City Council · Regular Meeting · May 4, 2023

good afternoon to the mayor to my colleagues on the council to our residents I just wanted to make an announcement that tomorrow is my anniversary for being appointed Union New Management excuse me last year on May 5th to the city council and I am still committed when I actually applied for the position to do the work of the people and so I am going to celebrate my year and I'm going to continue to do the work for the people thank you thank you councilwoman Jose Harmon any other announcements to my right lift I'm sorry councilman Williams good afternoon everybody and I'm happy anniversary on I believe it was yesterday we held a press conference and I had the honor of representing uh mayor O'Neill and the council and joining along with the county colleagues commissioner Vice

chair commissioner Jacobs uh on behalf of commissioner chair Howerton and uh housing for New Hope and urban ministries we talked about all of the opportunities that we have before us to tackle the homeless situation and uh it was a great opportunity to really talk about the resources that we have already and I just wanted to highlight that if you'll be hard-pressed to find any other municipality that is putting up such a commitment to solving such a necessary matter so I wanted to thank my colleagues and I just in being in this type of culture that is so supportive digging deeper to understand why homelessness even exists and all of the opportunities that we have before us from Real Estate to public private Partnerships and I'll end with i called The Challenge yesterday and I'll call it again today we have enough churches on

every corner enough businesses next to them to uh in other resources in this community to tackle this in a public-private manner and we need to all ask everyone to step up and get in the game as we tackle homelessness thank you thank you councilman Williams I just wanted to say hello to the city council from Rocky Mount North Carolina who are here today in Durham holding their Retreat we met with them this morning our city manager and other City officials joined them on a bus ride around Durham using our new electric buses one of our new electric buses so we we're glad that they chose the Bull City to come and have a retreat and we look forward to our other sister cities in North Carolina taking advantage of all that the bull city has to offer so welcome Rocky Mountain right right all right I now turn to our city manager for any priority items she may have

good afternoon and thank you madam mayor Mr Mayor Pro tem and members of the Durham city council I do have a few priority items for you this afternoon agenda item number 13 which is a resolution to support the upper news River Basin Association un RBA fiscal year 2024 budget there will be a presentation we anticipate about 15 minutes for that presentation agenda item number 22 which is proposed Water and Sewer rates for fiscal year 2023 2024 this item includes a presentation we anticipate about 20 minutes for that agenda item number 24 fiscal year 2023 2024 proposed budget and fiscal year 2024 to 2029 Capital Improvement plan this presentation will be made during the May 15th city council meeting agenda item number 26

751 South informational item you will hear today which is about 20 minutes and a form the deed for donation to the city of Durham appendix D has been added to the utility extension agreement attachment that is that is uh attachment G agenda item number 29 a related item which is a public hearing a Consolidated annexation 751 South the form of deed for donation to the city of Durham appendix D has been added to the utility extension agreement attachment G and finally agenda item number 31 which is fiscal year 2024 stormwater rates we have prepared for you a 10-minute presentation for this item during today's work session thank you very much and that is all I have thank you city manager Paige you have now heard the manager's priority items I am ready to entertain the motion for

11 A3 for attorney-client consultation concerning the handling or settlement and the cases listed below state of Brook Maynard versus city of Durham that is a Durham County Superior Court case file number 20 CVS 2645 and

also Daryl Dowdy versus city of Durham that is a federal Middle District case file number 23 CV 133 right thank you so much at this time I'd like to entertain the motion to hold a closed session at the end of this meeting it's been moved by councilman Williams and seconded by councilwoman councilwoman Johnson all those in favor of you will just raise your right left hand all those opposed have the same rights seeing none we will go into closed session at the end of this meeting and also I'm now ready to entertain the motion to approve the city attorneys prior to items remote been moving properly seconded that we approve for a priority items all those of you are that are in favor of approving her priority items would you raise your left hand all those posts have the same right sing none we now move to our city clerk for any

priority items she may have good afternoon Madam mayor Mr Mayor Pro tem and council members the city clerk has no items today thank you so much all right we're moving right along and we will now move to our second world of business which is our agenda I will read the entire agenda into the record at this time the first item that we have is the Carolina Theater of Durham Board of Trustees appointment item number two the Durham cultural Advisory Board appointment number three the Durham workers Rights Commission appointment item four the approval of city council minutes thank you item five

and we're beginning our departmental items item five the city County Planning Department FY 24 work program item six the approval of a multi-family housing facilities to be known as Commerce Street Apartments in the city of Durham North Carolina and the financing thereof with multi-family housing revenue bonds item seven contract with Dixie Lawn Service Inc for Interstate 85 median maintenance services Vladimir I'd like to pull that please thank you item eight is the First Amendment to agreement to fund American Dance Festival 2023 season operated by American Dance Festival Inc using city of Durham Grant funds number nine service contract with Winstead landscape services company for rights away

maintenance South item 10. contract with Morris and McDaniel Inc for promotional testing and Assessment Services 11. contract sw-91 Public Works Street Maintenance repairs 2023. 12. contract sw-91c inspections for PW Street Maintenance repairs item 13 the resolution to support the upper Neuse River Basin Association unrba FY 2024 budget 15 minutes item 14 contract amendment number two for st-317c utility locate services item 15 contract br-20c Bridge Professional Services

number 16. contract with next phase Solutions LLC for on-base maintenance and support item 17 the assignment of contract for the management and operation of the gold Durham access service Madam mayor I'd like to pull that please thank you item 18 service contract with ratp Dev USA Inc for the management operation and maintenance of the gold Durham fixed route Transit System I'd like to pull that please thank you item 19 intergovernmental agreement with the triangle J Council of governments for the transition of Durham Chapel Hill Carrboro Metropolitan planning organization lead planning agency responsibilities

item 20. the award of Construction contract to Mo fat pipe Inc for the Hoover Road Transmission main replacement project 21. the ward of Construction contract to Carolina Civil Works Inc for the Parkwood area lift station consolidation project item 22 proposed Water and Sewer rates for FY 2023-2024 20 minutes 23. update to contract 18648 with EMA resources Inc for handling and disposal of water and wastewater treatment plant residuals and biosolids for our presentations item 24 fiscal year 2023-24 proposed budget and fiscal year 2024-29 Capital Improvement plan

this presentation will be made during the May 15 20 23rd city council meeting thank you item 25 is affordable housing deep diet presentation from triangle Apartment Association 30 minutes item 26 751 South informational item 20 minutes under our public hearings item 27 Consolidated annexation Harlow point item 28 is a Consolidated annexation Carpenter preserve kind of May I want to pull that item thank you item 29 Consolidated annexation 751 South [Applause] item 30. Consolidated annexation 901 and 903 Sharon Road

item 31 FY 2024 Stone water rates 10 minutes and that will conclude the reading of our agenda Madam manager here's what I have for the pooled items we have four from councilwoman Friedman 7 and 17 for mayor Pro Tem 18 councilwoman Johnson and 28 from councilwoman Freeman all righty see who will now turn to our citizens matters we have people here to speak with us today as well as we have persons who have joined us on the internet and we will begin with those who are have joined us in person today I will call each person we have four who are here today you will have four minutes apiece if you would come and say your name and your time will start we'll start with Sandy Metz m-e-t-z good

afternoon good afternoon you can all hear me right I'm awfully short oh my timer's running I'm Cindy Metz I'm here today to represent the Durham area pickleball players we call ourselves dap it's a community organization here in Durham to support pickleball in the city um pickleball if you haven't started playing it yet is has been for the last three years the fastest growing sport in the United States it was it doubled in participation in 2022 and now there's nine million people playing it in the United States so if you're not playing yet you're it will happen soon um there's a reason for this not only is it super fun but it builds community and that's the most amazing thing about it when I started playing it I thought oh this is a fun game but at that point in time I was living in my bubble a bubble in Durham of people who look like me who acted like me who are my same age and

now every day I get to go out and play Pickleball with people who are different in gender and race and religion politics it's an it's an amazing thing that we come to pickleball for the fun but we stay for the community now mostly we have to go to other places to play on dedicated courts there's courts in Chapel Hill there's courts in Raleigh I go to Apex I go to Holly Springs we've been wishing and looking forward desperately to the quartet Piney wood there's 1500 of us in Durham area pickleball players and we've been raising money for the last three years we have almost 25 thousand dollars to use for amenities for that Park when it's done now we're not big enough to do infrastructure like you guys can do but we're gonna do shade and benches and Court dividers and make it a place not just to play the sport but where we can really hang out and build community

we know that the construction of piney has run into difficulties and it needs additional funding and so a couple of us have come here today to tell you first how much we appreciate all that you've done so far but to also ask you to consider supporting additional funding for this project so it can get completed that's it for me oh we have towels I'm not out of time yet that I I if you're allowed to keep them yeah our new pickleball logo so enjoy it and come play Pickleball with this our fun our annual fundraising term is actually this weekend at Bethesda Park so if you want to see what this community looks like come by this weekend and see what we're up to and with that in my I'm going to yield my last 15 seconds to Patty who will talk about what's been going on at Piney Woods so far thank you all thank you so much Miss Patty magola blonde I probably saw today you have you have three minutes of your own

time and we hope you will be followed by Miss Heidi Wilson and Miss Pam Andrews after that thank you thank you thank you for this opportunity mayor O'Neill and the rest of the city council members my name is Patty magdalang and I'm one of the leaders of the community organized and free drilling group that happens every Saturday at pineywood Park this volunteer run group has been practicing on Saturdays for years and draws veteran players and newcomers alike as long as it is above 32 degrees and not raining these folks are very motivated to get better pickleball is truly an inclusive sport on drill days we get anywhere from 20 to 40 players of all ages abilities and backgrounds this sport offers a great way to stay active and socialize with others in a low impact environment pickleball's accessibility and inclusivity make it a fantastic sport for anyone looking to get involved in a fun and welcoming community

the Piney wood courts are old and worn out and can pose safety hazards for players by investing in the renovation of these courts we can ensure that players have access to safe and enjoyable facilities that meet the needs of this growing sport we are very excited and grateful for the planned renovations to Piney so that players can continue this exciting and inclusive sport for years to come we dream of piney becoming a hub of pickleball in Durham a place for the community to bond through play and a magnet for out of town folks to come to tournaments and help boost the local economy as tennis is to carry we want Durham to be a pickleball to be a hub of pickleball Recreation and tournament play to make this dream come true we need your help we are asking you to First allocate funding to complete the planned Renovations on the courts second consider working with the parks and rec to get funding so that the new lights at

Piney can be on every evening these lights have been installed but this investment won't pay off without turning them up and third upgrade bath bathrooms to be accessible year round currently they are closed during the winter months even though we pickleball players play year-round so next I'll hand it off to Heidi we'll give you some suggestions on how to fill in the pickleball Gap while waiting for a Piney to be renovated thank you thank you thank you for your time Miss Heidi Wilson good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity that you've given us to come and talk about this important topic to us I'm not a leader in the group I'm just a lady that likes to play Pickleball I'm an older Citizen and we have found that this has been a really unique Niche for us to look into before I get started today at lunch I was reading the Costco magazine yeah that's the article in the Costco magazine it's about pickleball you're going to see this everywhere now

it is ubiquitous but what I want to talk about is how is pickleball unique and how does it meet the needs of our community the first is age most of us understand it's great to have the kids sports the soccer the baseball the softball and all those we need to encourage that but what about the older people what what do we have for them for recreation I'm way too old for tennis I'm not doing that anymore I'm not going to play soccer I'm not going to play softball but pickleball meets those needs this morning I was working I was playing it at Piney with a gentleman whom I hadn't known before but you meet new people on the pickleball court every day and he was telling me how he was a good player too how he was thoroughly whooped by a guy that was 94 years old so clearly this spans the entire lifespan from childhood all the way through through and it allows those of us that are in our older years a chance to be physically active to be engaged

and to enjoy each other's company we also play year round which is kind of unique there's for example soccer fields that are there at Piney and I'm sure they're great but I've never seen anybody play on them because it's a seasonal sport probably on Saturday morning where these pickleball courts will be utilized every month of the year every week every day probably that it's not pouring down rain and that's why again I emphasize the need to winterize the bathrooms because I have been there when a player has utilized the woods which I don't think anybody wants to know about but that happens so please consider winterizing the the bathrooms there and going back to the lights we play from early morning especially when the weather gets a little warmer we're going to be there in the in the early morning seven or eight o'clock and then later in the evening because it gets so hot people want to play When the Sun Goes Down And especially the people that work and can't play during the day like I can and they're going to need the

lights on so please understand that in the budget we've talked about how it's very social when it is we've all met great friends um playing pickleball but the other factor to consider is it's free once you have a paddle and a good pair of shoes you're good to go so that's a big consideration to those of us on retirement income to provide a free activity that engages that's physical that's social it meets an awful lot of needs and so I would just like to recommend that that we fund this and this is to be a nice feather in the cap for Durham thank you thank you so much now turn to miss Andrews if you just state your name you have three minutes good afternoon Pamela Andrews 6108 Wake Forest Highway um hope you guys have been doing well it's been a couple weeks since I've seen you but I'm here today for a couple

issues um I don't know if you saw the CBS 17 story that aired but we have 10 households on Junction Road who have suffered from blasting and development they are 10 families that have no water and I appreciate very much Miss Hyman coming out to the site last Friday and I know she spoke with manager page and I do appreciate your efforts for trying to help I just want to make sure I recognize that today I did present at the County Commissioners meeting on Monday as well and ask for help there and the assistant assistant County manager has been in touch but it's really alarming you all and I know we've talked about a family who went well imploded but now we have 10 at one time and their children there are adults there about 35 to 40 people that have been without water since last week and I spoke with Mr Elmo Yancey who has called his attention to me about this problem and it has not been resolved as of

yesterday so I just wanted to come and speak for them today I also um wanted to mention about the carpenter Falls Carpenter preserve that was here on March the 6th and then is back on the agenda our question is that it has gone from a very low density to low density and I'm no planner so I don't know these answers but our question is why is that not a zoning change and our other question is going from 235 dwellings to 260 but there was no change in the financial impact so we were asking those questions humbly just asking questions and then lastly you know my passion is about Lick Creek we were in the creek this week Tuesday as a matter of fact with a number of people Samantha Crop Nate Baker was there a couple of other citizens were there and our readings were the highest they've ever been the first meter would not even read we had to go to a more complicated reader a turbidity meter and that broke 2000

2 000 our drinking water should be a 10. so I know we're going to hear from unrba today and we're very thankful for the unrba um but I just want to continue to my passion is that Creek and I just wanted to bring that up but I would ask you sincerely to help us find a resolve for The Junction Road people if you want to come visit I will definitely be glad to hook you up with Mr Elmo Yancey so you can see firsthand from him thank you humbly I do appreciate you have a good day thank you Miss Andrews we now turn our attention I think those are all the cards that I have for persons who are with us in person and we now turn our attention to the persons who have joined us by way of the internet uh the first person that I have is is Mary Molina and then we'll be followed by Miss Jacqueline Wagstaff Miss Molina Madame mayor Miss Molina is not in the queue at the moment but miss swag staff is maybe Miss Molina will come back

right Miss Wagstaff if you can hear me you would please state your name and you have three minutes good afternoon can you hear me yes ma'am okay good afternoon Madam mayor council members um one of my concerns that I came to speak to you on citizen matters actually has been addressed uh um citizen that just spoke Pam Andrews but I did have one other question about that matter but first I wanted to address a matter that has been just plaguing me for since it was said at your meeting at the last meeting um I I'm on the understanding that as a being a public servant mean that not everyone is going to agree with decisions that you're making not everyone is going to agree with you know what you say or how you do it but as a private citizen when we vocalize those disagreements it is very concerning to

me that there are Council people on this Council that will say things as such um I'm not gonna respond or be receptive to Citizens that don't agree with me that is problematic because once you take that oath you take an oath to serve the citizens of Durham whether they agree with you or not they are tax paying citizens and then when you hear comments like I'm I'm only gonna uh be receptive to Citizens that basically come down here and agree with you and go along with you that's problematic as a as a council person so that's a serious concern of mine and to hear comments like if you come down here and you have a roof over your head and you speaking on item that has to do with housing maybe you shouldn't be down here speaking that's very problematic so and my question about the carpenter preserve annexation is that why did that that's the same annexation that was presented on March the 6th and it failed and it was called the carpenter Falls

annexation now we're back here again in less than 60 days I would like to know how did this item move so quickly to get back on the agenda to this body and move ahead of I'm pretty sure you have other agenda items that has to do with annexation and this one just happened to pop back up to the head of the line in front of all the others so I would I'm curious to know how did this end up back on the agenda and honestly the community is feeling like this item when it fails the first time started the Firestorm that revolves around one of our council members and this is not a good look for Durham so if I don't expect an answer right now I don't even expect to respond on my other two comments from any council member up there but this is very concerning to the community and we all watch it thank you all right thank you Miss Wagstaff we now turn back to see if Miss Molina is in the queue

all right and she is the last person that I have listed as a speaker on citizens man is that correct that is correct all right thank you we if you just if she comes back on we'll try to get back to her but we will move along to our next order of business which is to review all of the pooled items beginning with item four which I believe is the approval of city council me minutes and that has been pulled by councilman Norman Freeman and I will turn it over to you at this time thank you madam mayor I just wanted to um separate out the March 23rd special meeting well essentially the March 23rd work session and special meeting I just I I'm concerned back up

so just reading specifically under other matters where council member Johnson introduced the resolution of censure of council member Hyman for Behavior relating to engaging um it's just a little convoluted and I just wanted to get some clarity and make sure that it's clear how that came forward and I wanted to track back to our City attorney and just ask I don't know what's going on with my it just keeps kicking out the net no network um track back to ask our City attorney how um censure Works in relationship to our Council procedures versus what I guess you shared with the council good afternoon councilmember Freeman so the only reference in the council procedures to censure has to do with violation of the council procedures themselves so there is a process set forth for that instance of censure obviously

this ensuring question in this instance didn't have anything to do with violating Council procedures that being the case um Center as it is handled by an elected body is generally put forward by someone on the elected body and there is a majority vote in favor or against um the proposed Center resolution so I'm not sure that's helpful okay because then I think then I want to make sure that there's either a reflection of what I'm hearing you say is this is just like a resolution in place of the censure in the meeting and in a resolution I want to make sure that we're all on the same page going forward as a practice to get a public show of support for I know we do thumbs up usually beforehand to say whether we want to do something or not and I don't think that process was

followed and so I just want to get us all on the same page around how that works and so I wanted to make sure that the minutes clearly reflected that this is just too convoluted it's not clear because the Accenture based on Council procedures is different from a resolution being submitted by an individual right well so this was a resolution of censure as well it it just was not the subject matter that is discussed in the council procedures right and in the council procedures in order to have censure for violating the council procedures you have to have five votes it's not a simple majority that sort of thing um but Accenture in any instance is still going to be a resolution it's basically like a written reprimand from the council to a council colleague and a normal resolution process we would bring It Forward have conversation or at least there will be a thumbs up thumbs down to move it forward or not and this case it

didn't happen and so I just want to make sure that's reflected understood yeah and I think the council has had some discussions about how it wants to bring resolutions generally forward to the body um and so I understand the distinction that you're making yeah mayor Pro tem thank you madam good afternoon ma'am good afternoon honorable colleagues the the the thumbs up thumbs down process is for the appearance of the item on the next work session it doesn't go to the item itself and this process there was an alternative process in small group meetings for the resolution which superseded the thumbs up thumbs down process I don't want to create the impression for the public that it just appeared uh with no process whatsoever there indeed was a process um the thumbs up thumbs down usually occurs when one of us says I'd like to bring something at the next council meeting and we asked for permission for it and that's how it goes but there there was indeed a process and that's

not the only way the only method the council has to bring matters before us through thumbs up thumbs down or any number of methods so I don't I don't want to create the impression that anything was abrogated or anything was done untoward and it didn't just show up things just don't show up it showed up uh by virtue of a process I also want to just you know be clear that the question and and pulling this item is do the minutes accurately reflect what happened at the meeting as as a as an elected body a duly elected body we have to keep good minutes and records of what happened the the conversation as to whether or not you know a process was um followed Faithfully or not I would argue is a separate conversation as to whether or not do these minutes accurately accurately reflect what was said and what happened um and I I think they do at that meeting due respect to you know any questions about process we need to have in in the

prestigious committee or or anything relative to that I think is another matter but I just want to be clear that the minutes do reflect what actually occurred at the meeting as they're charged to do as our clerk is charged to do thank you madam mayor thank you for that I appreciate that Clarity um just noting two things uh the way in which we proceeded with an alternate model just sprung up essentially with the advice of our City attorney and that the misconstrued information in the actual minutes is the following discussion involved removing the mayor's name I'm sorry um I'm on the wrong page the essentially the resolution of century first city council city council member Monique cozy Hyman for Behavior relating

to engaging in staff engaging City staff and electoral or partisan work for her or her election campaign is that correct is that is that what happened I'm not following that that wasn't that wasn't what my impression was because because what I was under the impression was that we were going to actually do an investigation and that there was actually going to be a process for that investigation to occur and so bring in the resolution forward wasn't the issue it was actually all of the rest of the what occurred afterwards was essentially just the kind of condemnation of a council member who had not yet been advised or or given the opportunity to present her side of the situation and so I I just want to make sure that it's fully reflective that this process was very convoluted and this is the process that has created a little bit of a storm around some of the things that have occurred and well in the last few

weeks or last month what have you and so I know there's been a lot of back and forth we're trying to you know move forward on this but these minutes also create that same harm and not telling a whole story essentially and being clear that this process was very biased and it did not give an individual an opportunity to respond beforehand it didn't give an individual due process and actually addressing the issue because it was already decided beforehand that the individual had actually done something wrong as opposed to asking the question so I want to make sure that I'm on the record stating I do not support the way that these minutes are written and it is specific to that paragraph and so I do want to make sure that it's pulled from like essentially from the the uh from essentially moved to GBA can't remember if I made this and I respect all of you I do I respect all of your concerns but it is inappropriate

for a city clerk to offer editorial on what should have happened or or if the process was fair or not the the clerk's job is to present an accurate record as to actually what occurred at the meeting and by my reading this is what occurred at the meeting your questions are important and and and I think you know perhaps we should take them up at a at a um a subsequent perhaps procedural committee your questions are not germane to the Integrity of the minutes your questions are about process and and fairness and and you know not liking how the process went which are fair questions and certainly you're right as a council member but to conflate them with whether the you know an inaccurate depiction of what act it's on tape we can go back and watch the meeting my reading this is what happened at the meeting I think what you're bringing up is a separate conversation Fair conversation and one that we should entertain um you know as a council member who has the right to bring it up but what you're bringing up I don't believe is an issue

with the minutes this is something else we're talking about I think the minute it's accurately reflect as they have for years what actually happened at our meeting thank you madam mayor I believe that is your opinion and I appreciate your opinion but as I stated I will not be approving these minutes and I would like it pulled still right is there any other further discussion all right I have uh talked with our City attorney about the fact that we do need to have a much deeper conversation about process and procedures through our procedures committee on some of these items that are very germane to what's going on now we've also talked about that the fact that our probably our all of our policies at this point may need to be reviewed so I am going to task

mayor Pro tem and I think councilwoman Johnson is the chair the co-chair of that committee for us to have a meeting to discuss those that charge and so we'll be looking at that and hopefully we will be able to resolve some of those issues going forth meanwhile we will go to the next uh pulled item which is item seven and item 17 have both been pulled by mayor Pro Temp thank you so much Madam mayor again and colleagues uh Madam mayor uh Mr Mayor Pro tem and members of council my name is Alex Johnson I'm with the general Services Department I'm here to take whatever questions you have thank you Mr Johnson good to see you thank you for being with us um so we've been we've visited this issue this particular item before some times ago and let me let me just say at the outset I read the supporting

materials I want to thank the staff for an incredible amount of leg work and due diligence in terms of of getting a a diversified um and deep pool of respondents to this RFP but alas we've come to the same company that that was before and I my questions kind of hinge on um or turn on some questions I asked uh prior to um prior uh at the prior uh appearance of this issue and it goes uh just very quickly to some of the uh diversity issues uh with the companies they're representative from the company here uh yes sir okay would you please come up sir thank you welcome thank you for being with us if you'll just state your name you know um um excuse me I'm Jimmy McHenry with Dixie Lawn Service are you the president or yes I am president thank you Mr

President thank you for being with us uh today um just just a couple of quick questions we we um emphasize and stress uh diversity and Workforce and contracts here in the city of Durham and when last this item was before us I had some questions about your company's um diversity and hiring particularly because your company's been around about 40 years old your company uh yes sir we've been doing work here in the city of Durham since I think 1999. uh 20 years uh in the city of Durham and how many if I mean how many African-American employees do you have in your company at large um currently I think there's about six people working for us okay six and I noticed in the in the um stats for the the group that's going to be working in Durham on this particular contract none of them are African-American correct not currently okay but we currently do not have a contract here in the city of Durham unless this one gets approved okay so I mean uh we did a little bit of work last year for y'all

um just uh we mowed the Highway 147 one time for y'all and then that's all we've done last year okay so no thank you for that um staff in one of the um comments I read in the supporting materials you talked about this particular stretch of high road a particular stretch of highway presents some challenges because of speed and traffic and and these folk have more experience in working in those environments in those environments than we do have we ever serviced the stretch of highway as a city our own people yes we have was there ever an incident when we did it we didn't uh encounter any incidents but the um we have since lost our crash trucks that were part of that that work Zone set up they were underutilized and we went towards a

Contracting side where we would contract for lane closures and that became cost prohibitive so just to be clear it it was more of a capacity issue than a Peril issue or or inability to work in that environment is that is that fair that's that's fair we didn't want to wait until we had an incident before we changed our approach um speeds have increased on on Highway 85 the the it was uh it was seen to be a safer and more Equitable process and especially when we were working with major staffing issues over the covid period we were having trouble maintaining staff levels that would have made it safe got you thank you that's it thank you Mr President thank you for being with us today thank you madam thank you

item 17 has been pulled by you as well thank you ma'am which is the assignment of contract for the management and operation of the gold Durham access service just to keep our record clear good afternoon Sean Egan director of Transportation uh thank you madam mayor mayor Pro tem and Council for welcoming me here today happy to answer any questions that you have thank you man good to see you thank you for being with us um in late 2022 the city and go triangle agreed to a mutual termination of the operating agreement in the city resuming management of the Durham transit services was that Mutual termination was that did that come before Council was that a management decision I'll defer to the city manager on that I can't remember well as a management decision sir right so my reading of the material it was a management decision initially but

if we if we don't go with it then we're the ones that are rejecting the mutual termination so the the rejection of the the reversal of it rests with the council as opposed to the management that that had its Genesis with is that correct well I would just say that the agreement was um was terminating as as most agreements that we have um they have a start date and and a termination date the mutual termination agreement just allowed us to have a longer transition period or longer negotiation period around the the service itself and we intend on exercising as a one-year extension option for for there's a there are two one-year extension options that we can exercise we're gonna we're gonna exercise one of them for this uh that's the idea the current base term expires on August 31st

of this year and we have the option to extend that by one year and so the uh the motion requests authorization for the manager to exercise that one-year extension for continuity of operations so on August 31st all of the the management and oversight of this relationship this process will rest with us uh as a city so there are a few different timelines in play here the first timeline is the mutual termination that becomes effective on September 30th so as the manager mentioned we gave ourselves some time for transition and close out activities one of the major Milestones was the assignment of the Paratransit the access contract another major Milestone is the award of the fixed route bus contract and so we knew that we would need time during the course of 2023 to manage all those

transition activities so we wanted to have the support from go triangle in place through September to enable a smooth transition that would not disrupt services for Riders right so last question after the one year extension with the national whatever the company's name is what happens then who who Who's in charge who's managing so after the execution of this contract that's before you for access the city of Durham accepts full responsibility for management so as soon as the contract is fully authorized and executed we will We the city of Durham will be responsible for the access service and then if the with execution of the one-year extension it'll be up to the city to decide do we want to re-solicit during that year or do we want to proceed with the second one-year extension and that

will rest with management that that will not come back before us or this the op I believe the way the motion is written the option the second option year would come back to council well I was very encouraged to read the very optimistic um assessment of our abilities to take care of it and the changes that our transit system has gone through over the last decade and and how vital it is so congratulations on the great work thank you for answering my questions thank you madam mayor so much I would like to turn our attention back to I think we have Miss Mary Molina back online thank you Miss Eagan and we will turn to her for her comments as a citizen Miss Molina thank you madam mayor um I'm glad to uh be here today

and I'm glad that man has brought up the then it's as a point of concern I share that concern and have been reporting on it as I can from social media as best I can for social media um Miss Molina you're breaking up a bit yeah honestly Miss Molina try to figure out you're breaking up a bit so we want you to start a start again we kind of Miss what you were saying okay um I want to discuss uh the items that Mr Freedom Miss Freeman had brought up about the center resolution and the minutes uh it was in March 10th that it remembered the

call is you're still coming up very broken up very broken up so can you all right let me try again okay let's see that came in clear um let's try it again I'm sorry uh it was a March 10. the City attorney and I believe we've lost you completely now okay if you would try to rejoin us again miss Molina we will go to the next pulled item but we haven't forgotten you so just try again we will turn now to item number 18 which is a service contract with r ATP devusa Inc for the management operation

and maintenance of the go Durham fixed root transit system that has been pulled by councilwoman Johnson you have the floor man thank you madam mayor um thank you Sean I just wanted to get a little bit more context about the transition from go triangle managing the service to the city managing the service if you could just tell us a little bit about the process that led us to that decision and then any um any ways in which you anticipate that transition impacting um our service delivery sure uh so Sean Egan again director of transportation for the city I um I'd say that we did a um what's called a comprehensive operations analysis in 2020 and 2021 uh where we brought in a team of experts and looked at how our system compares to peers and how we could improve the efficiency and the performance of our system one of the issues identified in that analysis was

that the management structure with multiple layers of administration and responsibility made it difficult to have clear lines of accountability for improved performance so it was it was identified as an opportunity for us to improve accountability and performance in the system they're also were some staff changes and staff turnover at Echo triangle that changed the capacity that go triangle has to provide external Management Services and so we once it was clear that those changes were happening and that we were increasing the capacity that we had within our transportation department to manage this we brought forward a recommendation that the city could take

back direct responsibility for Contracting the service and improve those lines of accountability and improve the performance of the system and so through the development of the request for proposals we put a very strong emphasis on improving performance so improving the safety of the system improving the on-time performance of the system better training and professional development for employees improved compensation for employees rewards for the vendor to get back to 100 percent Staffing of our system and put us in a position to expand services so their incentives in their financial incentives in the contract for significant safety benefits on-time performance benefits and

restoration and expansion of services so our expectation is that the new management team that is coming in will raise the bar of performance and that our residence and Community will benefit significantly from that change that's really helpful thank you so much I also just wanted to appreciate this company and y'all for picking a company that is going to continue the existing collective bargaining agreement with the workers um that's something that I was definitely concerned about with this transition and really want to yeah appreciate that being a key consideration for the for moving forward thanks great thank you does it is a question councilman Williams thank you madam mayor I just would like to know where I could get that great tie that you have on so my wife designed this for me and had it made especially for me I have a collection of

neckware that is Transit themed and I want to let everyone know how proud I am to be in the bus business thank you I appreciate that and if you could leave your um wife's number with us absolutely I just do want to thank the representatives from ritp Dev who joined us today we've developed a really strong partnership with them we look forward to a long and fruitful relationship we'll be holding them to very very high standards as I've communicated repeatedly and they've made a lot of commitments to improve the performance and the experience of our Riders and our community and we're going to make sure that that happens right thank you thank you did you um you haven't come in just real quick you just acknowledged that on the record so no thank you I just wanted to so I sit on the mpo with councilmember Caballero uh and um we lived this monthly I think it's probably the most complex board

outside of council that I'm on uh thank you for the work thank you for uh working with the company that will as councilmember Johnson stated acknowledge um the rights of our staff employees to still be able to um stand for themselves councilmember Jose Harmon and I were in the bus station and a driver came up and it you know it just feels good to be accessible and before it appeared like we had two middlemen you know a two middlemen and we were so far removed from our staff but yet they're out during residents and Durham employees so and we all work together so this is great and I want to commend you all you guys for um for doing that thank you thank you thank you I too want to offer my thanks and and congratulations for a job well done uh to Mr Egan and his staff I sit on the gold triangle board so that can be a little contentious at times um between there's a little bit of can

be a little bit of a friction between boards and and so I walk a very fine line but I have watched our staff navigate this new space fairly quickly too um this required a lot of attention and is if you look at the uh if you look at our our agenda you can see the the kinds of monies uh taxpayer monies that that are involved and so we thank the transportation department as well as I know our attorneys had a lot to do with that I've talked with our city manager about some of the things that are going to be a part of this contract that are really really good item so I am looking forward to uh to this transition and I think it's going to be great for Durham and more importantly for all of our Riders so thank you all for a job well done if I may I just want to recognize um if he could stand up Brian Fahey our Mobility Services manager is really the person responsible for this being before you today and Brian did an extraordinary

job and I'm very grateful to Brian for all of his dedication and work that was a they had a really tight deadline to meet and they surpassed it with Excellence so I cannot say enough thanks for you all for making that happen so now we'll try to see if Miss Molina has joined us again if she can make her comments and then we're going to turn to our presentations after that no we have one or more Port items 28 by councilwoman Freeman did she return back to the queue Miss Molina do you see a Madam Clerk I see Miss Molina in the queue oh she is here she is all right all right Miss Molina your three minutes you're welcome third try is the charm

um I appreciate the uh the patience of the council with a bad connection here um councilwoman Freeman had brought up the point about the minutes uh accurately reflecting what happened on honor about March 10th that was when the the City attorney was notified by Sarah Young um that an unknown unnamed property developer had alleged an attempt to extort him and it was also during the same work session that councilwoman Johnson share resolution to Center councilwoman Hyman after a city staffer offered to volunteer on her behalf but there's been no further action on the resolution essentially either the mayor nor councilwoman Freeman showed any support for the senator and both

Miss Molina was kicked off again it went off again all right we'll try it again after councilwoman Freeman and nettle child we'll try and let that be our last attempt I think she got about a minute in so she has about two minutes left all right councilwoman Freeman you pull item number 28 which is a Consolidated annexation Carpenter Preserve uh yes thank you and just um trying to follow up regarding this there's a few concerns but I'm trying to understand if there is a difference because the question was asked previously um if if Carpenter preserve is in the same location as Carpenter Falls good afternoon Sarah Young director of the state County Planning Department yes it is the same site okay and when when a developer presents a fail the item

failed previously was a rezoning the item that filled previously was an annexation there is no rezoning request with this it's just an annexation petition and when the annexation fails is there like a speed button to come back before us so the unified development ordinance has a waiting period on rezonings on the same rezoning being resubmitted but there is no such waiting period required for an annexation so a developer is able to bring back the exact same annexation essentially immediately if they so choose thank you thank you and this has happened many many times before in the years I've been on this Council so there there's there's nothing untoward about this it was a direct direct translation not a rezoning an annexation this is pretty normal thank you madam mayor

any other questions on this item we'll try to turn back to miss Molina for our last attempt Miss Molina are you there I am here okay we're gonna try it again I'm gonna try to it keeps going I understand well maybe uh I'm concerned that there's been no further action on the resolution to censure uh councilwoman neither the mayor nor the count or neither here nor North Council Freeman showed any support for the sitter and millions have since been quoted as said not support the center the only councilman Johnson potential yes

instead with all right Miss Molina it has gone out again for some reason during your talk and your comments it comes it goes to someone else a Paola Roland is what we're seeing that's the clerk right so some somehow another what I'd ask for you to do if you would if you would submit your comments to us in written form so that they can be included in the official record since you started those comments we would very much appreciate if you submit those comments and written in written forms and I don't see her any longer in the queue so I would ask Madam clerk if you have any contact information for her if you would let her know that okay all right thank you so much I think that will conclude all of our pooled items and we are now going to start with our

presentations we have a couple of presentations this afternoon starting with item 24. is there someone I think there's one in the middle of it may not be 24. let us check oh it's 22 right is that the first one proposed Water and Sewer rates yes that would be the first item for presentation item 22 with Mr Don Greely gonna tell us about our proposed of water and sewer rights rates for FY 2023-2024. Mr Greeley yeah on the floor good afternoon sir uh good afternoon mayor Neil mayor protem Middleton and members of council Don Greely Department of Water Management I'm here today to talk about the water and sewer rates for next fiscal year before I get started I'd like to thank my staff for all the hard

work that they put into this as well as the finance department Tim floor and his team as well as graph tell us Financial which is the city's consultant the the three entities work closely together to input all the information that needs to go into the long-term 10-year rate model that we update every year and also like to thank the city manager's office for their input into the item before you today um quick overview of the of the utility I'm not going to read everything here but I would want to point out the last two bullets as the city Durham continues to grow and we have more residents to serve and more accounts that does play a big role in the right model as we have additional sources of revenue but also additional costs to serve those residents but it certainly has a big impact on keeping our rates affordable as we have done in Prior years we'll talk about objectives and strategy and key issues talk a little bit about the

capital Improvement program and the customer consumption and then talk about the rates themselves as we do and every year we point out our rate setting objectives affordability to ensure our rates are fair and Equitable across all of our customer base sustainability to ensure that the utility can address all of the increased operating costs and new regulations as well as to fund the long-term capital needs and also to promote water efficiency and conservation and we do that through our tiered rates and our cost space in the rain model but certainly front and center and foremost is affordability with our customers the tiered rates that we have empowers our customers to manage cost we look at our long-term reducing the 10-man model to make sure that we have a long-term model to make sure that our rates are affordable and as low as possible especially in the lower tiers and we want to make sure we have

programs to assist our low and fixed income customers as you can see the graph now that we've reached almost a little over a hundred thousand in our customers our customer accounts it's an easy math to see that we look at when we look at our tier one tier two and tier three that's almost 75 percent of our customer base and if you look at the rates that we have projected forward and the slow increase that we see rates over time we feel that we are meeting our goal of affordability by keeping those rates as low as possible year after year quickly talking about affordability of course you know with first and foremost is the economic situation now that we have in our community and across the country and it's certainly important that we are able to work with our customers as they have issues in and around paying their water bill certainly we allow for flexible payment

plans whenever a customer needs it that could be as something as simple as hey I'd like to pay my bill next Friday instead of today or it could be can I spread my payments out or to assist them when they're having trouble paying for their water bill themselves the city sponsors through the general fund a hardship fund of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars annually and it helps create a clean slate for our customers when we're able to utilize those funds we're also able to use their other resources in the community to help our customers pay their water bill on the waters this is where we are to date out of the 150 000 that have been allocated through the general fund over 1200 home households have been able to take advantage of the water hardship fund for almost ninety thousand dollars and we expect almost forty thousand dollars to be spent to the remainder of the fiscal year I did want to point out that um you know in Prior years the council has adopted additional funding for the

hardship program but because there have been other sources of revenue outside of our programming as such as the one here the low-income house the water assistance program um you know it's been you know certainly you can see the impact that that program has had but that's a temporary program that was offered through across the state and that will be expiring later this year so certainly we as that expires in some of the other funding sources are no longer there we'll be making sure that we bring to the city managers attention where we stand with this and certainly bring back the council for consideration should These funds be you know spent earlier on in during the year so overall as as we have done for the past 10 years or so our goal is to have small sustainable rate increases with our customers to meet our long-term needs minimize those impacts to our lower tier

customers cover our operating costs or Capital cost and look to the Future as we need to meet our the growth in the city and the increased water demand as we look out 20 30 40 years and we want to make sure that we have a good strong financial plan to make sure we smooth out our borrowing to keep the the impact of those rate increases as low as possible and we want to continue to managing our debt in a way that's to the benefit of our rate payers not necessarily a high Bond rating although we have a very high bond rate touching on our Capital program I did want to just highlight some of the spending that will be going on over the next couple years over the next four years we expect to spend over 150 million dollars just in the water distribution system Rehabilitation project two of those projects are shown in the illustrations here the East Durham project which is underway we've completed a couple of those phases a

g Pearson Center and it also one of the Stokesdale area which is a targeted area it replaces the water lines interlines in the kind of the northern part of that that area the other illustration there is called the West End project and that will be replacing the water and sewer lines all around lion Park so and we had projects going all around the city but here are two examples of what this program is all about on the sewer collection system we expect 250 million dollars over the next four years um same projects I just mentioned also replacing the sewer lines in those areas but we also have an issue about making sure that our infrastructure is capable of meeting the development needs of the

city especially with a new comprehensive plant this illustration is shown down in the southwest part of our city we had infrastructure that was put in when that area was annexed over 30 years ago but at that time there was a Southpoint mall was just a rural tier and we all know what happened with South Point mall in the area around that so we're having to you know certainly replace the the large the pump stations that are out there to accommodate the growth that we're seeing now so what you see there is a 50 50 million dollar project to replace some of the lift stations that are out there to bring the waste water to the South Durham plant at our Wastewater facilities we certainly have over 90 million dollars next four years to be able to maintain our our Water Reclamation facilities some of those projects are listed on the slide here um similar projects are going on at our water our drinking water facilities we

5 it's

5 million gallons um but this is a new intake on Jordan Lake and the pump station treatment plant and transmission lines back to Durham of course we're doing this with our Western intake Partners Pittsboro Chatham County Orange water and the Sewer Authority but certainly the uh that's a 700 million dollar project that we hope to bring online by 2031-2032 but certainly the size of that project is starting to be felt in the rape model is certainly having its impact on the rate models we project out as we look at trying to have small sustainable rates going forward to be able to afford these projects for emergency supply we rely relied on tier Quarry back during the drought of 2007. we're looking to put that the Quarry put infrastructure in to permanently bring

that online with facilities that we can bring it online at a moment's notice so we'll be spending 50 million dollars over the next four years for that project and lastly we continue to protect our water supply around Little River and like a little River Lake and so we're looking to spend two million dollars to purchase land in and around the lake to protect for water quality Capital spending my eyes popped when I we put the slide together um as over the last you know five to six years we've seen our construction costs double as well as our Consulting cost doubled so before you I was talking in terms of half a billion dollars and now it's in terms of a billion dollars and the 10-year projection is almost two billion dollars to replace our infrastructure

and over the next five years it's that almost billion dollars is spread out summer summarized here between the dams and reservoirs the treatment plants The Collection the distribution system our water usage continues to remain certainly as you can see year in year out as even though we've gained a lot of customers we don't seem to be you know exponentially gaining a lot of water use so I think a lot of that has to do with a lot of the Redevelopment that we see in around town where older fixtures replaced by more efficient fixtures um also you know the commercial institutional industrial customers are very aware of their water needs and we're looking at ways to upgrade their own facilities to minimize their water demand so we've been very fortunate to that that man hasn't gone up with as fast as the population but it still plays certainly a role in our long-term modeling

our customer base hasn't changed too much as far as our single family residential consumption by tiers a majority of the water is consumed as you can see in the slide by the first three tiers where we almost have 87 percent of the water is consumed for seeing a family residential in the bottom three tiers which further emphasizes why it's important to look at affordability for those bottom three tiers as far as the rates proposed for next year the 130 million dollars of water and sewer fund that's being that is being proposed with the rates supported by the rates that are before you today is broken up into these percentages with personal services operations and maintenance Debt Service and rate funded CIP um from a projection this shows the Blue Line well this shows the operation

maintenance Personnel costs is in yellow The Debt Service is in the the darker red and and the light red the pink is the rate funded Capital we currently do not have any reserve funding at this time the blue indicates the bars of course represent the need the blue represents if we did not do any rate increases how much of an impact that would have on the capital program that we have currently laid out and of course the black line is if we continue to raise have these small incremental rates year in year out to be able to meet that Capital need the rates that we're proposing for fy24 modest increases to both the service fees and consumption charges on all the tiers we'll have we're proposing an increase in the Watershed protection fee I'll talk about that in the next slide and of course different customers will see different percentages on their bill based on their water consumption and what tier they're in but uh

you know we'll continue the tier three rate for the commercial multi-family residential industrial customers outside double rates and of course those customers that are served by the County's Wastewater Plant will charge them with based on the customer based on the fees that the county adopts for for their part of the collection system which is basically of the south of 70 East of RTP we embedded in the rates is in improving our Watershed protection fee we had a a penny per 100 cubic feet and we've now were proposing to increase that to three pennies per cubic feet you know penny per cubic feet generates about a hundred thousand dollars per year um each year and we've been able to use that money to as it shows here to protect over 400 acres of land and almost 22 000 feet of stream we've been used we've been able to use that money

to participate with our regional Partners to leverage water conservation projects across the across the area so we'll contribute with us you know along with the City of Raleigh or the Land Conservancy the three of us will partner together to do a purchase so it's been very successful what we're proposing is to embed it in the rates is to move it up to three cents per 100 cubic feet and to you know especially since we're we'll be bringing Jordan Lake online so we'll also be looking at protecting water land that's tributary to Jordan Lake as well not just our lakes in the area and as a reference the City of Raleigh dedicates a 11 cents per 100 cubic feet in the town of Kerry also does 11. um the fiscal year 24 rates cover of course all of the operating budget and the operating budget also includes significant increases in chemical costs we've seen our chemical costs

um triple in the last two years for our treatment plants any pay any paper performance increases that are approved Debt Service pay go funding for the CIP Fleet fund replacement for those water and sewer vehicles water water management vehicles and the general fund transfer for the support of the general fund to the water and sewer fund it maintains all the necessary debt covenants and maintains all the correct operating reserves that are appropriate which is 180 days of operating funds for the utility as you can see here these are the actual increases 38 cents on the service charge for water and the other increases that are shown here for the tiers for the increases in an unsure a 41 increase in the service charge of 26 per cent on the volume charge comparisons as you can see here the tier one customer

61 cents per month and that'll be increased by a dollar 20 cents in comparison prior years we've shown Donuts we moved from Donuts to ice cream we thought about eggs but since manager page used eggs and the budget kick off we didn't go there but it shows uh you know that you can buy a a bottle a 20 ounce bottled water at the market or a convenience store from around a dollar twenty which equates to the increase of the uh that we're proposing for the Tier 1 customers per one just for comparison or at 1440 per annual increase so once again we think it's a modest increase the impact that we have to our commercial accounts the smaller commercial accounts for a 5 8 meter one inch meter and two inch meter are shown here

8 for this year but certainly the the increasing costs and the huge the the rapid increase in construction costs that we've seen have made a Major Impact to our financial projections so that has made

2 that we're requesting this year as always we check in to see how we're doing this is the dashboard from the school of government environmental Finance Center uh and this is showing uh similar accounts so similar size utilities across North Carolina when you look at a 5 000 gallon combined consumption water bill how we stack up against those utilities as you can see for the build comparison we provide very good the conservation signal is very strong cost recovery is good but really the most important dial is the one in the lower right which is the medium median affordability which looks like the medium household income in Durham and we really want to see it's recommended that that be under two percent our goal is to

drive that down as far as possible because certainly as we see the medium household income go that number go signal grow significantly in Durham we still are very cognizant of the impact that the rates have on our fixed income and low income tier one customers so we want to make sure that we have affordable rates as possible when you look at the same dashboard but just looking at where we are in the area once again our bill is relatively low to the utilities that are around us um where you know and then the concert value signal is not quite as strong as some of the smaller utilities that really have to push conservation because of the capacity issues that they have but the affordability issue is is still strong as far as the larger utilities when you actually look at the total bill overall here's some of the larger Utilities in and around North Carolina and some of

our utilities our neighboring utilities with that I opened it for questions open it up for our colleagues councilman Williams thank you so much it's always so exciting to hear you speak you know it's just I'm joking with you all right thank you thank you for this information um I I want to ask a question that I don't want specifics to I just want to know yes or no or maybe we can for the sake of dignity when it comes to the uh hardship are we seeing any common Trends regarding geography or demographics or is that data that you collect um in regards of residents who need that assistance um we we what we use it um we look at where that where we see a high level what we're working towards is looking at where those addresses are

across the city yeah and targeting programs in those areas to where we're looking at how we can communicate better in those communities for them for the residents to better understand what options they have to be able to help with the situation that they're in we're aware of that and working with that and as we get better data you know we'll continue along those lines okay and that's why I was asking I'm glad you guys are already on that I appreciate that thank you any other questions councilwoman Johnson damn followed by mayor protein thank you um thank you for your presentation it's always really interesting and thank you for replacing the lines in my neighborhood really excited about that um I was really also really um it's always good to see this average daily consumption chart over the last 20 years that even you know with the increase in population we're still using less water overall than we did 20 years

ago which is really amazing um and you know I know I I changed out the toilets in my house with the city Exchange program like I think the the city and the department has done a really good job at you know moving people towards um towards more conservation which is great for the city and also you know meets all of our environmental goals which is um which is really great the the 160 000 that you mentioned that folks had used out of the um hardship funds that we were getting from other sources is that going away like in the next fiscal year uh it's later in the fall later in the fall okay so um yeah please you know come back to us if you see those funds getting low I think we all share a commitment to making um making sure that we have what we need what we need in that fund um and I don't know where you're getting dollar cones ice cream cones can you can you let me know where where does ice cream cone cost a dollar because when my staff brought this forward I asked the same question because I wanted to go yeah my last ice cream home I got

was at least four dollars but if they know a place to get gas but I was told that that if you bought it at the supermarket and bought your cones and ice cream at the super box that's okay that's what I'm missing but this just doesn't taste as good if someone didn't mean okay okay I got you I had High Hopes too um thank you I really I appreciate how this is like really technical information but is you know designed in a way that I think it's really understandable and we're looking at some increases in in the out years and we need to um know that now and and get ready for it thank you thank you madam mayor you take away the donuts and then you disrespect lactose intolerant people next year let me uh thank you for this this great presentation and I I want to Echo my colleagues um emphasis of the dashboards uh at the end of the presentation really really useful particularly when you're talking with other colleagues uh from other municipalities about what's going on in your city I want to brag on um our water uh department for a bit I was just in in

Washington a few weeks ago at the National League of cities I sat on the panel uh to talk about kind of reflect on the work Durham was involved with some other cities I think Minneapolis was one of them and our city cities assessing fines and fees equitably our calf uh work and I was just so proud to to be able to talk about and to hear others lauding what was going on in Durham in terms of our water Equity we showed how we tweaked the letter the cut off letter uh that language and the difference that that made integrating lost revenue from cut off fees into gradual fee increases was brilliant I had so many questions from colleagues around the country about the possibility of doing away with the cutoff fee and just recouping it in gradual rate increases so I just want to congratulate you on that Durham continues to be lauded for having some of the best tasting and looking water in our state in the countryside I just want to thank you for for the work that you've done in this this presentation I want to Echo also our my commitment our commitment to making sure that our hardship fund stays

flush I'm glad to see more usage is occurring once upon a time we were wondering what why folk more folk weren't using it but I think the tweaks in our communication protocols I have a person so I want to share with you in a minute as well the quick question the um and I didn't pull the item but the Parkwood lift station in terms of our CIP when we're when we're repairing our lift stations are we is it the worst ones or the most dated ones first or the ones because of perhaps development in that area and increase usage or or pressure on it get prioritized how is it just pure date or usage of the equipment that determines who gets to the front of the line in terms of that stuff we look at it across all of those areas and we try to do a multi-pronged approach you know the Parkwood itself is in poor shape but we also know there's there are development in the future especially coming from that area that we need to do the example that I put on the water

Wastewater this collection system slide where we're upgrading that that was pure development driven some of the projects that we're doing in and around town where we have a sewer main upgrade that we have coming for forward replacing the line in Forest Hills Park so we look at all of those together and try to prioritize you know certainly some from a maintenance standpoint we have to go forward with some are critical to make sure we have the capacity for development and also capacity for the city's comprehensive plan so we're really kind of molding them all together and not necessarily doing just one at a time we're kind of doing all of them at the same time that's very helpful that that's good to know thank you I um sometimes sometimes I'm a little slack in paying my water bill or getting my mail out of my mailbox and the last couple of months I had some major renovation work done at my home and my water bill started to look like my mortgage

I got a call from from one of the proactive call because they had noticed the person didn't indicate that they knew who I was but but indicated that they saw the fluctuation in the bill talked about the the possibility of if you send in your proof of construction and work at your home how they can prorate it or do a reduction and the bill we talk for a good while incredibly professional but to see those type of interventions at work firsthand not as an abstract thing you kind of vote on the let go but as a citizen a resident of the city was just really really gratifying to me and I won't I thought I had the name written but I'll get you the name of the person really excellent customer service so I just wanted to commend you on that your entire shop on the things we're doing we know we got a lot of work to do we know that these bills hit certain parts of our population disproportionately but I want to commend you and your entire team at a manager you and your entire team and on on the really leaning in on equity and the work that we've done uh in terms of

water affordability that's being recognized around our country literally recognized around our country so I wanted to thank you for that and share that starting to do better about getting in on time but I appreciated a call and appreciated the offer for help as a resident that made me feel very proud to live in this city finally there are reports that 700 million dollars for Lake Jordan there reports that about a hundred million of that is for refurbishing your office you want to speak to that you have to speak to that now thank you madam mayor thank you mayor protein Milan I would like to go back to your previous comment about our customers billing services and I just want to once again laud our customer Building Services Department for the tremendous job that they do um they're just phenomenal I mean they're talking to you know anywhere from five thousand to eight thousand customers per month and they just do a tremendous job working with our customers and I'll certainly appreciate and pass on your comment please do please thank them for us thank you

thank you Mr Greeley so much I'm you know the city is such a the city government itself is such a wide and varied range of expertise but I I have to be honest that I am fascinated by what you do uh and what the water department the management is so I'm coming out to see in about a week or so we're looking forward to having your brain a lot um it's just it is really fascinating what you do too and what has to be done to make sure that people can turn on faucet and get clean water or flush the toilet so I'm looking forward to it yeah right so thank you for everything and for all the great work you're doing and have done I understand that you have been here a long time and so we hope that you will continue to be here right thank you that kind of expertise you just can't you know you just can't be grateful enough for so we're glad that you're in the space that you're occupying for the city of Durham right thank you so much thank you I want to thank you on behalf

of our whole department thank you thank you all woohoo we have clean water some of the best in the state everybody we have been nationally all right it is the best in the states that's right number one number one thanks to these people so canoes to you thank you we got a little out of order so I apologize to the Noose River folk who should have been first but we're actually going to deal with our guest first who are the triangle um Apartment Association but we still have one person on an item as you come forth that had signed up according to our clerk to speak to item 28 which is Miss Wagstaff Miss wax stuff you have three minutes uh we're still searching for Miss Malone Molina who came back again but it's gone again but miss uh Wagstaff I'm sorry I missed showing item 28 you have the floor for three minutes well Madam mayor

um since I have three minutes I'm not going to use three minutes because I think I addressed the question that I had about item number 28 and I think that I uh acknowledge that uh citizen Pamela Andrews had addressed some things that some concerns I think she put some questions on the floor and like I said my biggest concern is that this project is has come back again this annexation not this rezone this annexation even though there's no timeline on how when and how long it takes to come back it's very suspicious that this item has come back to this Council in less than 60 days and it has moved to the front of the line ahead of other projects that probably are on the books and it happened to be just on unfortunately or inadvertently it happens to be uh an uh project or an annexation that occurred that actually for me and other citizens

feel like this was the the Honda went to the uh the storm that came afterwards with one of our council members so it's very concerning that this is back on the agenda when it failed the first time so it's going to be interesting to see how this this pans out on Monday because we do know that one of the members of that four votes is missing so we want to see how this is going to work on Monday when this this item comes back up for a vote and if it fails again will they just keep bringing it until they get those four people together and vote or will they fly this person in for this vote we're just concerned about that and the community is watching but thank you madam mayor for giving me this time thank you Miss McStuff we now turn to our affordable housing Deep dive presentation from triangle Apartments Association which is item number 25. I believe this is our last Deep dive presentation and I've I've looked over

the over the information and this is a great way for us to end our Deep dive so turn it over to you sir if you would please state your name and we're ready thank you so much good afternoon mayor and members of the Durham city council thank you for the opportunity to appear before you during today's work session I've enjoyed watching all the affordable housing deep Dives and we're very grateful for the opportunity to close out this series and to have this opportunity to speak with you today my name is Dustin Ingleton I'm the government Affairs director at the triangle Apartment Association I'm joined today by a delegation here on the staff side we have our executive director Josie eatman and my colleague in the government Affairs team Kem Ratliff I'm also joined by our 2023 Association president Mr Craig Nardi and members of our board and leadership team while I'll be doing the bulk of the speaking during today's presentation they are available to help answer any questions that may come up during our discussion before we jump into our presentation though give you a brief idea of what the agenda looks like and I'm going to start

by telling you a little bit about our organizations you understand who we are and what we do and then we'll jump into the issues so the triangle Apartment Association is a non-profit trade Association serving the multi-family Housing Industry our members include individuals and companies who develop own manage and provide goods and services to the apartment industry across the greater triangle region which includes not just Durham orange and wake but also an additional eight counties including your neighbors in Chatham Granville and Person Counties the TAA currently serves more than 1100 member businesses and our members collectively own and operate more than 160 000 apartment units across our 11 County region it's worth noting that more than 35 000 of those units are located right here in the city of Durham we are also an affiliate member of the apartment association of North Carolina and the national Apartment Association I'm going to be breaking up today's presentation into two basic sections

com they're a member company there's a couple of reasons why we made that choice and I just want to explain that before we get into the numbers so first of all I review a lot of data and reports from sources across the country and across the region and everybody has a little bit different way of calculating their numbers and so for consistency's sake we wanted to stick with one single source so that there's no confusion or clash between the numbers um simply put I just want to make it as simple as possible but understand that these numbers are going to vary slightly depending on what source you're using and how they're calculating them second off I I want to give a shout out to the co-star team because in my personal opinion they provide easily the most comprehensive data set and because we wanted to touch on a lot of different

topics in today's presentation and keep it with one source and keep the consistency we chose to go with their data the last thing I want to mention is that the information you're going to see covers the entire Durham MSA which does include orange and Chatham counties as well obviously Durham is the big brother in that relationship so a lot of what you're going to see is happening right here in the city but just keep that in mind that some of the numbers might look a little bit different than what you'd see from your city staff because they do include that additional coverage area so we're going to start briefly with an overview of multi-family construction I'm pleased to report that Durham has a very active pipeline of approximately 4 900 multi-family units under construction that represents nearly a nine percent expansion of overall inventory which is an all-time record for this Market there are very few large or mid-sized markets that can stack up against that inventory expansion for reference some of the biggest and fastest growing cities in the country are right in the

four and five percent range for inventory expansion so there's a lot going on here not going to come as a surprise to you guys as you see many of these projects but the majority of that building activity is concentrated in Durham Central sub-markets with about 40 percent of all construction occurring in downtown Durham and another 30 percent in South Durham so the construction numbers are great but it only gives you a small piece of the picture of what's happening in the market to my mind absorption is arguably the more important number because this is where Supply meets demand and translates to price so what is absorption simply put it's the number of uh excuse me simply put it's the number of units occupied within a market over a given time in this case we're looking at the 12-month period absorption considers both construction of new units and the removal of existing units in general if your absorption number is positive then you are renting more than you were building and if the

opposite is true too if your absorption is negative that means you've built more than you're renting currently and you have excess Supply in Durham there's been a mixed performance in recent years the market experienced negative absorption in the fourth quarter of last year and into the first quarter of this year it's no coincidence that this period coincided with the same period where rent growth started to stall out and actually move into the negative we're going to talk more about rent shortly though so the region still has a growing population but there's a couple of factors here at play for one you had incredibly High absorption in 2021 everything that came online was filled just about as fast as it could come into operation so we think that that may have pulled forward some of the demand that ordinarily would have cycled through into 2022 over the past 12 months so again looking back to about mid-year of last year the market has been basically flat the entire MSA only absorbed 110 units

during that 12-month period while at the same time delivering more than 1200 units as you may have guessed that negative absorption meant increased vacancies starting last fall which is good news for the health of the market as I said there was a new wave of deliveries beginning in the first quarter of last year and the high number of deliveries combined with the mixed absorption has resulted in vacancy rates Rising for several quarters in a row to their current level of 8 percent for reference vacancy rate of about three percent is considered healthy because it represents a market balanced between tenants and owners areas with vacancy rates of a lower number generally say rent increases the higher your vacancy rate the more you tend to see rent stall out or or even go negative again vacancies in Durham have risen for several quarters in a row and that's due to a combination of a lot of new Supply coming online at a very low absorption rate

so I've included some charts in here and I realize they might be kind of hard to read so I'm going to walk through them a little bit but as you look at the chart here there's a few things that I want to highlight for you the first is that Durham's vacancy rate has traditionally been higher than the national average over the last few years but it declined dramatically starting in mid to late 2020 and continuing through 2021 before rapidly switching and moving the other direction throughout the second half of 2022. the vacancy rate was actually as low as four percent briefly back in 2021 before rising and getting to its current level of about eight percent there's a lot of things we can point to during that period but covid the eviction moratorium the availability of stimulus money everything that changed over the last few years meant more people moving into Durham and to the triangle as well as the formation of a lot of new households and so we saw a lot of rapidly increased demand over a very short period that brought the vacancy rate way down now the market is

starting to respond you're getting more units in the vacancy rate is starting to to tick back up the market is still struggling to keep up but as new units are coming online the vacancy rate is projected to continue to increase over the next two years before settling back down in a few years towards what's been the more traditional average so we look at the next slide you can see that this chart shows you the vacancy rates for different types of properties across Durham and across the United States as a whole as you can see the vacancy rate for all types of properties is currently higher than the national average but it's significantly higher in four and five star properties as opposed to three star properties which are generally considered Workforce housing that confirms what you probably already knew which is that there's more inventory being brought online at the top of the market and that segment is getting saturated the difficulty of producing Workforce housing means that there's more stability in the occupancy rates for those lower tier properties

so now that we've got some basic information about the supply the absorption and the vacancy we're going to turn our attention to rent which is the of course the topic that most people focus on the current market rent in Durham is fifteen hundred and ten dollars per month that's materially lower than the national average of 1650 a month although I realize it represents a pretty large increase over the last few years in the most recent quarter which is quarter one of this year rents ticked up slightly which followed a decline over the last two quarters of 2022. on a year-over-year basis rent growth is still positive at just over one one and a half percent but that is because of high rent growth that occurred in the first half of 22. before the declines in the second half of the year it was we're looking out into the the near term annual rent growth is likely to become flat or even negative this quarter based on some of those factors we've talked about already so this chart demonstrates the daily

asking rent per square foot over the last five plus years as you can see there was a slow but steady increase from 2017 through 2020 before things really started to take off in early 2021 that increase continued through the first half of 2022 before leveling off and actually declining to today's price of about a dollar sixty per square foot again you see that reflected in the larger rent Trends but I just thought that was a real easy way to visualize it so this chart again shows the rental rates over time overlaid with the national average as you can see again rates spiked during the later covet months before coming back to Earth last year this again shows co-star's prediction that things have leveled off and will be relatively stable over the next few years as we get a lot of new Supply and start to catch up with what was a period of short supply

the last thing I want to share here is our our key indicators and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this graphic but I included it because it has some very good data points across different property types to give you an idea of where your existing inventory is and what's happening in each specific Market segment there are also some good historic benchmarks for your reference on a number of these indicators so the last thing I want to mention before we close out the market overview section of today's presentation is that I've also included a graphic in the background materials for today's meeting the graphic I'm referencing is from the national Apartment Association and it details the costs associated with running rental housing properties again not going to spend a lot of time on that but I want to make sure that you know that it's there and that it can be referenced for those who might be watching from the public it can be found on the council website but I think it gives a really good Viewpoint of of the different challenges that go into maintaining and operating a property and where that dollar of rent actually goes

as we're talking about the rent so at this point I'm going to take a pause and uh just checking really quickly to see if there's any questions or concern on the market portion and if not we'll shift into the next part of the presentation looking at some suggestions any questions councilman Wellman Freeman uh just a question on your key indicators as of the date specific year yeah so this this report was from I think April 13th so just after first quarter it ended okay okay so um moving right along for this section we've basically grouped our suggestions into three separate buckets and I'm going to talk a little bit in each section but Loosely we've grouped them into engagement to financial investments that the city can make and then looking at some zoning and land use changes that

we think can be helpful as well so let me start this section Again by just sharing my gratitude for the opportunity to be here we really appreciate it and this is a great conversation I I hope that this has been helpful for your work and it'll be a great starting point but I don't want this to be the end point for engagement with stakeholders like our organization and to that end we have a few suggestions on how we can continue these important conversations moving forward so our first suggestion is to bring back the mayor's landlord Roundtable many of you will remember this event from the pre-coveted days when the city convened landlords from across the city to provide important updates and engage on various issues facing landlords we hope that as we start to put covet in the rear view mirror and get things back to normal that you all will consider bringing that series back because we think it's a really important tool for having that two-way conversation I would also additionally encourage you to consider the convening of an affordable housing committee or Advisory Group that includes stakeholders from

all sides of the housing picture including landlords and housing providers I know there has been a series ongoing with the Durham Regional Association of Realtors and again I want to commend you for being willing to listen and engage I think that has been a really important conversation but I hope that this series can be continued or expanded to include groups like ours and others so that we can have a more robust and informed longer-term conversation about how to tackle housing issues in Durham lastly I want to extend an open invitation for all of you to come visit us we have a government Affairs committee we have a housing affordability committee among other options and you all are more than welcome to join us at any meeting at any time to come have a conversation about housing issues and that can be either to present priority topics from the city's perspective or to engage our members on items that you feel they may be able to help with I would further extend that invitation to your staff if you have items that you feel you need to communicate with our members or if there's any way that we can be helpful to the work that you do please don't be a stranger come in and

visit us we'd be more than happy to have you and several of you have taken that opportunity for those who haven't we look forward to hopefully seeing you in the future so uh engagement is critically important and there's a reason we wanted to start there but in many ways this is a financial issue and we come before you with some options where we feel the city can make financial investments that will really help to bend the cost curve and help to solve specific priority issues so the first item we want to discuss is a housing preservation fund which is a tool that can be used to help build and preserve affordable housing though these types of funds are most often used to preserve naturally occurring affordable housing that may be under threat of Redevelopment it's my understanding that such a fund already exists and it's called the Durham affordable housing Loan Fund but it is also my understanding that it is spent down all available resources and is currently operating with with no additional funding that program was intended to enable the

acquisition of properties to create or preserve affordable units and allow time to secure permanent financing the program was also available to assist with pre-underwriting and in-house legal and real estate development expertise I understand that you'll soon be actually considering a case where a housing provider is coming to petition you for money for just such a type of acquisition and the reason they are coming to you is because this fund doesn't exist and there is no other Avenue for accessing that kind of emergency funding for a quick transaction under current conditions that may work fine with interest rates slowing down transactions have slowed a little bit there's less investment action going on so that may work fine in the short term but as we see the market recover and and return to robust growth in the future we hope that's going to be more and more of a challenge for the city to be nimble so we hope that y'all will consider putting a permanently set aside investment towards a fund either through that program or something similar

I will point out you all may already know this but Wake County has recently created a similar fund and with a large upfront commitment from the county of 20 million dollars the fund has secured more than 60 million dollars in financing in conversations that I've had with Lorena McDowell who's the Wake County Housing director as well several members of the Wake County Commissioners what I have heard repeatedly is that it was the large public investment on the front end that was able to help draw in private business and Foundation money and to make that fund a success so our ask here is that the city consider putting substantial resources into supporting the work of the dhlf or a similar type of preservation fund in addition to the need for long-term affordable housing investments we also know that there's a great deal of need for an emergency housing assistance program during the recent pandemic Durham County and the City of Durham worked together utilizing Federal e-wrap money to launch

the Durham emergency rental assistance program which provided residents with assistance with rent during the pandemic during the program nearly 3 900 households received assistance to stay in their homes but unfortunately the program funding was exhausted in early 2022 and while there is some local assistance available through Durham County Department of Social Services and other local non-profits we need financial support for a more robust assistance program so I want to take a moment here to to briefly touch on the issues of evictions because I know it's an issue that's close to y'all's heart and frankly close to ours as well I think there's a misconception that evictions are profitable or provide some kind of an advantage to the landlord but in reality nothing could be further from the truth evictions are bad for everyone they're bad for the tenant they're bad for the landlord they're bad for Neighbors they're bad for the community and bad for taxpayers and so we share a goal here to minimize and reduce

evictions the root cause of evictions is most often non-payment therefore it stands to reason that the way to prevent these evictions from occurring is to ensure everyone has the support that they need to pay the rent no matter how much money we provide for eviction diversion programs or legal assistance programs the bottom line is it's a non-payment issue and if we can get the resources where they need to be to help tenants in need we can help people stay in their homes and we saw that firsthand during covet I also want to be clear that this really should be a federal and state priority the federal government is the one who who made it rain the last time around and they're really the only ones with deep enough Pockets to make a program like this really successful and so unfortunately the reality is there isn't a program coming down the pike and so as much as we might believe the federal government should take responsibility as they did during covid there's no indication right now that that's going to happen we have similarly been having

conversations with leaders at the state level encouraging the creation or renewal of a state level program and right now I'm not optimistic that that's going to happen either and so unfortunately it falls to communities like Durham to step up and make the funding commitment necessary to keep people housed Durham obviously doesn't have the same level of resources that the state or federal government possess but I want to stress that the program doesn't need to make the same large commitments that federally wrap programs did a recent New York Times investigation found that somewhere around 70 percent of North Carolina tenants were evicted for under a thousand dollars in non-payment of rent and so we're not asking you to consider an 18-month commitment like the erap program made we're not asking you to consider you know additional Investments but even being able to provide that thousand dollar sum for a family in need can be the difference between making a way into the shelter system or you know substandard housing or keeping your home keeping your roof over your your head so strongly encourage the city to evaluate options for considering a local assistance

program the last item we want to talk to you about today is the housing Choice Voucher Program as I'm sure you all know the housing Choice Voucher Program also known as Section 8 is the largest Federal housing assistance a program available across the country unfortunately many landlords choose not to participate in the housing Choice Voucher Program which hinders the ability of voucher holders to find suitable housing and we as an organization have been working with our members to encourage participation working with stakeholders like the housing authority and others to do what we can at the local level to make things better um but in order to be successful here I really want to take a dive back into why landlords don't participate and what kind of issues exist with the program so that you all understand how we can work towards the common goal here again I included a graphic in your briefing materials which outlines the standard leasing process for a market rate tenant versus the process for a voucher holder

as you can see if you've looked at those processes it's a much longer more complex and vastly more expensive and risky process to participate in the voucher program as opposed to a market rate tenant there is a perception that landlords are discriminating against the tenant by choosing not to participate in the program but in reality they aren't choosing not to participate because of the population served or the source of the income but rather due to administrative complications from participation and gaps in communication and Outreach our members recently visited Capitol Hill to talk with legislators about how the program can be streamlined and improved to encourage participation and again those are decisions that have to be made at the federal level there's only so much we can do here locally however the good news is that there are models out there that work to encourage participation the city can incentivize participation through things like signing bonuses risk mitigation funds upfitting grants Etc

Wake County has launched a landlord engagement unit and provides robust incentives such as sign-on bonuses damage insurance and renewal bonuses I understand that here in Durham there is a local non-profit that's already received some money to Pilot a program that's a really great first step but that we know that the money that's available for them to operate this program is not going to be enough to incentivize the number of providers we need to get involved in the voucher program and so we hope that you'll consider making a more robust long-term investment into incentivizing landlord participation so all of that being said I want to take a moment and level with you even if you take action today on all three of the items we presented and even if you throw the entire city budget at these three programs it's not going to be enough right housing is one of those issues that is going to take and everything and approach and so money is important there are investments you can make but it will not solve the problem alone and so part

two of that is looking at ways that we can help streamline the development process make it cheaper and easier to build and operate housing and to encourage affordability through the market so the first thing um I want to say here is that I'm not going to offer up a lot of specifics in this section as you all know zoning and land use items are incredibly complicated they can carry unintended consequences and as a result there needs to be a very deliberate process with a wide range of stakeholders to find the right answer I'll again reference the need for a permanent standing group of stakeholders to take on issues like this moving forward with that being said there are many rules and regulations that the city does have control over and which do have an impact on the price and availability of housing the city should evaluate the current code and look for opportunities to cut costs and barriers to development wherever possible there are currently amendments before you that among other things will

simplify the way height is calculated remove parking minimums and expand flexibility for adus these are all positive steps and should be adopted other items I would encourage you to investigate include legalizing town homes and small Multiplex projects across the city evaluating restraints on small-scale apartments and making changes on things like density measures lot size yards and building Heights to increase the viability of more projects expanding opportunities for buy right developmental multi-family Properties by up zoning along Transit corridors and major throughways and in commercial zones evaluating infill standards and looking for opportunities to streamline development where existing infrastructure exists and creating a fast track program for accessory dwelling units and exploring opportunities for the city to help provide financing support in exchange for affordability commitments on those

units to be clear none of the changes that we're talking about here are going to provide housing at 30 or 50 Ami there is a certain segment that no matter how many great decisions you make and no matter how many good choices you undertake are always going to be a challenge to house and so you you really can't go at this with just money or just reform that needs to be both the two buckets go together and every reform you make on the land use side can help you to save money on the other side if you don't make these types of changes I can guarantee you that it won't be long before the city has to start looking for help for people at 100 Ami or 120 percent Ami or higher right now we don't have to do that but I can tell you in places like California they do and so you don't want to wait until you get to that place because the budget will be gone really quick again this is happening across the country it's not a place that you want to be so in conclusion I want to thank you

again for the opportunity to speak with you today in my opinion housing is one of the most critical issues in our community as it stands at the intersection of so many things schooling Health Care Public Safety the choices you make on this issue will have a profound impact on the city for years to come and I hope that our presentation today has provided you with some insight into how you can tackle this issue at this time I'll open up once again for questions and any points of clarification so so very much that was very informative kind of eye-opening their colleagues questions no questions at all right you have one yeah I was going to say I really appreciate it um I and just it I don't know who said it before you started but he said it was really eye-opening um and and it really was I um one data point that I wish I could see

along with the actual categories that you had was the Ami levels with that information so that we could see it all in one place so those who are following along I believe you if you look at the asking price and multiply times 40 that is what you'll need to make to uh to afford that particular tier or Star level or however you you indicated it um but this was this was really eye-opening and I just made a comment I just made a a I just provided an instruction that I'm not an expert on so correct me if I'm wrong uh multiplying the asking price by 40 to get the uh what's needed to afford that is that appropriate roughly I mean every property operation okay roughly so uh that's just for anyone that's following along um I think what was also most eye-opening was the suggestions right there at the end um just we we're always talking about you know providing affordable housing but a few things factors that we usually

leave out is you know what are the factors in the market that are driving the cost um we also usually talk about what we are doing on the local level what we can do um we never can do enough I'm appreciative of that statement but we are committed I started the meeting out with my comments about that um I would love to see more as I stated the challenges out there I would love to see more private entities get in the game and and I don't know if we could create a fund of what um or either even identify the affordable housing Loan Fund as a method in which people could donate to from the business Community from the actual uh uh clergy community and so on and so forth um but yeah lastly we have some things coming up and it's amazing how I I believe most folks are in agreement with um those suggestions right there at the end I look forward to discussing those in in the near future on how we could approach

it from the other side from the industry side to uh uh attack the affordability crisis around housing so thank you anybody else Mia protein thank you madam mayor good afternoon thank you so much for being with us for a great presentation I do want to um just uh maybe a couple observations in one uh quick question I appreciate your your um and your recommendations the Roundtable of having different stakeholders um it and it's refreshing to hear because there are some in our Public Square who think that all developers are bad period um whether they're small or large so I think to have a space where all stakeholders are at the table the government we don't build houses uh developers do I didn't build my house the developer did um so I think having a space where all stakeholders can be at the table and talk in an open

more light less heat whereas is a very helpful recommendation so I thank you for that I do want to say a little bit and I appreciate your advocacy on behalf of of landlords but you and I both all know all landlords are created equal um and I know while some of them may be concerned about um red tape in terms of taking Section 8 vouchers there are indeed this is anecdotal to some degree in scientific and others there are some who who see more value in getting folk who who are not bringing vouchers who will bring full market rate uh spending uh to their developments for example I mean if the issue were truly red tape why would we need to incentivize damage insurance what you know what what do you think what kind of client are you expecting uh to come in yeah for I mean that's if it's red tape why why do we need to incentivize damage Insurance that's a really good question and I'm glad it happens every once I included that I think in the package of red tape I didn't mean to imply that that specifically was red tape what I've

heard from talking to a lot of housing providers over the years is when you're bringing in a market rate tenant they are providing a security deposit if there are damages that exceed that deposit there are remedies through Court where you can recover those funds when you were dealing with a low-income client through a program they're first off not putting up a security deposit often times and so there is no fallback there and if and when damages occur you're pursuing someone who is low income through the court system you are unlikely to recover anything and so if I'm looking at the risk for my property and I've got a market rate tenant who I know I can hold accountable for any damages that might happen and then I'm looking at a voucher recipient and know that that may not be the case that's a place where the city can step in and eliminate that barrier Fair answer Fair answer what when you say communication and Outreach what could you give me some what are some examples what do they mean landlords mean by lack of communication and Outreach Outreach from whom the whom order so to to simplify it you know if there's an issue with the market rate tenant and a particular property you are

calling the tenant you were writing the tenant you were dealing with the tenant at a point where the Housing Authority is involved you were dealing with the tenant and the housing authority and perhaps other programs um so I think it's just uh in terms of the speed and ease of dealing with issues as they crop up for example I I was talking to remember not long ago who who had signed a voucher tenant and there was a hold up through the housing authority and they didn't get paid for the first four months normally that's something you can go knock on the door you can drop a letter you can have a conversation with the tenant and figure out what's going on with the rent that is not so easy with the Housing Authority for better or worse and I understand they have staffing issues I'm not here to bash the Housing Authority by any means but it's not the same it is a different process it is a challenge so one of the the marks on stars and Durham's Crown is we as far as Regional economies go Durham is one of the main driving forces of our regional economy um and given that standing I want to ask you your opinion on something do you

think it would be a good idea if we just did a moratorium on all development for say like six months or a year we just said no to everything you think that would be helpful I think that'd be about the worst thing you could do what the city of Durham is facing along with the triangle in many cities across the country is a supply issue really and we've seen with the massive amounts of new building that you guys are starting to get ahead of that and that's where you see the vacancy creeping up rents starting to stabilize that that's a good place to be but if you stop now and for any period of time prevent new construction you're putting yourself right back where you were two years ago three years ago where there's a lot of pressure on existing housing stock and so my advice would be anything but that honestly we're going to thank you and final question the um some of the recommendations you ticked off in terms of parking minimums and other things making something um more affordable it's been packaged under another name that's gotten a lot of heat in our Public Square scad um amendments they sound kind of like what we've been asked to do by some in the development community

I have not taken a position on it publicly just focus I don't know where I'm coming down those guys I have not said anything about scab publicly but I do Wonder um why would those things you think be helpful in terms of parking minimums and and flexibility uh in terms of development why do you think those things would be helpful well first and foremost there's a very high cost associated with parking and it's going to vary depending on the project and the type of parking provided a surface lot parking spot May cost you ten thousand dollars a structured parking in a downtown unit might cost fifty thousand dollars and so when you're looking at the unit price which is what's going to impact the ultimate asking rent if you're mandating that the cost of that unit be fifty thousand dollars higher than it would otherwise be you have increased the price of housing now it's a values judgment on whether the you know parking space is worth that cost but when you're looking at you know non-traditional housing types when you're looking at smaller sites when you're looking at infill those things can be the difference between a project happening or not or

the difference between a rent that's affordable the 80 or 100 Ami versus a unit that's not thank you for helping us dive so deeply today I appreciate it thank you madam mayor councilwoman Freeman thank you I just wanted to share that um I appreciate the presentation and I do want to note that everyone is invited to the Durham Realtors association conversation is not limited they were the ones to first ask and so our last meeting is next Thursday and I would encourage you to be there that's all thank you thank you okay thank you all just note lastly my contact information is in the slide deck if there's anything we can help with moving forward do let us know but thank you again for the opportunity thank you so much this won't be our last conversation with you all I look forward we started talking about bringing uh together landlord around table so we're on the same page on a lot of things and so we will get back with you all further thank you all for being here today and we we hope to maintain these ties

communication is key and so we we're grateful that you all came to join us today and we look forward to working with you more and more thank you thank you thank you all right I believe it was maybe time for us to take a short break um let's come back in about 10 minutes okay all right we'll stand in general for about 10 minutes and then we'll pick back up I think with number 13 which I previously missed the Noose River yeah the upper news River basin

foreign

and there we've got Miss Molina's written comments yeah so all right we're back in session everybody will now turn to item number 13 which is the resolution to support the upper news River Basin Association unrba FY 2024 budget good afternoon

what's up no worries no worries start working they start working um okay so I'm going to jump right in I can't touch that go ahead uh with some important dates that are coming up for you all the first one is that the city is going to be expected to

adopt some Concepts and principles that the unrba is going to propose in September the executive director of the unrba has asked for September adoption date so that if there are issues that are arise that with each Community that's a member of the unrba there's at least a month that we can iron those out because the next part of that will be that the unrba will be providing recommendations to the North Carolina Division of Water Water Resources I should be on the third slide which is a map of the Watershed with a box in the bottom left it's up now excellent so those rules and Concepts will be presented to the Division of Water Resources in December of 2023 there's a state law that requires that those are presented to them by that date so of course this is all because Falls Lake has an excessive amount of algae the way that the state has controlled algae from from growing out of control

in the past has been to control nitrogen and phosphorus so what we have here is a map of all the communities that drain to Falls Lake proper I will point out that this is a county map the darker areas are the cities that are within the counties notice that there's small small areas like the town of stem which is represented by a tiny circle on this map to the county of Durham which is the largest county that's in this Watershed and the City of Durham of course being the largest city in the Watershed so that's an important thing to consider as we're looking at the nitrogen and phosphorus levels that are reaching false Lakes so this is a graph that is from a report that's not finalized but it's information that is out there for the public to look at the red graph is nitrogen the blue graph is phosphorus and this is all by counties so these are the levels or the total amount of nitrogen that is reaching

Falls Lake by County Durham being the largest county in the Watershed would be expected to be the highest contributor of nitrogen or phosphorus to the lake Orange County is actually larger in the Watershed than Granville County is and yet you see here it's third so that's probably because of the levels of development and the fact that Granville County has a another intermediary Reservoir before you get to Falls Lake so there's a lot of capture that happens there so on the Durham bar you'll see that there's a little cross-hatched area that's all the way to the left of the Durham bar that is the city of Durham's contribution and that is only from Land sources that does not include the wastewater treatment plants which would move that bar over a little bit more a very little bit more for phosphorus slightly more for nitrogen the Wastewater Plant is really not discharging much phosphorus at all anymore so when you look at the cross hatch bar and you kind of go down the

graph you can see that in nitrogen the city is is a pretty good contributor given given the size of the of the city's land area compared to the rest of the counties and phosphorus it's pretty dramatic so that crosshatch area when you again look down the graph the city of Durham is is producing almost as much phosphorus getting to the lake as Orange County and Person County a little bit less in Wake County so that's a really important thing to note and when you try to do a deeper dive into where nitrogen and phosphorus are coming from within the city and remembering that this is all from 2015 to 2018. so all of this is based on monitoring data monitoring data takes time it is not continued infinitely there's a start and stop unless there's a lot of funding that's put to it so this is all based on 2015 to 2018. so

T is in a separate category they have their own their whole own chart but non-dot right-of-way is in developed

lands and it is actually most of what is showing up in this graph is non-dot right of way the phosphorus bar you see stream bank erosion is much much higher than everything else so we've talked about stream bank erosion before in the context of increased flows that are hitting streams that then pull the sediment literally out of the banks if you go into if you're from other areas not here you might see the stream banks are kind of like this and they slowly go up a lot of the stream banks in the city are are like this they're like a c and the top is always caving in so that's part of stream bank erosion as well as the part that's in that curve of the sea so that's what we're talking about there and there's a lot of stream bank erosion in the city as well as other places in the Watershed particularly where there's Triassic soils we have a lot of that happening um I did want to make a distinction

between sand filter discharges and septic systems so septic systems might be individual residential septic systems or they can be septic systems that are serving schools they can be septic systems that are serving small businesses sand filter discharges still have a septic tank on the land but because the the discharge from the stepic tank can't go through the ground can't percolate if you're familiar with that term a lot of those systems get a pipe to literally pipe the Wastewater that comes out of the septic tank to some kind of a drainage design it could be a ditch it could be a stream it could be a river it's probably not Falls Lake but it could be all of the other things so that's the difference between a sand filter discharge and a septic system they both have septic tanks but the way that they get rid of the Wastewater is different

so um hopefully I've convinced you that Durham is part of the problem and part of the solution so where the unrba is now is developing preliminary Concepts and principles we realized a couple of years ago that we were not going to be able to as a group provide recommendations for rules and the time frame that we've been given by the state which is to give thanks to the state by the end of this year so instead we've stepped back a little bit and said we can provide the state with Concepts and principles so that the state doesn't or tries not to go outside of that this is a similar approach that happened in 2010 where the city and pretty much all oops all of the communities in the Watershed with the exception of the city of Roxborough in the City of Hillsboro all adopted consensus principles which I know you've seen before and submitted those to the state which seriously influenced the way that they

produced the rules for Falls Lake the the consensus principles are the reason that I'm talking to you today because when we all realized and we realized this before the state did what the cost was going to be of these rules we said we have to have a chance to go back and look at this a little bit deeper there were some problems with the original rules one of them Don Greely mentioned to you earlier 2007 was a pretty drastic drought for this region and that was one of the years that was considered for the the Baseline for the previous rules so all of the communities agreed that we needed to not be basing Management on drought years we need to be basing it on something that's more normal so these are the principles and Concepts they are incredibly fluid right now so this is as it was when I submitted this item which has been several weeks they have already changed again and they will probably change again before they actually come to you for adoption this fall I did want to get them front of you so that you could see some of the things that we're considering we want to do

still a whole Watershed health approach we have been talking since we started about avoiding silos because right now the way the rules are written it pits individual types of sources against each other and we can't help each other try to meet the reductions and we want to get rid of that completely so there's no silos we have lots of agreement from other other groups from the agriculture industry we have lots agreement with them to do that we have agreement with DOT so I think that will move forward and we've been working with the state on that we're trying to expand the types of practices that we can get credit for we're always trying to expand that list because the state has a fixed list right now and we are always trying to add things to that list being fair and Equitable so if you're not an outsized part of the problem that you are not expected to be an outsized part of the solution they address environmental and social justice issues one is an interesting one it's gone from having a lot of words to

having a few words I'm trying to push it to have a lot more words again we'll see what happens with that but that would be one that you all would probably be interested in when it comes back later I think I will stop that there this is the structure of the rules as they are now so you can see very clearly the different silos that things are in the city of Durham is in new development existing development development and Wastewater discharge we have all three of those categories within the city um the existing development of course being the elephant in the room that was the impetus for developing the iaia the interim alternative implementation approach um so this this kind of structure is something that we're trying to get rid of down to the money the budget for next year has been proposed at one million 204 940 this is how it's been allocated through the different programs that the unrba funds this is a historical look at the amount

that the budget has been for the last six years I think that is so you can see it hasn't really changed all that much that is because the only piece that really the only pieces that can really change are the executive director and services and then kind of off and on of audit Services because the unrba does get third-party audits on a regular basis so the city's contribution has only Changed by was about fifteen thousand no sixteen thousand dollars in six years that is all I have for you today um if you have any questions I'd be glad to answer them Reggie is not here but Don O'Toole is over here he is part of our our team and Sandy Wilbur is uh also with Public Works since she is part of our team thank you thank you so much colleagues questions I do have one um if you could go back to this what is it a stream Bank erosions

7 10 times higher yes can you explain a little bit about the significance of those numbers um so that is really just a function of the chemistry of the soil in this area our soils are are phosphorus poor sorry they're phosphorus rich in some areas most places need nitrogen that's what we usually are adding even if you're trying to grow flowers or a garden in your yard you're usually adding nitrogen so that's really just a function of how much nutrients are in our soil and we have a lot of phosphorus in our soil thank you

any other questions councilwoman Freeman thank you just to follow up is that because it's clay soil with the phosphorus and I just wanted to ask who covers uh the stream bank erosion abatement for the City versus the county so there isn't a specific group that covers it the city has done some stream bank erosion projects um County Soil and Water has probably done the most stream bank erosion projects within the county and the city over the years so I don't think they have a project right now but they have done quite a few and quite a few of them have been pretty large right now Sandy Wilbur again in public works is working on a stream Bank restoration project so we have it kind of in a couple of categories we haven't stopped the sediment from moving it's

the simplest category which might be just throwing a bunch of rock on the banks to complete restoration of the stream Banks so going from the sea again to something that is kind of very gradually going up with a lot of vegetation so um all of that is what I'm talking about from throwing Rock there to a real restoration any of those could be stream Bank fixes and what do those costs look like I cannot give you cost for that million do you know what 5 million 10 million well it's usually estimated by linear foot so what Paul lipke who is the assistant director of Public Works said is for restoration it's in the millions um and for stabilization which is throwing the rocks on the banks it's

significantly less but I don't have those numbers off the top of my head I'm sorry that's helpful though thank you yeah yeah they're like I said there are a lot of restoration projects that Soil and Water has done and some of them are in the city oh and the city has done some yeah any other questions thank you so much I always enjoy hearing from you all I tell you I'm fascinated by what you all do every day maybe there'll be another career choice you know we'd be glad to have you and just reminder that we will be back this fall with these principles and concepts for adoption okay hopefully it won't be me hopefully it will actually be the executive director of the unrba but somebody will be back this fall but we look forward to it and thank you so much all right I believe we will now go to

see is it item 24 fiscal year 2023 24 proposed budget and fiscal year 20. council meeting oh that's right so we're down here to 751 self-informational item which is item 26. thank you thank you all right uh thank you mayor O'Neill Tim Middleton excited to be here with y'all today while there's still daylight um I'm excited to so one of the things we want to do today is cover 751 South which you sign your agenda packet for the May 15th deadline agenda and this is a unique case and a unique situation so we wanted to take some time today to do a presentation on it walk you through

the different elements of it really help inform what your votes are on the 15th so how did we get here the North Carolina General Assembly did pass legislation in 2014 in 2013 and 2014 that annexes the 751 South area into the Durham city limits effective June 3rd 2023. this is the area that is just west of Highway 751 at the intersection of Fayetteville Road and Scott King the developer has requested changes to the committee elements for this project so there were some elements that were approved and we'll cover that in a minute here and this is the utility extension agreement that we'll cover in a minute as well we have two utility extension agreements today to cover so going back to where 751 South is you can see in the map it is just west of Highway 751 again at that intersection so the first thing I want to do is walk you through the timeline of how we got here

in August 2010 the County Commissioners approved a zoning for this area that was a mixed-use zoning with a development plan y'all are familiar with development plans and the commitments that are attached to them and how they work so this was in the county jurisdiction at the time in June 2013 the city council voted on the annexation and the associated utility extension agreement and voted to deny this in August 2013 the North Carolina general assembly of passed session law annexing 751 South into the Durham city limits effective June 3rd 2023. in this session law they approved the utility extension agreement and commitments that were part of that utility extension agreement in June 2014 the North Carolina General Assembly updated the session law updating some of the annexation parameters May 15th city council will vote on amending the

utility extension agreement and the direct translational zoning associated with it the annexation will then be effective June 3rd 2023. automatically because of the session law so you will have two utility extension agreements before you to consider when you take your vote the first one we'll call uea1 this was recorded as part of the session law this has significant commitments that were proffered on it this also includes a mixed juice development plan and this if Council does not to approach approve UEA 2 uea1 will remain in effect as it's recorded in effect now UEA 2 which is also in front of you in its attachment G in your materials the applicant has proposed amendments to the recorded UEA updating some of the profit commitments making some amendments and removing some commitments this is known as uea2

this also includes the mixed use development plan and the updated proper commitment elements so what you will be voting on on May 15th at the public hearing is not the annexation itself as that will be automatically affected you will be voting on UEA 2 to approve the amended commitments in that and if you do not approve ua2 ua1 remains an effect Additionally you will be voting on the direct translational zoning at the public hearing this would be the mixed juice with a development plan and residential rural that apply to the site and the reason these are being Consolidated is because we have 60 days to apply a zoning designation once an annexation becomes effective uh with July recess that's why it has to be done in May rather than waiting the 60 days lastly I want to cover kind of the two things as you just heard you're voting on UEA one or two

so ua1 is the recorded utility extension agreement with commitments this commits to 1300 residential units it's a mixed-use development so there's also 300 square feet of office floor space maximum allowed 300 000 square feet of commercial allowed there's a minimum vertically integrated commercial space required as part of those commitments there's a dedication of 10 of the units at an 80 Ami for affordable housing for 15 years tenure there's a commitment to widen NC 751 to a four-lane divided roadway from the southern property line of the site to Stagecoach Road I apologize for that misspelling that's bothering me too why didn't NC 751 to four lanes from Stagecoach Road to Renaissance Parkway and also a commitment to donate 10 and a half acres for either an elementary school or 22 and a half acres for a middle Elementary School campus to Durham Public Schools so this is what is recorded as of now

well Council would be voting to consider is utility extension agreement to and these are the updates to the utility extension agreement the applicant is proposing to increase the number of residential units from 1300 to 1753 units to decrease the maximum office floor and Commercial areas to your respect of 150 000 square feet to decrease the minimum vertically integrated commercial space from 75 000 square feet to thirty seven thousand five hundred square feet to create an option where in lieu of the 10 of you it's been units being designated as affordable creating a dedicating sorry donating two million dollars to the dedicated housing Fund in lieu of the 10 percent of the units being constructed removing the commitment to widen NC 751 to a four-lane divided roadway removing the command to widen and 751 to four lanes from Stagecoach Road to Renaissance Parkway

and then donating one million dollars to Durham public schools in lieu of the land donation options of ten and a half or 22 and a half acres in addition the transportation impact analysis Tia was updated and there are some additional Transportation improvements that have changed since 751 is originally voted on that is also found in your packet as attachment a couple of other things we there is a community meeting tonight for anybody listening that is uh being hosted by the applicant around 7 51 if you need the link we can share it for you it's being held virtually in addition there'll be a letter going out to the community members that states how this proposal will impact you and your property if you fall within this area and with that staff is available to answer any questions and the applicant team is here both virtually and in person as well all right thank you so very much are there any questions

yes sir thank you madam mayor thank you so much for this presentation I I just you know this I think sometimes when we talk about um how our actions sometimes might be visited by the state or the state injecting themselves into our local Affairs I think sometimes it's an abstract concept to people but this is a a textbook example of what we mean uh about the state's ability to come in and and micromanage if you will and insert itself uh into our Affairs at the local uh level um so I just want to put that out there for anybody who is abstract take a look at this particular case um so I appreciate the explanations this is a really excellent primer for those watching that the the first uh utility extension is built in by virtue of State action so we don't have any choice on that um number two you know I look forward to the uh to the public hearing um million dollars sounds like a lot well it's not the million dollars is a lot of

5 Acres correct yeah there was a in the original there was a dedication of land to Durham public schools in the amount of either 10 acres or 22 and a half acres and they are proposing to donate a million dollars instead in this updated UEA

where's my case thanks thank you uh so is this is it is it one or two or can things be modified within two like there are some things in here that I would say this is fine there are some things in here so like is it I mean is it just a yes or no answer or can we like modify things as we go good afternoon Donald told city attorney's office Alexander gave a great presentation on a really complicated topic so to to answer your question most directly um the developer has requested these changes in committed elements and so yes it's completely within council's purview to comment on those commitments and ask for them to be changed obviously the developer would need to agree to an

alternative proper and then as we've discussed previously council could then vote on what their final offer is so yes there can be dialogue up until the public hearing up until the public hearing centering the public hearing and no it could happen at the public hearing as well okay and the developer would need to agree to whatever commitments are changed and then that could be part of an amended UEA too so and they could do it during the public hearing like we get proffers they could and then we'd be sure to get them to sign that in writing at the time everything's being executed okay thank you okay but um I think planning has done an excellent job of presenting the two different Alternatives so option one is would be to approve and amended UEA but the second option would be to just stick with the existing UEA and in either option there's then a

direct translational zoning thank you you bet oh I'm sorry one more question so what happens if they don't fulfill the commitments in the UEA then that would be a land use violation um if if at the time the commitment is due uh planning like it frequently does would issue a notice of violation and then it would go through the nov process okay fines or something until they were in compliance correct okay thank you any further questions councilwoman Freeman thank you just uh one the 80 percent um 15-year tenure is that 10-year indicating from the day of build or is that indicating from when it started in 2010 oh that's a great question it'd be from the certificate of compliance thank you

any anything further thank you so much Mr KU appreciate that we now turn to our public works department for item number 31 FY 2024 stormwork storm water rates [Applause] Madam mayor if you don't mind before you get started I'm gonna have to cut out and I just wanted to make sure I let my colleagues know that I'm to leave so I'm not going to make it for work session I mean sorry for closed session but yes thank you thank you thank you thank you you all see it I've got it here I think we've got oh there we go I'm sorry it's going good afternoon Madam mayor O'Neill Mr Mayor Pro tem Middleton Council I'm Paul

VP with the public works department I'm presenting to you today the stormwater fund and the proposed stormwater race for FY 2024 the stormwater fee is a Enterprise fund where that fees are our primary source of Revenue we fund stormwater management stormwater maintenance and street cleaning capital projects address stormwater infrastructure improvements within our right-of-way city-owned property meaning Parks Trails cemeteries as well as some private property work we also fund Watershed planning through our CIP and restoration with retrofit design and construction that's primarily at this stage to deal with the Falls late nutrient problem which Michelle previously addressed and we're doing that now through the interim alternative implementation approach with the upper Neuse River Basin Association as our partner organization and we're addressing uh

our total maximum daily loads for third fork and Northeast Creek and I'll talk a little bit more about that later and we also have a floodplain mitigation program which is primarily through our Hazard mitigation grant program which we get grants from FEMA to remove properties from the floodplain on a voluntary basis key issues we are seeking a rate increase for fy24 to support our ongoing operations uh we will also be requesting an increase in the future for fy24 as well to support those operations as well to continue our work with the interim alternative implementation approach as well as the increased need for stormwater infrastructure replacement due to aging infrastructure and to continue addressing our total maximum daily loads reductions for bacteria particularly in Northeast Creek which we have a load reduction requirement there as well as for a a load reduction requirement in third floor Creek for essentially sediment

they call that turbidity is what the standard that's officially violated there but in in Practical terms it's settling we also will be you'll see in the future slide that capital projects will Peak during FY 24 and 25 rather significantly our stormwater infrastructure replacement is continuing our Jordan Lake rules will be Rewritten beginning this year it's a rather slow process it will take a number of years to get them complete and those those rules were in effect many many years ago they went into a bands and they're going to be coming back in 2025 maybe 2026 they tend to take a little longer than what they originally predict The Falls Lake rural re-adoption process is supposed to begin in January 2024. the interim alternative implementation approach for the Falls Lake world will

remain in effect until those that re-adoption process takes place so there won't be a gap in those rules and Michelle got into our ongoing examination of Falls Lake through the UN rbas we did renew our permit we submitted our application in early April for our national pollution discharge elimination system permit in early April so we are deemed permitted for our next cycle but we'll be negotiating that permit over the next six months our proposed stormwater rates that we've worked we want to thank our colleagues in finance Tim flora and Minnie Taylor work with us with the storm owner rate model we have this is a some of the data that comes from it I just draw your attention to the end balances before operating Reserve it's one of the bolded items the two lines together you'll see that there's a at the end of 2023 there's a

8 million dollars that's an operating Reserve basically we'll be pulling that down that's where the funding for that large capital outlay in FY 24 and 25 will be coming from the next line down you'll see is there's a deduction there for operating reserve and that's for in the future if the utility needs to go out for Debt Service you need to have that line in there to to have that opportunity and that's the main purpose of this slide anyway I'll get into the rates a little bit later this is our CIP spend project and this is part of the model we have to predict what our spend is going to be just like the water and sewer rates this is our Capital spend which is a large portion of what

8 million meeting in 2025. we also have a larger than normal capital outlay for our major stormwater infrastructure line which is LK 107 you see there six and a half million and six and a quarter million dollars we've got a lot of projects coming along as well as we're going to be doing some work through our design team with a cast in place product which we

S Geological Survey and a number a bit of the money comes from them so I think we're able to swing that one without a

32 cents

our non-residential customers will see a dollar fifty five percent increase per equivalent residential unit that's what an eru is eru is two 2400 square feet of impervious surface and you can think of that as a typical residential impervious cover a lot you can't really translate into a square footage of a house because most houses now are two-story they're not three bedroom branches like they used to build years and years ago but that's statistic that's used in commercial properties have much more than that and that's how you account for there and it'll make more sense in the next uh couple of slides that I have our estimated accounts and revenues by tier we have a little over 85 000 total accounts uh tier one customers we have 20 almost

8 million dollar total and that's 6454. 8

95 with our proposed rate tier two slightly above the middle of the pack at 10 and a quarter per month and our multi-family commercial rate 10 and a quarter again and slightly above the middle of the pack but our relative position with our Pure cities has remained the same over the years our monthly residential stormwater rate history back to 2010. we typically have a series of rate

increases and we go flat as I mentioned before we're gonna we're proposing another real increase in 2024 after that we have a number of years where we're expecting the rates to remain flat in 2028 we're looking at potentially a maybe a 30 Cent increase um I'll show more of that on another slide just to show you the reasons for that well I was on a previous slide I'm sorry I can go back to that one this is just a graph to show you the our how we're going to achieve the goal of meeting the requirements of the interim alternative implementation approach to South elderly stormwater restoration is going to take care of at least 65 percent of that probably more our conventional additional stormwater retrofits that are much smaller than that about 17 percent green infrastructure being our filter devices infiltration devices like the Biore retention cell that was put at the general services facility it opened

not long ago that's another facility we can encount we've got Partnerships with Endurance on Water Conservation District to do small scale retrofits on residential sites as Michelle mentioned earlier we've got the Lakewood Avenue stream stabilization project Innovative Technologies that's one thing we're looking at and we're working to find a site for that and I'll provide you some more information on that in the next slide uh what that is in particularly eligible Turf scrubber we're scoping for the site selection available Turf scrubber location within Durham County right now and the South Elvis stormwater restoration the site remediation and soul removal has been completed as of December and the bid for construction of the Wetland which is phase three of that project the Final Phase should be late fall of this year and um

that's my presentation I'm happy to take any questions you may have about the program colleagues any questions yes sir thank you ma'am thank you for a great presentation and I think at the South LLB stormwater restoration one of the have restoration projects my uh Department colleague now councilmember Freeman was a little too earlier so thank you uh for that um I I want to ask a question about for and maybe for residents and citizens that are watching because I get so many or I've had so many inquiries from residents um about this part of their water bill it it's it's a lot of folk are befuddled but how do we calculate storm water particularly for residential the different years in residential they understand usage in cubic feet of the water bill directly tied to how many times they turn on their faucet but there's a mystery surrounding how we assess storm water these to Residents so would you just

kind of demystify that a little bit well it's it's purely on the vertical or the the horizontal well how much impervious cover do you have it doesn't translate to the square footage of your house right uh it could if you had a well it could potentially if you had a single level home but now with multi-story that's what might confuse people a little bit more but uh less than 2 000 square feet is tier one two thousand square feet but less than four thousand square feet is tier two four thousand square feet and above is tier three got you a couple of years ago I had a Spate of residents who saw like we have a fact on our website that explains all of that got you um so if you've had no improvements to your house you haven't put in the driveway or put any more concrete or anything and you see like this incredible spike in your storm water um yeah if you had no impervious on your lot you should not right right

right you could be talking about that storm water stormwater bill is an annual bill so you might want to actually okay about the billing part of it you're correct yeah a lot of folks get an annual Bill if people ask for a payment program we put them back on a monthly bill that that could be it right is they see it all at once and if they're on an annual Bill I'm sorry thank you so much if they do get an annual bill they will see it all on one on their water bill and it will they'll think their water bill has spiked because we do piggyback our bill our storm water bill on a water bill right when they do get that annual it'll be it'll look like wow my water bill jumped and it really wasn't their water bill it's just that they're stormwater bill was added to the rain and silver bill

got you and I had a we had a rational constituents that were just kind of like you know at wit's end because they saw these huge stormwater builds but but just for the record for those listening you have the option of doing it monthly as opposed to getting an annual bills follow our residents and citizens listening you can do your storm water part of your bill in increments as opposed to one big uh month that's helpful thank you appreciate it I think that's it um thank you so much for a great uh presentation I yield back Madame mayor thank you Mr whipkey thank you all for what you all do for the city of Durham always excellent listening to you all and I learn a lot so I appreciate it and now we will turn to I think that was the end of our presentations and we will now turn to our clerk for our boards and commission thank you madam mayor good afternoon everyone the board committee commission and task force nominations are as follows Casey de

Cosimo is nominated to the Carolina Theater of Durham Board of Trustees a Demarcus Williams to the Durham cultural Advisory Board and Brian Powell to the Durham's workers Rights Commission for the category of diverse backgrounds and this is the end of my report thank you thank you madam clerk I'll now turn to our manager to settle our agenda thank you thank you madam mayor for your consent agenda I have items one through three and items 5 through 23. for GBA I have item four and item 24 and for GBA public hearings I have items 27 through 31. thank you thank you I'd like to entertain a motion to settle our agenda move it's been moved by councilman Williams and secondly councilwoman Johnson uh those in favor of people signed by

raising your left hand all those opposed have the same rights and none that motion passes we are now at other matters are there any items to come before the council before we adjourn to closed session all right councilwoman Hosley Hyman followed by councilwoman Johnson oh man I just wanted to thank uh council member Freeman for addressing the process and the written documentation relating to I think it was 3-6 of the minutes where as the cincture was introduced against me um Not only was it introduced against me but it also was sent out Tweeter tweeting and also in the media which was documented through public record requests that was gathered so I also wanted to say that according to the city council

14 Century members be added to the minute under the under the documentation of what happened on that date I don't know if that can happen but that's what I'm

14 I will review it and take a look at it and we will certainly put it on the discussion agenda for the procedures committee which has already been charged by the mayor councilwoman Johnson I think you madam mayor it is possible unfortunately extremely likely that the North Carolina General Assembly will soon vote to ban abortion after 12 weeks except under pretty limited circumstances here in North Carolina and if that happens I plan to bring a resolution to the council and opposition it because of the speed at which the legislature is moving it may not be possible for that resolution to go through a our standard process where

it's brought to a work session and then a following work session and then voted on the following meeting if we want to respond rapidly so I wanted to ask my colleagues if they would be amenable to having a resolution come forward outside of that process in order to respond quickly to these unprecedented actions of our state legislature if folks feel that that would be appropriate comments I was yeah I would just say I'm in agreeance but again I would just like to have opportunity to read it first um and if we can do that in the expedited fashion and absolutely thumbs up I would just like to say too I'm in agreement but I would like us to make sure we follow the policy in terms of the resolution but because before it was like I don't know if it was followed and then you had we had to change word and word Smith it but I just want to make sure that we don't have to go through all that again and this would not follow the policy that's why I'm asking for permission now our policy is bring it to a work session the following work session we discuss it and

then we adopted at a next meeting I'm asking if that policy can be waived if we want to act expeditiously in response to the general assembly oh thank you for clarity yeah I appreciate a thumbs up I have a question if that's the case so then what how would that work uh it would be written by you and then we we just vote on into the next how how do you envision networking timetable wise I think it would depend on when the bill were to pass what our next um like the time between our next meeting um I would write it send it out to folks and people could decide whether they wanted to vote on it at the next meeting or whether they wanted more time to consider it thank you thank you so much and I know and again being that this is my anniversary is tomorrow for a year I don't know what the policy and procedure is but I know that you do have a policy committee I think that mayor Pro tem is correct me is the chair or Johnson is the chair but I would like to be able to also sit on that committee if possible

all council members are welcome to meetings of the policy and procedures absolutely um all right so just to make sure that we have Clarity on the proposed resolution that will be coming forth let us get a thumbs up that this will come as a draft and time May waiver because of the action of the legislature so this will not follow the normal procedure and as soon as I'm sure you will let us know via email when you're thinking it will come and we will need to act okay yeah I'm sure we'll all know when the bill passes yeah unfortunately likely to be thumbs up all right all right we shall adjourn to closed session we should be up there by 4 35 yeah 4 35 I'm gonna give folk a moment take care of personal needs well City strong