m. and if you will please join me at a moment of silence thank you so much I'll now pass it over to council member Freeman with pled thank you it's our practice to stand to salute the flag and say the Pledge if you join us to the United States of America and to the Republic which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for
all thank you madam clerk can you please call the role good evening mayor Williams I'm here mayor prent Middleton I'm here council member Baker here council member Cayo here council member cook here council member Freeman present and council member rist here thank you so much we will now move to quickly to our ceremonial items all right Sheila faet are you here there we go deputy director Deputy Finance director in the team yes welcome I have the honor of presenting our Proclamation for um Med week in what we say short for minority economic minority Enterprise development week
here's the proclamation whereas minority Enterprise development week also known as Med week is observed in October to recognize and celebrate the achievements and cont and contributions of the minority business Enterprise community and whereas one of the city of Durham's primary goals is shared economic Prosperity the equal business opportunity program e ebop increases opportunities for historically underutilized businesses and promotes diversity and inclusion in the city's Contracting Marketplace and whereas the city of Durham encourages and actively seeks participation by minority and women-owned business enterprises for advertised projects the city of Durham is committed to the ongoing evaluation of its policies procedures and practices that is businesses is conducted in a manner that ensures minority and women businesses receive Equitable access to all available opportunities and whereas minority and women businesses are key components of the city state and National economy and are to be honored not only as valued
resources for the provision of goods and services but vital to our economic success now therefore I Leonardo Williams Williams mayor of the great City of Durham North Carolina do hereby Proclaim October 14th through 17th as 2024 as minority Enterprise development week in Durham and recommend its observance to all citizens witness my hand in the corporate sale of the city of Durham North Carolina this 7th day of October 2024 thank you very much thank you all good evening and thank you mayor Williams mayor protim Middleton city council members and residents in Chambers tonight I am Sheila faet the deputy CFO and I have with me this evening Dr Timothy Jackson our underutilized business compliance manager as well as cydney and Anderson
our business services administrator we work in the finance department under Tim FL he's a great guy and he is our fin director as well as CFO since 1983 the US president has proclaimed National minority Enterprise development week Med week observance to recognize the outstanding accomplishments of minority business enterprises and to honor those corporations and financial institutions supporting minority business development the national minority development week will take place on October 20th through the 26th of this month the the theme for DM's 2024 Med week is solidifying your next our educational Focus this year is change management and growing your business to the next level Kesha Rivers our chief change officer and president of the cars group LTD will provide the keynote luncheon address all midweek activities will be scheduled for next week during the 14th and the 17th of
October and registration has been very popular this year our Hub certification day and our keynote lunch in are soldout events tickets are still available for our business Fair on Wednesday October 15th and for additional details on our Med Week events please visit our underutilized business compliance web page in addition to our educational sessions during our keynote Menon we will recognize and celebrate the achievements of minority businesses and organizations which will affirm our commitment to the principle of equal opportunity we would like to encourage all durm residents to to support our minority and women own businesses as they are essential to our economy and as keeping durm a great place to live work and play we appreciate the proclamation and we look forward to the possibility of seeing you next week during our Med week activities thank [Applause]
you I'd like to call up Marcel enman with digital dur and Patrice Carrol with the city of Durham all right let see what this pencil's all about it's my honor to present a proclamation for digital inclusion week whereas digital inclusion refers to activities that ensure individuals and communities have access to Reliable and affordable Broad ban internet service internet enabled uh devices digital literacy training technical support and application and online content for self-sufficiency participation and collaboration and whereas the city of Durham supports digital inclusion efforts that lead to digital Equity wherein all people who work play worship and live here have the information technology capacity needed to pursue their health and wellness educational
and economic goals the city of uh the Derm Council has approved and adopted a formal digital Equity plan developed by digital Durham for the city of Durham and Durham County and whereas the Durham city council has a digital inclusion Community engagement manager to build upon work already taking place in the community and connect residents to the services and resources they need in our digital age the city of Durham is partnering with the central Pines Council of government to provide digital inclusion Services through the digital Equity Champions Grant and whereas the city of Durham is partnering with the digital Durham with digital Durham to develop customized digital literacy training for members of the Durham Community using arpa funds all efforts have led to the city of Durham being recognized by the national digital inclusion Alliance as a 2023 digital inclusion inclusion Trailblazer now therefore I Leonardo Williams Williams mayor of the city of Durham North Carolina do hereby Proclaim October 7th 2023 2024 ads digital
inclusion week in Durham and Rec mend its observance to all citizens witness my hand in the corporate seal of the city of Durham North Carolina this 7th day of October [Applause] 2024 mayor Williams mayor protemp um city council city manager paage uh first I'd like to State my name is Frederick Raven Chief T officer assistant director for Technology Solutions and I also send salutations from our director K go who's unable to be here this evening but did want to let you all know how important this is um interestingly enough he's actually attending a mixed conference with some of the largest um cios from municipalities and counties around the country that are talking about this exact type of issue of digital inclusion and other press needs so definitely want to send you greetings from him and we'll turn this over to Patrice who is currently our AC in digital inclusion and Community engagement manager thank you
hello um as he said my name is Patrice Carroll and um I would just like to say that I thank you on behalf of the organizations that are working for the digital inclusion to bridge that Gap that um there are a lot of activities that are taking place this week and actually um ongoing and you can find some of those activities that are listed on our website um that will have everything that is going on this week for digital inclusion now I also have here with me Marcela who is with um digital Durham and she's going to share some of the highlights as to what we have been doing so far this year I am obviously a lot shorter than Patrice good evening everyone thank you Patrice um my name is Marcela enman I am a board member of uh digital drum and um as you might know digital drum is a collaborative of organizations that work
together uh to assist Durham residents to access technology resources and develop the digital skills needed to be able to use those resources uh digital DRS members work together that to ensure that all aspects of digital Equity are addressed so as we heard that involves access to computers access to affordable internet connection connection as well as developing those digital digital um literacy skills that are necessary to be able to participate in our Digital World um through our partnership with the North Carolina Central University and the digital Equity leadership program uh we have been conducting an assessment to find out what the residents of Durham actually need uh to be able to support them in developing those aptitudes and those um skills that they need um as through the partnership with the university as well we actually had a
town hall um event last September which brought together local uh State and national leaders in the Dig digital Equity space um and members of the community of Durham were invited to provide their feedback and um inform us directly of what is needed in the city um additionally we have been working with the city of Durham as well as the center for digital equity in Charlotte to submit an application for the digital Equity competitive Grant issued by nitia last at the end of the summer and uh we were named those two applications and look forward to fingers crossed uh being approved for those grants and developing enough funds to be a sustainable organization and provide the support that Durham residents need uh thank you very much for inviting us here today and if you have any devices that you no longer need please donate them to any refurbisher in the area um thank you so much and have a
good [Applause] evening well he's coming out uh digital dorham thank you all for the invite I enjoyed uh participating with you all at the uh event over at nccu and great turnout good evening residents uh City staff council members folks listening online my name is Carl rist it is my honor to be the durm uh city council representative to the durm Housing Authority board and to read tonight's Proclamation honoring durm Housing Authority day so I want to call up Anthony Scott the CEO of the Durham Housing Authority thank you for being here so whereas October the 8th 2024 marks the celebration of the 70 th anniversary of the incorporation of the durm Housing Authority resulting from the federal Housing Act of
1949 and whereas the federal Housing Act appropriated funds to build 800,000 units of housing Nationwide the durm Housing Authority has developed and manage thousands of housing units to meet the needs of low-income citizens and whereas safe and decent housing is a positive Community good economic stability community health and human relations in all communities are improved by diversity and integration and whereas the continued development of safe decent and affordable housing is among the highest priorities of the city of Durham the growing partnership between the city of Durham and the Durham Housing Authority serves the citizens of Durham now therefore I Leonardo Williams Williams mayor of the city of Durham North Carolina to hereby Proclaim October the 8th 2024 as Durham Housing Authority day in Durham and urge all citizens to commit to Safe decent affordable housing and encourage private and public entities to advocate for Equal Housing opportunities for residents in Durham witness my hand in
this corporate seal of the city of Durham North Carolina this 7th day of October 2024 thank you councilman mayor Williams mayor proam Middleton council members city manager Paige City attorney Ray Bur uh thank you for this Proclamation uh in recognizing the 75 years of service that DHA has been giving to the dorm Community uh you know it's it's a interesting thing in in working for a Housing Authority because we are set up and designed to provide housing to a lot of the most vulnerable families in any given community and over the last 75 years we've been able to do that for thousands of people and along the way we've been able to offer uh self-sufficiency programs and even a scholar ship program for our young people going off to college which we're very proud of it's a journey that we are continuing we're changing the script a bit because
we are going to move away from the concentrations of people in public housing and create more of an opportunity for residents of public hous and be a part of the larger fabric of Durham and we're very proud of the partnership we have with you and leading the way and and allowing us to make that happen um you're seeing mixed income communities come out of the ground now we have a long ways to go but we're very proud of the partnership we have with you we're very excited about what we've been able to do for the thousands of families and we really really look forward to the next 75 years so thank you very [Applause] much thank you for your continued partnership and housing people of Durham housing the people of durhan director Scott Mr Mayor honorable colleagues friends and chamber and watching on whatever platform you may be watching good evening mayor Williams I want to thank you for allowing me to read the proclamation tonight particularly this
Proclamation on National customer service week let's hear it for good customer service there is nothing worse than calling a business and the first thing the rep ask you is how' you get this number so we we love good customer service here at the city of Durham I'm going going to invite up uh Thomas Johnson customer service supervisor for the city of Durham and Steven Williams customer service administrator Proclamation whereas in 1992 the United States Congress proclaimed that National customer service week be recognized as an annual event and celebrated during the first full week in October National customer service week set aside to recognize the importance of service excellence and to honor those who demonstrate outstanding customer service and consistently perform their duties with the highest level of
professionalism and whereas customer service in local government is critical for connecting people with Services building trust with residents helping business Representatives navigate complex processes addressing unique challenges and creating positive experiences with government agencies and whereas excellent customer service requires an inclusive culture where diversity is valued all customers are welcomed and Equitable access to Services is provided the city of durm believes that mutual respect Integrity empathy and initiative are necessary to provide consistently positive customer service and recognizes that customer service is the responsibility of everyone at all levels of the organization and whereas the city council desires to express it its
appreciation for the excellent service provided by the employees of the city of Durham by recognizing National customer service week we can provide an opportunity to generate and even stronger commitment to customer service Excellence now therefore I Leonardo Williams Williams mayor of the city of Durham North Carolina to hereby Proclaim October 7th through the 11th 2024 as National customer service week in Durham and commends staff and their commitment to provide quality assistance and support to all of those who seek our services witness my hand and the corporate seal of the city of Durham North Carolina this the 7th day of October 2024 Leonardo Williams Williams mayor [Applause] mayor Williams pro mayor protin Middleton City Council Members city manager Paige I'm Steve Williams
customer service administrator for the city of durm and Tommy Johnson who's the supervisor for Durham one Co we stand here representing every single employee for the city of Durham um on behalf of every employee in the city of Durham whose responsibility is to provide outstanding customer service and more more importantly a great customer experience to our residents thank you for recognizing this week as customer service week we appreciate your support as we serve the residence of durm 24 hours a day seven days a week without fail I invite you to stop by one of our host facilities this week as we fellowship and provide some small treats and tokens of appreciation to our employees again thank you for recognizing the employees for their continued efforts to always provide both an outstanding customer service and great customer service experience thank you [Applause] just a quick note as you guys are taking your seat thank you all um and especially you
Mr Williams for working directly with the many concerns that come into my uh to my office and and helping to uh uh help residents with their concerns uh is it's not up to the resident to know every corner of how the government works and I just really appreciate you all making it easy so thank you thank you all right we'll now move on to uh uh Council announcements council member cook good evening everyone here and everyone watching at home um I have it's been a long time since we've seen y'all we had a a funny little week where we had an extra Monday in September so it's been three weeks lot's been happening um I'm just going to talk about a few things I'm sure my colleagues will cover all of the um very great events that we have been doing in Durham the first thing I want to talk about is that early voting starts in 10 days I want to encourage everybody to vote
early we have seen some drastic changes in terms of how the ballots are prepared in terms of ID requirements um in terms of Voters being purged from the roles if you vote early that is your opportunity to address issues this is the safest time to vote so I'm encouraging everybody in North Carolina especially to vote early again it starts in 10 days there's going to be everything from our Statewide elections for candidates to local bond referenda which you have heard us talk about quite a lot and I will be voting yes on both of those I hope you will too um this ballot is going to be long so turn it over make sure that you fill in the back um actually people have been telling voters that you could actually start by flipping it over starting at the very bottom and vote up so that president is the last thing you get to just to make sure that you've hit all of the different elections want to make sure that if you're going to the polls that your voice is heard on all of those
issues so um make sure to flip the ballot over okay um the second thing is that it is the week of all it is the high holy days shatova those who um observe and I hope that uh those fasting have a meaningful fast I will be joining you this weekend um it is also October 7th uh the days of awe the days of Wonder are really a time where we Jews collectively reflect on our impact in the world and Our intention for the next year and also the harm that we have collectively caused and I just want to acknowledge that it is a really difficult time to think about that there is a a lot of violence we have the violence of climate change storms that is ongoing we have um an innocent man that was killed in Missouri um and we have the ongoing violence that has spread from Palestine to the West Bank and Lebanon killing and
displacing thousands and thousands of people um at the hands of Israel so I just want to acknowledge that um these holy days are the Jews don't like to have a lot of fun at our holidays generally speaking they're often very like dark and reflective not all of them but almost all of them and this is a a pretty common thing that J will talk about but um these especially are feeling pretty heavy for me this week so um just want to acknowledge that the third thing I want to talk about is um hurricane Helen Helen excuse me and now also uh we're looking at Hurricane Milton down on the west coast of Florida um my heart is really breaking for these communities the loss of life the loss of housing the loss of Economic Security the loss of potential many Rights Voting Rights being one of those um tenant security and housing and and labor rights all of these things um potentially lost or made harder for
folks in a western part of our state in the surrounding areas and many of us at the city too have families and loved ones and so I just want to acknowledge that it's been really hard to go about life as usual when we are worried about the Safety and Security of our folks um out west as a city leader though I also think about Durham and how we will weather the storm that is coming for us so we know that these storms are the result of profit over policy over people policies and um global climate change and intense shifts in weather patterns we've been seeing this and it's been projected uh by climate activists and Scholars and while the policy's impacting the climate change Arena might be more Federal we at the city level have a lot of control over mitigation of the impacts of these
storms and I want to talk about specifically that we sitting up here have a really large impact because we determine land use in the city and we are consistently allowing for Mass clear cutting of forests and the leveling and destruction of natural land now I'm not anti-development and I know that we have to develop in order to make room for the community as it grows and as it changes um but when I talk about long-term affordability this is what I'm talking about this is a call to my colleagues it is a call to the vment Community we need to be seeing and responding to smarter development we need to be thinking about the E the economic and um and otherwise environmental security of the city of Durham when we're making these decisions sustainable growth smart building we need to be thinking about what it means to mitigate the impacts of climate
change that is everything from heat to flooding and anything in between so when these storms hit Durham and they will we know that they will come uh we up here will have to answer if we have created a situation that is more dangerous and more economically serious for our constituents I just want to acknowledge that today and make a call that it's never too late to really be moving forward on this issue it's really an important one and it is really going to impact the long-term survival both economic but but also true survival of life in this city so thank you very much thank you for your opinion council member Baker thank you for those comments um council member uh I also just want to speak to Hurricane Helen it's been such devasta such Devastation across the state it's impacted all of us
here in Durham directly there was a lot of flooding here in Durham and a lot of people um are experienced quite a bit of hardship um and of course many of us are connected in some way or another out to uh Western North Carolina and our neighbors out there um and it is it is true Devastation um on a scale that has not been seen um in that part of of the state in that part of the country um for a very long time um I do work in in boo North Carolina right now it's one of my clients and um I was looking at some flood maps and and um what we saw was flooding far outside of the 500-year storm and um we need to think about that um for a variety of reasons um because floods are getting worse not just the elevation but also the velocity of of the water and the Damage that does to to communities it's it's truly heartbreaking I'm also deeply inspired
though um from what has come out of it what is happening um from places communities across the country and across the state but especially the Durham Community uh I it's it's hard I was coming up with a list of different individuals and small businesses and nonprofits and the city and the county um local jurisdictions who have stepped up to pitch in for our neighbors to the West um providing needed supplies and raising money and transporting everything that's needed and and Manpower um it's it's truly incredible the work that has been done and we should all be very proud of ourselves and our community um for the ongoing work and um and and if you haven't pitched in already um I would encourage encourage you to do so um city of Durham um I think several of us have been in communication with the city manager's office we've we've also sent um we've also sent some of our resources in that direction durm county has sent our resources and and we'll continue to do
so and I I want to encourage that that we that we do that to the extent that we can afford to um my colleague brought up the issue of climate mitigation there's climate mitigation and climate adaptation uh and we we have to do both and we cannot continue with business as usual in cities um across the South and across the United States um colleague spoke a little bit out about the need for federal legislation Federal change we need a green New Deal at the federal level uh we also need climate action at the state level and we need sustainable development decision making at the local level um in durman across across the state and across the South um we all need to to pitch in in ways that we can there's been a lot of great reporting as well lever news recently provided reporting on um lobbying by corporate uh industry groups um at at the state level here in the state of North Carolina particularly starting in 2010 um that have dismantled and thwarted uh really important policies and regulations for both M mitigation and adaptation um
particularly around um building standards for wetlands and and just a variety of other uh issues and topics um so I'm I'm proud that that Durham has really stepped up the Durham Community the and our Durham institutions have pitched in and will continue to do so and um I did want to read a quote from a pretty remarkable quote quote that I read from the da Tar Heel about Appalachia uh appal Appalachians have have seen loss this land has seen every biblical Strife State violence rampant poverty devastating sickness and substance abuse and now environmental disaster but these plagues are not inevitable they are systemic these afflictions are not intrinsic to the character and culture of those that suffer rather only the product of years of occupation and extraction if this land has given you anything from spiritual rest to the quartz in your iPhone battery I invite you to give back to the land that has given so much to you for so long those are my my comments
thank you thank you Council MAV thank you good evening everyone um I just wanted to say first uh a shout out to the the chamber there was a group of us who went um in fact we landed on Friday when we were hearing a lot of devastating news about the flooding uh we were able to do an inner city exchange to Minneapolis uh which is seen as in in in many spaces as as a as a really great midsize City specifically around Transit and land use and a lot of really phenomenal lessons and conversations happen so I just want to thank the chamber for organizing that um and and look forward to hopefully um more inner city visits it's a it's a great opportunity to to get some lessons and try and apply them uh here in North Carolina uh secondly I do want to lift up um Western North Carolina as many of you know I went to and I'm going to tease my colleague here appalachin State um university um and uh lived in uh lived in Boon for for eight years met my husband there got married there first school that I taught at was there the school that I the first
school that I taught at has been flooded um and uh have people all throughout the mountains uh we often call it the boonerang so if you've lived in Boon the chances of you ending up back in Boon if you can is pretty high um you often end up in Asheville because it's a bigger city or you end up in a smaller Community because Asheville's cost of living is exorbitant so is Boons uh so you might end up in Swan no or black mountain or Bard or Waynesville or any of these small communities and hamlets and uh it has been really hard to check in on people for the last week uh making sure that folks could find their family uh that they could locate their their people to hear about friends houses uh getting destroyed people's farms getting destroyed um uh and I just want to thank very deeply the Durham Community um I was in Costco last Tuesday very briefly and it was completely insane and yesterday I was there kind of left because it was a little little nutty and
I asked the woman at the cashier like was it all relief work where folks just coming and purchasing and she said yeah on Tuesday we were $200,000 short of a million dollars purchased at Costco and that's one store in Durham on one day so I know that our Durham Community is G is giving deeply and I know that we're going to need to be in it for the long haul this isn't going to just be done we know that the city of water city of Asheville's water system is devastated we know that I40 and i26 will be closed until fall of 2025 the economic impact uh on that community in in Peak Leaf season uh we don't know if app State's going to be able to play its home football games that matters to the Boon economy when folks show up and they rent hotel rooms and they come and watch their Al moders football team play it matters to a small community uh tourism is a huge economic driver for that area and we're not that many years past covid uh well past quotation marks so I I am
deeply um I'm thinking a lot about my one of my many homes uh and I know that our city will continue to send resources and I want to thank the city manager and our water department and our firefighters um I we I got a message from uh one of the city council members in Ashville who said she was watching our our drum firefighters help out uh and do really for uh just a few days ago so I just want to say thank you and I know we'll continue to be good neighbors uh finally um the bond is on your ballot I will be a broken record and if you want a yard sign you can sign up and get one please vote Yes on both thank you thank you council member Freeman thank you and I appreciate my colleagues comments I would like to just first acknowledge that it is also National breast cancer awareness month and I think it's critically important to make sure that
um folks are doing their due diligence about their own health and making sure that they're um getting screened I also want to just uh say a very proud thank you to all those who host us um across the city for National Night Out and just acknowledge that there are so many folks in our community who are doing the heavy lift of trying to make sure that the folks who aren't always seen the children the seniors are getting the resources they need and I just want to send a really big thank you to all of those folks out there and then I also want to thank our staff um doing the work um especially during an emergency like the hurricane I know there was severe flooding here as well but nothing like the devastation that they've seen out west or in Rocky M and I just want to just say that it's critically important as well to come together and figure out how to do that work together in ways in which it's just inspiring to
see how folks are coming together I've witnessed a number of of of folks you know getting together to pack up pack up stuff and ship it that way or or what have you and it's it's just it's heartbreaking and then it's it's as much as it is heartbreaking it is also I'm in awe of all that folks are doing and I just want to say thank you on that side as well I um I did want to make sure that I mentioned as well that I well I was going to say that I was supposed to be in Boon tomorrow and um just knowing uh what our colleagues on councils and towns Villages and and um cities in the west are facing it is I I I can recall what it was like being here with the gas explosion I cannot imagine what it would be like to have the whole city entrenched in that
and to know that there are people with mobility issues there are people with severe disability like developmental delays and folks who are trying to navigate this horrific experience um who can't quite you know do what able bodies can do and so I just want us to continue to keep our hearts open and our wallets open to make sure that they get back to to level zero and um and that's about it I I I did want to thank council member cook and raising that great concern around climate change and climate mitigation here in durm as I've been ringing that Bell for a number of years and acknowledging that you know our our Rivers our Lakes our streams all tied together and when they overflow into your backyard and eat away your eat away your yard and you know your barn sinks in or your garage sinks in and those things are happening here in durm
with the level of development that we're seeing and I don't think that we've been as Vigilant as we can be and so I'm going to hope that we actually get there uh because we can do something to make sure that the climate mitigation occurs on the ground here in durm I also did want to note I appreciate council member Baker's point about the occupation and extraction and I think that what people tend to lean on more than anything is that that's the way capitalism works but that's not an acceptable excuse and so I want us to dig deeper and figure out how to make sure that we're not uh just doing things the way they've been done because we know how how racism operates in the same way that it's extractive of who we are and how we are we can do better and so I'll leave it at that but um I do want to thank my colleagues for making those conclusions thank you thank you coun member wrist thank you Mr Mayor mayor PM Madam city manager colleagues those in the room and those online um greetings I want to First all
say it it has been a long three weeks there's been a lot going on um and so I do want to add my voice to the course of folks who've mentioned the the awful devastating storm in Western North Carolina um and hearts go out to the folks who were there and we're continue the work here in dur to support their recovery efforts I do want to thank the city manager as well for for providing staff from water management and the firefighters to help provide some of that relief from the mountain so I'm proud of that um I've just got a couple of announcements um also want to mention had a wonderful time a little more than a week ago at the pride parade we didn't mention that um so I want to I want to say thanks to the lgbtq Center for organizing for everyone that came out and a special shout out to Girls Scout Troop 21 from Durham who was marching right in front of our small crowd council member cabier and and the mayor were with me um they led the way right in front of us um and then the heart team was right behind us they had our backs it was a fun event and encourage all folks to come out for the Annual Pride Parade um second of all I wanted to say a few words in memory of one of the most influential figures in the last half century at Duke University and by
extension in the city of Durham uh Joel Fleishman was a Visionary leader and an incomparable force of nature who died late last month late last month at the age of 90 and who had probably as much influence arguably on the growth of Duke University as anyone in the last 50 years uh Joel's career spans back to the 1960s when he was a legal aid to then governor Terry Sanford when Sanford came became president of Duke University he called on Joel to leave his post at Duke and come back to Durham to launch what was then a new public policy program so in 1971 Joel launched what is now known as the Sanford School of Public Policy there's probably grads in this room they're in City Hall they're around the city of durh in our region and our state our nation and around the world um he became his first director he later LED Duke Dukes believe this first ever Capital campaign in 1982 first time Duke did a capital campaign he led that campaign and that success led to his appointment later um to a series of high level administrative posts including vice president of the University first vice first vice president senior vice
president uh and and so on but those accomplishments did little to grasp the full nature of Joel Fleishman for those that knew him he was a scholar of philanthropy a wine connoisseur a deeply religious follower of the Jewish faith and the center of a legendary network of friends um most of all I was lucky to call Joel a friend and a mentor and a teacher um and I'm especially lucky to be one of the more than 2600 people who received those annual Christmas cards often with a handwritten note from Joel literally every year um so he's an amazing person rest in peace Joel fman and may his memory be a blessing finally I'd like to take a moment of personal privilege if I could to recognize my cousin Martin con who's sitting in the in the audience here who's visiting from Germany from the town of ekan fura up in the north coastal town on the Baltic Sea um Martin is one of my most beloved cousins so glad you're here with us in the city council chambers um he's here with his wife UTA who's probably back with my wife drinking wine maybe they're watching us maybe they're not you know um but back in Germany Martin is the
third generation owner of a very successful shoe store network of shoe stores across the uh the Baltic region I'm proud to say that his his son Nikki is now the fourth generation of that shoe store shoe house Crone is a great example of how independent smallscale retailers can continue to thrive in the age of online s and we have much to learn from their success um most of all I should note that um Martin's mom the amazing late Tanta was also a beloved Aunt who had an especially close bond with my father and so I just want to thank you Martin for being here for the long long years of family bonds and connections across the Atlantic um we're so glad you're here I appreciate all the all the um all the um the g g forget my German gas in Germany so I just want to say for the rest of your trip har com in the bull citya in North and South Carolina so thanks for being here thank you Mr Mayor thank you I actually took two
quarts of the Dutch in uh in college and um sounds like dut right yep I I don't remember a word though don't feel bad um thank you may pro thank you your honor and thank you colleagues Carl you putting your wife's business out there she didn't tell you to tell people she drinking wine let her be her thank you colleague so much um and thank you mayor for those great proclamations early this evening just a a couple of things I want to thank my colleagues for touching on so many of the salian issues going on in our city and the observations um that's why it's good that there's seven of us when when one of us misses one thing somebody else picks up on it so I want to thank my colleagues uh first I want to send a shout out to the durm Housing Authority who we honored uh earlier on Happy 75th anniversary looking forward to keynoting uh your breakfast tomorrow morning and celebration uh of that um so I want to congratulate all of our Derm Housing Authority the incredible staff and the team uh Mr Scott that you lead uh over there for doing incredible work for
almost coming up on a Century 75 years uh Mr Mayor congratulations on your presidential Lifetime Achievement Award I had a great time at North Carolina Central University on uh this past Saturday evening where we honored many of our luminaries uh in in the community uh where they got a nice medal and and a nice plaque and a nice letter from President Joe Biden and our mayor was among them so I want to congratulate you Brethren uh keep pushing doing keep pushing doing great work I want to thank council member uh Freeman for mentioning breast cancer awareness month it's also domestic violence awareness month so I would encourage all of our residents to to be mindful of both of these observations I want to thank my colleagues for for their on point words about what's been happening in the western part of of our state many of in the city know that I I serve as the sitting president of the North Carolina League of municipalities who has been absolutely engaged the only thing we've been doing the last the last week or so is is helping our state uh emergency response apparatus coordinate
um responses amongst our constituents um it is absolutely Dev devastating when you hear phrases like post-apocalyptic that doesn't begin to do it justice uh I want to firstly say if Mr M if I can switch my hat for just a second on behalf of the league um to all the cities of North Carolina that have surged so many resources over 30 police departments Durham has one of the best Urban search and rescue teams on the East Coast uh our chief zalos has an incredible history with Urban search and rescue and we've sent uh a fire apparatus and fire personnel and some of our Urban search and rescue folk uh to the western part of our state um so I want to I want to thank I was incredibly proud uh um to be a resident of this city a citizen of this city uh to see with all of the support that's being sent to the western part of our state uh particularly uh my city Durham to be included in that mix let us continue to pray and after we say Amen when we pray let us continue to send supplies and
money and resources it's going to be a long long time before we get back to a semblance of normaly on the western part of our state um it is an absolutely devastating time but my mom once told me I you remember those little glow-in-the-dark toys they used to put in boxes of cereal I'm dating myself I pulled the toy out my mom I told my mom it doesn't work she said go in the bathroom and turn the light off uh she said glow works better when it's dark so it's been really dark but it's in in this darkest time where I've really gotten a better appreciation for the glow of our city and the glow of the residents of this state uh we have stepped up in in amazing ways and I know we will continue to U even in these darkest of times I want also uh send uh my my love out and and and thoughts uh to residents of our our city last night I was at Judea reform uh synagogue uh almost a thousand people in there uh with residents neighbors friends uh of our city uh commemorating uh the
absolutely horrible Massacre that occurred in Israel on October 7 um we have and I was there because we have people in our city who have folk that are still missing we have people in our city whose family members were killed and I listened to riveting stories uh last night during that commemoration at Judea reform of of folk who have lost their lives since October 7th we've seen an incredible amount of violence in Gaza as well we have residents in this city uh who are of Palestinian descent who have friends that have been killed that have neighbors that they have not heard from as well this is a time for us to turn towards each other or not on each other uh this is a time whatever your political bin is there are durit neighbors friends whose hearts are broken who are inconsolable who although it's been a year for them it's an eternal today a year has not passed they have lived in the same day October 7th and October 8th when the war started uh
so I want to to send light and love uh to all of those uh folk who are hurting whose hearts are broken I want to thank again um the leaders at Judea reform and bethl for for holding space and allowing me to be part of that very solemn uh and sacred time on yesterday finally I want to thank uh my colleagues for for their opining on on leadership and and the implications of decisions and indeed there are implications of decisions I don't know how many times I've been on the side of a losing vote uh whether it's 6 to1 or four to three I have some experience uh with being on the side of losing votes it it never occurred to me however that when when I was on the losing side of a vote uh that those who voted differently from me we ushering in the Millennium or cataclysmic events in the city um leadership is about being deliberate um being mature uh and taking one decision at a time and I I absolutely agree that decisions have impact for example not only we dealing
with climate change we're dealing with gunfire in our city every day if a young black boy or black girl or white man or white woman bleeds to death in our city because they were shot we made a decision to let's say remove gunshot technology that could have sent First Responders to them not to arrest anyone not to pick up bullets to administer first aid that's a decision as well but it never occurs to me to go to the step where that life or that blood is on the hand or in the vote of one of my colleagues this is much bigger than our votes it's much bigger uh than the city council so what I've learned in leadership is that if you're going to open fire make sure you don't keep the bucket of arrows next to the bucket of boomerangs because if you grab the wrong one it might not have the
effect that you were anticipating thank you Mr Mayor thank you I um thank you for those remarks everyone and uh the first thing I want to do is I want to ask an individual to stand and I was going to have them introduce themselves but we are um running tight on time so uh AR if you can uh if you don't mind standing and coming up just a little bit AR is a sophomore at Duke University and I had thought I was meeting him in person today for the first time but when I saw him tonight I was like wait you look familiar and he actually had introduced me when I spoke to the student Senate at Duke University about how students at at Duke University can be more engaged with Durham because they are sick of TI sick and tired of hearing all this adversity and they want to know how they can be better represented in their community and uh so they invited the mayor and they said look how can we be better stewards in this community while we live
here and uh and we talked that night and that's when I first met him and I just realized that it's the same individual tonight that will be starting as a Communications intern in the mayor's office for the city of Durham and I'm grateful to have you here so thanks for applying and get ready to work it will be challenging it will be a lot but welcome to the city of Durham I also uh you're going to hear me briefly mention a lot of things that were mentioned because I taken a lot of notes um earlier just uh to spread out my announcements tonight inner city visit S with an S uh some of us I believe uh council member cavier um council member rist uh I think that was it okay all right we uh went on the chamber trip to minap in St Paul um amongst others were you yeah I was there man oh yeah that's
J collie and Mary and Balwin uh when the Birmingham Metro Area came here to the triangle um for an
inner city visit or inner region visit and today uh we have the city of akan here and they are all of AD Duram and just really exploring and I got to say it felt really good I I was uh I had a meeting in the Durham this morning and I was in you know some jogging pants and a T-shirt and they walked in and I went out and greeted them and then I went to walk my dog and I ran into them as they were on the American Tobacco campus and and then I was uh driving by delivering food to my restaurant and I ran into them again and then tonight I was in a suit and I ran into them on the rooftop and they were just amazed at Durham they were just totally amazed and it felt good to stand there as the mayor of the city and with pride to hear people talk about their reaction to the Bull City uh so uh welcome akan and I hope you're enjoying yourself continuously also National Night Out um a little disappointing to me because normally I would drive myself and I
would try to hit as many spots as possible and the most I've hit in one night is 20 sites um this time I was uh riding with a police escort and um I won't talk about the speed difference uh when I'm driving versus when they're driving so I I was able to get to six sites um but it was fun it was a lot of fun and we were able to get to uh get to run to a lot of folks uh it's just a beautiful night and I wish we did it more than one night a year I really did I really do um but it's just beautiful to see our community come together um yes I this weekend I was invited to share welcoming remarks to the uh presidential Lifetime Achievement Community award ceremony I I did not know that I was an actual recipient so I first got there two hours early which is unusual for me because usually I'm 20 minutes late and
um I I don't need y'all agreeing with me I see all the heads shaking in the room um but I I uh came back at 4 and I gave her marks and I was like well I have to leave she said well you can't leave uh because you are a recipient so I would like to congratulate all of the awardees and thank the uh thank President Joe Biden's office for this big uh uh certificate and there very heavy metal and I would plac this in the mayor's office um really excited and honored to really excited and honored to receive that also I was going to mention the pride parade uh you know the pride parade is is really competing with nccu's homecoming there were a lot of people out there and it was so much fun it was so much fun it was so many people I had to uh park my car and get on my bike and ride to the parade site because I could not get close to it uh which was you know great to do anyway and that was
really fun and lots of music and dancing and just seeing everyone come together uh so thank you to the lgbtq center and all who played a part in that um it's been mentioned folks we need to register to vote if you have not and you need to actually vote I can't tell you in this capacity who to vote for but I can say this is our civic duty please go vote if you need influence or you need help understanding what the pros and cons are then see me after the meeting in my personal capacity but in this capacity I I really hope that Durham turns out uh and please get engaged uh it it really is so important I can't talk about that enough Western North Carolina I spoke with Esther uh well the mayor of Asheville for about an
hour and um it is heartbreaking it is heartbreaking just imagine seeing your entire town uprooted and floating down the stream floating down the river that is what's happening that's what happened to many of the smaller towns around Asheville in bashville and Boone and surrounding areas their Town their streets were like a river that's there's billions of dollars of damage done and I'm I'm I'm going to say this based on our conversations I know that especially dur we are a very giving community and I know that everyone wants to you know do their part and and donate and I want to encourage that I am working on a coordinated way uh to get folks to take
their donations to one location coordinate with organizations who can in a very organized fashion take them out west to the distribution centers but there are some folks that are in in well- intended who are getting a few donations here and there and they're driving out west and getting in the way and making it very very difficult and there there is a request if you have money Financial M like Financial contributions please consider that I offered I was like what about shelter do people need to come here and you know we open our doors here as a community um and that's that's not that's not a main need right now what what people really need is they need to be able to receive these resources food water uh in a very organized way so that we're not just you know folks some folks don't even have power they can't refrigerate the eggs that you're taking they can't even cook them
so just please consider that as your giving uh I did receive correspondents today that we have not only truckloads ready but we also can fly and uh do some air drops in this is not with the city these are just connections that we have out in the community or nonprofit organizations I did receive a word today that we can air drop some things in so just I'm going to wait on that until I get that set up and then I'll make a public announcement maybe a news conference or something to talk about how we can work with a few churches to coordinate getting things there I did request that we have a report uh bought to the council uh that was going to happen later this week actually we're going to get that tonight on all of the um the the the heavy resources that we're providing and the human resources that we're providing out west uh and and just you know just keep everyone in your prayers and and um continue to donate we'll try to get those in an organized fashion to get out there so people can get what they need but also not just bombarded with a bunch
of stuff and it just perish um I know we we we we talked about um the climate impact here uh my position on this is I'm not going to undermine the work that the city is doing the city staff who are amazing and who's partnering with Duke University to not only have a climate action plan but a climate resilience plan this is not a matter I prefer to politicize this is this is it's just not you know and uh there there are a lot of angles that we can take with this um but every council member has the right to say what you please um but I'm I'm going to take the bigger picture here and just thank the work the hard work that our staff is doing and uh understand that my job is policy and cons continue to support the policy work that's already being done uh and um and I hope that you'll Applause the staff that is doing the amazing work that we that we already have in play I know some folks like to make it seem like a doom and gloom but
we actually have some pretty dope things happening in the city of Durham comparatively speaking uh and it would be helpful to just make sure we know those things um and know what's happening before we you know speak on it with that being said uh lastly today is October 7th and uh you know I ironically I just watch you know the documentary on 911 you know and uh this is another matter that you know um I don't think it's a matter that we politicized but it's a matter in which we uplift Humanity uh and I think that starts right here in Durham I think it starts right here on this Council um I it's you know truth is not something that we should be afraid of uh in nuances never black and white and that's just fact so uh as I've stated before you know uh when it came
to oppression the only oppression I was familiar with was my ancestors coming over on a boat and it's taken me a long time to really learn and understand the Middle East and all the history and complexities that come with it and uh you know you you can't talk about these events without acknowledging October 7th you can talk about the the the the response of Israel but you also have to talk about what happened to Israel you know there's harm being done on both sides of this issue and the fact that it's a both sides is an issue within itself so it's not a matter that I choose to politicize but the fact that humans are dying in the name of war and we cherry what we talk about it's not something I'm interested in it's October 7th and it's unfortunate and I hope I pray to God that it doesn't I really pray to God that it
stops in addition to everything else that's going around going on around the world which is why I put a lot of energy in what I in this capacity can do do something about and that's why when I said it's not black and white you can't I'm just going to stop there um on a lighter note I'd like to announce that today we were informed that we the city of Durham has been awarded an innovation track with Bloomberg philanthropies and that means you know all that travel I've been doing that folks talk about it means that relationships matter and and now we will receive two full-time staff members paid for by Bloomberg philanthropies to uh support the city of Durham and doing some really cool Innovative things and really set us up for grant funding to
actually carry those things out with that being said about all this travel stuff you know tomorrow I'll be at Harvard as a guest lecturer and representing the city of Durham remember that transition team I had here those those kids were amazing and we get to talk about our work tomorrow and I'm really excited uh they just have uh Senator Warro uh with the uh Divinity School and tomorrow I'll be with the Topman Center of innovation and the Kennedy School and uh I'll be back on Wednesday and really excited about that so thank you all an hour and six minutes later let's get to work all right I will now pass it over to the manager good evening Mr Mayor Mr Mayor protim and members of the Durham city
council uh we do have a few priority items um for your information uh this evening I will start with um some agenda related items and then when I am uh when I am finished reporting those to you I ask Deputy city manager Bo Ferguson to come to the um microphone and make some updates um that will inform you of some specifics around our support of our neighbors in Western North Carolina uh from our city resources uh from our mutual Aid agreements uh that we have that allow us uh to provide this this needed um service to to our community members to the West um and as Bo makes his way I will speak on the um agenda related items so agenda item number 13 uh there's a request for a temporary construction easement at River Forest
Park the additional information that was requested during the September 19th 2024 city council work session has been attached agenda item number 14 the First Amendment to Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act adult and dislo loated worker program delivery contract with eer Youth Alternatives Inc contract number 19714 the additional information requested during the September 19th 2024 city council work session has been attached and agenda item number 15 contract amendment number two for Durham Workforce Development board Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act youth program eord Youth Alternatives Inc the additional information requested during the September 19th 2024 city council work session has been attached at this time Bo will provide um an update for you for you mayor and Council as well as the community thank you B thank you madam manager good evening mayor mayor
proen members of council I'm Bo Ferguson Deputy City Manager for Public Safety and I'm here to provide as the manager announced an update on our City's ongoing efforts to assist Neighbors in Western North Carolina who were impacted by Hurricane Helen as you all know and have had uh poignant comments this evening hurricane Helen caused significant damage across the region and Durham is proud to be among the many organizations to answer the call for Aid that we've received so uh I want to talk very specifically about what uh City resources have been deployed over the last several weeks to assist uh specifically as of today we've had three departments that have made uh significant contributions uh in Aid and I'll go Department by Department uh first starting with the Department of Water Management a seveners crew from our water management department is currently deployed in the town of Woodfin North Carolina providing critical support with waterline repairs and easement clearing this team is equipped with a broad variety of City
equipment heavy equipment including two dump trucks mini excavators skid steers Gators and multiple equipment trailers to tackle the challenging terrain and the infrastructure damage uh that is there they departed this morning and will be on site for the remainder of the week separately uh that department Water Management has sent items from our inventory that were requested from systems out west uh to help repair their infrastructure we've sent uh a large 30-in water valve 80 ft of 6in ductal iron pipe 80 ft of 10in ductal iron pipe and various parts in stock necessary to install the equipment from our fire department our fire department has been instrumental in search and rescue operations and providing ongoing support I'll go unit by unit uh the urban search and rescue or usar team we are part of North Carolina North Carolina Task Force 8 a team of 11 personnel deployed on two separate occasions over the course of the last few weeks starting on September 25th before the storm came ashore uh
with a second group joining on October 4 five members of the first deployment returned on October 4th the remaining team members are still on site providing specialized Urban search and rescue capabilities uh a search and rescue Tech specialist this is an additional DFD member who was deployed before the storm on September 24 as a uh search and rescue Tech specialist to support the North Carolina emergency management Western Branch that individual remains deployed uh assisting the city of Asheville we sent a four-person fire crew uh that is deployed to Asheville on September 30th to assist with firefighting efforts to give relief to Ash firefighters who had been on duty since the storm hit uh so this four-person crew is Manning an Asheville Fire Station uh in order to give some relief to the Asheville employees that team is scheduled to return to Durham today October 7 we have an information technology Service Unit leader which is a DFD firefighter who deployed on
October 1st to provide critical it support to that North Carolina Task force8 team that I mentioned earlier he's expected to return today and finally in the fire department a uh Communications unit leader this is one of our division Chiefs deployed on October 3rd as a Communications unit leader for the Western Branch operations of North Carolina emergency management that individuals expected to return on October 10 that is the the current resources from the fire department finally I want to call out the efforts of our Police Department who led a volunteer Supply drive both for their employees and for the public to drop off supplies all through last week week and then on Friday nine Durham police officers embarked on a mission to to deliver those supplies with equipment to Avery County delivering essential donated supplies like water food and Medicine the team brought two dpd uh ATVs uh with them and because of that they were able to transport the supplies to 22 remote locations I learned that
they met two volunteer nurses in Avery County and the nurses were able to go along with our staff and provide Prov some medical support in uh in some areas of Avery County that were uh difficult to access by uh by regular means that team did return safely to Durham late Friday night as of right now those are the the three departments that have provided resources but I want to offer some general comments about how emergency management works uh in North Carolina for the Public's benefit and certainly for the council um governments across North Carolina and across the southeast are pouring resources into Western North Carolina uh that is both heartening but it is also very very complex uh and getting the right resources to where they're needed requires a great deal of coordination uh so one of the things that we abide by as part of that system is to follow the system laid out by North Carolina emergency management which is overseen by FEMA uh and that is to use the system
of all All Counties have an emergency management department to use that system for counties to request resources on behalf of the Cities counties and organizations that need them through the state system and then we get those messages through our local uh Durham County Emergency Management Department who relays those requests to us we are then able to provide the resources we are in regular constant contact with our Emergency Management staff to monitor any requests that might be coming in I can also say that a number of staff and City leadership are part of other conversations with other groups uh uh the league of municipalities was mentioned earlier uh the Statewide Cog Association councils of government um all of which give us an opportunity to make sure that that formal emergency management system is working uh and we receive a lot of reinforcement that it is and those networks also help us troubleshoot so if we hear about a
concern that that is not being addressed through Emergency Management we're able to escalate that and I shared with mayor time last week I think um the league leadership has done an excellent job of being able to pinpoint some of the places where there were concerns about requests being passed through North Carolina emergency management and help State leadership address those all the information I'm getting is that system is working as designed finally I want to reinforce uh some comments that council members made this evening I am not a spokesperson for North Carolina emergency management but I can relay messaging that they have provided and that is that at this stage in the disaster recovery it is uh it is Cash donations that are most useful and most helpful to those recovering in Western North Carolina it allows agencies to Target the aid uh that is needed to those uh various needs and to make sure that the right resources get to the right place um I have certainly
gov howto donate and that's uh hyphenated so in conclusion just uh want to reassure the council that the city of Durham remains deeply committed to supporting the recovery efforts in Western North Carolina we're incredibly proud of the
dedication and professionalism shown by our city employees who have volunteered to serve I can uh assure all of you as I'm sure the manager can that uh we have been overwhelmed in the manager's office by our own employees who are desperate to help in any way they can and we are doing everything possible to make sure uh that we connect them with requests that we're receiving through the system um their efforts exemplify our City's values of compassion and community and we will continue to monitor the situation and provide assistance as needed happy to answer any questions right we'll continue to keep Council informed thank you so much for that I uh and I I know there um there are other municipalities actually municipalities across the entire state that are doing very similar work uh in addition to uh FEMA and you know the National Guard uh one of the comments that the mayor of Asheville said said I
the the National Guard and FEMA they have equipment and resources that she didn't even know existed uh as they're rebuilding and um getting things the infrastructure back underway so all right um those are your okay I'll now um recognize the attorney City attorney good evening Mr Mayor mayor PM members of the council it's good to be with you city attorney's office does not have any priority items tonight thank you madam clerk thank you Mr Mayor uh I do not have a priority item however I'd like to make a a request for a moment of personal privilege all right thank you very much this evening the city clerk's office staff led by Deputy clerk Roland hosted the city's fourth inperson volunteer appreciation reception for Council appointed volunteers to the city's boards committees commissions and task forces and I wanted to extend a special thank you to the clerk staff
assistant clerks Ashley Adams Mary Bryant Javon Pratt administrative Tech Katrina wood and our temp admin Shay Castro and last but indeed not least is Deputy clerk Lola Roland who once again did an outstanding job managing the details of the volunteer appreciation reception and as you know events like this take many departments and staff working together to accomplish great things and here some high highlights for the setup in the city hall lobby with tables and chairs um the clerk's office partnered with the city manager's office and general services and I wanted to give a special shout out to shered Gibbs Tony Cruz and Abby fiser of General Services Kevin lily as well and Susie grent from the city manager's office along with the um the front desk security team everyone worked together and I appreciate that and the photo space was supported by the
communications staff Josh Lynch and Blake Hodge and if there's City staff who I haven't mentioned be certain that you are definitely appreciated the deac donated over 40 tickets to the volunteers as raffle prizes which was pretty awesome catering was provided by dash of delight and um by all the the laughter and smiling faces I I think everyone had a really good time and I I wanted to appreciate the council's funding of this annual event for our City's and thank you all thank you all right thank you so much and yes thanks again volunteers it was a great event this evening also want to uh just shout out the community safety department no the Community Development Department as well as the transportation department sign and signal for inviting me for the community uh for the Department visits and seeing the amazing work that they do across the um across the city
I as I stated before my goal is to shake every hand that works for the city of Durham and we're well on our way all right um I'll Now read the consent agenda all right number one dorm Housing Authority Board of Commissioners mayoral appointment number two Durham open space and trails commission appointment number three Durham city and county appearance commission appointment number four racial Equity commission appointments number five Durham historic preservation committee commission appointment number six approval of Durham city county minutes number 7 2024 fiscal year in inventory performance audit August 2024 number eight contract agreement with ETR Services LLC to provide services for the fiscal year 2025 Community conversations project number nine request to carry over funding from fiscal year 2023 to 2024 to fiscal year 2024 to 2025 to
amend the fiscal year 2024 2025 budget Capital Improvement plan ordinance Grant project ordinance settlement project ordinance and internal service fund spending plans number 10 contracts for state and federal lobbying Services number 11 Grant project ordinance accepting an africanamerican mayor Association Grant to support economic Mobility programs really excited about that uh number 12 Durham Athletic Park feasibility study number 14 number 14 First Amendment to Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act adult and dislocated worker program delivery contract with eer Youth Alternatives Incorporated contract 19714 number 15 contract amendment number two for Durham Workforce Development board Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act youth program accurate Youth Alternatives Incorporated number 13 request for temporary construction easement at River
Forest Park number 17 Consolidated annexation Yates right away number 18 Consolidated annexation Bristol wood right away number 19 Consolidated annexation Palmer Edge number 20 zoning map change Sunrock Camden 21 zoning map change Duke central campus Edition those are the items we have all right and first up we will have well I would now entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second been move and properly seconded um oh here we go Madam clerk you can open a vote please we can close and the motion passes unanimously thank you so
much all right we'll start at number 13 request for temporary construction e men at River Forest Park thank you all who came out tonight staff will hear your presentation good evening Alicia bass General Services um additional information was you know I'm so sorry I I was treating this as if it was a presentation okay uh I mean a public hearing um but you're as a resource correct I here as a resource okay colleagues ready to present if you needed it nope we're good sorry about that okay number council member Freeman thank you I would just say thank you for sharing the additional information I was um reviewing the different locations and it
doesn't seem like any of them are actually like a temporary kind of a that's where I think it's kind of the question of how you assess on a temporary basis how much is actually you know the property's worth and so I I I gather there was a cent like there was like 61 cents per square foot and then if you prate that some whatever it is there's some formula that's there that's we're not using and that's all that was really my main um concern and um also just noting that the uh represented um or the representative for the property has been a serious of serious concern for me since last year in March when the whole Fiasco happened with council member Heyman and so I just wanted to make sure that we were doing doing everything as as close as possible to the detail level that we can because that it would be really nice to have a like a dollars and Cent per day type of
thing in place for that square footage but I am satisfied thank you thank you all right I want entertain a motion so moved second moved and probably second all in favor please no uh Madam clerk please open the vote please close the vote and the motion passes unanimously thank you so much we will head on to item number 17 for the staff report thank you excuse me thank you very much Mr Mayor mayor protm honorable members of council Aon Kane with the planning department before I begin staff would like to State for the record that all planning department hearing items have been advertised and noticed in accordance with state local law and Avid davit of all notices are on file in the planning department a request for a voluntary annexation and initial zoning map change has been received from Sarah
239 Acres of the Yates Road right of way adjacent to south Mineral Springs Road this annexation petition was for a contigous expansion of the primary corporate limits in order to have City maintained streets connect from a future development to Mineral Spring Road as part of the annexation process the applicant is not seeking a change in the underlying zoning District the applicant proposes to um keep the designation of residential Suburban 20 County jurisdiction and then apply it to residential Suburban 20 City jurisdiction since the area requested to be annexed is right away no development will occur on the land thank you and staff and the applicant are available to answer any questions thank you few colleagues you've heard the staff report are there any questions all right I will now declare this public hearing
open and we'll receive the applicant how much time do you think you need three minutes or something like that all right could you put five minutes on please thank you and uh good evening mayor Williams mayor Pro 10 Middleton members of the city council I am Neil G an attorney with the Morning Star Law Group at 700 West Main Street in Durham um thank you Mr C for your presentation I know there are a number of items hold on a second yeah s like hey right shall we we good okay sorry about that um yeah I'll try to be brief uh because I think this is a straightforward albeit maybe unusual request uh this is basically a companion annexation for a project that previously was approved um I think we it's fair to say that we missed this at the time of the initial rezoning and annexation for the associated project but I will say the
connection to Yates Road always was contemplated and in fact it was shown on the D plan uh the fact that the annexation area or the meets and Bounds description for the annexation area did not include this small segment or the rest of the eight Road right away I think it just got missed by us and staff during the review process um the associated project contemplates building Yates Road out to a city standard um and also having I believe Public Utilities within that right of way uh it was missed so we're here tonight to clean up the Gap in the city's jurisdiction I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about this project thank you all right thank you uh see you're the only person I had signed up for this all right colleagues are there any questions for the applicant uh or staff just noting when there's a Miss like this is that usually noted because
I didn't notice it in the memo but I I'm not sure if it it what was originally requested to be annexed in the previous application for about 3 four 2 3 years ago was included what ended up happening was that there is that little Gap as you can see on the map in your packet uh between Mineral Springs Road and the portions of yatesy road that were already annexed so this this annexation that's being requested allows for Yates the entirety of Yates Road out to Mineral Springs Road to be in the city jurisdiction be maintained by the city and have City Utilities within it it would just be helpful to have that included in the memo um just for continuity and like this is associated with that case and so that's all all right there are no other uh speakers I will declare the public
hearing closed and back before the council all right and um our motion here is to adopt an ordinance amending the Unified devel ordinance by taking property out of the residential Suburban 20 and false Jordan Watershed protection overlay District B County jurisdiction and in and establishing the same as residential Suburban 20 in false Jordan Watershed protection over L District B City jurisdiction moved is red it's been mov in proberbly second Madam clerk please open the vote please close and motion unanimously thank you and our second motion is to adopt a consistency statement as required by North Carina General statute section 160d d605 move to adopt consistency move to property second
089 Acres of bristlewood Drive RightWay located adjacent to the recently approved Wesley Downs development site at 344 brooch Road the annexation petition is for a non-contiguous expansion of the primary corporate limits though contiguous to an existing satellite of city limits in order to be able to maintain a culvert in the right of way of bristlewood drive as part of the annexation petition the applicant is not seeking a change in the underlying zoning since the area requested to be annexed is RightWay no development will
occur on the land thank you and staff and the applicant are available to answer any questions all right you've heard the staff report colleagues are there any questions for staff all right at this time I will declare this public hearing open and we'll receive the presentation from the applicant how much time do you think you need two minutes right please Place five minutes on and good evening again uh I am Neil go uh my information is on file uh thank you Mr Kane for the presentation this is maybe a similar request to the one you just heard except uh this time I would say this isn't really something we could have known um until the design phase um this is you know similarly a companion annexation for a project that previously was approved um we when we did the initial rezoning and annexation for the project we did know that we were going to need to connect to bristlewood uh it was not clear until the site plan stage
where we got into the design of that connection that it be became clear that we would need a culvert on the other side uh on the western side I should say of the connection and that Culvert is an extra piece of infrastructure with which ncdot does not want to maintain itself um because it's required infrastructure you know for the per the city design um we're requesting annexation so that piece of City infrastructure can actually be within the city's jurisdiction thank you and happy to answer any questions you might have all right I um okay I have two cards here first up Mrs uh Mimi Kesler do I have Robert Brown in the room okay got you this did you also provide written comment Mr Brown did you also provide written comment for Council okay got you make sure it's the same person M Kesler
welcome you have three minutes good to see good evening I'm Mimi Kesler my information is on file I have a question about this because when I was reading it there was a new Z number um whereas this it seemed like this case already had uh a number and it was referred to in the description um as being um there was another um zoning request or something connected to this it I think that it must be because of the Culver that they had to come back is that why it got a new number it got a new number because technically an annexation is a new zoning because it is applying City Zoning to the land even though there's County zoning on it we the city in the county in Durham use the same zoning scheme um but technically legally an annexation is applying a new City Zoning District where there was a county before so Tech then it needs a z number and
you'll notice that uh if the Z number ends in an a then it's not actually changing from the County zoning it's just part of an annexation a direct translation thank you very much sure okay uh Mr Brown welcome you have three minutes thank you mayor Williams mayor protm Middleton and Council um primarily my goal is to get some clarification on the relationship of this um this uh action on the bristolwood
drive use um my name is Robert M Brown I live at 3916 Bristol Wood Drive dorum 2773 I'm a resident of the Fletcher Hills Community County subdivision immediately adjacent to the subject property on the west and a practicing architect we get Echo again the original zoning case for this new subdivision entry called for a connection from their site to bristolwood drive in our subdivision over little Li Creek initial opposition was expressed through the addition traffic increase on our subdivision that has under maintained State streets since that time ongoing heavy rains and minor uh local traffic has created large ruts and holes and uh Bor uh Improvement to the unpaved portion of bristolwood immediately adjacent to the current rezoned request Bridge area that uh was
recently repaired um first question is there any stipulation in the current uh subdivision rezoning requiring them to provide asphalt repaving on Bristol Woods currently exposed rock roadway from the proposed Creek Bridge Crossing to aliser road if I can get maybe question from answer on staff on that so I I'll if you'll give me a moment I'll need to to to look at the previous development plan for the Wesley down subdivision that was approved a couple of years ago I don't recall off the top of my head if there was additional Paving west of the site that was committed to there um so if you'll just give me a minute I'll need to look that up okay I'll just continue while you're doing it um if this was neglected in the original resoning then then I request that it be so stipulated at this time has to Temp temper the damage to the uh
new heavily traffic coming down the hill from the new subdivision uh area the current roads on our subdivision are woefully under maintained and we continue to deal with deep holes and ruts in the current roads this will not be improved by uh the new P predicted traffic but it will um but it will by Paving the raw Rock portion minimize the damage to pedestrians and homes in our current uh quiet county subdivision we hope you will consider your uh current County homeowners needs as well as the new city subdivisions in your joint County and City governmental jurisdictions thank you so much he'll get that uh information to you thank you excuse me sorry
should we wait okay I want to let it close all right um those are all the speakers that I have signed up for this item and at this time I'll declare public hearing closed and back before the council colleagues are there any other questions right right so Aaron I'm gonna wait for you to get that clarified for us so I tell you what this is what we'll do we'll take a we'll take a five minute break early uh and we'll come back at 8 uh 84 846 there's no requ
do you know how much like the state maintenance and yeah that that's correct so we're making we had to make this connection that's all in the city right so I mean if that's gravel it's I mean unless you unless you I mean it's just a state Gravel Road I just want to make so Tasha $60 million sounds like a lot uh to build 12 miles of sidewalks can you tell us what all is involved in actually constructing a sidewalk yes these are not simply sidewalk projects but some of them are actually road construction projects there is a lot involved and what is represented here is
the full cost of project delivery there will be uh design cost consultant cost associated with the acquisition of rideways the relocation of utilities as well as project management oversight and inspection that is in addition to the actual construction cost associated with each project additionally some of these projects require significant lane widening even some cover extensions so these are not simply sidewalk projects but some of them are actually road construction [Music] projects when we talk about East stand and long meal Parks we typically think there are two parks right but it's one project so why is this project and these Parks so important for Durham yeah it was really interesting we've learned a lot in this journey uh exploring these two parks historically and we've learned that both of these Parks when they first began these were segregated Parks So Long Meadow uh Park was typically the
White Park and East End was typically the black Park obviously those uh Parks have evolved since then now we're looking at an opportunity as we we we see these Parks how close in proximity they really are and we also know we have a project on the horizon called the R Kelly Bryant Bridge Trail and this Trail runs in between them so this is an opportunity to invest in these two parks and unite them [Music]
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[Music] yep yeah thank you it will be improved it will be improved what is e
we all right we are we're back in business here and okay uh so uh interesting little thing happened here so what's going to happen is the attorney will read the Motions for um this and then I'll call for um to entertain that motion okay and thank you
Mr Mayor um just to clarify both this item number 18 and item number 17 were a little atypical in the sense that they were rights of way and so they didn't have um utility extension agreements affiliated with them normally you all will see three motions and the second part of the first motion always authorizes the manager to enter into a UEA um and in this instance when we were making the modification to that first motion because a UEA was not required the entire motion got deleted so that's what happened we were missing a motion for two items so on item 18 which you all are on you just closed the public hearing the first motion is to adopt an ordinance annexing bristolwood right of way into the city of Durham are we going to have discussion first or we just jumping to the Motions are you just sharing the
Motions so I I did close the public hearing and ask if there there are questions I think that's actually I think that's where we were back before the council so let's hold off on the Motions it is the Republican hearing has been closed and it is back before the council for any questions and uh I can start with councilman fre you want to go ahead and I think the first thing just making sure we hear from Aaron if there was some resolve then from you want to update on that um I'd be I'd be happy to Mr mayor council member Freeman yes uh the question that we had earlier about whether the uh bristlewood right of way would be improved by the uh applicant or the developer of Wesley Downs out to Alistar Road there is a commitment to improve to minimum ncdot standards the applicant has uh confirmed that they understand that will be a paved standard so from the approved development through
the Culver it will be built to city state standards and then west of that Culvert out to Alis it'll be built to ncdot minimum paved standards so there will be a difference in the two um but yes it will be paved out to Alistar Road all right and then just the followup can you say specifically what the pave difference is between West and East um I'm going to leave that I'm going to ask Bill to do that he's going to know those Paving standards better than I do and mainly my question in is to figure out if there something that we could get to some parody on that's all making sure that well so Bill judge Transportation yeah as Aaron indicated the the portion that's within the city from the covert to the east would be to the city standard which U most likely is going to be a curbing gutter section with a sidewalk on both sides of the road whereas the the portion that remains
within the county would just then be um likely asphalt pavement probably a minimum 20t width U likely no curbing gutter unless they need it for storm drainage um yeah required and likely no sidewalks as well and then just a followup is the part that is west of the CT uphill or downhill that I don't know I mean typically the CT's the low spot so I would assume it's going back uphill towards Alistar but but I'm not that familiar with that specific section and so my main line is is if it's going to create some type of flooding issue if you have this curban gutter running straight into nothing yeah well I mean the city I mean as part of the city street and the kbon gutter section they will have to design you where that that water goes from through the carbon gutter likely into the covert or storm drainage system I would suspect but I the engineer might
be able to provide more information if they're here otherwise have an engineer but I think to answer your question the Culvert the Culvert where it ends in that's the where it would end at the city street standard that is the low point so everything east and west of it is uphill okay yeah and then s did you have anything yes so as you're as you're considering the water is Flowing everywhere and then it's going to come into the parts that'll get to the curban guttle will run into City sewers uh City storm drain sorry City St storm drain yeah and and the the uh proposed location for the Culvert I I don't know if this was clear or not is currently also the low spot so we're not uh changing the low spot okay that's that's the main point thank you okay any other questions colleagues
thanks for those um questions um council member all right so at this time I'll have our City attorney read the Motions is the first one correct it is it's motion number one motion number one should read to adopt an ordinance annexing bristolwood RightWay into the city of Durham moved is red all right it's been moved and properly seconded madam Clark please open to vote please close the vote and the motion passes unanimously thank you second motion is motion number one so Mr Mayor the second motion would be as printed in the agenda to adopt an ordinance amending the unified development ordinance by taking property out of the plan development residential 4166 residential Suburban -20 and falls short and Watershed protection overlay District B County jurisdiction and establishing the same as plan
development residential 4166 residential suburban-rural vote and the motion passes unanimously thank you and the last motion is to adopt a consistency statement as required by North Carolina General statute section 160d d605 move to adopt consistency second move and properly seconded Madam clerk please open the vote please close the vote and the motion passes unanimously all right thank you let's go back to number 17 and uh address those that's correct Mr Mayor so first I need the council to reconsider the previous vote taken if I can just get a motion to reconsider the vote entertain a motion to reconsider the vote for item number 17 motion
second all right it's been moov properly second it Madam Clark please open the vote please close the vote and the motion passes unanimously all right we are reconsidering item number 17 Consolidated annexation Yates right of way that's correct Mr Mayor and now the first motion should be to adopt an ordinance annexing Yates RightWay into the city of Durham so moved second that moved and properly seconded Madam clerk please open the vote please close the vote and the motion passes unanimously all right second motion to adopt an ordinance amending the unified development ordinance by taking property out of the residential Suburban 20 and false Jordan Watershed protection overlay District B County jurisdiction and establishing the same as residential Suburban 20 in Falls Jordan watered protection overlay District B City's jurisdiction so moved second move the
properly second it Madam clerk please open to vote please close the vote the motion passes unanimously thank you and to finalize the last motion to adopt a consistency statement as required by North Carolina General statute section 160 D- 605 so moved second moved and properly seconded Madam clerk please up the vote please close the vote and the motion passes unanimously thank you all right item number 19 no worries item item number 19 okay Consolidated annexation Parmer Edge thank you Mr Mayor a request for a utility extension agreement voluntary annexation and initial zoning map change has been received from Kelsey Westwood of kimley horn for 16 Parcels of land totally 18369 acres and located at 3426 3442 and
3416 3516 Andrew Avenue 651 675 and 683 Ellis Road 3402 3520 3540 and 3602 Rigsby road and 2435 2505 2590 2801 2815 and 3654 Glover Road this annexation petition is for a con annexation of the primary corporate limits to allow for the construction of Industrial Development with Associated infrastructure the properties are currently designated General industrial and mixed use residential on the place type map the industrial Light zoning on the Northern portion of the site is consistent with the general Industrial Place type the residential Rural and industrial Light zoning on the southern portion of the site is generally consistent with the place type of mixed use neighborhood as both of these districts combine L will allow for a mix of uses in the area the application the applicant through the annexation request
is asking that the zoning be changed from industrial Light and Rural residential County jurisdiction to industrial Light and Rural residential City jurisdiction there's no actual change to the underlying zoning District in the application it is a straight um direct translational rezoning and annexation request no commitments therefore may be proferred since there is no development plan thank you staff and the applicant are available for any questions thank you uh I have a question for staff I just wanted to ask uh what departments are involved pre-development in a demolition situation in a demolition situation of demolition of a structure yes I think it depend boy I'm not really sure I think it depends on the type of structure being demolished I know inspections is definitely involved in that um I don't believe we generally are fire could
be um not aware of any others it's generally inspections maybe may be fire and then are inspections in fire looking at um storm water runoff or kind of the conversation that we had around um limiting how far or how much your clearing is SP space or clearing an acreage um like at one time so if you're if you're just demolishing a structure you're most likely not going to be interfering with the um sto the drainage system as it currently stands unless you're doing some grading and that could require a grading permit depending on how much of the site you're actually grading um and also in theory if you're demolishing a structure you could be removing some impervious surface which would allow actually more of the water to drain it directly into the soil rather than becoming
runoff thank you all right any other questions for staff before we open the hearing all right at this time I will declare the public hearing open Mr Baker how much time do you think you need uh hopefully less than six minutes Mr Mayor all right let's put 8 minutes someone can youall see the PowerPoint we can now thank you wonderful welcome great good evening mayor Williams mayor proen Middleton members of the city council I'm Patrick Baker I live at 2614 Stewart Drive I'm an attorney with Morning Star Law Group I'm here tonight representing Parmer Edge for this annexation we are discussing tonight I'm joined tonight by Bart SS and Elliot Brewer who are lead the lead developers with Palmer Edge and Kelsey Westwood uh who's our site engineer with kimley horn Palmer Edge already has a proven track record in the Durham County section of Research Triangle Park I remember very well 25 or 30 years ago when glaa was a
major player in RTP well those days are gone but fortunately Carin real estate came along to revitalized while was Durham County's number one taxpayer back in the mid1 1990s RTP Business Leaders praised Carlin's work to transformed the old glaco campus into a multi-tenant facility with great amenities as you can see on the right hand side of this slide and Mr Scott Levitan the CEO of Research Triangle Foundation has recognized the importance of what Carlin has accomplished in Research Triangle Park in regards to this annexation here's an aerial showing the 140 acres has been zoned iil for several decades along with the 43 Acres zoned RR just north of Glover Road which is at the bottom of this slide I want to highlight for members of city council who maybe have not driven down rsby Road lately that the RR section is primarily to the west of the 5 to 10 acre automobile junkyard you see in the bottom right hand corner of this slide I next want to highlight the
bottom leftand corner of this slide where a large Duke Energy easement and the Durham freeway come together this is a prime location for a Duke Energy substation that would provide redundancy for downtown and for East Durham our team spent many hours meeting with Mr Ray trap and other managers at Duke Energy uh to evaluate this as a suitable site for a substation to provide that redundancy to East Durham and downtown unfortunately Mr Ray trap is on vacation well I guess it's not unfortunate for him he and his family are on vacation in Mexico and he could not be here tonight but I did want to convey uh Duke power's enthusiasm for this location since they've been looking for a substation site for about 15 years now I know with an annexation there may be concern about there being no proffers about bike and pedestrian infrastructure to address that concern the future development within this 183 Acres will have to construct the pedigree Street Extension as is shown on this Slide the cross-section that is
required by our comprehensive Transportation plan adopted in 2017 will include bike lanes and sidewalks on both sides of pedig Street in fact for this section of Durham between the Durham freeway and the railroad tracks this is a vital piece of multimodal infrastructure next I want to drill down a little bit deeper on one point in your staff report and that's on page six and uh on page six I appreciated the reference to the 2020 industrial land use study uh that our planning department published about four years ago I've relied on this report many times since it was published in order to advise companies that want to increase and improve Durham's capacity for top quality Economic Development it's important to review the nine criteria that the plane Department employed to evaluate industrial areas across all of Durham County and you can see those nine criteria at the top of the slide I think it's vital for the city counil to know that this 2020 industrial land use study evaluated 179 sites across all of Durham County
the site for this annexation for Palmer Edge is one of the top five sites in Durham County out of the 179 that were evaluated and this site is very important to Durham's Economic Development when we look at the new job opportunities for Durham residents that have been approved by the city council over the past 3 years when I first started working in Durham in 1994 our only solid opportunities for economic development were RTP and tror Corporate Park while I worked hard on Industrial recruitment to RTP and tror and back in the 90s I realized that those good paying jobs were going pretty far away from the vast majority of Durham residents to help remedy that problem over the past 3 years it has been my privilege to work on developing job opportunities much closer to Durham residents the first one uh that I worked on was working with scel properties for around a 200 Acre Site at Junction and Ferell roads uh that also was a straight annexation that the council approved in August of 2021 and that site also had a 14 out of 14 score in the industrial
land use study about 6 months later in February 20 2022 uh also working with scel properties the council approved uh an industrial park at nc55 in Hopson Road and that was about about 235 Acres more recently uh about a year and a half ago in February 2023 the city council approved welcome Venture Park and that was 160 Acres located uh just east of bragtown uh that scored 11 out of 14 on the industrial uh in the industrial land use study and then of course the Parmer Edge site that we're talking about this evening fills in the last gap between the two scel property sites and that's 140 Acres zoned iil that has a perfect score lastly I wish to address some of the planning commission's comments on this annexation for this annexation Parmer had to Annex all 183 Acres that it owns from the East End connector down to Glover Road my belief is that this annexation fills in one of the most
prominent doughnut holes existing in Durham today Parmer had to Annex all 183 Acres that it owns in order to comply with policy 165 as shown in this slide from your staff report that is policy 165 of the new comprehensive plan some members of the Planning Commission thought that annexing the RR zone property would be used as leverage for some future rezoning I do not think that's a realistic objection because Parmer Parmer Edge is not a single family home builder and we have no intention of becoming one the 140 Acres that has the perfect score in the 2020 industrial land you study is so large it'll take Parmer probably 10 years to build out this business park in addition Parmer will be dedicating a good portion of the RR zoned property as RightWay for the pedig Street extension and so in conclusion the math is simple you take a great developer Parmer Edge you add a great site one of the top five out of
179 in Durham County and you have a great annexation with that we respectfully ask for your approval our team will be happy to answer any questions you you may have and we thank you for your time tonight thank you very much I have one speaker Carolyn m Mr Mayor is that Mrs ryles yes yeah I I think she left um I gave her my business card uh we met her during this process uh she's interested in access to city sewer and I gave her my business card and said our team be happy to meet with her later this week at her convenience uh to look at uh where we think the sewer lines would go for this uh annexation if we're fortunate not to have fortunate enough to win your approval and then we'll evaluate if uh it's possible for uh Mr and Mrs RS to uh
connect to that so I gave her my business card sir all right those are all of the speakers I have signed up colleagues are any questions for any of the speaker well for the speaker all right no I need to close the yeah I know something is out of line based on how council member cook looks at me so uh at this time I'll declare the public hearing closed I'm sorry yeah Ione question sorry yeah let me uh declare close and then we'll okay no I'm sorry yes go ahead yes sir thanks Mr Baker can you just one thing I was wondering about can you confirm so the transit accessibility given this is largely as industrial site these would be jobs closer into the city of Durham right sir so what's the what's the transit connectivity to this site currently You' probably have to re you'd have to use I believe it's route two that goes down Andre Avenue we'd have to evaluate how to modify that I was
fortunate enough to be the chairman of the durm area transit authority I believe I I believe route two was implemented while I was the chairman and it runs all the way from downtown to Brier Creek we'd have to figure out a way to uh use the pedigree Street Extension to to bring that bus that bus route through this site but it's certainly uh the good news is the bus runs on Andre Avenue parallel to the railroad tracks you just have to figure out a way to either come down Ellis or Glover in order to access these jobs yes sir thank you any other questions all right do we have all right uh yeah go ahead I just want to make sure that staff can share those slides that was shared this evening this one it was going a little fast yeah oh we have them and we' be happy to share them with
the council thank you may appro thank you Mr Mayor thank you colleagues thank you uh for the presentation I um this this this hole has been in our city for a long time uh that that piece of land it's been uh in its current state for a long time I um and I I read the Planning Commission comments with with with great interest and actually found them uh quite intriguing and had actually taken pause for a moment but I I I don't I don't I don't think anybody in the city that's been looking at this land ever thought this was going to be anything but in not withstanding the fact that that those 40 acres was Z are are um it it it it so you I think this is a good project and particularly for where that land is I think the the redundancy and Engineering terms of our power grid is absolutely essential particularly with what we're seeing in other parts of our state um so I don't I the the notion
that the this company is going to change its DNA um all all of a sudden and and and build mansions in the middle of this industrial project to me I I don't just I don't find that compelling um I think it's a good project it it's long overdue to to get this this hole in our city uh filled um it's a direct translation and uh and I'm I was curious as to whether or not it could be carved out the 40 acres could be carved out but even if it were with what's going next door I I don't did this as I you know as I said I think most of us that have been deserving this piece of land over the years always assumed that would be an industrial use uh for that particular uh parcel of land that particular hole in our city so I'm supporting this project thank you Mr Mayor thank you any other uh yeah council member Baker yeah a couple questions for staff um my first question is H just looking at a place type map um this is pull this up again designated on the
playsite map as the portions north of I 85 I 885 are General industrial and south are mixed use neighborhood did you have any analysis on changing it from mixed use neighborhood to light industrial I mean there's a lot of light industrial it's at a in the intersection of 885 14 I mean there's a lot of industrial uses in this area there are a lot of industrial uses area we did look at this not just my team but overall as a department as well with uh Scott Whitman's team over in community planning and we did just feel that this there are still some um development opportunities in the in the residentially zone portion um as well as elsewhere in that if you look at the larger mixed use neighborhood we want to somehow still try to figure out how to connect all of that and so we did want to keep the mixed use designation for the entire area so that so that's interesting so you you want the this the staff analysis
is to to keep the current Place type correct which would be which would make this zoning inconsistent with with that well it's already zoned General industrial they're not asking for a change in I mean they're as technically they're asking for a change in the zoning because it's going to city jurisdiction but they're not asking for a change in the underlying zoning so we don't feel that it is necessarily inconsistent with the place type to leave the existing zoning we knew what that that zoning was there prior to the adoption of the comprehensive plan and prior to the placement of the mixed use neighbor neighorhood designation on that um and what we don't want to do is necessarily change all of that to General industrial and make a our recommendation is not to make a policy decision to remove the desire for a mixed use neighborhood in that area in the future okay so all right um thank you for
that my second question oh um so the the developer um the applicant uh showed U policy in the comprehensive plan um and used that policy um to justify the additional annexation of RR what I I didn't I didn't actually see that policy do you know which policy he was refering he referring to policy 165 which says that we shouldn't have any dut but essentially it's it's very long essentially comes down to we shouldn't have any dnut holes cuz that annexing those doesn't add doesn't remove any donnut holes from what I can tell that that was not my interpretation either um my understanding when the when the application was originally submitted was those were needed in order to have um infrastructure running from Glover Road and from the north um for a development of this size you
likely need at least two if not multiple um points of access for the water and sewer I'm not a water or sewer engineer I cannot explain it beyond that other than what the smart folks at Public Works tell me they need um and in order to have all of that infrastructure within the city jurisdiction it needed to be annexed into the city is it I just want to is there a reason why um you felt that that was that would make it inconsistent with the comp with that policy and the comprehensive plan this certainly the way I read the policy uh council member Baker and we thought it was important for the annexation of Palmer Edge to come down to Glover Road where it uh uh ties into Ellis Crossing and so that makes it contiguous on the south as well as on the North and on the East and the West is to make sure that we've got contiguity with the city limits in all four directions so it it ties inas Crossing to the South okay uh I'm not sure that
I'm looking at it the same way um I I think I understand that this the desire for for the place type consistency I also think and I I don't like to break from the place types um but I also think that this is an area that could be appropriate um for for this kind this kind of zoning this kind of use um particularly I mean there's you know freeways are an industrial use I mean it's emitting it's emitting um a lot of noise it's it's creating a lot of noise and it's emitting a lot of toxins into the into the air and so it's good to have uh industrial uses I think in in those kinds of places um I I actually find the Planning Commission comments very compelling um I I don't know why the RR was included um and it's if it were just a small amount
I I would I would maybe look past it the fact that it's 40 acres does make me un uncomfortable so I guess one more question to the staff is is there any way of because I want to I want to approve the the resoning but is there any way of removing that portion so again it's it's an annexation direct translational annexation they're not asking for a change the zoning um I would I would actually defer to the city attorney's office about the ability to kind of you know approve annexation of a portion of what was asked for is that is that essentially what you're asking that is what I'm asking for can we can we approve everything that is light industrial not being the primary yeah we would need to research this like I'm not going to answer that okay the dis all right well there's an attorney who has looked at this matter extensively but she's not here this evening and those questions if we could receive them
in advance meeting that would be really helpful yeah it just occurred to me now um all right well I have I have heartburn there I think this is otherwise an appropriate zoning district and appropriate use for this area I don't love being inconsistent with the place type map I really don't but um just analyzing the area look seeing that it is already currently Zone light industrial it's surrounded by light industrial I think that's appropriate um other than that I do have heartburn around annexing the RR zoning council member Freeman thank you I I would like to he from that attorney is it possible cuz I would also like to review the slides that were shared um I was trying to keep up and I was noticing a lot of fingers
and I just didn't see that for this area but um it would be nice to have more information um I don't disagree with the light industrial but if it's possible to have more information that's always better more information from the city attorney's office yeah well just specifically on if the like for the specific area that council member Baker is talking about if it's possible to limited to just the the areas outside of the RR that would be helpful again another attorney analyzed this item if but that wasn't a question that was posed that's all it it wasn't I I am not prepared to answer the question here tonight without conferring with her so I'm happy to look into that with her and get back to the Council on that question and would you say that would take like a day or three days not even yeah I it
would just take me having an opportunity to discuss this issue with her and if it were possible to ask this um applicant to hold just for that it's the pleasure of the council to defer the item now that the public hearing's been um I guess the public has been closed so it's the pleasure of the council in that regard I mean just one cycle just to hear back would wouldn't that is at the discretion of the Council of course right I would just be talking to my colleagues and saying if you would so the public hearing has been closed mayor Pro councilman Freemore you finished I was just G just going to say it's really just a matter of knowing whether we could hold some space for residential or not and that was all Mr Mayor thank thank you and thank you colleagues um I want to thank the City attorney for her usual judiciousness and approaching this um there are some
lawyers in the room and the applicant has their own lawyers and I don't work for Parmer that they were free to break this up if they wanted when they submitted their application um they did their due diligence they looked at the rule which they thought was applicable and submitted this before us I I I don't think it's the council's business to be in the business of of picking and choosing or charry picking which part of of of an application we want to approve and and then defer on others I think we should treat it as it comes before us let their lawyers do what they do uh uh and let them bring their best case before us with that said I I think and I and listen I I appreciate council member Baker's heartburn because I I shared some of it as well but I think there's there's kind of an organic logic to these things if if if the rest of that land becomes industrial Light then that is going to affect what's going to go next door to it um and I I as I said before I think
the trajectory that was the the common trajectory that folk that have been looking at this piece of land for a long time is that it was going to be mainly industrial Light once that whatever rest of the Acres minus the 40 acres what's put there will very much set up the character and context for what goes next to it and I think it's going to affect the market as well who's going to want to live that close to to the industrial Light project that goes there and moreover what that project will determine the character and will very much if it were all you know residential Ro would be one thing but the the line share is industrial Light I am you know I'm comfortable with casting a vote tonight again I do not want to get into the business of recommending to developers more time to tweak per our capriciousness or per our whatever vote it up vote it down but our job is to vote their job is to bring their their aame um I'm comfortable with this and with and I and I take very
seriously the um the concerns raised by the the the Planning Commission but it my reading is that the Crux of the concern is at best speculative at worst conspiratorial um I do however have the form a company with a track record with DNA and if they want to make crazy business decisions about you know putting housing next to an industrial Light you know park that's their business but but what is before us tonight I think is it's a direct translation um direct translations are direct translations um I'm comfortable with voting tonight thank you Mr Mayor yeah go ahead thank you I guess I have a question for the applicant um the the acreage that's the rural residental isn't that also where the road easement is going to come through so it's not even 44 Acres correct correct can you bring up that slide and council member Freeman the slides have hit our email I'm sorry council member Freeman our the PowerPoint slides that they were
sharing have hit our email now sorry I overshot the runway there there you go yeah you can see the purple line um as it as it approaches Glover Road um essentially goes through that RR zoning we would have to dedicate uh efficient right of way for two travel Lanes two bike Lanes the sidewalks um so uh of the our our zoning it's it's uh difficult to estimate but obviously a large swath right out of the middle of it is going to be pedig grer extension thank you um I understand why Planning Commission you know had some questions around that and I get why some of my my colleagues have questions around that but for me it was pretty much the road dedication kind of really limits what you would be able to put there anyway um especially if it's going to get built which which we want to Durham city standards uh that is a much better standard than what you see uh on ncdot roads or in other communities and
so I think some of the residential we've approved um the connectivity to that to jobs the there is a bus I understand there may have to be some reconfiguration on that bus line but it is moving us again to that idea of of a 15minute city not tomorrow but that's the that's the vision of the comprehensive plan it's a long-term plan and and I think approving this gets us a lot closer to that Vision so I will be voting yes thank you all right I um many of the comments that I had have been shared um so I will there no are there any other comments colleagues all right I'll now entertain a motion I'll now entertain a motion to adopt an ordinance and exing Parmer Edge into the city of Durham and authorize
and to authorize the city manager to enter into a utility extension agreement with Parmer Edge LC m is red second it's been been moved and properly second it I'm Madam clerk please open the vote please close the vote and the motion passes 5 to2 with council members Baker and Freeman voting no all right thank you uh motion two to adopt an ordinance amending the UniFi development ordinance by taking property out of the industrial Light and residential role County jurisdiction and establishing the same as industrial Light residential Ro City jurisdiction m is red second M and properly second please open and vote please close to vote and the motion passes 5-2 with council members Baker and Freeman voting
8 acres and located at 1503 Camden Avenue the current zoning is industrial and industrial Light the applicant proposes to change this designation to Industrial for the entire parcel to allow for an expansion of the IND existing industrial use the properties are currently
designated General industrial and Recreation and open space on the place type map the proposed industrial zoning is generally consistent with the general Industrial Place type the Creation in open space place typ is on the Northern portion of the site and essentially uh encompasses what is the current existing flood plane and is a small area of the parcel thank you staff and the applicant are available to answer any questions thank you are there any questions for staff have one question um Mr Kane there were some comments by by BAC um about trail trail access in this ra area so can you can you just clarify for me it sounds like the rail trail or the rockboro trail are kind of going through the areas seems like there's a lot of Trail activity so can you just clarify that yeah I can clarify as best I can I may need to defer to the applicant for for some of their response to the bpac comments um the trail is not yet constructed on that site it is a future
Trail so my recollection is that the uh bpac suggested that the applicant construct the trail and then also provide bike parking and think bike maintenance station and so forth on the site um applicant basically said they're not willing to um uh acceed to that offer uh to that request because this is an industrial site in which you want limited access and you don't necessarily want people you accessing a heavy industrial site right I guess my question was more like where those in relation to this parcel like where those TR oh oh okay so if you look if you look at the map and you'll see on the western portion of the parcel what looks like just kind of a long what no not that one okay uh you'll see what looks like a long right of way along the western parcel that's essentially it the the future rail trail would essentially be on the western boundary of this particular parcel it's IM it's pretty much immediately adjacent and isn't is also the Roxboro
Trail is that also in this area the which it's not Roxboro it's Rocky Rock I don't think that's roxor no it's not it's not yeah it it's not the Roxboro rail trail it's it's another one and and I'm not remembering off top my head which one that is yeah okay bpack comments do reference the roxb rail trail I don't I don't believe it is I don't believe that's correct yeah Dev yeah the developer can answer that that's all I have have some questions later about this but I'll that's it for now yes uh council member kabora thank you I have a question for
staff is this the second expansion did we not have them in front of us a couple years ago they or maybe they were okay I'm going to see if I can find the case okay yeah no I don't remember that now it might have been 2018 2019 I was in transportation then so Sarah do you sorry Aon sorry okay and I don't know if it's the same company or they were taking over an old concrete site or something yeah Sarah Young there was another case I can look it up and try and find it I can I can see if I can find it okay I'm just curious if it's the same folks or not thanks also one last question Mr Mayor so um either Miss Young or Mr Kane so I I know that um it's just a zoning map change right where that the applicant is asking for so like so the applicant can't make commitments I guess I'm just wondering about the sort of comments from bpac it like if they can't make commitments what are we what what's the well they they cannot that's true there
is no development of plan Associated this what we call a general reone they're just asking to go to Industrial for the entire parcel a portion of it is already industrial the the Eastern portion of it is not it is industrial life they're asking for the whole parcel to be industrial which would allow them to develop um amongst the uh within the standards of the Udo and all uses that are allowed under the industrial zoning District um there is no development plan so they cannot commit so even if they did want to commit to the bpac requests they could not at this time when this application was originally submitted it did have a development plan and during the review process the applicant withdrew the development plan and decided to go to a general resoning I wasn't part of that portion of the review process I cannot tell you uh maybe the applicant can as to why they made that decision so again so they they can't they cannot make commitments they cannot make commitments no so those would be potentially at a later Point site plan or something at site plan they
could certainly incorporate any of those requests from bpac um that they might wish to do uh there would be no requirement for them to do any of those okay thanks all right uh if there are no more questions for staff I will go ahead and open this public hearing up and hear from the applicant how much time do you think you need six minutes all right put six minutes on [Applause] please all right good evening mayor Williams mayor protim Middleton members of the city council I'm nil G with the Morning Star Law Group at 700 West Main Street and thank you Mr Kane for the presentation I am representing the applicant for this project and for what it's worth this is part one of what will be a multi-part project um in general this area is very industrial and this
piece of property also is very industrial it has been used for asphalt or concrete production since at least the early '90s but the company which originally started operating in this area um had operations on adjacent property since 1931 this was basically a whole industrial car about since then and as I mentioned it still is today being used industrially um the parcel currently is split zoned it is both it zon both industrial and light industrial we are seeking to unify the zoning on this parcel to to all industrial um what they are hoping to do here is to establish a new concrete plant on the portion of the site currently zoned light industrial when we originally filed we started out as a development plan rezoning for uh for the portion of the site zoned light industrial as we worked through that review process it became clear that there were some challenges with trying to establish a d plan on a portion of an existing property so we switch to a general use rezoning another the reason
we thought that a general use resoning would be okay here is because that the intended use will require us to come back to the council uh for approval of a major special use permit council member uh cavier you mentioned another case kind of in this area it is the property directly across the train tracks from this it is not the same company but it is right here and that that came before you as a major special use permit and that's also what will happen here um and I know you all recently heard a major special use permit so I think you're familiar with that process uh the point is that you know at at that stage we'll have much more information about the design of the project we can talk more about some of these the rail trail that type of thing um at this point we're just seeking to get the zoning and then we can go into a uh site plan process that site plan cannot be approved until we are issued the major special use permit which would be at a hearing in front of you all so we'll have a lot more information at the time and be able to make you different commitments we'll just know a lot more at at that time uh
basically the existing plant on the site it's old uh there are more efficient and cleaner Technologies now so it behooves the owners to get a new plant up and running uh the old plant can remain in production while the new one is being insulted and once the new one is up they would dismantle and take that old one offline um as I mentioned we have more approvals to go uh the zoning is just the first part in my estimation this probably is best location in Durham for the use given that the same exact use already exist on the parcel like 200t away um and this is today and historically has been used and and uh is an industrial area um and allowing an existing use to upgrade its facilties so that they are cleaner and more efficient I think that just makes kind of all the sense in the world so I'm happy to answer any questions you might have and I thank you for your time thank you it's the only sign up I have for this
case so I will now declare the public hearing closed and back before the council colleagues are there any questions yeah yeah Mr Mayor yeah Mr go just one one question or just one comment and this may come this may come later but I just wanted to um put this out there so I I did talk to the bpack folks I know another developer chose not to accept their comments now they can't make commitments with this resoning but I think the intent just so you know I think the intent was not to have you know bikers recreational folks on this property I think because the property is adjacent to where the trail is going to be it would be to build a bike uh bike shelter whatever to to improve the sort of to improve the quality of the trails that that we're building around Durham it's that's really the intent to that it's not to have people traversing the property I just want to let you know that so as we come back to this we'd love to have further conversations about what that might look like so let me just say a couple things about that um the reason that we switch from a development plan to General use re zoning has nothing to do with the rail trail there are a lot of issues that are associated with it and we recognize that all of
those issues are going to have to be answered at time of site plan and that the site plan cannot be approved until we're back in front of you all for the major special use permit so basically we said look we're going to have to answer all these questions anyway if we even get that far down the road we're just go to General use and then we'll be back in front of this council with respect to the rail trail um I we would love to have more conversation with BAC about it at the appropriate time the way we understood it though was that they were looking for like a bicycle repair facility um somehow adjacent to the trail and our understanding was that they were looking for it kind of like out on the road the problem with that is this side it's an unusual parcel and it's accessed from one specific location this is an active industrial site um if that's the location they're looking for for bike repair it's just not going to work we've got you know they they've got trucks coming in and out here uh all the the time now if there is another location uh you know kind of adjacent to the rail I'm sorry yeah to the rail
trail um that can be that you know where this type of facility can go that doesn't directly interfere with like where the trucks are coming in and out well I think that would be a much more viable occasion but like I said at time of site plan at time of major special use permit be a great time to have that conversation I look forward that with yeah exactly I look forward to that yeah thank you if I could just uh address the question you had about this being the rockware rail trail so you know we as staff kind of think of this is is two different phases so it is if you think of the whole thing all the way up to Person County it is portion of that rockboro trail rail trail it is not the portion the city currently owns it is a portion that is still owned by the railroad at this time so that would make another difficulty for trying to commit to things that are currently owned by the railroad but again it is part of the long range plan for that part of the long range plan for that yes to eventually acquire that to eventually make that a trail that goes all the way to um Person County into rockboro there's a lot of interesting interesting
sort of connections here so thank you absolutely all right well thank you one moment please all right uh so I'll now entertain a motion to adopt an ordinance amending the unified development ordinance by taking property out of industrial Light industrial false Jordan Watershed protection overlay District B and establishing the same as industrial false Jordan Watershed protection overlay District B move is red second I apologize mayor before we vote could I ask one more question I'm sorry I just yes Aon thank you I just I wanted to clarify just one one thing which was that we did just do our quasi judicial hearing and that would be the same process that we would use for a major special use permit yes is correct my understanding of the Jud of the Quasi judicial process was that we were tasked
with either finding or not finding that the qualifications had been met at that time we did not have any ability to talk about the site plan that was or have additional propers made is that true I'm not very familiar be might be an attorney question might be a director young question um she's more familiar with that process than I am your St whoever wants to answer it is fine I'd defer Kim if if you'd rather handle it in a in a QJ hearing you are answering designated I believe there are six criteria is that so there are I think there are four findings of fact and then 13 review factors right so typically while you cannot um it's not a profer situation however it is a situation where an applicant is hopefully going to do their best and go
above and beyond minimum ordinance requirements to ensure that they're successfully demonstrating that they're meeting all those criteria um right yeah and uh in front of the board of adjustment the same you know it's a minor special use permit goes to board of adjustment uh conditions of approval are pretty standard for any uh special use permit at the board of adjustment and there is no law that I'm aware of that would prevent conditions of approval for a major special use permit at the city council level it's the same process the the other difference is that because it's quasi judicial there's no expart communication so you cannot talk about the case with theant with anyone else yeah that's exactly the point I was going to bring up and I just wanted to I mean I'm not saying it sways me either way but I do feel like we're talking about this this next step as though we're going to have the ability to to have a conversation about these bpack asks because the site plane will come back in front of us but the Quasi judicial hearing doesn't really allow for that conversation in the same way
that something like a like if we had a development plan and we were able to talk about propers that's a different conversation we can have exp parte meetings that's it's just a different system than the Quasi judicial system so I just am pointing that out cu I don't want it to sound like I'm not saying either way but I I don't want it to sound like that's sort of a substitute for having a development plan in front of us that's all I if I could respond I mean I would encourage you to just go look at the board of adjustment I think it's the only difference is all of those conversations would have to take place at the hearing but those conversations certainly are had that I mean that's the only difference with xart communication there are I mean I've been parts of uh special use permit approvals where we've added conditions based off the discussion that was happening at the hearing it's pretty Common Place do you remember the option that
you could approve something with conditions that that is what attorney go is talking about all right well there's there's a motion on the floor uh it's been moved and probably second it Madam clerk I'll ask that you uh please open the vote please close it and the motion passes unanimously thank you very much and motion two to adopt a consistency statement as required by North Carolina General statute section 160d d605 move is red second move and properly second it Madam cler please open the vote please close the vote and the motion passes unanimously thank you and final Cas for tonight item number 21 zoning map change Duke central campus Edition welcome thank you Mr Mayor a request for a zoning map change
50 s acres and located just west of downtown Durham the current zoning is office institutional often an Institutional with a development plan commercial General commercial General with a development plan residential Urban multif Family commercial neighborhood compact design core with a development plan University and college and university and college with a development plan the applicant proposes to change this designation to University and college with a with a graphic development plan for all Parcels to allow for future college and institutional uses this case was previously heard on August 19th 2024 and was continued to today's meeting at the request of Council in response to requests from Council Members the applicant has provided several additional documents which have been included in your agenda packet the public hearing remains
open thank you for that report we will uh are there any questions from staff for staff I'm sorry all right we'll uh hear from the applicant the public hearing is open still sorry am I supposed to do something to get this on the screen contr l contrl l contr l that should give you see I knew I remember you talking about it earlier so uh and thank you Mr Kane for your presentation how long oh how long probably like 20 minutes maybe longer we got some things to talk about are you serious I yeah okay all right but thank you Mr K for your presentation on this matter and good evening again I guess I'm here all night
Neil G with the Morning Star Law Group um I'm representing Duke University on this resoning request and also with me tonight from duke is Mr Adam gusa who is the director of planning and Design who you'll hear from in a bit I mean you might recall that this item came before you uh in August we requested a continuance at that time in part because Mr guso was out of the country and in any event we did receive some feedback from many of you at that hearing and since that hearing so uh we're hoping to address some of those things that we heard and I'm going to turn it over to Adam to kick us off Adam if you would thank you Neil and uh good evening mayor Williams uh mayor proen Middleton and the council members uh as Neil mentioned I'm ADM gusa director of planning and design at Duke University thank you for this opportunity I look forward to any questions uh you may have at the end of the presentation um the university college zoning category um was created for Duke and NC Central uh roughly 20
years ago um the primary benefit of the UC is that it allows for Planning and Zoning elements such as storm water parking side walks tree coverage to be considered holistically at the campus scale rather than on each individual building site so a developer would normally have to solve these issues on each individual parcel um being developed but the UC allows campuses to zoom out and take a broader perspective on these issues so Duke has purchased several contiguous Parcels over the years that are not zoned UC and that we'd like to take advantage of the UC zoning category 4 consistency and to take advantage of the ability to plan better at the campus scale so as part of this process we've submitted development plans and our illustrative master plan which I'll talk about shortly so the UC District allows for uses that are described in the Udo use chart that you see on the screen there
this is just a sampling of the types of permitted uses um generally they're the types of uses you'd expect to see on a college campus so things such as educational facilities uh Laboratories and research facilities dorms dining Halls hospitals and medical facilities parks and Open Spaces conferences places of worship and small scale retail the map shows the map in front of you shows the existing UC districts that do currently has in green blue yellow and orange and the 10 Parcels in Brown that we own and are seeking to get added to the UC District specifically into the central campus UC District which is orange uh as you can see they are contiguous to campus and almost like small islands of non UC surrounded by UC so this is really like an infill strategy to allow better planning uh in order for us to plan properly it would be a significant benefit to incorporate
these 10 Parcels into the UC to better tie the parcels in with the rest of the campus so one thing to note here is that we're not proposing any changes to the existing UC districts uh with the rezoning of these 10 Parcels they they remain as is so this is our current master plan our illustrative master plan in front of you and just graphically speaking the buildings that are beige are existing and the ones that are sort of that orangish terracotta color are being proposed so when we superimpose the 10 Parcels that we're seeking to get rezoned um you can see that we have no plans for the 10 sites that were requesting uh for rezoning in addition the area generally uh commonly referred to as central campus also has no current plans so what we would expect is a significant public engagement process on all of the above if and when the time
comes for the future development of central campus you know we look forward to to reframing uh our relationship with the city of Durham moving forward uh in the spirit of transparency and collaboration if and when the time comes to develop these parcels and central campus to turn it over to nil for some additional information and context thanks Adam I I I thought it might be useful to give some background on some of the technical components of this request uh because I recognize this is not the type of thing you see every month um I want to jump back to this slide that's in front of you to um help illustrate some of those components the Dem already mentioned we've got 10 Parcels shown in brown which are the subjects of the rezoning request the other colors on the map represent the existing but distinct UC zoning districts uh they're distinct in the sense that they were approved separately from one another but as a Dem mentioned under the Udo all property Zone UC can be planned together so what exactly are we doing in this request basically we're
turning the brown Parcels orange obviously there's more to it than that we did have extensive conversations with staff about this over three years ago uh to determine the appropriate method and process for this rezoning uh we ran through many options including potentially filing uh 10 separate rezoning cases one for each parcel um trying to reone everything on this map at once ultimately what we decided um was that it made sense to add the parcels into an existing and contiguous UC District at the same time we wanted to be sure that doing so would not mean we would have to relitigate so to speak um all of the commitments and aspects of the existing UC District that was approved way back when and negotiated with the you know with the community um and that's how staff indicated that we should go about this resoning request all of the existing commitments would remain applicable to the existing UC district and any new commitments would be added to the parcels uh that are
being added the brown Parcels so the zoning of parcels not shown in brown on this map is not changing in any material way we have preserved the existing commitments of the existing central campus D plan those previous commitments will continue to apply to everything already shown in Orange uh I will say we have updated the language on some of those commitments to match today's lingo for example we changed PIN numbers to Reids we updated page references um things like that but they are materially the same conditions that were negotiated 17 years ago another thing that this slide shows is that these Parcels are scattered Duke has acquired these Parcels separately over the years in their regular course uh this wasn't any targeted plan to acquire the specific Parcels for any reason in fact Duke owns several Parcels other Pro properties in the city which are not Zone UC which also are not part of the resoning request this request generally speaking is limited to Parcels that Duke owns that are also along the periphery of the existing UC districts you you also will
notice that these Parcels are nested with in um existing UC Zone properties so this essentially like a infill rezoning and in fact many of these Parcels already are in use as part of the campus today Duke just wants to add them into the fold of the UC Zone um you've heard that Duke does not have any specific plans for these Parcels at this time which I know is a little bit confusing why rezone if you don't have plans for anything um but I think that actually is kind of the point it's a bit of a chicken and egg scenario when it comes to UC zoning and it goes back to what I said earlier which is campus-wide planning the driving reason for Duke or Central for that matter to rezone to UC before they have specific plans for the parcels is that the way the parcel can be developed will depend greatly on whether it is zoned UC I'll give you an example uh here's a picture of 300 Alexander which is the previous location of the International House at Duke that parcel is part of this resoning request
it currently is zoned oi high but it is surrounded by properties owned by Duke that already are zoned UC as a result and you can see this in the photo this parcel had its own driveway and parking lot that literally is beside another driveway that goes to a different parking lot on property Zone UC without UC zoning this parcel cannot really be integrated into the design of the overall campus though it still clearly is useful to the university this explains why in the midst of rezoning Duke does not have any plans for these parcels and also why the parcels are not shown with any proposed development on the illustrative master plan let me also point out the impracticality of a university having to wait until it has solid plans for a parcel to then enter what at this point is a more than three-year process to rezone those Parcels you know at that point you might as well not have the UC District on the books because that entirely eliminates the campus wide planning concept uh
which brings me to another point this District was created more than 15 years ago um with very careful consideration from elected officials the community the planning staff and of course the area's educational institution um the UC district has built in protections for adjacent properties the transitional use area is a concept that was created for the UC District it controls not only the use but designed along the periphery of the UC district 150 ft wide to provide relief to potentially incompatible Properties or adjacent properties also want to point out some of the key items specific to this resoning process we had our initial pre-application meeting with staff in March of 2021 we've engaged in robust Community engagement continuously since then I think some of these HOAs probably have a Dem on speed dial at this point um with with the number of times that they've met um and we understand that there may be questions and we definitely understand that there are challenges you might think that the UC is an perfect
zoning district and I would venture to Guess that Duke probably would say the same thing but I will say there is not a more sensible district for Duke to request here after all this is what the district was created for all that having been said I do want to turn the floor over back to ADM since our last meeting we have provided some additional supplemental materials that are included in your agenda packet hopefully you've had a chance to look at those these were offered in response to some of the feedback that you all gave and ADM is going to uh touch on a few of those things thanks n so um one of the recurring themes you've heard this evening is that we have no current plans for any of the parcels or central campus but when the time comes to develop those sites uh we have a lot of things uh guidelines framework plans Etc to help frame and guide whatever comes out on those Parcels so what you have in front of you here is our Master planning principles these help to guide planning decisions on campus the ones that we've bolded
have a direct sort of physical correlation to the campus just want to call out a few of them there uh Duke is a pedestrian campus this speaks to the walkable nature of being on a college campus and something that we uh encourage and and invest in uh Duke as a leader in environmental stewardship speaks to our commitment to sustainability which I'll talk about uh in a little bit and also Duke as a university in the forest we very much value our our tree canopy uh and don't like to clear-cut sites when it comes to development um because we like to plan holistically at the campus level we zoom out we look at things such as Remnant Woodlands the network of designated uh Landscapes recreational areas and stream corridors as a way to also inform where future development can occur and where buildings should be placed in addition to that Neil also mentioned uh the regul regulated zones whether it be buffers uh or existing Duke uh recognized conservation zone so all of this is factored into campus-wide planning and
part of why we'd like to get those 10 Parcels uh in the UC so I mentioned uh sustainability so what we've done is we've developed our own inhouse sustainability standards called the high performance building framework uh and in a lot of ways like uh the industry standard is lead and in a lot of ways this goes far beyond lead lead tends to focus on an individual building on a site almost like a get an island onto itself but what we've done is we've uh developed this high performance building framework which recognizes the Investments we've made on campus-wide infrastructure such as storm water such as chilled water such as hot water plants and it really focuses on reduction in energy consumption reduction in water usage and life cycle cost so the table of contents is on your right there uh and again this is part of the materials that were uh sent to you in advance and all of our buildings are held to these standards uh when it comes to new
construction uh in addition to that we have guidelines that help to Define uh the look and feel of buildings on campus uh we developed our own in-house architectural design guidelines uh these address things such as scale such as proportionality such as materials recognizing that uh Duke has a lot of different characters whether it's East Campus or west campus or our athletic campus and we need to make sure that new construction fits in with the context of what's there so again we hold our uh consultant teams responsible uh for implementing these design guidelines when it comes to new construction on campus and central campus would be no District uh different and neither with the 10 uh Parcels that are being considered this evening uh it's not all about the buildings though in a lot of ways the landscape is the sort of like binding element that ties everything together together and so we've developed our own landscape character guidelines they speak to you know Hardscape soft case uh
softscape uh environments signage uh materiality just you know taking it a step further zooming out from the the building level uh and one thing that I wanted to to close on here is um this proposed bike Improvement uh that we're putting on the table so we are aware that the city of Durham uh is going to be investing in pedestrian and bike improvements along fton up to hillindale all the way up to 85 uh so we'd like to leverage that investment and um create a dedicated uh bike lane at the time that we developed these sites uh that would bring people along Pratt and then essentially tie into the abandoned rail line that we have on campus they used to bring trains in uh with coal to our coal plant uh which was decommissioned many years ago uh and that portion of the the uh abandoned rail line was developed into what's called The Pedestrian Esplanade uh it's very uh highly used uh by the campus environment but it
terminates at Irwin road so we're proposing that uh we take advantage of the signalized intersection at Irwin and emergency drive and then continue that Esplanade to the north uh where it would be a bike lane and then cross at Elba Street where there's already a flashing Beacon and then tie into uh the Pratt Street Network so again just trying to leverage safety and security and existing infrastructure there and recognizing the investment uh that the city is making along fton uh and hillindale uh so with that said um open it up to any questions comments we look forward to the dialogue thank you for your time thank you so much so we heard from Neil go we had ADM uh the other speaker I have signed up is Mimi
kler my name is Mimi Kesler good evening again so you may not have plans for this property but I do um I think that we should be asking Duke to parti ipate in supplying housing for the workforce that is the hourly people who work at Duke and in Durham and I would like you to commit to working with the city to create that right there on Irwin Road and your employees can walk to the hospital or they can walk to their jobs and I you know Duke's done a lot to expand uh business in Durham but nothing related to residential and I'd like you to to to participate in that um also Mr Kane this the the number wasn't on your
write up again you know what I'm talking about the case number thank you thank you so much Mr Kesler okay well those are do you need to respond um so Duke University has been looking at um the code and and is in particular excited about the Udo rewrite um the comment that was just mentioned about residential uh the ability for any University so duke or s to build residential housing on property own UC well it doesn't exist um the UC District doesn't really allow for residential allows for student housing and allows for staff housing I think is is the term I always get it wrong but um it does not allow for you know just like General
housing um and I think that Duke is probably very interested in the Udo rewrite trying to provide some opportunities to actually create the entitlement to to provide residential housing uh I think they recognize like probably many of you that they a lot of people who work at dup that live in Durham and there's only you know and they can't actually provide housing for those folks so um that equation is maybe a little lopsided but I I guess I would say the concern is noted thank you thank you so I don't have any other speakers signed up but this time I will declare the public hearing closed and back before the council colleagues are there any questions for the applicants council member Freeman really is for staff I just want to know the slides um are also available thank
you and then I can ask my questions um hold on one second Tech we have a little feedback okay good I appreciate the plant and I appreciate you being here this evening to share some of that update um I did want to ask just uh one question I'm not sure if it's staff or if it's if it's for you but um in the process of I guess adding the J Hotel on Duke's campus what what did that process entail I guess to get that done because it's inside the U see um um zoning so let me answer the question this way and I recognize this might not be what you're asking but overnight accommodations hotels is a permitted use okay uh in the UC district and that's that's that's enough okay so
just acknowledging that that's how it's set up I noticed that it was highlighted in the presentation for a Corrections Facility I'm assuming that Duke is not intending to build a corrections facility on campus but that's how tricky it is and trying to figure out where we're going with this and so I appreciate you being here tonight and sharing but if you could just make that clarifying point that would be more helpful could I get a clarification on where was where mentioned a Corrections Facility it's in the the list of uses for UC zoning and it's in the present oh I it is it is highlighted in the specific use but it is also if you'll look over to that column that's in purple yes it's not allow Correctional Facility is not allowed in UC District I'm not to be honest I don't know why it's highlighted yeah and I was trying to figure that out
too from the slide that I don't have so I just wanted to bear like this is I'm trying to see what those little I don't have 20y old eyes anymore but I'm trying to see what the little line means and the key and yeah I can't see all of that sorry yeah I can provide some more clarification on what this chart is showing no I understand what it's showing oh okay all right I couldn't see why it was highlighted yeah I I know why that's highlighted yeah okay that's a good point I I think that's just that there's a those are bolded on they a screenshot from the Udo from our website and those are bolded so that to indicate that they have a link and you can link to a definition within the udio from that it's it's not that highlight it's just bolded and that's how it's popping up in the font okay well I don't even have the font I just saw the slide all right thank you uh and then I had a another question uh I appreciate the example
explaining for 300 Alexander that's a really good point of how you could have additional too much impervious surface when it's not necessary and OPP opportunity to change that that's really helpful and then also the conservation areas is it just those three or there others uh we had that slide this one I think yeah so um we we do have identified uh conservation areas um that have been uh submitted and on file with the city um my slide looks like that yeah actually that's that's separate than what you're seeing on the screen there yeah that that's what's on file is sort of the minimum required for the campus but we generally go above and beyond that on a site because as I mentioned we don't generally clearcut uh sites when it comes to new development okay and I think this slide shows uh more than half of the property that Duke owns here is uh in some sort of green
area with about about half of it is Duke Forest I think that's correct yeah thank you that's all I have so Council M cook I just want to make sure that I'm understanding correctly this is a staff question I guess um that when we're hearing about the proposed bike Improvement there's no commitment that can be done here because we don't have right so in this case there can oh great this is a graphic development plan so they can do a commitment and Neil if you'll pull up that slide yeah and this is an additional commit and actually if you'll go ahead and state for the record so I'll just read it off here and let me also just state that the graphic is uh illustrative on here this is not on our graphic development plan but we do have this textual commitment that we would be adding we have already vetted this with staff since the last hearing um but not in time to be including your agenda packet so any site plan involving Reids
those Reids those three Reids shall include either so it's two options one a minimum 10ft wide shared path along the south side of Pratt Street from fton Street to elf Street and a minimum 10 foot wide shared path along the east side of Elf street from Pratt Street to Elba Street let me pause right there that is what the city originally requested so we're either doing that or we would do a minimum 5ot sidewalk in that same location in addition to a 10 foot wide exclusive bike facility connecting Pratt Street at Fulton Street to Irwin rout Irwin Road um and then we would not the way the condition is written we would not be able to get a certif certificate of compliance for new development on any of those Parcels until one of those two options is installed the picture here is actually from um plans that Duke has these are conceptual plans that Duke has uh drawn up U Adam did a great job explaining it so the dashed Green Line would represent
the 10- foot wide bicycle path um that takes advantage of existing like the flashing Beacon at Elba there's a crosswalk at Irwin this goes right into the uh pedestrian es Esplanade um so that's kind of the idea but to be clear that exact configuration is not the commitment but that's that's generally what their thinking is the commitment would be 10ft wide sidewalk as was originally requested or 5ft wide sidewalk plus a separate 10ft wide bike facility that would provide connection between pratton burwin sorry so the the crossing at the pre-existing crosswalks is not part of the that's where yeah correct that's not part of the commitment but that is part of the thinking that Duke would like to take advantage of that that that's our preferred routing we just haven't surveyed and done the detailed engineering yet but that's our preferred routing okay gotcha cuz yall don't want to build a new Crossing no exactly I don't want to build a new Crossing great
those are my questions thanks thank you council member Cav yeah thank you so um when I met with the applicant again after the continuance um I had the same question around Workforce housing and so that's when it was uh shared with me that that uh that they would be interested but it's not allowable use under under um UC so I guess the question becomes when when is that going to be an opportunity for us when we do the Udo rewrite to allow that use um for for UC um zoning that that would certainly be an opportunity for you to do that we are I believe tracking for um to begin the adoption process about a year from now um on the on the new on the new code yeah so I guess what I'm saying is where's the opportunity to I mean is this the opport to say now is now like does this let us know that that is something you're interested in and we
can work with with our consultant okay so that is something I'm interested in uh specifically because the applicant has said they are interested and they're clear that that that is a need and I can see that and I could imagine NC Central may also be interested in that I have another question and this is could you pull up the slide this is just me being curious this is nothing so it's Germaine in the sense of just kind of curiosity what is the difference between UC and UC D like what's the difference between the yellow and was was created uh without a development plan so that's just UC see all the other ones were created later with with a development plan perfect but they all are the same they're so they're all allowed under Udo to be considered jointly as one UC District there's also two UC districts there's one for Central one for Duke so yeah okay thank you U yeah I I figured that okay that was one question I was just curious about the bik Ling thing got uh answered I wanted to say thank you to the applicant for adding all of the additional Duke plans around sustainability and landscape
design and things like that because it does it did give us that kind of uh wide range or wide kind of um lens as to what yall are thinking so I just wanted to appreciate that and then the only other thing and y'all heard it in the thing would be are golf courses allowed on a UC District as it's currently and you you know I'm going to be stuck on this sorry I'm going to have to double check that one because that's not something we normally get asked um they're allow yeah I'm I'm I'm sure I'm sure they are uh parks and parks and open areas all parks and open areas um just looking for outdoor recreation golf courses are allowed yes okay so then I would just be curious if the applicant is interested in adding that as a restricted use uh that one um I understand why as a campus they would need all of the other amenities but that is one that I think we can all agree on
especially from your sust sustainability lens is not a sustainable option yeah you did preview this with us and um we have had an opportunity to meet with leadership Duke um Duke as you know already has a golf course it will not be going here we can eliminate Golf Course um as a use thank you would add that commitment yes yes we can I was wondering if you would consider putting a golf course there we would not I throw things I apologize wrist uh thank you Mr Mayor um thank you Mr go Dem for for being here and for certainly for the um the commitment to the building the path as you described it there in the Elba area um could you put up the slide with the rest the uses the UC uses again sure just for clarification this is just one Snapshot from the udio the the use table is much larger than this so this is a definitely an incomplete picture but
that's the slide we have so and I know we talked about this the last time in August but I know that that when there was the previous discussion about central campus a lot of the heartburn as I recall was around like retail right so so this would allow you to do Max 50,000 foot of retail uh that's that's correct that the UC District does allow for small scale retail and it does does it restrict that to C that kind of thing I mean is there any kind of how broad are we could you go on retail I guess book stores I like like textbooks I think is technically a different category for the UC there's General retails allowed at small scale in the UC so like a a restaurant I guess clothing store is allow small scale 50,000 ft Mr K is anything else in the in the UC designation that sort of that
speaks to any kind of additional sort of boundaries around retail not that I can think of but I'm I'm going to double check and I'll get back to you okay and and you are correct that was one of the main topics of consideration um 17 years ago when since central campus reson so that's built into the central campus resoning uh well in the UC District that's it's it's built into the district already so built in in what way uh it is how much retail and what kind of retail that is allowed in UC is already Limited in the Udo and that was part of what the community was negotiating at that time right so it's not it's not a special it's just part of it's now what's part of the udl right yes and that's that that's the 50,000 foot Max yep yeah the 50,000 foot Max I believe is in the Udo regs and um and that was as you said negotiated specifically by the
community what was the gentleman's name John Shel what what I can say what the Udo says regarding that is within the UC and uc2 districts limited retail uses such as University related bookstores and dining facilities located within other buildings shall be permitted to the extent that they are designed to serve the oncampus population of the University or college and not to attract additional traffic to the campus yeah so it's allowed but you know very it's very limited it's okay thank you yeah pro thank you Mr Mar and thank you colleagues thank you for the presentation um the U the Duke principles regarding architecture and the use of land are not new contrivances that that's that's a kind of dated mission statement so I appreciate that um if if if you guys were going to build a golf course there I would hope it would be just as accessible as the one that you already have to the public and I hope it would be just as accessible as Duke Gardens and hope we would be just
as accessible as uh the stadium that you allow DPS to use for graduations as well so I would hope um I do I think the Planning Commission got this one right um I think they got this one right the the UC designation is in particularly um controversial for me to uh for a university um I also want to say that you know I'm I I I think it's pretty well known I don't have a problem picking up a cudgel or a sword when necessary uh but I also don't have a problem with telling the truth and and giving commendations as well uh with respect to Duke participating in housing Duke was a signif made a significant financial contribution to our Willard Street um development which is an affordable housing development downtown um I just say because I think it's important for for the record to be known it was millions of dollars um we we're open to more we're certainly open to more I don't necessarily know that I want Duke in the housing business maybe just if you develop if you devote the land and get somebody else to do it uh
that that might be a more preferable um even for Workforce housing a more preferable outcome but um thank you for the information I look forward to supporting this I think the Planning Commission got it right thank you Mr Mayor council member yeah no questions um just say you know I think the the Destinies of of Duke and Durham are are intertwined and interl um Duke does better when Durham succeeds and Durham does better when when Duke succeeds I was born born and raised right here in Durham and have spent so much of my spent so much of my childhood going on and off um Duke East Campus and west campus and taking advantage of the green spaces and and going through the buildings um so so we certainly want both entities to to succeed um and Duke occupies a huge proportion and portion of the city of Durham it's a unique situation um it's not just any other a
land owner in our city so um I do think that there's a certain level of conversation scrutiny that is uh relevant and that is um that is necessary when when we come into into the same room together um and UC is a is a privilege it is a very unique zoning District that offers uh great latitude to those who who own land within um UC uh I appreciated the the comments and and the presentation um public engagement the commitment to to public the conversation around public engagement planning process um I think where I find myself at this point point is and I think it's consistent is that I always seek planning before zoning and I I believe that uh philosophically I believe in planning and then zoning um and and whereas this is this is a proposal to to
Zone and then conduct the plan I see this as a question of whether the city will take itself out of the planning process or whether it leaves itself in the planning process if if the zoning is approved we take ourselves out of the planning process uh if if um if if not then we remain a part and a partner of the planning process um I think the UC zone is the appropriate District um for these properties um I personally believe that uh the appropriate time is is later is after the planning process planning and then zoning and that's that's my philosophical position um and so that's my philosophical position on on this particular case as well thank you thank you any other comments all right uh for me it's pretty straightforward and uh thank you guys
for being great Partners to the community and city of Durham and look forward to our continued um Evolution together at this time I will uh uh yes council member cook I just want to make one more comment um just listening to my colleagues and and listening to this presentation and um I want to say Mr gusa like listening to your presentation particularly like that is what we want to see from a partner and a large land owner and so I'm really grateful for that and I'm grateful for that Master Plan um but at the same time time I I'm going to Echo a little bit of what my colleague said um and also just note that this master plan is a guide and not a requirement and you talked about wanting transparency and robust Community engagement several of my colleagues at the last meeting noted that there has been a real distrust from
the community um and I think that that showed up at the last Planning Commission when we heard these two projects and I know that it was around the other project more specifically than this one but um I think that the conversation was the same um Mr G I believe you were presenting at that time and you said we've had some great Community engagement everyone's really on board and you were really taken aback because the community came out in mass and that was not at all their understanding um and it was it was striking I remember you being very surprised by that and coming back and saying that you were surprised um and so it's still concerning to me me because I hear this messaging of of transparency and Community involvement and then when I see it happening in real time I don't always see those values reflected in what comes before us and so I have to Echo what my colleague said it feels really hard to give this um I guess to just hand over any
possibility of partnership in this process uh with with absolutely no plan and and I appreciate what you were saying about the time that it takes to get this zoning um and I thought that that was actually really helpful for my framing of this um but you come in front of us a lot attorney go and and we have these projects come in front of us a lot and how a parcel is developed is always dependent on the zoning that's that is actually always true um it's not just true here um but still we are able to see development plans uh prior to approving so for me um I I agree on the timing that it's just it's just not does not feel like the right time I know this process is expensive and I know it's long um and so it's even more confusing to me I guess why the timing is now um when a lot of these properties have been owned by Duke
for a very long time including prior to the last rezoning of this adjacent area um and I pulled them all up last time but I pulled the Deeds on every single property and they span like 100 years uh in terms of when Duke gained ownership of them um and I also think it's interesting to sort of see the history of our use of this zoning um which we did do a couple like sort of large in bulk um acreages without development plans but since that time we've actually been seeing very distinct building that have been sought to be under the UC um plan or zoning sorry um so like actual I believe the last few were actual buildings like the Lemur Center was one and we we know the use of the Lemur Center we already know the use of that land there was once from um Central that were like student union and a couple of other like designated areas we already knew what those were and we haven't really seen this sort of
broad planless designation and so for me it's going to be a no tonight um I wish that it were a yes because what I'm hearing is like what exactly I want to hear um and and when I see that reflected um I'll be so excited for that partnership to grow but I have not seen it yet unfortunately thank you could you talk about your past relationship with the city around housing Duke University um so and I I will forecast this with do not be bashful like Duke has been a partner as far as my experience is concerned and I need us to know that yeah so when you're referring to housing you're not specifically referring to dormitories referring to General I'm just want to be clear about what the question is if the students were not being housed on campus they would be housed in the city I assum so
that that would be considered as well um so just your relationship with housing and Durham when it comes to from student housing to you know supporting affordable housing developments uh and you can even talk about the economic side of that as well so I'll talk uh about student housing and then maybe Adam you can talk about some of the other initiatives so um what is the impact to Durham okay so as far as student housing uh all freshmen are required to live on East Campus and we have a three-year oncampus requirement so students have to be on campus uh freshman through junior year uh but the demand is actually beyond that so um you know students really like to live on campus and so you know we we're providing oncampus housing in the form of dormitories uh for students um we're also uh going to be considering uh expanding uh housing on campus um for both students and grad students in the near future if you want to talk maybe about off- campus or other initiatives sure yeah I'll just touch briefly on a few Adam Klein associate vice president
for economic development at Duke um Duke's work in the community around affordable housing is not new I know that that issue is very important in our community conversation right now and a pressing need uh if you go back into the 90s Duke has had a long partnership with the city and others self-help in particular in the historic West End land banking properties with self-help and with the community there to ensure per permanent affordability um and to have uh the ability for various multif family projects to be built there uh near Maplewood Cemetery and others um we also have an affordable housing Council that's comprised of affordable housing developers Faith Community leaders and others who convene regularly that we support who decide on how to utilize Duke funds in order to invest and impact the affordable housing issue in our community uh mayor proen Middleton mentioned will Willard Street is another project that we've invested in uh and supported um and then we run a home by
club I'm only touching on a few I know it's late but uh we run a home buyers club uh that supported Duke employees buying their first home we've just gathered the numbers on that 69 uh Duke employees who purchased a home through that home buyer Club those are just a few things that we do there are many more we have uh about $22 million that is uh with cdfis in this community that support affordable housing projects that are being led by the community self-help mechanic and Farmers Bank Latino Community Credit Union to name three thank you mayor P thank you Mr Mayor the the um the proposition that um site plan predes um zoning change was just as relevant at our last meeting as it is now and anyone who voted for this public hearing to remain open did anyone have
any expectation that between that last meeting and this meeting they were going to bring a sight development plan because if if we didn't expect a site development plan then that argument should have persisted then and we should just voted then we need to stop sending people giving people homework and setting up de facto expectations and then come back here and change the parameters of the assignment I I I knew they weren't bringing a site development plan because that that they weren't at that point in the process they brought a graphic uh plan here they brought their master plan um so the notion that and and listen I if if that's the proposition I have no problem with the proposition but we whoever voted for this uh to leave the hearing open knew that at that meeting and had to know that a site development plan wasn't coming tonight so why are we wasting these people's time we we could have voted
that night no sight development plan tell Duke bring us a site development plan at the same time you apply for the resoning now tonight well they don't have a site development plan so we shouldn't reson we knew that then I'm prepared to vote Mr Mayor thank you C thank you I just want to address um the mayor prot's comments I was actually the council member who led the effort for a continuance because I felt like there was open questions one was the bikee path one quite frankly and I'm going to say this I didn't think Duke brought their aame and they didn't bring all their documents I was very blunt and candid with the applicant in the follow-up meeting and that is what they've provided and I plan on voting yes so I don't actually appreciate uh the comment by the Mary proem because I was the council member who asked for the continuance I expect all applicants to bring their aame I don't care if they're the largest land owner a small firsttime developer and I appreciate what the applicant has done and I've uh said that very candidly to them they brought their documents they brought their Vision they've answered the questions that I needed answered and uh and so that's
where I'm at and I do plan on uh voting yes this evening and um yeah I was the one who asked for the continuance because I needed more information I got the information sometimes continuances are good uh and so that is why I occasionally use that tool it is a tool I'm allowed to use as a council member thank you Mr Mayor if I might that was my point I I I agree with you I think they did do do what they were asked so to suggest now that we want to move the go and that is that is why I am constantly saying we need to get out of the business of giving people homework because it creates expectations I agree with you council member cavier I think that the expectations you said were met but what I'm hearing from other colleagues is that well there's this principle that we knew about the and and and I'm simply speaking to the colleagues who voted to continue it based upon what you said and they have met what you said and have added new uh Dimensions so I'm actually agreeing with you thank you Mr Mayor thank you m Mr may I just was clarifying
my stance thank you all thank you all so much um I had one more question how many people do you all employ uh as the university including Health System including the medical system Health System it's about 40,000 40,000 plus all right all right y let's get to that all right if there are no more com council member Freeman thank you I I just wanted to uh just put a pen and um mayor proin your comments are quite um interesting but I do think that we are in the B business of sending folks back to do their homework if they haven't done it and I don't think we should get out of that business we should definitely encourage it because if it's not what we expect then they should come back now on the side of whether the principal or what have you I think each council member has the right as they sit on this dis to decide whether or not they
support a continuance a zoning uh any matter and it's really like the same issue we had last year and the previous year where you consistently push your opinion as if it's a matter of fact and it's not and it's really upsetting to see you continuing to behave in the same manner that I cussed you out about last time so I would like us not to go in that direction SW and I would like to make sure that we are not using this dis as a bully pull pit to try and make people do what you want them to do because that is not up to you that's all thank you all right call the question yeah I'm going to get to the question I'll remind our colleagues please let's not direct each other so uh at this point um I'll entertain a motion to adopt an ordinance amending the unified development ordinance by taking property out of commercial General commercial General with the development plan office and institutional office and institutional with the development plan
University and College University and college with the development plan residential Urban multif Family commercial neighborhood and compact design core with the development plan and establishing the same as the university and college with a graphic development plan m is Right second mood and properly second it matter please open that vote please close it and the motion passes 5-2 with council members Baker and cook voting no all right thank you and lastly uh I'll entertain a motion to adopt a consistency statement as required by the North Carolina General statute section 160d 605 move to adop
consist so it happened over there I can't right um Mo and probably seconded and a bunch of other stuff um Madame clerk please open the vote please close the vote and the motion pass pass unanimously one moment please all right thank you so much and we are adjourned at this time thank you
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