 This will be short. This will be short. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ah. That's a bad try. Leave it over here. Leave it over here. One moment. Leave it over here. Ha ha ha. Hey Badger. Hey. Easiest question on that was mean. Because we see more like that. Great. There you go. The pine cracks. There that's really awesome. Yeah. If it was filled with something, it would have been even better. Very nice. I knew it was great when- Youth Commissioner in the blue shorts with these young people. I'm going to call this meeting of the Durham City Council to order, and I want to welcome everyone here to our meeting, everyone here in attendance on this Monday, May the 7th, 2018. I would ask you first to please join me in a moment of silent meditation. Thank you. Council Member Rees, would you please lead us in the Pledge of the Flags? Well, thank you, and good evening, everyone. If it's your practice to do so, and if you're able, please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much, and now we will have the roll call. Mayor Schuyl, here, Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, here, Council Member Alston, here, Council Member Caballero, here, Council Member Freeman, present, Council Member Middleton, here, Council Member Reese, here. Thank you very much, and now we'll have the one ceremonial item tonight. The ceremonial item tonight is National Drinking Water Week Proclamation, and if I could have Douglas Anderson, plant operator at the Williams Water Treatment Plant to please come forward, and perhaps Wayne Drop would also like to come forward. We've got some really special young people in the audience tonight, too, that you're going to hear from in just a minute, hear about in just a minute. But first I will read the proclamation. Whereas water is a basic and essential need of mankind, and whereas our health, comfort, and standard of living depend upon an adequate supply of safe, clean water, and whereas throughout the years the City of Durham has taken a lead role in source water management and protection, as well as the production of a consistent supply of high-quality drinking water, and whereas climate change may impact the availability of our precious natural resources, and whereas our drinking water and water resources are undervalued, and whereas we are all stewards of the water infrastructure upon which future generations depend, and whereas dedicated individuals and organizations such as city employees, industry leaders, scientists, environmentalists, and students have made significant contributions in developing, operating, and maintaining our water treatment and distribution systems, developing and conserving this precious resource, educating the public on the value of this resource. Now therefore, I, Stephen M. Shull, Mayor of the City of Durham, North Carolina, to hereby proclaim May 6th to 12th, 2018 as National Drinking Water Week in the City of Durham, and urge all residents to help make Durham a more sustainable community by embracing the theme of Viewshire's War Conservation Poster Contest, Saving Water is Always in Season. Witness my hand, the Corporate Seal of the City of Durham, North Carolina, it's the 7th day of May, 2018, Stephen M. Shull, Mayor, and I'm going to present this now to Mr. Anderson for any comments that he might like to make. Thank you, Mayor Shull, Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, members of the Council, and my fellow Durhamites. My name is Douglas Anderson. I'm an operator at the Williams Water Treatment Plant out there on Hillendale Road, a facility that has been supplying Durham with reliable, clean drinking water for over 100 years. Tonight, it is my honor to speak on behalf of 340 dedicated people in the Department of Water Management. We are proud to accept this proclamation and we thank you. Water is vital. Civilizations have risen and fallen over it. Wars have been fought and will be fought over it. Oil may have been the lifeblood of human industry for the past 150 years, but water has been the lifeblood of human civilization for 12,000 years. And here in Durham, a quarter of a million souls can go about their lives without giving it a thought because 340 dedicated people are doing their jobs. From filling a glass to filling a fire truck, water touches all of our lives, it keeps us healthy and safe. Now here in Durham, we are uniquely blessed. We happen to sit atop two major watersheds and we have two fine reservoirs, but with abundance comes responsibility to use water wisely, to protect our resources, to maintain our infrastructure, and to consider the downstream impact of our water management strategy, and of course to conserve whenever and however we can. Now, lest you think that I've come to chide you and tell you, like, turn the water off when you're brushing your teeth, I've actually come here to congratulate you. Here in Durham, our per capita residential water use is 67% of the state average, and incredibly 52% of the national average. Well done, Durham, keep it up. You're wondering where I got that fun fact. That one and more are in this. This year we are proud to have completed and published our annual water quality report two months early, in time for drinking water week. This report is available in print and online in both English and in Spanish. Tonight I am joined by my fellow operator, Joe Alex Rios, and electrical engineer, Paul Rancivia, both of whom helped with the translation. Thanks a lot guys. So we thank the city council, our fellow city departments, and the entire city of Durham for your support for all that we do here in water management. Cheers everybody. With that, I'm going to turn things over to my colleague, Erin Harrison. So we alluded to this little earlier. We host an annual poster contest for water conservation, and this year's theme was saving water as always in season. So we had a lot of great entries. You guys can see those posted outside. We had over 200 posters entered, and over 10 schools, I believe, or maybe it was 10 schools exactly that participated. So we have some of our winners here. We've got local winners and state winners here tonight. So I'm going to go ahead and announce these folks and recognize them if you wouldn't. You guys can stand. Awesome. So we'll start. All right, we'll start with the kindergarten through second grade category. When third place, we have Beatrice Makarushka in second place, and I don't think that she's here, but it's Heidi Mabel Santos Martinez, and in first place, Mary Nolan, and Mary also won first in the state as well. Mary also won first in the state. Congratulations. All right, in grades three through five. In third place, we have Connor Hernandez in second place, Atlas Ladd, and in first place, Kent Lee. And all three of these folks won first, second, and third respectively in the state as well. In the in grades six through eight. With third, we had a tie locally. We have Mackenzie Norman and Esther and Esther Adesina in third as well. And in second place, Mary Catherine Holder, and in first place, Amelia Leonard. Esther, Mary Catherine, and Amelia also won in the state as well. Thanks for reminding me. Also, we have some teachers here, and I really want to recognize you guys. Thanks so much for participating in the program. We really appreciate it. Couldn't do it without you. Please keep participating. We love your posters. You guys too. You can do it until eighth grade. So thanks so much. Well, that was a great presentation. I learned something about Durham's water conservation relative to the rest of the state and the nation, which was great to learn. And so thank you all so much for that presentation. And thanks to the kids, their parents and teachers for that great work. And now I'm going to ask, are there any announcements by the council? Mr. Mayor, memories. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everyone. I have three announcements tonight. First of all, I'm I'd like to announce that I'm not here to scold anybody else either. But you should definitely turn off the water while you're brushing your teeth. Really good idea. The second thing is it's a little embarrassing, but we're going to be here together for a while this evening. Good number of us are I'm suffering from a sore throat tonight. So my voice is a little bit iffy. And if you see me going out into the side here to get some more ice from our water, we can still hear everything that happens in there. I don't mean any disrespect. I'm just going to have to keep going there to help my throat with some ice. The third thing I wanted to announce is that tomorrow is primary election day here in Durham. And Mr. Mayor, I don't know if you're aware, but early voting turnout was pretty low here in Durham, a little over 5% of all registered voters went to one of six early voting sites around the county to cast their ballot for some really important local races that are on the ballot, specifically sheriff, district attorney and school board. And those races obviously have a direct impact on our lives here in the city. The sheriff we elect will determine how deputies enforce law across Durham County and whether or not our jail will continue to honor ICE detention holds. The school board we elect will determine what kind of schools will teach our children and how our children will be supported by those schools and the district attorney we elect will determine how many how myriad criminal cases are handled here in Durham County from how prosecutors treats someone who's charged with the lowest level of misdemeanor possession of marijuana to how and whether or not that office will seek the ultimate punishment of the death punishment of the death penalty. These and so many other issues will be determined by the folks that we elect tomorrow. So if you haven't already voted during early voting, please research the candidates for these critical local offices and find those that reflect your own values and then follow and then find out where your local polling place is and make a plan to vote tomorrow. Folks can go to the Durham County Board of Elections website to find a search function that will tell you where your local precinct is located, which is where you'll be voting tomorrow. You can also go to my Facebook page at Charlie Reese Durham City Council or on Twitter at cm underscore Charlie Reese, where I've shared those links to find your polling place. These offices couldn't be more important to how we live our lives here in Durham. And I want to encourage everyone to get out and vote. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you very much, Council Member Reese. Council member Caballero. I see that your shirt is about to your previewing your announcement. Yes, I am. So I am very excited about May 16. I am read for Ed. I will be in Raleigh with my public school kids and we will be there in support of our teachers. My understanding is now Guilford County and Wake County have also canceled classes along with Charlotte Mecklenburg and Durham and a few other smaller counties as well. So I hope to see you on May 16. Thank you very much. Any other announcements by members of council council member Freeman? Yes, I would also like to add to the election day tomorrow comments and just say that it's really great if you have a chance, even if you have already voted to stop by and see your precinct judges and bring them some snacks. I know they'll be there all day. So 6am till 730. I'll just close at 730. So just make sure you stop by and visit your poll locations. Thank you. And then also, I had a few other things. So I read a New York Times article and it kind of struck me on the issue of shared economic prosperity. And I wanted to say that I had the opportunity to meet a few of our local business owners and I was really excited by Be downtown and Power Dance Studios and Mead Girl and Protection One. And these were all, you know, local local businesses in the community from folks who have been here for a long time. And I just really would like to see what it looks like to support them. I mean, with less than $50,000 invested in their businesses, I think we could do a lot to improve women and minority businesses in the downtown area and the surrounding areas around. And so I just wanted to bring that up because that it's been pressing in my mind and then also recognize that they would be willing to, you know, hire locally and they would be more likely to hire reentry folks returning from incarceration. I also had the opportunity to receive a book snapshot by a Marcus Hill. And I just wanted to make a plug that if you haven't had a chance to check it out, it'd be great. A lot of local students have actually penned poems in the book. And it's really interesting to read some of their writings. I wanted to also point out, I think Tuesday was May Day and I actually missed the event, but I wanted to thank all the organizers who pulled it together and made sure that we celebrated our union workers and our union organizers. It's important to make sure we support our local unions. And then lastly, I wanted to make sure that I mentioned that I know we had a mishap with Malcolm X Day proclamation, but I did resubmit and I would like to say that it would be nice to have an update from the May 19th, 2003 proclamation that was given previously so that it included El Haj Malik El Shabazz, because I know it's easier to say Malcolm X, but his name is actually El Haj Malik El Shabazz. Other than that, I think that's all I have for right now. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Freeman. Any other announcements by members of the council? All right. If not, we are now down to our consent agenda, the consent agenda. Pardon me. Oh, I'm sorry. Priority items. Pardon me. Thank you. Mr. Manager, any priority items? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everyone. No priority items. Thank you, Mr. Attorney. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. No priority items. Adam Clerk. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Mayor Pro 10 and Council. I respectfully request that Council remove the February 5th Council meeting minutes from the consent agenda item one due to a duplication. I'm sorry. I couldn't quite hear you, Diana. Could you speak up a little bit? Yes, I would respectfully request that Council remove the February 5th Council meeting minutes from the consent agenda item one all right to a duplication. Alrighty, thank you. I think we will go ahead and ask to just take them both off because they're both on the same item. And we'll just do them both next time. Is that good? Yes. All right, great. Do I hear a motion on the clerk's consent? Priority item. So moved. Second. Thank you. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Close the vote. Thank you. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much. And now we will move the consent agenda. The consent agenda has all the items on the consent agenda can be approved by a single vote of the Council unless an item is removed by a member of the Council or a member of the public at which time at which point it will be considered separately at the end of the meeting. And I will read the items on the consent agenda. We just item one we have just referred back for a future meeting item two adopt preliminary assessment role and set public hearing for confirmation of assessment role for sidewalk on a portion of hardwood drive item three interlocal agreement between the city of Durham and the Durham County for the sharing of sales tax revenue item four. Amendment one to Durham County interlocal agreement for housing opportunities for persons with AIDS, APWA. Item five second amendment to agreement with the housing authority of the city of Durham for housing opportunities for persons with AIDS services. Item six families moving forward 2017 and 18 community development block grant sub recipient contract for comprehensive case management services. Item eight installation of signalized pedestrian upgrades in Durham. Item nine water tank maintenance services contract item 10 bid report mark 2018. Item 11 design build services with the chase construction services LLC and commissioning services from the Kraken and Lopez PA for the city hall and annex HVAC and lighting project. Item 12 contract for private drainage assistance projects SD 2018-06 SD 2018-07 and SD 2018-08. Item 13 resolution to support the upper news river basin FY 2019 budget item 14 and 15 can be found the general business agenda. Item 16 through 18 can be found the general business agenda public hearings. Item 24 the 2018 Bloomberg mayor's challenge grant. Item 25 agreement with UG strategies LLC to fund Moogfest 2018. And those are the items on the consent agenda. Can I hear a motion? Move for consent. Second. It's been moved in a second that we've passed a consent agenda. Thank you very much. Just make sure that none of these items have been okay good. It's been moved in a second that we that we approve the consent agenda. Madam clerk will you please open the vote. Um Mayor Schull I just wanted to ask I noticed that number seven was missing is there um it was referred back in the work session. Okay thank you referred back in the work session thank you. Remind me what it was. I will in a minute. Oh no actually that was acted on at the work session. That was the uh Jackson pedigree street development loan commitment. The city council suspended the rules and voted and took action on that item. Thank you very much. Well now uh Madam clerk will you please open the vote close the vote. Motion passes seven zero. Thank you very much. All right we are now down to our general business agenda and we are going to item 14 which is the 2017-18 Durham Youth Commission annual report. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening Mayor Schull. Good evening. Elected officials I'm I apologize Mayor Schull, Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, elected officials, city manager Bonfield and city staff. I am pleased to stand before you tonight with members of the Durham Youth Commission. I promise them that I wouldn't say much. I'm gonna allow them to have the platform. I will now introduce president of the Durham Youth Commission for the 2017-18 term Ray Palmer. Thank you. Good evening Mr. Mayor, members of the city council. My name is Ray Palmer. I'm the president of the Durham Youth Commission. I'd like to thank you all for having us here tonight. But before the presentation I'd first like to recognize the elected officers of the Durham Youth Commission. We have our vice president Rita Kibicho, our community affairs officer Jenny Uba, our governmental affairs officer Isaac Atkins-Piercy, our media and public affairs officer Georgia Chotis, and our secretary Jake Jeffries who was not able to join us tonight. Now I'd like to introduce our speakers. They are Jessica Uba and Natalie Perkins, both our second year members of the Durham Youth Commission and have shown tremendous leadership for the past two years. Now without further ado I'd like to yield my time to our presenters. Thank you. Thank you Ray. Good evening everyone. Thank you so much for having us again. My name is Natalie Perkins. I'm a senior at Hillside High School and this is my second term with the Durham Youth Commission. Good evening everybody. My name is Jessica Uba and I'm a junior at City Medicine Academy and this like Natalie is my second term in the Durham Youth Commission. So today prepared for everybody is an outline of our 2017-2018 service year. So in an effort to actively involve youth in the policies that directly affect them, the Durham Youth Commission was created in 2005 under the guidance of Mayor Pro Tim Coral Cole McFadden. So the Durham Youth Commission is one of the 25 chartered and 16 uncharted councils across the state, part of a bigger organization called the State Youth Council. The Durham Youth Commission is a city funded commission composed of 30 high school age kids raised 9 to 12 from all over Durham. And as you can see these are some of the schools in the current dirt equation. So the Durham Youth Commission exists to promote civic education, leadership involvement, as well as service learning opportunities for Durham Youth. And because the Durham Youth Commission provides all these opportunities for Durham Youth, we were honored to host our 2017 service learning conference this year. So the North Carolina Department of Administration under the leadership of Governor Roy Cooper and the Council for Women and Youth involvement encourage local councils to host annual conferences that promote participation in leadership and citizenship programs. Since receiving our state charter in 2006 the DYC has hosted conferences in 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015 and most recently in 2017 generating additional revenue for the city. Our theme for 2017 was service learning and team building entitled A Day of Giving. And with well over 80 teens and 20 advisors and attendants we transcended across Durham to the Duke Lemur Center, Habitat for Humanity Restore, Durham Central Park and we helped set up for the annual Beats and Bars Festival. Our entertainment and highlight of the conference was attending the Duke versus USC football game. Our t-shirt was designed by city manager office, excuse me, in turn Lori Bryant. Effective this year the S-Y-C has mandated that each conference host provide information to attendees on a topic of interest to you. And our topic was the issue of bullying. We wrote down reasons why people would bully and as students were leaving they would stop on the papers trying to resemble stomping out bullying. So I will now be highlighting the other conferences that we were fortunate enough to attend and the conferences that we'll be attending as well. So in November of 2017 we went to Rocky Mount for the annual mini-grand conference. There with an annual appropriation from the North Carolina General Assembly as well as the North Carolina Youth Endowment Fund, we received we got $6,000 which we delegated to different youth projects of an upwards of $500 and some of the projects were building libraries in your schools as well as peer tutoring programs for after-school programs. So members also attended the National League of Cities conference which was in Charlie. There we attended different seminars and youth leadership sessions and also networked with other youth councils. So we also got a chance to listen to various guest speakers at National League of Cities such as Mayor of Baltimore, Catherine Magic John-Sana, Austrian Mark Edward Kelly and his wife politician Gabriel Giffords. So earlier this year we were also fortunate enough to attend Concord Youth Council's team building conference. So there we learned about the different aspects involved in team building as well as got to scope around the different tours in Charlie as well as Concord's World without Mortar's Viewway. So the Spring Convention which we'll be attending next week is the annual final conference for the State Youth Council. So this is just a time to acknowledge all the amazing works that all the State Youth Councils have done collectively as well as awards giving to the most outstanding council member, the most diverse council, as well as the scrapbook competition. So being a part of an organization where we are taught about civic engagement we have participated in our community in many different ways. We regularly attend kids voting offered through Durham County Cooperative Extension events where we help kids learn more about the electoral process both locally and nationwide. We also host our annual Peace Tours for War Toys event around Christmas time each year which is sponsored by the Durham County Gun Safety Team North Carolinians Against Gun Violence West End Community Foundation Incorporated and Durham Parks and Recreation. At this event we encourage and promote positive social play amongst young children in the neighborhood by having them exchange toys such as guns and swords for more peaceful toys. And last year we invited Mr. Sidney Brody who created a quilt dedicated to those deaths which resulted in gun violence. In January members attended the Martin Luther King Junior Youth Lock-in hosted by First Calvary Baptist Church. There we had sessions and presentations relating to Martin Luther King Junior's work and we also had sessions on how to solve problems in our lives. On the morning of January 15th we all participated in the march that took place in memory of King's work and legacy. And we also attended this year's community conversations to keep ourselves updated on the different aspects of how Durham is evolving and we participated in sessions on public safety, affordable housing and transport and Durham's education and economic development. In March D.Y.C. members participated in the 2018 annual women's forum. This is the third year that we have been asked to assist with this event and we were honored not only to receive the request but to also be in the presence of such amazing trailblazers making an impact locally and nationally. D.Y.C. members also attended city council meetings to stay connected with leaders in Durham and keeping ourselves updated on what is taking place in our community. Durham Youth Commission members also participated in the National Night Out event that takes place yearly to support building stronger relationships with law enforcement. A few of us had the privilege to travel with elected officials throughout various neighborhoods and it was awesome to see engagement on so many different levels and to visit areas of Durham that we were not so familiar with. So in the Durham Youth Commission services are vital part of our year as each member is required to complete at least 40 hours of service per term. So some of the organizations that we have volunteered in this year are listed above. So during the Disabled Label event sponsored by Durham Parks and Recreation we were able to promote a better understanding of people with disabilities by informing the general public about mental disabilities. Also through the Interfaith Food Shuttle we spent every third Saturday of the month helping with mobile market. A temporary market is set up in the community and residents go through the line and shop for food as we help them carry the foods and collect the food. Also one of our Durham Public Schools, Durham School of the Arts, hosted a Fall Arts Festival where students got to showcase their talents. So we were there and we were able to collect funds and help organize the event in any way possible. We were also fortunate enough in December of 2017 to go caroling at Chick-fil-A in the Hillsboro branch. There we received $300 for our service and we decided to donate this $300 to sister cities of Durham cultural exchange students from Toyama, Japan. So we also assisted in the Durham Parks and Recreation's parents night out. There we gave parents a chance to have a few hours for themselves as we danced with the kids, drove with them, and also played different sports and activities with them. So during this term one of our advocacy projects was mental disabilities. So in order to learn more about mental disabilities and how they affected us as students we broke up into different teams and talked about how we could cope with it better. Also in the Food Truck Rodeo and other events hosted by Central Parks we're able to generate to inform the public about a better way of recycling and the importance of recycling. So as a youth commission we proud ourselves in being involved with the city and here are some of the leadership involvements that we've been a part of in the last year. One of the ways that we do this is by serving on the Youth Advisory Council. Ray Palmer, our current president, is a part of this youth council. We also have Vanessa Taylor who serves on the Southern Coalition for Social Justice Committees. We've had an amazing year so far and looking ahead to the next term these are some of the areas that we'd like to focus on. One of those areas is connecting with other Durham youth groups who are doing similar work in our community to learn from each other and partner on projects and advocacy work. We'd also like to focus on one advocacy project determined at the start of our term and after collaborating with other youth groups we can revolve our term around that topic. And we'd also like to make more connections with elected officials attending events together having important conversations and working on hosting events and our projects together. This also means that we will be serving on boards and commissions. We want to have a stronger relationship with the city and the county. So we would just like to take a moment to thank all the partners and organizations to help this year be as successful as it truly was. Also for our students, college is right around the corner and we'd also like to take a moment to celebrate all the amazing colleges our seniors have a cutting accepted into. Thank you. Is that the last is that the end of your presentation? Yes thank you thank you so much for taking the time to listen to our presentation and we look forward to serving another year with the Durham Youth Commission. Awesome. That was beautifully presented and really good good good job and I'd like to ask all the members of the Youth Commission if you all wouldn't mind standing I see other members out there would you all please stand up. All of course welcome to stay but I hope you'll also do your homework. So thank you all so much that was great. Let me just say that I see some signs in the back of the room. We have a rule in the chambers that no signs are to be up. I appreciate that you're deliberately in the back not blocking people understand that but I think we have to be consistent with our rules. So I would just appreciate if you would put the signs down. Thank you so much. We definitely got your message however and have seen them so thank you. I'm waiting for my computer here to help me. Team first quarter crime report. Alrighty and now we'll have the 2018 first quarter crime report. Welcome Chief Davis and staff. Thank you appreciate it. Good evening everyone. Good evening. Hate to come behind the youth crime the youth commission they did an outstanding report I guarantee you mine won't be near as exciting but thank you for indulging me it seems like I was just reporting here not too long ago. Yeah so for the first quarter of the year this report will cover the Durham police department six performance measures part one violent crime our part one property crime part one index crime our clearance rates response times to priority one calls and our staffing levels. It also includes some of our highlights from the first quarter in this particular report we don't have an update on you visas because we did the full report during the annual however I will say during the month of April we had 18 you visa applications that were submitted 12 were approved so there was about a 67 percent increase in the approvals according to our records so part one index crimes is a total of part one violent crime and part one property crimes part one index crime was down by 23 percent during the first quarter of 2018 compared to the first quarter of 2017 reported crimes dropped in six of seven part one categories there were double digit percentage decreases in reported rapes robberies aggravated assaults larcenies and motor vehicle thefts larcenies actually accounted for more than half of these crimes which was about 55 percent of all of our part one crimes part one violent crime part one violent crime includes reported homicides rapes robberies and aggravated assaults part one violent crime was down significantly by 41 percent during the first quarter this is due to the double digit decreases in our robberies and our aggravated assaults this chart shows a weekly comparison of reported violent crime during 2018 compared to the same week in 2017 so as you can see for the first quarter week to week violent crime was down this illustration basically shows the number of crimes that were actually down from week to week the number of reported violent crimes was lowered during every week in the first quarter of 2018 compared to the same week in 2017 there were six homicides in the first quarter of 2018 compared to five in the first quarter of 2017 one of the six cases remains open at this time the number of reported sexual assaults dropped by 23 for the 24 sexual assaults reported in 2018 actually occurred in 2017 or earlier robberies dropped significantly during the first quarter of 2018 to the lowest first quarter number since 2012 we saw a reduction in both business robberies and robberies from persons the number of aggravated assault victims dropped by 39 percent and the number of actual incidents dropped by 33 percent incidents involving two or more victims decreased by 42 percent and the number of victims in multi victim incidents decreased by 47 percent 35 percent of all aggravated assaults during the first quarter originated from multi victim firearms versus 45 percent during the first quarter of 2017 part one property crime includes burglary larceny and motor vehicle theft overall part one property crime was down by 18 percent in the first quarter there were double digit decreases in motor vehicle thefts and larcenies and an eight percent drop in burglaries similar to the violent crime weekly comparison chart this chart illustrates a weekly comparison of property crime during the first quarter of 2018 compared to the same week in 2017 property crime was down during 10 of the 13 weeks in the first quarter burglaries were at a 10 year first quarter low this year down 31 percent from 10 years ago approximately 80 percent of burglaries were residential and the remainder were business burglaries items most frequently frequently targeted included jewelry electronics and computer equipment and on some occasions cash as mentioned earlier larcenies made up 55 percent of all part one crimes in the city 42 percent of larcenies were from vehicles or thefts of motor vehicle parts 27 percent of larcenies were from shoplifting incidents older model Honda Accords continue to be our most targeted stolen vehicle those of you who have them a trend that has continued now for several years moving on the clearance rates we compare our department's clearance rates to other departments our size in 2017 our population grew we're now in the category of cities with populations from 250,000 to 499,000 in the first quarter our clearance rates were better than the average for cities our size in all categories during the first quarter of 2018 keeping in mind that we are only comparing the first quarter and will strive to maintain our high clearance rates the homicide clearance rate is above 100 percent because there were four cases from 2017 that were cleared in 2018 moving on to priority calls priority one calls there were 2127 priority one calls for service in the first quarter of 2018 which was a 7 percent decrease from 2281 priority calls during the same period in 2017 our average response time was 6.2 minutes which was below our target which is typically 5.8 minutes some 50 seconds difference 49.5 of all priority one calls were answered in less than five minutes in the first quarter of 2018 our target however is 57 percent our sworn staffing was at 94 percent at the end of march 2018 with 32 vacancies our non sworn staffing was at 89.5 percent at the end of march 2018 we currently have 24 recruits in our basic law enforcement training academy that's class number 47 this academy is scheduled to graduate this summer we're starting to see good results in our efforts to track a diverse applicant pool our next class is somewhat indicative of those efforts this class that will be graduating in the summer currently has seven black males one black female eight white males six white females one hispanic male one hispanic female and one asian male we also have seen recruits from a previous class who took i'm sorry we have seven recruits from a previous class who took their state tests on this past friday and we hope to have them sworn in in short order in the next couple of weeks we continue to test applicants for the next BLET academy class number 48 which is scheduled to start in august we continue to accept applications for our lateral candidates as well our elect training this training is abbreviated because these officers are already state certified as a force multiplier we have started to utilize our retired reserve officers who now work at city hall and on our main front desk instead of having our patrol officers to man these positions allows more officers on our patrol shifts for the first quarter the police athletic league was very active we expanded our police at the athletic league in the first quarter 2018 to provide support to our public housing officer so there is now formal programming in our with our public housing officers the purpose of PAL is to provide mentoring opportunities for officers to engage with youth and their families and to enhance the relationship between our department and the community the program provides activities for children who may not have resources to participate instructor sports PAL includes basketball baseball soccer golf and cheerleading programs for our young people during the first quarter we had a PAL basketball program with more than 400 third through fifth graders who played from 20 different Durham schools there were 20 co-ed teams and four all girls teams we also partner with the Department of Parks and Recreation on many of these initiatives as you know in 2018 in the first quarter we launched our new community engagement unit in the first quarter of this year we started in mcdougal terrace and have recently expanded to the Cornwallis community the unit's goals are to build trust strengthen community relations through proactive engagement reduce the impact and the fear of crime and provide safe and secure communities during the first quarter it is obvious that our officers presence has made a significant impact in those communities the unit has 10 officers assigned currently one sergeant one corporal and eight officers they have a flexible work scheduled to meet the safety needs and engagement opportunities of the community the officers have already planned several community events officers took the youth from the community to movie with a cop at northgate cinema and then brought them to dpd headquarters and gave them a full tour and we had a very hard time trying to get them to go back home they enjoyed this outing so much they asked the officers could they spend the whole day with them so our officers are also working with a tutoring program at t a grady after school in their computer lab working with kids to help them with their homework and in a couple of weeks Saturday June 2nd in partnership with keep Durham beautiful the unit is planning to do a community cleanup in the mcdougal terrace area more information on that to come my last slide here is about the 2018 first quarter eagle awards in celebration of women's history month dpd held its second annual eagle awards luncheon on March 16th the eagle awards was established to honor women who represent excellence achievement and gallantry in their roles in the department three retired police women were honored as dpd's trailblazers officers mcfall and kiefer were recognized as the Durham police department's first female patrol rifle experts and Portia Sidbury was recognized for her work as the department's first civilian property and evidence supervisor investigated moody received the eagle crime fighter award for her work on a multi-agency task force focusing on a series of robberies and burglaries targeting asian victims in the triangle area her hard work resulted in federal indictments against six people three women were recognized for the sister-in-law award for their contributions to the work and mission of supporting others in dpd and at north carolina central university we recognize sergeant shero geiger who has honored who was honored for her work in helping the Durham police department annually during national night out and last but not least uh dpd crime analysis supervisor mary roberts was recognized for her exceptional analytical skills as she is a vital role in helping the Durham police department analyze crime trends on a weekly basis that concludes my report and i thank you for your attention chief yes sir that's a great report um we'll talk about that in a minute i think we have two people would like to speak on this item but before we do could you please introduce your two deputies who are here today and we all know them but not everyone does absolutely this is deputy chief anthony marsh and deputy chief todd rose great thank you very much thank you all right chief we're going to hear now from a couple of speakers and then we will get back with you and there'll be comments and questions from the council thank you we will have two speakers and if you could please come up as i call your name the first will be the reverend curtis gatewood reverend gatewood welcome we're glad to have you here and you have three minutes thank you appreciate it may are shorter than council i represent a ministry called jesus uniting souls to increase community engagement which is an acronym justice administration also a spin out from that ministry we have a campaign called stop killing us solutions campaign as we reflect upon Durham's first quarter crime report presentation i'm inclined to believe our city's police chief davis has done an outstanding job working to achieve maximum results within a system crippled by the disabilities of institutional racism and societal neglect for the poor and most vulnerable it is within that context i rise to say we can do better and must avoid becoming drunk from the wine of immunity when it comes to deaths in the black community i would like to believe i am part of a new movement new collective body of organizations with a growing intolerance who refuse to become immune to the continuous news that there has been another shooting and killing within our neighborhoods each time i hear it i urge everyone to be appalled justice administration and it stopped killing us campaign i have scheduled a press conference with residents at oxford manor on wednesday may 9th at 10 a.m there will be residents there there would be justice partners and others to discuss and announce a march that's coming to derm called stop killing us march and rally keep in mind even though we hold this event in derm it is not just directed at derm we also see derm as a symbol of black upward mobility as we stand in the shadows of the great one such as brother john merit who was a uh actually uh born into slavery but he was able to during 1898 while there were land takings and murders taking place in wilmington he opened the doors of north carolina mutual life insurance company we have as a part of his organization or about seven men a part of those men was the founder of north carolina central university so we use we use derm as a symbol of what can happen what is possible so we're urging those who are part of derm part of our society yes we're going to hold police accountable but we're also going to hold churches accountable we're going to hold organizations accountable we're going to hold our neighborhoods accountable and we must stop the killing thank you thank you reverend gay wood and now we'll hear from chris tiffani mr tiffani you also have three minutes roughly 10 000 criminal complaints and arrests each year in derm many guilty many not guilty and most of the unwarranted interactions with suspicious persons do not result in arrest but we are treated differently because of age sex race color class status nationality or where we live as a matter of policy and you think of any occasion this is a survey can you think of any occasion in the last year when you felt you were treated unfairly because of your race or ethnicity yes white six percent other 43 percent that's white six percent other five 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 43 percent 43 percent big difference suspicion is in the minds of the suspicious fearing threat where there is none so the innocent are often suspects a black woman by the name of sarin davis indicated on national television that she has frequently been treated like a criminal suspect right here in Durham North Carolina but it's okay to treat students like criminal suspects if they live in one of your in or near one of your target areas that's not implicit bias that's institutional racism against kids too young to drive or vote and unable to move out of unposed target areas but don't complain because as it was said at last fall's crime report law-abiding citizens don't complain so complainants must be criminals and then complaints reportedly went down after implying the complainants must be criminals so don't take police force use of force reports too seriously when you don't require police force to document use of force against pedestrians relying instead on complaints from civilians presumed to be liars and or criminals whose complaints can be revised after submission or made to go away and you keep denigrating city complainants that are even putting them in the county jail for verbal complaints where there's even more to complain about instead of fixing problems they try to neutralize complainants google neutralization of guilt cops misconduct or misbehaviors often like that of juvenile delinquents another survey question county sheriffs and city police chiefs and several counties were asked how do you discredit complainants responses included suggesting that complainants are criminals drug addicts alcoholics confused mistaken ignorant or liars complaining can result in slander by police officials and or other politicians as well as more blatant reprisals fix your complaint system and some other policies i've already indicated thank you mr tiffani all right uh chief davis uh we now will i ask you back to the microphone and appreciate your report very much um and i'm going to ask other council members first if there any comments or questions for the chief council member allston uh thank you mr mayor good evening chief davis um i want to appreciate the comments made by reverend gatewood um and agree that we can always do better and i'm also uh someone who's appalled by the rate of gun violence that afflicts um many of our communities and particularly our communities of color that said i do want to echo the comments made by our our mayor and say that this is a great report and i think it's important to appreciate when we are making progress here in durham and in particular i wanted to uh appreciate the lifesaving efforts that are detailed in your in your report um and say i know we we get these reports quarterly but that's not something that i want to ever take for granted um they were extraordinary and i want to thank your officers for their work um i did have one question in part just because i missed part of your your presentation but you said it was you we had a 10-year first quarter low in property crime or was it a particular property crime actually overall property crime okay i'm gonna check again but i i think it was overall property crime now that's what she's referring to it was that 10-year that 10-year spell that you were talking about the first quarter burglaries burglaries yes i'm sorry thank you you you you he confused me you're very you're very casual and you're reporting on that but that's huge well thank you thank you mr mayor thank you for highlighting that council member um council member freeman i'd like to echo um council member austin's praises as well thank you for the police force and for your work um i just really wanted to touch on um mr tiffani has raised this issue around pedestrians and complaints quite a few times and i don't know if there's any tracking of what that might look like or how that might happen but um is there anything that you can give a response on that well we keep a very very robust um accounting of complaints that come in and all of our complaints are documented but as far as identifying a pedestrian type scenario as being a trend or a repeat problem i'd be glad to talk to mr tiffani in in deep in deep detail is this a personal situation or is this information that has been gathered from other individuals but we can certainly look at our data and you know just me looking at our recent report there's no indication of pedestrian type complaints and just another question it's kind of just from some of the incidents that have occurred and some feedback i've been receiving i just wanted to know if there was any tracking on response time as far as wrapping up a crime scene so i recognize you well we can you're tracking how how long it takes to get there but as far as how long it takes to kind of remove a body from laying in the street well we certainly try to wrap up a crime scene in a timely fashion but depending on the nature of the crime we don't speed up the process because of the collecting of evidence now we certainly don't want to create an environment that's shocking to the community so crime scenes are typically especially crime scenes that involve victims that may have been injured or something of that nature we quickly want to make sure that the scene is safe that we can collect evidence and that the individuals that are involved get some type of treatment as soon as possible typically those types of scenes are managed by supervisors there's always supervisors that are around to make sure that officers go back in service when they're supposed to that's an issue that we discussed in length last year just talking about how quick will we get our officers back in service and move those from the scene that don't need to be there but we can always pull the data but every every scenario is going to be you know evaluated on a case by case basis was it a traffic accident or was it just a scene where an individual had vandalism to a vehicle or whatever the case might be we'd be able to evaluate whether or not an officer took more time than needed on a particular call I hope I've touched the area that you think I think I'll probably want to follow up on it that's fine we'll have a deeper conversation thank you I appreciate that absolutely councilmember Reese and then mayor pro tem johnson thank you mr mayor um how's it going chief good sir uh I want to echo what everyone else has said about how good it is to see the investments that you've made and the decisions that you've made about how we respond to crime reaping these kind of benefits for our city I think when any when you see a crime reduction like this I think you tend to want to know not just the numbers are great but is there anything in particular that you think is driving this reduction in crime is it uh I know the report the longer version of the report outlined a number of key arrests around robberies and assaults do you think that that's part of what's happened in the first quarter I absolutely believe that the work that has been done by the individuals we have some really sharp investigators and some folks that will keep pulling that peeling on that onion back until they get to the bottom of the crime and some of my staff are here and not standing up front but they have been very very aggressive in making sure that investigators are looking at connecting crimes uh communicating with other agencies of the jurisdictions about similar types of trends and mo's so that we're not working in a silo and some of that has been very helpful as well I think being laser focused on the individuals who are committing these crimes as opposed to spending our resources in other places I think has been very beneficial to us do you have any sense of what the reduction in crime looks like district by district I think that would be interesting to know about like are there parts of the city where the reduction in crime is especially notable we've actually seen some significant reductions in district one district one has had significant reductions and so has district four especially in the first quarter I really believe even though we're talking about robberies and and doing really good thorough investigations I believe the visibility and the type of relationship that we're we're trying to establish in that district for area has been beneficial along with the work that the staff is doing I believe also that our our vehicles our officers are you can't turn a corner without seeing a Durham police car now I think the take-home vehicle program has has really helped with the visibility in the city as well if I just again want to thank you for your leadership over the time that you've been here I think like I said before the investments that you've made that the calls that you've made and the important work that your senior staff and the officers in the field are doing has really made a huge difference in our community I just wanted to underline before I give up the microphone to the mayor pro tem something that councilmember allston touched on and this is kind of deep in the report and I know you don't like necessarily to talk too much about a specific officers but I couldn't help but notice in the report that on january 16th of this year there were two separate calls for support for suicidal individuals in the city within just a couple of hours of each other one of those involved a corporal vandal water who in addition to officers ramos and weiss who really from the description put themselves in harm's way to protect someone from taking their life on a highway overpass and also wanted to highlight the work of officer burke stressor who responded to a call I think the call went out as a man who had threatened to kill himself with a gun but when he arrived it turned out the individual had attempted to hang himself and officer burke stressor happened to come just in time had a pocket knife and was able to help this individual survive it's those kind of things that we often don't think about and when we think about the risks that that law enforcement officers take in protecting us but those two incidents in particular reached out to me as as situations where our officers are willing to do whatever it takes to help folks in our community and I know you're especially proud of those officers and they won a couple of your officer of the month awards for those efforts and they just wanted to say how much I appreciate that as well so thank you for their work thank you thank you very much we'll make sure that we share those comments with the officers it really does make a difference thank you thank you mr. mayor thank you councillor mayor pro temp thank you mr. mayor and I'll just echo all of the gratitude from my colleagues for your excellent work and the direction that we're seeing happening in the city it's really it's really great it was really inspiring to see the the changes that are happening here I just had one quick question in the juvenile arrest section of the larger report there's a very young child an eight-year-old who was arrested for vandalism I'm wondering if you could give us a little bit more information or insight around the process when a child that young is is involved in criminal activity so because the child was that young what we would typically do and I can have my my staff here sort of echo is to file a petition and you don't want to help with that because because typically you would because a young person is and and provide various help services for that young person that one's in the report but it happens quite frequently if there's no parent that we can communicate with then of course we report it to social services petitions are done so that we can make sure that that child was presented in a courtroom setting and have a judge involved and make sure those referrals and individuals who are responsible for that young person to make sure that they get the appropriate help that they need it's not a situation where an eight-year-old is treated like a real criminal because they're they're really a baby chief marsh did you want to add something good evening mayor mayor pro tem members of council manager bonfield i can't add too much to that um certainly also to i don't haven't read the report so i'm going to look into it first thing in the morning but there may be some other history there that we're not aware of i don't know if this was the first time or if there's a pattern or if this is a neighborhood issue um but i will have some answers tomorrow that'd be great thank you so much and you extracted that from the report yeah it's on page five of the report just as part of the youth arrest and doing out petitions uh listing thank you you are thank you madam mayor pro tem uh councilmember middleton thank you mr mayor good evening chief the entire command staff good to see you folk uh chief of course firstly just congratulations on the numbers thank you and the report i echo the comments of my colleagues i didn't want to say that a few weeks ago i took a daylight right along in district one uh with patrol officer jg mor whose professionalism and demeanor just really impressed me and and you know it flows from the top down i'm sure so i just wanted to put him on front street and make him famous that i had a wonderful experience i want to say to my fellow residents and citizens as well you don't have to be a council person to ride along with the police you pay for the gas um so if you're ever interested in getting a first-hand look uh it is available to you to take ride all i'm right right it is available for you to take ride absolutely i'm new here it is available for you to take ride along you don't have to be elected uh to the city council to do ride along so i just wanted to and i do plan on taking uh some night ones as well in district four so thank you so much for that and then i congratulate you on the the mark a change in culture that's occurring in our police department i want to say something else to you chief and and i i want to say it from this desk in this context uh for the record um because i i know that you've been catching a little heat from some of your colleagues around the world uh on the historic action that we took on april 16th and i want to be very clear uh that chief you joined us um during a program that was already in progress and that our action on april 16th was not predicated upon anything you said it was not predicated upon your recommendation it had nothing to do with you skewing or mixing words about what your experiences have been with your colleagues around the world that was us and any heat that derives from that should come this way and not to you you've conducted yourself with nothing but integrity and straightforwardness uh and your words have been clear as they were during the process of selecting you and as they've been since you've been here so i want to at least for me personally apologize if you've experienced any discomfort because of the actions we took any questions about your character or motives all of that fire belongs to us and i want to be on a record and for those that are i know watching around the world tonight i want to be very clear uh that that uh was something that resulted from a trajectory that predated you it was a family discussion that was going on long before you got here uh i congratulate you and i congratulate the men and women under your command and thank you and keep up the good work thank you sir thank you mr. mayor thank you council member middleton any other council member any comments many other council members all right i have a few questions chief um the um i just wanted to offer a word of caution about the fabulous statistics uh which are that believe me i know i think that i don't want to offer them to you i know that you know but i do want to say to the people who are here and to the people who are watching that um not to uh rely too heavily on one quarter statistics um i happen to have a theory about these statistics which is that they have something not only to do with the great police work but something to do with the weather and um i think that uh they clearly also have things to do for example with the robbery task force when you look at those robbery numbers and the weather had nothing to do with the clearance rates which were remarkable uh and so but i do want to just say to members of the public and people who are watching that uh we we had a great annual report from you about a month ago uh this is an excellent report great results but we're not going to see a straight downward trend trend in crime in Durham we are on a 17-year downward trend but it is also a bumpy trend uh and so i just i don't want to set expectations too high absolutely um i just want to mention there's a chart the chart with a burglary and i'm not asking you to respond to this but the three-year average looked wrong to me so i just thought you might want to take a in the in the powerpoint um again i want to mention clearances uh they were stronger than in almost all categories uh than we've seen in a while and the robberies and violent crime as a whole our clearance record was outstanding i do have a question in the longer report um there were six arrests on march 21st for prostitution and i noticed that services were offered from the crisis intervention team which is great i have concern about these arrests i don't doubt that there are i know that because i hear from people who say the prostitution my corner are the things happening there as a result of that that aren't good so i don't think of that as so i understand the problem but i also hope that we are able to be diverting these people from uh our criminal justice system and into the services that they need and so i wondered if you could comment on that absolutely i happen to know for for a fact that the recent um effort to try to um engage those individuals was met with a team of our crisis intervention folks and not only did they go out with the crisis intervention team they also went out with other referral type um entities and i can't remember exactly who it was but i know they do a collaborative effort to sort of do a pass off to individuals who need help also um individuals that are um under the influence of some types some type of substance as well so um it's more than just officers going out to round up individuals that are in a desperate kind of a situation in the first place so we have employed those services sometimes services are refused but we make sure that we offer them and try to encourage individuals to take advantage of them thank you i appreciate that i do think that's really important and i appreciated reading that in the report and i'm glad to get the explanation um and the you mentioned the the recruits uh the the on page six of larger report the the number of recruits um i was very impressed with and it was great to see it was great to hear from you about the diversity of our current BLET class yes that sounds like the most diverse class that we've ever had at least since i've been on the council i think so if i could just get them out of the classroom right i got it well i know they've moved along uh to a point where we feel pretty comfortable about this group but of course it takes months of going through the process in order to start seeing the fruits of your labor and and now we're starting to um see uh the the diversity come through in our recruiting efforts and the intentional effort fantastic uh the misdemeanor diversion uh statistics the the it's the department uh referred six 16 to 17 year olds and six 18 to 21 year olds to misdemeanor diversion court during the quarter just 12 people this seemed lower than previous quarters and i wonder if it was lower or am i wrong about that and it it may be lower we know that there is a policy that our officers have to comply with so if it's lower and they're compliant with the policy which i believe they are because they quite frankly have been very receptive to that policy um then that's really sort of a good thing sure and not not so much that we're locking you know young people up i think the um the misdemeanor diversion program is working for us and giving these young people an opportunity to uh go through the court system in a different kind of way but you're absolutely right when we first started this program we had huge numbers of individuals that were were going through the program itself but um i i really can't say why we're not seeing as many you know shoplifting and you know small amounts of marijuana and those types of cases but it's a good thing and they are absolutely following this policy right thank you and then finally i wanted to just second the comments of several of my colleagues councilmember austin councilmember reese about the descriptions of the great work of our officers in solving crimes saving lives of people intervening in mental health crises and i also want to say again to members of the public that this is available if you were interested in reading in a lot of detail about the work of force you can go to our city website where to the agenda for this meeting and you will be able to read uh in great detail the first court crime report which details a lot of that activity and i i think that's very valuable and i really appreciate it thank you any other questions or comments council members well chief thank you so much and deputy chiefs we appreciate you so much and great work we're moving in a really good direction and i just want you to know you have the full support of our community and we really appreciate it thank you thank you can't all right now now we will move to our general business agenda public hearings and we will be with item 16 the all west Durham neighborhood protection overlay and thank you Patrick we will hear from staff welcome good evening i'm matthew filter with the city county planning department before i begin i would like to note that all required notification for the public hearing has been performed and is on file for review in the planning department the old west Durham neighborhood protection overlay is a proposal drafted by the old west Durham neighborhood association o w dna with technical support from the planning department the purpose of the npo as authored by o w dna is to ensure that new residential development is compatible with the established urban form modest scale and mill village character of the neighborhood preservation of green space and tree canopy are the primary motivations for a formulation for the formulation of a number of these standards and that is their language the npo submittal includes joint text and map amendments tc 180 0001 a text amendment containing the proposed npo standards and z 180 0002 a zoning map change applying those proposed standards as an overlay to 428 parcels in old west Durham the proposed npo applies to only one and two family residential uses the main components of the proposal include establishing limits on primary and accessory structure square footage reducing the maximum primary and accessory structure heights standardizing lot dimensions to reflect the predominant subdivision pattern requiring a backyard tree reducing off-street parking requirements and limiting the surface area of parking areas i would also like to bring your attention to one additional matter regarding the npo text last friday o w dna requested that the planning department communicate to council they would like to amend their text proposal in section c one f to increase the square footage cap and accessory structure from 700 square feet to 800 square feet thus their new proposed text would read the total square footage of an accessory structure shall not exceed 50 percent of the heated floor area of the primary structure and shall not exceed 800 square feet as this is a recent development it is not in the staff memorandum but may be considered by council in your upcoming deliberations if the proposed ordinance is to be adopted this change will be incorporated unless council directs us otherwise for context the planning commission recommended denial of the npo by a vote of five to four and this was to both the text amendment and map change after a public hearing which was held on march 13th 2018 after the combined public hearing for these two items the city council may consider the following four motions two for the text amendment and two for the map change motion number one to adopt the appropriate consistency statement as required by ncgs 160a-383 motion number two to adopt an ordinance amending the united excuse me the unified development ordinance incorporating text revisions to article four motion three to adopt the appropriate consistency statement as required by ncgs 160a-383 and motion number four to adopt an ordinance amending the unified development ordinance by establishing a neighborhood protection overlay district for the subject properties on the zoning map thank you and myself for another planning department staff member would be happy to answer any questions you may have now or after the public hearing thank you very much you have heard the staff report i will now declare the public hearing open and i will first ask if there any questions by members of the council just member reese thank you mr mayor mr filter can i ask you to describe for me the specific role that the planning department has played in this process sure the planning department provides technical assistance to the neighborhood association so we help them collect data we help them they they share the ideas of the the types of regulatory text they would like to see in a draft we help them word that we notice public meetings we put information up on the project website things of that nature so but um are you but you the staff is not coming to us with a recommendation about whether or not we ought to do this right yes the staff does not recommend approval or denial we just merely state that it's consistent with the comprehensive plan and other planning documents and policies at this time the recommendation also includes language that suggests that the proposed changes are reasonable and in the public interest is that correct correct can you tell me help me understand what that means sure you good evening pat young with the planning department i think as mr filter alluded to it means that it's consistent with the comprehensive plan and other adopted policies and plans that city council has adopted and promotes those plans or is neutral relative to those plans so the suggestion that the so the recommendation and the report that the proposal is reasonable and in the public interest should not be read as any kind of endorsement by staff that we ought to approve this overlay is that correct it's not an explicit endorsement the the language of reasonable and public interest is required by state law it's consistent with your consistency statement that you're required to adopt but it does tie through that to the policies and and adopted policies in ordinance of this council it's not a recommendation but it's a statement by staff that it's not inconsistent with any previous policy adopted excellent so is it fair to say that staff even though that staff is uh give it provided a lot of technical assistance and the other aspects of the process that mr filter pointed out it's a fair to say that the staff is neutral as to the decision we have to make tonight yes sir thank you that's all i have mr mayor thank you very much council member reese council member for me um thank you along those lines could you could you give me some context for i know this process started about 10 years ago is it the application that is being acted upon now is was submitted in 2014 correct 2014 and can you give me some context around the compact neighborhood on 9th street and how it's related to this um the design district i think it was for 9th street in relation to how it works with this old western neighborhood sure i'm gonna defer to my colleague scott whiteman who was here at the time that that occurred thank you good evening i'm scott whiteman with the planning department we win the 9th street compact design district was created through the adoption of the 9th street plan there was a recommendation in there that with the added density in that area that the the city of the neighborhood should pursue some sort of protection for the the primarily residential area in old western which at the time was a instill is that a neighborhood protection overlay so would that have served i think i'm coming to council member reese's point about a recommendation there was a recommendation at one point in 2014 to have a neighborhood protection overlay i'm gathering from old western yeah i don't remember the exact wording that was in the plan but it was there was a recommendation that um we at least pursue that option thank you thank you mayor pertin thank you mr mayor uh i had a quick question related to um people potentially being in a situation where the rules were what they want to do very slightly exceeds the rules because we've drawn a line and there needs to be a line but there may be for example one of the things was one of the rules in the npo was a minimum lot with the 50 feet are there are there ways for people to if if their project um is just a little bit outside of what the npo allows to get a variance like they would get um in another sort of zoning matter through the board of adjustment correct they could seek a variance great thank you thank you councilmember middleton thank you mr mayor it is it within the staff purview to verify what the actual percentage of respondents were in a neighborhood that were in favor or not in favor if it's not it's fine because i've seen a number of different target points and numbers of just exactly how many residents support it and how many don't and then parsing of who's actually an owner or a renter so was it within your purview to get any sense of what the real number is so there is no kind of whip count as of today you know there's this category in this category in this category and these people are for and these people are against um there have been various uh parameters that have been taken throughout the process different meetings in which people registered their support or lack thereof or somewhere in the middle there is an initial petition where the uh city recommends but does not require 51 of property owners to sign on to the petition the neighborhood association got i believe around 29 percent not 51 but there is no ongoing whip count that shows a majority are in favor or majority are opposed there are different points in time that have shown that a majority of participants at a given time were in favor but those are individual meetings and it's only participants out those meetings thank you councilmember any other questions for a staff at this time all right uh if not we are going to hear from speakers let me explain the process this is a zoning matter and so a zoning matters require an equal amount of time for speakers on both sides of the question so those folks who have signed up um conveniently 17 proponents and 17 opponents well done and thank you and uh really appreciate the way you all coordinated that that that we will have an equal amount of time for both sides so i'm going to set 35 minutes for the proponents to be followed by 35 minutes for the opponents actually i changed my mind i'm going to provide 40 minutes for the proponents and 40 minutes for the opponents so that that will mean that each speaker i'm going to ask the clerk to please time each speaker at two minutes uh and if we do that that will leave about five or six minutes for each side for a response if you want to take that extra time uh so let me just say that again so i hope that i'm clear and then i'm going to ask the city attorney if that's kosher okay uh i'm going to assign 40 minutes to both proponents and opponents ask that each speaker take two minutes which will be timed you'll see it over here on the timer to my left if you'd like to speak speak more briefly than that that makes all of us happy uh and and then at the end that will leave about five or six minutes uh assuming people keep to the time uh for people to offer any uh additional comments that they might have so mr city attorney is that good okay thank you very much so that's the city that's the that's the uh procedure that we're going to follow i want to thank here before i get started uh our uh one of the things that happens behind the scenes here at city council is a lot of work by the clerk's office and you all know our clerk diana schreiber but i also want to thank laverne brooks and tonetta amus who we're here tonight and who are helping make things run smoothly and i just want to offer my appreciation to both of you all thank you all right uh we will start with the proponents and i'm going to call your name and as i call your name i would ask you all to please line up in order over here to my right and you'll be speaking here from this podium uh michelle nowlyn barbara wellanets or linus i'm not sure if i'm saying that right i've not i apologize simian firman jone dayhill kathy sailor boo walukas john shelf dan welch william r williams christine cupido cupido cupido i'm sorry i got that one wrong too uh bill can't read the handwriting plough or plonk ellen dagenhardt and then someone who's simply listed their name as susan uh who lives on legion avenue if that's you you know who you are susan sewell susan please you can do this marcia karenis memet osterk rob emerson john martin and those are the seventeen people that i have signed up to speak in favor now let me ask this is there anyone else here who would also like to speak in favor of the npo who has not signed up to speak anyone else who would like to speak in favor of the npo who has not signed up to speak okay it's not seen uh then we will begin or how you doing over there vivian i think we should have an opportunity have another backup there we go to give us just a moment of technical issues is this it there's there oh mayor pro tem let me know there's a young person in the back who would like to speak apparently they're already speaking okay thank you vivian another person who uh makes things work smoothly around here vivian cruise swatco so thank you uh and we'll now hear from uh miss nowlyn you have two minutes please introduce yourself and state your address thank you uh good evening mr mayor and members of the city council my name is michelle nolan and i live at nine ten verge street in old west Durham where i have resided as a homeowner for at least 20 years thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you this evening um i'm here with many of my neighbors to speak on behalf of the proposed neighborhood protection overlay um many of whom of course are lined up here behind me and i just want to provide a very quick overview of some of the considerations that launched us on this path of more than six or seven years ago first off is displacement of long term neighbors and friends many of whom are low and fixed income residents who've been forced out of their uh units because of rising taxes and rising rents and their units secondly is the numerous tear downs of historic mill village scale homes to make room for very large homes that would be more appropriate in a more suburban setting um and rental units that essentially function as rooming houses within our community protection of our tree canopy and open spaces whose beauty and wildlife enrich our community and make it so attractive for others and for all current residents we also wanted to stop the pavement of entire backyards for parking ensuring that those parcels will no longer support the trees canopy or even maybe a blade of grass into the future we wanted to address escalating problems of stormwater runoff the result from increased paving and uh increased expansion of impervious surfaces within the community green street now regularly floods in my own backyard is falling into the tributary behind my house because of the increased velocity and volume of stormwater from development up the street we wanted to protect the walkable bikeable and porch friendly streetscape that makes old west Durham so appealing to so many we wanted to encourage accessory dwelling units to retain affordability and we wanted to do this while accommodating reasonable in scale expansion as councilwoman uh freeman had noted is no one here two minutes i believe are up thank you very much all right thank you and now we will hear from barbara wellanets wellanets i'm sorry you can help me with your name it's wellanets but either one will do um first i'd like to ask the supporters can you introduce yourself and say sorry so it's barbara wellanets 26 12 west nock street and could i ask the supporters who are here tonight to stand just so we can recognize who's here thank you those are all residents of our neighborhood um i wanted to let you know because i volunteered to join the npo work group last spring how we developed the proposals a group of 10 to 12 folks first studied national trends county property statistics we gathered new data on the heights and garages of old west homes and took hundreds of reference photos we sought neighbor input and technical advice from city staff and resident experts we then focused on addressing the characteristics of the outlier properties that have caused the greatest concern and it's very obvious just how out of scale and character a few of the new homes are so the npo proposals were then carefully crafted based on data and adjusted after neighbor feedback we believe we struck a reasonable balance between maintaining old west character and scale respecting property rights and allowing continued densification the npo will allow and in fact encourage more adu development about 50 of old west will continue to be zoned now for two-family use and finally there is ample opportunity for adding housing capacity in the upcoming compact design district rezoning along hillsborough road we will work with the city on this so this debate does not have to be about preserving old west character or allowing for more density and affordability we can do all of those things thank you thank you very much uh simian firman good evening mayor shul mayor pro tem johnson and members of the council my name is simian firman and i live at 2707 west nock street i'm on the board of the neighborhood association and i am a convert to this neighborhood protective overlay when neighbors came to my door four years ago seeking initial support for this npo i literally chased them off my porch my knee jerk reaction was that any new zoning had to be some form of government overreach but over time i got involved in the neighborhood i joined i joined the association board because we needed a treasurer at the time i watered trees the association had planted around the neighborhood i learned people's stories and realized i belong to a diverse neighborhood of people with shared interests all while witnessing this steady increase in high dollar development so the house in the picture here is uh is my little 900 square foot chalet that i purchased in 2004 for $91,000 the texas has value today of this home is $259,000 so dorm is rising it's becoming more expensive and less affordable for any fortunately my salary has not tripled since 2004 and as a solidly middle-class university administrator i probably could not purchase my home today at market value but none of the opponents i've spoken with during this process have described to me the benefits that these oversized homes and thinly veiled high dollar student dorms bring to old west urm at the core of their concern what i hear is a self-interest in a desire to protect what they call their investment or their wealth i think we can do better this npo 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 this npo could be a cornerstone of progressive housing policy and strategies but i hope all of you as our new city council will help bring about the time is now tonight is that time i thank you and i yield a remainder thank you very much mr ferman uh john dayhill good evening thank you my name is joanne dayhill i've lived in germ for 20 years and purchased my home at 1006 ira del in old west 11 years ago it's been over a year since the neighborhood engagement process began during that time 16 open invite meetings were held in order to gather feedback consider options and gauge neighbor sentiment at each of the three publicly noticed meetings the planning department surveyed the attendees each time there was a strong majority in favor of the npo the opponents recently conducted their own survey the aggregated results including both owners and renters showed a 63 to 33 percent majority in favor of the npo the opponents have circulated a map highlighting properties that are in documented opposition to the npo however the right the map on the right highlights those properties that are owned by residents in the neighborhood this map serves to emphasize that non resident developers are a key component in the opposition to the npo our neighborhood is more than just a place for developers to make money it's a place we are grateful to call home and we're asking you to give equal weight to the people who reside in old west Durham believe that the current draft is a balanced proposal offering protection to the neighborhood while still allowing reasonable redevelopment and densification i urge you to vote yes for the npo thank you thank you very much kathy sailor you have two minutes thank you good evening good evening so my name is kathy sailor and i live in old west Durham in an old house at 109 hail street that i have owned for 25 years for that same amount of time i have also owned rental property in old west Durham including currently five rental houses and two duplexes within the npo boundary area 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 necessary for a habitable healthy neighborhood the lots are pretty small and we are all close to our neighbors it is a real community i look at this zoning overlay from two perspectives as a resident of old west Durham who wants to protect the neighborhood and as a landlord who wants to have rental income from it i think the npo strikes a very good balance it prevents developers and landlords from overbuilding and maximizing profits at the literal expense of the neighborhood as a landlord myself i personally don't have much sympathy for that approach but it still permits owners a generous allowance to improve and enlarge their homes but finally and most importantly or importantly it encourages more small separate units by relaxing the adu rules and allowing seven and even 800 square foot adu's on most slots large enough for the addition of a one or two bedroom apartment i think the npo will encourage the orderly densification of our neighborhood without destroying it thank you thank you very much and now we will hear from boo walukas you have two minutes thank you my name is boo walukas i rent my home in old west Durham at nine oh five rose hill avenue many renters i know in the neighborhood want to stay here and hope to buy a house in old west someday if we can still afford one but for now what's important to know about many of us is we live in more than half the old west properties many of us are active participants in old west and are engaged citizens that help keep the neighborhood fun friendly and safe we contribute to neighborhood and city wide events and initiatives we pay property taxes indirectly through our rent we are voting residents of Durham many of us support the npo despite some of the landlords placing signs on our lawns declaring opposition we are counting on the npo to help keep some of the smaller older units in operation as long as possible it's the small houses duplex and adus that will remain relatively affordable thanks for the opportunity to include our voices in this hearing thank you miss walukas and now we will hear from john shelf shelf you have two minutes good evening good people my name is john shelf i'm at 1022 rose hill in old west Durham we would like to point out that the single and two family section of old west Durham is already one of the densest in the city at six to eight units per acre the npo will allow neighborhood to add more density by encouraging adus or granny flats the truth is old west Durham has been broadly supportive of density within our neighborhood over many years we supported the ninth street district we supported the new developments at solace 810 ninth street berkshire erwin mills ninth street north station nine apartments all those are within the boundaries of old west Durham no other neighborhood association in Durham has supported that much density Durham's npo process is the only available tool for neighborhoods to proactively participate in their in their zoning if this npo is turned away it is unlikely other neighborhoods will pursue this option and they will receive the message that neighborhoods have little say in their future we prefer instead of the city work together with our neighborhoods to pursue the changes needed in our urban tier i've gotten to know a number of families over the past few years that have left the neighborhood outside developers have come in bought their houses gave them notice to leave they were they had their roots in the neighborhood they sent their kids to ek po they were right across the street from the food line they can catch a bus to go to work on the on route 11 they're gone they were sent out their houses were demolished and replaced with bigger houses that charge three times the rent the npo is not a radical preservationist proposal we are not trying to stop new development we are simply asking that the new development be in scale and in context with the neighborhood that means smaller than what the market has recently provided and smaller translates to affordable we urge you to pass the npo tonight thank you thank you mr shelb we'll now hear from dan welch mr barrett if possible i'd like to hold my comments and rebuttal that's fine thank you thank you we will now hear from william r williams my name is william r williams and i live at nand 15 hardale street with my son we are homeowners we've been there over 20 years we love always there we really do and we hope you'll favorite with the npo thank you thank you mr williams we'll now hear from christine cupido good evening mayor and city council members my name is christine cupido i live at 2406 angle wood avenue and i live in the watts hillandale neighborhood which is contiguous to old west Durham i learned from the wd listserv that a group opposed to the owd npo conducted a survey only for owd property owners and renters i want to officially and respectfully complain about being deliberately excluded from this survey on behalf of myself and all others within 600 feet of old west Durham boundaries who received letters from the city encouraging our participation and since our property values are affected by what happens in old west Durham i live within 600 feet of old west Durham and can see the backside of the unsightly macmansion on laundale from my front yard on angle wood one street over in watts hillandale it looks like those of us within 600 feet were deliberately excluded and disenfranchised in this survey my vote counts two and i am for the npo i live on the 2400 block of angle wood and i own three rental houses next door to me and across the street all in the 2400 block of angle wood avenue all four houses are adversely affected by the view of the unsightly macmansion and its two-story garage apartment unit on our block i therefore vote for the npo for all these properties within 600 feet of old west Durham as you probably know watts hillandale is a local historic district and we are more protected from other property owners bulldozing down a perfectly good bill house built in the 1920s to 1930s and replaced with ugly macmansions that tower over and dwarf the existing and charming historic homes i support the npo to help provide similar protections for my old west Durham neighbors and their houses part of the charm of Durham are the cute little historic bungalows from the turn of last century and i encourage you to support them i would also like to mention that the watts hillandale board drafted a document in support of the old west Durham npo i don't have time to read it now but i do have have copies for everybody on the council thank you if you could please give those to the clerk that would be great okay thank you thank you miss cupidow i really appreciate it and now we will hear from bill plonk improve your handwriting a little bit mr plonk sorry i'm a doctor fair enough then there's no way you're going to do that i was the one doing the scolding thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this evening um as i mentioned i am a physician my wife is a nurse um we moved with our three children into old west Durham nine years ago and purchased a home on rosehill avenue we love the charm and diversity of the neighborhood and hope to live there the rest of our lives just this past friday we hosted a neighborhood gathering in our front yard um my wife joined the owd na board soon after we arrived and has worked diligently on developing the npo she knocked on doors distributed flyers attended dozens of meetings and met individually with concerned neighbors uh seeking a middle ground between neighbors who want absolutely no development and those who want absolutely no restrictions the board has consistently solicited input from all quarters and compromised on far restrictions adu thresholds and npo wording uh the city council should recognize that this npo represents its last chance to provide any protection to the owd neighborhood from unscrupulous development if this effort fails i doubt the owd na nor any other Durham neighborhood group will make the effort to propose another npo in the future if this effort fails i also fear that old west Durham as we know it will cease to exist replaced by student housing and look mansions that no one not even a physician like myself can afford thank you for your consideration i encourage you to support the npo thank you very much and now we will hear from ellen dagenhardt good evening good evening hope y'all are well i'm here because i support historic preservation um i live in trinity park at $1409 avenue and i own the house at 900 verge street colloquially known as the prohibition house uh former liquor house and you know you should go on john chelps hike so you can learn the history it's interesting i support this because this meets the historic preservation goals it supports the historic character of the neighborhood it will slow the rate of the tear downs that we've seen in the neighborhoods it is an organic and well supported neighborhood driven initiative it allows growth through sensible expansion of existing homes and constructions of the 80 years to accommodate parents and allow tenant income new construction will be in keeping with the neighborhood this will help to slow the rise in rents and in home prices we know that the prices are going to continue to rise that can't be helped or dorms just too great so this will also see fewer tear downs that'll fill up the landfill there'll be less impervious surface with the npo and we sure heard tonight about how important water is so we see oh the old west dorm threatened due to its location and it's proximity to duke and we hope that the npo will stabilize dorm this part of dorm and we've lost too much of dorm some think this is too restrictive others not restrictive enough you might think it's just right i hope you will and that you'll pass it thank you very much thank you miss taken heart now we will hear from susan sewell miss sewell please state your name and address you have two minutes my name is susan sewell i live at 2904 legion avenue that is in tuscaloosa lakewood neighborhood we are the first to have passed an npo speaking on behalf of the board of tuscaloosa lakewood neighborhood association our board passed a resolution supporting old west dorm and their neighborhood protection overlay this is an important tool for neighborhoods and an opportunity to create unique zoning and unique areas tlna was the first neighborhood in durham to complete the neighborhood protection overlay it almost took us five years too we know from experience just how many volunteer hours and how many years it takes please i urge you to support this npo thank you miss sul marcia carinas please state your name and address and you have two minutes hi thank you thank you um my name is marcia carinas and i live at 906 carolina avenue and old west dorm it's part of the national historic district i've been in durham for 27 years and and oh west dorm since 2007 and um this past weekend we had hundreds of visitors come to our historic millhouse on the preservation durham home tour and um i'm not alone to want to preserve the whole the mill village and the history of these homes and the unique character of our neighborhood so i support the npo in hopes that it will help preserve the history of durham's textile manufacturing industry and i hope you'll do the same too thank you thank you very much and now we will hear from memet austirk and sir please state your name and address and you have two minutes thank you for your time my name is uh memet austirk um i live in a small millhouse on carolina avenue built in 1904 um and i'm really proud to be in that house um i moved to old west durham um about two years ago uh from a sterile neighborhood in carrey uh to me uh that was a huge change i mean that um old west durham was everything carrey was not all of carrey we won't deduct that clapping time from your time i was i had to say that i was particularly attracted to the rooted uh and historic field of the neighborhood uh proud pecan trees that witnessed many generations of north carolina families and many many beautiful gardens i had to say that i was also impressed with the care that many homeowners took with their builders in preserving the look and feel of their existing homes when they renovated or expanded their homes i was also impressed with some new constructions sensible uh sensible constructions that preserved the tree canopy and created beautiful homes that fit the character of the neighborhood at the same time i unfortunately i was very disheartened seeing some new constructions that uh essentially filled their entire lots left no trees behind and invaded the privacy of their neighbors i believe uh these uh how constructions are a threat to a gem we have in durham and so i do value um the uh a role of old west durham in the north carolina history and i would like to do everything i can to preserve that and i hope you will too thank you thank you miss us mr osther we will now hear from rob emerson mr emerson please say your name and address you have two minutes thank you uh my name is rob emerson and i'm here representing preservation durham and the current president of the board of directors of that organization and i live at 1202 north craigson street in durham old west durham is one of the earliest neighborhoods in the city and it's rich with reminders of our history and thus of significant interest to preservation durham part of the area included in this neighborhood protection overlay lies in a national register historic district the many houses in the neighborhood are physical reminders of the mill village that was so important in durham's early industrial boom although preservation durham was conceived more than 40 years ago in response to demolitions blamed on disinvestment and urban blight the challenges we face today are more about preserving the character and economic diversity of our neighborhoods particularly those surrounding our thriving downtown pace of change in durham is breathtaking and small well-built homes and walkable urban neighborhoods that were once affordable to middle-class workers are being systematically replaced with much larger homes of less quality excuse me local historic districts and neighborhood protection overlays are among the few tools available to residents to help mitigate these effects of rampant speculative development and rising property values and tax rates preservation durham supports every tool in 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 we fully support the old west durham neighborhood in their request for the npo thank you thank you mr. hemerson uh we will now hear from john martin mr martin please state your name and address you have two minutes thank you my name is john martin i live at 401 east trinity avenue in old north durham um i have lived in durham i like to say even longer than steve schule because i came to duke a couple years before you did um i i rented apartments in old west durham um for a number of years and then i um ultimately owned a house in old west durham right now i do not own any property so i have no financial interest uh in it but i know the neighborhood and i and i care about the neighborhood we all know that a huge amount of change is going on in our older residential neighborhoods that's true in old west durham it's true in old north durham um and and many others as well this is a response to that now i've listened to some of the things that opponents have said in the newspapers some of them have said it'll drive down property values others of them have said no it's going to gentrify and cause prices to go up this is quite an ordinance that can cause prices to go both up and down at at the same time um if they're to be believed the way i see it this is an experiment it's an attempt to see what will happen if we do this it's not going to affect the whole city it won't affect most of the city but it will affect one neighborhood if it doesn't seem to work if it seems to have bad consequences you can come back in a couple of years and and and and change it repeal it um amend it so but if you kill it now you'll never know what kind of consequences something like this might have had so please give it a chance think of it as an experiment an attempt to deal with the massive changes that are going on in residential neighborhoods in durham thank you thank you thank you mr martin is there anyone else who has not signed up to speak who would like to speak in favor of the npo anyone else out here tonight who has not signed up to speak who would like to speak in favor of the npo okay um by my calculation uh that uh the there is about uh eight minutes left on the proponents side all right um and now we're going to hear from the opponents uh and we will i'm going to read out the names of the speakers and if you will do as this last group did and please line up in order to my right um as i call your name and if you need some technical assistance uh i'm sure that someone will soon arrive to help you you won't believe how this happens but out of the back someone will dash okay Howard Sykes Joyce Sykes Marty McFarling Glenn Martin Leanne Nelson Jeff Moncine Rachel Moncine Overcash Jean Cristian Rostani Jacob Rogers John Temple James Wilkins James Speed Rogers James K Bach I believe Cyrus Duster Wayne R. Hadler Chris McKeel Nicole Robert and i'm sorry if i have not gotten your name right there um and if you all would please line up to my right now let me ask are there other people who would like to speak tonight who are opponents of the npo is you want anyone else out here tonight who would like to sign up to speak as opponents okay why don't you go over here and please sign one of these cards and then you can line up behind the others after you've done so thank you is there anyone else who would like to speak tonight as opponents of the npo okay so uh i'm going to call your names are you is the technology ready yes great okay i'm going to call your names and uh as with the last group you will have two minutes please state your name and address and you will have two minutes there's a timer over here that's in front of you uh that you can see how your time is uh and uh if everyone here speaks for two minutes then this group would have about four minutes left uh at the end of all of your time if you speak shorter than that you'll have a little bit more and i'm doing an estimate of that okay all right uh Mr Howard Sykes if they could put up the slides uh i know you've gone to look at uh several of the properties i think some of what you haven't seen working produce yourself with your name and address please i'm sorry Howard Sykes 15 twin leaf place uh 23 year resident of city of Durham um this is an example one of the properties that belong to people that are suggesting we need to change things i think it's sort of the i got what i want uh other people do as i say not as i'm doing uh i don't see that much between one and i've taken most of these from the work session slides where they showed these two homes and didn't mention that the smaller home is somebody who has written to the city council that he's actually happy with the home next to him i find more upsetting is i look at and again this is from the work section slide uh they're including properties 910 i guess because it had a high far is not even in the in the area that's covered by uh the npo uh 910 so at a low fall they didn't include the garage that's on there um again two items that were in the work section package so they presented to you the comment that an accessory structure uh can't exceed 25 feet within the property line but they're asking you to approve an npo this says it can't exceed 16 feet and needs a 10 foot set back so i find the fact that planning is verbally telling you one thing and you sign something else is very upsetting uh another chart from that uh they didn't have to mention that the reason these bars are higher in the red one is because they included multifamily homes not covered by the npo uh they've got a slide here showing old homes and house more than what but they didn't bother to include the 43 garages and six structures that are larger than 12 by 12 that actually changes a lot of these statistics uh thank you very much thank you let me just remind you all that at the end every you will have some time assuming everyone keeps their time uh for some additional comments uh Joy Sykes my name is Joy Sykes and I live at 15 Twinleaf place also and have lived here for 23 years um this the slide that came up here uh indicates when properties were built in old west Durham and certainly can conveys the idea that old west Durham isn't a community that's all looks alike it's been built at very much different times it's very eclectic it's not just old millhouses it's a huge variety of houses in the in that district it's called out keep talking you you can help her if you would like he said he was doing it um we talked about the adus and the proponents talk about um the increase that could be done under the npo with adus and even increasing the square footage that's allowed but because of the height restriction what it doesn't allow is a garage as well as an adu which is a an attractive way of achieving increased density and also in terms of the backyard canopy tree that basically eliminates um adus because when a canopy tree grows it covers 30 to 50 foot spread when it's a mature tree and with the height restrictions of adus we might end up with some very creative um and inconsequential uh views of the adus which um could have flat roofs of the of the winds reflected here and I would ask since I'm running out of time if any if the proponents or the opponents of the adu of the npo would just please stand up thank you very much miss Sykes we will now hear from marty mcfarling just to mcfarling you have two minutes please state your name and address good evening council members i'm marty mcfarling i live at 5014 renville driving greensboro north carolina but i'm a property owner in old west dorm and i used to live in old west dorm back in the early 90s uh basically um number one i just want to point out i'm the guy that since y'all a three-party mail hopefully everyone got to read it and understand a little bit better position on what a the npo could do to a personal property or that was one of the main things i wanted to try to point out was case in fact of how this thing may work with someone uh i want to know that the um npo the purpose of it was preservation of green space and tree canopy were the primary motivations for the formulation of a number of these standards okay we were able to go on and find some um department of um agricultural uh aerial photos first one being from 1940 that you're looking at right now kind of the big empty spot there is e k po you look down in the left corner the lowest point that's main street going in an angle the street above it that goes at the other angle and then twist to the side is hillsborough ray so you can get an idea that's what old west dorm looked like in 1940 the next slide will show you what it looked like in 1955 okay then the next slide will show you what it looks like in 1972 and then the last slide we have is 2015 and i'm not going to sit here and tell you what you're uh seeing but uh there's a lot more green in 2015 than in 1940 now please remember the mill houses were released by the mill and sold off to the individual owners in 1945 so in 1940 everybody probably would have had a backyard garden so they could have eat some food with the wages that were paid there and the other thing that really i need to um get you to consider is that the planning commission voted not to recommend this proposal they have specific reasons why so finally i ask you tonight to vote to delay this petition thank you thank you mr mcfarling and now we will hear from glenn martin mr martin you also have two minutes please state your name and address my name is glenn martin i live at uh 24 for indian trail in watz hospital hillondale i uh thank you for hearing me out we've my wife and i've lived there for 30 years i own three duplexes in old west dorm and i want you to vote no on the mpo uh before the petition uh to start the mpo in 2014 proponents passed flyers around specifically stating that uh additions to existing homes would not be affected only new construction would be affected they said still they only got 31 percent of old west dorm home owners to sign the petition to explore an npo in 2014 far less than the 51 percent the mpo before you now affects all homes existing or new the mpo before you has been started with a lie by the very proponents who pushing it in front of you today had the proponents not changed the mpo to affect existing homes i wouldn't be here okay um so when proponents changed the mpo to affect existing homes process should have been stopped thank you very much um i hope you vote no on the mpo and i wanted to say also that on the listserv when i've stated my views very pointedly against certain points i have been attacked saying i have no rights i don't live there specifically i have no rights i don't live there so uh i own three properties i pay taxes i feel like i have right to state my opinion and thank you very much for hearing me out thank you very much mr martin uh we will now hear from lianne nelson you also have two minutes please state your name and address my name is lianne nelson my address is 2404 indian trail i am the co-owner of three properties in old west dorm i want to say three things number one the proponents have stated that they believe that this will cause house prices to be lower this these properties are investments of mine these are part of my retirement plan i do not want to see my investments uh value decline as the proponents of state of the expect will happen number two this will not help historic preservation there is nothing against tear downs in fact historic districts you can tear it down with the one year waiting period this doesn't do anything for historic preservation i think it will cause more tear downs because it's a better deal to tear it down and build new since uh you don't get any benefit from adding on to the old house the third thing is um i don't really want to be part of an experiment thank you thank you very much and i see my time is it okay i can use some of her time um mr monstein you can use two minutes but you will your the opponents will have more time at the end and if you all can agree to you having some of that time that would be fine but everyone gets we don't we don't yield time at derma city council so yeah okay okay thank you okay thanks um well several weeks ago i met with don moffitt a former city council member and rental property neighbor of mine we discussed the npo overlaying he asked me a question how did you get uh so much time how did you i'm looking at the clock it wasn't moving so uh how do you lucked out yeah i know i got a couple extra seconds oh i'm sorry jeff monstein i live at 44 17 turnberry circle in derm um so he asked me how many how'd i get so many properties my wife and i decided to start a college fund for my children i thought rental property was a great way to do that um so it worked i have four children graduated college i have a social worker a spanish teacher one in hr and a son with a business degree but in addition to being very proud of those kids i'm very proud of the work i've done in old west in old west derm i've been investing in property since 1985 over the past years i've remodeled and refurbished dozens of homes and more recently i had to rebuild some of these homes these houses i have had to rebuild or way beyond any repair with crumbling foundations and many other structural issues old west derm has not always been what it is today for almost 30 years i had many homeowners and investors calling me asked me to buy their homes many of these homes were in horrible disrepair many were inhabitable and vacant for many many years i believe the reason many of these homeowners or property owners sought me out is because of my reputation of taking great care of these properties and i would not do anything to harm the neighborhood in many cases a lot of these homes were in the same family for many generations every project i've done in old west derm has been done under the unified development ordinance everything has been done to to match or for permitting zoning setbacks i've done everything above board um and as i mentioned if this mpo passes building a ad you will be next to impossible old west derm is a great place to live close to duke the future light rail system nine street this was accomplished without any government funding tax credits overlays uh or any other type of government intervention please vote no thank you mr monstein and i just want to say i appreciate all the time the city council members have given me you know on a one-on-one basis when we met so thank you very much for all that thank you sir rachel monstein over cash i have two minutes please state your name and address rachel over cash live at 1004 weeping glenn court all the way in raleigh i lived in old west derm um five years ago before moving to raleigh over the past few months i've had the opportunity to hear both perspectives of the old west derm npo one from my father jeff monstein and the other from the old west derm listserv as a former resident of old west derm i originally subscribed to stay connected with what was going on with the neighborhood more recently i've been able to see firsthand the animosity and hatred that the residents of this community like to communicate from behind their computer screens when my father met with council members um they asked him why so many people dislike him in old west derm and his response was that he was not sure i'm standing up here not only against the npo but against the fact that all this started from a small group of people who have made this a personal attack on my father every single example that has been shown in the previous power points have been my father's properties i can assure you that he's not the only one in the neighborhood who's been renovating and rebuilding homes one only needs to look at this listserv propelled by a small group of neighbors who claim to stand for the same values that old west derm boasts to have a glimpse into the feelings against my dad it is appalling at what comes out of the mouths of those who identify as neighbors who stand for diversity harmony and community i've read the rumors and innuendos and they seem to have taken on a life of their own residents have accused him of burning down his own home and purposely displacing a family to build a new one other personal tax have attempted to discredit him and hurt our family in the process he has been vilified as some profit driven out-of-town developer who doesn't care about the neighborhood this couldn't be further from the truth he has been in north carolina licensed general contractor for 15 years who has the ability and insight into whether a home can be saved structurally if he was going to tear down all of them for profit reasons that would have been done a long time ago think about all that has happened in old west Durham and the surrounding area it put into effect this npo will stop the positive growth that has been occurring in old west it will also hurt others from selling their properties i ask that the city council take into account exactly how this manifested and the kind of precedent passing this npo was set for other areas of Durham and this thriving community thank you miss overcash we'll now hear from jean christian rostani and you also have two minutes please state your name and address good evening good evening my name is jean christian rostani we have been living at 19 carolina for 22 years i'm an artist my wife is a teacher at Durham public schools as such we were never able to enlarge our house as desired so our girls still share a bedroom now we can contemplate expanding our house and launching my workshop and build an adu which will allow us not to be eventually priced out of our neighborhood in our old days we have one of the largest lost plots in old west so under current regulations we could build all this in a one and a half story format including a 900 square feet adu all for a total footprint of 2,700 square feet of or 22.5 percent of our lot this could easily be done with adequate setbacks but the npo would not allow this studies show that increased density provides more affordable housing protects the environment against pro i know that you may are sure and the council in general are aware of this as you are on record for calling for higher density in our town and doing so close to the future light rail would be ideal so i respectfully ask you to vote down this npo like the planning commission did if you feel that you have to pass this npo may i misuggest some vital improvements first no cap on far it is unfair that encounter productive that small lots are allowed to 55 percent for while it goes down to 20 percent for the largest lots larger lots are more apt than small ones that are committing the density this argument resonated with the planning commission which has expertise in these technical matters second a food base a food print base base for should be an option as it is as it promotes building up and reduces the amount of impervious surfaces you could add a provision that far is 32.5 percent of total less of total square footage or 25 percent if only footprint is considered whichever the permit applicant chooses keep third keep current high limitations only with this modification with this npo not negatively affect density local local economic development affordable housing tax action revenues and the paramount protection of the environment thank you thank you very much i will now hear from jacob rogers mr rogers please state your name and address and you have two minutes sure my name is jacob rogers i'm at 929 damberry drive here in durham i'll also represent here to represent the triangle community coalition and its membership i want to talk about this npo as it relates to public policy and how it is a a bad public policy and as it relates to public policy in a growing community over neighborhood protection overlays discourage the very things that we need creativity and a variety of housing options as we grow density will be the key to avoid urban sprawl which is what we've seen in areas like north raleigh the neighborhood the old west Durham neighborhood is very close to ninth street and we'll have which will have a light rail station and density is really needed to make those work and as we study policies such as the neighborhood npo's we must take into account our community needs today and for the future we see examples and other municipalities of how they've pushed development out to the suburbs and creating massive demands on infrastructure which end up costing us all and of course i also want to mention the missing middle for housing this includes do places try places apartments ad use tiny homes and all other types of housing are important to have as more people want to live in urban areas it gives us more options with a variety of prices i do want to plug in this added restrictions do not incentivize more housing more housing options and will result in less supply and therefore higher prices for the homes as we grow policies that demonstrate its exclusivity such as protective overlays only serve a small group of population and don't share the inclusive values of our city i'd also like to show your attention to the diversity of the people who stood up opposed to this npo and i would ask you vote no thank you thank you mr rogers i will now hear from john temple mr temple um you please state your name and address and you have two minutes nice to see you outside of walking around our block and out of shorts and t-shirts my name is john temple i live at 1015 hell street and i have since 1964 my house was built in 1900 the npo to me is a lot like the emperor's new clothes supporters are thinking it's wonderful they don't see the truth that it's not there's nothing there opponents like me see that it's arbitrary and unworkable that it won't protect which is their point the neighborhood the present zoning does that just fine the elements of the far just seem to me to have been pulled out of the air to me and others there was really no explanation or supporting reasons why the components that were chosen were chosen i think the majority members of the city county planning commission saw that and voted not to recommend passage of the npo because of that a lot of what was done to me has been secretive and attempts were meant were made to mute opposing voices like mine a control everything attitude that no one needs especially when the results of the process does nothing at all to protect the neighborhood i've lived in the neighborhood for 54 years it's always been a great place so i have a long history in the neighborhood many years ago some realtors and developers saw value in the neighborhood renovated and replaced some of the housing stock that was really dilapidated long ago a lot of these people weren't there to see that to me they were not attacking the neighborhood they were improving it now they are part of the reason the neighborhood is so desirable if this process began in 2012 like i read in the newspaper it was long before any of those large houses that are in contention now were ever even built but those houses i think have been used to stir up support for what i believe some already wanted to do control the property rights of others the npo will not help renters property values are going to go up and taxes are going up and rents are going to follow i fear the npo passage will mean fewer rental opportunities and lower density in the neighborhood i really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to to say my words you can read the three letters i've sent you thank you we have read the mr temple i can assure everyone out here we've all read all your emails okay and i and some of us have committed them to memory thank you thank you thank you mr temple uh we will now hear from mr james wilkins mr wilkins yes that's all right mr wilkins you have two minutes please state your name and address welcome my name is james wilkins i live at 9 29 alabama avenue uh thank you mayor shill and honorable counsel for hearing our concerns tonight my family has been on that corner we're in our seventh decade we didn't need anyone to help protect this neighborhood long before most of these folks came into the picture um maybe when it should have been protected was before then because my biggest concern and i've got a couple gentlemen in the back at life for you to stand up if you're still there there was st john's missionary church in the adjoining wall town their reverend sent them tonight they allowed me to speak at their service yesterday because i have a concern about what's going on in our community of durham there's a new york times article which is not the same article that was referenced by a council member earlier black people asking where do i fit in and my neighborhood used to have some you know racial blend we don't have that anymore wall town we were flanked by two communities that had that uh hickstown is to the ground and now wall town is heading in the same direction and that church and those folks are very concerned they don't want to see this in old west durham because they have a fear that it's then coming to wall town and i don't like the lady before i don't want to be a part of any experiment i don't like experiments that i keep giving being given results about what's going to happen with this but the results are you know that that's just someone selling you pie in the sky and there was i think the gentleman on the end asked or someone asked a question of mr filter about what the cities are planning department's participation was in putting this together probably the best way to explain that would be that if we were building a soapbox derby car and we were doing it against the two sides here tonight it would be like having nasa work for the other side to make that a super speedy car because that's what they've done and that's the real unfair part of this thank you folks thank you very much mr wilkins uh we will now hear from james speed rogers mr rogers uh you have two minutes please state your name and address hi um my name is speed rogers and i live at 1007 drew street here in durham just off allston av and i planned for three minutes so i'm going to cut a little bit um some people have already spoken about the climate impact of this down zoning um but beyond impeding the council's goals in regards to the paris climate agreement this down zoning is an unjust restriction on who is able to live in durham's urban core dozens of academic papers as well as high-profile books such as the color of the law by richard rothstein have shown that the segregation we see in our cities is not an accident of history but a deliberate attempt by our elected officials of the past century to segregate and marginalize people of color restrictive zoning practices are a direct descendant of jim crow and we should be cognizant of that fact when making land use decisions that will keep new neighbors out of central durham currently according to zillo the only home listed for sale in old west durham is a three-bedroom three-bath home priced at 512 thousand dollars it was last sold in 2010 for 84 thousand dollars this home has appreciated over 500 percent um in value over the last eight years let us be clear the npo as written will not only make old west durham increasingly unaffordable it will also exacerbate the displacement of poor and working people from east and north durham as it will incentivize would-be home buyers and developers to look towards other neighborhoods without such protections this outcome is not a matter of if but of when i urge you not to adopt the old west durham neighborhood plan overlay as it will hamstring durham's efforts to abide by the paris climate agreement and more importantly it will accelerate the rapid gentrification of both east and north durham the displacement of our most vulnerable communities and the exacerbation of our eviction crisis are more than enough reason to oppose this down zoning please reject the npo thank you thank you very much we will now hear from james k bach mr bach you have two minutes please state your name and address and welcome good evening i'm james bach i live at 10 10 80th street we moved to 1109th street in 1941 i've been in west durham except for my service time ever since my wife sonia and i said it live at 10 10 80th street and have since we bought our home in 1962 in expressing our feeling about the proposed npo for our neighborhood we both are 100 against this with restrictions on the old west durham neighborhood we would be lucky to be able to sell our property because of the restrictions in our case it is the renters who's making the fuss if these renters don't like the rules they can move out on short notice we as homeowners don't have that ability at the city county planning commission meeting a speaker said that he hoped this would not pit neighbor against neighbor this is already happening as stated elsewhere the old west durham association started in 2012 we homeowners knew nothing about this i am not on the list and have therefore not had the opportunity to participate in the npo process would it not be fair if we homeowners had the like amount of time to study this or would be invited to plan this together thank you very much thank you mr bach we will now hear from syris duster good evening council members i appreciate the opportunity to have spoken and submitted other items to you in the past and have more time my name is syris duster i live at 1002 oakland avenue i've been there since 2001 with my small but growing family i do want to assure you that one of the silver linings of this whole process has been my getting to know many new people in coming to the conclusion where i previously supported the npo and then found myself opposing it due to its uh increasingly restrictive scope and i have been really impressed that the primary motivation of this group is not simply about an investment it's about growing our homes it's about preserving flexibility for ourselves as heck i hope to stay in this neighborhood as long as mr temple and mr bach and we want to be here and be able to pass on our home to our children and have it be manageable and affordable for them i want to point out as well earlier you heard a reference to the survey that i know you've all have already seen uh out of the 43 percent of property owners that responded to that survey our results showed that a plurality 25 percent of property owners do support the npo and 18 percent actively oppose it so you take that for what it's worth this is a very significant change and frankly i do also resent being included in something that is an experiment that is simply not enough consensus to justify taking the risk and the unintended negative consequences that our neighborhood may experience with an unproven plan thank you for your time thank you very much uh we'll now hear from mr wane our hadler mr hadler please state your name and address and you have two minutes my name is wane our hadler and my office address is 18 29 east franklin street uh chapel hill north carolina i'm the personal attorney of jeff and janice monstein and i've been their attorney for almost 30 years i personally have closed every one of the properties since 1990 that mr monstein has purchased in west germ and i have a lot of experience in understanding his motivation and what he did in that community and also the night street community and i'm very disturbed by many of the unkindnesses that appear to have occurred in this process disturbed by the fact that it was almost three years into the process before mr monstein even knew that this process was going on and was contacted about the process i'm also disturbed by the way certain statistics have been bollied out in many different ways the one in particular that disturbs me is that mr monstein is viewed by the proponents as one owner but he owns over 50 properties in west germ he's a substantial owner of 50 properties he's the largest owner in that neighborhood and to simply discount that as one ownership when doing your consensus of whose supports or doesn't support in npo when in fact they could only provide 29 percent support in their initial volley to get support is very telling to me and very very much a concern as to why this would this particular npo would be supported at this time i urge you to not support this npo and to at least question maybe what maybe there's nothing really broken here it reminds me i was going to tell a story but i won't be able to get to it you can set it to us in an email mr hamlin i wouldn't do that thank you very much uh chris mckeele uh you have two minutes please give us your name and address thank you i'm chris mckeele i live at 8506 mediview lane in north Durham county in bayma i work with apple realty uh and i manage approximately 70 to 80 of the units in old west germ for about 17 different owners one of those is a supporter of the npo and most of which are not i wanted to come and speak to you as a native of Durham i was born in white's hospital on the edge of the neighborhood and i've promised my sons that they won't have to overcome my reputation if they decide to stay here in Durham and do business and we have prided ourselves on the work that we've done in old west Durham to maintain good quality properties good quality tenants and it has been quite hurtful as we've gone through this process to see a neighborhood divided and uh to be i guess demonized as uh being most of the problem many of the properties that you saw if they were built or remodeled in response to the demands for housing that our fine city has created a lot of that through duke university and when those tenants come in looking for housing they're looking for nice quality finishes they're looking for good size homes and rooms properties that they could possibly share with other students um we try our best to make sure that we meet those needs in those properties providing off-street uh parking and we try to use the ad u concept to provide some affordable housing in addition to some of the more expensive uh houses in the front of the line but the current udo has worked very well to be able to provide that housing and we've tried as best we can to to take some of the input even when it was not very kindly given to try to make the properties look high quality in the neighborhood to fit in where possible and uh and so i just wanted to state that the current uh udo works for this area it meets the demands of the housing that's coming to the area and if it didn't we would be building uh smaller units or different units but we're doing it to meet a current demand i think that that demand is going to continue but uh we're going to do it with quality both at the tenant level and the housing level thank you sir i will now hear from nicole robert i hope i got your name right this robert you have two minutes and please state your name and address right you said my name perfectly nicole robert i'm at 2650 laundale avenue Durham um i have a 900 square foot um micro house it's in vogue these days and i love it um i've owned my home since 2009 and i've been a resident of the neighborhood since 2006 i've been active on the neighborhood association i was a board member from April 2010 to 2016 and i was the president from April 2014 to 2016 so i've heard the date 2014 brought up a couple times i was part of the neighborhood association um and really pushing actually for the npo so i'm privy to many of the inside details um and that's part of the reason i'm coming to speak i supported the npo in principle but i am very disappointed with the process that's taken place and the the direction it's turned um i can speak to the details um just very briefly um i'm just made with the details in the npo in particular and i'll just use one example trees which i know other people have brought up that really the devils in the details i think a lot of the process has been rushed and things have not been well thought out for example we say you have to plant a canopy tree everyone loves the 80 foot tall oak trees i've been working with um alex johnson to replant trees in our neighborhoods and planting 80 foot tall canopy trees is really not advised in our small neighborhoods he prefers the understory trees so again just ill advised recommendations that this npo puts forth um and then really my biggest concern has to do with the process as i stated so um as robert your time is up thank you thank you very much um and i believe that this is barry mcmurray did i get that right yes sir that's right yes mcmurray yes you have two minutes please take your name and address okay thank you my name is barry mcmurray i live at 918 urban street in trinity park i want to come up here and first and foremost thank you mayor and the city council for the time for both the proponents and the opponents to have time to speak with you all um i don't want to be discounted because i don't live in all western but i want to talk about two things that i think are very important one is diversity and the second is density i live in a very dense neighborhood neighborhood trust me trinity park may be the most dense neighborhood i don't know for certain but it's an extremely dense neighborhood same time the neighbor next to me owns a house half the size of mine so and if you go through any neighborhood in Durham someone earlier said it it's hard to be the last person up here because i just don't want to repeat what other people said but a young woman came up earlier and said that there are there is no all west Durham house there's no trinity park house there's no Durham house diversity to me is what keeps me in Durham look at this look at the city council look around in this room you would not see this in carry right i'll i'll slam one carry two or apex or morseful um diversity is what keeps us going i don't necessarily think that this npo i don't think that's necessarily an npo is bad but this one is bad and so what i would say is please vote no to the npo thank you for your time thank you mr. McMurray is there anyone else in the audience who would like to speak against the npo who has not had a chance to do so is there anyone else who who would like to speak against the npo who has not had a chance to do so the the the opponents of the npo have taken about 34 minutes so you have about six minutes of time left i'm going to i think what i'll do is this i'm going to ask people to if you were a proponent of the npo and you would like to speak again i'm going to ask you to raise your hand this way i'm gonna try to find out how many people are planning to speak okay i see one person who's two people who are proponents of the npo who have raised their hand to speak are there okay are there opponents of the npo who have either spoken before or would like to speak for the first time who would like to speak again okay i see one two three four i i see um mr. roberge i see mr. restauney i see mr. monstein and i i'm sorry i missed that i missed someone else over here on the right or did i get those three people okay three people and then um two people over here is that correct all right i'm going to consult the city attorney for advice don't look should i do on the brass please i have received my advice um we're going to start with the uh proponents uh and you all have eight minutes um you can take all of it or as much of as much of that as you want but not more than that steve can i quick question yeah i feel like it might be helpful to ask some questions of the staff in between folks coming back up is that something we could do in this um let's let's wait until okay i'd rather go do this and then if you want people to come back up though to answer questions you can ask them to that okay yes perfect great okay uh you all have eight minutes go for it please introduce yourself with your name and address sure my name is dan welch i'm at 923 alabama avenue in old west uram um and i want to start out uh by addressing the idea of the petition that was mentioned that had 31 unique homeowners this was a a petition that was designed to gauge support for starting the process of engaging the community in a a process to find out should there be a neighborhood protection overlay the jccpc reviewed our petition our application at that point um and they uh they they noted that the 30 or the 50 percent recommendation uh was a recommendation not a requirement and that because it was a recommendation uh there was discretion over circumstances and so forth that was very much a part of that conversation and they said due to the unique circumstances in old west uram the fact that there was 57 percent rental property it would be unusually difficult to get 50 percent and they said given the circumstances and the demonstrated uh uh desire for the npo process to begin they made that decision back in 2014 that's the only place in the process where where the 50 percent is as any play at all in this uh and that plays right into uh counselor middleton um you asked about the uh the consensus and the and so forth um so during the uh during our meetings uh that the uh planning department participated in they actually publicly noticed three of our meetings and we're present um at a number of them including those publicly noticed meetings each time samples were taken the participants we had over 200 participants throughout this process every time we took a survey we had a strong majority not just barely over 50 percent but sometimes uh the last one uh that we did in a publicly noticed meeting was in uh november and every every component of the npo had between the 70 and 85 percent approval from the it was 86 participants in that particular meeting so we had a very very strong majority in favor of all the components of the npo the uh the survey uh that the opponents did um had a 33 percent response rate from the neighborhood that includes renters and um property owners even outside property owners absentee landlords and such 33 percent response rate uh which the uh the Duke professor thought was pretty darn high she was very impressed with that you know most survey people who take surveys would be unbelievably happy to get a 33 percent response rate and that still ended up with a 63 percent in favor 33 against um uh those were the numbers that came in out of that survey and this is the survey the uh the opponents conducted because they didn't feel like we had been thorough enough in getting rounding up enough uh people to respond they did the best they could courage to every house and so forth all we could get was 33 percent engagement which is pretty good for a local process um you know any of our elections or what whatever local elections that's that's not a bad response rate the participants everybody who's engaged or I shouldn't say everybody every time we have tried to gauge support of all that have engaged in this process it's been strongly supported um let's see uh there's been talk about this being overly restrictive um but you know even adding in the square footage for uh garages accessory structures and so forth um that uh we're talked about uh this encompasses about 95 percent of existing properties um in in the neighborhood and height wise it's even more than that something like 98 percent of existing properties are now in conformance in other words it's it's this is not something where we're trying to cap off what's currently going in almost all the properties that exceed the restrictions that we have have been built in the last decade I mean these are brand new things that are uh you know this this is not the character of the neighborhood this is not really an overly or it's hard to characterize this as overly restrictive when it is uh we're 90 plus percent of the the built environment is is within the guidelines um speakers from old west germa I was just taking note um you know we've we've constantly you know we have a very vocal group within the neighborhood and you know congratulations to them because they have been very vocal and outspoken and passionate but most of the opposition has come from outside the neighborhood including some property owners who are landlord absentee landlords and so forth um but I noticed that only six of the 17 speakers were residents here that's been pretty similar to what we've been seeing in terms of opposition numbers uh that we've we've seen all along most of it is coming from outside the neighborhood um let's see there was a comment about night on the listserv I did want to address that because uh one of the planning commissioners responded they heard that comment and felt like that had some merit and actually that's one of the reason they gave for not uh supporting what we had done uh we have yes there was a lot of talk on the listserv it's been general discussion for the most part publicly uh we have flired the neighborhood at least five times that I can remember uh we've had public uh notices sent out by the planning department who were greatly helpful in that making sure that every address and every outside uh property owner outside the state wherever they may be got notices that was done for at least three of our public meetings it's not like if you weren't on the listserv um you weren't able to to find out about what was going on this is this has been very well publicized um I do want to talk about the uh the idea of the missing middle housing that Jacob Rogers Triangle Community Coalition who's you know you know once again an outside real estate person who's coming kind of inserting themselves here but uh you know he's talking about that this might prevent the missing middle housing in Durham and this is only applying to single and two families explicitly within the the NPO it says it only applies to single and two family houses housing it will not affect if at some point through council you know you decided to do some zoning that came up with uh triplex quadplex whatever you know I don't know where all that's headed but certainly nothing in the NPO is going to preclude anything I just want to be any of that activity so I just want to be very clear about that that's that's explicitly in the uh in the NPO um let's see uh Mr. Monsign uh you know I I certainly passions have run high at times and comments have been made about Mr. Monsign uh this is not about Jeff Monsign there's not any kind of a personal thing uh he says everything um he has built conforms to the UDO and if you've driven through uh Old West Durham and taken a look at some of the backyards the paving the the crazy differences in height from one uh structure to the other I'm not disputing that right now he's conforming to the UDO but that is the problem that the UDO is not giving us the protections we need to make sure that our backyards aren't fully paved and that our houses you know we're not getting three and you know three stories and more houses next to to little bungalows you know it's it's it's crazy when you go over and look at some of the uh the juxtaposition of the of the different sizes of housing and what's what's happening with the properties and so I just want to point out that he makes the point perfectly that that's the problem there's not enough protection in the UDO for our neighborhood uh given our small lot small houses uh and finally you know ADU we can add a lot of density ADUs you know we're going to uh expand that by three to four times the possibility of of adding ADUs we've got more density that can go in and Hillsborough Road and we're looking forward to getting involved and engaged in that rezoning when that I know it's been put off for Irwin Road but we're you know that we know it will will involve some higher density and and once again this does not preclude the the missing middle housing you know there's there's a lot of densification that can still take place we're hoping that we can protect what's on the ground as we move forward and figure out what what densification is going to look like in Durham we're hoping we get some protections for what's here now and then we can engage and figure out what that's going to look like over the coming years and and hopefully all our historic homes won't be gone at that point thank you um I believe you have 11 seconds in 11 seconds you can say stuff like this thank you very much it's Barbara well and it's again from knock street I just want to say that for the most part I believe and I think a lot of people here do too that the process has been civil there have been a few hot tempers um on both sides thank you thank you very much all right uh the proponents have now used all of their time uh the opponents have six minutes and I believe there are three people who would like to speak and if you all will line up over here to the right all right mr. Moncy you're going to get started go ahead Jeff Moncy same address I was before yes sir uh in the past um 10 years there's been 19 homes torn down and rebuilt per the indie magazine or uh indie newspaper so at that rate I mean that's less than four and a half percent of the homes uh in 10 years that have been torn down and and this is an old neighborhood these houses are in horrible disrepair and I think one thing too and uh you know everybody you know I grew up in Durham okay I mean Old West Durham isn't what it is is today in the in the 80s the houses where I had drug dealers in them people parking in the front yards dirt dirt in the front and it wasn't it wasn't a great place and you know and you know and I feel like you know I've come came in there and I bought houses I fixed them up tried to make nice places to live and tried to take a lot of pride in the neighborhood contrary to what you've said or what you've heard I have never built a six bedroom house never ever okay when I went to get my permit for one of the houses I was going to rebuild they caught on fire I went down to the planning department and one of the uh planning guy said hey Jeff you know you can build an adu I didn't know what the heck an adu was they the planning people suggested that I could build it okay so I said okay great idea they told me what to do how to do it hence I built two adus in the neighborhood and have a third one going on hail street that we that's in the process but with all that said this is gonna you know it's gonna it'll affect everybody but guys like Cyrus Duster David Clayton John Temple Mr. Bach Buddy Wilkins these guys that live in the neighborhood uh uh Jean Christian this is who this thing is gonna affect okay I'll manage I'll be fine I've got 53 properties okay and I know what contrary to what uh uh Welch said this has been a target on me and uh you know but it's gonna hurt the individual homeowners so I'm gonna see you thank you Mr. Muncie very very quickly I just wanted to mention I had sat through the November 11th meeting it was referred to which was orchestrated where it required an elderly person to finally stand up and say I came here I want to be able to say something it was absolutely a horrific unkind scene to have sat in that meeting and witnessed how people came out wanting to oppose their view and really didn't have that opportunity so I think there's there's some of the news that's being shared here that's just not accurate to what my personal experience was thank you thank you Mr. Rastani good evening again um I wanted to say that I I love Mr. Martin not Glenn Martin I love him too but I also love Mr. John Martin it's just so happens that Martin seems to be the most common name in French and also in America there's probably a lesson too to be learned from that so I love Mr. Martin and because of that I welcome to make in and to make an experiment on his own house in Old Norfolk Durham and and then I want to talk about Trinity Park because Trinity Park in my book and probably for most people is the most beautiful neighborhood in Durham it also happens to be the densest neighborhood in Durham I don't know that for a fact what amount of far they have but I I'm pretty sure that there are some lots which exceed a hundred percent far so I mean this is this demonstrates that you can have a very dense neighborhood with totally historic house beautiful house that is that serves the the goals of the city and all that in a very dense neighborhood thank you very much thank you hi Nicole Roberge again I wanted to touch briefly on community engagement and the role of the Old West Durham Neighborhood Association I don't think they play an appropriate role when it comes to property rights their role is better placed for social engagement parties neighborhood block parties and currently the board has decided that they're going to move the elections they did not hold elections this spring which their bylaws say that they were to do it was an inconvenient time there was a lot of opposition specifically over this particular issue and to me that shows the lack of community engagement the idea that we don't want opposing voices on the board that there's not placed on the board for people there's not appropriate democratic principles within our own neighborhood association and there are other issues in terms of actual membership and it probably started in the transition to when I took over as president without realizing it that we remove some aspects of the bylaws that should not have been removed and that's problematic but I get more and more frustrated when I hear that the elections are canceled or moved or we don't have space on the neighborhood association board we're not looking for folks right now and that really demonstrates how much this neighborhood association has tried to silence any opposition and doesn't want to work with other folks I really urge you to vote against the npo if you do choose to vote for the npo or to move ahead with this sort of proposal my recommendation is to have the neighborhood association work with an outside independent group I know that the city for many of its planning projects does work with outside organizations to help solicit opinion and analyze results and I think that that would be a good move if the city council were to decide to move ahead with this npo but I urge you to vote against the npo and it's current form thank you thank you is there anyone else who would like to speak either in favor or against the npo who has not been heard from yet all right I see a hand why don't you come to the podium please and state whether or not you are first of all state your name and address and whether or not you are in favor or opposed to the npo because we'll be giving more time to the other side and please go ahead thank you my name is Joe Arlinghouse and I live at 1019 Hale Street well within Old West Durham and I wanted to say something for a an african-american woman who was sitting next to me Mr Arlinghouse yes it's important that you say whether or not you're speaking in favor or against the npo that I am in favor of the npo thank you definitely in favor of the npo and the woman who was sitting next to me had to leave early because she's ill and she needs to get the bed early but she was telling me she lives on Lawndale next to two big houses that were recently built there and those houses also have driveways that cover a lot of the ground of the those lots she said the trees were taken down there's hardly any grass that grows on those lots and her house is right up next to them and it blocks her view she feels like she's been hemmed in by these new buildings and when she was talking about that to me sitting next to me I was thinking that's exactly what I don't want to happen next to me on my property on Hale thank you is there anyone else who would like to speak before or against the npo yes now you already spoke before I'm sorry is there anyone else that has not spoken that would like to speak let me say again please state your name your address and whether or not you are speaking in favor of or against the npo I will I'm Susan Esperson I live at 2705 Lawndale Avenue I am for the npo I'm extremely nervous I'm a preschool teacher I talk to children I'm not used to adults what I'm gonna say is I live next door to a house that used to be a duplex that housed two families with five children in the duplex all of them were in our schools the parents worked at local restaurants they are gone their house is gone the house that has been replaced is a four bedroom five and a half four and a half bath house it's lovely I don't see out of the west side of my house anymore because I look at a wall in my backyard I don't look at the children playing in the backyard one because there are no children and two there's a white wall fence between my house and my neighbor's house so people have left thank you please vote for the npo I appreciate your time thank you very much is there anyone else who would like to speak on this npo issue who has not spoken before all right thank you Mr. Mayor I saw you speaking with the city attorney just a moment ago do either of you have a concern that the proponents were given additional time we do have a concern that the proponents were given additional time and so if there is anyone on the opponents who would like to speak who has already spoken there I would there I would estimate another two minutes of time for the opponents is there anyone who would so like to speak John christian please come up you have two minutes I might as well believe John a speed rogers was raising his hand as well Mr. John christian you have two minutes for the opponents and you all can do it any way you'd like get going all right thank you very much I'd like to answer to the young woman who just spoke it's unfortunate that there are market pressure in this town like everywhere else in America and you know the problem is that the npo is not going to improve that it's going to build more exclusivity in this neighborhood and as somebody talked abundantly earlier on I think it's the gentleman who's going to speak after me the npo is only going to exacerbate that and actually displace the problem in in a contagion effect to other neighborhoods in Durham so unfortunately this was bad argument to to to try to to to defend the npo and that's all what I had to say thank you very much thank you Mr. Wilkins all right James Wilkins again 929 Alabama avenue just a couple things at the planning commission meeting I found it interesting that I don't remember the particular member but you could go back and look it up they opened the discussion by saying this entire process is about control I found that an interesting comment now they then continued they were it was a five to four vote they were one of the four yeas so I find it interesting that you would look at this kind of division and process and state that it's about control but yet then vote for it and when they want to talk about the process and it being fair and nice I made numerous trips to ekpo my mother who's 81 couldn't be here tonight but she was here for the planning commission and she also made two trips to ekpo with me and there was a point where she wanted to make a statement because she was born at the part of eat a street that led to the mill gate for her with cotton mill at home not even in a hospital and she had some relative things to say we had to force our way into the conversation and before she could even finish speaking people were talking over thank you mr. Wilkins not a good process all right we have now heard from all the speakers that we're going to be hearing from and we appreciate that very much I'm not going to close the public hearing at this point I am going to now ask council members for comments and questions that they may have but I'm going to keep the public hearing open at this point mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor I've got some questions for staff hey thank you good evening a couple of folks have mentioned that the mpo imposes additional setbacks that was not something that I could find in in the text and I'm wondering if that exists for accessory structures that exceed I believe 16 feet in apex height there is a setback bump to 10 feet okay currently I believe three correct okay and what's the reasoning for that I believe that the neighborhood association wanted to create a little buffer between large accessories struck well relative to the neighborhood large accessory structures in the property line in the rear okay is it and is it just a rear setback or is it all sides rear property line rear property line great thank you so much um also this question of a two inch caliber tree my understanding just from quick googling because I know nothing about trees um is that a two inch caliber tree would be something between eight and 14 feet tall is there anyone else who knows about trees who could tell me good evening pat young with plenty of apartment I am not an arborist or an expert on trees but I have worked professionally for over 20 years with regulation of trees and what I've learned is there is a diversity and variety of canopy trees there can be smaller canopy trees and larger canopy trees most people think of the large canopy trees oaks or traditional canopy trees but a two inch caliber tree is normally planted at between six and ten feet when it's planted but the maturity height can be different based on the species okay so maybe that was the the distance between the trees okay um and um a couple people had concerns about how an MPO might make a neighborhood more expensive I'm unclear what mechanism that would by which an MPO would make an or an a neighborhood more expensive and was wondering if y'all had a professional opinion about that sure good evening pat young again with the planning department we if I may harken back quick quickly to Councilman Reeves's question of us at the outset about our position on this MPO this is one of the only it really is the only tool in the unified development ordinance that is a citizen led process and we're very and we're very respectful of that but when we started this process we wanted to make sure that did not in any way impact significantly espouse goals of this council or adopted policies and one of those key issues is affordability um we did a lot of research on the impact of this type of tool a neighborhood protection tool on affordability there is over a dozen of them in Chapel Hill and over a dozen in Raleigh and hundreds that are very similar regionally and nationally and here's what the evidence shows in general um there are very few exceptions where there were in the exceptions or where there were significant changes in the amount of demand but I would certainly echo what a lot of the speakers said which is Durham is amazing Durham is awesome the trend for demand of people wanting to live in Durham is increased dramatically in my nine and a half years here um and I don't I don't see anything changing that demand curve so if you assume that demand for this neighborhood will stay high and and I think that's a very strong assumption then what is very likely to happen is that on individual uh the the economic yield of individual lots uh will be less because there are restrictions on the size and the amount of built area that can be built on individual lots but that the overall value of the neighborhood cumulatively in terms of things like tax value and affordable rents um there is not significant change there's certainly not reduction um and um there can be increases based on the fact that there is going to be less supply available on the market so um it's a very individual lots maybe slightly less valuable overall the value it tends to stay stable or increase because there is a high market demand for uh a neighborhood where there's going to be a consistent built form you see this with historic districts and you see this with npo's where the market will bid up price somewhat because of the fact that um there's a greater consistency of what can be built in the neighborhood thank you that's helpful i'm trying to balance that with the idea that the npo will also help reduce tear downs of historic homes and prevent displacement of renters by making it less um economically desirable to build a big build something that's much bigger and more profitable right so i think there would be need to be further economic analysis to really get directly at that assertion but what we can say generally is that um in the short term the amount of incentive to do a tear down and build a much larger house is is reduced and therefore there the life the economic lifetime of some of the existing older smaller more affordable units may be extended marginally by this the the um exact impact to that is very difficult to predict based on the changing economics and market conditions okay thank you thank you i could chime in for just a moment i wanted to clarify an answer i gave to the mayor protem just a moment to go and i'm just going to read as it relates to the setbacks from the ordinance i misspoke slightly and i want to correct the record uh if the apex height of an accessory structure exceeds 16 feet then the structure must be set back a minimum of 10 feet from any property line not just the rear except when that property line of but so dedicated right of way undeveloped land or non-residential land use okay thank you and isn't isn't 16 feet an average height for an adu or is that a big one it would depend on if it's one or two stories so it's like a two-story adu 16 feet economic not accommodated two-story adu okay so if it's if there was to be a two-story adu it would be tight under the existing height caps it would probably more like one and a half but it would have to be bumped back 10 feet yep okay thank you thank you are the council members with questions comments at this point any council members with questions or comments at this point i have some questions for staff council member caballero so based on the current guidelines in the npo there's height restrictions and the setback and the square footage of an auxiliary adu correct yes and planning um opinion with all those restrictions are adus going to be a building that can actually be built if that makes sense my question makes sense yeah it would just be different than some of the ones that are being built at present okay any more questions out here any more questions council members more questions all right um i'm going to declare this public hearing closed in the matters now before the council for any questions or comments that council members may have council members council member rice i decided to go first because i can speak less than any of my colleagues i count that as a blessing council member whatever awesome um my colleagues have heard me say this before but i'm a lawyer by training i was a courtroom prosecutor and i always hated crime tv shows because there's always this big pause before the jury reads out the verdict and they the especially when a judge is making a ruling it's like on the one hand on the other hand you never there's a stringing you along i hate to do that so i'm going to just be up front and then i'll talk about why a little bit i plan to vote in favor of the overlay tonight i want to say first of all how much i appreciate how hard our staff has worked on the technical assistance piece here i know that some of the opponents of the overlay have chafed a bit at that um and said that that made the process unfair if you have a concern about that it's written into the udo they're required to provide technical assistance to neighborhoods who come forward with this kind of a proposal that's their job they did it very well what's not their job is uh what i got was trying to unearth at the beginning they have not taken a position on this particular proposal and i um was irked somewhat uh by comments to the contrary by certain of the folks who spoke against the overlay so i just wanted to make that clear from the beginning how much i respect and appreciate the work of staff in translating a good idea but perhaps poorly structured on behalf of neighborhood residents for the most part who have little experience in planning matters into the proposal that came to us tonight i also want to say how much i understand to the extent i can the concerns that were raised by the opponents tonight although i do appreciate mr monstein saying he'd be just fine so that's good to hear but uh i did i was struck a little bit by i think it was something john martin said that this must be a very special overlay proposal that will both raise and lower property values and so i i'm a little confused by that but i think it has to do with um some folks who oppose this kind of grabbing whatever tool is to hand or whatever tool they think will be most effective in swaying us and i think folks who spoke about their concern about their property values i think we're at least honest about self-interest which i think everybody's got in this game all the property owners and some of the other folks who are concerned about the potential that values would rise i think i'm just not sure i see that in the overlay itself for many of the reasons that the mayor pro tem on earth with her questions to staff a moment ago i also want to say a little bit about the stated reasons for the overlay and how the the idea as i've come to understand it is that the people that live in this neighborhood and who own property in this neighborhood um have availed themselves of a process that's written into our unified development ordinance to help them preserve the character of their neighborhood and if i understand there are complaints about the process i hear that very loud and clear i've read many many emails about the failures of the process as they're alleged by folks who don't like the outcome but i have to say that the from an outside perspective the neighborhood has done what i would consider a remarkable job when i hear people talk about fliering a neighborhood of four and five times i can't imagine how difficult that's got to be perhaps the only person on the on the days who really understands that is my colleague councilmember freeman who's been through a similar process in the golden belt neighborhood but i think where i think the process really showed its value is when we got to the public driven or the staff driven portion of the engagement and i've already praised them enough but i'll just add on that um that process was uh full um full of public notice with plenty of opportunity for folks to be heard the other thing i think uh that i haven't heard many people mentioned tonight on either side is how much the proposal has become more permissive as it's going on if this were truly a locked down built under cover of darkness never to be seen until the last possible minute proposal there would have been no movement but none um but i've spoken to folks who feel that it's gone too far in the other direction but i think on balance these measures are a reasonable and modest use of regulatory authority to help preserve the character of a west Durham i understand the concerns of people who don't live in the neighborhood by own property there um but i hope you will take your cue for mr monstein who says he'll figure out a way to make it work for the six property owners who live in the neighborhood who came to speak tonight i want you to know that i appreciate very much the concerns that you've raised and that i hope that you will continue to talk with us i hate to you can just talk to me maybe just email me not the rest of the council i hope you'll continue to email me as the process moves forward um with your specific concerns about things you'd like to do that you don't think you can and hopefully we can keep at least that are my part of that conversation going so i do intend to vote for the overlay tonight thank you mr mayor thank you very much council member riz council member austin thank you mr mayor um thank you council member riz for your comments i want to also say that i plan to vote in favor of the proposed npo and just say that this is not an easy decision um because the npo this proposed npo is not perfect there are drawbacks inherent in the restrictions and while i think it can be argued that aspects of the npo are necessary to protect things like our natural resources i do agree with the opponents in so far as this npo is not necessary but i don't think that the value of the npo turns on necessity instead of the questions that i come back to or does this npo protect the character of the of a neighborhood in a way that is valuable to the city that is consistent with our policies as described by staff and does the value of protecting or preserving this neighborhood's character outweigh the burdens imposed by the npo and i do think that the character and aesthetic of this neighborhood is valuable to protect it is important to understanding the history of that neighborhood in our city and i think that that value outweighs the restrictions imposed by the this particular npo um and i i i don't think at this point that supporting this particular npo or its implementation frustrate our efforts to encourage density and Durham or achieve our affordable housing goals and so i want to again echo councilmember reese's thanks to to everyone who is engaged with this process and i will say that can please continue to email me or schedule meetings to the extent that we needed to continue this conversation thank you thank you very much councilmember mayor protan thank you mr mayor um i want to echo my colleagues comments and say that i am also planning to vote in favor of this npo and i wanted to talk a little bit about the the issue of experimentation which came up which a lot of people um spoke to because i think that we um we're being asked to predict the future in us in a certain way right like we many many people have stated today very confidently what they believe this npo will or will not do or what failing to pass the npo will or will not do um but the truth is that the only way we actually know that is if we implement it and not doing anything isn't any less of an of an experiment as doing something um either the either we choose to change something and see what comes out of that or we choose to do nothing and see what comes out of that either way i really do feel like we're in an experiment and i actually named it and in the experiment i'm going to call the impact of a rapidly growing city with an unregulated consumer market for housing on housing access and stability for middle and working class people we're all in that experiment together um and every decision that we make is in that context so um i i feel like this npo strikes a good balance between preserving um preserving some affordability in the neighborhood um protecting tree canopy uh making it less and less desirable um to tear down smaller historic homes eliminating um excess impervious surface and trying to make the new properties that are coming into the community remain in scale with um with the neighborhood and i really like the the regulations on ad use i think ad use are in neighborhoods like this and my neighborhood is very similar small lots small houses um a few duplexes but not a lot of more density than that um that ad use are a way to add affordable units to single family neighborhoods without having to tear anything down and i'm and i'm cited about using about using that tool i feel like this npo hits the the goals that i feel are the most critical for Durham right now and that's um maintaining our uh in the face of extreme growth being able to maintain the livability and affordability and diversity of our communities um and i'm hopeful that this is a tool that we will be able to use to that effect thank you thank you madam mayor pro team other council members with comments and the other council members council member caballero um good evening so i just wanted to say that i wanted to come in the staff they've answered several of my questions i very much appreciated the packet that was given to us was very informative it gave there was plenty of attachments so that we could see the context of the uh history around this and then also many many evenals that we've received letting people know exactly where they stand um i also plan on voting for the npo uh i have a lot of concerns around it as well and i will be looking to our planning department to see how we can make the process better in the future uh what i'm hearing from a lot of people is that you're upset about the process within your own neighborhood and that's not necessarily what the council hears to vote on we're here to vote on whether this meets the requirements um and our planning department has said it does uh i think that there's enough examples and i think jeff monstein's uh portfolio that he actually showed me this morning gave me enough examples of some of his own properties that would fit in the npo just fine there were many many of his homes that he's done in the last several years uh would fall very easily under the npo so we know that some of the more commercial landlords have made this work their homes that they've done recently would fit within the context so i don't think it will hamper development the way that people are suggesting and i think my biggest concern is seeing and i have been in the neighborhood and i did walk around seeing some of the older rental properties that were probably in the seven to eight hundred dollar range being ripped down and now if you add up all the pieces they're averaging some of the bigger ones you know they're asking for twelve hundred dollars for a one and two bedroom apartment i have an elderly mom uh i know that she cannot afford that i know that i need housing in Durham that can meet the needs about seven hundred and eight hundred dollars and so i need that housing stock to stay intact thank you very much councilmember middleton thank you mr thank you mr mayor and thank all of you for for being with us tonight um i i just got in office and i this is a huge decision um so i i want to say to all of the residents and citizens here that um i approach this with great sobriety and respect there are family stories in the balance um family histories children uh fortunes um in this decision so i i i want you to know and all of my colleagues do i know but um i almost feel like i've come into a program that's been in uh progress for a long time and that's just the nature of the job um for me this this issue crystallizes exactly what we are facing in Durham and this is best but a mere chapter on an unfolding drama of what development looks like and what market forces look like and i want to say to the owners uh you know this is america i have a great deal of respect for the rights of ownership um i have a great deal of respect for those that that make investments and try and increase their wealth um but this is a citizen-led initiative and this is what happens when you give citizens the tools to make a difference um this is what it looks like um so the pushback that have come that's come from this community i have to say i i'm a little i'm concerned about the citizens that this issue is coming to that won't be as organized as your neighborhood that won't have this type of gravitas or this type of muscle and this type of ability to avail themselves to push back so i commend you for using the tools available to you um we're not a citizen-led effort i probably would be voting against this npl but i'm gonna be voting for it um because i think that you've mounted a credible campaign as citizens with a tool that is sanctioned and prescribed in the udo for the npo what i would say to those that are looking at home tonight and who may be listening in the chamber take note um and get ready because there's going to be some communities that we're going to be dealing with this and who may not have this this robust an effort mounted against ongoing gentrification and ongoing pricing out of communities in our city and i weep for them and i'm concerned about that but as it stands tonight um where it is i think your efforts are to be commended um this is what you know the risk of investing looks like and this is what when citizens push back look like um this is what democracy looks like i'll be supporting the npl thank you councilmember thank you all right i'm i'm i'll also end with some comments um i um i'm also going to be voting in favor of the npl and i want to make a few comments about it um first of all the what what has happened in the neighborhood inside the neighborhood the neighborhood meetings the neighborhood polls the listserv access board of director practices those things that are internal to the neighborhood as i've written to many of you all have written to me about process those aren't things that that we have control over we're really any influence over um it's clear to me on the part of both opponents and proponents alike that there is some anger but there's also a lot of good will which i have heard from people as well as in in in face-to-face conversations as well as in uh through emails and i know that you all will use this good will that's in your neighborhood to overcome the divisions they have and to move to move ahead together as a neighborhood i have friends and neighbors on both sides of this i've heard from them some of them tonight and i feel certain that this division can be overcome i do feel that the public process the official government process has been very transparent one of the things i try to do in any public hearing matters i've also written to many of you is to listen until the last voice is heard so i have written my comments ahead of time because you all have given me a lot of things to think about and i formed a position over many months and i've written my comments but i've also been listening tonight to see if anything would change that if there anything that was said it was new and powerful to me um and many good things were said tonight but those were mainly things as you all know because you've been emailing us i think the mayor pro tem said that she had put her emails about this in a file and there were 270 threads that's a lot of email and thank you for sending them and i appreciated that both councilmember rees and councilmember austin said to continue to email them about that and i hope you do so the um but the public process the official government process i think has been very transparent uh extremely thorough i have felt that there's been a lot of accessibility and healthfulness on the part of our planning staff and i want to thank uh matthew filter and others who've worked on this for what i thought was extremely good work i thought that the memo the staff memo that we had on this is public information it came out prior to the work session it's been online for a long time then we got a i think a slightly updated revised one has was outstanding i thought it was so thorough so fair in dealing with the issues and it was just very impressive staff work we get that a lot in the city of durham but i just thought that was an extremely fine example and i just want to thank you for that uh but there were the the joint city county the priorities this was prior this here's another one thing i wanted to explain this wasn't just prioritized by planning staff planning staff has to get its priorities from the joint city county committee and there is a joint city county committee it meets its county commissioners and city council members they have prioritized this and they've reprioritized this and that's been part of this process as well there were the three meetings public meetings noticed by the planning department we had the planning commission process we had the work session presentation and a lot of us have met individually with you all as and and uh and heard from you of course in many emails so i think it's really for us been an extremely thorough fair and open process and i think that has served us well all the way through tonight's hearing um i just want to say that i want to thank our planning commission i wanted to especially offer kudos to planning commissioner all turk i don't know him i have never met him but i thought okay thank you there you are i just wanted to say that i thought your comments were particularly insightful and helpful comments on a variety of the most important issues as codified in the written planning commission comments and just want to say to all our planning commissioners it's always good to get those comments but sir i thought yours were particularly helpful thank you and glad to meet you a couple of one thing i want to say personal to me that i think are not applicable to other members of the council which is one is i live within the notifications i was notified of this as a resident i live about a blocker from the mpo i've had to think a little bit about conflict of interest i did consult with our city attorney a couple of months ago about this he was clear to me that my duty was to vote on this issue i don't see any conflict of interest here although i did want to think about it none of you all have raised that with me but i did want to raise it for myself i don't think it'll affect the value of my house on club boulevard but i did it was something i wanted to give some thought to and as the city attorney says that we that our rules require we want council members we want we want council members only to to vote in case of a conflict if the conflict is real and substantial otherwise uh council members might take a walk on tough issues and we want council members to be able to vote to to vote on all issues unless there is a direct conflict the other thing that i've thought about is that my house on club boulevard has a height limit on the end height is above the height limit for the npo and only one block from the npo so i had to think about this as well we have varying we have various neighborhood specific regulations and various neighborhoods in Durham which are appropriate to those neighborhoods for example my neighborhood has its own set of rigorous requirements as a historic district and all of this i think is context specific and the height limitations on large lots on clubs such as mine i think are sensibly different from those on smaller lots to characterize all less Durham so i'm comfortable with this as well people have criticized the npo because it places limits on property rights i think that's the essential argument of the opponents and i think it's a good argument and it certainly does do that and i don't think we should ever limit property rights lightly i don't think we should ever let me say it better we should never always take very seriously never lightly the limitation of property rights in fact i think it should only be done when the assertion of private property rights is harming other privacy other people's property private property rights or as i think in this case potentially the neighborhood is assault as a whole that is asserting a private property right to build a large house up the edge of a property looming over neighbor's houses and paving the backyard and so forth uh isn't persuasive because i think of the way those rights infringe on the rights of others the nearby neighbors plus any any zoning we do here in Durham or anywhere is a restriction on private property rights we do it all the time with zoning design requirements stormwater requirements impact fees and so much more the question isn't whether we should have the right to limit property rights we do the question is whether the specific limitations we are considering are good for the private property rights of others and for the community as a whole and for me this npo definitely passes that test i also think that these npo rules are very liberal in a way that's quite different from the npo's we know about in other cities including those on the west coast and particularly the ones in raleigh this especially has to do with the inclusion encouragement of adu's in this npo and at a size 800 feet and i appreciate the modification uh the recent modification which i think is excellent the raleigh npo's do not include adu's and i think that that is very harmful to density and affordability and access and i'm proud that we will be passing one that does i believe that the npo will allow and encourage many more adu's in all west Durham and that is a good thing this is a critical tool for affordability and i appreciate also the npo proponents uh for discussing this with me at length and coming up with what i think is a reasonable number um and i'm impressed also uh that i think that the 32.5 percent far is very reasonable is evidenced by the fact that 94 percent of the properties in the neighborhood now are below this far and i think that's important in addition on large lots and under can still build up to 3600 square feet um i live in a large house and that is substantially larger than my house and similarly on the issue of height only two houses built in the past five years have exceeded the npo's height limitations i think that developers will be able to build in in old west Durham at a very reasonable height in addition the city planning staff is beginning work now on a citywide plan called expanding housing choices to encourage missing middle housing and so this was spoken of by several people and it's very very important uh and i think it speaks to something that uh we heard about the fact that limiting that that this sort of zoning limitation can hurt affordability and i think that in some cases it certainly can and what i want to say is that this missing middle housing including uh duplexes which abound in old west Durham triplexes townhomes tiny houses other forms of housing to encourage access and affordability citywide is very important and i've also already made it clear in many public forums my own support for this work which we must have before serious about affordability and i note that acknowledgement of this is included in the npo before us any such citywide policy that included middle missing middle housing as a zoning as an option would be included in this npo area i do believe that old west Durham housing is going to continue to accelerate in value no matter what we do on this i have no question about that and i think we can all make different predictions about extent to which this will either help or hurt that but i think the driving force in old west Durham is it's a wonderful neighborhood to live in it's a neighborhood full of wonderful neighbors and wonderful houses its location is fabulous and that's going to drive prices higher and i don't think this one way or the other is going to influence that but i do think the inclusion of the expansion of the right to build adu's is going to increase density and i think that's going to increase increase affordability and access i also think that one of the best things about this npo is it will reduce impervious surfaces that are now so we're seeing construction the newer houses in the neighborhood these paved over backyards aren't good for our neighborhoods or for our storm water and hence for our water quality and i think that's very important i also want to say of all the speakers that i heard i've felt that the the person that i want to particularly call out is miss overcash thank you i thought that your i only hope that one day when i am in a controversial situation that one of my two boys will come out and speak eloquently on my behalf as you did on behalf of your father and his interest in positions so i want to commend you for that and thank you for that um there there are no villains here i want to say that there's been a lot of criticism aimed at certain developers in the in the in old west room these developers have been playing by the rules i want to make that clear they bought into the end in the old west room when prices were low and nobody else was buying and they have used the zoning rules we have in place to build profitably that is uh that's okay that's not a moral failing that is a person who has built a business and is has done so by the rules that's the system we have but i think now we've got to have better rules as embodied in this npo to make sure that the neighborhood and the individual property rights of the neighbors are protected from the developers who are understandably acting in their own self-interest these developers will certainly still be able to turn a healthy profit building in old west room under the new rules that's what i believe and finally there's no question in my mind the majority of people who live in the neighborhood support the npo uh i i i i believe that through all the different polling and all the meetings um i know that there are there are many opponents of the npo in the in the neighborhood but i also believe strongly that the majority of people who live there are our proponents those those are not the only people who should be given weight if you're a property owner there certainly that counts but i do think that those people should have the most weight because that's where they live so those are my thoughts and uh as i say i'll be voting in favor of the npo i want to appreciate the uh the good will uh i want to appreciate the thoughtful and productive and constructive comments that we got from everyone on all sides of this issue um and uh want to uh thank you all for coming out tonight and hanging with us so long and now i will uh ask if there's a motion on the site and i believe that our first motion will be to adopt the appropriate consistency statement as quiet propensity gs 168 dash 380 it's almost second it's been moved and seconded that we adopt the consistency statement madam clerk can you open the vote close the vote motion passes six zero thank you um i'm sorry seven seven zero yes thank you uh a number motion the second motion to adopt an ordinance of many the udo incorporating text revisionist article four to move it's been moved and seconded madam clerk please open the vote close the vote motion passes seven zero thank you motion three to adopt the appropriate consistency statement is required for ncgs 168 dash 383 so we did that this is a second statement actually okay so moved second all right madam clerk please open the vote i'm not pretending that i understand why there is a second one but there is close the vote motion passes seven zero thank you motion four to adopt an ordinance of many the udo by establishing a neighborhood protection overlay district for the subject properties on the zoning map moved and seconded madam clerk please open the vote close the vote motion passes seven zero thank you very much we will now move to item 17 public hearing to consider adopting a resolution rescinding a previously ordered water main on the portion of stallings road south of mineral springs road thank you all can we hear a report from staff on item 17 thank you mr joiner no i'm not the same people we'll just hang on for 30 seconds to everybody is it the same people all right um thank you all thank you mr temple all right i'll see you around the neighborhood thank you thank you john thank you all right mr joiner we're on item 17 good evening mayor shul members of the council i'm robert joiner public works department item 17 is to hold a public hearing to consider adopting a resolution rescinding a previously ordered water main to serve a portion of stallings road south of mineral springs road staff recommends that council conduct a public hearing receive comments and adopt a resolution rescinding this previously ordered petition improvement i'll be happy to answer any questions council may have thank you very much um you have heard the report of staff and i'm now going to declare this public hearing open and i'm going to first ask if there are any questions by members of the council mentions for staff all righty we have two people who have signed up to speak on this item teresa price and vernan allen who are both opponents um and i want to ask is there anyone else who was here who would like to speak on item 17 is there anyone who would like to speak on item 17 all righty uh miss price and mr allen you each have three minutes and uh i'm going to ask you to uh do you have something you'd like to hear that or yes please all right this is an email that i had sent but i know only three of you were here for the last two times i spoke so i wanted to share it with the members that are new this time so you can have a history of that communication that i'd sent yes ma'am thank you you're welcome all righty miss price you have three minutes and mr allen you have three minutes go ahead miss price please state your name and address my name is teresa price i'm at 1503 stitlen's road derm north carolina um i wanted to first say i'm a native of derm i was born in derm grew up in derm i have um i purchased this home 19 years ago in 2000 march of 2007 i filed a petition following all the processes for city water to be extended into my property prior to that just to give some history i had done it did everything i could to eliminate all issues i had drilled wells i had lived with tanks of water delivered to my home in 18 willers i had exhausted every effort before i went to the petition process that that process was 11 years ago this is the third city council meeting i've attended and spoke at regarding this issue i received only two communications from the council or from the city about my assessment i mean about my property in that 10 year 11 year period it wasn't until this came open last year that i started receiving communication i have i know in the the documents that were uploaded it says that there was no assessments paid and i know that this is a language um terminology but i think for the average person when i did the petition i i'm 800 feet from a water main i can see the fire hydrant from my house i had got a temporary easement put through a property to do that temporary easement i had to pay my assessment fees on my property which was about $6,000 now i was charged interest my house was put a lien on my house because i only paid it the first year because nothing ever happened it wasn't until last year after my sending this letter to mr bonfield bonfield sorry that i actually got resolution i you'll see in the back pages it shows where assessments were reported that i owed even though they're not called assessments they're called frontage fees i think the average person who was in that situation there's a process you have a petition that you go through i followed the process and this is my last option so if if you guys rescind this i can petition again but am i looking at another 11 years 18 years ago if i had been told this from the beginning i could have brought the water main down myself for $30,000 a lot more than it's a lot less than it's costing the city and i've paid close to that with the wells the everything else that i've done and i have paid the assessment not to mention several of my neighbors have died in this 10-year period that were dependent on this as well as new neighbors that were told that it was approved and that we were going to have water roll down so i just asked that if there's a process if this gets rescinded there needs to be rules put in place so this doesn't happen to someone else because there should be time limits and and things like this shouldn't happen after 11 years really 18 for me but 11 where it's been up thank you miss price thank you all for your time mr allen you have three minutes sir good afternoon council um we're here continuing uh kind of this issue um and rather than leverage uh you know disappointment and all those things toward the existing administration um really i really want to applaud teresa on on her behalf excuse me Vernon allen 1503 stallings road teresa is my future wife um congratulations yes thank you so in 2007 when she embarked upon this process who knew um the endurance and the war of attrition that it would take as she mentioned since last year we've been here four to five times council meetings we had to stay to the very end to be on the the case so you you know you get home from work you come downtown you sit for three hours till you can even present and then you get the can kicked one session to the next session to the next session i agreed it's not necessarily on the the plate of this administration some of you were on the proceeding administration and i appreciate your efforts to listen in here i thought we made some headway where we can make some adjustments and things would move in the in the right direction in favor of this motion particularly with the money invested and the amount of time uh given the situation it's just been a kind of a victim of circumstance uh last year there is 20 or so people with water related projects that were here and it's kind of like divide and conquer one was shot down by another was shot down by another this appears to be the last of those remnant and it's like um okay um and honestly um you know it's a it's very you know disgusting and disappointing from that scenario anything that's taken 10 years long who would ever make a decision with anyone in their family or any business venture let alone exchange money and say okay we're expecting this to be done and then 10 years plus later to say no it's not going to be done from a financial position i get it i understand if i were the city of Durham and this proposition was put on the plate today no because it wouldn't be in the best interest of the city i get it but uh from the other standpoint being 10 years until the process it's it's got to be a failure and it's not a failure on the entire administration but it's got to be a failure one that slipped through the cracks i heard you ask about the details in the police report this is one of those type of details can't be overlooked she's paid her money she's done what you've told her the due process was she's got the petition she's exhausted every effort now to get at this point i am by closing with this rather than go on in a discouragement type of fashion whatever money she's paid into the program pay her back with the interest no no hard feeling we'll have to exhaust other efforts whatever that is but if she paid the money the city collected interest the city's a profit making center give her the money back let us exhaust other efforts connecting to the temporary well one of the other things i wanted to suggest was there was a write-up i think for mr bonfield it talked about it was uh the the expense was mr mr allen inordinate yes mr allen if you have something else you'd like to say say it correct yes there was a there's a project on stallings road part of what we got back said it would be an inordinate expense to shut down stallings road because of traffic do t shut down this bridge on stallings road for six months what a pity and a poor example that it couldn't have been coordinated that they could have done our water project when they shut down that entire road for six months okay thank you okay thank you thank you very much mr allen thank you thank you for the allotment of additional time all right uh council members um any uh questions or comments at this point is it appropriate to suggest an option at this point absolutely um i think what i'll do is uh but yeah i'll before i won't close the hearing yeah go ahead please i was just gonna say i think it it would probably be help us to move forward with option one and i would love to hear staff's response to that i'm sure which may by response to that as well so there were three alternatives that were offered right and the first one the city could decide to continue with the design and construction and the court is with the with the original order utility improvement additional costs beyond any assessment funds would be absorbed by the city of Durham that's correct what would that look like it's on page two of the memorandum there's a total of seven loss that would be served based on the original um action of the the council the most that could be assessed per lot would be 3771 dollars so the remaining uh cost per lot estimated twenty seven thousand dollars six twenty seven thousand six hundred dollars would have to uh then be absorbed or uh by the water and sewer utility system so 193 thousand dollars would have to be paid by the city twenty six thousand dollars approximately would be assessed against the properties mayor britain thank you mr mayor um based on our last discussion about this i think we know how this vote is going to go but i do just want to express that i don't think it's in the best interest of the city to spend this amount of money to extend water and sewer um to folks that live in the county i feel like this is just water okay i'm sorry to extend water um i feel like our responsibility is to our residents primarily um and i don't feel comfortable spending this money to i this feels like paying a subsidy to folks who live in the county now that they're because we can only charge them a certain amount of money um it seems like it just seems like a loss to the city um and i understand that people made decisions based on thinking that this water line was going to be was going to be built i if we are still doing these sorts of projects which we may not be anymore um i would love to think about ways to um reform how we're doing it so that we don't end up in this situation again where we're having to make these kinds of decisions um i'm i'm planning to vote for the rescission um and i would be supportive of doing these projects if the if the people who are going to be benefiting from the service were going to be paying the cost and not the taxpayers of the city of Durham at large um it feels like right yeah to to move forward with this project feels financially irresponsible toward to our constituents you know i think that we just need to figure out how to do this better in the future so um mr joiner talk to us about our we've we've had some discussion over the years perhaps not with the new council members uh about this current status of projects like this so typically these projects are the only ones currently on the books for petition of utilities outside the city limits uh there is nothing that would preclude these types of things in the future uh council would have the option uh going forward for other types of projects uh when they're petitioned and ordering those improvements those can be done at full costs the rates can be changed originally all of these items were actually done at full cost and council made a decision years ago to pull back on that because it was very difficult to get people uh to petition for these projects because those costs weren't known upfront uh when you when you had that per linear foot fee you could figure out exactly what you were in for when you wanted to connect to these utilities in in the future and if it was at full cost you really wouldn't know until after everything was was built so i think then uh speaking to uh the mayor pro tem's concerns this would be something that would come back before us if someone petitioned again and we would be able to uh think about what our policy ought to be in terms of cost sharing is that right that is correct sir council member cabillera and then council member millson so i don't remember there was the last council we had a similar vote were they also county residents okay and so you're saying that the the two that are here before us are the last in the queue no there's two more there's two more to be at the following council because there's six total six and then after that there's no more in the queue that is correct so we will have an opportunity to change policy if we so choose that is correct you have that opportunity now if you chose option three yeah give us that they're giving us that opportunity at this red hot site well i feel yeah i feel all kind of way the other okay thank you county council member middleton thank you mr mayor and thanks college yeah i was going to ask was there a finite number of situations in which we just didn't do what we said we were going to do because of other construction priorities not i think that was answering i think that's an important point that we're here because we made a we the institution historically made a representation that we didn't follow through and i would hope there's a finite number of those things in this you know moving forward we wouldn't do that i'm going don't say this right i'm going to vote against rescinding for the sake of consistency consistency i won't go through my whole spiel that i did last time but i do want to say i i resonate deeply with the mayor pro tem's comments and and i take very seriously our fiscal responsibility um the people of Durham um in this particular case however just a consistency of institutional integrity uh weighs heavily and i'm i'm comforted in that position because there are a finite number of these types of projects so i'll be voting against uh against rescinding thank you very much um did you ask would you say you want to ask a question if you do please come to the podium well i just wanted to ask if it's voted to rescind i know the only option was to file another petition for me or really i don't really have any other options so if we're not if the petition process is the same i don't want to be back through this same thing again you know like what are the other options if it's rescinded you like to comment on that mr joiner so miss price has a current connection through she had a specific circumstance uh because she had a neighbor that was willing to grant her an easement that was adjacent to a water line and so at that time she was allowed to do a temporary connection she has access to city water and sewer now i can't see that we would rescind that through this option but i can't sell my home if i were to die in a crash on the way home my children can't sell the home i can't do anything with that home it's temporary only to me it can't be sold it can't be exchanged it ends upon my death so there's not going to be any water so i mean i know that's my circumstance but i don't think me having temporary water is a permanent solution i just want to know what my other options are if this is rescinded so so your options would be if we were to rescind this i'm sure that what we would have to do is come up with another petition process uh you would there would be a different kind of cost sharing and um we can't say right exactly now what that would be uh i'm sure the council would be concerned that it happened quickly because i know the call sharing 11 years ago was accurate it you know it was just because it got delayed that we're at this point now all right and it was approved but thank you for answering my question mr allen did you have a question yes the other alternative is the people who we have the temporary easement from being able to buy that three four foot piece of property from them at an equitable price now if we can get refunded the money that she's paid in and who else knows if the city were willing to help us in any other capacity to some capped amount obtain that and that's a whole lot less and that's a win-win situation everyone involved all right thank you i'll only propose that as a as a other alternative okay mayor pretend thank you mr mayor um i just had another question about which has just left my brain um so what is the advantage to the city of extending water and sewer to county residents like why do we do it so this is basically a state option as municipalities are with local water and sewer systems it's simply for health and safety okay it's chapter 70 now we don't do it without annexation except in instances of public safety right yeah and in those instances the residents would pay for the extension that is correct right and like in full okay um so these sorts of petitions it seems like given that new policy change that these sorts of petitions wouldn't be something that we would continue to entertain is that wrong they are allowed under the ordinance okay so we would entertain them under that but in most situations it would actually be beneficial for the residents to act like developers okay and do it themselves rather than let us do it okay thank you customer minister but in entertaining these things it's we can say no right i mean these are because we said yes they didn't get done that is correct okay so how would we move forward with option one does that mean to vote against so the motion would be called and you would vote against the motion okay and then once we vote against it can we request to then go through with option one how do you get to option one option one would be automatic just what it is i was asked what the current status is unless we rescind it that's not okay whenever you're ready for a motion okay is there a motion i would like to make a motion that we rescind the prior previously ordered water main resolution resolution rescind the previously ordered water main improvement on stallings road for a middle row springs road just to the south property line all righty you've heard the motion that we rescind previously ordered petition water main of portion stallings road second is there a second there's a second all righty madame clerk will you please open the vote i'm sorry i apologize close the vote please the resolution fails three in favor um council member allston mayor shul mayor pro tem johnson all right thank you let me just ask uh mr joiner if you could just let these folks know now about uh potential timetable that they might expect this work to occur on uh mr mayor once we get through all of the the actions okay next couple of meetings i already given direction to staff about how that's going to proceed and we'll send you a follow-up report okay so you all should be hearing soon uh from us thank you but we did not rescind the uh the that's right it's still still happening all right uh thank you will now move to item 18 public hearing to consider adopting resolution rescinding previously ordered water main to serve a portion of stallings road south of oak Grove parkway mr joiner good evening mayor shul members of council robert joiner public works department item 18 is to hold a public hearing to consider adopting a resolution rescinding a previously ordered water main to serve a portion of stallings road south of oak grove parkway staff recommends that council conduct a public hearing and receive comments and adopt a resolution rescinding this previously ordered petition improvement i'll be happy to answer any questions council may have thank you very much you've heard uh you have heard the report of staff i'm now going to declare this public hearing open and ask if there's anyone who would like to speak on this item is anyone here that would spike like to speak on item 18 all righty thank you very much um i'm going to declare this public hearing closed and the matter is back before the council or discussion and a motion never you're ready for a motion this is essentially i'm sorry this is essentially the same thing just different numbers and larger and the yeah large numbers and a bunch of nonprofits i was unhappy with the small numbers mr mayor are you entertaining a motion i'm entertaining a motion moved as stated you want to move the move the resolution to rescind yes is there a second second been moved and seconded that we rescind the previously ordered water main uh and madame clerk will you please open the vote close the vote the resolution to rescind fails by a vote of three to four with council member allston voting yes mayor shul voting yes and mayor pro tem johnson voting yes thank you very much i believe that is the last item to come before this meeting tonight we are adjourned at 11 18 thank you very much congratulations