Good evening and welcome to the Durham Planning Commission. Members of the Durham Planning Commission are appointed by city council and the county board of commissioners to make recommendations to the elected officials. We emphasize that the elected officials have the final say on any issue before us tonight. If you are intending in person and wish to speak on a particular agenda item, please register on the signup sheets located on the table to my left.
And you will be called upon to make your comments at the appropriate time. You may also call in during the meeting by dialing 1317158592. 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 hands hand by pressing star9 on your phone and when recognized, state your name and address before making your comments. The
applicant has a total of 10 minutes for their presentation. Each speaker after the applicant has two minutes to speak. Commissioners will be given five minutes for Q&A. Please keep your comments succinct.
Commissioners, as a reminder, after the public hearing is closed, you obtain the floor by being recognized by the chair. The time to make all public statements is before motions are made. All motions are stated in the affirmative. So, if a motion fails or ties, the recommendation is for denial.
After the case you are here for ends, please exit the chambers quietly and pursue further discussion in the lobby as the commission continues its meeting. Finally, I ask everybody here on the Zoom, the commission members, the staff and the public to conduct themselves in the courteous and 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 or asked to leave the council chambers until such
time they regain personal control. If decorum fails to be restored, the chair will recess the meeting until a genuine commitment to act respectful and courteous is observed. May we have the roll call, please? Chair Shagaras >> here.
>> Vice Chair Cameron >> here. >> Commissioner Bailey >> here. >> Commissioner Capers >> here. >> Commissioner Chicowski >> here.
>> Commissioner Hunter. Commissioner Huarez Maldonara Maldonado. Commissioner Macyver. Commissioner Montes >> here.
>> Commissioner Ninekner >> here. >> Commissioner Richie >> here. >> Commissioner Pionek >> here.
>> Commissioner Woke >> here. >> We have established a quorum. >> Thank you. Item number three, adjustments to the agenda.
The chair has the following adjustments to the agenda. Agenda item number seven, new business, will now be agenda item number five. Agenda items five and six will now be six and seven. Agenda items 5A will now be agenda item 6B and agenda item 5B will now be agenda item 6A.
>> So, uh just to clarify, the way this will work is >> mud. Um uh after this these adjustments to the agenda, the uh the commission will approve the minutes and consistency statements. Then we will have new business. Then we will go to 9415NC 751 highway.
That will be the first of the cases. Then Morgan Farm. Then the rest of the agenda as normal. So new
business is going before cases. And then we are switching 9415 and Morgan Farm. Excellent. Clear as mud.
Item four on the agenda, approval of the minutes and consistency statements. Do we have a motion to approve? >> Chair, I move that we approve the minutes and the consistency statements from the January 13, 2026 meeting. Second.
It has been moved by Vice Chair Cameron and seconded by Commissioner Bailey to approve the minutes and consistency statements. All in fa favor, please say I. >> I. >> I.
>> I. >> Opposed. The eyes have it. Thank you. Number five. At the regularly scheduled December meeting of the Durham Planning Commission, a possible conflict of interest was raised about one
commissioner on one agenda item. 3D of the Durham Planning Commission's rules of procedure states, "When objection to a member's participation is raised prior to or during a hearing and the member declines to recuse themselves, the matter must be submitted to a majority vote of the remaining commission members. This procedure was not followed properly properly and for that the planning commission is hereby issuing an official apology. All members of the planning commission have been provided with the most current revision of the code of ethics and rules of procedure for reference.
Going forward, a subcommittee for reviewing and updating the rules of procedure will be formed and report back to the planning commission. Vice Chair Cameron will be chairing this subcommittee. Additionally, city staff will implement pro improvements in the training protocol for new commission members. The
deputy county attorney, Curtis Massie, is here to answer any questions. Thank you. Well, if there are questions, I'm here >> or you can just get one of his business cards and email him later. >> The procedure is, I think, fairly clear.
>> Thank you, >> Commissioner Montes. Yes, Chair uh Juan Montes. Um to Chair Shaggeras, my fellow colleagues, I'm recusing myself from the Morgan Farm application, case number Z25004A and BDG250014 and the Patterson Hall application case
number Z250011 due to a potential conflict of interest arising from my involvement related to the matter. I will abstain from all discussion, deliberation, and voting and request that the record reflect my recusal. I will leave the chambers during the Morgan Farm and Patterson Hall cases and return once they are finished to participate in the rest of the agenda. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Item number six on the agenda, public hearings, initial zoning map changes. A 9415 North Carolina 751 Highway Z250030A BDG25 triple0 one nine. May we have the staff report, please?
>> Uh, thank you, Chair Shagaras. Andy Lester is going to give the report. I'm just going to state for the record that um all items to be heard by you tonight have been advertised in accordance with state and local laws and affidavit to those are on file in the planning
department. I'll turn it over to Andy. Good afternoon, Chair Shagaras, Vice Chair Cameron, and Planning Commissioners. My name is Andy Lester, and I'm here to present D250030A.
34 acres and located at 9415 NC751 highway. The current zoning is residential rural county jurisdiction. The applicant proposes to change this designation to residential rural city jurisdiction to connect to city and water. The properties are currently designated mixeduse neighborhood and the place type map. As stated previously, the existing zoning is residential rural county jurisdiction and the proposal is residential rural city jurisdiction. This is a direct translational zoning which means it is one in which that the existing Durham County zoning is
translated to the identical Durham city zoning district upon the annexation of the property into the city limits. The translational zoning does not and cannot include a development plan and any future development may proceed according to what the zoning would allow. This aerial map shows the general location of the project. It is located at the T intersection of NC 751 and Favville Road.
As stated previously, this is currently designated mixeduse neighborhood on the place type map. Uh, no neighborhood meetings were required for this proposed annexation. No comments have been received by staff in relation to this case on the Durham zoning explorer. The proposal is generally consistent with the place type map designation of mixeduse residential.
The proposal is consistent with three of five applicable comprehensive plan policies to with two still being undetermined. Thank you. Staff, the applicant are available for any questions.
Thank you. The chair is now opening the public hearing. May we have the applicant, please? Uh good evening, Chair Shagaras, Vice Chair Cameron, and board commissioners.
Um Jeremy Anderson, Thomas Nutton, uh 2510 Murdium Parkway. Um I do not have a presentation this evening. Um as Andy outlined, this is wasn't an application for annexation with the direct translation for for zoning. So um really the application was for annexation only to bring it into the city limits.
um with the with the zoning coming as translational. I'm just here to answer any questions if you have regarding this. Thank you. >> Thank you.
Any community members in person? Nobody signed up other than the applicant. Any
community members on the Zoom wishing to speak on this agenda item? Nope. going. It's going twice.
Gone. The public hearing is now closed. We are now open for commissioner discussion. Is there any questions?
I have a question for the applicant. Is the house going to stay there? Potential historic house >> at this point, right? Uh yes, but undetermined in the future.
So, and there's no plans to demolish it right now, but there could be plans in the future. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other commissioner questions, comments on this case? Nope. May I have a motion to move case Z 25 triple030A BDG25
triple019 9415 North Carolina 751 highway forward with a favorable recommendation chair in the uh case of 9 9415 NC51 highway Z25 triple030A a-b 25 triple019 uh that we forward this case to um city council with a favorable recommendation. >> Second. >> It has been moved by commissioner by vice chair Cameron and seconded by commissioner capers to move this case forward with the favorable recommendation. Please open the electronic voting.
This half of the room The motion passes 10 to zero. All right. Agenda item 6B, Morgan Farms Z25004A-BG25014. May we have the staff report, please? >> Thank you.
517 acres and located at 8422 Fington Mill Road. The current zoning is residential rural county jurisdiction. The applicant proposes to change this designation to residential rural city jurisdiction to connect a city and water. The properties are currently designated mixeduse neighborhood and recreation open space and the place type map.
The proposed residential rural zoning is generally consistent with the designated place type as stated previously. Um this is residential rural to residential rural city and is a direct translational zoning from the county to the city. The direct translational zoning is one in which the existing Durham County zoning is translated to the identical Durham city city zoning district upon the annexation of the property into the corporate city limits. A translational zoning does not and cannot include a
development plan and any future development may proceed according to what the zoning would allow. The aerial map that you see shows the general location of the project. To the east is Fington Mill Road and to the west is the Army Corps land. The property is currently designated mixeduse neighborhood and place type map and recreation and open space.
The proposed zoning was determined consistent with the designated place type because the variety of housing types and the allowance of some non-residential uses. Neighborhood meetings were held in accordance with the neighborhood meeting guidelines in July 31st, 2025 and January 7th, 2026. And an additional in-person meeting was held on September 17th, 2025. 42 comments have been submitted to the Durham Reszoning Explorer in relation to this case. As of uh today, 16 comments
were also previously made when there was a reasonzoning map change component to this case that was originally withdrawn. Uh the proposal is consistent with the place type map and the proposal was consistent with two of five applicable annexation policies. Uh three policies remain undetermined at this time. Thank you.
Staff and the applicant are available for any questions. >> Thank you. The chair is now opening the public hearing. May we have the applicant, please.
If you'll bear with me just a second to make sure I can get this up. All right. Good evening, Madam Chair and members of the planning commission. And I'm Jamie Schwedler with Parker Poe along with my colleague Marie Farmer as
well as the applicant Mi Holmes. We're joined tonight by our full team including representatives from McAdams as well as Kimley Horn who are here to answer questions. And this case may seem familiar to the commission and that's because it's the same 218 acre parcel that was before the planning commission and the council last year. That case was denied by council because there was a concern that even though the units had been reduced from 95 to 712 and open space was provided at 33 acres, but there was still too much density, not enough open space, concerns of traffic, and an inconsistency with the UDO provision that applied to graphic development plans.
Based on that feedback, um, MI Homes is committed to this area, is committed to providing more housing supply and did, um, additional due diligence, resubmitted the plan with lower density, responding to some of those concerns. It submitted that uh, zoning in July of last year for uh, 560 units down from 702. It
increased the open space to 77 acres of open space. um and went through a series of additional work with neighbors and stakeholder groups to explain the changes to the plan. And based on that feedback, it made the difficult decision to withdraw the zoning case in November of last year based on the concerns about still increases in traffic based on those increased counts. And so today, the case before you is drastically different.
It includes only annexation and the required translational zoning that is uh to occur when you go from the county into the city. And that means that we can only build as many uh homes as we could under the county jurisdiction uh as we are asking to do under the city. We're not asking for any increase in density. We're not asking for anything more than we could do by right. But we are intending to pursue a conservation subdivision which we intend to submit later this month. And that provision would allow us to go up to uh 437 single family homes just like we could in the county, but it would also
require us to preserve at least 50% of the site. And in this case, that would mean a 100 acres of open space um in response to those citizens concerns. And so that's the case before you tonight. We're not asking to do anything more uh than we can do by right.
It's a strikingly different case than you had before you last year. and we're um covering both the straightforward annexation and translational zoning as well as touching on some of those neighbor concerns and what we plan to do carrying this case forward uh past tonight. So, first I'll just cover the annexation. It's very straightforward.
It's consistent with policy 165 of the comprehensive plan. We're contiguous to city limits. We're adjacent to the primary corporate limits. So, we're not creating a satellite situation or a donut hole. We're also within the southwest uh Fington Mill Road future growth area um designation and that designation was placed on this land because it doesn't have sufficient sewer infrastructure today. What would be required of this case beyond tonight would uh be a utility extension
agreement that would be entered um with the city in order to extend that infrastructure not only for this site but also making important connections for citizens that don't have that capacity to make those sewer connections today. So, if the annexation's approved, that future growth area designation would go away because we would be providing the sewer infrastructure that's missing for this area. And that UEA um is worked out at council with staff and would come after uh tonight's decision. The translational zoning is also very straightforward.
There's no change uh to the development tier, to the place type map, to the zoning district, or the overlay. There's no change in the allowable uses. like we could build 317 single family homes with no open space under a traditional uh subdivision in the county or the city or we could build up to 300 or excuse me 437 single family homes with that 100 acres of open space whether we're in the county or the city. The staff also found uh this request now consistent with the UDO unlike the prior request because we
don't have that inconsistency uh with the UDO provision that only arises when you have a graphic development plan which we cannot offer here uh in this case and it's generally consistent with the place type m designations. You heard a little bit about the concern over density. We think that we've strike struck the right balance here by asking for no more density than we could otherwise do by right. And then the recreation and open space designation which is on the balance of uh this uh place type mass designation um recommends preservation of open space.
And the way that it recommends that occurring is kind of using those natural areas that already occur on site and preserving them. We're going one step further and committing to submit a uh conservation subdivision site plan later this month with that required 50% of those areas. and Sarah Donahghue is here with us tonight from McAdams to explain how we're trying to align those existing natural areas with the open space that's required under the conservation subdivision so we can meet the intent of that policy. You'll also note that your
comprehensive plan uh does reference a natural heritage area that's on a portion of the site and Sarah's taken the opportunity to come together with that site plan that we're submitting and show you how some of those uh natural heritage areas and open space areas can overlap so we can meet the intent of that policy. And that's uh the two issues before you tonight. It's simply an annexation and a translational zoning. But for the public's interest and for those stakeholders that have been involved in this case throughout, we wanted to go through the future stage commitments that would be coming after uh tonight's decision and explain how some of those concerns would be met with other processes other than the annexation and the translational zoning.
So uh we'd had concerns or questions throughout the case about flood planes, stream buffers, and open space. All of those would meet um the UDO requirements and adopted plan requirements at site plan. So when we submit that conservation subdivision site plan, uh we would be required to meet those uh UDO requirements. We'd be required to extend sewer and complete
those improvements not only for this site, but again connecting key important other areas that are lacking sewer. That saves taxpayers money. That saves uh residents time and not having to wait for those capital projects to send sewer because we would be paying to extend that ourselves and offering that public benefit. We'd also update the TIA that existed from the higher density case reflecting the lower density and be prepared to bring forward those commitments.
And as I said, as we bring forward the conservation subdivision plan later this month, uh we would be required to have that 50% open space resulting in 100 acres of open space at a minimum. Uh as well as some key environmental site strategies that Sarah will go over. Those are based not only on meetings with neighbors, but with several key environmental groups who suggested strategies that we'll be able to incorporate. And finally, we'll honor key commitments of the prior zoning because we can't have that in the graphic development plan or zoning conditions. We're exploring ways to do that outside of the zoning case. For historic preservation, we're honoring the existing agreement we have with uh a
preservation group to preserve two structures on site and a little less than two acres and make sure that those are incorporated into the open space on the plan. As for transportation, we will be submitting the TIA later this month. Expect those uh transportation improvements to be at least the same as they were uh prior and to the tune of about a million dollars. and we're prepared uh based on staff's review to follow those instructions and make those transportation improvements.
And then finally, with respect to affordable housing, we are working with staff and trying to figure out a way uh to incorporate some sort of donation or participation in a program um that would be separate from uh from the case and using another vehicle. But we are aiming for a commitment of $1 million towards affordable housing in some capacity and working towards that as we get to council. those aspects are coming together. Um, and so what you see the total package in front of you would not only be the annexation and the translational zoning that's in front of you, but also our commitment to submit this uh development
plan um in in the conservation subdivision as I mentioned earlier. All of that means that the sum of this proposal is strikingly different than the case that was before you. Not only because it's asking for no more density that can otherwise be provided, but it's committing to a significant uh uh amount of open space and environmental protection that didn't exist in this case before. All while listening to the concerns of citizens and residents that we've heard throughout the case and trying to make sure that we honor those commitments with a company who's who's um seeing through those commitments in Durham on this site and elsewhere.
And with that, I'd like Sarah Donghue to come up and talk a little bit more about the aspects of the plan, how we've clustered that open space and incorporated those key commitments. >> Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Sarah Donahghue and I'm a practice lead of landscape architecture at McAdams. Our team has spent time evaluating the
site and listening carefully to the insights of the environmental experts, including TCC, the Triangle Connectivity Collaborative. We've identified the site's most significant features and have used that information to shape our open space and site plan. Our proposed plan dedicates over 50% of the site as open space which consists of a combination of primary conservation areas, secondary conservation areas, and other open spaces. Our primary and secondary conservation spaces are strategically located to protect existing old growth forest, wildlife corridors, and the natural systems that exist today. In our designed open spaces within the community, we're proposing a variety of strategies that further support the ecology of the site. These include wildlife coververts, rolled curbs, and wildlife or pollinator pit stops, which are features that provide shelter, food, and safe passage through wildlife
corridors. In addition, we're proposing the use of native plants throughout, green storm water infrastructure, and passive programming for residents. these passive amenities. Sorry, your time Oh, is up.
>> Thank you all so much for your time. Um, our goal is to protect as much of the site as possible and we're dedicating the rest of our uh open spaces to nature and wildlife. Thank you. >> Thank you.
May we have community members? First on the list, Julie Mcccleintoch. Good evening, Chair Shagaris and commission members. My name is Julie Mcccleintoch. My address is on record. I am here to oppose the annexation request and to explain the drawbacks of using translational resoning for the Morgan
farm project. This re reason resoning was created as a tool to maintain zoning continuity or small properties move from county to city. It was never intended to serve as a backdoor entitlement for large projects which require meaningful analysis of traffic, infrastructure, and the environment. While the zoning label may remain residential rural, we know that annexation would enable MI homes to connect to city water and sewer and achieve urban densities on a very large parcel of 200 acres 218.
This would result in hundreds of acres, excuse me, hundreds of units becoming exempt from a full review. Here are two strong reasons not to annex the property. One, approving annexation would allow translational resoning to bypass the normal safeguards this commission relies on, including comprehensive impact analysis and mitigation measures. That is reasonable for a single family home,
but not for a multiund unit project with regional implications. Second, if annexation were approved, the city would lose the ability to negotiate, and I underline this word, binding conditions such as phasing affordable housing units, sidewalks, and additional open space. This is not about opposing development. It is about ensuring that a development of this scale is reviewed through a public process that allows impacts to be addressed.
It is about insisting on a thoughtful review and analysis for an application that could cause environmental harm and severe traffic congestion for residents across a very wide area. We respectfully urge the commission to reject this annexation request. Thank you. >> Thank you, Betsy. Buchanan.
Good evening, Chair Shagaras, members of the planning commission. My name is Betsy Buchanan, and my husband and I have lived in the Downs for over 50 years. Morgan Farm, formerly Sheffield, has withdrawn their proposed plan and original resoning request, now only seeking annexation. " And my question to you tonight is why?
Why does every inch of Durham County have to be developed? It was nice of Mi Homes to make modifications to their site proposal prior to changing their resoning request. However, none of the changes addressed the very real problems. If taken into the city with sewer and water provided, then the plan will come to light. But no plan can ever overcome the difficulties and obstacles that face building on this property. For local
residents, this is not about resisting change. Is it it is about the facts of trying to develop in this area. Morgan Farm would add almost a thousand cars daily through their three exits directly onto Fington Mill Road, already stretched to its limits. Land along Fairington Mill is part of the watershed for Jordan Lake, providing drinking water for Durham and Chadam.
Morgan Farm may not begin a wildlife corridor, but the animals don't know that this area provides wildlife safe haven, not disturbed by man, cars, or guns. Providing sewer is another formidable issue. According to Dorm's comprehensive plan, you want neighborhoods that make it easy for residents to access the resources they need without having to get in a car. That is not possible in this area where all residents are completely dependent on our cars. Please vote no to Morgan
Farm's request for annexation. Thank you, Judy Tilson. >> Yes. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak.
My name is Judy Tilson and I live just south of the proposed development site. My address is on record. I'm here to share concerns about the proposed urban annexation for Morgan Farm. The character of this area is fundamentally rural despite its designation as a mixeduse neighborhood place type and two areas on either side are designated as recreation and open space place.
The intent of a mixeduse neighborhood is to support communities where residents can meet most daily needs within a 15minute walk or bike ride in. This includes groceries, schools, parks,armacies, restaurants, libraries and healthcare. I have in front of me a little chart that gives a idea of the distance between the proposed buildings and the proximity to essential services. Proximity to a
2 miles. 4 miles. 3 miles which is Mason Farm Biological Reserve trailing. 6 miles to Mosaic Comprehensive Care.
Proximity to a school is five miles, and that's Creekide Elementary School. 4 miles, which is to NC54 at the Friday Center. Um, sometimes those miles don't sound like they're very long and far away, but there are no sidewalks. There's no way to get there.
So, just think about that, please. and thank you for your consideration. >> Thank you, Elanor Sanders. Saunders.
Hello, Chair Shagaris. Commissioners, I'm Elanar Saunders. Is it coming up? Share.
Oh, excellent. I live in Carro now, um, in the process of moving to Durban the next month and return more than weekly to my childhood home in the Downs very near the proposed Morgan farm tract. My remarks in the next set concern threats that this annexation and reszoning request present to waterways. These threats to waterways are basically twofold.
The first and most immediate threat comes from the new sewer main that annexation would require. The route of the sewer main, according to former Sheffield developers, would follow the right of way on the southeastern side of Fington Road. The sewer main would cross Little Creek, southeast of the Little Creek Bridge. The Google Earth image shows how the bridge in an Army Corps levey here, slle, artificially constrain um a braided marshy stream, you can see here, through a single channel. It's important to put this in the
context of the planned replacement of Little Creek Bridge, which you'll hear more about later. To accommodate the southeastern shift of New Bridge relative to Old Bridge, this new sewer mane would have to cross Little Creek very near, indeed intruding into the critical FJA watershed protection boundary. If this sewer line were buried, it would bring huge disturbance and dr downstream silting of the stream bed of Little Creek within well the silting would happen within the critical protection zone for the lake. If the sewer line crossed the creek above stream grade, it would be vulnerable to other kinds of damage and leakage.
Sewer lines may be better than septic fields in many ways, but they do not absolutely do not guarantee protection of sensitive waterways and certainly not in their construction phase. You'll hear more on this later. And then the second waterway threat relates from the location, topography, and wooded character of the Kendrick Estates Morgan farm plot itself. Um, so you'll hear a little bit more about that. Thank you.
Barry Saunders, please state your name and address for the record. Uh, madam chair, commissioners, I'm Barry Saunders. I live at 8110 KBEC Drive, Chapel Hill, Durham County. The few parcel is a mostly forested plateau perched just above the Morgan Creek flood plane, just a mile and a half from the creek's connection to Jordan Lake.
The critical watershed boundary runs close to the site, indeed crosses part of the larger few parcel. That creek flood plane has been a wash in Jordan backwaters with several storms these last decades. A small bit of the few property has been underwater. A good bit has been flood water shoreline. In prior discussions with this commission, I showed deeply eroded basins of intermittent streams draining the western edge of the property. That's
with mature forest around them and I showed coving of slopes from significant subsurface water movement. I described major slope along that western property edge. I also suggested the Sheffield site surveyor may have undercounted areas of officially steep slopes 25% including near a then proposed road collection to the Montlair neighborhood to the north. Even if we can't consider such details in this awkward and tactically sparse annexation proposal, we all know annexation would lead to significant development even under translational zoning.
Turning all that forest into potentially 70% imperous surface would bring a huge shift in how storm water is delivered to Morgan Creek. Despite engineered containment, retention ponds would not present significant increase in new toxins and new nutrients. the lake uh draining to a wetland and stream that are already nutrient sensitive.
Development here would increase Durham's contribution to the impairment and utrification of northern Jordan Lake, a drinking water supply for many. Mitigating this impairment is ultimately going to be very expensive for taxpayers. Thank you. >> Thank you, Betts Field.
Good evening. My name is Betts Field and I my address is on record in uh an adjacent community to this proposed development. Jordan Lake is a reliable drinking water
source for Durham and surrounding communities, serving more than 700,000 customers. The core of engineers owns the land around Jordan Lake and around the reservoir, and it will not issue permits for road or sewer lines if it determines its potential harm to water quality. that presents an enormous impediment to city zoning. In addition, the state has rules and classifications to protect water supplies.
Mr. Shelton Sullivan, a Department of Environmental Quality staff member, verified for us the following statement. The subject address 8422 Fington Mill Road is located within a protected area of a water supply 4HED. The receiving water is classified as nutrient sensitive and the area is subject to the Jordan
watershed reparion buffer rules. On this map, you can see in the starred dot the proposed development within the watershed protected area. That's the light orange and its proximity to the watershed critical area which is the dark orange and it's very close to that boundary. Building large developments in rural areas like this property is risky in terms of water quality, but it's also costly due to the lack of critical infrastructure, particularly sewer service.
Housing is more expensive when a development is far from central services. >> Thank you. >> We urge you to reject this annexation
proposal. Joan Rem. Good evening, Madame Chair and planning commission members, and thank you for your service and your time. My name is Joan Ree, and my address is on record.
I oppose the request to annex this property into the city of Durham. Annexation would pose substantial risks to the city because of the consequences of a forced main sewer breaking and discharging into our raw drinking water supply. A sewer break is always harmful to our waterways, but in this case,
because of the proximity to a watershed critical area, the risk outweighs any benefit of annexation. But do we really think a sewer line break could happen? We certainly have good reason to believe that it could. The image that you see before you is a catastrophic situation that happened in 2013.
There was a main break in Durham which o occurred when a tree fell and broke the sewer main in a rural area south of Duke University. That break caused nearly a half million gallons of raw sewage to be discharged into a tributary Sandy Creek feeding Jordan Lake. Even more recently, in 2025, tropical storm Chantel's floodwaters caused an AASA sewer break, resulting in 819,000 gallons of untreated wastewater to flow into Morgan Creek and Jordan Lake. Flood waters from the Eastgate Shopping Center
course down Booker Creek directly into Little Creek. A total of over three million gallons of waste water, the equivalent of five Olympic size swimming pools filled with sew sewage flowed into our regional water supply. We asked the city to keep the city sewer lines out of the water critical areas near Jordan Lake, which is the current water supply for over threearters of a million people and the future water supply for Durham. Allowing annexation is simply not worth the risk.
Please deny this request. >> Thank you, Kateheim. Sorry, I'm dealing with my progressive lenses here.
Good evening, commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I am Kateheim and I um live at 7 7624 KBEC Drive in the Downs. Here you can see the proximity to Jordan Lake and Morgan Creek running through here as you've seen in the other areas.
And you can see from this view the um the the forested area and things. And I want to talk about the wildlife habitat considerations for this farm. I know other people have touched a bit on this, but I want to talk about the Durham comprehensive plan and the policies that we're looking at specifically for the environment and then take a quick look at the maps and see what that how that follows. So here um these all three of these policies are have the symbol D that are the greatest impact on the development cases and they talk about how to build and where to build and how to protect these sensitive areas. So, the landscape analysis for wildlife habitat connectivity in Durham County um which was approved in 2023
um or was finalized in 2023 addresses connectivity pri priority habitat patches and as you can see from this picture the entire area with the exception of just a small portion are high higher or highest priorities. If we now took it look at uh uh three different maps looking at things the natural heritage program map which shows you just how much of this area is in that program area and then the wildlife habitat connectivity area that I showed you at a slightly different angle previously and then what the Morgan farms draft conservation plan is. You can see that the high priority areas are not completely contingent right down the middle there. And then you can see the wildlife corridors are off to the sides and two of the four of them are not in the natural heritage program at all and two of the other ones actually connect to uh developed areas already. So we want to look at responsible use of
the land as other people have talked about the translational submission doesn't address these things allow us to look at those organizations and individuals understand the value of the land and have made specific statements. Please stick to the plan and uh address those harmonious and respectable development objectives. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Elizabeth Moore.
Is that okay? No. Okay. Good evening, planning commission, planning volunteer department members. Um, my name is Elizabeth Moore and my address is on record and
I bring you a moment of peace and I wish you great kindness. I want to be clear that my concern is not with annexation or development. It's about whether annexation is appropriate for this location. I know you'll get tired of hearing this.
The Durham comprehensive plan emphasizes context sensitive development, appropriate transitional density and directing higher density housing to areas with adequate infrastructure. Yes, I do need help. Um, this is the most important slide. Do you Whoops.
I'm psychologically challenged tonight. Do you see this Y? This dark Y. This is the most important map. This is Orange County, Durham County, Wake County, and Cadam County. And this arrow points to
the annexation we're talking about. It's a matter of the wrong thing at the wrong place. Morgan farm annexation proposal is just wrong here. You've already heard that it's an environmentally sensitive drinking water for protecting Jordan Lake.
And at this time 45 56% of North Carolina is in severe drought. you've already heard it's the Durham County mature oakick forest and it's an inappropriate fit with the surrounding area. Durham comprehensive plan leave wildlife corridors unprotected and discouraged development that destroys biodiversity. This land is being looked at by local and national conservation organizations for purchase for permanent conservation protectant.
It could become a public park and an open space for Durham city and county resident. >> Thank you John plants going Okay. I'm John Cowan, owner of the Blue Sun Farm, the 112 acre farm directly across Fington Mill from the proposed project uh directly across from proposed outlets
for hundreds of cars per day. There are two ponds on my side of Harington Mill right there. It's hard to imagine why the road on my side on my side of the road is critical Jordan Lake waters waterershed on the other side of the road is not. Um my side is home to hooded mergancers, buffalo heads, king fishers, osprey, and we have suspicion of a bald eagle nest.
Um, current plans for the Western Water Project pipeline are to use the rightway along Fington Mill, right where they're going to be doing uh sewer in improvements and just totally devastating the traffic there already. Um, building hundreds of units just north of the new water treatment plant is contradictory. I've committed myself to run my horse, sheep, hay, and honey farm and ensure our vital and growing rural community continues forward forever. This is not an unused area.
We are an active and vital established community that this pro proposal would change forever. The area must be restricted to rural farming and single family homes. It's not a simple filling of urban area.
This proposal is going from 0 to 1,000, destroying our natural resources forever. This land is an ungainainely finger of intrusion impacting all the areas around it, wedged between large tracks of land committed to long-term preservation. I've committed my land to the voluntary agricultural district for 10 years, joining at least two other VAD properties nearby. I have 17 people that work for the farm and several living there.
I have more low income housing and veteran housing than they propose. Um we uh we raise honeybees and hay and we produce sheep, a source of meat to underserved ethnic communities in North Carolina. We have a large equestrian resource center and employing North Carolina state grad state a grad a program grads and students supporting and teaching the people who will grow your food tomorrow. I'm getting public funding from Durham County soil and water state funding for conservation to improve our community's water. But right across the road the development impacted Jordan Lake would be devastating.
>> Thank you Tom Galloway. I made Good evening. My name is Tom Galloway. My address is on file.
Here are two maps. This map shows a three-mile radius around Morgan Farm. Notice all of the major transportation corridors are on the perimeter. 501 to the west, 54 and I40 to the north, and 751 to the east.
Our local roads are in the center, including Ferington Mill Road. The yellow dot marks the Morgan Farm location, and the thick red line shows the proposed Morgan Farm sewer line. Let's take a closer look. The green space in the center is primarily Army Corps protected land.
Every local road passes through Army Corps land and is subject to strict constraints. These roads have a finite traffic capacity and they're already near it. This map also shows 18 housing developments, the red dots, with nearly 7,400 units that have been advanced since November 2022. Notice they're located near the major highways.
There are no developments on our local roads except for proposed Morgan Farm. Britmore was denied by the city council three weeks ago. Our highways are already congested and commuter traffic is increasingly diverting to our local roads. The Fair Fington Mill is the primary commuter bypass between Durham, Chadam, and
Orange counties. 9% between August 24 and August 25 and will deteriorate to a level of service F by 2028 due to ambient growth traffic alone. The proposed sewer route, the red line, would cut our local road network in half. Ferington and Ferington Mill would be reduced to single lane roads with flagmen for at least 9 months.
This route crosses Lower Little Creek, which is Army Corps land. The red arrow marks the location of the bridge there, which is scheduled for replacement from 2029 to 2032. These projects will cause severe traffic disruption on every road and highway in this area. I urge you to deny dense housing developments of any size on our local roads.
Our infrastructure cannot absorb it. Please deny this application for annexation. >> Thank you, Halt Farley.
Hello, Madame Chair and members of the commission. My name is Holt Farley and I live on Keley Road. I'm here to discuss the traffic impact of Morgan Farms. I've previously sent each of you a detailed written analysis.
I'll briefly summarize my traffic estimations. Durham Planning uses a Florida Department of Transportation level of service handbook for road capacity. The handbook entry for Fington Mill road is road type is highlighted here in yellow. Level of service D is typically used for maximum capacity.
However, there is a footnote stating that once level of service D volume is reached, the service degrades to a failing grade F at intersections. Bottom line, 14,200 vehicles per day represents gridlock on Fington Mill Road. The Durham also uses an IT trip generation manual to estimate traffic volume from housing projects for a single family unit. The manual estimates 10 vehicles per day. Morgan Farms will
add four up to 437 units, which will result in more than 4,000 additional vehicles per day on Fington Mill Road. Using 2025 NC do data, Fington Mill Road is growing at about 7% per year. Projecting that forward, ambient growth alone pushes the road into gridlock by 2028. When we add Morgan Farms traffic added and phased according to the developer buildout, total volume reaches about 165% of gridlock capacity before the project is complete.
This will push an already failing road network far beyond its limits. These impacts highlight the problem with translational reszoning for large projects. When while the zoning label stays the same, utility access fundamentally changes development intensity and traffic impacts. Using a streamline process for this project
exposes the city to significant risks that have not been fully evaluated or mitigated. I urge you to vote no. >> Thank you, Joe Sigula. >> Good evening.
Hello, Madame Chair and members of the commission. My name is Joe Sigula. I also live on Keley Road. I do appreciate your time and serving and work on this commission.
Um, I'd like to follow up on what Mr. Farley has addressed and explained how Ferington Mill Road fits into the larger road network and why traffic in this area cannot be realistically mitigated. Morgan Farms is shown here at the center of the map. Ferington Mill Road along with US 15501 and Route 751 have become a major conduit into Durham from the southwest. All Ferington Mill traffic is forced
into just three roads. West towards Chapel Hill on Barbie Chapel, north towards I40 on Ferington Road, and east towards South Point on Stage Coach Road. There are no alternative through roads. These three roads already function as busy commuter roads and especially when con congestion builds on 54 and I40.
and continued residential development just keeps adding traffic to this already constrained network. Now, if you look at this map, it is highlighted the land managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers, which provides critical USA flood controls into Jordan Lake. These three major intersections fed by Ferington Mill Road are bounded by this land. Congestion at these locations is often severe and backups for more than a half a mile on a regular basis. And for more than 30 years, the Army Corps has refused to release land for road
expansion. As a result, multiple regional transportation studies working with the NC DOT have acknowledged that Army Corps approvals are not possible. In addition, Morgan Farm sewer line must use public right of way along Fington Road, which follows all the way up to South Durham Water Reclamation Facility. As it turns out, Army Corps approvals are also needed for any changes additions to the right of way.
So, it's unrealistic to think that the core will approve solve this problem. Emergency vehicles, this car and our homes will also be significantly compromised. Thank you. And I urge you to vote no. >> Eddie Williamson.
Thank you first for your service. We appreciate it. Um I moved here from Texas was a college football coach and have a grandson playing at Jordan High School. He was on the junior varsity this year.
Their game started at six o'clock. I looked at uh the directions over there. 7 miles. I left at 5:30 or 525.
I got there for the last three plays of his first quarter. So the next week I went Fington to 54. I did get there for half of the first quarter and then the rest of his football game. That's important to me. I coached football for 40 years. We moved back here
to follow our grandkids and I'm late and it's because of traffic and with everything that's planned for that area, the sewer lines and everything else, two-lane roads are going to go to one lane. And I don't know if we'll ever get there. I don't know that I'll get there to see my grandson unless I leave an hour earlier. I'm 11 miles from this facility.
I left at 4:00. It took me 50 minutes to get here. Most of the problem is in and around our area. We are besieged by traffic there.
I hope you will understand that there is a quality of life that is also necessary. People come here to live their final years. Don't take that away from us. Don't do it.
Thank you. I appreciate your listening. >> Order. >> Larry Tedum.
Good evening, commissioners. Uh Garrison, volunteer members of the planning commission. Thank you for sharing your time with us. I'm here to talk about 170 ft.
It is a mile. 2 from the proposed project. What you have on your screen now is basically uh a pencil instru uh diagram of what a bridge is. I'd like you to look at our bridge.
This is what exists now. The shoulders of the road are slowly being eroded into the protected watershed area um by of Army Corps of Engineer and the as you can see the ruler design shows you how deep the shoulders are eroding. The slide to your right is a shot from the top looking down at the superructure of the bridge which supports the substructure. It's caught up.
Yes, it's caught up. Okay. This is the underside of the bridge. I was a bridge troll.
I went underneath the bridge and took pictures of the bridge as it exists now. This bridge was built in 1979. They did um buttressing to support the bridge in 19 uh in 2006. And the bridge still was inspected in July uh June of 2023
and it is listed as severely deficient, which means that it meets the bare minimum that the county and the state say we won't replace this yet. The arrows point to where the superructure and the substructure are separating of this bridge. This is going to be a minimum of an 18-month project which will limit Fington Road to one lane. It is about uh 500 ft from Stage Coach Road which means that anybody coming up stage coach Sorry.
Thank you for your time. Please vote now. >> Linda Costaglola. >> That's good. Take it.
Good evening, Madame Chair and commissioners. My name is Linda Castagliola and my address is on record. Morgan Farm is in the same location as the rejected Sheffield Farms project and while it is true the project has been scaled down, the sewer issue is still on the table. This is a description of off-site public sewer improvements and/or connections.
According to the Morgan Farm Utility Extension application, the developer will be responsible for construction of an on-site city of Dorm lift station to serve the proposed subdivision with proposed force main along Farington Mill Road and then along Farington Road all the way to the South Dorm Water Reclamation. Gravity SSOFS sanitary sewer overflows will be expend extended from the proposed on-site lift station into the project to serve the proposed lots. Will this $10 million
sewer lift station and three mile sewer force main be the gift to s to dorm? It is made out to be. According to the developer buildout timeline, the Morgan Farm lift station in sewer, main would be in place and dedicated to the city of Durham before construction begins in 2028. But what about the Little Creek Bridge NC do uh Little Creek Bridge replacement timeline for utility relocation and construction? As you can see by this timeline and the previous builder timeline, both are far apart in what is going to be happening in terms of utility location as well as sewer relocation and when the Morgan farm lift station and sewer force main would be in place in 2028, but in 2029, the city of Durham will be responsible for sewer force main relocation and cost of about $5 million. You can see that the sewer
will be in for this project, but then everything's got to be ripped up to replace the Little Creek Bridge. Thank you. Thank you, Scott Dickerson. Good evening.
Uh my name is Scott Dickerson. I live on Kevley Road, very close to the the Morgan Farms uh project. Uh so Durham with the the massive amount of growth over the last several years uh is short of water and it has been short of water. 1 million gallons water a day. Um and uh currently we're relying on the township of of Kerry to to fill that gap. Um the
proposal to fix that problem is the um the Western Intake Partnership or WHIP, which will um basically get water from Jordan Lake and bring it up uh into the the area for uh for ultimate treatment. And here is a a little map of the that transmission line that will need to be built. So the the down in the south is where that the intake from Jordan Lake and it will be moved up along um past the Morgan Farms area uh over to 751 where that raw water will then get treated um and dispersed. The circled area is really the the highly congested area that Fington Mill passes through. So importantly, this is going to be a road construction um issue for that for this very heavily trafficked uh Fington Mill Road. And
that's what we're very worried about. Um here you can see here's a map. This this new force uh raw water intake line goes across right in front of the the Morgan Farms thing. So, it seems very important that the we do get fresh water in here.
Uh it's going to cause delays on our roads, but now to layer in uh an additional sewer line is is I think a massive mistake, especially we need this water. We need that new bridge. I'm not so sure about the uh the sewer line. Thank you for your time.
We urge you to reject this. and that rice. >> My turn. Now I've lost myself.
Oh, there I am. Good evening, Chair Shagaras, Vice Chair Cameron, commissioners. My name is Annette Rice, as you've just heard. Tonight, you're going to make a recommendation on this project.
And this project is going to struggle with both NCDQ and the Army Corps of Engineers for their required sewer infrastructure. This is an area where the Army Corps of Engineers has restricted similar infrastructure rep improvements since at least 2013. In September of 2013, the core modified easement policies nationwide. Those changes severely limit any encroachments on core lands.
A key part of the change requires pursuit of all viable alternatives. In this case, it would be improving the Celeste Circle sewer basin. The changes in those policies impacted the light rail project. The UNCC route crossed the U Army Corps
of Engineers property right through here. Army Corps of Engineers lands right here and they couldn't get Army Corps approval. This was actually a contributing factor to the cancellation of the light rail project. Now consider the Celeste Circle lift station relocation and upgrade.
In 2023, the city had to relocate it off of the core lands and out of a flood zone because of that policy change. Fortunately, there was a viable alternative nearby and it went through. The policy's impact on the stage coach sewer relocation have set the project back almost two years so far. Durham's plan to move the new sewer line out of critical watershed and along an existing core utility easement just wasn't feasible. This relocation is to help serve all of the developments heading down 751 and up around the transit corridor here, including South Point 2. The changes to the pre203 easements are
considered new projects requiring separate approval. You can't just put something in an existing rightway anymore. The new sewer easement will run north of that utility easement and will be moved out of the same area of critical watershed as the Morgan farm sewer main cross. Does adding new sewer here really make that much sense?
Thank you. >> Thank you. Kathy Rex Road. >> Good evening, Chair Garis, Vice Chair Cameron, and commissioners.
Thank you for your time and your service. Um, my name is Kathy Rexroad. My address is on file and I just wanted to recount briefly some history regarding the urban growth boundary in this parcel of land. Um, in 2006 recommendations in the comprehensive plan were based on the assumption of light rail. The parcel was within the suburb suburban tier which is now the urban growth boundary and mass because mass transportation was expected to be available including bus lines to the train depot between 2006 and 2019.
Multiple developments within a three to four mile radius of this parcel were built under the assumption of light rail. But in 2019, the light rail project was canceled as Annette just mentioned because at least in part the Army Corps of Engineers denied permission for the train line to cross land that was under their jurisdiction. So 13 years of planning and and some development all made on the assumption that Army Corps would grant permission and it was not granted and it was just scuttled. So when the new comprehensive plan was drafted and adopted, drafted starting in 2019, adopted in 2023, light rail was no longer part of the picture and the planning department proposed removing this area from the urban growth boundary because of the difficulty of providing sewer to this area. Um they have experts, we've hired experts. Um the planning commission's been presented with assurances from the developer that sewer can be extended to this area without any evidence that the Army Corps will sign off on this plan.
You've heard tonight and many times previously that if the sewer line was built as described along Fington Mill and Fington Road that it would be subject to forceful stress that could at some point could result in the leaking of raw sewage into the critical watershed area. And of course, this would happen after the developer was long gone and the cost of maintenance repair was completely the responsibility of the city and county of Durham. Please vote against this translational Sony request. Um, and according to the wellressearched recommendation of your own planning department.
Thank you. >> Thank you. We have a Stephen Steve Con Steve Kum, 1406 Pennsylvania Avenue, chair of the Open Space Committee of the Durham Open Space and Trails Commission. I want to reiterate three points from the comments we have sent you on the Morgan Farm case. Because much of this
property is in a state designated natural heritage area and because it contains other sensitive natural areas including buffers to the area owned by the Army Corps for protection of Jordan Lake. Approximately 63% of this property is marked recreation and open space on Durham's place type map. The comprehensive plan is explicit about the purpose and treatment of these areas. It says recreation and open spaces are areas that will remain free from development.
Natural features and environmentally sensitive areas should be preserved or restored in all recreation and open space place types. Second, because this case is for annexation only, the applicant cannot make enforcable commitments regarding conservation outcomes. the applicant is expressing good intentions but nothing will legally bind them to those representations. Sorry if circumstances, ownership or market conditions change such that they
would do better financially or operationally with a different plan. This is critical because annexation is not provisional or reversible. Under state law, a local annexation is final and forever. Third, policy 165 of the comp plan says annexation into the city limits should only be considered when a substantial benefit to the community can be demonstrated.
While there may be some benefit in making this annexation, it is essential to net that benefit out against the substantial and irreversible risks of loss that would come from enabling a developer to create extensive infrastructure and buildings without any binding commitments on land the state has designated as vital to North Carolina's biodiversity and the city has identified as critical open space that should be fully protected. Thank you. Thank you. Um, Malora McCall.
Good evening, Malor McCall. My address is on file. I think I might be echoing much of what's just been said. And I wanted to focus tonight on what makes this annexation request uniquely consequential and why it should be evaluated differently than typical development proposals that come before you.
In most cases, when our land is proposed for development in front of a voting body, the city is able to assess concrete plans and binding commitments that clarify what will be built, what will be protected, and how impacts will be mitigated. Those commitments matter because they create accountability over time. But that's not what's before you tonight. This request asks the city to permanently extend its boundaries without any enforcable commitments tied to the land use, conservation or future intensity.
What has been presented are intentions, but intentions are not durable. They do not bind future owners, future applications, or the future development pressures this land may face. That distinction is especially important here because this land is not neutral. And as you've heard tonight, large portions of the property have
already been identified by both state and the city as environmentally sensitive and deserving of long-term protection. Those designations were not accidental, and it reflects years of analysis of what should be preserved and not urbanized. Annexation fundamentally changes the context for this land. It introduces development pressure and expectations that do not exist today, and it does so permanently.
Once that shift occurs, the city loses its strongest leverage to ensure conservation outcomes regardless of what's said at this stage. So the question before you is not whether future development could be done responsibly or whether a good advice from TCC might be followed. The question is whether annexation itself, standing alone without binding safeguards, meets the city's own standard for when annexation is appropriate. Even if future development were pursued with the best available advice on minimizing harm, considering annexation alone without mechanisms that are legally binding removes the most effective safeguard currently protecting this
land, its exclusion from the city, and the development pressure that accompanies urban services. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anybody else in person wishing to speak?
I think I've got everybody off the list. Anybody on the Zoom? Christopher Peekom. Anybody else on the Zoom?
Please raise your hand and you'll be called on. >> Good evening. Can you hear me? >> Yes.
Go ahead. State your name and address for the record, please. >> Good evening, folks. My name is Chris Peekham and I am the president of Montlair Homeowners Association.
My address is on file. This evening, I'd like to speak to you about growing pains. Yes, growing pains. This is what I recently heard a member of the city council refer to about the potential disruption associated with developing along Fington Mill Road.
Now, when I think of growing pains, I think of the challenges of being a teenager and growing to be an adult. In other words, I think of pains that go away. But what
we are talking about here today won't go away. It will create permanent generational pain. While we are just talking about an annexation, we are really talking about a development because without the annexation there will be no development and without the development there will be no need for annexation. So today you've heard from folks that have talked about the pain caused by both.
This will be similar to what you have heard before with the Britmore proposal only this will be three to four times in size. You have heard about a significant disruption to traffic during annexation and significant increase in traffic from the development itself on roads that are not allowed to be expanded and no land on which to expand them if you could. Permanent pain. You have heard about impact to ecology and wildlife that cannot be restored because no one ever tears down a development to build a forest.
Permanent impact. New students will be underserved at schools that are at or over capacity with no plans to expand them. generational impact. Economically and physically disadvantaged persons might be expected
to live here, though they will have no access to public transportation. Pervasive systemic challenges. And then there is potential impact to our drinking water that comes from this sensitive area. A remediation here would cause financial pain for generations.
The comprehensive plan did not take all these factors into account. So as you process what these folks have said, I ask that you consider how unlike other areas in the comprehensive plan, the growing pains here have no remedy due to the unique constraints and sensitivity of the area. For this reason, I urge you to vote no to this proposal. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Ken Pew, >> you can hear me? Yes, please state your name and address for the record. >> Hi, I'm Ken Pew, a Durham resident with my address on file. I want to focus on one key statement from the staff report. A direct transitional zoning is one in
which the existing Durham County zoning is translated to the identical Durham city zoning district upon annexation. While the label in the zoning district may stay the same, the practical development potential does not. Under county RR development is constrained by well, septic and soil limitations common in Durham County. In fact, in many cases, effective density is one home for two acres or even fewer simply because the land cannot support more with septic.
However, once a parcel is in next and become city RR, the property gains access to city water and sewer which removes the limiting factor and significantly increases the number of units that can be built. So while direct translation may be technically correct in the zoning label sense, it is not correct in practice. The functional density changes dramatically. The same issue appears in multiple cases where the proposal states RR County is being translated to RRC. In reality, annexation plus city utilities is a substantial increase in
development intensity regardless of whether the zoning name matches. For that reason, I urge the commission to treat these cases not as neutral translations, but as material density increases that warrant careful review of infrastructure, environmental, and community impact. Thank you very much. >> Thank you.
Anybody else on the Zoom wishing to speak on this item? Please star9 raise your hand function. Nobody going once, going twice, gone. Uh, the public hearing is now closed. We are open for commissioner discussion. The applicant want to reply to any of the concerns before we do commissioner
discussion? they want to >> I'm happy to address any questions that the commission has specifically. I think um lots was raised today um in terms of traffic and uh preservation and all are subject to um your very capable staff review when we submit the the site plan. Um and we have illustrated how that site plan will align with a lot of these natural protected areas.
Um your staff is well equipped to follow the UDO and what those requirements um have in terms of open space and we intend to abide by those and so happy to um continue to speak with the neighbors and entertain um other ways we might be able to uh ease their their questions um as we go forward. But as this area has already been developed to an extent, we're trying to do something that matches that character and think that the conservation subdivision is the appropriate way to do that. But happy to answer any specific questions.
>> Thank you. All right, commissioners, questions, comments, discussion? Commissioner Richie. >> Hi, uh, Commissioner Ramsey.
I um you mentioned a few times a variety of commitments um which we've heard from people in the audience are um uninforcable and so you also talked about some mechanism for committing to those outside of our standard process. Can you talk more about what that is and how that should reassure us as commission that that's going to that these commitments are going to be abided by? Yeah. Well, to to start with, I mean, it's a great question.
To start with, the two things before you are the translational zoning and uh the annexation. So, what I'm talking about would be something that would be um worked on through another mechanism. Um the UEA does have provisions with respect to infrastructure. Um there are some potential tools that we've been been looking forward um to speaking more with the city staff and city attorney's office with um but those wouldn't be before you because u aren't typically before this commission and usually
typically make those decisions based on um what the actual request is in front of you the annexation um and the translational zoning. I wanted to mention them for the for the public's benefit to note that we have listened we are understanding um those challenges that they're facing and we're trying to look for ways uh to solve that before this case reaches the council but we haven't landed on what that solution is yet. >> Any other commissioner comments, questions? I have a question for the applicant. And the first time this was brought in front of the commission, we received an email afterwards and it concerns the historical buildings on the site and the intact slave quarters on the property.
uh most certainly means there are probably slaves buried on the property. I have seen slave quarters myself. This is likely of historical significance and no one should go upending the property without research. I was wondering if this research has been done.
Has there been I know that this was a couple years ago actually in February of 2024 and the form was going to be completed and a inventory was going to be done. Is there any knowledge of an unidentified cemetery and if so where is it and will it be protected? I think you're speaking to the statutory procedure for um locating graves and if graves are to be disturbed where they would be relocated to. Um I'm not aware that that's been um completed, but we have worked with um with the Durham preservation Durham to preserve the structures and I think with that examination and the site plan um if
there are graves discovered, uh there's a very strict statutory process that must be followed to um do that report, figure out where the nature of those graves originated. There's a very lengthy uh notice procedure that occurs. All of that typically happens during the site plan process when um there's efforts to figure out what actually will be disturbed and if there's areas that you can avoid that disturbance. Um so all of that would take place at the site plan process.
And I know sometimes it can feel um disconcerning to try to make decisions on things like annexation or translational zoning when these other procedures exist that aren't part of the same uh request. But that's typical in in how development goes forward and that some of these uh decisions are separated and part of different uh requirements. That statutory procedure is not required to happen at the annexation or or translational zoning stage. It's just it's just required to happen before the land is disturbed. And so that would be
part of the site plan examination. >> Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Any other Commissioner Capers?
Yeah, I I've got to follow up to that question. Uh, hearing that point, even though it's not required, are you all going to do the due diligence to be able to go in and survey and make sure that you all aren't disturbing uh grave sites that may potentially be there or people that may potentially be resting in those spaces. >> That's right. What would happen is what we would when we submit the site plan, it'll go through many rounds of review with your with your very capable staff that will identify different things that we need more um investigation into.
if that were discovered and would be part of something that we would disturb and and and just because the cemetery may be there or may not be there doesn't mean it will be disturbed. There's plenty of um of site plans that are able to kind of navigate around that. But if there was something where it was unavoidable, let's say a road or something that that staff or DOT uh required to be in that location, then we would work with staff
to get all of those improvals in place and all of that investigation in place before anything was disturbed. So that would happen at the site plan stage. Following the site plan stage, we'd go through construction documents following construction documents and building permits and all of that would have to happen before any uh land was disturbed. >> Sounds good.
Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions, comments? >> Okay.
Okay. May I have a motion to move case Z2504A-BG25 triple014 Morgan Farms forward with a favorable recommendation. Chair as it relates to case Z2504A-BG250014 Morgan Farm. I move that we forward this case to city council with a favorable recommendation.
>> Second. >> It has been moved by Vice Chair Cameron and seconded by Commissioner Richie to move this case forward with a favorable recommendation. Please open the electronic voting. The motion fails 9 to zero.
Thank you. Next item on the agenda, seven, public hearings, zoning map changes. A Patterson Hall, Z25011. May we have the staff report, please?
>> Sure. Thank you, chair. 849 acres located at 505, 401, 402, 352, 353, and 309 Patterson Road. The proposal would allow up to 180 town houses, detached and attached houses with up to 3,000 square feet of non-residential uses.
The existing zoning is residential, rural, and residential suburban 10. 73. 976 acres of land to the east of Patterson Road would remain residential rural and residential suburban 10.
The aerial map before you shows the general location of the pro project. The site fronts Patterson Road and is north of Stallings Road. The property is currently designated mixeduse neighborhood on the place type map. The proposed zoning was determined consistent with the designated place type because the var because of the variety of housing types and inclusion of non-residential uses. Before you um is a list of commitments from the textual development plan. Some notable commitments include a minimum of two housing types, um 5% of units at 80% AMI for 30 years or $140,000 donation DHF, maximum building height of 45 ft, maximum pvious surface for the entire site of 50% of native trees to be planted along with open space amenities and a DPS donation.
Two neighborhood meetings were held on June 12th and January 14th. 23 committee members attended the 1st and 12 the 2nd. Four comments have been received on the Durham Reszoning Explorer in relation to this case with one in opposition and three requesting more information and clarity of the proposal. As stated earlier, the proposal is consistent with the place type map designation of mixeduse neighborhood.
The proposal is consistent with 24 of 29 applicable comprehensive plan policies. Two of those policies are still undetermined at this time. Thank you. Staff and the applicant are available for any questions.
>> Thank you. The chair is now opening the public hearing. May we have the applicant, please?
Good evening, Chair Cheris, Vice Chair Cameron, members of the commission. My name is Marie Farmer with Parker Poe, 301 Fagetville Street, Raleigh. here on behalf of the applicant MI Homes. I'm joined tonight by my colleague Jamie Schwadler and the project's landscape architect Tim Cyvers with Unity and representatives of MI Homes who will be available to answer questions this evening.
The team is proud to present this moderatelysized mixeduse project that will provide new housing types within close proximity to existing food and retail with numerous commitments to address affordability, sustainability, and environmental impact. This request is to reszone four parcels adjacent to city limits within the urban growth boundary along Patterson Road just north of the Patterson Wake Forest Highway intersection and the site totals a little under 40 acres. As you can see from the image on this slide, the property is surrounded by sim
city limits and the proposal is consistent with policy 165 of the comprehensive plan because it will expand those limits and reduce the existing donut hole that exists today. Despite this site being located at the bottom of the Patterson Road future growth area, the proposal furthers the objective of policy 122 of the comprehensive plan because it will upgrade sewer capacity with a public lift station that will connect to existing sewer in Stallings Road and ensure new sewer service within the future growth area by providing subs to adjacent properties. The current zoning on the site is residential rural and residential suburban 10. And we are proposing the PDR with the textual development plan to allow this mixed residential neighborhood with a neighborhood scale commercial use consistent with the place type. The play site map designation for this property is mixeduse neighborhood which
describes undeveloped land on the outskirts of the city but within the urban growth boundary or large vacant sites within developed areas. Development in these areas should include a mix of housing types at a high density increased open space and a mix of residential and non-residential uses. Our proposal meets this designation because we are provoke we are proposing a mix of uses and housing types at a moderate density with integrated open space that will capture the environmentally sensitive areas on site. Again, this proposal includes a number of key text commitments that you can see here on the screen. Staff went over a number of these, but a few that we will highlight again are the EV charging stations, the green building program, the maximum 50% impervious surface, native trees, 20% of the required open space containing environmentally sensitive features, and 22% tree
coverage. Tonight, we are also adding the following additional commitments, and you can see those in red on the screen. We are increasing our contribution to Durham public schools from $5,000 to $15,000 at all locations where discharge from a storm water control measure will leave the project boundary buffer. The runoff rate uh post development will not exceed the pre-development rate for the 100-year storm.
And where a silt fence is required, a third row of silt fence will be provided adjacent to the stream. Now, while we submitted this application with a textual development plan, we wanted to provide a visual tonight to show what the concept will look like look like at site plan if the reasonzoning and annexation is approved. And so although this does not represent graphic commitments, our goal is to provide clarity on where the project's access points will be located, where the boundary and stream buffers will be and
where the uh integrated open space is as well. So you can see here on screen where the two access points will be located on Patterson Road. You can see that the minimum 30 foot undisturbed project boundary buffer that is required by the UDO where that will be provided which is illustrated in dark green. You can see the 100 foot stream buffer outlined in dark blue and then you can also see the integrated recreational open space uh identified in orange. The light green shows where the existing city sewer is located on site and then the white star shows the location uh for the commercial art out parcel. We also wanted to illustrate that although the proposal is not consistent with policy 50 of the comprehensive plan because the site is not located within a half mile of a public park that this site is within 700 ft of the Oak Grove Associates athletic fields.
Overall, this request is consistent with 24 out of 29 applicable policies of the comprehensive plan. And once the fiscal impact analysis has been completed, the proposal should be consistent with 26 out of 29 applicable policies, which is approximately 90%. Again, we are consistent with 13 policies by meeting the standards in the UDO and we are consistent or and we exceed 11 policies um within the UDO as well because this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and place type map designation. The proposed uses are compatible with nearby zoning and uses and the project will improve the balance of uses in the area by providing a mix of uses and new housing types.
We respectfully request your recommendation for approval this evening. We thank you for your time and we look forward to answering any questions you may have. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Community members in person wishing to speak on this item. Sure. I found the right one.
Gary McClean. Good evening, Madame Chair and Durham County Planning Commission. My name is Gary Mlean. My address is on file.
I'm a lifelong resident of Durham County except for a stint in the United States Navy. I live right in the middle of this Patterson Hall uh development and also the Cheek Road 482. I won't be speaking on both both of them tonight. Uh I am opposed to this high density development. Water is essential and a necessity for our everyday lives and
well-being and our existence. And due to the triacic basin soils that's in this area on both of these developments. Blasting will most likely need to be performed. They uh I've been to both of the community meetings and they the developers have said we can't guarantee that we'll have to blast but there's a good probability and 90% of them have had to have blasting because of the triacic basin soils and blasting has to have the effect on the underground acryers that supply fresh water to county residents such as myself. Some of us have shallow whales, some have deep whales, and there has been proof and evidence of whales caving in, new whales having to be dug deeper because of damages due to the underground aqua aquifers. I have been a resident of Durm County for 70 years and is not fair for a life to be disrupted because of high density developments such as these uh this one because of mass grading removal of all the trees
and the dynamite blasting because of the triacic basin soils that is prevalent in south southeastern Durham County. And my thing is, I'm not against development, but if it's zoned real residential, one house or per acre or one house per lot, go ahead and build it as such. We don't necessarily have to mass grade all the land, cut all the trees down, and put 140 people on four acres of land or something. It just don't make any sense.
Thank you. >> Thank you, Billy King. Valerie. >> My name is Vicky King.
>> Vicki. Sorry. >> That's all right. >> Yeah, that's a long night.
My name is Vicky King. My address is 2517 Arsley Drive. It's right here close to Cheek Road. I
have to go down Patterson Road every day to get to Four Points to buy groceries. It's terrible. Traffic is awful. I was raised on Suit Street, which is right around the corner from Arsley Drive.
I'm here tonight to ask you to do not allow Patterson Hall to go through as planned. It's too dense for the area. There's wildlife will be destroyed. The forest land will be destroyed.
The creeks running through this property feed directly into a wildlife refuge that feeds to Falls Lake. The schools in this area are at or over capacity. Please make sure some infrastructure is put in place before any more development is allowed in this part of the county. My research this week showed that there
are 1,264 homes for sale and over 3,300 rental properties available in Durham. Do we really need any more dense construction projects? Thank you. >> Thank you, Pam Andrews.
Good evening, uh, Chair Shagaras, Vice Chair Cameron, commissioners. I'm Rebecca Freeman. I live in southeast Durham and my address is on file. I want to start our pres presentation tonight and in this slide it shows all the different points that we're going to be making about the zoning and annexation of Patterson Hall with beginning with the issues of concern within the future growth area the safety fe failures for public and infrastructure development growth and strain services rural and agriculture neighborhood water quality streams and drinking water at risk flood plane wetland habitat re fragmentation environmental al justice and public health blasting probable and impacts to surrounding homeowners. No 15-minute community and neighborhood input says no benefit to the community for this project. Patterson Hall is within the future growth area uh is in the um uh southeast Durham area and is needs uh critical in infrastructure upgrades like
water, sewer or fire service to meet the new development. is designated as designated in the 2023 comprehensive plan. Policy 119 is not met to ensure new developments within the urban growth boundary or within the established level of service for emergency services such as fire, emergency medical services, police, and community safety. Why this property is in the future growth boundary is due to a lack of infrastructure.
Policy 122 says states that designate future growth areas on the policy type math map is where infrastructure and service upgrades are needed. The evaluation and review report for the comprehensive plan of uh amendments of 2020 25 did not change this location to be in anything but future growth area. The area is not prepared for such a change to the county and city boundaries regarding infrastructure and safety. This proposal results represents urban sprawl rather than quarterly growth. Thank you.
Thank you. >> Good evening everyone. My name is Pamela Andrews Wake Forest Highway policy 122 which Becky just barely touched on. You can see that fire services are targeted as well as the sewer services for a problem.
Policy 122 clearly shows the need for fire service expansion before future growth areas are expanded. Next, there are two city of Durham fire stations in Southeast Durham, station 8 and 17 along with the county funded Redwood volunteer fire station. These units will respond to calls in over 68 new subdivisions along with current residents. Next, in January 20 26, fire equipment was relocated throughout the city.
Station 17 lost its fa fire truck, the ladder truck, along with three firefighters who manned this truck. No replacement vehicle was put there. Remaining at station 17 is an engine and tanker truck with a total of four firefighters instead of the seven that were there before. Station 8 had a vehicle swap which kept the same number
of firefighters of three. The Quint truck replaced engine eight. The net loss for Southeast Dur was a ladder truck of 17 and three firefighters. The response times with the adequate number of firefighters is lacking due to the three firefighters that were pulled when ladder 17 left.
Next, station 8 is the primary station that will respond to this site. It has a quint truck. It has three firefighters and uh has a two bay garage and no room for EMS. Next, the national response time is 6 minutes and 30 seconds for fire and EMS.
At 11:29, when the roads are voided traffic, a structure fire took place on January 27th, 2026 at 629 Patterson Road adjacent to this property. The chart shows the actual response times. 5 target time? Two.
Numerous units are needed to put out a structure fire, not just station 8 and 17. Nine fire trucks were presented to this fire. Two tanker
tanker trucks never made it to the fire. The total time of the fire call was 2 hours and 12 minutes. Recommendations were made for the in the audit. You can read it.
We're in dire need of help. That's all I'm going to say. Thank you. >> Thank you.
>> I am uh Tammy Soya. U my um address is on file. I want to talk about in the policy 119 on the uh comprehensive plan that ensures no developments in the urban growth boundary uh is established unless there's a level of service that is adequate. Police is not adequate for this area.
There are 134 vacancies as of now. 6 miles away. , a Durham police officer had
to transport a person to the hospital via his control, his patrol. EMS has not been included in any of these impacts and previous impacts. We do not have EMS uh coverage on station 8. 8 miles away.
development and growth. You will see the air the amount of growth we've had in Southeast Durham, but I want to add to this. Durham since 2020 has added 36,000 units. So, um and with the RTP recent zoning, we have enough development to to uh capture what we need for Durham.
Um I want to say a personal situation I had this morning. I live on Baptist Road. I came out south south view. It was about 8:15 at Zinc House all the way to Four Points, which is where Patterson Road uh intersects. It took me 15 minutes this morning to get from 2 miles,
approximately two miles. This is not going to get any better. Um so I want you to think about this and we do not have the infrastructure that we need in this area. >> Thank you.
>> Good afternoon. My name is Pam Williams. Uh I'm on file. I appreciate every one of you being here tonight and sacrificing your time to help Durham.
I'm showing some pictures here of the traffic congestion at the uh intersection of uh Patterson and Stalin's Road. This is typical any afternoon. Uh the one on the left, 500 ft back up on Patterson Road. An example of a huge truck coming down Patterson going to NC98.
Then a backup on Stalin's road. Um, also it was over 1,200 feet that day on Stalin's Road. And you can see possibly how the red, this is kind of typical of an afternoon, but some afternoons it's even worse. People
travel miles to avoid this intersection here. Um, most people talk about, oh, we're only going to have 149 uh additional peak hour vehicles at this intersection. Look at this intersection. Imagine 149 more.
And uh this does not also include the development across the street over here which is um Sharon uh Sharon Road Apartments. This uh TIA TIA was done on this. It labeled this intersection as level of service D. 55 seconds is the maximum for a level of service D.
I don't know anybody in here that would say they can get through this intersection during peak hour in 55 seconds. We're talking multiple traffic lights here at at this already. Not to mention in the future when this is built out. Um this again is some more congestion on 98 around this area. Oops, excuse me. Um just showing you some of typical congestion on typical days out
here. Um here uh this crash analysis was done in 2023. 133 crashes was within five uh years. Uh just want to point out that we've had 68 developments that are under construction.
Almost all of them are under construction right now. And so if this was 2023, imagine what three years of developments have done to this intersection and the accidents. and I observed this accident right here. So, next.
Good evening. I'm Donna Stainback. I've lived here all my life. Uh I've gone through this intersection for about 65 years.
So, to go to work and to school. Um but anyway, the there are no town houses or dense developments on Patterson Road. This proposal would not maintain its rural character. There were no assessments of land use conflicts or
rural impacts. 963. Per previous commissioners on a project not too far away, density as proposed would be too great a burden and detract from the character and aesthetics of the rural area. This proposed site is less than 1,200 feet from several large uh volunteer agriculture district districts.
Um it's surrounded by 19 total volunteer agriculture districts and present use agriculture within a mile. Um next okay you got it. Um there are also major concerns about the increase of the of 1499 vehicles per day on the existing road and impacting transporting of harvest goods and equipment for local farms. Per
one of the planning commissioners considering the high rate of development in southeast Durham and neighbors struggling to cope with the increased traffic and no increase of necessary infrastructure. this project does not seem to meet the needs of the community. We are in that situation and I thank you for your time. >> Thank you.
Hi, I'm Wanda Allen and thank you. Uh my address is on file. I asked you to take a moment and look at the slide. The slide showing the streams and their connection to Little Lit Creek and Falls Lake.
This proposal includes six streams crossing that flows directly into Little Lit Creek and ultimately into Falls Lake. Both waters are already classified as impaired due to settlement and water pollution. Taxpayers, I said taxpayers, we are taxpayers are currently funding restoration projects.
3 million, which I am positive this is not inclusive. Falls Lake is Raleigh's drinking water. Adding additional sediment is to a loaded already stressed water is serious risk. This proposal relies on I said minimum UDO storm water standards but given the steep slopes and trient basin soil and the direct connection to impaired waters minimum standards is not what we want.
Let me say that again. Minimum standards is not sufficient. First, we want a firm commitment to an innovative storm water control and a 100year storm water basin during the construction and post construction. Second, we want strict environmental monitoring including
sampling of dewater and discharge. Third, no variances or alterations of variances. What we're finding is once the projects are approved, then the developer comes back in and asks for variances. You have the responsibility tonight to prevent harm that cannot be undone tomorrow.
Thank you. >> Good evening. My name is Tina Mley Pearson and my address is on file. Soils and drainage limitations.
And so let me draw your attention again to prevailing familiar topic with the problems of Triacic basin soils in this area. Triacic basin soils are notoriously highly erosive when disturbed. And on this property, over 61% of the terrain has between 6 to 25% slopes. This means there will have to be significant grading and clear cutting on this property to ensure a stable and level
surface for buildings, roads, and other infrastructure. And of course, all the grading will increase the sediment load to the streams and creeks feeding into Falls Lake as seen in all the other developments with similar grading techniques in TR basin soils. And unfortunately, all the so-called improvements to help with sediment loads have been disappointing. You can't engineer away the properties of the soil.
Slide. We are asking for a commitment to undisturbed stream buffers because under current regulations, the following may be permitted within stream buffer areas. Clear cutting, grading, sediment ponds, retaining walls, sewer easements, drainage ditches, trails, and more. Basically, the buffer only means a building cannot be built in the buffer. If there is no commitment to undisturbed stream buffers, then only 30 feet from the stream banks of the 100 feet will be undisturbed. And 30 feet is not much
protection for creeks and streams. Thank you very much. >> Good evening. My name is Thomas Freeman.
Uh my address is on file and I would add that I'm a lifelong resident of Durham County. I'll pick I'll start by adding to uh a comment that Mr. Mlan uh pointed out that's blasting. Uh we would ask that that we would request a commitment to no blasting.
Should blasting occur, this will jeopardize 120 homes uh with that will be at risk. The home will be at risk, the structure itself, the well and the septic tank. Uh something is going on that defies explanation. The city holds the bond for the damages.
We know there is documented damage. Anyone want to guess how much payout has occurred? That's right. Zero
zero payouts. I would draw your attention to the excavator which you see in the the big slide there. He is actually in a buffer zone, but it is a it it is obviously a disturbed buffer zone. And I would just show point out the hazard that grading like this creates for adjacent neighbors.
Why are blasting why are blasting damages being covered by other counties and not in Durham? It's the same blasting companies that are doing the work. Also, let me point out under the UDO, policy 171 is not met. Non-residentidential users should be located within a 15 minute walking distance.
You know the drill. Again, policy 116 is not met. The result of this is non-ontiguous sidewalks at shopping areas and it is not within a safe 15-minute walk, no pedestrian crossings or pedestrian signals at intersections, no curb ramps at service
stations, and you will have a deadly fivelane crossing to get from this location, this proposed location at Patterson Hall to any sort of commercial uh any commercial establishment. Stallings Road in Patterson Road and it's a major carter uh to get from NC98 to 85 North. Thank you very much. >> Thank you.
>> Hey everyone, I'm Tanya Taylor spelled T A N Y A. Uh nice to meet y'all. Uh basically I live on Patterson Road. Have lived on Patterson Road for 32 33 years now.
The biggest concerns I have are you're basically is clear-cutting everything. You're destroying sand and dirt to get to the rock. You're destroying wildlife because they're not going to have any homes and then they're going to cause more accidents on the road because there's more animals trying to cross to get to the other side. Um, we need this soil. We need this. We need
this land so we can continue to raise animals and have the birds and the insects so we can continue to have food. Um, I know the lady listed that there's a grocery store and a couple restaurants just up the road at Four Points. Uh, they're already under efficient. So, we get how many places y'all want to build there.
We're just there's not going to be anything on the shelves to buy and there's not going to be any food to to to take home at night for dinner. Um, you know, and I only live what about a mile from from Four Points on Patterson and and the traffic just on passing the road. Uh, when I first got here, you could walk up and down the road and not have to worry about you were perfectly safe. Um, you could literally listen to the car coming down the road and know who it was.
Now, you take your life in the hand just just to get the mail from the mailbox. Um the roads are getting damaged from city from developments that are under the city and they're destroying county roads. So who gets to
fix it? Basically for me it comes down to two things. This project is neither environmentally safe or publicly safe because our ghettos have uh suggested we don't have EMS, we don't have fire departments, we don't have extra police, we don't have uh like a small urgent care or something like that that we don't have to go 20 20 25 miles out of our way. I suggest very strongly or recommend that you do not clear this and vote no.
Thank you. >> Thank you. Anybody else in the audience wishing to speak on this in person? If not, we'll go to the Zoom.
Chaz Clayton. >> Yes. Can everybody can hear me?
>> Yes. Please state your address for the record. >> Okay. My address is 2821 Little Rogers Road.
My name is uh Chaz Clayton. Uh and I am speaking on behalf of our farms and regarding the Patterson Road and the Cheat Road uh developments. As an advocate farmer, I have real concerns regarding safety of the farmers, including soil pollution. We spend thousands as is trying to protect and keep our soil pH at a healthy standard.
And with these developments, it's not only going to create a pollution crisis, but it's also going to raise a huge safety concern with us as farmers traveling from farm to farm down the road on Patterson Road and Cheap Road. As is, the roads are not up to standard. And daily I have people cuss me and flip me off just trying to get from farm to farm. This is getting worse and it's only going to get worse
with these developments. And we take pride in our farm. We are a third generation farm. And this is more than just a development crisis in this area.
It's going to not only affect my family, it's going to affect all the farms that's around. And approximately there's 61. That ranges from big farms to small farms. But at the end of the day, it's still all the same when it comes to putting food on your plate.
This is not a 8 to five job. This is a 24-hour job when it comes to animals and food. Just these few examples that I have stated with concerns. I would please ask that you would take the time to just think about this with it being a farmer that puts food on the plates that everybody eats daily.
This is more than just developments for us. This is our livelihood. Thank you for your time.
>> Thank you, Lisa Roman Schaefer. Oops. Did she just disappear there? Lisa Roman Schaefer.
>> Okay. It just gave me unmute. Can you hear me? >> Yes.
Please state your address for the record. >> Okay. My record is on file. I do live on Stallings Road though.
Um I live in Durham County, not the city. And I want to be very clear. This is not about being anti-growth. It's about being safe and responsible growth.
The infrastructure in our area is already failing. It can take 30 minutes just to get from Stallings Road to Patterson Road in order to get through the inter even just to the light to get to the intersection. Roads like Patterson Road and Highway 98, which is also Wake Forest Highway, were not designed for the volume of traffic they are already carrying,
let alone thousands of additional vehicles from dense housing developments that they are proposing. Emergency response in Durham County is already stretched thin. EMS, fire, sheriff's services are all understaffed, delayed. EMS today alone, according to the records, was called three times and they were not a three times that they were not able to actually send anyone out for help.
They didn't have a vehicle available. I lost my child after being stuck in traffic on Stallings Road trying to reach medical care. This is not theoretical. It's real.
It's what happened. County residents do not have the same voting power as city residents. Yet the city decisions are re reshaping our county, our farms, our wildlife, our air, and our way of life. If we want Dun's urban living, we would have chosen to live in the city.
We chose the county for a reason. It's country. Development
should not come at the expense of safety, environment, or people who already live here. Infrastructure must come first. roads, emergency services, traffic planning and developers should bear those cost, not the residents through the rising taxes that they keep doing to us. If development is approved, I ask that at minimum that it be done with respect, set buildings back from the roads, preserve buffers, provide adequate.
Please vote no. >> Thank you, Geraldine Larson. Can you hear me? >> Yes.
Please state your address for the record. >> Address is uh 426 Patterson Road. My husband Bray and I have lived in this location for over 50 years and we uh our teachers in the Durham public schools have retired teachers. We u see this development coming and we are just kind
of appalled at the lack of infrastructure to support a development like that. We also are very concerned that we've got Durham County residents on wells living very near what this annex property and we are uh have enjoyed the rural nature of this community and the community that we have built here and we don't understand why there would be an approval for a dense housing development like this on a road that leads to an empoundment area and with a creek in our backyard that goes right to to Falls Lake Reservoir. And I have to I'm the husband. I'm Ray Larson.
It's a it's a wonderful rural community that we've enjoyed for 50 years. And it seems a shame that you can even think of of destroying it uh for in in in the for extra housing. So we have plenty of housing in Durham and this is a community that needs to stand the way it is and and and so we can get to work and get to get to the schools and and get to the grocery store. So I I I would recommend please don't expand it
anymore. It's a wonderful place to live. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you.
Anyone else on the Zoom wishing to speak on this agenda item? Please use the raise your hand function. Star nine, I believe. Anybody?
Nope. Going once, going twice. Any nobody else in the audience? No.
Done. Would the applicant care to respond to the community's concerns? >> Uh just briefly, a lot of concerns were raised, but we would like to uh just briefly address the future growth area traffic and the density that has been proposed by this project. So, first with uh regard to policy 122, um it's important to clarify that the infrastructure that is identified for this future growth area is sewer. There are many future growth areas that
designate fire as infrastructure uh that is needed for future growth, but this future growth area is not one of them. Consistency with policy 119 that was mentioned will also be addressed by staff's fiscal impact analysis before council. Now to clarify as well with regard to the future growth area, it is around 200 acres and this site consists about a quarter of that. And while a lift station and a force main will be provided um which will allow for other properties in the area in the future growth area to eventually connect because we will be providing stubs to the adjacent properties.
The topography and how the site drains does not make it feasible for this project alone to provide service for this area. But this is the first step in order to meet what the comprehensive plan calls for which again is only sewer infrastructure. Now, with regard to traffic, even though we fall below the threshold for a TIA
based on the proposed density, because of the concerns that have been raised, which we did hear during our neighborhood meetings for this project, uh we are voluntarily studying our impact to the Patterson and Wake Forest Highway intersection so that we can better understand our options in addition to the road improvements that we already know will be required on Patterson Road. And based on our preliminary analysis, we understand the anticipated impact will be less than 5% in the AM and the PM for those trips. Now, finally, with regard to the proposed density, uh many comments were made that the density that has been proposed by this project is inappropriate because it is a higher density. But the place type map is mixed use neighborhood which specifically calls for a mix of housing types at a high density. But it is important to clarify a comment was made that this would be the highest PDR density in the
surrounding area and that is simply not the case. 602 602 just off Wake Forest Highway which is more than double what the site is proposing. Um so we will leave it at that but um again we uh have our team available that's um ready to answer any other questions that you may have. Thank you.
>> Thank you. The public hearing is now closed open for commissioner discussion. Is there any comments? Commissioner Chicowski.
>> Uh thank you chair. Just want to thank the community members for for taking the time to to research this to to show up and speak on this case as well as as a couple other ones this evening. Um during the various presentations I think there were at least four specific requests for commitments from the applicant including no blasting. And so my question for the applicant is are you willing to make any of those commitments? So um with regard to uh blasting we are
hopeful that blasting is not necessary here but we still do not know whether blasting will be required. So that is not a commitment um that we are able to make. I did not write down every request um that was made but I do know that one of the requests was for the hundredyear storm which was one of the additional commitments that we have added this evening. >> Thank you.
Uh, two other quick things. Uh, just to to be more in line with the place type, the proposal could provide a timing mechanism for the non-residential uses or a minimum amount to be on site. Is this something that you're willing to consider or commit to? >> I think that's something that we can evaluate as a team, but I don't think that that's something that we could commit to this evening.
>> Okay. And then one other uh a commitment to include stubouts would ensure that as adjacent properties are redeveloped, they would then connect this development, enhancing the street and pedestrian connectivity of the place type as it is built out over time. Is that something that you're willing to consider or commit to? >> So, as I showed on the um concept rendering, we are planning for two stubs
um to the northern um site. Um that will be uh committed to at site plan. Um right now is it is our understanding based on conversations with staff that we will likely not be required to provide stubouts to the south because the properties to the south are already developed. But we do intend on providing two stubs to the north.
>> Is that a commitment or is that just a plan? >> That is not a zoning commitment, but that will be required at site plan. >> Yeah, it will be required. >> Thank you.
>> Yeah. >> Uh, Commissioner Richie, >> I'm going to ask you a few more questions. I believe it was Wanda who said, "As far as the 100-year storm water commitment for temporary measures as well, I don't think that's currently in the commitments. Are you all able to commit to temporary measures as well as permanent measures?
>> Um, I think right now that is the language that we're comfortable with, but we will definitely evaluate as a team whether the temporary is something that we can include. >> Okay. Um, and then this is just a discretion that I should have caught
earlier for staff, but it in our commitments it has 2% in text and 20% in parenthesis. Uh, as far as the required open space shall contain environmentally sensitive areas, including all where a portion of the stream buffers, um, I don't know if that would affect things if there were a disagreement legally, but before we vote on it, I want to make sure that that's clear. That will be the bottom of page three in the packet. Sorry, that's a quote, but we can talk about that later.
Um, okay. Um, and then I just wanted to clarify the the 140,000 versus 5% difference. One, 5%'s a little bit low compared to what we're used to seeing. Obviously, these are all voluntary profers, but I would ask if there's a possibility for increasing that number, what that would look like for you all. Two, I'm curious how you got to the $140,000 number um off of that 5%. It does seem like a considerably lower value than I think it would be 15 units
being um you know owned by people 80% AMR or below. >> Yes. I think with regard to um our affordable, we definitely understand um that we're not consistent with policy 40 right now. And I think that while we're not in a position to revise the commitment tonight, um we will evaluate our options to strengthen the commitment, which I think will either include increasing that amount or looking at other ways that we can um maybe address the percentage that we're providing.
>> Great. And then how did you get to the 140 number? Just out of curiosity. The 140 number um I believe was based on um the potential density.
If you look at the um text commitments, we have a minimum of 150 and a maximum of 180. So we wanted to provide some flexibility there in terms of um how many units the over the the site will um provide. So the 5% accounts for that and um that's that's the number that the team came up with based on the density.
>> Gotcha. So $140,000 is roughly equivalent to the same amount of value as 5% affordable units. >> That was the assessment at the time, but I think we are definitely willing to re-evaluate that. >> Great.
Okay. Thank you. >> Also, sorry for being annoying about the 2% thing. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't going to be a problem.
>> No, no, it's it is 20%. Great. matches the development plan and I'll be sure to update the CC report. >> Any other Commissioner Woo?
>> Hi Carrie Woke. So I um have to travel through this intersection myself on a daily basis and I can attest to some of the community members sometimes it is literally impossible to turn left onto 98. I have to cross the intersection, turn left to go into the food line, cut through that and hope for somebody to let me out so that I can go down 98. Um, and so when you said that you're going
to assess, you know, do a TIA and assess the traffic so to look at options, what are those options that you're looking at? >> So, to be clear, we're not doing a full traffic impact analysis. We're doing a trip uh distribution assessment to understand how much of the potential traffic that would be generated by this project would be at the intersection um and would add to the traffic at the intersection because based on the neighborhood meetings, we understood that the traffic at the Patterson Wake Forest Highway is what is um uh most concerning at this time. And so again, we understand that our impact would be less than 5%. And what we're trying to evaluate is if there is some way that um by looking at what other projects are potentially doing um or looking at what other improvements might be coming in the future, if there is a way for us to contribute to um those improvements that may be made by others.
>> Any other commissioner comments or questions? I have a question. for the applicant or maybe it's for city staff. Based on the sewer connection and capacity, developer will construct a public lift station to service the site.
Where would that be located? >> Do you want to have Tim Cers with speak to >> Okay, thank you. >> Good evening. Tim Cyvers with Unity.
Apologize for my voice. I am biting cold. Um the low point in the site is along the northern property line. Um so it'll be approximately in that area.
Um which would because it is a lift station, it would be outside of that stream buffer, but it's along the northern property line. >> All right. Thank you. Um, I was also wondering is
the applicant willing to make a commitment to protecting the stream buffers? >> So, we do >> like undisturbed stream buffers. >> Yes. >> Meaning nothing, not just no buildings there.
>> Yes. Um so at this time um we have uh committed to a maximum of two vehicular stream crossings and four utility crossings to limit the amount of disturbance um that the project will have on the stream. As I showed on that concept, we are planning on at least one stream crossing. Uh we will obviously take into consideration um the most environmentally friendly design as possible, but because we do know that there is at least one stream crossing that will be required and potentially some utility crossings, we cannot commit to absolutely no disturbance. But as was mentioned, the UDO does have um very limited circumstances in which the stream buffers can be disturbed. And so
at site plan, we will uh be following all of those guidelines. >> Okay. Okay, thank you. Any other questions, comments, commissioners?
Nope. May I have a motion to move case Z25 triple011 Patterson Hall forward with a favorable recommendation? >> Chair can't talk now. Chair Shagaras, I um as in regards to case Z25 Triple011 Patterson Hall, I move that we forward this case to city council with a favorable recommendation.
>> Second. >> It has been moved by Vice Chair Cameron and seconded by Commissioner Richie to move this case forward with a favorable recommendation. May we have the electronic voting, please?
The motion fails 9 to zero. >> Thank you. We will take a 15minut break.
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Oh, I'm ready. I'm sorry. >> Where's Okay, we're calling the meeting back to order. We'll have the next agenda item is 4802 Cheek Road Z24 000033.
May we have the staff report, please? >> Thank you. 19 acres located at
4802 Cheek Road. The existing zoning is residential rural. 748 to allow up to 190 dwelling units with a mix of town houses, single family attached and single family detached houses. Uh the existing zoning is residential rural.
748. The site is surrounded by residential rural and adjacent to an existing PDR district to the south. The aerial map shows the general location of the project south of Cheek Road and adjacent to Highly Heights Drive. The property is currently designated rural and agricultural reserve and recreation and open space on the place type map and is outside the urban growth urban growth boundary of the comprehensive plan. The annexation outside the UGB is inconsistent with the comprehensive plan. If the proposed
zoning is approved, staff recommend a change to the place type as mixed residential neighborhood. If the prop proposal is approved, the comprehensive plan would be automatically amended to extend the urban growth boundary to incorporate the parcel. The other place type of recreation open space would be retained. Now, the applicant has included a number of um commitments in its textual uh development plan.
Some of these include at least 3% of the units being affordable as defined by the UDO. Uh, one townhouse shall be donated to the Wounded Warriors Project, Habitat for Humanity, or other similar nonprofit. Uh, contributions to DPS, um, minimum increase of minimum tree coverage, um, native species, and a limit of impervious service to 50%. Neighborhood meetings were held in accordance with the neighborhood meeting
guidelines on September 4th, 2024 and January 15, 2026. An additional in-person meeting was held on January 29th, 2026. Uh, two comments have been submitted to the Dury Zoning Explorer in relation to this case as of February 10th. Both are against the proposal.
The proposal um is inconsistent with the place type map of the Durham comprehensive plan. It is outside the urban growth boundary and is not consistent with the designation of rural and agricultural reserve. Uh but the proposal is consistent with 25 of 30 policies of the comprehensive plan. Staff and applicant are available for any questions.
>> Thank you. The chair is now opening the public hearing. May we have the applicant, please?
>> Uh, thank you, Mr. Lester, for your presentation. And good evening, Chair Shagaris, Vice Chair Cameron, and members of the planning commission. I'm Neil Go, an attorney with the Morning Star Law Group at 700 West Main here in Durham.
Also with me tonight is Tim Cyers with CUNI. Uh we are here on behalf of the applicant for this reasonzoning application, Mike Foley with Humilt. Uh he has some previous experience in Durham, including specifically Eastern Durham County, this this region. There we go.
Uh, this property is located at 4802 Cheek Road, which might not be an area many are familiar with, but it really actually is only a 15-minute drive from here, which is about the same amount of time it'll take me to get back to my house tonight, uh, which is near South Point. Currently, the property is in the county and essentially undeveloped. There's a large transmission line easement which runs through the property. You can see that on the slide. And the property is 69 acres in size, but because of some of the choices the applicant has made, only about 45 acres it would of it would be
available for development. Notably, the property is outside the urban growth boundary or UGB. I want to spend a little time on that. Uh for context, I think it would be helpful to know that Tim and I were not involved with the project when it originally was filed.
Uh we inherited the project after it had been filed, and I think it even went through at least one round of review. Uh when we started working on the project, the fact that it was outside the UGB was the first challenge that we noted to our client. The urban growth boundary uh was adopted as part of the comprehensive plan which was adopted in October of 23. At that time it was indicated that UGB limits would be revisited every two years.
The project was filed in August of 2024. So, not two years later, but uh Tim and I got involved in the project probably in about April of 25, which also is when we started talking with staff about the UGB. It was explained to us that staff was trying to determine the process by which they would revisit the limits of the UGB. I originally was under the impression that staff would be doing
this themselves. You know, they they they were going to every two years um go back and revisit and like make a presentation about the UGP. During the course of our conversations, staff determined that instead of revisiting the UGB itself every few years, it was going to allow property owners to present new information to to the department to consider adjustments to the UGB. So that's exactly what we did.
We followed the process they laid out. What we found is that there's a nearby subdivision called Fletcher's Mill which was reszoned around 2017. It was going through site plan review maybe in like 2020. And importantly, as part of that development, the city had the developer do a sewer study.
You can see that sewer study is dated May 25, 2021, well before the adoption of the UGB. The image on this slide is from that sewer study. The black dashed line represents the drainage basin, which is what the city required the developer to size and build the lift station to serve.
As you can see, our project area is within that service area. In our conversations with planning staff, they acknowledged that this was not information they considered, but that it was pertinent information that should have been considered when drafting the UGB. So, we were a little surprised that staff board did not reflect these conversations. You can see in these emails that after considering all the relevant information, staff agreed that this site ought to have been included in the UGB.
We were pleasantly surprised and in the in that middle email there um you can see that Tim actually had the foresight to ask that an explanation be included in the staff report to which staff indicated in the third email that it would work with public works to confirm the situation and include such a note in the staff report. So we were a little disappointed that that did not happen in this case. This is especially so because there are three comp plan policies with which the staff report indicates we are inconsistent without any indication of the previous conversations we had with staff. All three of these policies relate to
the UGB and I'm sure you've read them as they're already in the staff report materials, but the analysis in the report does not reflect the conversations we had. Public works found no utility services issues. The fiscal impact analysis found no issues or operational deficiencies with the ability to provide other city services to the property. The property was and still is in fact within the suburban development tier.
There was a significant change namely the requirement of a previous developer to size and build a public lift station uh to serve this parcel and other parcels. This parcel is not within the critical watershed and we meet all the criteria for a change to the UGB and attendant change to the place type map and for the reasonzoning. In fact, even with these errors, the staff report found that the project is consistent with 25 out of 30 applicable policies and three of those are the UGB ones I just refuted. The other two deal with public parkland or amenities. So really based on previous conversations we relied upon the project is consistent with 28 out of 30
applicable policies thanks in no small part to the robust set of commitments our client has made. And another word on our client he has really been put through the ringer on this uh project. Um and but I have to give him credit because he has rolled with the punches. He's tackled every issue that has come up calmly and in a calculated manner.
He has encouraged community engagement. We had the required neighborhood meetings, but we also had a very well- attended in-person meeting that some folks in the community were very instrumental in getting uh set up at the Ruran Club. So, we thank them for their hard work as well. And our client has thoughtfully considered every piece of feedback and criticism we have received from our neighbors.
So, it's no surprise that the project is consistent with the comprehensive plan. The project includes a mix of housing types. At least 10% of the units will be accessible for folks that might have mobility needs. We have offered 3% of the units as affordable units. And in addition to that, the developer has committed to giving a completed town home to the Wounded Warrior Project or other similar
nonprofit. We have monetary contributions DPS. The project also has some great commitments regarding uh the amenities. It has a minimum 20,000 foot park, 1,000 linear feet of walking trails internal to the site to connect all the common areas and publicly accessible EV charging.
On the environmental front, we also have committed to 25% tree cover, well in excess of the UDO requirement. We've committed to native plantings and limited our impervious to no more than 50%. In addition to the UDO required project boundary buffer, we also have committed to an additional 50-foot undisturbed wildlife corridor along our eastern property line and extending from there along our southern property line up to the power line easement which obviously that was cleared, you know, before. So that's where our our corridor stops.
And we have limited land disturbance in the FEMA map floodway fringe areas to only infrastructure improvements. We also have some additional commitments we're making tonight. These are not in your staff report materials, but they have been run
by staff already. These commitments are being added as a result of our last in-person meeting with the neighbors. Um, we will prohibit any dwelling units west of the power line easement. We also will eliminate any streets from crossing the stream.
We will design the storm water measures to the 100red-year event. Uh, where silt fence is required. Typically, the UDO requires a double row of silt fence. We're requiring three rows of silt fence.
and we've made a commitment to provide $30,000 to the nearby volunteer fire department. Given that we have commitments related to Eastern and Western and all that, I thought a visual might help. Um, I think it shows how thoughtfully this project has been drawn up. We understand that folks in this area may not want city development at all, but in the grand scheme of things, this project really tries to mitigate and limit impacts to the surrounding area.
We have eliminated um we've eliminated housing west of the power line easement. So that's uh that's this area here. We have eliminated any
vehicular crossing of the stream. So these areas are off limits. Um we have an undisturbed wildlife corridor that's shown in green that's adjacent to our already required project boundary buffer. So you can see that's all the way down our eastern property line all the way on our southern property line as far as we can go.
Um and so really all the development is clustered more or less in the center of the property away from our neighbors. Review criteria for any reasonzoning are outlined in the comp plan in the UDO. I think this project meets all the criteria. We are consistent with 28 out of 30 applicable policies.
This is a residential area. Sure, it's rural and even agricultural in some places, but we're proposing a compatible residential use. The project will improve the balance of uses out here by introducing a new housing type town homes and based on the staff report uh there is adequate infrastructure in every regard. This is a thoughtful conscientious project that is consistent with all relevant review criteria. So we hope to have your
support tonight and our team is available to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you. Community members in person.
Number one, Michael Michael Harris. Good evening, Commissioners Sharon and other commissioners. Thank you. I'm coming here on the behalf of the Creek Road residential area that this private developer wants to annex in order to develop growth that's going to be really really congested in the community. I live at 403 Oakrove Parkway here in Durham and I have the uh for the last 15 years seeing
the development how it has squashed our community. Most of new development that is happening in that area has congregated in that area in the sense that when people are trying to get from work or to school, they usually take the side road off on Oakro Parkway, which becomes sort of a speedway in order for them to get to their jobs or get to pick up their children. We've had this difficulty for the last 10 years. And I would submit to all of you, Durham does not need any more development.
We have enough people here in this community and around Durham that are paying buku of taxes now. So why do we need to continue to bring others into our county, into our city to override whatever is what's already here? the substance of of uh drainage,
gas, electric. Who's going to pay for all of this? The taxpayers, we and those persons that are seniors that are now been threatening by this overdevelopment and the comps that are happening with all these new developments. They're at the point where now their tax are so high because most of them are on fixed income.
So, I would like for you to not pass this ordinance. Thank you. >> Thank you, Walter McKay. >> Good evening, Madam Chair and members of the planning commission.
I live at 408 Oakrove Parkway. I'm Walter McKay and as Mr. Harris has stated, "We see a lot of people through our neighborhood, and if this development is allowed to go through, you're going to have all that traffic, the ones we're talking about, Patterson Hall, going to have all that traffic coming up back to Four Points, going to have them coming through our neighborhood, the shortcut to 98 when they can't get out
at over at Four Points. " You go Sharon. Now the uh apartments at Sharon Road that's coming into Highway 98 as well. I It takes me one hour in a real stop rush hour to get the food line.
That's one mile away. Takes one hour. If I go to back way to Stalin's Road, Stalin's Road is backed up all the way past our development. I've lived on Stalins.
Stalins was all the way down to Mineral Springs. at at some points. It's overcrowded and I think and I feel like this development will add more problems to the neighborhood, more traffic and we can't we can't get out of our neighborhoods. I can be I can be in Person County before I get to Brier Creek
and I can also it takes I got Dr. appointment said Paige Road, Bry Creek, you get out there at 8:00 in the morning on Miami Boulevard and Sharon Road, forget it. If your appointments at 8, you got to leave at 6:30. Dur's overbuilt.
I'm sorry. Too much traffic. That's all I have to say. >> Thank you, Gary McClean.
Mclean. >> Good evening, madam madame chair and Durham County Commissioners. I'm coming in front of you again asking you to disapprove this um high density development at 4802 Cheek Road. I won't go over the first spell that I had tonight about the u the uh triacic basin soils and the blasting and everything, but I'll just make a few comments. Uh
4802 high density development is not uh in our community standards. We're in the county. The farmer that you heard tonight, Mr. Clayton, he's a neighbor of mine.
In fact, his farm is right beside my house. I see tractors, backhoes, hay wagons going up and down the road all the time, all hours of the day, people on Patterson Road. I mean, they put their lives in jeopardy because that's how bad the traffic is. People racing around over there.
Um, there's a sinkhole on the bridge at Stalin's Road. So now all the truckers have gotten smart and now they're bypassing that because it's a sinkhole. They don't want their truck to fall in the bridge. And so now they're going down Patterson Road.
So you get them flying up and down through there all hours of the day. Well, during the daytime, uh, when we had the community meeting at the Redwood Realton Club, I asked Attorney Goats and Mr. Cyers if they would go to their uh, whoever's in charge and asked if they
would build a 100 homes instead of high density homes. " Well, bingo. It is all about money. And all of us are having to suffer and do without and put our lives in jeopardy.
And it's all about somebody getting their pockets stuffed. And there's enough development right now if we that a they're not even built out. God help us when they do get built out. But if we could just take a break, calm back, wait five years, let everything get built out, let the settlement get settled, and just take it from there, maybe, you know.
So, thank you for your time and your service. Thank you, Vicky King. Hi, my name is Vicky King. My address is on file. I was raised within 1,000 ft of Fletcher Mill
on Suit Street. It's a dead end road. That dead end road, you cannot get in or out with the traffic that runs along Fletcher's Chapel Road. 4802 Cheek Road.
You either got to turn left to go up to Redwood to Fletcher's Chapel to get back to Four Points or you got to turn right to get to Patterson Road and get in all that traffic. I ask that you do not pass this development. The damage to the forest and woodlands and the wildlife cannot be repaired. This property is not close to the city limits.
We don't have enough grocery stores in this area now. Thought we were building communities that were within walking distance of services, banks, grocery stores, other retail. This will not be there.
The shoulder on Cheek Road is very narrow. You can't walk on the side of the road, Cheek or Patterson, to get where you need to go. There's no sewer lines along the roadways in this area. So they got to dig through the woods, dig under that power line across that easement to catch on to attach to Fletcher Mill.
Traffic once again is out of control. And not only is this development going to cause a problem, Patterson Hall and the next one coming up will cause a problem too. This part of Durham County has been home to a lot of folks. We asked you again to vote no. >> Thank you,
>> Tammy Savage. Savage >> Sa. Um, let me call the people that don't have a presentation and then you all can go in line. Okay.
So, the next one that says no presentation is Thomas Hamilton. Hello, my name is Thomas Hamilton. I'm the poor fella located on an acre parcel of land that is on the on ch road that is surrounded on three sides by this proposal. Twothirds of my lot is watershed. So my house is very very very close to this development because it pushed me to one side of the lot. Uh,
you've heard all the facts, but here's what I witness on a daily basis. We felt like we won the lottery when we closed on this house in this beautiful, majestic rural area. The land I see is currently on the market for $69,000 an acre, almost $4 million for the uh land. It makes me look like this is for strictly personal gain, a financial gain.
Uh the proposed new roads outlets to Cheek Road includes converting someone's privately maintained driveway into a major street and a major outlet. It includes turning the other cheek outlet, turning uh wetlands and creek into a road real near my house. Uh and it would highly be be highly
disruptive to those poor residents over on Holly Holly Heights Road because it's going to change their their total way of life and turn put them into a city environment. I lack the I I witness the lack of infra in infrastructure on a daily basis in emergency service and the overloaded utilities with an industrial maintenance background. I've seen what all the overloaded utilities cause the brown outs lift station uh failures and I've had to walk in the human waste because of these lift station failures. What's going to happen when all these houses that are currently being developed come up to full capacity?
What's on paper doesn't always work? I spent my career fixing what the engineers and everybody created and trying to make it work and it didn't a lot of the times it did not work. Thank you. >> Thank you, Deborah Taylor.
My name is Deborah Taylor. I live at 612 Cheek Road and um my brother and I have land directly adjacent to the property that they're proposing to develop. Um the land there has been in our family for generations and we are concerned that the proposed development of the property will negatively impact the community as well as the wildlife population, the water quality of Falls Lake and especially the traffic and also the um infrastructure services that are in the area. As far as the infrastructure services, you've heard a lot tonight already.
" There's been instances in our neighborhoods where they've had heart attacks happen, and they've had to drive their loved ones in because there's no EMS services available. People are not lying about that. It is bad in Durham. It's bad all over Durham.
In our area, we see it every day. We used to see um deputy sheriffs do drivebys every once in a while. It's reassuring when you see somebody come by. I see none of that anymore. What I see is a few blue lights
once in a while when there's an accident, which there are definitely accidents um continuously. The blasting is a very big concern of ours. Um we are adjacent property and the uh residents in the area have older homes and we know from previous um subdivisions that nothing's being done, zero amounts being paid out and it's a homeowner's responsibility. We cannot afford to absorb that and so we're asking for no blasting zone in this area if this has to go forward.
Um traffic is another issue. They talked about the entrances on Cheek Road. Cheek Road dumps into Patterson Road. Cheek Road dumps into um Fletcher Chapel and it dumps over to 70.
It is a freeway on Cheek Road. 45 to 55 mile per hour. They go 60 70. You have bicyclists in the summer come through 50 to 100 at the time and you can't get by them.
You add more traffic in this area and it's going to be even worse. In addition, there's about three to five developments in the area that are going in and they're not fully developed out. So, you add those to this and traffic assessment needs to be done and they need to figure out what's going on overall as opposed to one developer
" And I know my time is up. Thank you. >> Thank you, Tanya Taylor. Hey everybody again.
Thank you for hearing us. Uh Tanya Taylor. Uh I live on 2512 Patterson Road DM. Uh live about half a mile from this site.
Uh thank you. But uh I live half a mile from this site. uh go up and down Cheek Road uh like most of these folks do just to get around on a daily basis. Uh like Deborah said, the traffic is horrendous.
Goes up and down Patterson, Stalin's Cheek Road. Take take a pick. Um between uh they had two meetings on January 15th and January 19th of this year. There was a total of 56 people
that attended. Um, all attendees said it brings issues and no benefits to uh build. Uh, according to policy 168, it's not consistent. This project does not address a clear need for the community based on the adopted CP policies.
In addition, confirms not consistent for policy 165. Allows for nonontinuous annexation only when a subsubstantial public benefit is demonstrated in the commun community. Again, we're running into safety issues. Um runoff and rain, it has no place to go except in our creek.
So, we basically have like they said tomato soup. It's just it's just straight red. Um the impact the farming environment uh god the traffic I don't even want to begin what's imagine what's going to happen when we get all these vehicles going up and down our roads. Like I said
it's not even safe to go to the mailbox. Um everyone was saying dam damage. Okay we're going to they say they're going to bring out a consultant or something that's going to come evaluate the houses foundation and the houses water systems. Um, but I believe a few people said that there was where there have been problems, nobody has paid out and uh redoing our water systems by no means it's cheap.
Um, and then of course just basically it's environmentally and publicly unsafe and there's no signs on putting it in if it's just going to cause more damage and more safety health. >> Thank you. Meora McCall.
>> Thank you, Marco. Address on file. This request does not meet the standard of being reasonable or in the public interest. We are acutely aware that exceptions to the urban growth boundary set a lasting precedent.
precedents that directly affect adjacent rural lands and the immediately adjacent and surrounding voluntary agricultural district working land. Such a precedent would weaken the integrity of our comp plan and the values it represents. Values intended to guide land use planning through a thoughtful, consistent, and equitable way. A recent proposal to expand outside the UGB was unanimously rejected by the council in December.
The UGB isn't an arbitrary line. It's the chief policy tool in the comp plan for concentrating infrastructure, preserving rural character, and protecting watershed resources. Extending it here would set a precedent for watering down that line, one reasonzoning at a time, undermining Durham's long-term growth strategy across the board. Durham County agriculture is already facing intense development pre pressure and upholding policy 168, which clearly outlines three
specific criteria an applicant must meet, is one way the city can balance competing county and city growth needs. And this proposal does not meet those criteria. Durham deserves a planning framework that guides growth and maintains its integrity rather them rather than one that sacrifices rural edges, quality of life and gets rewritten case by case. I ask you to consider whether expanding the UGB and restructuring place types here truly serves the public interest and whether it erodess the policy foundations.
Please deny this request. Thank you. >> Thank you, Harry. Ro >> Rodenheiser.
>> My name's Harry Rodenheiser. Good evening. I'm at 2302 Patterson Road. I do oppose this project. All the practical reasons have been discussed.
This project will shred the rural character of our neighborhood. There is no justification that I can see to put this level of density next to our farms. My land backs up to Deborah's land and over the other side of Patterson Road. Um we've already got enough trouble out there.
The Fletcher's Mill project was used just a few minutes ago to sort of tag this one on so you can move the urban growth boundary. What's going to when when are we going to move the urban growth boundary after this one? I mean, the question is where will it end? That's my question. >> Thank you. Okay, Pam, you guys, that's all the people
that have no presentations. Go ahead and switch it. Okay. Yes.
Good evening. Donna Stain back again. Um, I am a lifelong resident of this area. In fact, my family owned the tobacco farm and I worked on it many a time right across the road from this particular project. I'm going to speak
about why this does is outside the urban growth boundary and should stay there. uh per the evaluation uh from the planning department was non-consistent and it does not address a clear need for the community based on the adopted comprehensive plan policies. Uh policy 167 non-consistent. No significant changes have occurred since the adoption of the comprehensive plan in 2023 and they uh did not include the parcel in the urban growth boundary.
Therefore, the request is not consistent. Um, then on the evaluation and review report, which I think you all know I spent a good bit of time reviewing, this was not mentioned as a possible extension to the UGB. They listed several other sites and um, but this was not and that just mean it wasn't on the radar to extend the UGB
there. That was in 2025 October. the um this property is non-ontiguous by the state law and also by the definition that Durham has on their website. It's if you could do Durham non-ontiguous an annexation and it'll tell you that this is definitely not contiguous.
It's being uh adjoined to a property that is already a satellite does not make it contiguous. So again, there's policy 165 that's not being met. And uh so and again, per the information, there's no benefit been shown per the staff in the uh comprehensive plan 167 and you heard the neighborhood review. They nobody wants it.
There's no benefit. Um the um the closest satellite, they will not be connected by even a road. The Fletcher's Meal is not
connecting to this site by a road. It's It's too steep and too many creeks there that this is draining into. So, um it's definitely violating that. Thank you.
>> Hi, I'm Rebecca Freeman and I wanted to talk a little bit about the urban growth boundary. Um the FE if this is actually put into the urban growth boundary, it would still be in the um uh designated future growth area and has all the issues with the infrastructure issues that we talked about while ago. Fire service, we see fire service, police, EMS, and infrastructure that would need to match the the area around it. And of course, we've heard fully earlier from people in the community that the infrastructure just isn't there. EMS and and police and so forth. Um the other thing is that um there is yeah there is a police shortage that has not been just
or recently occurred. There's reported at WNCN that the Durham Police Department are actually paying recruits to before they actually start the job to come to work with them. And even still then there's still 134 vacancies in the police department. We're woefully uh understaffed in many of the areas and under um under resourced in the areas, the traffic and the the roads and the EMS and the fire.
And so we appreciate you considering this when you're making your decision. Pamela Andrews again, I think you know my address. Fire infrastructure is not adequate in Southeast Durham. Policy 122 Becky covered clearly shows the need for fire services expansions before future growth areas are expanded.
Four times within that policy, fire services needs are mentioned. Next, um sorry, go back. Uh there are two city of Durham fire
stations in Southeast Durham, station 8 and 17 along the along with Redwood Volunteer Fire Station. These units will respond to calls in over 68 new subdivisions along with the current residents. Next, in October 2022, the fire department audit recognized the higher response times than the national average. MFPA standard 1710 requires a response time to be 6 minutes and 30 seconds.
3 miles. That would be an 8 minute drive without peak hour traffic. 8 miles away, 13minute drive in non- peak hour traffic. 6 6 miles away, 12 minutes during non- peak hour traffic.
These neighboring city fire stations would not meet the NFPA code standard of 6 minutes and 30 seconds, even in non- peak hour traffic. Sorry. Redwood Volunteer Fire Department is close by, but it does not have a ladder truck. A ladder truck would be needed for these tall town homes that they plan
to build. Mutual aid would be needed to deal with these large structure fires. Um, in January 2026, the fire apparatus got moved around. As I said earlier, station 17 lost a ladder truck and three firemen.
So, we are now down to four firemen at that station when we had seven. We don't have the resources. You're putting lives in jeopardy when you put more people out there without adequate resources. Imagine if that was your family.
Do you want them sitting there as sitting ducks when a fire comes out? I was telling you earlier about the fire that happened just down the road January. You couldn't get You had to have nine fire trucks to put that fire out. Nine.
We only have two in the vicinity that could possibly get there in time. Please don't do this to us. Thank you. Tammy Suya, my um address is on record. So once again, I want to talk about EMS. And you've just heard that we do not
have the infrastructure in our area. Comprehensive plan policy 119 insured of new development within the urban growth boundary has emergency services. We don't even have it within the grow urban growth boundary. This should not be moved forward because this is outside the urban growth boundary.
Just yesterday, Orange County EMS was requested to respond to Durham 911 EMS call because Durham was in Eastat mode with no units available. m. EMS is going to affect all of you. If you call 911 and there's no EMS, it's going to impact all of us.
And now it's impacting our neighborhoods. When Orange County has to respond to us, then that leaves them lacking if they have an emergency. development and growth. I've mentioned this before. You can see we've had 22,000 dwellings. That's within a five mile area of Southeast
Durham. Again, we've been tracking Durham all growth since 2020. We have put in 36,000 units that have come up with annexation. This does not include by right development.
0 You know, the zoning was changed last week. There's going to be 15inute cities. We have enough development areas to match a population. We do not need more.
Please do not do this to us and please do not move the urban growth boundary. >> Yes, my name is Wanda Allen and my address is on fall. Take a look at this slide. This proposal sits in the middle of an established rural agricultural community surrounded by 37 farms
within one mile. Think about this. My family is a farms. We're we are transporting stuff daily and the high density that has been proposed to put into this area.
The project will add approximately 1600 vehicles per day to Cheat Road, effectively doubling the current traffic. As I mentioned earlier, Cheat Road is a active agricultural corridor where farm equipment is regularly moved between fields. Doubling traffic increased safety risks and creates conflicts between the passenger vehicles and slowm moving equipment. We in the community, we as the farmers are requesting that developers be required to give us a 100,000 square foot facility. This is necessary because the traffic backs up behind us and we
need to be able to transport and store our stuff while we're waiting. Many of us of of us or farmers manage several different farms within a onemile uh state road. This third slide, this proposal includes six streams crossing that flows directly into Little Creek RI Little Creek and ultimately into Falls Lake which is already impaired drinking water source. The proposal relies minimum, I'll keep saying minimum storm water standards.
I say it again, minimum you guys. It's despite the steep slopes and the sensitive storm The community is asking for at least a 100 year storm water. And also remember, you voted on the urban growth boundary. Um, good afternoon. My name is Pam
Williams. Um, my address is on file. Um, this picture, I just want to show you what the topography out in this area looks like. It's it's like that.
uh and it goes up and down. It's got several draws in here. Uh over 62% of the land of this terrain has between uh 6 to 25% slopes. The terrain will need to be dramatically graded for construction ensuring a stable and level surface for building roads and other infrastructures which would lead to blasting probable.
um the flood planes uh wetlands repairarium and buffers in this area. As you can see on the map on the right side, we have stream C which has a lot of wetlands and it basically goes from across the road uh which is a pond all the way down to the Walker stream restoration uh project which is at the south of this uh uh property. We are requesting that the developer complete a stream restoration of uh stream C. The
current stream seed has severe stream bank erosion as you can see in the picture over on the lower left. And we're also requesting that they commit to no practical alternative application or variances on this for their uh stream buffers um uh boundary buffers um wetland buffers. Um so um and then uh we want them to commit to undisturbed buffers. We totally understand that at some point they have to cross the buffers with utilities or something um for uh perpendicular, but we're talking about parallels such as the one on the right side where they went through the easement with a sewer easement or the one down on the on the left where they only um provided a 30-ft buffer of a 100 foot stream um for you know the buffer. We're asking for undisturbed in the 100 foot streams and uh boundary buffers as
you can see in the middle picture where they're one foot from the property line. Um we're requesting for stream wildlife and boundary buffers to be undisturbed. Thank you. And I don't think I got to everything.
Thank you. >> Good evening. My name is Tina Mley Pearson. address is on file.
So, wildlife habitat fragmentation. This site lies near protected lands, wildlife corridors, a land conservancy site and restored streams. Insufficient buffers and habitat fragmentation threatened the biodiversity and downstream restoration investments. As you probably know, stream restorations uh often because of poorly planned developments are uh paid for by taxpayers. This site is less than6 miles from Butner Falls of New Gameland and
Waterfile Empowment and less than a mile from Eastern Durham Open Space Plan wildlife corridor that connects to Little Lick Creek. Durham's planning department has not designated a wildlife corridor, but division of habitat conservation North Carolina wildlife commission has. There's a high wildlife corridor on the site that crosses Cheek Road from the north side with a higher corridor crossing. We are requesting a commitment of 150 foot Whoops, I think I was supposed to go to the No, sorry.
Um, we are requesting a commitment of 150 foot undisturbed stream sea buffer to include this area for wildlife corridor on each side along the perennial stream. Environmental justice and public health. This project drains into impaired waters and affects communities identified using environmental justice criteria.
Increased impervious surface and runoff would further degrade Falls Lake, impacting communities beyond Durham. There are no meaningful protections proposed for air quality, heat island reduction, or downstream water quality. And if you look to the right of this slide, you will see that this is an area identified as an environmental justice population by Durham County. Thank you very much.
>> Good evening everyone. Thomas Freeman, lifelong resident of Durham County. Uh I've got a couple sides, but I want to focus uh right now as a request to commit to no blasting. The geotechnical report is confirmed there's rock.
Here's the way this will go down. You will then ask the uh investor, can you commit to no blasting? They'll give you some rub some rubbish about, well, we don't have all the information. Look at the history at at all of these sites in Durham County for these massgraded high density
housing and the combined with the steep slopes of this site. I'm getting off base a little bit here, but it just chaps me that that's what they do every time. Let me tell you what blasting does to real people. It tears it damages their whales.
It damages their homes. The doors don't shut. the windows don't close. Septic T tank damage.
Can you afford another $20,000 whale or can you afford a $15,000 repair on your septic system? I don't think so. And I've seen the people in this county reduced to tears because they're looking at spending their life savings to be made whole. We know from our work with preserver Durham that zero payout has been made to these people damaged by blasting. I'll move on in the 33 seconds I have
left. Looking at the policies, policy 171 of the city's UDO, it doesn't meet it. Policy 116 doesn't meet it. And which is which, let me spell it out to you.
There's it's not near grocery store or food line. It's not near business or schools. It is not near a transit route. And let me if you look at these routes, let me draw your attention to the one at the bottom.
Guess where you have to go to get to those grocery stores. Four points. >> Thank you. Uh, Emily Walker. I I wasn't sure PowerPoint would make it here. And so, um, so and I've never done this before, so I'm a little bit nervous.
>> Oh, you got a separate one. >> Well, no, she's got the right one up, but but there now it's up. Thank you. Um, as I mentioned, my name is Emily Walker and I live at 2203 Patterson Road.
Um, I am passionate enough to come tonight to talk about 482 Cheek Road because this land sits on Little Lick Creek, which feeds into Falls Lake. Falls Lake supplies water to over 600,000 people in our area. I own the parcel directly south of this proposed development. My parcel contains my farm, which is currently zoned real residential with a present use of forestry and agriculture. Uh, just like a lot of my neighbors that have been here and have been mentioned before, in 2019, I allowed a stream restoration project on the Little Lit Creek running through my parcel to improve water quality in Falls Lake by reducing erosion along the creek banks.
I granted an easement and Durham County and the state paid about $400,000 to re remediate this erosion issue by reshaping and reinforcing this section of the stream. Uh you can see uh kind of a picture of my uh stream restoration and where my property sits uh versus the 4802 Cheek Road. Several years ago, I watched with dismay as the Fletcher Mill development was allowed to proceed uphill and about 600 feet from a finger of this restoration. Even with a retaining pond, this development and its clear cut layout with imperous surfaces dumps water and sedimentation down into the restored portion of the creek.
So, you can see this picture that they had presented. That's from my land that um looks into Fletcher Mill and you can see up the hill that's where their retaining pond is. This new proposal outside the Durham growth um urban growth boundary and sitting directly on
the creek would do worse. The retaining pond is prop that is proposed um they verbally told us that it almost sits directly on the creek. The highdensity housing is also very near the creek. So, um well, that's you can look at my handout for the rest of my information.
Uh I thank you and I'm encouraged by what I've seen tonight about your wisdom on this proposal. Please vote against it. >> Thank you. Um on the Zoom, is there anybody else before we go to the Zoom in the audience wishing to speak?
Got those. Everybody's on the signup sheet. No, we're good there. Okay. On the Zoom, Penny Maze,
are you there, Penny? Hello, this is Penny Mazize. Can you hear me? >> Yes, please state your address for the record.
>> Hi. Um, madame chairperson and members of the commission. I'm Penny Mays and my address is on record. I'd like to address the traffic concerns in our area.
Uh, as more developments happen in this area, especially the developments that are on Burton Road, which have yet to be built out, traffic concerns are increasing daily. Our infrastructure can't support the volume of traffic that we currently already have. I live near Redmill Road and Gear Street and people from this proposed development will take uh this corridor in order to access 85. This area of Redm Mill Road in 85 backs up daily and is becoming increasingly
dangerous and difficult, particularly at rush hour. Please don't add more traffic to the burden we already have. Please vote to reject this proposal. Thank you.
Thank you, Chaz Clayton. >> Yes, ma'am. Uh, this is uh let's see. >> Good afternoon.
This is Chaz Clayton, the farmer that spoke earlier. >> As I spoke earlier, I uh talked about >> Can you please Chaz? Can you please state your address for the record, please? >> Yes, ma'am.
2821 Little Rogers Road. I am roughly a quarter mile from this property. Um, so as I was saying, I am the farmer who spoke earlier and I specifically talked about soil pollution and farmer safety. One of the farms that we attend
that we tend is across the road, directly across the road. And I want to uh make one thing uh clear about this area is that the habitat will be devastated. There is a type of woodpecker and that woodpecker is called a red cocked woodpecker. A little bit of information on this specific bird.
It used to be on the endangered species. As of October of 2024, it became off of the endangered species list and is now under a threatened list. I've clearly seen them on the property as we were farming and tending the ground. And uh with that being stated, if they're across the road, there's a very good chance and guarantee they are flying over to the property across that is being proposed about development. Let's see the farm. There is one farm beside this property that literally connects to it
and he is one of the farmers um that I know very well that uh takes pride in his farming and does the traditional way of farming and grows and sells to help provide for his family. With the fire department being across the road, it can definitely have traffic issues along with the road traffic safety. Not just including farmers, but people who travel the road in general. We have people every day who walk and run these roads for exercise.
They're in jeopardy as well with all the uh development that could take place and are in jeopardy with the traffic that is taking place now. If the development is uh passed, it will not only create these problems but it will implement terrible erosion that will not only impact the farmers but will impact false lake. >> Thank you. >> I know that we Oh, sorry.
>> Thank you, Chaz. >> Thank you. >> I'm Lisa Roman Schaefer.
>> Hi. Thank you for having me again. My name is Lisa. I live on Stallings Road and my address is on record.
The land we have talked about tonight is currently wildlife refuge, farmland, and resident and rural residential. The proposal would allow three-story town homes with only minimal buffering. That is incompatible zoning for an area made up of ranchstyle homes, farms, narrow roads, ditches, and no shoulders. The existing infrastructure can safe cannot safely support this level of density.
There have been statements suggesting a vision of turning Durham and Durham County into dense urban model similar to Los Angeles. That approach may work for major cities, but is not appropriate for rural farmland. This area does not want row homes or dense town home developments or apartments. If residents wanted urban living, they would have chosen the city. We chose county intentionally.
I am originally from Los Angeles. I grew up on an orange orchard and it has since been replaced by apartment buildings. Once rural land is urbanized, it's permanent. It's permanently lost.
County residents do not have the same voting power as city residents. Yet, city decisions are reshaping our county. Our farms, wildlife, air quality, water quality, and the way we live. I also want to note that Patterson Road project has access to sitter city sewer only because the developer privately paid to install it prior to approval.
Infrastructure should not be used to precondition zoning decisions without comprehensive areawide planning. Many affected residents were not adequately notified. I live less than a mile from Patterson Road site and received no notice. I also received no
notice regarding the 4802 Cheek Road. Without proper notification, meaningful p public participation cannot and did not occur. We do not need >> Thank you, Lisa. I'm sorry.
Your time is up. >> Okay. >> Ken Pew. >> Good evening.
>> I am Ken Pew, Durham resident. Address on file. This proposal requires a place type amendment from rural and agriculture reserve to mix residential neighborhood. As the staff reports state, this project is outside the urban growth boundary and the proposed expansion of the UGB is explicitly inconsistent with comprehensive plan policies 118, 167, and 168. Regardless of what the applicant says, this proposal is not consistent with the policies. The staff did not make any error in stating this inconsistency.
They reported the truth. You can't change the truth with words like some politicians in DC always attempt to do. The proposal forces the UGB expansion to include another parcel that is not even part of this resoning request. This is a major procedural and public trust issue.
Expanding the growth boundary for land the applicant doesn't own and the public has not been notified about undermines the entire process. RA is a countyy's strongest rural protection tool. It is specifically intended to avoid suburban expansion into farmland and forest. Staff acknowledges this resigning is inconsistent with the RA place type and that approval would permanently erase this protection.
This proposal should be rejected manifested. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Anybody else on the Zoom
wishing to speak on this item? Please raise your hand. Star nine. Nope.
Going once, going twice, gone. The public hearing is now closed. We are open for commissioner discussion. Does anybody have any Commissioner Montes?
>> Thank you, Chair. Um, I think it's been suggested to me not talk so much up here, but I'm choosing to ignore that tonight and moving forward. So, first of all, thank you to everybody that showed up tonight. Um, I'm the the level of respect that I have for everyone coming out here and voicing your opinion is is great, and I encourage everybody to keep coming out. With that said, um you know, I'm a strong believer that development that we do need development in the city of Durham. We're 33,000 units short and I'm, you know, I'm representing my my generation, future generations of trying
to uh work for affordable housing. So, um with that said though, I don't believe that all development is good development. I think that there is times where we have to look back and vote no, just like my colleagues and and and myself will do. But um with that said, I think it is my responsibility to talk to the applicants if we do are leaning towards know and give some feedback.
And with that said, I have two big concerns. One is obviously the urban growth boundary, which we have not revised very frequently. And if we choose to try to suggest or revise it, it has to be a development that has exceptional features, something that's bringing something to Durham that we haven't seen before or perhaps something that really leans towards affordable housing. So, with that said, to the applicant, I would ask, you know, we have we're offering 3% affordable housing here to move an urban growth boundary. um and suggesting just to give one lot and although it's a great effort to do do it to the Wounded Warriors organization, I would ask is there anything else we can
do for affordable housing? Um with 190 town home units, it does seem like that. And then I'll just follow up real quick with a secondary question. The slide that you presented earlier showed um wetlands along the frontage of what appears to be the entrance to the site.
Um the secondary site would be off of Holly Haye Holly Hay Drive which is very undeveloped. It's just a gravel road that could be improved but you know what's the plan with these wetlands? You know it seems like you would be disturbing them fully parallel to the wetland to stub up to Cheek Road. So, um, if you could help me address that. So, in your first question about um, the UGB and affordable housing, let me just first say that the UGB in this case, you know, is I heard what you said and I
don't disagree, but the UGB in this case is really about basic fairness. Um it everyone may not be aware but the developer on the other property was required to oversize their lift station by the city and the city has and so the developer any developer when they oversize public utilities they actually get reimbursed for the portion that is oversized through tap fees from future development. So to require a developer to oversize their lift station to serve this property and others and then prohibit those properties from actually tapping into that actually takes away and takes away the ability of that developer to recoup the cost that they were forced to actually build. It's important to understand that the city required the developer to build this and the city forgot that they required the city the developer to do that when they were drawing up the UGB. I I know what it says in the staff report. I also know all the conversations that we had with
staff and we have the emails that say it. It it's it's as plain as could be. This is an exception. I am not a proponent of generally expanding UGB, but this is an exception because of of some existing facts with respect to the affordable housing component.
It's something that we can look into. I'm not, you know, we're not prepared to make that an additional commitment on affordable housing right now. This is a this is a challenging site. And so, you know, we the developer here has a relationship with the Wounded Warrior Project.
They felt like that that was something that they could they wanted to contribute to first of all and could contribute to. Um I the they that organization has some limit. I don't think there would be more houses going to them just because that's not exactly what they do, but they are very appreciative of that that type of uh commitment. So with respect to the percentage of units that are affordable, I think that's something that we will be talking about in the future.
See if we can do more on that. You asked about the wetlands. This is the uh the slide that
shows it. So generally speaking, I think you're right that road is going to have to come in here. Uh I'm sure you're aware, m Mr. Montes, Commissioner Montes, that there are a limited amount of impacts you can have to a wetland.
That's where that impact will be. It is very unlikely that we will cross this wetland to get over into this area because we'll probably eat up our our uh wetland impacts by the road that has to come in here and back here for the development. So, I don't want to tell you that the wetlands won't be impacted. They very well might be, but it'll be at that threshold level that's already allowed.
And that will and that's probably all of the impacts that that to the wetlands that we'll be able to uh do on this site. Any other commissioners? Commissioner Richie, >> I have a question for staff. Does staff have the authority to change the UB UGB?
Erin Kane with the planning department. No, we do not have the authority to change the UGB. That is an action that
would need to be taken by council andor county commissioners. Thank you. >> Any other questions, comments? Commissioners?
Nope. Okay. May I have a motion to move this case Z24033 Cheek Road 4802 Cheek Road forward with a favorable recommendation. Chair Sagaras, as it relates to case Z24 triple0334802 Cheek Road, I move that we forward this case to city council with a favorable recommendation.
>> Second. >> It has been it has been moved by Vice Chair Cameron and seconded by Commissioner Richie to move this case forward. The favorable recommendation we have the electronic voting please.
The motion fails 10 to zero. Thank you. , we are to have a hand vote to extend the meeting. Um, yeah, I I I am quite confident the next item on your agenda will go quite quickly and so I would suggest that we go ahead and and hear this next item and then have the cop and yes and then at the next item we can see where we are and and what the wish of the commission is.
>> Okay, let's do that then. Item C, top golf Durham mixeduse phase 2 Z250017. May we have the staff report, please? >> Awesome. Thank you.
85 acres located at 4840 Top Golf Way from Industrial Park to commercial general with a textual development plan. The reasoning would allow for most uses within the commercial general district with the exclusion of household living, group living, educational facilities, medical facilities, electronic gaming operations, firing range, and payday lenders. Again, the existing zoning is industrial park. The site is currently surrounded by industrial and RS20, but most of the adjacent RS20 zone land is rightway.
that proposes new zoning as commercial general with the textual development. The area map before you shows the general location of the property. The site is located adjacent to I40 and is at the entrance of Topgolf. The property is currently designated highway commercial and recreation and
open space on the place type map. The recreation open space type um follows the existing X flood plane on the site. Any future development will meet flood plane standards. Additionally, the proposal allows a range of auto oriented uses intended for the highway commercial place type and is adjacent to two major roadways.
Because of this, the proposed zoning was determined consistent with the designated place types. Before you is some of the textual development plan amendments and along with the limitation of uses. There is 4,000 square feet of non-residential use space. Um no direct vehicle access to page road that limits impervious surface to 50% and requires native plantings. The applicant held neighborhood meetings on June 17th and January 27th. Two community two community members attended the first and none attended the second.
There have been no comments received on the Durham resone X4 in relation to this case. As stated previously, the proposal is consistent with the place type map designation of highway commercial and recreation and open space and is consistent with 14 of 18 applicable comprehensive plan policies. Thank you. Staff and the applicant are available for any questions.
Thank you. The chair is now opening the public hearing. May we have the applicant, please? >> Uh, thank you, Mr.
Lester, for your presentation and good evening to you all again. I'm Neil Gos at the Morning Star Law Group, 700 West Main Street. My client on this project is the property owner and developer. Uh, hopefully this one will not be quite as involved as the last.
My client owns the whole area between I guess what I would call Crab Crabtree Creek to the east, Page Road to the north, I40 to the west, and 540 to the south. If you're not familiar with this area, this is where Topgolf is. Uh now, I've lived in Durham my whole life.
I have no idea what this area was ever meant to be in the first place. Uh it has been nothing forever until Topgolf and now there is Andreddy indoor racing being built. Um, my clients have really worked at making this area an entertainment destination. The whole area is zoned industrial park or IP, which is not a very common zoning district.
Um, generally requires a development plan, but for there isn't one in this location. And again, I have no idea why it was ever zoned that way. Um, so while IP allows for a host of uses, generally speaking, that district is meant to provide for orderly development of manufacturing, R&D, and supporting uses in a unified campus setting. So, it's kind of a strange zoning obviously for an entertainment destination.
Anyway, you can see that after years of none of the R&D or manufacturing interests, my clients have successfully envisioned a different kind of development here. The reasoning is meant to support that vision. Broadly speaking, obviously most of the acreage
of the overall development is spoken for between the Top Golf and the Andredy Racing, but there are a few uh out parcels, small out parcels in the mix, and this is one of them. It's a pretty small parcel. We're seeking a reszone to attract a support type use for the overarching development. We've limited it to 4,000 square ft of building, no more than 50% impervious.
It will not have direct access to Paige Road. Uh so whatever it ends up being will be integrated as part of the overall development. That's the intent there. This will likely end up being something like small restaurant, gift shop, gas station, corner store, something like that being bounded by both I40 and I540 right at the Page Road interchange.
It has a highway commercial place type map uh designation. So this is one of the only areas where the comp plan actually would support these types of uses. Uh and moreover, the entertainment destination that they've built and envisioned is kind of one of the only types of areas where those types of uses can actually be integrated into the development rather than just like a standalone business, right? Um so I
think it makes a lot of sense. I think the comp plan does too and right, you know, this is right by I540 and I40 says like you couldn't get busier. Um so hopefully you all agree and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.
Thank you. Seeing nobody signed up on the community members in person on this item to speak. Nobody. Anybody on the Zoom wishing to speak?
Ken Pew. >> All right. Just to show I'm not opposed to everything, I support this resoning. I think it makes absolute sense in in the location.
Thank you. Thank you. Any anybody else on the Zoom wishing to speak on this item? Nope.
Okay. Uh the chair is now closing the public hearing. Open for commissioner discussion.
Commissioner Woke. >> Hi Carrie Woke. I have two questions. One is for staff.
So, it says that um policy 95 is not met, but I didn't really understand the reason. It says the proposal does not limit development with an X 1% future conditions flood plane on site. >> Yeah, thank you. because there's regulated flood plane on the site that that policy is intended to provide additional protections for flood plane.
Because there's none stated, it does not meet that policy. >> That's just the gist of it. >> Thank you. My second question is for the applicant. Um, so you're not also not meeting um I'm sorry uh 81 because like you're not there's no commitment for the open space to be in the most environmentally sensitive spot and if you see that
property there's a very small strip of trees and is that something that you would be willing to consider locating open space where the trees are? >> Um here's what I'll tell you. the the development was or the overall they own the whole thing right so they have looked at this site as one development there is if you look at GIS right now which I mean I don't have it I don't know if you can see it but um there is a parcel which basically surrounds the development that's the open space parcel that's where all that you know so like there will be a limited amount of open space there is a lot of open space in the overall development and generally speaking it's in those environmentally sensitive areas. Um, but it's, you know, this is they haven't planned exactly what will go here. So, I can't, we can't really make a commitment as to where that open space will go. But the just to like the overall development has, my understanding more open space than the
UDO requires, more tree coverage than the UDO requires. But on this little like 2acre parcel, I don't think it has either of those things. I think it's going to meet the UDO requirement for open space and for tree save on this parcel. But again, it's been, you know, kind of envisioned and developed as an, you know, one development.
It obviously because the parcel lines and the zoning, it doesn't work that way, but that's the way that that the overall site will kind of lay out. Oh, and just point of clarification, is the X condition regulated flood plane? I thought that was the portion that's not regulated. No, that was confirmed by storm water that it would be regulated.
>> Okay. I mean 843 would apply in terms of building. >> Gotcha. Thank you.
>> What? Oh, >> I'm being clapped off the mic. I think
>> I'm sorry. We're experiencing technical difficulties. Okay. Any other commissioner?
>> No. No. All right. Uh, may I have a motion to move case Z25017 Topgolf Durham mixeduse phase 2 forward with a favorable recommendation?
>> Chair. In regards to case Topgolf Durham mixeduse phase 2 Z2507, I move that we forward this case to city council with a favorable recommendation. >> Second. >> It has been moved by Vice Chair Cameron and seconded by Commissioner Richie to move this case forward with a favorable recommendation. May we have the electronic voting, please?
It's not coming up, but the motion passes 10 to zero. Madam Chair, we're having technical difficulties on the broadcast. Could we ask for a fivem minute recess to give a chance to get that fixed? >> Yes, we're in recess until the technical difficulties
Heat. Heat.
Chair, >> good to go. >> Uh, commission is back in. Technical difficulties have been resolved. >> Please take your seats.
connection. >> All right. Uh, case Z24 triple043 Bella Ridge. May we have the staff report, please?
>> Yes. m. Thank you, >> chair. m.
to hear this last case, Bella Ridge, case Z2403. m. >> All in favor? >> It's a hand vote, >> please.
m. Now, Bella Ridge Z2403 staff report, please. Good evening, Chair Shier, Vice Chair Cameron, and planning commissioners. My name is Payton Burgess, and I have been here with you all night tonight to present Z24043 Bell Ridge.
34 acres located at 313 Burton Road. The existing zoning is residential rural commercial neighborhood and residential suburban 10. 975 to allow for up to 300 dwelling units and a maximum of 5,000 condition square
feet of permitted non-residential uses. The existing zoning is primarily residential rural with a little bit of commercial neighborhood and residential suburban 10 along east gear street. 975. The aerial map shows the general location of the project.
The property is currently designated mixed residential neighborhood and recreation open space on the place type map. The proposal includes a variety of permitted housing types as well as established minimums and maximums for certain housing types which supports the intent of the MRN place type. The ROS place type follows the flood plane and eastm open space plan wildlife corridor located on the southern portion of the site. The applicant has included graphic and text commitments.
Some notable text commitments include a variety of housing types. 5% of units to be affordable at 80% AMI for 30 years. a maximum of 5,000
condition square feet of non-residential uses, no development in the flood plane, a maximum impervious surface of 50% and an additional 4% open space and additional 1% tree coverage. The graphic development plan shows the site's building and parking envelope, site access points, buffered streams and wetlands, a stream crossing, a 10-ft concrete shared path along road frontages, tree preservation areas, and an existing cell tower and its fall zone. I also wanted to bring up one clarification regarding this site. The upper photo is from Dura Maps and shows rideway going through the site.
This is not accurate. The railroad rideway is no longer active and has been abandoned and the land is now under control of the parcel and is a part of this resoning request. You can see in the picture to the right, the white area is from the old ride ofway, but is included in the site and is a part of this request. This area is important because in addition to it containing a variety of environmental
features, it also includes the proposed Panther Creek Rail Trail. Zoomed in on the development plan, you can see that this area also contains the East Durham Open Space Plan, wildlife corridor, and some of the flood plane. The applicant held neighborhood meetings on June 24th and January 12th. 11 community members attended the first meeting and 13 attended the second.
No comments have been received on Durham Reszoning Explore in relation to this case. The proposal is consistent with the designated place type designations of mixed residential neighborhood and recreation and open space and is consistent with 23 of 31 applicable comprehensive plan policies. Thank you. Staff and the applicant are available to answer any questions.
>> Thank you. The chair is now opening the public hearing. May we have the applicant, please? >> Thank you, Miss Burgess, for your presentation and good evening to you all again. Last one, I think. Uh, I'm Neil
Gos, at the Morning Star Law Group, 700 West Main Street. Uh, Kate Murdoch from McAdams is here with me as well as our traffic consultant, Tyler Blang with Exalt. Our client on this project is Ashtonwood Homes. Um, this property is located at the corner of Burton and East Gear, south of I 85.
It's less than a 15 minute drive from here. And from here to there, you would pass the Walmart off Glenn School Road. uh you would pass Glenn Elementary and then you would pass a lot of single family homes. As you get further down the road, there would be a little a few businesses as well mixed in with single family homes.
It does get less densely populated the further you go down gear, but this is by no means a rural area. In fact, between us and I 85 to the north, it's somewhat industrial in character, which is reflected on the place map. Currently, the property is in the county. It has a house on it and some old farm structures.
It also has an active cell tower. Historically, on the south side of this property, there was a railroad. Uh it was long ago abandoned and now it is planned for the Panther Creek Rail Trail. I'll touch more on that later. On the other side of the
rail trail, there is an active residential development called Carpenter Falls. Uh in other words, this site is adjacent to the primary corporate limits of the city of Durham in a growing area. At full buildout, the project could include up to 300 homes, a minimum of 200 of which would be town homes. Uh you can see on the graphic development plan that there's a stream pretty much down the entire west side of the property.
You can also see we are not crossing that stream. So there is a lot of undisturbed area on that side. We also have a commitment that limits development within the flood plane to basically only infrastructure. Uh on this point I do want to touch on the wildlife corridor.
For the most part the wildlife corridor follows the old railroad area. Inadvertently, our development plan shows our building and parking envelope within a small portion of the wildlife corridor. This is a mistake. Um, we will shrink our building and parking envelope so that it does not include any portion of the wildlife corridor. And, uh, you can see that the wildlife corridor, it overlaps a lot
with the flood plane. They're kind of one and the same for most of the area. U so we will revise the existing condition which currently limits development in the flood plane to similarly uh limit development in the wildlife corridor as well. Those are not areas we intend to touch except as needed for infrastructure about the uh wildlife corridor.
Payton touched on a little bit or railroad I should say. Uh I don't want to get too much into the details here but there was some confusion on our end about the status of the abandoned railroad. We have recently cleared that up. The old railroad area is part of this parcel.
As I mentioned before, that area is planned for the Panther Creek Rail Trail. So, we want to add a commitment to dedicate an easement for that trail. Uh we did not have that commitment before because we were not sure whether that area was part of our property or not. Now that we know, it's an easy commitment. Obviously, the trail will be a benefit both to residents in this community and to the city of Durham. I also want to
touch on uh traffic. The staff report indicates that the most recent AAD for both Cheek and Burton are well below the design capacity for each of those roads. Nevertheless, the project required a TIA because of the projected number of trips. The study was very conservative.
In addition to the site driveways, it included eight intersections. The proposed site traffic triggered mitigation at one of those intersections for this project specifically. That's East Gear in Burton. So, a traffic signal will be required there in addition to a westbound left turn lane.
The project also will require left and right turn lanes at both site driveways. Uh, one of the more interesting findings from the study, and this is not always the case, but it but here is that intersection is expected to need these improvements regardless of whether the project gets built based on just background growth. So even if we don't build that that intersection east gear and Burton is expected to need these improvements. This project will provide
that infrastructure to the benefit of the public as well as to the tune of around $2 million for those types of improvements. Uh as you all know this is a growing area but the growth right here has not been as rapid as it might have be in other parts of the city near this property. I think you had the Carpenter Point subdivision go in around that 2003 2004 time frame. Uh phase one of Panther Creek subdivision started around 2005.
That had been built out for a while until recently. I think that last phase, second phase, maybe just got started with development, but but it was pretty, you know, the first phase had been built out for a while before there was any additional development there. The Stillwood community was around 2007 and then you get a really long pause until Carpenter Falls started to get developed in 2024 and it's still under development as well. So there has been growth out here but steady growth and you know most of the newer houses in that area might have even been built under the code before the current UDO. I mean there hasn't been a whole lot of new development part like right in this area
but the comp plan very clearly calls for more growth in this area. The place type map designation for this property is mixed residential neighborhood. The project includes a mix of housing types for that reason. It also includes affordable housing.
5% of the units will be affordable. We have monetary contribution to DPS. We have open space and tree cover in excess of the UDO requirements and we limit our impervious to no more than 50% and limit the impacts of the flood plane and now the wildlife corridors as well. This is an ideal development in this location with the added commitment regarding the trail, the transportation infrastructure and the affordable housing.
The project provides clear benefits to the general public in addition to providing additional housing for the city. My client also had to jump through a lot of hoops with the cell tower company to figure out how to design a site that accommodates that use, the cell tower use in a harmonious manner with their own intended development. Um, and finally, I will say that one of the things I did not expect was the amount of support for this project in this
area. Now, I I don't want to get carried away. I'm not telling you there's not opposition, but a lot of property owners uh in this area have long desired to gain access to city water and sewer utilities. There actually is a water line in East Gear Street, we'll be extending that down Burton.
The real challenge for folks in this area has been sewer. And while our project is not necessarily going to solve that issue for everyone, it will bring the sewer utility much closer to the folks on Gear Street. The sewer force man we need to tap into is south of us. It's in that railroad area.
Um, so we'll be extending sewer from there through our site up to both Burton and Gear, but not necessarily down either Burton or Gear, but we'll be stubbing out there. So, it's going to bring that sewer utility up to those roads. Uh, just to give you an idea of the scope of that, like from our south end to our north end, that's like half a mile of of distance from a nearest sewer to Gear Street. So, we're we're actually going to be pro providing that. That is something that a lot of property owners in this area actually
were quite excited about which I didn't necessarily expect. Uh anyway, this is a suburban style residential development in a residential suburban area and it's well thought out, harmonious, provides community benefits in addition to housing. We hope to have your support tonight and our team is available to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you.
>> Thank you Vicky King. I know y'all are as tired as I am. My name is Vicky King. My address is on file.
This development should not be allowed at the capacity they're asking for. This development will dump out onto Burton along with Carpenter Falls Sanctuary at Panther Creek. Panther Creek and Sage
Brook all will be dumping out onto Burton Road. Burton Road cannot tolerate this amount of traffic. It cannot. Not only is there too many cars, there's too many dump trucks in that area because of all the construction.
You can't access I 85 safely because of the dump trucks, the the destruction that they're causing running up and down Burton Road, Gear Street, Redmill Road. They bring mud from the landfill, Foggelman's landfill off of Redmill up the entrance ramp to I 85 south. You've also got traffic that gets backed up on I 85 north trying to access that general area between Trayven to the north and the
areas to the south. there. There is just not room for all this high density building. Please don't forget we have 1,200 homes for sale currently in Durham.
3,300 plus units that are rental units that are available and access. I don't think we need any more construction at this time. >> Thank you. Pam, you guys going to go all at once?
Good evening. I'm Rebecca Freeman and um I'm glad to be with you once more. Um this we're speaking about Bellow Ridge and this area is being saturated with developments within the last three years. The table you'll see the developments listed and the and the u map over there you can see exactly where they are.
The Panther Creek is under plan review now. Carpenter Falls Preserve and the villas at Carpenter Woods are under construction now. Sage Brook has just been approved by city council recently and Bell Ridge would add the fifth development in this small area. The total dwellings will be 890 individual dwellings and vehicles per day will be increasing to 7,221.
This is a lot to put in this small area. The next page also, thank you. Also is the same thing we've been saying all along. It's endemic there in this area. I mean, we just are lacking infrastructure really, really badly. And we need additional infrastructure for
fire, police, uh, EMS, the whole works if people are going to be able to live in that area and be safe. I hope you'll consider all these when things when you're making your decision. Thank you. Sorry y'all.
All right. Pamela Andrews Wake Forest Highway. Let's fire again. Fire infrastructure is not adequate in Southeast Durham.
Policy 122 as we just showed you. Again, four red stars because that tells you we don't have the fire infrastructure that's needed. The city of Durham fire stations that would primarily serve Beller Ridge is station nine. Redwood Volunteer Fire Station is funded by the county would likely respond as well, but these units will respond to calls in of the 68 new subdivisions along with current residents straining all this infrastructure. Next, on October 2022, there was a fire audit and that fire audit is still active. Um, the National Fire Code, that's when it was stated 6
minutes 30 sec 30 seconds. So, I want to tell you about this site. 7 miles, 9 minutes without peak hour traffic. 4 miles away, 13 minutes in non- peak hour traffic.
Remember, the code says 6 minutes 30 seconds. We're not meeting it. 3 miles away, 4 minutes during non- peak hours. However, they don't have a ladder truck to reach those town homes that we're building.
Um the sous city fire stations would not meet the code as I mentioned. So it's just not feasible. Next um the police station. I want to speak real quickly on that.
Policy 119 clearly says we are to ensure that new development within the urban growth boundary are within the established level of service. That's all the emergency services. On January 2026, CBS 17 did a story. 134 police officers short out of 397 positions. That's a 34%
vacancy rate, friends. 4 miles away is the closest fire police station. That's a 13minute commute to come out to this area. Coverage of additional people puts a strain on the department.
No doubt. Policy 119 established levels of surface services would be difficult to meet. Our infrastructure is so strained for all these emergency services. Thank you.
Uh Tammy Sway, my address is on file. The EMS lady, again, I won't say it. You know how important it is. You know that it can impact your life and your loved ones life.
Just keep that in mind, development, and the growth in our area. I want to respond to the statement that we needed 33,000. Uh we're we've got a housing gap. Yes. That's by the Bowen National Research that said from 2024 to 2029 we've got
this gap. Now do you know from the planning department how many annexations have been built say from 2022 till now? I do. We've been tracking it.
It's approximately about 28,000. So we're about 5,000 short. Okay. 0 0 got passed as you know 15-minute cities it's going to uh make that gap we can meet that gap with that annexation change and actually one of our Durham County commissioners agree that's going to give us the capacity we need to grow we don't need to keep pushing out new annexations in this area so my question to you is what is it going to bring what's the affordability is the problem so what's the price point of these is is it worth the the risk that you're giving us in this area? And I also want to give you another point talking about sewer and water going to uh closer to people that
need it. Well, 10 homes on Junction Road have been without water for 5 years. The quote for them to get hooked on to city and water was $600,000 for those 10 homes. It is not affordable for somebody not within a development to get hooked on to water and sewer.
So, please keep that in mind. Thank you. Good evening. Donna Stain at 4825 Jimmy Rogers Road. Um, I'm going to speak about the rural and agriculture neighborhood. And the reason I'm passionate about this is I have a volunteer agric my husband and I have an agriculture a volunteer agriculture district and we trying to look after the environment but here the agriculture as you heard earlier I'm from the farm and um the density is significantly higher
975 five. It's surrounded by single family homes. As was quoted, there's a great burden and um this would detract from the character of the rural area. We still have volunteer agriculture districts around this project.
In fact, it was one. Um it's surrounded by eight uh present use value farms and five volunteer agriculture districts within one mile. Um you know another quote is neighbors are struggling to cope with the increased traffic and no increase of necessary infrastructure. This project does not seem to meet the needs of the community.
My husband is from Gorman. This is area is what we call Gorman and you know the folks from Redwood. Um
one of the other quotes that I think is important here is neighbors are struggling to cope with increased traffic and no increase of necessary infrastructure. This project does not seem to meet the needs that was up the road. Uh, and you saw how close Sage Brook was up the road from this project on Burton Road. There are also major concerns about the increase of 2600 vehicles per day on the existing Burton Road volume of 5,180 and the 2,92 on 5,918 on Gear Street.
Basically, you're doubling the traffic. Thank you. Okay, this is Wanda Allen. I want you guys to look at the screen. Look at this slide and it shows exactly why the water quality and drinking water are at risk. This site contains five streams, all
subject to noose river buffer rules. As shown on this map, these streams drain directly into Panther Creek and ultimately into Falls Lake, a regional drinking water supplies. Both waters are already classified as impaired due to settlement. That means they are not meeting the quality standard today before this project adds additional runoff.
3 million. Our p our tax dollars were uh funded directly land and stream water restoration. uh NCDQ has confirmed that the stream is
jurisdiction on this site. This proposal relies minimum storm water standards. We're asking we're asking for three enforceful commitments. enhanced storm water controls during construction and the permanent storm water pond to be a 100 years.
Strict environmental monitoring including sampling of dewatering discharge and erosion base size for a 100year storm. no variances, no alternate compar compliances that weakens the protection because as I mentioned earlier, what happens is the project is passed and then they'll come back in and ask for good a my voice is giving out. Good afternoon. My name is Pam Williams. My address is on file and thank y'all for
taking the time to hear our concerns. I'm gonna back up to this slide right here. And thank you, Neil, uh for uh y'all's group doing a a development site plan that we can look at and really see what we need on this one. Neil, I was going to ask you not to bring the building envelope down to the old railroad right away and to the other side.
And you've already committed to that. It sounds like you've already also committed to providing an easement for um the trail and there's also through this is already an easement for the forest main if I'm correct. Okay. Uh what I would like to ask is that you also build the uh trail in here. We have had several other uh developers to build the trail. one over on Carpon uh road uh is building a portion of this trail Panther Creek uh over 1,000 ft and then at Howard's place on NC98 they're
building close to 1500 linear feet of the NC98 uh greenway trail. We're asking you to build this since you have the equipment there and also connect up your sidewalks to this trail. Um, also on this, I don't know, up here on Burton Road, uh, we you're proposing your standard setback of about 10 ft. We would like to request at least a 30foot, uh, landscaped, um, area along Burton Road.
It is a a wonderful road to drive through or it has been before all the development and it still is. But we have problems or issues with uh Sharon Road where they did the setback. I swear it looks like the town homes are sitting on the sidewalk. Uh I think everybody if you've been down Sharon Road, you drive down that curve and you look at those town homes in the curve. Um, also we're asking for a commitment to undisturbed
stream and boundary buffers for this project. And I've already stated why we'd like undisturbed. Thank you for your consideration. And uh, thank you Neil and y'all for dedicating that trail.
>> Good evening one last time. My name is Tina Mley Pearson and my address is on file. So um and you've you've seen these slides before but it's it still applies. So this site also lies near protected lands, wildlife corridors, a land conservancy site and restored streams.
And uh as Wana was talking about earlier about like insufficient buffers and and the habitat fragmentation, it's a problem with the biodiversity, but also um she mentioned the stream restorations. And it's basically like taxpayers subsidizing bad development because if if developments are contri contributing to problems that are causing streams to be restored, it's millions of dollars that taxpayers end up paying to to fix that. Um,
this site is less than6 miles from Butner Falls of New Gameland and Waterfall Empowment and less than a mile from Eastern Durham Open Space Plan Wildlife Corridor that connects to Little Lit Creek. Durham's planning department has not designated a wildlife corridor, but Division of Habitat Conservation North Carolina Wildlife Commission has. There is a high wildlife corridor on this site also that crosses Cheek Road from the north side with a higher corridor crossing. So we are requesting a commitment of 150 foot undisturbed stream sea buffer to include this area for wildlife corridor on each side along the perennial stream.
Um environmental justice and public health. Uh this project drains into impaired waters and affects communities identified using environmental justice criteria. Increased impervious surface and runoff would further degrade Falls Lake impacting communities beyond Durham. There are no meaningful protections proposed for air quality, heat island reduction, or downstream water quality. And if you look to the right side of this slide, you also see that this is an
area identified as an environmental justice population by Durham County. Thank you very much. >> Good evening again, Thomas Freeman, a lifelong resident of Durham County. I'll be speaking tonight very briefly.
I have two minutes on blasting and and uh the UDA policies that this site does not meet. Uh I chose bla the same blasting sign again. Uh um I want to be the face and the voice of all of those people that have been damaged by the blasting in this county. And with this event, the blasting of this uh site, it would put over 200 surrounding homes and businesses at risk.
We know that caused well damage. I've seen the tears in the eyes of people as they realize their well is now their pump is pumping mud. And I've been to those homes where nothing pumped because the blasting has
caused their well to cave in. I've also been to those homes where the windows didn't shut anymore, the doors didn't shut anymore, and there was ex uh septic tank damage to the underground tanks. If you would draw your attention to the excavator, uh why does that cliff exist? Why does it exist?
It's because of the massgraded high density development that the developer, the investor chose to build this way. So the the property to your right, excuse me, to the left when their little grandchildren go out, they face this 25 foot fall off fall drop off the earth. It now has a a very attractive stacked concrete wall. But they didn't have to build like this. If there's anything you get from from my delivery, my two minutes worth, you don't have to build like this. This is a
direct cause of high density massgraded residential development. And I'll go on to say very quickly, policy 171, 116 are not met. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Anybody else in the audience? Zoom. Penny Mays. >> Hello.
Can you hear me? >> Yes. State, please state your address for the record. Um, thank you, Madam Chairman, and members of the commission.
My name is Penny Ms and my address is on record. I live just down the road from this proposed development. In fact, I'm a member of the Gorman community and I'm speaking tonight out of great concern over the saturation of developments on
Burton Road. This is this is a rural community and the community cannot support more development in this area. We are overt taxed already concerning fire services, EMS and other emergency services. And additionally, our traffic is becoming increasingly difficult during rush hours with a proximity to I 85.
Traffic is now backing up on Red Mill and Gear Street in the mornings from Burton Road and it backs up on I 85 in the afternoon as people return to Burton Road and other regions. This traffic is not only annoying but it is dangerous. Our community cannot support this development. In addition, there have been serious concerns about Falls Lake water quality that has already been compromised by the current overdevelopment in this area. I can't stress strongly enough. We are
overt taxed. This road is overt taxed. Burton and on the corner of Burton and Gear Street, it it is the wrong place to put a new development. That road has enough development and especially a wrong place to put more town houses.
They're going to stick out like a sore thumb in our community. Please vote to reject this proposal. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Lisa Roman Schaefer.
>> Hi. Good evening. >> Can everyone hear me? Okay.
>> Yes. Please state your address for the record. >> Hi, this is Lisa. My address is on file and I live on Stallings Road. I just want to mention about the Gear Street, how it funnels the traffic onto Stallings and Patterson Road, which are
already unsafe and narrow. As I've mentioned previously, this area is also a critical refuge for wildlife, which could be threatened by overdevelopment. Some residents are being forced onto city sewer and water, meaning we pay for both city and county taxes. Every time it goes up, ours go up double.
Yet, we have no say in city leadership, and both are unfair. Our county needs proper first responder infrastructure. I'm asking for two new stations equipped with fire trucks that have ladders, proper water access because we don't have fire hydrants, and at least two EMS vehicles per station. We must properly fund our first responders to keep our rural blue zone style communities safe.
What do we have to do to get that done? Finally, blasting. It must be stopped. Developers should not be allowed to use blasting moving forward as it is dangerous and destructive. Please
priorit prioritize our safety, wildlife and quality of life over development or taxes or bonuses. >> That's all. Thank you. >> Thank you.
Anybody else on the Zoom wishing to speak? Would the applicant care to respond to the community's concerns? >> Yeah, I'll just respond to a couple things. There's um a few people came up talked about traffic issues in this area um and suggested that by their calculations 7,000 more cars would uh be on the road or that the traffic would double. And I you know I'm not I haven't run those calculations myself but there are some calculations that are included in your staff report which I conveniently left
somewhere. Um, but anyway, the point is Burton Road and and Gear are both uh AAD are are well under the design capacity. If you add 7,000 cars to those roads, neither of them is actually over capacity. So, you know, I'm not I'm I'm not here to suggest that there isn't going to be additional traffic on the road.
Um, you know, we all experience traffic. Traffic at rush hour is how the road system works. Um, if you don't have traffic at rush hour, then you have too many roads. That that's just how municipal governance works.
Municipal infrastructure works. So, I recognize that there are traffic issues. I live across the street from school. I could set my watch to the pickup and drop off.
There's always traffic there at pickup and drop off. Um, but you know, that's the way those roads function. I would not tell you that road needs to be widened or anything because there's traffic during pickup and drop off. I would not tell you that road needs to be widened or anything because there is traffic during rush hour. That's when you expect traffic. Um there was a
number of commitments or additional commitments that were requested and I tried to write them down. I wanted to touch on some of them. There's a question about whether we would commit to build the trail. So honestly last week is when we figured out uh or got comfortable with the idea.
The title company basically said yes, they would ensure title that the railroad um that old abandoned railroad rightway is part of this property. So, we've not studied what it would take to build that trail. We've committed to to putting the easement there, whether we can build the trail. That's something that we're our team is going to have to look at.
There was also an ask related to that trail to provide sidewalks from our community to that trail. Um that's already required in the UDO. So that will be whether we build the trail or not, we'll be required to accommodate some sort of pedestrian access from the neighborhood in to that trail. So that's already part of the development.
Uh I did want to check with Kate. There was a question about the the buffer. I I think it was the buffer required on Burton
and I think it was mentioned it was a 10-ft buffer and I might be getting it wrong, but I thought that's what someone said. I thought we had a 30- foot buffer there. Okay. The 30- foot buffer is not shown on the plan.
Okay. Well, it is intended so we can show it on the plan that I mean that thank you for bringing that to our attention. Sorry. Thank you.
>> All right. The chair is now closing the public hearing and we are open for commissioner discussion, questions, comments. Anybody? I was just going to clarify that on the development plan there is a 30 foot um6 opacity buffer.
>> I have a question for the applicant. >> One of the commitments was about no blasting. It's not something that we can commit to. I don't know that there will be blasting, but I don't know there won't.
Okay, thank you. Nobody else. All right. May I have a motion to move case Z2400000043 Bella Ridge forward with a favorable recommendation?
>> Chair, I move that uh not I'm sorry, let me start over. chair in the in the um good God mighty in the the case of Bellaridge Z24043. I move that we forward this case to the city council with a for favorable recommendation. >> Second. >> It has been moved by Vice Chair Cameron and seconded by Commissioner Richie to move this case forward with a favorable recommendation. May we have the electronic voting please.
The motion passes 8 to2 with commissioners nine Kirkner and Woke voting no. >> All right. There are no committee updates and no staff announcements. So number 10 adjournment.
m. >> Quick reminder y'all. We have a meeting in two weeks. February 2.