 Good afternoon, welcome to the Durham Planning Commission. The members of the Durham Planning Commission have been appointed by the City Council and the County Commissioners. We're an advisory board to the elected officials. So you should know that any of the issues before us tonight will go to the governing body. The final say on the issues before they become final. If you wish to speak on an item this evening, there's a table to my left and your right. We encourage you to come and sign up. Please look for the specific case number that you'd like to speak on. You can put down your name, your address, and let us know if you're speaking for the proposal or against the proposal. Each side will get 10 minutes per side to speak during the public comment period and the public hearing, which we will open on each case. And the time will be divided between the number of people on each side. Finally, all motions are stated in the affirmative. So if a motion fails or ties, the recommendation is for denial. So thanks again. And may we have a roll call, please? Yes, you can chair both of me. Commissioner Williams. Here. Commissioner Morgan. Here. Commissioner Johnson. Present. Commissioner Bryan. Present. Commissioner Durkin. Here. Commissioner Alturk. Here. Commissioner Hyman. Present. Commissioner Busby. Here. Commissioner Miller. Here. Commissioner Kensham. Here. Excuse me. Commissioner Satterfield. Commissioner Satterfield asked for an excused absence. You're requested an excused absence. Commissioner Hombrackle. Present. Commissioner Baker. Here. And Commissioner Gibbs. Here. Oh, no. Would you like a motion for the? I'm moving excused absence for Commissioner Satterfield. Seconded. Moved by Commissioner Bryan and seconded by Commissioner Morgan. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. We now have the approval of the, oh, actually, do we have minutes for approval? I don't think we do. We don't have any ready for you just yet, so they'll come at your next meeting. They're a little too close together. That's fine. Any adjustments to tonight's agenda? Staff does not have any adjustments. However, we would like to state for the record that all legal notice requirements have been met and carried out in accordance with state and local law and avatavids for such are on file in the planning department. Thank you. A motion to approve tonight's agenda. So moved. Seconded. Moved by Commissioner Bryan. We'll give the second to Commissioner Al Turk. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. We move to our first agenda item this evening. So the first item is Future Land Use Map Amendment and a concurrent zoning map change. This is case A1700018 and Z1700052, the Ellis Road Phase 3 project, and we'll start with the staff report. Good evening, Jamie Sonjak with the planning department. I will be presenting case number Z1700052, Ellis Road, Phase 3. The applicant is Patrick Biker with Morningstar Law Group. The property in total is approximately 135 acres and generally located at 3714 Angier Avenue. It is currently within the county's, excuse me, it is currently within the county limits with an associated annexation application. The request includes a Fulham Amendment from Industrial to Low Density Residential for the entire track and a rezoning request from Industrial Light and Rural Residential to Plan Development Residential 3.575, PDR3575. More approximately 73% of the area. The applicant has submitted a development plan for up to 350 residential units. The entire track is highlighted here, I'm sorry, the area above this should also be highlighted. The entire track is highlighted here with the southern area hatched being the portion which is the rezoning part. The area above the hatched below Glover Road is the area that's also proposed Plan Amendment. The site is located within the suburban development tier and the Noose and Cape River, Cape Fear River Basin. These photos show the existing conditions of the site and also the surrounding area. The not just under 100 acre parcel of land is vacant, undeveloped and there are areas of steep slopes, intermittent and perennial streams, wetlands, a 50 foot wide public service easement and a 30 foot wide sanitary sewer easement. Along Glover Road, Esther Drive and Crafton Street there are homes as well as vacant parcels within the county jurisdiction. An active rail corridor lies east of the property and the Durham Freeway is on the west side. Most of the southern property line borders a transfer station for waste industries and the rest is bordered by Ellis Road residential project. This is the zoning context map. On the left you see that the property is in the rural residential zoning district which is in yellow and then the purple shade is in the light industrial and the property, the depiction on the right shows the parcel in the plan development residential 3.575 shade which is blue. This is the future land use map. Existing on the left is the industrial shade and on the right it's highlighted in yellow which is low density residential four dwelling units or less which would be consistent with what the applicant is asking in terms of the rezoning. This map shows the proposed conditions of the development plan with the project boundary buffers, the riparian areas, riparian crossings, the building and parking envelope as well as the landscape buffers. In terms of the text commitments, the maximum number of residential units on the development plan will not exceed 350, the maximum pervious surface will not exceed 70%. There are a number of transportation related text commitments on the development plan associated with this project Ellis Road Phase 3 as well as Ellis Road Phase 2 and I just highlighted a couple here. The graphic commitments as you saw from the last slide include site access points, the building envelopes, project boundary buffers, the stream crossings and there are a number of design commitments related to the building style roof materials and the architectural features of the buildings. In terms of consistency with the comprehensive plan, the proposed PDR zoning designation does not comply with the current industrial designation on the future land use map. However it is consistent with policy 231D as a low density residential development for the 100 acre track is consistent with the neighboring Ellis Road Phase 2 development and the Ellis Crossing residential development and it serves as an expansion to the residential patterns in the area. The low density residential designation for the area south of Glover Road along Esther Drive and Crafton Street is also consistent as it reflects the nature of the existing homes in that area and it's not expected that that area become or develop as industrial. With respect to 231A, if approved the request would permit up to 350 residential units at the site. The proposal supports orderly development as it is surrounded by residential zoning to the north, west and south. There is existing infrastructure, roads, water and sewer sufficient to accommodate the potential impacts and with respect to 812H the applicant has dress this policy since they have not met the 110% threshold and the TIA identified various transportation mitigation measures that the applicant has addressed. Staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other policies and ordinances and I will be happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you Ms. Sanyek. We will open the public hearing. We have three individuals signed up to speak in support. Patrick Biker, Reinal Stevenson and Heather Schaefer. Heather is for Davis Park West. Let me add that if you have arrived after the sign-up sheet was brought up here and you would like to speak, we will open it up for additional people once we get through the folks who have signed up in advance. Mr. Biker. Thank you. Good evening Chairman Busby, Vice Chair Hyman, members of the Planning Commission. My name is Patrick Biker. I'm with Morningstar Law Group. I live at 2614 Stewart Drive. I'm here tonight representing Ellis Road W-E-H-L-P for Ellis Road Phase 3. Along with me tonight are Reinal Stevenson, our traffic engineer. Stephen Dorn with McAdams, our site designer. And Eric Rifkin, the Assistant Vice President for Ellis Road W-E-H. This agenda item that's before you this evening represents the last 100-acre phase of a master plan development that consists of a master plan development that consists of commercial apartments, townhouses, and single-family detached housing within a new 350-acre neighborhood for Durham. The apartments along Ellis Road are built and fully leased up. The commercial sites are ready to go. And the other residential sections are approved and moving forward with construction. With the minor exception of allowing vinyl siding to promote housing affordability, the design commitments for Phase 3 that you are considering tonight are the same as the residential development for Phase 2. To that end, I want to state specifically on the record, our proffer that the distinctive architectural features for Phase 3 require that, quote, gabled roofs shall be composite, shingler metal, masonry features, cement fiberboard, use of shakes and other accent materials for elevations, traditional doors and windows, and traditional Williamsburg colors shall be utilized. Units containing garages shall utilize a decorative garage door design, and this includes what is not limited to windows and carousel doors, unquote. Next, it is important to note that the Ellis Road neighborhood today is providing quality housing that is affordable for folks who are sometimes referred to as the missing middle. The townhouses here are priced starting at $220,000, and the single-family homes are priced starting at $280,000. Phase 3 will allow us to continue our strong efforts to expand the housing supply for this important market segment. What really makes Phase 3 important for Durham's growth, in addition to the overall neighborhood, is its central location that is convenient for commuting to downtown, Duke, or RTP. Since 20 people move to Durham every day, it is imperative to keep our housing supply increasing, especially when it is workforce housing located near our core employment centers, so we are not locating new housing further away. This agenda item checks all those boxes, and therefore it is a positive development for Durham. Last of all, I want to thank Jamie for the fine staff report on this item, but I do wish to point out that the waste industry site adjacent to phases 2 and 3, that's only a recycling transfer station. It does not handle trash and garbage. And so for all these reasons, we respectfully request your recommendation of approval, and our team will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you for your time tonight. Thank you. And Mr. Stevenson? Great, thank you. Are there other individuals on this case who would like to speak during the public hearing? This is if you're for the project, you're against the project, you can come up. You have up to 10 minutes per side. I don't see anyone else looking to speak. So I will close the public hearing. I'm sorry, sir. This is your moment, sir. The public hearing is still open. So if you would like to come and speak, and that can include asking a question, we do ask you come to the podium and you state your name and your address, and then you're welcome to make any remarks, including a question that you might have. I'm at 3715 Esther Drive. Apparently this is right behind my house. I'm the last house on the lot. The last time we came up to one of these things that we're looking to put a transfer station in our backyard. That transfer station was implemented. It's there now. On a warm day in July, you can smell the transfer station all over the place. Are any of these people going to be told about this? Or are you going to do something about that? That's my question. Thank you, sir. And what we'll do, sir, we close the public hearing and then the commissioners will have time to ask questions or make comments. I'm guessing your question will be raised at that point. Is there anyone else who'd like to speak during the public hearing? I don't see anyone else, sir. Okay, we have two more individuals. Please come on up. If you could both come up. Actually, that'd be great. So we can keep the public hearing moving. I'm Craig Walls. I live at 3624 Crafton Street, the other end of the dead end street. Now, the only thing that worries me is access. Y'all won't go to Glover Road. That worries me. Because that road is dangerous, and they were doing projects before and they wouldn't let them use it because the road was not built to state specifications. Now, if they're going to open that up, I want to know where they're going to open it. They're going to use our streets or only one street. I just want to be very clear on that. Which access off onto Glover Road? Because it's hilly and it's just not a safe road. I mean, they talk about one's access and not using ours, but I just want to verify that's going to be true if I could. Thank you. Sir? Hi. My name is Ryan Johnson. I live at 700 Finsbury Street. And I'd just like to say I am in favor of the proposed change to a mixed use conditional course on what the actual uses are. Wrong project. This isn't it. Oh, thank you. So this is the first one. So we'll get to the others. And actually, if you're interested, you can sign up at the table over here. You should see the case. We're in the county. We're not in the city. Now with all this housing around, how's it going to affect us staying in the county? I mean, that's a true question. They say we should not be taken in unless everybody agrees. I just want to make sure that's true. Thank you. Thank you very much. And for those of you that did speak but weren't able to sign up, we will bring this out. This is the sign up sheet. We can bring it out to you while we deliberate. We'd love to have you sign in officially. We are going to close the public hearing at this point. Again, this is on the Ellis road phase three case. And we'll open it up for questions and comments from the commissioners. We will start with commissioner Johnson and then commissioner Brian. Thank you, chairman. Just to get the ball rolling for Patrick. I'm just curious and look at the site map of the site plan, the plan here. If you were to build the maximum 350 units, what would the parking situation look like for the site? Would it be surface parking or structure? Surface park, sir. And service park limited to the 70% impervious surface. Even though this site is not within a watershed basin, we voluntarily limited the impervious surface to 70% as though it were. But it's a, it's a surface part. Thank you. Thank you. And quick follow up is, do you have an idea of where the 350 units would go on this site? I'm just curious how you would program it. It would be along the freeway that pod along the freeway will be townhouses and then away from the freeway going towards the east will be single family detached. Thank you. Commissioner Brian. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Some questions. Page one of the report last sentence that talks about a voluntary annexation petition. Does that cover just the rezoning part? Yes, sir. Just the 99 acres that's being rezoned. It's almost exactly 100 acres, but thank you for the clarification. Okay. And the present development plan is showing a number of connections, which has been alluded to the Glover road. Right. Will there be that many connections? If you look at it closely, Commissioner Brian, you'll see there, there are merely stub outs to Esther and Kraft and they're not actually connections. They're actually, we left property that is controlled by the development group out of the rezoning. So we would not never be able to connect to, so that this development plan will not connect to Esther and Kraft. And we're working with NCDOT to align the access to the north so that it will connect to Ren Road and then go over the railroad tracks. If that plan is implemented, which we believe it will be, then there would not be any connections to Glover road from this development. Well, if that does work out. Right. Does it force you to come back here at all with changes to the development plan? Because that would be a condemnation action by DOT. Okay. And my final question, can you address the issue of smell that the gentlemen referred to? Yeah, sure. I mean, we're, we're locating the nearest house is going to be over 200 feet away from the transfer station. I can't speak for the gentlemen's experience, obviously, but we believe that the, there's about 200 feet of woods between stream buffer and the project boundary buffer. In addition to that, it would be additional setbacks on the waste industry side. And so the nearest houses would still be 240, 250 feet away. Again, it's, it's, it's a recycling facility. It's not a garbage facility. So we're confident that we'll be able to build quality housing here for the price points that I described. Thank you. Yes, sir. Commissioner Durkin. Yeah, I just had a couple of questions. Yes. One of the special conditions was constructing an exclusive northbound right turn lane to the northbound 147. I'm sorry. I didn't catch that on the special conditions for the 147 northbound brand. Let me refer that to our traffic engineer. Thanks. Good evening. Ronald Stevenson with Rami Kemp and associates 5808 carrying the place in Raleigh. So one of the special condition related to the northbound ramp for 147. It says that you're going to construct an additional exclusive northbound ramp. But then where on the development plan is that connection? My understanding was there was not a connection to 147. Oh, there's not. That's that's simply making a lane improvement on the existing ramp coming off of 147 today. There's one right turn lane coming off. But it's unreal. It's not connected to the site. It's just like correct. That's correct. That's correct. And then also on the this Patrick might be for you, but for the future land use map. Yes, change. Why does that include the existing houses that are not part of this development? That was the staff recommendation for it to be all the way up to Glover Road. I can give you a little bit of anecdotal history on that. When I first graduated from city planning school and I was working in economic development for the Durham Chamber of Commerce, I tried to market this area around Glover Road for industrial development for Durham County. And we never got any meaningful prospects to even look at it because of the access issues. One of these gentlemen referred to. So when we were looking at this and we looked at the homes on Esther and Crafton, we thought it made sense for the future land use map to go all the way up to Glover in terms of designation as resident low density residential and then have the area north of Glover up to the East End connector be industrial. Thank you. I just have one question for staff also. On the in the staff report, there's reference to the waste industry site a few times suggesting that there was concern about the proximity, but then no recommendations to mitigate that. So just wondering if there was anything staff was looking for. Jamie Sonac with the planning department staff just wanted to make it clear in the staff report of the existing site conditions and the surroundings. We recognize that is an industrial use to the south. There is a landscape buffer and project boundary buffer between on this subject site for this application, there is landscaping on the waste management site, but we also recognize that whatever standards are within the UDO in terms of noise, odor, controls, both applicants, both properties would be subject to that specifically the industrial use. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Commissioner Miller. So I did have a question for you, Patrick. Yes, sir. So I want to ask you a question with the understanding that the answer you give is not a profferer commitment. Right now the development plan says 350 residential units, but it doesn't show a unit mix, but can you give me an idea of the unit mix? Boy. Is it about 150 towns? No. We don't know. The ballpark would be up to 200 townhouses and approximately 150 single families. But you reserve the right to change that as your plans develop, right? Right. But the design commitments that you've enlisted, that you've listed in the development plan will apply without regard to housing type. That's correct. Yes, sir. So going back, as I read the staff report and also I talked to at least one neighbor out there, it's my understanding that you specifically left the property that you own that's out of the project at the end of Kraft and at the end of Esther. Yes, sir. So it does not trigger the UDO requirement that you connect to those stubs. And that was at the request of the neighbors. Yes. Based upon the meetings that you had with them. How many meetings did you have with neighbors? All together, three or four, but there were different subsets of neighbors in attendance at those meetings. So we had one large meeting that was probably attended by 20, 25, and then smaller subsets after that. All right. Thank you. And your characterization of how those went, that those ended agreeably? It was certainly not compared to other projects. That'll go unnamed compared to other projects. I would say they were neutral to positive. Yes. And so I also want to ask a little bit because it's not clear to me from the way the development plan shows in our very small scale. What kind of protection are you going to have along the freeway to protect your future residents on the project from freeway impacts, noise, and in sight? Anything particular? I'd have to prefer Stephen if you roll down on that specifically. Absolutely. So Stephen Dorn, 605 Fawcett Mill Road, landscape architect with McAdams. There is not a perimeter buffer per se required off of 147. However, we are working currently with NCDOT as well with a sewer alignment that's going to go there and then depending on how that operates, then that will dictate how far away we are. Certainly our desire is to have a 30 or so foot at a minimum buffer that we can berm and then the unit itself would be more of 50 to 70 plus feet away from the right away and then the right away itself is about 80 feet to the actual highway. So ultimately we're looking at somewhere around that 200 foot but we're also looking at some some burming as well just from the end user's goal. Can you say Burma you're referring to a hump of some height? Yes sir. Base height and would that be supplemented with plantings? Absolutely. Yes sir. Did you when you put your development plan together, did you consider making a commitment to that effect? We did not necessarily look at making a commitment. Being in this room from 147 we kind of looked at that as more so the client's best interest and they would probably want to do that by default. So you're kind of leaving it to market forces? Yes sir, yeah. Yeah and that sewer, how that shakes out working with DOT to are we in the right away or are we out of the right away and there's a knoll there that's created by the 147 construction and we're working into trying to mitigate some of their maintenance as well and so it's a bigger conversation certainly around 147 in our property. So and then I want to go back to finally to access to make sure that I understand your development plans show a number of access points. Some of those access points are have a two on them. You have a note two that says that you really don't want to pursue those but you continue to show them just in case circumstances after rezoning arise that might might change circumstances and you might have to make a connection where you currently don't plan to. Is that right? So yeah at time of at time of zoning they won't let a I guess I'm not speaking for staff but the stubs are required one per 1400 feet in every cardinal direction I'm sure you guys are aware at the time of development plan you show per one per 1400 feet and that gets reviewed at time of site plan per ordinance standards and so we had that note in there to allow that flexibility without having to come back in and reason on the property if right if you have the the flexibility to to act on the stubs but by leaving the separation between the project boundary and the neighboring property you're not compelled to connect yes sir yes sir so we have there's a implementation in place that we would not connect to those individuals roads then send traffic through their neighborhoods so if everything goes right now like you want it to access to this track will be up from the from the road that right now is incomplete but following the connection or the completion of the DOT project to separate the grade at Glover you will actually have a road that comes in on the project side of the railroad tracks that will exploit that Glover bridge correct yes sir but it won't be down the way on Glover it'll be right there right there at the railroad tracks and then another access point will be internal to your phase two which is shown on the the map although that's a very steep slope and I talked with Patrick a little bit about that but you're prepared for that engineering project and then there's a potential another connection also between the phases of your project but I forget the name of the street that you've created with the stub starts with the W ran where you're building right now is it Renn road the realigning Renn road there might be a connection to Renn road with MCDOT internal to the property yes sir that's correct but if everything goes right that's the way you see access working for this project in the future that's 100% correct yeah and those other things are there only as much as they might as they might be be needed if your plans go differently than you expect absolutely it's set up for future if future development to north was to come in and want to redevelop then there's opportunity so it's set up our development for the larger picture if at one point all that was redeveloped then the city could look into making some sort of connection but that would be a bigger conversation thank you and just a comment mr. Chairman if I may I like the idea that you have looked at the impact on the future land use map in the comprehensive plan outside the borders of your property and rounding the corners as it were by including the the existing residential south of Glover if we change the future land use map as a result of this case and left that designated industrial when it's clearly developing residential that would actually leave up something on the map that would make me uncomfortable by by essentially seeing that that's a problem in addressing it now rather than just waiting for that to maybe happen or maybe not happen is the way to go I wish we saw that more frequently in these cases so thank you very much thank you I recognize miss Sonjak Jamie Sonjak department first off staff has had the opportunity to review the design commitment proffers and they are acceptable the second item I wanted to bring up is there is nothing on the existing development plan that discusses these changes to the roadway connections through the railroad properties and eliminating the connection to Glover Road so if that does occur then the applicant would have to come back to the planning commission or change their zoning at that time it would be a different zoning application but you're referring if I may you may you're referring to the connection that shown at Glover that is a short distance from the railroad track right under right now three are shown one on after one on Crafton and then that other one which doesn't actually have a roadway in there but evidently there's right of way on the map that one is required correct I think the applicant if you can correct me if I'm wrong but the applicant was alluding to eliminating that and under the current development plan that would not be I probably cause that I was actually only referring to Esther and Crafton the ones that are that are on the development plan are marked with a note to write that that that other one that the railroad track that's not marked with a note to that's that actually would be required right right my experience is that if ncdot moves forward with a condemnation action against a development that a development plan is not required to have a rezoning because ncdot changed the access point and before Commissioner Hornbuckle before we get to you I just want to give the staff a chance to finish any of their clarifying comments staff saying that at that time we would have to evaluate the situation we're not going to be able to just answer it on the spot thank you Mr. Hornbuckle yes sir for your transportation just a question the upgrades that you're stating for Glover and Andrew can you give me a little details on that well there's a one of the things we look at through this was the possibility of putting in a traffic signal at that location and definitely needs one yeah so that's that's something that is a requirement so we're going to be working through that as it's allowed and approved by the DOT okay another concern I had I've been out of the loop for a while I've been retired eight years but I was a deputy sheriff that was a constant headache and problem with us with the railroad through there as far as from all the way from Ellis and Andrew all the way back past railroad of blocking the area and access in there has this been addressed or spoken you know it's a concern of mine because I recall the problem years back we had with this well one of the things obviously the Great Separation Project is coming and so you know also like to point out that the traffic that was going out of the way is not we're not increasing that significantly you know with this project so the DOT's position has been the Great Separation is the way that all that gets addressed and that's coming so well I mean I just realized you got a good development I fully support it but if the access is coming off of railroad I knew how we used to get like I said constantly had complaints about how the trains would block railroad and all and that entire stretch through there that's why I just you know wondered if that had been addressed yeah Commissioner Hornbiker, Patrick Becker for the project we were very impressed with the plan NCDOT came forward with to Great Separate the railroad tracks and Glover and then to rework the road access so your point is well taken and nobody on our team wants to make it any worse so we're working as working with NCDOT to make this Great Separation and the related road improvements happen as quickly as possible thank you sir thank you Commissioner Baker so thank you Jamie I really always seem to know these cases inside and out it's really appreciated and I also really appreciate that you brought multiple staff members these are big projects and there is a lot to deal with I think this is looking good I do have a few questions for the applicant my first question is where is and how much parkland or open space is there that would be in the north west quadrant will be a significant amount of open recreational space and Steven can probably give you a better number than I can for that yeah so based on the density once this moves to a site plan based on the PDR a density of less than or I guess we're if we're 3 acres or not if we're higher above 3 units an acre I will either have 15 or 16% required for open space of that a third that would be recreational open space so you're looking around 5 acres of recreational open space 15% minimum open space in general and then 20% tree safe very likely we will be well over that 15% open space I would imagine more than that 25-30% open space if actually not more we're looking there's some area that is not actually sewerable on the property kind of that northwest corner in a separate basin and so that will actually be remaining as a micro park if you will very passive recreational facilities so that's kind of the intention at the moment so I imagine there will be a lot of open space and then by default some rec open space as well okay but there's no commitment to that except for the minimum that you're talking about that's correct the UDO then will by default have a commitment at time of site plan yeah there is are there going to be any green building elements low impact development sustainability anything like that yeah sure not in particular no sir okay so in our last meeting we had a large discussion about missing middle housing and housing choice in Durham talking about how there's a need for more duplexes and triplexes and quadruplexes and so on I'm curious about how many of those types of units you might expect to see in this development now I go back to I believe it was Commissioner Miller's question our anticipated build out is approximately 200 townhomes approximately 150 single family detached homes okay so 350 single family passion detached correct is the only okay what elements of walkability are going to be included in this so when I say that I'm thinking of alleys do you have any information about average block length or connectivity or anything like that so there is a max block perimeter within the Sperven tier I'd have to refer to playing with it so just what's in the UDO yeah and so I obviously going to meet the UDO speaking from pedestrian circulation as far as walkability Durham section has a sidewalk on one side of the roads very likely to have it on both sides as it's a nicer experience for the end development there will also be connectivity to many park pocket parks within the development so all that is still a moving target but certainly that's the goals of the development the block perimeter standards especially within the townhome it's easy to hit the block perimeter and then there's going to be the site itself kind of narrows and so there's only so much you can do as it goes off to the east if you will but I think Jamie might be able to answer on some of that block perimeter standard Jamie Sanyi planning department I can't really comment on that I just wanted to make it clear that those types of discussions are not part of the development plan there's no commitments relative to what you're alluding to so that might be determined at the time of site plan there's no requirements for that if they wanted to make a commitment though they could make a commitment that would be up to the applicant we can't force them to do that because it's not in the UDO again thank you you used a lot of really great language in your introduction talking about missing middle housing and affordability to the workforce and those are really really important things I think that there's a slow momentum shift in the types of developments that we're allowing that we're requiring in the city of Durham and that's slowly changing over time it's a slow culture shift this is I think a good development I would like to see more in order to make me feel comfortable so I'm actually not going to be supporting this and I would actually encourage other commissioners to follow suit but you're almost there it's looking good and I just want to encourage the types of things that we just talked about in maybe future proposals and again I think you're doing really great work and I appreciate having all of you here today and hopefully we can talk about these things a little bit more in the future so thanks Commissioner Gibbs I want to start off with asking my neighbor here Commissioner Baker are you referring specifically to walkability trails in the walkability and I'm just I think I'm supposed to address the chairman so I guess I just ask the chairman if he would ask to clarify that for me Commissioner Baker you may respond to the question I'm sorry can you yeah it has what we use specifically referring to as walkability so I would be comfortable with more of a commitment to sustainable design to green building features to sidewalks and street trees on both sides of the street to short blocks if there were alleys that would be encouraged I think also if there were more variety of housing types this is 350 single family units I think we want to encourage more variety than that so those are the main things that I'm thinking about right now and hopefully this is a discussion that we can continue having and developers will start coming forward making these types of commitments to us more in the future Commissioner Gibbs the floor is yours and thank you Mr. Chairman that did I not read in here that there will be sidewalks provided along the roads within this development or do I have it mixed up with the other one there there will be sidewalks along the city of Durham street section has requirement of sidewalk on one side at a minimum of their street section so that will be there I'm not sure it specifically says in the report but that will be an item that will be addressed at time of site plan walkability is something that I like in neighborhoods also you know people can walk anywhere they want to ever ever how far or how short their trip may be but I do think sidewalks seem to be the main mode of pedestrian travel you know to maintain connection with your neighbors and all that but anyway that said my interest was peaked while I go when you mention DOT or the railroad separation I don't know if if you or somebody from staff may need to answer that if you know the answer how are they going to separate it is it going to be Ellis road Ellis road up Ellis road up or down Glover will go over Glover will go over the railroad tracks okay so there won't be any real hold up there and I guess you can still make a left hand turn on to from is it Glover now rather than Ellis Glover is the northern it's further north north it's the same kind of situation but you can still turn left before you go over the bridge of the railroad tracks that was just some information I wanted to find out and I got a late and I guess we all got this a late email about some concerns of two neighbors and it had to do mainly with stormwater maintaining the I guess you could call it the repairing barriers along the streams that are existing here and I'm if everything follows suit as usual code has a requirement there but I don't know why they I don't know if they were asking for something in addition to but I'm sure staff has reviewed everything and I am always satisfied with what staff comes up with but I I would like to support this this project and so that's all from me sir thank you commissioner Gibbs Vice Chair Hyman thank you I recognize that many times the devil is in the details but I'm particularly in support of this project because as a former occupant of the research triangle park and having watched it develop over the years the other things that had not happened during that period of time was housing or middle housing affordable housing for those individuals who actually worked within that area so I don't want that point to be missed because we still have 20 individuals moving to Durham every single solitary day and it is going to be important for us to be able to have housing for them in order to support our overall area so I wanted to make those comments so that that particular point is not lost and I will be supporting this project thank you thank you thank you chair I have a question for staff both in the staff report in the justification statements by the applicant this 2013 study has been referenced the Durham industrial land study which I guess evaluates some criteria or evaluates the market marketability of land for industrial uses I'm just curious because we've gotten a few cases released since I've been here where we've changed the zoning from industrial to residential based on some of the criteria from the study and I'm wondering if we are at risk of not having just because it's not marketable doesn't mean we don't need the land for industrial use long term so I'm curious if there's any concern from staff about the amount of industrial land that we need going forward and I guess the follow up question to that is there going to be another study similar to this done soon so some of this can be updated my understanding making their heads yes is that the industrial land use study is in the process of being updated so I understand your concerns relative to the loss of industrial zoning but in this particular area on this particular site we did look at whether or not this property is suitable for industrial development and based on the amount of land that could be developed the site has a lot of environmental constraints for perian areas wetlands steep slopes and so those criteria were evaluated and also the site does not have the correct connection to the highway as well so that was also a consideration thank you Commissioner Miller thank you Mr. Chairman I wanted to say I have said this from time to time as we have looked at requests for rezoning between the Durham's urban more urban core and the airport we seem to be in my opinion just kind of crazy quilting the way we're developing in there by considering these cases one rezoning at a time I wish we could get really make sense out of what we see the real future land use pattern and really look at it parcel by parcel I'm going to support this rezoning simply for the reasons that Jamie said I went to Esther Drive and looked down into the grade difference down there it's got to be 40-50 feet by the time you get down to the bottom in there fortunately in the winter you can see all the way down you could have effective industrial actual development in there so when we do our comprehensive planning exercise over the next couple of years rather than just looking at maps and the two-dimensional world on white paper you need to really look at what's on the ground and designate and preserve for future development those sites that are best suited for industrial development and then protect them and then make also orderly places for future residential development keeping in mind that as Commissioner Hyman said we have made decisions to make big changes for the research triangle park in Durham County I read in the newspaper even this morning that the essentially urban center that they want to make where the old governor's in used to be we have essentially blown the lid off zoning for that site and it will include residential and commercial and all those things that make up a city in town and we are going to have to look at that as a point of gravitation and so while we may consider this site as being way away from the urban center of Durham it's actually fairly close to the new urban center of the research triangle park I think when we do planning in this area along the freeway corridor and along the I-40 corridor between here and the airport I think we're going to have to keep in mind that there are going to be kind of two urban middles and Durham is not going to be a it's going to cease to be a one city one city county in the future I'm not seeing any Commissioner Williams and then I think we'll move to a motion I just have a general concern with the impact of traffic as it relates to Glover and as heavily traveled as Glover Road is now and coming off of Ellis especially given the 8 o'clock a.m. and the 4 to 6 p.m. travel off of Miami onto Anger by way of Ellis Road to get to 147 and a dedicated lane will certainly help with that but I do understand if I am correct that there will be another commitment or a change to the application if there is a change to what is already submitted as far as your development plan is concerned I understand the need to not necessarily have Glover as an access point I definitely understand that in consideration so I just want to speak on behalf of addressing the question that was proposed earlier in terms of using Glover as an access point and the impacts of that I know once you come off of Ellis Road and travel down Glover trying to get there I don't know if they are going to paint those rocks or make them glow or something but somebody is going to have a rough time trying to navigate that especially in the rain and water tends to sit there so I just I think what you are building is awesome I do still have a concern about that access point as far as Glover is concerned and I see that you guys have the same concerns of the same consideration I did want to let the gentleman know that it was officially questioned and it appears that your concern is valid and has been taken note as far as the transportation issues as far as Glover Road access point is concerned Thank you Commissioner Williams I think this is an appropriate time for a motion Commissioner Bryan Mr. Chairman I move that we send case A17 00 018 forward to City Council with a favorable recommendation Motion by Commissioner Bryan and seconded by Commissioner Hornbuckle and this is the the first case out of two so we will have a roll call vote please This is for the plan amendment on case A17 00 018 Commissioner Williams Commissioner Morgan Commissioner Johnson Commissioner Bryan Commissioner Durkin Commissioner Alturk Commissioner Hyman Commissioner Busby Commissioner Miller Commissioner Kenshin Commissioner Hornbuckle Commissioner Baker Commissioner Gibbs Motion passes 12-1 Thank you and an additional motion on the zoning case please Mr. Chairman I move that we send case Z17 00 052 forward to the City Council with a favorable recommendation and that includes the additional committed element I thought was added tonight Second Moved and seconded we'll have a roll call vote Commissioner Williams Commissioner Morgan Commissioner Johnson Commissioner Bryan Commissioner Durkin Commissioner Hyman Commissioner Busby Commissioner Miller Commissioner Kenshin Commissioner Hornbuckle Commissioner Baker Commissioner Gibbs Motion passes 12-1 Thank you all very much a reminder this will now move forward to the City Council for their review and they have the final decision on this matter we are moving to our second case this evening we have a motion to amend the future land use map amendment with concurrent zoning map change this is case A18 quadruple 02 and Z18 quadruple 05 3920 South Austin Avenue and we'll start with the staff report good evening I'm Jamie Soniek with the planning department I will be presenting case number Z18 00 05 3920 South Austin Avenue the applicant is Dan Jewel from Coulter Jewel Thames the site is located at 3920 South Austin Avenue and is 1.8 1.863 acres in size the rezoning request is office and institutional to industrial light with the development plan the applicant is also proposing a future land use map amendment to institutional the applicant seeks a rezoning to allow a building of 12,000 square feet for all uses permitted in the industrial light zoning district this is the aerial map the subject site is shown in red the property is located within the suburban tier and also located within the Cape Fear River Basin these pictures depict the site and the area the property contains it's subtle but you can ignore it the property contains a 7,200 square foot building it's one story there's associated parking with the dumpster area the rear portion of the property is undeveloped and then it slopes down towards the adjacent railroad tracks there are a large number of hardwood trees scattered throughout the site the area South Austin Avenue corridor contains a number of light industrial uses including the tri center south complex to the east several mini warehouses self storage facilities commercial salvage yards with intermittent residences and vacant lots this is the zoning context map the applicant has submitted an application to change the zoning from OI which is shown on the left to industrial light on the right in purple and this is the associated feature land use map on the left you can see the property is in pink which is the office designation and in purple on the right which is the industrial designation proposed conditions there is a maximum pervious coverage of 90% a tree protection requirement of 10% and the development plan shows the required street yard side yard and rear yard as well as access points and the areas where they are there's existing Arctic boundary buffer encroachments text commitments I already alluded already alluded to already alluded to the building size they have set a maximum building height at 50 feet there is a text commitment providing additional asphalt for a future bicycle lane along south austin avenue the plan also shows again the site access points parking and building envelopes the buffer encroachment areas and the tree coverage areas and there are some design commitments relative to the building materials and there are roof types in terms of consistency with the comprehensive plan and policies the proposed industrial light zoning designation does not comply with the current office designation however it does it is consistent with 212C the proposed industrial future land use designation is consistent with the intent of the suburban tier it provides an opportunity for additional industrial land and employment the site will be subject to the industrial light zoning district standards as well as the applicable requirements in the UDO including those addressing lighting noise and other site impacts with respect to 213I the parcel is already improved with an existing building and parking lot the proposed use while it is not committed to is intended for manufacturing and distribution of laboratory testing equipment the location is consistent with 242C as the site has direct access to a minor thoroughfare the change proposed change would make the site more compatible with the industrial uses to the northeast to the north and to the east and the increasing number of industrial users in the area there is existing infrastructure in place to support the proposal in terms of 234C the unified development ordinance requires project boundary buffers between industrial and residential zoning and the land use is to allow for appropriate transitions as shown in the development plan and with respect to 814D the development plan commits to additional asphalt along south austin avenue frontage for the site of the site for future bicycle lane staff determines that these requests are consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances and I will be happy to answer any questions that you have thank you we will open the public hearing and the individual signed up to speak for Mr. Dan Joule thank you Jamie good evening commissioners Dan Joule culture Joule Thames I'll be pretty brief I'm here at the request of Mr. Peter Piercini here in the audience today he is the CEO and president of Zenbio they are a company that actually assembles kits or different laboratory procedures and you need a suture the doctor would grab a kit rip it open, there would already be the sutures and all that kind of stuff he does the same thing for laboratory stuff as you can imagine there is a good need for that here because there is a lot of laboratory research that goes on in this area you can ask my wife she does that this was the I don't want to call it old because it wasn't this wasn't an Elks Lodge that just opened about 10 years ago a lighting survey for them to get their certificate of occupancy about 10 years ago sadly as many of us know though social and fraternity organizations are sort of declining in this country so they gave it a go but they finally had to shut their doors a while ago anybody interested in pursuing that there was a great book called Bowling Alone that came out about 15 years ago that talks about all that stuff so the zoning request is to the zoning in place that will allow him to occupy the existing building it's an existing metal building on the site so that he could create these lab kits as Jamie said it would be considered a light industrial manufacturing type use there is a strong existing industrial character in the neighborhood not sure why there's a lot of oh and I zoning backing up to the tracks because I was not able to identify any uses that I would actually consider office type uses I think it's just been out there for a long long time and it's left over there's two residences immediately south of here we held a neighborhood meeting last March those properties owned by the ship and madrin families they came to the neighborhood meeting we had a really good chat they wished us well they know that someday their properties will be desirable and somebody will probably want to turn them into something else but for the time being they just like being out there and they just like the neighborhood the way it is they're really really great folks we have proposed as a commitment a modest increase to the existing floor area on the site I think there's about seventy two hundred square feet we are actually committing to a maximum of twelve thousand square feet those of you who are familiar with this zoning know that by right you could do up to sixty percent of the site in floor area which would translate to something between forty five and fifty thousand square feet just to show you that the intent is not to knock that building down and build something huge he's committing to only a maximum of twelve thousand square feet which would give him room to do a modest addition on the building at some point in the future they when they ramp up the location they anticipate having twenty five employees which is actually a fifty percent increase and accommodated their existing location so good job location the text commitments as you see we are committed to widening Alston Avenue to allow a future bike lane when enough of it is patched together we are committing to beefing up the existing substandard landscape buffers where there is some existing pavement encroachment up against the property line and of course any new development that takes place in the future would have to meet the new buffer requirements and take that out one of the other committed elements is probably going to be a pricey one but believe it or not even though there is an existing big water line out front fire hydrants the building has sprinklers the city water system cannot provide enough water to meet the national fire protection act requirements so he, unless somebody else beats him to it which is not likely is going to have to run a larger water line down there to serve an existing building with an existing fire hydrant and an existing fire sprinkler in the building so that's where we are as Jamie said staff is finding consistency we would request that you all consider making a recommendation for approval to the council to answer any questions that you might have thank you and as we did before if there is anyone else who did not get a chance to speak up for this public hearing please raise your hand and we'll bring you up I don't see anyone so we will close the public hearing commissioners we'll start on my left any questions or comments Commissioner Johnson thank you chairman to I'm sorry Dan I'm just curious as I read the application and then I looked at the commitments so is the plan, couple questions one is the plan for there to be multiple, potentially multiple buildings on the site or just the one existing building well his plan is one building potentially a building addition obviously our commitment is to a maximum square footage so it is possible that he or somebody else can understand a standalone building on the site but you know again we're committing to a maximum square footage which is pretty modest right and so I was just asking because as I read it says a maximum building singular size that singular term up to 12,000 square feet but then when I looked at the commitments it said in some places it says building but then if any new buildings or additions are built if there was I assure you that's just my very poor check of grammar for portals on the end of that so we are not committing to only one building if that's okay and then the other one is the plan to more conceptualize as a retrofitting of the rehabbing of the existing building or could it be tear down completely rebuild again his intent is to move into the existing building some retrofitting it's just a big space in there with a kitchen it was an elk lodge so he would add some rooms in there we are not committing to not tearing down the building but again with the restriction we have put on the maximum square footage I can assure you that it would be a tough economically to justify tearing the existing building down and building a new one out there but I'm not saying we're committing it it's just a pre-engineered building with a fake brick veneer on the front that's what it is that's what it looks like too Mr. Bryan I just want to make a quick comment I drive on South Austin a lot it used to be one of the ways I would go home from my job in RTP I know that traffic can sometimes be a problem but I've been on it at rush hour and I was still able to get home in one piece I support this because I'm pleased to see that we're taking this piece of property and putting it back into use thank you Mr. Miller thank you Mr. Chairman I also support this but I will say my one reservation is that it does not have anything to do with the use of the property for light industrial or for the project as it's been described it has to do with the future land use map and the comprehensive plan I don't like having a saw tooth office industrial office pattern on that side of South Austin Avenue we saw in the last case where the developer included land outside the project in order to round the corners in a sensible way to make the future land use map for his property and for his neighboring property makes sense in the future and this is another place where I would love love it if that parcel similar sized parcel immediately to the north were also redesignated light industrial to join it with the larger tracks above to make a more homogenous and sensibly shaped district for light industrial in the area but again knowing that we are about to do comprehensive planning knowing that the office use that's on that site would be allowed in light industrial so there wouldn't be an inconsistency I'm going to support this knowing that this is something I hope will be fixed in the next year so when we do comprehensive plan review Thank you Commissioner Miller I don't see any other questions or comments so I'll open to a motion Commissioner Brian Thank you Thank you Mr. Chairman I move that we send case A18000 to over to City Council with a favorable recommendation Properly moved by Commissioner Brian seconded by Commissioner Johnson we'll have a roll call vote please Commissioner Williams Yes Commissioner Johnson Yes Commissioner Bryan Yes Commissioner Darken Yes Commissioner Al Turk Yes Commissioner Hyman Yes Commissioner Busby Yes Commissioner Miller Yes I move that we send case Z18000 to City Council with a favorable recommendation Second Moved by Commissioner Brian seconded by Commissioner Hornbuckle staff may we have a voice vote on this or do you prefer the roll call? All those in favor please say aye Any opposed Great thank you So we have two more cases this evening these are both just zoning map changes and the first case is case Z1800014 this is the Davis Park West proposal and we'll start with the staff report again Good evening I'm Emily Struthers with the Planning Department I will now be presenting case Z1800014 Davis Park West The applicant is Craig Davis this 10.847 site is located at 362 Davis Drive and 900 Marion Avenue and is comprised of two lots this site is located within the city limits the applicant proposes to change the zoning from commercial general with a development plan to mixed use with a development plan the property is designated commercial in the future land use map which is consistent with the zoning request the proposal consists of a maximum of 245 25,000 square feet of offense and 35,000 square feet of commercial and 482 residential units the site is shown in red located off of Davis Drive in the Triangle Metro Compact Neighborhood Development tier the site is part of the Davis Park West development located just outside of RTP this aerial map is a little bit outdated you'll notice that there has been development to the south as well as continued development of the apartments to the west the site photos here show that the property has been cleared and graded includes an existing stormwater pond and is framed by streets, street trees and sidewalks the site is otherwise undeveloped the area photos here show that this site is adjacent to multifamily residential townhomes, offices and commercial uses the site is presently zoned commercial general with a development plan CGD the property is designated commercial on the future land use map which is consistent with the requested rezoning the proposed conditions here show that the development plan provides site access points building and parking envelopes transitional use areas specifies the uses and the maximum building height key commitments include that the proposed development will be constructed in phases and vertically integrated the overall intensity specifies maximums of 245,000 square feet of office 35,000 square feet of commercial and 482 residential units design commitments specify that a minimum of 60% of street frontages shall contain a building and set minimum ground floor glazing standards and landscape design guidelines a maximum height of 145 feet has been set except where the transitional use area limits the height the proposed MUD zoning designation complies with the current commercial designation on the future land use map and applicable policies it is consistent with policy 213e 231g and 232a staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other policies and ordinances and staff is as always available for any questions thank you as with the other cases we'll open a public hearing and we have two people signed up and maybe the third that signed up earlier so Patrick Biker, Ryan Johnson and Heather Schaefer if you're still here and all three are signed up in support so we'll start Mr. Biker thank you Emily good evening again Chairman Busby, Vice Chair Hyman members of the planning commission I'm Patrick Biker with Morningstar Law Group and Stuart Drive along with Craig Davis the CEO of Craig Davis Properties our traffic engineer, Earl LaWenland with Kim Lee Horne and our lead architect Michael Stevenson with Perkins and Will I'm here tonight representing Craig Davis Properties for this agenda item it has been my privilege to work with Craig Davis Properties on this development for the past 15 years back around 2003 and 2004 we referred to this section of Durham as Triangle Metro Center and we are currently developing in accordance with the Durham 2020 comprehensive plan the 2020 plan was our community's first planning document to call for compact neighborhoods and Triangle Metro Center was a groundbreaking development literally and figuratively 15 years ago as Triangle Metro Center was moving forward the original version of our current comprehensive plan was adopted in February of 2005 in that initial version of our comp plan Triangle Metro Center was designated as a compact neighborhood on the development tier map then over the past decade or so in the wake of the Great Recession and with the demise of the Triangle Transit Authority's regional fixed guideway plan we renamed this 150 acre area as Davis Park pursuant to what we designed and what was approved 15 years ago Davis Park has been built out so far as a surface park development now while we think of our townhomes and those condominiums along the other residential residential units that were developed in accordance with the original entitlements that all represents a great neighborhood here in Durham but now we strongly believe that this is the time for Davis Park to become more vertical to incorporate structured parking and quite frankly to provide the shot in the arm that the RTP section of Durham has needed for the past 15 years in short Davis Park this project can provide the pedestrian oriented mixed use environment to generate this type of momentum we need in order to create an alternative vibrant location for businesses and residents outside of downtown to that end we are proposing this mixed use development which brings the intensity to support structured parking and vertically integrated commercial uses we've put together a tremendous local team to create this 125 or more million dollar project a mixed use development that's spearheaded by Craig Davis and Michael Stevenson with Perkins and Will right here in downtown Durham we respectfully request your recommendation of approval for this ambitious project to transform 10 vacant acres into the game changer that's part of Durham needs we have a few folks from Finsbury who are here tonight and after they share their thoughts our team will be happy to answer any questions you may have thank you for your time tonight thank you so Ryan Johnson has signed up to speak next I'm trying this again Ryan Johnson 700 Finsbury street I'm in favor of the proposal simply because right now it is just the land is just sitting there I would like to ask either the developer or whoever what exactly that commercial land will be used for I'm not sure of the appropriateness of this but I would say that right now we have a great community and the addition of sheets right near us was a huge convenience improvement in at least my life and I think given the fact that from 8 to 9 and from 5 to 6 it is completely full with a line I think a lot of other people's lives I would like to say that if we are going to take that next step and kind of make it into a type of second center I'd strongly encourage things like a grocery store it would be a huge huge convenience improvement that being said the land isn't really being used for anything currently and therefore I would support this proposal thank you second time is the charm and Heather Schaefer Hi my name is Heather Schaefer I live at 120 Finsbury street in Durham I have been a part of Davis Park since 2005 my deposit in so I've been a part of it since the original vision and then of course I was also part of it in 2008 when the recession happened so I'm speaking for this development because I'm really excited to see at least part of the original vision come to fruition I'm excited to see that it can increase my property values as well as we have a very tight community because we are located in RTP there's not a lot outside of our immediate area so we are all very excited about having a place where we can walk our dogs and gather for drink or whatever after work so very supportive of this thank you very much anyone else who want to speak yes ma'am you can give us your name and your address and make your remarks my name is Cheryl Leischer and I also live in Davis Park I live on Side Park street I've lived in the community for about six years I've been a member of our we have both POA and HOA for years I know a lot of people in the community I speak with people all the time and it's my opinion that a lot of people in our area really support this type of development I don't know all of the details I have some concerns of course about traffic which I'm sure will be addressed but I do have to say that you know the majority of people I know are like Heather said are really welcome this sort of development because people want places to walk to and those are my comments thank you if you don't mind too do you mind just coming up and signing in on the public hearing sheet that would be a big help thank you anyone else who would like to speak I don't see anyone else we're going to close the public hearing commissioners we'll start on my right Commissioner Johnson thank you as always I have questions Patrick just a couple I hope you can help me conceptualize the residential piece here so on parcel B it notes that it would only be committed for residential units then some residential may likely will be on the parcel CD so when I'm seeing a maximum up to 482 units what would that look like how many floors there would be a taller building as Emily described in her very thorough staff report because when the compact neighborhood tier the buildings have to be close to Davis Drive that will be where the taller building is outside the transitional use area that building on parcel B could be 6 to 9 stories tall and then on the parcel CD closer to the existing apartments it would be much lower because we want to transition back to the existing buildings and that building would probably be 3 or 4 stories similar to what's already there and quick follow up and so forth just the commercial space and I think I saw it would be vertically integrated whatnot so with the maximum 35 thousand square feet be like a single floor or yes sir single floor of commercial with office or residential on top of it thank you sir thank you Commissioner Brian Patrick I admire the vision of making this development or proposing this development with the vertical integration and the structured parking the one thing that I don't like about it is it with the structured parking which I know is expensive imagine it rules out any chance of affordable housing that's probably true thank you that was my question Commissioner Alturk thank you chair good morning is the maximum square footage in the commercial 35,000 square feet or 15,000 square feet 35 okay so in the staff report there are a couple of instances where it says 15,000 and I think the traffic generation is based it says on 15,000 square foot fast food restaurant or something like that or fast casual restaurant so I assume that number would go up just a little bit and then just to clarify I assume that this is in the on the first page of the development plan the phasing intensity so the future phases in that table in text commitment one it says up to 420,000 square feet that includes the initial 44 to 280 so everything is inclusive of the first phase is that right because that can be read that's kind of ambiguous I think the joys of working with our mixed use ordinance but yes okay I think that's all I had for now just these clarification questions thank you you reserved the right for future questions thank you so thank you very much so it is interesting and I should have caught this myself and I'm grateful to the commissioner out on page 5 of the staff report that 15,000 instead of 45,000 is repeated in section F and in G it doesn't stop my support for the project I do want to just did want to point out this is one of those situations where when and again I'm looking at the existing zoning proposed zoning map that we have on our report where the predominant uses in each of the quadrants of this important intersection while being perfectly correct under the zoning code are actually uses which don't conform to the names of the zoning categories so we have office institutional across the street from this project but it's primarily residential this corner is zone commercial general but the predominant use is going to be residential over in the industrial in the other quadrant diagonally across the street from the project that's industrial light but it's got a shopping center on it so it's just one of those things that happens and make some of these cases a little counterintuitive unless you know the code I think this is a good project too I did want to ask where is the transit quarter that runs that supposedly runs through this compact neighborhood tier my understanding of that is that wallet the station was previously shown to the west on the other side of of the Davis park east let's say so sorry let me step back for a moment there so to the east of Davis drive there is another development and there has previously been a plan showing the rail station there however that's not a funded plan and so we are kind of stepping away from changing this to design district and focusing on those mixed use elements and a compact neighborhood without responding specifically to a specific location of a rail right but this is still part of in terms of our overall planning ideas for the future development of the county we still have the string of pearls that runs from Chapel Hill to Raleigh we're acting on the Durham to Chapel Hill part and we're focusing a lot of planning resources and turning the compact neighborhood tiers there to design districts because we anticipate light rail being installed there but we have not gone away from the idea of the possibility of having a rail connection to Raleigh to the airport and to Raleigh down through the Research Triangle Park a train which actually excites me much more of however remote it may be than the Chapel Hill connection and so I think it's a good idea to keep these compact neighborhood tiers to develop them so that if the train a train to Raleigh becomes something that we're going to work on will be in good shape I also like it that this is development that means that commuters to the Research Triangle Park won't have to drive all the way to Raleigh or all the way to Durham or all the way to Chapel Hill I'm thrilled that the neighbors that came and spoke came and spoke we do not often hear from neighbors in this more modern type of development for Durham so thank you for coming Thank you Commissioner Miller Commissioner Baker So I think it's really interesting the history that you presented there I think a lot of new urbanist communities have when they first started in the 90s and early 2000s if you look at them today you can actually see the evolution of thinking and the beginning of new urbanism there's this clash with the regulations of the 90s and sort of the mentality of the 90s and little by little we're progressing and we're getting better we're not quite there I am going to be supporting this I don't think that vertical mixed use is just a luxury I think it's a necessity and so this is definitely going in the right direction just wanted to echo Commissioner Brian's concern about affordable housing that would be a great thing to have been able to include I wanted to ask if there are any green building elements to this not that I'm aware of we're working hard on creating the mix of uses so that you'd have a very high internal trip capture which would reduce automobile emissions by having people only park once and then not have to move their cars again as is common in other developments across the tribe and I wanted to I wanted to say that I really appreciated the some of the commitments that were made in particular some of the commitments that impact the walkability of and sort of the pedestrian friendliness so actually I don't have it right in front of me but you know being that pedestrian walking down the street and being able to look through that first floor and folks not being able to look out and see pedestrians as they go it's something that makes people feel safer something that makes people feel much more comfortable as they walk down the street so again this is definitely going the right direction and I appreciate this development and I'm going to be supporting it thank you Commissioner Gibbs yeah and I I guess to make a short story shorter I'm just going to say amen to all of this great comments and but I I would like to take this opportunity to voice my support for this kind of development especially in this area you know we've just been reading recently research triangle foundations plan for their mixed use area I think is ready to take off to me this is a tag along and it may have been planned at the same time but to me it's it's something that goes with it and makes a comprehensive statement about where this area the research triangle park is going to be much different and backing out from there back toward town and the areas around this is going to be what we're going to be seeing more of and I and just one quick question about the rail or were we talking about the regional rail from Durham RTP, RDU and Orange County rather than the light rail is this the regional rail that is out there? Yes, bill judge with transportation this area would likely be served by the Wake Durham commuter rail that major investment study is just now and it's very early preliminary kickoff study stages that Campo and Wake County will be through with go triangle so I mean first thing to be determining is just feasibility the thought is that it would be commuter type rail on the existing rail line but where those station locations would be have not been determined yet I mean the previous study that was going to use a similar study in 2005-2006 did have that station that Emily was referring to earlier so I mean there's good possibility another station in the area but that exact location has not been determined yet or even any timing or funding for it. Thank you Mr. Judge and the way things are changing it's going to be the developers of the rail and the engineers and all that it's going to be like a dog chase in its tail but one of these things is going to have to be in place but I agree with Commissioner Miller we need to plan for it it may be a phantom line out there now but it's a little more than a phantom line but I I'm just excited I wish I was going to be around to see it all happen but it's this whole area to me is very exciting it's RTP was great in its day and as we have all we all know it's sort of gotten a little quieter out there but I think things are beginning to really pop and I that's enough I still say amen Thank you very much before I recognize Commissioner Alturk I did just want to mention that I was looking through here as well and notice the difference between the 35,000 and 15,000 square feet of commercial it's in a lot of spots if I'm reading it correctly I may be misunderstanding I just wanted to mention it before we move this forward to City Council to clarify the 15,000 is in error it was pulled from the development intensity and copied to the other areas so we're looking at that 35,000 as stated on the overview as well as in the development plan that'll just get fixed throughout it's a typo it's not an error that would change any of the calculations in any of the traffic generation reports or anything like that I believe the traffic generation report numbers are based off of the 15,000 the square footage of the commercial has evolved through the review process I'll let Erlene or Bill Judge speak to that further Erlene Thomas City Transportation so the 15,000 square footage is what the traffic calculation was based off of and the site would be limited to the total amount of trips that were approved as a part of the TIA so they could mix and match the amounts of the different uses but they can't exceed the number of trips that they've been approved for so if they did more less office and more of the commercial so the text commitments on the cover sheets say a maximum of this so we should consider it as a cap but they're still going to have to work within their TPD figure yes alright and you're okay with that we don't need to fix something it's all kosher as well for the water supply school systems won't be impacted but those numbers may need to be updated okay and that's okay great Commissioner Alturk and let me just say actually before I recognize you sorry I do support this project as well I think it's a very thoughtful project I think given what we're seeing in RTP hearing from the neighbors tonight really helped seal the deal for me but it's a thoughtful project it's doing the kind of things we want to see more of so I appreciate the time that's been put into it and I will vote for it Commissioner Alturk thank you chair I also support this project but I do have a couple of questions for staff and again this has to do with the phase the phases I guess the first question is about is there a minimum requirement for mixed use in terms of commercial and office does there have to be a minimum square footage there is a minimum of sort of the ratio of uses I can pull up that sections to specifically reference it no that's okay but there is so there has to be some office and commercial it can't just be because the way I read it the first phase the developer could build up to 280,000 square foot square feet of residential before moving to the second phase and they could only so they might build 280,000 square feet of residential and 4,000 square feet of commercial and office is that correct or is it is the second requirement that the ratios have to match or right I think part of what I'm asking for is that some of the residents mentioned that they liked the idea of having commercial here and it might be good to set the expectations now that this would not just be mostly a residential development if I may Mr. Chairman so it's your question must there be must there be commercial or can they abandon commercial altogether and just build up to the limits of the other uses mentioned so no single use shall occupy more than 60% of the floor area or gross acreage of the project and that's based off of the mixed use standards so there has to be a mix of uses okay so it could be up to 60% of the total square footage is residential is that the maximum okay a second question is about can you move to a second phase of residential before you do anything in office and commercial so each phase would be required to be able to stand alone with regards to ordinance compliance okay so you have to build a minimum of 4,000 square feet of office and commercial before you build more than 280 square feet 1,000 square feet of residential is that correct I believe so I don't have those numbers in front of me but referencing the phasing chart and the standards of the mix of uses I also saw some nodding heads okay all right thank you I think that helps because I think it's important that it does the mixed use nature of it is clear to residents and to us from the beginning of the project and I echo comments from other commissioners I think this is a good project thank you I just wanted to further comment on what Commissioner Al-Turk was bringing up if we look at the vertical integration of uses I'm thinking I'm not trying to make you commit to anything that you're probably going to have commercial on the bottom maybe office above that or maybe in some places office on the bottom and then residential on top and if you look at it that way it means that you're probably going to have to have at least two or three just to get the building built Patrick I thought you told me there was going to be a revolving restaurant on the top of the taller building that was not a commitment I'll neither confirm nor deny Commissioner Bryan any additional questions or comments? I think we're at the appropriate time for a motion again if anyone else wants to join in Commissioner Al-Turk I will leave Commissioner Bryan of his duties let me see if I can do it as well as he does I move that we send case Z1800014 to the city with a favorable recommendation moved by Commissioner Al-Turk seconded by Commissioner Bryan and we'll have a roll call vote please Commissioner Williams yes Commissioner Morgan yes Commissioner Johnson yes Commissioner Bryan yes Commissioner Durkin yes Commissioner Al-Turk yes Commissioner Hyman yes Chair Busby yes Commissioner Miller yes Commissioner Ketchum yes Commissioner Horne Buckle yes Commissioner Baker yes and Commissioner Gibbs yes Motion passes 13-0 Thanks to all of you for coming out tonight we really appreciate it we're at our final case this evening this is case Z1800018 one and the the project is 1228 Carroll Street are there two zoning requests? I have two sheets we all do we'll start with the staff report good evening I'm Emily Streuthers with the planning department I will now be presenting case Z1800018 1228 Carroll Street the applicant is Jess Brandis with CASA this 5.471 acre site is located at 1228 Carroll Street this site is located within the city limits the applicant proposes to change the zoning from RU5 and RU5-2 to residential urban multifamily with a development plan RUMD the property is designated medium density residential on the future land use map which is consistent with the zoning request the proposal consists of a maximum of 65 multifamily residential units this site is shown in red located at the intersection of Carroll Street and West Lakewood Avenue in the urban development tier the site photos show that the property was previously an army reserve center and contains an existing building garage structures and surface parking the western portion of the site is heavily wooded these area photos show that the site is adjacent to single family residential structures as well as lion park the site is presently zoned residential urban and residential urban with duplexes this designation to residential urban multifamily with a development plan the property is designated medium density residential on the future land use map which is consistent with the rezoning request the development plan provides site access points building and parking envelopes tree preservation and project boundary buffers key commitments include that the proposed development will be constructed in phases with up to 65 units the use is limited to residential and the building type limited to apartment or multiplex building height will be limited to two stories within 75 feet of the street frontage and three stories for the remainder of the site a 20 foot wide greenway easement will be provided and a minimum of 30% tree preservation is shown on the development plan the proposed RUMD zoning designation complies with the current medium density residential designation on the future land use map and applicable policies it is consistent with policy 231a 232a 841b staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other policies and ordinances staff is available for any questions thank you we will open the public hearing we have upwards of seven individuals a few may have had to leave early they noted we are wishing to speak for the proposal and one against and we will start with those in favor and our first speaker is Jess Brandes hello thank you is it going to come up good evening I'm Jess Brandes I'm with CASA I'm the CASA senior director of real estate development I'm joined tonight by my colleagues Debbie White I'm the CASA senior director of property management and I'll leave that alone until somebody comes and helps me I'm also joined by our design team Dan Jool and Jeremy Anderson and I'm going to be brief because I know we have a lot of people signed up to speak I'm going to start by talking about who CASA is cover our vision for this site talk about why we're undertaking this rezoning touch on the neighborhood engagement we've had and then lastly we're going to talk about the additional commitment that we're making tonight should I try to do this click any click and just pull it up yeah let's see if you have a presentation that would be great so the folks at home can see it as well I'm going to do and I will note that we give each side 10 minutes if we need more than 10 minutes that's something that we don't need more than 10 minutes for everybody at this time we can consider that but please go ahead okay I'll be quick so CASA is a local nonprofit we're in our 27th year of building owning and managing affordable housing that's what we do we have these three activities we build communities we maintain our properties ourselves and we support our tenants in their housing through partnering with agencies that provide services here are some images of other properties we've developed recently we currently own and manage almost 500 multifamily units throughout the triangle and serve a variety of households in need of affordable housing specific to this project and specific to all four of these examples I'm showing you we're serving individuals and families with disabilities who have experienced homelessness so our vision for Carroll Street is basically this a beautiful and transformational community of affordable safe stable homes for dorm households who have experienced homelessness specific to this we are expecting an amenity rich and service connected community including on-site management office community space and supportive services for our tenants as was mentioned by staff preservation of 30% of the site for forest and individual old oaks on the site as practicable we're envisioning collaboration with Parks and Rec not only the Greenway easement but we're having conversations with Parks and Rec about other ways to include amenities that would be available to our tenants and the broader community hands-on property management is key to everything that CASA does all of our work throughout the triangle and significant long-term oversight by our funding partners of the project and lastly we as staff mentioned are seeing this vision come to life over time we're currently collecting funds and planning for the first phase of development which will just be 16 units and we envision the 65 units being developed over many years why we're undertaking this rezoning is basically three reasons the first and the most important one is it's consistent with our mission which is to develop and manage affordable housing this land is being conveyed to CASA from the federal government at no cost to us and so we want to capitalize on this incredible opportunity for CASA and for the tenants and for Durham and help as many households as we're able to who are experiencing homelessness and rezoning this allows us to help to do more in two ways first it allows us to build some more units we're requesting 65 over the current zoning which would permit 43 and additionally it allows us to build those units in a more efficient way by building apartment buildings instead of single family homes or duplexes which are more efficient more less expensive to build and less expensive to maintain long term secondly we're doing this because of flexibility this rezoning allows us to have more flexibility in the design of a site in a way that's more compatible with the neighborhood and in our ability to achieve our vision of preserving forests including recreational amenities developing under the current zoning the 43 single family homes that are currently permitted would involve significant tree removal grading and additional paving and lastly as staff mentioned consistent with comprehensive plan neighborhood outreach is not required no neighborhood meeting was required for this but we're very grateful for all the conversations we've had and all the engagement I think we've really come to a much better end product because of all the conversations so I'm thankful for everyone who's been part of this process so far and continues to be but we did send out an initial introductory letter back in July we held one in December and one was in December and we've had lots of other engagement activities and minutes from meetings power point presentations FAQ's a copy of our development plan all of that stuff as it's been ongoing has been put on CASA's website and the communication to neighbors we've been trying to direct them back to the website so that everyone's kind of getting all the same information and lastly I'm going to proffer an additional commitment which is in response to neighborhood feedback and I think that's one of the things that we're going to do is we're going to make a commitment to make sure that there's concerns about safety at the proposed Lakewood Avenue curb cut and so we're committing to making that a right and right only entry point do you mind just saying that again of the proffer sure we are committing to making the Lakewood entry point right in right out only thank you yep great Mallory if you're still here I know they may have to leave early you're still here please come on up hi Brian Schneiderman 1408 Carroll Street so I live about a block and a half away from the project and I've lived in my house since 2010 and these days I walk almost every day past the site with my kids on the way to the school and so I've got to admit you know having been there for a little over eight years walking by that property and seeing it it's as as you might know as you can from the armory it's an eyesore and it's even when it was in use it wasn't in much use and as we all know derelict properties are not really valuable for the neighborhood nor do they build more community and so as a neighbor I'm really thrilled to see this project being developed and actually in partnership with CASA that it has the potential to actually be part of the community as opposed to separate from the community I must admit I have a little bias I'm a fan of affordable housing I actually have the privilege of doing some work in affordable housing and with the growing shortage of affordable housing that is well discussed in Durham I think this is a unique opportunity in Durham that we actually don't see on a regular basis and with the continued gentrification it's actually these opportunities are shrinking versus increasing and if truth be told I actually really value the promise in the neighborhood because in this neighborhood in particular we're seeing a greater amount of gentrification and so when I moved in I think the demographics of the community are changing very rapidly and I think actually having a long-term anchor that creates economic diversity in the neighborhood and the community is something I value as a neighbor and then the last I would say is so given I've had a chance to work in affordable housing I've gotten to work with a number of non-profit developers over the time and I've had some experience with CASA and my experience is that they're a very strong developer and so of the potential partners I'm really thankful that they've won the bid from the federal government and really appreciate them actually trying to create an open process obviously you know after the change in zoning they're going to continue to develop I do trust that they will continue that ongoing conversation and really work in partnership with community and work with them on a regular basis I know I'd be one that would try and hold their feet to the fire on that and again I just I guess we just wrap up with I recommend approval for this project and rezoning thank you thank you for your remarks we have two additional speakers in favor Evelyn Worthy and Debbie White oh and okay they're also here to answer questions oh you wish to speak as well I'm sorry we will have time of course hello my name is Shannon Mallory I live at 1315 Carroll Street which is four houses away from the site I do walk my children to school every day past the site as well for me it's not so much of an eyesore but I will tell you that I do welcome affordable housing in Durham I've seen a lot of regeneration the house that I live in is 1250 square feet and that's a family of four there so one of the things that I see happening in our neighborhood is many of the smaller affordable homes are being turned into bigger, larger, fancier, less affordable homes and one of the things that I'm very grateful to CASA for doing is working with the neighborhood I bet with Jess Brandes myself and it being an older building it has asbestos in the potential for lead paint CASA thankfully has agreed to do a wet demolition as a best practice so that's a wonderful attribute that they are going to bring to this project which I very much support I also like the possible integration of something from parks and rec on the property I think that's a very good way to go I would say with the 65 units and maybe it's naive from a financial perspective of what CASA is trying to accomplish is to say we can support this very low tier of financial status person but also this middle class home is disappearing even in this neighborhood of Durham so as you look at your development of 65 units over the long term I know that is a government housing project but say maybe there's a way that we can bring that middle income bracket of housing into this as well so we're not just servicing the very poor and the very rich in our neighborhood but supporting that middle class housing as well as more and more of the housing changes over to those two types in our neighborhood thank you and please come if you don't mind if you can give us your name and your address and then your remarks if you can come up to the mic first for the folks at home thank you Carrie Benwasalemi I live at 1020 Wells which is about a block and a half from the project and I'm super in support of the project I really agree with everything that Shannon said about and that Brian said about gentrification which is like really going on in our neighborhood a lot neighborhood for 25 years maybe and I just have the one thing that I've mentioned to Jess and there have been neighborhood conversations about and I speak for another neighbor who could not be here tonight we have near our neighborhood over on Moorhead there are horrible garbage problems and I understand on this new project that it is required to have the garbage dumpster you know within a within some sort of a containment I think it's going to be brick you said but I would I'm also just aware that places that you see those containment there are often maybe they'll have wooden doors on them that are kind of broken after a while and bulging and I think particularly since there's this problem over on Moorhead Avenue which and Chapel Hill just off of Chapel Hill Street Chapel Hill Road which is just an eyesore that I drive by almost every day and it's always garbage everywhere and I understand I'm really grateful for this project that you're going to have some onsite supervision and I could even come and give people lessons about how to take care of the garbage if it would come to that anyway but I'm definitely excited about having a project there maybe that was a silly thing to talk about thank you very much and we have one individual signed up to speak against Justin Plant as you mentioned I'm Justin Plant thanks for being here thanks for having me I'm not a politician or a lawyer or what not so I'm simply a family man I moved here from Wisconsin a long time ago but I've lived in this house for three years I live at 1107 West Lake Wadav which is right across the street I have a wife and a three-year-old and a six-month-old and we love where we live and we really enjoy the community that we're a part of my biggest concerns are a density thing I don't know that filling the area with 65 units is something that's conducive to the situation that we live in and that I've moved to and promised my family to there's a park right across the street I walk across there daily on our way on our morning walks to the co-op at the Lion Park and I'm mostly concerned about the density problem and I feel like that a rezoning of putting 65 units versus 44 is is putting that many more in there I feel like is not as necessary I feel like that could be that solution could be that people medded somewhere further in the downtown area where people who need the public access to transportation and food and and would not would be better off in that situation but my other large concern is I don't know that it has to do anything with the rezoning but I live right across the street and if I go up what is on the screen right here somebody perhaps you'll see that my house I'm on that triangle lot right by the right in right out only I'm literally across the street from that and that is my front door that is my child's room and that is my kitchen and I'm not very excited about having the traffic to my front door and I'm wondering if there's possibly a way to just she's been very receptive and welcoming to my concerns so I appreciate that I'm looking forward to working with her I do also want to mention that I think CASA is probably our best choice for this for this location I wouldn't recommend anybody else I don't know anybody else for that area but I would like strong consideration from Jess and from the city to understand my concerns as the person who is dealing with the outgoing traffic and the density problem problems probably a strong word we live in a growing city and density is a thing that we have to deal with on a daily basis you more so than I do so anyhow those are just my thoughts and feelings I do think that some of the I don't know benefits of or the fact that they would be preserving trees is a little one-sided that they're not going to build into the park they're not going to build on that grade so I wouldn't consider that as a very strong argument for why they should be there but I do think CASA that's my argument against that particular point I wanted to be fair that some of these arguments are not necessarily logical they're just convenient but anyhow I appreciate your time for what you will thank you for your comments anyone else who want to speak on this issue I don't see anyone else yes you may be called up by one of us after we close the public hearing so it's good to know that you may have that interest we will now move to yes sir would you like to speak during the public hearing process please come on up thank you Hello commissioners I'm here speaking on behalf of 1112 Arnett Avenue which is about two and a half three blocks I guess at the corner of Cobb and Arnett I'm here with my wife and the property at issue is her family home I guess what best defined tonight as one of the gentrifiers and if that means that we're moving into her family home and fixing it up with renovations and extensive renews and a terrible expense to my family I guess that's what we are the first time we learned about this was three days ago when we received the notice from the city and we're going to just start paying attention to it I realized there was no necessary community outreach but we would have appreciated a letter or somebody to knock on our door I do agree with the argument that 65 we're looking for the neighbors of course as a blighted area but 65 properties sounds like a lot and beautiful community from those three photos they showed up there is not what I saw tonight so that's it I didn't prepare to speak tonight but thank you very much for addressing me thank you so we will close the public hearing and at this point we'll look for commissioners I know Commissioner Miller wish to speak any other commissioners if you don't mind keeping your hands up just for a moment but Commissioner Miller why don't you get started so if I can ask Ms. Brandis any questions and I'll begin with a comment I have if you've served with me along I generally am quick to object to rezoning arguments that are based on things that are not committed and there is I see this there's no commitment to affordable housing in this development plan and we talked about service rich environment but there's no commitment to any sort of services on this development plan and hands on property management there's no commitment to that in the development plan so we've talked about a lot of things which at least looking at the development plan and the zoning code don't have to happen but I'm also aware that this is an unusual property transaction and that the United States government's been involved and it's this is a gift on conditions and so maybe some of my concerns go away simply because they're not in the development plan doesn't mean that there isn't an affordable housing requirement that comes from another source is that a yes the federal government requirements of this process it's called the McKinney-Vento title 10 I think it's a regulation that governs us dictates that the property must serve persons who have experienced homelessness and so what does affordable housing mean in the context of this project it's a word we throw around a lot in Durham and it can mean different things to different speakers and I want to know what it means to you and if there is a commitment related to it I want you to articulate it to me what the what that federal statute that over you know the governs the conveyance the maximum income is 50% of area median income which ranges from time to time right now it's about 32,000 for a household of about 20 50% AMI is good enough so what about the service rich environment and hands-on property management help me to understand we talked about those things but they're not commitments and so if this passes you don't actually have to do them even though you said them well that's what CASA does I mean that's our that's you know what we do I appreciate that but we don't grant rezoning on status are there commitments you'd be willing to make I mean yeah we can commit to you know the affordability restrictions well no you don't need to do that you've got law on your side there what about on-site management and I don't know what service rich means and we'll recognize staff at the moment yes Grace Smith with the planning department we were just conferring among ourselves we're pretty sure that we the planning department cannot enforce the management aspect as a commitment the management of the property we can't enforce that just wanted to make sure that no that's good to know because that's that's part of my point yeah we wouldn't be able to enforce that that type of commitment and but I'm not sure what service rich means what kind of services we partner with organizations in the community the partner we be working with here is Alliance Behavioral Healthcare we have a long history of working with them and you know our tenants who have a disability may have a variety of service needs they may have you know assistance with they may need case management assistance with locating services like childcare things like that but it's the services are determined by the provider the service provider and they're based on the individual needs of the tenant and what those tenants goals are all right I appreciate that I just want to make sure I intend to vote for this but I'm as a planning commission member I always want to make sure that we're operating within the rules and that we vote for things based upon what the code requires and what the developers can enforceable commitments are and that we are not voting in favor of or perhaps against a rezoning based upon promises that are not really material to the question I lived not too far away from a CASA project I'm a big fan I think that project has worked out better than I ever thought it would when I first heard you speak at a planning commission meeting I was not a commission member then so I'm a big fan but still I want to make sure that we are voting based upon what what most happen on the property and not based upon a promise that may or may not occur. Commissioner Alturk. Thank you chair Commissioner Miller brought up or asked a question that I wanted to ask which is about commitments to affordability so let me make let me clarify I guess with staff so we don't need in here a text commitment to say that people who have experienced homelessness have to live here right and that it has to be 50% of AMI or it has to cater to people who have whose incomes is 50% of AMI is that correct are those two requirements not needed this particular applicant is already entered into an agreement with the federal government that they must do that and can I ask the applicant then how long how many years does this you have to commit it'll be at least 30 years 30 years follow up question to another question I guess I'm obsessed with the phasing intensities today so why do this in phases why the 16 units and then up to 65 because we don't have the money to build 65 units right away we are a nonprofit that accept donations so we were welcome so we can develop our phases faster but 16 units was something very much within our wheelhouse of something we've done before that we would we have a we also have a ticking clock from the federal government so we wanted something that we knew was achievable both from a financial point of view and from getting the units on the ground within the timeframe that we were given by the feds thank you you know I'm I'm also supportive of this this project I do want to address the comment by some of the neighbors in particular about the traffic I understand that that you know that that is going to be a lot more traffic than you're used to and you're right there where you know cars will be going in and out you know that's something that is you know difficult to see I think one thing that from the staff report that may not give you much solace but that helps me at least is that if this was not rezoned and if someone built 43 single family lots here the transportation department you know predicts that you would have an increase of 478 vehicle vehicle trips per day but if we rezone this to 63 or 65 multifamily units the transportation department predicts that there will be 450 vehicle trips I know it's you know it's still extra but it is less than what it currently is zoned at and so you know I because of that and because I think we do need density in Durham I think this is a good project and I will be I'm inclined to support this unless I hear from other commissioners with concerns thank you commissioner Durkin I just wanted to I was wondering how you're financing it you said you only had the financing for 16 but is that correct yeah we finance our projects through a variety of funding partners we have a award we got about a couple weeks ago from a new funding partner the federal home loan bank of Pittsburgh a new funder for CASAs is the only project they funded in the state of North Carolina this cycle so we have those we're seeking funds from the city of Durham through home dollars and we'll be financing it through bank financing community out community donations probably some other sources so the FHLB and the home money have restrictions in addition to what the FHLB have restrictions over a 15 year period the home dollars come with restrictions for you know at least 20 years so the funding has restrictions the funding also when I mentioned the long term oversight from the funding partners those partners they do physical inspections of the units they're out on the site they're auditing us annually so there's a lot of oversight besides just taking CASAs word for it that all these partners with long term obligations in that property will be double checking on it I'm really excited about this project I'm not in the notice area but I'm a Moorhead Hill neighbor so I'm very excited about it I also am biased in favor of affordable housing so that gets me every time basically I'm also a fan of the density for the use of this property and wouldn't much rather see 65 plus units versus 43 on it I think it's a more efficient use of the land so I'm really looking forward to the development of the project Commissioner Bryan were you looking to be recognized yes just a couple of questions talking about the future phases and the land use is limited to the multi-family residential but in parenthesis it says with accessory community buildings could you elaborate on what that means yeah I don't know if that's yeah well that's for the accessory spaces associated with rental apartments so leasing space and then typically we have a community space that's available for meetings and activities with residents and typically in our developments we also make that available to other community groups who can rent it out it's kind of a multi-use space with the kitchen and meeting area just those types of things that will support the activities of the tenants and the leasing staff okay thank you some questions for staff I'll start with transportation there was a new commitment right in right out on the Lakewood and I just want to make sure that transportation is okay with that I'm early in Thomas transportation we will need some additional time to review that newly proffered commitment but feel that we can review it before the council meeting okay so if if we voted for it tonight you wouldn't have a problem with us doing that no thank you I also am supportive of this project I like to see that we're bringing some affordable housing in one comment regarding 65 I think 65 is a good number myself but I also don't think it's going to happen overnight man this is a 30 year commitment here I hope it doesn't take you 30 years to get them all built but it's something that's going to be gradual thank you commissioner Johnson to the applicant just some quick questions so what is the anticipated cost of phase one just a total development cost for that just over 3 million and then the second phase well we we're not sure what that's going to look like it may be multiple phases we may do 20 units we may do as funds become available we want to have a site where we can capitalize on those sources and so with the conveyance of the property from the federal government in the event of default in regards to you meeting the metrics and milestones and guidance, governance what are the the default events in regards to you not meeting those requirements? there's sort of a series of steps and of kind of penalties and the worst case scenario is it gets it goes back to the federal government it kind of sees it at the end of the day or CASA is paying a portion of you know they take the tax value of it and splice it and utilize it and you owe them a recapture a recapture provision and there's several steps first it's a letter and things like that but the government's final authority would be to seize the property back and so based on your business model for this particular development project what are the major risks that could cause this project beyond vertical and COI to not fulfill this promise and you basically what makes this fail what are your risk factors so that this project fails where we don't complete our first 16 units you build them out you get people in like what are your your SWOT analysis like is it that you have to have enough revenue to meet your expenses what can cause this project to be like CASA has to leave or find someone to take over its position well you know building and managing affordable housing is hard if it was easy we'd have more of it so you know we have our staff over here who are looking every day at what's our income we have many units throughout the triangle and so keeping ourselves solvent making sure our rental incomes are covering our expenses is something we're looking at daily so that we're you know we also have significant reserves that are required for us to be held where we have lots of reserves based on the number of units that we have you know it's a little I'm thinking a little bit you know any owner could go bankrupt and lose their property if that were the case with CASA in our bylaws as a nonprofit our properties would convey to another nonprofit for a similar purpose also serving affordable housing so that was what would happen if if that occurred you know we've never had we've never had a default in our 27 year history on a loan or any on any obligation so I don't anticipate that obviously okay this is Debbie White our CFO really I think we have to stand on our balance sheet and on our financial strength CASA has been in business for 27 years we have over 28 million dollars of property on our balance sheet so I'm not saying that we would want to but if we had to sell a property that was out of its period of restriction in order to generate funds we would be able to do that and accomplish that okay that's helpful as a one final question is to just get some insight on the comments by the opposition the opposition comment so could this based on your conception of conceptual vision and business plan could this work with 43 I think you said or existing right now you could do 43 or could this project happen if you were at the 43 44 whatever it is unit level well um yeah we'd be you know we would develop as many units as we're able to develop for the population that we're serving so economic like from a financial viability standpoint like you don't need to have a certain scale correct our request for increased density is not because of some cost per unit it's because we want to serve an extra 22 families in need that's helpful thanks thank you Commissioner Morgan yeah just most of the questions were asked have been answered but a couple questions as far as kind of getting off the last conversation was do you see that this each phase is profitable as far as you know starting out with the 16 then moving to maybe 20 or that each one will be profitable on their own and they'll be self sufficient there yeah all of our properties you know we model them to be in the black as standalone entities so this will be the first 16 units will be phase one it'll be it's standalone property the deed restrictions associated with the funding will just be tied to that phase one and then subsequent phases would have to you know show their own merits to be able to move into a next phase so as you raise money and as you go to the next phase then you make that decision to move forward correct we will be undertaking a master planning process so that as that happens it's doing so in a really intentional way but we'll be looking at funding sources that are available going forward and saying okay that would be a match for doing 20 more units let's run the numbers let's put together our pro forma let's see what funding sources we need and make the decision to move ahead with subsequent phases based on that analysis okay and then looking at the plan right now that you have for the development plan this is just the phase one for the 16 units or is that the full build out or is that this development plan covers the whole site okay so this the development plan shows here would be the or the 65 units yeah for the whole yeah okay the 65 units will be you know within this five within that footprint that you've correct okay okay okay I'm kind of in favor of it and I'm definitely and I applaud you for involving the community and hearing the community you know the commitment about seeing something change there thank you Commissioner Morgan Commissioner Hornbuckle yes ma'am I applaud you ma'am I'm in full support of this project I just had a question and kind of ran through my mind this is like you say a transfer from the federal government to your organization okay that building goes back quite a bit of ways with me my father served in that building and he had a vision and back in the 1960s he was in that unit my question is is in this transfer I can remember when that in the Carroll street was still dirt and they would spray that road out there with oil you know to keep the dust down and I can assure you I know inside that building you're gonna find lead pain asbestos and no telling whatever and I'm worried about over on the end where the motor pool was on that end is there been any environmental assessment or anything on that or if you just the federal government saying you take it it's y'all's whatever you find y'all have to deal with it we have done asbestos inspection we've you know we there's a presumption of lead based paint so as Shannon said we're treating it like like a lead hazard demo because we know there'll be lead based pain in there and we have conducted some we did a phase one environmental assessment we've done some soil borings as well to look at some areas where we saw some suspected contamination yes ma'am so we're waiting to hear back we're waiting to hear back about what the next steps are right well that's that was my concern and especially in the area that in where the old motor pool where it was but I'm in full support of it commissioner Baker I you know echo some of commissioner Miller's comments that we need to be looking at this not just based on the fact that costa is developing it but would we be comfortable with anyone who might be an ownership of it I am I'm going to be supporting this I appreciate some of the very thoughtful comments both in favor and against this I thought that I thought that those were very good comments and very helpful to us and I think to you I saw you taking notes and hopefully you'll be able to look through any any differences of opinion that you might have I also think that it's thoughtful that on the development plan we see limitations to building height there's a step back required a step back requirement so there's two-story maximum building height as well as a three-story maximum building height on the site you know I think that's a lot of the developments come before us and can occasionally be encouraging I find this development proposal very encouraging I'd love to imagine the society where this is the norm and not some sort of wild exception that it seems to actually be so for the first time and maybe the only time I want to actually say thank you and I encourage you to keep doing this and appreciate the work that you're doing in Durham and in area so thank you Commissioner Hyman Vice Chair Hyman Thank you I had two questions you mentioned that you have your partnering with Alliance Behavioral Health is that your only partner this time will you partner with other agencies so right now you mentioned Alliance and I'm particularly interested in Alliance Behavioral Health because it is a carve out of an agency that at one time was within Durham County Government so I'm very familiar with that population of individuals and who you're working with and I think that's very important and critical to the fact that that population is being addressed so now partnership so right now is that your only partner that's our that's our main partner typically when a tenant submits a rental application to us they often are being referred from a service provider and that service provider can be a broad spectrum of organizations sometimes it's someone under Alliance Behavioral Health Care sometimes it's the VA VA is one of our big service providers CEF is one of our main service providers they're based here in Durham and in Chapel Hill so if a tenant comes to us connected through services and that's going to be who we're working with in partnership with the tenant is that service provider regardless of who they if they're affiliated with Alliance or not okay okay that was and the other part other question that I'd like to ask we have very strict notification rules about to residents who are within the within the project area so I was a little bit concerned that I did hear one resident say that he did not hear about the project for or heard about the project within three days so I really wanted to know whether or not and I wanted the resident to know that there is a process and so if someone you know would from staff would basically address that and then so that we understand that there is a notification process the fact that you did not hear for you know within a three day period it's not a part of the process we're happy to look into that but I do want to point out that we we notify by mail any property owners within 600 feet neighborhood organizations within 1000 feet for this property or this project those ordinance requirements have changed recently but for the site it was 600 and 1000 it is also posted in the newspaper okay so that's for it thank you thank you we're going to move to the speed round of questions we have commissioner out Turk and commissioner Miller and commissioner Brian with follow-up questions thank you chair since I brought up traffic and I don't think my argument was very convincing I do think that there was a resident that wanted to bring up that issue so I wanted to give her the chance to talk about that if you're still interested and please come up to the microphone but yes if after the public hearing is closed if a commissioner directs a question you can come up and address that question please thank you commissioner I just wanted to say I hope that we can take a very very close look at the specific geographic layout of Lakewood and Carroll Street there I know that you're talking about a right in and right out entry only but it's very very very dangerous it's up a curve it's like on a hill it goes up a curve and then in the opposite direction it's almost impossible to see so even making that concession it's going to be a very very tricky traffic situation and I know that there is currently you know the army base is on Carroll Street and there's not a lot going on as far as cars parking on Carroll Street on that block on the fort is it the 1200 block there so I would just say and also in the back there's kind of a pathway that leads down into lion park neighborhood and down to the community center that's not used I would almost say can you look at it a little bit more creatively right so that is a good concession for Lakewood but maybe you want to think a little bit outside of the box of just Lakewood because geographically it's just it's just very very dangerous and adding any anything else to that I think would be a very tricky business to make safe so I would say when you're looking at it be very thoughtful in the approach of what you think is safe for the neighborhood thank you so yes I would encourage the applicant and the transportation department to do that to make sure that we address some of the issues traffic and you're welcome to give any comments to that or no not really I mean that's yeah we definitely want to work with staff to figure out the best way to do that I mean thinking about that connection to the lion park had me thinking you know that's possibly reaching back out to parks and rack and seeing kind of there's a you know if they have any ideas about better connectivity from a pedestrian point of view in that area as well and we've said when I spoke with Mr. Plant earlier today and we've spoke with a neighbor across the street from our other intersection so we've heard some concerns about exactly where the driveway location will be and we've talked about you know those arrows shown on the plan are pretty broad area and that within that you know we're happy as much as we have wiggle room to work with homeowners to see how we can move it out of the way of interfering with their access into and out of their property so I'm glad that we have contact information for both of those owners who brought that to our attention great any additional questions I know it's getting late but I would like to ask is it Brian or Mr. Plant? Mr. Plant yes thank you and if you have a specific question that should be addressed if you'd like to address either of the last two comments I don't have a specific question but I my main concern is right here at the intersection of Lakewood and Carroll is the top of the hill it is curved and then once you get to the bottom of the hill it curves again I'm wondering if this layout here where the right in right out only is is that our only option because that is clearly like the where the arrow is is like whether it's left or right that points right into my house and I'm wondering if there's any thing that the council can do to to help position that in a different area especially considering that the parking lot must be behind the units given that they can't have a parking lot between the street and the units I don't know that that's the best spot for anyhow so I appreciate you bringing me up here and that's my concern thank you for Mayor Busby I'm sorry staff has a concern that you've ventured into you've almost opened the public hearing back up we need to I understand but I do if a commissioner does ask a question and that's what I've been asking them what do you want to just say in general and that is why I just like to keep that in check because we would like to reopen it you can do that no we are not reopening the public hearing but what I am doing is asking commissioners when they ask someone a question be specific specific question only answer what the question we didn't really hear an actual question it was my question was for them to be able to address I'm sorry we're just making sure that for the record if we need to reopen the hearing I understand thank you for the feedback for the commissioners when you do ask a question you do need to be direct and for the participants you need to answer the question and only the question so Commissioner Miller my goodness a lot of rules so if I could have and Dan could you come to the mic because I'm a little concerned about what we're doing here if we go forward with the proffer of write in write out at that space on Lakewood can we show the development plan again just so I find it helpful I don't have one then we have to do it we can get it up and so everybody is comfortable I think that's it but if you submit the development plan that way you must do it you might have some wiggle room but you have to do it even at build out you're well under that 90 units that requires two access points if you submit the development plan this way and we get going along here and you discover that in the traffic department discovers that you thought the good reasons were for that they find bad reasons we're stuck and I don't want to cause a delay but it seems to me we could fix a lot of this if we identified that Lakewood Avenue connection is optional that you can do it if you want to but that you don't have to the code doesn't require it you don't have to have it there and so although it doesn't show on that iteration of the development plan Mr. Plants House is I mean right there and he doesn't have much of a front yard the house next to him if I'm not mistaken has it side yard towards Lakewood the house across the street on Carroll Street at the corner also faces the side it's their side yard that faces Carroll Street as opposed to facing your your entrances and while I don't want to speak for these neighbors in my own situation if I lived in any of those houses I would much rather have the entrance to an apartment complex opposite my side yard then opposite my front of my house I'm very sympathetic to Mr. Plants situation and because of the unusual shape of his lot they don't have an especially deep front yard and I can imagine especially if people come and go at night and they sit there with their lights shining on his house while they wait for an opportunity to turn whether it's right in or right out I'm sympathetic to that I would love to be able to move that entrance or to do away with it all together how important is it to have two access points we think that the flexibility to have two access points and Mr. Miller I completely agree with you if there's and I'm looking at staff and they're probably going to shape their head no but if there's any way to call out that as an optional driveway we would jump all over that Funny you should mention that because I took an opportunity to discuss it with them before I asked my question and so I'm going to invite you here in front of the mic to say that you would be willing to add that to that word to your development plan either in a text commitment or right there on the graphic and say that that was optional so that as we go forward you can work with Mr. Plant and the neighbors to resolve the traffic issues that we've heard here tonight and I've driven over there I drove over again this afternoon as a matter of fact the last thing I did before I came here and and I drove around and what have you I was looking at the property I was probably causing a traffic hazard rather than looking through the windshield but you probably didn't even develop the right in right out thing until after you had seen me driving over there the um but I would like to have one give you room to move forward and fix this and all in up to and including eliminating that connection altogether I would love also for you to have flexibility to if you decided to get rid of it to move the other one by widening the that how wide your arrow is but you may have made promises to those Carroll Street neighbors that I don't want to interfere with so but if you're willing to put optional on that I think it would be a vast improvement in your ability to develop the project in the future and to deal with Mr. Plant immediately would you would you do that absolutely so so what I would do is the wording of um the access connection etc etc we would just insert the word optional at the beginning of the text pointing to that driveway connection and staff just so we're on the same page I know the conversation happened off the mic can you come and confirm that that is an appropriate proper that can still move forward this evening yes the entire staff agrees over here excellent thank you thank you very very much this opens up a whole new world for future development plans just what you know so that seems like a happy ending but Commissioner Brian was still waiting to be recognized thank you Mr. Chair a brief comment about notifications I live in South Durham there's been a lot of development going on around me and you'd be surprised for rezoning at 600 feet and you'd be surprised how short 600 feet can really be with respect to the traffic considerations I just recently finished reading the TJ cog raising the roof thing and it one point that came across is that people who need affordable housing and I think especially 50% of them might not even own a motor vehicle the question I wanted to ask was based on your experience with what you've done so far how many of your tenants actually own a motor vehicle the last time we had a traffic engineer look at this and look at similar properties we developed serving the population that we're focused on here we found the average vehicle per unit was 0.4 so less than half of those tenants owned a vehicle so that's the last time we looked at that I think that was back in 2014 so we often we've gone to board of adjustment before we've gone before other bodies and other communities seeking a parking reduction because we don't want to build a big empty parking lot that's going to sit there and collect storm water and not serve any cars so we do find it's smaller than your average population okay that's what I suspected thank you very much for that I think that makes that other driveway connection makes the option even better possible to do and to me I just don't think the traffic problem here is going to be as bad as it might seem if this was a regular single family development or a regular apartment development or something like that thank you so we've asked a lot of questions I actually have two more and then I hope we're at the end point so we talked a lot about traffic we haven't heard any of your thinking on the construction traffic because that's going to be different than the residential traffic what you're thinking there in terms of where will the access be we may have just solved it with this proffer that you've accepted but had you thought about the construction traffic and the access because that is different from the construction traffic coming and going well we you know there's already an existing curb cut into the property and the most of the property is already paved so my expectation is that sort of that would be the staging there's plenty of room for construction vehicles to be and materials and all that stuff to be inside the property but the coming and going is what I'm wondering about yeah we haven't gotten that far in the process but I think that's a much safer place than on Lakewood to have big trucks coming in and out so I don't think we need any additional commitments there but that's good to hear my final question I think one of the neighbors mentioned that you had talked with them about where you'd be putting the construction debris and the trash and some sort of I don't understand that correctly some sort of receptacle with some sort of receptacle she was talking about a trash for the development yeah the permanent dumpster enclosure okay so that's just something you've worked out with the neighbors and yeah I mean I know you know our last my understanding is that the what I said to Carrie in my response is at least based on the last time we did new construction in Durham is that the UDO is pretty strict about what a dumpster enclosure would be so we would anticipate a brick dumpster enclosure with additional screening of plantings and it has a gate so the UDO does address trash enclosures or receptacle enclosures so they would have to meet those requirements of site plan so what you've talked about with the neighbors though fits with what is required to be met at site plan that's what I just want to make sure I guess that's a question for staff is what I heard them commit to sounded like it could be in excess of what's required at the site plan anything I think that the person that spoke was just saying she was glad to know that this isn't a new development would have to meet those requirements I don't think there was anything actually committed at any point Mr. Miller, Commissioner Miller what is the requirement under the UDO must they enclose their trash receptacles yes I'ma let Miss Struthers actually address that because she's an expert at site plans because that's the world she came from talking trash so bear with me while I get the actual reference and I should have started by saying I'm really excited about this proposal you do great work I have been on the commission a number of years I rarely read a proposal and have a big smile on my face and nod my head a lot so I just want to make sure that we are addressing some of the concerns that have been brought up tonight but this is fantastic thank you for your work and for the work that everyone with the agency does every day this is going to make Durham a better place so really appreciate that how about we buy a time yes thank you appreciate it so there are two standards that sort of play into answering that one being that all solid waste collection facilities shall be designed to prevent wind blown debris from leaving the site and additionally when the service side is visible from the adjacent property line then it must be screened with access doors or gates with an opacity of at least 100% thank you that's very helpful I don't think we have any additional questions you have run a marathon of questions so really appreciate it I think we're at a point of looking for a motion Commissioner Alturk we'll take this one this is what happens when you sit closer yeah I move that we send case Z1 8001 wrong one and he I think you had it okay yes yes okay to the city council with a favorable recommendation second so moved and just to say it again we are moving approval of case Z1800018 for approval to the city council moved by Commissioner Alturk seconded by Commissioner Hornbuckle we'll have a roll call vote please Commissioner Brine with the additional of the word optional in the site and the right in right at the right at that fits with your motion Commissioner Alturk thank you for the clarification we'll have the roll call vote Commissioner Williams yes Commissioner Morgan yes Commissioner Brine yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes thank you all very much we appreciate you staying here to make sure we deliberate this very carefully like all the other cases this will go to city council probably in about two months so we encourage you to stay engaged throughout the process that was our final case this evening any final updates from staff yeah we've gotten our next month you're what to look forward to last month so if you have any questions about that just let us know thank you meeting adjourned