Durham Planning Commission · Regular Meeting · August 13, 2024

anything good evening welcome to the Durham Planning Commission the members of the Durham Planning Commission are appointed by the city council and the County Board of Commissioners to make recommendations to the elected officials sorry we emphasize that the elected officials have the final say on any issue before us tonight while this meeting is being conducted in person it is also accessible using zo the zoom virtual meeting platform in the virtual meeting platform public participants do not have the ability to talk or be seen on video by default in order to maintain meeting deorum and a discernible record of the meeting the chat function has been disabled for those in person if you plan to speak on an agenda item tonight tonight please go to the table to my left and sign up to speak when speaking please state your name and your address clearly when you come to the podium please speak directly into the

microphone if you are attending the meeting virtually you will be given the ability to speak at the appropriate time if you have pre-registered your name will be called so that you can make your comments just like an in-person public hearing during uh you may also call in in during the meeting tonight by diing 1301 715 8592 if you call in during the meeting you will need to wait until the particular public hearing you are interested in starts after all of the pre-registered speakers have shared their comments I will ask if there is anyone else wishing to speak at that point you will need to digitally raise your hand by pressing star9 on your phone and when recognized please state your name and address before making your comments the applicant has a total of 10 minutes for a presentation each speaker after the

applicant has two minutes to speak Commissioners have five minutes for Q&A and will only be called upon to speak for a second time after all Commissioners have chosen to speak the first time Commissioners as a reminder after the public hearing is closed you may obtain the floor by being recognized by the chair commission members please remember you share your time with fellow Commissioners keep your comments questions py and please don't repeat topics that have already been discussed or questioned the time to make all public statements is before motions are made once a motion is on the floor and further discussion regarding that motion motion must come after the second any further discussion must come after the second all motions are State stated in the affirmative so if the motion fails or ties the recommendation is for denial Commissioners if you are not

ready to move a case forward please indicate as such when questioned finally I ask everyone here and on the zoom the Commissioners staff and the public to conduct themselves in a courteous and resp respectful manner if someone fails to act in that manner the chair will ask the offending person or persons to be muted on the zoom until such time that they gain personal control if the Corum fails to be restored the chair will recess the meeting until a genuine commitment to act respectful and court and courteous is observe thank you may we have the roll call please Madam chair before I begin the roll call uh I just want to make sure everybody's aware that we do have two new Commissioners tonight uh Zach chowski sitting at the end of the de there and here in the middle Malcolm Gregory so

welcome to you both uh new addition since we last met also uh with uh sadness letting everybody know that commissioner Grace mans has submitted his resignation and this will be his last meeting tonight so sorry to see you go but thank you very much for your service so for the roll call chair Cameron here Vice chair sheras here commissioner cutright here commissioner chowski here commissioner Grace mans here commissioner Gregory here commissioner Johnson here commissioner copac here commissioner mver here commissioner Valentine here commissioner Williams here commissioner woke here and commissioner young

here we have perfect attendance wooo yes awesome I'm going to ask the two new Commissioners I know commissioner Gregory I believe you went last time but because we didn't have a well did you introduce yourself nope all right so if you would like to introduce yourself and then um please say your name again uh Zach chowski Z chowski okay if you would go see this is going to be a test for me um after commissioner Gregory that would be great thank you chairwoman Cameron um um so I'm Malcolm Gregory blessed to have two first names so that'll keep everybody on their toes I'm a full-time graduate student studying environmental policy with an emphasis on renewable energy development um so in addition to studying conventional academic topics like uh climate economics and policy analysis I've also gotten a lot of exposure in some more pragmatic subjects like project Finance Community engagement and

even construction bmps um additionally I've also served on Durham's environmental Affairs board for over a year now um and in that role I've cultivated a pretty robust understanding and some of the topics like our Udo um our comprehensive plan as well as a landscape manual uh prior to coming back to school I was working as an environmental environmental analyst in the state of Wisconsin um so one of three cheesee heads up here now low Badgers um and in that role I was assisting with the review and permitting of utility projects so think transmission line retrofits uh pipeline repairs hydroelectric maintenance uh things of that nature for example um and so to end I just want to say that I have a genuine passion for infrastructure Community Development um and public service so I'm really looking forward to applying these passions and background to the important work that's undertaken in this chamber and um getting to know my fellow Commissioners and planning staff better throughout my term so thank

you hi everybody I'm Zack chowski most people just call me Zack because if you can see my last name it is a bit of a doozy sometimes I look at that and I'm like it just can't be right but it is uh I'm a longtime North Carolinian but a relatively recent durite uh I am a two-time UNCC attendee but never graduate ended up graduating from Elon University I left UNC twice to work on political campaigns once for President Obama's re-election and once for Terry mcalli U my wife Sarah Dr Sarah Cunningham and I are recent homeowners and we've wanted to get involved and shap shaping this great and wonderful city of ours um it's been really really cool to see the momentum that Durham has and all these amazing things happening and and it's been incredible to see the work that the Planning Commission has done and how y'all have been a part of that process it's an honor to serve with you and uh I look forward to to learning more and and hopefully contributing thank you all right we're going to I don't believe there are any adjustments to the agenda um now we're going to move to the

approval of the minutes and consistency statements from both July 20 I'm sorry June 11th 2024 and July 9th 2024 um is there a motion to approve so move second it's been moved by commissioner cutright and second it by commissioner Valentine to approve the minutes and consistency statements both from the June 11th and July 9th 2024 meeting all in favor please say I I opposed motion carries we will now move into the public hearings um the first public hearing is the initial zoning map changes and we will hear case Z24 quadruple 3 and quadal 0 3A windsford at the park may we have the staff report please thank you madam chair before uh Miss Long comes up with the the staff report I just want to

State for the record that all cases being heard before you tonight have been notified in accordance with state and local laws and that affidavits on for that are on file in the planning department good evening Sarah long with City County planning and I'm presenting on Z24 quadruple 03a wiford at the park Tim cers of City proposes is to change the zoning designation of one parcel of land totaling 1799 acres and located at 103 Zant current road the current zoning is residential Suburban multif family with a development plan this is a direct translational zoning where the where the durm County zoning is identical to the Derm City Zoning and upon annexation the property will be brought into the city limits the applicant wishes to Annex a parcel into the city to allow for City Maintenance of infrastructure this parcel is owned by

the homeowners association and set aside to serve as tree coverage and open space as required under the original develop development plan so again as this is a direct translational um Zone annexation uh the parcel is going to come in with the same zoning designation and will only change from City to uh to from County to City jurisdiction also there are no commitment M ments that can be made or profer through the development plan to further consist to have any further consistency with the place type designation again the existing zoning is residential Suburban multif family with a development plan as you can see in Orange it is surrounded by the same RSM uh and also residential rule or RR and science research park at the which is to the South there SRP and in green the aerial map shows the general location of the project is in southeast durm

County and the property are the property is currently designated Recreation open space on the place app map and staff has determined that this designation to be generally consistent there's an Associated contiguous annexation petition with this case and this proposal again is is to change the designation from residential Suburban multif family with a development plan County jurisdiction to residential Suburban multif family with a development plan City jurisdiction in order for the city to be able to maintain the existing infrastructure the request is again a transitional zoning of land currently owned by the homeowners association and no additional units or development is proposed on this land The Proposal is consistent with three applicable policies of the comprehensive plan and proposal is generally consistent with the place type map as the designation of recreation open space because the homeowner association uh is going to use this for

the purpose of open space and adjacent to the adjacent residential development thank you very much and staff and the applicant are available to answer any questions you may have thank you at this time the chair is opening the public hearing is the applicant here to make a presentation good evening Planning Commission members uh my name is Tim cyers I'm the president of community uh for those new uh members on the board tonight that you may not know us we are a civil engineering landscape architecture and land planning firm located here in Durham at 16 consultant place um we'll start you off the new ones with a little easy case tonight um because it is kind of a little different than the normal res in case that's in front of you um so I'll take you back through a little bit of the history and then explain the proposal that's in front of you um so tonight is a cleanup item from a

development plan that was constructed over six years ago the first cosos were issued in 2015 the final cosos were issued in 2018 six years ago my office was involved with the rezoning annexation site plan and construction documents at that time and that was over 10 years ago when those plans were being prepared tonight we're here to clean up an error that was missed during the site planine review and construction documents and was only noticed when the Public Works staff tried to accept ownership and maintenance of these streets that are now completed a year or so after the final Co was issued it was noticed that a portion of so high drive was never annexed into the city limits and that is why we're here this evening the work completed during the resoning and annexation over 10 years ago removed this portion from the Research Triangle Park and and unknowingly at the time placed it into the county limits and not the city limits the city cannot take maintenance of the street that is in the county hence again why we're here this

evening over the past two years the developer myself have been um as well as the city um have been trying to work with the homeowners association and the land owners to agree with this annexation with no responses from either of those parties when finally getting received approval from the homeowners association we submitted the documents for this annexation the individual land owners did not respond and therefore are not included in the annexation through discussion with the planning department and the public works we all agreed that it was proper to move forward to the annex to Annex the public rways along with the homeowners association parcel which will allow the city to follow their standard operating procedure of taking maintenance of these streets so tonight I ask for your approval of this annexation to F to Simply fix this error that was made over 10 years ago and um Annex a small portion of public rideway as well as the homeowners association land so the city can truly take maintenance and ownership of these streets thank you if I have any questions I'm available thank

you is there anyone signed up to speak for this case in the galley anyone signed up if you're on Zoom please click no please click the raise your hand button if you're on phone please uh push star n all right I don't see anyone that would uh that is raising their hand on Zoom or in the galley so I'm going to close the public hearing at this time and we are now open for commissioner discussion and questions Mr [Music] Johnson thank you chair just a couple clarifying questions if I

could the document said that this would increase Revenue I'd like to know how that was one of the things that it said it would be positive on the revenue number two is who's doing maintenance who's paying maintenance today is it the county or nobody and then third for the impacted residents who didn't speak up which I appreciated that clarification will their property taxes go up as a result of not being part of the city all I am going to uh pass number one and three off I will answer number two um which was uh the maintenance to date so one once construction is completed there is a one-year typical 12-month bond that is placed on all public streets that allows the city to ensure that those streets are meet the standards so that street has to go through essentially a year-long process of residents on the street using the street driving it before the city takes ownership that's standard operating

procedure that way the developers if needed need to make sure that that street is still in proper condition before the city takes ownership of it so to answer your question today the developer has been doing any maintenance of these streets um as for one and three I'll hand that off to Aaron sure and and I may ask you to repeat one again to make sure I answer it but three I believe was the question about um tax increases there would be no additional tax increases to any homeowner since no homeowners are being annexed on this there could be a minimal tax increase on the land of the homeowners association but it would be minimal at best and certainly preferable to having to maintain the streets yourself the first question was in the documented said it would be not Revenue neutral but actually Revenue positive I was trying to clarify that yeah so that's that's standard language we have that we should not have included in that document for this case all right thank you any other

questions commissioner KAC yeah I have a clarifying question um so I hear you uh share that there is a question of the maintenance of the right of way um just uh would like to understand how that intersects with the open space and if there is maintenance of that open space by the city in addition to the right of way and just how those connect together okay great question um if you um have the map in front of you it's the area of annexation so the area of annexation includes the public rways as well as the homeowners association area so the public right rways then become City Maintenance the HOA will still remain is today and will remain HOA maintenance so there's no intersection the city will have the city the HOA will maintain the HOA areas thank you thank you anyone else any

questions no more questions we ready to move this case forward all right chair as it relates to Case z2400 003a and and annexation bdg 24002 Winford at the park I make a motion that we move this case forward uh to city council with a favorable recommendation second it's been moved by commissioner cutright and seconded by commissioner Valentine to move case Z24 quadruple 03a bdg 24 quad 02 winsford at the park forward with a favorable recommendation to the city council may I have the roll call vote please chair Cameron yes Vice chair sheras yes commissioner

cutright yes commissioner chowski yes commissioner Grace mans yes commissioner Gregory yes commissioner Johnson yes commissioner copac yes commissioner mver yes commissioner Valentine yes commissioner Williams yes commissioner woke yes commissioner young yes the motion passes 13 to zero thank you now we will we'll move into public hearings zoning map changes the first case is z23 quadruple 025 Oxford Ridge and this is also a continuation from the July meeting good evening chair Cameron Vice chair sharis and honorable planning

7 acres and located at 875 East Carver Street along with 955 and 10:07 old Oxford Road the current zoning is commercial center with a development plan commercial neighborhood with a development plan and industrial Light the applicant proposes to change this designation to plan development residential 5174 with a textual development plan to allow up to 300 residential units limited to single family two family multifam and co- living uses and this would consist of a maximum of 75 single family and a minimum of 175 townhouse units the properties are currently designated mixed use neighborhood and Recreation on the open

uh and excuse me and Recreation and open space on the place type map if the proposed zoning is approved D staff recommends a change from the mixed use neighborhood uh Place type to mixed residential neighborhood the areas currently designated Recreation and open space would remain so the existing zoning is commercial center with the development plan commercial neighborhood with the development plan and industrial Light the site is surrounded by industrial Light plan development residential and residential Suburban 20 the aerial map show show the general location of the project north of downtown Durham within the bragtown community as mentioned previously the properties are currently designated mixed use neighborhood and Recreation and open space on the place type map um the proposed plan development residential 5174 is inconsistent with the designated Place type so if approved staff

recommends a change to mixed residential neighborhood and Recreation and open space there is an Associated contiguous annexation petition with this case case bdg 2316 uh here is a summary of uh some of the commitments The Proposal will not demolish the existing historical structure at 1015 old Oxford Road provide a minimum of 27 single family units as affordable for sale housing units for households earning at or below 80% % of the area median income for a period of 30 years con the construction of a 10ft shared path on Old Oxford Road the construction of a bus shelter as determined by God Durham uh ensuring all tree replanting are native Native limiting the maximum impervious surface to 50% and providing two additional site features um along

with a one-time contribution of $5,000 to Durham Public Schools a neighborhood meeting was held in accordance with udia requirements on March 18th 2023 where 18 community members were in attendance in conclusion The Proposal would allow up to 300 residential units consisting of a maximum of 75 single family and a minimum of 175 townhouse units on a predominantly undeveloped property the census tract of the surrounding area has a higher tax value increase number of evictions and cost burden in renters than the Durham County on average say suggesting a higher displacement risk in the area the site is located Northeast of downtown Durham and is within five miles of a variety of uses and resources for residents however the area is generally autod dependent and lacking access to multimodal

infrastructure as the proposal is generally inconsistent with the place type map if the proposed zoning is approved staff recommends again a a change to mixed residential neighborhood and the recreation and open space would remain thank you staff and the applicant are available for any questions thank you at this time the chair is opening the public hearing with the applicant please come forward good evening again Tim cyers with City 16 consultant Place Sturm North Carolina uh tonight I'll providing a quick overview and then handing the uh the mic over to helina Craig and Ted helbron to provide additional details of the proposal uh this case in front of you includes three Parcels a total 59 acres of land which is approximately 45 Acres of developable area the required project boundary buffers stream buffers and an existing storm water control measure make up the nearly 14 acres of undevelopable land in this proposal this

re this resoning request PD R of 5174 is a maximum of 300 units and is limited to single family two family multif family co- Living Spaces a minimum of 27 single family units will be provided at the 80% Ami for 30 years as Brooke mentioned uh Road improvements will be completed on Carver Street as well as old Oxford Road to accommodate the additional traffic proposed in addition to providing any Transit related improvements that go Durham go triangle request at the timeas site plan in addition addition to the environmental improvements that Ted will speak of shortly this development will also include native tree plantings 100-year storm treatment as outlined in the commitments and a maximum of 50% impervious area thank you for your time like to hand off the presentation good evening all I just wanted to speak briefly to the parts that don't jump off of the formal presentation that you see which is I was one of the 18 community members who

would attended the initial Community engagement meeting and I think this project is really an unusual and hopefully not going forward would not be that unusual that really the community engagement process changed substantially what this project was so as one of the community members who actively resisted a prior implementation that would have been coming forward on this property I'm now actually through my nonprofit and active partner and the person who would be developing the 27 affordable homes for sale as well as some unique co-living spaces for seniors um you will also notice I'm the little wedge of an acre that is not included in this project so I have a very very much a vested interest but have been very involved with the neighbors in making sure that we assert what we want for our community and I just wanted to lift that up because it's not obvious in the application and then I would let Ted

speak to the the major parts of the project thank you good evening Planning Commission my name is Ted hbr I'm an affordable housing developer I live in Raleigh so please don't hold that against me um I am the developer of the Carver Street assemblage project which came before Planning Commission in a late 2021 it's the 130 Acres directly to the west of this site uh we stepped into what at the time was contentious rezoning that neighbors had pushed back on and effectively had killed um and brought 198 affordable housing units into an otherwise residential development that didn't really contemplate affordable I only bring that up because through that process and and we're breaking ground on the Lite portion of the project at the end of the year so very excited to actually get a shovel on the ground here in bragtown through the process of developing um the Carver assemblage project we came to get to know the neighbors in the community and spent a

bunch of time with the BCA and spent a bunch of time with the Myriad of other groups who have strong thoughts and feelings valid Fair feelings concerns Etc about the trajectory of the bragtown neighborhood um we watched from next door effectively the multiple rezonings that the BCA and the uh Oxford Hamlin Community Coalition effectively killed off which included a portion of this site which was intended to be retail and a project across the street which is not included in this rezoning uh that was intended to be a gas station a sea store and I think a fast food pad um we really never intended to develop the site but we were approached by ownership who saw our ability to work productively with neighbors um and from the GetGo the only way we're going to enter into this project was if we had sort of the time and the flexibility and the ability to communicate with neighbors figure out what the community want to see out here and actually find a

feasible economic way of implementing it which launched this poll effort now that's been going on for the last 18 months uh that brings us before you tonight so um the the first thing I'd point out is that we uh we started with a different concept for this site we developed ltech Apartments uh we thought that we might build more of those as we move farther east on Old Oxford we thought a community center might make sense we took a number of meetings with neighbors um and heard one Mantra over and over and over and over and over again which was the desire to see affordable for sale housing uh the the challenge as you all are intimately familiar is that there is no tax credit like there is in the litech program to help subsidize the cost of affordable construction and so finding a way to put together a project that doesn't need City resources because as you are all also intimately familiar the city is not uh brimming over with affordable funds right right now and hopefully there's a new bond that might get passed in the next couple years to

remedy that but the ability to put together an affordable for sale project it didn't require City resources um has has has led us down the path that brings us before you tonight I would also point out that the diligence that's happened over the last 18 months has involved a significant amount of time spent with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality so the old catsburg store which is at the corner of Oxford old Oxford Carver and Hamlin um was a set of an old gas station that when it was removed the cleanup was botched uh gas ended up in the water table and Benzene is currently leaking East headed across hold Oxford onto the parcel that this site includes and so part of our delay in getting before you all was that we weren't going to move this forward until we had an environmental solution that was acceptable because there was no way we're going to build affordable housing and have it sort of Downstream of this slow Benzene migration through the bragtown neighborhood so we've made a

ton of progress with DEQ we're happy to speak about that in more detail uh this project will involve a comprehensive remediation of all the Benzene that's sort of plaguing this north east corner of the bragtown neighborhood um so I I'll uh defer the rest of our time or make ourselves available to answer any questions but thought the background might be helpful in terms of sort of how we got involved in the project and what has has driven it into the form that you see before you tonight thank you let's see here we have it's freedon signed up to speak you come up uh so I'm calling any person in person Community member that would like to speak

good evening I'm Donna federick I'm a resident of bragtown and was one of the people in that original meeting where we discussed that I'm here in support of this resoning and congratulations with all the people who have come together to put this project forward um it is definitely a labor needed because we need more affordable housing as we know in Durham here is a different take on getting it done and also with affordable housing for sale so which breaths Legacy you know we need more of that as well so I'm just here in support and hope you know that we can get this done and move forward quickly thank you thank you is there anyone else in person that has not signed up to speak wishing to speak on this um case no all right all right is there anyone on the zoom um please press uh raise the raise your hand button or Star n on your

phone if you would like to speak on this case chair is going to now close the public hearing and we are now open for commissioner discussion and questions commissioner cut right thanks chair um I'd like to say that uh T and his group have come before the commission um you know before this case and he continues to uh present what I would considered the bar for projects and Durham um you know 300 units and almost 9% or roughly n9ine almost 10% affordable um for sale affordable at that that's something we don't see he should be commended for that um it also goes to show that what's possible um I think you know as we look at other projects that come before the

commission uh we should take note of this and as we think about approving projects uh we should note that developers like Ted are out there and and can do things like this um I'm not suggesting that it's easy in any way uh but it is possible uh and you know I think he's the the gold standard for how we should be devel veloping in Durham so I appreciate it um if you can't tell I am in favor of this project um and uh would recommend moving forward with this thanks anyone else commissioner Johnson first of all I would Echo commissioner cprit's comments um it is a balanced approach I also applaud the neighborhood for stepp in up and speaking I I just want to clarify a few things if I could this will have a fairly significant impact on schools in

the area if I recall there's about 84 yeah U about $800,000 impact about quite a few about 130 140 students the $5,000 proper which I appreciate the recognition uh can that be increased as far as the impact on the infrastructure for schools that's question number one yeah there's there's room I would say to increase it as you obviously aware everything's a Balan but you know again in a project of this size and scale There's an opportunity to increase that number and are you willing to make that profit tonight to support a higher amount to the schools I am and what would that be I guess the question is and maybe you know this better Tim what the more appropriate figure would be is is a $50,000 contribution more in line with what you might think is appropriate your oh yeah I got to lean in okay that that's helpful the other question I had

was the tree coverage there's quite a quite a group a number of trees and you have 20% coverage is that sufficient for the overall development and where it's going to be located because you will be removing quite the tree coverage is a little more of a hard and fast Line in the Sand what we have to do to make this all pencil is to develop as many units as we can out here and so leaving substantial portions of trees untouched above the 20% of the Udo requires is just something that's not possible to sort of balance everything that we're pulling together here so what I'm hearing you say is to meet the objectives for both affordable and other housing you have to squeeze things in a little bit that's correct okay and my last question in Reading the meeting notes which were very helpful from the community because I always like to support the community's input the traffic study at the time of the meeting it was pending the traffic study and there was supposed to be a get back on the traffic study to the community that

was one of the IUS uh did that happen and are there any other unknown issues uh from the community that they still have other than what was spoken on tonight thank you absolutely I meeting minutes I think were included from a meeting from 2023 there have been a number of follow-up meetings not necessarily as a group collectively but with the BCA we went and met with the Oxford hlin Community Coalition um and had more of these conversations in more detail as follow-ups I think maybe helina and even Donna could speak to whether there are ongoing concerns as it relates to the traffic study I'm not sure we've shared a copy of that which we totally can a cop I mean obviously a traffic study was done as a part of the um vetting of the rezoning application and that study indicate any major issues if I were to read it no as you might be aware there's a fair amount of development that's happening in the north portion of the bragtown neighborhood currently so a lot of the major infrastructure is being picked up by Carver assemblage or uh there's a

large industrial project that's coming just down the road from here um there are some curb cuts that are required through the median on Carver but there's not a a significant traffic footprint coming off of this project in the scheme of the other infrastructure improvements that are happening currently in the neighborhood thank you for those answers and again thanks to the community thank you chair thank you anyone else any other commissioner Valentine oh sorry you're pointing over here commissioner Williams might be a followup there so uh yeah also would like to commend the developer and the community for working together on this project uh and it's been helpful to hear your responses thus far just a couple other points I wanted to raise the first was is uh uh along with the the the place type map uh of mixed residential neighborhood uh I was curious uh to get your thoughts about the open space and questions I saw in notes from staff around public accessibility uh and then also given

that this develop uh development you know abuts um uh East Carver uh which is a fairly large um U thoroughfare there U saw comments from bpac with suggestions uh in pursuit of protecting pedestrian bike uh safety uh including uh painting high visibility crosswalks uh and having uh shared paths connecting to other neighborhoods in the area it was curious to get your thoughts on on those two topics I apologize the first question out of the sure yeah no problem about the public access to the open space Yeah Tim do you want to speak to that oh okay um I I think honestly our intent from a safety and just managing the

public spaces that would be in the project would have them be specific to the residents within the project I the goal is not to provide a sort of insulting non inclusionary type response but um as we think about managing the development um and the HOAs that will come out of this uh it's just difficult to contemplate having private ownership of improvements that the public has access to try to understand how they're managed and the risk associated with managing them so I think our our just from a drisking perspective the intent would be not to have them be available to the public um from a connectivity perspective you know we uh certainly are in support of the thrust of the uh bike pedestrian advisory committee's comments uh I don't think we quite see the need for crosswalks sort of midblock they're already crosswalks at the uh that main intersection the Carver old Oxford

Hamlin intersection um I think our team had discussed when this comment was raised um I think safety concerns that come from starting to place these crosswalks midblock uh but I think right now with the infrastructure that's in place on Carver and the infrastructure that will be building the bike lane the sidewalk Etc on Old Oxford I I I welcome to to further discussion about this and certainly not trying to stiff arm the question but I I I think our our hope is that we're bringing forward something that's quite additive to sort of kestian pedestrian connectivity and public infrastructure already in the neighborhood thank you for that and and I think the notes came from staff so I'm just curious if staff had have any comments about the open space yeah so the open space on this site um and I think it's noted in the staff report is on the Northern and kind of back portion of the site so we did flag that in the report um just because

with the mixed residential or mixed use Place type that is something that is brought up having publicly accessible open space so that was flagged but it wasn't a I'll say it wasn't a large concern um that it wasn't publicly accessible but we did make note of it thank you good uh commissioner Williams first and then I just wanted to Echo um my fellow Commissioners thoughts in terms of um the project as a whole I really enjoy hearing that you um kind of approached the community and to figure out what it was that they looking for um as well as the affordable housing piece and also um having more than one housing type so I just um I remember when you came last and it was very impressive and um I feel the same this time around so I am in support of this project thank you thank you commissioner gry man I Echo

everything that the fellow commissioner said and just want to can you tell me when you all started this process of working together how long you absolutely so we put this site under contract in middle of 20 late 22 early 23 um and knew after Community meetings that we were going to need an affordable housing for sale component we talked to Habitat who's obviously awesome but quite busy building across the rest of Durham um and realized that we had a developer in the community already who was active across the city obviously uh very intimately familiar with what's going on with the site cuz she lives adjacent to it's putting it lightly um and that started sort of a longer conversation about how we could practically pull this off so at this point there's been a year plus worth of meetings with design consultant and a builder who uh helina and her nonprofit interface with on another work and we're

really excited about the team that's in place to execute on this project but it's been a multi-year effort to sort of pull all this together thank you and just I I I I want to see more of this I would love to see you all hold court with more developers to explain to them and pencil out how this can happen so uh starts with really active Community groups to be honest because our Carver project would have never happened if a previous developer had sort of wted through the city approval process in the BCA stop that in track so from my perspective this we're active in a bunch of other communities across the State this happens when Community groups are Super Active that's that's the answer thank you thank you any other commissioner Valentine so thank you for your comments uh you had talked about the environmental concerns on this project and so how how was the how are we going to be monitoring that yeah absolutely so uh DEQ right now is actually out in the field doing a significant amount of

testing to prep for what's called an injection and so Ben is a compound that breaks down over time not fast enough for our comfort level in terms of developing residential adjacent to it um the injection will accelerate the decomposition of the Benzene in a manner that will enable residential development but specifically without the need for a vapor barrier what we did not want to do was end up building housing specifically affordable housing and have it done on a vapor barrier with a concern about future contamination and so we were told by DEQ that we were being too conservative in our respons to them was that's our decision not yours so um DQ I would say rarely shows this level that DQ has been working with these neighbors for 15 plus years I believe because there's been a significant amount of monitoring the the incident that led to the Benzene getting released happened in the mid 2000s and so for 15 years DEQ Sort of hope they're not listening hasn't really done all that much um they tested some wells that's about it and uh we've been able to

impress upon them the need for this to get solved because of the residential development the affordable residential development the sort of frankly what will be a high-profile nature of a project that is able to accomplish what we hope to accomplish and they've gotten on board so they are stepping up and spending money which is a great start but our group in developing this is going to sort of back stop the cost of whatever it takes to get the site to a place where the benzene's no longer a concern not even for existing residents in the current layout of the neighborhood today you had also uh discussed the amount of development going on in this particular area of the city that I'm familiar with actually a resident on Hamlin Road and so how does this project fit into all of the other development that's that's going on which is considerable absolutely absolutely so I I think the biggest thing I'd say is that there is there's been a ton of affordable rental development that has been proposed and is occurring along Old Oxford as you extend from really duu East right so

Oxford Manor is there and has been for years and years uh St Kofa Landing which came before you all I assume a couple years ago and has been renamed ever since but that's 150 ltech units that's across the street we're building 198 Li Tech units and using rad vouchers from Durham housing authority to accomplish that just up the road and so our sense was you know large concentrations of affordable housing we need to build more affordable housing but you know a mixture of product uh is something that we thought that old Oxford needed and so as we contemplated endless into neighbors who specifically asked for affordable for sale but our biggest takeaway was that the project was a departure from what had been coming east on Old Oxford just because we're not including three four story Garden style dents affordable rental development all right thank you it's your five minutes is there anyone else on the commission that would like commissioner

well first you it'll be a second time for you so anyone else with first questions or comments yes so I think there are many wonderful things about this project one one thing though that I'm am concerned about the elementary school is already at 113% capacity and this is going to add 93 additional students to that uh what's the plan to address and resolve that to be honest I our job is to build housing I I don't have a broader plan for durm public schools we would anticipate that they'll continue to address the needs that they have up in the bragtown neighborhood I hate this as a cop out answer but we're we're we're trying to build housing and affordable housing specifically yeah I I for sure I you know I'm not sure 50 ,000 solves any Durham public school budget issues specific to this specific corner of the

city but uh certainly increased the profer and again our our hope is that over time that will be remedied and in the meantime we're focused on building housing thank you anyone else first time question for commissioner first Madam sh I don't know if that the bail going off while I was speaking was for me to wrap up my comments but I I did have one more thing that it yeah you reached your five minute limit okay all right sorry and then then I'll come back to you after everyone else has thank thank you yes um hi so I noticed that um across the street uh across Oxford old Oxford Road um the north Durham Farmers Market is located and I was wondering if in your community engagement and interfacing with neighbors did they discuss any concerns or opportunities pertaining to um the development proposal proximity to the farmers market I'm best served to talk about a lot of parts of this project uh the woman who

runs the farmers market is our partner in the project so I'm going to hand off to helina and get out of the way yes so I own that parcel as well and really in understanding I was in an uncomfortable position being now transitioning to developers it's been a very active conversation with the neighbors but really one of the ways we're hoping the trans transtion as that neighbor as the neighborhood changes like making that softer transition to our County neighbors and the north dur Farmers Market filling at least some part of food Security in the community has been really important to everybody commission chair uh Vice chair Shara sorry yes I'm I'm interested in this Benzene remediation project I know you said DQ is handling it um do you know anything about that or is there a contact person yeah we i' not off top of my head but I'd be happy to provide that

uh VI email offline for sure yes thank you anyone else first time question no commissioner Williams first um in regards to the environmental things going on with the site um are you all looking into the brownfields program and I know that there are certain tax credits that go along with that would could those be potentially passed on to the residents the owners so we've been I would say lucky in that DEQ has prioritized this project over others and it's got more projects than it has a budget to accomplish across the state um right now it's not in a brownfields program but it is uh uh I think the funds that are being user through their underground storage tank program their us program um right now we're not anticipating applying for credits so there would not be credits to

pass on to Residents our largest priority honestly right now is just finding a way to get the benzing cleaned up because for 20 years it hasn't been and there are I'm not going to I'm going to trip over myself if I start speaking to some of these compounds but there are vapors that are emerging in Tess and Helen as well and other neighbors who are on the county side behind the site um so there there continue to remain to be ongoing issues with this and so our biggest priority honestly is making sure all of this gets solved and the fact that we have DEQ at the table actively doing the work necessary to test and likely profer mediation solution we think is great progress that is a better result than we could have expected at this point Thank you thank you commissioner Johnson did you have something else follow up no commissioner Valentine you had followup yes thank you Jackson interesting I said Johnson oh Johnson okay I thought you said Sorry's my Wisconsin accent coming

out yeah so I just wanted to go on record and say that uh I meant to say this said I meant to say this previously but the affordable um housing provision in this project is to be commended I agree with my colleagues in in that regard um but I would be remiss if I didn't say that uh um I'm have I have some concerns about the infrastructure in this area and also the impact that it's going to have on traffic and so that will have no bearing on how I vote this evening I think this uh project is uh worthy of an affirmative vote but I I still have some concerns in those areas Commissioners are we ready to move this project forward commissioner Johnson thank you chair um I just want to Echo my concerns also about infrastructure notwithstanding how it will reflect my vote I look at our staff to continue to educate us on the overall impact in those areas and highlight

things that will raise concerns on infrastructure um my one or two quick follow-ups is do you have financing when will this start if you get approval just curious yeah so uh let's say we get through Council before the end of the year site plan would be plus permits would be 18 months um I'd anticipate sticking a shovel on the ground by by early 2027 okay and then for the staff um I heard that there were multiple meetings we had meeting notes for one do we get those multiple meeting notes that we can use to bridge what happened originally to what has happened today what I would say before turn this to staff is that we uh uh we did the formal noticing process for the first meeting but we're because of work we're doing elsewhere in the neighborhood like I'm at BCA meetings a couple times throughout the year like some of these are more informal and so there was not a staff representative I don't think it like the Oxford Hamlin Community Coalition meeting so I don't think there are notes from these other meetings some of this is just like we're in the

neighborhood frequently and talking about what we're doing my one takeaway for you and staff is it's always helpful even if they're informal to memorialize those conversations like with transportation and so forth so if you can convey that to developers generally uh it's always help to fill the gaps thank you thank you chair thank you Commissioners are we ready to move this project forward uh staff yes the staff just wanted to confirm the additional profer um or the update to the Durham public schools in the amount of $50,000 is that correct thank you may I have a motion to move this case forward chair as it relates to case z23 000025 Oxford Ridge I make a motion that we move this case forward with the additional propers uh to city council with a favorable recommendation second it's been

forwarded I mean motion moved by commissioner cutright and seconded by commissioner copac to move case z232 Oxford Ridge forward with a favorable recommendation to city council so may we have the roll call vote please chair Cameron yes Vice chair sheras yes commissioner cutright yes commissioner chowski yes commissioner grav mans yes commissioner Gregory yes commissioner Johnson yes commissioner copac yes commissioner mver yes commissioner Valen time yes commissioner Williams yes commissioner woke yes commissioner young yes the motion passes 13 to Z thank you all we appreciate it having

51 Acres located at 302 Morin Road the current zoning is residential Suburban 20 and residential Suburban multif family the applicant proposes to change this zoning designation to residential Suburban multif family to allow up to four dwelling units or if utilizing the small lot option six dwelling units the property is currently designated established residential on the playsite map and staff does not

believe this um does not recommend changing this designation again the existing zoning is residential Suburban 20 and residential Suburban multif family as you can see in the zoning context map the site is surrounded by by residential Suburban 20 and residential Suburban multif family as well as plan development residential the general location of the site is to the west of downtown Durham just west of Highway 147 again the property is currently designated established residential on the playsite map and staff does not recommend changing that designation so as this is a general zoning um where there is no text or graphic development plan associated with the resoning proposal no com no commitments above the Udo uh requirements can be made and any future development May proceed according to what the the zoning would allow in the

Udo a neighborhood meeting was held in accordance to Udo requirements on June 14th 2023 with um three community members in attendance so staff has determined that the proposal is generally consistent with the play typ map designation of mix use neighborhood The Proposal would allow up to four units or six units with a small lot option and these units are limited to single family dwellings tow houses duplexes and Multiplex The Proposal is generally consistent with the playside U map designation and thank you and the applicant is available for any questions as well staff thank you um at this at this time the chair is opening the public hearing and may the applicant please come forward you have 10 minutes hello everyone this is Hamed uh sorry this is my first time so

I'm not sure that what uh I supposed to tell here but please state your name and your address to begin with yeah uh hammed AAR I'm located at 1 18 Meadowbrook Drive in Chapel Hill uh North Carolina 27514 and yeah this uh uh I got this lot back in 2020 I started the whole process with the help of the like the Duram planning stuff I really appreciate all the support that arum provided me to bring this like U um case moving forward uh as you saw in the the my application the like lot is sitting like partially between RSM and rs20 what I'm trying to accomplish here is like making the the whole lot in the RSM which is uh medium density residential and the plan is to having like uh uh based on whatever the Duram

like uh rules and regulation ordinances allowing me up to like four or six uh residential unit there so if you have any question I will be more than happy to answer that thank you are there any community members other community members in person that would like to speak community members on Zoom that would like to speak please press the raise your hand feature or Star N9 on your phone all right at this time we're going to um close the public hearing and we are now open for commissioner discussion and questions just briefly I want to make one um correction to the presentation the the actual Play Type designation is established residential okay and but

staff still considers to be consistent with that place typ designation thank you any commissioner questions commissioner Johnson no commissioner Graves man yes um have you given any do you have designs for what you plan to put on the site whether it's four or six units or how you envision the properties being situated on the site no no not yet I'm waiting for this like resoning process to see like I am up how many lot and based on that but roughly it's going to be like uh I'm thinking like 1500 up to like 2,000 square ft like through three like bedroom uh single family residence so as it's very close to the Durham University and I have a like very like dense background in like higher education I'm

thinking providing some sort of like affordable rental like places for University students good yeah so you you have experience in developing properties uh I'm I'm going to hire like a general contractor and all those like a license uh contractor for doing that yeah I've done one project here in Durham in like U Gran Street which i' I've I've followed my background is engineering electrical engineering so I I'm learning the whole process but I in that project I was closely working with like City Planning and uh trying to like uh understand the rules and Regulation and properly follow those so thank you thank you commissioner Johnson thank you uh commissioner chair um so are these just to clarify in my mind my first these are rental units

will there be one building with rental units or mult multiple buildings I'm trying to get it it's going to be like four residential single family residential or six and yeah all of them going to be rol okay and you mentioned affordable a moment ago if I heard you what does that mean to us affordable rentals uh you know as uh like based on this infl uh inflation going on and lots of other things I'm thinking they have I have opportunity to like subdivide this property then the cost of each property for me will be much lower and based on that the rate of return for me will be like acceptable so I can have like um I don't know something that this uh student at the University can afford to stay there and finish their like undergrad or graduate program so but definitely uh the the market is uh like

uh U telling that okay how much the rental will be but as I have more lot and then I can like build more property there so the cost of like construction will be for me will be like lower and put me in a position that I can put like provide more property in order to offer in a market so and as having like having more uh Supply in the market then based on the supply and demand it's kind of balanced the price so the math is still to come up I understand the math is I think so yeah are there any rentals in that immediate area if will you be the first group of rentals I believe that like a developer put lots of townhouse in the other side of this Wheatfield Street and my understanding at least like majority of those properties might be rental so yeah okay and this is a question for staff because of my ignorance so I apologize staff it said here that

uh allow up to six dwellings but it could go higher if I read this correctly based on this change of up to 12 units per acre just trying to clarify that that's my last question thank you sure so 12 units per acre this is a half acre site so it would be no more than six units on this particular site thank you any other questions from commissioners going once going twice commissioner Gregory um just one last quick question I'm curious can you um describe real quick just what the nature of parking infrastructure is um and proximity to the site is it street parking do you envision um lot construction uh no I'm not considering like street parking so the way that I'm envisioning to like do the development

there at least providing like two or three parking it it it's not be like a covered parking but there should be a room like uh inside each lot that those student uh can like Park their car but also the pro proximity to the Duke University and I know that there is a bike lane going on in across the Marine Road I believe that also will be helpful for those student that they can commute to the university by by b instead of like having like a car ownership thank you are we ready to move this case forward may I have a motion to move this case forward please chair as it relates to case z2300 34302 Marine Road I make a motion that we move this case forward with a favorable recommendation to city council second that commissioner Valentine I could see okay moved it's been moved by

commissioner cutright and seconded by commissioner Valentine to move case z230 34 302 Marine Road forward with a favorable Rec recommendation may I have the roll call vote please chair Cameron yes Vice chair sheras yes commissioner cutright yes commissioner chowski yes commissioner Graves mans yes commissioner Gregory yes commissioner Johnson yes commissioner copac yes commissioner mver yep commissioner Valentine yes commissioner Williams yes commissioner woke yes commissioner young yes the motion passes 13 to zero thank

8 Acres located at 1402 and 1412 south Mineral Springs Road the current zoning is residential Suburban 20 the applicant proposes to change this designation to plan development residential 5349 through a textual development plan to allow up to 58 townhouse units the properties are currently designated mixed use neighborhood on the place type map the proposed zoning is consistent with the designated Place type the existing zoning is residential

Suburban 20 the site is surrounded by plan development residential and residential Suburban 20 the aerial map shows the general location of the project in Southeastern Durham the properties are currently designated mixed use neighborhood on the place type map the proposed PDR 5349 zoning was determined consistent with this place type there is an Associated contiguous annexation petition with this case case bdg 23028 the proposal commits to numerous text commitments of those being 50% impervious surface an additional amenity in the open space area five affordable units for households earning at or below 80% area median income for a period of 30 years a 10t but shared path along the sight's frontage a minimum of 25% tree

coverage 60% of trees vehicular use area plantings and vegetative buffers to be native species and at least three distinct open space areas on site a neighborhood meeting was held in accordance with Udo requirements on July 26 2023 where two community members were present in summation the proposed would allow the development of 58 townhouse units the site census tract has a lower tax value increase in percentage of cost burden renters than Durham County on average and the number of evictions is consistent with the county rate these statistics suggest a lower displacement risk in this area the site is generally autod dependent lacking access to multimodal infrastructure and is in not in is not in close proximity to daily services while compliant with Udo requirements the transportation department did request that the applicant commit to the

construction of a 10 foot concrete shared path along the south Mineral Springs Road for the frontage of the three Parcels to the South parcels 16547 16544 and 1651 143 to avoid gaps in the sidewalk system the applicant declined to make the request to profer and did not provide additional details there is currently a commitment for a 10- foot shared path along the sight's frontage however uh the proposal is generally consistent as previously stated with the place type map designation of mixed use neighborhood thank you staff and the applicant are available to answer questions thank you the public hearing the chair at this time the chair is opening the public hearing may we have the applicant come forward please good evening chair Cameron Vice sharis members of the Planning Commission my name is Patrick biker I live at 2614 Stewart Drive and I'm with Morning Star Law Group uh thank you

8 Acres off of Mineral Springs Road the requested PDR zoning will facilitate a town home development with a maximum of 58 Town Homes three sides of this assemblage are already in the city of Durham and therefore annexing this property will close most of a doughnut hole in the city's jurisdiction which of course is one of the goals in our new comprehensive plan in addition residential development here is appropriate this location is very close to the highway 70 commercial Corridor and it's surrounded by current and future residential development I hope you all have taken the time to drive around this area the neighborhood across the street is already developed with single family homes and the property is bordered on on three sides by the future Micah Ridge residential development and that was rezoned and annexed in February of 2023 this residential uh type of

6% of these new town homes that's a very strong profer I want to piggy back on what commissioner cutright said during um uh Ted hbr's presentation uh that's a strong commitment and it's a

serious uh subsidy coming from the development team second we are increasing the tree canopy coverage uh from 20% to 25% and there's also a commitment that this coverage comes from preserving existing trees third we have decreased the impervious surface on this site for from 70% to 50% fourth we have a commitment uh to promote uh Native species and fifth there's a commitment to break up the open space into three distinct areas which will create a more interesting layout in addition to those commitments uh we wish to State on the record tonight that we provide $6,000 to during public schools which is uh uh the traditional $500 per new stent per new student profer I'll be happy to word Smith that and share it with Mr Kane and his team uh uh tomorrow we'll make that payment prior to issuance of a certificate of occupancy uh again for all these reasons we respectfully ask for your approval we'll be happy to try to answer any questions thank

you thank you are there any community members present that yes ma'am please approach the podium and state your name and address hi sorry I wasn't planning on speaking tonight my name is Lisa Roman Schaffer and I actually live in the development right across from uh the site I have a question for you sorry oh c in one video too um I have been informed oh before before even say that you had said that the community was made aware and we were able to see and go to this meeting I didn't hear about any meeting for this development or for the one on Sharon Road that is why I'm here tonight

to inform and educate myself on this I have been um shared information that the board did pass saying uh for the Watershed because there is a little creek that's right on that property as well as the one on Sharon Road all of this development although it is great for our community it has been damaging we also own a home on Stallings Road which we are planning on moving into however we stopped fixing up our house to be able to move into it to enjoy the countryside because our well water which was super clear is now this really nasty murky clay almost like um like a a tomato soup kind of color so that is a huge concern for me as well um the plan that has been passed for the southeast durm Watershed Improvement plan I've been told has is going to cost

the city and the county taxpayers over $3 million so I'm just wondering it's already damaging our water now let alone continuing to build the way that we're building at the rate that we're building is not only damaging our water source which is affecting every aspect of Our Lives it's also caused Wildlife to seek refuge and trying to find other places we've had our cattle our chickens our pets even our kids in our neighborhoods scared and some of them have been dying because we've had a lot of coyotes just looking for refuge and trying to find food or a place to live sorry ma'am your your time is up thank you you it's okay thank you is there anyone else in the audience that would like to speak all right we will move to the zoom I see Donna stck with her hand

up please go ahead good afternoon uh City County Planning Commissioners um I'm Donna stainbeck and I'm a core member of The Preserve rural Durham team we have some concerns and I sent an email out highlighting some of those this afternoon um but I'll have to go through this fast um the blasting concerns continue we still do not have anybody paying the people who've had damages to their Wells and to their homes so you know we need a commitment to no blasting as um the lady was just talking about that stream on the western portion of the property flows directly into liit Creek to hold a road it only to grow Park it's new restoration that area floods already and uh we need a

commitment for the 100e uh storm water plan because it definitely flooded uh uh with what we just saw the other week and it's done it some other times um so um we the Wetland on site has no buffer proposed and Wetland lands are important to keep from flooding and we got minimum open space um which and then the additional 391 vehicles per day well uh as they were saying take a time to drive out there well it'll take a long time because the traffic is bad and entrance and exits uh are tough and you it it's really hard to get onto your property or out of it uh into the traffic um there's no parks in the

4 million to fix 6,000 linear feet of

91% over capacity with Neil 110% overc capacity 391 additional vehicle trips per day will be added to the heavily congested area the cumulative impact studies are needed desperately for this out of town thank you for your time thank you is there anyone else on the zoom wishing to speak please use the raise your hand function or Star n on your [Music] phone no one else on the zoom wishing to

6% which again is uh to my knowledge for for sale product where there's no subsidy there's no federal tax subsidy for that it's it's purely a hit on the bottom line so that's the best we can do at this

juncture thank you commissioner jurowski did I get close yes chair thank you so much uh so I see the recommendations made by bpac and I'm wondering why the commitments will not be provided on three out of those four oh that's because there's I'm glad you asked that question there if you drive down Mineral Springs it's a two-lane ditch Section Road that RightWay is quite narrow um it's there's simply not adequate public right of way to construct those improvements uh in the public RightWay um re I wish I could remember what year it was Sir I apologize within the last several years the North Carolina court of appeals uh handed down a case called town of Apex V Rubin and that said cities in North Carolina may not use their power of imminent domain to assist public to assist private development uh that's why we can't commit to that if they're adequate right of way I don't think it would be an issue but Mineral Springs is a is a is an old two-lane dissection Road um uh it

it's just simply not legally possible to commit to Pro to commit to improvements on other people's property and um in the past you know 10 I've been doing this for a few years it's not my first rodeo um it was more common and uh we would work with the city of Durham uh to to put in exactly those types of infrastructure improvements we would partner with the city the core of appeal deals have said that's not permissible so I wish we could we see the need um if there were adequate right of way I I think we'd be happy to do it but without right of way it's not possible so it's that y'all are unable to commit but it's not that it's not doable is that correct it's not doable because you'd have to get the permission from the property owners and if they don't want to give their permission we committ if we committ it to something and just one of those three property owner says no we're not doing it we're not going to let you on our property that kills the project

because it's a zoning commitment that runs with the property that has to be done prior to a certificate of occupancy so um it's a challenge I've seen it change a lot over the course of my career thank you thank you commissioner woke hey so I've heard um you know the community has mentioned a couple times a creek on the property and and so it does I when I was reviewing it I just wanted to see so I saw that there's no commitment to protecting the environmentally sensitive areas on the property is that correct I'm not I don't believe there are any that that showed up on the property so what we did um commissioner is only 15% of the site is required to be uh tree coverage we increased that to 25% so we felt that was the best way to address uh those concerns by Saving um a significant increase of the trees on site than what the Udo requires and are those in that environmentally sensitive area on the

property that's something we'd have to work on on a site plan I'm sure the site plan team under assistant director der brinsky would direct us to do exactly that thank you commissioner talb grahams and then commissioner Valentine yeah I'm sorry Graves man what did I call you me by my first [Music] name my last day crazy sorry um you you speak a little bit about how the developer plans to Market to the um to the potential owners that are going to be uh for the affordable ownership yeah I think we'd reach out to uh different um uh for for example Duke University by far our largest employer we would reach out to their home they have a home buyer Club at Duke University we prepare their employees nurses maintenance workers who are saving up for a home want to become a first-time home buyer we' reach out to

the local groups uh who are are preparing people to become homeowners so it's a local development team uh we're happy to do that uh yeah we'll be very intentional about that make sure we get the word out to um uh our local employers uh work through the I'm on the board directors of the Home Builders Association we'll certainly Market it through uh all of our community outreach uh and events that we hold in the uh across durum to let people know that there is a uh an 80% Ami uh opportunity for people on Mineral Springs Road followup question I should have asked this the other developer earlier M how is that going to shape up is it do you know if it's going to be um is it a down payment assistance program is it a reduction in reduction in the purchase price I reduction in purchase price you have you established what that reduction is going to be yet but it's hard to hit a moving Target because I think as you all know it takes a long time to get through site plan and then drawings and then to build it every year I believe in

June uh the Department of Housing and Urban Development revises what the area of mediate income is for for Durham so we don't know what the area of median income is going to be in 20207 or 2028 when when the units will actually go for sale but it'll be pegged at that 80% of that number thank you yes sir staff like say something commissioner Graves man if I could just give you uh the HUD calculates the Ami and they do it by number of persons in the household so just to give you an idea in 2024 an 80% income household with four persons in it is $84,700 a year that's right so would that's the earning that's the earnings of the it's the earnings of the of a four-person family correct and it goes down as there's fewer people in the family it goes up as there's more people in the family uh for those those who might have a lot of kids that seems counterintuitive but that that is the way HUD does

it okayif oh yeah you say you don't know yeah it's it's hard to it's hard to guesstimate that I mean it's in the tens of thousands there's no doubt it's it's a significant discount that that makes a real difference and as we were talking about I think on on the um uh bragtown project this is what builds generational wealth you know it's great we we have the low-income housing tax credit program for 60% Ami rentals and that helps people save but in terms of actually creating generational wealth I think the these tow houses at 80% Ami is actually going to be what actually makes a difference for people who otherwise may not be able to to afford a home I'm 100% on board 110% on board I should ACC this ear I'm so sorry it's your last meeting I I'm really going to miss you I hopefully it'll invite me back you're not moving are you no

good property line my neighbor yeah um but had um the I should maybe some other Commissioners can help me understand a little bit more about how we're thinking about this affordable ownership opportunity are there um how are your your development team and other development teams thinking about the parameter they put around the time of ownership for the the new owner to be able to hold on to it to keep their incentive yeah I mean that's a that's a you know some people support a shorter time frame we committed to um 30 years um yeah so what what it you know what it says is you're going to have to we're going to preserve this townhouse as an affordable townhouse for 30 years after it's built um that's great for the community for the family who buys it maybe they'll live there 30 years I'm actually hitting 30 years in in our

house that we own and it was the first house we bought so some people live there for a long time um it's it's a you know the good it the equity will build up with essentially the cost of living or inflation so it's not like it's static um so but it it does of course not open the townhouse up to being subject to the wild increase and prices that we've seen in some Durham neighborhoods over the last several years so um it's a delicate Balancing Act in this case we we went with uh I believe it was the 30-year um time frame I'm sorry call yeah your your time is up beer study here we come going on to commissioner Valentine yes so thank you for your presentation uh counselor uh will there be any blasting that's required in this uh this project at this juncture we don't know uh I you know again it's a very small site so be cautiously optimistic that it's uh and and again

it's it's um pretty much surrounded by uh new development so hopefully the sewer tie-ins are very straightforward but um like I said the good news is it's a small site the bad news is we don't we don't know uh well there is some concern in the community about the possibilities of uh blasting at this particular yeah the good news is it's a very small site so as it relates to the the larger community that is uh a sector of the county where there's also a lot of development that's going on and we already know that the impact a blasting has had uh on this sector in in the county and so I think that's something that we collectively particularly this body should take a look at uh we look at these projects as sort of one-offs but really they have such large implications for uh our community ac across the county and so um I think we we are doing a disservice by um not looking at the

collective nature of how these uh projects impact uh on our community and so you'd also talked about um actually the the the young lady who came and spoke about the concerns with uh what she described as sort of a tomato type uh um a tomato pasty type uh impact on her water and so we know that to be true I mean there's been multiple times that people have come before this body and talk to us about the impact uh that these projects are having on on the water and it's quality in fact I believe there there's a lawsuit currently in this particular particular uh part of the county where this issue is being address but on this particular project what are you um doing to try to to deal with some of the concerns with particularly on the western portion of this project um the flow into lit Creek which is being damaged tremendously by the the nature

of our development here in D dorm County yeah I think at the time of site plan we'll certainly be looking at the uh especially the large area that's going to be the tree safe components I mean we wanted to break that up so it' be a very attractive neighborhood but obviously we want to be be sure to uh at the time of site plan that do the best we can to uh preserve trees and again these are preserving trees so the good news is we're not replanting we're preserving what's on site and that's a commitment um many developments that we work on um have to re have to replant trees but in this case we're fortunate enough to be able to preserve an extra 10% so I think that'll help address that concern so that the time of site plan we'll make sure that we're preserving 25% of the trees are on site uh which I think is the best you know really the best type of buffer it's not the buffer in the Udo sense but the buffer in the um in the physical sense so you're reserving the trees that that way those root zones are not going to be disturbed that retains

um the um um uh rainfall on site to the best of our ability and and one last question it was already brought up by someone who spoke um earlier about the 100e storm water plan yeah this juncture I don't think we've been able to run the calculations to see if that would um if that would if that would fit so we'll certainly look at it um prior to city council but at this juncture I don't think we're able to commit to that but we'll certainly look at it between now and city council appreciate you bringing that up good commissioner Johnson so um do you commit to doing no blasting if it's if it's not required I mean it's a simple question for me blasting is a problem for me if it can be avoided through costs incurred by the developer to do other means do you commit to doing everything possible to avoid

blasting I I would have to defer to my friend Aaron Kane if that's an enforcable commitment um certainly nobody wants to do it because it's an expensive undertaking we would hope that we don't find any subsurface rock that impedes the uh lines I'm not aware of how that could be an enforcable commitment yeah we would need something much more specific than you know other otherwise avoidable or something like that uh we would we we can't enforce something like that we would need some very specific uh parameters for that that I don't know that can be provided this time I've never seen an example of a conditional no blasting commitment yeah the reason I raised it is for the obvious reasons we've heard about water about flood all those other things that we have to look in the global sense uh silly question but was the one property owner who didn't offer up his land for sidewalks and whatever was were they offered any compensation for offering that or could they be offered any

compensation well it it's a it's a chicken and egg problem commissioner in that you could have um an agreement with a homeowner but until you actually close on the property you wouldn't have the right to build the sidewalk so it's um again something that I I honestly legally I don't know how you fix that problem given what the court of appeals has has said that there is no recourse for eminent domain for public improvements so we certainly would like to see better pedestrian connectivity in the area but and if the city would just acquire the right away that would that would make everything that would make everything work but most um but when you're on something when you're on a road like Mineral Springs that's just a ditch Section Road you have that problem if it if this were a a a newer street with curbing gutter I don't think we'd be having this problem but it's an old it's an old ditch two-lane ditch Section Road and it is what it is but it does create a problem um to the staff I did the

calculation on school impact I think it was understated it said 64,000 I think it's actually 145,000 if I did my math right you've uh proferred 6,000 believe are you willing to raise that higher and staff please inject no it's if I may commissioner there's 12 additional students and for as long as I've been doing this type of work it's been $500 per new student as the profer from the development community and that's 6,2 time 500 sure I but I thought you calculated on the total impact of the number total students which I calculated on other forms So currently um we have in our staff report that it's uh per pupil it would be $537 and that's that's um a number that was created in in collaboration with DPS to to kind of rightsize what what that contribution would look like um but of

course any contributions to Durham Public Schools is is not a requirement and above any standards that we have no my my point is if I I think it's based on potential students generated not the increased from the original zoning to the new zoning so it' be 165 + 6 * 5,000 gets me to be 145,000 so we gen we produce the staff reports with the understanding that it's based on the uh new students generated the the the uh Delta between what is allowed under the current zoning that somebody could develop by right and what would be anticipated based on the new zoning and not just the total number of students but the Delta on that thank you I did the calculation on others it doesn't appear that but I'll look again okay we we'll we'll make sure that we have that math because if it's more then 6,000 gives me PA well yeah so 6,000 is what's being proferred that's not no I

understand yeah okay thank you so much and I'm also concerned about the road Improvement the answer I got in the meeting notice was that other developments in the area will take care of the road Improvement so you don't in your development have to address it could you explain that more and by the way 10 acres to me is a lot of land not a small project it it's relative to many projects it's fairly small in terms of acreage and number of units um is so far below the Tia threshold that um under state and federal law it's you're not allowed to impose off-site Road improvements for a project that does not require a traffic impact analyses in terms of the number of town homes that are required uh that would have to be built in order to require a TIA um I see my I see M leene Thomas there it's around 300 I think 300 town homes in order to require Tia and

tonight we are at 58 so um that's why the in terms of the roadway Improvement ments it's limited to the U essentially the frontage along Mineral Springs Road that facilitates safe access uh in and out of the site and that's a again that's a limitation that's been articulated by both uh state courts and federal federal courts right earing Thomas Transportation um I just wanted to add to and and make one clarification um Mr biker is correct so the improvements that would be required for this development would be the turn Lanes associated with any direct access to Mineral Springs um off-site improvements cannot be required as a traffic study was not required for this project in the previous project a traffic study was required reviewed and improvements were required of that development um also

improvements that were identified of other developments would need to be constructed before that last development could get a CO as well so if those improvements had are not completed that development would need to construct those as well so I just want to clarify traffic study was done for that one and improvements required as needed to accommodate that development both at the access points and off site Miss Thomas for that clarification you're welcome Miss Thomas uh Sharon and Mineral Springs are both ncdot roads is that correct yes that's correct so so both NCD and the City of Durham review our our access plans to make sure that the uh Road widening at the at the access point is going to create safe traffic movements both the the district office on Stadium Drive and c and the city transportation department Commissioners any other questions

yes it says in the proposal I supposed to call your name oh I chair Shar is yes Vice chair Shar is here impervious surfaces are limited to 50% of the site so you're committing to since it's only a 10 point some odd Acre Site five acres could you also commit to making sure that those impervious surfaces aren't subject to blasting if blasting is required you wanted staff wanted a specific number yeah I I I hear the concern the the the the challenge we have is that you really have no idea where subsurface Rock exists on 5 Acres 10 acres 50 acres and so it could and it's just random where it shows up there's just no way to anticipated you would have to do so many borings which is not cheap prior to a resoning being approved to to to be able to answer that question and make a commitment that would run with the land

4 Acres will be perious yeah so it' be 50/50 uh under the Udo you're allowed to go up to 70% impervious surface only 30% is required to stay pervious we're taking that an extra 20% higher to 50% so it's 50/50 on this so technically during the construction process the whole place could be blasted and then you would just come back over that's not realistic ma'am it's only sewer lines nobody wants to do blasting we only have to figure out where the sewer lines tie into the existing Mains and hope there's no subsurface rock where that trench has to go and sometimes those trenches are quite deep in order to have gravity sewer okay thank you commissioner copac yeah thank you chair Cameron first I just want to acknowledge the comments

and concerns by residents here in person and on the line I know it's not easy to come before a group like this up on the Das especially for the first time under a time limit uh and so I appreciate you sharing those comments from your personal experience and I share the concerns around blasting water quality and storm water and I do want to urge uh you counselor to go back and work with your client to see particularly around the 100 uh year storm water plan to see if that's something that can be added to the application before going to the city council it seems like something that that is something that's more within the control of the applicants um and I appreciate commissioner Valentine's call to trying to address this outside of the case by case basis um it seems that this I don't mean to interrupt but as as a board member of the home builders I I we would like to have the home builders partner with the Planning Commission to investigate this blasting issue so we can bring all the home builders to the table hear the concerns of the community and try and I apologize for interrupting

but I wanted to I remember what I had for breakfast this morning so I didn't want to lose that thought but please commissioner I I I'm sorry about that no problem at all great Point um yeah you know it seems like we are seeing pretty astonishing growth and development in this part of the county it also seems like that is the result of an INT of intentional policy Decisions by elected officials to drive development patterns in this way and so I look forward to when you were on the County Commission uh for this body to work with you and and perhaps you would have to wait that long to look for ways to partner and and address some of these issues at a broader policy level versus looking at it Case by case like we do here just looking to see if it's squares with the comprehensive plan so I appreciate that that that comment you made um also you know the affordable housing commitments are definitely commendable uh I do appreciate the call for the canopy uh beyond that that minimum I think we need to see that and more that protection of existing trees which is just planting new because it's not the same agreed um

my my main question is for the is for our staff and about the place type of of mixed uh use if I have that right mix use neighborhoods mix use neighborhoods and I'm just wondering and it's not just this application but just wondering about the alignment with Place type map and the comprehensive plan for mix use neighborhood when it calls for centrally located Civic institutional commercial uses um you know it calls for resid non-resident uses uh uh it talks about like 15 minute walking distance U about Transportation infrastructure that encourages safe walking biking rolling and and and riding transit in areas with development patterns in roads where there is no right of way to be able to actually help put that in place and so how are we supposed to think as a body about that place type and how these sorts of proposals were were you you know I think

staff is even is encouraging us to think about this as like a mixed use neighborhood development like how should we be thinking about some of those tensions yeah definitely and the so the place type map and the comprehensive plan that it's a Visionary document um you know created from you know Community residents and this this body here y'all's job is to really interpret and weigh those tensions so I don't have a great answer for you um in our staff report we do try and highlight um you know we look at all the characteristics of the different place types so we we do have um at section L the place type consistency where we go through um the transportation characteristics the the types of uh uses being proposed uh for the site or whichever project um Service Pro provision and green space so we try and and touch on those topics um

there are also specific Place type policies that we touch on in our consistency uh analysis um did you have a specific question for this site I guess for this site then with that you know with that commence background is mix use neighborhood like the closest fit even though there's inconsistency as you see it with the different types of place types and that's why it's recommended as falling under that so we said for this case that it would be consistent with mixed use um while there are some tensions with you know the there's only residential being proposed on the site which I think has been brought up um due to the site's relatively small size it's only about 10 acres um which we consider relatively small um that you know we've we've looked at the immediate surrounding area for instance um there is mostly single family housing in that area so uh planners on our team we were

thinking um to to kind of look a little bit broader out for the full mixed use neighborhood area Place type this is adding a new type of housing to to that General mixed use neighborhood area um I I think that was one of the the tensions that you brought up okay thank you all right we have uh 3 minutes till 7:30 if when we need to take our break are we do you still have questions or do we want move this case forward anybody else have questions one minute please the blasting uh are these Town Homes going to have basements or are they all going to be on slabs I don't know but my I hly don't know the answer to that question that's again that's something we tend to figure

out the site plan issue when you really get into the uh what the grades are on the site and if you have a would have a walk out basement it could very well be a combination of both sir may I have a motion to move this case forward chair as it relates to case z23 0044 Mineral Springs Town Homes I make a recommend ation that we and its add I make a recommendation that we move this case forward with its additional profer of U $500 per student uh to dur Public Schools yeah 6,000 okay thank you and just to clarify $6,000 profer to dur Public Schools thank you yes sir with a favorable recommendation thank you is there a i second seconded by commissioner woke it has been moved by commissioner cutright and seconded by commissioner woke to move case z23 trip 44 Mineral Springs tow houses for with a favorable recommendation may I have the

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2 acres and located at 8039 91 and 903 Sharon Road the current

zoning is residential Suburban 10 with a development plan residential Suburban 20 and residential rural the applicant proposes to change this designation to residential Suburban 8 with a textual development plan to allow up to 120 single family and townhouse dwelling units the properties are currently designated mixed residential neighborhood on the place type map the proposed residential Suburban 8 with the development plan zoning is consistent with the designated Place type the existing zoning is residential Suburban 10 with a development plan residential Suburban 20 and residential rural the site is surrounded by plan development residential residential Suburban 20 and residential rural the aerial map shows the general location of the project in Southeastern Durham the properties are currently designated mixed residential neighborhood on the place type map the proposed RS uh 8 with the development plan zoning was determined consistent

with this place type there is an Associated contiguous annexation petition with this case case bdg 2329 The Proposal makes textual commitments and excess of Udo requirements including the limitation of impervious surface to no greater than 50% contributions to Durham public schools in the amount of $188,500 and the Durham dedicated housing Fund in the amount of $40,000 the construction of a 10-ft shared path on the site's Frontage native tree uh Native Street tree plantings a minimum of 25% open space and at least two recreational amenities such as a pocket park playground dog park or gazebo a neighborhood meeting was held in accordance with yudia requirements on August 22nd 2023 where 11 community members were in attendance uh finally The Proposal seeks

to allow the construction of up to 120 market rate single family in townhouse dwelling units with a minimum of 80 townhouse units uh upon completion situated in eastern Durham the site is within approximately 5 miles of various daily Services uh however the area is predominantly autod dependent additionally the census track with the which the site is in has a marginally higher incidence of evictions but lower percentages of tax value increase in cost burden renters compared to the Durham County average this indicates a lower risk of displacement in the area again the proposal is generally consistent with the place type map designation of mixed residential neighborhood thank you staff and the applicant are available for questions thank you may we have um at this time the chair is opening the public hearing and the applicant is welcome to the podium good evening chair Cameron Vice

chair sharis members of the Planning Commission my name is Patrick biker with Morning Star Law Group I live at 2614 Stewart Drive I'm here representing the Drees company uh for this relatively small infield development Drees is a family-owned homebuilder with a great track record here in durum especially nearby uh they were one of the home builders in the very successful bright leaf at the park neighborhood and I work worked on that quite a few years ago tonight I'm joined by Sha Gattis of the Dre company uh the subject Pro property we're looking at uh tonight is made up of three parcels and just a just a little bit over 24 acres and that's on the east side of Sharon Road only one of these properties 803 Sharon Road is located out in the county um but the others are are already in the city limits this proposal includes annexing uh about 62 acres again located at 803 Sher Road into the city limits and that's to gain access to public utilities the city council approved the annexation and the resoning for the other two properties 901 and 9903 Sharon

5 acres and that happened back on May 15 of 2023 the 803 Sharon Road property we're discussing tonight essentially phase two of the project that the city council approved 15 months ago there will only be tow houses on the 803 Sharon Road parcel in total the development will have about 120 units or up to 120 units and this uh parcel we're talking about tonight will have at the most 57 Town Homes 901 and 903 Sharon Road currently are zoned RS10 with a development plan 803 is zoned rural residential and rs rs20 so for the sake of uniformity and to accommodate um the neighborhood concerns that we heard during our community engagement primarily about storm water we're going to reone we wish to reone 901 90 3 and 803 Sharon Road all to Suburban residential Suburban 8 with a development plan uh again I'd like to point out as M roer stated the project is consistent with a designated

Place type map uh designation on the place type map uh since it's designated mixed residential neighborhood and so we have a a text commitment to have a mix of single family and Tow houses furthermore the site is um uh in CL fairly close proximity to grocery stores and employment and Retail opportunities and Healthcare facilities uh as I mentioned we had uh our team had a neighborhood meeting uh in regards to the resoning of 803 Sharon Road on August 22 of 2023 uh we felt this was a positive meeting on the whole in regards to the project but the main concern uh was uh the water runoff and storm water uh concerns we explained that the main reason we're resoning 803 and joining it to 901 and 903 is so that we changed the Contours on 803 so that the water instead of flowing towards the neighbors that are on Foxboro it'll instead flow which is in an East direction we're instead going to regrade and rebalance the site which we think is going to cost

you know ballpark half a million dollars we're going to regrade the site so that it in fact slopes away from the neighborhood on Foxboro and all the storm water will go to the West in connection with this development among other commitments we will construct a 10-ft uh concrete shared p path across the full Frontage of this uh on this side of Sharon Road and that will accommodate bicyclists and pedestrians uh we'll also have an exclusive southbound left turn lane and exclusive Northbound right turn lane on Sharon Road and we'll also dedicate 25 ft of additional Frontage along Sharon Road in addition uh We've committed to provide at least uh two of the following um a minimum 10,000 square foot park playground equipment a minimum of 5,000 ft dog park uh or a Zebo in a Gathering Place uh other commitments include a contribution to Durham public schools and Durham dedicated housing fund which are consistent with what the city council approved um last year and so we believe this resoning will facilitate

25% over capacity so if there can be something done about that

that would be amazing as well a huge concern that we're also having is the traffic trying to in case of an emergency I myself uh was pregnant in 2022 had an emergency 911 was an answering the Sheriff's Office wasn't answering so my husband and I tried getting to the hospital as quick as possible right where the ball fields are to get to the stop sign to get on to Patterson to get to the light we sat there for over 30 minutes unfortunately 30 minutes when you are having I lost my baby um so that is a huge concern uh just literally yesterday there was a lady who lives in one of these new townhouse developments she was trying to get out of her driveway and accidentally hit another vehicle because there's no parking in these townhouse developments that have been built and she had called 911 the the other person had said please don't call the cops please don't call the cops and just wanted to leave so she did call 911 no

response she called the Sheriff's Office no response I gave her the non-emergency number no response our emergency personnels are just so overwhelmed right now that they cannot accommodate what is already here the uh fire department isn't equipped with all of the equipment that they need to be able to help us for example there's no fire hydrants on Stallings Road they just put brand new ones in on Sharon Road we all assumed it was because they were going to be developing and they're developing um so that is a huge concern for all of us one is our safety God forbid any one of us need an ambulance or fire to come as possible they can't get through as he did say on um Mineral Springs Road sorry your time is up ma' okay thank you well thank you very much I appreciate your time thank you is there anyone on okay we have zoom the first hand I see raay is Donna stainbeck [Music]

go ahead unmute yourself okay um good evening Durham planning Commissioners as she just mentioned uh one of myid I'm sorry please state your name and your address before speaking oh yes I'm Donna stainback at 4825 Jimmy Rogers Road Duram North Carolina um a key concern is the roads there they treat Sharon Road like it's a freeway um it's it's very difficult and it backs up uh so far I've been caught in it and just but I've never had something as bad as what she just mentioned um also we have the blasting concerns continue to be a problem out there um what was also mentioned by U Mr B was that they were going to divert the

water to the West well on the west side of the uh property flows the liit creek um within 400 feet of the Creek flood zone it is against the settlement Pollution Control Act to have any settlement flowing outside of your pro the property being developed but that continues to happen the U minimum Udo storm water plans is what the plan said now we're requesting the 100-year storm water plan with this property as you you've already heard they they had problems with that we got we need more than the minimum of 20% tree coverage um right now only 40,000 is being contributed to the Durham dedicated housing fund um where are we going to put the wildlife I mean nobody seems to care but that is a reality and um the um we there

there are no parks in the vicinity and this adds 9993 additional vehicles per day to Sharon Road which is only a 10- foot Road um only 15 policies out of the 23 comprehensive plan policies were met that's only a 65% that's not a passing grade thank you thank you next we have levius Allen go ahead please unmute yourself go ahead please state your name and address let's move on to the next person uh I see phone number 919 982 wait 9198 2

46607 please state your name and address hello my name is Stephen Barnes I'm at address 203 foxb Lane uh and uh right on the corner of Foxboro and Lum please go ahead sir yes and so my yeah my concerns are uh the biggest concerns I have listen to everything and even the last one that was uh approved one by one vote is that you know I don't think people are really considering the with with I'm right there on that hill where the the ground is not stable and we've already got the land caving in as it is and they're talking about building right there so the land the instability of the land is a big issue also the drainage I have pictures and video of the flood that's going in our backyards already from that Hill coming down so

the storage the drainage is an issue uh and also the the two-lane road that's not sufficient enough for space the traffic congestion and just for everything that they're building right now I don't think it's appropriate or timely for them to open up uh uh this whole building project with not enough space for uh traffic to actually easily go through through and and without causing other hazards it's a lot being said about this property I've been in the last meeting I also requested from the builders that were trying to take over this property about uh retainer walls to actually take care of some of those issues if they were to uh uh uh pass this I'm asking I'm St most of our neighbors are really against this because we don't feel like it was properly planned nor do we feel like all the things are done that to make sure that things are we don't we don't mind if it's done but they need to take care of it and make sure stuff is

done so I'm requesting that this be delayed for now and that they do more planning and that they come out and really see what's going on with the flood areas that are already going and the land caving in it's three houses on that right on that back slate where I live and we're all really affected by this uh this thing that is about to happen so I'm asking that this Board of Commissioners and all right thank you sir time is up sorry next we have Pamela uh is Mr Allen able to talk now we just muted him again are you able to hear us sir all right if we can uh remove him from the screen and go on to Pamela Andrews good evening can you hear me now yes

okay my name is Pamela Andrews Wake Forest Highway Duram North Carolina my is my address um Sharon Road has been slammed by development this small two-lane road was once tobacco Farms today it is saturated with development especially Town Homes just two weeks ago off for track was approved with 100 Town Homes coming soon there's Sharon Road Town Homes there's Sharon Place Town Homes lar project Orchard Ridge Le another 24 Acres will be mcrad to allow for 120 single family homes and town homes with a minimum of 80 as we know this Mass grading will disturb large quantities of Triassic Basin soil which will flow into a stream on the west side right into lit Creek the lit Creek flood zone is 200 feet away our Creeks were not only tomato red tomato soup but many overflowed its banks during this last storm the southern environmental law Center lawsuit has moved forward in federal court against the violations of the Clean Water Act in this area sediment is not supposed to leave the job site as

mentioned with the minimum of 20% tree preservation the amount of mass gradient and likely blasting will be great the schools are over capacity is stated 65 additional students spring Bley is 117% overc capacity with Neil 110% overc capacity note the cumulative effect on these development in this area it's not just individual capacity what we have it we need to look at the environment the schools and traffic 993 additional vehicle trips per day as mentioned by the last speaker only 15 of the 23 policies were met this is not a great process we've got to do better thank you for letting me speak tonight have a good evening thank you is there anyone else in the zoom that would like to speak please use the raise your hand function or hit St

n at this time the chair is closing the public hearing and I'm sorry you already spoke at this time the chair is closing the public hearing and we'll now open for commissioner discussion and questions commissioner Johnson I'll kick it off chair thank um first of all going back to schools they are over capacity and I understand that but it's the development uh the profer U could I clarify with staff from the convers this one's calculated a little bit differently than the prior one which is correct just for my clarification yes so apologies for the confusion the we like to calculate using the Delta the the what would be changed with the rezoning so the the numbers that you're seeing in this

calculation in this report I've already noted are incorrect and we'll go back and update them before city council uh so it it should be uh I think 118,000 instead of the number that you see in the staff report apologies again thank you for and again the actual impact notwithstanding the change is going to be higher because of the number of units so so general question for the developer attorney you heard about a number of issues flooding you heard issues traffic you heard issue environmental uh response of those before I go into specific details uh sure I wanted to mention we remember Mr Barnes being at the neighborhood meeting and this feels like no good deed goes unpunished we listen to his concern and we said okay we can rebalance this entire site so you're complaining about water runoff going towards your house we'll rebalance the entire sites because right now if you look at GIS topography

it the water flows just the way God made it it flows downhill towards Foxboro Lane we're going to regrade the site so it drains instead towards the SCM on Sharon Road so we're actually fixing his problem by if this resoning is approved we can rebalance the site which is going to cost ballpark half a million dollars which is 10,00 ,000 per townhouse so we heard his concern we are addressing his concern with this proposal and this should be a market Improvement to the water condition storm water condition he is experiencing on his property right now um in terms of traffic uh it's very similar to the previous project where this is such a small project it's not even close to the threshold for traffic impact analysis therefore the site access is reviewed by Miss Thomas and Mr sandor at ncdot make sure that we're providing the turn lanes and the access so that the Ingress and egress to the site is safe and efficient uh the other I would draw your attention to the staff report which shows that the capacity on

H Sharon Road is is 14,000 something and the current traffic count was 11,000 so the road is in fact underc capacity um and I'm sorry I missed your third one what was that no I was just repeating I wanted to hear about all the issues so let me move on with my time mhm um couple clarifications you said minimum 57 the paperwork said not minimum 80 Town Homes which is it oh oh on the phase that we're talking about tonight on 803 would be a minimum of 57 the overall project which is 24 Acres would be a minimum of 80 but the only um part that's being the only parcel that's being annexed is the 6 and half acres at 803 Sharon Road um my my comment for staff just to clarify Vision zero which is looking at traffic trying to reduce traffic this is not having public transportation have they provided any sort of feedback on this

project so not to my knowledge um we I don't believe we include we have a new vision zero staff member um part of the city uh and I don't believe we received any comments on on this case I'll close with an observation and first of all the propers you offered I recognize I think you know you stepped up I think there will be concerns I think any concerns need to be heard but I did notice some changes that you made to address those my concern is there's a large development just north of this that's been building over the last few years so you've got that impact you've got this impact even though it's smaller but it's you got all the area impacts and all those issues that just talked about seem to roll down to the latest one which happens to be you and my concern is it's not so much a question is how do we address those so the

community at large community at large isn't dealing with the type of issues that we heard about I don't have an answer per se I'm thinking about the best way to approach it but I do want to step back and recognize what you've done to try to address those but those concerns haven't been allayed in my mind especially traffic 85% by the way once you add your traffic it goes up to 85% capacity I don't know about the others I know the staff does a great job of looking at those thank you thank you sir anyone else can't see commissioner Gregory hi um so I definitely appreciate the textual commitments in excess of the Udo requirements that yall have listed out um but in examining the satellite imagery of this site that you that was included in the um the zoning map Change

Report clearly it's heavily forested um and so it's really no wonder to me that residents are posing concerns regarding about regarding erodability and runoff um when evidently a lot of trees are going to have to get cut down and this is already on a site that's got Triassic Bas and soils so um I guess my question to you is is looking at those textual commitments um is there any possibility of the developer re-evaluating the possibility of canopy preservation or um buffering around the 5,000 square feet or so of wetlands that are on site because those um those carry out really essential functions uh I Sean and I were working on this uh we're going to do our very best to commit to detaining the 100-year storm uh before we get to City Council and have that as a text commitment so it's uh in front of the city council when they uh consider this project um I do

want to emphasize though that like the other site this is a 24 Acre Site the total project we've again committed to a 50/50 perious impervious so that means that at least 12 acres will remain perious your comment about trasc soils is is is spoton so what we've tried to do to address Mr Barnes and his neighbors concerns is say out of the 24 Acres at least 12 is going to be pervious remain perious so we don't have that Triassic Basin soil and then again we're regrading the the entire develop where the development is going to happen so that the water will drain 180° opposite essentially from what Mr Barn is experiencing today so we looked hard at this site and that's why we brought in the piece that today is cleared I guess it's been a it was a farm right I mean so it's been cleared for a long time we don't know when that exactly happened but we brought that in to address his concern and try to be a good neighbor regrade the site keep it 50% pervious and and again I I I

apologize I wish we'd had um uh our engineer uh I you know just wasn't able to run the calculation see if we we can detain the 100-year storm but if you can rebalance the site so it drains away from Mr Barnes and his neighbors and detain the 100-year storm I think that's a that's a win-win um so I appreciate the concern that's what we heard loud and clear during the neighborhood meeting and I I I I have to really thank Mr Gattis for doing the hard work of figuring out what it is to rebalance the site cut and fill so that it drains 180° basically from what it does today and impacts those homeowners on uh Foxboro Lane so it's um we agree 100% with what Mr Barn said and we're doing our doing everything we can to fix it thank you anyone else commissioner zakowski thank you chair uh so so I'm

new to the commission uh so I'm still learning some of this can you help me understand the decision not to include any affordable housing units yeah the cost to rebalance to to grading costs are very significant uh and so looking at the proximately 12 acres that'll be developed um you know we think we'll develop with the with the resoning we'll develop right around 50 additional tow houses uh we think to regrade the site so that instead of being like this it's like that uh that's probably going to cost about half a million dollars that's about $10,000 per townhouse pad townhouse lot um that's a significant increase in our site preparation costs um I I we're obviously going to look at it um uh as we move forward but at at this juncture given the uncertainties with um the grading costs or or the impact of the grading cost um we're not able to commit to actually providing affordable units

like the uh Mineral Springs project did I I would understand a lower number but if the proposed sale price valuation is 416 and that's a you're describing a $500,000 problem I understand a lower number of units but zero I don't understand why yeah because the site preparation costs are so high relative to the overall project that's why appreciate it not to say we won't look at it but at this juncture that's where we are thank you anyone else this side question nothing are we ready to move this case forward commissioner Valentine no ready to move this case forward yeah okay chair as it relates to case z23 000045 Sharon Grove make a motion that we move this case forward with a favorable recommendation to city

council I'll second it's been moved by commissioner cutright and second it by commissioner woke to move case z23 45 Sharon Grove forward with a favorable recommendation may I have the roll call vote please chair Cameron yes Vice chair sheras no commissioner cutright no commissioner chowski no commissioner Graves mans no commissioner gregory no commissioner Johnson no commissioner copac no commissioner mver no commissioner Valentine no commissioner Williams no commissioner woke no commissioner Young

25 acres and located at 1343 Ellis Road and 1326 Clinton Road the current zoning is residential rural the applicant proposes to change this designation to plan development residential 8326 through a textual development plan to allow up to 102 tow houses the properties are

currently designated mixed residential neighborhood on the place type map the proposed plan development residential zoning is generally consistent with the designated Place type the existing zoning is residential rural the site is surrounded by plan development residential and residential rural the aerial map shows the general location of the project in Southeastern Durham the properties are currently designated uh MRN mix residential neighborhood on the place type map the proposed zoning is determined consistent with that designated Place type the proposal makes several textual commitments in excess of Udo requirements The Proposal includes commitments to storm water management strategies incorporation of native plants for Street tree vehicular and buffer areas limiting impervious surface to a maximum of 80% in a monetary

contract contribution of $6,000 to Durham Public Schools a neighborhood meeting was held in accordance with Udo requirements on June 88th 2023 where eight community members were present finally The Proposal would allow the development of up to 102 tow houses on a vacant and undeveloped property the total unit count a minimum of 5% or up to 5 units would be designated as affordable for households earning 80% of the area median income or less for a period of 30 years the site for the proposed townhouse units is located southeast of downtown Durham and is situated within 5 miles of a of a variety of services for residents however the area is predominantly autod dependent uh due to a lack of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure with the exception of Transit stops about a mile away

Additionally the site exhibits lower rates of evictions a lower percentage of tax value increase and fewer renters burden by H uh by housing costs compared to Durham County average suggesting A reduced risk in displacement uh for this area's census tra again the proposal is generally consistent with the place type map designation of mixed residential neighborhood thank you staff and the applicant are available for any questions thank you at this time the chair is opening the public hearing may we have the applicant present please um for the last time good evening chair Cameron Vice chair sheras members of the Planning Commission my name is Patrick biker Morning Star Law Group I still live at 2614 Stewart Drive uh as has been stated this request envisions up to 102 Town Homes at this location which is along Ellis Road just west of I85 which is what we call the durm freeway now this site is made up of two Parcels totaling just over 12 acres these two Parcels are in the city limits

0 accordingly we have many jobs located within a very short commute of this location as the place type map suggests this is an ideal location for residential development at around 12 acres our understanding is that having one housing type is still consistent with the comprehensive plan guidance and the mixed residential Place type designation the property is nestled between two existing single family communities uh and though the place type designation for those communities differs from this site we're discussing tonight we felt the addition of town homes would help to address the variety of housing available in the area I do

want to emphasize that this site is located just about A4 mile south of the Shephard Square townhouse community and then maybe a quar mile north of the Braxton tow houses but the immediately surrounding area is predominantly single family you may be aware that a resoning uh for this site was previously denied uh back in 2022 our firm was not involved at that time U but we've reviewed the the public uh hearings uh We've Incorporated a lot of feedback that heard from the neighborhood and one of the nearest one of the biggest concerns that was expressed by property owners in the area was the overall density uh back then the project was proposed at approximately 147 tow houses at 102 town homes that's before the Planning Commission tonight uh we have reduced the unit count by 30% now that sort of cuts both ways but the reality is at 147 tow houses uh could not fit on this property nevertheless that reduction uh is respons responsive to the community engagement uh that we have had another

concern of course is storm water management in that regard I want to emphasize two commitments first we are managing the 100-year storm on this site in addition we have limited limited the maximum impervious surface to 80% this area of Durham that sort of stretches from downtown to the northern part of RTP uh is outside of our Watershed overlays and therefore you're allowed to uh go up to 100% impervious surface uh I guess if you did under underground storm water you could do that um so we have limited impervious surface to 80% and we've also committed to using native plant species uh for the required plantings so while the site technically has Frontage on three roads ncdot has made it clear that the access from Ellis Road will not be allowed as a result this project will connect only to Carwood carywood drive and Linley road if you've been out to Lindley Road uh you know it is not up to City standards it's just a gravel Road this project is required to improve Lenley road all the way up to City standards before we can

have even one certificate of occupancy and finally I want to touch on affordable housing we have committed to 5% of the final unit count being affordable for sale at the 80% area median income level for a period of 30 years I thought the staff department was strong so I want to thank Brooke for the superb staff reports this evening uh we respectfully ask uh for your recommendation of approval I'll be happy to to answer any questions and we did receive a petition uh from one of the property owners that attended a neighborhood meeting be happy to discuss that as well thank you for your time tonight thank you there anyone in the audience that would like to speak good evening uh Planning Commission Thomas lines 1220 Theodore Lane u in the southern uh Terrace neighborhood I've been a resident for 27

years I'm here to reiterate my concerns for this project which uh was shot down uh four years ago that uh parcel is if you look at at the top graphic map it's it's Steep and it's a rock ledge basically and water runoff at 80% is just going to be a torrent and if you look at the property the sewer line goes bisects it and there's streams going through it and it would be very uh difficult to put 102 town houses on on that site based on the offset the riparian offsets and and the uh the sewer line I don't know how they can how they can do

it so I ask you to please not approve this project thank you thank you moving to the uh Zoom we have Adam Castille hello good evening planning committee uh my name is Adam Castile I am at 1311 Theodore Lane I'd briefly like to contrast the approach of the projects this committee has approved tonight uh in the project that's being proposed here the developer has not approached us to ask what we the current neighbors uh who would be impacted by this project might like to see out of it uh we have only had one virtual call where uh they heard and quote unquote answered questions with no plans considered for basic

questions uh their proxy who held that meeting seemed to had little or no interest in the concerns of the neighbors uh who were on the call between one year ago and now I I have not even heard from them at all um I bought this property because of the envir and have enjoyed living in this very special part of Durham the negative impact on me and my neighbors uh private enjoyment of our property will be felt very very very much um some of my neighbors have lived here for decades and I'm very worried that the property value is going up and increased taxes will significantly impact their way of life I respectfully urge you to please deny this approval to move this rezoning forward thank you thank you next we have Gabe [Music]

Carillo yes great thank you so much I appreciate this opportunity so uh I am the gentleman who has been I should say voicing the same concept of the disagreement with what the applicant has put forward on multiple levels and we we have not per se looked at what Mr bulock the actual applicant we don't have like a problem with him doing the things that he's done to try to develop his land and we do believe he has that right to do it and we actually support folks who like himself are trying to be small business owners that rise up and do some great things in the community the problem is is that we didn't see that in action over the last Hall and what really came down to was a slap in the face to the Community we weren't listened to we were pushed aside and then when we found out this second time you know they hired some attorneys to come in there which I have no problem with and deal with attorneys and in fact M1 as well but what ended up happening was a series of

bad steps that I think ultimately led to where we are now and that was that we have seen Time and Time Again The Cutting of Corners the sounding of the alarm from the community and we have our petition with over 4 47 individuals who signed that agreement and also wanted it to be shared with you today and we still weren't able or given that opportunity to voice it to the applicant Because by the time he made it in front of the city council everything had fallen apart and they realized that this had gone nowhere really fast so this time it does seem different and we're willing to engage and we want to extend the Olive Branch to try to make this work and we hope that our petition in particular the things when I look out my back door and I see that there is a pond that was busted and it's left in shambles I see a a property that currently has a home that's carved up in six different sections now is being basically rented

out in pieces and then a a massive amount of construction de I'm sorry you're at time okay pleas please uh do not we thank you very much for your time um next we have have Kellen Arnie Johnson yes I'm Kellen Ernie Johnson they 1334 Ellis Road I like to say that this is uh the same proposal that was shot down by the committee uh a year or so ago um there's basically no change to the proposal whatsoever they're still asking for the same zoning that they could build up to 144 to 147 tow houses the same zoning design as I said before the the the topographical uh area is very unfavorable towards that now we've reached out to the the Builder you last you know last time and provided some compromises one of the biggest things that we need to look at where this place is it's not just side by side by other developments it's slap dab in the middle

it is in the middle of several single family homes which will be drastically impacted by the design of tow houses you know with 80% you know impervious surfaces in place there um we really feel that the development should reflect the current established community and positively impact those who have already built generational wealth who have been there for 30 40 years who have bought homes to to raise their family you want to build homes in that area that that looks similar to the houses that are surrounding it one of the biggest things we've advocated is that you know focusing on single family homes and if they came back and said hey we're not going to build more than 65 single family homes in this area it would have the community's backing a lot of the people in this community would appreciate because it would positively impact this neighborhood and create nice homes for the people in this in this community we do have a lot of tow houses there's several hundred tow houses just south of us a quarter mile south those that still are under development and we

don't know the impact of the traffic those will have because they're still being built and adding more tow houses to a very you know dense area is going to be not less and favorable not to mention the one of the entrance points is go from uh Southern drive onto Ellis Road if you zoom out you'll see that as a double blind Corner car it's a 35 mile road I'm sorry your time is up I just ask that you guys uh reject us thank thank you uh next we have Jessica Dewey hi can you hear me yes okay hi Duram Planning Commission my name is Jess Dewey live at 1310 Theodore Lane in Durham my property touches the proposed Development Area I'm speaking today uh similarly to my neighbors in opposition to this town home resoning request a defining attractive feature of our neighborhood is the beautiful Green Space full of mature trees that provides

privacy and peace to current residents and is a refuge for so many species in the face of constant habitat loss the proposed Town Home Development would take all of that away it would require disruptive clear cutting of nearly 12 acres of mature Forest as well as mass grading as you've heard from others um even though these activities are discouraged in the Durham comprehensive plan in policy 84 the clear cutting and mass grading would result in a major loss of biodiversity and additionally there are multiple streams again as you've heard um that are already nearly overwhelmed when the receive large storms such as tropical storm Debbie last week um so the removal of trees and changes to grading is going to cause major issues for deal deal with heavy storms in the future I also want to point out that Durham is designated as an official B City meaning it commits to creating and maintaining sustainable habitats for pollinators this project goes completely against these commitments and would remove many trees such as Maples and tulip popplers that are vital to pollinators in Durham I

recognize that Durham is growing and has a continued need for housing options but there are numerous apartment and town home communities within a couple of miles of our neighborhood that are not currently full and are still developing ultimately I don't believe our area in this project is a good idea it creates barriers between current neighbors and residents and it puts profits over impacts on the environment and people we should not be taking away valuable Green Space for town homes in a less accessible area that might not fill so I urge you to not move forward with this proposal thank you thank you is there anyone else on Zoom that would like to speak all right going to close the public hearing at this time and we are now open for commission discussion and questions commissioner Valentine yes uh thank you Sher um this is for the

applicant with respect to the uh affordable housing um profer uh would you consider something in addition to what's being offered uh right now uh our team can support 5% uh at 80% Ami and again that's for 30 years um and as I hope you recall um this is a for sale community so there is no um federal tax program in order to assist with the construction cost this is um purely um uh reduction in the in the profitability of the overall project um so it does I think check the box in terms of a aable housing most of the projects I've worked on have been uh in that range I think uh it's very difficult to go higher than that especially with a a for-profit and looking at the the additional cost that's um associated with detaining the 100-year storm which is another commitment on this development plan oh

the the other uh con concern that I I have here is that uh since I've been on this commission I've talked a lot about the importance of Engagement with communities it sound like there has been disconnect on this particular project with uh uh with the engagement with the community maybe I'm wrong about that but maybe you can share yeah no I'd be happy to um my understanding my partner uh Neil go handled that um he had the neighborhood meeting that was referred to in your staff report uh and then he followed the advertising requirements um uh and noticed a meeting a virtual meeting uh and unfortunately he noticed the virtual meeting gave uh the uh required advanced notice and nobody attended so our experience was we tried to reach out to and that was our experience um we can try to reach out again prior to the city council meeting um but uh that was so I think the experience went both ways in that regard um but you know you had the staff report uh document what we did and Mr go uh

notified a second meeting uh virtual but uh my my understanding is nobody nobody registered and then at the time nobody even called in cut right sorry commissioner cut right thanks chair um I think first thing I want to know is on community engagement uh frequently hear that uh notice has been sent out nobody engaged that's always the bare minimum I'd like to start seeing developers do more oh yeah reach out to the churches directly um local community centers like there needs to be more if you really want to engage the community um we know sending out the notices is what's required but that's bare minimum um and what we're finding is it doesn't work it's ineffective um so we'd like to see more in that regard I'd also like to see more affordable housing I think we're seeing 8 10% now um I think that's a good bar

uh 5% feels a little like we're checking a box as well um it's appreciative yeah no it's appreciate it I should say especially on for sale right um regardless of whether it's for sale or not I I think doing more affordable housing is is warranted um and so we'd like to see more of that going forward uh where the opportunity presents itself thanks thank you thank you commissioner Graves man yes thank you yes sir in my final minutes here um this is a followup to my question earlier about how the developers thinking about the ownership of the affordable affordable units is there going to be a covenant that's attached to those five properties that is in place for 30 years yes sir so the person the first person that buys the property gets the affordable the discount mhm what are they doing passing that discount on when they want to sell it yeah what happens is there be a

formula in the deed that state what the um HUD approved appreciation would be in order to maintain affordability at the 80% level so that's a standard that'll be drafted as a deed condition that will run with the property for 30 years so if you buy the property in year 20 you probably want to hold on to it for 10 years uh but yeah no it's it's it's tied to a a HUD Housing and Urban Development formula tied to 80% Ami that runs for 30 years so it's again it's one of those difficult policy decisions on the one hand if you had a shorter yeah period that might increase the generational wealth for that one particular family but if you maintain the affordability for 30 years that helps everyone in the community who's in that income level our First Responders are teachers who need who want who want a Housing Opportunity and if it if

expired in 10 years then that opportunity wouldn't exist for as long a time it's kind of a bit of a conundrum for it's a tough nut to crack it's a and we have we've had very it came up during scad sorry simplifying codes for affordable development what should be the period of affordability there is no right answer it's a tough call I I don't know that the I even know know the planing department has a specific uh number in mind I I I I I completely agree it cuts both way ways on the one hand you want to build generational wealth and if people own a house for 10 years maybe they should get more than what just the increase in the Ami is but on the other hand if you if you say that what about the teachers 10 years from now what about our First Responders 10 years from now they won't get that opportunity and the first home buyer got a windfall it's a tough policy decision uh perhaps Mr Kane has insights on what the Department's thinking is but we we committed to 30 years looking at

it as a community benefit which could you know which could benefit families significantly but it's not the quick appreciation that that you might want to see and I I I don't mean to put you on the spot Mr Kane but that's it's a very difficult policy decision and I don't know what the right answer is I'm just saying in this case we committed to 30 years and part of it if I could I apologize for rambling on part of it is because this is located so close to Research Triangle Park you know we have the statement that we need affordable housing everywhere well we're committing to 5% affordable housing only a mile from Research Triangle Park what's really helpful is to have short commutes if we committ it to 5% or 10 say we committed to 10% but it's out on Umstead Road well you got to drive 20 miles to find jobs from that location this is so close this is so close that it's a game Cher for people because you lower not only do you lower their cost of housing you lower their commuting cost

considerably you all probably know this but in terms of the distance of the commute Raleigh Durham is the worst in the country our people don't commute the longest in terms of time but they commute the longest in terms of distance and that was in Forbes Magazine so we have a problem in that we've sprawled from meban to Smithfield and we call that the triangle and I've done projects up out in zebulin I've done projects in fuk wave Arena you think those people work in zebulin no they they're driving all the way to Durham there are people you know I've worked on projects in treyburn Corporate Park and I go there you see Virginia license plates they're commuting from South Boston so I mean that's the reality of it so that's why it's important to put affordable housing opportunities close to where we have major employment centers and that's what this does so you know the the 5% that we're adding here of affordable housing is a real game changer because it's at such a convenient community location and I'm sorry Mr Kane I didn't

mean to take up your time oh that's fine um yeah just to to answer your reference the Udo does Define affordability at a of a 30-year period of tenure um for 60% Ami for rentals and 80% Ami for home ownership okay all right thank you so that's following the Udo definition that's a tough call all right uh anyone else have commissioner um zc and then commissioner Johnson thank you chair it's good so you know in the community engagement process it sounds like there was limited engagement but we've just heard quite a bit from the community and their concerns are there any commitments that you or the team are willing to make that might assuage some of their concerns well I think we've got a a bit of a disconnect here we had a very lengthy process in Durham to adopt our comprehensive plan last

October and my takeaway from that watching it as closely as I could was that the purpose of the new comprehensive plan was to promote infill and densification and I know I've been a clanging symbol in that regard but that was my takeaway from it was that we're going to really discourage sprawl going further east north Southwest focus on internal that are already in the city limits that are already surrounded by development and we're going to increase the density there so what the neighborhood has proposed at 65 units on 12 acres is really just a single family pretty close to just a typical single family density um I think it's a better use of this property to move forward with a townhouse development because it creates more home ownership opportunities while using fewer acres of land um again I think the propers on this

project are pretty strong when you look at what what was stated by some of the nearby residents you know we came out of the box with a 100-year detaining the 100-year storm um and we're you know again trying to put at least 5% of the development in the affordable house in a in an affordable housing program that creates permanent affordable housing right by Research Triangle par um you've got the Public's grocery store just down Ellis Road you've got great job opportunities um I think the I think this project reflects what the overall comprehensive plan was driving at now you can always find individual policies and say well you don't mean that policy don't mean that policy but my perspective on it sir respectfully is that the new comprehensive plan directs the development Community to find infill sites and increase the density and that's exactly what this project does because it's a pro it's 12 acres it's been the city of Durham for

many many decades and you know we we we really missed the boat by not developing housing closer to RTP in the previous how you know since the 60s when RTP started up so I I think we just have a disconnect between what the neighborhood wants and what the comprehensive plan says in terms of the direction it gives for how property especially these smaller INF site should be developed uh you know again we'll look at increasing the affordability percentage um we'll certainly look at at these other environmental features um but as of tonight that's that's um I think that's my answer to your question and and I it was it was a long process that comprehensive plan was a long process and I think it was a very good process um and it it that's that's my takeaway from it I I maybe I'm wrong but that's how I just to make sure I understand no no additional Comm no additional profits tonight uh we'll certainly look at it uh taking commissioner cutright advice to

32 six units per acre that's the the highest density of any project that we've looked at tonight which is like five so if I take the five I I hear

density but then there's density plus so if I take the average five across the board that gets me to 65 units which is fair not 6 60 yeah something about 65 or so consistent with uh Dr carillo's so why would we approve 8. 326 and not ask you to reduce it to 265 which seems to be more consistent with the density for mixed use because I my personal perspective commissioner is that is an inappropriately low density for an infill site that's only one mile from Research Triangle Park I think that when I started out sir I thought it was a good idea to do pdr2 with water and sewer and now I am kicking myself for having advocated for all those projects back in the when was it early 2000s can you imagine if we had done pdr4 instead of pdr2 we'd have so much more Supply to address the

affordability crisis that we have right now so pdr5 is just sort of I think that's basically a single family density that's that's just slightly less than 10,000 squ foot Lots per acre I'm so I I don't I I just I just respectfully disagree with the contention that 65 units is a wise use of the 12 acres located here um if I could move on close yeah so there's two water line feeds I want to hear more about is that going to create any water pressure issues is it going to have any effect in the surrounding area in terms of additional water supply into this small development no that's required sir that's the Durham as long as I've been working here in Durham since the 90s the city of Durham has required two water line fees for any any development with more than 100 dwellings and that can be houses that can be tow houses that can be Apartments doesn't matter if you have more than 100 dwelling units you have to have two waterline feeds in order to

provide redundancy so that's been a Durham requirement as long as I can remember uh with my time um the third question is we are over capacity in one school and nearer capacity at the other uh about 36 new students I think and a $66,000 profit her that seems low to me not withstanding the comments about affordable housing are you willing to address that concern right we'll certainly look at that inance in advance of going to city council your point is well taken and um yeah we need nothing tonight to I don't have authorization from our team client team to increase that but we certainly recognize the uh recognize that situation and then my last comment I was reading the notes and again I think Dr kriller did a good job of echoing what I heard the the statement but the question number 23 why would you even consider resoning this property or building here your answer there's probably is a reason why this property

has not been developed previously but the reality is we're running out of Land There Are No Easy Pieces of land left to develop so in order to gra to deal with growing need of housing more challenging pieces of property must be considered for development why is this a challenging property I want to try to understand that based on the answer you provided or something if you look at Lindley Road that's going to be a major infrastructure cost for the development team it's just a gravel I guess it's a road but it it's not even close to City standards so that's a significant upfront cost that the development team has to take on before they could get get even one certificate of occupancy um so Lindley Road was never paved it was a dedicated public right away never paved um so there's there's infrastructure challenges there's the Dual water line uh requirement which is actually not required in many other municipalities around the triangle um that's an extra uh cost um the that's actually a pretty

standard answer we give sir the all the land and Durham that's flat square and on a and and on a well paved curban you know curbing gutter road that land's all gone so we are back to having to evaluate these infill sites that are that that present challenges um but nonetheless my my understanding of the comprehensive plan having studied it having listened to all the policy arguments on both sides and watching it be adopted by our city and county officials uh there's an emphasis on finding these difficult sites and then making sure that they're developed at a density that that is the most um efficient at creating an incre uh a increase in the supply of housing thank you yes sir Vice chair scares um so this might be for City staff or maybe you Mr biker if you can

answer in the report I see that there are no steep slopes there are no regulated flood planes there um no Wetlands on the site that yet the community rep reps these things exist there which one is it I agree with the staff report um if they have anything to add I I I thought the staff report was a spot on I mean numerous numerous comments from the community were reporting these things but the staff says no so you know lacking the community engagement I I don't know which one's true so we use a variety of GIS resources to identify um whether or not there are steep slopes Wetlands uh flood plane or Watershed overlays um and there were there were just none identified on this site okay thank you commissioner copc thanks CH chair

Cameron uh question for the staff did I read it correctly that you deemed this application to be not compliant with either place type map or goals of the comprehensive plan and if so was there a reason for that can you give me just one moment to double check that see if I can find the page reference here uh oh I see um I think that's uh a minor typo um in our staff report my apologies yeah in section I is that what you're referring to um I think the knot was just you know sometimes we have track changes and they're not alwaysed so okay so that was an error that's all right all right thank you anyone

else commissioner Gregory thank you chair um this is also for planning staff um I know that somebody from the um uh public had commented on a concern over a pond on the site and that's clearly uh not uh outlined at all in the planning report but looking at uh a couple of federal Wetland overlays there does appear to be uh at least an ephemeral pond in the southwest corner of the site so um I just would like to bring that uh to our attention going forward was was there a question there or was that just a statement I I guess uh question

being so so planning staff is reviewing it you guys have GIS tools that you're using to assess the the surface water resources correct and state law indicates which GIS sources we can use outside of a stream determination to determine whether or not there is an active stream on the site and in order to be regulated under the Udo that stream needs to be either intermittent or uh perennial ephemeral streams um or other ephemeral water bodies are not regulated under the Udo and do not require any um buffering okay thank you for the clarification thank you any any other questions I can't see what these classes going once going twice commissioner Johnson just briefly one of the U public mentioned SK rock landscape sewer lines dissected running across water sources can you clarify what they were talking about I wrote it down as the it was more

of a concern about the sewer lines running across water sources or Creeks or whatever if they inter if I interpreted their comment correctly and given the Steep rock landscape well I would Echo the staff report there are there are no udod defined steep slopes on the site in terms of we appreciate those concerns and that's why we said we we would detain the 100-year storm on site so I think the only way to address those concerns is to increase the uh storm water control measures that are being used on site uh again it's it's a it's a it's really a textbook infill site because it's got water sewer and public rights of way that just have not been um upgraded to current standards in order to support uh increased density and and increased home ownership

opportunities thank you commissioner copc thank you um so echoing my colleagues about the desire to see uh higher levels of affordable housing um also recognizing the benefit of this being close to RTP and the benefits of an infill site um uh I hear the resident concerns about the increased density and I can see why having single family homes in the site would be desirable uh at the same time it's my understanding if a developer would have brought and staff maybe check me on this a proposal that was 100% single family housing for this infill within a single family neighborhood that that may not have been consistent with the place type around uh the comprehensive plans goals around diversity of housing is that correct generally yes uh when we are

looking at the mixed resident Neighborhood Place type we're not only looking at the land within the place type itself but also the surrounding community so for example in this case um it is immediately surrounded by uh single family housing we have comprehensive plan policies that guide us towards having a mix of housing in various AG in in in all areas in order to be able to provide different price points different products and so forth and really diversify uh the types of folks we're living in any particular area so when we looked for example at the site we saw okay this is primarily single family immediately surrounding it introducing a new a new residential type a new residential stock product uh to that area would be in furtherance of those um of those goals of those objectives of the comprehensive plan does that answer yeah it does thank you um and so it sounds like there was a gap from a starting point between the

applicant and and the desires of the community with that said the process around Community engagement does seem to have left a lot to be desired particularly in comparison with some Exemplar examples we've seen this evening and so I think we have to go beyond some of the minimum um uh expectations around engagement and there may have been a better solution that could have been arrived at if there had been deeper listening and so I want to encourage uh you and and any applicant coming forward to really think about what that next level of engagement can look like yeah no I I I agree 100% and that's why we notified a second hearing we wanted to get more feedback but no one attended so I'm I'm sorry that happened I I I was the attorney for the brag the large bragtown case I spent hours I don't know hundreds of hours in bragtown listening to the community concerns working with Ted HR and Tim cybers on the large 130 acre project that's I consider that one of my

strengths well you know that we campaign for County Commissioner together we actually enjoy doing this so we actually enjoy it but and so we're happy to notify another neighborhood meeting in advance of city council explain where we are see if there's any other um commitments we can do see if we can you know we we talked about other potential profit so we're happy to do that it's Neil and I enjoy Mr go and I enjoy it that's why we live here um but you know when we when you notify the second meeting and nobody even bothered to even call in for 5 minutes I mean if the if the answer is we despise town homes and we're never going to support any of them then we can't really have much of a conversation now we can make some modifications based on the input we've received from the Planning Commission tonight and um we'll do our best to Ren notice another neighborhood meeting um but that's that you know again there's two sides to each story I'm sorry it happened and again I I you know I we enjoy doing the

community outreach the community engagement we're happy to do it we're happy to rent a room in a church I actually prefer that I prefer to sit down with people in person as opposed to doing it on Zoom um but you know sometimes one works better than the other I'm not going to pass judgment on that but um by the same token we en we enjoy it so I'm sorry that we didn't have more Community engagement I personally I'm sure Mr go would say the same thing if he if if he were representing this Project tonight based on his experience um with this particular site so your Point's well taken couldn't agree more I'm sorry we didn't have a more robust conversation I'm sorry we couldn't meet in the middle but again I I think 65 units on 12 acres is simply too low when it's one mile away I think it might even be less than a mile from the boundary of Research Triangle bar thank you any other questions comments

are we ready to move this case forward yes I have a motion please chair as it relates to case z2300 043 L Linley Town Homes I make a motion that we move this case forward with a favorable recommendation to city council second it's been moved by commissioner cutright and seconded by commissioner Valentine to move case z230 43 Lenley Town Homes forward with a favorable recommendation may we have the roll call vote please chair Cameron no Vice chair sheras yes commissioner cutright no commissioner chowski no commissioner Graves mans no commissioner Gregor

no commissioner Johnson no commissioner copac yes commissioner mver yes commissioner Valentine no commissioner Williams no commissioner woke no commissioner Young no the motion fails 3 to1 all righty do we have any Community updates I mean committee updates I'm sorry not Community what's up with the Udo so um I don't know what's up with the Udo committee uh commissioner CE was chairing that committee so we probably need to do some adjusting rearranging on that um and then we'll

we'll go forward four right usually we have three you want a chair sure all right new chair chair the committe all righty um any new business just a couple of things to bring to the committee's ATT uh commission's attention uh first off uh next month you will be doing your annual officer elections um just want to make sure you all were aware that chair Cameron has agreed to serve again as chair uh for a second year if uh you also choose to vote her in next uh next month and vice chair sharis has agreed to serve a second term should you all uh choose to reelect her as well if there is any if there are any other nominations anybody would like to make please get those to me by August 30th so we can make sure that the commission is aware before of the meeting on September 10th uh second uh as I emailed you

earlier we are planning to hold the uh planning commission's annual Retreat after your October meeting the plan is to hold a uh smaller agenda of about three cases we hope to be done by 7 or 7:30 we'll uh we will then uh move to another room dinner will be served it will not be cheap pizza or box lunches uh we will do something good uh to entice you to stay we hope that you all can make it if you have any topics that you'd like to uh see addressed at The Retreat please again also get those to me by August 30th we're looking to I've reached out to the city attorney's office about providing a presentation on any legal changes that you may need to be aware of since the last Retreat we also have a couple of other topics that we can talk to you about but if there are some kind of burning questions or Burning uh issues or ideas that you would like to

uh bring forth uh please again just feel free to email me by August 30th so we can have those materials uh ready and so if we start at 7:30 we're going to end by 9 9 is the is the goal uh basically we're talking about uh working dinner and three three topics of 30 minutes each is the okay and if you could send a reminder email for our feedback that would be very helpful sure yeah I'll when I I'll send a reminder when I send y'all the reminder to get your written comments in speaking of which uh the I believe the written comments link did work I think we've uh with Chris's help we have gotten that situation figured out um glad to have him there to help us out with that so please get those in by the 20th um and then finally for those of you who are new we do provide parking vouchers if you've parked in one of the city decks um I can provide you a voucher for to cover your parking fee and that is all I have all right may

make a comment on new business sure just it's just very brief uh it's just to say that uh first of all I thank chair Cameron and and vice chair Sharon a great job in these roles and I'm glad to hear you putting your names in I'm not putting my name in I just want to say to the on the commission that it's always healthy uh if other folks are thinking you might be interested to definitely put yourself forward and it's always healthy to have uh other folks to to consider so with all due respect to the folks who've served um if you're thinking about it don't hesitate to to uh to put your name out there and and just to make sure everybody's aware especially I know we have a lot of new members who haven't been even on the commission for a year uh officers are term limited to two terms so this would be chair Cameron second term and then she would be term limited and not be able to serve another one after that just make sure everybody's aware Che um not cheer I was about to Tau you chair no no you won't so I just wanted to say thank you

all this is my last meeting it's been an honor to be on the commission I really wanted to do this um unfortunately unfortunately I had a baby about 11 months ago and um it's been a challenge cuz as the baby has been in DC I've been commuting back and forth a lot so please excuse my absences and I hope to be able to reapply to be a commissioner once my life is more settled but I've learned a great deal in working with each one of you and thank you for the opportunity thank you phone number if you want to send me money and I was you beat me to the punch I was going to thank you for your service and uh your overall commitment to the Durham community and the other things that you do for Durham just besides um serving on the Planning Commission um yes I'd also like to thank you for the suggestion to have some of our personal information removed like our addresses and stuff good idea I thought it was a

requirement it was and yeah and just so everyone knows my my time on the Planning Commission ends June 3 2025 so I wouldn't even have a year um left so you would be taken over oh yeah if I changed my mind are you saying that that you will be term limited as a planning commissioner oh wow M yep y so I yep it's a lot of us who so if you if it's three years two three years so it could be a total of six but if you are coming on if someone um resigned early you finish out their term and then you get your own three year so I came on yes M even though so even if someone had served two years and you came and you finished out there one year and then you only have three more years yeah so you took yeah I took from somebody's somebody resign and so I think it' be

change that five years just be six years yep that's what I was told you just finish out someone's turn all right everybody we journ thank you how did developers do what I'm sorry