Durham Planning Commission · Regular Meeting · June 13, 2023

good evening welcome to the Durham Planning Commission the members of the Durham Planning Commission are appointed by the city council and the County Board of Commissioners to make recommendations to the elected officials we want to emphasize that the elected officials have the final say on any issue before us tonight while this meeting is being conducted in person it is also accessible using the zoom virtual meeting platform in the virtual meeting platform public participants do not have the ability to talk or be seen on video by default in order to maintain meeting decorum and a discernible record of the meeting the chat function has been disabled throughout the process to draft a new comprehensive plan materials and engagement opportunities have been provided in English and Spanish in order to increase language access for the community in keeping with that simultaneous interpretation in Spanish will be

provided for all public hearings related to the comprehensive plan for all other meetings interpretation will continue to be available upon request for those attending in person if you plan to speak on an agenda item tonight please go to the table to my left and sign up to speak when speaking please state your name and your address clearly when you come to the podium and please speak directly into the microphone if you are attending the meeting virtually you will be given the ability to speak at the appropriate time if you have pre-registered your name will be called so you can make your comments you may also call in during the meeting tonight by dialing one three zero one seven one five eight five nine two if you call in during the meeting you will need to wait until the particular public hearing you are interested in starts after all the pre-registered speakers have shared their comments I will ask if there's anyone else wishing to speak

at that point you will need to digitally raise your hand by pressing star 9 on your phone and when recognized state your name and address before making your comments time may be limited for speakers depending on the length of the agenda all motions are stated in the affirmative so if a motion fails or ties the recommendation is for denial finally I ask that everyone here the commission members the staff and the public to conduct themselves in a courteous and respectful manner if someone fails to act in that manner the chair will ask the offending person or persons to leave the meeting until such time they can regain personal control if decorum fails to be restored the chair will recess the meeting until a genuine commitment to act respectfully and courteously is observed thank you and may we have roll call chairman Delia here Vice chair Cameron is running late is on

her way commissioner Baker here commissioner cut right here Mr cigaras here commissioner gurram yeah commissioner MacGyver here commissioner Morgan here commissioner cease here commissioner Trapp here commissioner Valentine here commissioner Zuri Williams here thank you and let the record reflect that we have quorum before we get started we have a few announcements first I wanted to give our newest commission member the chance to introduce themselves commissioner gurham hi everyone I'm the God because [Music] I'm a civil engineer by degree I work as an infrastructure consultant in public-private Partnerships I I work as

a technical advisor done these public private partnership projects and I'm looking forward to serving the city of Durham awesome thank you and welcome we also have some announcements from staff hey thank you chair I'm dolia a couple of things if you aren't aware Terry Elliott retired back in April May so if you have emailed her and she has not responded that's a good thing Joe Gordon has taken her place however you can email Grace Smith and myself the admin team doesn't really need to be engaged in that they have a lot going on and so Grace and I would be happy to help you if you have questions second thing is please don't forget to submit your written comments you have a week to submit them if you need a little bit longer after that just let gracer I know happy to extend the deadline if it's not something that's going to a console agenda right away last all items planning department items were noticed in accordance with state and local law and affidavits of those notices are available in the planning department however there was a defective

notice for the Smallwood Townhomes project that staff noticed and was caught therefore we pulled the item and it will be at the July Planning Commission meeting instead thank you and I have one more announcement so tonight will be my last meeting with you all my term officially ends at the end of the month and I have decided to let my term expire and to not re-up my time for the Planning Commission this is something I've been processing for several months and just talking to the people in my life and reflecting myself and believe this is the best decision for me right now this work takes a lot of energy both physically and emotionally and people cope with that different ways and for me I want to take the time to step back and really assess how I want to direct my energy so that I can have more longevity in my future endeavors I just wanted to say to all of

you that I have served up here with I deeply appreciate every single one of you you've made this experience really wonderful and it's been it's been hard work but it's been great to do this work fighting for a better Durham with you all I really appreciate the planning staff the work that you all do goes unnoticed so much on a day to day and the work that you all have done to a just help us make these rezoning decisions but also to write an entirely new comprehensive plan it I've seen it and I've seen how intentional you all have been with it and how hard it has been and I just appreciate all you do to continue keeping the city running and for those who are staying in the fight take care of yourself it is hard people are not always kind and it doesn't always feel like we are heard

but you matter your work matters your commitment matters and just give yourself the time to take care of yourself so you can keep on doing and fighting a good fight and I appreciate you all with that we're going to get into our agenda for the night our first item is the approval of the minutes and consistency statements from our March 28th and May 9th meetings do we have any comments changes edits to those minutes seeing non-magged emotion to approve the minutes Mr chair I make a motion that we approve both the March 28th and May 9th minutes from our previous meetings second okay moved by commissioner Morgan seconded by commissioner Valentine any comment or question discussion on the motion seeing none all in favor please say aye

aye all opposed have the same right motion passes unanimously great we're going to move into our first public hearing of the evening this is the public hearing the final public hearing that the Planning Commission will have on the Durham comprehensive plan we will Scott do we have a staff presentation tonight yes we do okay we will begin with the staff presentation good evening Planning Commission public and staff second

okay can you is that is that better okay if we can turn up just a little bit how do we have a request in the audience for the volume to be a bit louder please okay hello everyone my name is Sarah long and I am a planner with the Durham City County Planning Department I'm with the community planning team and we have been working on the comprehensive plan since 2019. so this evening we're going to give a summary of our final public engagement phase on the comprehensive plan and then we'll give an overview of the policy and action changes that we've made in response to that engagement feedback finally we will have a couple of items related to the public to the play site map that we want to discuss and for this meeting planning the Planning Commission staff is seeking to

discuss the comprehensive plan policies actions and implementation framework as well as guidance on map outstanding map changes we request that you open the public hearing listen to the public comments and make a recommendation for the adoption of the comprehensive plan to starting with the engagement summary the summary of our final engagement phase from January to 20 January 20th to March 2023 hundreds of residents through thousands of comments shared their input on the full draft of the comprehensive plan through in-person open house meetings and online engagement we heard feedback on specific changes residents wanted to see in this work we also heard suggestions for how to improve clarify or change the language to more accurately reflect the needs of residents and priorities so just want to focus on some of the main themes that we heard in that feedback first is the accessible and affordable housing we heard some housing policies

suggestions like housing for larger families more focus on land trusts as a potential solution tackling affordable housing in as many ways possible better addressing small lot development and limiting the ability of Corporations to buy up housing there was also an emphasis on people-centric rather than car Centric transportation lots of non-car-centric Transportation desires were noted bike facilities that are safe for children traffic calming and stronger Regional Transportation focus and to address the Durham freeway more specifically another topic we had was Environmental Protections and strong climate goals were of Interest more aggressive climate goals or questions around about implementation of greenhouse gas reduction and action plans some residents shared that this is the right direction but not enough and questions about the likelihood of implementation or action were brought up

we had strong support for policies encouraging protection and preservation of land specifically the 30 percent permanent conservation land policy we also receive feedback on the focus on on equity in the plan some appreciation for the focus on Equity throughout the plan requests for specific overall goals of the needs of the most vulnerable and currently least well served within the city and county some thinking that black and brown residents are not important in the plan or that efforts to prioritize Equity are not enough and there was also some pushback from residents saying that talk about Equity was quote unquote too political there are also concerns about the current and current development that we're seeing a lot of the concern and criticism heard in the planned survey were related to concerns with current development residents expressed concerns Express frustration that already approved developments being built out now is following the new comprehensive

plan as it hasn't been it hasn't been adopted yet residents also expressed a desire to see an updated unified development ordinance to more directly regulate development in alignment with the plan and finally we had to land last and certainly not least the concerns about expanding the ugb quote unquote there were significant concerns about infrastructure including Water Road capacity schools and EMS some of those who rated very low that the plan did not meet their the plan met their Community needs rated very high the planet here so the community goals and objectives so we believe this is a specific concern about around the ugb and communities being concerned about what the ugb is and and how that's impacting their Community specifically so in response to the residents comments staff made a series of changes to the

policies and actions as with previous engagement around staff worked carefully to make sure that the language was both accessible and clear so this is a summary of these engagement of these changes in the category of neighborhoods staff made six policy edits added one new policy made changes to two actions and added six new actions for the housing topic staff made one policy edit under the trans on the topic of Transportation staff made changes to 13 draft actions and added seven new actions for growth management infrastructure staff added one new one policy edit and added one new action under the jobs and training topic staff made one policy edit and two changes to draft actions staff also made one administrative policy edit

and one edit to place hype policies so all of these edits can be found in attachment H there are many of them we're not going to go over all of them tonight but since we do not have enough time to go through all of them we want to instead focus on four edits that represent the types of changes that staff made so our first example is with the neighborhood policy stack staff worked with preservation Durham on clarifying and strengthening the preservation related policies and here's one of those examples preserve and protect historic resources in the design of new developments neighborhoods and design them to respect Durham's unique identity and reflect the near the nearby historic context promote new developments that are compatible with the architectural elements of significant historic resources so again this is a completely new policy that we developed out of the feedback that we got from residents

in terms of Transportation several several of the groups that staff received feedback from express interest in improving accessibility for residents and visitors with disabilities we worked with bpac bicycle and pedestrian advisory commission to find Opportunities to also strengthen non-car Transportation modes of support the change to Transportation action 13 and the addition of this new policy action reflects those changes for action item 13 staff included detailed language describing it in which ways Transit stops should be improved to increase accessibility much of the language included came directly from participants so you can see here on the left we had the original action number 13 and then we had the new language there on the right and that language is for areas near Transit stops assess assess the input the incest and Implement accessibility upgrades and Transit prioritization improvements including Street redesigns Transit shelters pedestrian Crossings and the

surrounding sidewalk Network especially in communities with residents Who currently rely on public transportation such as low income and Asian communities the assessment should cover at least a half mile radius around the transit stops accessibility upgrades should include curve ramps sidewalks textured Tiles at stops Braille or raised lettered signs with root information and audible science and information in our second example for transportation as a change in action is a completely new action that emphasizes the need to prioritize the most vulnerable when exploring new Transportation options so that new action is proactively research evaluate and Implement new Transportation options that focus on more accessible efficient effective Transportation prioritizing the most vulnerable and those with fewer Transportation options so in the case of administrative

administrative policy 165 staff made changes to better reflect the importance of any potential play site map changes aligning with the adopted Community goals and objectives whereas in the previous version sorry in the previous version improving Durham's ability to meet the community goals and objectives was listed as one of the three criteria in which only one was needed to be met and this updated version staff required that the ability to meet the adopted Community goals and objectives will be increased by any proposed changes in a place type map one or both conditions listed below must also be met to make the map change and we'll be discussing some more of the relevant policies and actions related to the play site map later along in the presentation so again the key change here is that it is a requirement that any change to place height map increases our ability to reach the community goals and objectives and for our final example we have

included a new growth management infrastructure action that addresses some specific cases where adjacent existing public sewer or water lines near properties are being requested to be the residents are being requested to attach to them with this action staff can explore how to allow properties to connect to these existing lines without extending the city limits or the urban growth boundary so this action is growth management and infrastructure action explore amending the city code to allow existing properties outside of the primary corporate limits of the urban growth boundary to connect to adjacent existing public sewer and water Alliance and this action would apply to a case around Russell Road that I'm going to speak about next but I wanted to take a moment and see if there are any questions about the policy and actions changes that we have made thank you

okay thank you so continuing I mentioned Russell Road was a case where the previously mentioned action item could apply so just for context Russell Road is located just outside the Northwest edge of the urban growth boundary there are land owners in this area who are not connected to water or sewer and have come to previous meetings requesting a connection the area does not meet requirements for annexation but connections to existing an existing water line is possible so Russell Road here is outlined in blue and that also follows the existing water line this map is slightly different from the map that was submitted in attachment J if you're the urban growth boundary line is outlined in a burgundy and the place types are visible on this map you can see existing water line here in blue and that goes along Russell Road and Loops back to Guess Road however this area is currently in the Suburban tier as a purple line indicates you can see a purple looping line towards the bottom there

and it's outside of the urban growth boundary so we're not requesting any action on this we just wanted to note how in this case um the action that we previously mentioned so I'll go back to exploring the city code to see how we can allow properties to attach to existing water lines that would that could potentially apply for the residents who are along Russell Road and in this case specifically annexation is not an option for these residents any questions okay our next topic is about Hamlin Road and potential changes to the place type map and Hamlin Road is located just North

East outside of the urban growth boundary the properties are located at 2503 and 2523 Hamlin Road and they're in the Falls Lake District a fja which is a critical area of the Watershed overlay the fja regulations with limit development on the property to one acre lots with six to nine percent impervious surface depending on the distance from Falls Lake if added back into the ugb staff would recommend mixed residential neighborhood Place type for those properties and to include properties in the Hammond include these properties into the Hamlin Road future growth area the map on the right shows the changes in the place type that would be recommended if these properties were within the ugb so again staff's recommendation from the January plays site map is here on the left and the map the map changes requested by a landowner is on the right so this is similar to the cases that we

looked at on the March meeting and so we are looking for a recommendation from the Planning Commission hey do we have any discussion points or questions on these potential changes would everybody be prepared for a straw poll foreign gotta remember how I framed these questions if you prefer the option can we get the map back up on the screen actually so that we can see on our screens up here thank you yeah uh commissioner Baker yeah so

we looked at so we have the staff recommendation on the left hand side we have potential changes on the right hand side remind me how this got elevated to us taking a straw poll exactly on this particular parcel of land versus all the other parts of the city sure Scott's going to answer that for us good evening I'm Scott Whiteman with the planning department so when we had property owners who specifically requested uh to be added back to the urban growth boundary we committed to them that we would daylight them before the Planning Commission and so most of those we had heard early on this is one that we heard after your March 28th hearing so this particular property owner has requested that their property remain in the urban growth boundary and Mr chair there that property owner may be here so you may want to wait till after the public hearing to take the straw poll okay um that makes sense I have a follow-up

question on this um just to confirm that this was this was originally within the Suburban tier that's correct okay I got a um what was the analysis behind deciding to make the January 2023 recommendation so for this area it was um this is an area that is in the as Sarah mentioned in the fja Falls critical area that was in a previous decades ago plan version of the urban growth boundary um at some point in the late 90s earlier's Falls Lake was found to be actually bigger than we originally thought when we created the the original The Watershed protection overlay and so a lot of these areas are that weren't in the critical area became part of the critical area and over the last 20 years

there's been very little development activity and there's no utilities out there so it seemed like a based on the environmental and infrastructure constraints it seemed like a logical area to move the urban growth boundary back okay so it was it was staff's analysis based on stats analysis that this area should not be developed over the next time Horizon of of this Urban growth boundary at this point that was that was your determination that was our determination yes thank you any other questions or comments okay we're going to take Scott's recommendation and do this drop after the public comment period okay so finally we want to talk a little bit about how the policies and actions are related to Future map work and since we've had a lot of discussion about the playside map we know that is something that is a lot of that people have a lot of concern over especially what it looks like moving forward into

S Highway 70 Corridor wants a new study for the corridor is completed revising the playsight map for the Research Triangle Park once a new master plan for RTP is completed update the place height map to show new

conservation lands and easements as recreation in open space and continually review and identify areas on the play site map where comprehensive updates are needed she went to share this with you just to emphasize the playsight map is not a static document and will be amended to reflect future plans guiding Durham's growth so that is end of our presentation thank you very much and we look forward to your questions and discussion thank you also I should have done this earlier but I would just like the record to reflect that Vice chair Cameron has arrived in some attendance okay at this time I believe the public hearing is still open so I do not need to open it and we will move forward to public comment during the public comment process you know we have a lot of people wanting to speak tonight we have a lot of cases on our agenda agenda tonight that we have to address after we discuss the comprehensive plan

so I ask that if someone says what you are going to say please do not come and repeat exactly what they said if you have something new to share or new insight we want to hear it but if you're coming to repeat something that has already been said I would ask you to no longer speak if you want to indicate that you agree with what the speaker is saying you may do so by raising your hand quietly and I will acknowledge hands raised and State approximately how many so that we can acknowledge agree agreement with a certain sentiment I would also just flag like we we have all seen the dozens of emails that we've received over the past weekend so we are aware of the comments that have been coming in over the weekend and just keep that in mind as we go through this so I'm going to start reading off names and

as I read off names please go ahead and start lining up at the podium as able and we'll just go down and order so first I have Marion strand Ruth McKinney Walt Grundy Vincent when and Denny nogly and I apologize for any name as pronunciations um when you state your name I will I will get it right once I hear it I promise we'll begin with Marion you'll have two minutes to make your comments please state your name and address and then begin my name is Marion strand my home at home address is 108 Pino Court in the city of Durham all right go ahead um good evening I am president of the Villas of Culp Barber homeowners

association I'm here to speak briefly about our neighborhood's concern that is presently no mention of the importance of existing over 55 communities in the current draft of the comprehensive plan Durham has a number of over 55 communities including ours there were that were encouraged and approved by Durham years ago federal and state law mandates that no less than 80 percent of our homes and in Durham ninety percent can be occupied by a resident over 55. in other words by law in the future we can sell almost exclusively only to other seniors which means the nature of our community as a age in place option cannot now be reversed or erased because of the nature of the over 55 plans approved by Durham our state streets are quiet we enjoy racial ethnic and cultural diversity because we are experiencing aging at different stages we have empathy for each other and have

Community committees in place to help each other when we are sick we also have clubs and activities in place that help to keep us physically and emotionally healthy and the nature of these existing communities changes excuse me if the nature of these existing communities change because Durham begins to focus only on creating future intergenerational communities which is with the present language in the draft says the needs of many seniors will no longer be met in the neighborhoods we've helped develop for these reasons as president of the coal Barber HOA I ask that the comprehensive plans section on seniors in the final form reflect the need for quiet streets and thoughtful continuous development that will be met with health and safety needs for seniors living in the Durham's existing over 55 communities thank you okay I see about a dozen Hammonds raised call it two dozen

[Music] maybe I might um so good evening I'm Ruth McKinney I live at 5139 Niagara Drive in the Villas at cup Harbor in Durham I want to First sort of digress from my prepared remarks to say that we do in fact to Echo the chair's remarks I very much appreciate what the planning department does we very much appreciate this long arduous procedure that's been followed to develop the engaged Durham process and the comprehensive plan and truthfully we apologize for coming in late on this so I will speak only for myself here not for my neighbors I am simply not as quick and as engaged in anything as I used to be and this is no exception so I'm just slow to have caught on to this and I apologize and we very much appreciate you listening to us at this late point in the process

moving to what I wanted to say to you all tonight apart from that apology and that statement of appreciation I want to focus on the fact that seniors need choices as we figure out how to age safely and to live as independently as possible the multi-generate multi-generational housing option that the plan currently focuses on in its section on seniors does not mention any place the over 55 community option and our particular health and needs so we are asking you tonight to please not vote on this plan until you've considered all those emails you got and our comments tonight about the type of life that we now have to live the legal responsibilities to sell only to other seniors in the future as the vision for Durham is developed in the future thank you thank you

we have about about had about a dozen and a half good ready good evening my name is Walt Grundy I'm a physician who resides at 5126 Niagara Drive in the Villas at Culp Arbor this evening I want to join a number of my neighbors to address our concerns about the new comprehensive plans current language concerning seniors under the health and well-being section of the plan as a physician and an aging senior I am very aware of the aging process and how it tends to limit our capabilities over time many Asian adults have hearing or vision problems and some have mobility issues that require Walkers or wheelchairs in fact most of us walk to get our mail which is in Street side mailboxes some of these requires you actually stand the street in order to access and yes we do have a sidewalk but is only on one side of the street

this requires res to walk across the street to access their mail we also have residents who need to walk in the street as they require wheelchair or Walker consequently we need assurances that our roads will continue to have low speeds low traffic and have safe ingressions and egressions we also need assurance that the future can that future contiguous development will be carefully and thoughtfully designed with sufficient buffers to reduce noise and light from new and dramatically denser developments in conclusion a request the final form of the comprehensive plan in its section on seniors reflect the need for safe and quiet streets and acknowledge the need for thoughtful contiguous future development this is to ensure the safety of seniors who are already living in Durham's existing over 55 communities thank you

thank you I see about a dozen and a half hands raised with that so I have I've been informed of the source of the noise so the dinging we're hearing is the zoom timer and so it will give a 10 second warning and then a final tone to let you know your time is over so when you hear the first tone you have 10 seconds which is good it'll give you time to finish your sentence and then the next tone your time will be over thank you good evening my name is Vincent when living beers of Carl Harbor at 5148 Niagara drive it is my honor to present to you all what I thought about our communities in which 90 above the age of 60 and 44 percent above age 80s as retired physician we know very well how age affects us we start to lose

eyesight we have decreased Vision increased difficulty reading road signs charge dissonance and respond to sudden changes in addition decline night vision can affect both walking and driving safely as we age we were here in AIDS we start to have physical limitation and reduce Mobility our reflexes are slow which increase the reaction times so this makes us more vulnerable to accidents and the likelihood of serious injuries so you know it is a more challenging for us to navigate and Cross Roads safely if in the situation with the increased traffic density the difficulty will be double triple or even more so we rely heavily on community interactions for emotional support when anxiety arises with these unique features of seniors in mind the idea of the designated 55 plus community D was started in those and encouraged by the city however in the new comprehensive

plane the ideas and the thoughts behind having 55 plus communities are not addressed and appreciated therefore to maintain the health and well-being of the seniors in the established 55 plus Community it is important to have them acknowledge in the final draft and be supported by the development around them in the future City and County Planning thank you thank you I saw about a dozen and a half hands raised up next we have Denny after Denny I'm going to go ahead and call the next set of names to start lining up we have Charles Herbst Wanda Allen Gary McLean Tina Pearson and I see Paul jeffrion on here in the notes it says this is about Cortez drive and so that may be later on so then after Paul we have Donna Steinbeck

okay um so did you all sign can you come to the podium really quickly can you come to the podium quickly because we need to have you speak into my so that people participating virtually can hear this discussion um we're just we're gonna have a quick discussion and then you will have your comments Denny can you step aside for just a second we're going to talk about logistics for a second and then but I just hey Austin hey we have a presentation that goes in order and everyone is here to speak so um do you want me to call out who's on the presentation would that help you yes please yes Wanda Allen it's Pam Williams Donna stainback uh Becky uh Becky Freeman Tom Freeman Tammy sway uh

Tina Pearson uh is Gary McLean Newman okay that was it so it's approximately nine of us on that presentation I'm sorry and Mike and Carrie I'm Mike Rowe and Carrie wonk yes okay and you said Becky when did you say Becky Wednesday um Freeman yes I was just okay they all did sign up we just came in at different times and we did submit our presentation within the time limit okay um let's do Denny since he was already up here and then let's do y'all's sequence and then we'll return to whoever is after that whoever's left after that

2 of the Durham comprehensive plan which was appropriately indicates and I quote we want Transportation infrastructure which is equitably planned built designed and maintained so that all residents can safely and easily walk ride and drive to

resources that they need to thrive in the Durham community I frequently look out my window in Niagara and I see like people like Angela in a walker and many others in wheelchairs scooters caregivers neighbors can now in addition neighbors can now safely back out of their driveways into Niagara couple driver others however the egress to Farrington Road becomes unsafe for many of these drivers with special needs the quality of life for VCA seniors will be lost forever if Niagara becomes a heavy traffic cut through area therefore I respectfully requested the new comprehensive plan section on seniors reflects the health and safety of seniors living in our existing 55 plus community

thank you okay and I see about a dozen and a half hands raised to that okay so we're going to do this group presentation are you all lined up in order no great I had called Paul let's do Paul and then we'll do y'all's presentation we're going to come back to I'm just I couldn't catch all the names I need to be able to check off all their names and then figure out who else signed up and is ready to speak after that I'm just making it easier on myself but everybody who signed up will get to speak uh members of the commission uh good evening my name is Paul Joe free and I live at 705 Pleasant Drive and or with regard to the comprehensive plan I appreciate the comment my Miss Long referencing more aggressive climate goals in the comprehensive plan and I hope that somehow that translates into changing a policy of approving developments where acres and Acres of

carbon fixing and oxygen producing undergrowth and trees and vegetation are clear-cut and replaced with high carbon output material construction transport and building followed by heavy use of automobiles to get from one place to the other that's my sole comment about this other than I appreciate the reference to Russell Road I lived there from 1980 to 2001. well water and septic tank I think that's an intriguing proposal to extend the city services to non-city Residents thank you less than a minute thank you it's all about a dozen or so hands raised in favor of that okay um for this group you all are going to have to say your name and address before each case and you're each getting two minutes

can y'all see that yeah okay and okay for some reason another okay I was trying to get to eliminate that but thank you sorry okay my name is Pam Williams um I live at 2130 Adventure trail Durham North Carolina and we're here to a group of us have put together this slideshow to represent uh the rural community Out in southeast Durham and all over Durham on our issues we want to bring to your attention at the very beginning that we have been out been out to the public enrollton clubs several meetings at churches and everything and we starting in January I mean February 28th we started collecting signatures or petitions about keeping cheek Road Redwood Road Patterson Road out of the urban growth boundary and keeping Kemp

Road area in the Southeast future growth area we have over 465 signatures 700 117 were emails we got 250 in before the March 28th cut off and then we've gotten the additional so a total of 465. as you can see that was the front of the urban growth boundary petition and we also had more information on the back and we spent a lot of time at several events explaining what this is um we would like to highlight issues why the future growth area on Kemp Road should remain and the urban growth boundary at Patterson Chic Road should be kept as January 23rd plan first the Durham fire department response times are higher than standard benchmarks we want to protect the established character of the existing neighborhoods protect Durham's most sensitive natural

areas from the impacts of developers as Paul just explained high density developments has led to environmental issues as documented in Lick Creek and other tributaries and established an urban growth boundary to discourage development on the edge of the city that strains existing infrastructure or prompt significant public investment we request that the plan your two minutes are over oh okay thank you next hi I'm Wanda Allen 2111 Rodeo Drive I'm sorry they wanted the rose yes I acknowledge about a dozen and a half hands raised okay hi I'm Wanda Allen 2111 Rodeo Drive in Durham and c and I want to remind all of us tonight that the decisions we make tonight will have a major impact on the small businesses and cheek Road Redwood

and Patterson you've already heard that we are totally against this putting back into the urban growth boundary the land is adjacent to the critical Watershed we will have to have a new sewage system there's you've already heard about the concern about the fire department but what I want to emphasize that you guys are going to have a major impact on small businesses we have a number of farmers out there you are familiar with a lot of them they sell down here at the Durham Farmers Market they sell to Whole Foods they sell to red and white they you've heard of these guys the cheek Road produce you've heard of beekeepers you uh you buy from them because they offer The Peasant free uh products so many of these Farmers have gone to this developer and asked for the land because they need the land to provide food for

us and they were turned down also the developers we've seen over on Olive Branch we've seen over on Dr Nichols Road that those guys those Farmers quit they could not afford the taxes the Watershed taxes and all of those things that are associated with the developments coming in so what I'm just going to remind all of us tonight that if we put this back in the urban growth area it will have an impact on our food supply it will definitely have an impact on us thank you I see about two and a half dozen and dozen hands raised while the timer isn't owned so I can see because we have a timer going virtually but we can set that timer I don't know just it watches yeah thank you thank you I'm Rebecca Freeman with 1818 Southview Road thank you for allowing me to my

comment tonight my slides are the first one is maintain I'm sorry okay maintain Keppra within the future growth area Lick Creek is a designated 303 D impaired stream by the state it's in the middle of this area as you can see on the map adjacent area is Falls Lake critical Watershed there's a lack of fire station and firefighters to serve this future growth area not with it's not within a 15-minute walking distance of shopping grocery stores and jobs that Creek already has seven thousand dwellings approved for increase of 17 000 restaurants or residents this will increase the strain on existing infrastructure such as an additional 56 000 vehicle trips in the next two to four years it does not meet the comprehensive policy number 117 as related to the infrastructure such as roads schools EMS police Hospital capacity and there's not been a cumulative impact study for this new high density development in rural areas that really really know what the impacts

5 persons per household are coming to Durham so we're not having this huge right now this huge influx of people and with the downturn in tech industry and the layoffs we it may be changed to the left side of the slide by 2050 60 000 High housing units are estimated to be needed by triangle Council of governments 150 000 housing units are included in the new comprehensive plan and excess of 90 000 housing units 60 percent more than is needed is in the plan plus 140 extra

Research Triangle part thank you very much okay it's all about a little over a dozen to a dozen and a half hands raised all right Tammy sowaya Baptist Road and I'm going to talk to you about the fire there's no new fire station in the Southeast uh area there's no fire plans in the capital Improvement plan if we've got over almost 18 000 dwelling units coming to this area the performance audit on October 22 says that response time is the most effective and the Suburban requirements are to meet 90 of the time four five four five Riders is supposed to be there uh within eight minutes because it's a two and two out I talked to the firemen that was talk we're here talking about the wages they're not making the two and two out now and the city council work session last week the firemen said that if they continue to go to other areas and we lose we might lose 60 more firefighters we don't have the people to handle our situations now so why are we going to change the growth boundary

also on the audit on the um the most recommended thing was that the that we should continue monitoring response time to ensure service levels are delivered with an acceptable levels based on the city's risk tolerance we know we got a problem now let's get our infrastructure and let's get it right before we grow even more it could affect every one of you or your loved ones thank you thank you so about two two dozen hands raised which Road in Durham and my slide is also talking about the Durham fire department so in the audit done in October um it was recommended that um staff should consider using an outside consultant to further study the future um the the future Demand on the department as you can see

that as of 2022 that incidents are rising so we are not currently as you saw in the previous slide able to keep up with our response times much less all this future growth that we are proposing so as the staff stated earlier um they recommended these Parcels be kept out of the urban growth boundary due to the lack of infrastructure as we're talking about here as well as environmental impact so these many of these developments are far too close to Falls Lake and there is too much environmental destruction we need to preserve these parts of Durham as low density so that there's space for nature and I know fighting climate change is important to all of us and as the gentleman earlier so eloquently stated much better than I could have clear-cutting these forests is not the way to combat this existential crisis

that we're facing is a society so I don't want us to look back and regret these era reversible decisions that we're making here today thank you thank you so about two dozen hands raised sorry I was waiting for my slide to change um I can go ahead and just start speaking um my name is Michael Rowe I live at 5602 Dude Ranch Road um in Durham I first wanted to speak specifically to the effect that the proposed changes to the urban growth boundary would have on the Emergency Medical Services in the area the EMS services in Durham are already stretched then the total calls are on the rise and Target response times are not being met any change that would put further strain on the EMS system in Durham without any

fourth forethought of the infrastructure surrounding that would be very detrimental to the area to all Durham and put lives at risk I also wanted to just Echo the sentiments of previous speakers in regard to the negative and irreversible damage that could be wrought on Derm uh with the changes proposed changes to the urban growth barrier in regard to drinking water Wildlife climate change and the health and safety of the residents of neuron thank you I saw about a dozen and a half hands raised sorry hello my name is Donna Steinbeck I live

at 4825 Jimmy Rogers Road in Durham North Carolina the First Responders are so critical yet right now the resources are limited the Durham firefighters feel underpaid they're talking about 60-some leaving this year and we we're losing them to other counties this is a very tough situation also our hospitals and doctors offices are crowded secret patients have put a strain on the triangle hospitals my son who lives in Durham has to go to WakeMed for his cancer treatments and because they could fit him in easier than the hospitals here and they were more responsive in getting him in immediately we also have the Durham Police asking for assistance from Chapel Hill and Orange County Sheriff to help out you know we should not be having to ask for help and this was on May 18th this

year the um okay next slide if looking at the coverage we see that from a firefighter's point of view on the right hand side you see only two stations on fire station eight and fire station 17. covering this whole area and what we've got projected for growth is over on the left side we've got for these four Creek areas that intercept these pieces of land we have total approved 12 494 dwellings and approximately 300 3466 Acres so this is then you look at the ones pending we have 17 900 new dwelling units for an additional 42 800 people we need to adhere to comprehensive plan policy 117 ensure the developments within the urban growth boundary are well established to the level of

services for emergency services about two and a half dozen hands raised my name is Tina Motley Pearson I live at 2205 Olive Branch Road so environmental impacts due to development so even with the flocculents being used in the retention basins turbidity levels were the highest levels measured in lit Creek Samantha Crop with the new The Noose River Keeper went out and she measured Cricket levels 3 900 percent above the state standard which is pretty crazy so clearly the flocculants aren't working like just clearly um this is actually city of Durham public works this is from them nitrogen and phosphorus increase from the city so you can see you'll see it in red that

7 and of course nitrogen phosphorus when you have that together it's these are nutrients that increase algae blooms so you don't want increases in that but this is from uh from development now off to the side you're going to see a date and these are actually it's 2015 to 2018. so we actually didn't have quite as much development as we do right now so these these aren't really quite accurate numbers which brings me to this slide recent data where Lick Creek flows into Falls Lake and this is data from North Carolina State University up to May 2023 and you're going to see a significant increase at the mouth of lit cream to Apple biomass as chlorophyll a which is 45 percent higher and the total phosphorus increased by 27 so it's just a mess and if you drive out all Branch

Road doc nickels you'll see all the development muddy water anyway thank you thank you I say about two and a half dozen hands raised good evening Thomas Freeman 1818 Southview Road Durham North Carolina lifelong resident of Durham that means I'm vested in Durham own property here on property for many many years would have been here sooner but we had to make another detour off of death alley on NC 98 three ambulances on the scene victims being transported saw another one yesterday head on on 98 but I digress I'd like to draw your attention to the map I'll be summarizing I'd like to draw your attention in particular to the three areas that are circled those are the three areas we have discussed with you tonight and it is our strong recommendation

based on this information provided to you tonight to remove these areas from the high density from high density the urban growth family not to be included in the urban growth boundary next slide please thank you very much I'll draw your attention to the uh to the visual and I'll be reading from a letter from south southern environmental law Center if you don't know Southern environmental law Center is the southeast largest 501 environmental nonprofit organization more than 80 attorneys and 75 staff member they have a very successful case rate and on the 3rd of February they provided a letter to Mayor O'Neill commissioner Brenda Howerton city manager Wanda page stating that the city's failure to enforce water quality standards and it goes on to talk about Lick Creek I hold in my possession the document about a 20-page document

dated May 10 to uh to principles involved in a development in Durham County and it is a 60-day notice for intent to sue under violations under the Clean Water Act I am not under their employment I am not an attorney but I will tell you that suit is progressing thank you very much thank you saw about two and a half hands raised sorry two and a half dozen hands raised okay uh great so we're gonna go back to uh the remaining folks who have signed up to speak so we have Charles Herbst Gary McLean we have Bonita green and Becky winster

Mr chairman um and board thank you for your patience I just had surgery on my foot I hoped to be up walking around in village of Hope Harbor in a couple of weeks my name is Charles Herbst my wife Rosemary is with me we live at 202 Pinot Court there in village of Hope Harbor my remarks are extemporaneous I didn't plan to speak tonight but uh I feel compelled to do so I I guess I'm the Anchor Man um 15 years ago the powers to be endorse the concept of having a 55 or older community I kind of compare this to a a marriage it was a honeymoon then but there was no commitment and there's no commitment and this comprehensive

plan there needs to be some modification I know that a lot of work has gone into it it's been a great job it's mammoth job to do but it's you know we're looked and there needs to be some kind of modification to make a commitment to continue to support this concept that was endorsed some 15 years ago thank you for the time thank you see about two dozen hands raised foreign good evening my name is Gary McLean I live at 4712 Jimmy Rogers Road Durham North Carolina I am an opponent of expanding the urban growth boundary we just need to slow down and let our infrastructure catch up get more firefighters on board more EMS uh if we if we did expand it out on cheek Road

and Patterson Road and Camp Road there's no mass transit out there it's no bus routes and the vehicles just it's the traffic is just a atrocious I mean if you're out there every day you might wait at Highway 98 at Four Points you might wait for three like three sections for the lights to change and uh the traffic just can't keep up I mean we've just got to slow down it's just it's reality so thank you for your consideration thank you and I see about two dozen hands raised uh good evening Commissioners and chair amidolia my name is Bonita green I live at 831 Center Street in Durham and I was on the policy well on the working group um and creating the comprehensive plan I also was part of the policy working groups as well and so there was a lot of people here may not know but there was direct intentionality to engage with communities who are typically don't have a seat at the table so that their voices would be heard so there was a

cross-section of representation of people between races ages sex creep whatever there was a cross-sectional that even socioeconomic backgrounds there were a lot of people involved in this process who also lived in DHA housing so um well it may not you know serve everyone's needs or maybe have someone some people who feel that it's not addressing their need there needs to be an understanding that there was intentionality to involve a cross-section of people of voices who are not usually invited to be at the table and that's very important in this process and so I ask that you know you all keep that in consideration as we move forward and just like there was intentionally in this process I want to say there needs to be intentionally in development and planning and how we move forward with that as well as we move out into the urban tier Durham is in an environmental crisis right now we talk about the housing crisis but we don't talk about the environmental crisis and that needs

to be addressed as we consider future planning of of development and housing and some of these areas they're really not suited for dense development so while you as a commission may not feel that your voices are always heard by the council the general public hears you and we appreciate you and your voices and your level of expertise that you bring to the table on this so thank you thank you I see about two and a half dozen hands raised so we have Becky coming up and then after this we'll turn to our Zoom participants if you are in the zoom meeting and you are wanting to speak on this case please go ahead and start raising your hands at this time I should have said this earlier but if you're in Zoom please only raise your hand to indicate you would like to speak it gets a little confusing to see who wants to speak when hands go up and go down um and a reminder for those in Zoom if

um folks have already said things that you resonate with or are planned to be included in your comments we have that on the record you don't need to say it again and we appreciate your time tonight Becky good evening what's would you please turn on the timer for me please my name is binders I live at 4 Glenmore drive and I it has been my privilege to serve on the housing and neighborhoods policy working group and I think I was invited or I was appointed to be on this com on this group because I was a member of the Coalition for affordable housing and Transit but I'm not speaking for them I'm I'm speaking for myself at this time I hope we will have a position by the time we get all the way through the have something to say by the time we get all the way through this process and I want to thank the planning staff

and the planning board for all the effort you have put into this plan that that you have made every effort to to involve as many people as possible and to actually listen to them and as we had the summary that was given this this evening you actually recorded what people said and made some changes on the basis of it you know so but I'm never satisfied and I um I I think that well there are some very good goals in there uh but uh and I have some things on my written sheet here that we particularly like but there's a very nice affordable housing goal and which we very much support but it seems too vague in general and we're not confident that it is actually going to have any impact on the as it is on the actual development regulation and I don't know exactly

where it should be put but the transit opportunity area is a good place because I don't believe it the description of the of the transit opportunity area came from the Durham Community I believe it came from the Council on the new urbanism and it needs to have affordable housing in it and that needs to be part of the the consideration of affordable housing I need to look at policy 160. also thank you okay um see about a half dozen to a dozen hands raised and we're going to turn to our Zoom participants so first we have Judy tesk hi my name is Judy taske my address is 5209 Niagara Drive 27517 so we've been going pretty fast here but I want to just ask everyone to take a moment and think about a specific person

you know who you care about who's aging maybe your mother your grandfather your favorite aunt a godparent an elderly friend think about a specific person and with that person is mine in mind consider how they're going through the aging process like Vincent mentioned you may have seen their eyesight changed so they're more cautious about driving especially at night they might not be hearing as well as they used to they might need a walk or or a cane so they might move more slowly aging is hard and we need support and choices so existing 55-plus neighborhoods were created in Durham and with Durham support and encouragement and they've proven to be a wonderful option for many of the folks who live in them I live in vcas you might have guessed and I know my neighbors which is amazing and wonderful I see them on the streets as I walk my dog and I do mean on the streets

as I understand it the comprehensive plan if it doesn't acknowledge the legally designated over 55 communities such as the one I live in that already exists then the planning department has no recourse to help us as development increases to high density and high traffic next to our homes and through our streets we ask that the comprehensive plan clearly acknowledges the special needs of Durham senior population including options progress and development we're just trying to make sure that we're considered thank you thank you I'll acknowledge we have about two dozen hands raised next we'll go to Chris laws thank you um I'm Chris laws I'm the executive director of preservation

Durham and we would like to applaud the efforts of the committee to specifically address preservation Equity issues and make it an affirmative commitment to supporting active preservation of Durham's historical built environment and material culture on behalf of our organization I look forward to partnering with you and protecting Durham's unique historical assets and cultural heritage through 2050 and Beyond and thank you for all of your hard work and thought that you've put throughout this process and thank you for listening to our feedback thank you next we have Nancy Dory hi thank you my name is Nancy Dory I live at 407 Lancaster Drive in Durham County I'd like to make three quick points the first is just um my praise and my appreciation to the planning department staff who led this process it's been and just an excellent process and they've actively reached out

in so many ways so many times for public participation and we're very very grateful also for their foresight in looking into the future and addressing major challenges that are coming our way with the population expected to double in Durham in the next 25 years with more and more frequent extreme weather events um the plan recognizes these things and begins to really address them calling for 30 percent uh the land be conserved within the next 25-year period as well um recognizing the importance of protection protecting wildlife habitat natural heritage lands Etc so thank you for thinking so hard about our future and making sure it's a good place to live for our children and grandchildren um second point I want to bring out is the emphasis the general planning principle that flows throughout that development should follow infrastructure I really hope that um that Durham can implement this very very

seriously not only in terms of the Emergency Services Readiness the schools and our Durham city and county roads but I think the plan needs to also recognize that we need tighter coordination with the state our roads all connect to Major State arteries and right now while we ask the State Department transportation for some feedback on major proposed developments there's no Authority for the state to say we're really sorry but that interchange is already at capacity or Beyond so getting the state more involved and finally I would hope that our policies that currently talk about discouraging environmentally harmful practices like clear cutting and mass grading instead Nancy you two minutes are up thank you thank you I see about a dozen and a half hands raised okay next we have Clark and Betty or sorry next we have Rob levinski I went out of order

hi can you hear me yes okay great hi I'm Rob Lewinski thanks for your time I'm at 3805 West Cornwallis Road in Durham um I want to urge you all in the strongest possible terms to keep the urban growth boundary as shown in the proposed comprehensive plan the extension of the ubg into any other areas more specifically my concern is Arrowhead is not aligned with the still clearly stated goals of the plan Arrowhead contains environmentally sensitive areas ecologically important land and farmlands during during planning staff has indicated 60 000 new units are needed in 30 years next 30 Years to keep up with growth there's 150 000 units possible within the existing ubg so encroachment into other areas is not necessary extending the ubg doesn't serve the interest of anyone except developers seeking personal profit at the Public's expense arrowheads not to specifically is not suited for high density growth and would require significant public investment

according to City Water Management through the Topography of the area small portion could be developed the unit cost investment will be very high the infrastructure of Public Utilities doesn't support the growth please don't let the desire for personal gain from a couple of self-interested landowners take precedence over the needs and interests of the entire Durham Community these landowners have the ability to develop their properties in accordance with current zoning I have no objection to that all the community asks is they not be given preferential treatment thank you for your time thank you I see about two and a half dozen hands raised next we have Clark and Betty Thomas hello hello we can hear you yes this is Clark Thomas 504 Santee Road Durham I'm a County resident I live in the critical Watershed with my wife Betty

and just would like to take a moment and kind of step back for just a second I do think that that the effort that's gone into planning is a good thing having a plan is better than not having a plan the reality is is that decisions are being made with respect to development where there's no input from Dot as we know dot had a big 98 widening project and that has been put on the back burner due to funding and so these developments are going in without regard to some of these infrastructure so what does that mean does that mean your comprehensive plan is bad no it just means it needs to be phased it needs to be phased in so you know you should start where you've got the best infrastructure and then slowly work out um I would also ask you to think about neighborhoods in town like Forest Hills

I mean it's a beautiful neighborhood and ask yourself would you like to live in Forest Hills or would you like to live in a clear-cut area where you can pass a pint of sugar a cup of sugar out your window to your neighbor um it's just not conducive to the type of development that people are looking for if you're just trying to put people in houses that's one thing but if you're trying to create this sense of Durham I think there's another way of going about it so I would ask that you phase this plan instead of just roll it out without regard thank you for your time thank you I see about two and a half dozen hands raised those are everyone that's everyone that has signed up to speak and who indicated they want to speak in Zoom if there's anyone else who would like to add

something new to this discussion that has not had the chance to provide comments yet um you if you're in person please come to the podium at this time if you're in Zoom please raise your hand okay sweet I'm Ricky case I want to land at 25 23 and 2503 Hamlin Road Dustin Lynch talked about earlier on the map so uh on the property at 25 23 2503 Hamlin Road that totals over 40 acres of land the property is currently in the Suburban tier area based on the current proposal of the new Urban tier map my property would be bored in the urban tier area I requesting my two types of property be included in the urban growth area the land in this area is not favorable for perk sites and without access to sewer limits eliminates the building of any houses on the property the property currently has sewer I'm

sorry the property currently has City water which has been paid for natural gas and high-speed internet approximately a year ago I had C3 design and engineer surveyed the property and they advice based off the lay of the land part of my property would float naturally to the existing nearby sewer lines this property is located within four minutes of degree Duke Regional Hospital multiple shopping centers in North Roxboro Street most of the land west of this property is industrial property the planning board and the City commissioners just voted and approved for the development of Eno Venture Industrial Park which is located on Hamlin Road less than one mile from this property also the future Northern Durham Parkway would be almost within side of this property when I purchased this property 12 years ago that I considered it a possible future growth based on the fact that it was in a Suburban tier and already had City water to the property and for the options of the property in the future if I would have known that I would not have access to sewer or any future growth 509 to purchase the property please say this in consideration and include my property in the urban growth area and do not remove my property from the future access to

the Sewer if my property is included in urban gray Ferry it does not mean I'm going to develop it having access to water in store does help in using the property for different options also for building houses for my family thank you thank you hello my name is Carrie Steinbach I live at 4825 Jimmy Rogers Road in Durham we've had a lot of speak speaking about environmental issues with this one of the things that kind of gets through the cracks nobody addresses is the education system in all of these developmental areas as growth goes we've got to have schools to support them right now in all these areas and you saw the numbers I'm not going to name them we have one high school Southern High School we have one Middle School Neil Middle School we only have four elementary schools which is Spring Valley Mary Moore Glenn and Oak

Grove with all the numbers that y'all saw adding more and more and more houses these developers are going to tell you oh these houses are for young couple no kids it's not going to impact the schools do you all believe that we already over capacity in these schools many teachers like me I'm a retired teacher I retired out in 13. many teachers are retiring there are very few young people wanting to go into education so we have a crisis for these kids what are we doing to the kids when we continue to add more and more and more kids in classrooms that can't hold the capacity with fewer teachers and fewer resources schools cannot be built on a projection schools have to be built on hard numbers so by the time the school system catches up with the population those kids send in those overcrowded classrooms have paid the price I just

ask you to be very careful with your planning and realize that education is also a very very important part of our growth and development and I urge you to keep these areas out of the plan thank you I see about two and a half dozen hands raised again so my name is Jacob Freeman I live at 6408 Olivia Terrace in Raleigh North Carolina so first thing you'll probably notice is I didn't give you a Durham address but I want you to fully be aware of the changes that you're proposing with regard to the urban growth boundary how it will affect Wake County residents and specifically those who rely on Falls Lake for drinking water you've seen the pictures that have been shown to you I think they tell a pretty compelling picture along with the pictures plus the numbers that was presented from NC State University regarding the damage that's being done these areas out in in some of

these locations cannot be developed as dense as the as would like to be developed by the developers who stand to profit from it because of the way that the land and natural Topography of the of the land is so I would ask that you not approve this not move forward with expansion Urban growth boundary my concern is mainly on an environmental concern as a Wake County resident thank you for your time thank you I see about two dozen hands raised okay back to zoom um I see Pam Andrews good afternoon hope everybody can hear me okay um I just wanted to say tonight unfortunately I'm not able to be there in person but I thank my team preservable Durham for speaking very well tonight um I wanted to update something Tom Freeman said there is currently a three-car accident on Wake Forest

Highway at the corner of Wake Forest and hocut Road and I understand it's uh very likely to be a fatality those roads cannot hold this traffic it is unreal but I also want to speak from the environmental concerns I've raised many many times here mayor O'Neill and council member dedriana Freeman visited us Sunday went out on the lake went to residence hall and saw firsthand how much we are straining the infrastructure of this town and the destruction we're doing to the environment it is unbelievable I have some numbers from the NC State Professor I just wanted to add to what Tina Pearson mom said at the mouths of lip Creek this is current data not the data that stopped in 2018. this is data that was analyzed from May 2022 I'm sorry December 2022 our chlorophyll a is up 45 our total phosphorus is up 27 and our total Nitro into phosphorus ratio because the knife is not really changing but phosphorus is that negative ratio is

what toxic algae thrives off of total nitrogen didn't change much total phosphorus has significantly increased and the cyanobacteria does thrive off of this low nitrogen to phosphorus ratio chlorophyll a has significantly increased as the mayor and Adriana Freeman saw in person we are destroying Falls Lake we have to stop and look at what we're doing to our environment before we continue to add more to the urban growth boundary and removing the future off Camp Road status we thank you for what you do but we ask you humbly to please think about the environment thank you thank you I see about two dozen hand-raised next we have Jack McGrath yes hi uh I'm Jack McGrath from two two

four Macy Groves Drive in Chapel I mean well actually chapter Durham so I have a couple questions number one why aren't there any parks in the south of I-40 over here we're kind of ignored wall shelves Durham's high density program south of I-40 no longer horse because the light rail system has been killed so why is that still an appointment especially in the South South by 40 where there aren't any viable rules granted we have experiented road which is very nice but that's one road it's not a viable Road system and it's I think the planning committee needs to get up with technology for example

t-a-s-s which is Transportation as a service they have to think about these big things coming in the future thank you thank you I saw about a dozen hands raised on that one next we have Joni Brown hi I'm Joni Brown and I live at 3822 Alameda street in Durham County um I have a question as to how the 30 percent was reached for um Nature Preserve and if there was any study done as far as you know is 30 percent a viable uh number to uh encourage our environment rather than be detrimental to it

um I'm I'm very concerned about environmental impact and with that 30 I also have a question about what is our percentage right now of development in Durham County Durham city um and when we do reach that 30 percent of Natural Area does that mean there's going to be a halt to to development um just a curiosity question thank you thank you and next we have Andrew Heffner hi thanks for the opportunity to speak um what I have to say uh sort of Echoes a lot of what's already been said but specifically to the Cortez project um I've been here on in this neighborhood about 20 years now and what

attracted me to move here was three things the ease of of Transportation get to anywhere in Durham in 15 minutes the beauty of the natural environment around here it's a urban slash rural area but there's great Environmental Quality and the third thing was the affordability of the housing yeah it's easily affordable by moderate even low-income people and the development on Cortez combined with all of the other developments in the area are going to make none of those things true in five years from now so all those things that attracted us are no longer going to be applicable so specifically with the Cortez and also the adjoining property that was discussed by this committee uh last

meeting the uh I think it's called the South Miami project um the uh write up on those is incorrect in a couple areas um one is the amount of wetlands that is inside the property boundaries um I've been here 20 years I've spent countless hours walking back in that area and the estimates of the wetlands are nowhere near what is actually back there and it is a wildlife corridor should be protected and not destroyed Andrew your two minutes are up okay thank you very much thank you okay I see about a dozen hands raised is there anyone else pushing to speak on this item tonight

okay seeing none we're going to turn to commissioner question and comment and we have three things three action items here first is we need to discuss Hamlin Road and provide a straw poll on which direction we think we should take there second we are going to discuss and have a vote on the place excuse me the place type map and then after that we are going to have a discussion and place a vote on essentially the rest of the comprehensive plan the policy policies and actions and implementation so first we'll turn to Hammond Road um staff could we get the side-by-side Mac comparison for Hamlin Road back on the screen and are there any questions or comments that planning Commissioners any additional questions or comments planning Commissioners have about the Hamlin Road

situation can you disclose them uh chair I actually live in the uh the Hamlin community so I mean I don't have an interest in any property other than my own but just out of months of cost and I wanted to let let one know on a commission that in fact that I do live in that area okay thank you okay we've got the image in front of us um so we're just going to jump into the straw poll if you prefer the option on the left please raise your hand on the left I see Four Hands raised and if you prefer the option on the right

please raise your hand I see eight hands raised okay great thank you next up the place type map do we have discussion question items and sorry actually before we get into this um wow this is going to be a really disorganized dot oh I'm sorry about this I'm going to go back to the public comment for just a quick second um so I appreciate everybody's engagement on the comprehensive plan and I appreciate all the emails we received this weekend one piece of advice I wanted to offer in terms of strategy for communicating this information is if you have a big group of people that you know are going to be in agreement and saying the same thing it can be much more efficient to have that list of names say these 65 people these 80 people

whatever all agree with this statement and send that as one message because I'm going to be honest when we receive email like the same email that has the same like copy and paste 60 times I start to just being honest as a person I start to say okay it's the same content and I move on and I don't get the full depth and so if you're looking to take that approach I recommend putting a list of names together saying we all agree with this and then if you want to email and say hey I also want to add this note or maybe you begin your email with hey here's a specific story to me of why I care about this I think that is that is more helpful and will be more helpful for the elected officials because they get even more emails than we do and so I imagine they start ignoring stuff even quicker than we do so just throwing out that piece of advice for you all again I appreciate everybody's emails but that was something I kind of was reflecting on this weekend as I was getting emails

okay before we get into the place type map uh I did want to just provide an update to my fellow Commissioners we discussed this last Wednesday at the Joint City County planning committee well we discussed the full comprehensive plan but as you can imagine and as our public hearings have gone most of the focus was around the place type map particularly the urban growth boundary and what I would relay to you and this is all public records so you can go back and watch it yourself but so you don't have to there's a lot of consternation about what to do with the urban growth boundary and in particular it seems that my read is that we've been tiptoeing around the fact that what we've been proposing with the urban growth boundary basically forces us to densify and the closer we get to potentially approving the comprehensive plan I think the more people are starting to sit with and deal with that reality and it's becoming an increased

concern so I just want to know like the conversation we had with the city council and the County Commissioners that were in that meeting revoked significantly around are we really saying that we're drawing the lines and we're going to have to start building up and um there are different opinions about which way we should go as you all can imagine but I wanted to frame that up as like the context for where um at least the jccpcs had us at when it comes to the place type map and the urban growth boundary um also I'm going to ask staff a question I'm sorry to put you on the spot here but I know that the Joint City County committee the planning committee had a meeting today as well to discuss um these like seven areas that we've talked about is there any update that we need to be aware of can you give us just like a

brief overview of how that conversation went yes so so we did present this to the Joint City County committee this morning which is different from the Joint City County planning committee which met last week which had uh commissioner Jacobs is on both but had different members um I'd say today there were several city council members were absent so we didn't get a full discussion from all the elected officials but I think today's meeting there was generally more support for the urban growth boundary has proposed where there was a lot more discussion at jccpc about whether that would be kind of precluding housing opportunities great thank you okay are there any commissioner questions or comments on the place type map commissioner Morgan yes I had a question for staff I know there was listed about five different areas that would be revised I know one

S 70 Corridor study to complete do we have any time frames on each of those modifications to the place type Mac I mean I know we've listed them but do we have a time frame in which those will be completed we don't have a time frame I know um we whenever the USMD study is is finalized and we know what the design will be then as soon as possible afterwards we would like to update it but we just need to make sure that we have staff time and capacity available to do that but that should be the next should be within a couple years yeah I mean that's one of those things that I know as we get cases that do have these corridors or different place types that could change as a result of that I think that it would be helpful to get some guidance on that especially as cases come forward to us and then if that's before we get a

finalized Place time that would be helpful just so we can certainly do that to the best of our ability yeah I understand you just got to do your best guess at that time right it makes sense thank you another question commissioner cease thank you um I have kind of three three comments to make in general um and and I'll preface it by saying and I've said this the other times that we've had an opportunity to to talk about the comprehensive plan is that I um want to start by just acknowledging that I think staff's done a fabulous job particularly on the items we'll be discussing next the policy the engagement some of the comments that we heard from the public earlier today about the intentionality around all of that we also heard someone reference the specificity with which staff went through all the comments and and I went through staff provided when I requested it several months ago their their

work file consisting of coding every single comment that came in no matter the the means or venue through which it was collected and and so that that's uh I'm prefacing it because those comments and are really more about the comprehensive plan in general and not the place types map but I want to just make clear that I appreciate the amount of work and appreciate where we are as a community with regards to the draft of the comprehensive plan but on the place types map I think it's it's um something that that reflecting on it the past couple of weeks something that I think it just seems evident at this point it didn't seem evident to me 10 months ago back in the fall or when we had a a workshop with staff or in earlier policy working group committee meetings it didn't seem evident and many of us were on some of those groups but now that we have a comprehensive

plan on the threshold of being adopted there is much more Community consensus that I think should be included and attaching to it the granularity that the place types map represents they're very specific parcel level decisions that are captured in this place types map that staff has gone through incredible detail and so the three comments that I that I want to make about the place types map and the decisions that that we have in terms of shaping a recommendation for tonight or that you know that as as chairmanolia referenced a lot of the consternation has been around the urban growth boundary we've heard that from the community tonight we've heard that at every meeting and and opinions in both ways we've heard more in previous meetings versus tonight's meetings from owners who are impacted by the proposed changes and nearly all of the proposed changes are constricting the urban growth boundary there may be a one or two off-site specific instance where

it's an expansion relative to what we have now so all the community consternation about well we shouldn't be expanding the urban growth boundary shouldn't be expanding the urban growth boundary or not there's nothing that is proposed to be expanding the urban growth boundary the decision is how do we can constrain it based on the work that's been done to date and in both public work and and staff work looking at a policy level so that's that's one category um but I'm also uncomfortable with some of the individual parcel level decisions and and and so all of this has been relayed in general to staff not with great specifics but I appreciate staff working to hear us out and make changes especially with the early version it's it's I'm not suggesting that the place types map hasn't progressed but I still think it's not at a place certainly not at a place equal to the quality and intentionality of the

comprehensive plan policies and objectives and goals I think there are problematic parcel level decisions for instance calling out apartment and townhouse neighborhoods where there's kind of ecologically or environmentally significant lands with historical um cultural historical significance there that that I it just may not have been fully accounted for in how many Parcels was it across the county you know looking at hundred thousand parcels twenty thousand hundred and twenty thousand Parcels so an incredible task and and um and so I I think that just the consternation we've heard is an indication of perhaps discomfort or lack of clarity around process and that's not a fault it's a reflection on where we are and then there's as I

said some internal uh decisions and then lastly the purported benefits to constraining the urban growth boundary as is being proposed as an engineer as an architect a planner I'm just not convinced that the benefits that are described as some of the considerations fully align with the benefits that the community would receive if if we were to adopt what is proposed so my my strong preference would be to um well I'll say it is to conduct to adopt the comprehensive plan and then to come back and to revisit the place types map with similar intentionality and effort that was put into developing the conferences plans and goals and objectives and perhaps a little more um

public engagement around the larger goals and objectives but also around many of the site-specific conditions that a lot of you in the audience and a lot of those who've spoken before have brought forth so thank you thank you other questions or comments commissioner shigeris yes I have a question I believe for Sarah Young comment that something in the place type map that is now considered conservation and something else will be considered or re-labeled Recreation and open space can you what exactly conservation and what I'm sorry can you say that question again you mentioned that on the place type map something that is currently considered or called conservation and is on one of your first or second slides is going to be relabeled or now referred to as Recreation and open space or

combined with Recreation and open space are you referring to the policy about having 30 percent of the County's land area in permanent conservation I don't think so maybe yeah we're not sure so we have the the recreation and open space category which includes kind of active Recreation as well as conservation lands on the the place type map um and I don't I don't believe we're going to be under Recreation and open space it's not going to be listed as conservation that's correct so that's a policy not necessarily on the place type map yeah it was felt at this level trying to figure out which ones were active Recreation which ones were permanently conservation is is difficult so that's kind of a step that we want to do after as an implementation does that mean at any time in the future if it was in the past a conservation meaning nothing happens there that it could be like possibly turned into a recreation

and open space a park with pavement and so if something has a conservation easement or it's in permanent conservation because it's owned by its you know it's a federal or state conservation lands then no those are permanent um it's just on the on the land use map itself we just wanted to designate the areas that were there would be no houses or jobs basically would be remain open space so um part of one of the implementation measures we want to do is figure out what as a community we think permanent conservation means and how we can achieve the 30 goal which would be separate from what's shown as open space on the map because some of it will be you know parks with parking lots and tennis courts and those sorts of things okay thank you thank you other questions or comments commissioner Baker and we received a lot of comments about the urban growth boundary and the future growth area in southeast Durham

um are those areas changing from the original proposal are we seeing an expansion of the urban growth boundary in southeast Durham so the staff recommendation is what we proposed in January and as commissioner sees mentioned they're all retractions from what the current Suburban tier has but we did not recommend any changes except for the change in the future growth area that's the one yeah one change um but then at your was it March 28th meeting the Planning Commission did in the straw poll recommend adding to those two areas changing two areas and adding them back to the urban growth boundary in addition to the Hamlin Road one today okay so I'm sorry adding back to the urban growth boundaries so allowing more development on the outskirts I understand that's right yeah okay so that was that was a recommendation by

the Planning Commission because I think I missed that meeting yeah that was only two the Oxford Hamlin no Oxford stagville Area Oxford Road stackville area and the um cheek Redwood area were the ones that a majority of the Planning Commission voted to recommend adding into the back to the ugb inside the urban growth boundary to be able to be developed more that's right we're densely and that's just for the timing thing right like the urban we have the we have the place type Mom that's about that's about density and how you grow and the design and everything the urban growth boundary is about timing of of development I think the future growth areas are definitely about timing of development they're the areas where we know we need some additional resources before it can support development the urban growth boundary is kind of like the line where Urban denser Urban Development will happen on the inside with with public utilities and then on the outside it would not but

that being said we need to reassess with every conference plan and maybe in between as we see what's changing where we need to extend the urban growth boundary in the future and do that intentionally and that's why there is a policy about when we should extend the urban growth boundary in the comprehensive plan okay is there anyone on the Planning Commission who can explain to me some of the reasoning behind why we decided to add that portion back into the urban growth boundary I was curious commissioner Baker I would have to go back to our March 28th meeting to look at the discussion we had on the specific places the way we did our straw polls we did not log who voted which way we just did a straight number either way because it was not an uh an official vote it wasn't an official movement it was a preferential straw poll so I would refer you back to that meeting okay

foreign comprehensive plan has a has a lot of really great goals and policies many of which never actually ended up getting implemented or used on a on a regular basis um but what really um was not working well and has not been working well is the future land use map which which essentially we kind of threw into the trash a couple years ago and have been making decisions sort of on a case-by-case basis so I see the place type map as as the greatest potential value add in this entire process in addition to the the goals and policies but I am really curious um commissioner cease about your comments about wanting to delay the place types and I think that's a really big proposal and so I wanted to follow

up on your comments so that I could understand a little bit more about why you think that we should do that and not to interrupt but also to interrupt we are at our two hour Mark um so we need to take a recess so let's continue this conversation after our recess um so we can give our closed captioners a break so we're going to recess and return at 7 40 pm foreign

gov 5074.

[Music] so Jim let's get started with you I know we have a lot of job openings right now how does that compare to the number that we usually have in the city we typically have somewhere around 40 or 50 positions this is prior to the app is what we averaged we are now at about averaging 120 or so um so two and a half times what our normal number is so what is the culture like working for the city what would you how would you describe it there are a couple of things that I would absolutely see as something that goes across all departments the first thing is and to me this is one of the other incredibly important things is realizing that your job impacts the community whatever it might be whatever Department it's in the better you do your job the better the people are in Durham We the People

Nosotros te Gente Mia We the People hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal and shall be afforded the inalienable right to fair housing the city of Durham and HUD are committed to ensuring that everyone is treated equitably when searching for a place to call home foreign [Music]

foreign [Music]

all right it could be a dream thank you I got I got all four of them today we're kind of like yeah

[Music] thank you [Music] otherwise it's like the prices

don't know if things yeah [Music] thank you okay we are going to return from Recess please shake your seats and lower your voices Commissioners Baker and sis you may uh proceed with your discussion line of questioning I don't know who wants to go first on this one question has come my way so um

can you just restate the question can you elaborate on your previous comments that was convenient um so the uh the suggestion was or the characterization of my comments was that I'm suggesting a delay in adopting the comp plan map and I guess that's that's really not um it's not the intention that's the perhaps the impact of what I was suggesting but I want to back up and say that it's it's simply a reflection on the immense amount of work that has been done today not just on the comp plan policies and but on the on the mapping and the value that has that is represented in that effort um notwithstanding that there are different perspectives uh represented in the community with regards to the boundary that we've that we've heard I have more issues with some specific

properties internal to the boundary as well as some concerns about the boundary but it is my my comments and my suggestion were a recognition that there is Great Value in what is being done to date but I'm simply uncomfortable with where it is right now and so I I I I I'm and I've think I've in general conveyed that sense of discomfort um in previous opportunities to do so uh and so I but I don't want to throw it out and so that's you know like hearing the the some of the comments we heard earlier about the intentionality around the comprehensive plans and goals and objectives I mean there's there's great work to be done there but I think there still needs to be um some uh work done or on either the map or on policies and guidance whereby the map can be amended and so that's where the second half of our conversation on this type on this item kind of

relates to this first half and notably there's a uh in a appendix H for this item one of the administrative policies policy 165 speaks to how amendments to the place type map shall be um considered and and I think that and this this is through the course of tonight's meeting and the preparation of considering the materials for tonight's meeting this is where this perhaps bone-headed idea a bad idea came about but this is where it came about is that this the administrative policy is is basically elevating the place types map to to um to a pretty high level and it's very it identifies a pretty high threshold for changes to be made to the place types map and I think that policy uh since I um since you know a map is necessary to adopt a comprehensive plan writ large by the state statutes you know maybe there is room to massage that particular policy in recognition of some of the

anticipated small area planning efforts that are to be done and in recognition of the fact that staff was tasked with identifying specifically a place types for 125 000 properties and and that that's a really tall order without the uh care and well I don't want to say without you know it was really a tall order in conjunction with all of the effort that was being done so that's that's my elaboration oh my comments yeah thanks for that thanks for that commissioner cease um I guess in general where I'm standing on on the place type map is that it's it's imperfect um it's certainly not something that I would ideally like to see but it's a vast improvement over what we have which is effectively nothing um at the moment and while we were using the future land use map of the existing comprehensive plan that essentially was perpetuating proactively perpetuating uh and encouraging bad policy

and some inconsistencies with the goals and policies in in the current comprehensive plan as well so um uh one thing you said commissioner sees that that Drew my attention was the um was the upcoming or I think you said anticipated small area planning so I did just want to want to raise that because that was a comment that I had previously sent to staff that I wanted to see some actions around small area planning so so is that accurate or are we um are we going to be seeing some small area planning because that was not previously in the draft of the comprehensive plan implementation list you can see that we've listed out a lot of the things that we think the best way to implement them is through a small area plan so we'll be looking at ways to do that and particularly in areas where the the

place I map might need a lot more you know care and consideration okay yeah I did I did I remember seeing it it was like a category and a table and I thought it was interesting because we don't actually we don't actually have small area planning um so I I mean I guess that's one thing I'd like to see is is just an action around actually doing small area planning um in part to address some of commissioner cease's concerns about the small area plan so that we can we can do the fine-grained work and and get it right in the in the some of these key areas the last thing I'll just say is um is I actually the um Urban growth growth boundary in the cheek cheek Road area and then the future growth future growth area in Southeastern as well you know when this comprehensive plan started this comprehensive playing process started in 2019

Durham looked vastly different than it looks now so I just want to acknowledge that we have sprawled by thousands of Acres since the comprehensive plan process started and we talk about um you know achieving carbon neutrality and we we've got beautiful language but this has been some of the most climate destructive and environmentally destructive policy making perhaps in the history of our city just in the past five years four years over the process during the process of the comprehensive plan growth that does not include walkability is car Centric and separates housing and the people that live in them by by different types and and lacks adequate design and services so um so putting that back into the comprehensive plan without the assurances that that kind of new growth is going to be sustainable in any way is um is very

concerning to me I don't want to throw the baby out with a baby out with the bath water so I'm wondering Steph I mean can we redo the straw poll or rethink those areas at all tonight or are we just going to have to take a vote on the whole the whole plan um itself and kind of just leave our comments for city council and County Commission to consider and staff before you respond I will just note we are going to be voting on the place type map separately so the rest of the plan will be a separate vote that we did a straw poll it is it is a is unofficial as the chair mentioned so what we need to come out of this meeting and this process with you all is a recommendation and your comments for the County Commissioners on the city council to consider as they make the final decision so I think it's less important

to suss out the informal poll that was taken and more important to talk about anything that needs to be talked about today and to inform your vote and your comments with whatever your perspective is on the individual areas okay so so uh we'll we'll take the votes on the place type map we'll take a vote on the comprehensive plan um but what you're saying is that the place type map is not necessarily set in stone that you will be considering our comments before it reaches city council and County Commission so all of the areas that have been raised as concerns or where there's not kind of agreement around uh particularly around the urban growth boundary retractions that information is being presented to council and the Commissioners it was this morning and last week in the joint meetings and will be again at the work sessions in August

and the public Hearing in August okay so are they making decisions around each of those areas yesterday one thing I want to add is it would be best if the Planning Commission would in your motion say what you're recommending and so you know we recommend we're we move staff recommendation with these following changes so that we know what the planning commission's recommendation actually is and then for those of you who don't agree with that particular motion you can vote your conscience and then put your comments and or explain your vote in your comments I think it's the best way to go about that okay because I believe that straw poll was pretty divided six five so with me that we've probably yeah and then there was another one that was five six that would be very split yeah I wasn't here either I'm sorry I wasn't here on the street you were also not here okay all right I'm gonna let others speak

um and do a little thinking yeah and just to so I'm gonna recap how those straw polls went we don't have the maps but just option one is the uh more restrictive option less developable and option two is more developable in so we had seven straw polls on the first one four people voted for option one seven for option two so seven the majority was more developable land the second one we had eight vote for option one three for option two majority was for Less developable land the third was very split but it was six in favor of option one five in favor of option two uh the fourth was also split the other way five in favor of option one six in favor of option two

um five we had ten in favor of option one one member in favor of option two six everyone who was present was in favor of option one and then the seventh um two were in favor of option one eight were in favor of option two one member abstained so just for the record um based on the conversation from jccpc they are most concerned about the ones that were split votes and that were very close and I think my interpretation was that they expressed a preference to align with the Planning Commission preference when it was clear and obvious and in the contested ones I think they're going to

have kind of their own debates and figure out what they want from there foreign can I ask a clarifying question here how can is there a way that we can um we can utilize sort of the place types along with the urban growth boundaries to get the effect that we want particularly in some of those areas that that are are split um I don't I don't know if that's something we should be considering here but I don't know if that helps in terms of thinking about yeah we can grow in those areas but in a certain way based on the place types that are that are outlined in those areas to me that seems like the solution here but that also speaks to commissioner cease's comments about being much more thoughtful about Place types and you know ultimately the

place types determine what the city will look like in particular areas and so if we're not deliberate about that then yeah we're going to run into some situations that won't necessarily work out or some unintended consequences um so I say that to say you know maybe we can move forward and we can work through that as it comes up um you know sort of feel the same way about other changes that we're making to the Udo nothing's perfect but let's work through it um and so if we support sort of working through things as they occur then you know then then I think we should just we should move in that direction generally um as long as we have a good process in place to make those changes and we're not overly restrictive um when logical changes need to be made yeah so thank you commissioner

Cartwright for those comments what I will say about that is for um let's see I'm counting one two okay so there were three of these seven where the majority voted for option two which is the more expansive version of those three two of them the recommendation would have designated the area as a new future growth area and so I think that actually accomplishes what you were suggesting by saying these two things we're going to keep we're going to keep them in the urban growth boundary which is now the Suburban tier but we're designating them as a future growth area meaning they have to meet a certain set of criteria before we say they are ready for development the third that was not included in that was related to the existing Southeast future growth area and we removed a portion of that future growth area because

um or we suggested removal we don't have power to actually remove it because the Durham fire department had determined that they were able to service that portion of the future growth area commissioner Morgan yeah commissioner cease actually kind of triggered some thoughts as also commissioner Baker's comments one of the things that comes to my mind is that with the place type map as it as it is we've got a you know 125 000 parcels and certainly as cases come to us I mean my concern is I don't want the place type nap to be too fluid where we just simply change the intention of what is and originally was described what I do think and what I'm hearing would be some of these small area planning boundaries or areas could possibly govern better the

use of those different place types because again if we implement the place type we move forward with it and then a developer comes in and says well this is great but I want to do something different and they come up with a nice plan or whatever and we're too quick to make the change then really what is the use of that we kind of get that with the flum and we we kind of do that where I know in an area that maybe industrial we're moving it towards uh residential or something like that but what comes to my mind in more of how we're what we need to do and what I think commissioner cease is saying is let's take a little more time and maybe put some boundaries around how we Define these things because if we implement it say today as is and we start getting cases coming in and developers can justify you know with a really nice plan and a lot of other attributes to it we're probably going to be more apt to be willing to change the place type

quickly rather than what the original intent is so then what is the exercise of what's the value of the exercise with defining areas and Parcels as certain like transportation areas or multi-use or other things that may be different attributes of it but it seems to almost alter the work or it also kind of and I don't want to use the word probably not the right word but it almost seems to minimize the value of the work that that planning has done with the uh the ones I tend to see it's kind of very macro level I mean micro level type planning where we should probably have some kind of governance or some kind of macro level view of a particular area so that that's kind of my comments that I almost tend to agree with you know taking the time and studying it a little more I know we've got a lot of stuff we want to get done we want to get

this forward we want to move on to the rewrite of the Udo there's a lot of things pushing Us in that direction but I also look at something like this that it could be a good tool to guide us in the future or future planning Commissioners to defer find okay this looks like a good way or a good plan and also it also is guidance for developers to develop in line with what the plans are what the place types have been designated so those are kind of my comments in general and I'm kind of leaning either to let's move forward with it and then change it later or maybe take the time and put some governance around it so then we can then predict present it back but I'm kind of open on the fence either way but I I can see pros and cons and going either direction thank you any other questions or comments

um so Scott and Lisa it would um could you both speak to kind of like what happens with the comprehensive plan after tonight particularly as it relates to the place type map how it's going to be updated over time what's that engagement process going to look like when will it be happening to give folks a flavor for the way that this is a living breathing document is going to continue to evolve and what are kind of the parameters surrounding that yeah so and apologize if I'm repeating myself but to fully answer the question so we do have the two-year evaluation and assessment procedures in the policies where we want to do we had a similar thing in the current comprehensive plan every year but it it wasn't really enough time or effort to to Really provide good analysis for the comprehensive plan so we want to give do it every two years and do more analysis

and particularly look at policies that maybe aren't working like we thought or policies that we didn't think of that we need to add but in particular to the map it's just look at areas where the development Trends are clearly not they're clearly different than what we anticipated when we adopted the map and then recommend changes at that time rather than just letting individual applicants come in and change the map piece by piece the second thing is we we do as Sarah mentioned our presentation we do know there's some areas that are kind of in limbo because of like Highway 70 and the Research Triangle Park where there's currently plans in place that could have significant changes in the place Time map but until we know what those are it's really we we can't really anticipate what the land use is ought to be and then the third thing is we will look at doing beginning a small area planning program what exactly it looks like we don't know yet but there are definitely

some things aside from the the place type map that in the policies in actions that the really the only good way really reasonable way to implement those is through a small area plan and we would also look at changes to the place type map as well I guess one thing we do need in addition to the fact that the the map is the only thing required by law for comprehensive plan um it's also as we begin the update on the Udo we need to have some guidance about what our zoning districts are going to be and where they're going to go and so without a map it's going to be really hard to do that thank you and uh Lisa you had talked about some of the specific items and kind of the engagement that might happen around that can you speak to that as well um so I'll mention first when Scott mentioned the kind of two-year process we also as part of the implementation

S 70 Corridor and that visioning that's happening right now to figure out if a a more multi-modal uh supportive roadway might be in the in the future vision of that road instead of a highway so as we as we look at kind of the

the studies that are happening that will influence opportunities for places within the community that we can work towards those 15-minute Community characteristics that are in the plan engagement with folks along those corridors working to take our Equitable engagement efforts that we've been doing in the comp plan process and expanding them to those areas will be part of our efforts great thank you okay commissioner cease I'm learning on the Fly here and I think I appreciate other Commissioners comments and staff's responses and the value again of what's been done to date is is really something important um but also I think the concerns that we've heard time and time again from certain property owners and certain other considerations I'd like to attempt to wrap up

three things that maybe we've heard one is the intention behind small area planning that staff just described at Lisa just described the uh and maybe the other two are just concerns that I've attempted to highlight kind of the the Legacy value of the existing Suburban tier boundary and I use that phrase only from the perspective of kind of property interests that have been operating under that proposition for 15 years or whatever it is and that's not to elevate their interest above any of the other concerns that we're necessarily trying to accomplish is just to acknowledge that that there there is something there to consider and then thirdly some of the internal considerations so I'll put this out there for other Commissioners and the chair to kind of consider is maybe there is then to the staff's comments about needing to be able to adopt a place type math maybe there's a way to massage or amend the policy 165 administrative policy

that speaks to the process for amendments to the place types map to specifically add three additional considerations one would be you know some consideration of the Legacy value to the tier boundary as it exists today that doesn't mean development couldn't occur without you know and maybe that's well that's to some extent what the future growth area is intended to accomplish but but the future growth area doesn't doesn't kind of capture that that Legacy value consideration we heard from one property owner tonight that's affected by that the second point would be to anticipate and and again when I say Point second potential change to policy 165. or additional consideration anticipate development less intensely than the place types as indicated on the map if it's demonstrably beneficial to either environmental outcomes affordable housing production or approaches to Equitable engagement and

outcomes so kind of a three a three-point map there and if there kind of was an amendment a modification amendments their own work modification to that policy 165 the proposed changed um in conjunction with a vote on the draft Place types map maybe that's something to consider I like that idea anybody else have thoughts or questions does staff have any concern with that type of motion don't with a we actually kind of like commissioner sees the suggestion for that amended language so okay that sounds great I would like to move this forward to emotion so just to reiterate commissioner cesa's Point

Commissioners suggesting that we make a motion to approve the place type map with a modification to policy 165 to add additional criteria um to decisions about the place type map yes if the criteria that he read is on the record if perhaps he might be able to give it to us in writing later so we make sure we get it right we will we will incorporate that into the policy and perhaps commissioner sees you make that motion um real quick you say it on point two um a density less than what's recommended based on the three things that you stated affordable housing environmental and the other would that not go the other way and you would be allowed to increase density in certain areas if you also hit those three things I'm happy to say less than or greater than

I mean I think both conditions should be represented I have does anybody want Commissioners to repeat his thing before making this motion just to make sure we're good okay cool commissioner seats you don't have to say the whole thing but can you make a motion it's a good thing I brought a legal pad tonight I'm not an attorney but I did write things down on my legal pad I'd like to make a motion that we should I make the motion or just reiterate the points you should make the motion I make the motion that we recommend approval of the draft Place types map with uh modifications to the proposed policy 165. to include additional criteria for consideration for amendments to the place types map one being Legacy value of some sort to

this existing Suburban tier boundary prior to any of these map changes being considered and secondly to give consideration for development of parcels internal to the urban growth boundary either more intensely or less intensely as than as indicated in the place types map if demotionally beneficial to environmental concerns affordable housing production or approaches to Equitable engagement and outcomes I have proper motion do I have a second okay moved by commissioner sees seconded by commissioner cutwright I am closing the public hearing very quickly does anybody have discussion on the motion hearing none may we have the roll call vote chairman dolia yes Vice chair

Cameron yes commissioner Baker yes commissioner cut right yes commissioner shagaris yes commissioner girl yes commissioner MacGyver yes commissioner Morgan yes commissioner cease yes commissioner Trapp yes commissioner Valentine yes commissioner Zuri Williams yes motion carries 12-0 oh thank you look at us getting creative okay so to be clear on this next part we have already approved a long time ago The Guiding values and the community goes on objective part of the comprehensive plan so the next vote we will be taking is going to be to approve the growth management strategy the policies and actions and implementation are there any questions or comments on

those three items from commissioners commissioner cease I appreciate the commission's patience from the private vote allowing me to go to a place where I could vote Yes my concerns with this item and have been relayed to staff but only recently just relate to the specificity of historic um considerations of historic architecture and patterns of development and now I'm scrolling through the neighborhoods policy item and I would just like staff to maybe address that this neighborhood neighborhoods action item 22. in the appendix I'm sorry attachment age which was the proposed changes policy actions and policy and action revisions between the current draft plan it's indicated in the attachment is 22 but that was January 23

versus the proposed edits in May of 23. good you're asking about that action not about the consistency language in policy 35 you meant earlier no I'm asking I'm sorry about neighborhoods action 22. and what's your question about that so there are all of these changes from in the right hand side of the column are understandable refinements and kind of extensions and wordsmithing other policies but I feel like this item is four or five very specific additional statements regarding historical access I'm sorry historical assets and historic preservation practices that are kind of new at this stage in the game it seems um so this is an expansion obviously of the you can see the original language on the left was just talking about updating

the architectural inventory with 10-year updates the idea is that we recognize that over time new there are not new old things that have become older become historically significant so this is intended to just be talking about as we're going through time that we continue to look back and determine what expansion of consideration of historic significance we might want to include thank you and it's and it's it is the policy I just reference it's also policy 35 is where the new word consistent with shows up yes new that is different than language we're using elsewhere and so I think we can revise if there's uh consensus around this because consistent I think can indicate something stronger than the language that's used elsewhere and that was

originally in there we wanted so there was some concern about um you know rooted in and connected to Durham's history is maybe not specific enough and so I think we can we can find something in between there thank you I think I think I would be far more comfortable with something less stringent than consistent with certainly thank you other questions or comments commissioner Baker just uh just one um I remember a while back we discussed particular policy policy 173 mixed residential neighborhood small than 20 develop Acres should increase the mix of housing types of media vicinity mixed residential neighborhood Place types generally between 20 and 50 developable acres should increase a mix of at least two housing types and I remember we had recommended to increase the number of housing types and housing variety um am I remembering correctly that that recommendation was rejected

I don't know if I'd use the word rejected but we were having trouble finding consensus on a policy more stringent policy that had support amongst the elected officials so okay that's kind of where we left it a little with a little more wiggle room okay the elected officials if I remember correctly I believe this was discussed at jccpc and yeah there was not consensus elected officials were arguing for Less housing for Eddie okay that's all other questions or comments commissioner Morgan yeah I had a couple comments one of the things that I've noticed is as far as the policies is great and we've gotten some good feedback from various Community people themselves what I'm kind of proposing especially since I resemble one of the seniors in the the group here so I do think that some of the concerns by the group for

senior living and some of the needs that we do have um is maybe recommend some type of task force to cover some of these areas that are a little more vague and I mean I'm wanting not wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater since we're using that phrase all the time although I'm not a baby but the the idea there is is that possibly that we could recommend task force for certain areas that are vague particularly seniors and then I think the other area would be schools of Education I think those two things just jump out at me as uh impact that or implications as we evaluate things and it may be sort of vague in our in our goals and objectives and policies so my thought would be is which I'll make in my comments I'm in favor of moving forward but also wanting to consider the option do we have that ability to make

those recommendations or do you think there's latitude to kind of shore up some of the more fuzzier areas right now I know probably the best way to address that is just to recommend and you may not need to do it as your as the motion but uh just in your comments to recommend that as an additional action item that's why I was thinking it would be best to do that and then just make our comments but I do think that those are things that I wanted to call out in in the meeting here just say something for my other Commissioners to think about that okay um so I would like to move this forward to a vote um I do have one I just wanted thing I wanted to address and it's related to commissioner Morgan's points just there um I think like having an implementation item of a task force on Aging in Durham

like something like that that makes sense to me um and I just because we got so much discussion about it I want to just acknowledge um everything we heard tonight about 55 and older communities obviously I am not 55 or older so I don't have the same experience as people living in those communities but what I do acknowledge is that the reason we currently have 55 plus communities is because we don't make our world workable for people who are 55 and older so we have to create communities specifically for people 55 and older because that's just not our standard that's not our bar and the point of this comprehensive plan is to make that the bar to say if you're 55 and older this whole county is for you and if you are disabled this whole counties for you and if you are poor this whole county is for you and if you are black this whole county is for you and so I want to just acknowledge the absence

of specific language on 55 and older communities is because the goal is to not need them the goal is to have our city and our County be workable for people who are 55 and older and yes we will need assisted living facilities and health home AIDS and all these other systems and structures to help people who are having a particularly hard time as they age but just wanted to acknowledge that your your concerns are heard and from my perspective they are accounted for and the way that we have written the comprehensive plan to say this is going to be a path for a city that is accessible for everybody regardless of age ability anything with that I would like to move this forward to a motion reminder we need a motion on approving the um growth management strategy the policies and actions and implementation

and this is to both governing bodies Mr chair I make such a motion like since you said it so well thank you we have a motion from commissioner Morgan I believe to hear something from commissioner Trapp okay is there any discussion on the motion may we have the roll call vote I've been waiting for this for a long time chair I'm adolia yes Mr Cameron yes commissioner Baker yes commissioner cut right yes commissioner shagaras yes commissioner Durham commissioner McIver yes Mr Morgan yes commissioner cease yes commissioner Trapp yes Mr Valentine yes commissioner Zuri Williams yes motion carries 12-0 okay

we have a Planning Commission recommended comprehensive plan now I am very excited about that we have a lot of other items to get to I thank you for everyone who's come to address the comprehensive plan I appreciate your engagement we're going to move at a faster clip moving forward my goal is that each of these items takes 20 minutes total like each item takes 20 minutes or less I'm setting a timer on my phone to try and keep that pace so and I will restrict commissioner time if necessary because I want everyone to get to bed at a decent time so we're going to start with case z22000 44 Fairhaven walk we'll begin with the staff presentation thank you chair Amendola Aaron Kane with the planning department as you stated this is case z220044 Fairhaven walk which is a proposed zoning map change

445 to allow for up to 192 multi-family dwelling units on site and six thousand square feet of daycare space all units on the site are committed to being affordable the draft Place type map designation is apartment and townhouse neighborhood The Proposal is consistent with this

designation the existing zoning is rs20 and RS8 the surrounding zoning is residential of varying densities to the north east and south a commercial shopping center is west of the site the aerial map shows the general location of the project which is on the north side of old Oxford Road between Merriweather drive and Daniel Blaine there are existing residential uses surrounding the site and a shopping center with a grocery store to the West the development plan shows access from old Oxford Road and Meriwether drive there is a riparian buffer in the western portion of the site tree coverage is located throughout the site there are several notable text commitments for this case including as I stated before the commitment to affordable housing provision of space for a daycare center turn Lanes on Old Oxford Road off-site sidewalks to the intersection

of old Oxford and Meriwether and bus stop improvements for a go Durham stop a neighborhood meeting was held in accordance with Udo requirements on March 31st 2000 2022. six community members were in attendance and additional two meetings were held with bragtown residents to discuss the proposal two social pinpoint comments have been received for this case both of which were proponents of The Proposal citing provision of affordable housing walkability and access to Transit staff determines that this request is consistent with the draft comprehensive plan and other adopted ordinances and policies The Proposal is in the public interest due to its provision of affordable housing if you have any questions staff is here to answer thank you we're going to open the public hearing we'll begin with the applicant presentation and comments um so we typically give our applicants 10 minutes do you think you can do it in

445 which will allow for the development of Fairhaven walk a 100 affordable apartment community it will have a maximum of 192 units and is located in the bragtown neighborhood of Durham this gave us the opportunity to have meaningful engagement with the bragtown Community Association and work with them to find out how best this project could support their community we've also been working with Durham housing authority and Durham Head Start

after several Zoom calls emails and one in-person tour of bragtown DHA and Head Start we were able to come up with a list of items that would help address the needs of the community and these are the ones that we I just wanted to highlight for you this will be a 100 affordable apartment community we were able to increase our 30 Ami units from 25 to 30 percent after having conversations with the bragton Community Association depending on available vouchers from DHA we may be able to increase the amount of 30 units we just haven't really worked that out yet but we are committing to a minimum of 30 percent at 30 Ami and the rest will be 60 Ami or lower this project is committing to a space for Head Start which is early childhood education there is no memorandum of understanding in place yet but it is in process and that again came from a direct conversation with the Brighton Community Association we are providing a covered bus shelter at the bus stop along the northern Frontage of old Oxford Road which is in front of our project

this development will provide the off-site sidewalks that Aaron mentioned pending um right-of-way availability we're trying to you know connect the um square up square off the sidewalk gaps to help complete the sidewalk Network this project will provide crosswalks along Merryweather Frontage pending any ncdot and Durham Transportation approval and this is a commitment that wasn't on our development plan um but I do want to mention we have talked to folks about it and if we're able to get the crosswalks we will we will get them to help give the people that live in this project and other folks that live here the ability to be able to walk to the grocery store in the shopping center across the street so that's my quick and dirty overview of our project I'm going to pass the Baton to Sean Brady who's going to tell you a little bit about Commonwealth development company so my name is Sean Brady I'm the vice president of development at Commonwealth Development Corporation we are one of

the top 10 fluctuates a little bit but one of the top 10 developers of affordable housing in the country I have over 6 500 units I've developed more than I think a thousand units in North Carolina and we've been working with the community in bragtown for over a year I think we've moved in a really good Direction with the project Pam has hit on a lot of the commitments that we've made we continue it's an open discussion dialogue we continue to do what we can to kind of fine-tune thing it one clarification I wanted to make on the income targeting it is an average 60 Ami we will have 70 percent Ami units in there as well but we did increase our 30 percent per portion of the total 30 am I to 30 percent of the total we are planning to partner with the Durham Housing Authority we're trying to finalize the the deal terms on that but to actually co-develop and co-own the project together jointly and we are as we talked about working on a mou with Head Start to operate the child care facility there on site which we would build and provide and then they would operate but that would not be exclusive

to our residents that would be community-wide it'd be a basic community service facility obviously a benefit to our residents but it would be a benefit to the to the entire Community um and so yeah we're pretty excited the city has already provided a pretty significant investment to make this financially feasible we're incredibly thankful it would not be possible without that um but yeah we've we've got a pretty uh a pretty strong team a lot of experience doing this we're very excited this will be our first development this will be my first development indoor I've done a few in in Raleigh nearby but it's it's been really been great to have such a collaborative open discussion with the community and to be in a position to help identify solutions to problems that already exist in the area especially affordable housing but also other opportunities where you can tie other needs like Child Care together into that so anyone happy to answer any questions anybody has but thank you for considering and I definitely request your recommendation and support for our zoning thank you okay we're going to turn to public

comment I have two other people who have signed up to speak I have Patrick banbo and Vanessa Evans hello my name is Patrick barbell I work with the Timmons group I'm just here to support I'm the civil engineer if you have any questions great thank you Miss Miss Evans good evening planning Commissioners thank you all for having me tonight I'm Vanessa Mason Evans I live at 3223 Dearborn Drive and I'm the chair of the bradtown Community Association I would like to say that it's been an honor to work with Sean his staff in Fairhaven and the work that they wanted to do in bragtown I'm in hopes that y'all will vote Yes on this project going through The Association Along with the residents are very excited they have been looking for this for two years to come about um so please keep this in mind that this is something that our community really needs thank you not going to take up

much of your time tonight thank you okay is there anyone else wishing to speak on this item tonight either in person or in Zoom if you're in the zoom meeting please raise your hand at this time if you would like to speak okay seeing none I'm going to turn it over to commissioner comments and questions commissioner Morgan yeah I had a very quick question for the applicant out of the 192 units themselves what's the mix of one bedroom two bedroom or do you have any ideas on on how that will actually uh be distributed yes commissioner we do um this is subject to change but um 48 one bedrooms 72 two bedrooms and 72 three bedrooms is what we currently have right now we're definitely we are targeted to serve families but one other thing too just to mention is that there will be I believe elevator service in the building too so it would also be very senior friendly as well but this

would be this would be targeting families that makes sense thanks it's an impressive number of three bedrooms other commission commissioner comments or questions commissioner Goran I understand that you are building the child care facility uh do you have any information on who is going to maintain it like over long term we do actually so uh Head Start is operating nearby at Oxford Manor and we've already had discussions we're in the process of finalizing uh an mou that will be with the Bragg Town Community Association Commonwealth development and head start to operate the facility the general terms will be will build the facility and effectively lease it for free in exchange for them operating the child care services and you know maintaining the inside of the building we take care of the exterior because we we would have on-site property management and maintenance staff there so we would we would maintain that but on the exterior but they would they would actually operate the facility there and we've already talked about that and that's you know they already have an operation

going on right next door and they're pretty excited about possibility commissioner Baker do you have a question oh you look you look primed any other questions or comments okay seeing none I would accept emotion at this time Mr chair I make a motion that we take case z22 triple zero 44 Fairhaven walk to be forwarded to the city council with a favorable recommendations second I have a motion by commissioner Morgan a second by commissioner Baker is there any discussion on the motion it's really funny to watch everybody make motions on affordable housing projects because it's like a race of who gets to make the motion maybe we have the roll call vote chair Amendola yes Vice chair Cameron yes commissioner Baker yes commissioner cut right yes commissioner cigars yes commissioner Durham yes Mr Macgyver yes

commissioner Morgan yes commissioner cease yes commissioner Trapp yes commissioner Valentine yes commissioner Zuri Williams motion carries 12-0 great thank you thanks to the applicants um excited to have this come into bragtown for the record that public hearing was closed okay moving on case z22 triple zero 19 Sage Brook will begin with the staff report all right I grabbed the wrong one or again with the planning department this case is z2200019 sagebrook it is a proposed zoning map change staff would like to confirm that mailing

36 acres and would be included in the city limits if the companion annexation request is also approved the existing zoning is residential rural there's residential rural to the South and West residential Suburban 20 to the north and east of the site the aerial map shows the general location of the project the site is generally surrounded by

single-family residential dwelling units the development plan indicates two access points from Burton Road two perennial streams are located on the site with a 100 foot wide riparian stream buffer vehicular and utility stream Crossings are proposed for the project there are several notable commitments on the development plan including a maximum impervious surface of 37 percent a maximum Disturbed steep slopes at a just over 10 percent a minimum tree coverage tree reservation of 25 percent two specific outdoor amenities play Lawns and a Tot Lot and craftsman style design with roof specifications comments provided on social pinpoint address storm water runoff flooding affordability traffic loss of rural land wildlife habitat and a lack of infrastructure

a neighborhood meeting was held in accordance with Udo requirements on January 20th 2020. seven community members were in attendance The Proposal is consistent with the place type map designation The Proposal is potentially in the public interest due to increasing the supply of market rate housing available to residents of Durham The Proposal is potentially not in the public interest due to the unique environmental features on the site and the variables identified in the climate Justice impact tool staff in the applicant are available to answer any questions thank you we will open the public hearing and we'll begin with the applicant presentation thank you chair Amendola members of the commission I'm trying to see if I can find my slides and if not that's fine um I won't take up too much of your time obviously we are all here a little bit late

my name is Randy Herman I'm an attorney with the law firm of ba Folk I represent the applicant which is Capital City Homes Capital City Homes is a regional developer based in Raleigh hence the name there we go um they develop market rate subdivisions all over the triangle including in Durham and Raleigh um and in various other towns there we go um I'm going to skip some of these slides real quick because I don't want to take up too much time the there we go okay so this is development plan that's blown up so uh it's the text isn't easy to read but I want to point out a couple of things on here that are unique to the site so as staff said it is surrounded by single family detached neighborhoods as

one neighbor pointed out on social pinpoint generally about half acre lots and single story homes um what we are proposing is the construction of 120 Town Homes um even though so the overall density under the PDR would be a little bit less than seven to six point nine four three um there are as Steph mentioned some significant environmental issues on the property so there's a stream that runs basically a long Burton so Burton Road um for those who don't know Burton Road is right here um cheek is down here a little bit off the bottom of the development plan so there's a stream that runs along Burton Road that needs to be crossed in order to access the site um if that weren't there we ideally would probably put more of the units closer to

Burton Road but it just isn't possible because that stream and the wetlands surrounding it have to be preserved the other thing I wanted to point out is at so this is rotating so North is to the right on this map this is the original map of the adjacent subdivision from when it was recorded about 40 years ago and one thing that was done for reasons that aren't clear to us when the property was developed is there's a one foot buffer that surrounds that existing neighborhood between that neighborhood and the subject property uh what that means practically is that although in other in any other case we would connect Chadwick Place through into the property we can't do it because there's this one foot buffer we had about a year process uh where the title attorney tried to

figure out who owned that one foot buffer and was not able to locate it so it's basically an orphan parcel uh just kind of sitting out there that separates us from the neighboring property it's not particularly convenient but it is what it is and so because of that we are not able to connect Chadwick place because Chadwick Place does not physically touch our parcel and so because of that then the only access to the property is from Burton Road just in case anybody had any questions about why it is done that way as staff said there's significant commitments for Environmental Protection in this plan so under the existing overlay impervious service could be up to 70 percent of the site we're restricting it to only 37 percent we are also committing to tree preservation at 25 percent rather than the 20 that would be required under the Edo um basically to try and preserve as much as possible of the existing site

if this property were to be developed under the existing zoning it could be by right developed for about 35 single-family houses we don't think that is in the best interest of the the city in the county we don't think that's what's best for this site but that is what the current zoning would allow and so um we know that there are some neighborhoods who are some neighbors who are opposed to development of the site altogether and one thing I just want you to keep in mind is to that the zoning change that we are requesting we believe is a better use of the site than what would be allowed under the buy right zoning and so we think that what we're doing is improving the potential development of of what could happen on the site um the other thing I want to point out is one of the benefits to the city from this rezoning is one of the same reasons why the neighbors oppose it which is

that what would go here is more dense than what is in the surrounding neighborhoods so none of the surrounding neighborhoods have Town Homes as I said there about half acre lots with one-story homes um by providing town homes on the site We believe We Are providing a mix of housing types we're providing different housing choices for people who want to live in the area um and the the kind of missing middle housing that we're always talking about um but for the same reason uh the neighbors and I I don't necessarily blame them um don't want to see Townhomes here and and that basically has been the um the point of of conflict with the the neighborhood and um you know we've done our best to to minimize the environmental impact to the site through these various restrictions that we've been talking about but we do believe that that the the best use of it is to develop a more dense housing than what is currently available in the

surrounding neighborhoods the one other thing I wanted to point out there's architectural restrictions um and I'm not going to go through all the the details of all the architecture architectural restrictions there in your report I did want to point out that we have chosen um specifically to state that there will not be garage attached garages on any of these units what we have found is that in practice especially with a town home and especially if the one car garage people just use it for storage and they Park their cars on the street anyway and so by not providing garages with the units it allows us to offer them at a lower a more affordable price and instead of basically offering what amounts to a storage unit that is included with uh the units that would that would be developed if they were developed with garages so we're trying to keep the price down we're trying to keep these reasonably priced um as I said there will be market rate units but we don't expect them to be significantly higher than what the price

is in the in the surrounding neighborhoods we are trying to provide additional housing that is in line with the price point that is in the area but that's a little bit denser and provides a different Choice than what is currently available in the area um with that [Music] um I'm available for any questions we have our Engineers here as well if there are any technical questions that anybody has and otherwise that's my presentation thank you thank you we're going to move to public comment I have two people who signed up to speak and person Donna Steinbeck and Pam Williams you'll each have two minutes to provide your comments thank you sorry I'm slow [Laughter]

okay um but that's okay okay this you just have to roll and you want you to received the Matrix this afternoon but there you go okay um my name is Donna stainback I'm 4825 Jimmy Rogers Road Durham North Carolina North Carolina and I'm a lifelong resident of Durham um what I wanted to do was look at some of the metrics some of the information has been covered what I'd like to First request is that this not be resolved to low to medium density and that it be lesser more like what was in the future land use um measurements um the other key point is that right now there are the neighbors are having

runoff and flooding problems coming from this site already and they're very concerned about what will happen with mass grading and what kind of assistance they'll get with it the developer and also as stated the by the planning staff this has some unique environmental features on the site and variables identified in the climate Justice impact tool um I'm sorry Donna okay um right now it looks like as the developer was mentioning that there will be six properties that will be landlocked unless Chadwick place is extended I don't know how you work around that these people need a way out um blasting is is probable since the major grade changes from 368 feet to 328 feet

within a 700 foot distance we request that the contractor follow all permit requirements and be responsible for blasting damages to individuals we've not had very good luck with the insurance providers [Music] the um the tree preservation totaled trees is in the wetlands and the stream buffers okay you're two minutes are up okay I didn't thank you good afternoon my name's Pam Williams I live at 2130 Adventure trail Durham North Carolina I grew up out in this community did all the Halloween trick-or-treating in Glen Forest because it was the only development out here at that time that had houses one after

4 miles away from a transit route there's no businesses or schools within two to five miles here and Townhomes in my opinion does not uh it's not within the existing Community character again we'd like to request a developer to provide or to maintain a very low density per The Flume right now they're proposing a little over three times what's in The Flume here um it was like you said two acres per dwelling we want the developer to to be responsible for the blasting because that's not being taken care of now we would like a 30-foot border with the o6 capacity uh per pending Amendment phase and development tree we'd also like to request a 10 foot no disturbance buffer

along the property per the pending amendment I say seven here there's six uh appears to me six lots that are landlocked here because Chadwick Place cannot be extended I'd like to know how they're going to handle that also we would like for the 57 and additional students because there's no students in that property now for them to provide at least a minimum of five five hundred dollars each we like them follow the 100 Year stormwater management plan provide affordable housing project buffers this is why we want a 20 foot or a 10 foot non-disturbed property buffer because this is right on the property line as you see here and it's a drop of 20 feet I am 30. your two minutes are up thank you thank you okay um in the zoom meeting we have one person who has their hand raised Sam

zyada yes hi my name yes hi my name is Sam uh I own the uh 25 54 25 52 and I am calling you from New Jersey but we're planning to move down south to North Carolina my wife originally is from North Carolina but with this development I went to the city of Durham and they told us they would not be able to landlock us I was there last last May because this is going to result from us not being able to use the Lots we bought so we can retire down there and with that one foot they're coming up with I mean there is the that one foot is to their benefits they will find a way to acquire it look like it's not to their benefit and they're using it as the execues for to extend Chadwick to uh serve the other

lots and so if they are coming down there to serve the community these large behind them is part of the community but uh I don't know it just seems like it's a pure profit thank you very much and I appreciate it thank you next we have Amanda belgrave my name is Amanda belgrave I live at 4103 cheek road which borders this development um I would say that the applicant has not been in favor of working with the community members and that there is significant stormwater runoff I'm going to Echo a lot of things that Pam said as well I'm extremely concerned about blasting for my own property as I own a well I live in a brick ranch and I've seen the major impact of other blast sites here in the Durham County region I am also extremely concerned about the buffer as it this is technically in my backyard um so I will have to visually see these

Town Homes I also am an opponent against urban sprawl which this is the definition of that and I don't feel that we should move forward in this and I have multiple neighbors that are bordering this property that have downward slopes towards these uh their personal properties which with the erosion in the clear cutting of trees is going to cause Major Impact um not only in my own yard but theirs as well I appreciate your time um and your sentiments thank you next we have Tim grissigner um hey good evening Commissioners this is Tom dresser John with Bateman civil and I have some colleagues there in attendance as well so I'm just here to help answer any questions if needed great thank you okay um is there anyone else wishing to speak on this item tonight

please come to the podium and you'll have two minutes to provide your comments good evening my name is Gary McLean I live at 4712 Jimmy Rogers Road Durham North Carolina and as I reiterated tonight 35 homes would be better than 120 in this area it's on Burton Road it's a two-lane secondary Road and once again this is in out towards cheek Road into Redwood Road area and the traffic just can't keep up with all of these expansions and to me 35 is better than 120. thank you sir thank you anyone else who would like to speak on this case okay seeing none I'm going to turn to commissioner comments and questions um I see Alexander coming to the podium quickly so I'm going to go to Alexander first thank you chair andolia we just wanted to correct something or make sure we understood correctly so design commitment 7 says there'll be no garages

buildings will have no garages the applicant said something about detached garages as of now the way the commitment reads they want to be allowed to build any garages the parking requirements would require 240 spaces so that would all be surface parking lot yeah sorry that was my misstatement no uh no garages great thank you for clarifying okay I have a follow-up question after that then because okay so the impervious surface your your proposing is 37 percent and is that correct that's correct and you're going to be able to achieve that with that quantity of parking spaces yes okay they're going to be really tiny parking spaces no they'll be standard size parking spaces the basically the answer is it's a fairly

large piece of property most of which will not be developed so the the actual development site is a pretty small part of the property so including both the units and parking it'll be 37 percent okay great other commissioner questions or comments commissioner Baker yeah I think I'm I'm definitely supportive of of taking single-family neighborhoods and increasing the variety of housing within increasing densities in them if this were located in the city of Durham I I would I would be all for it um you know obviously there there are some improvements I'd like to see to it um policy 163 of the the comprehensive plan that we just recommended approval on reads annexations into the city of Durham should be contiguous with the existing city limits and should not cause Service delivery operational issues for the city or county staff will recommend against approval of annexations that create donut holes

Enclave satellites or difficult to develop Remnant properties this is a satellite it's not even that close to to the city limits so I believe in increasing the variety of housing but this would require an annexation which would be approved at the city council level so I guess one question is I haven't heard the case made that that we should go against the comprehensive plan that we just recommend approval of and I haven't heard a strong case made that we should that we should not follow policy 163. so in my mind I'm asking myself do we want to abandon the comprehensive plan already or do we want to follow the comprehensive plan thank you thank you any other questions or comments uh Mr chair can I say something about the the annexation issue um I will yes

um two minutes so the the carpenter preserve project that was just approved in May is almost immediately across the road so we will not technically be adjacent to City Limits but we'll be separated by maybe a lot so um by the time we get to annexation of this property it'll be much closer to the city limits than it was when the project was initially submitted can we just get a quick assessment from staff confirmation on that and um a sort of assessment of this development against that that policy yes thank you commissioner Baker so uh depending on when this goes to council I know y'all just adopted the conference of plan tonight we would review against that policy

absolutely we've been telling applicants about this in pre-submittal meetings for well over a year that it's coming so there's no surprise if it's against policy 163 the comprehensive plan consistency that we are required to have Council consider would call that out and say this is inconsistent with that policy and any of the other ones that would apply does that answer your question yes thank you thank you commissioner Morgan yes I had a couple questions with the for the applicant I think one of the things is I'm not seeing any affordable affordability or any affordable homes that are being offered in this particular development that's correct we're not committing to any affordable units at any particular income levels okay another question is there uh what kind of number of I guess storm water would the 100 Year stormwater runoff would that be something that could be

committed to or that would that be um you have right now for that one I would defer to the engineers so I don't know if if one of the members of the team that's here maybe Tim grissinger wants to answer that good afternoon Commissioners Douglas Cooper with Bateman civil survey um to the the question about the 100 Year storm currently the ordinance doesn't call for you know Detention of the Hundred Year storm um and if if that would were to be a commitment we would have to go back to the developer and see if that's something that they could put into the cost of the property because when you have to detain the 100 Year storm over you know the udl requirements

there's a larger footprint of stormwater devices that that would have to happen um to be able to do that so currently the plan would be to meet the UDA requirements of stormwater devices um and then also the environmental features there is a hundred foot buffer along each side of those environmental features to protect those and then as as we're developing the property we can offer to do like a double silt fence along those buffers to further protect them for many impacts does it does that answer the question yeah I guess it's that you aren't able to commit to the Hundred Year buff 100 Year storm but I guess to because that might affect the number of units that

you're able to develop is that kind of what I'm sensing when you're yeah yeah it would affect the footprint because you have to have a larger Stillwater device okay the other question I had was when I looked at the development plan where you know looking at the building envelope is that right up near the back of the the lot or the the how much room is there I mean is it kind of along the border of the entire parcel I mean I think there are some buffers along the the back of the property um that keeps the actual development um from going right up to the property line how much uh I've heard have you allocated so there's a there's a 10-foot project boundary that goes around the entire project in addition to that there also are

planted buffers um so I would have to look to see what the the total distance is but it's at least that 10 feet plus additional buffers okay just curious about that the other one that concerns me a little bit is the landlocked lots have you I know that there's no development on those lots but it almost then there's no access at all that is going to be considered so have you done anything to either acquire that land or do anything to that would probably help you prop out of your par your development in general if you're able to acquire it so the first answer is those lots are already landlocked those lots were landlocked when the subdivision was developed more than 40 years ago for whatever reason the the developer of that project and obviously wouldn't be allowed today if it were being developed today but for whatever reason when that project was developed it was developed with those landlocked Lots in that one

sum about his situation um he is not 100 landlocked he he owns a whole series of lots running down so his northernmost Lots do touch the existing Chadwick road so it'd be possible for him to extend access that way but as I said our our property simply doesn't touch his property because there's that one foot buffer strip so whatever we

were able to do it still wouldn't give him access because he wouldn't be able to cross that that little parcel in between you have one foot along that those those lots themselves that's right okay yeah it runs um let me bring the slide back up because I think it's helpful yeah I'm kind of looking at it there it's very hard to see on the development plan just because of the scale of it um so that this is the end of Chadwick um and this road which is not labeled on on this is Burton Road um the 60 foot at the at the top there um so the one foot buffer runs along the end of Chadwick and also all the way along all of those lots and if you were to even acquire those lots themselves you'd be crossing over that one football right they still wouldn't touch you'd have to find ownership and easement to be able to do yes and as I

said one of the reasons why um as staff said that the original neighborhood meeting on this project was something like two years ago and one of the reasons why is because we had to spend so much time trying to figure out the ownership of that one foot parcel because we would much rather acquire it and not have that problem but we weren't able to to identify the owner of it so it may be some kind of an orphan party done with the city that okay I get what you're saying okay and I'm just trying to look at it in yeah I think I've covered all my concerns okay thank you commissioner cut right real quick um this I'm having trouble supporting this project um we've got big open you know surface parking lot uh no affordable housing environmental impact I'm looking for some wins here and I'm struggling to find them um surprise you can't do five percent affordable on this it's 120 units I feel like we should be able to make something

work there um you know you're cutting costs on no garages I think there's some wins in there that can push this project forward a little bit but right now I can't support this as it sits thank you okay I would like to close the public hearing and move this forward to motion and vote sure um a move that we send KC 2219 forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation second moved by commissioner Baker seconded by commissioner Valentine is there any discussion on the motion seeing now maybe we have the royal cover chair medullia no Vice chair Cameron commissioner Baker no commissioner cutwright no Mr cigaras no commissioner girl no commissioner MacGyver no commissioner

Morgan oh commissioner cease no commissioner Trapp no commissioner Valentine no commissioner Williams no motion fails zero to twelve twelve to zero great thank you we are moving on to our next public hearing this is case z22 triple zero twenty wait sorry z22 triple zero 40 Cortez Drive Town Homes we'll begin with the staff presentation thank you Aaron Kane again for as you said z22000 40 Cortez Drive Town Homes which is a proposed zoning map change staff is confirming that mailing notices were sent to all those properties within 600 feet of the site on May 26 2023 the site was posted with signs on May 26 2023 as well all affidavits of all notices are on file with the planning department the site is a collection of 10 Parcels

98 acres and located at 1003 1011. 10 15 11 52 1164 1268 Cortez drive and 3607 3611 3617 and 3615 Andrew Avenue the existing zoning is residential Suburban 20. 003 is inconsistent with the feature Place type map if approved staff recommends to change the place type map designation to apartment and townhouse neighborhood in addition the site lies within the fjb Watershed rejection overlay the existing zoning is residential Suburban 20. the site is surrounded by

residential Suburban 20 and industrial Light zoning the aerial map shows the general location of the project the site is east of anger Avenue and Bounds both frontages for portions of Cortez Drive directly south and west is largely undeveloped land to the north is primarily single family homes with a shopping center to the Northeast and some industrial Parcels to the northwest the development plan indicates one access point from Angier Avenue and a second access point on Cortez Drive stub outs shown stub-outs are shown to the north and south of the site the site is partly located within the fjb Watershed projection overlay The Perennial streams located within in the fjb are shown with a 100 foot wide riparian buffer The Perennial stream located outside the Watershed is shown to have the minimum 50 foot wide riparian stream buffer one stream Crossing is identified on the site and

lies within the existing right-of-way of Cortez Drive there are two notable commitments on the development plan a minimum of 20 percent of the townhouse units will be 1600 square feet or less and there are some architectural standards such as roof design and material and a Prohibition on vinyl siding a neighborhood meeting was held in accordance with Udo requirements on May 27 2022 four community members were in attendance two social pinpoint comments have been received by staff in relation to this case with one opponent concerned with traffic and one undecided reference resident who expressed opportunities to work with adjacent properties as stated before the proposal is inconsistent with the place type map designation due to one proposed use for the development if approved staff recommends a change to apartment and townhouse neighborhood designation on the place type map

The Proposal is potentially in the public interest due to increasing the supply of market rate housing available to Durham residents The Proposal is potentially not in the public interest due to the inconsistent nature of The Proposal with the mixed-use Neighborhood Place type map and the lack of commitments in excess of Udo requirements staff in the applicant are available to answer any questions thank you if you'll open the public hearing and begin with the applicant presentation I believe we have Laura Holloman hey good evening and I will try to be as brief as I can so good evening Sarah mandalia Vice chair Cameron and members of the Planning Commission I'm Laura Holloman with McAdams residing at business addresses 2905 Meridian Parkway here in Durham also with me tonight are Kate Murdock also

with McAdams as well as Steve George Anthony Catalano a CSC group the property owner and developer for this project as well as our traffic engineer Ronald Stevenson with Remy Kemp and Associates I want to thank Mr Kane for the presentation of his of this request and I could listen to his voice all day he's got a voice for radio for sure as staff mentioned the site is located along Andrew Avenue in Cortez Drive the property is right around 47 acres and we are requesting pdr6 and then permitted use will be Townhomes a maximum of 285 which will fit into the surrounding Community quite nicely with the existing single family as well as the plan multi-family adjacent to 70. this will serve as an app transition between the residential land uses stepping down from the planned the proposed multi-family as well as the surrounding single family in addition to staff also mentioned the only proposed string Crossing we have to make is to improve and extend existing Cortez drive this allowed us to protect

all the remaining stream buffers throughout the site and that even allows us to create enclaves of of cluster development rather than Mass development on the site there are a wide variety of architectural commitments voluntary voluntarily proposed which I won't speak to in depth but they speak to decorative garages as well as a minimum of units of 15 percent being surface parked in addition we would like to amend existing text commitment proposed to read no less than 20 percent of the units shall be 1700 square feet or less so this ensures a variety of housing types and sizes additionally we have also reached out to go triangle about providing a Transit stop to be constructed along Andrew Avenue after discussing it with them they determined they would like greater flexibility to determine if this site warrants a stop and if it does that will be constructed at the developer's expense as you may recall some of you are on the board when this is assembly was

unsuccessful in a previous rezoning a couple of years ago which was for a mix of single family and Townhomes for a proposed PDR of slightly over five at the time there were questions raised about creating reasonable Housing Office options as well as traffic we have listened to the feedback changing uh housing types to town homes which we think will help control Rising housing in the area and our traffic engineer Ronald Stevenson will be happy to discuss any kind of traffic related questions with our update Tia that you may have also in addition there are a few changes to commitments I would like to close out with first to add a commitment based on the staff report for a one-time contribution to Durham public schools in the amount of thirty six thousand dollars and second an affordable housing commitment which we'll work out with staff but essentially it's providing a minimum of three percent of the total

S 70 in the residential uses that currently have Frontage on Andrew Avenue as well as Cortez the project also provide increased housing choice in the form of four-cell Townhomes I appreciate your time tonight and our team is available to answer any questions you may have thank you thank you Laura before you go I just want to make sure I heard your two additional proffers correctly so I heard a thirty six thousand dollar one-time donation to Durham public schools and then you said you're going

to work this out with staff and I want to clarify are you working at this specific language with staff and committing to three percent income restricted uh what am I level 80 okay thank you thank you yeah uh we'll turn to public comment uh no one signed up on this sheet but I know Paul you had signed up on this other sheet so Paul you can come and give your two minute comments and then we'll turn to any others thank you Mr chair if I might make a request outside of my time I appreciate notification to the community members I think 16 days notification prior to this hearing is insufficient time I would have been present at the May 27th meeting had I known about it it could be my error in missing that thank you Paul Joseph friend 705 Pleasant Drive Durham I have

been a resident of Durham for 49 years my wife and I have lived at this address on Pleasant Drive for 22 years and our property abuts the proposed Development Area I want to focus on traffic Mr Cahill do you have a slide I'm not sure how to access it stop the clock my my concerns will be focused on traffic I understand other neighbors who will be speaking from Zoom so this is a picture of a screenshot of a traffic congestion map taken on May 31st Wednesday at 506 PM the red line uh vertical lines somewhat going on the left side is 147 885 the bold red line on the right side is how a 70. they run roughly parallel running through the middle of that is Angier

Avenue and if you can make out for those who don't have the visual Andrew Avenue is read roughly from Miami Boulevard halfway back to 885 which is a distance of close to three quarters of a mile I've got 20 seconds left I'm sorry this is just not enough time to give the adequate weight with due respect to the developer this is not an underdeveloped area this area is suffering keenly from developments that have yet to put their traffic on the roads this map is a daily picture of traffic on Angier Avenue and Highway 70 of a landlocked community that has no way to get anywhere with a minimal exception except by touching Andrew Avenue and Highway 70. I would say much more I'll send you written comments good gracious thank each of you for your time and energy and all the work you do

thank you thank you is there anyone else pushing to speak on this item tonight if there's anyone in Zoom please raise your hand at this time we have Layla Needham Layla are you able to unmute sorry okay we can hear you um you have two minutes to make your comments okay thank you hi I'm Leela Needham I live at 711 Pleasant Drive in Durham city my property is directly abutting on the north side of the proposed Cortez Drive Townhomes I've lived here for 20 years um so my major concerns again have to do with

um traffic and the zoning change proposal addresses none of the concerns raised by the community the Durham Planning Commission nor the Durham city council of the previously denied very similar development proposal presented three years ago it is similar in density and offers a simplified plan of only a single-use neighborhood consisting of up to 282 although I might have heard 285 Townhomes townhouse units this evening so it's essentially a car dependent development there's no integrated neighborhood commercial or employment uses at all resulting in a car dependent development previously raised concerns about the only means of access to the proposed development being from Andrew Avenue and the increases in traffic on Andrew

Avenue and Pleasant Drive have not been addressed to our satisfaction and we're not addressed at all at the one community meeting um no proposed selling prices have been included in the plan a commitment was made that a minimum of 20 percent townhome house units will be 150. 1000 square feet or less although that again may have changed this evening so in essence I think maybe your two minutes are up okay thanks thank you next we have Andrew Heffner hi this is Andrew Hefner can you hear me yes

um I spoke earlier at the opening session but I didn't get to finish my statement so I also about the development and I want to make sure that everybody is very clear that the proposals that were put in um have some untrue statements as far as the uh the amount of wetlands that are in the property and also my biggest concern and the biggest misrepresentation is that it's not a wildlife Corridor uh I've spent a lot of time back there if you look at a Google map uh satellite map you can see that this is one long continuous Forest that crosses um Andrew Avenue and continues on the other side and it is the very definition of a

wildlife Corridor I've been back there there's everything back there except maybe cougars bears and bobcats every other type of wildlife is represented and they're thriving and the project as presented is going to destroy that environment is going to wipe out or force all the wildlife to flee and it's just not consistent with what is in the proposals for the uh the new development plan it's going to do a huge amount of damage into the environment it's going to cause uncontrolled runoff it's going to destroy the creeks and streams it's going to add a huge amount of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere for no reason you can develop these places without clear cutting bulldozing and scraping the life out of the

property it can be done in a sustainable way and there's nothing in this proposal that's sustainable responsible or an addition to the the Durham Community as a whole it doesn't touch on its ability or any of the other important things it's a loser thank you thank you is there anyone else looking to speak on this case tonight okay seeing none I'm gonna turn to staff real quick um chairman doley I just wanted to State for the record that there's a text commitment regarding uh house size on the on the development plan just wanted to confirm with the applicant that it's currently State on the development plan that 20 percent will be a minimum of 20 will be smaller than 1600 feet that is being changed to 1700 feet at the direction of the applicant just want to

make sure that was clear and for the record thank you also I meant to specify it should be sports radio like a baseball commentator would be pretty I think would work for you I was a hockey player so there we go um so I have one quick question of the applicant um what are you so you have smaller units and then you have affordable units and our Udo regulation would if you're following the Udo regulation to affordable housing the affordable units are supposed to be indistinguishable from the market rate units and so my question is are you following the Udo definition or are you intending that you will be putting all the affordable units in that in those 1700 and lower sized units correct that would be indiscernible they would follow the idea of requirements so there will be some in the 1700s some and that are

above 1700 they'll be equally distributed I think too too early to say um but I can I can tell you that they would be dispersed and they wouldn't be they would be indistinguishable amongst the community okay chair medullia we have we have seen very similar uh proffers to three percent of units at 80 Ami or less in the last few months some of which have come to you and some which will be coming to you in the future so we have some rather standard language regarding that and regarding um disbursement of the units throughout the community that we can work with the applicant on on finalizing before it goes to council great thank you appreciate that very much of staff um and I just want to say thank you to the applicant um it is not often that we have someone come get negative feedback and then they come back and they say oh we took your feedback and we made it better

we get a lot of people that come and they give us the same old stuff after hearing the same comments for years and years and years so I just wanted to acknowledge that you explicitly improved this um application after going through the process and getting feedback are there any other comments or questions on this case great seeing none I'm going to close the public hearing and [Music] would ask for a motion Mr chair I make a motion that we take z22 triple zero forty Cortez Drive townhouses to be forwarded to the city council with a favorable recommendation second moved by commissioner Morgan seconded by commissioner Valentine is there any discussion on the motion seeing none may we have the roll call

vote chairman dolia yes sir Cameron yes commissioner Baker no commissioner cut right yes commissioner cigaras no commissioner girl no commissioner MacGyver no commissioner Morgan no commissioner cease no commissioner Trapp yes commissioner Valentine no commissioner Williams no motion fail 7-4 okay thank you all okay I don't think we can get this public hearing done in five minutes so we're going to go ahead and take our next recess to give our closed captioners a break we will return at 9 45 pm

so tell me with a such a diverse job what do you enjoy most about your job and working for the city it's pretty simple making a difference okay within the job it's important that you have a sense of doing something that doing a task that is important that shows a a response and then you can see the difference so by making a difference it is important to the residents as well as to the city and guests that are here whether it's discrete repairs for the sidewalk or the storm water and we're maintaining the streets and keeping them clean foreign [Music] [Music]

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] in Durham should be able to find a home they can afford that's why forever home Durham is creating affordable livable and inclusive communities for low to Middle income residents from renting to owning find out how the city is helping more people find homes right here in Durham

com my name is Dwayne McIntyre and I'm a dispatcher at the Durham emergency communications center the best mango about being a dispatcher at the Durham emergency Communication Center is truly being able to make a difference sometimes you don't realize how much of a difference you're making however being able to hear feedback from when people call to say thank you that you may have stayed their relative lives or was able to calm them down really makes it worthwhile being a dispatcher one day I received a call from a man he was trapped inside of his home there was a lot of smoke he was really struggling

to be able to see and get out he was able to tell me where he was inside of his home I was able to relay that information to the firefighters and they were able to get them out safely [Music] my job is satisfying because at times I do go home tired but I don't go home ever feeling like I didn't help anyone that day there's always someone that's calling in that's in distress that just may need someone they talk to or just maybe some type of emergency emergency assistance but every day I go home to fill with the knowledge that I've helped someone that day

open the door foreign

foreign

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367 to allow for up to 210 single-family townhouse and multi-family dwelling units on the site the draft Place type map designation is mixed residential neighborhood due to the various residential housing types included in the proposal the request is consistent with the draft Place type map the existing zoning is rural residential rural areas to the west and North are zoned residential though at low lower densities than that requested to the east is a mix of residential and industrially zoned land as you can see on the right side of each map wake the Wake County line is not far from the site the aerial map shows the general location of the project which shows primarily residential development to the West in Durham with light industrial uses to the east in Wake County the development plan shows two points of

Access One on Page Road and the other on core Street which will extend into the site from the south the building and parking envelope does not encroach into the stream buffer on the western portion of the site there are two notable comments on the development plan the first is the construction of a 10-foot multi-use path along the west side of Page Road in addition there are left right and turn left and right turn Lanes into the site on Page Road committed a neighborhood meeting was held in accordance with Udo requirements on March 8 2022 10 community members were in attendance four social pinpoint comments have been received for this case two are General comments one is mixed and one is in opposition comments focus on compatibility with the surrounding development traffic congestion and the need for commercial development staff determines that this request is consistent with the draft comprehensive plan and future Place type map and other adopted ordinances and policies The

Proposal is considered in the public interest due to its provision of affordable housing staff and the applicant are available to answer any questions thank you we're going to open the public hearing we'll begin with applicant presentation with Morningstar Law Group I live at 2614 Stewart Drive I'm here tonight representing Capital seniors housing the developer working on this for rent residential project along Page Road in southeast Durham I'm joined I am joined tonight by Joe mcelwee and Michael Hartman two of the principals with capital seniors housing as well as Kelsey Westwood and Chloe Arnold our civil engineers and earlwell and our traffic engineer with Kimberly horn Capital seniors housing or CSH is a senior housing development and management company with almost 20 years of experience developing communities that serve active senior residents currently CSH manages more than 120. senior housing communities The Proposal

367 this resulting will facilitate a community of 210 residential units there will be a mix of town home and multi-family units all of which will be for rent I've worked for almost 20 years on the 400 plus acre Bethpage development that is immediately adjacent to the west and to the south of the CSH site we are looking at tonight personally I think this is a great infill site since it uses an existing traffic signal at Page Road and World Trade Boulevard and the stub out from Bethpage on core Street accordingly residents in the CSH development can walk or bike to the goat which is a gastropub that I can highly recommend in addition I'd like to point out that the project is consistent with a future Place type map as you just heard from the staff report on the place type map this area is designated mixed residential neighborhood consistent with that designation this community will create a

mix of housing types furthermore this site is well chosen by CSH since it allows Durham residents who live at Creekside or Carolina Arbors or fennel Farms or Andrews Chapel to do what I would call age in Place Southeast Durham has convenient Access to Health Care the airport and a multitude of retail services and that makes this location ideal for active senior residents who need to move on from owning a home and the obligations that go along with that generally based on our community engagement the proposed development has been has received positive feedback many people are aware that as the baby boom generation ages we're going to need to prioritize the development of housing that serves the needs of our older the older members of the Durham Community I hope all of you noted the email from Stephen Nill one of the co-founders one of the co-founders of the Leesville coalition to that effect we believe this rezoning will facilitate a high quality retirement community that will address the needs that will help address the needs of seniors living in Durham in closing I just want to share a

few examples of how every Community CSH develops is unique and that will be the case in Durham I grew up in the Boston area so I really like this one with the Fenway Park deal going on there in the uh in the uh Recreation room and here's the outside of that facility in Andover Massachusetts you can see it's a New England type architecture moving further south in our country down to New Jersey this is close to where my mother grew up and this reminds me of the architecture I would see in her old Hometown and then here's uh inside an Austin Texas community that Joe and Michael developed again showing the attention to detail that CSH provides for all their residents and so for all these reasons we respectfully ask for your recommendation of approval our team will be happy to answer any questions appreciate your time tonight thank you I'm and Mr biker don't go too far because I don't have anyone else signed up and if nobody raises their hand and I have a question for you right off the bat is there so we're going to

go to the public comment if anyone is in the zoom meeting wishing to speak on this item or in person you can come to the podium or raise your hand in the zoom meeting okay seeing none um my first question which you may be able to predict by now is really my only question is you have multi-family town homes and single family listed as the uses that the site would be limited to it could be up to 210ish or so dwelling units there's no minimums there so we're what we're getting built is a variety of housing but what we could get is a single housing type we could get 210 single-family houses we could get 210 Town Homes we could get 210 Apartments so my question is have you contemplated a minimum a minimum one for each of these mix probably say a minimum of 150 multi-family and then a minimum of

I don't know can we just say there will be we'll say a minimum 150 multi-family and that spreads it out to the other uses other types of housing as well it's hard to hard to guesstimate exactly how many units we have because the other ones are obviously take up a lot more companies so is that something you're willing to commit to tonight ORS yeah what or you know what is ballpark yeah I mean we could yeah maybe just yeah 150 apartments and how about we just say 18 of the other half of any other housing type a minimum of 18. yep that is helpful that sure provide some charity there any other questions or comments uh commissioner cut right any affordable

units going up in in these senior housing any chance that you could proper some looks like that's what we're seeing right now commissioner cut right is our estimate right now is that many of the smaller units will be available at around 80 percent of the Ami and so that's where we're I can't make a profit of that regard but many of the smaller units are coming in at 80 percent of Ami under current interest rates and and uh construction cost estimates of course those are very volatile as you well know but right now we're pretty confident it's going to be attractive and keep in mind that the person who moves the family that moves into these uh units those are people that just sold their house that's almost that's overwhelmingly the people that we're marketing to and people obviously generated a lot of equity over the last few years in their homes yeah no chance of of proffering that looks like we've got a nice FF e budget with the Fenway signs and everything yeah some affordable out of that yeah we're

S us one of my questions chair um are there going to be any Green Building elements to this anything that moves us toward our carbon neutral goal [Music] that we just recommended approval on sustainability features sorry I need you to come to the podium if you're going to respond to that question thank you my name is Michael Hartman with capital seniors housing I would be willing to consider it's not currently in the plans but it's something we would consider okay sure just introduce yourself Mr chairman members of the board my name is Joe mcelwee I work with Mike on the partner in charge of development

just so there's no confusing it's not a Leeds building if that's where you're going but it is the materials used in our building and the design that our Architects have been directed to do are I would say lead light most of the HVAC systems the wood components are environmentally sensitive but it's not a lead certified building want to make that make that clear and you will do um this is not age restricted correct it it we can't age restrict it as a test commitment in as soon as we build it it'll be age restricted under the Fair Housing Act yeah okay right um no affordable housing right no affordable housing I'm sorry there are no profits here for uh affordable housing eighty percent five five percent of the unit at eighty percent Ami or anything like that we'd prefer not to Simply to to again

put as much into the amenities which keeps the people uh occupied not in their cars and going places keeps them on site and using the facilities and again our our guesstimates right now is that many of the smaller units dozens of the smaller units will be available to people at 80 Ami all right I'm done commissioner shigeris yes what is the status of your talks with Durham County Utilities I see here that there's a temporary hold on development due to the stir up iron Creek Pump Station Basin being at Max so that was this 2021 this is 2023 it's that lift station been improved are you all going to work with Durham County we have a development with no sewer capacity no ma'am that's not the case

we've had very productive conversations with the Durham County staff our understanding is with the interim upgrades that have happened for that lift station there's 300 000 about 300 000 gallons capacity and so we it appears that there won't be any problem with Wastewater infrastructure for this location can staff verify that since the report States differently thank you commissioner shagaris we've actually been in conversation about some of these different locations as of now we have not received an update on this but sounds like Patrick biker and this his team have we would require this analysis to be provided before it goes to city council because Capacity Analysis on sewer and water is required before it goes to City Council vote yeah that'll be fine

okay any other questions or comments anything from staff just wanted to clarify for the record of the additional proffer that you have given tonight is that a minimum of 150 of or is that a minimum of 150 I mean it's 150 be multi-family any other housing type would be a minimum of 18. and that would be how many housing types at a minimum of 18. we don't know yet okay I just want I just want to make sure we're clarified on that and that we we understand the languages that we've sworn okay thank you yeah it Gathering that I don't know what to say okay okay that's that's fine just wanted to make sure we understood it from the record obviously there'll be two or more housing types yeah right yeah we'll we can we can clean that up before it goes to city council sure

great um so at this time I'm going to close the public hearing and I would accept a motion at this time Mr chair I make a motion that we take uh case z22 triple zero twenty the Briar Creek act to be forwarded to the city council with favorable recommendation with the additional profiters with the associated profits yes second okay moved by commissioner Morgan seconded by commissioner Valentine is there any discussion on the motion seeing none maybe we have the roll call vote chairman Delia yes Vice chair Cameron yes commissioner Baker no commissioner cut right no Mr shagaris no commissioner gurram yes commissioner MacGyver no commissioner Morgan yes commissioner cease no commissioner Trapp yes commissioner Valentine no commissioner Zuri Williams yes

08 Acres

the existing zoning is residential Suburban 10 and residential Suburban 8. the applicant proposes to change the zoning to residential compact with a development plan and Commercial General with a development plan to allow up to 43 townhouses 17 multi-family dwelling units and 3 500 square feet of commercial space the existing Place type is Transit opportunity area the proposed zoning districts are consistent with the place type map the existing as mentioned before the existing zoning is residential Suburban 10 and residential Suburban 8. the site is surrounded by a mix of zoning districts that include commercial center office and institutional plan development residential and more rs-10 and RS8 the aerial map shows the general location of the project which is situated at the Northeast quadrant of the intersection of Shannon Road and Old Chapel Hill Road West to the West is Hope Valley Square shopping center to

the South is Westminster Presbyterian Church and to the east is the Markham Chapel Baptist Church and the valley neighborhood to the north is Southwest Regional Library foreign there are several notable commitments on the development plan one is to exclude auto-oriented uses another is to have building orientations that front the street and a third is to have minor Design Elements such as roof Styles and exterior finish variations the development plan include indicates there are two access points to the site one write-in write-out entrance along Old Chapel Hill Road and one entrance along Shannon Road there are no tree coverage standards within the compact neighborhood tier the development identifies minimum open space and no impervious surface restrictions the southern half of the site is the is commercial General with a development plan and restricted to no more than 17

apartment units and 3500 square feet of commercial leap space the northern half of the site is residential compact with a development plan and will be limited to 43 townhouse units a neighborhood meeting was held in accordance with Udo requirements on February 5th 2020. three community members were in attendance two additional meetings were held on May 23rd and May 25th with the former and zoom and the latter with an in-person option 85 social pinpoint comments have been received by staff in relation to this case survey responses totaled 75 in case comments totaled 10. 69 survey responses were in opposition and six were undecided the overwhelming concerns cited include include increased traffic the impact on the intersection at Shannon Road and Old Chapel Hill safety storm water runoff development scale and intensity other concerns mentioned include lack of infrastructure to accommodate

alternative moments of transportation and the lack of affordable housing staff has determined that the proposal is consistent with the place type map designation The Proposal is potentially in the public interest due to the increase in supply of market rate housing and pedestrian-oriented Commercial uses available to Durham residents and conformance with the place type map staff of the applicant are available to answer any questions thank you we're going to open the public hearing and we'll begin with the applicant presentation good evening y'all my name is Scott Harmon I live at 524 North Mangum Street um Mr Kane just a correction the number of attendees at that first meeting were 30. um okay not three to zero on that thank you um thank you for considering our application we hope our engagement process and proposed text commitments earn your support for our project

tonight's agenda has been long my colleagues warned me to keep it short for those that know me please don't laugh um here goes we held three Community meetings with a total of 97 attendees we continue to meet privately with the Markham Chapel congregation our immediate neighbors they are a black church and a predominantly white neighborhood and are most directly impacted by our project our private meetings create breathing room for us to prioritize their voices and concerns Markham Chapel graciously hosted our in-person community meeting we provided child care and 50 box meals for anyone in the surrounding Community whose attendance conflicted with the needs of their family we mail postcards to every owner organization and Rental household within a thousand feet not just 600 announcing the upcoming Community meetings including this one tonight and we've invited folks to our website which I've listed in the email I sent you earlier today for further engagement

the website is updated regularly it shows the next upcoming meetings presents our community responses receives comments and requests for private meetings allows folks to register for updates via postal mail SMS message and or email the website also includes a link to the city's social pinpoint platform in case residents prefer to give their comment in that manner the website includes document links to our site concept drawing the development plan under consideration tonight the complete version of a traffic study that we elected to do even though a TIA is not required on this and storm water Watershed exhibit which I'll discuss in a moment the postcard mailer and minutes from our community meetings which we submit to the city the website concludes with a diary and timeline of our past and future engagement milestones the three most prevalent Community concerns continue to be traffic storm water and affordable housing those are

not the only comments but those are the ones that we really hear over and over again particularly when we're face to face in the zoom or in the community meetings I think the social pinpoint comments had a a greater variety you should have um we submitted today uh to Alexander uh three proposed text Commandments responding to each of these issues I owe Alexander an apology um we thought we were doing right by our neighborhood and our community by making sure that we showed up at our first hearing with commitments in English I mean in writing as an accountability measure for having listened to the community and put into words what we're willing to commit going forward on this project but I was not prepared for just my lack of experience at this it's been over 20 years since I've done a rezoning is that we can't do that at the last minute and work out the details with the city so

um I want to apologize to Alexander for that I've been bugging the hell out of him tonight he's been very gracious and I've deserved less attention than he's given me I just want to say that I'll come back to that um so let's talk about traffic although a TIA is not required we hired VHB and Nathan Romberg is here tonight to answer any questions that you have about traffic but he modeled the existing counts he modeled our proposed development and he made recommendations for improvements we wanted him to tell us what was what did we have in terms of traffic reality there's a lot of emotions around traffic I wanted to know the truth measurable about what we have what he thought our development was going to create and what he thought would be a good reaction to the concerns about safety we propose and always stop pending the city and Dot approval and we have worked out this evening with Erlene and Alexander very specific language about that which I believe Erlene has

T or the city to even approve that and so we're not guaranteeing the community that this will get approved but we will fight hard with the community to Advocate that one is approved we think it's the right solution to the safety and especially for the pedestrians some of our site currently watersheds into the valley neighborhood we have a site that's like this with the ridge line in the middle of it right now most of our water goes to Shannon Road and a small amount of our site goes into the valley they have very real storm water problems they have infrastructure that is overwhelmed they have numerous rain events that root cause very real hardship and problems for their neighborhood we worked out with that neighborhood a concept that we were prepared to commit to tonight in a proffer which says we

are taking all of the pipes storm water on our site that is in their Watershed and instead of returning it to their Watershed with the treatment and the detention which is what the ordinance requires that we would pipe all of our storm water to Shannon Road so there would still be some natural runoff that would still go into the valley Watershed but the valley watershed should have less water going into it when we're done with our project and this was something that the neighborhood and our team came to agreement on the language that we've agreed to is not acceptable to the storm water director and I honestly cannot tell you why I am a little frustrated by this I don't understand why a neighborhood and a developer can work so hard on something that they both agreed to and the city tell us that it's technically sort of incorrect but we will work that out our affordable housing commitment includes one town home and three

Apartments for 30 years at 60 am I if rented and 80 percent if sold our project has 60 dwelling units I've looked at the rezonings that have been brought through this process for the last six months this is the third smallest development that y'all have approved and the only two that are smaller than ours were a 50 affordable project which I believe is by a non-profit or a lie Tech developer we are a market rate developer and some guy wanting to do five town homes so for a project of our scale we feel like this is a significant offer and a commitment to affordability um our design will be mixed use with missing middle housing walkable proximity to existing neighborhoods and Commercial uses we will maximize density and land utilization with town homes and a retail building with apartments on the upper floors in addition to our affordable housing commitment our units will be more affordable by Design and provide a welcome and needed diversity of housing

type in this part of Durham our studio has a lot of experience doing smaller units that just simply provide housing that is accessible to a larger sector of the market and this is important it's important work that the private sector can do in between the luxury market and the true affordable housing market and we want to play a role in that and we want to demonstrate how other market rate developers particularly small ones can do so in this community we think this is a good project for Durham a good project for this neighborhood and that our process has been thorough transparent Equitable and responsive and we ask for your approval um because of the situation we ran into today with the stormwater director my neighbor Richard and I mostly Richard and I agreed reluctantly Richard said the only sensible course of action is to let y'all comment on whatever else you want to comment about our project tonight I very much want to

hear your comments and thoughts and concerns about everything in this project but this storm water issue is the most important one to that neighborhood for good reason and they deserve our patients as developers to spend one more month getting that language right and bring it back to you as an official proper before it gets presented to the city council I know a lot of developers come in here without profits expecting to just kind of get through this process and get to the council I really wanted to have all our profits in writing for you tonight and I don't have that one right yet and I'm going to respect Richard's request that we give him another month and we'll get that to you but I would appreciate as late as it is and as tired as we all are as much feedback positive or negative as you could give us on our project tonight I appreciate it thank you uh okay so we're going to move to public comment is there anyone in the meeting or in the zoom meeting that would like to comment on this case

if your in-person please come to the podium state your name and address and provide your comments and if you're in on Zoom please raise your hand if you would like to speak my name is Richard goldner I live at 33 Cheswick place in the valley neighborhood in Durham this is Downstream from the proposed Shannon at Old Chapel Hill development our greatest concern is increased storm water runoff from the developments excessive impervious Services Upstream the developers worked with the valley HOA to include a text commitment to make stormwater runoff toward the Valley Property quote a little better and certainly not any worse unquote we're grateful for this unfortunately only a few minutes ago I was informed that Dr ekanola in stormwater management did not give his consent to the tips commitment that was submitted this problem needs to

be resolved pertinent to this also is the development plan's commitment for at least five percent open space that would allow 95 percent impervious surface that's dramatically different from the three percent impervious surface prior to development currently the entire three acres Shannon at Chapel Hill Parcel is included in the Martin Luther King Jr compact neighborhood in the future land use map however part of this parcel is so far on the outskirts of the compact neighborhood that it is not even within the half mile radius from the proposed ml Cree MLK Transit hub this parcel is not analogous to land near the center of the compact neighborhood such as at Patterson Place or 9th Street or downtown Durham is very dissimilar the submitted development plan has 60 units on three acres that's 20 units per

acre in addition to 3 500 square feet commercial parking areas multi-story this is not congress with the established neighborhood it does not fulfill the goal of providing a valid transition and we're hoping that the Builder will work toward getting 15 to 20 percent or more green space to help make it 10 minutes thank you uh uh we have William Renwick on the zoom call can you hear me yes hi I'm William Renwick I live at 46 Cheswick place in the valley neighborhood and um I think in addition to the storm water runoff issue uh really the the density we believe is way too high because the current zoning allows for 14 single-family houses and

this is calling for 60 uh residential units which will uh per their traffic study increase the traffic by 1500 plus um uh vehicle uses every 24 hours which is 10 times the vehicles that would be allowed under current zoning the intersection of Shannon and Old Chapel Hill Road is does not have the ability to handle that kind of traffic so that the the density is too high but also in their application for their commercial space in their application they are asking for permission for fast food restaurant that is new to all of us

in the valley previously they had talked about a small fast casual restaurant but now it's labeled as fast food and I suspect that's where all this traffic is coming from fast food is uh way out of character for this uh neighborhood that borders on a very historic residential neighborhood of Hope Valley thank you for your consideration thank you are there any other people who would like to speak on this case tonight um one moment it's a point of correction um the fast food I have not recognized you yet sorry um I saw William Anderson raise their hand um William did you want to speak you like raised your hand and put it back down so

yes thank you very much uh I agree Dr goldner and as we look at the project with the traffic currently at Old Chapel Hill and Shannon and I drive that at least twice a day it comes to a stop now with lines so Durham Transportation needs to look at that second concern is pedestrian safety because there's sidewalks are not provided in that area a north crossing for pedestrians going across a shopping center right across Shannon Road so I really appreciate the public meetings and the attention paid to this development and hope that they can solve a pedestrian safety and the traffic congestion that that intersection thank you thank you anyone else wanting to speak on this case tonight

okay seeing none Mr Harmon I'm going to come back to you I'm going to give you two minutes to respond to those comments much time Mr Renwick if you look at item 1A on our D plan the use that you're talking about is actually an excluded use we're specifically not doing fast food drive-through restaurants I just I believe that's just a mistake in the interpretation and our Traffic Engineers here if y'all want to deeper dive on any of the data on the traffic thank you Okay so I do have one quick question of the applicant and I'm going to come to staff I just want to confirm you're requesting to have a one-month continuance yes okay great but with as a favor to please give us whatever feedback you feel like we need to have in order to come back to with a very good project that would be worthy of your support in a month okay and I'm going to come to staff

because we just are a lot of back and forth about tax commitments and so I want to get staff's perspective on that absolutely thank you chair amidolia and I really appreciate Mr Harmon's uh narrative that was very helpful um I do want to point out that there was a pre-submittal meeting and a neighborhood meeting last February of 2022 that the application was submitted in May 5th of 2022 and so receiving the text commitments at the last minute today was does create a little bit of a problem however what we did do is share out those tax commitments we have multiple reviewer departments that look at each thing that come in so for the three commitments that Mr Harmon shared today one was around affordable housing planning has the purview to review those commitments we've worked with that language and standardize it with Community Development so we can bless that and say it's okay the second one is around the transportation commitment that was not sufficient the way it was awarded however the applicant worked with Transportation tonight to come up with language that they agree upon the

third thing is the stormwater commitment and that is not in our purview is our purview to ensure that projects are compliant with anything the department is requiring per the ordinance or for the reference guide for development um the commitment that was offered is not in compliance with that it was shared with stormwater today stormwater said that is they can't accept that language planning staff and stormwater provided language to the applicant around a hundred year stormwater event that would align with the parcel boundary that is not the commitment they would like to make and so if they'd like to prosper some other commitment around storm water they'll have to work with stormwater engineering before that comes before y'all Okay so I want to clarify so what they want to do on stormwater is they want to be able to essentially my understanding of it is change where the storm water is going to flow instead of flowing into this neighborhood it's going to flow into the road

um are you saying that the way they wrote that text is not enforceable or is not viable or that the concept is not viable from stormwater so that I can't speak to the engineering part of that because that was actually a second commitment that was offered after the first one was the language was said it was not acceptable that one has not even been vetted yet got it okay because my initial thought on that just personally is um I'm sorry to the neighborhood but like putting storm water like I guess I want to ask the applicant are you saying you would be redirecting stormwater to go in the direction of um Shannon wrote to like maybe under Shan Road or next to Shannon Road or like would it be dumping onto Shannon Road no so the stormwater ordinance says if I have two watersheds in my property what I am

required to do when we get to the site plan level and engineer this thing is I have to take all the water going one way and I have to treat it and detain it and then return it at its exit point that we have now and then I have to do the same thing on the other Watershed so I'm required by the ordinance to treat both watersheds independently take putting the water back where where it exited our property before but having been detained and treated before we do so in that scenario the same amount of water that is going into the valley neighborhood in the same amount of water that's going into the Shannon Road the current Shannon Road outfall system which has infrastructure in the road right there the same amount of water is ultimately going to go to both of those places it's just going to be slowed down it's going to be treated first what we're saying is and we're very fortunate because our topography and gravity is such that we have the opportunity to take the water that the ordinance would say we should send into the valley when we're done with it and we can actually

just send it the other direction so we're actually removing water from the burden of this of The Valleys storm water infrastructure so our site will be depositing less water onto their land when we're done okay the language that the director came back with wasn't even addressing where the water flowed he just said do a hundred instead of the one two and ten our site's too small to do a hundred year detention it's just it's not big enough to achieve the density we want and what matters more to us in the neighborhood I believe I don't want to speak for for Richard but is reducing the amount of water that goes through their pipes because they have really bad rainfall events I hope that's helpful no that's very helpful very clear uh Alexander is there any additional commentary you want to add on that just just real quick and I appreciate that's very helpful um I think that speaks to why we want to make sure that storm water has a chance when we talk about cumulative impacts on

how the Water Systems a hydrological psychic Cycles work we want to make sure that's being analyzed not just on a case-by-case basis but on a cumulative impact and that's why stormwater needs a chance to review this before we can accept a proper Dr Aiken teami's team and and himself do a really good job of that and we need to make sure that they get a chance to see this again and do the engineering analysis okay that's helpful and I think I understand why surprisingly enough um Okay so um I'm gonna I'm trying to get ahead of some of people's comments really quick because I there are a lot of questions around the site so um Erlene Thomas Transportation I would love to talk to you about this site because um this is the post office so I've obviously been over there and there's a lot of other good stuff nearby this is a wild Road as it is today and so I guess I want to get your Insight on how viable a four-way stop is at this

intersection and or a roundabout because that might be even better given the volume of traffic okay so earlene Thomas Transportation I wish I could answer that question for you directly tonight because this site did not require a traffic study to be conducted I've not one has not been submitted and reviewed to know what the appropriate treatment will ultimately be at this intersection um so we would we would need to have a warrant analysis done to see if the that intersection even meets warrants for an always stop to be installed if it doesn't it is unlikely well if it doesn't meet warrants it wouldn't be installed and at that point we'd be done with the text commitment as proffered this intersection has been studied in the past that I'm aware of for a traffic signal and it did not meet warrants at

that time and the Traffic Engineers ironically did think a roundabout would be more appropriate treatment but right of way is an issue would be an issue for implementing that treatment as well got it okay that is helpful I guess a separate question is there well they may this may be just the same answer because if you didn't have a TIA to study it you may not know the answer yet um I guess I'll ask a different question then like how quickly will you know well once the analysis is done and submitted for review we would know pretty quickly I mean if with a one month continuance even you know I don't want to speak for the applicants team but they may have the opportunity to

complete that analysis and submit it and have an answer for you definitely one way or another okay uh so just quickly to the applicant team do you know the timeline on having that analysis done my intention is not to go do engineering on this project as part of the rezoning process I think that is more appropriate at the site plan level I would prefer that we have a text commitment that says we believe this solves the problem and addresses the concerns we will follow the city's process to propose a four-way stop we have to go through theirs in the dots process and if we're successful if as long as we get Dot and City approval for what we want to do we've committed to install the always stop and that's what we that's what we want to do I feel like it unnecessarily complicates this by seeing if we can go do traffic engineering now on a project that doesn't require Tia in

order to just get through Planning Commission that's just my initial reaction okay um okay those are all my questions any other questions or comments commissioner Baker yeah I look forward to those details getting worked out at a high level you know we we see a lot of really bad proposals up here um I would I would say this is probably one of the better ones that we would typically see um the fact that uh you're looking to include some relatively affordable units 60 Ami it's pretty it's pretty uh exciting I think it's between five to ten percent of the units based on the numbers that you gave us this is not a walkable area at all it's incredibly car Centric so it's it's awkward to try and do something that's even a bit pedestrian oriented but there are a lot of things to walk to I mean we got the

library we've got restaurants the the post office movie theater grocery store there's a lot of things that people who live here would be able to get to so overall and we're looking at a a two housing types um on on three acres which we saw earlier 40 plus acres one housing type so so this is exceeding that as well so overall I think this is something that we would love to see more of in general um obviously issues need to be need to be worked out and ironed out and I think that'll happen a one very quick very minor question I have for you is the streetscape just will there be Street trees and the width of the sidewalk are we looking at something wide or like 10 feet or something like that yeah we uh the the city actually put a commitment on us in the city's commitments section

so we so we do have this the streetscape improvements that are typical in this zoning district with the buildings on the street and we do have a 10 foot wide sidewalk in addition to the grass strip that's a a sidewalk come pedestrian bicycle thing which admittedly doesn't connect anything but it's more sensible than a bike lane on this tiny ass country two-lane road so cool thank you that's all I have commissioner Morgan you have a question for the applicant I noticed that you have a commercial General type of zoning as well and I saw the tax commitments of things that you're not going to do what do you anticipate to be the commercial development there I I look across the street at the very successful neighborhood commercial center there Shannon in Old Chapel Hill for example is I think there are some great food establishments there only Burger it's

got the The Hope Valley Diner which used to be Rick Steiner many people in this part of Durham remember that there are dance studios so I think I think there's a lot of neighborhood oriented retail and restaurants and I just I think there's room for more that shopping center is full and it's one of the few really successful humming shopping centers out there the the post office is a great anchor tenant I think that we can add to that other uses so I you know I would love to see restaurants um a place to get some morning coffee I think you know those would all be things that you know what I want there are the kind of things that people who are living in this corner really enjoy being able to access without having to get into their cars at it yeah thank you commissioner cease thank you we have long meetings and I occasionally contribute but I'm going to come back to that I think this is exactly the type of

project that uh has the several things commissioner Baker pointed out the thoughtfulness with with which you describe not just your proposal but also your work with the neighborhood your attention to um the specifics of the surroundings is excellent and multiple housing types commercial is exactly the way in which a a location like this can begin to be transformed into something that is more walkable to better take advantage of the diversity of uses that are there to better use the uh to better Propel changes in the transportation system in terms of Street and infrastructure whatever needs to happen and you're carrying a heavy burden for a three acre parcel three plus acre parcel with the affordable housing which is also a nice addition in this location um so I'm I'm very supportive of the project now there's a technical slash engineering consideration that that you've also identified and and I can

understand the initial sentiments from the um engineering perspective but also to the to the point about the length of our meetings there are frequently frequently there are tax commitments that are or profers that are discussed as that are generated out of these Concepts or generated from the public and and but not yet fully refined and I would encourage if it's at all possible you to reconsider wanting to come back here and just just take a vote with an expectation that you'll address that commitment before it gets to council that would be kind of consistent with what we've seen with projects in the past and and I don't think that point would change our recommendation it would be sufficiently clear by the point you got to counsel and the decision could be made at that point in time I understand and agree with your assessment but I made a personal commitment to Richard that I was not going to send him at home tonight stressing about whether we were

going to honor our commitment to his neighborhood and I'm going to stand by that I appreciate that but I think you could perfectly honor that commitment by um the the The Leverage of the council hearing City Council I agree with that um so I'm going to say two sentences and I'm going to let Vice chair Cameron make a motion um I like this in concept I would like a better vision of what Shannon Road is going to look like for pedestrian safety because I would not walk on Shannon Road today to get to any commercials at around and I think this is going to be like a city problem this is something that maybe you can help advocate for and would appreciate it I just this site like I wanted to identify there's a lot of surface barking there it's more than two

sentence there's a lot of surface parking there that could get Apartments I love the vision here I think it could work my big concern is Shannon Road is not built for this it's not built for what it's doing currently based on my experience driving it and I'm imagining having more people walking my hope is that it creates a cultural shift in that area where people aren't flying by because they see more sidewalks I hope there's more intentionality to nudge people in that direction and not just hope that oh they're sidewalks now people are going to slow down that's all uh I'm not closing the public hearing because the applicant has requested a continuance and the public hearing will be closed at a later time chair I move that we continue case z22 zero zero zero three nine to our next meeting second we would drive Vice chair Cameron

seconded by commissioner Trapp any discussion on the motion seeing none maybe have a roll call vote Cameron yes that's true Cameron yes commissioner Baker yes commissioner cut right yes or shakaris yes commissioner girl yes commissioner Macgyver yes Mr Morgan yes commissioner cease yes commissioner trap yes commissioner Valentine yes commissioner Williams yes Russian carries 12-0 thank you I agree you could have gotten a yes tonight and just gone to city council I appreciate your commitment but uh yeah you in July yes you won't see me in July uh okay next case good night um case tc22 quadruple07 Community Wastewater systems hopefully this can be quick I'm going to limit commissioner comments to two

minutes a piece for this because I don't think we need that long I'm going to turn it over to staff great thank you chair Madelia we will keep it very short and sweet staff received a privately initiated text Amendment from Jeff Hunter of Cold River Farms development Community Association this is a text amendment to allow Community Wastewater systems in their neighborhood a community on-site Wastewater system functions similarly to a residential septic system in some ways Wastewater from each home is collected into an adjacent grinder pump where the Wastewater is ground into a slurry that is pumped through a low pressure piping system to a gravity sewer line Wastewater flows via gravity to a treatment plant and where the resulting water is treated to reclaim standards the reclaimed water is then sprayed on ncteq permitted field with open space common areas of the community this text amendment is three simple lines in the unified development ordinance this is for County and

residential rural only and it will allow the extension of this private sewer system or Community Wastewater system for single-family subdivisions that meet the following conditions any subdivision that crosses the county line in which the other County allows private Community sewer systems which are permitted by ncdeq for single-family subdivisions the lot area and lot setbacks are consistent with the minimum dimensional standards within the rural tier Watershed and private well water is available within the property and is sufficient volumes to support potable water requirements this is initiated by Culvert Farms these conditions apply to only the Culvert Farms region it would not apply and meet these conditions anywhere else in Durham County The Proposal is consistent with the goals and objectives of the new comprehensive plan and this proposal is potentially in the public interest as it provides flexibility and design options for Lots in the county in relation in relationship to infrastructure issues staff and the applicant are available for any questions thank you we're going to open the public

hearing I'm assuming you're the applicant do you have a presentation I know it's like commission chair members of the commission thank you very much for the opportunity to present what we believe is an opportunity to increase the number of options that addresses several key elements of of the community goals and objectives one of those is specific to harmonious respectful development whenever possible we need to make use of the resources we already have like existing buildings and infrastructure so that we do not have to always create new things from scratch here is a state controlled system that is being used instead of adding more septic systems we had also by utilizing an existing Community Wastewater system it has backup

generators and other capabilities that addresses another objective around resilient carbon neutral biodiverse and generally Genera gender relationally oriented communities so in connection with those two specific Community goals and objectives this proposal aims to reduce the number of individual home wastewater treatment systems and the associated public management oversight by using existing infrastructure that is more resilient to natural disasters and unexpected disruptions respectfully seek your approval and thank you for your consideration thank you we're going to move to public comments there anyone also I open the public hearing I think I did that um is there anyone in the zoom meeting hoping to speak tonight okay seeing none any commissioner

comments or questions seeing nine may I get a motion Mr chair I make a motion that we take case T text Amendment TC 22 quadruple zero seven Community Wastewater systems to be forwarded to both the city and the county for a favorable recommendation okay moved by commissioner Morgan seconded by commissioner Valentine the public hearing is now closed any discussion on the motion okay seeing none um maybe we get the roll call vote sure I'm going to tell you yes that's sure Cameron yes commissioner Baker yes commissioner cut right yes Mr sugars yes commissioner yes Mr Macgyver yes commissioner Morgan yes commissioner cease stepped out commissioner Trent yes commissioner Valentine yes commissioner Williams yes motion

carries 11-0 great any uh it's from staff awesome thank you all I'll miss you this meeting is adjourned I won't miss these late nights though meetings adjourned at 10 46 PM Eastern Time 23.