that we are we are we we're rcing for that as well but I I think this is I think this is necessary I'm looking forward to it I

also while in Dallas visited the Katy Trail yeah and and it's funny y'all say it I actually sat on the bench and people watched um and a guy from duke walks by he said I had on a Durham show he said durh so I would this cool there engineering so that was really cool um you know and and of course the Trail went right between the city right through the city but getting to it was at the end at the beginning of it was a beautiful part people were you know cooking out and playing basketball and um yoga in a little Amphitheater in order to get to the trail I had to walk up an actual Trail through the through the woods but it had you know steps and also there was a ramp that you can get to it and of course uh it goes right through neighborhoods whole new source of transportation options to get to work to get get to be you know places where you can play and just you know just connect with folks so uh this is an amenity that I think is long overdue I think it replaces my hope and dream to put a river through the city so um we

definitely can't afford that I know I know well we have American Tobacco you know I I just I went to Fort Worth too and Fort Worth has this uh this this river that goes around where they just you know I think it may be a water treatment or something I'm not sure but it's is it was uh capitalized on as well they put just restaurants and stores around it over the stockyard and I it's just really cool folks doing some amazing things but all of those places it took so much time to create you know it took so much time and and and one thing um to to our residents you know we have to we I think we have to be Messengers to you all and to our staff of what the desire is but we also be have to be Messengers back to our residents that this takes time and and Durham is actually Durham is doing a lot better than many other cities across the country um but if if you're just looking at the outcome of other places and saying why can't we have this now um I I

think we have to stand up for what's what's happening here and and and kudos to uh the staff for making this happen this far um this is this is huge and I'm glad that you said it's going to be complete by next year like Governor Cooper told folks power did you hear that he said y the mayor says Durham is going to have all electric buses by 2025 people went crazy that's not gonna Happ it right Sean yeah that was a joke just in case that was a joke I'm not sure you're allowed to joke in front of council but I I did it hopefully it doesn't get me in trouble no you're you're you're good so thank you so much thank you guys and thanks for your yeah I just I just wanted to highlight the micro retail piece I think um Chicago is where I saw like a really great Grassroots approach to it and so I'm not sure if you looked at that at all but I can't call the name but it's it's in Chicago and um they really took

like a park approach to creating that micro retail and I want to figure out how we can kind of mimic something something like that and also the steps I just wanted to say that I'm I really appreciate whenever someone recreates the Jesus steps um anywhere in the city because it reminds me of the Bron okay there you go with the curve in them yeah um well thank you so much sorry more com I'm sorry so this is just going to be brief but I'm I'm listening to this conversation and and I have not been in this for very long um I did live in Old Fourth Ward as the park was built and the belt line so um I actually watched it happen I was walking distance from the park and I used to walk there every single day after it got built um and I was just out of curiosity looking at Old forthward now and the demographics and the uh price of

properties and and when I lived there I paid like $800 for a an old one-bedroom uh shotgun apartment but my neighborhood was super super Di and um we knew everyone I knew everybody on the Block and um and it was just a really really wonderful place to live um I'm now looking at the price and I could never afford to live there now um and so I just I want to say like we're having this conversation and I do think that these things are important and you've said it yourself and and we I think all acknowledge that you can't build without the results of that investment right there's going to be increase in price and there's going to be drastic change um and we've talked about sort of this aspect of potentially using our Udo rewrite as a way to um couple with this with this development and and sort of think intentionally about the changes and I also want to say um we talk a lot about relationships up here and that um what I really want to hear is a

narrative from this Council when we are discussing projects and development with those companies that are doing those major developments in our in our area a conversation of what they can bring to to the city not what we provide them in terms of their development opportunities and their economic opportunities but what they're really bringing to us um and and just have that conversation and that narrative that's more just more thoughtful um and I and I hear that we're going that direction and I just want to make sure that it stays in the spotlight um because that is uh I went recently to Old forth W Park which is now overshadowed by buildings all around it um and and the neighborhood is is totally different so it's just something to keep in mind and and I just wanted since we were talking about that to share my personal experience with that park being built and the Belt Line and just my hope for intentionality around this project as we move forward thank you I just want to follow up that point

and just see if if there's a any way to get a update on the grant that we did have in place I don't know if you even if we're even using it right now the ra no this is this was specific to trying to keep folks in their neighborhoods um and just because that stay in place policy I mean I assume we would be trying to focus on more renters and Property Owners but I mean not just limiting it to that I leave that for later but the the grant we were using for whenever the city was um doing development nearby a property and it was specific to Southside I mean Southside um East durm um North Northeast Central durm and uh there was one other I want to say Walltown but I wanted I wanted to I know that the county picked up their program and we were moving forward but I wanted to know if we can probably revisit that program and figure out how to kind of navigate a way that makes it so so those

that program that you're referring I won't talk a lot about it in detail but it was it was a temporary program that had an expiration date and it was allowed by the council to expire but to be replaced by a program that had actually a better program that covered a higher income level but still moderate income homeowners but it was for every resident that qualified in the in the city to have um grants to um help pay tax increases um for any purpose so there is no current program no pilot for any specific neighborhood to be identified um regarding the Public's influence on the increase in the property value but I believe that the program has been replaced with

something that is is more significant to the community overall including those residents that were in a pilot and that pilot expired after four years so hopefully that's responsive so does that include renters the beginning the original program did not include renters okay and the current program does not include renters is always it has always been um homeowners that are living in you know in the property as their primary residents make a comment on that real quick this is so important so so this is the County's low-income homeowner relief program we've talked about several times in the council I think it' be great to get an update from the county uh tax department about this program how how many grants we've made who's being served this is a critical piece to address both this gentrification issue but it's also the issue we've heard this from Cien comments as we are raising taxes it's a way to provide some relief

for folks because property taxes are somewhat regressive right so folks with less income mildly compared to sales tax those with lower income are paying relatively more of their income for property taxes so providing this relief is an important way from a Justice perspective we're providing for relief for those with Le less income but it's also the way that we can raise taxes for Investments we want to make like this and do it in a way that's responsible so that's a critical program I'd love for us to get an update from the county on that program just so we all in the council have a really good understanding of that because that will come up in these conversations about tax increase in bond we can um get it placed on the JCC agenda yeah all right I wanted to add to something mayor Williams about Dallas I think it's important to know that the um that there is a entirely separate entity that operates the Clyde Warren Park and they operate like a business um and so if again somebody wakes up every day and

says how can I make money at Clyde Wharton Park um and so we've got to figure out that piece beyond the design too that's a really good point that the CEO of cloud waren Park uh is if you we took discover Durham and made it a park that's what that's what it is they have their own board they have their own CEO CEO their own staff and they have they programmers all around it and it's also a bed District within itself uh they they the economic impact is over a billion dollars annually they generate about six million two million from just you know just revenue revenue generating themselves um 1 million 700 750,000 from the restaurant um the the sponsorships bring in about another 300,000 uh it she broke it down and U but also they they they had it was a public private uh investment um but you're right it is it is self taking it's its own thing but the the impact is

significant is keep D beautiful in this conversation as uh G approach General Services no that might be a that might also be a good nonprofit to make sure is at the table because I feel like they would do a lot of the maintenance work that could be done um and also the the plantings that the all of that Landscaping yeah they they uh it's his own operating entity and they Outsource security and Outsource maintenance it's basically DDI in a part um that's how it functions but thank you all so much thank you I hope you enjoyed hanging out with the council today all right uh and next is final presentation which is Udo update the presenter is understanding

presenter okay Sarah is the presenter virtual all right as you set up I'm going to say Council uh want to take a a five minute break all right

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e e while we're um while we're waiting for them to get set up guys I do want to say it was a really really really cool housing Summit this morning um I was feeling bad because Council Marist and I had our oneone and I knew I was goingon to miss it and I forgot to call and say hey I'm gonna miss our meeting but when I get

there he's sitting in the room so I didn't feel so bad see you text me I see you right there yeah but that was a really it was a really cool housing Summit um and probably get a chance to share some information about it I'll rely on council member R for that but small towns we don't follow small towns strong towns good stuff while was still waiting I just want to add that I will be at the National League of cities um Summer Leadership Conference next week I know yeah and I just want to make sure I share with you all um for transportation infrastructure and for the race equity and Leadership and there's some trips so I want to make sure that I get any recommendations from you all as well

Sacramento Rancho kukamonga ranchel kadoba also while we're waiting since I didn't get a chance to say it earlier um congratulations to Dr Carrie Dixon the new named 13th Chancellor of North Carolina Central University and uh out of all of the possibilities she was my personal number one choice because I saw the way the students at Elizabeth City responded to her I'm really excited um I called her a mixture of DR Sanders white Deborah Sanders white and James Ammons they um she she's she's a fireball and I'm just really excited to have her bring that energy to Durham she's really done a phenomenal job with School of Business over at Elizabeth City and with the aviation programs and so if they weren't four hours away I would be more involved but um I did get a chance to do the um Shark Tank and look at some of this the presentations from the students oh my gosh they were

great and the uh the board of directors for the North Carolina League of municipalities are enjoying themselves um that's where may approach them is um they are enjoying themselves here in the Bull City they uh was a lot of like you know folks get stuck in their towns so when they got here this morning it was a lot of like wow look at Durham so vibrant so it helps if we uh kind of leave the city and then come back sometimes realize we um we're doing all right here always do better but we're doing pretty good we're ready when you all are that was my last little announcement I could come up with keep going I'm subscribed to the podcast um apple or Spotify don't answer that good all right uh good afternoon uh

bo to brinsky with the plan Department um I'm actually really excited to be here talking to you all this is uh a presentation um actually be from code Studio who is uh a consultant that we've hired uh for our new unified development ordinance um as as you all are aware this is one of the biggest components to the implementation of the comprehensive plan that was adopted back in October um so so with me uh I've got Colin scarf with code Studio I also have uh the consultant that we have working on Equitable engagement and Dr Tuan Allen you'll hear from as well um this is an update on the project itself uh that's been going on the last several months and it also includes an audit of the existing code an analysis of of of the current Udo that is being implemented additionally it'll also uh sh an approach moving forward and some recommendations that we received from The Joint City County plan committee and U with that I'll go ahead and kick it

off and let col scarf begin thanks B uh thank you everybody um just going to give you a a brief update on the work that we've been doing on the Udo uh to date um was really interesting to hear the conversation about the the rail trail um so looking forward to seeing how we can kind of integrate that work into the what we're doing with the Udo so we always start off um with this slide because we always get the question of you know people get confused about what the Udo is versus what the comprehensive plan is so we always present this slide just to help you understand that the compehensive plan sets the vision for Durham and that the one of the key implementing uh documents is the Udo um that implements kind of the development rules um next slide please and so um why are we doing this project so we've got

kind of like five pillars uh that we um run this project around um so you know we want to make sure the Udo is clear and easy to use Simple um heard a lot about housing today but um making sure uh we're allowing for a mix of housing types throughout Durham encourage the creation of more affordable housing throughout the community U focusing on the built environment promoting Transit oriented development walkability um heard a little bit about you know connectivity in open space today so um and then you know making sure that we're above all implementing uh the recently adopted comprehensive plan next slide so I'm just talk to you about five things today um just going to give you a brief update on the Outreach and engagement work that we've been doing some improvements um and kind of usability improvements for the Udo um talk about some some options for improving um small scale residential infill uh looking at ways to better

utilize some of your existing uh multif family areas uh and then ways to promote density around existing and future Transit lines next slide um so we've actually done two two open houses um in February uh we had one at the Durham County Administration Building in the afternoon uh and then one at the campus Hill Recreation Center in the evening next slide please uh and then we've done two uh code connect presentations so these are kind of virtual webinar type uh formats uh where we do a quick presentation uh followed by um a Q&A session so we've um we've done two of those sessions one in February and then one recently um last Thursday next slide and so we've also done a survey um so we we sent around a survey posted on the website did it in English and Spanish and just asked um some simple questions about people's um how they would like to see some of the changes play out in the Udo related to housing

transportation and the environment next slide and so this will just give you a sense of um who we heard from uh regarding that survey um so we heard from a pretty good geographic distribution around the community I think um one of the most notable uh responses was that we got um more responses from U people uh in the the 26 to 40 years old age group that we might particularly see on a survey like this next slide and so these are just some of the initial takeaways that we heard from the survey um revolving around housing Transportation environment so in in general people were looking for um you know more affordable housing options kind of dispersed throughout the community um there really was a focus of preserving the neighborhood character um and making sure that we're um complimenting uh existing architecture and promoting uh Community cohesion from

a transportation perspective people are looking for um you know uh a desire to walk bike to places so more connectivity um better access to Transit um better utilization of trails and future Trails um and from the environmental perspective um some of the respondents encourage the city to kind of rethink development practice including you know tree protection and implementing additional storm water solutions and just in general promoting a kind of a denser more sustainable Community next slide so I'm just going to hand it over brief to toana who's going to talk to you a little bit about some of the Equitable approaches to engagement that we've been doing good afternoon council members I am thrilled to stand before you today to share with you some of the great work that we are doing for our Equitable engagement um Outreach efforts um first of all as a longstanding resident in Durham this project is not work for me

this is me giving back to the community and I'm thrilled to be able to get into the communities that I've seen change over the years since I've been here and to again work with our community members so when I think about our work as um the work that we are doing with engagement um I think about five specific key areas that we want to make sure we understand as far as why Equitable engagement is important that first one is inclusive participation so we believe that understanding that Durham has a very diverse crosssection as far as um who are represented in our communities and when we look at those who have been historically under represented those are the ones that we are really reaching out to make sure that we hear from uh with our engagement opportuni so we are specifically focusing on people of color individuals who identify as having low

wealth people with dis dis abilities Our Youth and our senior or seasoned residents uh our individuals with limited English profic proficiency our members of our LGB uh TQ plus communities along with immigrants and refugees um our Justice involved residents and renters along with our rural residents so that's those are our Target um populations that we are really striving to connect with and hear their voices uh in regard to our work with the new Udo why are we really being diligent with this uh work well one we believe that it will only um help to promote transparency and accessibility and making sure that our communities have understand and can share their uh input on the process that we are following and so we are committed to providing materials in multiple

language and using different modes of communicating with everyone regarding our collaborative decisionmaking process we really believe that incorporating feedback from our community members will only help to really help understand that this Udo is just not a regulatory framework but it also is a reflection of collab collaborative Community um driven process planning uh looking at Community um I'm sorry continuous feedback uh and developing a continuous feedback loop really again helps to Foster um critical feedback and Trust throughout our communities and we want to make sure that our um members of our communities can question ask questions and can provide ongoing feedback uh about the new Udo process uh again lifting up building trust in relationships we

really want to um develop and maintain strong trust and relationships with our residents um throughout the city um to do this work um we will also use engagement ambassadors and for this um our ambassadors will be people who are respected throughout uh their communities and they will play a a key role in our out Outreach efforts in that we want to make sure that they help to facilitate take conversations gather feedback and ensure that the our diverse voices throughout Durham are heard um our in uh engagement ambassadors will act as a bridge between the community and the planning department to enhance our ability to connect uh with and to make sure our residents needs are heard and understood uh so thank you again for the opportunity to come before you today uh and I look forward to seeing you as uh

we continue this work thank you thank you thanks Tona next slide please so just going to jump in to the actual technical components of this work um so we've made some recommendations on the actual outline itself um we're suggesting reducing the number of Articles from 17 down to 10 um and reorganizing a few things um so you'll see that um we've moved some of the administration pieces um down to the end in article 9 so article two Article 13 we've moved to the back we've Consolidated that with kind of similar Administration related material uh we've got an article four development standard so we're we're including um article 7 design standards article 9 Landscaping article 10 parking and then signs all into that uh single article full for uh the zoning districts themselves um we're

including various materials located throughout the Udo a kind of one comprehensive place um so the one thing that we're trying to do here right now if you want to figure out your District standard standard you have to jump to three different places at least so you have to jump one section to find your intent statements another section to find your intensity requirements and then the individual building type requirements you have to jump to another section so next slide please we're we're hoping to consolidate all of that material so it's down in one place and this is just an example of how that might look so we've got the intent stabit for a group of districts and then we've got all the dimensional standards associated with the district uh on two pages so that you could kind of open it up and get a sense of what your requirements are for each district just by looking at two pages uh next slide please so one of the key things that we're doing with this project is implementing the new com ensive plan um in particular um how do we implement the new the new place type

map uh next slide please so we've taken a look at um three key uh future Place type areas um just to see um how what the what the udo's ability is to currently Implement um those Place types now and in the future and what changes might be needed as part of the Udo so it can do a better job implementing those in the future we're looking at the apartment and townhouse Neighborhood Place type the established residential Place type and the transit opportunity uh area Place type next slide please so in start starting with the established residential um you have the following key uh implementing districts that you could use today to implement established residentials so ru5 r52 RS8 RS10 rs20 and to a certain extent RR so we wanted to just take a look at those districts to understand them a little bit more and see what the ability of the the Udo is to implement

uh that particular place type so next slide please so the first thing that we did is kind of take a quick look at all the dimensional standards associated with what we're calling the lower intensity kind of residential districts kind of SL single family District so um are you five r52 RS8 and R RS10 uh all allow um expanded housing Choice option so um you guys are pretty familiar with the expanded housing Choice option but you can take the dimensional standards from your District down to um in this particular case 2,000t minimum lot area um there's a limit on the maximum height two stories um and then there's a maximum building footprint size of 1,200 F feet if you choose to use the expanded housing Choice um so as I said you can do that in r 5 RS 8 and RS10 so the the primary difference with the districts today um is a lot size right so in R5

you have a 5,000 foot um minimum lot size RS8 you have an 8,000 foot minimum lot size uh next slide please and then it continues on so you have a range of districts that could be used to implement the established uh residential T type next slide please so um we wanted to um do a little bit of um both physical and economic modeling um in ru5 and RS10 just to get a sense of um what could be built and what um the cost implications might look like uh if you were to build something using the existing EHC uh dimensional standards rule so we took we did kind of a g GIS analysis to figure out what makes makes sense what what minimum lot size we should be looking at and so in ru5 um for a corner site we're looking at 9,000 foot lot R5 and the mid block

uh we were looking at um 10,000 or so square foot lot and then RS10 slightly bigger lot and we just wanted to see you know how many units could we get on that lot using the existing zoning requirements that were in place today and this is kind of giving you a sense of of what we could fit so pH basically this is what we could fit but we want to understand it from an economic perspective so we ran um some kind of high level performers um from both a for sale perspective and uh a for rent perspective so we had Neil heler um who's on our team to kind of help us run these performers and so we ran these performers from a developers perspective using construction costs and Associate fees um for developing endowment so this is kind of high level stuff um but it gives you a sense of of how the numbers might play out and so the these performers are based on a a developer making a return on investment you know somewhere around 10 to 20% um

otherwise it just doesn't make sense for them to do a project so what we found out was that from a for sale perspective when you run the numbers for you know R5 and RS10 they they generally make sense so when you compare it to the the Ami for Durham right so you're probably seeing in today's market that that some of these um EC projects are coming on the market for around $400,000 $400,000 which I think if you look around you'll see that happening so that seems to make sense so from a for rent a rent perspective what we found out and so next slide please is that the numbers don't seem to work as well for for whatever reason construction cost um but it is very unlikely that you're going to see um single family EHC projects show up in Durham for rent just because the numbers don't make sense uh for a developer to do that they're better off um building and selling those

units based on their their kind of return on investment next slide so what we wanted to do um was take a look at some kind of alternative housing options and so in ru5 you are allowed to do four units on a lot as long as you front a a roadway over a certain width so we wanted to just get a sense of like how how it might look if we if we kind of work on this um slightly um denser model and so um based on the current rules uh you can do four units on a lot in ru4 but there is a density cap of eight units per acre and so what that means is if you wanted to do four units on a lot you would have to need a lot minimum lot size of 2100 21,000 square feet and so that's what that might look like and so we wanted to play around with some some different scenarios like what would happen if we removed eight units per acre and just did four units

on the lot and then also what would happen um if we put more units on that lot so in this particular case we ran some perform numbers for putting eight units on a lot just to see how that would play out so next slide and so what we find found out was pretty interesting so if you look on the the very left hand side here or the uh the kind of the red color we ran the pro forer um for the kind of existing EHC with kind of no change and what we found out is that if you were to kind of do that you would you would generate a rent of about $3,400 a month per unit based on kind of all the existing parameters so that is pretty expensive and so we wanted to look at some some policy changes that the city could make that might reduce that uh monthly rent so we modified the maximum density so we eliminated the8 units breaker right so we could use a smaller piece of land to put those same

amount of units on and so what happened when we did that is the monthly rent dropped from $3,400 a month to $2,800 a month so it's go it's going down and so what happened if you allow more than four units so in this particular case we wanted to see what what the numbers would look like if we put eight units on that that lot instead of four and you'll see that the cost the average monthly cost has dropped again down to $2,400 so those are just to give you a sense of what some policy uh choices can do and what the impacts might be on the average monthly rent so we wanted to look at some kind of Market choices just to give you a sense of some other things that could be modified so if we look kept the the unit size constant at 1,000 square ft so we dropped that to 800 ft just to see what that would do and you could see that dropped the rent down to almost $2,000 a month then what happens if you um reduce the parking requirement so there's no parking requirement today in Durham we

know that but we are assuming some level of parking will be needed into in order to support some of these projects so we just reduced the parking requirement in half just to see what that would do that dropped the rent again then we also wanted to look at well what would happen if you did more than four units so we added a duplex so you would have 10 units on that lot just to see what that would do and that has dropped the rent down um to to just under $2,000 a month which is actually stting to make sense a little bit that's just to give you a sense of um the impacts of policy choices and Market choices and how that might affect um average monthly rents across the community next slide and so we also wanted to take a look at the the apartment townhouse Neighborhood Place type this is kind of your key I would suggest your key Place type for really thinking about putting some additional density into these areas right so today if we look at the existing districts that exist that could

possibly implement this place type you have rsum and RC so next slide so we're not going to run any economics on this but I just wanted to give you a sense of like how the existing dimensional standards play out um so some key metrics to look at just if you could just go back real quick um so for RSM uh key metric here to look at is three stories is the maximum height limit and then there's a maximum density of eight units per acre rum you can build up to five stories um but there is a maximum density of 12 units breaker RC you can go up to seven stories um and there's a maximum density of 40 units breaker so those kind of some key metrics that we wanted to look at just to see like well what could get built use using those metrics so next slide and this is this is kind of what we found out right so because of the density caps that are in place you're not really going to be able to achieve

any meaningful amount of development in terms of units and you're not really going to achieve the maximum Heights that are called out in the districts right so when we ran them the kind of development standards for RSM um you can get four units on this particular lot right so we're using a Halfacre lot um you can get four units on there um but because of the the eight units per acre cap that's all you can get on that piece of land right so when you look at rum uh this this you could get six units on the site because of the 12 units per acre cap and when you look at RC you can get more units you can get 20 units in this particular case um but the the over overall limitation here is the 4 units breaker so you just need to ask ourselves um is these the type of intensities that we want to promote in our multif family areas uh throughout the city and county next slide and so this would just give you a

sense of what you could do if you removed the density cap so in RSM you know if you wanted to build to that three stories the ultimate limitation here is still parking um and we're just assuming one space per unit in this particular case um so you know the first thing you have to do is try to get 32 spaces onto this site um but that but we managed to to get 32 units onto this site which is a uh density of 62 units per acre so for R um you know we managed to get 54 units on the site 104 units breaker and then RC uh we managed to get on 67 units at 130 units breaker so you can see there's a huge difference here um in what might be buildable on a on a site or a lot based on that units per acre constraint next slide so looking at the transit opportunity areas which um I would suggest you know this is really one of

you want to focus your density to be able to support you know existing and future Transit lines and so these are really areas I think that you guys should be looking at to really kind of focus some um denser development right so kind of key implementing districts here now would be uh CD and CSD and so next slide um you have slightly higher density requirements in these areas um so you have you know 60 units per acre uh 90 foot height limit in CD you can go up to 145 ft uh in CSD uh but you're only allowed 30 units per acre um so you know really what you're going to get in CSD is a really toall building that doesn't take up a bunch of land area if you really wanted to max out your height but your density is going to be your ultimate cap there so next slide so just to give you a sense of of how that plays out using existing regulations based on the density caps so we managed to get you

could get 41 units on this particular lot 30,000 Square ft and meet the 60 units breaker and then you could get 21 units in CSD uh based on the unit cap and this is what they might look like so fair amount of land area uh left over and just bear in mind these are your key Transit areas so next slide and so if you if you eliminate the density cap and you're really serious about you know the height limits as the ultimate restriction um you could you could at something like this which is more like 145 units per acre for CD and if you were serious about 12 stories in CD uh you could generate something like you know 236 units on this 30,000 foot site so it just gives you a sense of how density might impact some of your existing zoning districts especially in key areas where you're trying to promote uh density and intensity next

slide and so these are the the questions that we asked The JCC PC um about you know because of the EHC requirements to us and everybody can go down to a 2,000 foot lot it makes sense to us to combine R5 r52 which are basically the same districts anyhow after scad and then combine RS RS8 and RS10 all into one district and call that something like residential neighborhood and then combine R20 and RR um consider allowing um more units in existing lower intensity residential lots so whatever that number is I don't think we have to figure that out now but I think it's clear that if we want a model that pushes um average monthly rents down we've got to consider ways to allow more units uh on what might be future ru5 Lots which you know be equals RN Lots so thinking about restu

structuring the kind of higher intensity residential districts mixed use districts um eliminating uh the units breaker metric and then coming up with some naming convention that um is a little bit more understandable to folks right so basing maybe the district name on the maximum story height so when that you read the district name you kind of get a sense of how intense that district is so next slide and so when we presented this material to The JCC PC this is kind of the direction they gave us concentrate density um within the urban goth boundary build up not out streamline and consolidate zoning districts align the zoning districts with the comprehensive plan Place types uh and place a greater emphasis on form um and not rely so heavily on a units per acre metric uh to uh regulate and control development uh next slide so just to give you a sense of of

gov uh I think that that concludes the presentation so

thank you very much and look forward to hearing any of your questions or comments thank you so much uh for the presentation colleagues I'll bring it to the uh Council yeah thank you for the uh thank you for the presentation um the UniFi development ordinance is maybe one of the top five most important documents in the city it's the DNA that shapes the way that we change and the way that we grow um from a physical standpoint in every square inch of of Durham County we're always in a zoning District no matter where we travel we are always in a zoning District uh and that zoning District contains very specific uh regulations um and it can be used well it can be used poorly it can there can be regulations that should be there that aren't there um they can take all sorts of forms um so it is

absolutely critical this is such an important process that's why I'm saying that this is such an important process um and it's long overdue um because our our current udio is um in need of an update for for many different reasons um one question I have and first of all I'll just say I'm really looking forward to a Udo document that is much easier to access and much easier to navigate and read um Colin you talked a little bit about taking these different pieces that are spread out throughout the the Udo and consolidating them and putting them together that is going to help residents council members the planning department developers it's going to help everyone so so much because nothing is better when it is much more complicated um everything is better when it is easier to to understand um I was just going to ask uh and this

is brought this up before uh sustainable sustainable uh building standards and incentives um I didn't see that in the new structure that that you had shown is that something that you are anticipating including in the new Udo yeah are you are you talking about like building code sustainability or like like Green Building standards and incentives um I think i' I think I'd pointed out the uh the Canapolis udio yeah we we'll definitely take a look at that okay I'd love to see that okay the the struggle is just making sure that um it all lines up with development process right so um sometimes if if lead certification for example is done it and reviewed at a different time than zoning review or site plan review is happening we just got to make sure what we're doing can be um effectively regulated in

the Udo in terms of timing absolutely absolutely yeah I would I would take a look at Canapolis the Canapolis udio um I was also just I do have to say um I I I wish because because I I uh participate in jcpc um or I wasn't actually there but I I watched it and then I provided my comments afterward and I also um participated in one of the one of the public engagement sessions um and I was hoping that that the audit report would be an actual report and not just the slide deck so I do just want to voice that that that uh an audit report I was I was looking forward to more information about the W the uh audit of the existing code and annotated outline of of where we're headed um and so I was a little bit disappointed not to receive an actual report and just receive the

PowerPoint slide deck um and I also think one reason why is because I do think that it is very important to iron out um some of the mayor may maybe bigger uh issues before you all get into the weeds of draft in uh the the the new Udo so I'll just voice that we're still you know haven't haven't drafted the new Udo and I just want it to be a very successful process so I just wanted to voice that um so yeah just the amount of the amount of content there we also originally talked about potentially some short-term targeted items I know that has now gone away that's fine um just wanted to say that uh because of that I I still am interested in moving forward some public park dedication stuff so I'm going to talk to council members offline and separately over the summer about potentially doing that but I don't want it to be large in scope I want to keep

it minimal and targeted um and then I'm just curious about your thoughts uh Colin we're growing outward very rapidly and um I'm curious about what you would what you anticipate potentially recommending and changing in the Edo to make sure that the new growth that we are approving on the outskirts of our city is sustainable is more walkable is um you know Greener and um mixed use and compact uh in in ways that um which I think Council would would support um not put words in everyone's mouth but um what could we change would would you anticipate that being like a plan development District or would you see that as being changing um or creating

new Greenfield development standards because what're we are growing out so rapidly it would be really good to have some good tools to be able to use so that we know that when we approve something out there that the DNA is set in place that it's actually going to grow in in a sustainable way just wanted to get your thoughts on that and you're you're talking specifically like new greenfields like residential single family development yeah hopefully more than just single family residential yeah well I think first and foremost yeah we got to have the right standards in place um so I would suggest you know block and Street standards would be key to that um so making sure the subdivision rules are in place so that um Street widths of the right size and block perimeters and block lengths of the right size right so that um people can walk and and cycle effectively

through these areas and that um so that would be kind of number one um I think you know you can think about setting minimum densities or intensities out in these areas um if you think people are going to underbuild in these areas um I know some communities play around with those ideas how effective they are um I guess is is debatable I mean typically from you know a residential subdivision perspective developers are trying to max out what they can do in terms of you know how many units they can put on a site I don't know if you're having ISS issues with that but um that's that's definitely one way that you could try to ensure you know you're getting a minimum level of intensity out there that you have the ability to kind of serve effectively over time um and I think we want to be doing

every everything we can from a sustainability open space perspective um to make sure that um these subdivisions are are high as high of quality as they can be and and need to be for Durham and that they are you know walkable and bikable yeah okay I just I I want to put that on on your radar as uh something to to think about is making sure that we don't have to negotiate with developers to get complete communities that it is built into the DNA so that we can say yes more you know and and have less disagreement up up here which which we've had um I would also just say my my personal my personal opinion when it comes to the density height issue um I I agree with focusing on height um thinking more about height rather than density um I

also I would love to see us increase density and height through the affordable housing density bonus um again if we give Den if we just give density W for free everywhere um there's zero incentive to use our affordable housing density bonus um and so I think being strategic and creative about the way that we upzone um because we should up Zone in a lot of places but making sure that we are doing that in a way where uh we are one not incentivizing tearing down small houses and the people that live in small houses and replacing them with big houses and people that live in big houses and in neighborhoods across our city and two making sure that we are capturing affordable housing to the extent that we possibly can and making that process really easy for the developer so making it easy to to to achieve that outcome um so that's I sent in a big

list of of my my comments so I'm not going to run through all of them but um appreciate appreciate the work so far thank you we read those comments so thanks for sending those in Alex yeah um I think you for that presentation I I have a few very sporadic questions mine are going to be and my colleague is is actually an expert in this area and um and I am just learning so um just a couple things the first one is that uh we were we were told in April that we would get short-term recommendations as part of our Consulting agreement and um my colleague has just said that that has changed but that's news to me why are we not receiving those short-term recommendations is that i' have to i' have to Def staff question I see maybe our St coming up for

that like you answer good afternoon Sarah Young with planning department so short-term recommendations were never a part of the consultant contract okay short-term recommendations were something that were uh asked if that is something that could be worked in it was something that was asked of Staff we uh expressed concern that if we had this process going on that was going to be a holistic rewrite of the entire ordinance that short-term changes um could potentially uh delay or derail some of that work and so we did talk with code Studio about whether or not they would have be able to formulate some short-term recommendations short-term changes that we could Advance before this um and Colin I don't want to put words in your mouth so you chime in here when I'm done um what came out of their recommendations was really there's nothing um discreet enough that would have a significant enough impact to Warrant moving it Forward um in advance of anything else

especially given the fact that they are uh really right now starting work on the actual ual Drafting and that we will have a draft in a few months and if we were to start on a separate Amendment set of amendments we're kind of at the same place um so that and Colin please if I have misstated anything that's fair it's it's difficult to balance you know interim changes with full code changes at the same time um and I think you know what we're trying to do is try to get to the actual meat of what we're doing as soon as possible so we're you know we're we're we're kind of trying to finish off this code audit and approach phase and jump straight into drafting so that you know we can get this done as as quick as possible or get drafts on the table as quick as possible so from our experience that's when people St to really stop paying attention is when you put a map on the table with um zoning districts that match that map that's

when you start getting people's attention and people start providing serious comments I mean that makes sense but I I I thought that I remembered it and I just went back and and looked at the meeting from April 4th and that we were told we were going to get short-term um recommendations I the reasoning makes sense but I just want to raise that that was said to us in a public hearing and it sounds like that was actually never necessarily the case so I'm that is concerning to me because I've been operating under the under the assumption that that was forthcoming and actually thought that that was coming as part of today's project so presentation so um okay um the next thing is that I was wondering if you could go back to your slide on the survey demographics we went through that really quickly quickly yeah

yeah thanks because it yeah I just didn't get a chance to read but what I had thought that I had seen and now what I am double checking is that it looks like 82% of the survey respondents were white um and and high income yeah it also looks like 5 51% over $100,000 um I mean and I'm not looking at it right this moment but I know what our demographics the city and county look like and I don't think that this is representative and homeowners mostly homeowners and mostly homeowners yeah thank you for raising that so graduates um yeah undergrad graduat um and yep okay yep the education piece yeah so actually it doesn't appear that um maybe outside of I don't know about the gender breakdown but it doesn't seem like any of the three of these are actually representative of Durham um so I just wanted to flag that um because we in the presentation we're kind of saying that

that it does meet the goals of Equitable engagement and um my colleague is gonna explain why these SC so much historically what happens when we do surveys is that they are overwhelmingly white educated graduate degrees which is why we have the parallel part which is why we have the Equitable engagement ambassadors which as you look on your slide um I think it's I don't know which slide it is early in the thing it kind of lays out the different sections the different places where we're going to do most of that has to happen in person within focus groups targeted Outreach pack meetings uh specific targeted Spanish and other potentially other language we have to use Community Partners we never get that in survey responses it's been that's why we have the Equitable blueprint engagement tool which was developed in 2018 all staff use it we've used it for the comp plan we use it for Pb we used it for this process it's how we do business thank you I want to just push back on that a little bit because

we did actually see representative surveys um both at our budget hearing um when we were looking at resident um issues that we've we've cited quite a bit of here um and also in our participatory budget uh so we we have seen you go back to the participatory budgeting slides you will see that overwhelmingly survey responses not the paper surveys the online surveys were overwhelming ly white we have to get the paper ballot surveys which are often surveys but they're paper ballot and you have to do it at community events and almost every single time we have to run those processes in parallel to the online tools it is a historic it is a consistent problem not just for the city but across the country when you do just online Outreach is why the city doesn't just do online Outreach it is almost always overwhelmingly white it happens at the mo it happens in every space that I'm in if we're only online is overwhelmingly white and educated PB the

reason we were able to get that represented representation was because it was through paper balloting and it was through the work that staff did mostly in person okay um so if I could actually finish my thought which was that my original question was to be asking what we're doing to to first of all I I wanted to just push back because I think that there was a statement that was made that there there was a quite a range of people that were surveyed initially and I and I don't think that that's accurate given the graph that we've gotten today um but then I wanted to hear about what was going to be done but it sounds like there are some some uh yeah okay the C the okay that's fine I don't mean to interrupt if if I may be recognized so there are a lot of things that sometimes are considered survey you know survey um data and sometimes it is self- initiated on a website or something like that and sometimes it is a random selection which

is what we do when we do our resident survey we do a random selection and we're we're constantly checking the results to make sure that we are getting enough responses to represent um the community that but when it comes to us trying trying to um you know we put up a website and you know tell people you can give us your information this way that's also considered survey data but it's not it's not captured the same way it's I would just I would just say I appreciate that explanation but we know these things and it's almost um upsetting at least to know that as a city we know how to do these things and we're paying a contractor so why aren't we partnering with them to do it so I mean

like why is this not in like in conjunction with I mean if they needed to work with NIS to do this then they should have like figured out how to work together because it's it's presented data it's presented as data collected it is just one piece of what we're listen listening to so um you know toana has been focusing extensively and getting out in the community and reaching out to folks and she has um my understanding she's been taking our survey and and giving that to people you know kind of face to face and having them look at it and fill it out and that's that's not included in the numbers that we showed you that is all based on on information we received online and it is just one piece of the puzzle it's just one piece of of what we're taking information from and so um we are

relying on the work that toan is doing to to reach out and work with um some of the folks that didn't fill out the survey every time once a meeting sorry sorry Council um I'll uh we we recognize that the survey respondents are typically much wider than the community not reflective of of the residence of Durham uh for all the reasons that have already been stated so that's a big reason why we have engaged with a separate consultant for Echo engagement I actually I'd like to I'll defer to uh Dr Allen on on this in terms of specifics if if you all have questions um but but certainly I will say that she's been out in the community intro introducing the

project and it does take some time to sort of initiate those conversations and initiate those relationships we talked about the the ambassador program um so we're very aware and and are in agreement with the issue when we see the the respondents from the surveys um and and we're uh using the framework to address thank you yeah I mean and I again I know that this is tough to do but I just the way that it was presented in this slide it made it feel like that was a starting point for what we were doing and there was some very briefly as we went over it some indication that it was representative just highlighting the fact that it's not and I think it's really important that as um as we're doing this and you know and I'm sorry tan I didn't get your last name dran Dr alen is is going through this process and and I'm sure doing an excellent job but um I think it's important to be talking about it as it's on going um and ensuring that we're not

putting this is this is all we have which is this slide presentation and and we're not putting this survey responses out as like any sort of Baseline starting point and that we're just talking about it honestly that is all that I wanted to say about that um did you I'm sorry did you did you have some did you want to ask I just wanted to make sure that all of your questions were answered yeah thank you I just want to follow up because I hear that you're collecting data but it's it's kind of concertive to hear them say that they're not including it and I'm assuming there's some qualitative or qu like there's something that's coming out of it and that should be included in the slides and qualitative data will come from more of the focus groups the community chats and so we will then be able to um colle and analyze those themes to kind of share with you what are the big picture big talking points from our community members so I want you to hear this when I say that that is that is exactly the problem so if you

value the community chats then why aren't they before the responses and if you don't flip that on his access then you're re you're just redoing the same process because the values on this is the survey responses we have this isation we've gotten you've got to do them both at the same time that's the point of the Equitable engagement that's the point of pushing it in the way that it's been pushed it's not to do one and then the other because then one gets more more present [Music] um as contractors or as writers or what have you're going to use this information this this is not it's it's not something you can unsee it's not something you can undo or be able to un like once it's once it's shared is shared so in order to try and alleviate that that's where the Equitable part comes in so you trying to do that at the same time more than than just having one and then the other absolutely that's

all if I could I think it might be helpful to get a little more kind of background and context about the survey in this particular slide because I don't think we've done a good job obviously by by virtue of of the questions that are arising so in our very first round of Engagement and it really wasn't even engagement it was kind of project launch and kickoff and hey there's information there's this thing that's going to be happening and we had those two meetings and this survey uh if you came to either of those sessions you would have seen Dr Allen walking around um taking kind of taking note of who was there and who wasn't there that was represented trying to make connections with folks there um and then subsequently after seeing who is who is not who do we need to reach that um is not coming naturally to participate her work has been behind the scenes to uh make those inroads build those relationships so that when we start our first actual engagement on the draft those networks will have been set

in motion um there will be connections so this really uh is kind of the Baseline I would say and what you should see in subsequent um reports will be numbers that M much better reflect our community makeup because the work that Dr Allen will be doing will be rolled into kind of the standard issue Outreach that will be done as well so I hope that helps a little bit council member thank you and I just want to say I mean this is not dissimilar to what happened with the comp plan which was my previous comment was we would get data updates it would be not demographically um accurate for Durham and then staff worked very diligently to make sure you know one of the target relations with Northam because we'd heard from folks and Northam isn't historically a very uh diverse racially part of town but they are rural residents and they had not felt particularly heard and so sta uh planning staff worked really diligently

to ensure that there were more Community meetings held up there we also realized we didn't have enough Spanish respondents and so uh additional support was brought in around the comp plan to ensure that we were hearing from these residents my earlier point was that this is not unfort um rare this is what we have seen over and over and it's actually a reflective of if you're only going to do online survey type things if that is what your engagement is then that is often what your demographics will reflect in your responses and the city in many ways in in across all kinds of departments and projects I think the cultural road map work we're struggling with that right now as well um the survey responses online were overwhelmingly educated and white and staff has always uh regardless of the department or project worked extremely diligently to ensure that our work is representative and that folks can uh feel included and heard thank

you thank you you want to hit that mic up there Le I'm speaking um I'm I still have more I was not fin is that is that all right are you going to speak on this I'm sorry go ahead no I was going to speak up go ahead um well just a follow up on that one piece and was what this survey that was used was it also used to inform the audit of the prior code who are you asking that question I don't know whoever might know the answer this could be that's a a question for Colin um but but I'll let him uh chime in I will say that the audit was an analysis that that they conducted and obviously the the conference of plan itself um which is is a big driver for this project um we're most likely used for the audit um go go ahead Conor here we yes we looked at

it um but you know we also used information that we received from the open houses that we did um where we did get you know kind of a variety of folks um and then we've been you know talking to um Miss Allen and she's been uh we've had regular updates with her and she's been telling us you know what she's hearing from the variety of folks that she's been talking to so it's just one piece of of our thinking in terms of um looking at the existing Udo I have a question about something that's not related to the survey so other folks wanted to speak on that issue survey okay I would just say that I appreciate what you're saying I it's not that I disagree or anything I just don't think it's something we should keep paying for so we know that that's what's going to happen if we send on an online survey

that's all and so I I just want us to be more proactive on the front side of that because it is Data that's coming in and so even if it's you're you're now trying to trickle in the stories it's not going to carry as much of the of the same weight you're sending the same message like as if people who are not graduates who are not of a higher income like at some point we got to stop sending that message that they're not engaged and that's what's frustrating that's all it's not Yeah question so this is the survey up to this point or like is this incomp this is incomplete right all right so I okay so right but it's not complete so I think that is it's it's really important to understand that we're getting information up to this point I don't know maybe hold off on the survey data until you complete it so it won't cause this type of we've spent 15 minutes on

something that is not complete so understood yeah there 214 responses out of 300,000 people so uh we have a long ways to go and um I can appreciate the information update or the report update um but just keep in mind when you're bringing the updates uh either overc communicate that hey this is just up to this point um so that we aren't hung up on um having a having a um an ultimate complete expectation with in complete data understood thank you council member rist thank you Mr Mayor Colin thanks for the presentation I just had a question about the um if you could go back to that slide with the um the I'm sorry about that the rent experiment assumptions exactly yeah so so there's a lot going on here this and then so so

and you all understand the details way better than I do but it seemed from a from a lay perspective what I'm what I heard you say saying was there's a whole lot going on there's like there's like l i guess like lot sizes units per lot parking no parking a lot of different variables but ultimately what you're saying is that when there's when there's more units the rents go down right yeah and so I think you referenced something about like some policy choices we have to be aware of I guess I want to maybe I'm sort of like maybe I'm missing something but like so so since we since affordability is so important it's one of the key objectives of our city right what's the what are the what are the policy choices in we're wrestling with if more units means more affordability what what's what's not good about that which slide are you you're talking about the slide with um yeah the one we're looking at yeah yeah yeah I I can't see it yeah I don't think the screen is sharing Colin it's the one that's got the chart with the uh colorful vertical bars where you're

comparing um the current EHC to some policy choices okay so can you repeat your question sorry yeah guess again I guess the question again just big picture so I think you referenced policy choices as you were talking about this slide and I'm just wondering like it seems to me that like more Supply is is good because it gives more affordability so what are the what are then the what are the policy choices we would be looking at what's the what's the downside of more Supply which equals more affordability it's a balance between you know how much density versus you know what the community can tolerate right right because there's typically a push back from community members when you talk about adding density to neighborhoods for a variety of reasons um I think you know if if you just ask single family homeowners if they want more density in their neighborhood um they might just say

no and so you know there's a policy decision there that needs to be made um and there's tradeoffs that are happening right in terms of like cost of housing quality of housing um versus you know number of units or number of people that are living in a particular house structure or neighborhood so I guess we were just um suggesting to you guys that you know some thinking needs to happen about where on that Spectrum do you want to land right so you you can from a policy perspective decide that um you know you're not going to regulate density um for example you can do things like limit the number of units that are allowed on a on a lot right so if you just take 10,000 it is kind of a a

density constraint kind of right so you can have a 10,000 foot lot you can say you can have four units on that lot or you could say you know you can have eight units per acre right which you need a 20,000 foot lot if you want to get those four units on there and we're just trying to help you understand the economic implications of those policy decisions or choices moving forward I appreciate I appreciate that thanks for making that more explicit that's that's very helpful thank you yeah we uh heard some of that this morning in the workshop council member uh cabora then uh thank you and I also just want to highlight how that actually aligns with Transit uh last week was our joint dccm Campo meeting um and so there was various scenarios being presented around Transit um and really to get some of the the transit goals that we we say we want uh it's in our Transit plan we say we

want these things um it it is around density and it's around not not capping it so I think that that's the other the piece of land use and and it was a great conversation there around the connect the connection of transit to land use and how important it is but all of that is really underpinned on this question around density uh that um is is critical to our success as a community as far as uh and we've made some of those really important decisions I think the urban growth boundary really kind of literally is a line right and so once we've made that line and that has been passed by both the city and the county that means on the inside of that line you're going to get more density even if you are on the edges maybe you'll get a little bit less dense on the edges than you are in some of our more infill neighborhoods but those a lot of those neighborhoods are established and so the what that what they turn into and how they redevelop is going to look different if we're actually going to achieve our goals around Transit uh and what we're saying that's in the comp plan thank

you um this was actually on my list of things to bring up and um I actually took something different from my colleague from this slide which is that um yes number of units is important and density is important but there are a list of several things that are listed as important unit size soft costs and parking um and then also if you look at this affordability scale you also see a shrinking in the amount of square footage the more affordable ones that we're looking at the right side those three are all 8 100 square fet and I want yall to look at make sure that we're paying attention to the fact that we are calculating this as affordability for AMI for a family of four in 800 square feet and so I just think that it's important to acknowledge that it's not always just density that then indicates affordability we have to look at all of these different policy decisions and how they interplay to make things affordable and also we have to

decide what um what we think is okay for people to live in um and that is a whole another conversation but um I think that there's we you know we've heard comments up here on this Council from from folks presenting that uh they could never imagine having their multiple children in a in a one-bedroom house um but that that's what we're talking about here right we have families that are larger um and we're in fact calculating this for four people um and we're looking at 800 ft which is totally livable for four people um but just note that size is important and number of people living there is important um and I also had one other question for the consultant while you were on can you talk about the process of engaging groups outside of Citizen involvement I'm thinking specifically I know that um we have an environmental Affairs board that's been looking at specific parts of

the Udo and some other um science-based organizations in the community um can you just talk about different stakeholders and their and their engagement with this process we're we're happy to talk to um as many different groups as we need to be talking to um I don't think we specifically talk to the environmental board um but we have I don't know who we've talked to specifically I'd have to go back but we have talked to a variety of stakeholders about um changes that they would like to see in the the Udo like developers and the folks at the RTP we have had sessions with them yeah thanks col and just great the at the kickoff I believe in December uh the consultant good have met with uh a

long list of of stakeholders both frequent applicants both uh staff from other departments right so Public Works and Water Management inspections all these other departments that are that are impacted um by the development ordinance itself uh and received a lot of feedback there um we've had a lot of internal um channels opened uh to receive feedback such as that um we have uh heard from many Boards of commissions e obviously being one of them and and expect to to receive uh feedback on on you know in some of them we expect to get some proactive you know suggestions up front uh other submitted comments I'm I'm pretty sure yes yeah and and I've had ongoing Communications with them about you know as as we've got drafts you know going over them and discussing them certainly as we talked about engagement earlier or I think Colin spoken of you know when you got some draft drafts to discuss there's a a more engaged conversation so yeah our expectation is is definitely to receive uh feedback from stakeholders such as

that yeah I I I think you know this is a good start um we have to start somewhere um I and to council member Cook's point you know it's a family of four you know but I I think the way I look at it is you know we got to have a baseline not everyone who's moving in our home is going to be a family of four and then we have some single resident that are living in a house you know um so we I believe in establishing a Baseline and then building up to be able to meet those different needs uh U but I think that all of the concerns that are brought up you know are are really important and worth acknowledging um so I I I think that you all have received a lot of feedback today that can help you know um have your Outreach be a lot more sensitive uh even in the presentation of the information um sometimes you know sometimes you know a lot of information can be uh how much when you present it can have different outcomes

so just just I would just say pay close attention to what you've heard today um housing is something that's is something that is quite contentious uh because you're gonna have your you know your your your you're gonna have your focus group of folks that are going to live in the what if space you're going to have the folks that are going to meet being like hey let's build as much as we can uh and I think that there has to be a a good median you know uh as we consider all of the factors around it uh I'm one to think about you know uh sometimes the economic impact and how how that you know plays A Part holistically you know in housing and we don't talk about that a lot you know so um I think what you've heard today is a really a good amount of information for you to take back and just you know uh when you come back with your next update um just you know have that intentionality in there um yeah yeah we have two more questions

I just wanted to track back to the slide where you're discussing the price per unit for the duplexes and I just wanted to say so at 98% I'm tracking that that would be $164 per square foot or16 $5 per square foot and to your point about the um the density with the balance I'm trying to to just get if you go back a couple it's a couple but that one the next one so as you're tracking this for RS for ru5 and R you I hear you what you're saying as far as collap ing them all to r RC is there a reason why we're limiting it to eight units per lot because I'm I'm thinking that that price point is probably really too high like

165 which which slide are you looking at um it was the slide that was talking about what you were talking about how you would collapse the the um those at the and the one yeah I think the one back there yeah so where you combining the existing lower intensity residential districts questions slide okay so is there a reason that you would cap you would cap it at eight or 10 as opposed to 12 or 16 like is there some logic that you're using I just want to follow with you with you on it are you talking about question two or question [Music] one so we're just you mean RS8 and RS10 yes or I just so I just want to give some context so around expanded housing

choices I kept saying that we needed to do more than just the duplexes and the triplex quads didn't make it in and then we got to the conversation around AP plexes and I'm I'm concerned because even at seven when we talk about density especially in the intercore as as folks are tearing houses down if they're only building back two stories or three stories and it is a single family duplex I'm concerned that we're not allowing our development Community to do uh not just eight Plex but 12px and essentially Cottage communities um that were a much larger um size I think we're being really conservative on our sizing for the the intensity especially on the especially with the core and I do want to say that the especially based on price per square

foot um because that seems really high we're we're happy to can you know explore options but um I mean I guess just so we're on the same page I mean you would be talking about taking all of the existing I'm calling them lower intensity residential districts so R5 RS8 RS 10 and allowing up to eight units on a law which would be pretty intense I would suggest um so I we we haven't really necessarily suggested that we were just like you know consider so right now in ru5 you can do a fourplex um as long as you have um Frontage on a RightWay I think that's um at least 60 ft in width we were just suggesting one shouldn't you apply that

everywhere in ru5 and when I say ru5 I mean ru5 that's now combined with ru2 r52 RS8 RS10 and that's all RN and it would all be like within any neighborhood yeah yeah so and I I hear that I I I was trying to follow your reasoning I get I get that and then I I just wanted to there was one more of the just for the rs20 and RR specifically are you identifying areas that should remain RR or rs20 based on the place type map and yes okay I mean yes I mean so they will so it's not essentially everywhere so not every residential it would just it would just be within yes okay so we would pull out R20 and RR and combine that and call that something like you maybe it's still called RR so there would be and that

would be a very similar intensity as it is today and would probably be located outside of the AR gr boundary so I would just share I would I think I'm what I'm what I'm grasping at is is that there's a shift and those shifts are happening it would be helpful to really see um I'm a map person I see I visually see like as a map but it would be helpful to see some of that uh whatever it is your from your audit even if it's not in text if there was a mapping form of that to show the shift would be the most helpful because just in in in a very Eastern sense of a way like it's very industrial there's a lot of commercial like there's very little commercial and then there's a whole lot of residential and as you shift that neighborhood from r ru5 or r52 to RN it is going to be increasingly increasingly um important to figure out

where that I mean I'm I can see plots of land in my head there are areas that could be 12 stories and to see a whole bunch of you know houses around would be frustrating that would not be density and it's it's very much the downtown core like near the downtown core and then um to the point around um engaging I do want to make sure that you are because I heard you said Transportation right MH and in this Transportation vein if there's a way to timeline out some of the some of that mapping because there are projects that are related to our streets our roads and state roads or city roads all of that matters I think when folks are saying they don't want density in their Community oftentimes it's based on the fact that their roads are not ready and so if we could show that it might be more helpful to the

public in seeing how the roads will shift over time and where that density can grow because we do to to C kier's point we do have that out of growth um limit that we're setting but I think we're not showing people what's coming and that's making it a little bit difficult and I understand it's not as I want to go back to that slide where or there's a slide where you showed a graphic of the specific um Place type and then all the things that can happen underneath it there has to be something that shows the roads and what is happening in that area as well so it has to be some real time information um in a very general sense where you can find uh you know TI tip or the stip or tip or whatever the that's coming so that people are uh it's kind of like making it user friendly so that there's a way to track back to it because I know it can't be set we need

to use it for the next 10 years hopefully it's not 10 years but um that's all yeah Council just to respond to both those last comments um full agreement and for both and I think it what you really highlighted is uh something that both Colin and I have said today is that the true engagement and the real conversation will begin when we have those maps in those proposed areas um so I think I think that'll be I'm excited to have those conversations with the community and obviously with with all all of you thank you so much um and and I think that's I think what council member Freeman just said and I'm G to put an end to that um because I I want to make sure we're using hard data you know I think Rose is part of it there's so much more uh why folks don't want it or why folks do want housing so we are in the beginning of this and there is a a lot of public engagement still have to go on but I think if we uh continue on this conversation today we might as well get sleeping bags um but I I really enjoyed

this conversation and as I've stated before this is a very policy Rich board uh Council uh so Al Le there are no more questions good I'll answer that for you and uh we will uh go ahead and uh call this hold on council member Freeman what you say when is the next update Sarah uh director young uh so we'll be getting um the the draft from uh code Studio as mentioned um it'll be an iterative process and and once we have that you you'll hear from us um uh when we get that that first uh round now there there'll be some comment back in forth um certainly with staff internally but you'll hear from us after that and then we'll have a more robust engagement at the time yeah sorry yeah fall fall fall late fall all right because the uh the short

term went away I just want to make sure understand yeah well uh we're going to settle the agenda right now um but no not yet yes Madam clerk thank you Mr Mayor and um good evening everyone I I wanted to appreciate everybody for submitting your your nominations I know it was a it was a lion share of work and um probably took you a little bit of time to to get through them but I really appreciate it the Durham Board of adjustment mayoral appointment is Matthew Laing the Durham open space and trails commission mayoral appointment is Forest Perry and these are all nominations Carolina theator and Durham Board of Trustees appointment in the category of business finance Arts culture and community relations is Josephine K

Davis the Durham open space and trails commission appointment in the category of w three the nomination is Harrison Gilbert the Durham bicycle and pedestrian advisory commission appointment and the category of walking running pedestrian Community for marginalized groups um there was um consensus to re-advertise the one did no I don't think I I'm not going in order but there was one to re advertise there was yes it's number six item is that the one we talked about earlier no that was item 10 the Durham workers's Rights Commission appointment in the category of diverse background is Christopher Anderson the racial Equity commission

appointment representing Ward 2 is Michelle Burks augenstein for the Durham cultural Advisory Board appointment there were five and the decab recommended Laura Richie Eric Bower Linda C beins and Pamela Bond and Santos Flores and those were the ones that were nominated for the participatory budgeting committee appointments for the category of atlarge Hannah bartalo Rosa I kapari Paradiso Bonita a Graham jard Haney Angela C Jimmerson Donna L K Murphy Lou Axel Herrera Ramos and Christopher e rhods for the Youth position ASA Bourne Garand the human relations commission appointment there were eight of them and um yes all eight were selected Natasia

Adams Michael Cornwell Alexandra Gwyn Kelly Hicks C Dwayne hinnant Jack Holtzman Harvey L McMurray and Thomas W Shaw now for the ones that we do not have consensus on is the Durham city count environmental Affairs board appointment representing at large there were two one of them has been decided and that's Jonathan Chan but the second one we've got a split vote between Karina Barnett Loro Rema garabadu and Sandra de Howell mad go ahead I just wanted to ask is that one that there was a recommendation for was yeah Karina Karina was the one who was and Jonathan Chan okay so those are the who I voted for and I would like to continue to support those two because those are the recommendations I can't remember you can move m to the recommendation if it was all right and

that takes care of it thank it was all right and then we do have the Duram homeless Services advisory committee appointments um the two vacancies one was representing faith community and the other former homeless person and that is the one that we're going to go back and contact the the applicants but I did want to defer to the city manager on this well thank you before I started to sort out the proposed agenda for your consideration the discussion was around reaching out to the to the applicants and determining which position they applied for but does that mean you're going to refer it back to the department or you're going to have that her in 10 um in the 11 days between now and the council meeting and leave it on the cycle that needs to be determined

before before I set the agenda it would be the council's it would be the council's decision um but obviously there's 11 days between right now and the the next meeting and it will not be on consent no no I'm not saying you need know by tomorrow I'm just saying you all need to decide if if if you want to leave it on the cycle and place it on I think GBA yeah I mean we talked about doing it quickly so I think we leave it on unless we don't hear from them and then we can reassess at the meeting is that possible whatever we have we can decide right so that go on a gba GBA okay thank you very much that's the end of my report thank you so much all right rais that um Sandra how was

reapplying so do have questions for the environmental Affair board Affairs board she's been to every meeting I actually spoke with the one of the board members and they said that they did not um recommend her because it was their understanding that she was not applying this time and she did not actually want the seat so that was why they did not endorse her but we have an application so it may be a good idea to reach out on that one just because she was reapplying I'm glad it's on GPA we have time to figure all this out well that's a different one that one's on consent yeah I would just move that one to GBA as well that's all that is you work today which one is that one the environmental Affairs board there a number number eight number eight I'm not the alternate I thought I thought yeah just to clarify you want item number eight and item number 10 shifted to GBA yes thank

you all right good luck thank you Mr Mayor and members of the Durham city council I have for your next city council meeting for consent items 1 through five items 7 and N items 11 through 36 and items 39- 42 or the GBA uh I have item 108 and item 10 and for GBA public hearings item 38 all right oh other it I um so under other items I just wanted to Circle back with Council that um there was the one outstanding item for a budget which was legal aid where we had left it that I would Circle back with staff and um Sarah deato um who's the managing director for the project and it is understood that there

is 350,000 plus give you know 350,000 plus that is rolling over into the next fiscal year so their budget for fiscal year 2425 is whole at that million dollars um moving forward what is in the base budget is $650,000 the reason that their whole this year is because they had money to carry over that will not be the case for next year so if Council when we are doing budget deliberations next year wants to increase funding for legal aid that will have to be something that we address as a council because at this point what has um been established by Community Development as their kind of Base budget and how they've prioritized it it is 650,000 so I just wanted to follow up with folks and say we're good for next year but it will have to come back before us thank you to that point I did want to follow up and say that I've heard from folks from the art the culture Advisory Board and they do want the additional funding

yes they do and also from Step Up durm and they do want the additional funding and so I do want to make sure that it's on your radar for uh that Monday tonight was all on my radar and I am in full support on on both thank you I'm just following up on the item I said I was going to follow up on that is all thank you it is on the radar that's what it'll be today all right um Madam manager oh some motion to settle the agenda you need to do that or no yes and so moved and I here's a second all right uh I have no idea what you're talking about oh yeah you're right yeah uh I'm ready I know what to do now um all in favor all of post all right let's go you guys are welcome to come to the baseball game tonight um cool awesome oh it's Frid night oh cool