Durham Planning Commission · Regular Meeting · January 13, 2026

Good evening and welcome to the Durham Planning Commission. The 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 attending in person and wish to speak on a particular agenda item, please register on the signup sheets located on the table to my left.

You will be called upon to make your comments at the appropriate time. You may also call in during the meeting by dialing 131715 8592. If you call in during the meeting, you'll need to wait until the particular public hearing you are interested in starts. After [snorts] all of the pre-registered speakers have shared their comments, I will ask if there is anyone else wishing to speak. At that point, you will need to digitally raise your hand by pressing star9 on your phone and when recognized, 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 and 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 everyone here on the Zoom, the commission members, the staff and the public to conduct themselves in a courteous and respectful manner. If someone fails to act in that matter 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 Chakowski >> here.

>> Commissioner Hunter >> here. >> Commissioner Wararez Molinado. Commissioner Macyver. Commissioner Montes >> here. >> Commissioner Nine Kirkner, Commissioner Richie >> here,

>> Commissioner Pontek >> here, >> Commissioner Woke >> here. >> A quorum has been achieved. Uh before we move on to the next items, I'd like to just state for the record that all items before you tonight have been advertised in accordance with state and local law and affidavit to that effect are on file in the planning department. Thank you.

Uh item number three, uh there are no adjustments to the agenda. Item number four, approval of the minutes and consistency statements. Do we have a motion to approve? >> I move to approve the um minutes and consistency statement.

>> Second. has been moved by Vice Chair Cameron and seconded by Commissioner Hunter to approve the minutes and consistency statements. All in favor favor, please say I. I >> I opposed.

No opposed. The eyes have it. [snorts]

Uh item number five on the agenda, public hearings, zoning map changes, Z 25 quadruple04 Sharon Road assemblage. May we have the staff report, please? Thank you, Chair Shagaras, Vice Chair Cameron, and honorable commission members. My name is Andy Lester, the planning and development department.

I'm here to present Z25004 Sharon Road assemblage. 31 acres and located at 2007 and 2013 Sharon Road. The existing zoning is industrial light with a development plan residential suburban 20 and residential rural. 426 and commercial general with the development plan to allow up to 294 apartment units and associated non-residential uses. The existing place type is highway commercial. Staff

recommends place type change to mix residential neighborhood due to the pro due to the proposal being inconsistent with the current place type. The existing zoning is industrial light with the development plan residential suburban 20 and residential rural. The site is surrounded by residential uses and zoning to the northwest and east. To the south our light industrial and commercial uses along US70.

This area map shows the general location of the project. The property is currently designated highway commercial on the place type map. The proposed zoning is inconsistent with the designated place type. If the proposed zoning is approved, staff recommends the place type of mixed residential neighborhood. The applicant has included several text amendments including a limit to impervious surface coverage, native plantings, and income restricted housing among others.

Neighborhood meetings uh were held in accordance with the neighborhood meeting guidelines of March 18th and December 18th, 2025. Four comments have been submitted to the Durham Reszoning Explorer in relation to this case. All are against the proposal. As stated earlier, the proposal is inconsistent with the place type map designation of highway commercial.

If the zoning map change is approved, staff recommends a new place type to mix residential neighborhood. And the proposal is it consistent with 22 of 27 applicable comprehensive plan policies. Thank you staff and the applicant here for any questions. >> Thank you.

Can we uh amend the roll call to show that Commissioner Ninkirkner has shown up? Thank you. The chair is now opening the public hearing. May we have the applicant, please.

And thank you, Mr. Lester for your presentation and good evening chair Shagaris, Vice Chair Cameron, members of the planning commission. I'm Neil Gos, an attorney with the Morning Star Law Group at 700 West Main Street and I'm representing Middberg Communities for the proposed uh resoning here. So, I thought I would start by explaining perhaps the confusing aspect of this request.

To be clear, we are pursuing uh this resoning for a residential project. And so, you might be wondering, why does the request include non-residential? And the answer is because the non-residential use already is there. Uh you can see in aerial images of the map that the southern parcel of our assemblage already has a driveway, a storm water pond, and some other stuff on it which currently serve the existing storage business to the south.

All of that stuff is going to stay. And in fact, our project intends to utilize the same driveway, the storm water pond, etc. So, in order for that parcel to be

able to serve both the existing storage business and the proposed apartments, we had to reszone into a district which allows both residential and commercial uses as principal uses. That's why that's in there. But my client here is pursuing strictly speaking residential development. And at the end of the day, that's what this project is.

And on top of that, it's a really good residential project. As outlined in the staff report, the project is consistent with 22 out of 24 applicable policies. There are three that are still under review uh regarding utilities and fiscal impact analysis. Those are undetermined at this time, but we have no reason to believe that they the project will not be consistent with those.

Um and you know that's not by accident. The applicant here has been very deliberate in letting the comprehensive plan, the UDO, and the review process shape the project. At full buildout, this is 294 apartments. We've committed to 5% of those being affordable, which roughly is 15 units. Uh we also have committed to using um

native plantings meeting Energy Star multifamily new construction program certification requirements. Uh we've capped the height at 60 feet and so that could be four or five stories for a building that tall. for accessibility. We therefore have committed to having elevators and we've committed to $40,000 to go to Durham public schools.

Now, the main thing that came up in our neighborhood meeting was a concern over traffic. And I totally get it. Admittedly, there is somewhat of an unusual situation with Bright Leaf at the park just north of us. Um there there is what can only be described as a rather large entrance to the neighborhood off Sharon Road just to our north.

And for whatever reason, not only is there no no light at that entrance, but Sharon Road is not median divided in that location either. My guess is that is probably intentional, but I don't really know why. But because of that, during peak hours, you basically can't turn left out of Bright Leaf at the park uh from that entrance on onto Sharon Road. And unfortunately, there's nothing that this project can do to fix that.

While our site does back up to some of the houses in that neighborhood, that neighborhood was developed in a way where we cannot provide further connectivity. And that's really a shame because there actually is a light at our entrance. And we will, you know, modify the signal timing on that light to accommodate the traffic produced by this project. But there's really nothing we can do on our project to try to address the existing traffic concern that the neighbors raised to us.

And it's important to know and you can see in your staff report that both impacted roads have excess capacity. So this isn't a capacity issue. I'm not a traffic engineer, but in my mind this is this particular issue is maybe a design issue or something like that. But the numbers in the staff report show this project is not causing a traffic problem.

And it also is the case that there we we've looked at it. There's not really anything we can do to address a traffic problem. Wow. I've only been doing this for I don't know how long, so I'm embarrassed. Uh

um sorry. So, as with most projects, um in conjunction with road widening along our frontage, we're providing a 10- foot wide shared facility to accommodate bike and pedestrian traffic. We also have made a commitment to try to fill the existing sidewalk gap to our north, provided there's adequate rideway to do so. um that I think that's about a 60 foot gap, linear feet gap, and it would be nice to be able to close that to further complete the pedestrian network.

In my experience, this type of off-site sidewalk commitment is pretty rare. Uh so I thought it was worth highlighting. And then finally, I want to touch on the Lick Creek Trail. This is a planned trail that doesn't yet exist.

And a portion of it goes all the way from Sharon Road through this property. In fact, I think I would probably call that the trail head. It's along the terminus is along Sharon Red. Uh the applicant has committed to building a portion of that trail which is pretty exciting to me because they're not just going to dedicate the rideway for the trail. They plan to build that section of the trail

from Sharon Road through the property. And of course that's not a very long section, but it is a start and a great addition for the city. So really that's it in a nutshell. It's a dense, thoughtful project.

Um, it's got a little bit of everything and I think that it will add important housing stock to the city. Thank you for your time and I look forward to your questions and comments about the project and happy new year everyone. I'll learn how to use the mic eventually. >> Thank you.

Uh Joe Lun. >> Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the commission. My name is Joe Lenny. I live at 6 Wooten Court, which is just adjacent to the project area. I am respectfully asking that you deny this zoning. And seven at 7:45 this morning, and I don't

know if you can see it on this camera or not. I'll hold that up real quickly. That was traffic on Sharon Road. Um, that's backed up about a half mile to where my property is, which is just at the southern uh Golden Belt Parkway entrance.

And this is how it looked facing north, moving up around Ashton Hall. So, I think there are definitely traffic concerns that need to be taken into account here. Uh, Mineral Springs and Sharon work as a funnel and the confluence is right where the exit for this apartment complex is planned to go. I don't think that's a good idea to introduce more traffic at that area. So, I think the other part, if you look at the NC DOT long-term traffic plan for the intersection at Miami and Sharon, they're planning on an interchange, not an intersection. And a couple of those proposals have

ramps going off that would landlock this development. So, with that, thank you for your time. Uh, I kindly ask that you deny this reszone. Thank you.

>> Thank you. is Eric Carol and Arios. >> Thank you to the planning commission for allowing the residents to represent. I just want to um reinforce what Joe has said.

I also live in Bright Leaf at the park and I'm a resident and there's at least five ne five new neighborhoods being built around our neighborhood and we as residents feel like we need the opportunity to engage further on the traffic issues um that are happening for us. We can't get out of our neighborhood. Um we've reached out two weeks ago to Shanetta Burus, our new ward representative to further engage on this matter. would also appreciate um if you would deny this and also give our neighborhood more of an opportunity to

engage on the matter. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anybody else in person wishing to speak on this item there?

All right. Zoom. Zoom. Tom Champion.

Here I am. Can you hear me? >> Yes, we can hear you. Please state your name and address for the record.

>> Uh my name is Tom Campion. I live at five court. Uh that is within the Brightley neighborhood. Um going back to what Joe was saying about the traffic Um, we were told originally that because of the size of this project, it would need to be a traffic study. Um, I believe

this is a loophole for the developers because this does not take in account the amount of other developments going on further down Sharon. So [snorts] once those are up and ready to go, traffic coming further down from Sharon is going to impact this greatly. Not even counting this project. I also ask you deny this reon.

>> Okay. Thank you. I don't know. Is that a malfunction of the No.

All right. Anyone else on the Zoom wishing to speak? Please use the raise your hand. Lori Ray Rise.

>> Good evening. This is Lori Reese. Can you hear me? >> Yes. Please state your address for the

record. >> It's 1904 Patterson's Mill Road and I am inside Bright Leaf at the park as well. and I have been engaged with the Morning Star group on both of the neighborhood meetings and have a summary of the different concerns. Obviously, traffic, as we've mentioned, is the number one concern.

A lot of that is around the safety and I would say obviously we want the owner of this property to be able to develop. I think the concern is really around the density. So, when we're talking about 294, that's a lot of additional vehicles on the road. we don't believe can be handled.

And today we do not have the ability because of the additional traffic flowing from uh South Mineral Springs. We do not have the ability to even get to the light at Highway 70. I would also mention that there is concern um about emergency vehicles being able to address our neighborhood and um as was mentioned by the other

residents, there's a lot of development going on that is not even already in in you know uh on the road yet that we know will come on the road. The other concerns were really around environmental impact, the lack of infrastructure and amenities to support all of this. Again, we believe a $40,000 commitment to schools is great, but I I do think 294 residents will have a lot more need within the school system. And the concern around creating buffers with those neighboring properties, um, you can imagine something 60 ft tall is going to be looking directly into the backs of our houses and lights and noise and all of those things that I don't believe that the the developer can really address efficiently.

Thank you very much. which I really appreciate you guys hearing from us. And we we do not support the the current proposal. >> Thank you, Kelsey Miller.

>> Hi. Can you hear me? >> Yes. Please state your address for the >> This is Kelsey Miller.

I live at 1608 Patterson's Mill Road, right at the park. I echo my neighbor's sentiments. I urge you to deny this reasonzoning request and I also urge if you continue forward to conduct a traffic study. Traffic is a major issue that we deal with.

And like others have said before, there's a lot of new development going on Sharon Road that's not completed yet. We don't know what the full traffic effect will be. Uh I can tell you it can take 10 minutes to turn left out of um Golden Belt Parkway trying to get through that intersection with 70. That's 10 minutes there. and you see people have to conduct illegal maneuvers

or legally dubious traffic maneuvers trying to get through all this traffic in the morning or afternoon. Um that backup can extend almost a mile to Ashton Glenn Road and so I think there should be a traffic study. Um, even when you're trying to go north on Shane Road to 98, people are slowing down because they're turning into Burger King or that storage unit or to Pizza Hut. And so, there's going to be a new development with 294 units.

How is that going to affect traffic either way? And so, I urge you to deny this resoning. And thank you for listening. >> Thank you.

Kristen Shook. >> Hi, good evening. Uh, my name is Cook. I live at Five Pearl Mel Court, uh, Bright

Leaf at the Park. Thank you so much for allowing u my neighbors and I to share our strongly, um, our strong sentiment towards not approving this project. Um, I also want to just echo this is not just about 10 minutes or a headache. I know we live in an area that is a wonderful place um where people want to live and move to from all over.

I want to reiterate the safety piece of this um for those that are in the cars, those that are in all of the neighborhoods, those are that to to come that are going to be driving from the neighborhoods down Sharon Road within Bright Leaf at the park that are under construction. um for their safety. Um people are having to make really poor decisions to try to access Sharon Road. Um, I'm also concerned about school buses, pedestrians, um, as well as emergency vehicles. And, um, I do think, um, we welcome the, um,

the need for affordable and enough housing, but I think we have to really, um, use your discretion at um, if the infrastructure can safely support that. And I think you've heard from all of those that live and drive these roads every single day um that this is a true concern um for for the safety of of the current residents and those that will fill the already um the houses that are under um construction and apartments and town homes down Sharon and within Brightley. So again, um along with my neighbors, I urge you to please do not um approve the reszoning of this piece of land for um the safety of those who may live there and the safety of those who um currently live around the area and use Sharon Road. Thank you.

>> Thank you. Anybody else on the Zoom wishing to speak? Harry Harry,

>> can you hear me? >> Yes, please state your address for the record. >> Yes, it's Harry Baba and the address is 1920 Pisonson's Mill Road and thank you for the opportunity to speak. Uh I realize the developer may not be a cause of some of the traffic issues, but it certainly is going to compound the issues and make it um difficult for the residents here.

That's one of the main reason I would oppose um at least I would recommend that you deny or oppose this development. Plus, there's a density already in the area. I'm looking at the environmental impact particularly along um Lake Creek there and the noise. So, those are some of the things that I'm looking for.

I'm not opposed to development, but it has to be a win for everybody. This might not be the property that that type of development would be a a fit for. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else on the Zoom wishing to speak on this item? Nope. Not seeing anybody raising their

hand. All right. The public hearing is now closed. We are now open for commissioner discussion.

Any commissioner comments, questions, discussion? Commissioner Richie? Question for the [clears throat] applicant. I >> think we're getting accustomed.

>> All right. You supposed to >> We're going to open the public hearing back up. Would the applicant care to respond to the >> concerns of the citizens? >> Yeah. I mean, I I guess I'll just address quickly. Um, you know, I think you heard as as I alluded to earlier, the number one concern we heard about is related to traffic and there's [clears throat] you know I assure you there's no like loophole here this the the projects uh traffic impacts were evaluated by the city and the city determined that a traffic impact analysis wouldn't be required that

doesn't mean that we didn't look at traffic issue and I I can I mean I'll just verify um because I confirmed for myself that yeah I mean that exit out of Bright Leaf is a problem But this this project is actually I mean I would argue this project is actually the ideal location for a project because it exits at a light. And while this project will have two points of access, one is at a light which will allow traffic to turn left onto Sharon Road. And the other one uh which is a little bit further north of the light is going to be a right in right out. So no one would be trying to turn left out of that entrance.

The problem with the Bright Leaf exit is that it's supposed to be a full access movement yet there's no light and there's extensive traffic on Sharon Road. That's exactly why this project works for I mean this use or another use is because there is a light uh at at this project not at 70. It's at this project and then there's another light at 70 just to be clear if you haven't

been out out there. Um so you know I I want to acknowledge the traffic concern. We know that it's real. We know that it exists.

This project isn't producing, you know, that traffic issue. It already exists. And in fairness, we did look at ways to try to eval to address that issue. But Bright Leaf was developed in a way that we can't actually provide additional connectivity through our site that would have potentially brought traffic from Bright Leaf through our site to a light to facilitate that left turn movement.

we can't do it because everything on on that we back up to is essentially the back of a culde-sac. So, you know, I we can't address it, but we did look at it and that's that's where this project ended up. So, I'll end it there. I'll also just stay up here because it sounds like there might be a question. >> Thank you. I'm going to closing the public hearing.

Uh, Commissioner Richie, what were your questions? >> Uh, yeah, we, I think, have gotten accustomed to seeing more like 8% affordable commitment in um, developments of this size, and I think that's an opportunity for us to continue to grow in that way uh, as a community. So, I want to know about the opportunity with this to push this up to more like 25 units that are committed to affordable affordability. Um, and then also I think that there's an opportunity for us to grow beyond the 30-year mark, uh, which has been sort of standard and and push for slightly longer affordability terms.

So curious about a 80% 40-year affordability commitment as opposed to the one currently. >> Okay. And I want to make sure you're talking about the 80% AMI level. You were wondering if that's something that we could look at to >> Yeah.

If you can grow towards an 8% 40year at 80% am I? >> Oh, okay. Because we are at 5% of the units >> for 30. >> Okay.

All right. Sorry. I'm just trying to make sure. >> Sorry.

>> Got it. Got it. I'm just trying to make sure that I understand what the ask is.

Sorry, I'm having a little trouble hearing you. It might be the mic. >> That might be me. [laughter] >> I have a six weeks old baby, everyone.

I cannot speak. Um, but yeah. So that the point the question is what's the capacity for 8% um of the units being affordable at 80% AMI for 40 years. >> Yeah.

So I I mean I don't know the in. It's something that I can take to my client, right? It's something that I can ask them about. Um you know definitely what we were looking at with the 30-year mark.

I mean that's that's the definition of affordable housing in the UDO. Uh also it's you know generally how the LITC program works. Not that this is a lifetime, but that's where the 30-year came from. Um, and the uh the 5% number, you know, I think they were looking aggressively at how to how to try to include affordable units, but I mean, I appreciate that there's there's always a need for affordable housing in Durham. There always has been. And so any

additional affordable housing would be helpful. Any other commissioner? Commissioner Woo. >> Hi, thank you.

Um, my [clears throat] question has to do with the two comprehensive plan policies that this project does not meet. One is there's no public park within half a mile and I understand you cannot manifest a park within half a mile of this project. But the other is uh tree coverage beyond the requirement of the UDO which is something that perhaps you could move on. >> Yeah.

So looking at tree coverage I mean I think that's something that we can we can take a look at further. The part of the issue is that this is one reasonzoning case that has two different zoning districts. So as as far as I understand we have targeted so the residential district uh requires more tree save than the than the commercial. Uh so as far as I know we've targeted a residential amount of tree save but how

to categorize that I think is a little bit unclear to us. Um and so you know correct on the within the plan what we have shown or within the application what we have discussed is what the UDO would require for residential development. Um and I think that we can take a look further to see if there is more tree safe that can be provided. Uh obviously it's a it's a dense project and so that that is driving some of that issue as well.

>> Any other questions? Commissioner comments. >> I have a question. So, [clears throat] the main entrance is going to be at Sharon and Mineral Springs.

And that's you're saying that that's a signalized light. Uh it's there are two access points on Sharon. I guess that is Mineral Springs across the way. There is a there is a light at that where the

existing driveway is. There is a light there >> and that's going to be the driveway that's going to be the main entrance. >> Correct. >> Where's the second entrance going to be >> north of there?

So I mean essentially as far north on our side as we can get. Um that section of Sharon Road is median divided. That's that will be right in right out only. >> And there's going to be a turn lane there.

What are the commitments to that? Uh >> because your main entrance is already going to be at a signalized intersection. >> I think there is a turn lane for that right in right out. Um a right turn lane.

Obviously there wouldn't be a left turn lane >> because that's where Sharon has the divider. >> Correct. So they can't turn. >> We're dedicating right of way to w to you know ride that.

But that that entrance is I mean frankly you'd only be using that entrance to leave the site because if you're going if you're entering the site you would have passed the other entrance already to get there. >> Okay. Thank you.

>> Any other questions? Nope. May I have a motion to move KZ25 quadruple 04 Sharon Road assemblage forward with a favorable recommendation. Chair Shagaras in the case of Z25 triple04 Sharon Road assemblage.

I move that we move this case forward to city council with a favorable recommendation. >> Second. It has been moved by Vice Chair Cameron and seconded by Commissioner Hunter to move this case forward with a favorable recommendation. May we have the electronic voting, please?

>> [clears throat] >> Okay, coding should be working now. We can Yeah, let's take that off. Yeah. Okay.

Chair Shagaras, >> yes. >> Vice Chair Cameron, >> yes. >> Commissioner Bailey, >> no. >> Commissioner Capers, >> no.

>> Commissioner Chakowski, >> yes. >> Commissioner Hunter, >> no. Commissioner Montes, >> no. >> Commissioner Ninekirkner,

>> no. >> Commissioner Richie, >> yes. >> Commissioner Pontac, >> yes. >> Commissioner Woke, >> no.

>> And my formula is not my Excel formula is not working. So, hold on a second. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five, six.

The motion fails. Six to five. Uh, next item on the agenda, Z 25 quadruple08, preserve at infinity. May we have the staff report, please? >> Thank you.

Okay. 161 acres located at 301 and 401 Infinity Road. The existing zoning is residential suburban 20. The applicant proposes to change this designation to plan development residential and office in institutional with the textual development plan to allow up to 90 multif family units and 5,000 ft of non-residential space.

The existing place type is transit opportunity area, mixed residential neighborhood, and recreation and open space. The proposal is generally consistent with the place type and no change to the place type map would be required if approved. The existing zoning is residential suburban 20. The site is surrounded by residential zoning districts of varying densities. Here's the aerial map that shows the general location of the property. The property is designated transit opportunity area, mixed residential neighborhood, and recreation open space

on the place type map. The proposed zoning was determined consistent with the designated place types. The applicant has included a number of text amendments regarding environmental preservation, housing affordability, and limits on drive-throughs. The applicant held neighborhood meetings on April 24th and December 11th, 2025.

Um there are 16 comments from the Durham Zoning Explorer. All are against the proposal. A staff determines if this request is consistent with the place type map and 22 of 25 comprehensive plan policies. Staff and the applicant are available to answer any questions.

Thank you. >> Thank you. The chair is now opening the public hearing. May we have the applicant, please?

Good evening, Chair Chagaris, Vice Chair Cameron, and members of the commission. My name is Marie Farmer with Parker Poe, 301 Fateville Street in Raleigh. here on behalf of the applicant and property owner. I am joined tonight by the project's landscape architect, Jeremy Anderson with Thomasson Hutton, and Jeff Hawindale, the project's traffic engineer with Timman's Group.

Jeff was hired by the applicant and is with us tonight because the applicant did want to better understand the development's traffic impacts based on community feedback despite the size of this proposed development which falls well below the thresholds for a TIA. So both uh Jeremy and Jeff will be available to answer questions this evening. The property owner bringing this proposal tonight is a local resident with a small family business that has owned the property for many years and has partnered with two friends to develop the site. While this is not what they do full-time, through their family

business, they have site work experience with both private and municipal projects, including with the city of Durham, and will complete the horizontal site work for this development while looking for a partner to complete the vertical build. The applicant is excited for the opportunity to take on this project which offers a new housing type within close proximity to existing food, retail, parks, trails, and transit with environmental and income restricted commitments. So again, this request is to reszone two parcels within the city limits along Infinity Road just east of the intersection of North Roxboro Street and Infinity. The total acreage for the property is a little over 18 acres, but the actual developable area is much smaller given the environmental features that are located on the site, which will require a 100 ft stream buffer and the voluntary environmental commitments

made, including the 25% tree coverage. As a result, approximately 35% of the site will remain undeveloped. The current zoning on the site is residential suburban 20 and the applicant is requesting plan development residential and office and institutional with a textual development plan which will allow for a small-scale mixeduse project with town houses and small office consistent with the comprehensive plan. The place type map does identify three different designations for this site.

transit opportunity area, mixed residential neighborhood, and recreation and open space. So, we will just touch on each of those three designations briefly. The transit opportunity area describes moderately sized places found throughout the community at the junction of major transit stops with development that supports the use of transit. These areas are described as important for connecting neighborhoods to transit

service and transit riders to where they need to go without using a car. The design of these areas should include buildings located close together with a mix of uses, easy access to the street, and designed to serve the daily needs of residents. Development of these areas should seek to find spaces that are already served by transit, filling in vacant lots or parking lots, and protecting natural spaces that preserve environmental resources. The mixed residential neighborhood describes neighborhoods built on previously undeveloped or forested land designed to add a diversity of housing types at different price points and densities with the primary use being residential but allowing supporting commercial uses.

Mixed residential neighborhoods smaller than 20 developable acres should increase the mix of housing types in the immediate vicinity. And then finally, the recreation and open space areas should remain free from development with the exception of minimal structures to support recreational activities. And so

our proposal tonight does meet each of these designations because we are proposing a mix of uses including new housing types near existing single family and commercial uses and transit services. All while protecting the most environmentally sensitive areas of the site by clustering the buildings close together. ensuring that 50% of the open space that is provided will contain environmentally sensitive areas and providing an additional 5% tree preservation over what is required by the UDO and a 100 ft stream buffer that aligns with that recreation and open space that is identified on the site. Other key commitments that are offered by this proposal include existing flood planes and wetlands not being disturbed except for access native trees being provided for new trees that are planted. variation in appearance for the residential units. Active open space,

again, incomerestricted units, 5% at 80% AMI for 30 years. Uh, and those will contain two or more bedrooms and be dispersed throughout and indistinguishable from the market rate units. And then finally, a $15,000 contribution to Durham Public Schools. Additionally, the applicant has added a text commitment to provide a pedestrian crosswalk with accommodations for safe crossing at Windermir Drive in response to feedback received from neighbors, city staff, and BPAC.

If approved by DOT, this will provide residents pedestrian access to the parks and trails on the other side of Infinity Road that you can see here on the screen. This request is consistent with 22 of 25 applicable policies of the comprehensive plan. We're consistent with six of those policies by meeting those standards and 16 policies by exceeding those standards.

We are also consistent with three out of the four four applicable transit opportunity area policies by providing incomerestricted units in a location near jobs, services, and transit and a mix of uses at a neighborhood oriented scale. And so finally, this resoning is consistent with the review criteria in the UDO. This proposal is consistent with the comprehensive plan. It's compatible with the zoning and conforming uses of nearby property.

It will improve the balance of uses in the area by providing new housing types and non-residential that will meet demand here in Durham. And there is adequate infrastructure available to support the proposed development. So, thank you for your time and we look forward to answering any questions you may have. Thank you. Do community members in person. Jeff

Coendell. >> Okay. So Samantha Boyd, Jeremy Anderson, Marie Farmer. These are all parts of the team.

Jax Eston part of the team or is No. Okay. Hello, my name is Jax Epston and I live in Hickory Ridge, so the neighborhood just north of this proposal resoning. And me and my neighbors are pretty concerned about this as currently proposed.

So, first, we all know we need affordable housing. Uh, this isn't necessarily addressing that issue. only five affordable units at 80% AMI is not sufficient and affordability is a very um an issue in the census track. 9% of renters are cost burdened which is more than the county average. So these developments

could really drive up the cost for folks and potentially displace. Um, I also just want to say that as someone who lives in the area, the current built environment and infrastructure is absolutely cannot handle these developments, especially in conjunction with the other proposed development right next door adjacent. Um, we need uh improvements there first. We need safer ways to walk, bike to our schools, libraries, and businesses.

There are no sidewalks. There are no crosswalks uh near this development or for the surrounding neighbors. and one crosswalk is not going to be sufficient to um fix that issue. So, it's hard to see how this development in conjunction with the other proposed resoning right next door is going to support the people of Durham.

There are 176 town homes going in at Lada Park about a mile away. 300 units going in about 2 miles south on Duke Street. Rental vacancy remains remains higher. So unless this development is going to be actual affordable housing and improve the area's infrastructure and traffic, it's really not needed as proposed. So um

this feels like developments for development sake and not every parcel of land in Durham needs to be developed and it's not bringing the housing, transportation improvements or green space that we need to Durham. So, I ask that you deny this proposal as written and I'm sure a lot of people on Zoom are going to share more about the traffic issues uh which there are many many many at that intersection. Thank you. >> Thank you.

Uh any community members on Zoom needs to raise your uh Vanessa Safy Hello. Uh, my name is Vanessa Safy. I am a resident at 413 Crush View Drive in Durham in the same Hickory Ridge neighborhood that is just north of this proposed development. Um, >> can you hear me?

>> Yes, we can hear you. >> Thank you. Sorry. I didn't want to keep

going if nobody could hear me. Um the concerns that I come to you with this evening are more so directed around um the schools. For example, the adjacent middle school Carrington is currently at 96% capacity. Um and I don't really know like there's no way to know who will move in, but essentially this has always been a very like um familyfriendly neighborhood.

and um adding to that uh number specifically feels like um it should be looked at. But I also mostly wanted to speak in support of the development um given some conditions the affordable the number the percentage of affordable units and the percentage by which they are deemed affordable does seem both low and high. A higher percentage of affordable units would be more um beneficial and lowering the AMI percentage. Um I was wondering if there

is any way to um increase the percentage of undeveloped land on the property. Um I do support the crosswalk but also the recommendations from um the bike was it BPAC about bike lanes and making it like fully accessible um because sure the report can say that they are half a mile within a park but you can't actually walk to any park from that corner um not without risking life and limb. Um, so any support from the developer on actually being able to get to a green destination um would be well received and any work that they can do in conjunction with the adjacent development around transportation and crosswalks would be also well received. Thank you. >> Thank you, Matteline Eldridge.

Hello. Are you able to hear me? >> Yes. Please state your name and address for the record.

>> Yes. My name is Maline Eldridge and I live at 115 Windmir Drive. Um, and I wanted to say thank you, Madam Chair, and the planning commission. Um, so I live from where the infinity uh presided infiniti development is taking place.

Um, I have strong concerns regarding this development. In July of 2025, my neighborhood area and the park behind it flooded considerably. I could see flood water outside uh from my back porch which sat flooding the entire park and multiple neighbors homes. It's the water stayed in the park for months.

And I'm concerned about the environmental impact of further flooding caused by further development. Um, I do not support the current proposal and ask that you deny the zoning map request. I also am concerned that if you go forward, you um I would prefer that you have a far

higher percentage of affordable housing as others have mentioned. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anybody else on the Zoom wishing to speak on this item?

Carl Jimski. Yes. Can you hear me? >> Yes.

Please state your name and address for the record. >> Carolles, 4917 Stevens Lane. I agree with everybody here and I disagree with the proposal of this property. My two concerns are that uh under the current uh that they're spinning the bicycle and pedestrian administration commission uh had recommended to for this project that would better suit the need of the community uh adopted plans vision zero goals and the goals of the Durham comprehensive plan that they recommend a 12- foot paved multi-use path

with um a 10-ft buffer from the road with trees lining the buffer. They have decided to only do a 10-ft shared path and no buffer. So, that's one concern is why aren't they doing what was recommended? The second one is in the 5,000 square foot building. They've only have in the proposal that um they have submitted that no residential use except for drive. I think it's important in our communities with the neighbors Stevens Woods, Eno Trace, Vantage Point, uh, River Forest, and all the North Dorm, we're family orientated, and we really don't want to see any more um, or we'd like to prohibit the use of any drive-thru facility, nightclubs, bars, pay lenders, adult establishments, legal internet, sweep, state, cafes,

manufacturing, or warehouses of any kind. So, I'd like to see those two changes. And again, thank you for hearing my concerns and I agree with everybody else. Currently, I don't support this um proposal.

Thank you. >> Thank you, Jeff Stury. >> Yes, ma'am. Uh thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks to two of your staff that helped an aging lite get connected earlier today.

Uh the uh >> can you please state your address for the record? >> Three Wheat Stone Court uh what Carl just said about the restrictions. Uh I want to echo for Chick-fil-A uh Z250018. It talks about no nightclubs or bar, no indoor firing ranges, payday lenders, adult establishments. We'd like those

same protections for our family oriented neighborhoods. Uh in looking at the executive uh summary that your staff prepared, they talk about a text commitment prior to the issuance of a certificate of compliance. It talks in point A, construct an exclusive eastbound left turn lane on Infinity Road at point A. construct an exclusive eastbound left turn lane on Infinity Road at access point B.

I can't on your map see where these points are and there doesn't seem to be any information on who is building these and when. Uh I'm hoping that there'll be infrastructure to increase traffic flow before all this gets built. Otherwise, you're just uh taking a pontoon [clears throat] fishing trip and agreeing only to go

back to Walmart for uh life jackets if they're needed. Please do not let this go forward without the necessary infrastructure for roads and turns. The people in River Forest are going to be stuck not being able to make a left turn onto Infinity because of the increase in traffic. Uh, and there were a number of very good comments in the Dur Durham reszoning explorer, which I hope y'all have read all 16 of them.

Uh, I I'm not going to read them because I don't have time, but uh, one of the comments was that, uh, North Carolina Department of Transportation is no longer committed to improving the intersection. Without improvement, this will become more of a nightmare than it already is. So, I ask that you do not approve this plan tonight.

And thank you for hearing me. >> Thank you. Anybody else on the Zoom wishing to speak? Please raise your hand.

>> No. Seeing nobody, would the applicant care to respond to some of these concerns? Okay. >> Oh, Samantha Boyd.

Yes. >> Oh, hi. >> My name is Samantha Boyd. I live in River Forest, 224 Omega Road.

The um NC do is suggesting they take High Metal, which is our only access to go to the light and turn left on Roxboro Road. Omega Road, there's no lefthand turn. We asked for a light. I've been there since 1990. They made a sign saying no left turn instead. Windmir, we

no longer have access to that road at all. the city or I don't know who blocked it off and uh we basically would be entrapped in our own neighborhood. There has been increase in crime. I also mentioned that a lot of people are fixed income.

Taxes will be raised. My tax was doubled. I'm 64 years old and have yet to make $40,000 a year. So, we couldn't afford these houses whether they're affordable or what.

But that's also the fear of my land which I want to leave to my grandchildren and my descendants. I'm being taxed out of it. And everything looks good on paper, but think about it. Each house has two to four cars. We were told that there was no need to

have a traffic study. It was a need. The trees that they're mentioning that are navy native, they're not shade trees. We had a flood.

People were walking with the water up to their chest from the developments and stuff that's already gone forth. I've been there since 1990. Fran did not even make the water increase that high. My wall fell down what in September from the rain.

That was two weeks. We had one night and that flood increased to where people were afraid for their lives and then we didn't have flood insurance. So I am the president of River Forest. Thank you.

I thank you for listening. Please vote against this. >> Thank you. Anybody else in the

galley gallery wishing to speak on this? Okay. The applicant, would you care to respond? >> Yes.

There were quite a few things um I will try to address as much as I can. Uh first of all with regard to affordability, I think as uh Commissioner Richie had mentioned for the project that was just heard before this one, uh commitment that is higher than 5% is more common or typical for projects at a higher density. I believe that the project that was just heard before this one was around 300 units. this project is well below uh 100 units and uh so based on that density being able to absorb the cost of subsidizing the units that are being provided would be much more difficult as I'd also explained the applicant for this project is not a seasoned developer it is the

property owner themselves that are looking to pursue this development and so we are proud of the commitment four or 5% at 80% AMI for 30 years that has been offered uh with this proposal. Uh a comment was made about connectivity and that sidewalks should be incorporated or installed before uh the development uh it takes place. Um, as the commissioners uh have probably um seen from other projects, oftent times the sidewalks and multi-use paths that are built within the city are through reszoning efforts and through the private investment of developers. That is often how uh the sidewalks and multi-use paths in the city get developed. And so, not only will this project be providing a multi-use path, as was mentioned um by a a commentator, uh uh the project next door will also install a multi-use path and then that will ultimately provide that full

connection that will be made on Infinity Road to the intersection at Roxboro. So, it will be through private investment through projects like this that those connections and the the connection here in particular will be made. uh a comment was made with regard to the environmental commitments. Um and so again I would just like to note um in particular a comment was made about uh wanting more undisturbed area on this project.

As I explained 35% of this site uh will be undisturbed and again this is a fairly small site. It's around 18 acres. Again, we are providing 25% tree preservation, which is well over what is required by the UDO. Uh there was a comment about schools, particularly the capacity of the middle school, which is the only uh school capacity that is above 90% in this area. This project will uh according to the staff report um is proposed to

potentially generate five students um for the middle school in particular. So that is relatively low um as uh the commission knows um it is often common for developers to donate money to Durham public schools around $500 per student. Um here we are over $3,000 above the amount that would be um based on on those numbers. Um if there are any further questions particularly as it relates to traffic again we do have our traffic engineer that's available.

Thank you. >> Thank you. The public hearing is now closed. We are open for comments from commissioners discussion.

Any questions? comments. >> You have a hand back there. >> Yes. >> Are we opening the public hearing?

>> Sorry, I just I have to say really quick, there is no there are no crosswalks or sidewalks at the intersection. So, they will be connecting to nothing. I just need to make that clear for folks who are not familiar with this intersection. Um, and I just want to say that sometimes we're talking about minimums and policies and sometimes the minimums just they're not they're not good enough.

So, I want us to do better. Thank you. >> Thank you. The public hearing is now closed.

Any commissioner comments or questions? Commissioner Chicowski. >> Uh, thank you, Chair. A question for the applicant.

Uh are there any additional sidewalk or crosswalk commitments that you're willing to make just to address some of the community concerns? >> Um so we are providing uh the 10-ft multi-use path along the frontage, but that is the only property that this owner um would be able to make improvements on. We would not be able to make improvements on on property that they do not own um or have control over. >> Thank you.

Any other questions or comments from the commissioners? I have some questions for the applicant. Um, is there going to be a turn lane on the road? So, there will be um as I think um one of the the comments was made about the traffic improvements that are included with the tax commitments.

So you will see in the textual development plan there are three different commitments regarding turn lanes that will be provided at the access points. I think there was some confusion with regard to the access points. So I can pull up on screen here. I think that this is the best way to illustrate the residential portion of the site which we are proposing to to reszone to the PDR. That is the the longer parcel in purple. So one access point would be provided to that parcel for the residential and then the second access point would be the

smaller parcel that is in the burnt orange color. That is where the second access would be located uh to access the small uh office development. And so turn lanes would be provided on Infinity Road at both access points. And there would be a two-way left turn lane there, a continuous two-way left turn lane.

>> And those two parts of the development are not going to be connected because of the recreation and open space. >> That is Yeah. Well, and that is where our 100 ft stream buffer will be located. >> Okay.

And can you address the concerns about what this commercial is going to be? Are you able to >> say it's not going to be any nightclubs or I mean >> Yes. Well, and I will let staff correct me if I'm wrong um on any of the particular uses that are permitted, but I think that there is some confusion with regard to the uses that are permitted in the OI zoning district. And so only the uses that are listed in

Durham's use table for the OI district would be permitted. And I think a lot of the uses that were mentioned um by neighbors are not uses that would be permitted in the OI district. And then I think someone had mentioned the the drive-throughs. We specifically listed in our text uh commitments that drive-throughs would not be permitted, but generally speaking, it is only office uses.

There's very other uh limited uses that would be permitted in the OI. I'll let Andy. >> Thank you. So, the OI district is designed to limit a lot of the commercial uses that are found in the commercial general type zoning district.

So, what was talked about in terms of the Chick-fil-A and Roxboro, that is a commercial general resoning that's limiting those electronic gaming um operations, nightclubs and bars and firing ranges. By design, the OIT does not include those uses. >> Okay. Thank you. And

concerning the traffic, there is a proposal for another project on Roxboro that may abut the back of this. Is I don't know if you know this yet. Is there a plan for connection? And if there is, because that would help alleviate some of this traffic coming all out on Infiniti.

Is is that been discussed? >> Yes, absolutely. So, one of the comments that we received during our review of this case from city transportation was about the need for stubouts both to the north and to the west. And so, we will provide uh those uh stubouts at site plan and that will provide that through connection for this this property.

So, residents of this development and then if that other development moves forward, there would be that that through connection to Roxboro. >> Okay. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? No. May I have a motion to move case Z25

quadruple08 preserve at infinity forward with a favorable recommendation. Chair, regarding case Z25, quadruple08 preserve at infinity, I move that we forward this case to city council with a favorable recommendation for approval. >> Second. >> It has been moved by Vice Chair Cameron and seconded by Commissioner Hunter to move this case forward with a favorable recommendation.

May we have old school style voting, please? What >> is it working? Okay, it it's work. It sound seems to be working.

So, we're going to try the electronic version this time. >> Okay, open the electronic voting. The motion fails six to five.

The next item on the agenda is Z 25012 Enclave at Little Creek. May we have the staff report, please? >> Thank you. 78 acres and located at 50 5524 and 5515 George King Road.

The current zoning of the parcels are residential suburban 20. 006 006 to allow up to 230 town houses, multiplexes, and or apartments. The applicant is seeking an initial zoning of RS20 county jurisdiction to RS20 city jurisdiction for the other parcel, specifically read 140495. Any use uh within the RS20 district will

be allowed on that parcel. The properties are currently designated mixed residential neighborhood, transit opportunity area, and recreation open space on the place type map. The proposed was generally consistent with the place types. No change to the place type map would be required.

The existing zoning is residential suburban 20. The site is surrounded by residential suburban 20 to the north, east, and south. Uh the town of Chapel Hill jurisdiction R-Tway zoning is adjacent to the west. This aerial map shows the general location of the property.

The majority the majority of the property is currently designated mixed residential neighborhood. Southern portion of the site is designated recreation and open space to acknowledge the adjacent natural heritage area. The proposed zoning was determined consistent with the designated place types. The applicant has included text commitments including environmental commitments, affordable housing, a DPS contribution, and a provision for the

Little Creek Greenway. The applicant held neighborhood meetings on April 29th and December 11th, 2025. There are two comments on the Dermoning Explorer related to the case, one of which is neutral and one in opposition. Uh the proposal is consistent with the place type map designations of mixed residential neighborhood transit opportunity area recreation and open space and consistent with 21 of 31 applicable policies of the comprehensive plan.

Thank you. And staff the applicant are available for any questions. >> Thank you. The chair is now opening the public hearing.

We have community members in person that have signed up to speak. the applicant. You can have the applicant first. >> Thanks again for the presentation and good evening once again, chair, vice

chair, members of the planning commission. I'm Neil Gos, attorney at the Morning Star Law Group, uh 700 West Main Street in Durham. [clears throat] Tim Cyers with Unity is also with me tonight. uh they've been engaged by the applicant for the land planning and engineering.

So like my last project, I want to start by taking a moment to explain a few oddities about this project. First of all, the current owner of this parcel, which is not my client, not my applicant, um also owns a small 72 acre parcel on the other side of George King Road. Our annexation application includes that parcel, but that parcel is not part of this project. Uh we're we are annexing that parcel to further close the donut hole, but that you know, if you were reading about RS20 zoning, that's what that is.

It's not really part of the project. It's just annexation. 88 acres in total, but a portion of it is within Chapel Hill's

planning jurisdiction. And this is reflected on the map that's in your um agenda packet. And uh if you think of the parcel as kind of a boot with the heel of that boot being out on George King Road, it's the toe of the boot that is in Chapel Hills planning jurisdiction that that section of the property also is not part of our application, not part of our project. So just to make it clear on what what is and isn't.

Now about the project. So what we're talking about here is a maximum of 230 units. We have committed to providing at least 20% of those units as affordable units. And in this case, I'm talking about affordable as that's defined in the UDO.

And I don't have to tell you that 20% on a project of this size is an enormous commitment. At 230 total units, that would be 184 market rate units and 46 affordable units. And that's a pretty great project mix. Uh the staff report talks a little bit about the mix of housing. And I wanted to shed some light on that. We have a commitment here to a

minimum of 20% of the units being apartments. And that's because we intend to deliver the affordable units as apartments. The remaining units will look like town homes. Um whether they are town homes will depend on how they are developed.

If each unit is developed on its own single tax parcel, that would be considered town homes. But if multiple units are built on one tax lot, then under the UDO, those are called apartments even though they look exactly like town homes. Um, and you know, having that flexibility here gives my client the the ability to build them as either true town homes, for example, if the units are for sale or as apartments that look exactly like town homes if the units are for rent. So there will be a mix of housing, you know, in the way that it looks. It's just kind of we're not clear on what to call it uh because of it will depend on how it's developed. I also want to touch on the

environmental components of the project. First of all, the property has streams that run through it. And whenever there are streams, we always want to be careful to not impact them or otherwise limit impact to them. That's not really a possibility on this property, and it's for good reason.

The Southwest Durham Southeast Chapel Collector Street Plan, which is an adopted transportation plan, shows collector roads going through the property, crossing streams, and impacting environmentally sensitive areas. Now, we believe that the project we intend to build will require only one stream crossing, which is the extension of Lancaster Drive. That's one of the planned collector streets on the adopted plan. it goes, you know, through the property. But the future buildout of the collector street plan, perhaps by NC DOT or the city or whoever ends up building that will require and in fact is planned for significantly more impacts to those areas. In fact, as part of this project,

we will be dedicating rightofway in some of those environmentally sensitive areas for that planned future buildout. And I wanted to call that out because the staff report notes that the project is inconsistent with several policies related to the preservation of natural heritage areas. Practically speaking, those areas cannot be protected and in fact impacts to those areas are already planned for transportation infrastructure through the city's adopted transportation plans. But that doesn't mean we haven't taken those impacts lightly.

You know, as as it's noted in the staff report, we have committed to 22% tree coverage when only 7% tree coverage would be required. We also have reduced our impervious to 60%. We've eliminated allowable impacts to wetlands. You know, so in my opinion, we are doing what we can to limit our environmental impacts while still addressing the city's critical infrastructure and housing needs. Finally, I want to give a hand to our neighbors

to the west who formed a small, manageable committee that interfaces with our team regularly to discuss neighborhood concerns and possible solutions. In my opinion, it really has been quite a collaborative effort. We have a few commitments we are adding to the project to address their concerns. These commitments have already been run by staff.

The first deals with height. Building height already is limited to 45 feet for the entire project. But to provide a better transition from the existing housing to our west, we want to further limit height to no more than 40 ft within the area that is 70 ft from our western property line. Next, we also are committing to having a 40 foot undisturbed buffer along our western property line. And then finally, I would say I guess we are, let's say behind that 40 foot buffer, we are committing to planting 30 evergreen understory trees for every 100 linear feet where new houses are planted

in our project. And this is of course to provide both a natural buffer through preservation of the existing trees, but those are mature trees. They're quite tall. it can be and they don't necessarily provide the visual block that that you might want from vegetative screening.

That's where the evergreen understory trees come in and they're quite dense. Um, and so that's what those conditions are meant to address. We also have spoken with the neighbors about various other concerns that are not necessarily gerine to zoning and have committed to working with them on solutions to those items as well. We've identified uh some potential avenues for solutions.

So, uh, and they're committed to working with us to to make some of those things happen as well. So, we're excited about that. In general, I think it's been a very productive interaction that has helped shape the project for a better result. Uh this is an aggressive project in that it delivers market rate housing, affordable housing, tons of infrastructure, which I haven't gone through completely, but tons of infrastructure, critical rights of ways,

and it does this all while exceeding tree coverage requirements, minimizing environmental impacts where possible, and addressing several neighborhood concerns. I think these are the types of projects that are important for our city and for the future of our city. you know, mixed income community spread throughout the city will provide similar opportunities for a variety of people. Our team is available to answer any questions you may have and we thank you for your time tonight.

>> Thank you. Did I lose my signup sheet community members in person wishing to speak on Enclave at Little Creek? Number one, Paul Casey.

>> Uh, thank you. My name is Paul Casey. I live at 109 Sheffield Circle in the Oaks. Uh, good evening, Madame Chair and members of the planning commission, and thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.

We're residents of the Oaks neighborhood and we are here to highlight why we believe Lancaster is unsafe to serve as a through street for heavy traffic. Our concerns focus on two primary areas where the existing infrastructure cannot support increased volume. First, Lancaster Drive is a residential street defined by private driveways, curb cuts, and high pedestrian activity. Because we do not have individual mailboxes at our homes, residents, including many elderly neighbors, must cross the street daily to access shared shared mailbox stations.

This is a walking neighborhood where families, children, and pet owners are constantly active. Combined with the fact that the street lighting is extremely limited, introducing through traffic into this environment creates an immediate and preventable safety hazard. Second, Lancaster Drive functions as the

central traffic hub for the Chapel Country Club. The road divides the golf course and serves about 150 space parking lot supporting a membership of approximately 800 people. This generates a constant flow of vehicles along with multiple golf cart and pedestrian crossings that are often obscured to drivers unfamiliar with this area. During the summer and throughout club events, families legally park on both sides of the street to access the entire club facility, including the swimming pool, the tennis courts, the golf course, and the restaurant.

This significantly narrows the roadway and creates dangerous blind spots. Adding high volume through traffic to a street where children are biking and visibility is already restricted is an unacceptable risk to public safety. In light of these concerns, we have several questions for the committee. With the development of Lee Valley, Lee Village, and the Enclave, has a traffic study been performed to analyze the cumulative daily traffic numbers for all related roads upon completion? Additionally, will roundabouts, traffic calming

measures, and sidewalks be required with the submission of final site plans? Finally, what specific upgrades, sorry, what specific upgrades are being made to George King Road as it's the logical major artery for these new residents? We would also like to know about right in right out interchange could be added to George King Highway to uh to highway 54. While we understand the community is evolving, new housing is necessary.

>> Sorry, >> two minutes. >> Sorry, I'm I'm done. I'm almost done. Growth should not be accommodated by shifting traffic burdens into existing neighborhoods in ways that compromise safety.

We would we would ask you to reject this. >> Thank you, Charles Melo. Okay. Whatever order you're going to go in, number one, come up to the mic, the podium, and state your name and address,

please. >> Yes. Um, hello, commissioners. Good evening to you.

Um, my name is Melissa Kaine. I live at 405 Lancaster Drive in Durham County. And I am here tonight to speak to you about the Enclave project. And I appreciate Neil mentioning that we have been working cooperatively.

We have I'm part of that group. But I also want to say that it's a very large project. It has tremendous impacts on our neighborhood as you have just heard. And we need to have a position on this that is one of our homeowners association and we will not have that position for two weeks because our annual meeting membership meeting will happen on January 28th. Neil is aware of this as well. So, one thing you might consider is deferring your decision this evening so that we have an opportunity to

address these issues in depth, letting every voice in our neighborhood be heard. Very important for our future. We know our future depends on the annexation and the reasoning and decisions you make tonight and will be made forward with the council. Um, we depend on uh having our neighborhood fit into the vast amount of development in southwest Durham which includes Lee Village Center.

Um, I I would like to introduce members from my neighborhood tonight. I would like to ask them to stand and as residents of our um community, they will speak to you. I will not speak to you this evening as president of our homeowners association because I am not authorized to do so. I have opinions that are mine about the neighborhood. I have tried to imagine myself living in the neighborhood enclave and I have serious um sit I I

just can't imagine it. Um it's car dependent. It's not walkable. There is no transit.

It runs a gravel road. It is 60% impervious service with runoff to Jordan Lake watershed and um it is a satellite development contiguous upon the annexation of uh a village Lee Village center. Thank you. >> Thank you.

Who's next? >> Good evening. My name is Linda Shifflet, 100 tweet place, and I'm here to speak about the Enclave proposal and its alignment with Durham's adopted goals and objectives. When looking at the Enclave project using Durham's own policies, one conclusion stands out. The project meaningfully aligns with only one of the city's four key goals, and that is sense of place. The project does add housing, including affordable units, and it introduces some housing

diversity. But even here, alignment is incomplete. All town homes are built to rent, which eliminates home ownership and equity building opportunities that are that Durham has identified as a priority. Affordable housing is also separated from town homes rather than fully integrated.

Where the project falls most clearly out of alignment is with Durham's other three goals. Housing and neighborhoods. This is not a walkable or complete neighborhood and does not meet the 15-minute neighborhood standard. It is outside the city limits accessed by gravel roads with no sidewalks or lighting.

Families would have to walk over a mile to reach a school, a pharmacy, or basic services. Transportation. Residents will be entirely car dependent, generating potentially 1,800 vehicle trips per day on gravel roads and through nearby senior communities that lack sidewalks and the environment. The parcel sits upstream from protected land in the Lake Jordan watershed. It

has mature trees and multiple streams. Clear cutting that land creates 60% impervious surface, increases runoff into a protected watershed. These outcomes run counter to stated commitments to environmental protection, climate resilience, and sustainable growth. These are all long-term consequences that don't go away once construction is finished.

Reszoning and annexation should clearly advance the public interest and align with the city's adoptive plans. This proposal creates long-term costs and risk for the broader community. I respectfully ask you to weigh this proposal against the standards the city has already set for itself and vote no on this proposal. Thank you so very much for your service.

>> Thank you. [clears throat] Uh madam chairwoman, members of the committee, thank you. Uh my name is Craig Palms. My wife Abby and I live at 306 Lancaster Drive. [clears throat]

Now, I'm not anti-development, but I am pro-safety. I support the need for increased housing stock in our community, but the interests of all stakeholders must be thoroughly considered prior to making a recommendation. The North Carolina Department of Transportation recently launched a vision zero initiative that addresses three founding principles. All road users deserve safe streets.

No loss of life on our roads is acceptable. Injury or death is not an inevitable price to pay for mobility. We all have a fundamental right to move safely through our neighborhood. Dur maintains it will work with its partners to push for policies, funding, and street designs that put people first.

The Enclave proposal incorporates connection with three existing roads, Lancaster, Hees, and Dundalk Drive. If approved, the project will connect multiple existing residential neighborhoods to highly dense communities, generating significant new traffic on these roadways. Yet, there is

no mandate or plan to protect the residents. These connector roads are more than just a thorough affair for vehicles. As mentioned before, they're a path for pedestrians. It was probably not anticipated years ago that Lancaster would connect to such a dense development creating such untenable traffic volume.

We understand the developer of the Enclave has no mandate to upgrade infrastructure on the existing connector roadways to assure the safety of our neighborhoods. Yet, they are obligated to incorporate the latest safety measures and standards for the extensions of the existing roads. Implementing the vision zero principles on connector roads means building more sidewalks to fill existing gaps and connect communities. Installing protected bike lanes beyond simple paint strips and moving to physical barriers to ensure cyclist safety. Implementing traffic calming measures to manage speeds which data shows is a critical factor in the severity of crashes. And

finally, investing in pedestrian and bicycle safety on connector roads. We urge you not to approve the proposed enclave development without a plan in place assuring all citizens who traverse the new and existing roadways will be equally and adequately protected. Thank you. >> Thank you.

Next. >> Good evening. My name is Ruth Ross and I'm speaking on behalf of the residents of Helmdale Drive where I have lived for 26 years at 103 Helmdale. Helmsdale is a short quarter mile residential street ending in a culde-sac that has served 30 single family homes since 1988.

It has no sidewalks and was never designed to function as a collector or through street. There is one stop sign where residents exit left onto Lancaster Drive. To the right on Lancaster is a

cluster mailbox serving those 16 homes with frequent car and pedestrian traffic crossing Helmdale. Most Helmsdale residents are senior citizens. Grandchildren visit, residents walk dogs, and everyone must step into the street to collect mail from one of two cluster curbside mailboxes. The Little Creek Trail Eastman also brings pedestrians from outside the neighborhood.

Helmdale already functions as a shared pedestrian vehicle space and cannot safely handle more traffic. The proposed extension of two closely spaced street stubs only four homes apart would add traffic to a street that is already narrow and frequently occupied by curbside service and caregiving vehicles. This would fundamentally change the street and increase safety risk, especially for seniors and pedestrians. Homes on the east side of Helmsdale directly above the proposed Enclave

development. We ask for a height limit of no more than 40 feet and a minimum 50 foot planted buffer along the western boundary of the planned multif family town homes. In closing, we ask the commission to recognize that Helmdale Drive is not designed to absorb additional traffic and that any adjacent development must include strong buffers, clear height limits, and meaningful protections for this long-established neighborhood. Thank you for your attention, and we ask that you deny this application.

>> Thank you. Next. Good evening. My name is Michael Wilder.

I live at 405 Lancaster Drive uh in Chapel Hill, Durham County. I've lived there for 14 years. Prior to that, I lived in North Orange County, Chapel Hill for 26 years. I'm going to take my

time tonight to talk about traffic. That's a common denominator. Durham County, certainly in Orange and Chapel Hill. We've heard a lot about traffic problems throughout the cities.

We talk about the collector street plan. Collective street plan was designed in 2007. Most of the roads infrastructure with that plan have never been implemented. The cities of Durham and Chapel Hill have potentially relied on developers to pave the roads, widen the roads, create the sidewalk structure.

That hasn't happened. state funding is non-existent for collective street plans. So basically uh the terminology I've read about online is it's a zombie plan. The uh exist on paper, it's occasionally mentioned, but nobody ever builds roads. Now the um one of the biggest keys to all of this in Chapel Hill and the enclave

development and we certainly have appreciated the communication we've had with the the legal team and the developers and we've come away with a lot of uh cooperative aspects. But George King Road is is a serious problem. It runs about one point I'm sorry runs about 7,700 ft north to south. It starts in Durham County.

It's it's paved. There's a sidewalk through gutters. It goes south about 1,700 ft to the beginning of the Enclave development. Its gravel is 24 to 26 feet wide.

State of North Carolina maintains a maintenance easement, not a widening easement. George King Road north of Enclave cannot be widened and the developer doesn't intend to do anything to that road. South of Enclave, which is approximately 1,700 ft along uh George King Road, is currently gravel and it can potentially be widened. But the lower part of that is the Army Corps property which cannot be widened or

sidewalks cannot be provided. >> Thank you. You too. >> Thank you.

>> Next. >> My name is Patrice Gapan. I live at 305 Lancaster Drive in Durham County. There's several piated woodpeckers that live in the enclave behind there and they are um they mate for life.

They are non-migratory and they are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. That means it is illegal to harm, capture or kill them or disturb their nests without a permit. They are a keystone species because they create cavities and mature forests with large dead or decaying trees. These cavities in large diameter timber provide homes for other wildlife, making their habitat crucial for forest ecosystems. I've already seen a 50% decline in the number of bird species that are visit my bird feeders in the last six months due to the number of um the old trees being cut down. Please

protect this Jordan Creek watershed area. The southern portion of the site adjacent to the Army Corps land is designated as natural heritage land. It's named Little Creek Bottomlands and Slopes. The conservation value was C4 and the rarity value was R5.

It scored within both categories of conservation and rarity. In 2024, North Carolina lost 130,900 acres of natural forest. Urban tree canopy lost annually is around 4,500 acres. The Enclave parcel is heavily forested with mature specimen trees between 280 and 309, which will be clearcut.

Please help protect the beauty of Durham's tree canopy and wildlife. deny this application. Thank you. >> Thank you. We can uh display this or you guys are

already seeing it. Oh, perfect. Um, so I'm also here as a resident. >> Please state your name and address.

>> Sorry. Charles Mandello. And thank you to the commission for having us tonight. And I'm on Helmsdale Drive.

I'm also an American Society of Photoggramometry and remote sensing fellow. So I wanted to make um the committee at least aware of some of the changes that are happening in remote sensing. And you'll see these links for you for later use for not only this enclave uh proposal but for other things. Proximity to flood plane is a key.

Drainage alteration paths are a key. Um, lack of overt regulatory safeguards in areas outside of uh already defined high-risk zones make it easier for developers to move in and make changes. Uh, so I've given you a link and it's actually quite interesting. Uh, the USGS one, I'd ask you to take a take a look. um they actually funded NC State uh to evaluate

risks in development um that are approaching wetlands and approaching flood zones. And I'll show you some actual measurements I've made to u to highlight that. So again, I think it's interesting for you to have this for this opportunity and and for others you want to consider. I've also given you links to your own maps that show the areas of concern.

So hopefully this will help you in in making a decision. So unfortunately we all live through Helen. Um here you see some of the flooding areas on on the right hand side you see road and the difference in the black uh hashed and the blue we're already seeing in 2018 to 2019 a growth of flood risk. Um and this is without a vast amount of additional impermeable being added which is what we're talking about.

So, I've also done some measurements for you. Um, again, the uh NC State study highlights a concern of 820 feet. Well,

someone the parcels are already 484 and 329 ft. Any addition of impermeable surface puts all of those at risk. So, I would recommend obviously not going forward. >> Thank you for your time and I thank you for all the work you're doing.

Anyone else wishing to speak on this? >> Name and address. >> I'm Steve Con, 1406 Pennsylvania Avenue and chair of the Open Space Committee of the Durham Open Space and Trails Commission. As the citizen group that advises Durham's governments on all matters connected to open space, we have sent you our open space report card on the Enclave at Little Creek with grades of 1D and 3Fs. It's commendable that the developer is profering 22% tree save when only 7% is

required. Ordinarily, DOSS would be congratulating the developer for that profer. But in this case, there's a natural heritage area involved and the developer is choosing to ignore it. That's not okay.

The NC natural heritage program is charged with determining through field observations which parts of the state are important to conserve as open space for maintaining biodiversity. The city of Durham needs to trust and respect those designations by insisting that these areas remain undisturbed as much as possible and by putting them under permanent protection as is clearly stated by the Durham comprehensive plan. With no commitment to use its tree area for protecting the natural heritage area and creating an adequate buffer from the conservation gamelands to the south, the developers can do whatever they want in this natural heritage area. That is not acceptable. As the planning staff's consistency review shows, this resoning case fails to meet policy 79 on

protecting sensitive areas. Policy 81 on locating open space so it protects the most environmentally sensitive portions of the property and policy 83 on leaving such areas undisturbed. It also fails to meet policy 80 on protecting the integrity of nearby parklands and nature preserves unless and until the developers commit can commit to fully protecting the valuable Little Creek bottomlands and slopes natural heritage area as undisturbed open space in a natural buffer. We strongly recommend the enclave of Little Creek should not be reszoned.

>> Thank you. I have one name left on the list. Phil Post. Uh, good evening.

My name is Phil Post. I live at 104 St. Andrews Place, Durham County. Um, those of us who've lived within about a quarter mile of the proposed development for over 30 years, uh, you know that it's suboptimal if trees are to be cleared and developments to recoccur and streets are being

extended. However, I must say that um, the developers worked very closely with a small group of us on really important issues. Number one issue was that we asked for an undisturbed buffer and as you've heard they've guaranteed us a 40 foot undisturbed buffer. Beyond that they've uh we asked for evergreen plantings to enhance that the understory of those mature trees and they've offered the uh evergreen plantings.

Um the third ask was for twotory buildings to be uh immediately adjacent on the common property line. So folks in my neighborhood whom I'm representing Oaks 4, we've gone out, we've measured the 40 ft. We've identified where the evergreen plantings are to be and we've looked at where the twotory buildings will be. And as again I've said is suboptimal, but I have to thank the developer for listening to us and also be willing to cooperate on several other issues having to do with the extension of Lancaster

and where the affordable units will be and the possible closure of some adjacent streets. So uh overall, although we're not um delighted, we we uh very much appreciate the work that the developer has done. And so I stand before you asking you to approve the resoning and the annexation. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody on the Zoom wishing to speak on this item, please use the raise your hand function. Seeing nobody. Oh, Brian Sugg.

>> Thank you. Uh, my name is Brian Sugg. I live at 304 Lancaster Drive. I also want to echo what you just heard from Phil Post in terms of the appreciation for the

developer listening to our concerns and helping address a few of those as it relates to buffer building heights um, and the Evergreen Plantings. I just I want to try to quantify some of the traffic congestion and pedestrian concerns that you've heard from others. As noted in the agenda packet, within a half mile of this proposal, there are currently five other active projects. Three of those are currently in site plan and two of them, including Lee Village Center, are in resoning and annexation.

Those five projects currently total over 3,300 units. and with this proposal that it will add up to over 3,500 units within a half mile radius. And George King Road [clears throat] is right in the heart of that area. And speaking as a as a citizen who drives through this area every day, seeing the reszoning signs, seeing the ongoing construction, there seems to be just a lack of orchestration across these projects. And

there's just a lot happening right now. And it's and I say that because it's been very difficult for not only our residents in Oaksville but other residents in other communities just to understand what is the total impact from all of this I guess reszoning and construction that is happening right now. Um and and what I would say is as it relates to to traffic on George King, George King Road is not being paved to the north and from the northern property line to Creekide Elementary it would be a half mile of gravel. And so without that being paved, a lot of the concerns that you're hearing from residents is that traffic that needs to move to the north and to the west will actually come up through Lancaster Drive um as part of that collector street plan.

And that's where George King, if it's paid from north to south, would make such a huge difference, not only in the flow of traffic, but the traffic that would actually coming through these some of these neighborhoods that don't have sidewalks, that don't have a means to keep pedestrians off the streets. So I just wanted to call that to the the commission's attention. And I also wanted to thank Andy Lester who has offered a lot of clarity um to our

questions throughout this process too. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else on the Zoom wishing to speak, please use the raise your hand function.

Nope. Nobody. Okay. Would the applicant care to respond?

Yeah. Um, so thanks and this is Nil Go for the applicant. Once again, couple things. I mean, a lot of things were said and I recognize I don't have time to address all of them and I imagine some of you all will have similar questions or or concerns that were raised by um some of the speakers and so we'll be happy to answer them in that format as well. Um, I did want to touch on the uh environmental impacts in in the natural heritage area. I'm I'm glad uh the representative from DOSS was here

and mentioned that the natural heritage program is charged with doing field observations and I just want to make one note. No one from that program from that organization has visited this property to do a field observation of any kind. So, how it was determined, I don't know. Uh, but to to suggest that there was some boots on the ground determination, I just want to be clear that did not happen.

That was not the case here. Um, now I I also just want to point out the hypocrisy in some of the things that have been said. The Natural Heritage Program, if you don't know what it is, is a nonregulatory program. Why it exists, I really couldn't tell you, but the it is non-regulatory and um it does provide valuable information about existing uh forest lands, things like that.

However, no one has visited this site to say to to determine anything with any specificity. Number one. Number two, yes, there are several

policies in the comp plan that are that mention the natural heritage program and otherwise encourage the preservation of environmentally sensitive areas. However, the city's own adopted transportation plans put roads directly through those areas. And I want to be clear, the roads could have gone somewhere else. You know, I I recognize there are some features, streams you have to cross in order to get from one section to another.

I get that. But there there's a road that is planned on this property that runs directly within the natural heritage corridor. It's not like it does anything to minimize that impact as part of the collector street plan. Luckily, we've designed the project in a way that isn't that doesn't need that.

So, we will be dedicating the rightway for it, but we're trying to avoid as many impacts as we can. The simple fact of the matter is that there are competing policies and plans in Durham's uh in Durham's planning world that the applicant has had to contend with here. I know my time is up and I look forward to answering

other questions for you. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right, we're closing the public hearing and opening it for Commissioner discussion.

Any Commissioner questions, comments? Commissioner Montes? >> Yeah, thanks. Quick question for that applicant.

Um, obviously there's a lot of traffic concerns and everything and this this project in particular has been out out there for a while. There's been a lot of attempts at trying to reszone this. Um, it's my personal opinion that this is going to happen inevitably. There's there's no stopping it. It's needed for to to supply the Durham's housing supply. And my question to the applicant really is and it's it states it on the on the staff report, but I just want to confirm starting from NC54 road um into

that gravel drive, the text commitment is to pave that road from there all the way up to the northern property line of the subject property to NC DOT standards. Is that right? >> Yeah, actually and I saw that too. Um that is the commitment with one caveat.

There is a another project which I should know because our firm represents it. Lee Village or Lee Valley, I can't remember which is which that is um across the street. And that project um is is going to implement uh another aspect of the transportation plan which is the what's the word I'm looking for? Realignment of George King Road. So depending on when each of these projects be becomes or starts to develop if we develop before that project for example then yes that's the commitment right >> if we develop after the project as I understand it what that means is instead

of going through army corps land we will go all the way down our site and then essentially the road gets realigned through Lee village uh George King road will get realigned through Lee Village. So, we would not be actually impacting or paving or or whatever um whatever other improvements to the se the gravel section of the road that currently exists on Army Corps land. >> Yeah. Well, from my eyes, that's I can't I didn't measure how far it is from the southern property line all the way down to that road, but it seems like that's a tremendous amount of off-site road improvements that are really valuable to George King Road.

Um I think Caster Drive is inevitably going to go through there. [clears throat and cough] Um and then one other question I had is in the staff report it does say that uh go transit um was you know requesting for a bus stop as close to NC highway as possible or that intersection. I understand perhaps through uh easements

may be hard to accomplish, but um is could we consider perhaps even putting an easement uh set aside for the transit for a future development or um it seems like in the bottom right hand corner of the development. There's pretty undevelopable little corner there that could easily be, you know, a small 20 by 20 or bus transit easement could be placed there for future connection. Um, if that is the the request of um >> All right, I'm I'm gonna be honest. You've caught me off guard here because I don't recall the transit authority providing that comment to us.

I think there was a comment from BPAC uh suggesting that we work with Go Triangle on a transit stop and so um >> yeah, Go Triangle. Um they requested a build a bus stop near an intersection of Highway 54 and wasn't done. So I'm just

curious. I mean, I understand perhaps because it's environmentally sensitive areas that it's hard to commit to something like that, but I mean, I could see an easement easily being placed there for future connection. >> I think that's something we can look into, but I'm I'm just being honest with you. I don't recall us talking about that specifically.

We get a triangle, so that might be on me. >> I Yeah, I I read it through the uh staff report. I should have reached out earlier if that was a question or if maybe that was a mistake on the staff report, but uh anyways, thank you. Appreciate it.

>> All right. >> Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Nope. May I have a motion to move case Z 25 triple012 Enclave at Little Creek forward with a favorable recommendation.

Chair Shagaras regarding case Z25 triple015 oh sorry triple012 that's enclave at Little Creek. Um, I move that we forward this case to city council with a favorable recommendation for approval. >> Second. >> It has been moved by Vice Chair Cameron and seconded by Commissioner Hunter to move this case forward with a favorable recommendation.

May we have the electronic voting, please? The motion fails 8 to three. We will take a 15minute break to allow close captioning to catch up.

Be back at 7:43. Thank you.

That's

Oh, I just coming back.

>> I assume

Yeah. Here they go. >> [clears throat]

>> But once they give it to you, that's done. Think about it. Oh, it's mistake. Where was

everybody? But Anra is here. Oh, she left. Okay.

Okay. Okay. So, she'll be I'll just acknowledge that you have to leave it. All right, we are going to call the meeting back to order.

Next item on the agenda is Z250151 1612 Carpenter Fletcher 2. May we have the staff report, please? Thank you, Chair Shagaras, Vice Chair Cameron, and the rest of the the remain uh other members of the planning commission, Aaron Kaine with the planning department. Um just to begin, uh Commissioner Bailey has left but did not ask for an absence. Therefore, she will be a yes vote on all uh items going

forward per the rules of procedure. This requ uh this request is Z250015 1612 Carpenter Fletcher Road 2. 09 acres from commercial general with a textual development plan and a small sliver of office and institutional to commercial general with a textual development plan. Currently, the textual development plan limits the permitted uses on the site to a health club or studio only.

Although the main zoning district won't change, the new proposed development plan will expand the list of permitted uses. The existing zoning is predominantly commercial general, although it is difficult to see there is a small bit of office and institutional on the southern portion of the site. This resoning will align the commercial general zoning with

the parcel lie. The aerial map shows the parcel with the existing development. It is used as a yoga studio and gym as prescribed in the existing textual development plan. The property is currently designated neighborhood services on the place type map.

The proposed resoning is determined to be consistent with that designation. Again, the existing development plan limits uses on the site to a health club or studio. The proposed development plan permits the uses as shown here. Two meetings were held in accordance with the neighborhood meeting guidelines.

Six community members attended the first and no one attended the second. There have been no comments on the Durham Rezoning Explorer for this case. The proposal is consistent with seven of 13 applicable comprehensive plan policies and is generally consistent with the place type designation of neighborhood services. Thank you. Staff and the applicant are available to

answer any questions. >> Thank you. Chair is now opening the public hearing. May we have the applicant, please?

>> Good evening. I'm Mike Klein with MRK Planning Consulting. Um I I was going to get a give a little bit. I'm sorry.

7204 Stone Cliff Drive, Raleigh, North Carolina. I was going to get give a bit of uh um an overview of the site, but Aaron just did that. So um uh the site was last reszoned in 2019 from office institutional to commercial general and uh with a textural development plan limiting the uses on that site to that the single uh retail retail use uh further limited to um health and fitness. the current owner and tenant Arkion Hot Yoga are uh seeking to sell

and uh vacate the site. So, we're trying to simply expand the range of uses such that the site can be appropriately marketed to new owners and tenants. Um uh going over the the the staff report today um I see mention uh frequently of uh of daycare use and we have left daycare use out of our list of uses. We were trying to focus on um potentially less intensive uses.

Um and the impression was that daycare might be in too intense for the site, but um it seems like there is some interest in having that included. Uh we'd be perfectly happy to uh include that into the list of uses as as well as any other um use that the planning commission thinks is valuable. uh particularly as there's a a potential development of 300

plus residential units coming uh basically next door to the south. Um if the commission has any questions um happy to answer them and again we're uh amendable to expanding the range of uses if the commission uh thinks that's necessary. Thank you. Any uh community members in person wishing to speak on this?

Did anybody sign up on the sheet? No. Anybody on the Zoom use the raise your hand function? All right.

Seeing nobody wishing to speak, chair is closing the public hearing. and open for commissioner discussion. Commissioner Chicowski.

>> Uh, thank you, Chair. I think more more of a comment than anything. I I certainly would feel comfortable with one of the uses being expanded for for daycare. And so, I guess my question for staff is well, is that is that a thing that we can recommend now or how does how does that work?

>> It's certainly something you can recommend. It's also something the applicant can agree to profer at this time. And um if if you'll agree to um formally profer to also include uh care, we would call it care centers. Um then we can simply amend the development plan before it goes before the city council.

>> I just I didn't hear that clearly. Was it daycare? >> Yes. >> Okay. I think I think there's a a different uh >> we use the term care centers so that it's a little more um encompassing but if you'll agree to profer to that then we can simply address that at >> we're amenable to that great fantastic >> thank you >> all right thank you any other questions comments on this item I have a motion to move case Z25015

Carpenter Fletcher do with the additional profer of care centers forward with a favorable recommendation chair regarding case I can't see Z25 triple0151612 carpenter Fletcher 2 I move that we for uh forward this case forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation for approval with the additional pro >> second >> it has been moved by vice chair Cameron and seconded by commissioner Hun Hunter to move this case forward with the favorable recommendation. May we have the electronic voting, please. Thank you. >> [clears throat] >> Next item on the agenda, Z25 triple023

Denfield Lodgement. May we have the staff report, please? >> Thank you, Chair Shagaras. As you said, this is cases E250023 Denfield Lodgement.

9 acre parcel of land located at 4424 Denfield Street to reszone from residential suburban 10 and residential suburban 20 to residential suburban multif family with a textual development plan to allow for up to 70 dwelling units. There we go. As you can see on the map, the existing zoning is residential suburban 10 and residential suburban 20. It is surrounded by the same except for industrial light to the north of the site. The aerial map shows the general location of the project located just off North Roxboro Street.

The property is current the property is currently designated established residential on the place type map. The proposed residential suburban multif family zoning is determined consistent with the designated place type. The applicant has profered a number of conditions including five of the 5% of the units to be affordable by UDO standards. 5% of the units to be accessible with level entry and first floor bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom.

Uh all units to include a level two or higher EV charging station. Um energy star standards, native plantings, and a $2,000 donation to Durham Public Schools. Two neighborhood meetings were held in accordance with neighborhood meeting guidelines. Nine community members attended the first meeting and no one attended the second meeting. There's currently one comment against this proposal on the Durham Reszoning Explorer. The proposal is consistent with 19 of 21

comprehensive plan policies and is generally consistent with the place type designation of established residential. Thank you. Staff and the applicants are available to answer any questions. >> Thank you.

The chair is now opening the public hearing. May we have the applicant, please? Thank you, Mr. Kane, for the presentation and good evening.

Once again, this is Neil Gos with the Morning Star Law Group, 700 West Main Street in Durham. Uh, my client on this project is uh is the property owner. They are not a corporate developer or seasoned builder. They bought this property as an investment.

Uh, it has a home on it. Uh, and when they bought it, there was a renter in that home. and they first approached me about trying to build more homes on the property around the existing home. Uh the property is roughly seven acres in size and it's already within the city limits. So the zoning here is essentially to increase

the density. Uh for some reason there are two zoning districts on the property. I could not figure out why that's the case. It's seems quite odd in this scenario, but uh we're proposing to reszone the whole thing to RSM to allow for the development of up to 70 units.

Originally, when we filed this uh project, they intended to keep the existing home and in fact, we had a commitment that spoke to that. Sometime during our review cycle, the renter moved out of the home and my clients got a chance to look further in into that home and to preserve it would require expensive repairs and also importantly as best as remediation. So, we removed that commitment. They're still considering whether they can save the building. Um but it you know it it remains to be seen just because there are some additional complications they did not initially they were not initially aware of. Um other than that I think it's a pretty straightforward residential reszoning case on a property that's already within

the city limits. It's got good commitments. 5% of the homes would be affordable housing dwelling units. 5% of the homes will be accessible, meaning that they would have uh ground level entry and ground floor living.

Um, and the new homes will have EV chargers and they will be energy certified. We use native plant species in this and um they do plan to build a 10-ft concrete share path along their frontage. Um, so you know, this project is going to add some muchneeded housing stock to the city while at the same time, you know, it's it's I I guess taking advantage of existing city infrastructure in there. This is not an annexation.

I think you all see a lot of cases that are associated with an annexation. This is not one of them. Um, so happy to answer any questions you have about the project. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you, community members. Benjamin Chapman.

>> Good evening. Uh my name is Benjamin Chapman. I live at 301 Monk Road. Um I have not many oppositions.

My main concern is that the uh primary southward egress from that area where it connects uh Denfield to Duke and uh then goes on to Hebron is a very congested intersection with the fast food joints uh on Hebron. It ends up being a um a very difficult intersection to navigate. Additionally, the protected lefthand turn from uh Denfield onto Duke Street doesn't ever seem to actually be on. It's always just a blinking yellow, which uh good luck getting that to work.

Um on the north end with Monk Road, um the speed bumps on that road are already seeing some significant signs of degradation. With the increase of construction traffic, I suspect that those speed bumps will see continued degradation. Additionally, the stoplight at uh Monk and Roxboro has not been activated. I think that that would be uh definitely a a benefit to the traffic in that area just to make sure that that

stays mitigated. But that's it. Thank you. >> Thank you.

Anybody on the Zoom wishing to speak on this >> agenda? You raise your hand function. Nope. Nobody.

Okay. The public hearing is now closed. We have any commissioner comments or discussion on this item? None.

All right. I have a motion to move case Z25 triple023 Denfield Lodgement forward with a favorable recommendation. Chair, [snorts] regarding case Z25023 Denfield Lodgement. I move that we forward this case to city council with a favorable recommendation for approval. >> Second. It has been moved by Vice Chair Cameron and seconded by Commissioner Hunter to

move this case forward with a favorable recommendation. May we have the electronic voting, please That mic's not working for some reason. The motion passes 11 to zero. Thank you.

Moving on to item number six on the agenda. Public hearing comprehensive plan amendments A25 quadrupa02 evaluation and assessment report year-pt and policy amendments. May we have the staff report please? >> Thank you Chair Shiaras. Uh this will be a relatively quick staff report as you have this is the third time you are

seeing this item. Um, but I did want to highlight for you some of the changes that have been made. I'm in conversation with DOSS and other community members uh with concerns about some of the policy language. So, uh, first off, just a reminder of what the E is um, it is required by the comprehensive plan and the unified development ordinance to do an assessment every two years of the comprehensive plan.

One of the things we do is look at the policy language and suggest some changes to that language um and how we apply them u based on what we've learned over the last two years. Since these are the first two years of the comp plan, we had several lessons learned that we looked to accommodate through the um through these uh planned uh changes to the policy language. Next slide. So there are four things to four

policies to bring to your attention that are different from the last time you saw this. Uh policy 50, we uh got some information from our city parks and recreation department about some new national standards for distances that residents should be from parks uh which differ from what the current language is. So we are simply incorporating the recommendations of our parks and recreation department into those distances. So you'll see those in policy 50.

Uh policy 79, we updated the policy language and really you'll see the difference between the last time and this time is we're going more back to the original language. We just made a couple of small edits to the policy, but we had some concerns about drinking, you know, removing terms like drinking water sources and so forth. So based on all that feedback, we're really going back to policy 79 more to what it its original language. uh policy 81, we had recommended no longer have the D designation and be part of our comprehensive plan review. We got a lot

of feedback on that and concerns about that. We had felt that we had put a lot of that language into 79, but we've taken that language out of 79, put it back into 81, and now we're recommending that 81 still be a D policy. Um, and then there's just a minor clarification in the commentary on policy 198, which is the new policy regarding rural and agricultural reserve. So if you go to the next one, you can see here just so that you have it in your presentation, uh the new language for policy 50.

These are the uh new national guidelines that the parks and recreation department is adopting regarding distances and they are based on urban, rural, and suburban uh locations. So before we had just a blanket uh 10minute walking distance to everywhere that's simply infeasible in some of our more suburban and rural areas and they do um the new distances also realize that a lot of people especially in suburban and rural areas are going to drive to parks and recreation facilities. So it accounts

for that as well. As you can see in policy 79 now we're really not changing much. We're simply adding add corridors and changing hillsides to steep slopes. Other than that, it's grammatical stuff.

Um, no other changes in policy 79. Now, so this is the new chart. This is in your memo cover memo for this item uh regarding the the policy changes that we're making, the commentary p changes that we're proposing, and the counts for all of those. So staff requests that the planning commission provide a recommendation on the proposed policy changes that are before you and forward them to the city county city council and board of county commissioners for consideration.

A reminder and I believe I mentioned this last time is that we are required by the UDO to forward this uh with or without your recommendation uh because it's now been 90 days since you first heard it. So we'd love to go forward with a recommendation. Um, and with that I open

it to discussion and public hearing comments. >> Thank you. The chair is now opening the public hearing. Would call the but city's the applicant so they've already spoken.

[laughter] He's already gone. So community members in person. Number one, Mimi Kesler. Hi, my name is Mimi Kesler and my address is on record.

Um, there's there's a lot in this. I actually sent you all a marked up copy of of it saying what I agreed with and what I didn't. Um, but of all of the policies, there were 15 that that struck me as important. Um, several of them are hard to do, like

sidewalk gaps and small commercial near residential. That's 55 and 82. Um, wildlife, 83, trees, and affordable housing is 96. I think that when we decrease the number of trees where we're going to increase affordable housing, I think we're perpetuating um environmental racism.

Um, and let's see. We want there to be small commercial and child care and schools all near neighborhoods, but we're not planning so that there is actually space for those things. Um, I can I'm concerned because of the experience of the people out in uh Southeast Durham that um they have trouble getting help uh for emergencies. Uh and I'm I'm worried about that one.

Um I always worry about upgrading the sewer and the water. I used to get up here and ask how many toilets each of the um proposals were going to make. um respecting neighborhoods uh 169 170 and the number of bedrooms 176. Almost all of the housings being built is one or two bedrooms.

This is not good for larger families. We need larger units. Um uh uh 189 is It's about Duke and we don't want them to go UC all over the city in our little parcels that they're doing. Thank you. Thank you, Donna Stain.

Good evening. My name is Donna Stainbach. My address is on record. Um, Preserve Rule Durham has provided input to the these comprehensive plan policies since 2022.

We have been tracking uh comprehension plan consistency per policy and per development and interpreting these for now three years. Oh, and um uh we um have several issues. I emailed some. Unfortunately, I got it later to y'all today.

But um and uh we have provided and coordinated with over six durizations to provide feedback to this uh year document. And um and uh what we ended up started off with was 69 that we looked at. We've whittleled

that down to 37 that we still have some comments that are priorities one, two, or three for us and then about 15 that are priority one and that you know I think before even though it may be adopted, we still need to have a a together conversation on that because they impact the wild the environment the wildlife the green structures growth management housing, the rural nature of the community, the UGB, um the rural zoning, and I got a couple that, you know, we can I normally get somebody to work this. I am Okay. Um number 86 I'm going to speak to. Um Becky's going to speak to 85. This we think needs to be on the have a

D because it protects the drinking water sources while 79 only protects them in sensitive areas. So that is and the environmental affairs board uses this one in their reviews. So I the significant ones that I wish I could cover are 120, 121, 165, 167, and 168. There are of course all the ones that have priority one.

That was a team agreement. Thank you very much. Thank you, Rebecca Freeman. >> [snorts] >> Hello, I'm Rebecca Freeman and I my address is on file and thank you for letting me speak tonight. I'm going to

speak in just a few of the policies. Policy number 85, um new developments should include tree coverage beyond that required by development. We believe the tree canopy should be preserved throughout the site, not just in one area of the just an environmentally sensitive area. And that's what you'll find on some of these developments.

They'll they'll use up all the required tree preservation only on the environmental sensitive area and that there's no trees throughout the entire site. Uh the second thing is that there's not a specific gauge for what really envir the exceed means. 5%? Is it 1%?

Is it 2%? There's no specific uh guidance on what the interpretation should be of this policy to make us consistent among the interpretation that the staff would have when they're talking with um the applicants. Number um number 96 uh implement the uh strategies to reduce the heat island allen effect and its impact on the uh residents. Um

this has we agree but what level of over minimum is designated to exceed? is the same kind of thing is so that all the staff will have the same um uh um when they they see something that's over what is required how much more does it does it get to to before it exceeds so that the all the staff could be evaluating that the same um then then policy number 117 and 119 uh and I'm sorry I'm not pushing these forward do you all have these on your screen okay sorry uh 117 and 119 adequately assess the cost and benefits of the new development before reszoning. And then number 19 is ensure new developments within the urban growth boundary or within the established level of service and for emergency service etc. And I'm kind of combining these because they're the same issue and that is that some of the things are not being addressed adequately now. Uh it was mentioned earlier EMS services is woefully uh or even left off in terms of uh what the service levels are able to they're able to do and what okay and

then uh the The other thing is for uh schools and traffic congestion. Uh and one one recommendation that I would put out there is that and maybe this is done already is just that these areas where a lot of development is going on like in southeast Durham that there be a semiannual or annual assessment out in the field to see what's going on because some of these some of these places are being uh these developments are getting these um uh permits but their permits may may be done all in one area. all at one time or or they may be done in one year, two years, three years or whatever. So, what's coming through is not necessarily what's happening out in the field.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Malora McCall. Mara McCall, my address is on file. Um, the cumulative effects of the proposed

changes go beyond technical and grammatical corrections. What's concerning is not just any single edit, but it's the pattern. Across multiple sections, policies that the public, this commission, the EAB, BOCC, and council have relied on for the past two years are being downgraded, removed from development significance, or reframed as automatically met by existing UDO standards. The shift matters in practice to more than just staff.

At a recent JCCPC meeting, council members emphasized the expectation that the new UDO will codify the comp plan that by development should reflect the community vision embedded in the plan. If policy language is being narrowed, depp prioritized or reinterpreted before the UDO is finalized and without equivalent public engagement, that codification won't translate. Several of the proposed edits replaced policybased evaluations with statements like met by with excuse me met by complying with the UDO and that effectively converts policies into code minimum entitlements. It reduces

discretion and undermines the very reason these policies were created because the UDO was known to be insufficient in key areas like equity, environmental protection, affordability and infrastructure. The removal of DD designation on policies that reflect high community priorities, climate resilience, environmental protection, and annexation impacts suggests these policies as ineffective, unused, or redundant without supporting data. Narrowing habitat protections, limiting what can be considered during consistency review are substantive changes. Finally, adding or revising interpretive commentary within the plan raises governance concerns.

commentary that has no legal standing, yet it risks becoming de facto policy without legislative action or public process. The BOCC recently commented on an annexation petition outside the UGB, referencing policy 168 as justification to recommend against it, which council supported. Uh staff now indicates that policy is only applicable for comp planned amendments, which is not how it's being used in practice. I encourage you to

pause removals of DU designations and policy downgrades until the new yo-yo is complete. Require facts fact-based justification for policy changes that are beyond technical in nature and ensure policy shaped through years of community engagement are not hollowed in advance of the very ordinances meant to implement them without proper engagement. Thank you. >> Thank you.

Is there anybody on the Zoom wishing to speak on this item? Please use the raise your hand function. Nobody. Anybody else in the gallery?

Nope. All right. Uh chair is closing the public hearing and we are opening it for commissioner comments and discussion. >> Commissioner Capers. Uh I have a question uh just with the uh with your statement that you provided before we heard some of the comments. This is

going to go forward even if we vote no against it. Even with some of the uh proposed comments that are out there >> just like any other proposed zoning proposal before you. This would still go to the county commissioners and city council. >> Sounds good.

>> For their consideration u but your recommendation would go with it. >> Sounds good. Thank you. Any other commissioner questions, comments?

I have a comment. Um, there was a lot of public engagement and I think this is what I'm hearing from the the people. There's a lot of public engagement on the comprehensive plan. And maybe it's because this hasn't been done since 2018. This is the first go round of the year on the new comp plan, but it it did seem to have an appearance of a lack of transparency

and not involvement like was involved on the comprehensive plan there and and if it goes forward, well, it will go forward, but how is it going to affect the UDO? So that's all I have to say. Public hearing. Well, did I already May I have a motion to move case A25 quadruple0ero2 evaluation and assessment report ear PTM policy amendments forward to city council and board of county commissioners with a favorable recommendation. Chair, regarding case A25002, I move that we forward this case to city council and it's just city council >> and board of county commissioners >> and board of county commissioners with a favorable recommendation for approval.

>> Second. It has been moved by Commissioner Hunter and seconded by Commissioner W to move case A25 quadruple02 evaluation and assessment reports forward to city council and board of county commissioners with the favorable recommendation. May we have the electronic voting please. The motion passes 7 to four with Cameron and Bailey registered as yes votes. >> Thank you. What is the

item eight on the agenda is new business was going to discuss the stipened program. I sent an email out. I don't know if anybody got it. It went to the group email.

I think Commissioner Richie reports he got it. I just wanted to make sure everybody is aware that there is a stipen program for city and county people. I don't know how the po uh how userfriendly the program is. When I first got appointed, it was just volunteer, but then the county commissioners approved a stipen program and you fill out a piece of paperwork and you send it into the clerk and then you get you're stipened. So, I don't know if that's the same with the city. the the the city's program is is similar and is the same amount, but you need to

complete your paperwork and anything else they need from you with this with the each clerk's office. So, if you're a county appointee, please work with the county clerk's office. If you're a city appointee, please work with the city clerk office planning and development. We can send you the websites, we can send you links and so forth, but we have no control over the stipen program.

We'll need you'll need to work with the clerk's offices. Did you um send that link out? >> I have not yet, but I can certainly do that. >> Yeah, just forward the information or whatever.

>> Yeah, I can send it to the group. >> Make sure everybody knows what's going on. All right. [clears throat] Item eight, committee updates.

Commissioner Richie has a committee update on the UDO. >> Yeah, you all thought you were going to be able to leave, but not yet. Um we uh we have we've been so the UDO committee has been reviewing um in sections the current drafts of the UDO. Um it's not completely done yet, but all the ones that are out there we've reviewed. So we

want to take a little bit of time. We have a small presentation um that we'll will present to you all. The goal of this is not to inform anyone's specific opinions about the UDO but or the proposed UDO but to communicate what we as fellow planning commissioners are seeing as we're reading it. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, challenges.

Um [clears throat] and ultimately we're going to have the opportunity to vote on this. So it's just to to give people an opportunity to be informed and show where you can dig a little bit deeper. Um should I just say next slide when I need that? Okay, great.

Um, so I'm going to kick us off and then we're gonna pop over to Zach and then Carrie. Um, so the way that the UDO is broken out right now um is just into sort of disparate drafts. It's not it's not following a completely um like cohesive document structure yet. And so we're starting with the the sort of base base blocks here. Um next slide. I'm going to go

over the new draft zoning district standards. Um these look and and map on somewhat directly to existing standards with some notable changes that um that will have relatively large impacts. So moving on to the next slide, the the key call outs and forgive how um unprofessional this this deck is everyone, but this is uh this is what we've got. The key call outs are basically consolidation and simplification.

So the the staff um have I think done a good job of making the UDO more accessible and making the dis the new zoning districts make a little bit more sense and be responsive to things that they've seen on the ground. Um there are responsive incentives for density and affordability. By responsive I mean actually respond to what's best practice across the country and then also what's been seen in cases um in recent years and then um there's some

increased flexibility within zoning designations. So, um, ideally we could do more by right development in a way that actually meets the city's goals instead of, um, having everything come up for a reasoning case that doesn't need to be while still having, um, the reasoning having a significant role in, [clears throat] um, in the work that we're doing. Next slide. So, this is just to sort of show you all.

No one's supposed to be able to see this, but the first thing that we would suggest looking at as you're reviewing UDO just is um this this use table. This just shows the allowable uses for all the new zoning districts. There are now I think 17 zoning districts down from 21 or something like that. So, there's a small reduction.

this table at the beginning if you have this in our current UDO um outlines what's what you can and can't do um in each district. So just as a high level we suggest that people take a look at that once you start reviewing. Next slide please.

Um and then I'm just going to go through what I think are the most important zoning districts to us real quick. Um the goal is that this presentation for all of us doesn't take more than 15 minutes. So we're going to make this quick. Um, in terms of zoning districts for residential, those have been simplified significantly into these basically four exclusively residential zoning districts.

RA, RB, RC, and then RD, which we'll get to at the end. Um, RA is residential preserve. The previous UDO corlary for it is residential rural, I would say, with a watershed overlay. Um, and this is basically everything outside of the UGB.

Um, it's a 3acre lot size. It allows one unit in ADU 10% building coverage. So the goal is to to create space for for truly sort of rural and preserved areas. The next step residential rural is essentially RS20. Uh so it's a slightly denser version of what previous use previously used to be residential rural which had um uh sorry

which used to be RS20 which is residential suburban. Um, this is a 20,000 square foot lot size with one unit in ADU per lot, 30% max building coverage. So, just for context, the previous RS20 was slightly less dense than that, but like not in a demonstrable way. Um, and then RC, uh, which is probably not something we're going to see a ton of, that's currently residential rural PDR.

Basically, that's just a manufactured home, um, designation. And the places that are going to be called RC are already places that have manufactured homes. So that's probably not going to be something that we see a lot. The most important thing for us and probably the most significant change in this UDO in general is on the next slide which is RD and this is residential neighborhood. So this is going to by and large we got this slide cleared with staff beforehand but that doesn't mean that everything I say is technically true. So um they can fact check me later but basically

replaces residential suburban the PDR designation residential urban residential compact into these three subsections um RD1, RD2 and RD3. These are not their own separate zoning designations. So developers don't need to get reszoned in order to get go from RD1 to RD2. But there are some requirements for each of them.

So RD1 is basically residential suburban M which we just saw case to it's a slightly der denser residential suburban or RU5 which allows for eight units per acre. [snorts] It basically flips that standard and instead of talking about units per acre um it takes the amount of units you can have in a square foot area. So this is one unit per 5,000 square feet which is slightly less than 1/8 of an acre but basically the same. Um, building coverage maxes out at 50% and then standard is three stories or 40 feet. So, that's kind of what we're used to seeing in a residential suburban or sort of like a a typical single family zoned area. RD2 is a higher density,

lower size option. So, it allows for one unit per 1250 um square feet with a max unit footprint of 800 square feet. So, essentially town homes um max unit size is 1,200 square feet. So, it's it's incentivizing higher density in what could be a single family lot.

Um, and and makes it so that you can put, I think, up to about four units on what previously would have been one. And then RD3 is, I think, probably the biggest innovation here, which allows for increased densities for buildings that ensure 8% affordability. Um, the maximum number of units per lot, um, is one unit per 625 ft with a max height of three stories. Um so that basically means 8-unit developments or two four-unit buildings uh is the maximum density. Realistically what this basically allows is what previously would have been single family can now become a um denser affordable multif family with with with some affordability requirements. They got to that 8% number per staff um based

off just sort of best practice around the country and our own density bonus which hasn't been utilized very much. Um, I think that there's opportunity for that number to potentially increase, but not increase much. 8 to 10% seems to be where they're where they're sitting. Next slide, please.

Um, the other sort of innovations here are residential mixeduse and commercial mixeduse. Um, so we currently have a mixeduse designation in the UDO. Uh, what this would be is primarily residential mixeduse. Um, and then allowable size is determined by height or by size designation.

So 3, five, and eight refer to the amount of um levels or stories. Um there's also a compact option where if you use 450 foot units, you can increase that size. The maximum height there is going to be 13. Um and I think the other thing to sort of note on that is that we're taking out this sort of idea of like um

like focusing on density per acre. are taking out some of the the ways that we've been building that in the past and at taking a more simple approach to to size which is just these these levels you do have to apply for a you know residential mixuse 3 five and 8 those are separate zoning designations. Next one is commercial mixed use. Same coral area but just for commercial buildings and they're slightly bigger.

3 5 8 and 20. These are all separate. Compact bonuses increase those maximum heights to 5 81 13 and 30. Staff did note that CX20 which is the one that can get to 30 would just be for downtown districts.

You're not going to see that uh out in other spa other spaces. I think I only have one more slide on zoning districts. Um and that's just these are also two new the open space districts. Um conservation is is its own sort of specific zoning district now which allows for 2 acres minimum with a maximum building area of 5%. And then uh there's a specific zoning designation for parks now which is a zero minimum

lot size and a maximum building area of 15%. Um so we're kind of setting those aside and making it so that they're not just overlays anymore. So that's the high level on actual zoning districts. There are other zoning districts.

There are commercial zoning districts and industrial zoning districts. In general, they follow the same trend, which is that they're getting slightly more simple um with roughly the same allowable uses, but in general, the UDO I think is much more interpretable under these current zoning districts. So after all that, I'm going to pass it over to Zach. >> Awesome.

And why don't we pop over to draft development standards uh summary and review. >> Sorry, >> I guess we were going to Carrie next. >> My bad. >> Going to me.

Draft environmental protection subdivisions and infrastructure standards. Next slide, please. Um so I've got this split up into three sections that I think are kind of the the most important parts of this. Um so in module three um one thing

that we um that the new UDO will move towards is NACTO aligned streets. That's National Association of City Transportation Officials and that aligns with the city's vision zero action plan. Um and so this will be required for all new streets like in a new subdivision that is actually putting in streets. Um, so there's lots of different um, versions of this, but it's going to feature smaller lane widths, bicycle facilities, wider planted merges for street trees, and transit facilities.

Next slide, please. Um, there's a change in tree coverage and open space. So, the new UDO will combine tree coverage and open space into one section. It'll expand to 7% tree coverage to all RD parcels less than four acres and it removes conservation subdivisions from the ordinance and requires preservation of primary conservation areas in all subdivisions which is 22% preservation. Also creates an incentive structure um

for open space which incentivizes public art preservation of natural and cultural resources and public plazas. Next slide please. Um I think the coolest part of the new UDO is this sustainable development matrix. So it incentivizes development patterns that cannot be required.

Um and it's going to be based on a point system and so you know based on the different zoning option um you are required to get a certain number of points. Next slide please. [snorts] And so you can get points by doing any number of different things. Um some things that are easier to do will have a lower point.

Some things that are harder to do will have higher points. Um so this is a way to get some really cool things in our developments um without requiring them which we are not legally allowed to do. Um and the next slide just has the rest of the matrix.

And I think that if there are ideas for additional things to add to the matrix that staff is open to ideas on that. >> All right, let's talk uh development standards. Uh and before I get into it, I just want to say thank you to the staff for for all the all the work and time and energy that's gone into this. we had the chance to meet uh with the team and truly the amount of thought and energy has been herculean.

Uh just lighting alone, the amount of time that got spent on that one issue was was really impressive. Um next slide please. So the big picture shifts uh you're going to see a bit more consolidation and and reorganization. Uh the draft brings multiple standards into a single clearly labeled development standard section uh supported by tables and diagrams. Uh there's a shift away from tier driven uh logic. uh a lot of dress standards are expressed as as zoning based or downtime versus other districts rather than relying on the current UDO's development tiers in key places and there's also uh more front-loaded

predictability. The draft emphasizes matrices and standardized types now that we're all uh really interested in in in the matrices in particular. Uh next slide please. Okay.

Um the new draft it defines project categories with specific thresholds. Uh it uses a matrix to show which standards apply by project type. And here's how it's a little different than the current UDO. The current UDO often relies on topic by topic exemptions rather than one consolidated what applies when matrix.

Next slide please. Okay. Uh this new draft it introduces three pedestrian connection types tied to zoning context types one through three specifying entrance proximity spacing and configuration. It also requires internal walkways along commas access common common access driveways on both sides and sets a minimum width at 5T. This is greater than in the current UDO uh which which requires internal walkways along common access driveways as well but sets a 4 foot minimum unless

accessibility code requires more and does not use the type 1 to3 framework. Next slide, please. Bicycle parking and transit access. Uh, it applies broadly with stated exemptions in bicycle parking and it sets short and long-term bike parking by use.

It also adds detailed quality and placement rules. Uh, the transit access in the draft [laughter] for sites on the current and future transit routes. The administrator may require a 6x12 concrete pad connected to sidewalks for a transit stop. Access is allowed in perpetuity.

uh compared to the current UDO uh it addresses currently it addresses bicycle parking through tier specific requirements and separate design standards. Pedestrian and bike connections to transit facilities are required but the draft's pad requirement is presented as a more explicit implementation tool. Next slide please. uh vehicle access and parking. For vehicle access, the new draft, it adds and clarifies access management standards, curbcut permits, driveway

spacing with standard standards. Uh a default one driveway per lot and corner access preferences. Um as these are drafts, there are a couple things here and there that are still to be inserted. And so cross access was was one of them, at least initially as of the most recent reading.

Uh for parking amounts, this is a big difference. It's there's a no minimum off- streetet parking. instead it sets maximums by use and downtown versus other districts. Uh there's also an EV readiness requirement added for lots of six plus spaces.

Um and then provides pathways to exceed maximums as well. The current UDO expresses motor vehicle parking caps as a percentage of parking rate table by location and includes structured pvious and study based methods to exceed maximums. Next slide, please. All right. Uh the new draft it requires transitions based on a zoning matrix uh with types A, B and C. Each transition includes required depth uh required screen category and a building step back above

three stories and 40 ft. It also defines multiple screen types with quantified planting and wall options and specifies limitations on what may occur within transition areas. Um next slide please. for the landscape and mass grading.

Uh it incorporates a landscape manual by reference and includes professional plan and certification expectations that are that are new. Uh mass grading triggers vegetative buffers and the reveation requirement if development does not proceed within a defined time frame. It also links mass grading impacts to specific screening outcomes in certain zoning contexts. Um on for the fences, walls and retaining walls.

Uh the the new draft uses a table uses tables to identify where fence and wall types are allowed by zoning and yard location with more diagram based communication. It also adds explicit retaining wall constraints near rights of way and associated screening triggers. And last slide uh and the lighting conversation in particular was fascinating. Thank you staff again for for illuminating us. Um

so much time and thought and energy has gone into this. I can't stress that enough. Uh for the signs, there there are detailed sign area and height calculations as well as sign types by district and clear prohibited sign rules. Uh there's also a downtown pathway consider certain animated signs via minor special use permit criteria.

I think a good example, think of the bowl downtown. Uh for lighting, this applies uh it applies to outdoor lighting for non-residential and multif family development. It includes minimum and maximum light levels, property line limits, and pole height caps. Uh the key takeaways for this are just that draft the draft strengthens predictability through matrices types and consolidates standards into one section.

Uh and then several standards appear reexpressed as zoning base or downtown versus other districts rather than tier driven. And with that that's all I got. >> Yeah, imagine that. Um so we are going to have um we have our next commission meeting and then we're going to have a special session on the UDO in Aaron late February, right? >> [laughter]

>> Uh good evening. Boinsky plan development. Uh February 24th. Okay.

>> A special meeting um >> a public hearing on the >> uh new UDO and then once again um March 10th. >> Uh we expect you all to um meet discuss the case. >> Got it. So point is that we want to be in a position where we can make an informed vote by March 10th.

this is a massively important thing for our community and I think there is going to be a lot of discussion good and bad about it. Um and there's good reason for both of those things. So we would love to be the people that you come to for your initial questions but we also have our own biases so that we um suggest that y'all kind of get involved in it. We're we have draft memos for all the things that we just presented that are a little bit deeper.

So we'll be sending those along as well. I still have to finish mine and um and hopefully that can be useful. So that's it. But we're looking forward to kind of getting into this and being a part of this process for the city.

>> Appreciate you guys doing that for real. That's great. Yeah. Great work, Gil.

>> Thank you. >> Yes. And yeah, do your homework ahead of time because yeah, we have the one meeting at the end of February and then I guess the agenda is going to be cleared for March for which we will address concerns and comments that are brought up at the February meeting. But anything we can do ahead of time to make sure this stays on time would be great.

Uh if I would, I just um we'll be getting some information to you all uh in terms of um some communications uh showing all of the various memos and studies and drafts that have been provided to the joint city county planning committee. Um so you'll have that to review. Um and then obviously the full draft and uh proposed zoning map will be included with your packet for that meeting in February. Um, I just

want you all to know obviously um working with the the committee uh but if you need any um support or if you have any questions um staff is open to meeting with you or maybe meeting in small groups. I know that it's a whole whole lot of uh very dense right like it's very very large document and if um if you all are are willing we're certainly capable of of meeting with you and answering your questions and and going through um and giving you all the support we can. That's why we're here. >> Yeah.

And we're allowed to meet in a small group as long as it's less than eight of us because eight is what's required for a quorum. So if anybody that's six or seven of us or anything less than eight, you can meet with the Bo for any questions between now and the final vote. Okay. Number nine, staff announcements.

Anything? No staff announcement. 10. m.