 It all in one place, our recommendation, if we could put it in favor against and then with the final one. Okay, small award they denied. And look, so maybe we care that we did. I remember the small award. Like, is anything going? Yeah, yep, only two people in here. I guess so. Good evening. Welcome everyone to the Durham Planning Commission. We're glad to have you here this evening. The members of the Durham Planning Commission have been appointed by the city council by the county commission as an advisory board to the elected officials. So you should know that the elected officials on each case have the final say on the issues that are in front of us this evening. If you wish wish to speak on an agenda item tonight, we encourage you to come and sign up to my left. You'll see the table. We have a sheet for each of the cases that are in front of us this evening. You can sign up to speak. When you are called to speak, we ask that you come to the podium on my right and please speak clearly into the microphone. We ask that you start by stating your name and your address. And then you will have time to address us with your thoughts and concerns. Each side, those that speak in favor and those that speaking against an item will have 10 minutes each. We can make adjustments depending on the interest on those issues. So we will we will debate that as we get into each agenda item and we see how many folks have signed up to speak on each item. Finally, all motions are stated in the affirmative. So if a motion fails or ties, the recommendation is for denial. And again, we are an advisory board, so we will be discussing and voting on issues tonight. But our vote is not binding. It will then go to the city council or the board of county commissioners, depending on who has the jurisdiction. Thank you very much. May I have the roll call, please? Mr. Alturk. Here. Mr. Johnson. Commissioner Johnson has requested an excused absence. Mr. Ghosh. Here. Commissioner Bryan. Present. Mr. Satterfield. Here. Commissioner Harris. Here. Commissioner Hyman. Present. Chair Busby. Present. Commissioner Miller. Present. Commissioner Ketchin. Commissioner Ketchin has also requested an excused absence. Commissioner Hornbuckle. Present. Commissioner Vann. And Commissioner Vann as well has requested an excused absence. Commissioner Gibbs. Present. And Commissioner Williams. Present. Great. Thank you very much. We will now move to reviewing and approving the minutes and the consistency statements from our February 30, 2018 meeting. Mr. Chair. I move that we excuse Commissioner Johnson, Commissioner Vann, and Commissioner Ketchin from tonight's meeting. Great. Thank you. Great. Moved by Commissioner Harris, seconded by Commissioner Bryan. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion passes. Great. Thank you. We'll now move to approving the minutes and the consistency statement. Commissioner Bryan. On the first page, item number four, on the motion, I believe that Commissioner has seconded that motion was Commissioner Harris. Thank you. Any other adjustments or corrections to the minutes or the consistency statements? Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion for approval with the adjustment made by Commissioner Bryan. Commissioner Hyman. Motion to approve the minutes and consistency statements with corrections as presented. I'll second. Great. Moved by Commissioner Hyman, seconded by Commissioner Hornbuckle. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Any opposed? The motion passes unanimously. We'll move on to adjustments to the agenda. Ms. Smith. Good evening. Grace Smith with the City Planning Department. Staff would request that the agenda be adjusted so that item B under public hearings for zoning map changes, that's 7B, B combined, the hearings for that be combined with the hearing for item 8A, which is the text amendment for the same. And we would recommend that hearings be combined. However, when you get ready to have a vote, you need to vote on the text amendment first. And staff will remind you in case that is an issue later. Thank you. Also, I would like to state for the record that all of items have been advertised through legal and local ordinances and affidavits for such are on the planning department. One housekeeping item, the fire marshal's office representative is here tonight and he requests that we have no more people in the room than we have room for seats for. So the ones of you that are standing can stand for now. But if we get an influx of attendance, he would ask that everyone take a seat so that he can keep track of the room capacity. That's for everyone's safety. So please adhere to that and he'll be making his rounds and checking on the capacity as the evening goes on. And that's all I have. Great. Thank you very much. And there is seating over here to our left as well. That's available for the public. Yes, Commissioner Miller. Mr. Chair, if it's appropriate and while it's on my mind, I wanted to let the members of the commission know that I live within the 600 foot notice radius for the cases that are described in item 7 on our agenda and will have to be recused from that under the rules of the planning commission. Great. So at the appropriate time, we'll make a motion to approve your recusal. Commissioner Harris. Chair, I move that we adopt the agenda as modified or adjusted by Smith and Movefold. Properly moved and seconded to make the adjustments to the agenda that were put forward by Ms. Smith. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. We will move forward with our first hearing. Yes. Mr. Goche. Before beginning this one, I would ask that I be recused. My law firm represents the applicant on this next case, the Fayetteville commercial case. Yes. So moved. Second. All those in favor of approving recusal for Commissioner Goche for the Fayetteville commercial hearing, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. The motion passes unanimously. We will move to our first case. This is Fayetteville commercial. It's case A1700016 and Z1700041 and we will start with the staff report. Good evening. Jamie Sonak with the planning department. I will be presenting case number A1700016 Z1700041. This is Fayetteville commercial. The applicant is Patrick Biker from Morningstar. The property is located within the city's jurisdiction. The site is 2.86 acres. The request is a rezoning request from residential suburban 20 to commercial general with no development plan. The applicant is seeking all uses within the CG district. The applicant is also requesting a flam amendment, a future land use map amendment from a low density residential to commercial. This map shows the area of the property. This is a 2.86 acre site contains a single family dwelling. It is located within the suburban tier. There are a variety of uses found within proximity to the site. The Lowe's retail center is located to the north across Martin Luther King Parkway. Opposite of the site of Fayetteville road is the American tobacco trail. The east of that is a self storage facility with access off of Martin Luther King Parkway. To the south of the property owned by Morningstar is a church and to the west of that is a vacant lawn. The property is designated low density residential which is shown in yellow on the future land use map on left and on the right the applicant is proposing to change designation to commercial zoning which would be consistent with the rezoning request. This map shows the context area. The applicant has submitted an application to change the zoning to commercial general which is shown on the right and the existing zoning which is RS 20 on the left. This request has been reviewed by staff and determined to be consistent with the requirements of the unified development ordinance. This slide summarizes the unified development ordinance requirements for the CG district. The minimum site area would be 20,000 square feet. The minimum lot width is 100 feet. Minimum street yard and rear yard are both 25 feet. The maximum building coverage is 60% and the maximum building height is 50 feet. This slide summarizes the policies that the staff reviews when determining whether or not a property is consistent with the comprehensive plan and first one indicates that the slide that the property is not consistent with the commercial existing form. The applicant is seeking, I'm sorry, the existing low density residential. The applicant is seeking a change to commercial. They are consistent with 212C because the commercial designation is consistent with the intent of the suburban tier and it provides an opportunity for additional commercial lands and employment. The proposed plan amendment is compatible with the existing development in the area particularly because it serves an expansion to the commercial form designation located to the north and it is over one half mile from the nearest commercial core. There are existing infrastructure such as roads, water and sewer capacity sufficient to accommodate the site and the proposed impacts while there's no development plan that has been submitted as part of this application. The UDO does require project boundary buffers between commercial and residential zoning and land uses to allow for appropriate transitions and any future development must account for those requirements. In addition under the UDO section 7.3 there are design standards which would encourage a variety of building materials and treatments for non-residential buildings. Staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other policies and ordinances. I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you very much. At this point we'll actually move to open the public hearing and if I could get the list of those who have signed up to speak and as always we'll start with those who have signed up to speak in favor of the proposal and then we'll have equal time for those who have signed up to speak against. Thank you. We're going to do our best here. I'm not sure everyone has put down if they're for or against but we will start with Mr. David Lister signed up first to speak for with conditions. Actually that's right. We will start with Mr. Biker who is the applicant in this case. Chairman Busby my name is Patrick Biker. If I may I'd like to have the longtime property owner Yolanda Hall speak first and she be followed by Michael Palmer who's representing UDI at Industrial Park our neighbor across the street and then Mr. Don Moffitt is also assisting on this and then I'll wrap up very briefly. I may have to donate a couple minutes but I don't have time to Mr. Moffitt but I'll only speak for about a minute sir. So if I could I'd like to introduce Ms. Yolanda Hall to the commission this evening. That is fine and for the record all four of those speakers have signed up to speak. Good evening Chair Busby, Vice Chair Hyman and members of the Planning Commission. Even out to God for allowing my family to be here. My name is Yolanda Hall Long of 4510 Fetville Road Durham North Carolina and I'm here with my brother Michael Hall. The parcel we are talking about this evening has been in our family now for five generations. My grandparents the late William and Callie Jefferies purchased ten acres which included this site. Over the years this land was passed to different family members. Two parcels now owned by the Morningstar Baptist Church were once part of my family's land. My mother was instrumental in bringing that church to this area passionately following the footsteps of my grandparents who had a founding hand in Community Baptist Church on Barbie Road. Our family has always been interested in community building and this rezoning is no different. There once was a time when this land was home but that was before Martin Luther King Junior Parkway was our backyard. Ever since the city cut that road in our property has been separated so to speak no longer an integrated piece within the fabric of the community. We speak tonight remembering our predecessors their hard work love for family and for their hand in building our community. It has been a nearly twenty year journey for my family to figure out what to do with this property since Martin Luther King Parkway was built. My mother the late Brenda Jefferies Hall pleaded with the city to get assistance considering the condition in which the road projects left our property. She passed away in March 2001 and my brothers and I have continued where she began. Our very long arduous journey has brought us before you tonight requesting a favorable recommendation to City Council for this rezoning. Thank you very much. I live at 2804 Tavistock Drive. I will read a letter of support from the Board of UDI for which I am the Vice Chair. Dear Chair Busby, Vice Chair Hyman, members of the Planning Commission, with the mission to raise the economic welfare, education and social levels of the low income and underprivileged residents of Durham, our Board has resolved to lend our endorsement to rezoning case Z17041 Fayetteville Commercial. After meeting in December with our neighbors, members of the Hall family, our Board came to recognize the importance of the approval of this rezoning for a long time during family. The Halls have owned this land since the 1940s and have seen it slowly depleted with various road improvements projects over the years. Situated at the corner of Martin Luther King Junior Parkway in Fayetteville Road, the site is well suited for commercial development. Without the rezoning, we fear that the Hall family land will continue to diminish in value and the Halls will not be allowed to realize any value from their family's long-term ownership. All too often, the barriers to entry in the rezoning process, especially the application and consulting fees, act as an impediment to the landowners being able to achieve market value for their real estate. We did not want to see that happen to the Halls, whose family contributions within our community served as building blocks for many. Moreover, as their neighbor, we genuinely are excited about the possibility of a new commercial tenant nearby. We gladly welcome a new commercial neighbor that will serve not only our needs, but those of the greater community while also allowing this long-term Durham family to share in the economic prosperity which has touched so many in Durham. It is the sincere hope of UDI that this rezoning will be approved. Please vote to approve this rezoning. Sincerely, R.S. Stewart, President and CEO of UDI. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Busby, Vice-Chair Hyman, members of the Planning Commission. I'm Don Moffitt. I live at 2114 Wilson Street here in Durham. For those of you who I don't know, I served on the Planning Commission, this commission, for six years. I chaired it for three, and I served on the City Council for five years. I usually argue strongly for a development plan. Okay, wait a minute. There we go. I usually argue strongly for a development plan, but on occasion I support a rezoning without requiring that a property owner go to the significant expense of creating one. This is one such site, and I want to share with you why I see it that way. This is the site in 1993 before Martin Luther King Parkway was constructed. Here's the site in 2004. You can see the parkway is now constructed. They lowered the roadway substantially, leaving the site essentially on a hill. I mean, it is on a hill. At this point, the families still had the ability, when they got to drove out of their driveway, to turn left or right on Fayville Parkway. In this photo from 2010, you can see that the newly built loaves, you can see the newly built loaves. As part of that development, they made several improvements to the roads, including a median in the middle of Fayville, so the family could no longer turn left out of their property. And in this photo in 2017, you can see the medians, both along Fayville and along the parkway, so that all access points are only right in and right out. You can only access this if you're headed south on Fayville or east on Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway. On the future land use map, you can see that there's a commercial, this is really well situated to be a commercial node, which is what the conference plan calls for. You can see that the loaves area is commercial. There's out parcels there. To the caddy corner, to the northeast, is another commercial area on the future land use map. And then a large industrial area, which is mostly UDI. So, okay, so the current conditions are, is that Hanson Road and Turmeric Road, both right now, those are the bottom two new circles, they can turn left or right coming out the Fayville Road. The site though, as I mentioned, is a left, is a right turn in and a right turn out only. So, there's a whitening of Fayville Road and improvements that can be made to Martin Luther King. The access near becomes even more difficult. So, the extended median is going to force both Hanson and Turmeric to only turn right on the Fayville Road. The point that I want to make is that the uses of the site are already limited. That's one reason why you might have a development plan. Regardless of the zoning, it's got poor access. It's only going to get worse. There's a lot of different uses that would not come to this area simply because of the access issues. And while we're on this slide, I want to call your attention to the neighborhood to the west. Okay, there's no mouse here. There's, but the neighborhood to the west along Hanson Road and Shadyl side lane, I'll show you a little bit about that in a moment. It's the only area which might possibly see impacts from any development on the site. In this case, you can see that the orientation is slightly turned. So, the neighborhood is back to the right. And you can see that from the lows to the neighborhood, it's 785 feet. To the site itself, it's an additional 500 feet further than the lows is. It's okay, that's right. So, in this orientation, we've shifted it slightly again. This is the site. I want to show you that there's a stream between the site and the neighborhood that we were talking about. And the stream, the topography, it's a 30-foot drop from the property line down to the stream. So, there's effectively a 300-foot, it's an undesignated but very real buffer that's going to exist. And then, let's take a look at the site. As you know from the packet, it's 2.856 acres. But part of it's going to go into buffers. So, there's a 30-foot buffer. It's actually, I think it's a 40% opacity, but it requires 30 feet along the creek. Another 50 feet required between the property and the adjacent church. So, between those two, three-quarters of an acre will go into the buffers. And that reduces it to just over 2.2 acres. But then there's also road-widening projects that's going to take this much land here. These are already funded and scheduled. And this is going to take another quarter acre out. So, you can see that they actually have less than 2 acres. It's developable. Okay, sorry, Patrick. Use this and it'll be limited by the small size of the site, as well as the access points. Thank you. You may have another moment to wrap up. Chairman Busby, Vice-Chair Hyman, members of the Commission, Patrick Beik with Morningstar Log Group. I'm here tonight representing Yolanda and Michael Hall. You've already heard quite a bit, so I just want to wrap up briefly. I do view this rezoning as a straightforward case of restitution. It is simply unusable for this 2.8 acres to have RS-20 zoning when it is at the intersection of two major thoroughfares. As Don noted, most of the homes along Hanson Road are closer to the lowest home improvement than they are to the Yolanda and Michael's property that you're looking at this evening. Approximately $40,000, it would cost to do a development plan and a TIA is unreasonable given the access limitations and the natural buffering that are locked in today for this property. Durham City ordinances, including but not limited to the UDO, place limits on noise, height, and lighting at this site. These limitations provide sufficient neighborhood protection given the trees, topography, buffers, and access constraints that you've just heard about. And so for all these reasons, we respectfully ask for your recommendation of approval and we'll be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. We have five additional speakers, three that say they support with conditions and two that are against. We are going to have the five of you come up who have concerns with this and you will have 10 minutes for this site as well and we'll grant an extra minute or two as we did for the proponents. Our first speaker is David Lister and then next will be Jesse Burwell. And then Barry Everett. We'll have the three of you come up first, please. Good evening, Commission. My name is David Lister. I live at 121 Fallenwood Avenue. I'm also on the Hope Valley Farms North Homeowners Association. So I appreciate what you do, how you serve, and I serve and I know sometimes it's kind of tough. We're like the X-Men. We serve people that hate and fear us. So with that, I would like them to be able to sell their property. I think it is only fair. But I do feel that there needs to be some conditions. I know when my wife and I were moving to the area and looking around, we would turn down homes that would have either a Wendy's on a corner or whatnot because we wanted a feeling of community. The things that we would like to see in this area might be medical retail, a mixed-use building, family-style restaurant, gourmet style, a bookstore, and something that's pedestrian-friendly. The things that the community is kind of against would be a fast food restaurant, a gas station, a mechanic, and a 24-hour zone. After talking to an officer today that goes around our community, he says with that road with MLK, it's tough because it divides District 4 and District 3. And if we have something that's 24 hours and whatnot, he calls it sort of like a no-man's land. So one area can come in and it's very difficult. We also saw as a community that in the past we fought a Walmart coming in. And that kind of devalued our property. We had shoplifting. We had speeding through our area. And we would like to see businesses that enhance the community, that pull up the neighborhood, that make us so we are one. And with this time, I would like to share to you what comes from Gileil Gabron's profit. Then a mason came forth and said, speak to us of houses. And he answered and said, build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within the city walls for even as you have homecomings in your twilight, so has the wander in you the ever distant and alone. Your house is your larger body. It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night. And it is not dreamless. Does not your house dream? And dreaming leave the city for grove or hilltop. Whether I could gather your houses into my hand and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow. With the valleys where your streets and the green paths your alleys, that you might seek one another through vineyards and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments. But these things are not yet to be. I would like to see us remain green and permeate fruit in vineyard and to not sanitize already a community with more cement. I would like to see children playing, playing corn hall or reading or being with each other or playing together. And I do think it is fair that they are able to sell their property. But I do think the others around the area should have their property enhanced as well. So I thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen of the Planning Commission, good evening. My name is Jesse Burwell and I reside at 718 Hanson Road in Durham. And I'm speaking on behalf of the older section of the Hanson Road community. I'll try and be brief. And this case is a proposal to resume property at the corner of MLK Parkway and Fayetteville Road from residential to general commercial. My neighbors and I agree. The property in question is not suitable for any type of residential housing. So we understand the reason why the property owner, Ms. Yolanda Hall-Long and her lawyer want to request this rezoning of her property from residential to commercial. The concern of my neighbors and myself is this. A general commercial zoning is intended for general commercial uses. So if approved this way, there is no guarantee what would end up being there without any attached conditions. What makes me feel a little better, and I wanted to mention it publicly, is that Ms. Hall-Long and Mr. Biker have agreed or expressed a willingness to both receive and pursue suggestions from the community on what types of commercial establishments would be most palatable to the surrounding communities. However, even with this, we understand there's no guarantee of what would end up being there with a general commercial zoning. For the record, the old Hansen Road community would support certain types of businesses at the proposed site. And I've passed this information on to Mr. Biker. The old Hansen Road community would support commercialism on the proposed site, such as a daycare center, a professional office building like a dentist's office, a dry cleaners drugstore, and grocery store. And since I gave Mr. Biker our list, I have received a little more input. And in reference to a restaurant, more residents strongly prefer a sit-down restaurant and not a fast food restaurant with a drive-through. It's also important to note that no one I spoke with wanted a sheet or similar business there that would maintain very late hours on a 24-7 basis and create through traffic throughout communities at all times of the day or night. Residents of the old Hansen Road community are asking simply to be kept abreast of what's going on. And if a general commercial zoning is recommended and ultimately approved by city council, we ask that a significant effort be made to get commercialism on that site that is palatable to a majority of residents in the surrounding communities. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Barry Everett? Yeah. I'm a terrified public speaker, so forgive me for me. Hello commissioners and thank you for the time. My name is Barry Everett and I live at 812 Turmeric Lane in the community of Green Gardens. This is just two short blocks away from the proposed rezoning of the southwest corner of MLK Junior Parkway and Fayetteville Road from residential to general commercial. I would like to express a few concerns. My husband and I spent our retirement savings in 2003 to buy our home in Green Gardens because it was away from the concrete landscape of commercial development we had lived next to before. Now we see that commercial development chasing us. On the northwest corner of MLK and Fayetteville where there was once nothing but a beautiful tree line there is now a low home improvement and auto zone. Many of my neighbors share my concerns regarding the property. Two blocks away from us being rezoned. We would not want to see it used for a sheets gas station as been mentioned, a 7-11 or other businesses which are open late into the night. It would bring bright lights, noise pollution which we already get from low speakers and even heavier traffic to an already overburdened Fayetteville Road. Possibly even an increase in crime with the influx of strangers into our area late at night. We realize Ms. Long has had difficulty selling her property and is thus desirous of rezoning. We wish to be supportive in a way if she would consider some conditions. After discussion my neighbors and I agree that there are businesses which would be more amenable to us. These would include a dry cleaners, professional or medical office, bank, daycare center, bakery, bookstore and many others. What they have in common is that they are not open late into the night. And we hope if this rezoning is approved that Ms. Long will take into consideration our hopes for conditions that will maintain the quality of life in our communities. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you Ms. Everett. We have two more speakers to speak against Michael Smallwood and Denise Hester. If you could both come up please. Good evening. My name is Michael Smallwood. I live at 4611 Lemongrass Lane. I'm a policy analyst and attorney with the State Wildlife Resources Commission. I also serve on the HOA for the Bay Point HOA Association which we encompass the lower end of Hanson, Tumeric, Lemongrass Lane, Shadyside and a few other roads. Actually we have a few concerns with this proposal. Will it be adverse impact on our neighborhood, on our residences, increased foot traffic, commercial traffic, other issues, commercial parking, commercial traffic? Overall there's just so many unknowns we don't really know how to feel about this. We aren't opposed to the commercial development or zoning of this parcel altogether but as it currently stands we are opposed without any limitations, without further tax commitments. Throughout the staff report there's several areas no less than five where it states that without a development plan there's too many, there's unknowns to move forward. We can't fully address the adverse impact, potential adverse impact. There's no TIA. Furthermore if we allow the development under the commercial general tag then we're opening it up to all sorts of developments which could include night clubs, bars, even payday lenders. Additionally while it appears good on paper and while it does look as if it's a natural outgrowth of the northern commercial development, a node development, really these separate areas between residential, light, industrial and commercial are separated by the thoroughfares of Martin Luther King and Fayetteville. We don't feel any impact from the light industrial area or the commercial area, they don't feel any impact from us. So really it would be if this is approved for commercial general use it would be an incursion into this long held residential area. You may finish your comments. Thank you. Furthermore the question is why now there's still commercial lots available in the Lowe's development. Furthermore the commercial area to the east of the Lowe's development is an undeveloped tract of land with just trees in which the greenway passes through. Furthermore down the road we still have the underutilized old Walmart building. So for all these general reasons and for the reasons there's too many unknowns to judge the potential public impact or benefit we think we are opposed to the proposal as it stands without the development plan or text commitments or those kinds of limitations. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Smallwood. Ms. Hester. I have two questions if I could ask procedural questions before I begin. You may. First of all are we commenting on the land amendment or on the rezoning? Or both? Second, who actually is the applicant? Is it the Hall family or is it a development company in Fuqua Verena? Well if I understand it correctly and I should be corrected if I don't get it correctly I believe the Hall family is being represented by the Morningstar law group in this procedure. No, no, there's a on the sheets in the staff report there's a sheet for the developer and it's someone from Fuqua, I can't remember the name from Fuqua Verena and I know the property owner has to give their consent for rezoning to move forward so I want to know who officially is the applicant. And that, why don't we have you speak and that's a question that I can guarantee you one of us will ask Mr. Biker to come back up during the time of the commissioners. Thank you. All right, good evening. Thank you. My name is Denise Hester, 3526 Abercrombie Drive in Durham and I live less than half a mile from the proposed development and several years ago this same parcel came before the planning commission and the city council for rezoning and it was denied. This time it's back and we are sensitive to property owners being able to use their properties they see fit but we have laws in place that govern or constrain some of the uses. The thing I want to say I guess the strongest statement I can make is that there is no development plan and as many have alluded to the development plan has a lot of uses that are unwanted but without a development plan the residents are denied the ability to formally negotiate and negotiate proffers with the developer whomever that turns out to be and I think that's a serious oversight because people should be able to do that and actually have committed elements as part of the action and that is not possible without a development plan as I understand it. The other issue is that the CG is the most extreme form of rezoning for commercial and it allows as people have said all types of uses which we would not want such as sheets gas stations, nightclubs, firing ranges bars, lounges, fast food and without having the ability to proffer and negotiate it's a wide open field should this property be rezoned. It's a level of uncertainty we know that development pressure particularly this corridor and this intersection is heating up quite rapidly and I think everybody would like to see something that is an enhancement for the area. I'm not against the rezoning I opposed it going to commercial at that time that was before the Lowe's was built and the Lowe's has a suburban character and a less intense use which I believe I hear people saying that that's something that they would like to see on this parcel. The other issue is transportation. The staff report or the developer statement says that the city is planning is that it? Can I keep going? That's just one of life's little surprises. You may continue. There were some traffic enhancements due for the fall of 17 however that's not the case the city's own site says that there have been numerous delays in the acquisition and Duke power negotiations and that January 2020 is actually the new projected completion date for the Fayetteville Street road improvements from Barbie Road I think to Riddle Road so that should not be in the report it's misleading the public to say that this whole transportation issue will be solved by that particular item. Also there is no traffic impact analysis and the traffic generated from 28 to almost 2,500 trips a day certainly I would think kicks this over into the area of needing a TIA or some type of detailed transportation analysis which was not present with the application that's a horrible intersection right now and I don't think anybody would deny that so we would like to see something that doesn't add more of a burden to the people who are already in the area. I think it is reasonable for residents to ask for a development plan outlining the applicant's vision given the already congested nature of traffic in the area, the growth potential and the accompanying development pressure throughout the corridor. Thank you. Thank you very much and just to clarify for the record this is one of those situations where we're having a combined public hearing and then we will have two votes there will be a vote on the future land use map amendment and then a vote on the concurrent zoning so we'll have two motions when we finish at this point I'll move to close the public comment period and this is a time for the commissioners for questions, comments any commissioners who would like to speak Commissioner Alturk why don't you start Thank you chair I have two questions for the applicant and I'll, my first will be on behalf of Miss Lester if you could just clarify the question that she had about that the owner applicant and then my second question would be whether because there is no development plan and you cannot proffer any text commitments would you consider a different commercial designation like a commercial neighborhood that is less intensive Taking that question first I looked hard at that Commissioner and the site is just because it still has almost two acres of developable land if it were one acre I would have agreed that a commercial neighborhood zoning designation would be appropriate but because it's almost two acres that 5,000 square foot building limit is I thought constrain the development especially for something like a sit-down restaurant which would have a bigger footprint than 5,000 could have a bigger footprint that's why we did not choose commercial neighborhood if it were a smaller site we would have gone with that but think about it two acres is almost 90,000 square feet you're limiting that in a 5,000 square foot building within a 90,000 square foot building envelope doesn't make a lot of sense the Fuqua Verena is simply a mailing address that Ms. Hall has for convenience sake and just to address one of the comments there is no developer in this case there's just a property owner and our team that you've heard from who are we have no developer we have no user if we did we probably would have a development plan we'd be able to tell you what it is but these folks have owned this property for 75 years and what happens is an end user comes in and bargains them down on the price over and over and over so after 75 years of ownership they do not get anything close to fair market value for a piece of property or a point that's why we don't have a development plan in addition to the $40,000 price tag that I quoted for you point of reference referred to that Yolanda tried to rezone the property 10 or so years ago she tried that with the development plan she flushed $30,000 that's pretty harsh and then to ask her to do it again is I think a little extreme given the limitations that we've seen in excess the stream buffers the project boundary buffers and the other limitations on this property I hope that answered your question any additional questions commissioner commissioner brane thank you commissioner al-Turk asked my question so I'll move on to other things first of all in the staff report on page 3 paragraph e I think there's an error on the second line and it talks about I.L. is an available U.M.A.N.G.E. category and I think you mean C.G. that's correct thank you and the other comment I want to make is I travel through this intersection quite a bit and limited to right in and right out I think there are going to be times a day when you might be able to get into this site very easily but you're going to have trouble getting out and I really think that's going to limit the interest in this site I know the staff used fast food restaurant as an example but those are usually active around rush hour I can't really see a fast food restaurant wanting to come here and one other comment that was made about the vacant Walmart property last time I drove by that Walmart building I think it had a planet fitness sign on it so I think it's changed thank you thank you Commissioner Bryan Commissioner Miller so is there a way to show the aerial photo I want to understand a little bit more about how this creek works and I know that Mr. Moffitt I got a little rush at the end of his presentation Patrick is the creek that runs back there is that a jurisdictional stream and does it have a mandatory boundary buffer yes sir it's perennial stream so it's 100 feet on both sides and that runs if we can get the map up can you show me where it runs to and that's not a piece of property that the applicant controlled that is correct but that buffer takes up a lot of that neighboring parcel that is correct in addition to that we have the project boundary buffers on top of 100 foot so there's essentially 300 feet of undisturbed forest land between Yolanda and Michaels property and the nearest residents and that will stay permanently forested 300 feet is there any reason why there couldn't be a curb cut from this property on to MLK I believe there could be a curb cut but that would have to be reviewed as part of the site plan yeah it's just I don't know that I always know the rules about because I believe MLK at that point is that a state road or is that a city street I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that we may look to Mr. Judge to answer that question Bill Judge transportation that is a city street so the city rules will control whether or not there's a curb cut and its proximity to the intersection and those kinds of things but it'll still be a right in right out it has to be and we'd have to coordinate with the the TIP project for the intersection right and my last question for you Patrick is I understand the argument that you have that with a 90,000 almost 90,000 square foot parcel you wouldn't want to limit the building to 5,000 square feet is there a reason why this parcel couldn't be subdivided so that you could have two CN parcels here each with its own 5,000 square foot building theoretically you could but then we are trying to recruit restaurants to this location and a lot of restaurants are over 5,000 square feet if they're going to have a large sit down area but I think the commission has also heard from the opponents on the concern about a development plan and the equities are obvious and we heard those too but it seems to me that if it was CN you wouldn't need a development plan because the limitations on CN would make the businesses that went into this site the more restricted rather than CG which could allow a lot of the things people say they're concerned about and I think those are legitimate concerns I don't disagree with you on most of those points but at the end of the day we felt that the fair market value would be better realized if the building it could be a perfectly harmonious use but to limit the building size to 5,000 square feet would be a significant impediment for the free market to look at this site given what Commissioner Bryan just referred to we have to attract something that's going to be comfortable with this right in right out access so I don't think it can attract a high traffic user like a fast food restaurant and once you say that type of use is less likely the ones that are more likely to come here are going to have a larger footprint and my very last question is so with this right in right out limitation on both sides is there any possibility that people who get into this parcel and then want to get out and head west on Martin Luther King are they going to turn on to turmeric and follow it all the way around through the neighborhood to find a left hand turnout at Bay Point? It's certainly possible or they could turn down to go down well the way the roads laid out today they could, it would be more efficient to turn through United and Industry that would be a lot faster to get around to Martin Luther King Parkway heading back towards Hope Valley is there any opportunity for people that you don't turn east to go west even if it makes sense from the map? I hear it but it's faster it would be faster but it would worry me I know that I members of the commission I would feel better if this was CN without a development plan or CG with a development plan I understand the arguments that work against it I have to say I was not expecting there to be a position tonight as there is I have to say that I have heard what the opponents say and I share some of their concerns Thank you Commissioner Miller Commissioner Williams Yes I have concerns as well as it relates to the protection of those that live on Hanson and the impacts of a general commercial designation for rezoning as the impacts of this would be almost tragic and I say that because we have a conversation about the diminished capacity of the actual site at grossly over two acres where just up the road off of Fayetteville there's 1.86 acres that is currently for sale for $225,000 which I don't know what they're going to develop there either and is grossly becoming a commercial zoning site but I just I have huge questions about the impact because a general zoning will it may increase the ability for a quick sale to a developer but it may not and I can't say that fast food would necessarily benefit from there because you have a Bojangles that is right across the street a Zaxby's down the street and a Wendy's and plus another strip mall so I think finding a way that benefits both the seller as well as the residents will probably get this more favorable at least from my standpoint because first and foremost I am concerned about the residents grew up in that area so people will cut through a neighborhood to avoid traffic and that's what is going to happen if this is commercial general whether it doesn't matter what's put there so how we address that is my concern so how do we go about it if we're not going to provide a possible turn in off of MLK where you could turn in and turn back on to MLK to avoid the traffic available regardless of the time of day and with the proposed expansion of MLK the traffic impacts that are going to be increased there is going to be a stressor whether it's residential or commercial so well to address to piggyback a little bit on Commissioner Miller's comment there will be no distinction on CN on fast food with drive-throughs many of the fast food with drive-throughs around town or zone CN so that wouldn't have an impact on that particular use which would probably be the highest traffic generator we certainly will petition for an access going on to MLK Parkway to alleviate that I think any development at this site would have to request that and I believe that with the proper layout it would be feasible in order to differentiate the traffic from people who want to use MLK versus people who want to use Fayetteville I think that that particular address or the ability to address that instance would help your cause I understand having grown up out there 40 years that was a staple I'd recognize that one solitary house amongst everything else so I'm surprised that it has survived this long but I think that even with the rezoning you're going to face the same hurdles of being able to actually sell the property unless there's something up front that's already been motioned or offered to you but definitely encourage you to try to go forward with a plan that is receptive any additional comments or questions we have Commissioner Hyman and then Commissioner Gibbs I would just like to make a comment I think we all agree and Mr. Biker you can continue if there's a question in here I think everybody agreed that the existing zoning is inappropriate it is residential suburban and it's just not a good fit for that area and something needs to be done we also agree that it's not cost effective to do a development plan for all and that it's better suited for commercial granted it's always difficult to make a decision when you're not looking at the site plan but in some cases I think that it's best to move forward with what seems to be appropriate for the area it's a lot of commercial in the area this particular piece of property can't I know a lot of things have been suggested as far as possibilities for the space but at the end of the day when you look at that piece of property there's not a lot of things that are going to fit there which eliminates a lot of the arguments so I think that we have to not lose sight of the fact that the existing zoning is residential suburban and it needs to be changed thank you Commissioner Gibbs thank you Commissioner Hyman that answers one of my questions is there a structure on this property now my eyes won't magnify this it looks like either a house or something or other a house is it occupied yes how do they get in and out ma'am if you're speaking if you don't mind coming to the microphone please thank you yes sir it had been closed up for many years I have an older brother with a disability and since the bus passes by there sometimes it was easier for him to be able to just catch the bus from there as opposed to me if I was not in town to get him to where he needed to go the structure is the house built by my grandparents that's sitting up there most people don't realize it's still sitting up there it's been there for a lot of years it's pretty much it's been allowed to languish simply languish and that's really all I can say at this point that's what's happened okay well that answers that question too and I think you have a pretty difficult time in getting a curb cut to make a left turn either way on either street it's gotta be right it's gotta be right in right out Commissioner Gibbs on either side there's never gonna be a left turn out of this yeah and that's I thought that's what the curb cut was that was mentioned earlier I I would be inclined to say go ahead with trying to find a buyer under this new zoning I imagine it's gonna have to come back before the commission for approval is that not right it would just be a site plan approval that would be approved by the planning department and the other departments that would look at it and that probably would require a traffic impact analysis that would be reviewed by Mr. Judge and his team I don't see any other way to develop this except sell it to somebody right in right out I'm gonna vote for this thing Commissioner Gibbs any additional comments or questions thank you I know Commissioner Miller had an additional question I wanted to put a question to Ms. Hester and Mr. Burwell and maybe come around to the mic so the people who watch this on TV will know what you said then the question is the same for both of you if this property was owned neighborhood commercial without a development plan would you support this rezoning we would the old hands and roll community would support it but at the end of the day we want something there that's gonna be palatable to a majority of the neighbors I don't know any simpler way to put it there's some things that we do not want to see there and there's some things that we could live with and as I said before the landowner and Mr. Becker have said that they will work with us so and you understand that the neighborhood commercial zone allows only allows a smaller commercial building any restricted list of potential uses as compared to the general commercial which allows a lot more well speaking for myself without talking to my neighbors I was supported and Ms. Hester how would you feel about it if this application were for neighborhood commercial instead of general commercial I am all for the citizens being able to use every avenue of input and participation for these types of public opinion public opinion sessions and therefore and I'm also about a 30 year resident back in Durham since I grew up here and I've seen many a thing go south many a thing that was promised but verbal means nothing nothing whatsoever when it comes to these types of processes okay I had to preface that and back to your question I would support CN with a development plan I would not be willing to move forward without a development plan committed elements and these committed elements can reflect the wishes however people negotiate for the types of uses because the development plan can narrow down on the uses even more so restricted more so than the ordinance than the UDO so put me into skeptic column and I would want a development plan with any type of development in this city or county thank you thank you Ms. Hester thank you Mr. Berwell and thank you Mr. Chairman thank you thank you chair this is a tougher case like Commissioner Miller said than I thought it was going to be I am sympathetic to the neighbors that there are some concerns about traffic and the kind of uses that this would allow but I think Commissioner Hyman is correct to say that this probably should not be your zone residential and this is part of a commercial node possibly and it would hamper the applicant quite a bit and Ms. Hall quite a bit I think if we push for a development plan so I am inclined at this point to support it with some hesitation but thank you seeing no additional questions or comments we have proven that we are a deliberative body and we will show that again on both of the remaining cases but at this point I will entertain a motion for the first case Mr. Chairman if I may I move that we send case a 1700016 the comprehensive plan change forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation. Properly moved by Commissioner Miller and seconded by Commissioner Brine we will have a roll call vote please Commissioner Commissioner Alchark Commissioner Brine Commissioner Satterfield Commissioner Harris Commissioner Hyman Commissioner Busby Commissioner Hormbuckle Commissioner Miller I thought you would finally figure out how to do that he is not come back to me I am going to vote no on this I am sorry Commissioner Hormbuckle Commissioner Gibbs Commissioner Williams Yes Okay the motion passes nine to one and then Mr. Chairman if it is appropriate I will move cases Z17 0041 zoning map change in the same case forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation properly moved by Commissioner Miller and seconded by Commissioner Hormbuckle all those in favor please raise your right hand those opposed motion carries nine to one great thank you very much thank you we will move on to our next case and as folks leave there are seats opening up so we encourage you to grab a seat and for those of you in the lobby you may come in there are some seats now available we will move to a zoning map change hearing for Rowlingdale this is case Z17 00040 and we will start with the staff report there is a lot of seats open down here in the front just in case anyone is looking for a seat let's keep let's see if we can reinforce that because I don't want people moving in the middle of a case we encourage everyone to grab a seat and then we will start with the staff report for the Rowlingdale case Ms. Sanyak the floor is yours thank you good evening Jamie Sanyak with the planning department I will be presenting case number Z17 00040 this is the Rowlingdale zoning map change request the applicant is land and lovelace from underfoot the property is located within the city's jurisdiction the site is 6.65 acres the request is a change from residential suburban 20 to plan development residential 3.9 00040 the proposed use is a town house development with up to 25 units the site is located within the suburban tier and also located within the Cape Fear river basin this map shows an aerial of the property in the surrounding areas the subject site is two properties highlighted in red the property is 0.2 and 0.606 NC Highway 54 the property is front on the east side of the highway just north of the intersection with Tudor Place and across from Squirrel Harlow Lane the site is heavily wooded this is the existing conditions map and you can see there's you might not be able to see it but there is an isolated wetland to the rear of the county boundary single family residential is primarily the use within the area the Woodcroft residential development is located directly to the east Glendale Hills residential development is to the west Whitney Park Spring Hill Autogon Lake and Darby Glen residential developments are to the southeast this is the future land use map the property is designated low density residential residents for acre or less and this designation is consistent with the rezoning request the contacts map which is the current slide shows the existing zoning on the left which is highlighted in yellow RS 20 and the proposed zoning on the right shown in blue Land Development Residential is reviewed by staff and determined to be consistent with the requirements of the unified development ordinance the slide highlights the requested district some of the standards the density again is 3.940 units per acre there would be a minimum street yard of 8 feet a commitment of tree coverage of 20% a required open space percentage of 16 arvious coverage shown on the development plan is 34% and there would be a maximum building height of 35 feet this is the development plan that shows the proposed conditions in addition to some of the items that I mentioned on the previous slide the access points are shown with arrow points the riparian buffer is shown in a hatched line as well as a one foot no build adjacent to that in terms of summary of text commitments I just wanted to highlight a few the development will be a maximum of 25 townhouse units there will be a bicycle lane provided along the east side of NC 54 intersection improvements and turn lanes at squirrel hollow lane and the entrance to the shelter and pad on the north side of NC 54 a payment of $500 per student to the Durham public schools and associated design and graphic commitments staff has determined that the proposal is consistent with the comprehensive plan in terms of being consistent with the low density residential and is consistent with policies 2.31d 232a 812h 114d 11.1b staff has determined that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other policies and ordinances I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have thank you we will open the public hearing we have two individuals signed up and support the applicants and four that are signed up against so we will start with the applicants Landon and Josh Swindell you can come to the microphone please and we will have 10 minutes for each side thank you Jamie good evening ladies and gentlemen of the planet commission my name is Landon Lovelace I'm with Underfoot Engineering I represent Josh Swindell with Rollingdale Investment LLC the property owners I wanted to run through a little bit on the site can we get the aerial back up on the screen as Jamie mentioned it's actually two parcels totaling 6.65 acres it's about a mile and a half a mile and three quarters northwest of South Point there is a jurisdictional stream that runs along the eastern property line portions of it are perennial which would have a 100 foot buffer on the other side and then a portion of it is intermittent which would have a 50 foot buffer on the other side in addition to the stream buffers that are in place there's a 10 foot no build setback on top of that and as part of the PDR we've also offered a 30 foot wide corridor along the southern property line that would be in tree save area the neighborhood meeting was required we did hold the neighborhood meeting in October and had a pretty good turnout here we've had additional coordination with stakeholders and Durham staff since then and many of the text and design commitments came out of those meetings and those conversations we've also had additional recent text and design commitments that we're willing to offer tonight that we would like to put in place with subsequent approval prior to council action I don't know if it's appropriate to list what those are right now why don't we wait one moment if you don't mind and we can just check with the staff to make sure that has the staff been notified of these potential changes? they have not it was a yesterday and today discussion you should be aware that if you if you proffer new conditions tonight and if the staff is not able to you know accept them as stated then it will automatically result in a 60-day continuance so just want to make sure you're aware of that and why don't we actually have the staff offer their clarification on the rules because my understanding is that it's not necessarily automatic but it is worth noting it depends on the type of condition staff if you can clarify our policy please typically we do not accept proffers from the floor the night of the meeting ahead of time however we there are a few that we will accept if they're fairly simple straight forward I have no idea what you're thinking of but once we get there you can certainly share those with us and we can let you know if those are simple enough that they can be handled tonight or not we typically go ahead and ask for a 60-day deferral or to continuance when you proffer from the floor thank you you may continue your comments with what you would like to do sure outside of the additional text and design commitments we just respectfully ask for your approval and a favorable recommendation to the council we're here to answer any questions that you have thank you Mr. Swindell I was prepared to share the proffers commissioners thank you for the opportunity I want to share the proffers Mr. Lovelace spoke to like he said we had a meeting on October 19th with the surrounding neighbors we got some good input from that and also from Durham and the continued discussions that myself my partners as the developers and builders of this site and this project we felt that these were relatively simple and would help quell some of the concerns that have been brought up so one of the concerns was the stormwater dam slope concern of erosion and also aesthetics of raw dirt so we have no problems proffering to side that slope any slope of the dam another concern was you know we see in town communities a lot of monotony and design especially garage doors so we were going to proffer to stagger facade and very garage door style and color considering architectural theme and availability of doors another comment no building shall be placed closer than 60 feet to the southern property line the eastern property adjacent to the open space track for Woodcroft no town home building shall be closer than 30 feet from another town home building within the development to keep spatial consistency with the single family homes contiguous to the project between buildings there any onsite retaining wall shall be of a tan or brown earth tone color and then any foundation walls for basement units or any foundation walls exceeding 48 inches shall be stone or brick veneered or parging thank you any additional comments so what we will do we're in the middle of a public hearing what I would ask is if you have that in writing we could share that with the staff while we invite up the folks who wish to testify against the project and then when we come back we'll ask for the staff's input in terms of their recommendation on how to proceed in terms of the level of proffers so thank you just one moment please so if you may we will ask the following four individuals to come up and be prepared to speak we may ask for the staff's input before then we have and I apologize in advance I can't read everyone's handwriting Erica Legum Maria Gerlondo Vani Lyon and Keith Boudreau and you will have 10 minutes combined she will need to cede her time to you officially you can if your throat hurts you may give a thumbs up great yes you may great you may please proceed thank you hello my name is Erica Legum I'm a resident of 19 St. James Court and I'm directly impacted by this rezoning my family and I moved here from the San Francisco Bay area a little over a year ago and over the 25 years that we lived in California we watched our beautiful, livable cities become so congested and expensive that daily life became very difficult and unpleasant we spent a year investigating all the cities in the nation to figure out where to relocate and we chose Durham we chose it because of its diversity progressive spirit and natural beauty and we're not the only ones who feel like this I've met so many transplants from all over the country that want to move to Durham we wanted to live in South Durham because of its proximity to RTP for work but we struggled to find a neighborhood in the area that wasn't devoid of trees and surrounded by concrete when we found Woodcroft it was quite literally a breath of fresh air Woodcroft's mission statement is that it's a development that coexist in harmony with nature residents love Woodcroft and property values stay up houses sell quickly people want to move here because it's unique we're not opposed to growth the place where we live is special and we want to make it accessible to more people but we don't believe that we have to sacrifice our community values to do that everyone here and the many people that signed our petition care about the future of our city we wanted to grow and we want to welcome new residents who love it as much as we do and to become invested in making it even better people become invested in their community when it has a distinctive identity that instills a sense of pride that is what we need more of thoughtful building that's sensitive to the area not expensive cookie cutter development that doesn't cultivate what's already great about the space we invested in Woodcroft because it was carefully designed to capitalize on its wonderful natural settings this rezoning and development proposal is not in keeping with the character of our community the area is zone for single family homes the developers state that this rezone will set the tone for further expansion of the area while the infrastructure is not in place for that type of expansion at this time we deal with serious traffic on the 54 already and the Woodcroft Parkway expansion is not slated for completion until 2025 they want to build on the third fort creek which is already one of the dirtiest waterways this will further imperil the watershed and be a significant flooding risk for our properties they propose to keep only the absolute minimum of trees instead of working to incorporate our community's unique attributes growth isn't slowing down in Durham it's increasing and we need to make sure we are planning and building for growth where we want it and where it makes the most sense environmentally Planning Commission we support your commitment to our city we appreciate the work you do in guiding the growth of Durham and enhancing our quality of life let's work together to grow in a way that makes our city an example for the rest of the nation my statements are a bit disjointed because I included paragraphs from my neighbors okay my name is Maria Yirlando for the past 16 years I have lived in 14 St. James Court a street adjacent to lots of so-sets thank you for the opportunity to voice my concerns and that of my neighbors I admire Durham's strategy for growth in the Durham comprehensive plan but I feel that more investigation is necessary before accepting a rezoning change home values in our area have gone up by 5.8% in the past year individuals in homes bordering the properties on both sides will suffer economic damages because their homes will depreciate since the present window mirror style of backyard views of trees and wildlife will be replaced with the back of buildings, bright fluorescent lights and cement parking lots that the slim buffer zone will fail to cover the developer plans to raise out the trees from the lot the aesthetic value of trees can be measured directly in terms of the cell values added to the home the developer noted that as future developments continue along Highway 54 this development will assist in setting the tone for future projects this development is not the model and vision in Durham's plan window mirror is down a hill from the steep slope that is plant site which has us very concerned about drainage and storm water and the potential for damage pollution the Durham bicycle and pedestrian advisory commission recommends a 5 foot bicycle lane a less than optimal 4 foot lane is planned instead probably due to rezoning South Durham riders deserve the safety provided by a 5 foot lane from the Durham's plan we know that many of Durham's streets are soon reaching the end of their natural life and that Durham should address its potential to appropriate development regulation and streetscape standards the developers request to raise 80% of the canopies not in tones with neighborhoods present zoning the proposed rezoning will generate an estimated 193 vehicles per day this part of Highway 54 has very poor site distance and is known for speeding something that has not escalated into a problem given the present zoning may soon approving the rezoning would increase traffic substantially and this may have repercussions lastly a Durham resident in a similar position stated to you we purchased home in good faith in this area and now we're in a position where we have where we are forced to defend them unlike the development team this is personal for us because this is all we have please consider voting no for this rezoning request thank you Mr. Boudreau I'm Keith Boudreau I live at 19 St. James Court and my home is directly affected by the proposed rezoning and development I'm not against growth the greater Durham area has seen some of the sharpest growth in the state Durham will continue to grow and change is inevitable we feel fortunate to live here and we want to see Durham grow into the most successful city it can be successful communities pay attention to where they put development how it is arranged and what it looks like that's why we all love our neighborhood Woodcroft is a unique development it cultivates small town values while capitalizing on its distinctive assets scenic beauty architectural character and the sense of community that's why even though it's an older community our property values stay up all development is not created equal some development projects make a community a better place to live work and visit other development projects will not the more community does to protect and enhance whether natural or architectural the more people will want to seek it out this project is at odds with our community's well thought out vision of the future the intent of this rezoning is to allow the building of clustered structures and in the words of the developers this development will assist in setting the tone for future projects along the 54 and as you can see as you saw from the staff's map I wish I would have known I could have put digital files together but it's I mean it's completely surrounded by residential suburban so this this compact neighborhood neighborhood overlay in the center is not sensitive to the underlying land use of this area and the residents who now live there the key issues I see are insufficient planning and effects of leveling and building on a slope that drains into the third forward creek watershed storm water runoff has not been sufficiently addressed and we asked the developers for more details and they said not to worry the engineers would figure it out third fork creek is already much polluted and is on the states oh thank you is on the states list of impaired waterways runoff from the grading and replacement of the woodland with impervious surface could further harm this already at risk watershed the 54 and I have another these two pictures here are pictures I recently took of a very congested 54 I don't know if it's necessary to put on screen but this is rush hour on the 54 every day it's terribly congested in the mornings in the evenings and the woodcroft parkway expansion isn't scheduled for completion till 2025 developers would like to rezone and the reason to pave the way for further expansion but we can barely manage the traffic at present this area is served by two bus routes the five and the 14 but how will people move to this development and have safe access to the bus stop they cross have to cross the street without a light to access that the bus stop they're going to provide woodcroft's mission statement is that it's a development designed to coexist harmoniously with nature this is a large part of what makes it unique and why we all love to live here it's not is it necessary or in any of our best interests to remove 80% of the forested area and leave only the mandatory minimum trees planners were not your adversaries we are your allies we are here because we care let's work together for the mutual benefit of our city problems like air pollution water pollution traffic congestion and loss of green space will affect us all in the immediate and down the road thank you thank you very much there anyone else who wishes to speak on this case seeing none we will move to close the public comment period and we will go back to staff for guidance on the the proffers staff Jamie Sonjak with the planning department staff overall does not view the proffers in any negative way we would just like the opportunity to have additional time to review them there's some language regarding stormwater that other groups may have to chime in on so we are asking for a 30-day deferral as opposed to the 60-day continuance rather yes great thank you very much so I will open it for discussion with the commissioners and I will note that it is appropriate to put forward a motion for a 30-day continuance if that is appropriate it's also fine for us to have questions or discussion at this point as well Commissioner Gauch Commissioner Bryan, Commissioner Alturk yeah thanks I'm moving to your question for staff I understand you want a 30-day continuance for these specific proffers are we considering these proffers as being given at this time or would it be appropriate to ask the applicant if they indeed intend to proper these tonight and I will say I believe I will let the staff clarify I believe that the applicants have proffered these offers they understood the situation and they chose to proffer them but did I understand that correctly that's my understanding these are the proffers that are on the table that have been suggested by the applicant I see them nodding their head okay good all right good question I think everyone knows what we've done I may have some more comments but yeah that was the initial question if you want to go to some other commissioners great Commissioner Bryan I'm going to pay us at the moment Commissioner Alturk okay thank you chair questions for staff for Jamie the attachment one of the staff report I guess that's Woodcroft what is that zoning designation this is the light yellow yes my apologies the map should have a legend or the legend should clearly say that the Woodcroft which is to the west or to the east rather should be RS 10 okay that's the beige color thank you and so the RS 10 if I remember correctly the maximum units per acres four all right and that's a question for about traffic maybe for bill judge because that's another concern that has been brought up so if this is approved and it goes from residential 20 to PDR 3.94 your analysis shows that the impact would be 55 vehicles per day right I guess my question is and one of the things that has come up is that rush hour is a problem on this road so I'm curious just can you estimate based on your vehicle traffic today how many vehicles will be traveling during rush hour yes still judge transportation the net increase of 55 would be in comparison to the existing zoning not necessarily what the site is currently generating since it's mostly vacant but typically for a single family house or even a town home we can assume about one trip in the peak hour for each unit it's generally a rule with home okay so we're talking about potentially 25 extra trips per per day 25 in the AM peak, 25 in the PM peak okay thank you you know I'm so back to my first kind of question about density it does seem to me and I understand that town homes are a little different than single family homes of the character but in terms of density and in terms of how it kind of fits within the rest of the area it seems to me like this density is relatively appropriate it is 3.94 there's an apartment complex a few parcels north of this and I looked it up online and that PDR is 3.65 so I mean it seems to me like again I think in terms of density it's not completely incompatible with the nearby parcels and in terms of traffic I do understand that it would generate extra traffic but at least by the numbers that we've gotten it would still be under the maximum capacity of North Carolina 54 so that's all my comments thank you yes my question is for the applicant if you could step forward when you were offering the proffers you were responding to comments that had been made at the community meetings so your proffers were in response to you know some questions that had come up during those community meetings so what I would like to know and any of the applicants who are objecting to you know to the project did any of those offers respond to some of the concerns that you had and if so could you speak to that first those were in response to the meetings and some of the objections that is correct that is correct ma'am and those specific proffers were actually due to very more recent conversations than the neighborhood meeting okay and so I still would like to know from those individuals who were basically and yes the lady who raised you could come forward to the mic and this question is specifically to any of the individuals who spoke against this proposal to my knowledge no one has had conversations with you recently so I'm not sure what those are referring to okay thank you Mr. Satterfield yes Mr. Chair we have multiple proffers that are before us they're not in writing staff is making making a recommendation that this be continued for 30 days I'm not comfortable making a term determination without all of the information before me so I'd like to make a motion that we continue this for 30 days second great properly motion and seconded we can now continue debate on the motion that's on the floor so folks that we're about to make comments if you have comments on the motion commissioner Brian I have no comments on the motion I did have a question for the opponents if I may ask you right now withdraw before we vote thank you I think before we vote I did want to just clarify with staff on the motion that has been moved and seconded so we believe that we can be back to be a continuance for 30 days and we believe in 30 days we would have these proffers that would be in writing in an updated packet in front of the planning commission and that way that the neighbors that have concerns would be able to review the proffers in advance and be able to understand those and come speak again if appropriate that's correct great thank you accommodate that great thank you we commit commissioner gauche on the motion vote on the motion I would I think it's appropriate for us I mean commissioner brine said he had some questions for the opponents and they are not the applicant and I hate to ask them to come back in 30 days to talk to us when they've taken their time to show up today I do think it would be appropriate to allow commissioner brine and anyone else that has questions or comments that are directed towards the opponents of this to have some time to do that in case they're not able to come back in 30 days I expect that the applicant will be back in 30 days that is fair that is a proper side wingman motion has been accepted commissioner brine if you may that's not procedure right now the motion is on the floor and that's the matter that's before us that is true now we if we are going to go this route we can withdraw the motion and allow further discussion and place the motion back on the floor for the motion withdraws in that case I will withdraw the motion with the idea that I will reintroduce it after these concerns are addressed properly moved and withdrawn commissioner brine the floor is yours I had several comments but I only want to ask one question I'll save the comments for another time in the presentations by the president I heard somebody mention petition and I'd like to know a little bit more about the petition how many people may have signed it so forth and please come to the microphone and you're welcome if it's a copy you can leave you can certainly leave that for the record I will it was an online petition started three or four weeks ago it's got almost 200 signatures and that just I think it's the front page of the petition which you can review just briefly goes over our concerns there's also I think I'm going to bring this up because it's kind of in connection with the petition there's an email group of about 50 of us that I would not if we don't have the 30 days I would not feel super comfortable speaking on behalf of a lot of these people some of them directly affected like I am I'd want to take it back I'd want to talk about these proffers so I'd be uncomfortable like making a decision based on new information right now for a lot of people I take it then that the petition basically is against the rezoning I mean that's all I wanted where should I leave it Mr. Busby you may actually give it to commissioner and we'll I'll take a look as we continue to deliberate thank you Commissioner Williams I believe he was before me you just didn't see him go ahead Commissioner Gibbs I have a question for and I don't know who this should go to I guess the proffers the applicant it has to do with the the runoff the stormwater runoff into the creek did you proffer a solution that just completely went over my head I didn't even hear it but I think it's something that should I think it's a major part of this site and give some guidance as to where this a major problem is going to be addressed so that we won't have to go it'll give us something you and I something to think about before next time sure so I think you have a question that probably requires a little bit of excellent explanation beforehand you're asking about stormwater and whether or not it's a problem I think that's anytime preliminary plat and then construction plans for the site which is the required process for the city of Durham would be required to meet all city of Durham in the state of North Carolina and federal stormwater requirements that have to do with water quality water quantity what we can release offsite and what not the proffer we made doesn't necessarily that's a given that's a something that has to be done regardless the proffer that we were offering is that topography and running through preliminary design we understand where stormwater wants to be down at the bottom of site water runs downhill we also understand that there's folks that are on st. James court that would back up to that even though there's 150 or 160 feet of undisturbed buffer between any of those backyards and where the toe of slope of any possible dam would be for a pond I think a lot of times folks have take it with looking at the back of a dam because if it's not stabilized properly it can look not good if it's just seated and strawed and the grass doesn't grow properly then you're looking at the back of a dam that really doesn't look well so by offering to sod it that gives you immediate stabilization which not only looks better but also helps with any potential erosion and I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth but a site like this can be designed to sort of mitigate runoff slow it down anyway but I didn't know if I missed something and that's all my question was about which I think is the major impact of this site anyway thank you Commissioner Gibbs we actually have staff did want to make a point before Commissioner Williams Grace Smith with the planning department just one quick clarification the petition you have before you is a private opinion poll type petition it's not a protest petition per law I just wanted to make sure to clarify that for everyone great thank you Commissioner Williams as far as the site is concerned I did have I had a concern as far as you're going in and you're developing and the retention walls are pertinent and they are indeed helpful and putting salt down it's also encouraging but you're developing in a particular watershed type area the runoff on highway 54 is vast and the protection for the neighbors as you increase the water runoff with impervious services I was wondering why there's no mention or no consideration for a runoff pond on site to drain towards that to help with what your petition is for development and that's a very good question and I think and please correct me if I'm wrong but I think the answer is that that's not an appropriate design commitment at time of rezoning because that's something that's required per your UDO and per your standards that goes without saying it goes back to when we develop it this happens to be a town home development that is very low density a typical town home development is usually between 8 and 12 units per acre we're looking at 4 and we're only at 34% impervious where typical for town home is more in 60 to 75% impervious so we don't proffer a stormwater pond because that goes without saying it's part of the requirements that we would have to develop in the city of Durham that we meet any of the post development runoff has to be detained and treated back to pre development standards so that's that goes I think it's not specifically included because that's something that's intrinsic in your ordinance that's required at the time of site plan well I think that because it wasn't said it's the reason why you're meeting so much opposition well that's a good point and we tried to explain that I think at the neighborhood meeting as best we could unfortunately I think what was heard was we'll give it to the engineer and they'll figure it out and the answer is that at a rezoning it's not an appropriate proffer because it's a requirement at time of site plan or construction plan thank you and any staff clarification yes and I just wanted to reiterate what the applicant just stated the level of detail regarding topography for the development plan is not a requirement and for stormwater as well those are issues that come up during the site plan so while we will definitely take in and review and provide feedback regarding the proffer it's not something that we typically look at and require under the development plan I just wanted to make that clear in the event that it wasn't great that's great thank you very much any additional questions or comments by the commissioners before I entertain a motion from Commissioner Satterfield Commissioner Satterfield yes thank you I want to make a motion to extend or continue to 30 days as I mentioned before and that will allow applicant to put the multiple proppers in writing and make it part of the formal application and an opportunity for staff to have input and then we have details that we can respond to as questions about and the community can also have input on I would second with the understanding that 30 days means our next regular meeting that's 30 days from now that is correct so properly moved and seconded for a 30 day continuance on this case all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed passes unanimously so again just so we're clear we will be back at our next regularly scheduled meeting with this case and what will be posted online and will be available will include the proppers and so we certainly hope if you're again we'd love to have you join us we will make sure we have an additional public hearing for those of you that cannot join us again we will certainly keep your comments in mind and we encourage you to be in touch if you're not able to join us again we'd love to hear your feedback on the proppers and any additional concerns that you might have so thank you we'll move to our final item of the evening and just to remind folks at the very beginning of the meeting we have two case two hearings in front of us for the Old West Durham NPO and we have done two things we are combining those into one public hearing and that will still allow everyone to speak but will save time and redundancy and then thank you in addition we switched the order of the votes we will start with the text amendment and that that's TC one and then we will have the zoning map change vote second and that's to conform with existing law before we move to the staff report I know Commissioner Miller had wanted to speak and we'll see if others will speak as well thank you Mr. Chairman I respectfully request to be disqualified from the hearing in this case under our rules that's my understanding I should be disqualified my home on Virginia Avenue is about 500 feet away from the boundary of the proposed NPO and so under the circumstances I ask to be disqualified I move that Commissioner Miller be recused from this case I second the motion with the observation that I don't think he's disqualified so that is properly moved I second it all those in favor say aye aye any opposed great and Commissioner Grosch thank you for the time Chair Busby those of you who have been on the planning commission with me for a while or even if you were paying attention earlier today I often recuse myself from cases because of a conflict of interest due to the type of work that I do this case is not as simple as others and I've evaluated whether a conflict exists my firm represented a property owner in this NPO related to matters about this NPO but our engagement by that property owner was related to whether there was enough initial buy-in to move forward with the NPO we have never attended a public meeting or anything like that on behalf of the property owner we never have tried to influence any of the provisions within the NPO for that property owner we also no longer represent that property owner and have not done any work on the NPO since sometime last year and finally that property owner is not the applicant on this case ultimately I have with counsel from others determined that there is no real conflict of interest put another way Morningstar has nothing to gain or lose depending on the outcome of this case whether financial or otherwise nevertheless I ask that I be recused from this matter simply because of the appearance of a conflict of interest the majority of this process outweighs my commitment to evaluate applications that come before the Planning Commission but before a vote I want to say that I am appalled with the manner in which my character has been called into question by certain members in this NPO community I have never given anyone in the city of Durham or the county any reason to question my ethical values I take the work that the Planning Commission does very seriously and have never done anything to jeopardize that the law firm has represented applicants on several contentious cases but I have never been subjected to what I have been with this case and I think you all have probably seen some of that nastiness that this case has drummed up in the emails we have been receiving it is a shame how this case has been so polarizing I want to remind everyone in the audience no matter the outcome of this case you all are neighbors I encourage you to conduct yourselves thank you for the time Chair Busby and I think we should have a motion on that great thank you Commissioner Ghosh Commissioner Hyman motion to recuse Commissioner Ghosh second properly moved and seconded all those in favor say aye aye any opposed one opposition aye opposed thank you at this point we will start with the staff report thank you Chair Busby senior planner city county planning department project manager for this case TC80001 and Z180002 I just want to give you a brief overview of what I am going to talk about for the next 10 or 15 minutes here it is somewhat of a unique case typical to the cases that you typically hear I am going to talk a little bit about what an NPO is give you a little bit background on Old West Durham the geography and it relates to the NPO proposal what I am going to talk about the NPO process high level overview of the NPO content provide a very brief summary of the staff determination as I am sure you saw in your packets a very extensive level of detail in there I obviously can't hit on all that but I think it will supplement what I am sharing with you tonight so from a high level what is an NPO this is a special zoning overlay tool created in 2006 allows neighborhoods to essentially create custom zoning overlays for their neighborhood to protect from what they determined to be incompatible development I think it is important to know this is a resident initiated process playing department does not initiate this process or directed to do so staff provides technical support the overlay modifies aspects of base zoning but it does not replace it a NPO is a map and a text amendment it is important to also know that an NPO as it relates to residential uses cannot regulate architectural or building materials of single family or duplex homes and lastly it is just different from a historic district they are both zoning overlays they have different processes different permitting applications there is no for example COA process with an NPO Durham only has one NPO that is Tuscaloosa Lakewood this is somewhat of a unique case before you today that was approved by city council in 2008 it has been about 10 years there is a NPO process that is outlined that we followed initially in a simplified way breaks down into five steps the neighborhood submits an application in that application they need to highlight certain character elements possible regulatory items supporting information they should also include signatures of property owners in support of developing an NPO we recommend 51% that it is not required the second step is the staff reviews that application to make sure that the approved criteria is met there is a variety of criteria which is detailed in your staff reports but for here a consistent character has to have an average age of 25 years of the structure has to be larger than 15 acres etc third step is the JCCPC it's the joint city county planning committee it's made up of three members of city council three members of the county commissioners and typically the chair of the planning commission they review these applications when we do get them we do not get many and they prioritize them to take a look and they determine whether or not to recommend the planning department to begin work on them we then add it if directed to do so to our work program which is then reviewed by the city council and board of county commissioners fourth step is that the neighborhood drafts that develops the draft overlay themselves with support from the staff this includes outreach data collection, education, neighborhood meetings the neighborhood drafts and refines the ordinance based upon feedback and then the last step obviously is approval and denial by the governing body in this case the city council but first a review by the planning commission which is what we're here tonight to discuss when we talk about the old west Durham NPO area I just wanted to provide a couple of maps for context this is essentially it doesn't quite go up to the street but it's Englewood in the north doesn't quite go to broad in the east and then it's essentially Hillsborough that snakes along the south and up along the west it's 428 parcels in this proposed NPO area there are 295 unique property owners the NPO proposal is focused on the residential blocks not commercial areas so you'll see a little donut cut out there that's actually Monuts so it's kind of appropriate the neighborhood is primarily a modest single family and duplex homes on urban lots I think the average lot size is about 7,500 square feet and the boundary looks a little bit gerrymandered but actually aligns pretty well to zoning and future land use maps which you'll see here in a moment so this is the zoning map as you can see 99% of the project area is split between RU-5 and RU-5-2 the only difference between those being RU-5-2 allows its duplex by right RU-5-2 in this case is the darker beige I guess is what you'd call it there are a few commercial parcels that are kind of leftovers from when there was rezoning for the Compact Design District to the south but they were included in this project area this is the future land use map you can see it is almost entirely medium density residential there are a few holdovers for when the city several years ago adjusted the future land use map in the Compact neighborhood tiers so getting specifically to this case the Old West Durham Neighborhood Association submitted the petition in 2014 on that petition were 86 unique property owners representing 86 parcels at that time it was 29% of the project area in 21% while we are talking about these types of numbers I did want to correct an item in the memorandum on page 8 there's a reference to individuals who have expressed opposition or exclusion in writing to the planning department by January 31st 2018 the numbers are correct the percentages are not so I'm just updating them now for your information it's 27 unique property owners representing 106 parcels 9% of the project area 25% of the parcels it's also important to realize you'll probably hear different numbers being cited for different meetings and different petitions these are snapshots in time not necessarily whip counts there's not a kind of like pro column that the city maintains in an anti column that kind of updates every week we have various snapshots in time and these are just one of them part of the reason for the neighborhood application was the concern over demolition larger infill homes changing the fabric of the neighborhood paving of the driveways and there's been roughly I believe about 20 demolitions in the past decade so how has the NPO developed it's important again to reiterate the neighborhood association and the neighborhood volunteers were the author staff provides technical support help them understand what's enforceable what's not what's legal what's not how do you take this idea and translate it into actual kind of ordinance text making sure obviously it's compliant with the comprehensive plan other plans there's been a very active one-year public planning process which I'm sure you all are aware of at least at this point there were based on estimates from the neighborhood association 205 unique participants between January 1st of 2017 and January 1st of 2018 so there's been a lot of voices in this process there were three publicly noticed workshops at E.K. Poe elementary school there were 12 additional events hosted by the neighborhood association these are not kind of the typical public meetings that you send notice letters out but they were open to the public they put flyers up, listserv posts things of that nature and also a very robust listserv and online participation we kind of did the best we could to take three months of activity and put it into the packet for you if you're curious to see kind of the back and forth online because that is an important mechanism for some in the neighborhood who have participated in the planning process but I think a nuance there is there's been no clear demonstration of 51% of unique property owners that's not required in this process but that's something that the opponents feel is very important to note these are just some various photos from some of the workshops that have been held over the past year the most active one was in November I believe we had a little north of 100 people in attendance at that one now I want to talk about the actual substance of the NPO let me just get a drink of water real quick it applies only to single family and duplex development it focuses on five topics floor area ratio to limit bulk height lowering the structure heights in the neighborhood lots standardizing lot dimensions trees requiring a backyard tree parking reducing parking requirements and preventing what you could call overpaving the FAR floor area ratio provision addressing bulk is by far the most discussed and most debated probably when you receive emails or comments many of them do center around this one in particular although there are a variety of other concerns across the board the proposal caps structure square footage relative to lot size so a floor area ratio of 32.5% for example on a 7500 square foot lot average lot in Old West Durham means you would be allowed under this proposal a maximum of 2438 square feet what's included in that is the following it is the heated square footage of the primary structure added to the total square footage of an accessory structure requiring a permit take that together you divide it by the lot size and you get a number either you're below that number you're above that number how much additional development you could do on your residential parcel so an example this is in the draft NPO one I've used several times but a 7500 square foot lot contains a single family home with 1450 heated square feet as well as a 400 square foot unheated garage the FAR of this lot is 1450 for the house 400 for the garage it's 24.7% so in this scenario because 32.5% is the cap there's about 8% left under that cap for future development on that property this is just giving you a sense of what the FARs in Old West Durham currently are this is broken down from smallest to largest by quartile the red dot across the way is 32.5% you can essentially think of the space between the top of these bars up to that dotted line as the additional qualifying development that could occur on each of these parcels so in summary, topic one current regulations there is no limit on floor area presently if you're under the height cap and your set backs are met presently accessory dwelling units are capped at 30% of heated square footage of the primary structure it's current regulations limiting floor area to 32.5% of lot size with some of the caveats that you'll see such as exempting basements but it also increases the ADU cap to 50% of heated square footage of the primary structure but is limiting that to a 700 square foot total and this now counts towards the FAR the second component, height current regulations say that height is measured by essentially taking the average of a pitch essentially taking the average so it's the midpoint there is no apex height you may continue your comments thank you chair I appreciate that the primary structure the maximum height allowed at present in this neighborhood is 35 feet but you could go up to 45 feet if you do a one-to-one setback there's infill standards that limit you to not being more than 14 feet taller than the neighboring properties for accessory structures that still remains but you cannot exceed 25 feet when within 5 feet of the property line so that's current comparing to proposed in the NPO the NPO proposes a new height measurement apex height so essentially taking a look at the tallest point in addition to just that midpoint kind of exempting chimneys and antennas things like that it sets a new primary structure height cap of 31 feet that's that apex height and it's reducing the midpoint height of 26 so it was 35 now it's going down to 26 adding the 31 percent apex height they're also setting a proposing to set a new accessory structure height cap of 24 feet apex and 20 percent midvert sorry 20 feet midpoint and introducing a setback requirement of 10 feet if height of the accessory structure exceeds 16 feet and I'm sure you have questions as to how these numbers were reached I think the opponents would be the perfect people to answer the proponents well the opponents might as well the proponents would probably be the best to answer that although staff would be certainly welcome to chime in in that conversation later FYI 85 percent of the homes in Old West are on our single story so in general this proposal accommodates a two-story home and a one and a half story accessory structure this is the image just that's already included in the draft ordinance for your review third component standardizing lot size sizes current regulations there is no maximum lot area currently minimum lot width varies somewhat based upon the type of project type of use whether it's a large project or a small project as well as the lot widths of the neighboring properties flag lots are allowed proposed regulations try to streamline this a little bit maximum lot area of 12,000 square feet minimum lot lot width of 50 feet and prohibiting flag lots fourth component requiring a backyard tree the current regulation is that there's a street tree required for 40 feet of every street frontage in the neighborhood there's no regulation on trees in the backyard you can have a bunch you can have none there's no regulation the proposal that the neighborhood association has put together says they'd like to require a backyard canopy tree of two inches or greater in caliper to kind of reinforce the existing tree canopy that's already there some of the new development is kind of scraping the entire lot and removing all the backyard trees to accommodate large accessory structures larger homes large parking pads things of that nature the last component is reducing paving in off street parking numbers current regulation says that essentially the driveway the paving can exceed 25 feet in width unless shown on a plot plan shown a plot plan you can go wider as it relates to current off street parking requirements it's two per dwelling unit zero per accessory dwelling unit that's a change actually that was driven that came from Old West Durham that we've now applied citywide so that's an example of some leadership locally in the neighborhood where we thought that was a good idea we applied it citywide but that's still in the ordinance proposed regulation establishes a maximum width of 12 feet but allows an expansion of an additional 400 square feet out to 24 feet in width behind the front building line and it reduces the off street parking spaces and that's a good example of an off street parking building building unit it's just important to know garages and white driveways are not common features in Old West and so reduction in these requirements is kind of less need for paving less paving there's this idea there might be more green space might assist with storm water things of that nature and because you're requiring less parking you can kind of tighten up some of those paving standards for public outreach and consensus building there are a variety of positive and negative consequences which exist which are detailed in the staff report and I'm certain that the opponents and proponents will share with you shortly the proposal attempts to balance new investment with some maintenance and preservation of what makes Old West Durham Old West Durham and relating to height and bulk the proposed caps do exceed the established built environment the typical property however there are probably many cases where additions in new homes would be affected and limited under this proposed ordinance and that's one of the trade-offs the neighborhood has made here staff determination just for clarity for everyone in the room staff does not recommend approval or denial of NPOs we do find based upon the comprehensive plan that it's consistent with the authorization the comprehensive plan for neighborhoods to create neighborhood protection overlays and the development is contextual and in fill capacity so we just recommend to you tonight to receive the report which you did hold a public hearing and provide a recommendation to city council I would be happy to take any questions if they're very technical in nature I anticipate you probably have a lot of questions many may be answered by the proponents and opponents so of course defer to you and how you'd like to proceed but I'm happy to answer questions would be for us to open the public hearing and just and then we'll have you available to provide any clarification if we have any and to answer any questions that we might have again just to remind everybody if you weren't here earlier the process from here forward is we will open the public hearing we have a lot of folks who have signed up for and against so we're going to have to extend the amount of time traditionally we offer 10 minutes and 10 minutes for the opponents we have 14 people signed up in favor and 25 against and so we offer equal time so you may have to bear with us for a moment and we will though work to extend the time available for everyone to be able to speak if you would like to speak you are also able to decide to not speak when your name is called you can decline to speak or you can offer your time to someone else but we will have that public comment period when you do speak we ask you come to the microphone please state your name and your mailing address and you speak to us as the commissioners and so we ask that you direct your comments to us we ask that they are respectful comments that it gives you the opportunity to talk about what you like or what you don't like about this specific proposal at the end we'll close the public comment period the public hearing and as you've seen before then we'll open it up for commissioners to be able to ask questions and you specifically back up to the microphone to help provide some clarification or maybe a question for staff or just talking amongst ourselves about what we're thinking or questions that we have and then as I said at the end we will have two motions on the two different issues and then just a reminder we are advisory body only so this is regardless of our vote whether it's a favorable or an unfavorable recommendation this will then move forward to the governing body which is the city council and I believe if correct me if I'm wrong staff this is will be a usually it's a two cycle or a 60 day time frame from moving to us to the city council okay great so before we open the public hearing we are going to have to determine the appropriate amount of time commissioners Harris Mr. Chair if I'm in order I would like to take a first step and allow each side 30 minutes and then we have to adjust that we can but I move that we extend the the period for each side to 30 minutes each that'll give us an additional hour properly moved and seconded any comments before we vote discussion on the item seeing none all those in favor of offering 30 minutes of public hearing for those four and then 30 minutes for those against please say aye any opposed staff has one clarification we propose to divvy the 30 minutes very carefully in running this clock as you know it has a mind of its own it just goes off and we haven't even said it so let we would like to at least try attempt to get it correct so if you could let us know how many a minute a minute full we have 14 signed up to speak in favor and we have 25 who have signed up to speak against and it's worth noting that we did say that we will give additional time if that is required but we do encourage you if your comments are redundant with what you've heard before if you wish to give your time to the group as a whole you may do that what I will do is I will come I will call every person who was signed up and I will give you the opportunity to come and speak and so I think if it turns out we do need additional time we will look to give that time Mr. Harris it looked like the proponents have two minutes each and the opponents have one minute each to be within your time frame another point of clarification our clock does even minutes so if you could just give us even minutes we don't do like 2.25 or anything I said 2 if that's what you want that's exactly what we're going to do and then if someone wants to defer their time to someone else we'll try to pay attention but if we miss that will you let us know please thank you all for working with us we will again we start with the proponents we will start with Barb Wellanets and then we have Dan Welsh after that and so to help speed us up I'm going to read a couple names at a time and if you can come and line up we would appreciate it you saw earlier where the buzzer went off and we gave folks a little extra time that's when we had four or five speakers we have four of 39 speakers so we do ask that you work to keep your comments within the time limit available then we have Simeon Furman Kathy Saylor Bob Wellanen's job Shilp and Bob Ashley just so we can get a group lined up in advance we can get some technical assistance to get started with the president I think we need the technical staff to help load up a presentation please that's an HDMI well we're getting this loaded up does anyone else have a presentation that you're planning or need to get loaded it would be good to identify that now in the interest of time why don't and what is your name sir why don't we start with you and we can have you then let us know who else is who's prepared to speak with your group if you can actually while I load that up if you can even write them down and I can then call them in the order that you would prefer that'd be great again everyone will who has signed up will be called and given the opportunity to speak but we will have the time limits constrained thank you sir Mr. Chairman if I could make one more request maybe to simplify things actually we have six speakers that are lined up to speak some of them are like three minutes some of them are a minute or less but between the six if we could have 12 minutes is that an appropriate request I think that's two minutes each that is fine pay attention because if one of you is running over someone else is going to have to speed it up great thank you thank you and good evening commissioners I'm Barbara Wellenetz and I live at 2612 West Knox Street I'm a member of the NPO working group and the first of six speakers who are jointly urging you to support passage of the NPO tonight first let me ask our neighbors who have come tonight to support the NPO to stand up so noted thank you very much for coming out tonight and learning civic lesson while we were going on so in the interest of time I will not read these driving issues but these are the things that most concerned neighbors and which we spent a lot of time trying to address so they're all there and they're very much in your packet so we'll go on from there I want to talk today about how the NPO proposals were developed last spring a group of 10 to 12 folks self identified as a work group for the neighborhood board association it included my husband and I who bought our dream home here 8 years ago the group first spent hundreds of hours reading up on national trends studying county property statistics gathering new data on the heights and garages of old west homes and taking reference photos we sought neighbor input and a lot of technical advice from city staff and resident experts it was immediately obvious to us from the data just how out of scale some of the new homes are more than twice as large as the current median home this chart of average home size built per decade is one data example and you can see how the square footage of structures has nearly doubled since the 9th street the red bar spiked development in the early 2000s we then distilled the characteristics of outlier properties which have caused the greatest concern and we came to understand that the effects of erecting very large structures on our typically narrow deep lots you can see in these slides that the built structures starting with 33 FAR and above tend to overwhelm the neighboring homes they degrade privacy and sunlight they form long two-story walls along property lines with no landscape buffers and the accessory structures that have been built recently are way outsized for our neighborhood which averages about 150 square foot per lot oversized structures most importantly for as many people lead to more off-street parking pavement reduced green space and loss of tree canopy air and water filtration and the aerial view I would say says it all note the totally paved backyards on the right versus the shaded lawns on the left of that aerial in summary for me the MPO proposals we drafted in the fall work as integrated tools to discourage these traits they're not an emotional attempt to freeze the neighborhood in time the current revised draft presents our best effort at defining the sweet spot between maintaining old west character and scale and respecting property development rights thank you good evening Chair Busby members of the commission my name is Simeon Furman and I live at 2707 West Knock Street I'm on the board of the neighborhood association and I am a convert to this protective overlay when neighbors came to my door in 2014 seeking initial support for this MPO that petition that was mentioned earlier I refused to sign it in fact I sent them on their way my knee-jerk reaction was that any new zoning was overreach but over time I got involved in the community joined this board and found more ways to give back I learned people's stories and realized I belong to a diverse neighborhood of people with shared interests all while witnessing this overzealous development we know Durham is rising and becoming more expensive I bought this charming little 900 square foot chalet you all see up on the screen in 2004 for $91,000 the tax assessed value of this home that I live in is now $259,000 I wish my salary had almost tripled in the last 14 years I probably couldn't purchase my home today at market value so clearly affordability is diminishing none of the opponents that I have spoken with personally during this process have described to me the benefits of oversized homes and thinly veiled high dollar homes are bringing to old west Durham at the core of their concern I hear self-interest and the desire to protect what they call their investment not their home I think we can do better this MPO is not perfect it attempts to guide smart purposeful change that serves our entire community homeowners my neighbors who rent and those who would like to join us it deserves our support thank you and I yield the remainder of my time thank you good evening my name is Kathy Saylor I was a member of the MPO working group that drafted the MPO I live at 1009 Hale Street my little background my parents were both born and grew up in Durham I was born in Watts hospital I have seen a lot of changes in Durham over the years I live in old west Durham for the same amount of time I've also owned rental property in old west Durham including currently five rental houses and two duplexes in the MPO boundary area I am pleased to be retired from about 20 years of professionally doing custom renovations of old houses I love living in old west Durham it's a great place to live to raise kids and to age in place the shade tree canopy is wonderful and the birds that live there are loud enough to wake you up in the morning the lots are generally pretty small so we are all close to our neighbors that we have to interact with it is a real community I look at this zoning overlay from two perspectives as a resident of old west Durham who wants to preserve our neighborhood and as a landlord who wants to have rental income from it and I think the MPO strikes a very good balance it prevents developers from overbuilding and profiting at the literal expense of their neighbors but it still permits owners a generous allowance to improve and enlarge their homes or rebuild a larger house the MPO allows 2200 to 3600 square foot homes which are ample three and four bedroom homes on small lots finally and importantly it encourages more small separate units by relaxing the ADU rules and allowing 700 square foot units on most of the lots in our neighborhood additional units in our neighborhood that is large enough for the addition of a one or two bedroom apartment I think the MPO will encourage the orderly densification of our neighborhood without destroying it I yield the balance of my time thank you do you mind again just for the record your name Kathy Saylor great thank you thank you Hi my name is Bua Lucas I have been renting my home at 905 Rose Hill Avenue in Old West Durham for about three years I love the charm of Old West Durham many renters I know want to stay in Old West Durham and hope to buy a house there someday if we can still find one that's available and affordable to buy but for now what's important to know about many of us is we live in more than half of the properties in Old West Durham we are active participants in Old West Durham and part of an engaged citizenry that keeps the neighborhood fun friendly and safe we contribute to the neighborhood and citywide events and initiatives we pay property taxes indirectly through our rent we are voting residents of Durham and many of us support the NPO despite the landlord signs on our lawns declaring opposition we are counting on the NPO to help keep some of the smaller older housing units in operation as long as possible it's the small houses, duplexes and ADUs that will remain relatively affordable thank you for the opportunity to include our voices in this hearing I yield the rest of my time thank you good evening my name is Dan Welch and my wife and I have owned our house at 923 Alabama Avenue since 1998 I'm here to talk about our engagement and consensus efforts and we are running a little short so I'm going to cut through and because Matt Filtro already touched on some of these the extensive engagement we did the many meetings and so forth I'll skip over that but each time a polling was taken there was a strong majority that supported the NPO this was drafted that majority grew as Mr. Filtro showed there was a three to one or four to one majority for each of the NPO components this was after a line by line review of the NPO and a well attended publicly noticed meeting that was the one he was talking about with over a hundred people and reviewing the listserv and I know that there's a lot of that in the packet it may appear there's a significant opposition and by sheer volume of words that's true but it has come repetitively with a lot of group of people when we actually tallied the number of unique listserv posters during the month of January when the listserv traffic was highest on this topic it showed us that supporters outnumbered opponents by four to one which was consistent with what we had seen in the public meetings since our first draft in November we made more than a dozen adjustments to the NPO in response to neighbor feedback now the opponents of the NPO have tried to make this a debate about the number of properties but in a neighborhood that 77% rental properties that really a reasonable standard the opposition petition you have in your packet represents many properties but as the staff report indicated there's only 21 unique signatures and only four of those signers actually live in our neighborhood one more thing to note about this petition it was completed in August and September before the first draft of the NPO even existed and so it's clear there's not any neighborhood protection no matter how modest so we ask you, is this appropriate you are residents, those of us who actually live in our neighborhood no longer have any say in our future have developers really seize that much control over our community and I have some comments on affordability but I'll save that possibly for Q&A because I'm sure it will come up and I'll pass this on to John Schelp we probably need some more time if a speaker is willing to cede we actually had two signups for the two hearings when folks came in so I was sitting here eliminating those of you who signed up twice which you were supposed to do because there were two different hearings when you walked in the door since we combined the hearings we actually have 12 speaking four and we have 16 speaking against and so what I think makes the most sense from here forward is we have had four speakers that have spoken for 12 minutes if we can I would just we said we'd give 30 minutes per each side if we could put the remaining 18 minutes up and we have eight additional speakers and if you finish early then that's time that you can cede to come back if you would like so budget accordingly but you each have a little over two minutes each and all the people speaking against have about two minutes each 30 minutes total against please go ahead good evening good people my name is John Schelp I live at 1022 Rose Hill I'd like to close out our initial presentation by pointing out that Old West has a history of working creatively and constructively with the city to arrive at solutions that work for our neighborhood and for the city at large witness our strong support for the 9th street district the higher density developments in the two compact neighborhoods and for the new developments at solace 810 9th Berkshire Irwin Mills 9th street north station 9 apartments and elsewhere and all along the way it was with the understanding that eventually we were going to work on an MPO north of green street this MPO is not a radical proposal it's a carefully crafted compromise that balances the competing interests of individual property owners the needs of the city at large and the neighborhoods desire to protect the character of Old West Durham it allows for reasonable expansion for property owners and allows for the addition of more housing units by encouraging granny flats and accommodating duplexes but at the same time it ensures that new development will be in scale and in context and as a result this development will be more affordable it's painful to watch in our neighborhood they are kicked out of their homes forced to leave their friends at EK Poe and we watch as their house is demolished and replaced with a mega house with three times the rent the neighborhood engagement has been thorough and well documented as you can see in the staff report in my 14 years as neighborhood president I've never seen this many meetings and this level of engagement on anything in Old West or elsewhere I've attended meetings after meetings working towards strong support of this overlay it has the unanimous backing of the neighborhood board we urge you to forward this proposal to the city council with your full approval and thank you for all that you do Thank you very much Mr. Ashley Thank you, I'm Bob Ashley I live at 3014 Devon Road in Durham I'm here tonight in my capacity as interim Executive Director of Preservation Durham the greatest neighborhoods in the city and is rich with reminders of our history and thus of a significant interest to Preservation Durham many houses in the neighborhood are physical reminders of the mill village that was so important in Durham's early industrial broom Jean Anderson describes the mill homes were clean, well maintained, inexpensive usually about 25 cents per room per week and convenient they liked the sociability of the village they had space in the yards for vegetable flowers the nomination of West Durham's listing in 1986 as a National Historic District part of which lies in this NPO notes that in Durham alone are in cotton mills applying approximately 1600 people it's a rich reminder of our past the proposed ordinance would note that the overlay establishes standards for the old West Durham neighborhood to ensure that new residential development in company constructed houses and sorry that new residential development would not form Preservation Durham was conceived 40 years ago in response to demolitions blamed on disinvestment and urban blight but the challenges today are more about preserving the character and economic diversity of our neighborhoods particularly those surrounding our thriving downtown local historic districts and neighborhood protection overlays are among the few tools available to residents to help mitigate these effects of speculative development and rising property taxes the tool and the kit that helps our urban neighborhoods increase density where appropriate without sacrificing the historic character and integrity that makes them desirable places to live and we fully support the old West Durham neighborhood association and their request for the NPO thank you thank you very much Chair Busby and Vice Chair Harris and commissioners my name is Jamie Greener I'm the current Vice President of the Watts Hospital Hill Nail Neighborhood Association I've been on that board for four years previous four years I've served as president I live at 2410 West Club Boulevard I'm not in West West Durham but just north of it and I'd like to point out that we are we are as the neighborhood association very much in favor of the NPO I have a a motion that we made and have written and I'd like to submit as evidence to the commission I'd like to add that my house happens to be in the historic district of Watts Hill Nail and so as a contributing structure twice we've had to go through the process of getting a minor COA to do in one case a renovation in another case necessary repairs and it provides an additional structure to our process in dealing with the contractor and dealing with that step but that I understand that the NPO is different but people are concerned about the additional burden of that process on staff and I think that that's something that folks should understand staff is willing to work with everybody and that's not going to be an issue in my opinion the other thing I want to add is that there's been discussions about concerns about density and in my opinion the issue about density is one that's not going to be addressed the NPO is my train has left I'm going to cede my time to others and if you don't mind if you can leave that resolution you can give that commissioner to commissioner Alturk on the end and he can pass it down he's closest to you and Watts Hill Nail I'll do better next time thank you thank you very much I believe we may have seen that already if you haven't there you are good evening my name is Jennifer Justice I live at 1025 Carolina Avenue in Old West Durham but I was born in Charlotte, North Carolina back in 1952 my dad James Foy Justice was from Hendersonville where there is a justice street because my grandfather James Foy Sr. was a state senator long enough to bring roads to the mountains dad was a civil attorney in Charlotte for 50 years his practice formed around arguing imminent domain cases on behalf of families who were in danger of losing their homes my dad loved the law and he devoted his work to bettering people's lives and I introduced myself to you this way so that you might understand that from a very young age I have known that might does not make right and that in a functioning democracy all voices must be given equal value and so I stand before you tonight to speak for some voices who in all the loudness and I really am sorry for the meanness might have been lost or not heard I understand the objections of the opposition perhaps precipitous financial investments and also political ideology opposed to the democratic liberties expressed by the community through the NPO I speak for renters who financially support 57% of the homes in Old West Durham without us it would not be there ok like most OWD renters I settled here because of the small duplexes and single family homes that made the comfortable neighborhood affordable these small residences are the reason OWD has sustained a community that is diverse in age, income and race and in our city with our history around issues of race, poverty and housing these are not insignificant considerations the front page of this week's independent refers to Durham's affordable housing crisis I do not believe that the best way to address the crisis is to destroy housing that is small enough to reasonably remain affordable the moment a developer put a four bedroom four and a half bath single family home with a one bedroom mother-in-law apartment over the garage next door to me and began charging $750 to $900 per bedroom per month and $1200 for the mother-in-law my rent on my modest one bedroom duplex immediately left from $550 a month to $850 a month the duplex on the other side of me is now being charged a rent of $1000 a month I'm an elderly woman living on a small fixed income that I labored my entire life to secure by late spring I'm going to be financially forced to leave my home and neighbors of 10 years in OWD and though I am well supported by friends and by Durham social services in my hunt for a home after six months of searching there is nowhere for me to go and social services has me on their list of people at high risk of homelessness I respectfully submit to you my absolute support for all that the NPO can do to uphold the historic identity and core values of old west Durham diversity is not just a word we say it is a commitment we make and we sacrifice to that commitment or we lose it and we may as well not speak the words thank you thank you very much my name is Susan Sewell I live at 2904 Legion Avenue I am here first representing Tuscaloosa Lakewood Neighborhood Association Board being the first neighborhood that went through all the years of work and talk to develop a neighborhood protection overlay as our only neighborhood so far that has completed this overlay we appreciate the years of work required by this ordinance we applaud old west Durham for doing the work to reach an understanding of the special elements of their neighborhood that deserve protection and we appreciate the efforts they have taken to find a diverse group of zoning tools they hope will protect their special elements and we encourage you to support this I also as a member of the Interneighborhood Council I want to remind you that the Interneighborhood Council took a vote in support of this neighborhood protection overlay and of the work that old west Durham has done and on a personal note I wish we thought of that backyard tree thank you hi my name is Christine Cupidow and I live at 246 Englewood Avenue in Old West not in Old West Durham in Watts Hillendale and I'm within 600 feet of Old West Durham and the house on Laundale that you saw pictures of the giant McMansion is behind my street that's in my block and I saw a perfectly fine blue single family home bulldozed down and replaced with this giant maestrosity and it has two front doors it has a front door at the back two mailboxes and then the giant garage with the mother law suite above it and it just totally dwarfs everything and it just makes me so sad I'm in the historic district so we have more protections than Old West Durham does and this MPI while it isn't as strong as the historic district it's the next best step and I so wish that Old West Durham could have been in the historic district when Watts Hillendale did it because part of the charm of Durham is these old millhouses and the unique architecture of each one it's not a cookie cutter like Cary the house that was built is like Cary if you want that move to Cary but Durham is unique we have the beautiful architecture each one is unique and special and we need to preserve that in our neighborhoods there's been a lot of contention about this with the pro and con and a neighbor in Old West Durham pointed out that the MPO process began immediately after the UDO was adopted during the public meetings and hearings on the UDO many of the people in Old West Durham wanted a more protective zoning category the city planning department told us the MPO was the best way to proceed the conservation began then and as some of the first participants in that process they were assured that some of the specific developers and his properties were not mentioned the aim was to protect the character affordability and diversity of the neighborhood including the modest older homes and perhaps create an incentive to preserve that character the city took a very long time to allocate the resources necessary to work with the neighborhood association on the MPO and while the city fiddled with their quite exorbitant rental rates do unfortunately serve as models of exactly what the MPO was trying to prevent but at no point was this process begun against any landowner or send of properties targeted so I just share that with you and urge you to vote for this and even though I'm not a resident of Old West Durham I live within 600 feet and a lot of my neighbors in Watts Hill and Dale we totally support Old West Durham and their efforts for this MPO and I encourage you to all vote yes thank you very much so there are two minutes and 40 seconds remaining for the proponents I do and I may have missed this Simeon Furman okay great thank you everyone so we have two minutes and 40 seconds to hold for rebuttal okay thank you yeah two and a half minutes we will we will hold that time we will move to 30 minutes for the folks against the proposal and as we did for the proponents there's a set of folks who we're going to bring up in order who have signed up again a total of 30 minutes so there are 16 individuals who've signed up against so ideally a little bit under two minutes each if you can or you can cede your time to other speakers and work with me if I get this right we have Mrs. Martin to speak first Mr. McFarling and if you know your order you can come up and line up please come and speak again your name and your address into the microphone great you may come and speak please if you're first yeah please come my name is Leanne Nelson and I live at 2404 Indian Trail I'm a non-resident homeowner in Old West Durham over half the property in Old West Durham is non-owner occupied my small lots are disproportionately affected by the proposed NPO I am against the NPO in 2014 a petition to explore an NPO was circulated in Old West Durham this petition was not brought to my attention or the attention of other non-resident owners years later I learned of the NPO when I received a mailing from the city most of the information about the NPO was disseminated by the Old West Durham listserv leaving out those who do not access that list based on information provided by during city planning I noticed that the original petition was circulated with accompanying information clearly stating that the NPO would not affect additions to existing houses that is untrue for the NPO as proposed today the NPO petition gained the signatures of 31% of unique homeowners in favor of exploring the possibility of the NPO remember their signatures were given based on misinformation about how the rules would affect existing houses with signatures of only 31% the joint city county planning committee allowed the process to go forward in spite of the recommendation that no NPO be pursued without 51% support the signatures on the original petition represent a small fraction of the total parcels since the original petition the owners of 117 parcels have asked to opt out of the NPO the desires of the owners of 225 parcels are not known it is clear that adequate support for the NPO has been lacking from the very beginning please vote against the proposed NPO thank you very much I think you're going off of a little different than what I have so I'm just going to let you keep running with it if you get your folks in order please come up and I'll make sure that anyone who's remaining is brought up to speak I need this you got it move it back my name is Glenn Martin and I own three rental properties in Old West Durham I'm here to talk about survey results from third and last NPO city planning meeting in November 17 this meeting had the largest turnout of the 2017 meetings city planning showed 70% support for the NPO among the participants filling out the 86 surveys the Old West Durham board used these numbers at least the JCCP meeting to say 70% of the 293 unique homeowners support the NPO okay so let me step through the 86 forms because only 86 of these surveys were valid from 86 subtract 9 because of duplicate addresses probably husband and wife they each filled one sorry unique homeowners subtract 5 because of non-owners subtract 7 because of addresses not even in Old West Durham subtract 9 because no address was on the survey at all this leaves 56 valid surveys 40 for the NPO 16 against so 40 out of 293 means only 14% of the unique homeowners have demonstrated support for the NPO the survey methodology used is not adequate to form conclusions for the overall support because the sample was neither random or representative the meeting was stacked with NPO supporters okay so they can so this anyway that's my point no one has demonstrated real numbers there is no vote and that's a flaw in this whole system I think it's a minority pushing it through you're hearing their voices you're not hearing the majority voice please vote against the NPO thank you very much thank you Mr. Martin good evening commission members my name is Marty McFarling I own 1020 health street also 1022 1024 Carolina I've been a property owner in Old Westarm for 30 years now I had the opportunity or I have the opportunity I'm one of the lucky individuals I have an empty lot in Old Westarm and in talking with the planning department and trying to do some building on that lot I found out a lot of interesting facts and I thank Matthew Filter for kind of clueing me in on how things work in that neighborhood the lot that I have is actually 49.75 feet wide at the front what does that matter well right now the current regulations the minimum width of a lot shall be the smaller of the average width of the adjacent lots fronting on the same linear block or the median of the widths of all the other lots fronting on the same linear block so according to Matt's calculations the average lot width was around 52.5 so really there was no difference between the existing regulation and the proposed NPO regulation current zoning so it still works fine both will require a 50 foot wide lock for me to do something with okay that said he had a caveat in there you may want to double check your deed or inquire with the Durham County Tax Assessor my two locks are thrown together on one tax bill so it looks like there's one lot but it's actually two separate locks well I went ahead and spent the money I spent 750 bucks on a survey and I spent $400 on a so I can stand here and prove to everyone that I actually have two locks they have been designated that way since the surveys were done originally back around 1908 1911 I think they were with all your said so thank you Jesus no matter what happens with the NPO I've got a buildable lock so that's something to think about current regulations are really working just fine also there's another consequence to this my neighbors across the street have a empty 50 foot lock beside their house they're going the opposite direction they're combining the two locks so that they'll have enough room to add on to their house to still be under the far that's taking a building lot out of that neighborhood right there once it's combined it will never be separated again also and that's reducing the infill the infill possibilities another unintended unintended consequence which was so passionately pointed out rents are going to go up I was told by Pat Young he was very nice and answered an email back I was thinking the NPO would help reduce property values keep property values low Patrick said no and their observations usually property value start going up well increase in property values increase equals an increase in taxes equals an increase in rentals and rental costs that have to go up and that's why the sudden increase in that neighborhood thank you for your time I am opposed to the NPO good evening my name is Howard Sykes I've been a Durham resident since 1994 and I reside at 15 Twinleaf Place I have a background in computer science engineering and a master's in project management I've spent decades analyzing data so I came in to look at some of the data that are in all these regulations and restrictions of the proposed NPO to try to determine how that would affect specifically of whether you could build the neighborhood that exists an old west Durham if the NPO had been in existence from day one I also spoke to Matt Felter a number of times he was very helpful part of what Matt told me is he felt that 94% of the properties there was some give or take in that because he said some of the older properties they didn't really have exact measurements for but he was starting with the assumption 94% of the structures would be okay but when I looked at the server and the information that that was based on I found the residents had only looked at heated square feet but yep the regulations referred to in the calculation of the FAR and that was the item that seemed probably most contentious so I looked at it says well we're going to count your garage space we're going to count any structure that needs to permit that's got multiple walls around it we're going to count ADUs and so forth but they weren't counted in what I saw that got to that kind of 94% so we also looked at property records and at least what's on the web includes heated square feet but does not include a lot of other square feet so through the tax department they were able to get me the complete property records I would have loved to have done it for the entire community but they were sort of limiting how much we're willing to give out so what we did is we tried to pick a representative street and the street that we've got that we ended up picking was we picked Alabama we got the records for every parcel on Alabama to do the calculation including the unheated square footage and we found five parcels exceeded the FAR at its current regulation now of course there's been lots of comments of well we've got these new houses and we're trying to prevent new so I just want to clarify these five houses one was built in 1911 one in 1919 one in 1922 and two of them 1930 so I'm not saying we're talking about the new houses exceeding the FAR as it exists in the proposal I did end up putting some of the data out early on some servers when it was draft and still not accurate I found I got a lot of additional people that told me they were against this regulation and there's certainly a lot of people in a lot of different feelings depending who we want to talk to but we found our number was growing so beyond the five the next thing we wanted to do is we took a look well how many parcels and I've indicated here in the yellow would be able to add less than 50 square feet because you're certainly not going to do an addition that small and then even if we drop that up to 275 square feet so that's barely more than a single car garage I think it was noted earlier that the bulk of the homes in this area don't have a garage so putting a single car garage seem great a fourth of the homes can't do that and again we are talking older homes so we certainly I am certainly feeling that this is not a desirable addition and thank you and we'll defer to the next person thank you very much and then just as a final comment 25% of the parcels on Alabama have that very small restriction hello planning commission I'm Jim Bach my wife and I bought our home on 1010 E.D. Street in 1962 we raised three fine children most of them were educated right there at AK Poe and on Durham High and into college we've talked about this NPO rules and regulations and we just wonder if we can get enough money for a house who would want to buy it with all the stipulations that the NPO has people would buy property would have to deal with and I just want you to consider that as we have talked about it ourselves thank you so much thank you sir Hi my name is Terry Street and I am a property owner in Old West Durham I love Durham and frankly I love Old West Durham neighborhood and I understand how we all need to work together as this beautiful city grows and there are challenges that are inherent in that however I think you will hear from the speakers that come up there are varied and reasonable objections to the NPO it was mentioned early on there was a deviation from the stated objective and there has been kind of a flawed process at least in my estimation of it was driven through the listserv and as you will hear there are a number of us who are not active on the listserv the listserv was really I thought lost dogs and more neighborhood focused rather than something of this critical nature the result is a current proposed regulatory overlay that many of us just don't feel we can support should it be the decision of the planning commission to move forward we've created a representative map where the owners of the parcel on this mock-up of the slide that you see wish to be excluded from the overlay and I think what you can see from that is there is some disagreement about the proposal as it currently stands as there is a lot of concern on the opposition side just as there are a number of people here who are for it a number of folks have taken time to come and be a part of this and turn around I would like those who are in opposition to please stand thank you my name is Adam Hall and I live at 2719 Crest streets and tonight I'm here on behalf of the legislative committee for the Durham Regional Association of Realtors I currently serve as the chair thank you for everyone being here tonight and thank you everyone on the planning commission for allowing public input I would like to start by recognizing why we are discussing this NPO the Old West Durham neighborhood residents feel threatened by this new development that is happening all over Durham the root causes of MPOs are increased housing demand as a result of an increasing population North Carolina is one of the fastest growing states in the U.S. and Durham along with the rest of the triangle is one of the fastest growing areas in North Carolina as a result this growth and an increased demand for more housing neighborhoods are changing McMansions as they have been termed are popping up left and right and lots are being repurposed to support higher density I want to be clear that we understand this is troubling to the residents of Old West Durham residents first invested in this community and bought their homes or chose to live here this was not the type of neighborhood they saw we see you and we understand that you're concerned however the long term effects of these protection overlay districts cannot be ignored people want to live in walkable neighborhoods that are close to fixed amenities public transportation and job opportunities by shutting down the markets ability to meet the demand for housing the affordability of these neighborhoods will plummet as a result would be residents are pushed further and further out MPOs serve as an artificial restriction on supply while completely ignoring the demand for more housing in these highly desirable urban centers if we're going to expand housing options in Durham we must promote policies that will create opportunities for development and creation of missing middle housing with this high level of growth Durham is experiencing these old neighborhoods will have to change in order to keep up with the demand or run the risk of shutting out everyone who cannot afford an expensive old house again I would like to state that we understand why residents feel threatened however we can find better solutions that do not exacerbate the housing problem we urge the planning commission to reject this proposed MPO and instead focus on how we can broaden housing options and prices throughout Durham thank you thank you my name is John Temple I live at 1015 Elstree and I have for 54 years in June so this argument that it's developers against the neighborhood does not hold water to me because I've lived there all this time I was born in Durham and watched hospital about three blocks away I learned I love Durham so much that I commuted to Burlington to teach school for 31 years 68 miles a day I love my neighbors I just disagree with some of them right now because I think the MPO is completely necessary in fact I think it's misnamed it should be an NRO neighborhood restrictive ordinance because it takes away private property rights I don't want to have 67 and a half percent of my land that I cannot ever build anything on while at the same time I get the pleasure of paying property taxes every year on the property taxes I bought this house in the 1960s when I went there I rented it for two years for $50 a month speaking of affordable prices and houses when I bought this house were $10,000 or $15,000 in the neighborhood but I was a school teacher making $5,000 a year then so the city thinks my house is increased in value 28 times so I don't think the increase in rental rates is as much to do with people trying to gouge people rent as it does with the fact that when property taxes increase in order to maintain their property landlords have to increase their rent in order to be able to keep the property now I wrote you all a letter it also went to the city council and it went to the board so I said a lot in that you got a letter from me to opt out because I wrote a letter to do that to Mr. Filter and I was told that it was too late because there was a deadline on January 31st well I sold them on the listserv there was no mailing announcing if you wanted to make a comment about the MPO that we should do on January 31st so that's why I sent you the opt out letter by email so you could see it now I'm watching a lot of folks nowadays on the city council the mayor included talk about the necessity for density and population I completely agree with them that the MPO will not affect density but I don't think it will affect it favorably I think it will affect it negatively that it will lessen the there's a they've someone's alluded to the fact that EK Poe is a very popular school right now and there's lots of young families in the neighborhood some of those families are growing and some of their houses on their lots already are at or exceed the 32.5% so I think when their kids need more bedrooms some of them will choose to leave the neighborhood because that will be the only way they can have more space because they won't under the MPO if it passes not be able to expand their house now I know I'm going to say one more thing I asked someone today at one meeting I went to there was a mention that we might be able to add additions in our attics that would not count against the FAR I think it's a very reasonable thing to add that because it does not add to the footprint of the house in existing houses to build into your attic I was told by someone that it was in the ordinance but I didn't hear Mr. Filter mention that and so he might be able to answer if you can now build into attics and not have it count against the FAR thank you sir and that's I think that's a question we'll be sure to ask thank you very much so just to note I still have eight speakers signed up who wish to speak against not all of them may wish to speak or be here at this point but just wanted to point it out with ten and a half minutes left my name is James Wilkins I live at 929 Alabama avenue my mother's in the back mom would you stand up please 81 years old this is the first meeting we've attended where we've actually gotten to say interestingly which is kind of compelling because we've talked about being inclusive and have an involvement and getting feedback but what you've had is a group of people that were on a mission to get something accomplished and they shut down any opposition against it my own mother stood up in the last meeting on her birthday in November and she actually had people yelling at her from corners of the room to sit down and shut up so that's the kind of treatment that the opposition has received and mr. gauche addressed it and when I went outside at break I said if you think you've been on the firing line sitting in that seat you ought to come over and live at 929 Alabama on the corner because I was the first guy out front that put his neck out and said something's wrong with this process there's a lot of things that could be said here today I could churn a lot of butter for you but let me just touch a couple real quick Mr. Filter stated that they recommend some reason people recommend 51% signatures not required but recommend and they distort the numbers and they've never been past 29% so they're not even close to that number they'll make you believe with their green shirts and their unity that this is a good thing it's not a good thing and then the other thing is one lady stood up here and talked about diversity well I can talk about diversity because after being born in a millhouse on Eda street which would today be in the parking lot of the Harris teeter grocery store 81 plus years ago she understands Old West Durham and nobody wanted to hear her feedback as to how to move forward or a lot of other people in her age range which have a tremendous amount of wisdom all these people that are pushing this are 5, 6, 7, 8 10 year owners and they're together on it but there was a lady that stood up here and talked about diversity about 40 50 years ago not 49 I started E.K. Poe to understand what that neighborhood looked like there were more black people living in Old West Durham then than there are now because these programs have pushed them out the people have come in driven prices up and they're gone you've had since that time Hicks town which was a well established adjacent neighborhood that was predominantly black is torn to the ground there's not a house left there's a letter today please let the city keep their hands off of this the folks in Old West Durham there's signs out saying protect our hood we were in that hood my family 70 years ago protecting it and I think we've done a pretty good job and we'll keep doing that job thank you I ask that you vote no and if you choose to vote yes then I ask you to shelve it today you work the paperwork and make the same rules work in your neighborhood so I don't mind living under your Durham city rules change your neighborhood and live under the same rules and then I'll come down here and applaud you for it good evening commissioners my name is Cyrus Doster I live at 1002 Oakland Avenue which is the only property I own and I've lived there for the past 16 years my wife and I initially supported the exploration and development of the MPO and actually participated in interviews with city staff even handed out meeting announcements but we now both oppose it setting aside arguments about the elements of the MPO which I do believe are still too restrictive my biggest concern is the process through which it's been brought to you you've already heard that the proposal goes significantly beyond its early or initial framing of not inhibiting renovation by current owners and I share the concerns that have been expressed that the MPO will actually be counterproductive to the grounds and decrease affordability by limiting the resource of square footage surprisingly to me or I should say starting at the public meeting in November that the gentleman before me just spoke about I was appalled when I saw decent people with legitimate concerns about the MPO getting shouted down by members of the MPO working group and I found after that point that the board and the working group became more secretive about their decision making and I have the information misrepresented to me they seem to have come to a point where transparency with the neighborhood means simply stating what they've done after the fact as shown by the latest changes that were made after unannounced meetings with city leadership I and others have been referred to as treasonous simply for asking the working group and board to support a legitimate survey to confirm the majority of support that they claim to have and tallying emails on a listserv when you know you're going to get brow-beated is not a legitimate way to gauge gauge support the board has rejected their request from multiple neighbors though in the same meeting that they approved the MPO they were more than happy to suggest having the neighborhood vote on a new t-shirt design the same board who traditionally adds new members in April is now considering delaying that process which would prevent new members joining the board who do not share their view of the MPO now after all this I still believe that the neighbors who have created the MPO have done it with good intentions but this process and their behavior is not right and it should not be endorsed by your support of this product regardless of whether the MPO does end up being adopted by the city council I ask you to please work with the planning department to either scrap or overhaul the current MPO guidelines so that no other neighborhood in our great little city has to go through as much conflict and ill will as mine has I was unaware of the criticism that council commissioner gosh had experienced prior to him announcing that but frankly I'm not surprised given the negativity that has come out in our neighborhood over this thank you for the time thank you good evening my name is Jean-Christien Roestani I've been living for almost 22 years at 918 Carolina my name may be familiar to you because you've been inundated by a few several emails that bear my name sometimes on the signature this is because this debate has been quite animated given the outrageous nature of certain things that have been going on here first of all I'm going to address two major points we are here tonight because several years ago some people were going knocking on doors asking people to sign up for a petition for this MPO on the ground that there had been excessive developments going on in the neighborhood namely by Jeff Mancine I ended up signing it for it and I now regret it I feel betrayed part of the literature that was going on then about proposing that MPO mentioned that it would only consist of minor tweaks to the existing zoning and I'm sorry I don't think that anybody can claim that the result has been minor tweaks it has been major tweaks major adjustments major loss of property rights if this measure was adopted and I suggest that I'm not expert in administrative laws here but it seems to me that if you have to qualify with a certain amount of signature and goals and everything for an MPO process to go the least that process could do is respect its intent and the intent has not been respected and so therefore just on that this MPO should be nullified and at the very least been thrown back to the drawing board the other point that I wish to address is that and that's something that hasn't been addressed tonight in regard to the FAR the FAR is by far the most contentious issue in this MPO we have been told that it's a 32.5% flat it's not, there is a floor and there is a ceiling to the FAR MPO, namely the smaller lot can are allowed 2400 square feet to build up to 2400 square feet which results for 4000 square foot in 55% and 4000 square foot is not even the smaller lot in the neighborhood and conversely it results in 30% for 12,000 lot and this is not even the largest lot there I believe at least 16,000 square feet lot for which it would result in 22.5% so the FAR, the MPO doesn't treat everybody equally the creators of the rules have picked losers and winners and I don't think that's necessary nor wise nor any public cannot even stand up to a challenge in court and I think that I'm done thank you very much before you begin, I know I have a set of speakers still signed up I don't know if anyone beyond the two of you are planning to speak, are there additional folks that have signed up to speak against this who still wish to speak so if you can come stand in line as well it's just helpful for us to get a sense of how many speakers are remaining we have one minute left in the 30 minutes per each side I don't want to extend that but I need to come back to the commission to talk about what's the appropriate way we always make sure that there's even time per speaker so I open it up to my fellow commission members I'm inclined, is there anyone else who is speaking or is it just the three of you I'm inclined to give an additional six minutes per each side two minutes for each speaker two minutes for the supporters eight and a half minutes if they wish to use that time Commissioner Williams we had a carryover of two minutes and 40 seconds from the other rounded up to three minutes that gives you approximately one minute each and what I was saying is we'll add six minutes if we give them each two minutes we'll give six minutes in addition to the two and a half minutes that were remaining for the supporters I was just not wanting to go too far and to rebuttal as certain statements have been made both directly and indirectly on both sides so just trying to get this more to the motion of the commission to carry forward for comments I'm open to any motions Commissioner Bryant I move that we give each side an additional six minutes moved and seconded Commissioner say aye aye any opposed one opposed great we will give you we can get the clock up to seven minutes I guess we have one minute left thank you and you may begin sir I'm going to help you out a little bit here I feel like I'm at the academy awards good evening my name is Tom Anhut and I'm the chairman of the Triangle Community Coalition we're a group of over 15,000 professionals advocating for pro-economic growth policy throughout the triangle we provide guidance to the triangle's leaders advocating for visionary public policy the TCC involves itself in policy decisions at the city and county levels and for both of these neighborhood protection overlays are bad public policy for several reasons by their nature MPOs restrict supply by restricting redevelopment potential old west Durham buyers who might have otherwise invested in the neighborhood will go elsewhere robbing Durham of potential incremental gains in tax revenues affordability Durham adds 20 new residents daily and the current production of housing units is not keeping up with this growth as demand outstrips supply prices increase the housing affordability issue cascades across all prices of housing and is not just limited to the most needy there is a growing missing middle in our housing inventory which will continue to grow made worse by policies such as MPOs fortunately Durham unlike Raleigh recognizes the importance of ADUs to housing affordability and author and allows their use those are accessory dwelling units however this MPO will severely limit the ability to add accessory dwelling units to old west Durham properties this is antithetical to the city's stated commitment to affordable housing thank you for your time my name is Rick Emmerich I'm also a member of the Triangle Community Coalition and I'd like to continue the discussion on why MPOs are bad public policy from a density standpoint as a rule limiting density makes housing more expensive this MPO will prevent more dense development of the neighborhood forever limiting the amount of structures Durham's mayor understands issue importance stating one of the things in Durham that we're going to have to get used to is we need more density either we build more houses or the price of housing is going to go through the roof and we need more density old west Durham is very close to the 9th street district which will have light rail stop it's essential that we have high density surrounding transit stops in the city property values owning a home is often the greatest investment and how we pay for our retirement this ordinance will restrict the type and amount of improvements that can be made in the old west Durham homes it's unfair to those who have faithfully invested in the neighborhood and precedence from a micro viewpoint if allowed the use of MPOs will spread as other groups attempt to prevent change to their areas this has happened in Raleigh where there are now 19 of what are equivalent to MPOs in Durham those areas are forever frozen participating from participating in the city's growth it resulted in development occurring further from the city's core further from transit services and adding traffic congestion and pollution a neighborhood overlay is just another way to say no to additional housing to infringe on property rights and limit the use of land and a threat to housing affordability for those reasons and on behalf of our thousands of members Triangle Community Coalition strongly urges MPOs strongly opposes MPOs in general in this ordinance specifically we urge you to deny the request thank you hello my name is Waldo Fenner I live at 1119 Klaner Street I don't let you know in front I oppose the MPO I heard a young lady speak earlier about being homeless well I encourage all of you should have been at the tax office or the county commissioner's office when it was raising property tax that's one of the reasons why you have the high price of homes coming up in your neighborhoods now I've been in my home since 1994 walltown has grown tremendously I oppose anything that infringe on my constitutional rights to have home ownership to do as I see fit to do with my property that is why we purchase our homes to do as we see fit to a certain degree to limit me the ability to do what I want to my home to infringe on my rights I say that is because the 14th amendment guarantee us that no local government or state government or federal government should enter any kind of ordinance or laws to infringe on those rights because again I would love to see this support when it came down to teachers getting a raise your children being discounted not have supplies don't have things they need to perform in schools as we sit here and debate on whether or not how to infringe on a homeowner's rights what they want to do with their property so I encourage you to turn this down because it does do just that infringe on our rights as homeowners thank you thank you very much is there anyone else who has not been able to speak this evening against there's a one minute and 17 seconds remaining and if not we will allow the supporters to have an additional it was about nine minutes if you round up and I'm assuming you will not need the full nine minutes but we will offer you equal time if the supporters would like to make any additional comments and then we're going to close the public hearing and we're going to do what we do best which is deliberate yes I just my name is Dan Welch 923 Alabama Avenue and I just wanted to address a few things I heard and just add some clarity to it hopefully first of all I heard about the initial petition there was some concerns at that and I just want to point out that at the top of the initial petition this is for the application to initiate the NPO it clearly stated at the top that there was no text drafted at this time and the NPO the purpose was to start a process of engagement to initiate an NPO and find out what neighbors wanted to add or what kinds of protections they wanted to add to the neighborhood so we feel like that was clear and I just want to point out that the NPO members who were signing the initial application there was a gentleman who tried to minimize the support in a member meeting and said the room was packed with NPO supporters and it's just like tonight we put out notices and people show up we had a good showing here tonight and I want to thank the people that did show up but our supporters don't write as much but they show up and they register and we don't feel like it should have to be there should have to be pages and pages of emails written and so forth but in any case the people as you can see showed up tonight just like they have in the past the FAR study that chose Alabama Avenue I happen to live on Alabama Avenue in the block he was talking and if you'll notice it's at an angle with the rest of Old West Durham I don't have a map here in front of me but it's at an angle and most of the lots on one side of the street are pie shaped and they're very small that block actually has the smallest lot in Old West 1836 square feet it's where the neighborhood grocery is it has like a 68% FAR or something crazy like that but it's because these are really tiny lots they're very unusual lots that was not a random choice to pick Alabama Avenue to do a survey and show that the FAR was trying to demonstrate that the FAR was certainly not random and I want to be clear mostly about this idea that we're anti-density anti-affordable housing this was never about trying to prevent density and in fact this is an overlay it's not a complete rezoning taking us out of the RU-5 and 5-2 area we didn't attempt to change our zoning so we could get multi-family units and that's true but that was in the realm of what an NPO could do anyway but what was available in the NPO was to do things that could encourage some additional units and we took advantage of that by addressing the ADU situation I think fairly aggressively and so we did some studies on how many additional ADUs could be added based on the NPO there it's true that with the lots with the highest FAR some of those cannot will not be able to add an ADU we looked for example at a 500 square foot ADU there's about 16% of the lots that will not be able to add a 500 square foot ADU because of the 32.5% FAR cap so there's not enough buildable area we acknowledge that but on the flip side on the other side by reducing the the square footage or excuse me the percentage of heated square feet you need to build an ADU we found that 63% of the lots will be newly able to add a 500 square foot ADU so we lose 16% of the properties cannot build a 500 square foot ADU 63% of the properties are newly able to add a 500 square foot ADU net it out that's 47% of the properties that are now will be able to to add a 500 square foot ADU that was one of the ways we felt we could affect the density situation in terms of density of housing units we also have a lot of duplexes still in Old West that have not been built on I think the count is around 120 or 125 and we're fully accepting of those being built out into duplexes and increasing the density in the neighborhood all we're asking is that when that happens it's done in scale with the neighborhood the duplexes of before 2000 the average duplex square footage was around 750 square feet I don't have the exact number but we were looking at that a couple days ago and the average square footage of duplexes that have been added in the last 10 years that's 750 square feet a side the average duplex size that have been added in the last 10 years are there at 1500 square feet a little bit more than that actually and so you know this is not affordable housing when we're adding these huge duplexes this is 1500 square feet per side they're going for way way more rent than the existing duplexes that are in place and so you know we feel that there's a lot of room to add duplexes and a lot of potential lots that can add duplexes we just want them to be in scale so they'll be more affordable and they will fit in with the character of our neighborhood so great thank you very much so that said we will close the public period of public hearing I appreciate everyone having come tonight and to share your thoughts we will now deliberate as commissioners and as I said earlier we may we will likely direct questions to staff we may direct questions to some of you and ask you to come up and help us make sure we fully understand the situation and the votes that are in front of us so I'll open it up for commissioners commissioner we'll start with commissioner Alturk and then commissioner Warren Buckle thank you chair I feel like I'm talking a lot today I first I want to thank everyone for coming for emailing sending letters calling you know I know that this has been a very contentious case and it has caused a lot of attention in the neighborhood but I will say it at least in the correspondence that I've had most of the emails have been very thoughtful both from opponents and proponents so I appreciate the feedback and it has helped me think about some of the issues that are really important I do also want to thank the staff for this great report I mean this is the report they gave us is excellent so I will kind of draw on that in a couple of cases but let me you know I have for me there are three probably more than just three questions but three broad questions that I'm going to kind of discuss in my comments and one is what would this NPO have what's the effect of this NPO on new construction and related to that second point is how would this affect affordable housing and density which has been brought up and third you know what are its effects on not just new construction but the ability of homeowners to make renovations and add to their homes so you know couple of the things I guess big picture thoughts is that old west is relatively dense already right I mean what we saw earlier that it is six to eight units per acre which is you know more dense than a lot of the you know obviously suburban neighborhoods that are less than four in some cases less than two units per acre so it is a relatively relatively dense neighborhood and it seems right from the numbers you know and I'm glad that Howard pointed out that the numbers in some cases are not completely accurate from the the tax assessor's office because they don't include garages and whatnot but right if you just include square you know heated square footage six percent seems like of all homes right now of that thirty two point five so that's a couple of dozen homes that are above the the proposed FAR the all these acronyms FAR and ADUs and so the proposed maximum floor area ratio of thirty two point five so this is to me a pretty low number but having said that right I still wanted to see let's say that this NPO was adopted in say two thousand nine and what kind of effect would it have on new construction and I looked again at the tax records from the county and it looks like you know not including twenty seventeen but there are thirteen houses built in Old West Durham and if staff has some you know if anything I say seems completely off please let me know seems like there were thirteen houses built in Old West Durham since twenty ten again based on those county records sorry thirteen single family homes and duplexes just to put that in context I looked at all of Durham County and there were five thousand single family homes and duplexes built in that same time so I guess what I'm saying is that this is a very small number of homes that are built right in all of Durham County thirteen houses compared to you know five thousand in the last seven eight years in Old West Durham County but I wanted to see of those thirteen how many of them would have been affected by this NPO and it seems like by my calculation seven of them would not have been able to be built now that's seven houses in the last eight to nine years that would not have been able to be built under this NPO now I guess you can cut the numbers lots of different ways you can say well that's fifty percent of new construction or you can say well that's one home a year that would be affected I mean you know and I do want to address this density question that let me see Tom and Adam and others from the TCC mentioned that you know is an NPO a good policy measure or is it bad for density and at least right if we're interested in affordable housing we do have to consider the supply question it seems to me that this is a minimal effect on supply right potentially right again this NPO would have from what I've seen an effect on one house a year and you know my assumption is that one house would probably be a little bit you know someone would build it to be under the 32.5 so that you know my kind of big point on this is that it seems like the supply will be affected very minimally the second question I mentioned was you know is it going to have an effect on media excuse me right can you add on to your home and again you know from the from the staff report it looks like the median far right now the floor area ratio is around 18 to 19% of the lot size that suggests to me that 50% of houses would be able to add an additional 14% of their lot size right onto their homes or as an accessory unit you know if you think about that right that's 14% of this initial 18% that is an addition of 3 quarters of your house so I was thinking about this well people when they do renovations how much do they add is it reasonable to add 75% extra I mean that seems pretty high to me right so I looked and the National Association of Home Builders suggests that a bedroom these days is about 12% of your home master bedroom family rooms about 12% you know say a kitchen is another 10% I mean if you add all of these things it seems to me like under the current or the proposed NPO 50% of homes would be able to add a considerable amount onto their homes and 75% who are at 22.5 far or below would still be able to add on a considerable amount to their house again either on their primary structure or the ADU but this brings me to what I think is for me a concern and this has come up the ADU the accessory dwelling unit so I'm going to ask staff a question before I make this comment so ADUs one of the things I noticed in the staff reports we don't have and this is maybe harder to find you know do you have a sense of how many lots in Old West Durham or even in all of Durham County have ADUs and if so what's the median or average size of those ADUs so in Old West Durham and actually some folks in the neighborhood Barbara well and that's where you have Barbara who's been doing a lot of the data analysis might have it more at the tip of her fingertips than I do but I would venture to guess there's maybe a dozen at most ADUs in Old West Durham most of them are new construction there's one developer in particular who has an ADU model and they seem to be similar size my understanding is it's about 733 square foot square feet unheated ground floor garage and there's usually roughly a 733 square foot accessory dwelling unit above that and that's been replicated several times I don't know off the top of my head how many though feet added right and so and then that is based on or the max at least right now under the UDO is 30% of the primary structure is that right so the accessory dwelling unit in that example would be capped 30% under the current regulation not the garage not the garage the difference is under the proposed NPO there are some tradeoffs they are bumping up the heated square footage to 50% versus 30% and that's where it is now but they are also now counting that in the FAR and capping it at 700 so there's a little bit of a tradeoff there I think Mr. Welch's point earlier seems accurate I don't have the data in front of me that you are essentially taking for folks that are near or at or above the 32.5 that are eligible to add an ADU they will no longer be able to do so but that is a relatively smaller population for folks at the other end of the distribution who may be having 11 100 square foot house 30% of that is a little more than 300 square feet not a very market viable ADU bumping that up to 50% then allows them to go a little bit higher and maybe have a more market viable unit I don't have the data in front of me that's just kind of first blush off what I've heard tonight and some of the data I've seen okay thank you and that last point is what I was getting to a considerable number of homes that are relatively small that are at 18% far right now maybe 20% which means they can add another 12.5% of the lot size right as an ADU and so my concern is if there is room to build an ADU and it falls within the far why restrict it to only 700 square feet to me if you have a 2000 square foot home and rather than adding on to the primary structure you say well maybe I'll build a 1000 square foot or 900 square foot ADU that rather than being an efficiency it can be a two bedroom or something to me this potential restriction of 700 square feet I think may have a more negative effect on affordable housing than the far because as I've shown I think the far just based on the numbers does not seem to affect the supply that much so I guess I don't know if the proponents if they would like to kind of answer this question of why does the ADU cap to the 700 square feet and could that be changed and then to any proponents who are kind of concerned about ADUs is there something about the ADU provision as it is written right now if it was changed you could support it thank you let's just start with bringing up one proponent for one minute a commissioner has asked you to come up as part of their time and if you can directly address that question please Dan Welch 923 Alabama Avenue and as I recall our discussions around the ADU the 700 square feet we converged on that from number of directions first of all a major concern as we showed in some of the slides earlier about oversized accessory structures that overwhelmed their very they can be allowed to be set into the far back way up against the into the setbacks and they tend to loom over backyards or two-story affairs that with a lot of square footage and so there was a lot of I think there was general consensus of a lot of people that we needed to do something about minimizing the the accessory structures and so we looked at what would be appropriate to do and I think we actually homed in on the 700 square feet I believe going back and thinking about that partly because there's a viable business model coming in several of the ADUs that have been built in fact maybe the only Matt said 12 units or so probably half of those have been built in the last few years as these carriage houses where the ADU is 733 square feet and so it seemed like 700 square feet was kind of a good a good number because that's what the market was demanding that's what they're able to sell and that would kind of meet our objective of not having these overly huge accessory structures on the back lot lines looking over into people's backyards and and so forth so that's I think largely where it came from. Commissioner Alturk, if you want to bring up one proponent or opponent to answer your second question and then we are going to have to move to some of the other commissioners. Yeah, sorry about that, yeah. Thank you. And one minute as well please. Jean-Michel Rostani, the ADU we thank you for bringing this up because I do think that the restrictions of the is one of the weakest point of the NPO as a matter of fact if the object was to prevent excessive development this could have been achieved by just increasing setbacks and preventing from overpaving the back of the lot instead of that because the proponents wanted to restrict developments overall they brought all kinds of measures that stiffen creativity and prevent people to decide for themselves what they want to do and this ADU question is a perfect illustration of it. They want to decide for homeowners whether they want to have a huge dwelling or use there a lot at far and balance it between between a main structure and an ADU and I think that's one of the weakest point of the current proposal. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any closing comments? I mean I will say one more thing there's been a lot of so I've tried to address two questions that have come up a lot there's another one that has been brought up which is about the process again it seems like it has been a contentious one and I have heard both good and bad about the process and so at least for me I cannot make my decision based on that because it it's hard for me to assess whether it was you know was it a perfect process I doubt it was it a terrible process I also doubt that. So I'm going to just you know kind of base it on the merits of the NPO and I do appreciate all the comments but I cannot make the decision based on the process itself. Thank you. Thanks Commissioner. Commissioner Bryan. Thank you. I also want to echo Commissioner Al Turks thank you for your attendance tonight your thoughts your input via email and so forth. I do regret that the process seems to have become contentious another thing that seemed to come out to me tonight during the comments was that the process of communication within the neighborhood may have relied a little too much on the listserv and people who don't go online and don't use listservs and stuff and I happen to be one of them are left out and had I been living in the Old West Durham maybe my wife would have figured out what was going on but I might not have anyhow. I have several comments and a few questions I'll do the comments first I want to actually start with the night street plan which was adopted in November 2008 and in the night street plan which created the night street compact neighborhood part of which is immediately south of Old West Durham it is acknowledged that the residential the residential mill village which is what it was called in the night street plan could really experience pressure from being adjacent to the compact neighborhood and it also noted that one way the neighborhood could protect itself is with a neighborhood protection overlay which was a new tool in the box at the time it just took a long time it appears to actually get around to trying to do one and during that period of time which is not quite ten years it seems like a lot has happened some perhaps for the good and some not so good from the perspective of the neighborhood some comments on the draft it goes I have concerns about some of it I can understand the use of the FAR to regulate bulk I think Chapel Hill does it and I think they use even a lower number but I do sympathize with one gentleman who pointed out that it doesn't quite treat everybody equally if I own the 12,000 square foot lot I would be able should be able if you followed the FAR to have something like 3850 square feet of building but they cap it at 36 so that's one thing that bothers me a little bit I understand how they are regulating we're trying to regulate the height but what bothers me here is that we seem to have adopted a position that one height fits all and I don't agree with that I think if you own a larger lot and can afford to give more setback then you should be able to build higher if you gave some setback and one thing I suggested to some of the proponents was maybe one foot of additional height for two additional feet of setback and I also think that the setback proposed for the accessory structure rather than just jumping up 10 feet when you get over 16 feet I suggested that that be a gradated thing and on the subject of trees the requirement of backyard tree I think the concern here is tree replacement where people have maybe come in and cut down the trees to build a larger structure but it doesn't really say that and when you state that you know this seems like it would apply to any lot in Old West Durham that's a concern to me because you may have some elderly people living in Old West Durham on fixed incomes who just so happens they don't have a canopy tree back there and to be told that they would need to put one in is an expense that I don't think they would want to look at and the other consideration that comes in if you look at section 8.3 of the UDO on trees what you see is that developers are given a certain credit in terms of square footage for trees that they plant and for a 2 inch caliber caliper canopy tree that credit is 175 square feet and if you're hoping that 2 inch tree that you plant might grow into a 4 inch tree you really need to allow about 275 square feet and I bring that up because somebody who maybe has built a McMansion and you want to see a tree back in the backyard could maybe hire an arborist to come in look at the property and come back and tell you that there's not enough room for a tree then what are you going to do and I don't have a good answer to that the other thing that struck me about the tree is that you're obviously concerned about your tree canopy but there's nothing in here about tree preservation I think if you're going to try to manage your tree canopy you need to encourage tree preservation as well as tree replacement and you seem to only be focused on replacement to me that's a fall and now I have some questions for staff one thing that I see is a lot dimensions maximum lot area minimum lot width and so forth when exactly would that apply just pulling up a copy of the NPO so just bear with me for one moment so that would apply with an attempt of subdivision or a lot consolidation it's only if somebody comes in and buys up properties and wants to resubdivide exactly, yeah I think that there's pretty limited circumstances where something like this might occur and I don't want to speak for the neighbor association perhaps someone can volunteer to follow up on this but kind of preventing against large scale redevelopments where someone buys a few blocks and wants to consolidate and kind of tinker with the lot sizes under existing zoning would the maximum lot area requirement prevent somebody who is presently a property owner who owns two adjacent lots from combining them if they would get a lot that was over 12,000 square feet yes that to me again is a provision that I'm uncomfortable with because if I were a property owner living in the neighborhood and you told me I couldn't combine two of my lots I don't know whether I'd win or not but my response would be I'll see you in court I would say and again I don't have all the data handy with 428 parcels but I do think there's a very very limited set of circumstances where there are two people that have properties contiguous with one another who might be interested in doing that perhaps the neighbor association has more comment on that but your point is taken if I may Mr. Chair I would like to get the neighborhood association to comment on this maximum lot area and how many lots and how many possibilities there might be for combination by current owners you may do so but we will want to limit time if each commissioner does wish to speak so if you can address the question and we can bring up one individual for one minute so how many how many properties are there in Old West Durham where two lots side by side owned by the same owner if combined would yield something that's 12,000 square feet does anybody know if someone does have the answer please come up to the microphone and you may answer the question