good evening welcome to the Durham Planning Commission the members of the Durham Planning Commission are appointed by city council and the County Board of Commissioners to make recommendations to the elected officials we emphasize that the elected officials have the final say on any issue before us tonight while this meeting is being conducted in person it is also accessible using the zoom virtual meeting platform the 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 M meeting decorum in a discernable record of the meeting the chat function has been disabled for those attending in person if you plan to speak on the agenda tonight please go to the table to my left and sign up to speak when speaking please state your name and your address clearly when you come to the podium
please speak directly into the microphone if you are attending the meeting virtually you will be given the ability to speak at the appropriate time if you have pre-registered your name will be called so you can make your comments just like in an in-person public hearing if you uh you may also call in during the meeting tonight by dialing 1301 715 8592 if you call in during the the meeting you will need to wait until the particular public hearing you are interested in starts after all of the pre-registered speakers have shared their comments I will ask if there is anyone else wishing to speak at that point you will need to digitally raise your hand by pressing star9 on your phone and when recognized state your name and address before making your comments the applicant has a total of 10 minutes for a presentation each speaker
after the um applicant has two minutes to speak Commissioners we have a lot of cases this evening therefore a commissioner has five 5 minutes for Q&A and will only be called upon to speak a second time after all other Commissioners have chosen to speak for a first time Commissioners as a reminder after the public hearing is closed you will attain the floor by being recognized by the chair come on Commissioners commission members please remember you share your time with your fellow Commissioners keep your comments and questions py and please don't repeat topics that have already been discussed or questioned the time to make all public statements is before motions are made once a motion is on the floor and further discussion regarding the motion must come after the second all motions are stated in the affirmative so if a motion fails or t eyes the recommendation is for
denial Commissioners if you are not ready to move a case forward please indicate as such when questioned finally I ask everyone here and on the zoom the commission members the staff 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 be muted on the zoom or to leave the galley until such time they gain personal control if theorum fails to be restored the chair will recess the meeting until a genuine commitment to act respectful and courteous is observed thank you Bo may we have the roll call vote please chair Cameron here Vice chair sheras here commissioner cutri here commissioner chowski here commissioner
hn commissioner Johnson present commissioner copac here commissioner MacGyver here commissioner Valentine commissioner Williams here commissioner W here commissioner young that's it we have a sorry commissioner Gregory we have a quorum established um you have a question commissioner oh go ahead [Laughter] sorry we have a new commissioner today
um would you please introduce yourself and do a two-minute introduction your name and what you do and two minutes two minutes yeah where you came from why you here 30 seconds hey y'all I'm ty um I served on the Chapel Hill Town Council and moved here to Durham uh beginning of this year I have a tech company in downtown we've been in Durham for about two and a half years now so excited to be a part of this community and serve however possible and uh yeah excited for the good times ahead thank you all right um there are no adjustments to the agenda um I now ask for um a motion to approve the minutes and the consistency statement from uh the August 13th 2024 meeting so moved second it's been moved by commissioner cutright and second it by
commissioner copac um any questions ready for the question all right all in favor please say I opposed motion carries we will move into the initial zoning map changes um may we have the staff report please for case Z24 quadruple 02a bdg 24 I think that's another quadrio 01 check binsky uh plan department just before we begin uh staff would like to State for the record that all plan Department hearing items have been advertised and noticed in accordance with state and local laws and affidavits of all notices are on file with in the plan Department thanks thank you good evening Sarah long City County planning and I'll be presenting on case Z24 quadruple 02 Constitution Drive
29 Acres of rideway into the primary corporate limits the location of the site is along Constitution Drive and there are no zoning overlays for this site there's an Associated annexation petition with this case which is case B24 quadruple 01 as this is a direct translational zoning no commitments may be proferred through a development plan or further consistency with a place type designated so this is existing um in the residential Suburban Zone that's rs20 and the site is
surrounded by residential sub Suburban multif family RSM and additional rs20 the aerial map shows the general location of the project which is Constitution Drive just North of Highway 5 751 and it's at that Constitution Drive in Highway 751 intersection as you can see the proposal is only requesting to Annex the right of way along Constitution Drive and you can see that there in the red hash The Proposal is generally consistent with the recreational Open Space Place type and consistent with all three applicable comprehensive plan policies staff and the applicant are available to answer any questions you may have thank you at this time the chair is opening the public hearing may we have the applicant
presentation chair Cameron my name is Kenneth Haywood I'm with the Howard Stallings Law Firm at 5410 Trinity Road in Raleigh it's a pleasure to be before all of you tonight in terms of the matter um the staff has obviously done an excellent job been orienting you in terms of the request um with me also here tonight in case you have any questions about this is Rob Joiner from um City staff as well who can speak to any questions but it's is straightforward as you've heard so far we have a very small piece about 700 feet worth of right away that never was taken into the city back when the original developer developed a couple apartment commun ities on Constitution Drive that um has been um noticed by our client so we have filed petition to bring that into the City and obviously the zoning map changes associated with that as you've heard the zoning is going to Simply remain the same transitional
from County to the city I'm really here to answer any questions you have tonight um and we appreciate your um support in this so we can continue to move forward so the city will eventually be able to um to take over this along with the rest of Constitutional Drive which is already within the city limits thank you do we have any community members that would like to speak on this do we have a signup sheet just that okay is there anyone on Zoom that would like to speak to this case the public hearing is now closed we are now open for commissioner discussion and questions commissioner Johnson thank you chair I I just have one question in the paperwork it said
annexation of the RightWay in the Durham city limit does not automatically trigger the city taking over maintenance of the roadway my question is twofold who's providing I mean it's 7 it's not a lot but who's providing maintenance for that conduit today and who will provide maintenance for it in the future Robert jiner Public Works engineering department um So currently there is no maintenance on that road no one has accepted it for maintenance it is not maintained by do uh there is no formal structure and maintenance at all for that road which is one of the reasons why we're here before you the intent is for us to receive to Annex this in all infrastructure for roads and systems like this must be annexed into the city to be taken over for maintenance by the city there is a separate process and after you're in the city limits in which
you apply for maintenance and those things have to go through and meet certain criteria it is the intent of the city to take this item over for maintenance um with a payment from the old developer uh we consider this a potential for a future safety hazard which is why we are looking at annexing this small piece in and taking it over and doing repairs otherwise the the road eventually if it continues to fall into disrepair would have to be shuttered so my quick followup to that is to your point that you just made what is the condition of the road and is there immediate repair cost that will have to be born by the city there's not immediate repair cost there may be a few potholes and things of that on the road through normal wear and tear uh this road won't need immediate resurfacing the covert large covert that's under that is in somewhat disrepair and that will be put on the
system uh to be replaced over the next several years and that's primary where the the payment from the developer will come into play okay and you said there was a payment from the prior developer to the city that's correct okay thank you for that and for the uh planning staff I apologize I have bad hearing so if you can speak up a little bit that'd be very helpful thank you chair thank you any other questions are we ready to move this case forward may I have a motion chair as it relates to case z2400 002a annexation bdg 24001 constit Constitution Drive row I make a motion that we move this case forward with a favorable recommendation to city council second a second see now you may me mess up what's
your last name again that's right it's been moved by commissioner cutright and seconded by commissioner Gregory to move case Z24 quadruple 02 A- bdg 24 quad 01 forward with a favorable recommendation to the city council may I have a roll call vote please chair Cameron yes sharis yes cutright yes chowski yes Gregory yes G yes uh Johnson yes uh commissioner kobak yes commissioner mcgyver yes commissioner Williams yes commissioner woke yes Mo passes 110 thank
2 acres and located at 3107 and 3111 East Gear street the current zoning is for residential Rule and residential Suburban 10 the applicant proposes to change this designation to Industrial light through a general res zoning to allow commercial parking and vehicle service the zoning overlays are fall Falls Jordan District B and major
transportation Corridor I 85 the properties are currently designated General industrial on the place type map which staff does not recommend changing again the existing zoning is residential Rule and the in residential Suburban 10 the site is surrounded by residential role re residential Suburban 10 and Commercial neighbor commercial neighborhood and Commercial General the aerial map shows the general location of the project which is northeast of down Durham along Gear street and just south of I 85 The Proposal is generally consistent with the place type designation of General industrial if approved there will be no change to the designated Place type as this is a general resoning no commitments are proferred and the applicant held two
neighborhood meetings one on November 1st and the other on March 27th 2024 again this proposal is generally consistent with the play typemap designation of General industrial and it is consistent with eight out of nine comprehensive plan policies staff and the applicant are available to answer any questions you may have thank you thank you at this time the chair is opening the public hearing may we have the applicant come for it with a presentation good afternoon I'm Patty Harold Hilburn with McKim and Creed 4300 Edwards Mill Road and Raleigh uh thank you for your uh service this afternoon I just wanted to reiterate what Sarah had mentioned um that this this site is um and and the use that is proposed is um consistent with the Des designated Place
type um the city of durs place type so um the as she said um it will be used that area will be used as overnight and weekend parking for barns hauling um trucks um it is um uh not to be used as an overnight stay at all it is just for the employees to park their trucks at night come back in the morning you know Park get their trucks leave their cars that type of thing um the maintenance part of that would be just minor maintenance um in the case that you know maybe one of their trucks had had broken down and they needed some minor repairs on site before they could leave I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have thank you thank you do we have any uh there's no one on the
signin sheet do we have anyone in the audience that would like to speak to this case is there anyone on the zoom that would like to speak to this case anyone would like to speak to this case all right I am going to um close the public hearing now and we are now open for commissioner discuss discussion and questions commissioner Johnson thank you chair uh just a few questions for the applicant there were two meetings held and the two key issues I took away from those was a privacy feature screening to block the view in terms of adjacent properties it was sort of left open-ended was that result yeah I mean what we had mentioned to
m. or 7 and then during certain hours 7 or 8 correct how is that going to be controlled because I know truckers I deal with them they tend to be fluid so right um I would need to have back uh Paxton Barnes um he's on a zoom call so I'm not sure how he can how he can call in he's he's here if you want him to answer okay um Mr Barnes um there's a question for you if you can unmute did you hear the question can you hear
us okay obviously he would have to regulate that with the with the employees and chair I can repeat the question if needed uh can he try again please can you uh say something see if you can we can hear you his box is lighting up but we can't hear him okay let me see if I can we hear can you try it again sir we heard something yes can you hear me now there you go awesome uh he uh commissioner Johnson wants to know how you will control the
hours of parking at the site and now someone just muted [Laughter] him you got to unmute yourself there we go there we go all righty go ahead yes so um it is controlled by our work schedule we are a day shift don't drop company so um our hours will start probably around 6:30 7:00 when the sun comes up and then we're coming back when the job sites are closing which they usually close between 3:30 and 4:30 so then our guys are coming back dropping the trucks off and getting their personal cards to leave um now I would say 80% of our guys actually take their trucks off so a lot of the times they coming back on the weekends to drive the trucks off to get their personal cars so it's not every day the trucks
are coming back to the yards at those times thank you my final question is with the Light maintenance that you mentioned with a number of vehicles uh this um designation could open up the door for more maintenance if I understand the designation so what will prevent more maintenance because I'm concerned about the environmental impacts sure of any sort of truck any maintenance is done with that so can you give me some confidence that that won't be an issue if you can can I give you confidence yeah um I mean I can I can tell you what what the owner of the property um is intending to do so again he would have to he would have to talk on that yes sir so we have a full shop at in Wilson North Carolina so we do all of our he heavy maintenance engine
repairs oil changes anything that takes more than just a couple minutes to get the truck up and running is done in Wilson North Carolina where we had the proper facilities and this facility would be if A tire's flat a Rim's bent or something very light that might occur that we don't catch that afternoon before it would just to get the truck back up and running but we this site will not be where we're tearing down into equipment to fix thank you chair all right any other questions Mr cut right uh thanks chair uh just a quick question and maybe this is for staff but is there a reason that this is IO versus CG is with the adjacent property that they're currently um sitting on if this is just an extension of their business so the current property is actually zoned rs20 and RS10 sorry the
adjacent property CG adjon property um the aisle zoning District would allow for this specific type of use which is the the maintenance or is this the parking use which use are we talking about so this is particularly for the maintenance okay I think this lenss itself to commissioner Johnson's question which is how do you avoid this becoming a full-blown um shop right if if that's I understand what the intention is but the zoning doesn't restrict that from happening at this point this allows that to happen if the intention is to Simply Park their vehicles here then to me what makes sense from a use perspective is CG and I'm just curious as to why we didn't go that route and why we're opening this up to iil which will allow something that nobody here well I can't speak for everybody I'm not comfortable with and I don't think the neighbors are would be comfortable with so that's just a question as to why we went that route so the choice of what the zoning
designation will be is up to the applicant and we can only determine whether or not we think that is appropriate thank you any other questions commissioner clac just following up on that then so does the the the CD zoning designation would that be also appropriate to the site and to this use if that had been proposed I think they're confirming so just to clarify if in the CG um zoning designation parking is allowed but the parking of commercial trucks isn't allowed so in addition to the maintenance the actual parking of the trucks is not allowed in the CG and it requires the industrial Light are they not parking trucks on that CG lot today I assume they are and maybe it's just like just what happens and that's fine but I'm I'm sure they're parking trucks
on that lot on CG today but I guess going forward naturally we need to follow the letter of the law I'm not exactly sure if they parking trucks on that okay building there too thank you uh commissioner Gary Gregory sorry thank you J you're Gregory um this question might be uh more suitable for the uh planning department but I'm just curious um in proposals such as the one before us um when there are Rail lines that AB butt this site I'm curious um you know especially uh in a scenario such as this where there's going to be potentially a greater volume of heavy Vehicles traversing over the rail line how are you may or may not know this but how are costs for repair and maintenance allocated and is there any possibility that the city could be required to designate funding for those
repairs berlene Thomas transportation department there is no allocation of funding towards those types of repairs um obviously the railroad is it's a it's own separate entity and maintains the The Rail lines there but this um site would need to acquire the correct driveway permit from North Carolina Department of Transportation as that use will change from what it's currently being used as today and that will be a consideration that they look at and approve a new driveway permit for this site any other questions are you ready to move this case forward may I have a motion to move this case forward please chair as it relates to case z23 0050 3107 and
3111 East Gear street I make a motion that we move this case forward with a favorable recommendation to city council second it's been moved by commissioner cutright and seconded by commissioner Williams to move case z 23 0050 3107 and 3111 East GRE Gear street forward with a favorable recommendation may I have the roll call vote please chair Cameron yes Vice chair sharis yes commissioner cutright yes commissioner jakowski yes commissioner Gregory yes commissioner WN yes commissioner Johnson no commissioner copc yes commissioner mver yes
77 acres and located at 605 67 and 6023 leeville Road the current zoning is residential rural the
applicant proposes to change this designation to plan development residential 3768 with a textual development plan to allow to allow up to 20 townhouse units um and the site is within the fjb uh Watershed the existing zoning is residential rural the site is surrounded by plan development residential office and institutional and other residential rural areas the aerial map you're fine so on the aerial map um this shows the general location of the project in southeast durum along leeville road on the place type map the properties are currently designated mixed residential neighborhood the proposed zoning was determined consistent with the designated Place type the text commitments include a 20ft gap between buildings and the site
boundary impervious surface maximums a trail connection and a 10-ft dedicated RightWay additionally a one-time contribution of $5,000 to Durham public schools and $20,000 to durh to the Durham dedicated housing fund have been offered as well a neighborhood meeting was held in accordance with Udo requirements on January 4th 2024 where 23 community members were in attendance and finally The Proposal would allow the development of up to 20 townhouse units the site for the proposed apartment uh excuse me townhouse units is southeast Durham and is located near Brier Creek um the annexation request would fill a current doughnut hole in the city limits the project is similar to the adjacent uh recently approved development to the north and provides additional townhouse units on the north side of leeville road single family development already exists
to the South and further west The Proposal is generally consistent with the place type map designation of mixed residential neighborhood thank you staff and the applicant are available to answer questions thank you at this time the chair is opening the public hearing may we have the applicant for it I need to did that work everybody have the screen go ahead y good evening Tim cyers uh with uh City 16 consultant place um located here in Durham North Carolina sorry excuse me trying to get organized here all right um thank you uh to staff and to Sarah and all the staff members and Brooke for their hard work on this project um in front of you this evening is a small infill project that we have
76 with a maximum of 20 town home units is consistent with a place type map to minimize the impact to leeville Road this development has only one access point through the adjacent development to the north there will be no additional vehicular access points onto leeville Road from this development this slide illustrates that a proposed Place type map is consistent with what was anticipated for the
7 to the south in Carolina AR with the text only development plan it can be hard to imagine how some of these developments may look as they come across so I provided a conceptual plan of what this development could potentially look like these are not graphic commitments but simply provided to help paint a picture for you this evening the town homes could be located in the eastern portion of the development to minimize the impact of the existing stream the access will be from a designated Street stub in the north northwest corner and a 10 foot wide concrete multi-use path will be constructed along the RightWay this path will be connected to the east and west on the screen to allow the connections
to that uh development that's under construction today my final slide this evening is highlights some the key text commitments of development and they include a maximum of 20 town home units RightWay dedication for the previously mentioned multi-use path sidewalk connection from the town homes to that multi-use path which to provide pedestrian access to the RightWay and adjacent developments some environmental commitments like minimizing our impervious area to 50% and committing to native tree plantings Road Road and infrastructure improvements along leisel Road Carpenter Pond and Olive Branch Road $5,000 donation to Durham Public Schools as well as a $20,000 donation to the city of Durham dedicated housing fund and before I finish this evening I do want to clarify one item that staff had mentioned um they had mentioned about a 20ft gap between buildings to clarify that's a 20ft gap around the project boundary not between individual buildings so thank you for your time this evening if you have any questions
45 Acres of open space approximately 25% um is that due to the power lines um is the 20% tree preservation also the open space acreage in other words will there be any extra trees saved on the property other than the designated areas of the power line and the um The
Creeks I also wanted to just show you the area and a snippet that we took um you can see the power lines you can see the tremendous amount of projects east west north south anywhere you go it's tremendous amount of development in our area I mean this is what southeast durm looks like in reality but I wanted to P to point out this to you today um we've stood up here time and time again and talked about the environment a new storm water erosion control amendment was passed in May 2023 still this is what Falls Lake looks like I took that photo on August the 31st 2024 this is how bad this is the mouth of Falls Lake as it crosses under Highway 98 into the lake this is how bad it looks my friends it is not good the new Amendment asks for flocculence dewatering times of minimum of four days ground cover double silk
fences to stop this sediment from leaving the site but unfortunately this is still and we'll talk more about it in another case but this is the reality of Southeast Durham this is not what I want my legacy to look like um and I was born and raised in this area so um just want to say a few things today still very concerned concerned about the environment thank you thank you do we have anyone else in the audience here that would like to speak is there anyone on the zoom that would like to speak please raise the raise your hand use the raise your hand feature we have Donna stainbeck please unmute yourself hello good evening Planning Commission I am Donna stainback at 4825 Jimmy Rogers Road in Durham North Carolina I I support all that Pam said
I'm very concerned about this project because of the environment and I was also I couldn't tell if the the tree coverage and the open space overla I was also concerned that there wasn't a North Carolina natural heritage inventory done and I thought that was required um also the schools elementary and middle school are overcrowded I'd like to see some type of cumulative study on the schools for the approved projects but not included in the actual plan it's like these numbers I keep seeing are the same numbers and that's because they're not taken into account I I do not believe they're taking into account what has been approved um so those are my key concerns thank you very much thank thank you is there anyone else that would like to speak on the
zoom in the galley all right at this time I will close the public hearing and open the Flor for commissioner discussion questions Commissioners commissioner Johnson thank you chair um a number of questions first of all I commend you for your offerings to go above and beyond and but I'm concerned about a couple things one is there's been extensive development in this area this is a really small plot I got it but I'm concerned about the overall impact are you developing any other properties in this area or is this the one that you have right now uh Tim cyers with City so to be clear we are the applicant and the civil engineering and land planning firm we're not actually the development team um the land owner that actually owns these
three Parcels is a developer um this is his only project in the area okay that's helpful uh second of all to the point of environmental impact and one of the questions again I I tried to read the questions from the meetings they all had answered online so I couldn't quite figure out what the answers were so that was on me but what Creek or tributaries are impacted is it what we heard about in terms of the U Falls Lake how has that been assessed uh so uh at the time of site plan we'll assess the streams and the final stream buffers um we have an idea um but this leeville road is the ridge so Del Web on the other side of the road drains the opposite direction so these are the very top portions of the streams okay but yet they flow yeah all the way down my last couple questions that I'll think about it is first of all I appreciate the 20,000 for the dedicated housing fund we're always concerned about affordable housing but was it considered to put at least two or three of the units into the Ami versus a
$20,000 fund contribution it would have had a longer term effect if we put them into the category of even 80% or 60% was that considered and why wasn't it done yes sir it was um and at the end of the day it's because of the size of the project um a $20,000 donation over 20 units is um quite equal if you will to a one one town home over a you know 100 or 200 lot subdivision um it comes down to be able to make sure that these projects can pencil when um I and our team bring a project to you we want to make sure that we can get the units at the end of the day if approved by your board and the council um and we believe that adding a unit here will potentially not allow this to pencil so the the better here better idea here was to provide a donation um to make sure we were committing to that and noting to the board that we are aware of that problem um but these smaller projects it's essentially hard to make those projects pencil when you actually commit to a unit count because of the number of
units that that cost is spread across yeah I'll have to think about that my last question on schools it was well stated that we're overc capacity both at the elementary and middle school the cost of just construction based on the Planning Commission could be up to half a million dollars of additional cost for school uh buildings not withstanding the maintenance of the kids which is about 30,000 a year 5,000 doesn't really impress me in terms of the overall Downstream impact are you willing to do more and how much more um I'd have to talk to my client about that um I would say that standard um across the board developments in this area have typically committed to about $500 per student increase um this development I believe the total student increase was five if I remember correctly I'd have to double check that yeah total new five to new five total 10 when it's actually built in comparison of apples to apples when you're looking at projects um that's how we'd like to look at them this is twice the standard rate of of contribution
thank you thank you chair thank you there any other commission commissioner KAC thank you chair uh I just would like to come back to the questions posed by the the residents um to get some clarity uh for that for the commission as well about the uh overlap between the tree cover uh and the open space um the relationship between the 25% open space and the power lines um and the question about the natural heritage assessment which I'll say in most of the applications we see that's listed as na so that's probably a an overarching question for staff at a later date but for now question for the applicant to clarify some of those resident questions would be great thank you right thank you for giving me that opportunity to respond to those and to the residents um so I'll work my way from the bottom to the top as I took notes and and if I missed something please feel free to ask again um so in response to the a control um those are uh new standards that were applied um approved 9 to 12 months ago now maybe
it's been a year um those uh will apply to this development a lot of the developments out there that have been under construction for the last six months they did not apply um you may know I've brought projects to this board um that provided commitments in the past that are actually now part of that code um literally word for word part of that code that I was providing before it was code um so I hope that proves to you that we're we're behind that and we understand that but this development will be following those new uh code requirements at the time of site plan and Roos controls um the 20% tree preservation um if there's an aerial I don't know if I can whoops anyways you've seen the aerial images um the uh Power Line itself the trees that are cut are only half of the power line easement the power line easement is 330 foot wide it's about 15 to 175 foot of what the trees are cut now so our tree preservation has to
outside of that 330t we cannot include the area in the power line ement as tree preservation so our project will be meeting the 20% but in addition to that there will be trees that will be saved because they're in the power line easement we don't have control over them I can't tell you that they may be cut down tomorrow that is the rights of the Powerline company however our 20% will have to meet outside of that power line easement um but we also have to provide 20% of the power line EAS if that makes sense so um I don't know the acreage off the top of my head but say for this site there's three4 of an acre of project area within that power line easement we have to save trees outside of that power line easement for 20% of that 3/4 of an acre so in essence of the remaining area outside of the power line easement we are doing above because it's 20% of the overall project so I hope that helps clarify um the open space does overlap with um the tree coverage area that's Udo that's where tree coverage sits is
in open space um so that's a requirement [Music] um I think that covers all the questions what's that the natural yes the natural um Heritage that's a question for staff to answer uh thank you and you know just to U reinforce the question and comment by my colleague commissioner Johnson about the affordable housing um you I appreciate that some money has been proferred um and often it is a different case with smaller developments but you know considering this is going from two single family houses to 20 Town Homes um you know even with that scale uh I think it would be possible to have inclusion and so I'm curious if that's something that has been discussed and would be considered to have uh a couple of those units be long-term affordable instead of doing the uh payment to the dedicated fund again we did discuss it absolutely we looked at that um and uh the final
commitment was to stay at the at the dedication to the fund that's where um our development team has decided to stay so I will be continuing with that commitment tonight and not making a commitment to actually provide units it truly comes down to being able to make sure that these projects can be built when you have a 200 lot 250 lot subdivision or larger those can be um spread that cost can be spread across the project directly to the north called Everton um when it came through your board was 599 leisel road that was one of my projects our staff brought that here and I believe that case had eight or 10 units um of affordable it's because the number of units were allowed to be there so um it really comes down to being able to make sure at the end of the day that the entire development can be built while acknowledging the concern for affordable housing hence the hence the monetary donation any other questions I a question Vice chair shares and questions for the applicant
why wasn't higher density considered here it's a small area if you could have done higher density with the first floor retail like little coffee shops or something actually connected it to all of this urban sprawl around here and helped relieve some of the traffic issues at least on a weekend type basis and that would allowed you to have some potentially affordable units it seems like a prime to me I mean I'm no expert on this but I was just wondering was that considered uh it was not looked at originally however I would say that this being an infill and surrounded by the current Place type of town homes that was our goal to remain consistent with the place type that was um approved by this board and Guy Council okay and um on the staff presentation there was a mention of a trail connection uh yes so we have a text commitment um in this this development the road itself is an extension of the project to the north and because it
didn't have a road connection to leeville road we wanted to provide a trail connection out to leeville road so along leeville Road will have a 10- foot multi-use path which is what's standard now um the trail is a connection out to that so from the public right away within this development out to the road there'll be a 5ft sidewalk connection okay so a sidewalk okay all right thank you commissioner Ty quick question for staff on the storm water requirements I know that the applicant is required not to increase the quantity of storm water discharge blah blah blah blah do we base that on a 25e storm event or is there a specific metric we use for that
frsky planning department uh can you repeat the question that the yeah so I know that um when you analyze like the quantity of storm water discharged off a property post development versus pre-development a lot of the times you use like a 25-year storm event for the quantity of water um is that like the standard for the city not 25 I don't remember we've actually got this I can look that up if You' give me just a yes please that would be great sorry to
I don't want to hold up the meeting I don't need to answer like right this instant yeah I mean yeah in terms of the way it's calculated it's predevelopment post development obviously I get credit for the existing uh I believe the standard is the is the 100y year event unless profer additionally but I did want to confirm but I'm fairly certain as what it is thank you any additional questions or discussion from Commissioners are we ready to move this case forward uh commissioner Johnson just just a comment I want to recognize what the public comments were and I understand them infrastructure more schools more traffic in an area that's developing developing developing I would like to say for all of us that we'd like to look at it holistically but that's not how these come forward can't speak of us I'm Sor yourself huh say for yourself oh for I I am thank you
chair um so thank you for bringing those to our attention thank you thank you any other comments discussion questions are we ready to move this case forward may I have a motion to move this case forward please chair as it relates to case z247 Tri Creek I make a motion that we move this case forward with favorable recommendation to city council second it's been moved by commissioner cutright and seconded by commiss Vice chair sharis to move K c23 quadruple 07 Tri Creek forward with a favorable Rec recommendation to city council may I have the roll call vote please chair Cameron yes chair sharis or vice chair sharis
no commissioner cite yes just a second commissioner chowski yes commissioner gregory no commissioner hnn yes commissioner Johnson yes commissioner copac yes commissioner mver yes chrisser Williams yes chrisser woke no uh motion passes
0000 the applicant proposes to keep this zoning designation but amend the existing development plan for this portion of the site The Proposal would not change the zoning or the allowed use of the site but would modify the
0000 the site is surrounded by planned development residential and residential Suburban 10 the aerial map shows the general
location of the project the site is located Southwest of downtown Durham and is also located within 2 miles of a variety of uses and resources for residents The Proposal is generally consistent with the place type map designation of apartment and townhouse neighborhood if approved there would be no change in the designated Place type modifications to The Graphic development plan include removing the impervious surface limitation uh the open space minimum requirement and amending the rear and front setbacks a neighborhood meeting was held in accordance with udl requirements on December 18th 2023 where 50 community community members attended so overall The Proposal would allow the expansion of the existing uh multif family housing for Duke Cancer Center patients and families The Proposal would not change the zoning or
the allowed use of the site but it would modify the existing development plan commitments um to allow the expansion of that existing building um I have gone over the modifications to The Graphic development plan um and while the location is in relatively uh close proximity to a variety of resources the surrounding uh neighborhood is still primarily autod dependent um for additional consideration the site census tract has a population with significantly fewer people of color and a higher medium age than that of Durham County it was also found that the percentage of cost birden renters in this tract was higher than the county average The Proposal is generally consistent as I mentioned before with the place type map designation of apartment and townhouse neighborhood thank you staff and the applicant are available for any questions thank you at the time at this
time the chair is opening the public hearing uh we have uh the applicant please come forward for a presentation good evening chair Cameron and chair Vice chair sharis and members of the Planning Commission I am Laticia Shapiro with Morning Star Law Group at 700 West Main Street here on behalf of the applicant caring house also with me this evening is Craig Ward and Sasha zor with caring house here to answer any questions that you may have I want to first thank staff for its presentation and rather than giving going over what you've just heard I would like to provide you with the the story behind this project I'm very excited to bring it to you this evening and give you some information about caring house if you're not already familiar with its work caring house has been operating in this location since 1992 it provides comfortable supportive and affordable housing to Duke Cancer Institute adult outpatients and their caregivers the current facility has 18 private rooms
and it is now looking to expand with plans to add 24 rooms a site plan was submitted to the city for the expansion and the initial review revealed that the development plan needed to be amended in order to accommodate the expansion that is why we're here this evening the use in the zoning will not change but the property and the facility that the facility operates on is subject to a development plan approved in 1988 wherein there are specific square footage limitations built into the zoning that need to be removed or amended to bring the development plan up to today's Udo standards this request is an amendment to the existing development plan to clean up aspects of that old development plan approved in 1988 to allow caring house to assist more Duke cancer patients in their families it is important to note that the 36- yearold development plan does not look like the development plans you are used to seeing the graphic components were not and will not be considered committed elements and some
of the textual comp components are considered commit committed elements and this request will remove or amend those those components that said what is changing we are removing all of the square footage all of the set square footage keep in mind that the way the square footage is written on the current development plan is not a maximum and it's not a minimum it's just a set number it is my understanding that the total amount of impervious that exists today exceeds the amount allowed in the development plan additionally we are removing a 15ft rightaway dedication shown along pict Road this rideway was never dedicated and the city does not have any plans to expand Picket Road we understand the city does not want additional rideway here so we're removing that from the development plan also the development plan uses the term setback and sets dimensions on the front and the back of the property we have updated the terms appropriately to Street yard and rear yard and adjusted
35 acre parcel that exists on three sides of an intersection and is split zoned this application impacts only the section of the parcel which is currently Zone PDR Z caring house does not own any of this property it essentially acts as a tenant on the portion of the property Zone PDR Z the zoning on the rest of the property is also not changing and caring house cannot impact the zoning on the rest of the property because they are not authorized to do so that is the summary of this request caring house has been a positive institution providing desperately needed support for cancer patients and their families in Durham for decades as previously mentioned caring house caring house hit a speed bump with this expansion when it learned the property needed to amend the development plan after submitting its site plan we are
all aware of how long the res process can take so this is a pretty big setback to caring House's effort to move forward with this expansion given caring House's Mission and work in the community we hope to move this project forward as quickly as possible so caring house can assist more people who are going through some of life's most severe challenges thank you for your time and consideration tonight we hope that we are able to you are able to support this project and we're available for any questions that you may have thank you are there any is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak you don't have anyone else on the signup sheet is there anyone on the zoom that would like to speak please use the raise your hand function going once going twice
all righty um the public hearing is now closed and we will move forward with uh commissioner discussion and questions none commissioner Johnson to the to the applicant um you had 50 people attend I read the meeting notes thank you for that a couple follow-ups was the buildings are they going to have additional stories or are they going to maintain the same height of the existing buildings at this time the intent is to maintain the same height okay and what what would change that Outlook yeah that I think that would just be moving through this there is really no intention the intention to stay at the same so moving through site plan that would be something if it occurred would happen then okay and then my other question is there's a lot of tree coverage in that land today the
commemo is only for 20% Which is tied to the Udo would you be um trying to maintain as much tree coverage as you can without disrupting I'm looking at the picture now at Picket Road where there's a line of trees there not a buffer but a line of trees I'm just curious how you're going to manage the trees removal so that would definitely be something that is discussed at side plan but we we will we are definitely looking into you know saving as much tree save as we possibly can to meet or exceed the Udo standards um I don't think that there's an an actual plan for the tree save at this time but we um we would def we definitely are taking that under consideration good and thank you for the caring Mission thank you any other questions from Commissioners no are you ready to move this case forward all right I have a motion please please chair as it relates to case Z24
00009 carrying house expansion I make a motion that we move this case forward to city council with a favorable recommendation second it's been moved by commissioner cutright and second it by commissioner Williams to move case z23 4 qule 09 caring house expansion forward with a favorable recommendation to Council may I have the roll call vote please chair Cameron yes Vice chair sharis yes commissioner cutright yes commissioner chowski yes commissioner Gregory yes commissioner Quinn yes commissioner Johnson yes commissioner copac yes commissioner mver yeser
55 5 with a textual development plan to allow up to 25 residential townhouse units this is
in the Falls Jordan District B and staff does not recommend changing the current Place type designation of mixed residential neighborhood the existing zoning is a residential Rule and the site is surrounded by residential rule Planning Development residential and this is for two to four dwelling units per acre the aerial map shows the general location of the project which is in southeast Durham along doc Nickles Road The Proposal is generally consistent with the playsite map designation of mixed residential neighborhood and if approved there will be no need to change the designated Place type the Tex commitments include a 20ft gap between buildings and the site boundary and just a clarify that's the building footprint in the site boundary a 50% impervious surface maximum and added southbound left turn lane and
limited disturbance during the site preparation and construction there will also be a one-time contribution of $5,000 to durm public schools and $25,000 to the durm dedicated housing fund a neighborhood meeting was held on December 19th 2023 with 12 community members in a in attendance this proposal is consistent with 17 out of 21 of the applicable policies for the comprehensive plan the area is fairly autod dependent and lacks access to multimodal infrastructure and is not in close proximity to daily services like grocery stores retail or Health Care The Proposal is generally consistent with the playside mic designation of mixed residential neighborhood and staff and applicant are available for any questions you may have thank
5 Acres so having one housing
type is consistent with the guidance in the comprehensive plan moreover the existing housing stock in the area is single family detached homes so the choice of town homes for this project adds to the overall housing Variety in summary The Proposal is consistent with many applicable policies as noted 17 out of 21 in the comprehensive plan this project provides much needed Supply to a constrained Market where demand for housing of all types has never been greater in the area and does so in a way that contributes to public schools and affordable housing funds the and complies with or exceeds the Udo standards aimed at safeguarding the natural environment such as the development so that the development does not have significant adverse impacts for these reasons we hope that you're able to support this project and respectfully request your recommendation for approval and thank you for your time and consideration tonight we are available with any to answer any questions you may have thank
you do we have any uh community members that would like to speak do we have a signing sheet for this one that's Thank you Pam and Ines there we go all right get afternoon chair Cameron and Commissioners Pamela Andrews 6108 wait Forest Highway um can you imagine having to endure blasting on all four sides north south east west of your home this was the fate of 89-year-old woman Mrs Knight can you imagine what she has had to endure daily for the past few years
and each um next one t uh in each hearing the presenters never admit that blasting will be required we often hear the geot technical report has not been completed yet we know blasting has occurred on almost every single site in this area after blasting terasic Basin soil enters the air and water Once In The Water bodies it does not seem to settle next let's be honest no homeowner has received compensation for damages due to blasting in Duram Miss Knight will now be faced with more blasting within feet of her property line with no buffer required please give this elderly woman a 30ft buffer that she has requested next the red soil creates tomato soup in our Creeks even after 4 days of required dewatering time this is what a sediment pond looks like as is being drained and water flowing down to LIT Creek on September the 3D of 2024 who what do we care about our citizens the environment our Wildlife
not only are homes being damaged but the environment is suffering as well next sediment flows under the required double silk fencing into neighbor yards and property in addition sediment ponds are drained or overflow which also flows into neighbors's property sedimentation is the number one pollutant of North Carolina Waters the news River Keeper has monitored the creek down the hill from Mrs Knight's property over 20 times this year Hurricane Creek measured over the state standards 80% of those times at times the readings were 10 to 20 times greater than the state standard of 50 nus a new storm water next Tammy a new storm water amendment I mentioned is just not working please consider that thank you hi tamy SAA uh Baptist Road um I want to take a holistic view this is
from Google Maps today this is what the area looks like now you can see behind it there is the fowers track being um constructed and this is just a two-lane road so I would ask that you would think know you can't think totally about the cumulative effects but this area has been greatly impacted by all this development uh and we still have infrastructure concerns and environmental concerns uh for those who who haven't never seen this slide this is in the Southeast Durham area and the these numbers were about in February and this doesn't include the Virgil Road property that was passed so there's about probably close to 177,000 New dwellings uh being approved and um you can see here by the uh comprehensive plan policy 119 we're supposed to ensure developments within the urban growth boundary have efficient fire emergency and Medical Services the only two stations that Services area is 8 and 17
and they're already being stretched this in March 2024 um is where it shows that the response times for eight and 17 are continuing to get worse and get longer we have 59 developments going on 42 developments under construction now and 17 more are approved um and that doesn't even include virtual road so I'd ask that you would keep all this in mind thank you thank you do we have anyone else in the audience that would like to speak and I don't see any attendees on the zoom they've all left therefore I'm going to close the public hearing and uh we are now open for commissioner discussion and questions commissioner Johnson thank you chair um applicant two two questions came up from
the discussion I heard and read in the meeting notes one was a requested buffer promised by the previous owner which hasn't been addressed and then blasting can you answer those two what is the future of those two items so at this time we don't know whether or not blasting will be required that's something that is determined later in the process um and uh with regard to the buffer we are aware that there was a previous resoning that we don't we're not sure exactly how far it moved through the the zoning process but the application was eventually or ultimately withdrawn and there was a 30ft buffer that was promised we have not made that promise in this resoning the um does not mandate a buffer because it is adjacent to other residential uses uh and there will be no Mass grading so that's why we have not offered the uh buffer at this time there we do have grading setback but we we do not have a buffer and given the fact that there is
so much development like the previous one all over the place here is this why is this a separate Quest why hasn't this previously been proposed or set aside in terms of the overall development in that area it seems odd that you have this little block that just comes out of the blue yeah that's a great question I don't know if uh I'll give it to my expert Tim to answer that one for me uh Tim s was with City U that is a great question and it really comes down to time frames owners um maybe when the um property the Fowler tractor that's under construction now maybe this homeowner wasn't approached at that time for that purchase um we really don't don't know we we could look at many options but um it's unknown it's unclear yeah and I appreciate that but it begs the question back when the others were approved was there sort of a thought that this wouldn't be approved and there'd be a buffer there that's what I'm trying to deal with in the context of how we got here thank you I'm
good Mr Gregory thank you chair so um referencing the satellite imagery that was put up both um during the applicant's presentation and the um public comment it's pretty clear that almost every single acre of the Hurricane Creek Watershed has been cleared for development at this point so I find it marginally troubling that this proposal is offering the bare minimum in terms of open space requirements and tree coverage so at a site such as this under these circumstances I'd love to see development practices that that exceed basic udio compliance um it just it it it makes a lot of sense to go above and beyond in a scenario where so much of the the natural environment in this particular section of our community has been um developed
so I understand we'll definitely take your concerns to the developer thank you thank you commission KAC thank you chair so in thinking about the play step map I understand that there's uh large U it's largely consistent uh with the the MRN um but it seems that this road in this site in particular really reinforce some of the most challenging aspects of this part of of Durham County in terms of Auto dependency a lack of safety for bike and uh uh for bicyclists and and pedestrians um you know I saw some recommendations from bpac to try and address some of these concerns but I wasn't sure that those were represented in the application and I'd love if you could talk to how the developer is is promoting um a bike and pedestrian uh connectivity uh and safety for this site I'm going to go ahead and have to defer to Tim on that when he's working
on the design of the site uh Tim cyers again with city um so yeah I'd like to actually read through those bike um comments bike imped comments that are um on page eight of the staff report uh number one was to construct a 12 foot paved uh paved multi-use path um that is um a it is a 10- foot concrete path is a requirement by Dot and that uh will connect to the existing development to the north so um residents in this community will be able to walk out to the RightWay walk on um Walker bike on that 10-ft path to what's under construction now as you saw um and be able to access that development um and I believe there's a green way through there so that bike connection is being provided um and that addresses number two really provide connectivity to a neighboring adjacent developments via stub out roads or sidewalks so we are providing one with sidewalk um the stub out uh were're not provided with that existing development so when when
there's a construction site under development now does that not provide a street stub out um there's not really any sense in making a street stub out to that because it hasn't been provided um and building raay crosswalks um that is a a standard comment by bpac um we appreciate that and understand that does help slow traffic down however that also um to a point inherits um 911 response um and there has been concern with emergency um access um in the area that was mentioned um you know with response times earlier uh we know that this area um does have a lot of new development so um every second matters so those um raised crosswalks on a a small development like this that's why those are not included typically they can be added later on through a process um with the HOA um but that's why they're excluded from this proposal thank you any other commission I mean Vice chairs
years yes for the applicant same question as the last small project was higher density ever considered with the first floor retail space walkability little coffee shops sandwich shops anything to prevent the auto dependent nature of this urban sprawl area I don't believe that it was something that we we can was considered um I think that uh um the best use of the site would be town homes in the surrounding area to be able to give more of a housing variety um with regard to the surrounding uh single family homes uh so I think that that was more of more of the focus so we that was uh not something that we had considered at this time okay okay thank you Mr cack thank you and I feel like this has some similarities to a previous case that we discussed in terms of the affordability the tri Creek um you know
where it seems like it's at a size and scale where it'd be possible to include uh affordable units longterm instead of making the payment in fact it's so similar it almost seems like a formula um and maybe that's intentional in terms of a you know $1,000 you know per per unit uh as a replacement of that long-term uh affordability but this is a you know different site different owner different developer um but the proposal seems to to be exactly the same uh as the other and and I think it's worth questioning as well like why is it that you can't put uh in this case um you know three to five long-term affordable units in this development I absolutely understand that concern and uh just as with the other one it is the other project it is the um feasibility of the project and being able to pencil the project the project with regard to um units versus the donation and so um offering profer the donation makes more sense and feasibility of the project um
and again like you said I I it is a concern I understand that concern um and you know we definitely took it under consideration but with regard to actual feasibility of the project the donation was what worked out can I add to that if acceptable sure then have a followup um on this project one of the differences here is um with the connection out to Dr ni Les ncdot does require a left turn lane and a right extended Lane is what we called it um the road improvements for this development in that case right along the frontage will probably be in the $250,000 range over 25 units $10,000 a lot um those prices add up so all those factors come into play when when researching that specific item yeah I mean I understand that in principle and it's helpful to know that there's this additional expense the developer had to incur um you know I think it'd be really interesting and
useful to see a proforma and understand when you talk about how this pencils out to understand especially for this scale of project uh you know to to to really get a better understanding of that because it seems like with this you know greater density that's going in this spot even with 25 units there's you know a lot of money be made there uh and so when we say pencil out I just would love to know more about what that means so a potential for a future sitdown I would welcome that all right thank you commissioner time uh quick follow up on the question on variety of uses were live work units ever considered like live work town homes and I guess question for staff would the requested zoning allow for something like that in terms of like a commercial live work type use I don't know who wants to answer
first so for the pdr5 zoning there is a there there is a limited amount of commercial that's possible so it would depend on the type of commercial and the size as to whether or not it would be allowed and that's defin that's something that you know that was the first we've kind of thought about that so we appreciate your um recommendation and thinking about it uh I think that this this project was like I said earlier geared more to looking at the surrounding area and seeing what other types of variety of housing types we could provide um to put Supply into um much much needed Supply into the area commissioner Johnson five more units 5,000 for schools my math is probably off there
but it bothers me that we're adding more units but we're still doing the 5,000 with the impact on schools um are you going to increase that or are you going to stay at 5,000 that's something that we can I I can't make that commitment tonight but I could take back to the developer um the second comment I would make is for the staff I'm I'm concerned about traffic it there's lots of capacity I got that but when I looked at the development around the whole area where we have 950 against 12,700 flow I can't believe 950 after all that development is going to be how accurate do we feel those numbers will be in five years or two years or should there be a cons underlying concern there that we need to think about Bering Thomas transportation department so the traffic count that you're looking at um is from the latest traffic data available from ncdot who takes traffic counts um every other year
so really the effect of all the new development that's occurring hasn't really been captured in those counts because the homes aren't occupied and that will come over time and we start to pick up um the additional traffic on the roadways yeah that that's very helpful because that's where we're catching up and we need to catch up to kind of see the overall effect not today but two or three years the last comment and building on my colleague Mr quec commissioner um I heard about the additional quarter of million I think you said about Road improvements but we didn't talk about Road improvements on the other one but yet we're still talking about maybe designating affordable units so I understand the contribution what is it 25,000 but I'm still kind of thinking about the overall picture why we can't designate two or three of these units for affordable which will offer somebody a chance over the next 30 Years that they may not otherwise have so I'm still caught up with that I'd like to hear you speak on
it if you would before we get to that if I just may I was just um provided information that the developer is willing to double the donation to the schools to 10,000 the the developer is going to double the contrib the contribution to public schools to 10,000 um great clarity Point um Chris Johnson I appreciate that so um the previous case Tri Creek um is a um connection from the developments called ever so um the anticipated um Road improvements that are for tri Creek that was approved earlier are part of Everton so the development there Tri Creek really isn't going to have any road improvements associated with that because they're already going to be done most likely that's still associated with tri Creek because if Everton can't do it they're part of Tri Creek and tri Creek has to do that to make those developments however most likely they should be done by the other development
so that's why there's a little bit difference in the math does that help clarify it's an answer thank thank you any other questions comments are we ready to move this case forward chair as it relates to case Z24 0015 Nichol towns I make a motion that we move this case forward to city council with a favorable recommendation second it's been moved by commissioner cutright and seconded by commissioner Williams to move case z245 doc Nichols toown forward with a favorable recommendation may I have the roll call vote please chair Cameron yeah I'm sorry yes
chair Cameron I'm sorry yeah Sor Vice chair sharth no commissioner cut right yes commissioner chowski no commissioner gregory no commissioner W yes commissioner Johnson no commissioner copac yes commissioner mver yes commissioner Williams no commissioner woke no motion fails 56 thank you to take a break
thank you nobody yeah I was going to say we just probably should just take a break take a break five minutes all right we're going to take a break she wants let's take a 10 minute let's let's recess till uh 725 we'll be right back be just want to say thank you [Music]
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36 acre parcel of land to uh located at 4515 North Carolina Highway 55 the current zoning is office and institutional the applicant proposes to change this designation through a textual development plan to plan development residential 53 390 to allow up to 126 multifam units the properties are currently designated Transit opportunity area on the place type map and the proposed zoning is generally consistent with this place
type as mentioned the existing zoning is office and institutional the site is surrounded by office and institutional commercial center and Commercial neighborhood the aerial map shows the general location of the project in southern Durham the properties are currently designated Transit opportunity area on the place type map and the proposed zoning was determined consistent with this place type the proposal makes several textual commitments and excess of ordinance requirements The Proposal includes commitments to 20% affordable housing the construction of a bus pullout and pad or shelter subject to a go Duram determination and a monit Ary contribution of $10,000 to Durham Public Schools as well as a Durham dedicated housing fund respectively a neighborhood meeting was held in accordance with udl requirements on March 21st 2024 where one Community
member attended so overall The Proposal would allow the development of 126 multifam apartment units on a currently vacant property which would involve the renovation and repurposing of an existing development that predates current project boundary buffers open space and tree coverage standards the textual development plan includes a commitment to allocate 25 units or 20% of the total as affordable housing for households earning 60% of the area median income or less with this affordability maintained for 30 years located in southern Durham the site is within a 1em walking distance of various uses and resources Additionally the proposal includes improvements to Local multimodal transportation infrastructure although the tax value increase within the census tract is below the County's average the surrounding area exhibits significantly higher rates of evictions per square
mile and cost burden renters this indicates a higher potential risk of displacement however the proposal helps to address these concerns by committing to affordable housing and contrib in to the Durham dedicated housing fund The Proposal is generally consistent with the place type map designation of Transit opportunity area thank you staff and the applicant are available to answer questions thank you at this time the chair is opening the public hearing may we have the applicant come forward please good evening Madam chair Commissioners and staff uh first of all I want to thank staff uh with with both both Brooke and Aon for their support and help throughout um it was they were really tremendous so thank you for that um second my name is Tark Shire I am with urbanest group a land use consultant for the property owner Vivo living and with me tonight a representative of fivo um is payman um
yazad danmer and he's here to answer any of your questions should you have any uh we are really excited to be talking to you about this project tonight and uh we're seeking your support for recommendation to the city council the reason we're excited about this is this is a different kind of project it really does help address many of the housing uh need within the city of Durham and um we were making uh multiple commitments uh here uh in fact um this project does uh does meet and exceed uh many of the um uh the the the uh comprehensive plan policy um um item so we're excited to be talking to you about it as far as the housing um commitments uh we are making multiple commitments on that front one of them is 20% of the residential units to can you all hear me if I stand up yes okay that's so much easier and so much
more natural uh we're making a uh commitment to set aside 20% of the residential units that's 25 of these units to um um uh uh to households who earn 60% Ami and in addition to that we are making a $10,000 contribution to the housing fund listening to the areer um earlier conversations um it it not only we're providing the affordable housing but we're also providing that additional contribution uh in addition to that we're also making a contribution for uh the schools again listening to the earlier the earlier discussion about uh schools uh being $500 per student um I'll share with you right now A our slide for our expected uh tenant profile and the student profile we don't expect many students in this building as we have in other buildings as well um so
our contribution would be over five times what the math from prior applicants has been so let me just go ahead and go through a very quick uh slight uh PowerPoint presentation um about Vivo its mission is to help solve the housing crisis through adaptive reuse of buildings and this really helps a lot of the U comment that came up earlier from the prior project and that is uh environmental um uh distress so we do uh perform adaptive reuse as far as as Vivo it's an industry leader in what it does uh it um takes a uh an underperforming hotel and um converts it into multif family housing we're in 13 states uh Vivo has 26 communities we're very committed to North Carolina we have seven of them in North Carolina about a thousand units as a matter of fact three communities in daram one is under um is is being
permitted uh this is the second one and we look forward to coming before you again in November to present a third one we have over 3500 apartment units and the target rent is less than 80% Ami in general these are the three properties the one at the top it's called Uh Vivo living durm is the one that is currently being permitted uh it's 183 units the one below it is Ivy Creek that's the one that we uh we hope to come before you in November and present again 128 units and the subject property is uh Vivo living which is uh Forest Hills and that is A6 units together they're over 436 units if my math is correct uh key commitments I don't want to go over all of them because staff has and I briefly touched up on them um 20% of the housing units and 26 is actually a typo I apologize it's 25 units of the
126 units uh shall be committed to household earning no more than 60% Ami they are deed restricted for 30 years the $10,000 one-time contribution to the Durham dedicated housing fund that is in addition to providing the housing um we are committed to the city we are committed to the um uh the the housing fund and we hope to to to be here to stay we Pro we manage the properties ourselves we take care of the properties our El so we're here to stay uh the last commitment is a $110,000 onetime contribution to the Duran public schools these are just images of uh some of the some of Vivo communities throughout and vivo's approach is really interesting it it converts hotels to Apartments so it really converts low demand hotels to beautiful Apartments um and it provides attainable uh attainable
housing or attaina priced housing um reduces carbon footprint so we're not demolishing and building we're we're using the existing facilities we go in renovate them beautify them and repurpose the properties as opposed to adding to the carbon footprint we are also very involved with the communities um as I said we're here to stay we get involved uh with different uh Community Service events in this case this is a picture from a spring cleanup uh job we did at Baltimore went down into the neighborhood so we get involved with the neighborhood itself um we believe in U becoming involved with the neighborhood because that that really helps with economic resiliency and social resilienc um as far as the picture on the right it shows um what shows it little bit of me there but um it's the it's a health and and wellness uh Center and an event
every one of our properties has amenities it has um a gym and a workout room and we we do encourage that with Wilderness events about the property itself again it's 126 units it will have a Lobby Clubhouse fitness center laundry facilities high-speed Wi-Fi pets are welcome and bike racks Vios Apartments communities as I mentioned they all have um uh gyms um it will uh Vivo will bring the property up to Vivo living standards along with improved operations um units already have kitchens so there there are no construction there's no construction required and uh Vivo conducts background and credit check consistent with class A Properties so every tenant that we have we've conducted a background check on them we qualify them make sure that they um they're qualified tenants um a little bit of who the
residents are this is a demography chart that's taken from our analysis of all 27 properties just the occupation if you look on the left you have a spectrum of all kinds of folks who live there construction education uh Finance you've got retail you've got transportation technology uh we have public safety personnel we we have uh Municipal uh city workers we have uh nurses um teachers and so on so forth and the chart on the right shows the age group so when you look at the age group Pi we really do not have more than 3% under 18 IE students and the reason for it is just the the product typology lends itself more towards single folks um working professional folks so even using that number we do not anticipate any more than three students to exist in in at that one location our contribution is
more than five times that if you were to use the same $500 the gentleman talked about earlier today um so again that's that's the profile based on our review um just a profile of who the residents are Lin Tuli for instance um lives in Greenville uh 52 years old driver for Budget likes living at Vivo because uh feels safe and and and loves the community and then you've got Noah Matt 21-year-old a data scientist in South Bend Indiana um likes living there because it's it's close to to to his job and then John Harris is 70 year old he's retired he likes living there in in Arizona because it allows him to travel and go do different things so we are here again tonight requesting your support for textual zoning map change case number 624001
0017 again my name is tar Shire and payon AKA PJ is here with me to answer any of your questions thank you for listening thank you uh I don't think there are any members in the audience um so let me see here I don't think there no there's no one else on Zoom you got off great today so we're going to close the public hearing and open it up for commissioner discussion and questions commissioner cut right uh appreciate the presentation appreciate the good work um great great use of excuse me great use of assets um good job commissioner zc thank you chair I i' just like to Echo that I think I think this is a great project and uh just want to applaud your your commitment to uh
25 but it's like in the in the TOA area it's really close by I love that um the only call out that I noticed was a mentioned the comprehensive Transportation plan for uh for onroad bike access and I know you said you'll have bike racks but in terms of the location and the the current infrastructure like is it set up to be able to facilitate biking commissioner the uh the there is a a what seems to be a bike lane outside on Highway 55 but as far as providing bike racks we um traditionally provide them in all Vios projects uh typically U we will
have them in multiple locations mainly by the um by the main Leasing and management office so um these are bike racks we do it to encourage people to to ride their bikes okay all right thank you commissioner Johnson just on a couple things on the bike because the land behind you I know you don't own it there's access points to the library to Alon road so you may want to look into that see if you can get some right ways to Avid 55 to take advantage of those other alternative routs are probably safer for people um I won't reiterate because it's not necessary my for my commissioner's comments I think they're right on the mark U just couple observations and it's not your issue it's derms issue this is a very busy area you're going to be adding um a lot of car s we had a pro project across the street that we approved I think a few months ago where the residence in is which is going to
convert a lot of those into units as well similar to the presentation you made in terms of the uh diversity so I I just ask the staff to continue to have that on the list to look at traffic impacts as we move this forward because that's a very busy area and I'm just concerned about the entry points on to 55 I'm not putting people at risk the the other comment I have is are these all going to be apartment units have you thought about making any of these permanently owned units so people can have some equity in terms of what they're going into I I app plot all the things you're saying as far as Ami the contre I do want to get back to schools for a second have you put that on the table to consider because I'd like to see maybe 10% of these to be something that people can build equity in so have you looked at that part in your model I'm just curious with the other properties that you have that you listed commissioner thanks for the question the uh Vivo living is the
entire model of Vivo living is based on multif family housing and providing attainable um and affordable housing once we start going into a forsale product and a forsale model uh the the Improvement that we would have to make to the building would really be a completely different business plan um so the these are really not a for sale product um they're extended stay hotels that we're converting in and beautifying them and improving them into multif family and quite frankly it provides an opportunity for uh uh folks to to have a safe and um secure quality living that they may not have otherwise with a u a for sale product um that being the down payment a much higher uh hurdle to to pass uh the monthly payment will be much higher hurdle to pass as
well as the property taxes insurance and so on so forth so we feel that the model we have will truly genuinely help many cities in um solving some of their affordable housing and attainable housing issues no I I I understand that perfectly and I think you presented well but I kind of look at it as a fated process where you're providing safe affordable uh temporary housing because that's what apartments are maybe maybe not but also building to community uh long-term investment for people to actually put their rental payments into actual payments for long term my last question is um if I did the math right the 47 additional students which were put in the application times 500 is about 23, $500 and not the 10,000 uh not to put you at a higher level of would you go up to that level and $25,000 down
for the schools again I appreciate the question and it's it's no hot uh hot seat or anything the truth is we know for a fact none of our Pro properties uh will ever have that they they didn't they want and um we don't even know if we're going to have three students we welcome all tenants we welcome all um households but in reality we're really not going to have any more than the three so 10,000 if you're again using the the the $500 we're looking at 20 students we really truly don't believe that's ever going to be the case so if I could redirect the question to staff on the 47 if you could educate me thank you for your answer absolutely sure yeah so that 47 um is using the calculator that we currently use in planning for all the different cases um of course uh Mr shy knows um
how his past uh projects and developments how how many students have come out of those um I also think with our current calculator there are some limitations um this is kind of a special case in that the units are a little bit smaller um and they would uh generate a different population than than family so um there there is some assumption there yeah so it's not unreasonable is what you're saying that the variance would be maybe 20 versus 47 is what I'm hearing you say yes and Mr CH my last question for you is you're in North Carolina I saw different properties in other states is this your first project in North Carolina or have you had others and where are they no Mr uh commissioner this is our seventh so we are committed to the state uh North Carolina alone is seven and we also have properties in in South Carolina um and they' again they
they all tend to have a similar profile thank you for your answers you're welcome thank you any other questions Vice chair sharis yes I see on your it looks like on your previous project at 257 guest Road what appears to be solar panels on the roof are you going to do that here is that something Vivo normally does and that would help have compliance with policy 49 commissioner I believe the solar panels were already on the property at the time uh Vivo purchased the property um Vivo does follow all the code requirement for uh the Udo so we will be following the whatever the code requirement will be okay thank you any additional questions are we ready to move this case forward may I have a motion to move this case forward please chair as it relates
to case z2400 017 Vivo living Durham I make a motion that we move this case forward to city council with a favorable recommendation second it's been moved by commissioner cutright and seconded by commissioner copac to move case z247 Vivo living Durham for with a favorable recommendation to city council may I have the roll call vote please chair Cameron yes Vice chair sharth yes commissioner cutright yes commissioner chowski yes commissioner Gregory yes commissioner hen yes commissioner Johnson yes commissioner copc yes commissioner mver yes commissioner Williams
yes commissioner W yes motion passes 110 thank you we'll now move on any committee updates no um nothing major the uh Udo reite is um still underway and moving along I think we'll have an update in the next couple meetings maybe not next meeting but uh probably November will Target thank you moving on to new business election of officers do who runs that me uh well now I think we would uh think we take nominations uh nominations uh calling for nominations for the office of Vice chair I nominate current Vice chair sharis there any additional nominations
the second question all right my third according to Robert rules are there any other additional nominations all right hearing none we'll close uh the nominations um we'll take take all one vote at one time uh you do hand Vote or roll call vote on this one hands work hands work or just say I do you need to actually count or do you I was going to try to yeah okay all in favor please say I or raise your hand and say I all right congratulations on your second term all right now we are having nominations for chair I nominate shair Cameron to continue as chair any other nominations second nominations any additional nominations all right I all in favor please say I I opposed I forgot to ask
for oppose last time none hearing none um motion carries or the nomination carries all right on the hook for another congatulations or condolences right all right any staff announcements do we want to talk about the retreat do we have an agenda I know that it's a big question that keeps that is our first staff announcement so uh we we're still putting together the agenda um for the retreat in October which will be sort of the second half of the regular meeting we will get that to you uh the prior week um and yeah if you have any questions or any uh anything you want to you know throw out there we'll try and make sure that because that would be a great time to have this discussion so if there's any um suggestions that you have please reach out okay commissioner Johnson yeah for the October session we want to submit ideas for discussion for that session we wait till the meeting or can
we provide it in advance yeah I mean if if you've just got certain topics that you want to make sure that are covered whether it be a part of a training or or separate agenda item I think uh sending it to the chair and then sharing with us is appropriate okay thank you all right um and staff has another announcement I wanted to um introduce uh Aon miles with the city attorney's office um come up and introduce herself uh she's been here she will uh be attending um plan commission meetings in the future and of course Curtis Massie with the county uh for County matters um we'll request to his attendance as well okay good evening everyone thank you for for having me my name is Aon miles I'm a senior assistant a City attorney with the city attorney's office and moving forward there will be a representative for my office myself at every Planning Commission meeting to answer questions we have a question that's quick yes chair Cameron um just in general so it's kind of a rule that what is the number
of Commissioners that are are what's the threshold for Commissioners being in one place before the public notification kicks in is it three is it four is it half of the current commissioner be a quorum so the Quorum is eight so there were if you all were to meet say a work group um less than eight um that way it wouldn't have to be noticed as a public meeting say you were meeting informally um to have a um like a social um more than eight of you eight or more of you were planning to attend um we could notice it as a potential quorum um but as long as no business is being discussed then that type of action could occur okay thank you in terms of defining business is that any business coming before the commission yes or you know could it involve discussion of of of things in the past or just like the experience of being on the commission I think
experiences are fine but it would it business would be any matters that are coming before the commission yeah at that case then you'd have to cap at a quorum uh or less than AUM all right thank you any other questions NOP all right any other questions anyone awesome thank you and that's all I have for all right um we adjourn