City Council · Regular Meeting · March 4, 2024

good evening everying in progress wait how are you doing how are you doing

for good evening everyone welcome to City Hall it's great to have you all here um mayor Max how are you thanks for being here mayor Max we have a special guest in the house tonight on the front row he's going to be a mayor one day same is Max all right um like to goad and call this meeting to order at 7 pm and if we will let's have a moment of silence thank you

and at this time we'll have the Pledge of Allegiance led by mayor protim good evening friends it's our practice to stand uh during the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the FL of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you Adam clerk will you please call the rooll mayor Williams I'm here mayor protm Middleton I'm here council member Baker here council member cabayo here council member cook here council member Freeman has requested an excused absence council member wrist here and that's it thank you so much next on the agenda are ceremonial items and first we'll have uh council member cook

as she reads her first Proclamation American Red Cross come on up please good evening everybody um I'm excited to read this I actually am giving my 34th blood donation to the Red Cross next week um so very special Organization for me almost caught up to my age I'm working on it all righty so our Proclamation this evening whereas Durham is a city that believes Red Cross month is a special time to recognize and thank our everyday Heroes those who reach out to help their neighbors when they are in need and whereas American Red Cross heroes are on the front lines every day they volunteer their time give blood take life-saving courses or provide Financial donations to help those in need and whereas we would like to remember our heroes here in Durham who give to help people in need they work tirelessly to help in times of disaster when someone needs life-saving blood or in comfort of a helping hand they

provide round-the-clock support to those in need and whereas across the country and around the world the American Red Cross responds to hurricanes tornadoes floods and wildfires durm residents continue to strive for the betterment of its people and to provide a direction for the future by creating and opening doors of opportunity and whereas during these difficult times we call upon all of you to help create a better Community we dedicate the month of March to all those who support the American Red Cross mission to prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies whereas March 9th 2024 is known as Day of Service here in the Durham in the city of Durham and March 27th is known as Red Cross giving day now therefore I Leonardo Williams mayor of the city of Durham North Carolina do hereby proclaim the month of March as American Red Cross month in the city of Durham and hereby call upon all residents and encourage all citizens to join activities and discussions that promote understanding support and awareness of the American Red Cross witness my hand in the corporate seal of the city of Durham North Carolina this

4th day of March 2024 we would like to thank mayor Williams the council members and the City of Durham for this honor um as the proclamation had noted this is your Red Cross and please come and serve when we are um um installing smoke alarms on March 9th that's this Saturday so hopefully you can come and join us and make Durham a safer place and Community to live in and also what was also referred to for giving day on March 27th is that is the time that the Red Cross really could use any type of funds that you could donate at that time so if you could please help us on the 27th with funds and please come out and join us on on the 9th to install smoke alarms thank you so much and thank you mayor and

counsel um speaking on behalf of the board of directors for the American Red Cross I would like to say we request two things volunteers and blood uh any opportunity you get a chance to do either one of those is deeply and richly important to us we ask that you sign up and come out and give us some of that blood and some of that volunteer hours thank you just one quick thing about the 9th right here in Daren County we had our last um approve we validated it life safe it happened in January we have this elderly lady who because we put free smoke alarms in her home she was a able to hear the smoke alarm get out of her home safely and she is alive today because of the effort of those free smoke alarms so that's what we're going

to be doing um this Saturday so all who want to participate help save a life come and join us thank [Applause] you thank you Mr Mayor I guess a day of first this my first Proclamation as well um can I call up Elizabeth Van Vorhees hey Elizabeth so whereas removing anal animal products from our diets reduces the risk of various ailments including

heart disease high blood pressure stroke various Cancers and diabetes and whereas a plant-based diet helps protect the environment by reducing our carbon footprint preserving forests grasslands and Wildlife habitats and reduces pollution of waterways and whereas a growing number of people are reducing their meat consumption to help prevent animal cruelty improve their health and reduce their carbon footprint and whereas since meat out was launched in 1985 more than 35 million Americans have explored a plant-based diet and reduced their consumption of meat Dairy and eggs and major food manufacturers and National franchises are marketing more vegan options in response to this growing demand now therefore I Leonardo Williams mayor of the city of Durham North Carolina to hereby Proclaim March 20th 2024 as meet out day in Durham in the city of Durham and hereby call upon

all residents to explore the benefits and flavors of a wholesome plant-based diet witness my hand in the corporate seal of the city of Durham North Carolina this fourth day of March 2024 thank you [Applause] and I want to thank the mayor and the city council for your willingness to issue a proclamation that March 20th is meet out day in Durham and for encouraging Durham residents to turn over a new leaf and explore plant-based diet on the first day of spring the potential benefits you have unlocked for the people you serve for their children and for the future of Durham by supporting an increase in plant-based eating are enormous from an individual health perspective alone the impact is profound research has shown that plant-based diets can reverse or reduce the risk of obesity type 2 diabetes heart disease and certain types of cancer though eliminating meat from one from one's diet for one day is obviously not going to confer these benefits the

5 degrees celsus without reducing meat consumption animal agriculture is a leading cause of deforestation and is responsible for significant biodiversity loss and pollution and frighteningly animal agriculture emits large amounts of greenhouse gases particularly methane methane alone is the cause of over 25% of global warming and just reducing meat consumption could get the world much closer to our emissions goals in the United States to meet this goal the average American would need to consume about 70% fewer animal products on a daily basis the situation is dire and

actions must be taken at a global and a local level this has led activists for call to call for the adoption of a plant-based treaty to work alongside the Paris agreement to make the hope of avoiding a catastrophic Tipping Point and planetary warming a possibility the mayor's Proclamation encouraging people to move towards more plant-based eating and less Reliance on animal agriculture is a noteworthy step in this direction and is an action within the tenants of the plant-based treaty finally the social justice implications of moving away from animal agriculture are also profound both at a local and Global level here in North Carolina it is well known that the Hog Farms of Smithfield have devastating health and quality of life effects on the rural promly black and Latino communities around them animal agriculture contributes to hunger internationally and and all this destruction and suffering does not even consider the unfathomable suffering of the nine billion animals a year kill for food who live and die in filthy cramped and inhumane conditions I cannot thank the mayor and the city council enough

for taking the step in issuing this Proclamation for meet out day it makes me proud to be a part of the Duran community and to be a supporter of Mayor Leonardo Williams in this city council and in honor of me outd we will be giving away free vegan food samples at the Durham Farmers Market on Saturday the 16th so we hope to see you there again thank you Elizabeth Elizabeth Elizabeth I would love to talk about a mayor's challenge being in for a month just to introduce more people to the lifestyle I did it for January and absolutely loved it so I've cut out a large part of my diet so thank you thank you we'll talk more I should also say I think the mayor probably called me up to read that Proclamation because I also follow plant-based diet so thank you Elizabeth appreciate [Applause] it good evening everyone I want to

extend my thanks to his honor of the mayor for allowing me to read this very important uh Proclamation on a night of great proclamations in honor of Arab American heritage month which will be in April but we will be resenting the proclamation tonight and I'd like to invite Fatma wazelle to join [Applause] me FMA is with with is not with us tonight this is lie man Asser oh okay all right big entrance big entrance please Proclamation for Arab American Heritage Month whereas for over a century Arab Americans have been making valuable

contributions to virtually every aspect of American society in medicine law business education technology government military service and culture and whereas since migrating to America men and women of Arab descent have shared their Rich culture and traditions with neighbors and Friends while also setting fine examples of model citizens and public servants and whereas they brought with them to America their resilient Family Values strong work ethic dedication to education and diversity in faith and Creed that have added strength to our great democracy and whereas Arab Americans have also enriched our society by sharing in the entrepreneurial American Spirit that makes our nation free and prosperous and whereas the celebration of Arab American ancestry and cultural heritage educates our fellow Americans

and counters misconceptions harmful stereotyping and shared abuses by other ethnic groups and whereas they join all Americans in the desire to see a peaceful and diverse Society where every individual is treated equally and feels safe and whereas the incredible contributions and Heritage of AR Arab of Arab Americans have helped us build a better Nation now therefore I Leonardo Williams mayor of the city of Durham North Carolina to hereby Proclaim April 2024 to be Arab American Heritage Month in the city of Durham and hereby urge all residents to take note of this observance witness my hand and the corporate seal of the city of Durham North Carolina this fourth day of March 2024 Leonardo Williams [Applause] mayor well um we are glad and honored

and as a North Carolina a team leader of Arab America Foundation I would love to thank the mayor and the city council for issuing this Proclamation and I would love to say we are proud to be members in this whole society to promote Our Heritage and to educate people about our Rich Heritage and also to connect with every American and make a very well civilized and understanding community of diversity and thank you very much that's it thank you so much colleagues and this is always the highlight of the meeting um when we get to make proclamations and and announce ceremonial items before we get into um before we get into the

business I'd like to entertain a motion to accept the uh excuse absence of council member Freeman so moved been moved and properly seconded all in favor oh I'm sorry do we yeah Madame Clark can you please open the vote please close the vote thank you motion passes unanimously thank you very much colleagues are there any comments question no comments announcements y I'll be very brief just want to remind everyone that early voting is closed but election day is tomorrow um these are primaries so they're often not highly um voted in but you've got lots of local leaders on the ballot and I hope y'all will show up to the polls

also want also want good evening everyone want to remind folks um to remember their ID when they go vote um that is a different than in years past thank you thank you Mr Mayor um thank you colleagues for reminding folks to to vote and bring IDs um I just want to say I had a distinct pleasure a couple Saturdays ago to go visit the Durham Bike Co-op um if you all know the Bike Co-op is located in the former maintenance shed at Duke Park uh more than 15 years old volunteer driven the bike Co-op is essentially a place where people can donate their bikes and the Bike Co-op either recycles these things and turns that into turns it into recycled metal keeping stuff out our landfills or they refurbished bikes and give them away or sell them to kids and adults it's a pretty amazing Mission let me just list some of the um some of the the metrics from the last year so um last year they recycled 12 tons of metal they accepted 1,32 bike donations they turned that into 368 restored bikes that they gave away to adult I'm sorry that they sold the bike or gave away 15 at no

cost they restored 265 youth bikes and gave away 114 at no cost and they gave away 384 helmets 172 light sets 127 vests and 194 locks all is a way to get folks more excited about biking and make it more accessible for folks while at the same time reducing the amount of waste that goes into our landfill so check out the Duram Bike Co-op if you don't know about them already thank you thank you that uh council member WR I um my good friend Joe nef who works over there with them Joe nef hosted me the other he was my host help me tear part a bike you know we we we met when I was a a teacher and we were doing some research together and I have yet to get over there but I am going it's good stuff so thanks for going uh and colleagues thanks for reminding everybody to vote um we all know Duram elections primary is normally uh the determining factor for the election so uh please make sure you take part um if not be

quiet no no complaining all right um on Sunday I had the honor of um participating with uh Craig albanes the CEO of Duke Health uh Governor Cooper uh Chris mckinty from the White House and uh uh D again I'm uh Danel Nan with h food tank and uh it's an organization that really focused on food security and systems and policies around supporting food stability and it was it was just so much it was such a wealth of information and I look forward to working with our County and our school system to bring uh bring home um you know just just funding support for a lot of this work that's being done also I just wanted to uh you know of course at and make sure that we're all having Ace on these proclamations but I I just I want to

reiterate you know especially being able to like talk about the diversity in our neighborhood in our community um so I I just really appreciate those uh folks just really step it up saying hey you know we want you to know our community and we want you to or we want you to know what we're doing in our community so I really appreciate those um and tomorrow I'll be headed out to the Yale mayor uh the uh Yale University mayor's college and I look forward to meeting folks there and bringing home resources uh some of these some of the grants that we're bringing home to Durham are started with just simple relationships and a lot of those relationships are built when we're at these conferences or on these acmis um so I look forward to being able to continue to do that and represent Durham and uh yeah bring it home so again and lastly make sure you please if you haven't voted already uh if you one of those folks like me who like to do the ceremonial day of voting

please make sure you go out but don't follow that practice just vote early all right so let's get down to the business as we uh get into this uh pretty healthy meeting agenda tonight I will say just as we get started um really appreciate folks coming out tonight uh there will be people agree and people that are disagree on some of these topics I what I appreciate most is our common respect for one another that being said let's get down to it I'll read consent agenda at this time us oh I'm sorry I I do care about you all I don't think I don't Madam manager your priority items good evening Mr Mayor Mr Mayor protm and members of the Durham city council I do have one priority item for you this evening agenda item number 16 2023 fourth quarter crime report additional information has been provided in attachments for and five in response

to questions that were raised during um by the city council during your work session that is all I have for you this evening thank you m thank you Madame manager Madame attorney good evening Mr Mayor mayor ptim Middleton members of the council it's good to see you I don't have priority items just wanted to make sure you you check through with us I appreciate it I like when the attorney's office does not have attorney U uh priority items uh Madam clerk thank you Mr Mayor good evening Mr may your your mic is not on thank you Mr Mayor this is much better Mr Mayor proam and City Council Members the city clerk's office has no priority items this evening sounds good thank you all all right this time I'll go ahead and read the senator agenda item number one oh first of all can you all hear us out there it sounds a little low up here to me okay all right we can we have uh the

mics turn up the volume turn up just a little bit okay I think they're doing it now thank you all right item number one Duram affordable housing implementation committee appointment item number two human relations commission appointment number three January 2024 bid report number four interlocal agreement for the distribution of sales tax between the city of Durham and Durham County number five Amendment for number amendment number one for justice matters Incorporated contract number 18355 for the immigration legal defense pilot project number six a agreement to F El Centro Hispano Co recovery initiative operated by El Centro Hispano Incorporated using city of Duram Grant funds number seven American Rescue plan act project arpa road to wealth building project number eight amendment to contract number 18394 between the city of Durham and Durham County for the provision of the housing opportunities for persons with

AIDS hwa housing assistance and related Supportive Services number nine fiscal year 24 Debt Service fund and water and sewer funds budget ordinance amendments number 10 resolution authorizing the Virtual City auction number 11 11 Cooperative group purchase contract knuckleboom trucks number 12 structural maintenance improvements for parking facilities design agreement and Kim with kimly horn and Associates Incorporated number 13 service contract with triangle stomp removal services LLC for right of way stomp removal number 14 purchase contract with bars Recreation LLC for the playground and service replacement project at world rer will park uh number 15 purchase contract with game time for the playground and service replacement project at CR Wood Park 16 2023 fourth quarter crime

report number 18 purchase agreement with near map USA Incorporated for near map vertical imagery R 19 contract with nwn Corporation for City Network core switch upgrade number 20 Transit Grant project ordinance amendments 255 fiscal year 2023 2024 service agreement with go triangle for the regional information center 21 oh I'm sorry 21 it all starts running together uh number 17 uh contract for shot spot respond service agreement 25 consolidation annexation Olive Branch Reserve North 26 zoning map change Old West Farms d 27 zoning map change Ora Green Hill those are our items

move okay all right all entertain a motion to accept the agenda move to adopt consent second remove the property second uh mayor uh Madam clerk please open the vote please close the vote motion passes 60 all right thank you so much all right yep yeah number 17 where are we there we go all right so first up we're starting out spicy tonight number 17 uh contract for shot spotter response service agreement and we are going to start with our online participants I'm sorry uh do we have we have someone from this

yeah hello chief I one let's see I'm just short you you can tilt it down um good evening mayor Williams mayor Pro Tim um Council city council uh manager Paige and those folks that are here in attendance and uh in Virtual um Patrice Andrews chief of police um I have with me tonight for any questions you all know Mr Jason Rist uh Mr Rist is um our analytical services manager um for contract questions Mr Shan Huey um he is our fiscal Services uh manager the D police department and then um I also in the chamber are members of shotspotter Correction sound thinking formerly known as shotspotter they're also here to answer any questions you may have and then finally online uh Dr Phil cook is on to answer any questions thank

you all right well thank you so much it's going to be a a lengthy session so you can you don't have to stand and rest that foot all right uh Madam clerk we're gonna go and start online you did say the check one are the ones that are signed in right there okay I'll just go and call each yeah all right the first person I have is Nate Smith okay all right can you notate that for me no just wait next I have Maxine Eloy person it's in person see okay Deon Williams or Damon Williams

in a hi this is Damon Williams Oh Damon one second I I I can hear that you're on but it's not loud enough could you uh test your mic again Damon could you he yeah all right all right welcome you have you have uh one second for I don't 17 15 right all right um okay we'll do two minutes yeah it's a lot all right Damon uh welcome you have two minutes thank you my zip code is 27713 you've heard me speak before as part of a coalition called Durham for a free Palestine and tonight I'm urging city council to vote no on shot spotter as so many Durham residents have

communicated throughout the years and in the last few months we understand that the movement for Palestinian Liberation is a local issue it is directly connected to Health Care it is a labor issue it is a housing issue a race issue a gender issue and it is intimately interconnected with the issue of policing and surveillance Durham knows this Durham knew this in 2018 when we banned the police exchange between Durham and Israel and we should know it now but the same kinds of surveillance technologies that are used against Palestinians in occupied Palestine cannot serve Durham either it is only putting my black and brown Neighbors in easum at risk and it would not serve the rest of the city either we also know that shot spotter doesn't work it's an ineffective tool that purports to prevent violence but that only ensures cops are interacting with neighbors who did not call them why should we use City money to pay a company that has to spend Millions on PR and laobing why can can

we not instead use this money to expand the heart program to improve our public transit system to pay a $25 an hour living weight to the workers that make Durham run and to address the issues of gentrification that are tearing through Easter um and displacing the black and brown folks who call it home we must fund something anything that addresses the root causes of violence more surveillance and more policing only perpetuates that violence and Durham deserves better thank you thank you so [Applause] much so I I I I appreciate it but we it's going to be a really long night so we'll work good as long as we can get through the agenda all right uh Samuel scarbo Sam are you online hey can you hear me hey Sam you have two minutes all right uh good evening everyone I hope you're doing well as a

2 minute response time reduction which is great for providing life-saving care in emergency situations but there were also eight incidences where shot spider gave no alert so for those eight incidents that decreased um response time sadly wouldn't have even mattered that could be eight lives lost because shot spot did not do the job we'd be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for it to do but again these findings have nothing to do with preventing gun violence lastly the shot spotter only

3 police deployments per day in the pilot area so it's not only wasting dpd's times and resources but also speaks to community concerns about overp policing I'm going to sound like a broken record but again this has nothing to do with prevention because shot spotter is fundamentally a reaction based approach it will never prevent on violence I think we should focus more prevention like adding more funds to existing programs that are effective at educating folks about healthy relationships which the CDC recommends for reducing intimate partner violence more than half of all intimate partner homicides involve a firearm another area of prevention is the heart program which targets nonviolent mental health crises or quality of concern or quality of life concerns and in 2021 more than half of gun deaths were due to suicides lastly thank you so much for joining

us all right next I have Joseph Fleming Mr Mayor Mr Fleming is not in the queue all right thank you uh Leslie St Dre just there okay Leslie can you hear me oh there you go you have two minutes great hi everyone I'm Leslie St Dre I'm a Durham resident a member of Durham Beyond policing mothers for ceas fire and part of the Durham for a free Palestine Coalition I'm here to urge you to vote no on shot spotter as well it's long past time that Durham divests from weapons of black and brown surveillance and invest in black brown and poor residents lives and livelihoods instead city workers are demanding and they need $25 an hour at minimum to afford to live here this is not a time

to throw away uh $658,000 dollarars or more to racial profiling technology set up to monitor easterm residents who need stable homes rather than more cops hammering at their door we can also use that money to expand the heart program heart workers are skilled at handling many of the crises our low-income residents face and they know that the majority of folks are encountering lack a truly affordable home as their base need to feel safe and to start trying to stabilize their lives permanently affordable housing is community safety it is Community Health let's invest in heart and home turning to the intersectional struggle I want to thank all of you who voted for a ceas fire in historic Palestine especially council member Freeman who was courageous enough to name what's happening before our eyes which is geni genocide it's continuing due to our government's ongoing investment in milit militarism and weapons of mass surveillance and destruction we must raise our voice in every way possible to stop us Israeli war crimes against millions of

Palestinians and saying no to shot spotter is one of these ways shot spotter is now um profiting from Israeli apartheid and occupation and its partnership with Israeli drone manufacturer air robotics which happens to already be deployed in the US as well we all know where this is going right especially since Israel is also known for smart shooter technology arm drones that kill Palestinians so shot spotter air robotics bullets and bombs equals oppression surveillance and eventually death for black and brown lives the world over thank you so much I I didn't want to be rude and you know cut anyone off but I will for warn you we were talking about shot spotter tonight if and I'll use this at my discretion if I feel that you're talking way off topic about something else I will I will cut it

off next we have Lou jent Mr Mayor L jent is not in the queue all right Robin Robin McGee okay make sure I'm stop it right hello everyone hello thank you for joining us you have two minutes thank you Mr Mayor I'm Shanetta Burris I live in Durham and I'm um speaking to you to ask you to not fund shot spotter I really have concerns about this and um I'd like to keep the money in Durham we need to fund our 911 call centers to help folks I feel like the inaccuracy of shotspotter has wasted the time

of many people when our residents didn't um need police cars in their neighborhoods um we also need to spend this precious money that we do have on our prevention programs that we have in Durham um so I'm requesting the city council to please vote against spending this money on a corporation outside of Durham and really reinvest in Durham and our community-based Solutions thank you thank you okay he's in person all right moving to in person

first up I have King Sage welcome you have two minutes peace y'all I'm King Sage here to talk about why I don't think that shot spotter is a good use of Durham's resources and the ways that as a Durham as an as a resident of East Duram the location where most if not all of these surveillance tactics will be deployed I feel disheartened and muddling through the distrust of a system that continues to prove its commitment to taking cues from the memory of our bondage lately I've been dreaming on what it would be like if we came to City Council meetings and work sessions poised for discussion on what we would like to do as black people about the harm and violence that is trying to claim our communities as a member of EAS Community design a participatory action research program I have been in dialogue with my neighbors for about the past six months to answer

the question what is one way we can reduce harm and violence in our communities now you know we came up with more than one way but in all the ways that were named as a collective I never once heard my neighbors seriously say that we needed more policing and surveillance I witnessed us instead turn our concern to the youth the houseless members of our communities and naming concern for the lack of access to basic human resources that has over time created disp created a despairing need that would turn anyone towards crimes of survival as someone who was houseless just two years ago I know that this is a truth that is self evident I witnessed hours of conversations as a part of easterm community design and even a fight that tested the theory of if we could really do this if we could really live in a world where we didn't rely on the solutions presented by the Caro system which I have already named is continually committed to offering options that are rooted in Concepts that

also brought us here in Chains you know what we found out that day that deescalation works that Community is real I'm not naive I know that this will take work but I wonder when DP dpd and the inventors of shot spotter will suggest solutions that actually Center the voices of black community members thank you thank you so much next and I'm going to go ahead and call a few names up next I have um Maxine Eloy elwa I have um sorry T Coleman thanks for the finel ftic uh support here written on the paper MX Lea Champion okay I see you may

start thank you many blessings um people are not interested in living in a police state with shotspotter we are condoning the the surveillance and the overp policing of very specifically black and brown people within our community these same people have repeatedly stated that these resources they want and need have nothing to do with cops patrolling the street when have cops ever made things safer we've seen police tactics In This Very City Hall being used to threaten and intimidate citizens and the same people who voted for you the presence of armed police patrolling the street has negative Health outcomes for people in the community from feelings of fear and isolation Mental Health there are even proven cases of high terms of high rates of pre-term birth the data proves that there is no drop in gun violence so how do we actually create a drop in gun violence by investing in the infrastructure and Aid of our people programs like heart

creating stable housing food and income resources investing in programs art supporting Youth and underserved people let us continue to divest from the military industrial complex and invest into this historic and Vibrant Community this is an appeal to your humanity and to you looking at the people in your communities as humans who deserve to live in peace ease joy and love thank you so much thank you Tara yeah okay got you uh good evening thank you for your time T I'm sorry sorry tar could you say your name just to make sure I'm getting it right yeah t like sorryi okay gotcha yeah um okay uh hi I'm here to urge you to vote no to extending contract with shot spotter um I live in eam and police are regularly in my neighborhood four to six

squad cars deep arresting folks who Express frustration they say I live here look at my license I live in this house and whether or not that's true should that small woman have been cuffed and forcibly detained this is something I saw just last week and as I recorded it with my phone a black fem officer chuckled at me and told me I could move along and that I could put my phone away and I think a lot of the police and durm think that the general public mistrust has to do with just an attitude that we all have and has nothing to do with their behavior um we watch undercover Durham police officers pulling over and ransacking cars while black and brown folks sit protesting from the grass um and I see these things happen a lot more often often than I hear gunshots which is interesting because once again I live in eam so I do hear gunshots and the thing that makes me feel unsafe is the cops roaming the neighborhoods arresting people that are resource insecure the things that make me feel unsafe is that I live right down the street from the College Prep Elementary School Middle School Kip whichever it is and when I walk my dog I see hypodermic needles on

the sidewalks and more policing doesn't make that not happen resources make things like that not happen um I grew up in Air Force brat so I've lived in a lot of different places and I lived in Raleigh for about 12 years none of those things were from my valtion but I moved to Durham for a reason I chose Durham specifically because I wanted to be surrounded by an awesome and Vibrant Community full of black brown queer people that look like me think like me love like me and I don't want my family over policed um I didn't expect to move into a space where the overall feeling is that there's a higher priority on policing communities than there is on funding Community safety initiatives like sidewalks and busy neighborhoods and lights and Parks things that are left to the participatory budget to cover as opposed to things that are brought to this Council to be discussed um thank you so much thank [Applause] you and after Leela I have Rafi

Virginia Rafi Z Virginia vertman a wman and 9B and Wilma Oliver Wilma Oliver you may go thank you mayor Williams hi my name is Leila Champion I'm a resident of Durham we know shotspotter isn't working shot spotter can only answer one question a lot of different ways how many the real question we need data on is why rather than looking to a company that has no ability to tell us what's going on with our community I encourage you to listen to your constituents specifically the members of our community who are facing the threat of gun violence on a regular basis data does not always have to be quantitative it can also be qualitative and it is always better to see qualitative data when track when tackling social issues so we need to

know why gun violence is happening in order to make effective policy decisions that make a difference are we experiencing heightened rates of childhood trauma mental health struggle substance abuse and suicidality especially after the pandemic let's put money into the access of Mental Health Services with an emphasis on cognitive behavioral modalities like the heart program they need more funding to reduce response times we need to you know make it easily accessible after people have come out of Crisis to you know seek Services once they're stabilized are there high exposures of lead in our public playground and Parks let exposure directly correlates to increased rates of violence homicide and rape let's keep up the good work that's been started on that front and go further Also let's make sure that our parks are well lit because we know that that also makes a difference in reducing violence are we dealing with domestic violence let's seriously consider red flag

ordinances the why is incredibly important we are going to need a multifaceted approach here but firearm access is the number one reason for gun violence it's as simple as that signific like we we just have to really roll back that like everything that we're doing right now and thank you so much for your time thank you so much good evening Council body my name is r f z I'm the president of the black concerned citizens and men and women with boots on the ground I'm an 80-year-old black res president of this country I didn't seen many funerals many bodies even one of my own babies you know caught up in gunfire but tonight I'm here in opposition to this proposal sound thinking shat SP too little too late like the like the scar proposal the consideration was to bring back sh

spider technology in the city entering a new three-year contract with the gunfire detection system what happened to their custers on um January 1st 2023 at McDonald's when we had men women and babies standing in front of uh Subway I'm sorry gunshots went off in a crowd of people shot system fell I want you to think about that we got 75 censes per square mile a threeyear deal threee square miles radius near downtown to detect gunshots and notify police expanded surveillance technology who are the stakeholders in this matter the business the developers and the people coming in the dur what they're trying to create you it's a field tactic it's a field tactic this company has made over $265 million since its insertion in

1976 think about that it's ran by a black man by the name of our our n's name is rap Clark I believe it is but the Bull City attracts many people and what I'm saying tonight that approximately in these nine seconds many cities disagree with this technology Dayton San Antonio Charlotte and all agree that the infectionist has has failed thank you uh Virginia okay welcome hi my name is Virginia I'm a Durham resident and if we're going to go on ahead and call this back I was in fact born at Durham Regional so yeah so shot spotter is a big Tech intervention and it's racially biased in its implementation it's simply that right wired published data leaked from shot spotter that showed the locations of the

sensors placed in cities around the us and it was very strange these lined up so neatly with historically redlined neighborhoods with black and brown neighborhoods it should not take a data leak to prove what we already suspected which is that these are placed in majority black and brown neighborhoods continuing an ugly racist Legacy of over surveillance and over monitoring and state sanction monitoring in these very same communities support of alternatives to shotspotter does not mean we want people to bleed out in the street no one here wants that it means we want an intervention that saves more than one life per 1,9 or $197,000 $197,000 for one life we can do better than that come on we're the city of medicine food housing insecurity these cause a significant increase of risk of

early death by all causes violence included Afterschool SC Sports programs are documented to reduce interpersonal violence and justice system involvement for youth these are affordable real measures we could Implement moreover implementing these kinds of solutions means that this money would go to our city instead of away from it this money is being paid to a corporation that doesn't even reside here they're not our people the community based Solutions like things like increasing child children's Sports programs would actually direct money to individuals connected to community thank you to people affording housing thank you so [Applause] much after n90 I have wiar Oliver Seth Hurley hello I'm Nate um I live in Durham uh 27701 I'm here today to ask yall to vote

no on shot spotter like many P City councils have rightfully so the technology has had a significant low rate at identifying confirmed gunfire in Durham so I have the deepest concern about this investment most of the gunshots in Durham come from cars as someone mentioned earlier and shot spotter cons consistently fails at detecting these like earlier this year in the village in East Durham homicides are up even after the implementation of this Tech participants of the Wilson Center that did the evaluation of shot spotter um participants stated that the money could be better spent on other things less listen to them um many folks have adds for focus on prevention instead of shoty surveillance technology in 2020 45% of female homicide deaths with known circumstances involve intimate partner violence let's instead focus on the recommendations about a office for Survivor violence we should focus on our survivors and limit access to those with the history of interpersonal violence um it's time to invest in other

options including programs for youth including lighting and high crime areas utilizing the recommendations that have come from the community and safety Wellness task force many of those things this council is yet to implement but you have the opportunity to do so um you can work with DPS to implement wellness and restorative practices for youth along with the adults that serve them Charlotte decided to discontinue the contract citing at a waste of money specifically the system operated as designed however based on the experience with the system cmpd feels like the return on investment was not high enough to justify a renewal please quit wasting our money um cnpd was unsuccessful in identifying and Prosecuting the people who fired the shots and other cities have uh seen that this Tech has caused police to profile people that don't have guns that happen to be in these areas where supposed gunfire was found do not renew the shot spotter contract and also raise worker wages to $25 an hour thank

m. I heard

m. I did not call 911 because I was like I can't tell them where it is so my hope is that for the law-abiding citizens that that you look at it as let's take this multi-prong approach we're not asking shots spot uh spotter to be the spear that solves the problem I'm saying let it be one of the the tens of the fork to help address this gun violence and use this technology to get the help needed where it's needed um the final thing I want to say is that certain areas of durm are becoming a war zone you've got folks that do not want to come out of their house past a certain time of night for fear and this shouldn't not be so no matter what your ZIP code is um so I know it's not the

saw of all and there are some great suggestions on how to reduce the violence but let's at least look at multi-prong approach thank you uh Seth Hurley followed by Britney uh Britney Pine okay I'm G to ask you to pronounce when you come up and um some okay some of y'all's handwriting look like mine when it went bad in first grade we got to do better here my handwriting went bad in first grade and never came back so um this is last say mullette uh okay I I was talking jonan now you don't want to come up I'm sorry all right okay all right yeah so you're a after Britney Seth go ahead hi city council my name is Seth Hurley I am a high school senior at the durm school of the arts and I'm here as the coacher of and representing the young Democratic socialists of America at durm School of the Arts I'm also here as the dur Branch

5 million a year on on the heart program a 3 to 4% increase or expansion to the heart program would cost about what you're looking to spend on shot spotter while being significantly more effective the heart program provides a way for deescalation in potentially dangerous situations shot spotter does not the heart program helps everyone end durum by providing a back stop in case you are a loved one has a mental health crisis shot spotter does not the heart program saves lives shot spotter does not you may say that is not so how could it be council member Middleton you say that you people who are only alive today because of shot spotter but here's my question to you would preventing the shootings you talk about from happening in the first place not be a better way

of going about things see shot spotter is reactive people have to get shot before shot spotter does anything the heart program helps prevent shootings by improving the mental health of the community you don't need to get shot to get help from the heart program by funding shot spotter you take money directly away from programs like the heart program by funding shot spotter you allow for the expansion of government surveillance to levels never before foreen in Durham by uh funding shotspotter you fail to see how material inequalities Fu crime around the world and especially here in Durham you will never stop crime if you do not look to the source and by funding shotspotter you show the people of Durham that you are blind to the problems of the people if the options are the heart program or shot spotter I'd choose the heart program 10 times out of 10 and I hope you would do the same thank you for your time sorry hey I'm Britney price oh okay gotcha um I live on Mangum Street just a couple blocks north of a shot spotter

sensor y'all have heard from me many times during this year's long conversation I've written to y'all and Spoken Here with data and personal anecdotes imploring you to spend our budget on what actually saves lives tonight I want to tell you a little more about what I've learned since losing a loved one to gun violence a couple years ago in a different city my friend was killed in an outdoor shoot shootout and shot spotter picked it up dismissed it as not gunfire and then changed it back upon police request after he died I know this because when I miss him I Google his name and look at his art or his obituary or hope somehow that this never happened and here's proof that he's not actually gone and once while I Googled him I came across a Foyd copy of his murder file I read it what I read there did not convert me into a shot spotter proponent in fact it confirmed for me that preventive measures rather than surveillance rather than bringing more police into his neighborhood rather than more arrests would have saved his life I work in public health and I have a lot of access to Medical journals so I also learned during this obsessive period of

grief that initial response time to a gunshot wound isn't associated with mortality for people who've been shot what matters most is the hospital bottleneck between the Ed and the O which might seem like I'm splitting hairs but I know a huge argument here has been the maybe one life saved in the 46 second gap between shot spot and a 911 call this is magical thinking I've emailed yall references I'm not a trauma surgeon but I'm a data head and I'm a grieving person and I do want desperately for everyone urm to live without experiencing this kind of grief SHP does not protect us from it the Wilson Center's evaluation data confirms that nearly 25 years of data confirms that to protect ourselves and each other from this pain we have to pour our precious money and time and energy into our community please vote no on Sha spatter we can do better thank you [Applause] good evening my name is Kesha Mallette I will be sure to write that more clearly

next time um mayor Williams uh members of city council and all gathered this evening uh thank you all for being here I live in Durham in Ward 2 and just outside of East Durham I'm here today after a very long day of work because I am deeply concerned learned that our city council is considering throwing away more than $650,000 at shot spotter a rather ill-fitted solution to our City's community safety challenges I imagine many here have read the recent report published by the Duke Wilson Center and when looking closely at the data it appears that shotspotter now sound thinking just isn't meeting its own logic more than 800 calls without evidence of gunshots at a cost of more than $400,000 only 9% of shot spotter only calls resulting in a confirmation of a hearing of gunshot and then finding inconclusive any impact on gun violence

as you have heard tonight shotspotter has promoted more violence against eorm residents through policing of black and brown bodies during times when no one called 911 now is that sound sound thinking I would say that it is not and my neighbors and I deserve better than this this so what really saves lives here in Durham unarmed crisis response from the heart team safe affordable housing and as you heard earlier this evening ensuring smoke alarms in every home those actually save lives safe adequate public transportation and sidewalks as well every day I drive up Holloway seat Street and I see pedestrians sometimes with wheelchairs or kids in toe with no choice but to cross four lanes of traffic or walk in roads or with narrow patches of grass to the grocery store the lrat and other places I challenge our mayor and members of city council to think about them think about our community families and youth say no to shot spotter thank you thank [Applause]

you ni Rodriguez Thompson we were uh talking about the the uh correct Annunciation of your name so please uh say it when you get up here for me and uh the rest of the cards I have Sam Hoffler is next then an dolon or Doran and Elijah moff uh my name is Anice Rodriguez Thompson and I'm a resident of durum um and I'm here to speak against adopting shot spotter uh first off it's a faulty techn techology Duke's evaluation of the shot spotter program showed that only 8% of total calls to the police were proven accurate um you might say well it's a free trial might as well try it what's the harmer cost uh the cost here is the safety of durm community members um think about what it means to be afraid to exist in and move around your neighborhood knowing at any moment the

police could be called and knowing that the police will arve armed and ready to confront prepared to escalate rather than deescalate consider how that might impact your day-to-day life how on guard you might be as a parent how nervous you'd feel when your kids leave the house um think about the mental toll that might take um on top of the stress uh you already have from police presence in the neighborhood where excessive force threat of arrest and harassment is common uh these are not the solutions that Durham is asking you for those living in East Durham where shot spotter would be installed and especially black community members who are most targeted by overp policing deserve aay in what will keep them safe and secure both emotionally and physically please listen to them rather than investing in shotspotter invest in housing and youth services the heart program and other programs that will address the material needs of the community and will actually keep them safe thank you right mayor Max is here to speak out

against shot spotter I'm deeply troubled to have to be here tonight I really wish that Council would have rejected this outrate in 2022 at that time there was ample evidence of shot spotters flaws including concerns with it methodology Effectiveness impact on communities of color and relationship with law enforcement as attempting as it may be to address a topic as fraught as gun violence with a technological solution we must understand that an investment in shotspotter is not an investment in community safety human dignity life or vitality shot spotter drives interactions between residents and police and ultimately criminalizes poverty what you do as a council matters and I wrote this to you in an email but I want it on the public record your actions are a reflection of your personal values as well as those of city government when you see pain in our

poorest neighborhoods and your best offering is to send policing to send police there you are also sending a message and and that message is to people who are suffering and you say you're not deserving of support and healing only of punishment and surveillance I am here tonight and I have rearranged my family's schedule to be here we're late for bedtime and the reason why I'm here is um to request that you don't fun shots spotter but also because Max has been part of these conversations with me I've had conversations with him about policing and whether or not it makes sense to arrest or jail or isolate people when they're at their most vulnerable and most in need and even he can understand that that doesn't make any sense so please say no to shot Spotter and take the first step in letting people in vulnerable neighborhoods know that they matter and that you are committed to helping them heal and Thrive thank you I didn't know he was

doing [Applause] that hi my name is Annie Doran I'm one of the Durham residents who also has really bad handwriting um I want to thank you for allowing me to speak and also to thank all the people who have been so eloquent and well researched I'm so impressed uh I'm here to speak in opposition to renewing the shot spotter contract not only has this technology been proven statistically unreliable it also brings police into often lowincome and primarily black and brown neighborhoods expecting to enter a violent situation which sets up residents in these areas for the potential for unnecessary and even dangerous interactions with the police furthermore income disparities are widening in Durham rapidly current residents of Durham need support more than ever and a time when we need investment in infrastructure that can actually the better of Li better the lives of residents the fact that we're considering giving this much money to a company like shotspotter is

honestly shocking please vote against this thank you so much hi I'm Elijah moff I'm a Durham resident as well uh 27713 and thank you to everybody who's spoken you've done a much better job than I'm going to do right now but I did uh want to speak today as a former teacher a former Durham children's initiative tutor and a current special education uh attorney and one of the biggest impacts of overp policing in black and brown neighborhoods is physical and mental disability for students for uh people generally for adults for children and the amount of resourcing that goes into Durham for addressing those issues for students black and brown students with mental and physical disabilities is absurdly poor and to add on to that by over policing communities through using shotspotter and through using an an unproven technology that

we've all heard tonight to increase the logical fallacy of reducing ing gun violence by introducing people that have guns into neighborhoods that doesn't make any sense to me and increasing the chance for physical and mental disabilities for our students our children in Durham especially black and brown children in Durham I urge you to vote against this and that's all I have to say about that Madam clerk do we have L jent online L jent can you hear me I can can you all hear me yes thank you you have two minutes thank you there have not always been two durhams my name is Lent and I'm a mixed native resident of the stolen and occupied US Territory we call durm North Carolina I have called these ancestral Shakur lands both home and the center of the universe for 20 years come July I am humbly asking the council members and mayor to root

with me into the history reality and hopes of Durham's indigenous black and brown communities and vote no to the use of the sh spotter Tech names like shakori and huare which is a tribe whose ancestral lands We Now call our Zoo Grace our festivals and forests these proper names are proper nouns are quote unquote forgotten otherwise by the larger culture because at the behest of guns so many tribes found themselves removed or folded in with larger ones onto existing reservations guns were and are products of colonization they are part of a white culture we are all amongst and in some cases surviving in spite of um shotspotter is an ineffective technology it does not improve police response to shootings and it does not save lives here in Durham it reinforces

the idea that there are two durhams one that must be policed and overp policed and one that must not it would cost Durham residents including those being targeted by this over policing $68,500 for three years that's roughly what we were paying mubenga is there an Unwritten city government ordinance that everything ineffective and useless has to cost us the people of Durham over $100,000 a year if not may I suggest either investing that amount close to 34 of a million thank you for your comments yeah that's everything all right uh colleagues we are now back before the council

m. um I'm want to acknowledge my colleagues and um I'm the mayor now I am the mayor now and that is my rule that is my rule okay

colleagues okay so uh I'm basically entertaining any comments before we call for a vote on this matter and we have resource uh people here if there's anyone and they have any questions for them so I'm going to start down here then I'm going to the same way I normally do it and then I'll call for a vote and if you don't have any comments you don't have to say anything um good evening everyone um thank you so much for all the folks who showed up to speak um as usual I am blown away with your by your research and um your ability to articulate the issues that you are seeing in Durham and I appreciate you bringing that accountability to this room as always I hope you will stay or the remainder of this meeting I hope you will keep coming back we really value your comments and it's just it just warms my heart because this is my favorite thing about Durham is this real intentionality and

engagement um so I missed the work session that I um I did rewatch everything and um have read the studies and like many of you have stated um I'm going to go first through the data and I similarly found it not compelling the first thing that I found in the data that was really problematic to me was how many unconfirmed shots were picked up by shot spotter um this is just a small pilot area um and I I do want to say that unconfirmed means that no evidence of a shooting or no criminal incident was filed um that is the definition that's given by the study someone else has already raised this but I want to highlighted again out of 825 shot spotter only calls 752 of them are unconfirmed that is 91% out of all of the calls that were unconfirmed shot spotter only calls made

up 65% I don't find that to be acceptable an incidents that resulted in a gunshot wound shot spatter also performed really poorly only two two confirmed shots with wounds were shot spotter only calls the remaining 96% had accompanying 911 calls including the one incident where there is theoretically life-saving um Aid was administered response time certainly decreased we saw that in the study um and they should have because those calls had Direct locations and they went um directly to dispatch um however there was no evidence that the were the quicker response times had any effect on evidence Gathering there were not additional reports filed and also I want to say that response times are a serious thing that um I think that everyone is aware that

we are working on and we heard from our police chief on the work session about some awesome movements that they are making to engage their recruits and we are entertaining salary increases as you've probably seen in our budget meetings um so we are looking at response times um as well now I want to move into Community somebody earlier stated that qualitative data is equally as important as quantitative there there was a focus group done and though it was not a representative sample um the volunteers who participated in it expressed that they felt like the community was not engaged in the decision Mak process before the city council and so I want to just speak to my colleagues tonight to say that we have the opportunity to engage our community here today participants in the study also identified the root causes of gun

violence and they were focused on prevention and not reaction and again we know that this study was volunteer driven so it wasn't necessarily representative uh but we have done representative Community engagement on numerous occasions and we have heard the same sentiment from you the durm community in every single Community engagement meeting that we have had which is that we are here looking for prevention not reactive responses and what prevention looks like is holistic it is mental health services it is Workforce Development it is programming for youth it is housing it is art it is an investment in the community my colleagues have said that one potential life saved is enough to justify the installment of this program but I think that that misses the point completely shotspotter even if it worked as intended which as the data is in front

of us today does not even seem to do that it does not do the one thing the community is calling on us to do which is life saf requests of prevention housing job creation Mental Health Services the identification I've said this before I'm going to say it again the identification of the problems and the solutions to those problems exist within the communities that are affected by those problems this is not the right technology for Durham I will not be supporting it tonight thank you so much for coming with your problem identification with your Solutions and I hope to get to work on some of the ones that you've suggested thank you Baker thank you um I will be voting against the shot spotter contract this evening um gun violence is uh one of the leading causes of death um it has devastating impacts on our communities um along with traffic violence and traffic uh incidents um these are the two leading causes of death in the

United States the two leading causes of death in in our city um and we need a a transformation of policym at the federal level we need a transformation policy making at the state level and until we achieve that we are treating Downstream pollution from Upstream polluters we we have to uh react uh we are given so little so few resources and so little to work with at the local level uh that the federal government has at their disposal um so the the work that they do is is intended to benefit uh the arms manufacturers they're intended to benefit those who are already wealthy um and and the reality is that that we have to deal with the consequences of that bad policymaking so it is understandable that uh we might pursue and and have an all hands on deck approach to trying to figure out what are the different ways that we can address G gun violence at the local level um philosophically I I don't necessarily oppose uh technology

and information gathering technology uh that would identify the discharge of firearms I think that could po potentially be uh useful technology um particularly if it is focused on violent crime and not on uh small minor offenses um small low-level uh drugs Etc um uh I I I also think that this represents a a pretty small pretty small amount of of uh money when we actually look at the the contract amount um when we look at the community sentiment evaluation um participants in the community Comm sentiment evaluation uh noted that um they were expecting impacts negative impacts on police activity they didn't actually find there to be negative impacts on on police activity um uh reducing median emergency response time is in theory and a good idea and there was some indication from the reports um that there was uh some reduction in uh emergency response time

as as was noted by uh council member cook um and I also want to acknowledge that that this contract and this technology has received a disproportionate amount of of scrutiny and evaluation compared to many many other things that that we uh dedicate resources to and those are all the positive things that I that I can say at at this point about the shot spotter technology um the fact is I uh cannot unsee the uh reports that were provided uh the work that was conducted by the Wilson Center the um qualitative analysis and the quantitative analysis Anis um so whether we whether we and I think another thing to note here is if we did conduct this level of analysis on all of our different Technologies and all all of our different programs we would probably uh that would probably allow us to scrutinize them better and we would probably see reallocation of resources uh in different ways here at the local level so I cannot unsee the reports that were provided to us I

cannot unsee the fact that only 9% of shot Spot Shot spotter only alerts had confirmed shootings um in many ways shot spotter is a tool that is in search of in search of goals and and those goals are are moving moving targets um does it save lives um potentially one life according to the report um potentially one life and of course it we can't dismiss that and thank god um thank God if it is the case that shot spotter did save that life thank god um thank God uh police were called and and that life was was able able to be saved however as has been noted this evening as was noted by uh council member cook um uh there there are many more ways uh and we can save lives in many more efficient ways uh is the goal to to reduce uh response times um because if so uh then we can anticipate response time reductions um once um um excuse me one of the one of the

findings of the reports is is just how incredibly efficient and effective a 911 is um 911 calls were placed 50 out of 52 times where there was a gunshot wound which far exceeds shotspotter's Effectiveness um right now we have 77% um of uh uh Staffing at at 911 and that shows just how important uh 911 is and how much we need to to support emergency the emergency Communication Center uh furthermore the evaluation noted that quote we find no evidence that quicker police response enabled by shot spotter in increase the produc productivity of shooting investigations with respect to the likelihood of making an arrest interviewing Witnesses or gathering evidence uh do people with within the pilot uh area want shot spotter um that's not conclusive um scientifically there there's been no simple random sample um there may be anecdotes from conversations one way or I've had conversations with with folks uh in the affected area on both sides of this um overwhelmingly the the

participants in the community sentiment analysis the qualitative report either didn't care about whether the city had shot spotter or didn't want it I think it was 8 8 to2 um but again that that's not a simple random sample so we know that the community um is split in some ways does shot spotter help with investigations according to the report quote shot spotter reports for which there was no 911 call had a low yield with respect to finding victims Witnesses or other evidence at the scene um the report noted that a potential impact of shot spotter coming back to 911 its importance could have though there was no evidence uh that it occurred over this one-year trial period in this 3 square m area is potentially to to dampen residents motivation to dial 911 which would have devastating impacts given that out of those 52 uh gunshot gunshot wounds incidents 50 of them were called in uh by 911 um after we voted against shot spotter 3 months ago the Fraternal Order the police

issued a letter in support of shot spotter however I've even spoken with Rank and file police officers that question the value of shot spotter in fact uh asked that we not vote uh for shot spotter so uh that just indicates to me that there is even disagreement among uh Rank and file police officers in law enforcement on this technology um it is a uh I will say one more thing on this I think it's a detriment that we would even consider this um recognizing that uh it would reinforce a positive feedback loop of a of an industrial complex a private uh profit motivated company that is lobbying for itself that is placing blown up pictures of uh my colleagues and fellow council members on social media and demanding that that uh that folks call them up and and Lobby so public resources going to a private uh profit motivated company that uses those public resources to Lobby for itself is

not something that I can get on board with those are my comments thank [Applause] you thank you Mr Mayor um uh yeah so you know this issue's been um around for a while certainly was an issue during the campaign and during the campaign um I said at the time I will Reserve judgment on shot spotter until the full evaluation comes in and so the evaluation is now in so I I um give great thanks to the folks at the Wilson Center um for Science and Justice a Duke for a great evaluation I have a couple I have a couple comments and I'll keep them pretty brief um the first thing is in my reading again appreciations to Duke for the evaluation but I find the results very inconclusive on the one hand clearly there's some outputs that came out of this right so a doubling of of gunshot notifications and improving response times that's a clear output right at the same time based on the results of the regression analysis that was done to

compare performance in that three square mile area the year before and then the year during shotspot implementation the analysis concludes no indication that the pilot intervention increased the productivity of Investigations of incidents with 911 gunfire calls that means no measurable impact on arrests no measurable impact on Gathering evidence and no measurable impact on interviewing Witnesses further did shot spotter reduce gun violence the report concludes it's not possible to reach a conclusion so second then I'm kind of confused about the goal of shotspotter right when this first came up the idea was we're going to reduce violence right we're going to reduce gun violence and Durham reduce crime we've heard lately that the that the case really that it's going to save lives right um I'm all about saving lives and I am grateful for the police officers who responded and the one case that we read about in the report that seems to indicate police came sooner than they would have and potentially Sav the life although again the report says it can says that the

conclusion is speculation and cannot be confirmed but it appears one life was saved and and my colleague said we thank God that that life was saved so if the goal is really saving lives then there's a whole another solution set we could be thinking about about how to save lives and Durham we heard many here today in the comments from folks online in and in the room I will say I'll throw out one myself I just at a meeting last week of the Metropolitan planning organization of which Duram is a part there are a number of corridors in the in the MPS that are considered dangerous corridors the most dangerous Corridor in Durham Chapel Hill and carboro is the one-way pair at Duke and Gregson right so in the last three years studied there are 167 fatal or other car crashes on Duke and Gregson right that was three fatalities four disabling events as well as other crashes that that cause massive injuries right so if we're talking about safety and saving lives that's another way we can think about saving lives I just want to put that out there the last thing I'll say is I'm really struck um by my colleague by comment my

colleague council member Baker mentioned at at the budget treat last Friday that we receive a ton of input from our community we do a great job of that we've had a community survey of residents we received just last Friday the report of a of a um um the um the community budget conversations we the Duke engage program did engagement for the comprehensive plan so we do a lot of community engagement here and what we consistently hear are the same themes people want affordable housing they want public transportation especially bike ways safe uh safe uh bus bus shelters and they want sidewalks and so and they want to see so they want to see investments in Social needs as a way to address Public Safety and so when I take this all into account the public feedback the conversations here emails certainly as my colleagues have mentioned the community sentiment evaluation when I take that all into account what I hear is the community lacks confidence and Trust in shotspotter as a way to do community safety and Public Safety end Durham and so with that lack of

confidence and Trust in the community and with a report that I find very inconclusive I will not be supporting the extension of the shotspotter contract thank [Applause] you thank you Mr Mayor good evening everyone thank you so much uh for being here tonight and for my colleagues for their incredibly thoughtful uh comments on and input um I want to associate myself with a number of things that my my colleagues have said all of them I think I've touched on really important aspects of this discussion I I want to take a little different route and and just try and um recenter what's at the middle of this conversation I um I appreciate the great work that our friends at the Wilson Center did at Duke um but Duke is not the center of this conversation and and I want to it's interesting the energy and the difference that we're giving to Duke um in this debate and I'm wondering

will this energy persists when we have future issues come before us Duke the Wilson Center is a component of the conversation but there are some other data points um there are data points from our law enforcement professionals who work for us uh past mayors our sheriff and people that live in these communities and we've heard from some of them tonight I want to firstly and and you know facts matter and I want to talk about some of the things that we've said but I want to bring it back to Durham because it's very difficult to respond to nationalized aggregate comments about policing taking the worst of Ferguson taking the worst of the Rampart Division LAPD and the 80s taking the worst of the NYPD taking the of Boston in the 70s creating a composite of policing and then asking us to govern in Durham as if that's our Police

Department it's not um I'm a local guy I'm not running for congress I'm not seeking any higher office so the data points that inform my decisions are Durham data points and I think that's important and I want to be forthright about that the first thing I think that needs to be addressed is that and I think council member R you gave voice to this no one ever said uh and I was when I brought up shot spotter back in 2015 2016 I wasn't even in office at the time no one ever said that shot spotter was going to reduce gun violence no one said that that argument was created and then refuted as part of the discussion what was said is that we could reduce response time what was said is that getting to gunfire faster is important what was said that knowing

precisely where gunfire comes in our streets is not a threat to our democracy what was said that it could potentially save lives as it has done multiple times in Wilmington and other cities in this state now and respectfully I don't know how much a life is worth or if it were your family members what if 197,000 is too much or I don't know what that price is but my suspicion is that if we spoke to the family of that person in Durham whose life was potentially saved their price tag would probably be a lot higher than some of the ones I've heard bandied about in this chamber just my suspicion and and I think a good litness test is how much is somebody sitting across from your table worth so I just I just want to be very clear that nobody said that it would reduce gun violence this just not true it's a St argument I think that the Wilson report and I'm grateful for the work that they've done has enough in it where if

you were against shot spotter there are things in there that are going to crystallize your position and if you were Force shot spotter uh there are things in there that's going to crystallize your position um many things inconclusive but what's not inclusive is what we've heard from our own professionals I want to Center another academic institution with all due respect to Duke I'd like to Center another prominent academic institution in this conversation I want to Center North Carolina Central University a scholar a Bastion of scholarship as well just as much as duke who's actually in the neighborhood where shot spotter sensors are deployed North Crown Central University asked us to do this as an institution because they're in the neighborhood they have just as many scholars as du they are uh keenly aware of the abuse and neglect that has plagued the black community black and brown

community over the centuries in school some of the best scholarship on that has come from North Car Central University those Scholars at nccu who are actually in the neighborhood looked at this technology and looked at it and said let's try it my suspicion is that if there were overp policing going on or if it would do harm or even after a year of seeing it if it would do harm nobody would beat North Car Central University to the punch and calling for dismissing this technology so I I want to Center nccu as opposed to Duke with all due respect to Duke I want to Center our police chief who did not who's been very sober and straightforward and professional so much so that other cities are are looking at Durham to see how Durham deployed this technology this imperfect technology but deployed this technology and put around it systems and structures that even other cities said wow that's a great idea I want to Center the police chief who said it's been a useful

tool I want to Center our Sheriff who said it's a useful tool all black folk by the way a useful tool but beyond that I want to Center the black and brown people who actually live in these neighborhoods who I've spoken to and some of you have been here and you want to talk about inconclusive I I want to Center them and I I'm very appreciative of um the diverse array of folk who have um explained to us the needs of black and brown people and I'm appreciative of it I am but but I want to Center the black and brown folk who I spoke to who who starting back in 2015 2016 said I don't even call the police anymore because I know folk don't care I train my kids to jump in the bathtub when they hear gunfire I train my kids to jump off of bikes and get behind garbage cans and Duck and Cover like soldiers where they hear gunfire can we try anything and what really got me uh uh last year

someone said we see y'all we see you and you want to talk about money and where money goes we see you spend money on pickle ball and we see you spend money on uh uh protected bike Lanes by the way everything I I support all those and voted for all of that um lots of money on those things you can't spend money to try this in our neighborhood you can't spend money to tribes in our neighborhood for so they see what we what our priorities are I also want to speak to this this comparison of the heart program to shotspotter a as if there's tension between the two everybody I know who supports shotspotter nobody who supports shotspotter is against a heart program no what I have encountered however were folk who are for the heart program who are against shotspotter and they're two totally different Lanes no one is recommending when shots fired

comes in or we have an active shooter no one is saying send clinical social workers to those incidents there there's no comparison in Mission of course we support the heart program because the government should have the tools to respond to every type of situation and I'm glad to hear this this this concern and desire for root cause initiatives let's get at it um when I first talked about shotspotter it was the fourth or fifth thing on my list the first thing I talked about was guaranteed income done talked about the Marshall Plan done talked about expanding violence Interruption shot spot is just that shiny thing that all of the attention but when we were talking about guaranteed income and these other initiatives this room wasn't his filled when we were talking about the Marshall Plan for the black community that we're so aware of uh so concerned about this room wasn't fill so I'm all for the root cause initiatives we can do shot spotter we can do the heart program we can do

pickle ball we can do uh a protected bike Lanes we can fix potholes and we can bust uh bolster up our 911 Center so those are the folk who I'm I'm I'm centering uh in this conversation central people who live there our police chief former mayor our Sheriff as well and I'm very grateful and I will say this finally shots spotter is not a surveillance tool it does not surveil that is an incorrect usage of the term they are passive sensors that are awakened by an acoustic threshold event you know what is surveillance tool video cameras as a matter of fact the universal symbol for surveillance is a video camera we put video cameras in every public housing complex in this city and nobody said anything so we put a tool of surveillance and you know what it enables us to do we get high resolution

videos of you getting victimized so they can go viral the next day so we'll spend money on surveillance to get pictures of you getting victimized but we won't spend money on technology to send help in real time and if you're against surveillance if you have a problem with surveillance why do we put video cameras in our public housing complexes where was the outcry for that and what do they do they're on 24 this is surveillance they're on 247 and they just watch people they don't send help they don't they don't act ambulances they just watch and the next day and the next day we have videos and when they don't and when they and when when people need help well whatever so I I want to honor All of You Who Come came out tonight and I want to honor all of you who who um spoke passionately I believe I believe this is durm we're not going to have uh SWAT

teams roaming through our neighborhoods and throwing people up against buildings and and we're not going to do stoping fris in Durham we're not going to do that in Durham and I appreciate and and I honor those of you that have come out but I trust our police chief I trust our Sheriff I trust North Carolina Central I trust the people I've spoken to and I make to you this promise if shot spotter if I thought shot Spotter and I know my colleagues up here are as well if we thought that shot Spotter and in this past year the horror stories that we heard that were going to be over policing didn't happen what did happen is that our response time went up and I'm sorry that it was just one life it was just one year who knows what will happen uh uh if it were on for years now um I think one life is worth it and I trust those professionals and I trust du but I also trust North Carina Central University um I'll be supporting the extension thank you Mr Mayor thank you counc

babo thank you hold on I'm so sorry hold on real quick thank you um good evening everyone uh I think it's pretty known how I feel about shotspotter uh in this community I um have sat up here as long as mayor proem and this has been a long quite frankly protracted battle I do want to reframe some things that came up this evening obviously I'm a no I've been a no since the get um and I think that what is true and fair between what everyone has said and I've agreed with what many of my colleagues have said is that the data at this point is inconclusive you can draw what you want from the Wilson Center study um potentially life saved uh better response times those are all positives but ultimately it's about resources and how we allocate them and

as we were very clearly reminded by our wonderful city manager at our first budget Retreat we don't have a money tree we don't print money we are not responsible for that and so we have to as fiduciaries of the city take the responsibility of how we're using our collected dollars and be good Steward stewards of those money and so ultimately that's why I don't support shotspotter because it to me is a slippery slope we did it in this part of the city we all know that there's gunfire all over the city I live in Duke Park and I regularly hear gunfire I think many of us live in neighborhoods where we regularly hear gunfire and so then it becomes what it's happened in other communities and we have data that shows that it starts somewhere small and then it does spread mostly to black and brown and lowincome communities and there is a cost to that this is not a free program and so that is what my concern is that next year there's going to be another ask for more money for another

neighborhood and when you make a decision about that then you're making a decision to not fund something else it is about the money for me it will always be about the money for me and at the end of the day our Public Safety is the largest part of the pie it's already getting a ton of money and I think that we should pay our police officers well I do not want folks who are charged with Public Safety who carry guns not to be paid well it is in my opinion a public safety hazard but that means that we have to also fund other things and we have a constrained budget model we have to pass a a balanced budget by June 30th of every year so every year we have to make decisions and this is not a decision that I think is worth paying for and I do want to just say because I looked it up I was on Council when this was initially proposed and it was initially proposed by the mayor PM who brought the shots spotter vendor and then City staff came to us in January of 2019 I had to

go back through all of my work sessions um to find this because I remembered when it was initially presented to us something different and so I feel like the goalpost has actually been moved so I want to read what was shared in that proposal to council at the beginning of 2019 this was The Proposal that was shared these are the words that were stated this was a core belief of the shotspotter company now sound thinking um our core belief our inspiration comes from our principal founder Dr Bob Shen's core belief that technology and its highest and best use should be harnessed for social good the collective passion of our employees investors and partners is based on providing a compelling solution and Consulting expertise focus on helping reduce gun violence and creating safety more vibrant communities coping with epidemic epidemic of gun violence we are committed to developing comprehensive respectful and intimate Partnerships with agencies and the respective cities organizer around making positive

difference today shot spotter is highly regarded as a critical component of a comprehensive gun violence reduction strategy so I do not think to come now and I agree we did get better response rates I will not argue that I will not argue the data but to change the argument around your tool so that you can sell it better is dishonest and not fact-based and I'm not going to do it [Applause] and so I will be voting no which is what I've done consistently I said no in 2019 I said no when it came up for 2020 in 2022 for a vote and I'll be voting no this evening thank [Applause] you thank you colleagues thank you uh for your commentary um uh I'll keep this rather short if I can

um I actually we we still have resource people here so um Chief are you still here yeah there you go could you come up for a second sorry to make you limp up um you I don't know if you need your team here um I think council member ciero makes a really a really good point around um you know the company says that they're going to reduce gun violence I if I was on Counsel then I probably would have said I don't know if that's what it really will do um because that's not that's not at least that's not how my understanding was of it I I've been pretty consistent in saying that um I I think about it this way and you know and one thing I love about Durham

is we can be respectful and agree and we can be respectful and disagree um but one thing I love that's one thing I love about dorham so I'm going to be very Frank about this um we are 10 something officers short about 120 I believe right correct um I just from my personal assessment it's really hard to want to work in an environment when it feels really unwelcoming and you know so I I heard everything that was said tonight in here but none of us are police officers we're not the practitioners and it's easy to really go online and it's easy to you know look at this inconclusive report which I'll talk about in just a minute um but you know one thing I used to really hate about school boards when I was a teacher was there were always

people on the school board many of them who are not teachers and they were actually creating the policy uh so I I hated that as a teacher so the best way now as an elected official for me the best way to do it is to rely on practitioners and one thing that's really selling me is uh with being 120 officers short is just is this a tool that allows you all as a department to at least contribute to you being a bit more efficient or supporting your response time so I'll just I'll answer that by saying any amount of time reduction is a positive thing um as far as the resources so shot spotter is a tool it's it's no different than the tools we've been using since we haven't had shot spotter active right um and it's and it's just one more tool in our just whole repertoire of of investigative

resources and tools that we have at our disposal thank you um and this may be a question for the manager uh so this is costing over the next three years about $600 and something, uh 20 maybe 15,000 each year uh is this additional money that we have to add into the budget or is it already there and if it's what wherever it is like what happens if we don't um if we don't you know consider we're not going to pass this tonight what happens with that money and where is it sitting so Mr Mayor the response to that is the the budget is adopted annually so whenever there's a multi-year contract that comes before the council um it is you know it is the city's you know intention to renew those contracts for future budget years but it is not binding so anytime that we pay for

anything we have to pay for it is it is included or includable in the current budget year that we're in so you see a three-year contract um you know we if we were to be executing uh that contract there will be funding in this year's budget to cover the monthly cost and then future budgets would have to be adopted to cover future costs thank you thank you so I just wanted to get those clarify clarifying questions out of the way um as a former educator I I hear a lot and thank you Chief I think that's all I have thank you um I hear a lot of you know we could use the $20 and something thousand doll a year to um to fund after school programs um yeah we can but after school programs cost a lot more than that and I know that because I used to design them I wrote the curriculum for them I assessed them that was my

profession I I was a practitioner in that uh that's what I have a master's degree in um you know and and with all due respect to my colleagues of course you know we are we and this is not necessarily coming off it from my colleagues but it's coming because we actually listen to to the community and we bring ideas in but we we're looking at investing Millions into an office of survival care and I think that that is something that's really important you know and I look forward to supporting it but there you know there are entities out there that are already working on it that I want to really like work on enhancing the institutions that are already doing it so that we don't have to tax $3 million here locally so that's finding creative ways to try at all rather than an either or it's a both end I I think but what I find really problematic is there are similar practices even from the ceasefire resolution to tonight on shot spotter

even some of the same faces and that's fine we can do that but I also what I bring to the table is my my own act my own actual engagement with community members who don't know how to organize you know and and there are real stories out there I mean what you all are saying tonight in the room what you all are saying online those are real stories too you know but the folks that I'm talking to are actual you know uh they're actual participants in this stuff you know they're not talking about what it could be they're not it's not they're not reading these things in a book they're living it dayto day you know and one of the questions I was as I was listening I was like what what what Police Department are they talking about you know I and and if you find any during police officer that's roughing somebody up because they responded to a shot spotter call please let me know directly and shoot me an email trust me I'll respond you know because I I I

think we have a Model A model Department you know um but it's really hard to want to work in an environment where you're you're taking on the actual um you're you're taking on the blame of what's Happening across the country you know it's just it's just really hard you know so um and I and I want I want to address also the uh the lobbying our colleagues you know uh people do that all the time they call your Senator call your representative I don't like doing that in Durham so I literally called a CEO of shotspotter myself and I said you have my colleagues posted online I need you to take that down right now and they did they did so even in this matter council member rist and I are coming down on different because I will support it are coming down on different sides of it but my job is to protect the Dignity of this Council and you're not going to mess with my colleagues so I don't mind telling anybody what they need to he but I hear

but I do want to be realistic and practical about this and I think that we can respectfully disagree on it uh so I'll close with this um for the resident survey the number one response was more police protection and we talk about over policing black and brown neighborhoods so hello I'm a black guy some people need to fall back and that's just a fact we can love and support one another but we have to be very careful about speaking over and speaking for people and if the number one resident survey which was overwhelming what's more police protection then we have to ask ourselves what I mean why are we I mean I actually heard people myself say listen you guys are taking police away from our neighborhoods we're not taking them away we're just

short so I just ask everyone to have a little compassion when we're organizing and when we're when we're coming up with talking points when we're sending the bot emails just please like just have a little compassion to make sure that we're being really ref reflective of who we're speaking about you know so I just that's that's what I ask us ask of us as the D community and uh of course you're going to get a lot of you know police response to gunfire in these neighborhoods if the gunshots are happening from those neighborhoods and that's just a fact there were many times where I grew up in a rough neighborhood and we had a lot of gunshots and I was one of the first to call 911 it's just cause and effect and I hope that we can take a holistic approach with using this using other methods just like we are with heart that was an idea at one point and I'm glad that we're using I'm glad that we're going to expand it I hope that we can have

residents responding soon to car accidents rather than armed officers my point is I think that we can be much more holistic and much more Progressive in our Public Safety apparatus rather than just in either or so uh I I'll be supporting it and I'll go ahead and uh yeah I'll I'll call for the vote I'll entertain a motion um yeah I need to read it all right item number 17 uh to authorize the city manager manager to execute a three-year contract with sound thinking Incorporated to continue using the shot spotter gun Tech gunshot Tech detection location and forensic analysis service in a total of the in a total amount of $58,500

move second all uh Madam cour can you please open the vote please close the vote the motion fails 4 to two with council member well mayor Williams and mayor protm Middleton voting no or I'm sorry voting yes Got It reversed thank you very much and um we're gonna get ready to take a break but I just you know this again a very contentious um topic but I I just want to thank everybody for still continuously coming out I really appreciate you guys and and keep coming out because there are a lot of things on the agenda I don't want you to get disengaged I just want us to be able to have Rich debate and Rich discussion thank you all let's take a break uh let's come back at

9:12 hell I came to the city to develop leadership and supervisory skills I stayed because of the city's culture and dedication to serving residents the city of Durham

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all right if we can have everyone uh go ahead and grab your seat two three four C all right thank you all so much we are going to continue on with tonight's agenda what am I on next 25 right all of these all right the next um item on the agenda is uh consolidation annexation Olive Branch Reserve north um and we will receive the uh staff report thank you mayor Williams mayor Peron Middleton honorable council

70 uh through a textual development plan the applicant has since committed to protecting streams on site and confirmed the developable Acres of the site as 48079 Acres now the properties are

700 uh zoning is consistent with the designation shown on the place type map thank you uh staff and the applicant are available for any questions thank you you've heard the staff report I'll now declare this this public hearing open uh but first are there any questions from Council to staff council member cook this is just a quick one and and might be um just my lack of experience but when we calculate um school capacity are you looking at students who are actually attending those schools or Does it include developments in the area that are set to be built housing under construction and that sort of thing no that's a static number from DPS okay thank you so

much all right sounds good we uh if there are no more questions we'll now um hear from our applicant how much time do you think you need uh we will try to move quickly due to the hour but if we could have 10 minutes just to be safe and hopefully we won't need all of that time all right I have a lot of cards here as well so I would say 15 yeah 15 minutes all right welcome good evening mayor Williams mayor proed Middleton members of council my name is Marie farmer with Parker Poe here on behalf of the applicant mil Creek residential I'm accompanied tonight by Tim cyers our landscape architect and the president and CEO of City Tim will be available tonight to answer any technical questions you may have about the project the property that we are discussing tonight consists of 10 Parcels along Olive Branch Road the

7 which will allow for the development of a mixed residential neighborhood with up to 280 town homes and duplexes as you can see this request is consistent with the zoning adjacent to and within the immediate vicinity of the site

as mentioned earlier mil Creek is in the process of developing a community to the south of the site uh which was rezoned and annexed in 2020 that project provided $35,000 to the Durham dedicated housing fund and also provided a Greenway easement along Maron Branch Creek and limited uses in the wildlife Corridor consistent with policy 165 of the comprehensive plan this site is surrounded by city limits to the north south and west and approval of the annex will substantially reduce the existing Enclave created by current boundaries annexation of the site will also allow for the efficient and effective provision of Public Services as the site is already surrounded by utilities the designation for this site is mostly mixed residential neighborhood in the place type map our proposed project meets the plan for the Mixed residential neighborhood designation because it will provide new homes on previously undeveloped land and is is designed to add a diversity of housing

types at different price points and densities in this case we are providing two housing types consistent with policy 165 um excuse me 175 of the comprehensive plan we are also consistent with this designation by protecting the most environmentally sensitive features on site by clustering the buildings on the least sensitive portions of the site to protect and preserve the streams and trees we are also consistent with the recreation and open space designation because of the Wildlife Corridor Greenway Trail easement and open space provided as well as our commitment that storm water control measures and recreational open space will not be located within the stream buffer because of some comments that we received from the Planning Commission and given the place the fact that the place type is still fairly new we did want to clarify and explain that the mixed residential neighborhood Place type is distinct from the mixed use Neighborhood Place type as you can see on this map this site and all of the surrounding sites are Illustrated in

burnt orange which reflects that mixed residential neighborhood designation and the part only Parcels in the vicinity that are designated that mixed use neighborhood are those Illustrated in purple so that mixed use neighborhood that uh is in purple contemplates the large high density developments with a mix of residential and non-residential uses as you can see those purple areas are clustered on roads that could better handle that higher density needed to support those potential non-residential uses than all of Branch Road as explained earlier the mixed residential neighborhood calls for primarily residential with varying densities supported by other uses in the surrounding area which makes sense for the site and for Olive Branch Road this application was submitted with a textual development plan which includes a number of Tex commitments uh we will I'll try to go through these quickly again a Max of 280 town homes and duplexes a minimum of 20% of each of those types of units

will be provided each unit will have its own designated driveway there will be a minimum 30% of the townhouse units that will be limited to having a onecar garage we have a VAR variation in appearance commitment so that no townhouse or duplex building can be constructed with a facade that is identical to uh the building on either side of it again uh we have a Greenway Trail easement that provides for a 100t Greenway along Martin Branch Creek we are also providing the 300 foot Wildlife Corridor that will run along both sides of of Martin Branch Creek we have an active open space commitment we have a number of Transportation commitments that were made uh based on the traffic impact analysis that was conducted for the site uh I've listed a few of these uh on the slide uh including the 10- foot shared path for the full Frontage of the site along Olive Branch Road as uh shown right now on our

development plan we have a commitment for 3% of uh our units to be income restricted units at 80% Ami for 10 years those units will contain two or more bedrooms and they will be indistinguishable from the market rate units and so this would provide highquality rental units with a driveway and a garage to eight families here in Durham because we submitted a textual development plan we did want to provide illustrations that show exactly where that Greenway Trail easement uh where it would generally be located again we are providing that 100 foot uh easement uh as you can see the green line uh on the image to the right shows that it it generally follows uh Martin Branch Creek there uh and then you will also see uh the wildlife Corridor is Illustrated in uh with the yellow Dash lines and so that generally follows uh Martin Branch Creek again 300 feet on either side of Martin Branch Creek and as you can see

this image also uh illustrates the 100 foot stream buffers that will be provided and shows the the general development areas for the site again uh around 48 Acres that will actually be developed uh because of comments and questions we received from our neighborhood meetings and a Planning Commission uh we did just want to note um and make sure um that folks understood that the new Udo requirements related to sedimentation and erosion control and the standards for phasing grading and tree coverage will apply to this project at site plan this includes the double row silt fence flul lence larger sediment basins the 10- foot undisturbed grading setback and increased project boundary buffers so uh there were also a number of commitments that we have added to our proposal in response to uh feedback we received from from the community during our two neighborhood meetings and our Planning Commission hearing uh so we have listed some of those on the screen those were mainly in response to

concerns that we heard um environmental concerns in particular uh so in response to those we have reduced our maximum impervious surface area to 40% we have increased our tree coverage to 24% we are now providing detention for the 100-year storm we are replanting only native trees and we are committing to not locating any storm water control measures or recreational open space within the stream buffer additionally in response to feedback that we received from Planning Commission itself we have increased our school donation to $23,000 we have added commitments to address to address green Sustainable Building practices by committing to all garages being pre-wired for EV charging stations and providing a minimum of four EV charging stations in parking lots to address the quality of the income restricted units that we are providing we have also added a commitment that again all of those income restricted units will have a garage and our team

has also been hard at work determining if this project can provide additional income restricted units and we are proud uh to increase that commitment tonight to 6% for 30 years with 3% at 80% Ami and 3% at 100% Ami so this will now provide 17 families high quality income restricted rental units with yards driveways and garages in summation this proposal is consistent with 22 of 25 applicable policies of the new comprehensive plan based on the analysis conducted by City staff as you can see we are consistent with 10 policies by meeting the standards set by the Udo and 12 policies by exceeding the standards set by the Udo and finally this resoning is consistent with with the review criteria in the Udo this proposal is again consistent with the new comprehensive plan compatible with the zoning in the surrounding area will improve the

balance of uses in this area by providing two housing types that will meet a demand here in Durham and as you will note the staff report also indicates that rental options in this uh part of the county are few and far between so it will also um improve the balance of uses with respect to that as well and there is adequate infrastructure available to support the proposed development so we thank you for your time and we look forward to answering any questions you may have all right so I will start calling names up oh yeah that's right and all right Madam clerk I'm going to start with my online

participants all right I have U Pam Andrews Pamela Andrews can you hear me uh can hear you can you hear me all right welcome one one moment I'm sorry all right Miss Andrews you have two minutes thank you um I wanted first all greetings thanks everyone for letting me know you can speak a little closer in the mic for me so I can hear you sure is this better say again is this better yes thank you okay thank you um um tonight I'm not able to be in person but I want to speak briefly um preserve Durham has prepared a very data driven PowerPoint on the Olive Branch Reserve North our concerns continue to be the environment lack of infrastructure such as Fire EMS police schools hospitals and Road

capacity um environmental damage continues as shown in the slides tonight on our PowerPoint Martin Branch as mentioned flows the length of this proposed parcel which is severely impaired 2000 plus n units measured in December in Martin Branch after a recent rainfall shows the regulations are not working the new storm water erosion control amendment that was mentioned approved in May has not brought the significant changes to Martin branch which flows a short distance to LIT Creek and then a couple miles to Falls Lake the federal lawsuit is against the parcel directly across the street is still active and moving forward we must take a step back back and ask ourselves is this what we want for our kids our neighbors our Legacy we must protect the environment my our preserv Duram will show that just in lint Creek and little lit Creek alone there are 41 dense developments under construction with 16

more approved and pending construction right now this community looks like a war zone The Creeks look like red tomato soup due to sediment pollution which according to a Duke study said mentation is considered to be the number one pollutant of North Carolina Waters a large bill will come to you to clean up Falls Lake blasting continues week after week with pictures falling off walls cracks in foundations and ceiling Wells collapsing and no one seems to follow up the city and county should hold the developers liable using the construction bonds Junction Road residents still don't have drinkable water we can do better people's lives and sou East durl are in Jeopardy thank you Miss Andrews thank you have a good evening next I have Donna stanback I thought I saw you yeah all right um Miss Chelsea Cook over there

7 million has been put in for the north Carana land and water to clean up the streams and uh reduce the flooding 10

3 million so we're up to $ 58 million then on February the 8th at the city council work session a cost of phase three for South Elby Creek is estimated $18 million well I learned today tomorrow at the county commissioner meeting there's going to be a Cooperative agreement agreement for the southeast Watershed Improvement plan with the city and the county at 3 million do so we are already at $79 million that the taxpayers are asked to fund and to clean it up so my question is why do we continue to approve approve developments where it is known of the

devastation and why are we asking the taxpayers to continue to PL pay for this you have the power you have the power to stop the devastation with your vote thank you thank you um Samantha Crop Rebecca Freeman I'm here oh oh okay one moment I'll come back to you what about Tammy Tammy SAA uh do you see a Tammy uh okay Kendall stand back stand back I'm here sir welcome you have two minutes all right I'll be real quick on

the I'm addressing infrastructure problems uh one there's already a pothole in ol Ranch that's 2 and 1/2t deep and four feet wide that'll total a vehicle I just want to say that I pass it every day on the way to work but my main thing I'm going to talk about is they asked me to speak about an experience I had last year in rural Durham uh West far as Emergency Services I'm a cancer survivor I was on chemotherapy last year and I had a severe reaction to my drugs and my oncologic nurse told me to call 911 I called 911 and the dispatcher and my oncologic nurse talked to each other and it was going to be 13 minutes until an ambulance could get to me I was having a degenerative paralytic episode where I was becoming more and more paralyzed and I felt like I was on fire my oncologic nurse said it would be faster for someone to come and pick me up that was 10 minutes away and carry me to the hospital then for an ambulance to get to me and we are looking at tripling the amount of residences in these areas and

I doubt we're looking at tripling the amount of emergency services for them such as ambulances fire department and law enforcement which right now I am currently very satisfied with our law enforcement but right now I will say that I'm not satisfied when I live in the city of medicine and it takes me 13 minutes to see somebody when I could be laid out on the floor uh I actually ended up going to wake Med instead of Duke because I knew I would get a bed faster I live in the city of medicine and if I dial 911 I should be able to have the best medicine North Carolina has to offer and right now I don't and we're going to make the problem worse and I was just going to say that I think before we look at expanding exponentially with all of these developments we need to look at what it's going to do to the stress for our Emergency Services that's what I have to say for right now and greetings to everybody and thank you for your time greetings and right on time right Tina mle pearon

I just saw her online hey good evening mayor Williams and members of city council my name is Tina mle Pearson my address is on record and first off I'd like to say that you know I understand that residents have the right to sell their land and to have it developed uh the issue that we're having is that developers have not cared how they've impacted the local residents or the environment and no one holds them accountable so literally the topic of damage from blasting has come up in almost every city council meeting for the last couple of years and it's still not resolved uh Pam just talked about those 10 wells off Junction Road that have not had water since Thanksgiving of 2022 uh no one follows up on the damage and the city should hold them liable the developers have construction bonds do they not the blasting company is not going to say ah shs let me pay for this they violated code and the city should

exercise its Bond rights and make them pay for the damage and since no one has ever paid for any damage the topic of blasting for this project needs to be addressed the Topography of this land will require extreme changes in the land at one point there's a 66 foot drop on the property and there are 21 Acres of tree Save which sounds great but it does look like all the trees that are saved are just in the blood plane um so the rest of the property will be masquerad and of course a lot of blasting so you know this property will probably be developed but please be thoughtful and make it the very best version that it can possibly be thank you so much thank you Katie Ross can you hear me Katie Ross hello hey there you have two minutes welcome okay Katie Ross bahima greetings

uh so P's making great points so I'm just going to say that uh today the heral son reported that there is such a glut of rental properties and Durham right now that landlords are giving away two months pre rent and a lot of other amenities to try to attract renters uh whatever the justification was in years's past for uh members of this council at least three sitting there today uh to um trade off serious environmental damage for a quick uh uh building and housing that is not the case today we have more than enough housing being built already built and being built uh at least for this decade so there's no reason to rush into this I'd like to point out that the Planning Commission voted 10 against this project and I think if you read their comments you'll see that that includes two

Commissioners at least that are normally very Pro development which would be C and the cutright um commissioner C said pointed out that this is not a mixed use development which is what we're supposed to be encouraging he says this project offers none of that opportunity it simply replicates the single use autod dependent patterns covering this area of Durham adding to rather than helping to alter the trajectory of traffic inducing environmental degrading land consumptive relatively low density single use development um the closest grocery store to this development is two and a half miles away the closest uh General commercial center is three and a half miles away and that's all car uh reached there's no walking to that um this project is a not a good one and it's not necessary thank you Miss Ross real quick thank you so

much all right I have um 25 I see Robin Jacob all right uh Miss Wagstaff Jacqueline Wagstaff not all right uh is there a Sarah Taylor online yes Sarah you can hear me we need you to indicate which item you're seeking to speak on Sarah Taylor can you hear me you can unmute yourself you are muted all right I'm going to move to our inperson

participants I'm going to go with who I have in my hand and then if I don't call you wait so the members that I have online that are here in person did you also fill out one of these okay gotcha thanks it's a little more confusing up here than it looks from out there all right first person I have Jason Vickers all right Tim Cyrus applicant Robin Barefoot followed by Maine farmer Donna Steinbach and Pam Williams you all don't have to get up and stand you can just wait till it's your turn so you don't have to just stand you close by welcome Miss Burris again um my bad you're bad my bad um I had so many things I was going to say to you all tonight again I'm Robin Barefoot

27712 but uh only 50% of The Preserve ear Durham team had to speak and they got so much out on the table the rest of them are here um um commissioner Baker used a phrase earlier tonight that I'm going to repeat and that is is that we are dealing with an industrial development complex here in Durham and we've got folks that have come into Durham and they have used a very linear degenerative economy they buy it they own it they take it they use it they offload it and they walk away instead of thinking about the way that they can regenerate and make a better Durham when they leave and go back to boar ratan which is where my defendants are are living this is fundamentally flaw flawed because it doesn't it doesn't perpetuate things that make us Thrive and make us flourish um the fact that Wanda said that we are at $79 million restoring Creeks think of the amount of work that we could do to repair the neighborhoods and provide for the things that our

neighborhoods need rather than shotspotter and I'm not even weighing in on shotspotter I'm just talking about all the things that the community could have um I want to I want to note that the developers promise affordability and they promise that with this growth of Durham we're going to solve all kinds of problems uh like housing like um diversity like restoring ecosystems producing walkable cities and right sizing the needed services and infrastructure but it doesn't seem to happen that way because we keep having to pay to fix these things so the comprehensive plan is a beautiful blueprint for how we get to the kinds of developments that we want um in Durham um there are all kinds of policies ones that will reduce automobile dependency bring us closer to adjacent commercial properties leave land largely undisturbed I discourage math grading and thank you for interrupting me Leo have a great night I am so glad to see you guys

again it wasn't me it was the buzzer thanks Robin um next I have main farmer oh this is bad handwriting this is Marie okay uh wow Donna stand back yeah let me get this presentation up okay Marie former want to pour yours up second go to next that's good okay good evening mayor Williams and council members my name is Donna stach I'm a lifelong Dr resident I opposed the Olive Branch Reserve North

plan because it is not consistent with the comprehensive plan policies and place type see the disagreements there it is car Carl and will harm already densely developing sensitive lak cre Martin Branch Creek and little Lick Creek waterers shed near the Falls Lake comprehensive plan policies that are not supported are listed and there were a few more members have said that the commercial and businesses and other uses that support the 15minute walk will come to the area after it is De developed well you saw the map there is little space to develop in this area planning commissioner C said residents living in mixed res residential neighborhoods can easily walk bike and roll within and around their neighborhoods to get to supporting places and Transit stops this is not this development it is several miles from any of their stores and businesses the um policy 59 says to

drastically reduce automobile dependency and policy 79 says protect Durham's most ecologically sensitive natural areas um policy 116 says to complete communities in Durham next SL okay yes um the Planning Commission denied this 10 to zero is inconsistent with the two committed uses um the development across from this property is in the SE LC lawsuit of Clean Water Act violation and um Martin Creek is already damaged Martin Creek runs along the proposed project see how dense the 41 red dots for projects under development in this area are this project hits the Martin Branch creeks and FSE lakes with a large amount of watershed and red Terence thank you m Williams is

next good afternoon my name is Pam Williams my address is on file um um I'd want to talk about the traffic did you realize that the traffic on this road Olive Branch increased 88% from 2021 to 2023 the road is narrow no shoulders curvy lack of vertical and horizontal sight distance 88% is without a single new uh dwelling added on this and as you can see from this map right here there's a lot that's going to be added in this area um right now uh there are six proposed develop ments that are being built that's going to add or make around 19,000 vehicles per day on this road the capacity of this road is 12,700 this is only going to make things more congested and I uh there is no plans in the 2050 uh comprehensive Transportation plan for any improvements to the roads in this area that means sidewalk shoulders or anything like that

uh left and right turns and traffic signals make make it safer uh to get in and off the road but it does not really traffic congestion the schools in this area are overcrowded already as you can see with uh uh Spring Valley and Neil middle there is 132 students not attending today so wouldn't 500 per student be 66,000 uh for a contribution this is just an areal of uh Olive Branch Reserve just north of it I want to to show how the wetlands and streams have been impacted this has been impacted like this since 2020 the wetlands was clear in 2020 uh this one protective uh land there's three policies that we have concerns about natural resources uh and there's more also in it will the wild Court a 300 foot buffer as proposed in the Eastern Dural open space plan Wildlife C be provided up to Olive

Branch Road will it be Disturbed and uh will this be included this section it wasn't shown on the map thank you I was hoping for three minutes I know I uh we we do we I use my discretion to cut it short when we have so much CU understand a lot of cars up here for a lot of other things okay two minutes all right let me see let me have see how I Advance it first oh wait a minute yeah yeah presentation okay cool all right so my name is Jacob Freeman and my addresses on files so the aerial image taken on 17 January 2004 shows where l Creek and little lit Creek ENT Falls Lake the last significant rain event was on the 12th of January where 1 inch was recorded at the RDU Airport this image clearly shows differences of water flowing into Falls Lake from lit Creek where all the current development is occurring in southeast Durham and little liit creek and all I can say to this is wow

these pictures should shock and concern everyone the amount of sediment flowing into liit Creek is incredible here's another picture of it right here and you can see where the line where the water is actually the sediment Laden water is coming into the main area of Falls Lake recent articles by the sound Rivers document the ongoing destruction of wildlife habitat and it's really important to note the sedimentation is considered to be the number one pollutant in North Carolina Waters and causes significant problems for fish and Aquatic Life an article on 4 May 23 discuss l l Creek turbidity levels that were 3900 above state require or state standards for turbulence the image on the left shows where Martin Branch up in the yeah left excuse me shows where Martin Branch enters uh lit Creek here you can clearly see the sediment Laden water coming to the main Creek that flows into Falls Lake on the right you can see our aerial development aerial view of development underway in the sediment Laden water in Martin branch and Associated Wetlands the image also shows where the Olive Branch Reserve North would be located in

7 to 4 40 times plus the state standard of 50 N for Martin branch and all these recordings were made very recently compare that to an unimpacted stream a Rocky Branch where the readings are much lower on the right side you can see the left picture is Martin Branch the right side is Rocky Branch so huge differences uh some has already been St or discussed about this so I won't the last thing I want to mention is that ethicacy study is really needed to determine the erosion control measures if they're really working thank you thank you Timmy next we have Timmy Saia this can it be she needs to be in order have the organized time Rebecca Freeman sure miss Freeman go ahead my slides are next um how do I CER slides up hold on just

5 um 6 and a half minutes but they're not meeting the standard times the second one is to incorporate the impact of future growth and Service delivery in their methodology consider using outside experts to perform a study that incorporates forecasting to determine the impact of future growth on current resources and I'm not sure that this is being done because we are not we don't have any additional fire resources in our area um with all these all this construction going

4 per increase in motor vehicle thefts in Durham County from 22 to 23

the 23 uh number is 1,885 which is 36 vehicle deaths per week vehicle thefts per week thank you so much makes up could you um has this always been your last thing so SOA SAA okay yeah you did good SOA okay all right if you'll put the PowerPoint up for me great so my name is tamy SAA I'm in Baptist Road in Durham and um what I want to point out here is uh the triangle Business Journal did a article in October 2023 highlighting goodwi Crossing by Meredith's home and this uh development is in Northern Durham and the zoning is not being changed it's by right it's 124 homes and a lot of times previously we talk about well if it's by right what is the cost of the homes well for this development the medium sales price is about 410,000 so that's a pretty good um example so if

you look at Southeast Durham we have all the Creeks impaired we have infrastructure issues you know this would be more model like what we would prefer to see um and then I just want to head back on the profer issues back to um why isn't there 66,000 for the schools um you know a minimum of 24% tree coverage well 21 acres is flood Plains and wetlands which is 24% of the 87 Acres um and you've seen pictures of The Creeks you know we've done the best we can on um you know storm water but they're not working so why keep doing it um they profer to uh plant native trees but how long does that take um are we going to have heat Islands out there and also um garages are going to be pre-wired for electric vehicles there's aium minimum of four electric vehicle charging stations but there's a policy that says we are to um you know dra drastically reduced automobile dependency and this

is a car Carl development so thank you for your time you so much Samantha Crop and and DOR thank you so much for your time today my name is Samantha Crop I live in Raleigh but I work in Durham in my role as the new riverkeeper I monit monitor water quality in the whole noose River Basin which includes about half of Durham County and the aerial photos and water quality data that was shared with you by community members tonight were from the 18 plus months of water quality sampling that I've conducted in the lit Creek Watershed and for the record I would like to state that in the entire 6,235 squ M noose Watershed I have seen the worst sediment pollution in Market Martin branch in the location that this development is proposed this is a sample that I took from Martin Branch today in the hours before this meeting right now the water in that Creek is running 40 times higher than the state turbidity

standard for healthy waterways this is not natural it's not ahistorical this is the product of runoff from active development sites and it is DM's most significant environmental crisis just north of this project area 178 acres are being cleared directly to the South 113 and across the street 26 acres are being cleared for a proposal that's currently in active litigation in federal court because of unlawful sediment pollution in Martin Branch lit Creek and Falls Lake Downstream lately you've been hearing often that the problem of sediment pollution has been fixed now that Durham has passed its new sediment and erosion control amendments and yet I encourage you to ask Durham city staff about how they know these new measures are working when I have I have been told clearly that the city has no plans to assess the efficacy of these new rules as the only organiz ization monitoring water quality impacts from large scale developments in southeast Durham I can say on behalf of sound rivers that the sediment pollution has not diminished yet I want to end with a short anecdote this past weekend I spent a Saturday

cleaning up trash with a group of volunteers along the mouth of lit Creek at Falls lake when we arrived the creek was running orange with dirt and everyone wanted to know why why are community members out there taking care of our natural resources when the city of dur Durham permits such destruction to happen as it stands this proposal would not only create more car dependent sprawl but it would further harm a waterway that is in dire need of our help please vote no thank you thank [Applause] you next I have an Duran I saw his name earlier they may have signed up for the wrong uh number okay um Emily wils and Mimi Kesler tired my name is Emily wils and I'm here

in opposition to the Olive Branch Reserve North proposal because I'm a pastor and we're talking about housing and I'm a language nerd I'd love to tell you about one of my favorite Greek words in the Bible oos which means household and it's where we get the words economy and ecology the oos is our shared home and so as you can consider this proposal we need to consider both the economic as well as the ecological impact first the economy or how we manage the Affairs of our shared household many in Durham continually fall short of being able to access basic needs particularly affordable housing The Proposal before you offers 3% of units to be income restricted at 80% Ami for 10 years if there are 280 tow houses and duplex residential units if my math is right that's at most eight units additionally po policy 40 in the comprehensive plan states that 10 years for housing afford affordability should run with the land in perpetuity and only when this isn't possible should we settle for 30 years we should not settle for 10 second ecology or the relationships between all the living things within our shared home clear cutting 87 acres of forested land

continues to degrade essential waterways sediment pollution is destroying habitats and making its way Downstream to pollute the drinking water supply for much of Wake County by depleting carbon sinks which help mitigate the emission of carbon dioxide this project would continue making Duram more vulnerable to Future climate disasters finally another word that stems from the Greek word oos is ecumenical or E ecumenism it's a religious term but at its Essence religion is how we make meaning of the world the stories that we tell and the sets of practices we engage in to ask ourselves whether our actions align with our values and so I ask you all what is the story you all are telling yourselves about Durham as you consider this proposal that it's growing and that we need to say yes to all development proposals in order to keep Pace with that growth that growth precludes us from the luxury of thinking about future Generations that it's their issue whether in 10 or 30 years they're able to afford housing or live in a climate resilient Community if we think of Durham as a shared home what if our story is that we define success as a city by the measure of each Citizen's material provision and housing status thank you thank you

Emily hello Miss Kesler hi I'm am Kesler I live in Durham um I'm a lot of what want to talk about has already been covered so I'm not going to reiterate all the details but I'm asking you to please listen to the Planning Commission they voted unanimously against this proposal they've been appointed by you and the County Commission because of their expertise and and substantial debate was in their meeting um there's an urgent need to stop development in that area the environmental destruction horrible traffic and there's no plan to widen the roads and by the way there's no shoulder either it's you know in the ditch um and I am not trying to make the perfect interfere with the good I do see the proffers and many of them are good some

of them could be better but adding people in cars by the thousands in exchange for a few income restricted units is majoring on the minors please vote no thank you all right those are all of the cards I have this is a public hearing is there anyone else in the room that would like to oh yeah that's right thanks for reminding me of my rules all right uh applicant would you like to respond to any of the comments yes there were a a number of issues that were obviously raised we will we will just try to address a few of those and then um leave that the remaining time available to answer any questions you may have um first and foremost with with respect to to the environment and and the construction and

the developments uh and other projects in this area those projects that were shown on screen that were Illustrated and and discussed those were all projects that were approved prior to the Udo changes with regard to the sedimentation and erosion control and with regard to M grading so as was mentioned earlier yes it is too early to tell how those changes will impact this area uh and so again at site plan all of those changes with regard to the mass grading and with regard to sedimentation and erosion control will not now apply and as those requirements go into effect we will hope hopefully start to see uh the improvements uh it was it was noted earlier that the comprehensive plan is a is a beautiful footprint and and we would agree with that um that is why we are very proud to to state tonight that we are consistent with 22 of the 25 applicable policies as uh noted in the staff report we are only inconsistent

with three policies and that is because this feedback that you have heard this evening is not new to us we have heard it at the Planning Commission and we heard it during our our multiple neighborhood meetings that we had and that is why uh I showed earlier on screen all of the additional commitments that we added to this project to address those concerns and so uh uh in the one one other point um that that we would like to address it it was noted that you know building by right it could be more affordable um the the 129 single family homes that that could be um developed by wri if you look at the sale prices of houses in this part of the county that is certainly not the sale prices that you would see if those 129 single family homes were built and to be clear again that is not what this developer is looking to do they build high quality rental products that are similar to single family and again it is to to fill that Gap in the market for those folks who can't afford to buy

those extremely expensive single family homes and are looking to have yards garages driveways but at a rental price that they can't afford uh and so uh we will leave it with that and then again we're available to answer any questions thank you do we know the average home cost in this area single family home I don't believe we have a a specific but they range from from 600,000 to 800,000 and um there's even million dooll homes out in this area okay I think my my dream house lot is over there as well but it doesn't belong to me it's a big beautiful home um all right well this is a public hearing I am going to uh now bring this matter back before the council I'll declared as public hearing closed and um colleagues are there any comments council member ciero I actually had a couple of questions

for staff and then actually a question for preserver Duram folks heard thank you um actually this is a question probably for is Kopac judge still here hi Kopac this is for you thank you um at the end of our packet there's the Tia memo and I just want to make sure I'm understanding that memo correctly um there's a bunch of proposed improvements is that what would like this development is going to cause those improvements or is that because that's how I'm interpreting it but I don't know if I'm right or wrong yes uh Kopac judge Transportation um those are broken down into essentially the required roadway improvements are broken down into essentially three different categories particularly when we're dealing in an area like this where we've had multiple tias multiple developments some of the

improvements have already been previously proferred by other developments so we have a category of developments that have been previously proferred and were essentially assumed to be um in place prior to the development so if for some reason those other developments had not completed them they could they would become requirements of this development we also have um some additional developments that we say may be required um so those are propers that other developers have made that at the time of site plan they're perhaps likely a little further away or depending on phasing that those will only be need it once a certain threshold of development has been reached so it sort of becomes a you know the first few developments may be able to defer that but at a certain point once the capacity is reached um the next developer up essentially becomes responsible for making that Improvement and then the third category or just

things that are required of this development automatically so the the section that is like because there's a whole it's like approved developments and background growth right and then there's another section that says tip roadway improvements it's like NC 98 at Olive Branch and then Olive Branch Road at Doc Nichols Olive that's the stuff that this development is going to have to do or no correct um the developer could be required to do essentially all three of those categories okay so they are profer all three of them so there's there's significant improve infrastructure improvements along this road correct um those that say may be required okay fall into that category of where if this were sort of the you know no other if the other development sort of ceased going on out there and this one got in front of some of those others potentially they could not have to do it but a future developer would um seems somewhat unlikely given the pace of development out there but but potentially is

possible thank you and then can you remind me um what is the percentage of ncdot money that has to go to Road expansion and um ro road construction and expansion yeah it's uh generally um about yeah there's 90% that automatically goes to highways there are 4% that go to nonh highways and then there are 6% that gets flexed or decided between that could go to either highway or non-highway so it typically runs about 94 to 96% towards highways thank you I appreciate that and then my next question is for preserve R Durham somebody from somebody you feel like could represent y'all's feelings about this and if you don't feel comfortable can you can declare that as well I know many of y'all are neighbors out there and so out of curiosity what is y'all's opinion on the highway 70

project um currently uh our opinion and I believe I well I speak for everybody in The Preserve Ro durm and quite a few others in the community uh we feel like the us70 needs to be a freeway to reduce the capacity um or the congestion on the roadway uh right now the congestion it backs up from Lille road all the way to uh Pleasant Drive which is four miles and it's every afternoon and every warning it backs up so you're and I understand that maybe within preserve Ro dur there are folks who maybe don't believe this but in general because and this is some background knowledge for Highway 70 right now the the current proposal as proposed for ncdot is to make a section of it a limited access road which is basically a freeway uh the alternative uh which is what um some advocates in the community are are pushing and and what I am pushing actually as an no representative Metropolitan planning organ organization

uh that does transit in the area is to do a Boulevard type situation so that it can align more with our mpo goals which limits Road expansions and um Road building in general to get us to align better with that comprehensive plan goal of not doing um uh car Carl development so I just was curious thank you that's all I have for right now thank you can I just state that everything being built out in this area are it's car Carl we have no other option and also uh in Wake County uh their plan is to do a freeway to the Durham County Line and then the East Wake Expressway is a freeway so there'll be four miles it's not a freeway than you 9 to 11 traffic lights I mean it's traffic lights don't reduce congestion Alex uh council member Baker yeah I have I have been out in this area

um I highly encourage anyone who hasn't um to go out there um it's it's a jarring experience to see what's been happening um it's it's an environmental catastrophe uh and it's self-inflicted um it's hard to describe it as anything but but corporate developer pillaging of the land of the environment um we you know Samantha Crop uh our riverkeeper a scientist has been speaking out on this issue for uh many months and years um the the environmental impacts of the construction process uh that has been occurring out there which has been occurring so quickly so rapidly um such such rapid growth out there um and that's that's one aspect of of the growth that that that has been occurring out there is the actual construction process the tearing down of um thousands

upon thousands of Acres of of forest of Farmland of wildlife habitat um I also like to think about what we're replacing it with and what we are replacing it with uh because we are a growing city we do need at some time sometimes to tear down forest and farmland and when we do that we need to be extremely careful about what we are replacing it with and what we are placing valuable forest and farmland out there with is uh the most unsustainable car Carl uh climate denying development that we could possibly be building uh the place type out there um is is mixed residential um you know and and if we want to change the place type to to something that's that's more consistent with what this application is and what other applications are that come before us we could we could change the place type and bring it back to the people of Durham and and ask if if they would rather have a place type that instead of mixed residential is something more along the

line we could call it something like uh disconnected autoc Carl sprawl and see if the people of Durham uh if that's in line with the values of the people of Durham if that's something that the people of Durham want us to push forward with for the for several more thousands of Acres then we should be honest about what we are advancing and what kinds of policies we are pushing here uh at the at the city council level um this this application is not consistent with the comprehensive plan um the the Planning Commission was very clear it was a 10 zero vote and I highly encourage uh reading uh all of the comments that were provided uh including I think there was a speaker pointed out there are several several Commissioners who are very friendly to developers who come forward um we have Commissioners who will vote you know consistently against uh uh many things I like to look at the commissioner who who are consistent uh in voting with developers uh and look at their comments uh read comments from uh chair chair Cameron read read comments

from Vice chair sharis uh commissioner cutwright uh Graves man uh Comm commissioner gam uh Johnson uh ceas um read the read the comments from commissioner trap who consistently votes with developers commissioner woke they are all all providing comments um against this uh rezoning proposal if we keep if if we have developers that come forward and say you know we know this isn't completely consistent with the comprehensive plan but it's pretty close uh it's halfway there it's a quarter the way there um and it's much better than what you might other otherwise get then the next developer will also propose something that's a quar of the way there the following prop developer will also propose something that's just a part of the way there and we will never ever be able to achieve the vision and the goals of the comprehensive plan of the community plan and then we will be out of land because we have annexed 10 square miles in the past 5 years we need to stand up and say we're not going to do that anymore we

need applications that are consistent with the comprehensive plan this is not a uh let the uh good be the enemy of the perfect or whatever perfect be the enemy of the good this is not that that that kind kind of uh uh case we need applications that are consistent with the comprehensive plan and then we can approve them I I like sitting up here I love approving cases I do I love approving resoning cases uh I love approving resoning cases that are consistent with the comprehensive plan that Advance the goals of the comprehensive plan that promote walkability uh that create uh great great neighborhoods um but instead of creating connected cohesive mixed use walkable neighborhoods we're just creating filing cabinets to put people in uh where they all they can do is get around with a car is that the city that we envision is that the city that we want to keep and advancing not I it's not one that I want to uh the scientists have have spoken out the riverkeeper spoken out the community has spoken out uh and and I want to value that um and

uh and I only want to push for resoning cases that are actually consistent with the comprehensive plan thank you uh thank you council members I'm going to piggy back off a little bit of what council member baker has stated um and and just and also one of one of our speakers online said this we have a duty up here to think about intentionality when we are changing the zoning and when we are changing the actual city lines uh what we want Durham to look like moving forward and we have in front of us a project that has the potential for huge consequences on the environment on traffic on the school systems and the impacts that we see and I I pulled them up because I I wanted to look the impacts that we are looking at here

they're a they are very large just with this project and we are not factoring in the three surrounding projects which have not been built right so we're looking at an for example a number of trips increase in an average 24hour span 1,200 00 to 2100 just with this project alone and now that's not taking into account the other um Olive Branch reserve and it's not taking into account sweet Brier sweet sorry sweet Brier sweet Brier and let all Branch sorry I have them all pulled up but all this to say we've got all of these heavy consequences we do not know the impact of the zoning that we've already changed someone else said this but we cannot cannot rely on Commercial and walkability things coming to this area when literally all of the land is being developed for residential it will not come because there is not space for it

to come I also want to point out that we have definitions for affordable housing the things that have been proferred today are not that definition they are incom restricted housing which I do think is important and I I really really want to note specifically that 3% that's at 100% Ami because I've actually been talking about that metric that's an average if we're talking about the missing middle income 100% Ami is what we're talking about right and we've got 3% and I I I'm excited to see folks starting to work with those numbers um but in our definition that we have in our in our plan what we haven't seen today is is anything thing that really tackles the the huge impact that this is going to have on the area I can't in good conscious vote for this I would urge my members of council to really seriously think about the impacts that this is having on this

community thank you thank you Mr Mayor um I want to go back to the previous discussion we had about shot spotter what we talked about Community needs what we're hearing from the community over and over again and is a need for affordable housing so I want to thank the applicant for the profit you you've offered so initially there was I think it was 30% I'm sorry uh 30 I'm sorry 3% for 10 years at 80% Ami right yes now profing that's correct an additional 3% at 100% of API Ami correct yes so we've now increased it to a total of 6% with 3% at 80% Ami 3% at 100% Ami and we've incre increased that uh deed restriction to 30 years which does meet that that definition um in the in the affordable housing definition in terms of of the duration of that that 30 Years thank you I have a question for Sarah Young Sarah you have a moment so I know in our comprehensive plan the goal is to

see at least 10% of affordable units in all new developments correct I believe I would have to look at the policy again there's a different there's a higher percentage in transit opportunity areas and then a lower percentage everywhere else countywide and so and can you tell me the definition of affordable in that in that comprehensive plan when we envision affordable housing how do we Define affordable housing in the plan I my question is does 100% of Ami meet that goal affordable or not so let me let me look and see I don't know if um Andy Behind Me Maybe is getting to it faster than I am hang on a second we we should probably start putting that in our staff report so it's easy to get

to I don't see it can I take a look and get back to you in just a minute sure yeah yeah thank you that was my only question thank you Mr Mayor and thank you uh colleagues I want to thank uh the members of our community for coming out um our friends from the county to come out and speak tonight and and others who are online um last I think it was our last council meeting um we approved a development that took Apartments out because wealthy folks said they didn't want them we approved a development that had zero of affordable housing or income restricted and we celebrated that the applicants were born at durm Regional hospital so with all due respect to to be lectured about values vision of a city um is a bit Rich I'm here so I I I just want to refocus and reenter the conversation a little bit um we heard

something here tonight from from our friends from the community once again um sometimes it's been in toned outwardly and other times have been implicated we heard for a call for a moratorium in this area stop development until the siment goes down until it's I don't know what but if any council member thinks that a moratorium is the appropriate approach then vote no that that is that is all right but to wax on about values when we can approve certain things with none none of our values in it and that development was at a water head a Headwater uh area so I I want to say that I I was really impressed with the the efforts and the campaign um from preserve ryal Durham that had an actual impact on our Udo and our ordinance but it's almost as if those conversations never took place um we we

passed many of them and now that we're at the beginning of implementing them we're told they don't work um looking at projects who came before that not in my assessment adequate test cases to see whether they will work or not what was all that work for and I and listen I defended when folks said these were nimas not in my backyard these are folks that are just throwing stuff against the wall to see what will stick environment affordable how whatever it is just to stop uh getting folk to develop out there um or to get their neighbors to stop selling their property to developers this is a capitalist free market Society um you I I rejected that and I defense said no these are folk who are truly concerned but it's kind of hard to make that argument when the rules that were proposed to us are enacted and then we're told they're not good enough it it's difficult and challenging to press back against that nimbyism charge I I I I will say this um this area and and I appreci and I

read everything that the uh the the Planning Commission uh says and often times the Planning Commission will say things that are Visionary that you know uh uh suggest a value that they have for the city and then it comes time to govern and I said you know at at a at a previous meeting that I send messages through resolutions when it comes to land use cases where the rubber meets Road natural policy everything we do has an impact now if if we want to have a deao moratorium fine we're still going to get something out there and then the message or story that we're sending out is that in Durham come build large single family high price homes on large Acres because we're not doing anything else because particularly in this area out here um now if that if there that is the net one of the net impacts and net results

because there is nothing that we do every yes we say is no to something else and every no we give is yes to something else so there's no neutral impact on decisions that we make as a council um the the propers that have been made by the developer and and and I and I want to actually I I associate myself with sending messages to developers because once upon a time developers didn't offer anything in terms of affordable housing they didn't offer anything in terms of native trees so what we've seen is incrementally over the years not in the last six months over the years the word start to get out and durm that if you want to do business here you need to come through the front door with certain things I also want to caution um my colleagues that you know others are listening outside our city and I just want to be very careful when we uh trans uh Telegraph that we are hardlinking our votes to things that we

legally can't be linking them to or shouldn't be I mean there are other ways to C you are free to vote no um if you want but uh to suggest and you know I wake up and I I'll end here I wake up every day wishing I were as powerful as people think I am and that this Council where as powerful as people think we are I really do because I'd have fixed a whole lot of stuff by now there's a whole bunch of things I'd like to insert uh myself into on my voice into but if we're going to approve developments with no affordable housing that did away with Apartments because certain folk in the neighborhood would be offended and then celebrated in one part of town and then wax eloquent in another part of town it it it that sends a message as well that that that sends a message as well on behalf of this Council um I don't want large high-priced single family homes on uh uh uh septic on Wells

out there uh if I have to choose Others May disagree but I think it also says something about uh as we deal with folk who are already in Durham what are we saying about welcoming others who are coming that's part of our story as well what are we welcoming or is Durham closed for business and far too often um I'm I'm arguing with folk who see a problem two months after their closing date that's when the problem started with with development and folk coming in um while they're still decorating their homes um so I just put that out there I'll be supporting the development thank you Mr Mayor cabier thank you um I just I will be supporting the development uh as well I think that so TW it was 22 out of the 25 policy um policy I guess policies uh and that's 88% do the math if you're grading a

paper it's 88% that's what these developers brought us they brought us 88% project we may not agree with it we could have all kinds of conversations about car Carl I would say that the the belief that making Highway 70 a freeway and eliminating 50 small businesses and impacting residents along Corridor that also is not necessarily an environmentally friendly decision I think there's plenty in our community who are fighting at tooth and nail because that's not the vision of the future that they want to see so I think as with shot spotter I think it's just where you're going to fall on a line on what you think and that's what this is and the developments that are around there are not as good as this development and the reason they're not as good is because many of the rules that we have in place today were not in place then the commitments that we're seeing around affordable housing that has been years of diligent work that was not easy to get actual units and I remember the first developer Who provided units and I remember him saying I think everyone's going to murder me after this because heered actual units

instead of dollars and he knew that the development Community would understand what that meant when you showed up at a public Hearing in Durham and that's exactly what we've seen and the amounts increase slowly but these are not using our tax dollars these are not subsidized by like our other affordable housing projects which I think every single person on this stas and almost every single Community member in Durham is proud to fund that's not what I'm talking about I'm talking about folks these are not government dollars this is all private dollars and these are commitments that they've made and I find it fascinating that within the PowerPoint presentation presented to us by some of the opponents the example they give me of good development is a community of single family homes I don't understand how that's not car Carl I don't understand how that meets the policies that they're elevating that this project doesn't meet it just doesn't it is in congruent it's

illogical I will be proposing it I mean I will be supporting it I understand that this is not the best I understand that that we incrementally in rezonings have to get slowly better and slowly better and that is what this project does it is incrementally actually not just incrementally a lot better than what is next door and up the road the traffic improvements that we're going to get the infrastructure improvements that we've been hearing from residents for years about how they want this road improved this is how you improve the road it's a state-owned road we know the percentage we know when it's going to get serviced the city does not have the dollars the county does not have the dollars to improve that road there are hundreds of other roads that will come up before Olive Branch Road that need serious improvements including Gregson and Duke which we heard earlier today are two of our most dangerous roads that's where the money is going to go and so again we have to do the best we can in the options that we have and that is really hard and I understand it upset some folks but I will be supporting this

development so I wanted to Circle back on your question council member uh wrist thank you for giving me a minute to look it up give you the actual wording the first part of the policy talks about the transit opportunity areas and then the second part says at least 15% of housing in all other residential and mixed use Place types should be affordable to households making 30 to 80% Ami colleagues anyone else all right uh so this is the this is a situation where perfect is the enemy of good um that that's just what it is um we have a we have you know a policy that was placed in the Udo tree uh tree preservation uh preserve rorm folks you all really advocated for that you got it I would say notice when you get a win because that is now the case you know um

the fact of the matter is the city doesn't build and there are people in the business of building and for those who are for whatever reason against the for-profit industries listen it is what it is the there is a for-profit industry that builds housing the city isn't doing that and to be honest with you I don't even know if you really want the city doing it and that's no offence to our city staff but that's just not where we are and so you know the best thing we can do is build relationships with the people who actually are doing the building and build cases build cases that work for us but I cannot sit here and look at this and see that um it's actually meeting a lot of the concerns and it's still not good enough as a matter of fact I have a question for the applicant there's 80 something Acres right how much is actually developable

so 88 acres uh total but only 48 Acres will actually be developed and that is because of the 300 foot Wildlife Corridor the open space and the greenway open space Greenway to okay gotcha so only 40 something Acres developable but we're looking at we're looking at the the the comments and you know I I just want to break this down to the folks like I'm not as smart I'm not as smart when it comes to all of this I'm still learning it so this is for the people that are actually watching on TV and we utilize a lot of terminology even my colleagues up here we say you know we want things to be uh you know uh walkable we say we want you know is things are too car Carl this is like what someone is thinking right now is so how do I get from point A to point B way out there and we think about I mean and I own a business I have nothing I let me say this for the record I have nothing againsts for-profit I'm in a for-profit

business I sell chicken and and and that's that's what I do that's my business I don't I I I sell chicken and other foods but I would not put a i you would not find me putting a a business out in y'all's neighborhood right now it doesn't make economical sense it doesn't make Market sense it just doesn't so I wouldn't go out there so we can be as conceptual as we want but we do have to see the bigger picture and we government doesn't work instantaneously it works gradually it works gradually so you know I I am looking at what has been offered here even since the actual to a Planning Commission and it's definitely not perfect but it's much better than what it would have

been and I sometimes ask questions I know the answer to such as the cost of houses that are out there in this area 129 single family homes versus what's been offered for me that's common sense so I'll be supporting it all right I'll entertain a motion let me actually read what I'll entertain here all right so we are conduct uh let's see motion one to adopt an ordinance annexing Olive Branch Reserve North into the city of Durham and to authorize the city manager to enter a utility extension agreement with mcrt SF R Investments LLC moved is red second Madam cler you please open the

700 FSE Jordan District B City jurisdiction move is R second it's been moved in second it Madam clerk please open the vote one more vote please close the motion passes unanimously thank you and motion three to adopt the consistency statement as required by North Carolina General statute SEC 160d

d605 move to adopt consistency second I moved and second it Madam clerk please open the vote please close to vote and the motion passes Z thank you very much all right are we good to keep going you guys good item 2 six where my cards right here all right next on the agenda I'm tired um item 26 zoning map change Old West Farms G uh mayor protim could you please uh take over the gavl I'm going to take a rest break yes sir absolutely

61 acres and located at 903 Alabama Avenue and 809 and 805 Trent Drive the current zoning is residential Urban 52 and Commercial General the applicant proposes to change the designation to commercial General with a textual development plan uh prohibiting the following uses drive-through facilities convenience stores with gasoline Sals payday lenders commercial dorms Rail and bus terminals cemeteries mausoleums colaria Memorial Gardens shelters food banks or kitchens electronic G gaming operations firing range um indoor self-service storage vehicle sales or

service the properties are currently designated Transit opportunity area and established residential in the place type map the proposed cgd zoning is inconsistent with those Place types if the proposed zoning is approved staff recommends a change to the place type to designate the property as Neighborhood Services thank you staff the applicant here for any questions thank you so much I'm going to officially declare this public hearing open but before I go to the gallery I'm going to see if any of my honorable colleagues have any questions for staff all right seeing none I'm going to invite the applicant to come to the leor good evening sir how much time do you anticipate meting um probably three minutes but I'll take five if that's okay let's let's put five minutes on the clock please so I have written here good evening mayor but I she's not here to make fun of my handwriting so to my benefit so good evening members of the council uh my name is Keenan cond with Morning Star Law Group at 700 West Main here in Durham uh thank you Andy

thank you Brooke and thank you uh Sarah for your help uh with this process is very appreciated I'm representing the applicants in this resoning uh who are Brian and Melissa har of Carolina Grove Brian is here today Carolina Grove operates an existing wedding venue in Hillsboro North Carolina and they're seeking to expand their business to Durham uh they're seeking to expand their business to a new location at 903 Alabama Avenue and this resoning would facilitate that the site is currently developed with the quaint but aging West Durham Pentecostal Church um and despite you know the hottest real estate market we've seen in this area in quite some time uh this site stayed on the market for over a year before the aera stepped in uh to potentially put this uh to potentially redevelop this site the O'Hara's plan is this they wish to re uh repurpose the existing structure structure into their new wedding and event space by rehabilitating the building's structure while preserving its inherent charm uh theas are also

exploring the possibility of including a wine bar or other similar use at the site uh to activate the space during the hours uh are not typically used for weddings and we expect that the rehabilitation of this property will include increasing the amount of natural vegetation and reducing the amount of impervious Service as this lot is Brad integrator compliance with Udo this will both make a more attractive lot for a wedding venue but also a more attractive space that is within this uh very pretty historic neighborhood now throughout this resoning this something I want to really highlight and was something highlighted at the Planning Commission throughout this resoning our team has been in frequent contct contact with the neighbors and in fact Brian and Melissa have gone above and beyond uh in addition to the neighborhood meeting they have had several meetings on their own with neighbors and have even hosted Neighbors at their existing wedding venue um throughout this process uh they have engaged and they've heard what people are concerned about and have really gone above and beyond to address those concerns they have agreed to uh

profer to keep the church and not demolish it for a period of at least 5 years uh they have prohibited some of the potential uses of the property this was a significant concern we heard frequently what happens if your business fails and this project and this property gets redeveloped the ohhara stepped in and said we will prohibit some of these odious uses they placed limits limits on signage they restricted the property's vehicular entrances and they increased the number of native species that we planted on the property and I want to add two more conditions today uh that were a consequence of a continuing conversation with the neighbors that continued PL uh Planning Commission uh we're going to today profer a Prohibition on both the nightclub and the simple convenience store uses and those are both defined terms in the Udo so per those definitions those two uses will be added to the list of prohibited uses so overall again I want to highlight that this was a case that received unanimous recommendation of approval from the Planning Commission I think this is very clearly in the public interest it preserves a beautiful

historic building um and has a and they a pro have a really great plan to try to make this space uh give this space life again and make it an asset in this community whereas currently the site is is vacant and dilapidated um so I think this they have a really exciting project and we we hope for your approval of this resoning today thank you madam cler mayor has the gavl thank you mayor proen all right so we have a few speakers here Daniel Welch wait I'm I'm sorry did I have anybody online it's all all in person no online there's nobody online okay all right Daniel Welch and followed by Tom Clark was some of these people are I don't know what that

is welcome if you could State uh whether you're no you're Daniel Welch right I'm Daniel Welch okay gotcha go ahead and how much time you uh let's just keep it consistent two minutes two minutes okay all right my name is Dan Welch and I live at 923 Alabama Avenue so I'm just a few houses up the street from the property under discussion uh my wife and I have honed uh that home since 1999 um I'm here tonight to indicate support for for this resoning proposal not only for myself but from also from a working group of neighbors that has been negotiating uh with the prospective owners the ohhara since last summer uh so let me start by talking about our our working group some of whom are here tonight you'll see them momentarily uh we formed last June when we first learned about the plan to transform the transform the church into a wedding venue we announced the formation of this working group on our neighborhood list serve um and we invited the entire

neighborhood to participate so we took all comers anybody who was interested and wanted to participate uh joined us um so we feel this a a pretty representative cross-section of the most interested neighbors um in our neighborhood notably the core this core working group includes Tom Clark and Kathy ship who will be speaking here momentarily Tom and Kathy live immediately adjacent to the church um our Core Group also includes uh Michael Parker who couldn't be here he's out of town but he lives direct directly across the street R from the property um so these are the folks that will be most directly affected by this rezoning and they've been fully on board uh with the efforts of our working group from the very start our working group started with a number of Zoom meetings uh around the neighborhood to listen and take input uh from a wide range of neighbors uh after several meetings it was time to take our concerns and questions and requests and go meet directly with the o'haras so a core group of us took responsibility for meeting with prospective property owners and negotiating what we would like to see in

an enforcable development plan our working group set out to work cooperatively with the o'haras on a plan that allows them to pursue their business objectives but also provides a number of permanent protections for our neighborhood that was important to us and we reached agreement on on a number of these items you're going to hear more about these from our next speaker thank you uh Tom Clark yes hello um my name is Tom Clark and I live at 9005 Alabama and have uh owned the property there and have lived there for 23 years I'm a member of this neighborhood working group that uh Dan just talked about the property under consideration has extra importance to our neighborhood since it's located at a key entrance it is a transition from the commercial businesses on Hillsboro road to the resident residential area more interior to our neighborhood being the entrance point it sets the tone for our neighborhood and the historic church building is a landmark and architectural anchor that has been there for 80 years

we'd like to see it remain there for many more years the wedding venue the O'Hara has proposed seems to be one of the best ways to ensure the church structure remains and we think it would be more neighborhood friendly when compared to many other businesses that could potentially land there so we like that but we also understand that allowing this property be to be resed to CG has risk it will open open it up to all kinds of future businesses that we might be concerned with if God forbid the wedding Vis business business were to fail and the property is resold as you have heard these items include limitations on the type of uses that can be cited here a limitation on the height of future buildings restrictions on signage and other Provisions that will ensure their business is more suitable for the neighborhood setting importantly they have agreed on a provision not to demolish the church for at least 5 years

while it is not an ironclad guarantee for our long-term preservation we feel this is a good show of Faith by the o'haras and they intend to invest in this historic building and keep it as a core part of their business we hope that it will increase the odds that the church will be around for many years to come thank you thank you so much uh next we have Miss Kathy ship oh mayor could I um could we have the folks say state if they're an opponent or a proponent when they get I I think I know where everyone has stood but gotta for my clarity thanks yep I have you down to the proponent yes uh I'm Kathy ship I live at 9905 Alabama which is adjacent to the property I've lived there for eight years and I'm a member of the neighborhood working group and I am a proponent our negotiations with the oaro took many months there was a lot of give and take

but we reached an agreement on a number of key issues that provide protections for our neighborhood we are appreciative of the O'Hara's willingness to engage in a constructive way with the neighborhood and that we feel that this bodess well for the future uh with them being our neighbor the agreement is not perfect our concerns mostly had to do with what might happen next because of the rezoning not so much with what the o'haras are planning therefore we didn't get everything we wanted but the haris committed to some some significant protections for our neighborhood a key part of our decision as is that we don't think we would get these same protections from many other businesses that might land there so we are here tonight to say we think this res resoning is a positive step forward for our neighborhood and we do look forward to

welcoming the Heros and their business into our neighborhood we do have one request of the council as this resoning goes forward and we have more commercial activity in our neighborhood our working group and the heras themselves would like the council to prioritize traffic calming improvements at this location this is an intersection at Green Oakland Alabama Trent often referred to it uh by its initials this has always been a crazy highspeed intersection with people coming off of Hillsboro Road and the roads meeting at odd angles it has po sight lines and is area where many people take walks often with children thank you so much okay next I have um the last three I have Brian O'Hara um Keenan uh conders and uh Patrick

biker good evening I'm Brian O'Hare I'm the applicant along with my wife Melissa I don't have any significant comments to add other than a couple things just one we have really appreciated the engagement that we've had with our neighbors um and I just want to tell you all I think you probably know this but we don't see this as the end of a relationship we see this as the beginning of a pretty long relationship um so we want to continue that engagement um and just the second thing that I'll say is I think my wife and I um were smart to divide and conquer tonight based on the time and not leave our kids at home Alone um she's the one that really runs this business I I help with some backend stuff but she's really the expert here um so I'm glad to be here and represent us thank you thank you right those are all of the uh cards I have this is a public hearing there any other yes you have to come to the mic state your name and uh will your

proponent or opponent I'm a proponent with a condition my name's John Wood I did sign up so for this item yes okay uh go ahead you have two minutes so I live a little over a block and a half from the site I'm a landscape architect and planner by trade so that's the the gist of my comments this evening um I'm also a um board member of the old west NM neighborhood association um but I'm just representing myself and and some other neighbors um in terms of this meeting uh this project has has been discussed is located at a very important focal point in the old west Durham neighborhood and is very visible along Hillsboro Road a main Corridor into Durham like cocoa cinnamon locco pops and other local businesses the B the venue could also

help further activate what has become an important pedestrian oriented node and Gateway into our neighborhood for this reason and the others as pre previously mentioned by my neighbors I am generally in favor of the general concept of the project because of the site's visibility and importance we also feel that it is important that certain aspects of the site be addressed before the resoning is approved most importantly is a solid mass of unscreened and unland scaped pavement that occupies the majority of the site right up to the property line behind the sidewalk all along Hillsboro and Trent Drive this parking does not meet the current standards of the Udo for parking and Landscaping and even though this is an up zoning because it would be improvements to a non-conforming use much of the current Udo standard may not apply unless conditions are applied to the rezoning the development team has generously indicated that they intended to do some nice Landscaping but have not

provided any more specific assurances on these issues since they have not yet put their design team together we've recently learned that they now um have done um have completed the Assembly of the design team so we look forward to to that interaction moving forward with a short um short deferral would be our preference thank you very much you all right those all the cards I have acknowledge the audience at this time I will declare this public hearing closed to bring it back before the council colleagues are there any comments I have a question um first of all I want to thank that again for this this project the work you've done with the community to to build support for your project the ability to to to preserve that beautiful Church there appreciate that appreciate also the comments from the neighbors it is a

complicated intersection there with Trent and I think whatever bills whatever comes in there um my question was for Mr condra if you come back to the mic so I I think and I want to appreciate Mr Wood's comments about about the sort the parking and and the kind of buffers to the the between this property and the rest of the neighborhood did you you say I mean right the currently that it's all impervious surface on that on that plot right did you say you're going to reduce impervious surface did I hear that so the the project will have to go through the site plan approval process and at that point it will have to be brought into greater compliance with the current Udo regulations and at that time likely we'll be adding uh things like Street trees and and things like that that will have vegetation um and we've profer that a certain percentage of those additional U plantings will be native speci so at the site plan phase when it's brought into greater compliance there some of that as will have to be torn up and planted well that addressed the neighbors concerns about this this kind of transition the buffer the visual impact of the sort of the parking which

will still be there on on on the site correct it should improve that situation so it will you will be adding Green Space and I think that will create a little bit more of a an adequate transition but uh that will have to be a phase that's subsequent to the resoning thank you all right I'm I'm really excited about this project I believe I've seen the renderings or I met I think I met when I first got on Council I believe uh I met you all when you were just talking about an idea or something and I just love what you were doing with initially your plan to work with the community and to see that actually roll out uh thank you for that um yeah thank you uh colleagues I will uh now see 27 yep here we go all right uh I'll now uh

entertain a motion to adopt an ordinance amending the unified development ordinance by taking property out of residential Urban 52 Commercial General and establishing the same as commercial General with the textual development plan moved second been moved and properly seconded Adam clerk will you please open the vote please close the vote motion passes 60 thank you very much excuse me um motion two to adopt a consistency statement as required by the north Carina General statute sec 160d d605 move to adopt consistency second it's been moved and seconded Madam clerk will you please open the votee please close the vote the second motion passes

92 3 zoning is consistent with the

designated Place type thank you uh staff and the applicant are here for any questions I'm sorry I do have to pause this for just one moment and take a f minute break um colleagues let's take just um Madam clerk is you think five minutes is good okay let's take about a f minute break I'll see you back at um too late to do the math come back in five minutes 11 11:07 yeah there we go the Durham City Council meetings and Planning Commission meetings are now available to live stream on all devices

via the city of Durham's social media accounts to watch simply go to City of Durham NC on YouTube Facebook or or Twitter devices include phones tablets laptops desktops streaming boxes and sticks and smart TVs the easiest way to view the live stream on Smart TVs and streaming devices such as the Roku Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV is via the YouTube app now you can follow along with the latest developments in the Durham community at dinner your kids game the mall in bed during a breather in the bathtub and even on the International Space Station is this it yeah that's it that's it yeah she she submitted it it looks like it got submitted [Music]

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spe we get started all right I'll entertain a motion for adjournment no too soon too soon too soon all right staff I'm so sorry for interrupting us um but we needed our close captioners to take a break

which not sure we have um but yeah we'll receive the staff report now this is item 27 all right let me pull it back up for you yeah okay I'm sorry I I am so tired right now is having some functional issues up here so I apologize we have we have heard the staff report we are does anybody have any questions Council does anyone have any questions my brain is really having some serious issues right now colleagues any questions all right I'll officially declare this uh public hearing open and uh we'll hear from our applicant good evening Mr Mayor members of council I'm Coler Marsh with Parker Poe at 301 fville street I'll make it a little easier on you with the yellow cards because one of them is Ryan Stewart um who is here on behalf of trinsic residential um but is not

planning to speak but here to answer any questions that you may have um so I think I probably need five minutes most and we'll we'll try to do it in less time um I do have a presentation if we could pull that up um seven minutes this is the AA Green Hill rezoning um and this case should look a little familiar to council um a similar project or similar case came through and was approved in January of 23 that involved just the property uh of the three the furthest to the east on the right hand side that was a case that was unanimously recommended for approval by the Planning Commission then unanimously approved by the council because it was a great case um it uh it a multifam development there was the product of extensive engagement with the neighborhood um nearly a dozen meetings and those meetings have continued onto this new project we think it makes it even better um that case included 39 affordable housing units uh a third of which were affordable add are below 60%

Ami a third Adder below 80% Ami and the third add or below 100% Ami so a wide range of affordable price points uh but a really high bar for the number of units offered uh so we've taken that good case and we've made it better because just shortly after that case was approved by the council um an opportunity to acquire the two motels to the west of the site arose it seemed like a win-win for the development to take advantage of some underutilized sites as part of this project uh and adapt development to use that space and provide a transition in density and a mixture of uh product types within the community that has an overall better balance so when we look at the place type map this is a Transit opportunity area um that designation calls for some of the highest densities U mixture of product types um It also says that you should be respectful of the surrounding area and think about Transitions and use and density uh when you look to the surrounding context um existing zoning so this tells a bit of the story where the eastern most parcel was previously

9 previously approved development plan is a graphic development plan again that was a multif family development um five story complex uh with some Park likees featur in between this development and the neighboring properties to the east or this case page bottom um and so worked extensively with those folks to ensure that the project was compatible that had architectural features that were compatible and had this park like space to help serve as an amenity not only for this development but for the surrounding Community uh what we've done is we've taken that project and we've made it better in a number of ways in this case a textual development plan we've kept that high level of affordability we're still proposing 39 units they're affordable at those three level S I mentioned and for a period of 30 years we're keeping that open space between

our development and the uh neighboring uh Community but we're activating that making it a park- like feature that can be taken advantage by uh residents of the community and residents of this development uh so it's program to be 50 feet wide with all sorts of amenities and features to make it a true park-like space that does have a public access easement so that everybody can enjoy it um I do want to clarify there was a lighting commitment those was included in the prior resoning and discussions with staff today we learned that the code currently now is requiring that so it says that it's keeping those lighting commitments the code is keeping those lighting commitments it's not an added text commitment at this point in time because it's already addressed um we essentially by taking advantage of the property on the western side we've taken the multif family development that was originally proposed shifted it to the west and then we're adding a different product type there're still apartment units they're still rental units but they're town home style and so we've got a number of conditions that Define exactly how those function function and create a unique product type within the community and so there's a number of

conditions that essentially say these look and feel like Town Homes but they are part of the apartment community uh we have a number of other commitments to ensure compatibility with the community um with some masonry requirements for development as well as signage requirements we've got a native Native species planning requirement requiring a Green Building certification uh so we want to make sure that when we think about setting precedence for development we set a prec prior duration with affordability trying to set precedence with environmentally sustainable development with Green Building certifications um we've clarified that our impervious surface will not exceed what exists there today largely developed already and we're not going to make that increase that impervious surface um we also have a substantial donation to Durham Public Schools uh $123,000 that was offered by this developer um we heard some commentary in Prior cases about paying attention to Planning Commission uh feedback on projects this was unanimous recommendation of approval 8 to nothing and and the comments were GL about all the nice uh and the high quality features of this project uh trying to check every possible box we're

overwhelmingly consistent with the comprehensive plan uh and so we'd respectfully ask that this Council vote to approve this project and of course we've got our full development team here to answer any questions you may have thank you thank you very much great and Mr uh Stuart won't be speaking so I have uh Mr doc Doyle and followed by Tom Miller good evening council members uh I am do Doyle I live um at 2311 woodro Street I am on the uh neighborhood association board as as vice president I believe you got a letter from me uh that I sent on Friday regarding this this project uh and I am representing a group of uh board members and nearby neighbors

who met uh numerous times with this developer in the first iteration and several more times again in in the new inter interation uh we are supportive of this um um this development it it brings a number of of really nice features for one thing it takes property that is either unused um or is marginally used I mean those motels I never see cars in those parking lots um and so it takes those and and puts them into good use in in in our neighborhood um we appreciate the transition um that the town homes provide in terms of um residential units that look more like the the single family units across the street uh we appreciate the open space that um that trinsic has um included and it's you know it's it's it's bigger it's it's it'll be it'll be a little more robust and and we think that that will be a

real asset to this to this property um we as I think you hear with some regularity uh are concerned about traffic um Hillsboro road is already a mess at at at peak times um sprun Road Sprint Avenue is also problematic in that um it's a wide Road and it's got the golf course for a ways there and then all of a sudden every becomes residential homes and people frankly just speed down that road um trinzic has um offered to make a donation to the city in the amount of 30 we have a verbal agreement with them um that they will make a donation to the city in the amount of $35,000 uh we have the neighbors have worked with with the city to get speed humps installed along SP spra and we hope that you all can figure out a way to take thank you take the money to to to do that and and mitigate the uh Transportation thank

you Mr Mayor my name is Tom Miller and I also represent the Watts Hospital hillindale neighborhood association it's been a very long evening this is an excellent project I uh encourage you to vote for it and I won't take up any more of your time but if you have a question I'll do my very best to answer it I have never heard you speak that last thank you Mr Miller um all right those are all the cards I have is there anyone else in the audience that would like to um speak and follow Mr Miller's Trend okay with that being said I will declare this public hearing closed to bring it back before the council colleagues all right motions and I will entertain a motion to uh here we go yeah to adopted ordinance

92 to3 so moved second moved and properly seconded Madame clerk please open the vote please close the vote motion passes 60 all right and motion two to authorize the city manager to enter into a util utility extension agreement with transic acquisition company LLC so move second been moov and second it Madam clerk please open the vote please close the vote motion passes 60 all right and motion three to adopt the consistency statement as required by

North Carolina General statute SEC 160d d605 moved second moved and properly seconded Adam clerk please open the vote please close to vote and the motion passes unanimously um I you are it's to rec quoted for you good all right all right thank you I believe uh I believe that is everything for tonight um colleagues thank you all so much for the uh spirited debate and and just I know it's long I got to say this I really appreciate us really diving down into policy and having perspective around it whether we agree or disagree we'll agree sometimes we won't some others but I really appreciate you all all right have a good night uh we are adjourned at 11:20

m. now