City Council · Regular Meeting · May 15, 2023

good evening good evening good evening I'd like to call tonight's meeting to order of the city council meeting here in City Hall Chambers on Monday May 15th we have a packed house tonight it's full in Chambers it's folks standing on the walls on the on my left and we have a great crowd outside and so we are happy that you all have chosen to join with us in person and we also welcome those of you who have joined us via the Internet please let us have a moment of silent meditation as we Center ourselves for the people's business

thank you all so much I will now turn my attention to councilwoman Deidra Freeman who will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance thank you madam mayor it is our practice to stand salute the flag and say the Pledge under God indivisible with the prayers thank you all Madam clerk if you will call the road thank you madam mayor mayor O'Neal I am president mayor Pro tem Middleton I'm here councilmember Caballero here councilmember Freeman president councilmember Halsey Hyman President councilmember Johnson here councilmember Williams I'm here thank you thank you we will now turn to our ceremonial items we have two proclamations for this evening the first

is the period poverty Awareness Week Proclamation which will be read by Councilwoman José Hyman and the National Public Works week Proclamation which will be read by councilman I'm sorry mayor Pro Tim Middleton in that order good evening everyone to my colleagues to the mayor to my colleagues mayor Pro tem to our residents how's everybody doing tonight okay I'm going to take this point of privilege I'm still on cloud nine you see my Carolina blue my baby graduated yesterday I'm still on cloud nine my mom who's 89 who raised four of us from the South Bronx of New York on in public housing Public Assistance was able to see her last baby graduate I'm sorry for taking this but I'm still on Cloud9 thank you okay Proclamation whereas period supplies or necessary

products for millions of people across the country and whereas National surveys and research studies report that one of four administrating menstruating individuals struggle to secure period supplies to meet their monthly needs due to a lack of income and whereas this lack of period supplies known as period poverty can adversely affect the health and well-being of Administrators and whereas the lack of appearance whereas the lack of period supplies known as period poverty can adversely affect the health and where well-being administrators administrators and whereas period poverty heightens the Vicious Cycle of poverty by forcing one in five menstruators two withdraw from daily life of losing pay or missing educational opportunities and we as the people of Durham recognize that period poverty is a public health issue and addressing period poverty can lead to

economic opportunities for Durham's people and surrounding communities to improve the health of women and girls thus ensuring that all people have access to basic necessities and needs required to thrive to their full potential now therefore I Elaine M O'Neill the mayor of city of Durham North Carolina do hereby proclaim the week of May 22nd through May 28 2023 as period poverty Awareness Week in Durham and hereby urge all residents of Durham to donate generously to organizations that distribute peer period products to those struggling with period poverty so that all Durham people can Thrive and reach their potential full potential witnessed by my hand and the corporate seal of the city of Durham the 15th day of May 2023 mayor M O'Neill I just want to also say as a professor for the last almost 20 years when I was

at Shaw University there were a lot of students who did not have just basic needs you know sanitary napkins deodorant lotion and we take those things for granted and I remember as being one of the advisors for one of the student governments we used to get those things donated so please just because students are in college are just because people that doesn't mean that they have everything they need so again please just kind of volunteer and donate thank you sorry for saying that but I lived it [Applause] thank you Mary O'Neill and city council for recognizing the one in five students women and mentoring individuals that miss work or school every day because they cannot afford the items that they need the diaper Bank of North Carolina provides period products through all of Durham Public Schools as well as homeless shelters and other organizations working with families living in poverty and we distribute over a million period products a year in this

community and serve over 272 schools across the state we believe that period supplies are school supplies and no one should have to miss school because they cannot afford the items that they need and so we are working really hard throughout our community in Durham and around the state to make sure that no one has to choose between living their life going to work going to school just because they're having their period we do a lot of awareness events around this we're having a menstruation celebration this month with uter-shaped cakes and Bloody Marys we encourage all to attend because this is a very serious issue that many individuals including military families in our state that we serve every single month teachers that cannot afford these items and students and so we invite you to come and volunteer and help us address

this issue in Durham I just also want to say that myself and councilman woman Freeman and Julian Johnson we volunteered at the diaper bank and it was very very it was just so much fun we didn't have any wine though but uh we'll come back for the next time but it was very it was a lot of fun we were with the governor and we're going to come back and do that again I promised you that I was going to get some of my interns in there because they got to do community service so I got you okay thank you thank you oh hey man all right that's good to see you you're gonna see you too being with us good evening Madam mayor to my honorable colleagues to our friends and Neighbors in chamber I want to thank her honor for the singular honor of reading this Proclamation for National Public Works week and we are joined by Mr Donald Perry senior stormwater infrastructure construction engineering manager wow

quite a title Proclamation whereas Public Works professionals focus on infrastructure facilities and services that are of vital importance to sustainable and resilient communities and the public health high quality of life and well-being of the people of the city of Durham and whereas these infrastructure facilities and services could not be provided without the dedicated efforts of Public Works professionals who are engineers managers and employees at all levels of government and the private sector who are responsible for rebuilding improving and protecting our nation's Transportation storm water water supply water treatment and Solid Waste Systems public buildings and other structures and Facilities essential for our citizens and whereas it is in the public interest for the citizens Civic leaders and children in the city of Durham to

gain knowledge of and maintain a progressive interest and understanding of the importance of Public Works and Public Works programs in their respective communities and whereas 2023 marks the 63rd annual National Public Works week sponsored by the American public works Association be it now and whereas 2023 marks the 63rd annual National Public Works week sponsored by the American public works Association now therefore I Elaine and O'Neill mayor of the city of Durham North Carolina do hereby Proclaim May 21st through the 27 2023 as National Public Works week in Durham and hereby urge all residents to join with representatives of the American public works Association and government agencies and activities events and ceremonies designed to pay tribute to our Public Works professionals Engineers managers and employees and to recognize the

substantial contributions they make to protecting our national health safety and quality of life witness my hand in a corporate seal of the city of Durham North Carolina this the 15th day of May 2023 Elaine M O'Neill mayor thank you thank you madam mayor O'Neill mayor Pro tem members of the council and Madam manager for recognizing the Department of Public Works and the great work we do for we are the department that keeps the city's infrastructure safe and in good working order although a lot of our work happens outside of the public eye there is not a single day that goes by that our work does not impact the quality of life of every resident in our city with us tonight are several staff members and I would like to ask them to stand and if we could recognize them for all the work they do all year that would be great

M at the P walk they include activities include the equipment Rodeo where employees can compete against one another to see who has the softest touch and best accuracy also an obstacle course it's a Time course made up of a series of games and challenges and anyone can play and my favorite the equipment trial non-equipment operators get to try their hand to operate in a small excavator yeah we're also having a picnic lunch next Friday May 26th at Southern boundaries Park which is adjacent to P walk from 11

M and we would like to for you to come if your schedule allows again thank you for recognizing our department [Applause] thank you all so much we will now turn to our next sort of business it will be the announcements by Council so I will look to my right first to see if there are any announcements councilwoman Friedman thank you madam mayor I did want to uh also thank the diaper Bank of North Carolina just acknowledging they always offer that opportunity to volunteer and wrap those diapers it's been beneficial to me over the years and doing my part I did want to just take a moment and also just share that we just left the Remembrance Day just acknowledging our youth are facing a lot

more gun violence in schools than um is bearable I I do want to say that I want to thank javonia Lewis School Board member for organizing the event and and all of our school board members County Commissioners and my colleagues here on the council for supporting with a resolution just making sure that we're all aware and acknowledging that this type of trauma our children are facing is not acceptable and it should not be a norm and so we've got to do better and that doesn't mean um just the leaders in our community it means everyone and so just making sure you're all dialed in and paying attention to our youth our children from from pre-k all the way through just acknowledging that they're really struggling and they're calling for us to help they've shared a lot about their mental health challenges and trying to get past or trying to normalize after a

gun violence situation on campus you know being in lockdown and and I think that that's hard to hear as a mother this Mother's Day it was marked differently you know with the ringing of the Bells for the gun violence victims in Buffalo and I don't want to see anything like that and so we've got to make sure that we're listening and we're attending to our youth and that's not by race and it's not by gender it is all of our use and that's um that's my announcement thank you any other announcements councilwoman Caballero thank you good evening everyone it's good to see such a packed house I just wanted to say thank you to my colleagues for granting me the opportunity to be able to travel my mother lives in Tucson Arizona which is where my sister lives and she is unfortunately the Survivor of two rounds of covid and is a long coveted Survivor

and has pretty complex medical issues now it is not easy to be across the country from her it is I yesterday being Mother's Day I have a lot of empathy for folks who have lost their mothers and for the sandwich generation who is raising children and dealing with aging parents it's a hard place to be in so thinking about all those in our community who do a lot to care for others in our community including seniors and children I also just want to thank um board chair excuse me board member Louis shivania Lewis for organizing the event today it was very impactful and finally I want to extend a major shout out to Governor Cooper I attended the veto rally on Saturday his leadership is critically important right now on an issue that I find extremely important which is around health care for all folks in the state and for bodily autonomy and so I just want to thank him for standing up to um members of the general assembly who are trying to claw back rights for women

thank you thank you [Applause] Tim thank you madam mayor good evening again and thank you councilman Maccabi you're welcome home and we certainly are keeping your mom and our prayers I want to thank Councilmember Freeman as well for I think actually providing an on-ramp for my announcement and framing uh so wonderfully how we need to stay dialed in on this issue of violence this is the 50th anniversary of hip-hop in our nation is recognizing this culture this International cultural phenomenon and no matter what you may think of hip-hop there's a significant strain a subgroup of hip-hop artists who have used their platform and their voices to promote positivity uh anti-violence self-awareness one of those artists will be with us at our bin Bay Festival krs-1 who I sent to demo years ago and I'm yet to hear from him about it we'll talk when he gets here but he he will be uh one of the artists here and of course Durham has a significant footprint in hip-hop as well from little brother to ninth Wonder to our own Brian

Dawson so after consultation with the mayor and community members I'm going to be bringing forth a resolution uh to recognize and celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop with particular emphasis on Durham's footprint in the industry and on the art form and also uh with the mayor's permission as well I'll be preparing a proclamation to be read at the bin Bay Festival y'all need to be at bin Bay this year it's going to be it's going to be ridiculous to be read at the Ben Bay Festival honoring this International culture phenomenon and particularly particularly those who have participated in this art form who have stressed anti-violence messages stressed uplift uplift messages and stress positive messages so just alerting my colleagues that I will be bringing forth that resolution I hope it will pass and look forward to celebrating this culture of thank you madam mayor thank you colleagues [Applause] my left Councilwoman José Harmon again good good evening

um I'm going to just say this again we were able to get my mom on the plane who's 89. you don't know how my heart is fulfilled but she told me I wanted her to stay but we had to get her back because she's got a lot of medicine and stuff but she told me to tell you hello from the boogie down Bronx okay Bull City but from the boogie down Bronx so a blessing again to have her be here I also wanted to to just say that this month is mental health awareness month and it is a time to raise the awareness of mental health and behavioral health issues to advocate for prevention and preventive services and to provide resources to assist those in need to help reduce the misconceptions and the stigma around mental health conditions that people face and actually also being with my colleagues at the bull to celebrate this event today around gun violence that you've talked about highlighting positive things that they're doing you know the meteor um and I'm not gonna get in trouble saying this but guess what I'm in good

trouble all the time the media also sometimes highlights things about the gun violence but let's highlight these kids who are graduating with four O's or better let's highlight the kids that are working and going to school and then taking care of their families at home let's highlight the kids that are living in public housing like myself who grew up in public housing but just needed somebody to say money you can do it which allowed me to go to Binghamton University at the age of 16 and then to go to Columbia which I never thought that I would do so again I'm really big on mentoring I'm really big on giving back but we all need to do that and we need to really highlight what the youth are doing thank you any further announcements from my left councilman Williams thank you madam mayor good evening colleagues good evening to the Bull City uh it's great to be with you all tonight um I too attended the event today did they ever remember instead the bull and I I hope that you also took time at 10

M this morning for the moment of silence Citywide to reflect on what we have here I did want to bring a little more contacts in it uh in speaking from the perspective of a black man I believe over 60 percent of our homeless population are black and upwards of 80 to 90 percent of black men those numbers are rough but it's around there somewhere and they got there somehow multiple reasons of course but one thing I know for sure is the criminal justice is a huge contributor criminal justice system and they got there somehow and I hope that we can all come together to stop that cycle speaking from personal experience my brother is a constant product of recycling within the criminal justice system and it is so tough to deal with so it was great to be there today um but there was a young lady I cannot remember her name vice president of the

drama department at Hillside she gave some analogies where she said if there's a house on fire there's a fireman close by they're more than likely going to get out of their car or out of their truck they're going to go and try to put that fire out because that's what they do if there's someone that's about to get robbed and here's a police officer somewhere nearby more than likely they're going to get out and they're going to try and save that person that's on the brink of getting robbed and they talked she talked about not you know not not you know being an accessory basically it's a crime if you see something bad and you can do something about it but choose not to then you're an accessory so with those First Responders being expected why is it that we see all of these things happening in our community we don't say anything her point was don't be an accessory those were my marching orders and I hope they'll be yours too uh so I really appreciate her and uh just briefly I want to congratulate

first of all happy Mother's Day belated to everyone also um wanted to uh shout out nccu and Duke with the graduations but also the softball teams they won their championships so let's give it up for nccu [Applause] and one last thing um you know Sam Jones nccu graduate held the record 47 points in the playoff from Durham played in Durham Jason Tatum who played in Durham just beat his record in game seven so shout out to the Bull City dermites uh that are doing this and shout out to swing Pals visited them this week also uh speaking of positive swimming Pals saving lives kick Sidekicks Academy project 300 there's so many things happening in the city guys we can invest in what works so thank you

thank you councilman Williams any further announcements all right my turn first of all it is my distinct honor to introduce to you all be via a picture today our deputy mayor for the remainder of this month we hope that he can be shown that is Mr Sloan Meek who I met today and um I was so impressed with that young man he came by City Hall today to talk to me about his neighborhood and he has uh is a part of the resident council at North Street neighborhood and he came by to talk to me today about installing a safe and accessible crosswalk system around his neighborhood and in downtown Durham so there is our deputy mayor for the city for the city of Durham for the

rest of this month uh Sloan I told you I was going to do this and there you are so everybody please foreign I also just wanted to highlight a couple of events that I attended over the last couple of weeks I told Sloane that I'll be presiding for him tonight but he's welcome to come and take this job anytime so I went to the Museum of Life and Science where I had not visited in a long time and spent about two and a half three hours out there walking those grounds and I would encourage each and every one of you all who have not visited our Museum it is not the Children's Museum anymore it is a space in Durham North Carolina that is to behold right in the center of our city and so I would encourage you all to go to our Museum I went to the Butterfly House it was wonderful the the Quarry is now a lake with a floating dock on it it

is a beautiful space so please over the summer months as it gets warm go and take a walk around the Museum of Life and Science I also got an opportunity along with a councilwoman uh Adriana Freeman and councilwoman Javier Caballero we took a tour on some of the things that the Durham open space trails are doing it was a wonderful two-hour bus two or three hour bus tour around some of the things that are happening with our our open trails and spaces and believe me if you haven't been out walking in a long time there are lots of great spaces that have already been completed thanks to the city some of our city officials and um and there are going to be more spaces that will be coming forward in the last in the in the next uh year or so so stay tuned and if there are any uh folk from the from the tour if you're just staying I'd just like to recognize them if they're here from our Durham open space

and commission not here but they are on point and they're making sure that you have a safe place to walk if you so desire in the city of Durham I also took I went to to our Fleet Management with director Joe Clark on last week and spent two hours about two hours with them and I'll tell you do you know that we have folk who are able to make sure that our fire trucks are still safe we have a lot of firefighters uh do you know that we have a full mechanical shop out there and a warehouse 48 people strong that keep our Fleet in the city rolling and we don't even think about it I saw it for myself is it as an impressive operation there I am touring a lot of our city facilities because I realize that a lot of our city workers you never know and they are working almost 24 hours today just a fun fact about them they run two shifts but when it snows they go 24 hours they go 24 hours a day

so when I tell you that we have great city workers who are doing great things behind the scenes and the things that we're taking for granted they don't uh they are out here making sure it happens so a shout out to Mr Joe Clark and all of the 48 employees of our Fleet Management Department so thank you all for that and I think the only I think that's it for me everybody so now we will move on to our first order of business which would be to recognize our city manager for any priority items that she may have good evening Madam mayor Mr Mayor Pro tem and members of the Durham city council I do have two uh priority items for you this aft this evening agenda item number 24 fiscal year 2023-24 proposed budget and fiscal year 2024-29 Capital Improvement plan the

presentation will be made during the May 15 2023 city council meeting an agenda item number 28 Consolidated annexation Carpenter preserve attachment if the cost benefit analysis was modified to reflect an increase of units from 235 to 260 and to analyze the impact of the additional units that is all I have thank you thank you city manager page I now turn to City attorney Ray Berg for Enterprise items she may have good evening mayor O'Neill mayor pretend Middleton and members of the council it's good to see you all the city attorney's office has no priority items thank you ma'am now to our city clerk for any priority items she may have good evening Madam mayor Mr Mayor Pro tem and City Council Members the city clerk's office has no priority items this evening thank you all we will now move to our next order business which is the consent agenda the consent agenda consists of items that the council has previously considered in a

work session all items on the consent agenda may be approved by a single vote of the council items may be removed from the consent agenda by a council member or a member of the public and those items will be considered separately at the end of the meeting tonight I am going to read the consent agenda and the entire agenda starting with item number one the Carolina Theater of Durham Board of Trustees appointment number two the Durham culture Advisory Board appointment three the Durham workers Rights Commission appointment item five the city County Planning Department FY 24 work program item six is the approval of a multi-family housing facility to be known as Commerce Street Apartments in the city of Durham North Carolina in the financing thereof with multi-family housing revenue bonds item seven contract with Dixie Lawn Service Inc for Interstate 85 medium maintenance services item eight the

First Amendment to agreement to fund American Dance Festival 2023 season operated by American Dance Festival Inc using city of Durham Grant funds item nine the service contract with Winstead landscape services company for rights away maintenance South number 10 the contract with Mars and McDaniel Inc for promotional testing and Assessment Services 11. contract sw-91 Public Works Street Maintenance repairs 2023 item 12. contract sw-91c inspections for PW Street Maintenance repairs number 13 is the resolution to support the upper Neuse River Basin Association unrba FY 2024 budget a presentation was made at the May 4 2023 city council work session item 14. contract amendment number two

for st-317c utility locate Services 15. contract br-2010c Bridge Professional Services number 16 contract with Nix phase Solutions LLC for unbased maintenance and support 17 assignment of contract for the management and operation of the gold Durham access service 18. the service contract with ratp d e Dev USA Inc for the management operation and maintenance of the gold Durham fixed route Transit System 19. intergovernmental agreement with the triangle J Council of governments for the transition of Durham Chapel Hill carborough Metropolitan planning organization lead planning agency responsibilities number 20 Award of Construction contract to mofot pipe Inc for the Hoover Road Transmission main replacement project

21. Award of Construction contract to Carolina Civil Works Inc for the Parkwood area lift station consolidation project 22. the proposed Water and Sewer rates for FY 2023 2024 a presentation was made at the May 4 2023 city council work session item 23 the update to contract 18648 with EMA resources Inc for handling and disposal of water and wastewater treatment plant residuals and biosolids we now turn to our general business agenda item four the approval of city council minutes item 24 fiscal year 2023-24 proposed budget and fiscal year 2024-29 Capital Improvement plan CIP we now I will turn now to our general business agenda public hearings item 27 the Consolidated annexation Harlow point

28. the Consolidated annexation Carpenter Preserve 29 and Consolidated annexation 751 South item 30 the Consolidated annexation 901 and 903 Sharon Road 31 FY 2024 stone with a presentation was made at the May 4th 2023 city council work session and that would conclude the reading of our agenda we have no poor items and I'm now prepared to entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda don't move it's been moved by councilwoman caballera and seconded by councilwoman Freeman I'm sorry and seconded by councilwoman Johnson Madam clerk if you will please open the vote Madam mayor um we're having a technical difficulty if we could raise hands all

right if everyone uh would please uh raise your left hand uh those are the agreement I've always said hey the the nades have the same right seeing none that motion passes unanimously and the consent agenda is approved we will now move to our third order of business which will be the general business agenda and we will start with approval of City Council meetings and I believe this is from our previous meetings and I believe it was councilwoman Freeman who acts that that remained and be placed on our general business agenda so I will turn that over to you at this time thank you madam mayor I just wanted to make sure that the item was pulled so I could support the full agenda and address the minutes separately thank you

that's all that's all all right are there any other uh need to get to any other comments from Council colleagues on that matter okay if not I am prepared to entertain a motion to approve uh item number four which is our City Council meetings at this time move to approve second it's been moved by mayor pro team and seconded by councilwoman Javier uh if you would all raise your left hand for in agreement all those opposed have the same right we have a vote of five two with councilwoman Freeman and Councilwoman José Hyman uh voting in the negative we will now turn to item number 24 which is our fiscal year 2023-24 proposed budget and fiscal year 2024-29 Capital Improvement plan CIP and before our city

manager gets started we have a lot of people who are interested in this item tonight uh particularly I believe the men in blue the men and women in blue I did speak earlier today with a Miss Meredith Carter I believe if she's here this evening hey Miss Carter and ask her if she would allow us to have three spokesmen um for to speak tonight to the firemen issue we will be having a public hearing on June the fifth fourth the fifth we want to hear from every last person that wants to speak however you can see we have a pack crowd so we will have the opportunity to hear from everybody on three different occasions on this particular matter we will start that tonight we have people who will be speaking on the firemen issue and we also others who are here

tonight to speak on other parts of the CIP so you will have the opportunity to speak again on the next date and you also have one other time that I want to tell you all about that you can come on this Thursday for our work session there is a citizen comment matter and so I would invite you also to come then we want to make sure that we hear from everybody that wants to speak but because we have a pack doctor in this night and we want to make sure that we give ample opportunity for us to give as much time as possible I would ask that we allow those other folk who are here uh tonight to also be able to speak before 12 o'clock midnight so we would ask that you please please please allow us to do this and you will be given the opportunity to speak as long uh as three minutes allows at each of those occasions okay all right so

Council I'm sorry I will now turn it over to our city manager for the first presentation on our CIP good evening as your city manager I am honored this evening to present to you my proposed budget for fiscal year 2023 2024 for the city of Durham each year at this time I pause to reflect on the past year to assess the city's accomplishments as well as consider all the work that remains to be done to say that we've accomplished a lot in our effort to make this city an even greater place to live work and play would be an understatement and we've done so while facing the Winds of life the winds at our back pushing us forward and the winds we sometimes face some professional and some personal that come

at a time that we least expect it but our challenge is to face those wins head on with courage knowing that we are all on the same team in fact the challenge is as the old Chinese proverb says to use those winds to build windmills and build windmills we did working together as city employees working together with the leadership of our city council and working together with you our community all of whom are our neighbors thanks to our heart team the term neighbors now carries a broader meaning than someone who simply lives beside you as with past budgets I appreciate the guidance and support of our City's elected leaders mayor Elaine O'Neal mayor Pro tem Mark Anthony Middleton and all of the city council members each

year there are steady guidance and direction is crucial to ensuring all our neighbors are included in Durham's Prosperity during this budget Cycle City Council and our staff spent time considering the work that remains to be done at two Retreats we held in February we also heard from many residents who raised their needs and priorities for this budget during our March public hearing throughout this presentation you will see how I propose to maximize this budget to address those priorities as well as improve life for every one of our neighbors for clarification according to our heart program developers we are all neighbors whether we are co-workers residents business owners whoever all of us come together as one neighborhood to make up this great City that we all call home again as in past years I must take time

to celebrate our more than 2600 city employees neighbors who have been the wind at my back pushing the city forward over the past years I celebrate their dedication their Innovation and their gutsy determination for every one of them has been the driving force in maintaining our high standard of providing quality services for our City's residents I want to make it very clear that I value our city employees for doing what it takes to get the job done in this environment it's no secret that the city like most municipalities and even some private sector employers is experiencing a shortage of workers in several areas especially our Public Safety and operations Department areas these areas are crucial to providing vital services including keeping our city safe to

providing Safe Drinking Water to collect in our garbage I can say without reservation that our employees have stepped up to ensure their services our residents expect didn't miss a Beat long hours and being assigned other duties as needed have been necessary to fill in some of these gaps I can assure you that my gratitude on behalf of the city is unending and I will do my best to ensure that our employees continue to be rewarded appropriately through compensation and benefits and as importantly their health and well-being continue to be top priorities of my Administration I don't have to tell you that are many vacancies will not be filled overnight but we're making every effort to attract new workers as well as keep our experienced and dedicated public service

throughout this presentation you will see how the true meaning of neighbor permeated our thinking as we develop this budget a budget that addresses the vital needs of our communities from greatly enhancing our efforts our efforts to outreach to our neighbors in crisis to ensuring that the top concerns of the community affordable housing Street Maintenance and repairs Recreation areas and green spaces are prioritized we will continue to make every effort to right the wrongs of the past by prioritizing investment and engagement in disinvested neighborhoods which have been typically communities of color this budget also supports other important efforts providing Durham's youth paid career exploration opportunities and positive Recreation and social experiences and activities as

62 percent which generated

3 million increase compared to last year's budget the general fund supports many of the services that the city provides such as fire and police services emergency communications and Parks and Recreation

9 million dollars for sales tax other sources of revenue are projected to increase as well such as our occupancy tax and our state shared revenues while Durham has consistently outperformed National and State

55 monthly fee

8 million dollars from the fund balance for the one-time costs listed here in addition to allocating 4 million for Street

3 million for one-time Capital Improvement projects and 500 000 to acquire and expand open space and trails you see here that 608 000 is also included for the election costs later this year this is a good time to share a couple of pieces of great news about Durham one your city government continues to enjoy a triple a bond rating from all three rating agencies Moody's standard and Poor's and Fitch what this means is that we can borrow money or issue bonds for major projects at lower interest rates thus saving our taxpayers dollars and two almost a year ago the finance website wallet Hub ranked Durham as the 10th best run City in the nation

actually it was the number one ranked city in North Carolina now that is a slight drop from 2021 when we ranked number seven but we'll still take it you should know too our ranking is not a fluke as Durham has earned top 10 spots each year since 2018. our complete budget document covers every detail of our revenue and spending for the coming fiscal year this includes our core Municipal services such as solid waste our roads our water our parks and Public Safety as well as other projects and initiatives that further our strategic goals we have used our strategic plan which was developed with input from our employees our residents elected officials and other key stakeholders to guide our budget priorities in tonight's presentation I will focus on several priority areas for our

gov budget our community safety department was created in 2021 to Pilot test ways to appropriately respond to Residents or neighbors experiencing behavioral crisis rather than sending law enforcement I am I am happy to say that that the pilot is complete in April we celebrated the

success of the heart program which stands for holistic empathetic assistance response teams with the premiere of a documentary explaining how the program works more than 600 people attended the premiere and left with a better understanding and appreciation of the program I must point out that the success of heart led by our community safety department is due to the strong partnership collaboration and support of our police 9-1-1 and fire departments for the overall benefit of all of our neighbors that is why I am happy to announce the expansion of this program to now serve the entire city instead of just [Applause] instead of just the pilot areas which represented roughly one-third of the city second all

heart crisis response programs will operate seven days a week 12 hours per day currently only our unarmed response teams operate on that schedule these two changes mean that the heart team which has become a national model in this field will be able to handle three times as many calls as they do now and even more importantly this expansion in the staff and the service area will ensure that many more neighbors receive the right services in their moment of Crisis and are connected to the care that they want and need I should also add that this expansion will free up other Public Safety responders including our police to respond to other priority calls throughout the city we are also increasing our support for the project build and Bull City United programs as well as continuing our

funding support for the Durham expunction and restoration program as Durham continues to grow we must be prepared to meet the public safety needs including our fire protection development in the northern part of Durham comes with additional service needs I have included funding for 16 new firefighters one new fire inspector and a new and a new North Side ladder truck to serve this area a new ladder truck for the east side of our city is also funded in this budget and in the Durham Police Department we're continuing the funding for the shot spotter program to locate and address gunfire in the city for more details and data collected about this program thus far I encourage you to visit the shot spotter dashboard on our Police Department's web webpage as I said earlier it is impossible to carry out our work without our dedicated

employees doing their work whether it's putting out fires monitoring our drinking water or coming to the aid of our neighbors when they need us most artificial intelligence some call it AI hasn't come that far yet we absolutely must reward them appropriately by providing competitive salaries along with great benefits you see on this slide that city employees will be eligible for six to eight percent increases in their salaries this year along with an appreciation bonus of three hundred dollars at the end of the year sworn employees who received Market pay increases of 14 to 15 percent last year will receive an additional two percent pay structure increase and a five percent step increase a total of seven percent with the 300 a year in bonus as well I've also included for a class and and

46 per hour effective July 1st to meet the growing needs of our organization and Community this proposed budget includes the addition of 61 new full-time positions in several areas that you see here on the slide at this and this year because the city has many positions which have remained unfilled for a while some for a year or more I have decided to repurpose a few of these positions and add them to departments where they are needed most these 24 positions will come from the various departments you see listed here repurposing rather than creating all new

2 million will be used to pay the debt service for the 95 million dollar affordable housing Bond all the

dedicated housing fund is applied to forever home Durham forever home Durham is our 160 million dollar program creating affordable opportunities for renters and homeowners and stabilizing our neighborhoods through new construction property repairs and essential Housing Services we're building a more inclusive and livable community over the next several years the 95 million dollar affordable housing Bond combined with local and federal funding will be used to invest a total of 160 million dollars to reach affordable housing goals established for the program on the next three slides you will see some of the progress that has been made to date along with upcoming milestones for various Durham housing authority and city of Durham housing projects three

5 million dollars to create or preserve 1036 housing units last year we celebrated a significant boost to our housing goals the city of Durham and the Durham Housing Authority received a 40 million dollar Choice neighborhood initiative Grant the award the result of a great collaboration between the city of Durham and Durham Housing Authority will go toward developing 519 East Main Street and Liberty Street public housing properties and revitalizing the surrounding neighborhoods the city council has also dedicated 10 million dollars of the

75 cents of the property tax is budgeted to pay for Core Transit Services we've been fortunate to be awarded Federal Transit grants along with the federal funding to improve our transit services including our bus system go Durham an additional Transit planner

is included to help manage our transit services we also recognize that traffic fatalities across the state especially as as they involve pedestrians and bikes have increased therefore I have included funding for a vision zero coordinator to lead the program to help develop strategies to reduce the number of fatalities occurring in Durham all right I I am proud of our Durham youth Works program it is supported by local businesses by Duke University and health system Durham County and the city the program continues to be a way to engage our young neighbors to give them skills they'll need to enter the job market I want to make sure that every youth who wants a summer job experience can have one in Durham this year approximately 700 young people age aged 4 14 to 24 have applied for the

program and it is my mission to see that every single one of them can participate the budget includes six hundred thousand dollars to support this life-changing program on this slide you will you will also see support for other programs aimed at providing opportunities for Neighbors who need vocational training or guidance in addition to adopting the proposed budget city council will also soon adopt our updated Capital Improvement plan which guides our long-term capital projects such as infrastructure and Facilities while the proposed Capital Improvement Plan update will be presented during the upcoming budget work sessions some of the newly proposed capital projects are noted on the next three slides the capital Improvement budget includes a little over 306 million dollars for new projects and to complete existing ones the funding

7 million for important General government Capital needs these projects were prioritized using an equity lens or screening questions to determine who would benefit from the Improvement and who may be burdened by it the assessment also looks at unintended outcomes of the proposed projects I am also proposing that we continue our Capital commitments for our Fleet replacement program and for our Street Maintenance and repaving programs this slide shows funding dedicated to our Enterprise capital projects including our water and sewer our storm water and our Solid Waste projects over the past year we have been providing updates about our progress toward our commitment to green and Equitable infrastructure a half set tax continues in this budget

for projects imported to neighborhoods that have historically received fewer resources or investment we are proud to say that this list was created with the ideas of the neighbors who live in these neighborhoods their input and they they helped us prioritize these first projects for the coming year projects totaling 17 million dollars will be funded on this slide you see a list of projects for enhanced and Equitable green spaces also included in that number are other infrastructure projects to improve or build sidewalks to improve pedestrian safety and for storm water for years enhancing the Federal Street Corridor has been on the radar of both the city and the many stakeholders who live and work there we the administration and elected

officials have heard your voices and while not all inclusive of playing Corridor Investments we're including and highlighting 10 million dollars to help ReDiscover enhance and create with the community a sense of place for this valued and historic area of our city on this slide you see that this funding will support a variety of efforts including residential and Commercial Real Estate programs small business support along with Street sidewalk and Landscape improvements these investments will be dedicated and time-bound now that I've presented highlights from the proposed budget it is time for our elected leadership and our community members to take a closer look I must also add that this year's budget has been particularly challenging as

many of you know on March 30th we lost a long time budget leader Mr John allor John was promoted to the budget and Management Services director just one year ago and his sudden death was felt deeply by not just his staff but our entire city government I might also say that his loss was felt by many outside of Durham for his reach span the United States and Canada his native country this budget proposal is dedicated to John we are grateful for having known this great multi-talented person whom many have called a true Renaissance Man I'd ex I'd especially like to thank interim director Christina Reardon Christina stepped up at this critical and challenging time to lead the way as

m each day in the committee room on the second

S news and World Report this is

based on how well a city meets their residents expectations for where to live based on affordability based on quality of life and desirability overall the latest ranking should be released tomorrow and I believe I believe our ranking will be even higher for this year I am not surprised that so many consider Durham a best place to live there are many reasons we all love living here we know we're nowhere near perfect but we do know that by working together we can we can all love living here we you can learn more about our news programs services and operations right in your news feed by following the city on our social media channels I also encourage you to watch our news videos Bull City today Bull City rap and our talk show City Life or listen to our

gov our Communications Department works hard to communicate what we're doing for this community and I hope that you'll engage with us on any on any of these channels to stay current on what's happening with your local gov finally thank you mayor and city council for your leadership on behalf of all of our neighbors of our great city of Durham North Carolina thank you thank you city manager Paige as you all

know this is going to be the first of several opportunities that we will talk about our budget I am going to turn it over to my colleagues at this time for any comments and then we will go right to our speakers some of whom will join us who have joined us remotely as well as those who are in Chambers about this item uh colleagues any comments councilwoman Caballero just very briefly thank you so much Madam manager that was an excellent budget I look forward to our sessions uh next week into the next budget hearing public hearing I should say um this is an incredible budget especially considering how much we're able to do and that there is no tax raise for residents this year thank you councilwoman Caballero any other comments to my right to my left any comments councilman Williams followed by councilwoman Johnson briefly uh you are

a superwoman I don't know how you do this it's not like this Council and feel your hands up if you have your hands full with us thank you so much for making the impossible possible and I hope that the community really dig into seeing how complicated this was and she just made it look easy so thank you yeah to note of that um yeah this is an incredible budget I'm really excited to see all the new programs um and staff positions and to do that without a tax increase is really incredible and I want to just especially appreciate the intention that's being paid to expanding the heart pilot um that's really important work for um for our community and as our city manager said has become a national model for this type of work Durham is really is really leading the way in figuring out how to do this really important this really important work and I just wanted to appreciate the robust expansion that the city manager is proposing and look forward to continuing to discuss it in

all of our other budget items in our work sessions thank you thank you councilwoman Johnson and councilman Williams we now turn to persons who have signed up to speak I first want to I think Miss Howard is here in person is that correct miss all right thank you I first like to turn our attention to our uh persons who have signed up for my firefighters Miss Carter you're free to call those three names I do have Mr Darius Thompson and also Mr Ricky Williams but if you have three additional persons that would like to speak uh at this time to this item they are welcome to come forward at this time those persons who are Desiring to speak I also would encourage all of you all to come back on Thursday too and um when we get ready to vote this is what democracy looks like

if you just state your name and you have three minutes okay yes ma'am um my name is Meredith Carter I'm a firefighter here in Durham so good evening to the council members Madame Madam manager page um so sorry I wasn't expecting to go today um if you remember me I'm the firefighter that spoke at the January council meeting in 2022 and right before our mid-year pay adjustment was approved I spoke about how I had been stuck at the firefighter zero pay step for three years and I asked the council to please Place firefighters in the correct pay step um after I spoke the council the mayor and representatives from HR promised that the pay scale adjustment was just the first step towards making our pay right in the 16th months since that meeting I have not seen any action from the city management HR or the council towards placing firefighters in the correct pay step so I'm now a firefighter in my fifth year of service I'm at the firefighter

6 percent more than I do here in Durham so many firefighters that watch that council meeting felt heartened by the promises made to them by HR the mayor and various council members and the lack

of action we've seen that in our retention so far this year not including retirements we've lost 17 firefighters including retirements that 22. so we are on track to lose 61 firefighters this year alone as a reminder we are a fire department of just over 400 employees and these are not just Warm Bodies we're losing we're losing our future leaders of this department you might be wondering how much it costs the city when one of our highly trained firefighters leaves it costs about seventy thousand dollars in training plus conservatively 150 000 in higher back that is hiring back an off-duty firefighter at their overtime rate to fill that position until a new firefighter can be recruited and trained so that's a total cost of around two hundred and twenty thousand dollars per firefighter that walks out the door we have created a detailed plan the local 668 firefighters Union has created a detailed plan that shows which step every single person in our department should be at we estimate that cost of correcting this compression to be a

2 million dollars as far as Personnel costs for the current fiscal year my brothers and sisters and I we love our jobs we love being firefighters and we love serving this community we just ask that the city uphold its end of the deal and fairly compensate us for our years of service we are asking each council member to please be our Advocate and ask HR to come up with a plan to put the city's firefighters into the correct pay steps thank you very much for your time thank you

foreign [Applause] Mr Darius Thompson and also Mr Ricky Williams and Miss Carter if if there are two others they will be welcome to come I just actually they fill out a card so that we'll have the correct record Mr Mr Thompson good evening good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak to you I hate to listen to these circumstances though my name is Darius Thompson I've been with the Durham fire department for 10 years and I'm a driver I chose to work in Durham because I saw how the city was moving you had a new ballpark driver downtown not to mention a numerous Community ongoing Community projects here I had this made during one of the most desirable cities of living in the nation as we saw seen earlier it was ranked highs all the time I try to provide that service that matches the city which the city gives to the community but because it has become apparent that the city of Durham is unwilling to give the same level of care to its Public Safety employees and it

hurts when the city gave us a raise in 2017 then again in 2021 it hurt not get put on the correct step it already takes 11 years for us to top out and we're not even able to maintain on the correct step when I have my colleagues in neighboring departments only taking five to six years to top out I had a colleague leave for a higher repair department nearby and he me he immediately told me I need to come with him I started to say in Durham because I love this city it's this question it's a process in a thought process I have all the time of did I make the right decision for my family right now he's been with the city that he's doing for six years he's still a firefighter I'm a promoted driver that's been with the city for 10 years and he still makes 15 000 more to me I don't know if y'all realize this the city of Durham right now to start and pay for the firefighters roughly forty thousand dollars we're one of the lowest in the state for such a great City I don't understand why we're such a low paying Department right now in the city of Durham the

T specialist my time is not the same as a lifeguard or accountant my time doesn't mean the same so I'll leave you with this as my time goes short and I'll tell you a story one day I signed up to work overtime shift as many of us do to try to get more income so I work in the 72 Friday Saturday and Sunday Friday Saturday and Sunday

my wife brought my five-year-old son to see me on Saturday as the baby boy he loves me the most of course from the other two but she brings it by he's happy to see me he loves it and he cries when he has to leave my son cried for 30 minutes home he also cried when he got home for an additional 15 minutes and my wife let me call me back and the only thing he said to his dad I wish he was home I wish you could spend more time at home now I understand when I took this job I'm going to miss some of my kids birthdays because that's the way it works I'm gonna miss some of the things they have at school some of the programs they have some of the ball games are sporting events but to sit here and say that my time is not the same as somebody else it hurts and it hurts deep as my wife always says if you know better you do better at this point we've talked about this for years and it seems like y'all know y'all just doesn't don't care I'm asking you for I'm at you this evening the police recognize recognize our user service and sacrifice we have given to the City by placing Us in the correct pity band so we may be appropriately and fairly compensated for

our work thank you foreign Mr Ricky Williams good evening I'll try and keep it brief for you so I've been with the city for 12 years now and ever since I got here in 2011 the city has kind of pushed this Narrative of annual pay raises and a 10-step pay plan and somehow in 12 years due to pay freezes and pay plan adjustments to leave us stuck in the same step I've never made it past the equivalent of Step six and any one of us here in the blue shirts can say the exact same story we've put in our time with the city all we ask is that the city hold up its end

of the bargain that's especially relevant when you've got every other city in our area Raleigh Kerry Greensboro Wake Forest Apex Knightdale list goes on all of them have start and pays higher than the city of Durham I'm not talking about any little Trump change here I'm talking about 10 15 000 higher than our pay how do we justify that how do we justify that as a city as wealthy as Durham that we have one of the lowest paid fire departments in the state we see the economic boom that's going on here and yet somehow we still can't afford the uh you know our pay hasn't kept pace with the increase in rent and housing costs now I understand you know at the top of the city it's easy to get disconnected from what's going on down here at the bottom I want you to take it from us down here at the bottom all of us in these blue shirts the ones that show up put out your fires and pull you out of car wrecks provide

emergency medical care she got a real problem on your hands because anyone who's been here less than 10 years or so doesn't have a whole lot of incentive to stay and I'm not sure if you're aware but Durham fire department is made up about 60 percent of people who've got less than 10 years here so you've got 60 percent of your fire department employees considering other job options so we can make ends meet all I'm asking unite is to place us in our correct pay steps and include us in a minimum livable wage of 17 an hour no we're putting in 60 hours a week 24 hour shifts 240 hours a month and we still don't make the same livable wage as everyone else we don't get overtime in that so I'll leave you with that thank you I appreciate your time

thank you Miss Carter do you have any other are there other two people come on up thank you if you just state your name thank you madam mayor City Council Members Madam manager my name is touche Howard I've been with the Durham fire department for 20 years where I'm currently a captain during that 20 years I've worked on three different pay plans for the fire department and I'm embarrassed to tell you in spite of that background it wasn't until recently that I thought to compare our starting salary to the Durham living wage but I have now and this is what it looks like and we can give you a copy of this layer but the critical thing to know

the critical thing to know is that from 2003 to 2016 our starting salary hovered around the living wage and on average was about two percent greater from 2017 on it's been in a downward spiral to the point where even with the new budget that's been proposed we're going to be about to uh about 18 below the living wage now since I didn't think to do this until recently I can't expect that City management council members or fire admin would also think to do it but now you have I think a really good Landmark to work with and you can understand the frustration of our people the reason I came here tonight is as a captain in your fire department is my sworn Duty to do everything I can to protect this community and I would be failing you I would be failing you in that Duty

if I didn't come here tonight and explain to you that we truly are in a crisis as the other speakers have described fire service is the last Beacon of Hope for many people in this community it's critical that you somehow find a solution to these issues and continue to protect that Beacon of Hope for those people thank you very much [Applause] good evening Madam mayor council members matter manager my name is Jason Davis and I am the President of local 668. I'm here and I represent all of these people that are in blue shirts in front of you

tonight I'm proud to say that these men and women put their lives on the line every single day for the citizens the visitors of Durham we truly believe that the city itself needs to hold up their end of the deal and when I say that I say that every person out here in that blue shirt knew exactly what they were signing up for we knew what the starting pay was but when we were in the academy they held in front of us a pay scale and that pay scale told us that if we did our job and we did it well that we would get our five percent Merit raise every year that's what we were told and that's what was explained to us that hasn't been done and that seems to be the trend that keeps following year after year after year when I say that I say this dates back before any of you were on Council before you were a city manager before you were mayor but it's now is the time for us to

fix this problem stop this problem from keep getting worse because every year it goes on the more it's going to cost the city to fix it in the long run it's not going to stop it's only going to get more expensive so please consider putting us in the right step now that is what we're asking for to help stop this bleed okay just to give you some idea of where we're at right now on average every firefighter on average is 11 behind where we should be in our pay structure we have one person that is 34 behind where they should be at in their pay structure 34 percent behind that's not fair how can we ask them to risk their lives to spend their time away from their family and not compensate them correctly

it's just not fair it's not equitable everything we heard tonight was Equity have equity in your firefighters make it fair for us because we don't care who's on the other side of that 9-1-1 call we're going and we go every time there has not been a fire yet we haven't gone to there hasn't been a car crash we haven't gone to we worked hard through covet we showed up every day in Coven thank you for your time Mr Davis I think you indicated or someone indicated that there is a report that you all have compiled it will be very helpful if we are able to see that

report if you will give that report to each um council member you by email it will be very helpful to see the report that you all have compiled yeah we we will gladly email all of our documentation that we have to everybody all council members I do believe that all council members have been reached out to from our pay committee we have supplied a few different PowerPoints that describe the current situation we do also have a very strong pay committee within our local that has actually taken the time to run each individual firefighter through the pay ranks and the Matrix based on their higher date the their promotion dates years of service all of that so we'll be glad to to send that along to all of you again thank you for your time your consideration and I I can speak for myself I'd definitely be willing to meet with the paid committee the more that

you tell me the more that you educate me the better I am able to make decisions okay so um please feel free to contact my office and we'll be ready staying ready to meet with your pay committee and I'm sure others on the council will do do the same as well okay absolutely thank you so much again for your time thank you all right are there any other I know that we're going to have some more opportunities for our firefighters to to speak to us once again I indicated you know this Thursday please come back also if you can to sign up the more for me the more that I hear uh the better I am able to take it in uh what you're what you're asking for from us and so we'll have these uh very important conversations I don't think that there is one of us up here who take you off for granted not at all uh the work that you do most

of us would not do in our community and you show up every single day 24 hours a day I remember having a conversation with the firefighter who said you know it's not many not many um city employees who wash clothes for each other you all do that and so I thank you for coming out tonight I thank you for what you're doing with the city of Durham we've heard you we see you and I can only speak for me I will look in detail at the information that you will provide so that I can make a competent decision on what you're asking for so thank you and I'll open the floor up for any other comments from my colleagues councilman Jose Harmon um I think the firefighters know that I totally support them my husband wouldn't be here when his heart stopped last year and the first people who came to my house were firefighters I have met with

the local firefighter officials they have given me the documentation and then the pre-budget hearing I spoke about it and I advocated for an increase for the firefighters I'm glad that the mayor is going to look at the documentation that I've had that I brought up at the pre-budget I am in support of whatever we can do to get you on the right pay steps because again my husband would not be here if it wasn't for you coming to that home you were the first ones on scene and shocked his heart back and he is now still with me I support you councilman Freeman thank you madam mayor I just really want to just send my heartfelt apologies I think every year I've had this conversation with many of those in the local and it's been frustrating I stand with you on trying

to figure out how best to move forward I know that I did make that request in my budget briefing to figure out what that would look like I've yet to hear what that is but um I am hopeful that there are four of us on this Council this year that would exactly push and making sure that that happened I think I've done that push every year and yeah it's just frustrating but I think I think this is the year to get there I think the last two years with covid was definitely not the time and it's time to catch up and so I'm hopeful I'm more than hopeful that we'll get there thank you councilwoman Johnson by followed by councilman Williams thank you madam mayor I just want to thank you all um for coming out tonight I know we don't get you know 50 60 city employees who all work really demanding jobs to

come you know to a meeting on a weeknight unless we have a serious problem um and I want you to know that we we hear you and we are all of us looking into this our city manager has already been asked to give us numbers for for what this would cost and we'll also be you know looking at your numbers um as well and yeah we you know this is I want you to know that you you have made it very very clear to us that this is an issue that we need to resolve so thank you for being here thank you for your for your advocacy and your organizing um one thing I wanted to point out as we look into this issue with HR 2017 is the year that we set our minimum livable wage on an annual increase so prior to that the increases were less regular and since 2017 it's been increasing every year and so it's clear that when we designed that policy it was not it was not good enough that we've left out workers and having that and having that regular that regular increase that some that somehow we didn't we didn't fully

capture what the need was in the city when we when we designed that policy it was really Illuminating to me to see that chart and to know that that was when the policy changed and I think it's that you know y'all we have by putting that policy in place where you know we're making sure that for most of the city those wages go up every year and y'all haven't had that same um that same um increase so yeah so uh thank you again for for educating us it's been um it's been important for to hear from you and to to learn from you and look forward to continuing to work with you um to resolve this issue I of course have also you know experienced the incredible Services of our fire department my Grandma had a bad fall a couple months ago first people on the scene fire department making sure she was comfortable you know checking her vitals we had someone actually clean and an emergency department room for her because there weren't any nurses available and she's like I know how to clean this I'm just going to clean it for you so you can be um so you can be comfortable in the room so I also know personally how how hard

y'all work and how important your work is to this community um and thank you I want appreciate you with words and we'll you know hopefully also appreciate you with some money in the future thank you thank you madam mayor um first thing I've learned that there are a lot of jasons that work for the fire department I didn't realize that until tonight I think I've probably spoken to two or three of you all um I I don't want to use the language of you know our support at least or at least I know I believe everybody on this Council supports this and the more you make it clear the more we're going to respond to it but you don't have to make it any more clear because the the message is there all right um I I do know that there's some complexities around this and and I gotta say this that we had conversation at least I know some of us did have conversations with uh manager Paige and

she's responding and I there were some folks I was speaking to recently like I said there are a lot of Jason so one of the jasons I said you're going to hear from I believe I said you're going to hear from councilmember Johnson or myself because at the time she and I had spoken about it but I know that there are there is a proposal that is being worked on I heard your request that get HR to get a plan in place get the and they're working on that so I don't want the public in general to think that this has been ignored it has been worked on and it will be addressed and I think it's very clear to this Council uh supports you not only with the sizable raids but also getting you in the appropriate place we'll make it happen uh we do care we do hear you and I think that everybody we don't have to separate that I think everybody gives a day thank you [Applause] may I Pro Temp thank you madam mayor and I want to thank all of uh Durham's bravest that have come and spoken to us

tonight so you constantly run towards what the rest of us run away from and we don't take that for granted um since the time I've been on this Council since 2017 I I have not experienced one council member ever who has not been wholeheartedly supportive of doing right by our fire department by all of our employees when we did the 40 increase we wanted the impression that we were doing right and we were doing good that was the first step we get a lot of data coming at us from folk in the community from the staff and I want to give ours because tonight you don't want promises or posturing tonight you want action um you want to vote um you don't want empty cliches or or you know posturing or anything so we hear you we see you every time at night when it's dark and we hear that plaintiff well of a siren

in the distance we thank God for you we know that you're out there for us and holding the line for us so tonight um our manager has heard we've been having this conversation before we've actually had this conversation tonight um I'm learning some things about compression because you know I've heard explanations that even addressing compression could cause more compression in some other areas wherever you touch the system there's going to be things happening so let us do the work let us let our staff do the work I'm looking forward to having something that not just to make a speech about but actually vote on uh and address it Durham's fire department is the best trained Fire Department in the state of North Carolina it's got the best certifications that's why we get pots so much and why folk come looking for our firefighters we need to make sure this is the best place for you to to work we want the best people and we want to pay them the best that's across the board it we hear you we appreciate you let us do the work

and our managers heard you as well thank you [Applause] councilwoman caballera thank you I'll be brief I just wanted to say thank you to the firefighters who showed up to advocate for yourselves um agree with everything that my colleagues have said and looked forward to getting the work done and getting y'all some raises all right we will now continue with our speakers other speakers for this evening I'd like to thank you all for coming tonight firefighters we look forward to seeing some of you all I hope on Thursday and I hope to see you again when we get ready to vote please make a have meetings with us some of us are still in kindergarten when it comes to compression and all those issues I might be in the first grade just a little bit so I'm going to need for you all to kind of help me to get up to speed again but something's going to happen this year if Elaine O'Neal has anything to do with it

[Applause] so we have Miss I'm sorry jay sick I don't want to pronounce your last o-r-z-e-c-h-o wski to come huh Mr okay thank you sir Natasha Williams will follow [Music] I believe p-h-a-n-i-n-d-r-a-j-r-a-n-i-t and then Mr Russell Pierce all right thank you I I slaughtered a lot of names if you give us one second to live folk kind of go out so that we can make sure we don't miss anything that you have to say okay

you doing okay this evening great um good evening my name is I'm pastor of Immaculate Conception Church um I'm also a father would you suspense let us let those because we're going to have a trend uh you know what do you want to go ahead and try to take a break at this time thank you um let's finish this either way we can wait for a second yeah all right all right I think we

might almost be there give us a second yes sir all right so once again good evening my name is Father Johnson I serve as pastor at Immaculate Conception Church I I'm also a member of the Durham can strategy team our parishioners have been working closely with Durham Ken to address the inequities many of our members face every day as pastor of over 2200 Latina families I often hear from our parishioners about the adverse impacts the substandard housing has on their lives both the language barrier and economic

inequality make it difficult for them to secure proper living conditions for them and their families in the past our church has hosted large meetings which included candidates for mayor and the city council as we sought to address the need for more bilingual city employees following this engagement our mayor attended the housing inspection of an apartment complex where many of our families live because of her leadership their homes are now up to code so we thank you [Applause] Madam mayor Durham Ken worked with the city council to increase the pay for all its bilingual Staff last year and we applaud this move as we look closely into the issue of substance substandard housing we really realized that there is a need

for an additional bilingual code inspector in Durham although the neighborhood Improvement services department does have Spanish-speaking personnel those staffers have others full-time responsibilities and NIS only have the opportunity to address the inspections after they finish their other work that means our families receive a second class services or not at all the funding request for bilingual housing inspector has been part of the NIS request over the past two years both times the request has been downgraded to a lower priority however this issue is too important for our Spanish-speaking families to keep waiting to live in dignified conditions we spoke today with the NIS director and she told us that they are hiring two

for their hiring for two jobs which they hope to fill with bilingual staff however those are not code enforcement positions and moving them to inspections would create a capacity Gap elsewhere I stand Here alongside many of my parishioners um and there were 60 of us came 45 our Spanish-speaking parvisioners some of whom are here directly affected by the issue of substandard housing yet we are joined by 25 plus other Durham can institutions representing thousands of other Durham residents who also support this founding funding request for bilingual housing inspector please prioritize funding a bilingual housing inspector code inspector thank you thank you

Miss Miss Williams if you would state your name for me please your full name good evening my name is Latasha Williams good evening Madam mayor Madam Pro Temp battle City manager and members of the council I'm a member of abundant Hope Christian church and an active member of Durham can and a part of Durham Camp's poverty research team over the last few months our privacy team has been researching the negative effects that source of income discrimination has on families using housing Choice vouchers to find safe and stable housing in Durham during this process we discovered that neighborhood Improvement Services has requested funding in this year's budget for a full-time bilingual housing code enforcement inspector on behalf of Durham can and low-income tenants we are organizing with I am here today to share with you why fully funded for a bilingual inspector for this year's budget is important to not only myself but for the people who we fight for

from personal experience working in property manager for the live property management for the last three years and currently in this field I have firsthand seen residents and potential residents and the way that they're being treated even after they have been approved for housing waiting for as long as a month or longer for their inspection to be completed this requirement is essential but the wait time has placed a burden on what is supposed to be a smooth transition for families some have also been left without a place to stay due to their new apartment or house not being expected in the required time and thinking for myself being a mom of two knowing that I have gotten all the way up to this point where I signed on the dotted line and I'm waiting and not knowing where me and my children will go some have also in additional NIS inspector could also help alleviate dha's burden on timely inspection for families using housing Choice vouchers

the city of Durham Bears the responsibility of ensuring that its residents have access to safe and Humane housing without an adequate number of housing inspectors low-income tenants particularly those of Spanish speaking are left offenseless of the whims of their landlords which means they are subjected to poor living conditions out of the fear of retaliation far too often tonight our desire is to increase transparency and accountability intended landlord relations in Durham and in funding a full-time bilingual inspector for neighborhood Improvement Services we believe the city council has an opportunity to do just that thank you I have Miss Mr Miss um j-a-r-a-n-i-t

the first name is p-h-a-n-i-n-d-r-a thank you and then Mr Pierce you'll follow uh well first I want to thank the mayor and the city council for having me and allowing me to speak if you will state your name my name is ferninder gianti thank you people call me PJ uh I I'm I was born and raised in Durham so I'm happy this is my first time attending and I've enjoyed hearing all the aspects that you all deal with uh at every meeting um I wanted to show you all I wanted to tell you all what happened today to my friends um this is for really the Durham Parks and Rec Department but you all oversee that this is what you call a pickleball paddle my friends went to we've been playing at Duke and Duke uh you know they have they have a committed space for pickleball courts and today my friends went there to play this morning and they were told by the Duke security guards that you will no longer be able to play here without a Duke ID so my friends were like well where do we go in Durham to play and I stated I said well there's a

place in Chapel Hill that we can play that welcomes us and my friends like yeah but we don't want to go to Chapel Hill we wanted to play in Durham so I ask you all um there's it's a growing sport it's the fastest growing sport in America and our friends in Chapel Hill and Raleigh are making accommodations for pickleball courts and I would ask that you all consider this and put it and put it as a priority in the Durham Parks and Recreation budget as well as uh look into the Piney wood pickleball situation and make sure that's ain't gonna happen and it's on schedule and that we have the funds that um that I was told that Durham was committed to making to make sure that has happened uh thank you for your time and listening to me today thank you thank you sir [Applause] good evening if you will state your name you have three minutes thank you I am

Russell Pierce I serve as executive director of housing for New Hope on January 25th one of the coldest nights of the Year nearly 150 volunteers were deployed in teams across the city and county for the annual point and time count to count those who are experiencing homelessness we are grateful Madam mayor that you and other colleagues from the council and also the County Commissioners were with us that evening and were able to meet some of our community's most vulnerable Neighbors in the places they currently call home just two weeks ago this year's count was released and the overall number of people experiencing homelessness it actually dropped by 18 from 459 to 375 over the last year but that drop actually relates primarily to a 35 reduction in shelter capacity as space is funded by covet grants have been taken offline within that 375 though of folks still experiencing homelessness a deeper dive reveals some significant challenges

we continue to see an over-representation of African Americans among those experiencing homelessness 50 percent higher than our community's population 68 percent of the population is male we've seen a hundred percent increase in people identifying as Hispanic being counted just over the last year from 14 to 29 we are seeing families who are unsheltered sleeping in cars many times which is actually something we were not seeing three to four years ago on the night of the count There Were Ten families including 16 children who are out in cars and other places Outdoors the unsheltered count itself those who can't access urban ministries or families moving forward continues to increase up 105 percent since 2020 300 since 2018. this year we counted 158 people the answer to homelessness of course is housing and therein lies one of the greatest challenges the stock of affordable housing especially housing

accessible to those at 50 Ami or less is dropping as long-time rental homes are sold to become owner occupied dwellings as rental costs soar past soar rental costs soar past Hud's fair market rents that limit what agencies like ours can spend to support clients and as properties are sold and converted to market rate units this is a problem across the state as the former head of the north county question and homelessness said last week across the state we are losing more affordable housing than we are able to create even with the boldest initiatives on Thursday during your work session housing for New Hope along with Partners from Alliance Health Duke urban ministries Durham congregations in action Durham can and actually a number of our partners are here with us tonight that ask them to stand if they would we will be before you on Thursday with a bold ask to match a commitment made last Monday night by the Durham County Commissioners to provide 3023 million and twenty five thousand to support the purchase of Carver Creek Apartments this will enable the

preservation of 48 units of affordable housing that are scheduled to lose all their protections at the end of this year it would secure undeveloped land on that property that when combined with land that housing for New Hope already owns could create an additional 45 to 50 units of affordable housing and it would support the phase development of a master plan Supportive Housing campus including 120 total units of Supportive Housing with deeply integrated on-site services for our most vulnerable Neighbors much like a hurricane blowing through we first need to take action to preserve this property and the unique opportunity that it presents and then just like in Disaster Response and Recovery there's a disaster risk reduction phase where we need as a community to develop a strategy for preserving the existing affordable housing that is in danger of being lost as protections end so that we can arrest the dramatic increases we are seeing in our unsheltered populations we've spoken with great great pride tonight on the amount of additional

housing we are creating but if we lose too much of what exists it will become replacement housing not additional affordable housing thank you thank you all right we thank you all for tonight coming tonight that will conclude and I let folk kind of run over so I know you all are watching I did but since I let the firefighters run over I had to let everybody else but when we come back we will hold to our three minutes for our speakers so I ask that you all be cognizant of that and we will take our recess until 9 11 for 10 minutes at this time and we will come back and continue with our public hearings foreign [Music]

com all slash grants TR South and be sure to follow our Parks and Recreation team here on social media

so one of the things [Music] they're going to be they're going to be doing some awesome stuff okay so let's get to the fun stuff what do kids say 5 to 12 get to do at a DPR summer camp so we have all kinds of all kinds of great opportunities we have we try and do as many field trips as possible we have at least a weekly trip to a swimming pool so the kids have the opportunity the opportunity to learn how to swim play and engage with kids some kids from their neighborhood kids that live nearby and a lot of times kids they've never met before so it really creates some social connectivity for kids it decreases the amount of screen time that they have and it and it shows them different activities that they can do

with each other and and led by our staff We the People Nosotros the Gente made We the People hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal and shall be afforded the inalienable right to fair housing the city of Durham and HUD are committed to ensuring that everyone is treated equitably when searching for a place to call home everyone in Durham should be able to find a home they can afford that's why forever home Durham is creating affordable livable and inclusive

com foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign

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thank you foreign [Music] serve your heart hopefully this part goes quickly but we do have a lot of cards up there

a lot of cards up there all right is now 9 11 and we're going to move right along into our next agenda item which is going to be item 27. all right it's 9 11. we are going to move right ahead to our next agenda item which is item 27 under our public hearings Consolidated annexation Harlow point this item is a this public hearing is a zoning case I believe and we are going to receive our staff report at this time hey good evening thank you Madame O'Neill mayor Pro tem Middleton honorable council members Alexander Cahill with the planning department happy to be here with you this evening before again staff would like to State for the record that all planning

949 this proposal would not change the total number of units but it would simply incorporate a small triangle of the rs20 property that is adjacent and this would add to the development's open space and Road Frontage in the project

as a result the overall PDR density is decreasing but the unit count is not in addition the inclusion of this partial is part of the development site will fill a donut hole in the city's jurisdiction this request case z2232 received a recommendation of approval from the Planning Commission on March 14 2023 by a vote of a 13-0 there are three motions required for this item this evening the first is to adopt an ordinance annexing the property and entering into a utility extension agreement the second two is approve the zoning ordinance and the third is to approve the consistency statement thank you very much staff and the applicant team are available to answer any questions this evening thank you Mr Cahill you have heard the report from staff and I will now declare this public hearing open first are there any questions for staff from members of the council all right seeing none I believe that we have one person we will hear from our applicant first

82 already are

63 acre parcel is a small donut hole in the city's jurisdiction it's a tiny piece surrounded in entirely by property that's in the city so to fix that Lennar is applying for annexation and rezoning it and because Lennar already controls and is developing the surrounding property the best way to rezone this small piece is to add it to the existing PDR as staff mentioned nothing about the original PDR really changes other than the acreage which increases and as a

result the density which decreases also somehow the original rezoning was approved without any design commitments I don't really know how that happened because I believe they should have been required so we've added design commitments that speak to what is being built out there already and I believe the original zoning commitment was for a five foot additional asphalt five feet of additional asphalt to serve as a bike lane ncdot has gone away from that and instead favors a 10 foot wide multi-use pack or shared multi-use path and so we've made that commitment on this but the total number of units Remains the Same total amount of open space the whole amount of tree preservation all those things remain as previously approved and that really is all there is to this project I will say that on the approved site plan earlier that the one I mentioned earlier it has a 172 units on it but the current zoning allows for up to 191 units Mr Loveless Who's online

he's estimated that by adding this to the original PDR we might be able to amend the site plan and add a few more units not up to 191 but a few more units I think about seven happy to answer any questions you may have thank you attorney gauche I will now inquire of our let me just make sure that we have handled all of our speakers at this point Mr gauche and Mr Loveless Mr Loveless did you want to have an opportunity to speak sir I think he was online Mr Loveless can you hear me sir I think you're on mute but you would also have an opportunity to speak yes ma'am Madam mayor I I'm here I was just unneeded I'm just here to answer any questions that you may have

thank you I think that concludes our speakers for that for this item on our agenda and I will now declare this public hearing to be closed and this matter is back before the council are there any further discussion from Council Members at this point seeing none we are ready to consider the three motions that we have and I do believe that our clickers are now working so the first motion that we will consider is to adopt an ordinance annexing Harlow Point into the city of Durham effective June 30 2023 and to authorize the city manager to enter into a utility extension agreement with Lennar Carolinas LLC move this red second okay the move by mayor Pro tem secondary by councilwoman Freeman Madam

949 fall slash Jordan District Dash b f slash g j dash B cities jurisdiction movies right

councilwoman Freeman not a clerk if you open the verb if you close the vote and Report out please the motion is unanimous thank you we now move to the last motion for our consideration motion number three to adopt a consistency statement is required by ncgs 160d-605 move to adopt consistency second the move by mayor Pro tem secondary by Councilwoman José Hyman Madam clerk if you open the vote if you were close vote and Report out and the motion passes 7-0 thank you we will now move to item number 28 which is the Consolidated annexation Carpenter preserve but I do need to put a couple of things on the

record at this time as I am preparing to call this item sometimes it will last a few weeks Attorney Kim Raymond informed me that the developer involved in the matter that is now under the auspices of the SBI and the FBI is Mr Jarrett Edens about two weeks ago Councilwoman José Hyman told me that Mr Edens would be on the agenda for tonight she followed that conversation with an email to Miss Sarah Young and I'll read it into the record this is from Miss Young sent on Thursday May 4th 2023 at 3 45 and this was her response since to uh councilwoman

27 covers annexations but does not include the same limitation this means that applicants are allowed to resubmit the same exact same application immediately after the governing body decision if there is no significant change to the annexation proposal there's not much for

staff to review and the item can be ready for consideration again in a short period of time we do not schedule items in the order of their submittal but rather in the order that they are complete let me know if you have any further questions on that pursuant to that after that I reached out to the FBI to inform them as I had stated previously that I would not have any further comments but to let them know that an item was coming before the council involving Mr Edens and that it would be for a vote the FBI told me that their investigation was continuing and they would not have a say and could not have a say in the ongoing business of the city I then reached out to Professor Joyce at The Institute of government and followed that conversation with an email

to him an attorney Kim Rayburn which I will also at this time read into the record good morning and this was sent from me on Tuesday May 9th uh 2023 to attorney Monique to Attorney Kim raber attorney Bob Joyce at The Institute of government and that was also copied to councilman Jose Hyman good morning attorney Ray Berg and Professor George pursuant to my conversation with Professor Joyce so yesterday I'm following up on our discussion with this email on Monday the developer who has made the allegations concerning Councilwoman José Hyman will be on the agenda for a vote on a proposed annexation I would like some guidance as to the possible recuser process for Councilwoman José Hyman in the event she chooses to do so I do not believe that the developer has

been publicly named but his name seems to be an oversecret among certain community members I believe that attorney rayberg has stated that council members have an obligation to vote on all matters unless there is a lawful reason for not doing so as you are aware we are in the midst of an investigation involving both the FBI and the SBI Professor George suggested that perhaps a conversation could be had with the Turner Rayburn and the developers attorney for input on this matter he further suggested that I make a prepared statement prior to the matter being heard attorney Ray Berg I am seeking your input as well and would ask that you respond to Professor George and I to know how you think we should perceive in this matter I'm also copying Councilwoman José Hyman on this email as well so that she can be aware of my inquiry and how we agree to proceed I have prepared this a statement in

accordance with Professor Joyce's advice and I have also forwarded those emails to Councilwoman José Hyman and the rest of the staff which is going to be the last email that I read into the record would be the response that we have received from concerning from attorney raber which was sent back on Tuesday May 9th at 4 10 and these emails as I have indicated have been provided to city council and especially uh councilman Jose Hyman for her to make sure that she knows what the advice has been given so uh attorney rayberg sent this response to me O'Neal hello I apologize for the delay in my reply I was in the Harvard Bloomberg horse for the first five hours of the work day followed by a couple of meetings now to your inquiry generally council members may not be excuse from voting on matters before the council and shall not recuse themselves from voting

except for matters involving the consideration of the council member's own financial interest or official conduct or on matters on which the member is prohibited from voting under NC's General statute 14-234 or NC General statute 160 d109 it is the responsibility and legal and ethical obligation of an of individual council members to assess whether they have a conflict of interest that necessitates their recusal from exercising their official duties in this instance Councilmember José Hyman is in the best position to assess that voting on the agenda item brought by the developer who alleles misconduct in March is quote reasonably likely to have a direct substantial and readily identifiable Financial impact on her and and that comes from NC General satchel160d-109 a Councilmember José Hyman has the facts in her position that

can address that specific legal requirement and thus inform whether she must recuse herself or alternatively whether there is no basis for recusal and she has an obligation to exercise her official duties by voting NC General sat160d-109 was newly adopted in 2019 so the process of whereby someone can pose an objection to a council member's vote on a land use matter has never been tested in Durham it is possible that the developer May raise an objection to Councilmember José Hyman participating in the vote in question the procedure for how that objection is to be handled is outlined in section e of the statute the COA believes that the provision contemplates that if challenged council member Jose Hyman should know the objection during the public hearing for the subject item based on the facts that are again largely within her possession she can determine that she has a

conflict and recuse herself if the proposed development and this is online is likely to have a direct substantial and readily identified viable Financial impact on her if in the alternative Councilmember José Hyman concludes that she does not have a conflict as determined by Statute she need not recuse herself in that case the statute provides that the remaining members of the council shall vote on her accuser and majority vote rules if there is no statutory basis for recusal but there is still uncertainty about council member Jose Hyman's participation under the circumstances councilman Jose Harmon can request and the city council can grant to her and excuse absence for Monday's night meetings and specifically or a leave of absence pending completion resolution of the reference law enforcement investigations finally I know Professor Joyce is suggesting that I meet with legal counsel for the developer I do not know who that

individual is or the precise issue that they may might want to talk through prior to the hearing nor I neither I nor any member of my team has ever been contacted by an attorney for a developer on this issue I would of course make myself available for such a conversation to discuss the law as I understand it regards Kim those are the items that I need to in to read into the record as a part of the prepared statement as suggested by Professor Joyce so at this time we will open we will this is that this public hearing is a zoning case and we will receive our staff report by Mr Cahill good evening again thank you mayor O'Neill and honorable council members uh requests for utility extension agreement voluntary annexation initial zoning map

change has been received from Jared Edens of Eden's Investments for one parcel of land totaling around 132 Acres this is located at 2621 burden Road the Sanic station petition is for a contiguous expansion of the primary corporate limits the applicant intends to develop the property as 260 residential townhouse and single-family units and has proffered five building paths to be donated to Habitat for Humanity of Durham LLC the applicant is not seeking a change in the underlying zoning District as part of this annexation petition a direct translational zoning is one in which the existing County zoning is translated to the City Zoning District upon the annexation effective date while the current use of the property is vacant future development under the existing zoning of residential rural allows for agricultural activities single-family residential development on lots of one acre or greater and conservation subdivisions commercial and Industrial Development is prohibited in the residential rural

zoning District as a reminder three motions are required for a direct translation annexation the first is to adopt an ordinance annexing the property in entering into util extension agreement the second is to approve the translational zoning ordinance and the third is to approve the consistency statement thank you staff and the applicant team are available to answer any questions tonight thank you Mr Cahill you have heard the report from staff and I'm now going to declare this public hearing open I first saw there any questions for staff from members of the council Councilwoman José Hyman thank you thank you I I just want Clarity on you said building pads can you just kind of explain what a building pad is for me I'm sorry no absolutely that's a great question so generally it's the concrete pads that are poured that the home is going to be built upon and that usually includes in most cases the utilities that are already put in there so the the habitat can come in and just build the

house with their volunteers okay and my second question is is it I guess procedure policy that changed the name of a project like is that this is the first time that that's happened so I was just asking Yeah we actually have a several in the queue right now where they were um they have changed names or they've come back um and one because there's no time limit on annexation when it can be when it's denied it can come back they need to come up with a new name so we can differentiate in the process especially when we send to reviewer departments thank you that was just for my knowledge because I didn't it was the first time that's happened that it was the name has been changed so I just know what the policy was that in with that thank you I appreciate it any other questions from members of the guys all right we'll now turn to our public speakers here we'll first hear from Mr Eden Mr Edens I believe we have about one

about 13 speakers in opposition I believe you are the only one Speaking as a proponent so you will be free to speak as long as you like about at least 10 minutes or more they would get three minutes a piece so how much time would you like on a clear clock at first I'll try to keep it five or six minutes and some time for questions if that's okay okay sure evening remember city council Madam mayor mayor Pro tem geraldine's with Eden's Investments um I'm gonna do my focus on the project this evening I'm going to talk about the project I've never requested I've been coming up here for how many years 20 on 20 25 years never requested that any members not vote or anything never never had that issue come up and and welcome the full council's attention this evening as I focus on the project we were back here in March obviously we

talked about that I thought we had a good presentation then but sometimes plans don't go like you think you know you plan you we came in that night thinking hey we're going you know we should have an approval we go into every project thinking that we're going to have an approval I mean we wouldn't start a project that we didn't think that ultimately we could find something to do with that property and do a nice development you know it didn't work out that night but you know our options are to run away never come back or come back and try to come back with something better than what we had last time and last time I think we had a pretty strong application so what we did we took that time we didn't sulk we took that time we immediately got our paperwork going got our applications going got a community did a outstanding job helping us get things together we've done this a lot we know how to do it quickly and we made some changes you know some of the feedback we got from councilmember Caballero a couple months ago was you know it'd be nice if we saw some town homes on the side that was some feedback we got so we went back modified the plan because you know for

for months we were sort of letting the builders tell us like it's a single family site that's what it needs to be that's and I agree and that's what the market is but you know the markets change and we got some feedback we had an opportunity to add some density and we picked up another 20 25 units and with that added density we're able to add some additional affordable housing which we couldn't have done before so we're coming back again with what I think is a better price project with better profits for the community and I want to point out again where you know we we set some I set some precedence up here sometimes we're helping to set a precedent that on annexation cases there's now an ability by working with the utility extension agreement to get some zoning condition type commitments on annexations like we weren't doing that you know most time annexations are when they're straight direct translations like this they're boom boom straight County to city and that's how it goes but we've we did complicate this one but we started that process I reached out to planning and

said hey can we get to the city attorney's office is there a way to do some affordable housing with an extension agreement you know those are good things this project has a lot of good things you know it's a conservation subdivision when I've we've had people come up and say well conservation subdivision it's it's really not a concert they're really not conserving how are we not conserving it like I can show Platt after plat after plat of where at least 50 percent of a property's open space was conserved platted the deeded of the homeowners association and if somebody went out there and tried to cut a tree down there'd be 20 people from Durham planning department coming out saying what are y'all doing conservation cell divisions are real things and when I was on Planning Commission when this was was brought into the code I was on Planning Commission part of the debate my only complaint at the time and it was lauded across Planning Commission it was a lot about people who are now County Commissioners this is a great code and my only complaint was well but we can't do town homes with it it's great we get two units an acre we can serve property but we can't do town homes and over the

8 units an acre and we fought for that and that's

what we wanted and they were proud of that and I was like yeah that's good you know because I remember I was I was working around here then as a Ron Horvath was handling that well we're proposing the same density it's roughly 1 8 to 1 9 an acre identical to everything around it to me it's it just seems to be a really strong application and I appreciate your consideration be glad to answer any questions you have thank you all right we will turn to our persons who are in person to who have signed up to speak in person first so we'll start with Miss Rebecca Carpenter Mr James Chavis it's all about Miss Donna stand back

Miss Pam Williams and Pam Andrews if he would come in that order you would have three minutes of peace I'm still Rebecca Carpenter I still own land on Carpenter Road and it just so happens that three sides of my property is surrounded by this development I know this property personally because I have walked it I have driven a tractor on it and it has been in the carpenter family for many years before it accidentally got out I think as I stand here I am not against development in our city and county but what really bothers me at this point is all together Durham city is moving too fast and not taking time to have a plan for

what Durham city county together will look like in 30 years and you are not thinking about what do we want to preserve about the character of Durham yeah the character because it's there and it's been there and every time we pick a certain kind of development we may be in the distance sending people away from Durham I think what I'm looking and as I've gotten involved in the other thinking about other developments one thing that struck me last week developers proposed 1 300 new housing units and it's already come from the Planning Commission to you to be considered in the next few months and when I put that with everything that's been going on and everything that

I've seen it's too much too fast so I believe I would want a better and slower way to develop so that we will not end up a city where no one wants to live they don't move here for it to end up congested then this morning I realize we're not the only people and I do read the paper foreign believe it or not they're hard to find sometimes but I do read it uh and this is how Raleigh is facing the same thing how what the city was known for that made its popular and made its good and a good place to live is being destroyed by over development too fast and they already have a movement to keep the character that will make people want

to be here thank you the end oh one other thing I think we all know why it did not pass before so we don't have much of a chance but voting comes up in November and don't forget I am a Durham city voter thank you Miss Carpenter we turn now to Mr Chavis good uh good night to all of y'all because he is night time okay my name is James Davis and I'm here this opposing this and I have a question to ask you mayor O'Neill will you please explain to the Durham residents along with me with this type of magnitude and the senses is it just on councilman Hyman or all of

you mayor and city council members especially to find the person who signed your falsely sign your name I James tables along with many others would like for this to go on records as you have heard the plot the plaintiff annual mail read a statement you reading the statement that is in investigation we're asking that investigation to be on every last one of you mayor and city council members along with two others your City attorney and one of your staff Sarah Young so many of us believe some falsehood has been going on and we would like all this type of development to stop until we get the true answer from who is guilty of starting this so

that our city down will stop being in a shame and we can go forward with all you black plus one Hispanic which is considered minority are ruining our city by sitting up there because somebody have done the wrong thing in making these plans to hurt the original termites of them and it needs to be stopped I would like you to sit there to ask a City attorney can they be held accountable for voting on anything dealing with planning after the fact that this investment come out because I will be pushing it if I'm alive foreign thank you Mr Chavis we now turn to Miss Donna stanback our presentation tonight flows in a certain sequence so it flows that it would be me and then Donna and then Pam if that's okay sure we have we they have

some numbers but you may call them in the order that you would like they would just stay today and so I can keep up with my cards okay all right all right all right can you see our screen okay all right all right do I need to hit a magic button Alex to make it full screen okay this is a this is a okay this is a I'm sorry this is the PDF not the uh no it's PowerPoint nose okay but anyway um should be able to okay I'm ready for my time thank you so much all right good evening everyone my name is Pamela Andrews 6108 Wake Forest

Highway greetings to Mayor O'Neill and staff we appreciate you all tonight this development has come before us once before and this one is not the one tonight but it's one very similar this is a conservation subdivision that's on the corner of dot Nichols Road and Olive Branch Road and you'll see that the blue there represents floodplains and the green there represents Wetlands the one that's coming before you tonight has five tributaries it run Panther Creek runs through the middle of it so it does have similar attributes there are seven sediment ponds required 132 Acres up to 260 dwellings now which has increased but what I want to point out here today I was on that strip of land that's remaining notice the only thing that remains in trees is where there's wetlands and where there is floodplains and the comprehensive plan says they want harmonious and respectful development we need to design new developments to protect our remaining natural areas including Wetlands floodplains lakes rivers streams mature

forests and native plants and animals that rely on them to live I visited two neighbors there today and those neighbors that I visited on that little strip of land that's left right there the little bit of trees you left once got her septic system damaged and cannot be replaced due to blasting and construction and another one right beside it has got cracks in her foundations that'll be I think in some of the slides that we'll show you a little bit later our County residents are suffering due to this construction that's going along this strip these residents they're turning for help and they don't know where to turn every day we meet with more we met with the fire department last week um in addition I wanted to oops there's one slide that seems to be missing there it is this one Michelle wolf presented this last week in the in your staff meetings I just want to quickly go over it Mass grading clear cutting continue to increase runoff and tomato soup which is impairing our Creeks two numbers really Deport under the nitrogen column but notice this is from 2015 to 2018. so

2 this was presented by Michelle last week it's not my data but you can see that this data is old look at the development that's gone on the last year those numbers have gone up traumatically I would very well assume um lit Crete has already ten thousand dwellings on it right now and it goes up every week this was in the article by sound Rivers Just A Week Ago May the 4th about a week and a half ago Lick Creek levels have gone up 3 900 percent above State Standards I was present when she threw the turbidity meter in it went over 2 000 instantaneously it's supposed to be 10 for drinking water thank you

good evening my name is Donna Steinbeck at 4825 Jimmy Rogers Road Durham North Carolina um first thing I want to go over is the Environmental metrics on the input oh okay there it goes yeah the input was minimal so therefore the assumption is that the metrics are minimal um because that's what the ordinances State now we we've looked and one of the key concerns was the size of the uh the acreage there of 132 acres and that there were no phases mentioned and we would like to request that no phases be over 20 acres as is being done in Charlotte and Wake Forest and 25 acres in Cary and we'd like to request an implementation of the new amendments the sedimentation and erosion control Amendment

tc22005 and mass grading plan and tree preservation proposed amendment tc220004 and I'd like to have that confirmed by the developer I will blasting be required probably um because of the death changes on in the slope um the storm water plans are minimal and not mentioned we request that that this development have a two a 100 Year erosion and storm water control devices due to the Triassic soil and the failing of existing requirements for erosion control is failing all over if you come riding out in our community you will see that and it's just Rick clay all in the water so um we'd also like to request that the

there'll be a hundred foot stream buffer for the tributaries which as Pam mentioned there are five and a 150 foot uh buffer wide buffer for the uh Panther Creek um well hey I'm not having too much luck here okay as stated we recommend the phasing the comprehensive plan preserve sensitive land policy 82 discourages development that contributes to a loss of biodiversity particularly through disruptive clear-cutting and mass grading Mass grading should be discouraged for new residential projects and pictured is the runoff coming from these subdivisions you can't you can see how red it is and contributing to different Creeks impairment

request conformance to Amendment TC 22 005 on stormwater basins as this development is pictured up here and it has seven Retention Ponds needed to stand back your time your three minutes okay thank you very much thank you okay I don't know how to get this black box oh okay I figured it out okay good afternoon my name is Pam Williams uh lifelong resident of Durham I'm on record my address uh what Donna was gonna ask for here is that the developer confirmed that the traffic specific requirements be committed to for this project that we have a larger sediment Basin longer dewatering time stricter ground cover requirements on slopes and

flocculents required as in the the tax amendments and everything and although this may be an old layout of the development it is what was in the Tia for the development okay um I want to talk to you a little bit about project boundary buffers um kind of had a conversation with the fire department the other day at this person's house and this development here and a lot of people don't realize that the 20-foot width is not that there's no construction in that 20 feet from the property line it's just that a building can't be built in that 20 feet so we have 20 feet here the boundary is between the 20-foot boundary buffers between the property line and the proposed building within the area this area retaining walls training dishes can be built and trees can be may not be replaced on this particular property here this is the property line

they are digging 15 feet down here within feet from the property line and and they're going to be putting a retaining wall that's 15 feet high and no trees will be going in here because they cannot put trees behind the retaining wall this is what a 20-foot buffer would do we are asking requesting that the developer follows the proposed Mass grading and tree preservation Amendment uh in there it requests no grading within 10 feet of the property line to maintain mature trees and other property lines we are requesting a 30-foot border with a six opacity along the property lines and state maintained roads to provide the Vista and trees and the canopy right here as two examples of how they grade it right up to the property line I probably would have gone a foot further if this pole utility pole hadn't been in the way again here is a project boundary by for here here is the property line

4 here's the single family home this is destroying our neighborhoods again in the Udo states that there is I got a dozen uh statements in the UDA where it says protect existing character of the existing neighborhood how are these pictures uh protecting the existing character also for clarification I would like to know is this a conservation subdivision because it didn't say that or I didn't understand that it was thank you Miss Williams thank you if you state your name my phone my phone is not up there okay thank you and Rebecca Freeman at 1818

Southview Road Durham NC and I'm a lifelong resident of Durham County thank you for listening to me tonight good evening Miss may miss mayor O'Neal and um the mayor pro team Mark Anthony and council members I'd like for you to look at this and the the area that's encircled in red is this project and all the area around it is rural area if this isn't if this is supposed to be in a 15 minute walking distance of stores jobs and businesses is not getting it the comprehensive plan says it should be rooted in Connected communities we want new development designed to respect support and fit into existing neighborhoods and for residents to be involved in those decisions comprehensive plan States and Community goals and objectives we want every resident to be able to access essential daily needs when a 15-minute walk roll or bike ride and I come to you tonight saying that this is not possible at this site there's nothing to walk to and there's just country roads out there with lots of trees that's going to be

destroyed by these developments and I would appreciate your consideration of this also I also like to ask what's what um qualifies as a substantial change in the developments the prior development plan had 203 units this has 260 additional third or three units and like to have some explanation of from somebody besides the developer what is a substantial change thanks so much thank you Mr Friedman thank you ma'am thank you Mr three minutes sir yeah pet plan how do I cue the next this is not my expertise folks I'm a scientist okay that's fine

good evening my name is Thomas Freeman my address is on record I'm a lifelong resident of Durham County again I Rise to bring your attention to uh the damage that's being done by this type of development in Durham County I draw your attention to the comprehensive plan of place types where it stresses of the site to protect and preserve strings Wetlands floodplains natural heritage area and steep slopes I'd emphasize the steep slopes the Topography of just about everything in Southeastern Durham counties extremely steep velocity of water is is quite rapid and the completely denuded a vegetation of on Triassic Basin soils has greatly exacerbated the problems that we have there I'll move on help me here

and what I'd really like to focus on folks is uh I'll characterize it as the unintended consequences of what you folks are approving I draw your attention to my friend's property at 4008 uh holder Road Durham County he's sandwiched between the seat of Durham Upstream the Sea of Durham Downstream and bless his heart he's in the middle the picture to your left is a home he owns there on holder Road he's had 14 inches of rain of rain water flood water inside of his home there that's his niece's home the home on the right is his is his mother's home uh it has a frequency of flooding three to four times per year would you want to endure this several times a year this is what my friend Mr Tim Ellis of holder Road indoors each and every year he's talked to the city

he's talked to the county he's talked to the ncdot and they're all in agreement that it's either not my problem or the ncdot it's not worth it for us to uh to fix this there are three five foot culverts under holder road that carries the water from Upstream those city of Durham developments to the downstream area which is Grove Park another City development in the city and he's caught in the middle and he's suffering the consequences his property is flooding with with great regularity and I wish he were here to actually share firsthand uh what he's going through over many years but he's sick and tired sick and tired of it but I'll be a spokesman thank you very much Miss Jackie Wagstaff

I don't need the PowerPoint uh good evening Madam mayor and council members and um and my address better not be on record because there's some people that's keeping up with this stuff I prefer not to I don't want these germs in here but um I'm gonna attack this from another angle when I saw this come back up on this agenda to be voted on unfortunately I thought it would fail again I'm glad that uh the family emergency cleared up and that our council member is back but this is troubling to the community that this project came up March the 7th and it failed because one of the four people were missing it failed and then we had this Bond swell bonfire that erupted

Mr Eden your name has been brought up in this but this bonfire over one council member because it's failed now maybe it may be alleged it may be just the way I feel but that's what it seems like to the community now in two days this project was submitted resubmitted in two days according to the developer he said that they usually go back and resubmit and they make it better I beg to differ I don't think that the project got better I think the count got better that's why he brought it back he has four people up here no matter what we say tonight this project is going to pass and I don't need a rebuttal from the male Pro tem or any of y'all to say that what I'm saying is not true because we know what's going to happen and it's unfortunate because you have residents that come down here and they bear their soul

and they talk about how these projects affects them in their community and then what I did was I went back to 2017 and looked at question is from Javier question is from Jillian I ain't see any on you mayor Pro town but in those questionnaires there was a lot of talk about how they would protect the land they wouldn't vote on development that would destroy the land and displaced residents there was one question there that Javier spoke about that I'm just in disbelief that she's voting like this now based on her 2017 question is so it's interesting to me that we have council members that are sitting here just totally disregarding What the residents want What the residents feel and it's always that we're the policy

makers and we have to do this because we're here to make policies well you know what was the lady that said she's a voter right there make all the policies you want come November some of you might not be making anymore and and then leaving Madame mayor I want to thank you for everything that you do and I hope we get two more years to work with you thank you Miss wag staff I believe that those are all our speakers in person and on the line other than we don't have anybody on the Internet is that correct all right Mr Edens if you will return we are now ready for your rebuttal and I believe you have a substantial amount of time over at least over five minutes yeah thank you I appreciate that and I don't have a lot to rebut because most of the comments were about other projects or other parts of town but the

comments about our project Miss Williams had asked for a 30-foot perimeter buffer I think but we're we offered 50 feet from day one so I don't want to reduce it we're going to we'll keep the 50-foot parameter buffer that's another thing that we we added here there's some talk about match grading limitations but I mean we're just going to comply with the code you know whenever that time comes I mean that that's making its way through and I think it's it's been improving along the way and there was a lot of talk about the things that we're trying to protect in Durham the Creeks flood Plains steep slopes ironically if you go to the unified development ordinance in the conservation subdivision section it lists those very items as the things that we are supposed to be protecting with the conservation subdivision it says floodplain is number one I think Wetlands may be number two stream buffers three steep float steep slopes is up there that's those are the sites

8 or 9 units directly to the east across Burton Road so we just stuck with what we thought fit well and um appreciate your time again thank you all right I believe that Madam clerk has indicated that there is a hand raised on the internet Wanda Allen Miss Allen can you hear me and if you

5

8 million dollars do we continue or do we allow these developers to expect us as taxpayers to pay or we do we take the information and knowledge that we have gained and

changed our route let's pass the comprehensive Plan before any of more approval of health and developments this would eliminate some of the harm to our environment plus provide housing as I stated when I begin we as taxpayers should not have to pay to continue cleaning up after these developments thank you thank you Miss Allen Mr Edens you may come forth to report I believe those are all the names that we have is that great Madam clerk no more hands right thank you let's see yeah just quickly I appreciate Miss Allen I mentioning the um I understand taxpayer costs and whatnot that reminded me of the budget analysis for the site that the city also performs shows I think about a million dollar annual budget surplus to the city from the developments that could possibly go towards some of these stream restoration projects in the future I don't think our stream would need work in the future though because

of the conservation subdivision we have such a wide one of our speakers asked for 150 foot buffer along but all of our developments up to the South all the Open Spaces by the creek so it's several hundred feet along the stream and I think that'll work well I'm not done thank you thank you I believe that is the last speaker that we have I now declare the public hearing to be closed and the matters back before the council for any account comments that the council may have before we consider the three motions we have before us looking to my left right in the comments to my right Mia protip thank you madam I want to thank our members of our community who have come out tonight as always this room is very small only a couple hundred people can fit in this room and sometimes an echo chamber effect is created in this room there are 300 000 people who live in this city in this County each person up here legitimately

represents thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people who voted for them so I appreciate the mayor's calling for peace and humility as one of the virtues because I think sometimes when we're courting our Echo chamber we can forget that there are other groups of people who are just as much as Community as those that can make meetings and sit with us each night we've passed many policies that are reflective of tens of thousands of people who do not have the privilege or the possibility of coming and sitting in meetings so we love hearing from the community but the community is much much bigger than this room um we'll see much bigger than this room um this is a direct translation and I you know since I've been on the council I um these uh these type of cases the question before us is this the zoning's not being changed so what will we get left to its own to

its current configuration something is going there and I wish that as a council member I was as powerful as people think I am and we are as powerful as people think we are most of the time we are managing outcomes we're not directing them we're making choices about outcomes this is the United States of America when you own land you get to make certain choices about ownership many of us in here are homeowners and and and we're capitalists and land ownership you you don't want government policy to Trump the prerogatives of land ownership you don't want that so most of the time what we're doing is managing outcomes so without the cities Advance Water Systems what will be built there will be on will be on Wells septic systems which are far less uh reliable which come with their own set of issues the character preservation that our Udo talks about does not mean character to

the exclusion of new neighbors and Friends it speaks to materials it speaks to Aesthetics it speaks to architectural flourishes and things of that nature it does not mean that your neighborhood gets to stay the same way it's been for 50 years there is no neighborhood in Durham that is not experiencing the impacts of growth not my neighborhood not our inner city no area is is being left untouched by growth and I know it's difficult um I lament every time I'm sitting in traffic and it seems like the traffic is getting uh uh heavier as I'm trying to turn on to 70 off of Miami there are more people moving here and there's no neighborhood that has been that has not been been impacted but with respect to this particular case and I you know we don't get these kind of layups often where it's a the Planning Commission doesn't even speak to these cases they just pass a resolution because it's a direct translation um I don't know how to make that more uh uh a simple

um I respect when folks say that you know we're not against development we just want it to be smart development and it seems like smart development usually means vote the way I want you to vote I mean imagine me saying I'm not against um Community comments I just think they should be logical comments that would be pretty condescending and pretty insulting uh not recognizing that there are different views and maybe it's just different economic theories maybe it's a different understanding understanding of supply and demand as I did before I'm going to vote for this direct translation because I'm more fearful of what we will get without the city's Advanced sewer and septic systems then left to what's going to go there and character means that we can still welcome other people thank you madam mayor councilman Williams and I'm sorry I had turned to my right first so to see anybody else have any comments on this side okay councilman Williams thank you uh I'd like to ask staff if you could just look into that uh the blasting situation with the septic uh every time

I hear that it does bring a little concern I'd like to be reminded you know or have it looked into if there's someone's well that's being affected um just out of precaution um and and if you don't want to respond tonight you don't have to it's more so just make sure we look into that I will be supporting this case uh considering it is a direct translation uh at no surprise for some um but I I want to respectfully by the way um we we have tended we we have gotten to the point so much where we look at development or we we say Builders you know uh as we've created this industry and it's just a few people who are doing it um development is the practice of building structures and it's happening all over the world in Durham is one of the fastest growing

cities in the country and we say if we keep doing it we're going to push people out the laws of logic supply and demand is part of that it's a component the fastest way to push people out is to make housing more exclusive there's no such thing as putting a boundary around the city and saying you cannot come here and this is it's getting I I didn't want to say Fallon on it because I heard someone a young person speak today and say you guys are gender gentrifying the city and their high rises going up and and I'm Mentor this kid sometimes and they hear what folks are saying if you notice downtown cases don't even come before the city council it just it just doesn't that's the truth and we tend to have we don't have any

issue with development when we are in our place but when it comes with someone else then that's when it's an issue and I don't want to simplify the concerns that our neighbors are in here speaking tonight those concerns are real but also what's real is the fact that this is a very attractive place the city and there are people who are going to come there's no such thing as city council slow it down we can and when we do it only makes the issue worse it only makes the issue worse so and I know some people want to stop hearing me talking but we've made a lot of time for a lot of people to say a lot of things so I want to make sure that it is very clear at least coming from this councilman I'm not interested in pushing people out of Durham and they're more exclusive that we make housing the more expensive it's going to become

and the more Out Of Reach it's going to become and that's not a character that I want to represent in this city and that is what thousands of people voted me into this office to do and say and we all have our prerogative and My Prerogative tonight is I'm going to support this case thank you any other comments from Council councilwoman Freeman thank you madam mayor I want to appreciate the speakers coming in tonight and many nights just acknowledging that our creeks and streams are talking to us and I'm choosing to listen that's all thank you write any other comments All right we have three motions for our consideration this evening motion number one is to adopt an uh an ordinance annexing Carpenter preserve into the city of Durham effective June 30th 2023 and to authorize the city manager to enter into

a utility extension agreement with Eden's investment Inc second it's been moved by Council one councilman Williams and seconded by mayor Pro tem Madam clerk if we were open to vote if you will close the vote and Report out the motion passes four to three with mayor O'Neill and council members Freeman and Halsey highman voting now the second motion for our consideration is to adopt an ordinance emitting the you amending the unified development ordinance by taking property out of the residential rural RR fall slash Jordan District Dash b f slash J B County jurisdiction and establishing the same as residential rule are our fall slash Jordan District Dash b f slash J dash B City jurisdiction the move by mayor Pro tem second in by councilman Williams Madam clerk if you would open the vote

foreign the motion passes again with mayor O'Neill and council members Freeman and Halsey Hyman voting no motion number three for our consideration is to adopt a consistency statement as required by ncgs160d-605 second it's been moved by councilman Williams talking about by mayor Pro tem Madam clerk if you will open the vote foreign if you close to vote and Report out and the third motion passes seven zero all right thank you we will now turn to item 29. which is to Consolidated annexation 751. good evening again mayor O'Neill

all right this is a public here this public hearing is a zoning case and Mr Kia we're ready to receive your report good evening uh thank you again mayor O'Neal um and this is so we've received a Consolidated zoning map change for 751 South this consists of a utility extension agreement and a direct translational zoning as part of the general assembly initiated annexation the applicant is not seeking a change in the underlying zoning District this is considered a direct translational zoning and one in which the existing County zoning is translated to The Identical City Zoning District upon the annexation of the property into the city limits in this case the base zoning includes a development plan which was approved by the Durham County Commissioners in 2010. staff gave a presentation at the work session on May 4th about the history and timeline of 751 South just as a reminder on August 9 2010 the board of County Commissioners did approve the development plan which you

can see in attachment f with a mixed-use zoning district for the 751 South assemblage in June of 2013 the Durham city council voted to deny the annexation through this general assembly of session laws 2013-386 and 2014-47 the North Carolina General Assembly Annex 751 South into the Durham's corporate city limits with an effective date of June 3rd 2023. session law 2013 386 does state that the city of Durham may not impose requirements or commitments on the property that are inconsistent with the requirements and commitments that are contained in the utility extension agreement this utility extension agreement found in your packet and labeled utility extension agreement one was adopted and included in the session law the applicant now proposes amendments to the committed elements that are incorporated into the UEA this is seen as utility extension agreement number two in your packet or

the amended UEA the city of Durham tonight is holding a public hearing to impose the City Zoning on the property and to adopt the required consistency statement in order to translate the County zoning into the City Zoning Additionally the developer has requested changes to the committed elements of this project through the utility extension agreement there are three motions required for this application tonight the first one is to authorize the city manager to enter into either an amended utility extension agreement or for Council to not adopt that motion and approve the existing utility extension agreement that's already recorded the second is to adopt the translational zoning and the third is to approve the consistency statement this is a it can be a confusing situation so if there's any clarifying questions anybody needs tonight staff and the applicant team are available tonight to answer any questions

I've heard the report from staff and I'm now going to declare this public hearing open first uh there are any questions for staff from members of the council and I am also passing out a letter that the mayor's office received from look at him tell me what it is so that they won't know what we're looking at it you keep that copy I'm just I think I might pass out a couple times but I wanted to tell wait a minute from Durham Public Schools dated May 8th from Dr Pascal mumbenga so I hope that all you all have that a copy of that letter concerning this matter all right and I think we have some questions for staff we'll start with councilwoman Johnson and new that Will Follow by questions from Council councilman Williams mayor um quick question could you repeat what you said about zoning absolutely so the existing zoning is

mixed use with a development plan that is the county designation this would be a direct translational zoning where it would again still be mixed use but then in the city jurisdiction okay gotcha I'm a little confused because I thought that the legislature like made it part of the city when they did the when they when they you know forced us to Annex them but that's happening now not then that is correct so what the legislature did was uh the county approved the zoning and then the legislature annexed with a future effective date which is June 3rd gotcha so why do we have to approve it at all if they already did it and it's going to be effective June third yeah sorry maybe this is a maybe maybe this is a Don question thank you Dono told the city attorney's office so to be clear what is currently on the property is County zoning and that has a development

plan there is also an existing utility extension agreement that modified some of the committed elements of that County zoning so when the legislature passed that first bill in 2013 one of the things the bill says is that it did not Annex the land at that time it said it would be annexed into the city effective June 3rd 2023. so it was a delayed annexation date and so what's before Council and um the legislature actually outlined this procedure in the statute if um the developer wanted changes in the existing development plan committed elements those could be approved by Council and its council's option through through a revised UEA so that

first motion tonight it's basically um it's a motion for Council to consider basically keeping the underlying zoning in place with modified committed elements that would be approved through the amended UEA if Council elects not to modify the UEA then you move to the alternative motion which is truly just a direct translation from the county and to answer your question why is this before you at all um the existing zoning is County the legislature says the land will be annexed into the city June 3rd 2023 what would happen on that date is the land would be in the city but there's County zoning and if city council took no action within 60 days the land would have no zoning at all is that and and planning staff pretty

much tells you that each time you get one of these Consolidated annexation items the unique thing in this Consolidated annexation is Council is not voting on The annexation the legislature did that but you have all of the other elements that was super helpful thank you to answer my question all right any questions okay councilwoman Freeman the question would be for Dan as well just to try and make sure I understand so the current County zoning actually includes specifics around the fire station and land for the Durham public schools and if we were to do nothing those things would still move forward and this County doesn't well the Durham Public Schools doesn't need that land for the school

it's not in the right place it doesn't provide the right anyway and we miss an opportunity to actually have the developer um proffer or include items in that utility extension agreement I just want to make sure I'm following correctly okay to be clear in in the existing zoning there are committed elements committed elements I'm sorry that yes so there there is a committed element for a donation of land to the city or county for a fire slash EMS station it in addition there is a committed element for the donation of land to the Durham Public Schools I do not want to speak for Durham Public Schools I think the superintendent did that through the letter to the mayor and Council but the developer and DPS have discussed revising the school donate the

school land donation with the proper that's currently part of the amended UEA and I believe that's a million dollar I'm sorry yeah I'm sorry and then the other thing is um the land that was supposed to be donated for a Fire EMS station the committed element has Rewritten in the revised UEA makes that a clean donation of land to the city um there was some um question about if the city received that land whether it was obligated to put a fire slash EMS station there the fire department it's my understanding has indicated that that parcel really wouldn't work for a Fire EMS station so the revised committed element gives the land to the city with no requirement that it be used for anything specific it would be whatever the city wants to use the land for thank

thank you I appreciate that colleagues her honor has had to step out for a moment so I'll be assuming to gavel until she returns didn't any other colleague have any questions or comments for staff are seeing none this public hearing is open and will turn now to hear from the representative of the developer good to see you sir if you'll come up thank you good to see you be with you how long do you anticipate needing Mr Cunningham for your presentation I have some slides but uh some of them anticipate questions that were raised at work session and I've got good materials here to address some of those questions that were raised how about I glance through those slides in what did you say Alexander I could do seven or eight minutes but I want to make sure that I hear this Council mayor Pro tem you use the word humility with respect to the earlier conversation and this developer is here with humility to listen and address questions and

concerns to try to make what is brought into the city even better than what uh its history has been and what the county approved 12 years ago 13 years ago but I want to make sure we have ample time for that I will present and then I want to make sure you have time for questions thank you for that now I'll make sure that our my colleagues have ample time to exhaust all of their their inquiries let's start with 10 minutes please on the clock and you may begin and Alexander how do I get the slides up here sorry just one moment I'm actually not very tech savvy ah you came to the wrong place if you're looking for Texas all right hopefully these will go all right thank you this is uh members of council uh this is the site uh we hope that you have some degree of familiarity I'll zero in on parts of it if you have specific questions about them it's a mixed-use

development part of what's already been built by this local development team is housing town homes on that site there is additional commercial development that is scheduled for this site and one of the main things that we're doing is we're modernizing these committed elements we're bringing them forward and we're decreasing the intensity of uses that are on this site planning department and by the way I give them incredible compliments for the engagement we've had over the last six to eight months the attorney's office on a very complicated uh matter that's in front of you in terms of its procedural history what we're proposing to do is move a away from the intense commercial and Retail development on this site and listen to the voices that have said we need more housing quality affordable housing in this community in doing so we are maintaining the Environmental Protections we are making

sure that we limit the impervious surface as it has been that it maintains 50 acres of open space as it has been that there are 41 Acres of tree coverage area as there has been but we're cutting in half the commercial and the office out there we're asking for the opportunity to do more what would be Apartments very keenly illustrating why we need to modernize and update these elements now we've been through multiple recessions we've the developer has faced all sorts of headwinds we've been through covid folks don't want to work in offices like they used to but we were in discussion with the city about the fire station site 15 years ago before President Obama was inaugurated the first time this was conceived and proposed at the time the volunteer fire department Parkwood volunteered fire department was fire service for the southern part of the county they had to pull through a neighborhood in order to come out and

87 acres to develop a fire and EMS site they said yes it was backup language there for the Durham fire department to receive this site we have are willing to donate it free and clear our offer to make it free and clear to the city of Durham to do with whatever the city of Durham would like by the way there are 300 Apartments proposed right behind that site I believe it's either the 300 or the 490 units that are coming through planning board but we are totally willing to lift the restrictions on that site but we need your approval to do that otherwise the language said it is being donated for a fire station the city has a fire station number 18 is three miles in One Direction number 16 is three miles in the other direction the city's telling us it does not need

this site where it's not suitable for what they would like to do we'll lift the restrictions the next item here is the School site we have been trying to give the School site to the Durham public school system for eight years we did in December of 2014. uh we they said we can't build a school at this point in 2017 we asked and the County Commission voted and approved an acceleration of the school site and Durham Public Schools couldn't accept it in 2021 we actually we went to them again and said we're going to be in the city in two years can you bring us a plan they said they left it out of the bond package again for a second time did not include it in the bond school bond package so we then put together a team and offered to build a school for DPS and lease it to DPS for 40 years and then give them the school building after that they couldn't accept that either so we went to Durham public schools and

said what are we going to do and they said we'll give you a choice we will sit on the land until December 31st of 2045 and do nothing with it or you can donate a million dollars to Durham Public Schools that's why the proffer is in front of you that's why we are trying to do right by Durham Public Schools this is their request April 14 2023 as with all elements of this development that we want to modernize and bring forward we're trying to get to yes with stakeholders we're trying to engage The Neighbors in constructive dialogue including some neighbors who historically had problems with this development what were one of the major problems that neighbors had with this development traffic impacts we in this new proposal reduce traffic impacts by 45 by changing the mix of uses in the

development we're bringing down the commercial we're bringing down the retail that is a very substantial impact on this site in the neighborhood we think that's what the neighbors are asking for we think that that is good governance we think it's better for every stakeholder involved now when we signed up to do off-site traffic improvements under our Tia that was run in 2008 the total budget for off-site traffic was seven million dollars the developer has already done seven million dollars in off-site traffic improvements and because we were going into this process we ran a new Tia with the new proposed mix of uses that plan is came through the Department of Transportation signed off on that Tia and what we need to do city of Durham's transportation office signed off actually the Durham city transportation office added two projects to the list that nobody else said needed to be done

but we said yes why we are trying to get to yes very humbly trying to make this project work for all stakeholders there are at least eight and a half million more dollars in off-site traffic improvements that that Tia recommends and we said yes to and they're in the amendment in front of you as well now with respect to affordable housing we recognize this is an incredibly important prerogative in this community we first think by changing the mix of uses to more housing that we are adding to the housing stock first of all in what would be Apartments second we are modernizing the language when this developer agreed to do affordable housing at 80 percent of the area median income for 15 years in the year 2008 when the developer agreed to that there was no affordable housing policy in the city of Durham this was cooked up the best efforts possible between

between planning and the legal office and and the developers attorney to come up but the language is not what your modern policy is so we are modernizing the language working with Community Development to do so we recognize because we have the environmental restrictions that we have on this site the limits to impervious surface that we're building structured parking decks that in order for us to do doing affordable housing is incredibly incredibly difficult that's part of why we are asking for the option to make a substantial donation to The dedicated housing fund and in fact the developer has asked me particularly after hearing about from stakeholders tonight and we've done some research councilwoman Freeman we pursued every Avenue that we discussed to make to to exhaust every option we're prepared to increase the amount that we are putting into that fund not two million dollars but to three million

dollars that is our proffer that's not what's in the writing right now but that is our profit we are trying to get to yes under a development plan that means structured parking what does structured parking mean twenty five thousand dollars per door but we're committed to preserving the environmental uh uh uh consistency of this project we are we do not want permission to go knock down more trees or take up open space for the surface parking that other people are using to get to uh the affordable housing profits that we have seen we are trying to get to yes and I'm happy to answer questions about that we've talked about let me let me pause there I'm happy to take questions uh mayor Pro tem I have appraisal numbers on the site for the DPS you asked uh at work session I've got the number that the county assigns to it I have additional appraisals from neighboring properties we didn't have

5 million if we were just going to look at the value this is a slide these slides aren't even coming okay here we are 2023 assessed value of the site undeveloped five hundred thousand dollars the 2023 market value adjusted 890 which I referenced if we go through the appraisals that the city's own real estate office has used in condemnation we're between 148 and 505 000. 5 tonight is hopefully honors the commitment that we've made to the Durham public schools and that is a half million dollars more than Durham Public Schools even asked

for we're here humbly trying to get this right we're happy to take questions thank you Mr Cunningham your honor did you want to reassoon yeah yes yes ma'am yes ma'am um thank you Mr Cunningham we'll turn now to First our speaker I have one card in chamber Joshua Allen is Joshua here hey thank you so much for being with us if you'll approach and just give us your name you'll have three minutes we appreciate you being with us thank you my name is Joshua Allen I am a resident of 751 South so I generally actually am in support of what's being proposed in the amendment but I do have some issues with it that I want to have addressed I feel like we were just made aware of this amendment 17 days ago this very complicated language and most people do not have the expertise including myself to properly understand the implications of what's being changed

and so I I think that it is disingenuous that the developer to um ask us to go forward with this amendment with such little notice and with such little engagement they offered us one meeting which I had to miss because of such little notice I was able to watch the recording and try to get educated on this but I I think that if we're living in a democracy we need time to talk through this and it sounds like they've been working on this as Mr Cunningham just said for six to eight months and no one in the neighborhood knew anything about it a zoning sign went up uh maybe a month ago in front of the neighborhood our HOA management company told us that it was just for the automatic rezoning to the city told us nothing about this amendment that was coming so we want discussion they're asking for an additional 450 residential units they're not committing to any additional open space they will I

can tell you when he rebuts this he's going to say there's 55 Acres of open space there's not that that's almost all Woods there's very little plots of land in front of some houses our neighborhood looks like Trinity Park everything the houses are right on the street so there are some parks but they're little and there is not a sufficient place to say go through a frisbee or football hold a Town concert or something to that effect and so I think they're going to add 450 units they need to add some space for these additional thousand people probably would have space to gather and do things outside and not just be stuck inside or use just little tiny plots of land people are not going to be walking through the woods it so we need space so that's that's really the gist of my objections to this I think they should engage us and they should talk through this with us instead of just trying to Ram it through city council with very

little notification that's all thank you Mr Allen thank you so much for being with us tonight we'll turn now to our neighbors on a line on our platform and Madam clerk the first name I see is Anuradha sapapati if you'll make them hearable Anuradha can you hear me yes um thank you for giving us this opportunity uh I second exactly what uh Mr Powell said a minute ago sorry Joshua Allen said a minute ago um that we wanted to have more engagement as to what the changes are going to be um we don't really understand where these new apartments are going to be there is no new map that has been given to us so it's just left out there and as he said the houses are extremely crowded

very very close to each other so we really have no idea where the new density of 450 new houses are going to be and also uh we were promised that there would be dining and uh you know a small retail store and fuel store and other things within walking distance but none of that has actually developed uh there are just houses and houses going up with no no attempt to make any sort of commercial development at all which was a promise when the houses were sold so we just wanted more clarification from the developer thank you thank you so much for being with us tonight for your time uh Madam clerk the next name I have is kariyala ravindra I do not see them in the queue I have Kim Young who I do not see as well and Philip Jones who signed up I do not see as well all right Mr Cunningham did you want to respond to anything that you've heard

thus far e just just briefly we respect uh respect both of those voices that we just heard and have done as much engagement and we're trying to do more engagement there's an HOA management company and we recognize that some residents take issue with the HOA management company we have regular HOA meetings where we try to address questions actually don't represent the HOA I've listened in myself but but then as a part of this process it was not I don't believe required that we have a community meeting before coming before you because it's this weird utility extension agreement thing but we agreed to do that anyway in part because we want this dialogue we want to engage with the neighbors we want to hear from Neighbors and much of what we have heard I've responded I gave out my personal phone number email address and have received

and answered I think every text email and phone call that has come from a resident over the last several weeks since we've had those engagements we want to hear we want to listen we want to make the project better we want to make the community better and we're very committed to the live work play concept that drove this idea from the beginning we would love to be ready to open the stores that the last speaker asked about and are trying our best to bring those to the market thank you Mr Cunningham this is a public hearing is there anyone else in chamber who has not spoken on the side who would like to speak this is a public hearing seeing that I'm going to now turn to my honorable colleagues for any questions or comments they may have for you the residents or the developer councilmember Freeman thank you mayor Pro tem uh just for the gentleman uh specifically on the space I hear you speaking to the forested area as considered open space can you address that part as well

to council councilwoman Freeman so first let me see if I can get to the picture if that's possible I'm seeing something on my so this is a map of the site and you can see uh something like half of it is preserved open space if there are additional Apartments there will be additional amenities within those apartments there's not really a place to go with additional Green Space or open space uh you know we went well less than what the ordinance would allow back 12 13 years ago and made a very very serious commitment to preserving this live work play idea that in fact there are trails that the Corps of Engineers actually won't let us connect to but if you go

out of the woods you can get back to an eagle spur trail that takes you back through these Corps of Engineers protected areas they're protected areas that's obviously the Corps of Engineers doesn't want us to but we want folks in the neighborhood in fact there's a 10 foot wide Corridor through it all that is uh it's kind of hard to know it starts up on the road and it's we've got it connected in the middle but it's been part councilwoman of an effort to honor the land that this project is built on I would add as well in 2017 part of what we went to the County Commission about after the state gutted the Jordan Lake rules was working with County leadership to develop our a storm water mitigation program that they adopted that we have funded with a payment plan like we have to do with all of our stuff here to meet the highest most stringent environmental rules of any project that we know of in this

5 million I want to first ask if you would move up to 2 million I can inquire I'd uh we look a million is more than what the uh Durham Public Schools asked for uh

5 is more than any market value not doing my job if I'm not making you sweat I I would say that I did want to ask if you would remove the requirement that the additional 500 000 be directed to a building only so if it could be partitions so that the one million went to the building and the 500 could go to whatever DPS and I'm I don't see any Flags getting raised up councilwoman we would be very amenable to that and in fact the language in there dedicating it to the building fund was dps's request for the one million dollars and by the way you're all getting this because it's not in my notes yet yeah so and um and I did want to say to the general public I am very familiar with um Mr Cal Cunningham for his runs and many races sorry but um I don't I do not have a previous relationship outside of that and I do appreciate you reaching out to

let me know that this was coming it is unfortunate that the general legislature has put this on our Docket in this way with that June third date um and that problem with the I made a note the no base zoning District going throughout the summer could be problematic I I do have a lot more questions but I'll just let my colleagues weigh in happy to address them thank you was there anything else councilman thank you for the great questions colleagues uh councilman I'm sorry councilmember Caballero then I'll come to the other end of the day as councilman Caballero yeah this is actually a question for staff I'm just I'm going through the it's the attachment with like the table with all the traffic commitments and I just want to make sure I'm reading it correctly um so most of it's straightforward but

there's the part that's like the widening on 751 that's the stagecoach that all of those types where it's like it needs to happen it's not in the current zoning it's not funded but was it in the original proper yes so I can take a stab at that and Sean Egan here is is here as well there were two commitments that were negotiated by Maribel when this project initially was voted on by the County Commissioners to those two Transportation improvements for the widening around 751 because they were profers at the time they are not and they're off-site they're not part of this new updated traffic impact analysis and therefore are not required but it can still be added there's nothing there's nothing that you know prevents us from doing that correct um could you if and maybe and it's maybe for transportation could you give me a potential ballpark number of what the

cost of those are Sean Egan director of Transportation good evening Transportation staff reviewed the value of the site plan commitments that were included that are included in the current zoning and estimated 19 million dollars would be required to complete the improvements as they're described and right now it's unfunded so there is no plan to have those 19 million million dollars worth of improvements other than what was originally in the the original utility and extension right the plan was for those improvements to be delivered through this project thank you this is a question for the developer this is to your slide on affordable housing I really appreciate the time on Friday when we met and I also want to appreciate Alexander Cahill who took that meeting with me

um and just also the the presentation at work session last time I missed it but I was able to watch the video and it helped me kind of get some clarity on this the slide that you had around affordable housing is that a change from what we talked about on Friday because on Friday it was just it was it was if we can build the affordable units we will but if we can't then we'll do a an amount to the dedicated housing fund that that is correct and it is formulated in the amendment as the developers option we would like to be able to deliver these on the ground and we've tried in fact we did deliver 34 units in the year 2020 on the ground go ahead yes ma'am do you mind pulling that slide up just so I can reference it it's on my screen thank you okay so okay so the 34 units were delivered in 2020 so the goal is to um do the build out but if not then it

would be the two million dollar contribution to the housing fund I just want to make it understand I understand like yes ma'am and by the way we increased it to 3 million it says 2 million here but we we're proffering okay and that's news well it says 2 million on the slide it does um so you're saying if you could not the the your number one goal is to to complete the actual 10 of actual units if you can't meet that then it would be a three million dollar contribution to the affordable housing fund formulated as the developers option in the language the language is 80 15 in either event and this and with the amendment being the developer's option to donate to the fund okay for instance so we we pursued several affordable housing developers at the request of Miss Freeman and have been in discussions with them about at least one through our professional the folks that advise this team on how to do

this and when we talked with them about structured parking decks and the cost of structured parking decks they said they don't know any project that uses structured parking decks and can meet affordable housing criteria now the only way that we don't do structured parking decks is if we go knock down more trees and take up more open space with surface parking which is very cheap it's three thousand dollars per door structured parking which is is more like 25 000 per door so we're trying and we have been trying for years and we're we're asking humbly asking for a an option for the developer to donate in lieu thank you those are all my questions for now thank you councilmember uh going to the other end of the day as uh councilmember Johnson Yale thank you Mr Mayor Pro tem um got a couple questions for staff and then a couple questions um for the developer thank you um could you confirm the

appraised value of the land that was to be proffered to Durham Public Schools do we have our own appraisal on that so we do not have our own appraisal that's not something we typically do however the applicant did at Council member's request okay um yeah I'd like to see that I mean I'm I'm a little concerned because y'all have an incentive to make that appraisal lower and I'd rather you know I I would rather have a neutral party have done an appraisal um could you you might not be the right person to ask this question but and maybe someone needs to go look this up but I'm wondering how much it would cost the city to subsidize 130 units of affordable housing based on their initial um initial commitment of 10 of the 1300 units that they had initially proposed um is that something like someone could is there someone who could calculate that for me based on like some recent affordable housing profits

8 million dollars to construct and fund the Gap in the affordable units and that was for 66 units okay but we can go and see what we can look up while y'all are debating okay the the one that we approved for um I'm trying to the the most recent affordable housing um deal that we did was it was going to cost 20 million dollars to do four projects but I'm not sure what the total number of units that was but I'm trying to think of like a per I'm trying to figure out what a per unit like subsidy average could look like um so yeah if anyone has any insight into that that would be that would be great the other question is probably for Sean about traffic improvements hi thank you um do you think that the

improvements that were committed to before that are being that they're attempting to withdraw are going to be are still needed like with the changes that they're making in this proposal are we still going to need to do those improvements someday and is the city going to have to pay for them so um there have been some changes to the traffic analysis as a result of changes to the proposed development but there's tremendous interest in development in this part of Durham so as we look at the trajectory for growth it is highly likely that we will get to the traffic volumes that would warrant this type of improvement without the improvements being provided through this project they would have to go through the competitive ncdot process which can take years decades to complete in order to get to secure the funding to make the improvements that are included in this

project currently okay thank you a couple questions for the developer hi could you summarize for us the traffic improvements that have already been completed you mentioned that there was about 7 million that your client had already spent on traffic improvements yes in fact we have our traffic engineer here Miss Johnson if you don't mind if I call on Lyle overcast that would be great thank you and by the way I also have here the April 12 2023 Memo by the transportation department saying what they say we should do and we're doing it all and that was an agreement between them Department of Transportation and Mr overcash all right good evening uh Laura cash Ley horn Associates 421 Fayetteville Street and Raleigh maybe a little bit difficult to detail what they've done so far without a map but I'll try to if you can kind of

visualize the area the biggest Improvement that we had to tackle was the was the Northbound left turn lane on 751 at Stagecoach and that was the the biggest deficiency in this area when we first started I think it was o5 we started looking at this project um that was the most expensive uh undertaking that I think is about two and a half million dollars to build a 400 foot left turn lane on northbound 751 that's for all the folks coming up from Chatham County come from Kerry and they're trying to head over to Chapel Hill and they're trying to you know cut through Stagecoach around the Farrington so that was a significant undertaking so that was the the biggest Improvement and if you continue down Stage Coach to Farrington Road we did a signal Improvement there and a turn lane we also have one more turn lane that's on our list there as well again that's about two miles from the development if you go three miles to the

east over to granddale and Barbie we did a turn lane there as well so that's about three miles from the development that was a Northbound I think it was right turn lane we came over down Massey Chapel to right there across from the church there's a new big traffic signal there we put in that traffic signal and we also designed the traffic signal at the South connection a Massey we call it North and South and that that next signal is on our list and also on other development lists in the area if you head down Massey Chapel to 751 there again there was a right turn lane constructed on the westbound approach of Massey Chapel at 7 51 constructed that Improvement as well um thinking that's all today Grand Island Barbie yes sir oh okay Herndon yeah

that's I don't know if that was helpful or not if you could visualize all those or not it was a little hard to visualize but I do appreciate it thank you so so the improvements that you all have done so far are based on a negotiation that you've already had with our planning department and with the DOT correct okay and I did leave out improvements at where we're connecting to 751 so at at the slight driveway turn Lanes you know left turn Lanes right turn Lanes signalization at the at the slight driveway as well okay and it and it's your it's your um analysis that based on the changes to the amount of commercial space that the additional improvements are not needed to support this development yes as Mr kenahan noted we've greatly you know almost cut the development in half as far as traffic goes and so what's that that's done is kind of Shrunk the steady area before we had I think it was 25 intersections it was a problem one of the biggest tias that we had performed and so now when

you you know cut the traffic in half and and you know with the elementary school being removed from the development that kind of changes the patterns um you know for elementary schools you have a lot more traffic in the morning and so it it changes the patterns quite a bit and removing the commercial development has greatly lessened the impacts of the development Audrey thank you I do um so I understand Council I'm sorry a city manager Paige wanted to oh sure I think something germane to which is thank you very much I was going to speak briefly to the affordable housing you mentioned some of the most recent projects we brought forward I would preface my statement by saying all projects are different and the supplement in order to make affordable housing affordable is very very different I think we had a couple of projects where there were about 130 units or more

9 million seven million so just wanted to bring that to your attention because the numbers can can vary greatly thank you madam manager will you resume councilman Johnson thank you Mr Mayor pretend um so I understand why y'all are reducing the office space obviously there's not as much demand for office um I would like a little bit more context as to why you're reducing the commercial space though the retail space and you know I think part of this is the live work play concept can be achieved with some of the things that we're already talking about doing there's a community grocery store that we want to bring there is a fueling and charging station that we want to bring we can deliver the shops the coffee shops the

dry cleaners the amenities that the neighbors are talking with us about in fact some of the engagement with neighbors over the last couple of weeks have been can you do an X Y and Z well we have so much of that already programmed to bring to the community you know part of this is responding also to the fact that the Great Recession which this project was approved in the middle of the Great Recession but it was conceived at a time when retail was really hot just not as marketable today and we're trying to be responsive to the fact that every time we open up the paper or check online folks are saying we need more housing we need more quality affordable housing so we're trying to move towards the market we also very importantly recognize that the number one complaint about all the development in southern Durham is traffic traffic traffic and if we can bring it down substantially we're moving in the direction of neighbors that you

used to have a real big problem with this project but we've been engaging with some of the folk that had a problem with this project and they like the fact that it's less intense they like the fact that the traffic's going down thank you um that's helpful so just to give you a general sense of where I am on this at this point increasing the number of residential units and decreasing the office and commercial space feels totally reasonable to me um I think your dedicated housing fund proper is still too low it would cost the city and our city manager is saying a minimum of five million dollars to subsidize 130 units of affordable housing um I'm not entirely sure about the the road commitments I feel um I'm kind of in between the the you know the fact that the traffic is going down seems to require less Road improvements but also our transportation director is saying that those Road improvements are

5 million dollars but my my interest there is just to make sure that we get as much as we can um as much as we can for DPS so my so I'm I'm not feeling the affordable housing profit I think that needs to go up

um and I think if it did I would feel okay about most of the other things in your proposal but if it's if y'all committed to 130 units we need at least what it would cost for us to build that on our own thanks thank you and if I may it's the county that put the 890 000 value on that it's not us and and okay that's helpful thank you yes ma'am and and if if and if you would like the letter from a different letter an email from Durham public schools in which they said they thought they did have a choice and they proposed the one million dollars be happy to attempt this to the council as well is is the land that they were um what's happened with the land that they were supposed to be donated so they can't build a school and we keep offering to donate it to them to build a school because that's what the folk there want that's what and they say the earliest they could possibly build a school December 31st 2045. so is that land currently vacant you haven't done anything else we have

75 Acres of it are developable we actually don't have a plan yet this exchange with DPS and what we wanted to do April 14th I mean and and they they met April 20th in session and the school board came out and said if you'll donate a million million dollars we'll say yes and we'll take it instead of trying to figure out what to do with the land yeah yeah and that makes sense and I think you know we're in a very different position from the school board you can just vote no and you have to do the original plan right I mean I want to work with you I just want to maximize the the amount of resources

that we can get for our residents as part of this negotiation yes ma'am um and yeah I understand that they you know they're building new schools in other places this is not where they where they want to build a school but we have leverage that they don't have yes no yeah leverage and I did build an elementary school two miles away while this site was sitting there and so what we want to do right and do right by you too Madam councilman yeah and I mean I yes I want to do right by the residents of Durham who who were you know who were made certain commitments and um and especially with regard to the affordable housing we you know we need every affordable home that we can get thank you thank you council member colleagues anyone else councilmember uh Williams I guess I can ask staff a question while we're waiting for the applicant

so considering part of the part of the uh the developing this this area you all mentioned some commercial space like mixed in with the residential is that right is that allowed currently uh to be able to do that small retail or commercial mixed with residential yeah that's a part of the mixed use designation in addition they have a commitment about vertical integration and how much square footage would be vertically integrated retail okay great thank you um are there any other uh modes of transportation I guess like the sidewalks building out all those things but in regards to uh in the traffic in the traffic plan is there any like bike Lanes or anything there I believe uh council member that yes we have committed to bike lanes and we've committed to walking trails that go through the development and then originally conceived we were going to connect with the nature trails that the

Corps of Engineers has on the other side of the line right we did our best with them I think they're difficult out there make their own Trails God bless them and uh but we uh but yes we we preserve the bike Lanes we in fact actually not preserved by we have put in bike lanes and we will put in additional bike Lanes with the transportation improvements that are that are identified in this memorandum from the city great thank you every go ahead so he was going to speak to the affordable housing piece maybe when council member Johnson comes back in she can hear you you okay you can wait or you can go ahead I'm Alex Mitchell I'm the developer so Cal's doing a great job of answering questions I think I can add a little bit more clarity on some of these things to answer question a councilman about the sidewalks we have 10 foot wide sidewalk that goes north to south from property ties in to a neighborhood that's contiguous with us into their trail

system we also will have crosswalks or tie over to Chancellor's Ridge which we give our give our citizens access to the American Tobacco Trail you could theoretically walk here from there we do have one question come up we do have two dedicated bus stops obviously we can't control triangle Transit but they want to Arco triangle if they want to come or not but we have already committed to the to the stops that they'll put us on Route um trying to think other things that come up I knew councilman Johnson had several questions about affordable housing and I wanted to kind of one of the big differences in our program if you vote no to this amendment remember we agreed to 80 percent for 15 years and your programs are are much different now I think a lot of them are 60 for 30 years and so when you're comparing values of what it costs us to do this you know a 15-year commitment at 80 percent is obviously less valuable than 60 30 is for affordable housing we felt

that 2 million then increased to 3 million that proper will allow you to to put the funds the place where it's needed because quite frankly we've done 34 of the units already we have to do 96 more and you take 80 percent of the area MSA or Ami you know a family of four I think the AMR announced eighty seven thousand dollars in 2021 so good 80 of that you're at what my mouth right 70 grand take a 30 of that so as long as I can have an apartment there that someone that can put 21 000 a year to it then I qualify I admit my threshold that's not what that's not affordable housing that's not where the problem is I mean we need my goal was that this three million dollars allowed you guys to put it to people who really need the help and quite honestly the workforce housing uh most of that's going to be there anyway I'm going to do that based on market and so a lot of my apartments are going to be Workforce housing

8 is the greatest profit the largest Prophet that's ever happened in Durham and we are not asking for any affordable bonus or anything in return councilman councilmember Johnson did you have a follow-up uh yeah thank you I think I mean your point about the 80 for 15 years versus 60 for 30 years is well taken I think the Workforce question you know like the the you know folks that you're talking about with you know salaries say at the city minimum livable wage is something like 38 000 a year you know even if there's

two of those folks they're not going to be able to afford more than you know 16 1700 in rent are you are you going to have apartments in that range in your development no yeah so you're not I mean you're not doing what Cal mentioned earlier is right when we set this project up the big push was Environmental Protection and we one thing that has been mentioned we agreed to cut our impervious surface from 70 to 55 percent that took out 22 Acres of impervious took out 22 Acres of parking lots all right before you get too far on this topic what rent do you consider Workforce housing I would think Workforce would be somewhere in the if you supposedly if you believe the MSA the numbers is 80 percent of the Ami that's what is called I guess Workforce housing sure and you said the Ami was 85 000. uh-huh so 80 of that is 68 000. and then the rent you can afford at sixty eight thousand is seventeen hundred a

month so what do you consider a Workforce housing rent we'll be able to we'll be at that rate probably at Seventeen hundred for like a two bedroom yeah okay um okay thank you I'm not building departments but I think that's where the market is right now for the apartment guys okay great okay thank you can you can go back to the environmental stuff so the so locking us locking down those dropping on purpose to 55 really put us in a bit of a box and and you know the deals that I've seen come through they're all surface parked and as Cal said parking spot service Park's three thousand dollars as you guys know structured decks twenty five thousand dollars that makes it very very difficult to do it on the ground affordable housing especially in the in the 60 range and so the reason I bring this forward is just to give you guys total you know open communion what what I'm dealing with and being totally transparent with you and why I'm trying to proper such a large number to try to help fill a voidance somewhere thank you what would it cost y'all to

implement all of the and all of the the the requirements in like the original um utility extension agreement do you know I'm sure you know pinpoint all the requirements how much would it cost you to to implement if we don't change this if the traffic traffic department everything if we didn't if we vote no tonight and we don't change any of this what's the cost to your project well I mean archive consumers close to yours 19 million is probably a pretty pretty fair number the problem is I haven't done it in 15 years if I can't afford the traffic you may not get any traffic you know and so this this project this this what I'm asking to do allows me to move forward to get the the neighbors their grocery store quicker and all that kind of thing by getting just charging me for the traffic that I'm doing you know I'm asking to to get to cut you know my traffic out I'm asking just to recharge for the traffic I'm putting on the streets sure okay see but you got you've got the traffic you've got the

Public School land which I guess doesn't really cost you anything you just can't do anything it cost you what the opportunity cost of whatever you could have done with it um and then you've got the affordable housing do you have a sense of how much it would cost you to produce 130 units of affordable housing at the we've done like I've done 34 of those now we have 96 left I don't know that it costs us a whole lot more it's a cumbersome reporting process for for our owners for apartment owners okay if you don't like it okay um so I I'm trying to work them through that um but the traffic is obviously the biggest biggest piece of it right okay so so we're saving you 20 million dollars well I'll probably won't ever do it I mean that's just the truth who's going to build a grocery store 50 000 feet and go do 15 million dollars of traffic it doesn't happen you you price it out so maybe I can do it in 10 years or 15 years or 20 years but the reality is there's no developer out there that's

9 Acres so it's at that a million dollars is a quarter million dollars an acre um okay thank you um so so it's been helpful at all I'm just trying to no Clarity yes very helpful thank you but what I'm con what I'm confused about now though is you're saying you knock it you're not going to do it you're not going to do the traffic improvements aren't you required to do them only as I build the project okay so you just wouldn't build it well I mean it's what made sense financially I mean I can't go to the bank and borrow money to build a grocery store they're not

going to lend me that plus 15 million for traffic you know they're not going to do it and when you when you put on a developer to develop to to do improvements over most of southern Durham County I'm not the state I mean I'm not I'm not about it's hard to do that that level of improvement and when I signed up for it in 2010 it was seven million dollars yeah but you didn't sign up for it I did that's why we're here okay um thank you that is yeah that is all that is all very helpful and I'm gonna stop talking and pass them up thank you councilmember council did you have a follow-up go go for it go for it thank you I was just gonna uh follow up and just note so we're at 19 million with traffic and you've spent seven so there's about 26. 26 okay I I did want to just circle back around when I know we've been talking about dollars um just acknowledging that the open

9 Acres turns into an Amphitheater but uh you know the more I pay the city the

more I have to figure out how to get that money back I mean paid the school system that million and a half have to figure out how to to make that back and so my idea was to get them the money out of out of making out of dividing that up into lots and whatever I made you know paid more yeah sure thank you thank you thank you councilmember I'll need you 20 seconds my colleagues have exhausted just right everything I would have asked in the letter from DPS made it real easy for me Raleigh has simplified this discussion for me this is when we talk about Raleigh inserting itself into local politics this is precisely what we're talking about so the the floor for me has already been set I think the amended UAE is much better than the choice that Raleigh has given us light year is better so I'm going to be supporting the option where it's it's the amended UAE I think somebody a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down it was either Mary Poppins or Tupac who said it um but but but this is the sugar um for the medicine that the state has given us we you know this was foisted

upon us this is what we're talking about and our legislature is far more activist now than it was back then uh when this occurred so I'm going to be supporting option one um I'm giving great deference to the letter from our colleagues and our friends at DPS and um that's what I think uh well that's that's how I'm going to be what I'm going to be supporting I thank my colleagues for their questioning um did you have any wrap-up comments before I uh close and bring it back up to the Deus I don't but thank you I'm happy to address any other questions thank you at this time that I'm going to declare the uh public hearing close it's back before the day so I'm going to yield to our honor thank you and I will yield it back to you to carry the votes but I would um ask for uh for councilman Jose Hyman who had to leave for an excuse absence for the remainder of the meeting and will entertain the motion at this time so move second right it's been moved by mail uh I'm sorry councilman

5 million dollars an increase in to the contribution to the dedicated housing funding the amount of three million dollars we're still having the payment in lieu option and the 10 option and then we wanted to clarify on the contribution to DPS from the applicant

5 million for DPS correct and then the updated Tia but that does not include the widening that is valued at 19

million dollars that is currently not proposed in the UEA that you'd be voting on as amended correct and all of those would be contained in voting for option Motion One correct yes sir all right all right colleagues if there's no other queries or or comments we'll move now to the motion as this public hearing is closed I'll entertain a motion to authorize the city manager to execute an amended utility extension agreement that includes revised development plan committed elements with Southern Durham Development LLC John A Mitchell individually and 751 Investments LLC remote is red our motion from her honor in a second from councilmember Williams Madam clerk would you please open the vote would you please close the vote and Report out the motion passes unanimously six to zero right motion number two uh to adopt an

ordinance amending the unified development ordinance by taking property out of mixed use with the development plan mud and residential rural RR recorded utility extension agreement one uea1 County jurisdiction and establishing the same as mixed use with the development plan mud and residential RR amended utility extension agreement to UEA two City jurisdiction effective June 3rd 2023 Williams and the second from councilmember Johnson Madam clerk would you please open the vote please close the vote and Report out the motion passes five to one with mayor O'Neill voting no of course your honor Madam clerk it should have been a yes I pressed the wrong button so if you would change that thank you okay correction six zero yes thank you very much so

thank you in the last well a motion to adopt a consistency statement is required by ncgs 160d that's 605. remote second heard a motion from councilmember Williams in a second from her honor uh Madam clerk would you please open the vote please close the vote and Report out and the motion passes six to zero thank you madam clerk thank you madam mayor I yield back to you thank you man Pro tem we will now turn to item number 30. uh Consolidated annexation 901-903 but we might want to take us a short break so we're going to do it about five minutes what about that five

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happens foreign everybody we're going to come back in session at this time the next item on our agenda is also a public hearing for a zoning matter item number 30 excuse me Consolidated annexation 901-903 Sharon Road and we will again

hear from Miss Acadia good evening uh thank you mayor O'Neal I'll be shorter and sweet on this one a request for utility extension agreement voluntary annexation initials only map change was received from Keith Strong's Strong Rock engineering for two Parcels of land totaling around 18 acres and located 901 and 903 Sharon Road the Sanic station petition is for contiguous expansion of the primary corporate limits the applicant intends to develop 63 units consisting of at least 35 of those units being townhouses the current zoning is residential Rural and residential Suburban 20. the applicant proposes to change this designation to resident residential Suburban 10 with a textual development plan this request case z224 received a recommendation of denial from the Planning Commission on December 13th by a vote of 11 to 1. at the time of Planning Commission this was a general zoning map change with no textual development plan associated with it since the Planning Commission meeting the applicant has changed the application to a textual development

plan and this textual development plan commits to the following limiting the uses and units to 63 limiting the pervious surface to a maximum of 35 percent of the site committing to Interior townhouse lots of no more than 24 feet in width and makes contributions to both the dedicated housing fund and Durham Public Schools there are three motions required for this application staff and the applicant are available to answer any questions this evening thank you Mr Cahill you have heard the report from staff and I am now going to declare this public hearing open first are there any questions for staff from members of the council looking to my right look into my left I'm sorry you may may approach him one quick question in this the social pinpoint comments there seemed to be some confusion about if the appropriate site was being referenced for the uh the um the community benefit type thing do you

know what I'm talking about is that I was just a bit confused when I read through the uh someone in their social uh I think it was from um one of the environmental folk there seemed to be some discrepancy as to whether the right property was being considered with our our criteria in metric absolutely uh thank you for pointing out so people often comment on the wrong project or get confused when they do they leave an email address and staff follows up with them and we communicate the correct address and property uh that would be the case for this one as well got you okay I don't I had never seen that before so okay thank you thank you manamere thank you mayor protein I believe now we will turn to hear from my applicant I'm sorry did you have another question just we're seeing the social pinpoint oh it was in one of the uh um attachment J

d yeah attachment Jay thank you all right did you have any further questions councilman councilwoman Friedman all right Mr Ghosh we have about five I think five speakers that are opponents and um we saw you on what five minutes you want to start there yeah I'll be less than five minutes um good night or morning almost um mayor O'Neill mayor protem Middleton and members of the council I'm Neil gauche attorney at the Morningstar Law Group 700 West Main Street in Durham I am representing the Builder for this project which is Drees Homes I want to thank Mr Cahill for his presentation you might recall that this project came before you I believe last month our firm was not involved in the project until after it went to Planning Commission and

originally as Mr Cahill mentioned the case was filed as a general use rezoning without a development plan we asked for a continuance at your April 3rd meeting so that we could convert the case to a textual development plan we've done that there are seven conditions they are as mentioned I would just say chiefly 63 units total 35 a minimum of 35 of them have to be Town Homes the interior townhome Lots cannot be water than 24 feet um we did add a commitment related to the road Improvement right at the entrance of the project we also have limited the impervious area to no more than 35 percent which is quite low we've committed monetary contributions to DPS in the amount of 18 500 and to the affordable housing fund and the amount of forty thousand overall this is a sensible infill project on about 18 acres of land the adjacent established neighborhood is all single-family detached homes this project would provide a mix of both single family and

town home houses which helps provide a good transition from the less to more intense housing types our team is available to answer any questions you may have thank you for your time tonight thank you for turning gosh are there any questions for Mr gauche before I call up the public speakers all right we would have Miss Donna stand back is Pamela Andrews Miss Pam Williams Miss Rebecca Freeman and Mr Thomas Friedman and if you have a particular order you may do so you can't make it do not believe that we have anybody on the internet would they be correct Madam clerk just to make sure yeah on the screen but I'm talking about I can't make it move Madame mayor there's one person in the cube but I don't know if they're here for this item all right you will come back to them if you will remind me once we go through this set okay

hello I'm Donna stain back 4825 Jimmy Rogers Road Durham North Carolina um today we're looking at or this evening we're looking at uh 901 903 Sharon Road and in this map you'll see that the school is pictured by the uh as the crow flies the school is 2 000 feet from the property and that's going to be important in some of the uh discussions about the metrics also there's surrounded by some farming and a horse ranch there so it's it's coming in the middle of some rural activities although it does have surrounding um development areas okay whoops now look at the Matrix

all but one of the environmental metrics are minimal minimals to me are not a quality plan uh we're not even trying for profers these days so I'm gonna ask for some and I hope I can get some support because there's some that we've agreed are good for the city um the um Mass grading is yes and it's since it's over four acres what we'd like to request is that the applicant followed the sedimentation and erosion control Amendment tc2205 and the mass grading plan and tree preservation our proposed amendment tc22004 um the blasting is probably yes based upon the surrounding properties and keep in

mind it is near to the school and near to the horse ranch and we'd request the schedule be provided for the blasting so that the votes can be prepared the storm water plan is minimal there's it was stated in by the planning department that no storm water development plan was presented for the stormwater development review and that was stated in the zone map Change Report so that's a pretty big missing item there and I'm requesting uh the 100-year storm event because we're dealing with Triassic soil and failing existing requirements for erosion control um they're um let's see there we go as I stated we really would like to see these uh amendments that are

being worked on and going through the process very well in fact the the uh zero five amendment is due for state approval on Tuesday of next week so we think to ask for that in this particular development is a fair request and a fair proper check your head okay good afternoon my name is Pam Williams I'm a lifelong resident of Durham of this community here on Sharon Road and um I am I'm not going to go back over the 20-foot uh project boundary and explain that to you again my concerns is that the you know we're having developers or contractors developers go right up to the property line in grading everything all the mature trees uh digging 15-foot

Cliffs down behind the people's property right next to their properties and these are young and old and I would hate for my kid to be out there with just one of those yellow fences out there but we are requesting that developer to follow the uh two amendments that Donna discussed the mass grading and tree preservation and also storm warn erosion definitely we would like for them not to do any grading within 10 feet of the property laws to maintain mature trees along the property lines this is in the Masquerade and entry preservation Amendment we are requesting 30-foot border with a 06 opacity along the property lines and for the State and State maintained roads to provide for a good Vista and tree canopy along those again this is the property where they are Excavating 15 feet down right behind the property line with just this shallow

fence and we'll be putting in retaining walls not replacing trees at all this right here the property line goes from right there to there this they put drainage in the buffer and the town halls are over to the left this one right here again these are townhouses this is the tree preservation that was put in between the townhouses and the single-family home and I'll so we are asking you to please have them proper the masquerade and tree preservation on this one this I'm showing you minimum yard standards for Street yards these are just storing the character of the community again I got about 15 udos it talks about protection of established character when I'm talking about maintaining the character of the road I'm not talking about providing less dense houses or or town homes or I'm

just talking about can we make the Vista on the road similar to what it was where we did have some trees that will grow and provide shade along the sidewalks that will provide a decent Vista as you're driving down the road because over on the right side you've got single-family homes with trees and over on the left side you've got single-family homes with nothing but fences we are not a fence community um thank you very much and have a good evening thank you Miss Freeman I'm Rebecca Freeman thank you for hearing me this evening I live at 1818 Southview Road and I appreciate your time at the slide that is up there now is is the Lick Creek Basin in southeast Durham and you can see that in the colored areas there's a lot of these construction that's going on there's about 10 449 units yet to come yet to come although at that in that area there is a a severe lack of infrastructure that has been noted time and time again

m an officer was asking for help but there were no officers available to help her Monday at 8 32 PM there was a 9-1-1 call heart problem no first responder available somebody will come I don't think so another thing I want to mention is that some of the residents that were engaged by the planning department in the Southeast Durham Focus area study these were their comments lack of sidewalks back bike areas Road connectivity there's no bus service poor pavement and road conditions are bad traffic congestion and and there's a different thing on some of the road speeding

drivers and safe and Road Crossings concern about storm water running off running off and harming natural areas as we've seen time and time again already concerns about masquerading and tree loss new developments are encroaching on environmentally sensitive areas not no walkable grocery stores or retail and there's no walkable area these are residents not us here these are residents that are engaged by the Sea and what they said next slide oh no okay the only thing I want to say about this slide is the first one and we've heard different uh top uh suggestions about how many people are coming to Durham every day and how we need and you know we've got to make housing for them we've got to make housing for them and this came from uh dataworks in a presentation that's made to you folks last fall in 2022 and you've

2 people leaving during the day was 58 so we had a net negative effect on that particular slide where the dataworks reported this out foreign thank you Miss Andrews good evening I know we're all tired but we feel passionate about being here tonight to speak to you all and I appreciate you letting us do that so I want to share this development is a very short distance from this blasting I had a call from a lady that lives right across the road and she said I need you to come is this a couple about a month ago so I went over there and the development this very small acreage was not supposed to

have blasting and at the last minute blasting was required and this is what you see it's a video and we snap these shots from the video from the homeowner across the street her mother's elderly Homebound and this is what she deals with in her last days of her life it's really sad I'm also very concerned about the children at this school as Pam mentioned Donna mentioned we measured it today it's 2 000 feet to the school and it's a very large school all Sharon Road that these children are going to hear these blasts and with every development says we aren't sure we don't know but inevitably there is blasting so I'm asking you requesting the blasting contractors to let people know there's there's just got to be some protocols set up for this blast and it's just got to be we met with the fire captains last Thursday three of them three of them in a home to show the damage that was done here is the home this is the elections home I've spoke of it many times it's right on the conservation subdivision that we tout to be so great this is what's happening to

people's home in real time I also want to show you this one these are homes that I visited this week on the left hand side is a lady's home she's in her late 70s she's a retired nurse she had to go back to work just to be able to help pay for damages that are done it's very sad she has a blasting development to her left she now has one coming from behind her the picture on the right is from a young lady she spoke before to you guys Paige Polk this is just one of many pictures she sent me today these are real situations of real homeowners that are suffering I don't know how else to say it I come to you humbly and I plead to please help us this is what the fire permit says a pre-blast inspection of all structures and Facilities located within 750 feet of proposed Blast locations as part of the inspection the structures and Facilities would be videotaped and or digitally photographed to document any pre-existing damage so that any claims for post-bas damages could be compared

to pre-blast inspection report a complete pre-blast report shall be submitted with a documentation for a permit yet when these people try to get their pictures and ask for their pictures in public requests I need my pictures so I can prove what was there before and what is thereafter they can't Supply them we met with the far people last week there is a problem getting these people the repairs to their homes that they rightfully deserve I'm asking you to please help us get something fixed with this before another development goes forward thank you Mr Friedman thank you Thomas Freeman lifelong Durham County resident drip drip drip the previous slide that was shown depicted over ten thousand dwellings

either in the planning queue or under construction you read the sign re read my slide please would like to request that a human and natural Environmental accumulation cumulative impact analysis be done before it is too late I have stood at this podium many times and have heard the response oh there's the state won't allow us to do that I have never I have never been provided with the general statute all I get are those comments that we just can't do it spindle farms in the in the erosion that you're seeing there where is it going you know where it's going folks it's going to lick Creek but you do you know about fennel Farms you approved it I'll close with just the several words they're actually a question

clean water acts violation question mark thank you very much good morning thank you Mr gosh you will have about 15 minutes I believe was about 10 minutes for rebuttal somewhere in there about 10 minutes thank you um I will just comment or add a commitment that the project would handle the Hundred Year storm I know that was a request that was made we had talked about this this is a commitment we make and I don't want to take too much of your time tonight we hope to have your support look forward to answering your questions thank you all right I think that we have heard from all speakers both in person and on the internet but just let us check to be correct

amount of clerk are there any other speakers on the internet all right I will now declare that this public hearing is closed and the matter is back before the council and I would look to my colleagues to see if they have any further questions or comments looking to my right attorney councilwoman Freeman thank you madam mayor I just wanted to check with the applicant on the other items that were requested around the boundary the opacity and the established character near the road so on the boundary buffers and we're going to do what's required under the code my personal opinion on Boundary buffers you know planning is moving towards building communities buffers do nothing but separate people we're not really interested in having wide boundaries wide boundary buffers we will do what is required under the Udo um the character

requests I'm I don't know if I could hurt it I don't know what the what the request was exactly but you know I think it was for a streetscape my understanding is the streetscape will be required here so we would do that um and was there another Council the opacity opacity again yeah we would do what was required under the UDF and all of the minimums that are required I'm sorry the minimums that are required and nothing more is what you're saying oh well we've already committed to 35 maximum for impervious we've committed to um the you know Road Improvement for the at the entrance I mean we're doing more than the minimum in some places and then we're meeting the Udo requirement and others thank you any other questions of council mayor protein thank you madam mayor thank you uh all for hanging in with us tonight yeah I was really kind of a

up in the air about this case um the the textual the absence of the uh development plan I know the text development was added after the Planning Commission so the planning commission's comments are not reflective of the text development plan so my first question is you described it as Enfield development correct you you see this as I did I did say that yeah um we are in I I understand why you're saying that even though we're annexing um what is what is so is is the the character or the the architecture the materials the design elements going to strictly reflect what's already around there is is I don't want to put words in your mouth but you talked about the already existing communities is that to say that it's going to look like what's already out there no no that's not it the the so there's an existing community to the East and North I guess and that's all

single family homes so the way that this is set up to work this will be a mix of single family detached homes and town homes the single family detached homes are planned to be closest to where there are existing single-family detached homes in the established neighborhood and then as you move out closer to Sharon Road that's where the town homes would go for this development um and I have a a question for our friends from preserve rural Durham whoever the designated to answer is is it is is it your position tonight that you would support it if they did these buffer things or regardless of that you're not supporting it because of blasting you would support it if they preserve character but you're not going to support it because of runoff what what I'm just trying to understand is the position that there are some things that would get you to support this project or is it just DOA because of blasting and

um so I've said and my second question is um you know the characterizations that we just say that the state won't allow us to do it and don't mention the statute um but on a number of occasions and I'm not questioning the representations representations have been made about other people's property other people's water who are never here and I think one time I got blasted because I asked about those folk you know being here and I think I was told that it wouldn't be appropriate to uh divulge their their results without their permission um although there were representations made about their test results but couldn't tell us what they were so I guess my first question is what would because it sounds like some of you were saying if this happened we're good and didn't sound like others of you were saying because of blasting because of environmental issues don't approve it so I'm just trying to what is the position uh on this particular Project tonight to be very honest with you we know when we come in here we're going to lose

I'm just I'm just being honest I don't know that but I'm that's how we feel but we still feel like as Citizens at care we need to come in and present the case we need to ask for certain prophets things that would do a better job of protecting our community and that's why we come we honestly walk in here many nights knowing it's a slim chance that we're going to walk out of here getting the things that you know we're asking for but we watch it week after week because this is our community we're all born and raised out there every person that comes in here every week we are born and raised in that community and we care I'll be 60 years old pretty soon that's that's where I lived that's where my family lived and so we're just trying to do what would be helpful for our community not to see the blasting when I get calls every week from people in my community and I was out there today with two different families that are suffering from this that's why I come I'm trying to provide help for our community and you know the character

that's in the Udo Pam quotes it a lot she worked as a civil engineer you know we're just asking to try to find something that would match the character because our side of town is not it's not recognizable anymore it's the best answer I can give you I wanna I wanna fairly uh so I again so is it is it that and I listen I I don't know half the time I'm going to vote I try and do it by the Merit and there there are people all over this city in every neighborhood that are lamenting what's happening to their neighborhoods in the inner city it may not be blasting it's prices it's the taxes it's gunfire uh it's not being able to afford the stores that are in the neighborhood every area has something that they're lamenting about growth yours is a little different but you're not alone in lamenting the growth in our city I guess my question put another way is so with respect to you thinking you're going to lose am I hearing you say tonight that if these things were added then would that be smart development

because I've heard the term smart development used before so let's operationalize smart development some of you said that tree buffers were asking for the 100 Year storm we're asking for this and that is it fair to assume that if those thresholds were crossed then you would support it or it wouldn't matter because they're still blasting no I mean those are things that realistically we're asking for that we think could make better developments that would not damage the creek as much that would offer you know when I see the eloxin's home it's their home that we show tonight in several slides where the the whole every bit of trees and I personally learned because I'm not the engineer that Pam is what a 20-foot buffer mean when I stood on that bank this week and I've sit on that bank many times but this week was different because they have now dug down 14 feet so in the elderly couple and they're in their late 70s walks out to the back of their yard if they're not careful right now they fall over 15 feet straight down they

have great grandkids and grandkids that come over there that that's a concern it's a real concern so these are things that we feel like we can at least come forward and say hey this would make a better development if we could do this and to work with people to get something that would make the citizens out there feel a little bit better about what's going on because it's it's tough out there right now and and just to say and I'm going to shut up after this and I'm going to go home so you want to hear me anymore tonight but the project at the very beginning tonight Harlow place where that one person gave up that what about half an acre because we have residents out there all the time that say I can't take it anymore I've suffered through this dynamite blasting I've suffered through every day I was out there and it's obnoxious the bulldozer noise day after day after day right on these poor people's property line there's one homeowner out there that's in his 90s he can't even go outside anymore because it sets off its hearing aids that's sad to me that's really sad to me and so we are out there

every week trying to take a stand for what would make things better for the people in our community indeed thank you finally could you possibly if they would allow forward us me anyone who's actually pursued trying to get um redressed for damage that so actually causally linked to blasting could you send us those people and extra can't because Jody Morton who's a captain with our fire department and Chris Wilcox and and assistant chief enusio were out there last week and they are currently working with those homeowners to try to get the blasting people to respond to them because right now they're not getting responses just to get their pictures just to get their videos so they can make a claim to their insurance company okay so they're not in possession of their own pictures authorities took them and they come in there and they do a pre-inspection the pre-inspection is done by I think it's supposed to be a third party independent company they scan the walls one lady that shows you she got a CD-ROM with her pictures on it it took a software

engineer to get that CD-ROM opened up I'm not kidding we finally got hers opened up so she could see her pictures the other resident she's the only one one that got a CD-ROM that I know of everybody else's was scanned digitally and now they're trying to get their scans back so they can prove what it looked like pre and what looked like post and they're trying to work through these pre-inspections that were done to just get their pictures so they can prove to insurance companies this is my pre and this is my postings blasting so I can get my walls and my ceilings that are coming down fixed so the pictures you showed us tonight the what what's being represented are those those cracks were not there prior to blasting and we are suggesting that there's a causal linkage between recent blasting and because look I'm a late person look like foundational issues to me so so what we're saying is those cracks were not there and now they're there and it they're because of blasting is that the representation I do not live in those

homes but that is what is told to me those are not my homes but those are my residents and I have to take them at their word that they said this was not there or that the cracks are getting worse and that's why they need their pictures to be able to show this is what it was before it started in the pre-inspection and this is what it is now in the post thank you so much for being with us quick um I will be supporting this item so this is just to and this is actually a question for a preserve rule Durham folks I don't know who who wants to answer this because I I will share that I there have been projects that everything has been offered flocculents Way Way Beyond what the Udo requires um there have been projects where there has been an ask for it to be a conservation subdivision um but what was actually getting proffered was Way Beyond what you get in a conservation subdivision and the the ask for me all is always no

don't vote on this I don't think that there's been a project even when the proffers on the project are Way Beyond the ud requirements where you all have said this is a good product in fact the one the only one I think that I remember is Ms Andrews when you came a few weeks ago for your friend who who wanted the gas station you did show up to speak in favor of that one um so um that to me I think that is the part that is um frustrating we have plenty of other neighborhood groups there's the Hamlin neighbors there's plenty of other groups Bragg town they are real clear with what their asks are they're unified in it and it's not just I'm going to come up with a new idea as to why this is a no and you should vote no and so what they're able to get maybe they don't love what they're getting but they are able to get better projects you all have gotten better projects than what would have been allowed by the Udo this project is giving you better

impervious service and it's giving you a hundred year of storm flood that is above the Udo requirement is it giving you everything I don't even think the things around tree save and mass grading even apply because that's the the proposed ordinances are for 50 acres or more this is a 17 acre project Maybe I'm Wrong on that but I'm pretty pretty sure that that is the the actual proposed ordinance that we're discussing is for 50 acres or more and this project is for 17 Acres this is not a very large parcel of land when we have developers in this category they don't have the large amounts to proffer units or large amounts of money to the affordable housing fund they don't have it these are not big projects so um I will be supporting it um and I think that and I've said it very often when our development Community comes forward and they offer us more than what they are required to do and they are doing it in good faith and the

project makes sense then I vote Yes because at this point we still need housing and it moves the needle on the next project it rings a bell so that the next project even a 17-acre project which is a small project will maybe be offering a more robust storm water proper on that project so then it moves the needle it's why it's why there's been actual units that have been propered instead of just money because that has been progress places like fendal Farms and Carolina Arbors those developments would not be approved today those would not the the requirements that they would or the profits that they would have to give Way Beyond Udo they would not be built the communities that are getting built now are offering much much more and we are going to be doing a Udo rewrite and there can probably be more done but until that is

done this is the space we're in and we did actually see literally the case right before this case that you all were present and watched that case was the General Assembly absolutely putting us in our place there's another community in North Carolina that's a they're they're fighting it too and the general assembly will come and and preempt so to say that that is not a risk for us is very untrue and you all were in this room and you just experienced it thank you are there any other comments councilwoman Freeman thank you madam mayor and I want to thank you again for being here and consistently sharing the environmental sensitivities of the sites that we um continue to see in these public hearings I think that there's a disconnect in the way in which we come at these cases because I think if you are to just look at each case individually you could see progress and

think that that's actually getting you to some point but when you're collectively counting all of the cases that have come before us with the lack of you know respect for the actual existing residents the actual acknowledgment that masquerading is destroying our streams and Priests the consistent over zealous development push that we have to build has created this monster that has been unwieldy and unwilling to dial back and so similar to how our our fed has been able to put a higher interest rate in place there's no lever with the existing Council as you stated earlier and so unless there's an a lever put in place that it actually raises the interest rate so that we don't see this type of development moving as fast and as quickly as it does in one particular

area especially around Lick Creek or especially around other Creeks that have been identified I think that we're going to continue to see these Clean Water Act violations and I and I appreciate you coming in here big like every meeting and sharing that just the insights to say that the storm water erosion is occurring at a rapid rate and the more that you consistently keep approving these developments is going to continue that's that's the that's the short of it I know that um it's not a battle as much as folks have framed it in that way and it's not a win-lose you win every time you stand up here and you fight for your community you win every time that you speak to what we should be thinking about as a city and even though you're not a city resident your voice has been impactful each and every one of you your voice has been impactful I want to

say that it's important that we not only not hear what we don't like we have to hear from everyone in order to get to the best outcomes and that does mean that there are developers that'll bring things that we've never thought of I think that was a developer that brought the flocculent like this is this is a process and that process has been stifled because we're consistently just moving forward without an acknowledgment and I mean I appreciate that my colleagues are you know decisive and trying to figure out how to come up with affordable housing but affordable housing should not be at this expense of our environment and that is what has been created and so whether you acknowledge it or not or accept it or not we've got to find a different way to go about this that's similar to raising the interest rate that has to be a lover and it's not it's I mean it's the same thing with the gun violence I can't sit here and just say well the general legislature or this or the federal government's not going to do anything about it so we just got to go with it just go buy some you know assault

weapons that's not going to work we have to figure it out and I appreciate your Matrix I appreciate the pictures that actually demonstrate what is happening on the ground because if and when we hear about the child that fell off that 15-foot Cliff that was created by mass grading we cannot say we didn't hear about it we didn't know and I mean I just I just consistent cons I'm just grateful that you all consider continue to be here thank you metamor point of clarification the city of Durham is not in violation of the Clean Water Act no regulatory or law enforcement agency has made any charge whatsoever that the city of Durham is in violation of the Clean Water Act and I want the residents and citizens to know that we are under no accusation or allegation of being in violation of the Clean Water Act thank you so allow me technology okay

all right so we are now ready to um consider the three motions that we have before us I'm sorry councilman Williams he may proceed on this case is what I'd like to um just the lack of being able to decisively or provide Clarity around the blasting situation with Foundation staff we can just look into that please just to make sure that the residents are getting what they need and I'd like to know exactly what's happening with that situation um regarding the blasting um I won't comment on the other things other than I do hear you and I do acknowledge you um I think this is just a matter of viewpoint where we just see it differently and I cannot find logic where we want affordable housing and we want to stop building and all of the things we're saying I it just doesn't make sense to me so I'm always willing to talk about that more in detail rather than appear on a diet face-to-face in person or however we

want to do it I respectfully I would love to have that conversation but thank you hear any other comments by Council all right we have three motions before us for our consideration motion number one is to adopt an ordinance annexing 901 and 903 Sharon Road into the city of Durham effective June 30th 2023 and to authorize the city manager to enter into a utility agreement with the Drees Homes company so move second it's been moved by a man from Tim and seconded by councilman Williams Madam clerk if you would open the vote if you will close the voting report out the motion passes four to Z four to two with mayor O'Neill and council member Freeman voting now a second motion for our consideration is

to adopt an ordinance amending the unified development ordinance by taking property out of the residential rule RR and residential Suburban Dash 20 rs-20 followed slash Jordan District b f slash J dash B County jurisdiction establishing the same as residential Suburban dash 10 with a textual development plan rs-10d false Jordan District b f Dash J B City jurisdiction which is right again been moved by men Pro tem the second didn't buy councilman Williams Madam clerk if you would open the vote if you will close the vote and Report out and the motion passes four to two with mayor O'Neill and Councilmember Freeman voting now the third motion for our consideration is to adopt a consistency statement as required by ncgs

160d-605 move to adopt consistency second that's mayor Pro tem moved by mayor Pro Tim seconded by councilman Williams Madam clerk if you would open the vote if you close the vote and Report out and the motion passes five to one with Councilmember Freeman voting now our last item tonight is a non-zoning hearing item number 31 which is FY 2024 storm our water rates we had a presentation was made at the May 4th 2023 city council work session and tonight we will conduct a public hearing to receive public comment on the proposed FY 2024 storm water race and we are now ready to receive a very late staff report I will turn it over to Mr whipkey glad to see you this morning

good morning Madame mayor O'Neill Mr Mayor Pro Town Middleton and Council I'm Paul Leakey with the public works department this item proposes to raise stormwater rates for the fiscal year 2024. 25 cents per month there are two motions that the administration recommends that the council approve one to conduct a public hearing to receive public comment on the

proposed FY 2024 stormwater rates and two to adopt an ordinance to change the fee schedule revising stormwater rates effective on July 1 2023. thank you sir you have heard the report from staff I will now declare this public hearing to be open and will first entertain questions and comments from the council looking to my left and to my right seeing that there are no comments or questions from Council uh is there anyone else who wishes to speak on this item we have no one signed up to speak um in person we have no cars and I will just verify with the clerk that there is no one on the internet as well all right let the record reflect that no one has requested to speak on this item I now declare the public hearing to be closed and the matter is back before the council any further discussions before I entertain the motion in this matter and seem to be all right for our

m on May 16th Lewis theater strong

all righty all right everybody have a great morning everybody good night everybody 9 13 uh all right counselor take care remember Jen