 Good afternoon. Welcome to the Durham Planning Commission. The members of the Durham Planning Commission have been appointed by the City Council and the Board of County Commissioners, and you should know that the elected officials will have the final vote on any of the issues that are before us this evening. We are meeting using the Zoom Virtual Meeting Platform, and in that meeting platform, the public participants do not have the ability to talk or be seen on the video by default. You should also know that to maintain meeting decorum and a discernible record of the meeting, the chat function has been disabled. We will have public hearings on each of the items that are before us this evening. If you've signed up in advance, we have those names we will call you in the order that you're listed. If you would like to speak, you may press star nine on your phone so you can digitally raise your hand. We will call on you. We will ask that you give us your name, your mailing address, and then you'll have the opportunity to make your remarks on the case that you've signed up or asked to speak on. If you want to call in for tonight's meeting, you can join us by dialing 1-301-715-8592. Finally, all motions are stated in the affirmative, so if a motion fails or ties, the recommendation is not favorable. May we have the roll call please? Good evening, Commissioner Busby and everyone else on the call. We'll do the roll call now. Commissioner Emondoya? Here. Commissioner Baker? Here. Chair Busby? Here. Commissioner Cameron? Here. Commissioner Cutwright? Here. Commissioner Durkin? I see Commissioner Durkin. I'm going to mark you present. Vice Chair Keenchen? Here. Commissioner Lamprey? Here. Commissioner Lowe? Here. Commissioner McIver? Here. Commissioner Miller? Here. Commissioner Morgan? He'll be here. Commissioner Cease? Here. And Commissioner Williams? Here. Thank you. Thank you. We don't have any minutes or consistency statements. This is a special meeting, so we don't have any of those before us this evening. Any adjustments to the agenda, Ms. Smith? No adjustments, Chair Busby, that the staff is aware of. We would like to state for the record that all of the public hearing notices were carried out in accordance with state and local law. And the affidavits for those are on file in the planning department. Thank you. So we will move to our first case, and this is case A2 quadruple 016, Camden Avenue Tier Change. And we'll start with the staff report. Good evening, Chair Busby, Vice Chair Keenchen, and commissioners. Alexander Cahill here, presenting on Camden Avenue Tier Change A 2016. We received from Dan Joule a request to amend the tier boundary for the future land use map. This is located around Camden Avenue in Midland Terrace, and it is in the city jurisdiction. There's about 37 and a half acres that are included in this proposal. The current development tier is urban and the proposed development tier that is being amended is to suburban. The current industrial light zoning is not being proposed to be changed. And the proposal is to amend the future land use map for 11 parcels bounded by Camden Avenue, Midland Terrace, and Highway 85 from the industrial urban tier to the industrial suburban tier. So if you look at the future land use map, we can see that the designation is industrial on the existing future land use map and the proposed tier change is industrial as well. My slides aren't showing. Awesome. Let me try that again. Chair Busby and commissioners, I think staff member has frozen for the moment. Their connection has frozen. We'll get that straight in just a minute, hopefully. Just bear with us. This is Chris Beerson from the playing department. The computer accidentally restarted, so we might have to just have a one day delay. Thank you for your patience. I apologize for the technical difficulties. No problem. We've all been there. Chris, are the slides progressing now? Yeah. Awesome. All right. So we received an application from Dan Joule of Coulter Thames and Joule to change the cheer boundary around Camden Avenue, Midland Terrace. This is for about 37 and a half acres. The current development tier is urban and the proposal is to change the future land use map to the suburban tier. The existing zoning is industrial light and no proposed rezoning is included in this application. So you can see on the zoning context map the area surrounded by industrial light and industrial zoning. And the future land use map as well calls out industrial land use for the future. The aerial map shows this portion north of the highway interchange. And I wanted to talk a little bit about the development standards that are going to be impacted or could be impacted by this proposed tier boundary change. The project boundary buffers have potential to change from the urban to suburban tier change as does the parking, parking location. There isn't any change in the MTC buffer and no change in the uses. And that a significant change would be from the tree coverage standpoint if we move this tier change as approved today from urban to suburban, that would be from a 3% minimum to a 10 to 15% minimum depending upon the tree preservation or replacement requirements. When we look at tier change requests, we don't get a lot of them. So we wanna make sure that we're really spending a little bit of time talking about this. There are UDO requirements for considering the tier change and whether this would be consistent with the goals and objectives of any adopted policies and plans, whether this would be consistent with future land use patterns, whether this would create a substantial adverse impact, whether the subject site is of adequate shape and size to accommodate this proposed change, whether the site is contiguous to the proposed tier change, which it is. And then a couple of other elements, including that this extension does not violate any agreements with neighboring jurisdictions as not in the drainage basin. Staff has reviewed each of these requirements and has found that this proposal is in line with each of these UDO requirements in their intent. So staff has determined that this request would be consistent with the comprehensive plan, including the future land use map and these aforementioned tier change requirements. Staff has determined that this pattern of development is not detrimental to the immediate area and offers flexibility for renovations and improvements to the existing industrial sites. Redevelopment of established industrial sites is favorable when possible because it does prevent the vacation of properties and urban blight with the same use as being reestablished on greenfield sites further out in the suburban tier as we've seen with other cases. While staff strongly supports urban form development in the urban tier, there may be some cases where the existing tier boundaries were established, not considering these scenarios and we feel this may be one of those cases. The applicant is available as registered to speak tonight and is able to provide a little more information on their intent for requesting this tier boundary change. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cahill. We will open the public hearing and we have only one person who has signed up in advance to speak and that is Mr. Dan Joule. So Mr. Joule, we will invite you to speak and then just a reminder, if you are in attendance and you would like to speak on this particular case, you can press star nine on your phone so you can digitally raise your hand. With that said, Mr. Joule would welcome your testimony on this item. Thank you, Chair Busby. Just want to make sure that you can hear me before I ramble on, thank you. So Chair Busby and fellow commissioners, good evening. Thank you for having a special meeting tonight. I am Dan Joule, CJT and thank you Alexander for doing a very thorough succinct presentation. We are requesting this tier change primarily because industrial uses are just not a good fit in the urban tier in our perspective. Over the past several years, our firm has looked at several sites in the urban tier for various manufacturing, assembly, lab, flex type uses for contractors, things of that nature. And in almost all cases, the UDO requirement in the urban tier that buildings be constructed close to the street is not conducive to be able to build these types of facilities. And I've got a few examples I'll show you in a second. And these types of facilities are much needed Durham because they provide space for jobs and many cases jobs that do not require a college degree. In some cases, not even a high school diploma and we know that we have folks in this community who need to be employed and they provide a great tax base and they don't put a burden on our schools. Some generally don't generate a lot of traffic. We have a limited amount of industrial zone land in Durham which is telling in the staff report that they track how many acres we have on every case that has to do with anything with industrial. We have to preserve that. We have to cherish that. We have to take care of it. But we also know that's been dwindling in recent years as more and more of it is under pressure to be zoned residential. I think you've heard several of those cases over the last few years. And as you all know, the residential market is white hot right now. But the interest in light industrial facilities is growing as well. It's important that we maintain the ability to develop these industrial properties even those that are in the urban tier like this. Alexander, thank you for bringing up. I have a few slides I'd like to share. A couple of things I'd like to touch on this evening. One, this first image. You can see that the urban tier was created a little arbitrarily I will say. I was involved in some of the citizens advisory groups during committees when the flume was created back in the early 2000s. And I can tell you what happened is it was determined what downtown would look like. And then as you can see the boundary was literally offset. Those red arrows are exactly the same length. So I don't think there was as much thought into putting what was being captured in the urban tier. It just seemed a good idea at the time to have a zone a couple of miles outside from downtown that would be the urban tier. And just for reference, the little tiny red triangle and sort of the upper right quadrant of the urban tier next to the suburban tier is the property that we are talking about. In fact, having been involved in creating the flume, I don't think there was actually a lot of conversation about the impacts on industrial type development. And I don't recall that there were really industrial developers who were at the table at that time. Next slide please, Alexander. So this slide represents the neighborhood. You can see the area outlined in red is where our proposal is. And this is a development in this neighborhood has existed for at least 30 years, even going back as far as a hundred where the city's former inciterator sits, which is now a great facility for Durham solid waste and ice adapter reuse project. Most of the buildings have been there for a long time and looking at this, is it apparent to you where the urban tier pattern of development should be and where the suburban tier pattern of development should be? No, it's a cohesive geographic area described by 85 LRB Creek, things of that nature, but there is basically a consistent pattern of development out here. And if you look at all of these facilities closely, you'll see that the consistent pattern of development is buildings that are set back from the street, some parking in the front and generally the entire now area west of Midland Terrace, which is currently in the urban tier, every one of those buildings is now non-conforming because of that. So if anybody wanted to go expand their building, they expand their facility, they would have to bring it into greater conformance by coming out more closely to the street. Next slide, please, Alexander. This slides, I have two slides that show how industrial facilities, these light manufacturing, assembly, tech space are actually built. This is the Expressway Industrial Park down Briggs Avenue, just below Durham Tech. Most of you have probably driven past it, maybe you've driven in there. And what I'd like to point out, there is a consistent theme in every one of these buildings, one or two of which our firm has done over the years. And that is a rigid separation of truck traffic for loading docks from vehicular traffic. So you can see generally we have parking for cars out closer to the street in front of the building for customers, employees, folks that are visiting, that sort of thing, but in every case, the truck traffic and moving area is separated from where vehicles will go. And by the way, these buildings are also set back from the street and this site, these properties are also now in the urban tier, meaning these are also non-conforming as well. But I just show this as an example. And the next slide, Alexander is a similar one. This is the former IBM Industrial Park down at Cornwallis and South Alston Avenue, where again, you can see this pattern of development in every one of these facilities where you have the vehicular parking, the car parking up in front of the building closer to the street and the truck parking totally separated from that either behind or in the case of that building in the foreground an actual court in the middle that creates trucks. In fact, the building to the left with the white roof used to be an IBM facility that was strictly storage for them. There were two employees, it was just stuff was stored there and trucks would come in and day in and day out. When it was sold about five years ago and they looked at creating more spaces for other users in there, the first thing they did was they asked us to put a separate car parking lot off the street off South Alston. If you look just to the left of that building you will see that new parking lot that we did a few years ago. And finally, not to get repetitive on all this with the last slide, Alexander. It's not just a safety reason having to do with trucks. It's just good practice. This is Sandy Ridge Elementary School up Old Oxford Road. And we have designed many of the new schools in Durham over the last 25 and 30 years. Notice what you see on this site. Above the school is the bus maneuvering and parking area below the school on the Old Oxford side is where the employee parking, visitors parking and that sort of thing. So even standard school design for many years has realized that you don't wanna mix cars with large vehicles like school buses. So Alexander, that was the last slide I wanted to show. So what I'd like to close with is that as Alexander said, the dimensional standards are very similar for the suburban versus the urban tier but the tree coverage area is much larger and our buffers are larger as well. I wanna say we did have much conversation with staff before we came through with this proposal on whether it was better to do a variance because I believe there have been maybe half a dozen variances over the last couple of years to try and deal with this square peg in a round hole in the urban tier of industrial facilities versus a tier change. The staff is aware, as Alexander said, of the inherent conflict now between the urban tier and these industrial sites. As he said, the staff is supportive of the idea of the tier change here but because the planning department is very busy and they're currently in the middle of a new comprehensive plan, they encouraged us to have a privately led initiative to change the tier rather than have the planning department do it, the city do it. So I'll close with that and just hope you will agree that this does seem a better approach so that we can maintain our industrial viability in Durham that the request as a reasonable one would not negatively impact the neighbors at all because it is the pattern of development out there and would be beneficial to the economic future of Durham. So thank you for your attention and for listening to me. Thank you, Mr. Joule. I don't see anyone else who has asked to speak on this item. We'll just give it one more moment. Again, you can press star nine on your phone to digitally raise your hand if you'd like to speak on this item. There's no one else. So we will close this public hearing commissioners. I'll turn to you and Commissioner Miller. I see your hand is raised. We will start with you. Any questions or comments on this case? So I have a couple of questions for Dan. Dan, I agree with almost everything you said and it alarmed me back in 2005 and I haven't been happy about it since that using a radius to draw important lines, especially lines, we call this a tier boundary change and we treat it a lot like a changing of the flow map but because changing the tier boundary actually changes the regulations that govern use of the land, it's actually a rezoning too. You can call it whatever you want to but under North Carolina law when you change the map so that what somebody can do with their land is one thing one day and another thing the next day that's a rezoning. And that's why we're jumping through these hoops this way. But we use using radii for land planning especially when zoning rules follow with it is a lousy way to do business. And I agree with you, I wrote out there and I'm very familiar with this area of town and it's very hard to characterize what's out there as urban or to foresee it becoming very urban. So I agree with you on all of those points and I agree with the staff and the way they analyzed it but I also know that nobody spends some money to go through this process unless they have a project in mind. What does the owner, what do your clients want to do with this land that being in the urban tier is stopping them from doing? Yeah, yes sir. So I think to be more exemplary of what they have in mind and our clients just to be clear have a contract to purchase about three quarters of this property which has been in the Durham Coca-Cola bottling company land for ownership for years and years. They used to, the building that's out there used to be classic foods that was their catering business but they no longer are in that. It's still signed that way. Yes, it's still signed that way, yes sir. So they would like to do a series of buildings similar to some of those buildings you saw in the Expressway Industrial Park buildings that would have a mix of tenants, mix of uses. Those could be lab space, they could be assembly space, light manufacturing, somewhere housing, things of that nature. But again, because of the heavy loading dock and truck court areas that are associated with all those buildings. One, we need to separate the car parking from the truck parking parking and that needs to be in front of the building. The way the land lays out for the buildings to be parallel to the street is a better way to do it. And just, simply from a design standpoint I know people that own these industrial buildings I'm sure are proud of them but from a design standpoint, they're not exciting. And I personally think that having them a little farther off the street than the 15 or 20 feet away that then the urban tier requires is probably a better appearance for them to go out there. But that is their intent, if that explains it. Well, and it does and I really appreciate it. I will observe though that I have always thought that the city's buildings out club and one of those buildings, I don't know if it's still city property is on Camden Avenue in that kind of brick industrial art deco. I thought those buildings were kind of charming. But again, I think the point you make is a really good one. And so if I may, Mr. Chairman, my next question is to the staff. So here we are. In 2005, we adopted a tier system and it's not altogether illogical but Dan says that at least in this instance it's a situation where it has caused a lot of grief because it wasn't very thoughtful when we drew this urban suburban tier boundary. And it appears that we didn't think it through. So a lot of people have been seeking adjustments at the Board of Adjustment and this I think is actually a better way to do it. In our new comprehensive plan, the way the staff is talking about it now, will the tier system survive? Grace, do you wanna take that one? Sure, I'll be glad to. I don't wanna say we 100% start today, but I don't. I know you can't. Yeah, I don't know that it will. I know that it has a lot of, there are a lot of benefits, a lot of pros, a lot of cons. I will just say it's on the table and we're definitely discussing and looking at it. So I can't say, but we're taking all of these cases like this in mind and in consideration. And this has really been a good one for us to, you know, we don't get many tier change requests as you noted, we don't get many. I think people go the other route to get to accomplish what they're trying to do and get their end result. So we've taken this case and it was really a good exercise for the staff. And then the questions that you posed or even, you know, made us dig a little deeper and look at the issues at hand with these tier boundaries. So I don't wanna say one way or the other where we're gonna land, but we're definitely looking at it closely. And it may be that they go away as part of this new comp plan because it might be we go a whole nother direction because we're talking about using place types. So that- And I agree. I do think that it is logical to build in concepts of graduated development intensity around logical centers. And this was certainly one way of doing it, but I think that we can, I hope we'll go to a more nuanced system that is perhaps stronger in policy and softer perhaps in regulation so that we don't have to jump through a lot of procedures to merely accomplish what's being done here. So I'm gonna vote to my other colleagues on the Plank Commission. I'm gonna vote in favor of this, even though it is going to make a jagged line in the tier boundary, if it were possible for Mr. Joule to apply to make a bigger correction in this area, I would have loved to have looked at that and perhaps voted for that too. But right now we'll just have to be satisfied with the correction here, knowing that it's going to make like I said, a bit of a jag in the boundary. Thanks, Commissioner Miller. Commissioner Baker. Yeah. I don't like voting for anything that makes something more suburban, more sort of auto oriented, but I am gonna be voting for this one. I think that it's something that we should be supporting and something that I support. I will say that I have seen some good urban types of industry, industrial development and industrial land uses in other places, eco-friendly in industrial parks and industrial uses. And so I think it's something that we should explore as part of the comprehensive plan is how do we build industrial sites in a more eco-friendly way? Because I don't think that this proposal is eco-friendly and I also think that we should be understanding that if that's not the norm, then it's difficult to change the plan. Sounds like you had a second on that, Commissioner Baker. I don't see any other commissioners looking to speak. Sorry, I got the dogs out of the way. Just a couple other things. Mr. Jool showed an image of a school and showed the image of how we kind of build schools or have been building schools over the past several decades. I think it's something we have to get away from. We have to go back to building schools that the way we used to and bringing them up a little bit closer to the street, making them more walkable and pedestrian friendly. We can still separate the auto traffic with the bus traffic and having them on these kind of massive sites with one-story schools. And then regarding the tier system, just because that came up, I do see a use for the tier system but not for another layer of zoning kind of like what Tom just talked about. I think that the place types that the planning department has been talking about makes sense and that's really like the future land use is kind of like the what and the how versus a tier system would make more sense as a where and when and when should we develop and at what intensity? I mean, the way that we use it now just kind of confuses things and as it's been mentioned in this meeting and before this meeting is somewhat arbitrary. So that's all I have. I will be voting for this case. Thanks, Commissioner Baker. No one else is looking to speak. So this is the appropriate time. I will accept a motion for approval. Well, Mr. Chairman, if I may then in connection with case A2000016, the Camden Avenue tier change. I move we send this forward to the city council and it graces us this also have to go to the board of commissioners since it's a tier change. No, the jurisdiction is in the city. Okay, that we've sent it forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation. Second. Thank you. So moved by commissioner Miller, seconded by commissioner Amandolia and we'll have the roll call vote. Amandolia. Yes. Baker. Yes. Buzbee. Yes. Cameron. Yes. Cut right. Yes. All right. Durkin. Yes. Kenshin. Yes. Lanefried. Yes. Lowe. Yes. McIver. Yes. Miller. Yes. Morgan. Yes. Cease. Yes. And Williams. Yes. Thank you. Passes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Joule. Thank you. Have a good evening. You too. We're going to move to our next case and just so everyone knows in advance, this is the case that was on the agenda. There's a continuance request. So we are still going to open the case, open the public hearing and then Bob will hear from the applicant and hear from staff. But just so no one gets concerned on the front end, this is case Z2 quadruple. No. Z2 000008, the Ellis Road commercial area rezoning two case. And why don't we start with staff and you can just give us a quick update then we can open the public hearing here from the applicant and go from there. Thank you, Chair Busby and planning commission members. This is Danny Kulture, representing the planning department. Yes, this is a Z20 0008, I know it always gets confusing when you have this 20 in there first. But anyway, it's Ellis Road commercial too. When we, I don't have a formal presentation for this, we'll reserve this for a future date, but when we were putting together the package for the planning commission, we recognized some inconsistencies and brought those forward with the applicant. And at that time, we had a lot of issues and at that time, the applicant suggested that we postpone or continue the meeting, but we had already actually released the notifications for that. So I will actually turn it over to the applicant to make the formal request for this. If you, so. Well, and Mr. Kulture, thank you. I believe we need to actually open the public hearing. We'll hear from the applicant and then we can vote to continue this. I understand it. Yes. Great, thank you. So we'll open the public hearing, Mr. Ghosh. The floor is yours. Yeah, thank you. And this is Neil Ghosh, attorney at the Morningstar Law Group, representing the applicant. As Danny indicated, this is the case of a last minute finding of something that we need to take a closer look at, both at staff level and the applicant level. So for that reason, we are requesting a continuance to the May Planning Commission meeting so that we can analyze that issue further. Thank you, Mr. Ghosh. And so just to be clear, you are asking for a two, I guess it would be a two cycle continuance. I know we're meeting twice in April. This is a special meeting or Ms. Smith, is it just best to have it just be, we are just thinking of having one May meeting. Right. This would be a continuance to your May 11th regular meeting. Great. Thank you. And we did, after this, this is so unusual how this went down or how this played out. So we went ahead and sent letters right after the first letter, we sent a second set of letters and made sure that the people in the notification area knew what was going on. But yes, May 11th would be your May meeting. Thank you. Well, with that, we will continue the public hearing. And I think it would make sense for us to have a motion to continue this case until our May 11th meeting. Mr. Commissioner Miller, I see you have a question and you may be offering to make the motion. Both actually, but before I make the motion, I'm concerned whether or not this, what we're doing eats up our 90 days. So my first question is, is the application in its current condition one that can be acted on by the decision-making apparatus or has it got a flaw in it that prevents it from being a ripe application? That's an excellent question, Commissioner Miller. We did give the applicant options of either to defer it back, like defer it back to staff and then it would be outside of, it would just start over basically and not be within the 90 days, because if you continue, it's within your 90 days to review. The application is, I would say 99% fine. This was a very late-breaking small discovery, but it needed to be addressed before it came forward. I mean, staff is willing, you could continue it, or you could defer it if the applicant would rather defer it back so that you don't lose that time. But they've requested the continuance and they believe they can have this addressed back in front of you on May 11th for your consideration. Thank you for that answer. And my next question is whether or not, we have a fair number of members of the public here, and I was wanting to make sure that I didn't wanna vote on moving this case if there were people out there that came here expecting to be heard without making sure they were, that they had at least been invited to say something. And so, but I can't tell when I look it over at the column. Commissioner Miller, there were two that we know of. I'm not sure about if anyone else has joined late-breaking, but at the beginning of the meeting, there were two people registered and on the call that were interested in this case. I don't know, I don't see that they have their hands up, but I think that we should just make it clear if they'd like to speak. They're more than welcome to speak at this time. I do know they're in attendance, I see their names. Okay, and so- And I do believe one of them has their hands up. Before I turn it back to you, Mr. Chairman, my own preference is to not continue it in a way that burns up 60 of our 90 days. I would rather defer it and then have it come and start fresh at our May meeting. You know, I don't see how there's any difference to the applicant, but it allows us to the leeway that I would like to have when we first hear a case to have the fullest range of decision-making that we normally expect to have. And thank you, Mr. Commissioner Miller. And Ms. Smith, I mean, this is an interesting situation because, and a question for you, does this actually to quote Commissioner Miller, burn up 60 of our days? This is a special meeting. And so it's in the middle of the month and this is gonna then take place at our essentially a regularly scheduled meeting. So what does that mean for this case? Right, if you continue it from this evening to May 11th, you're not actually, I don't think it's quite 60 days, but Mr. Miller has a point. It does subtract those days out of your 90 day review. It might not be exactly 60 days, but it's definitely a little bit more than a regular one cycle continuance. Right, thank you, which I think does mean Commissioner Miller, your point is valid. If we just then go back to regular meetings, we probably could only have one additional cycle to work with. Right, and the applicant actually has their hand raised along with another commissioner. And I think one of the callers did so on as well. Thank you. I'm gonna go on meeting. We'll start with Mr. Ghosh as the applicant and then we will move from there. Sure, and thank you, Commissioner Miller for pointing that out. That's not our intent at all and we'd be happy to have it, whatever the appropriate term is deferred back to staff rather than continued so that it does not eat up any of your review time. That's not the intent here at all. The intent here is to address a technical issue that was found too late after this was scheduled for the hearing. That's all. Mr. Chairman, if I may follow up that with a question. You may. So if the applicant prefers a deferral rather than a continuance, the procedure for that, at least as it relates to us, isn't that a unilateral decision on the part of the applicant? Right, so you would need to defer it. The one time that this has happened before we was deferred back to staff and then we have to re-advertise so the applicant will have to pay another notice fee. That is the implication for the applicant. Right, but do we have to vote? Right. Do we have to vote? You do. I think you need to vote to close the public hearing at least maybe and then the action you would be taking is that you're deferring it back to staff. All right, I appreciate that very much. I just wanna know where we stand procedurally as we make our decision going forward. Thank you, those are all of my remarks and questions. Thank you very much, Mr. Boswell. Thank you, Commissioner Miller. Commissioner Durkin, you've been patiently waiting. I was just would vote for a discernment also. I think it's a little weird that we're having an open public hearing on a matter that we know nothing about but we don't have a staff report or any materials on. So it's just kind of an odd situation to hear from the public on it when they probably know more about it than we do and to have nothing to look to at all. So I would definitely be in favor of a discernment and not a continuance, it just didn't seem appropriate. Thank you. I would agree. Before we do that, I do wanna give the opportunity to the one member of the public who has attended the meeting, raised their hand when Commissioner Miller asked if they were interested in speaking. If they are still with us, it is Simon Brosting and we will unmute you so you should have the ability to speak in just a moment. Okay. Please, you may go ahead. If you can give us your name, your address, sounds like we're gonna vote to defer this so it will be coming back at a later date but we'd welcome any brief remarks. Thank you. My name is Simon Bronsted. It's the 812 Talbot Place 2703. Okay, can you hear me? Yes, please go ahead. Okay, good. So we just recently moved here from Louisville, Kentucky and it's a big surprise that around 10 miles it's no place where we can actually go buy grocery, go like buy any other stuff and you're just thinking about useless hotel. Motel, it does not matter because it's useless in this place have motel. It's very important have something like retail for people. It's around 10,000 people live without any store, without any like marketplace, something like this. And according to the plan, I seen the plan. It should be marketplace. It was no words about motels. So we're just wondering why it's question arise to him. Because all hotels stay empty now. Why we need more empty hotels, motels? I don't know. Thank you, master. That's my motion because I'm legally blind and we don't have car. And I don't know how we will survive in this environment without anything around. When we bought this house, been told that within six months, we bought in August. Within six months, we will have something to buy a gas station, like food store, something like this restaurant, but nothing, nothing. Thank you, Mr. Bronstein, for your comments. And it's just, you know, it sounds like we, we will at least in a moment, I think, be entertaining a motion to defer this case. And so that will lead to additional opportunities for you. I would encourage you to engage with the applicant and with the staff in the interim as this may move forward. That's a good idea to postpones this, but always keep in mind that this will leave a lot of people, okay, who will use this will bring money to go to city, to stay, so why we will have empty hotels instead of like machine to make some money and give people like much more convenient life. Well, thank you for your comments. I hope you'll return when this comes back to us for the public hearing. At the moment, we actually have not seen any of the items on this case. So we'll welcome your additional thoughts when this returns to the planning commission. I also do want to recognize our next speaker. There's one other member of the public who has indicated their interest in speaking. It is Kimberly Leathers. Mr. Ghosh, I see you would also like to speak. So I will circle back to you in a moment, but Kimberly Leathers, you're welcome to offer some brief remarks. Again, if you can give us your name, your address and your comments, we'd appreciate it. Hi, yes, my name is Kimberly Leathers. My address is 1509 Stone Road. I'm also a resident here with Simon and Ellis Carlson subdivision. And part of my question is answered by both you and Ms. Durkin. We were, a lot of residents are concerned of what exactly is happening. And we have been overwhelmingly unsuccessful with getting that any information from the applicant. We're only aware of a proposed the changes from some of the retail space and apartment units being converted into a possible hotel. But it seems like you all are not aware of anything either. And initially I just wanted to know it, even if it's gonna be moved to May, like is there any way for us to have any idea of these major changes that's been proposed for the community? Because we can't get anywhere with the applicant. And this is the issue amongst hundreds of residents in our community that we're having. Thank you, Ms. Leathers. I'll say a couple of things. Number one, I'll give Mr. Goshen opportunity to respond. I would hope in this interim time there would be an opportunity for both of you have offered comments to interact with Mr. Goshen, the applicants. But the other thing that will happen is that when this does clear staff review and comes back to us, the case will be posted online. So you'll be able to review that just like we'll be able to review it. And again, we'd welcome your opportunity to return and to offer any additional comments. With that said, Mr. Goshen, you had your hand raised earlier if you do wanna make any final comments, I'd be appreciated. Thank you. And I'll just say this, I mean, I don't wanna, because we're requesting a deferment, I don't really wanna get into the tickets of the case. I recognize that a public hearing is coming. But I did wanna address the first speaker. The last thing I didn't catch, I just wanted, it's just a matter of public record. There's a site plan that has been approved for a grocery store on the site, on the site adjacent to this. So I don't know that it'll be built within six months or whatever, but there is a grocery store that is coming in. And I just wanted him to be aware of that because it sounded like it was something that he was looking forward to when he first moved in. It's happening. Thank you, Mr. Goshen. Ms. Smith, I wanna recognize you as staff. Yes, Chair Busby. The staff has the email addresses for both of the callers that have called in this evening. And we're chatting behind the scenes. We will reach out, proactively reach out to these citizens and share what we have on file now, which is probably gonna change slightly before it comes back to you, but we can share what we have now on file. And we're more than happy to answer their questions and try to share whatever information that is they're looking for. We'll be in touch with them. Great, thank you. That's greatly appreciated. Commissioner Miller. Thank you. I was going to make a motion if it's appropriate, Mr. Chairman. It is. But before I do, I wanted to thank Mr. Bronstein and to note that he has just recently come to Durham from Kentucky. Welcome to Durham. And how quickly he has identified one of the issues for the area that we're talking about. So I'm grateful for that. And I'm something I'm sure we'll be exploring when this case comes before us. So with regard to cases E-20-008, the Ellis Road commercial area rezoning two, I move that this case be deferred until I regularly scheduled meeting in May, which I believe is the eighth. You're muted. I'm sorry, I hit the wrong button. Actually, well, if you're wanting to defer it back to staff, you don't need to. Okay. Then that we defer it back to staff and then so that it may be further noticed. Based on the calendar at the appropriate time. Seconded. Thank you. The motion is to defer back to staff, moved by commissioner Miller, seconded by commissioner Morgan and we'll have the roll call vote. And Mandalia. Yes. Baker. Yes. Busby. Yes. Cameron. Yes. Okay, thank you. Cut right. Yes. Okay. Durkin. Yes. Kenshin. Yes. Landfried. Yes. Low. Yes. MacGyver. Yes. Miller. Yes. Morgan. Yes. Cease. Yes. Williams. Commissioner Williams. Commissioner Williams may have stepped away. So it's unanimous 13-0 to defer back to staff. Thank you. We'll look forward to seeing that come back when it is, it is ready. Our next case, this is our final case this evening is case Z two zero zero zero zero zero one four. And it's the courtyards at South Point two case. And we'll start with the staff report. Mr. Chairman, before we begin, I noticed a couple of members of the public have their hands raised. I don't know whether that's just an administrative thing or whether we have business that's left over from this last thing. I wanna make sure that the public understands what we've done because it is unusual. Yes. Mr. Miller, I think some of the folks who spoke earlier where their hands are now down, but the people whose hands are currently raised, I recognize as looking to speak, they've signed up to speak on the case that we are just opening. Very good. I'm sorry to have interrupted. No, no, that's fine. It's always a good question. You don't have the list. We have a lot of folks signed up to speak on this item. And so we can start with the staff report. And I do believe those three individuals who have their hands raised will be speaking during this public hearing. Thank you, Danny culture again for the planning department. Let me get this started correctly there. Can you everyone see the slide presentation available? Yes. Yes. Great. Thank you. So the planning department. This is request for zoning map change Z2,00014 courtyards at South Point to has been received from Neil Gaucho, a pointy star law and group for two passes of land, totaling 42.83 acres and located at 7852 Herndon Road and 1404 Fenwick Parkway. The site is on rural residential RR and falls Jordan watershed protection overlay district be FJB and is within the suburban development here. The applicant proposes to change the zoning designation to plan development residential 1.682 or PDR 1.682 for a maximum of 72 single family residential dwelling units. The future land use map is designated as very low density at less than two dwelling user acre. No change of the flum is being proposed and associated annexation petition BDG 20,00011 has been submitted for approval to bring the site into the city's jurisdiction. This is the aerial map showing the location of the site is located adjacent to Fenwick Parkway, Fenwick Parkway dead ends into the site and also March re drive, which is just about under completion from the original South Point courtyards at South Point one, it dead ends into that location into the site as well. And also the site is adjacent to the American tobacco trail. It borders the site on the West. These are site photos showing the frontage of the site is primarily wooded with a mixture of pine and hardwood vegetation, except for a 128 foot wide Duke energy power transmission easement, which is located through the eastern portion of the site traversing north to south. And again, this is from Fenwick Parkway to the east and the site frontage from March re drive to the north. And also from the American tobacco trail to the west. These are adjacent site photos, sites surrounded by adjacent single family development to the north and east and vacant forest land to the south and opposite the ATT trail to the west single family development in the courtyards at South Point to the north, single family development as well. And vacant land off of Scott King Road, forested land and adjacent American tobacco trail. And then also a vacant forested land opposite the American tobacco trail to the west. The zoning context map, as I mentioned, is zone RR and the applicant is proposing to go to PDR.1682. The future land use map, as mentioned, is zoned very low density residential, but there would be no change to the future land use map. The development plan, this is turned sideways, but the development plan indicates proposed building and parking envelopes, which are hatched, the required access points through here and here Finwick and Martry, all riparian buffers and 100 year floodplain in this area. The tree coverage areas which are in the asterisk areas and project boundary buffers that are required for the site and also the development plan calls out for a maximum of 24% impervious surfaces. There we go. There are several key commitments included. No disturbance shall occur to the site area located between Duke Energy Power Line, Eastman and the Eastern Property Line, with the exception of requirements to extend. Finwick Parkway, single family detached lots are not permitted outside of the development and envelopes shown on C2000. The maximum of 37 units may be received certificate of occupancy prior to completion of a second point of access to a public street. A new shared use trail connection will be shown on the site plan to connect the internal sidewalk system to the existing American Tobacco Trail constructed by the developers at NCDOT and City of Durham Standards and conveyed to the City of Durham prior to the site plan approval. All lots will be single family detached including principal and accessory uses. The maximum number of lots within the project will not exceed 72. For community design connectivity, the development shall include a minimum of two pocket parks with at least one of the following two benches or a gazebo and the development shall also include at least 1200 linear feet of continuous walking trails within the community at least one pedestrian connection to the American Tobacco Trail. There are some additional traffic commitments, installation of traffic, signal and steel pole and master arm subject to NCD warrants and approval of NCDOT at Fayetteville Road and Massey Chapel Road at the Massey Chapel Church driveway, installation of a traffic signal and steel poles and master arms at Fayetteville Road and Massey Chapel Road at the Children's Campus driveway and revised pavement markings on Fayetteville Road to provide an exclusive southbound left turn lane with adequate storage and appropriate tapers at the real line Atkins Heights Boulevard site access. These are the comprehensive plan policies that are applicable to this proposed development and all these policies are being met. Staff analyze this request and it's consistent with all policies and ordinances and staff is available for any questions at the time. Thank you, Mr. Coleter. We got a lot of folks signed up to speak and so we will open the public hearing. Looks like we have five or six proponents that are signed up. Most I think are with the development team at the moment. It looks like we have about a dozen individuals who have signed up as opponents. So we will start with the proponents and the applicant. Mr. Ghosh, I assume you will speak but let me read to you who else is signed up. You can let us know who's part of your applicant team and then we'll see if there's anyone else who signed up. We also have Joshua Rankie, Jason Coffey, Ryan Akers and Walter Kravalserot. I cannot speak for Walter with the last name there. Yeah, he's not part of the team. But everyone else is with you? Yeah. Great, we will give 10 minutes to the applicant and proponent team. And each speaker will have two minutes to speak as well but Mr. Ghosh, I'll let you start on behalf of the applicant. All right, thank you. And thank you, Mr. Colter. Good evening, Chair Busby, Vice Chair Kinsen, members of the Planning Commission. My name is Neil Ghosh. I am an attorney with the Morning Star Law Group at 112 West Main Street in Durham. I am representing EPCON, which is the applicant for the advisory zoning before you tonight. On the line with me is Mr. Jason Coffey, who is with EPCON. Also with us are Ryan Akers and I believe Laura Holman from McAdams and Joshua Rankie from Rainy Camp. You all may or may not be familiar with EPCON but they are very active in the Durham housing market, particularly in the age-targeted sector. EPCON is a developer of age-targeted communities, including the courtyards at South Point Community just north of this site. In fact, this community is especially phase two of the existing courtyards community. That community was approved, the one that's being built or is built, that community was approved for 93 homes and the first house sold there in September of 2019. A year and a half later, that community is almost sold out. So the demand is there and this proposed community will help fill that demand. And this demand is not just anecdotal from 2010 to 2020, Durham saw rapid increases in its 55 and older population. Over that time span, in a five mile radius from the site, the 55 and older population grew by more than 8,000 people. And that's just in the five mile radius from the site. Moreover, this plan is consistent with the recommendations and guidance found in the current comprehensive plan. As a true infill project, this community has been thoughtfully planned out from the Disney standpoint, building placement and even the amenity. The building envelope has been set into the site significantly, which places the new homes away from existing homes, including existing homes in phase one. As phase two of the existing courtyards community, residents here will share the existing amenity center in phase one. But this community also will provide new amenities which will be shared amongst residents of both phases. Amenities like pocket parks with seating, walking trails and a committed public trailhead to the American tobacco trail. Now, we are not oblivious to neighborhood concerns. In fact, we had a neighborhood meeting even though one was not required when we filed this case about a year ago. We heard concerns about the connection to Fenwick Parkway and we explained that the UDO requires that connection. We heard concerns about traffic and we did a TIA who studied those impacts. This project commits to installing two traffic signals if NTDOT warrants are met at the intersections of Fayetteville and Natchez Chapel as Mr. Kulture mentioned earlier. We heard concerns about density, but a density at around 1.7 is in fact considered very low. In all fairness, this is one of the most innocuous residential infill developments one can hope for. The use here is an ideal fit given the surrounding. I know there's a lot of people on the line tonight. We look forward to receiving your feedback and getting a vote from the planning commission tonight. Our team is available to answer questions. And if there is any time remaining, I'd like to reserve that time for a battle. Thank you. Thank you. And I've tracked the time, so you definitely have a few minutes available. So I will, you'll have that opportunity. I do wanna call Walter Kravassarat who has signed up to speak as a proponent and give him the opportunity to offer his remarks. Good evening. I made the mistake. I'm more in between both as a proponent and a proponent because I understand change and moving forward. But as that lawyer said before, I do have a lot of concerns of safety and the environment around the area of adding 72 additional units to the 93 already have that adds more traffic, adds more pedestrians, adds possibly more crime. A lot more than just the density and other things of concerns. So that's partial. If you want, I can come back to it later and explain more. No, please, you may continue. Congratulations, you jumped to the front of the line because you were listed as a proponent. So we start with proponents and move to opponents. But please feel free to share any additional thoughts on the case in front of us. Okay, we told my traffic. Okay, they're putting in 70 additional units plus the 93 that already have that cannot connect to Fenwick. Now you're adding 72 units. Average home has at least one to two cars. You look at an additional 140 cars that have come through a short distance, a less than a quarter of a mile of road through a U-shaped development. With a lot of kids walking around this area. You're looking at parking. Now once he said you're gonna have a trail that's gonna go into the tobacco trail, which is great. Instead of walking through the woods and everything, but that's gonna bring more people from other developments to park in this area, park towards where that trail is, so it's convenient. Instead of going down to Scott King Road, which is the park down there, which has parking for people who are on a trail, they'll use this because it's closer and convenient. And I'm concerned about lighting. We're very limited lighting on our area. Now you're gonna add another street more between the woods and everything with less lighting, which then brings possible crime and people coming around the area. Now everybody lives in the neighborhood of Adorno, so you can understand adding additional vehicles, additional pedestrians and additional people here. That to me is more concerning than following the form of how the consistency of the development is. That to me doesn't, they don't live in this area. We do, I've been here 11 years and I think it's a very nice area, but add additional traffic. You're looking at making another Sedwick, which is in Parkwood. They have a speed limit of 25, and nobody stopped for stop signs. There's nobody following that speed limit of 25. And then here on Fenwick, in that short little distance, you have a hill that goes straight down. So once they pass that power line and pass that first house that you showed in Fenwick, it's an incline going straight down, which will increase the speed. So something has to be done more here of traffic-wise for people traveling, because you have a lot of young kids in this development. That's pretty much what I have. I appreciate you allowing me to speak. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate your comments. I'm gonna read the names of the individuals who signed up, and some of them I don't see in attendance, but I'm still gonna read the name and we'll, Chris, I'll read a couple in a row so you can tee folks up. We have Arthur Chambers. I don't see their name. Barbara Taylor, who I know is here. Karen Francolla. Peter Gestell. Those are the next names. And I think everyone else is here. Arthur Chambers, I don't think you were with us this evening. So we will move to Barbara Taylor. And again, you'll have two minutes. If you can give us your name, your address, share your remarks. When you hit two minutes, I'll let you know and that way you can finish your comments, finish your thought and we can wrap up from there. So Barbara Taylor, the floor is yours. Thank you. Barbara Taylor, I live at 1302 Martry, been a Durham resident for 27 years, and some in the courtyards at South Point. And first of all, I just wanted to say how blindsided the residents of the current courtyards at South Point are. If you look at the current website, it states that it's a community of 93 homes with leisure paths connecting to the American Tobacco Trail. Had one resident not received a letter about this meeting, we wouldn't even know about it for tonight. But someone whose lot happens to be close enough to what they're calling phase two, received something and shared it with us online. And that's how the residents became aware of it. There has been zero communication from EPCON about this, formally. Now, informally, there have been talks with the sales office at EPCON that they were considering purchasing property adjacent to the current courtyards at South Point. We were told if that were to happen, it would have a different name. I had even heard it would call the courtyards at Herndon, that it would be a separate homeowner's association. They would not have access to our facilities at all. And most importantly, they would have that separate entrance. And now we're hearing that that's just the opposite. A biggest concern is the part that says for the construction that 37 houses could complete a certificate of occupancy before they even have to put in that second entrance. If you were to look at the plot of the current courtyards at South Point, you would see that out of the 93 lots, if construction traffic were to come in to go to that back phase, if that was the only access point, 64 lots or 64 of the 93 or 69% of the homes would have this large scale truck traffic coming through daily until those 37 homes are completed. Now, currently we have a lot of homes, our houses shake, we're on small lots, we're up toward the sidewalk, but we're tolerant of it because we knew we're getting close to finishing out the neighborhood, which has been pretty exciting. The current builders have been doing a great job in rushing to get everyone in. And now thinking that for at least another two years, we will have large scale construction up and down our street is just appalling. And especially that this was never even presented to the current residents. The second point, I'll be quick on this, and I spoke to Danny Kultrow about this is the upcoming representative just stated that they were going to have an access point to the tobacco trail. We were told that that promise that that would be put in in our phase at the end of the cul-de-sac, it's already on the plan. We were told it was being delayed by the city. So I actually went online, it's case D1900304, and I brought it up with Danny Kultrow. And if he could mention it now, he said it's, Epcon still has to put that entrance in our phase. So those are my concerns are that we have our walkthrough, which is what one of the selling points was supposed to, right now the nearest access point is a little over a mile behind the church for people in the current residents to get to the tobacco trail, have to walk a little over a mile. So we're looking to see that construction doesn't come through and also that we get our access point in our part. And I don't know whether you have input or not on whether it can be incorporated into our phase or be a separate neighborhood. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. And Mr. Kultrow, before we move to the next individual, this, I'm just gonna ask you now, just if you can offer any feedback on the point that was raised just so it doesn't get lost in the shuffle. I can. When Ms. Taylor called me and mentioned that, I did while I had her on the phone look up any approvals for the court yards south point. Phase one and our courtyards south point original one. And I did notice that there has been a site plan amendment approved that changes the alignment of the American tobacco trail connection, which actually is still on their property, but it realigns it so that the other south point trail or the other subdivision would actually pick up the remainder of that. So the connection point to the American tobacco trail would be made through the other subdivision. The finished part of the connection would be made through the other subdivision. Thanks, thanks for the update and the clarification. We will continue with the public hearing next. We had Karen Francolla. I apologize, I couldn't find her. Hi. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, please go ahead. Hi, Karen Francolla, 1218 Martry Road. I've been living in the court yards since December. I agree with everything that Barbara has said. And my question to Mr. Ghosh, you're promising us amenities from this second division that are on the website now. And why has EPCON not communicated to us about this? And if you can continue your comments I'll continue my comments. Okay, we'll do that. By the way, I'm a accredited corporate communications and chain management consultant for large global organizations. And I've been pressing Tom Sawicki, he's the regional president. Why don't you tell us anything? They have not, as Barbara said, not issued any communications. So I feel they've been very misleading. And then the other thing that happens is because of the second development, we're not gonna get our HOA transferred to us for years. And EPCON basically does not really believe in representation and doesn't believe in communication. And it seems if there is not a legal responsibility, there should be a moral and ethical responsibility to be transparent with homeowners who the number one reason I bought this lot, which by the way, these houses are double the median price of Durham was access to the tobacco trail. And no one as EPCON has sent one formal email, Zoom call letter explaining why the delay, why they continue to this day, marketing it on their website. As though you come in here and you're gonna have this access and nature pass. We perform a promised access and nature pass. So it's just very disturbing that we have not been told anything. And just one last comment, I hope when Mr. Ghosh answers my question, he can also promise publicly that none of us who are testifying today will be retaliated against because that is a strong fear. I have been threatened in retaliation in the past by senior EPCON people, simply for talking to my neighbors and discussing writing a group letter to higher ups about complaints that we had. So it takes a lot of courage for us to come here publicly and discuss EPCON because they hold all the cards. Thank you, we appreciate your comments. I have reserved additional time that Mr. Ghosh and his team did not use. And so he will have the opportunity to speak. I'm sure he will be able to address many of the questions that are being asked during the public hearing. Next is Peter Gestell. Hi, folks, can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Thank you for the chance to address the planning commission considering the change for the plan development, plan development residential from rural residential for South Point 2. I live at 210 South Bend Drive Durham, North Carolina, lived here for six years. I'd ask you to consider rejecting the rezoning request for the following reasons. The existing development of courtyards at South Point, I'm supposed to preserve 50% or more of the land as woodland or open space. There must be a work in progress because they clear cut everything and didn't leave a tree standing in the area where the development is. Secondly, current rain and stormwater abatement in that development is only partly working. Crooked Creek was fouled continuously during the site prep. Creaks of muddy water form after every rainfall and drain into Crooked Creek, which in turn flows into Jordan Lake. Standing ponds in the woods downhill from the development have to be putting strain on the trees that are there. The tribe was getting torrential rains due to climate change so that ponding is likely to increase. There are two creeks that feed into Jordan Lake in the proposed development and Jordan Lakes aren't under pressure from algae brooms and silt. How another development improves that is beyond me. I pull multiple bags of litter from Crooked Creek behind my home every few weeks and there's been a marked increase in the trash since the development of the courtyards. I expect that to worsen with yet another development. I can't prove the development solely responsible but I doubt it's coincidence. The initial development created an exodus of wildlife. Well, I understand that happens with any development and the owners had the right to sell and seek development. I can't believe that another development creating further reduction in local open space for wildlife in exchange for more attract housing improves the quality of life locally. More development means more houses to stare at rather than woodland. So my objections to just a recap is I think there'll be more runoff into the local creeks more standing water in the forest buffers further reduction in the quality of the natural environment next to the trail and its shrinking buffers. This does nothing to address affordable housing. The developer apparently is not contributing to the affordable housing funding term and yet this is more a suburban sprawl. Lastly, there's no continuous sidewalks or bike lanes from these developments to the South Point shopping centers which means most resident outings will be by car. I'm unaware of any plans from mass transit to these developments. And the idea that the tobacco trail will be used for shopping will be minimal since it's at least a three mile walk one way. So I asked the commission to reject granting the zoning change. I'm not optimistic based on the current stormwater abatements and development that's there that this second development would improve any of that. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Andrea Hearn. Yeah, hello, this is Andrea Hearn and I have to agree with everything that my neighbors already reported. One of the topics that I wanna add to this is that we again, we were not told, I don't know, I've heard the lawyer talk about that it was a meeting about a year ago or something like that but I don't know how many people were actually present at this meeting but anybody following that was not told about the second phase. So for us living on Martry Road, this is gonna be a major throughway. We are in our sixties, most of the neighbors here are elderly, right? We don't need all that traffic coming through. We actually bought this house because we were looking to be taken care of as an elderly citizens in this community. So for us, it was a surprise. We were also hoping for a connection to the tobacco trail which Dan was kind of like told to us that it's not gonna happen. The other thing is the outdoor pool. The outdoor pool is very small. Sharing that with the second development is really like a foot bath, okay? It's a very, very small pool. So, and the other thing is the impact on the environment. We see it all the time. And then Cherry Blaine, which goes through that wooded area, Cherry Blaine is the connection from Fayetteville to our site is about a mile long and it's already a race track. Okay, anybody else connecting through our neighborhood and that's gonna happen is going to just race through that one mile stretch and that's gonna be endangering every elderly citizen that is living in that area or any other grandchildren that are coming to visit us. And that's all that I have to say. Thank you very much. Thank you. If you don't mind, if you could give us your address as well. Yes, it's 1402 Mar Tree Road. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Ginny Von Wagner. And Chris, thanks as always for your help on the tech side getting each person lined up. Following Ms. Von Wagner is John Abram and then Liz Godkin. Ginny Von Wagner, you should be able to be unmuted here in just a moment. A request on mute has been sent and I don't see John or John Abram or Liz Godlin. So we will, if you obey the chair, I recommend we move to Marie Bradford next. Yes, Marie Bradford, thank you. Listening in, my husband and I, we live at 201 Rocky Walk Court. And our interest for this is really from the standpoint of the access to the tobacco trail. When we moved out here almost 14 years ago, the advertisements were such that we would have access to the tobacco trail. However, that's not the case. You could cut through the woods as Walter has stated earlier, but it's not an easy or safe or comfortable or quote unquote legal access to the trail. And that's really what we're looking for. So we thought that the access to the community, I mean, would be beneficial. However, the others on the call do raise some concerns. As Walter has stated from the standpoint about subdivision, we do have a lot of young children here in this area. And living in like a court environment, you know, it's safe for them. But when you open up, if you open up Fenwick, speed could definitely be a concern. And with the additional traffic and access over there as Walter stated, that could be a concern as well, but also from the standpoint of the construction. When we met a year ago with the teams and everything, a question was asked about the construction. And it was kind of like explained that the construction would be through the Epcon side and not through the South Hampton side. But now we're hearing that the Epcon people also have concerns about the construction. So kind of like my husband and I, we are mixed where it's like, so we will look forward to the access to the trail, but we also acknowledge the other concerns by the others on the line. Thank you. Next is Micke Jopsis. Hi, can you hear me? I can, and I apologize for probably mispronouncing your name. You did, but it actually gets mispronounced a lot. Micke Jopsis, I am going to be moving into the neighborhood at the end of May. I currently live on Hampstead Court in Durham. My new address will be 1520 Chair Blaine. And I've been a resident of Durham since the early 60s. So I've seen a lot of change. I concur with what my neighbors have said around the things that we've been told that are not coming to fruition at the session, the timeline in which we wished them to happen. For instance, I have a pond in the back. My view is a pond. And I was told, as soon as we finished construction within one year, we will clean up that pond. Well, now we're having construction of suddenly two new homes. Does that mean I have to wait another year after that? All those homes are constructed for me to have my pond view that I pay for to actually look nice. The other thing about the HOA, I think is really ridiculous and that if they are saying that we were, are relatively separate neighborhoods, be separated by this big divide of the wetlands, then why are our HOAs together and we have different concerns? And thirdly, the point around the amenities with the pool and the clubhouse, it's, as someone's already said, it's too small for the number of people they're saying. And we were never told that that was going to be something that we had to share. I don't want to reiterate everything that other people have said, but I am very disappointed in the lack of communication. And I've granted, I don't live there yet. I've received nothing about any of these changes. And when I bought the property back in October, I was not told about these things. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Next is Thomas Warsham. Yes, I'm here, but I'm just observing. I really have no comments. Okay, thank you. Trisha Smarr. Good evening, can y'all hear me? Yes. Excellent. Yes, I am a resident of Southampton neighborhood at 513 Valley Mead Drive, which is the community immediately adjacent to the property to the east. And as a community member and an expectant parent, I wanted to voice a couple of concerns. Currently, as several folks have mentioned, Southampton is a small, quiet family community. So small in fact that the city of Durham did not deem the amount of neighborhood traffic substantial enough to actually include it in the traffic impact analysis that's included in this report as attachment 10. However, the addition of this extension onto Fenwick Parkway will connect Herndon and Fayetteville roads, which has the potential to draw a great deal more cut through traffic into our neighborhood. Additionally, no one has mentioned the upcoming Lions Farm Elementary school on Scott King. It's also not been mentioned by the applicant at all in the 68 page zoning report. And the city did not even reference it as a concern in the transportation and school impacts in attachment seven. While not part of the courtyards at South Point two, the Lions Farm Elementary opening will have a tremendous impact on foot and vehicle traffic in this area. How the developers choose to design this road would impact whether drivers consider it a viable cut through to bypass traffic that will inevitably back up on Scott King. And if the developers are conscious about designing the ATT connection for the entire Southern community and not just their residents, that could encourage more families to commute to school by bike or foot, thus reducing vehicle traffic and congestion. The applicant references in attachment five that they will follow NCDOT and city of Durham standards and policies when developing both the roadway and the ATT path. However, no one doesn't mention whether it will prioritize vulnerable roadway users like pedestrians and cyclists, which is part of NCDOT's complete streets policies and the city of Durham's vision zero initiative. How will courtyards incorporate engineering design elements that are proven to reduce vehicle speeds and keep pedestrians and cyclists safer? It's incumbent upon courtyards at South Point to build a roadway that deters vehicles from driving at unsafe speeds, while also prioritizing the safety of pedestrians and cyclists that will be traversing that route and the new ATT path. I advocate that this rezoning plan only be approved with commitment from courtyards to prioritize pedestrian safety and from the city to do further analysis on the true impact of foot, bicycle and vehicle traffic once Fenwick is expanded and Lions Farm Elementary opens. Thank you. Thank you. I wanna circle back to Ginny Von Wagner, who was, we weren't able to unmute her before, just to see if we're able to give her the opportunity to speak. And then I see that Arthur Chambers joined us as well, who we called on earlier, but wasn't with us. So why don't we start with Ginny Von Wagner? Chris, any luck unmuting her? I submitted a request, Chair, and I am unsuccessful. Okay. Ginny Von Wagner, you may wanna hang up and call back in and we'll see if we can get you on a better connection. My microphone just got muted. Oh, great. Congratulations. Hopefully that was the hardest part. The floor is yours. Ms. Von Wagner, are you with us? They may be having technical difficulties, Chair. Maybe we proceed to Arthur Chambers. Yeah, let's, we'll circle back one more time if we're able to do that. And Arthur Chambers, if you can give us your name and address and then you can share your comments. I'm unable to reach Arthur Chambers as well, Chair Busby. Okay. For both Ginny Von Wagner and Arthur Chambers, you may need to hang up and call back in and we can see if we're able to give you the opportunity to speak. We would certainly like to hear from you on this item. While we wait to see if we can work out those issues, if there is anyone else who would like to speak on this case who has not yet spoken, you can press star nine to digitally raise your hand and we'll give you the opportunity to speak. So I don't see anyone else who has raised their hand. So Ginny Von Wagner and Arthur Chambers aren't able to speak at the moment. Mr. Gosch, I think we've heard a lot of the comments. There's no one else who is asking to speak. And so you had about six minutes of time and you were welcome to use that. I certainly hope you can address some of the issues that were raised that you're able to address during that time. Sure, and thank you. So we did hear a lot and I'm gonna address some of the comments we heard, we got other members of the team that are gonna address some of the comments we heard as well. First thing I wanna start with, there was one speaker who suggested that new Durham residents or new folks moving to Durham or new development somehow would encourage more crime in Durham. And I just have to say, I think some of you were on the planning commission with me when I was on the planning commission. This is not a line of reasoning that I feel I can tolerate. I just don't think that people who moved to Durham are criminals and I do not think that that is really a valid statement. I in fact think that there are a lot of really nice people who moved to Durham. Anyway, the, there was a lot of talk about the connection to the AT&T and the original courtyards at South Point plan with a 93 unit conservation subdivision. And at the time of the site plan, that was submitted did incorporate a intended connection to the AT&T. Unfortunately, EPCON was not able to obtain an easement from one of the property owners to complete that connection. And as Mr. Caltrow mentioned, the site plan was amended to remove that specific connection and redesign it in a way that it could be incorporated as part of this project. This project, as you all know, requires a rezoning and this project as part of its commitment includes a commitment to make a public connection to the AT&T. This is not something that could be changed on site plan later. If that commitment is, if this rezoning is approved, that commitment would stand the only way to avoid that would be to rezone the property again. This connection to the AT&T is something that EPCON is genuinely interested in providing for its residents, was not able to on the first phase and is continuing its commitment on the second phase to make that connection happen. I did wanna allow Ryan Akers on our team to speak a little bit more to the Greenway. Hey, hey, hey, Nell, this is Jason Coffey. Can you hear me okay? I sure can. I'd rather spend a little bit of time and you tell me, but I wish there's a lot of issues directed at EPCON. Sure, yeah. I think there's some, I wanna make sure that at least get some time before we get into some of the details there. There, I guess a couple of things. First of all, I'm gonna start off by saying there is no retaliation that is not what we're gonna do. So I wanna make sure you feel comfortable in addressing any issues either in a public forum or in a personal one-on-one private time with anybody representing EPCON. So I wanna make sure and get that out. I do apologize for communication component. I think some of this is a timing issue. As you know, we started this rezoning over a year ago. Obviously COVID hit. So we've all been trying to figure out how to work through and navigate this new world. We don't own this property. We're in contract to own it, but right now we're really talking about a land use and a rezoning for the land use, which we think is appropriate for this location. It's going to, again, be an extension of our first phase of what we've already built. The sum of these details we're talking about whether it be connection to the tobacco trail, Pocket Park, some of the amenities we're going to present in phase two, those will all come to fruition as a part of the site plan and the site plan approval. So those details, we have those right now. We're still trying to understand the land use component of this. And if we get approval of that, we'll get into the details of those other connections and how this works together. The NIL did touch base on the tobacco trail connection and he is correct. We had started down a path of trying to add that to section one, but we're unable to get the easement in which actually led us to get in contract with the Herndon family to purchase, potentially purchase this property and develop this with an additional EPCON community here. I think that the communication component is again, something that we need to work on. But again, I think it was because it started a while back. We had their neighborhood meeting a year ago and every day, as you can see activity out there, we have new residents, which we need to be more mindful of to make sure that they understand what this is, where we're going with this. The fact that wasn't in some of those communications is we don't have approval yet. We don't have approval for the project. We don't, so therefore approval for amenities or anything like that is premature at this point, but we will continue to work with staff, our neighbors, et cetera. As we get the land use component of this, hopefully approved, then we'll go into the detail component next of getting into some of the site development, site amenities, et cetera, that we would expect to see as a part of South Point too. So I did want to say that real quickly. No, I'll be, I left you some time here to answer questions as well. Absolutely, thank you. And I think, I think Josh or Ranky, if you're on, if you could speak a little bit to some of the traffic concerns we heard. Josh Ranky here, registered professional engineer in state of North Carolina with Raimi Kempman Associates. I did perform the traffic study. I'll keep it real brief as I know we don't have much time and kind of hit on some of the highlights that it sounded like there were some concerns. This was the traffic study was done to kind of include both phase one and phase two. So even though phase one was already moving forward, we looked at 165 total single family units and one of the keys there is we were barely triggering a TIA for the requirement for a traffic impact analysis for the city with that number of units and trips expected, but we did perform the TIA and gave a complimentary courtesy copy to the NCDOT for review also included them and all the scoping. We did look at six study areas along Herndon Road and Fayetteville Road, which is a fairly extensive study area for a development that's barely triggering a TIA in terms of trip generation. One of the things that I wanted to point out is we did not only consider the growth rate for growing it up to the buildout year of the site, but also considered adjacent development such as the elementary school that was referenced down off of Scott King, the South Point Mall redevelopment. And just like I said, the typical growth rate that the area has been growing at and then add our traffic into the analysis. We did have improvements at a total of three intersections, including the Massey Chapel ones that were discussed and at the realignment. The realignment also that does provide better spacing of some of the driveways along Fayetteville. So just kind of wanted to touch on some of the highlights also wanted to point out that the two signals that were discussed, I know we're on the hook for looking at a signal warrant analysis. It does appear those are moving forward as part of another development 751. I coordinated with DOT and they said, that's also tied to that development. So it is guaranteed those are going in as now there are multiple developments that are sort of responsible for the signalization there. So I just wanted to touch on some of those highlights and kind of make sure everybody did understand that we did consider this. We considered the first phase as well and did have sort of an extensive study area. It has been reviewed and comments were issued by the city with some coordination with DOT throughout. And happy to answer any questions but don't want to take up any more time, so. Thanks, and I guess I'll see if Ryan Akers, if we've got some time left, Ryan Akers, if there's anything you want to add about the green line. Sure, I'm on. Thank you. This is Ryan Akers, McAdams, 2905 Meridian Parkway Durham professional engineer with State of North Carolina. I am the civil engineer of record for the project of both this and the courtyards at South Point North of here. We did in fact have a greenway connection to the American Tobacco Trail that was proposed due to environmental concerns that being in a floodway, floodplain and due to this trail having to meet ADA criteria for being a public connection to the American Tobacco Trail. The connection needs to be South of here on the Herndon property. So as Mr. Coffey alluded before, we had to make a pivotal move to acquire easements on the south side, which is why we did not make it with the project north of here. But that is the intent. It is a requirement of our site plan to the north. It is going to be made. So a lot of the conversation and concerns that were made and cited by many of the folks in the courtyards at South Point to the north. It is well founded, but it is going to be a connection. It is part of this development and we will make it. It just needs to adhere to some other engineering constraints which we're working through. So I just want to make that clear. Thank you. And Chair Busby, I think that concludes our comments for now. I know there were a couple of neighbors that were having some connection issues and hopefully they've been able to join us at this point. Great, thank you. Yeah, so we will circle back. There were two individuals who have not yet spoken who were trying to speak. So I want to give them that opportunity one final time. We have, sorry, I lost my, Arthur Chambers, are you still with us? I am with you if you can hear me. We can, please go ahead and give us your name address and your two minute remarks, please. Oh, great, I apologize for the difficulties. My name is Arthur Chambers. My address is 1011 Charismatic Drive in Durham 27713. I've listened to a number of the comments that have been made, some of which I think I would like to endorse. And second, first of all, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak, I understand this is a called meeting, so I'll try to keep my comments short. Courtyards at Southgate One is developing into a really wonderful community so far. Seems as though a number of the neighbors have gotten to know each other. We're certainly enjoying what we see and we don't want that to change remarkably and that's what we fear. This originally at least Southgate One was planned as a 50% of the community to remain undisturbed as a conservation site with scenic views including ample woods and green spaces. And that's a quote from the Routure. With this in mind, there are some very significant concerns about essentially what might be considered drainage and flooding issues on the south end of Southgate One and at the north end of the new project that's being proposed Southgate Two. If you stand in my backyard, there's a very substantial steep drop that with rain and with drainage would make any kind of development at the very end of what is proposed as the northern border of this new development to be basically a swamp. I can see potentially extremely unsafe conditions not just for the current homeowners in Southgate One, but for the people who may be wishing to build homes. And very frankly, I think that Southgate Two will become the floodplain for Southgate One. Once you've denuded the grass and the trees, if you will, from the sites that are proposed, unless you have a significant buffer of both trees and undergrowth between the two projects, you're never gonna have an issue where you don't have to worry about a combination of cars getting stuck or mud essentially, not to mention the fact that large construction vehicles used to make the new project in Southgate Two, they don't have any other access except through Southgate One, it's gonna be a nightmare. If there is an approval for this particular project, you're gonna have to have a secondary road, not secondarily built, but primarily built to endorse the opportunity for these people to be able to build their property without flooding essentially the perimeter of the two, the two sites as they abut against each other. I'm very concerned about that primarily. I don't know whether there's a proposal. And I know the civil engineer was available at least at one point. And I know that there's a floodplain plan at least, but I'm very concerned that if this isn't re-upped as a point of interest that there's gonna be more than just a little bit of discontent with the connection between the two sites. So it's a combination of danger, a combination of safety, a combination of flooding. I'm not a civil engineer, but I can tell you that the backdrop from my backyard on charismatic drive that goes down to maybe less than 100 feet from the perimeter of the new proposed project is very steep. And if you don't leave a significant buffer, there's gonna be a large problem. Thank you for your comments. You did cut out a couple of times, but I think we caught most of what you were sharing with us and appreciate those comments. I do once again, wanna give Ginny Van Wagner the opportunity to speak. Hopefully we have figured out those tech issues. Ms. Van Wagner, are you available to speak? Chris, how's it looking? Her microphone on our end, it looks like it's turned on, but it may be a technical difficulty with actual equipment. Okay. Ms. Van Wagner, we are gonna move on if you are able to join us and we will attempt to give you the opportunity to speak at some point during this hearing. One final call, if you have not yet spoken during this public hearing and you would like to speak, again, you can press star nine on your phone. I will note, I do see two members of the public who have already spoken, who have their hands raised again. I will, I commit that I will get to you. We're gonna close the public hearing, but the commissioners will have the opportunity to make comments and ask questions. And I will commit to recognize both of you during my time to give you an opportunity to speak. I don't see anyone else raising their hands. We are gonna close the public hearing, and we are gonna move to Commissioner Miller. Commissioner Miller, when you were done with your questions and your comments, I'm gonna ask the two individuals who spoke as well to offer their comments. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If we are able to make a connection with them, I would rather hear them before I speak. So it's whatever you wanna do. Okay, why don't we do that? I have a number of questions. I went out and visited this property. It's an interesting situation. I think the first point that we need to not lose is it's very low density. We're talking about 1.7 units an acre. We don't see that very often. It's a very low density project, but it's an interesting piece of property. A great big hunk of it is taken up with a pretty impressive overhead power transmission easement. It's two sets of towers running side by side along the highest point, especially up there where it connects with the neighborhood next door with Fenwick Parkway, which is a misnomer. It's anything but a parkway. It's just a residential street. And then when you drive around, I first tried to drive back out onto Herndon and then back in on a martry. And I drove down through the neighborhood into martry and then came up on a barrier where the older neighborhood was joining the neighborhood under construction and you can't get through. And I'm assuming that I have no idea why that is, but I'm assuming it had something to do with the fact that the roads in the newer section of the subdivision where construction is going on, those roads haven't gotten their final surfacing and it may be just to kind of keep the overall traffic on those down, at least on a temporary basis. But if there's another explanation, I'd like to know it, which then caused me to have to get out and drive all the way around onto Fayetteville and come back in from that side to achieve martry and drive down to that connection. And I have to say I was surprised and it raised a lot of questions. And the first question is, is when we approve development plans, I think we need to be really thoughtful about where the connections go because here is a connection that drives right into a very low area with what looks to be a perennial stream at the bottom. And it's not just a stream in an easily cross-ditch, the area is very low. And I can imagine it does not take any rainfall at all for that to be a fairly muddy mess. And so my first question for the developers is, you're only building fewer than 90 units. You only have to have one actual access for under the 90 unit rule. You are required to stub out and reach the existing stubs but there's an environmental exception that can be obtained at site plan. When this, if this new small subdivision is approved, what will be your actual connections? How will the people live in it? Where will they drive? Will they drive on Fenwick? Will they connect to mercury and then have their choice of going out towards Herndon or out towards Fayetteville? What will the connections be? And I believe we have a traffic engineer with us, where will these drivers be going? Which of those two connections will they use in your estimation to get where they're going? Sure, and thank you for the question, Commissioner Miller. I think first, Ryan Akers might be the appropriate person to answer about where these connections are, where we expect them to be with the site plan. You mentioned the environmental exception that can be sought at site plan. Ryan, I want to check with you. Did you have any thoughts on that or did you answer that question? Yeah. Sure, sure. Again, Ryan Akers, McAdams. When we designed courtyards at South Point, the stub street of Martree was required by code to this property. And so by code were required to make that continuation and stub to it to the north. That's obviously the most convenient connection to go through the courtyards at South Point to access Atkins height realignment that goes out to Fayetteville Road. The ancillary connection obviously would be Fenwick Parkway, which would be to the south. I would say that would be the ancillary connection. When you say ancillary, help me understand what that means. Well, again, we do have Joshua with Rami Kemp. They can speak to the traffic when you look at the larger projection of the way the traffic moves. I mean, most people are trying to get out to Fayetteville, which is an arterial that leads to 40 and to 751. Most people I do not believe would want to go to Herndon and then to Scott King. It's for an environment, I'm sorry, EMS movement. It's great to have that interconnectivity, but I do not believe and do not perceive that to be the primary movement. I do believe it would be through the earlier phase of the courtyard's project and out through Atkins height. So the answer to the first part of my question is you do anticipate building the connection down at the bottom of Martery, where it essentially slips off the end of the current, the southern end of the phase that's under construction and right into the creek. I do actually, yeah. That creek is as defined by our jurisdictional determination by the Corps of Engineers, I believe is an intermittent stream feature. And so it is in a perennial and as such, doesn't impose the higher thresholds that the mainstream feature that carries the sewer feature along the first phase of this project. So yeah, we do need to make that connection and it would be the primary movement. Yes. Yep. But so right now, unless something dramatic changes, you do anticipate making both of the connections that you have. I don't see a way out of the Fenwick one, but I think that if you wanted to, I think you might have a case to get out of the Martery one on environmental reasons, but it sounds like you don't plan to ask for that. I, as a professional engineer, honestly, I wouldn't ever believe that Fenwick would be adequate on its own based on this site. I think we need both to be honest with you just based on the traffic and I'll let Joshua chime in on that on his merit as a traffic. This is Jason Coffey again with Epcon. I'll just chime in again. We see this as a continuation of our South Point North community. So we think that connection for both, both of our communities is very important from not only a vehicular standpoint, but also a pedestrian standpoint as well. Thank you. Oh, sorry. Josh Rankin, did you want me to tag in and talk traffic just for a moment to kind of follow up on Ryan Acres or did you have a follow up for them first? Well, no, no. So I was there and I was trying to imagine living in the subdivision that you're asking for approval for and where I would want to go if I was going to come out of it, would I go Fenwick or would I go onto Martery and then whip back around the way I got in there, which was via the southern end of Fayetteville? And I guess the answer is is I would probably try to go to Fayetteville if I was trying to reach up to reach the shopping center or any of the other places I would want to go as just to get out of where I lived and get up to whatever else is happening in Durham. But it's not impossible that I might go the other direction too. It depends a little bit about where I'm going. So I was wondering, based upon what you're the traffic engineer and I know part of doing these plans is trying to anticipate where the people will probably want to go based upon the way the land lies at the time of your study. What do you think people are going to do? Are you going to write on Martery or are they going to take Fenwick? So I think if you're saying between the two of those, and once again, the key I think is most will want to get to Fayetteville. So when the Atkins Heights Boulevard realignment, that's where we're anticipating most of the traffic coming out. I think of the two, if you're saying they're going to go to Herndon, Martery might be the more common there, but like I said, ultimately, I think it's Atkins Heights to Fayetteville is going to convey most of the traffic. And that's what in the city staff's review and the NCDOT, they agreed that that's likely the primary destination. You might have some that go to Herndon, but you might have some traffic that now kind of cuts through and use Atkins Heights to get to Fayetteville. So of the two, if you're saying Martery or Fenwick, I think Martery is the more likely to get to Herndon if you're heading north. There might be some that when the school does open up might use Herndon to head south that way. But ultimately, I think the main one is the Atkins Heights Boulevard realignment with Fayetteville is the primary. All right, very good. Now, to the thing when I was driving there, the barrier that right now cuts Martery in two, what's that all about? Yeah, this is Jason Coffey again, EPCON communities. You hit it right when you were discussing it. Basically, it's a timing issue. We committed to make that be the last connection point between our community and the neighboring community. And so as we get through our process, that will be a connection that will be made, but we just committed to delay that into the little bit in the future. That's to do with where construction traffic goes. Correct. All right, I'm with you. Now, we've talked about this connection with the trail and I was trying to develop in the map of my mind what we were talking about and quite frankly, I failed. Is there some way somebody can show me a map where the original connection was supposed to be and where you now want it to be? So I can understand what people were talking about a little bit better. Is that possible? Danny, do you have a map that might show even in a large context where those trail connections might go? I mean, where you might be able to point them out with a stylus or a cursor? Commissioner Miller, I do have those site plans. Let me see if I can pull those. It's not really necessary to pull up the actual site plans. I just wanna get a feel for it. I do actually have them though and I can pull the locations of the original and the modified one. Well, while you're looking, I'll go to my next question, which is... Commissioner Miller, just one sec. I'm gonna get right back to you. I'm just gonna give you a heads up. We've been asked to take a 10 minute break since we've been going for a few hours for the closed captioning. Why don't you ask that one question? And then we'll come back. Danny's looking for maps. Maybe we should just take it. I mean, if that works for you and we can come back and start with you again. I'm not building to a big point. So it's fine with me since this isn't my jury speech. That makes sense. So again, just to remind everyone, closed captioning staff, every two hours, they require a 10 minute stretch break. We've been going for over two hours. We're gonna take a 10 minute break. You're welcome to stay on the line. We will be back in 10 minutes and we will resume this case with Commissioner Miller on the floor. Thank you all. Welcome back. Once you're back, if you can come off of... Turn your video on just so we know you're there. Once we have a quorum, we can get started again and Commissioner Miller, the floor is yours. And I know that Mr. Culture was able to pull up the map. We can put that up on the screen as well. But Commissioner Miller, you are welcome to continue your questions and comments. Okay. I do kind of want to make sure that all the players are on the board. But Danny, are you there? I am. Would you like me to go ahead and pull that up now? Yeah, let's go ahead. If you're ready, let's do that. Sure. I can do that for you. This is the originally approved site plan. And so site plan for what? This is for the original courtyards at South Point. Right. So the phase one or whatever. Yes. And this... The part that's currently built. That is under construction. In fact, a lot of these lights on the south end back here are still under construction right now. Right, right. Okay, I'm with you. And this is the parcel down here that is actually under review tonight. This piece of the American Tobacco Trail was originally approved. And it did show it actually moving through this parcel to make the connection point. So I think Mr. Ergoche was correct in that they would need an easement to... And you could see the dashed area for an easement to build that trail point. And then this is the... Because the Herndon still owns that. I cannot attest to that at the time, but... Well, let me put it another way. The developer didn't... I don't think so, correct. And this is the revised or the amended plan. It shows this point ending here and then with the amendment was that the trail would be constructed an easement to be dedicated upon the development of the Herndon parcel. So I've got a problem. I'm trying to figure out. What you showed us before, was that a site plan or was it a development plan? These are both site plans. Okay, thank you. That helps. Right. Was the trail connection that you showed us before a commitment in the development plan for the courtyards one? It is not. The original courtyards is a conservation subdivision. So it's a by right approval of the site plan because it's still zoned. So it's something they wanted to put in the site plan, but it was not anything that at least in terms of their requirements and their relationship with the city of Durham and the zoning code they had to do. Actually, it is a unified development ordinance requirement that you'd have to make a connection to. Right, but you can't make a connection if you don't own property or budding. That is true. But now they do. Yeah, that's correct. And so they do plan to make a connection because they don't have to worry about getting an easement but it's not gonna be in the place they originally wanted to make it. It's slightly shifted. I think it's a little closer. Let's look at this other plan again. So it's in the same general area. It's actually not. It's in the same general area, yes. All right, let's now the other thing. Go back to the other map or no, you can keep this one up. Okay. So right where you've got your cursor, what's that? That. So put the other map back. That's a lot. No, no, put the other map back. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, that's a build-up a lot. So between 30 and six and 35, there is a space. What is that? That's a storm drain easement. That is a storm. All right, very good. That helps. So that does clear those issues up a little bit. But if for some reason, this rezoning that we're talking about today were not approved, what would be the obligation of the developer to create a connection to the American tobacco trail? Under this approved site, this amended site plan, it still would be connected to the trail upon construction or upon development of this parcel. Yeah, but if a development of that parcel is not approved, then they will not have a connection through at this point. Okay. That's what I was building too. The last thing I want to ask about, if I may, Mr. Chairman, is I'm concerned about stormwater catchment, because I could tell when I stood at the end of martry and looked down into the subject property that that was low and wet and it wouldn't take a very big rainstorm to make that a pretty wet place, at least for a time. And if we introduce a lot of pavement and roofs and what have you, we're going to have to catch stormwater. So under this development plan, what to what level would as at a minimum, minimum service under the code, how would you describe the catchment rate? Mr. Miller, hey, this is Ryan Akers again with McAdams. I'm going to answer that one. Okay, good. So American tobacco trail kind of introduced an interesting situation on this phase one of courtyards at South Point. It backed up a lot of stormwater with inadequate conveyance measures for what's described as a FEMA floodway and floodplain. That is the existing creek there. That whole backwater creates a substantial floodplain and floodway. So we had to- It's kind of like a dam. It very much like a dam. And as a matter of fact, when we developed Atkins height boulevard, we had to raise that road up substantially to convey that backwater. It was quite to do. We went through a FEMA conditional letter of map revision known as a CLOMAR. And we're actively working through a LOMAR, a letter of map revision to the FEMA floodplain because of that. This project will discharge south of the American tobacco through the buffered feature that you ever mentioned as the feature south of our property line. That still discharges to a FEMA floodplain. So I would not over detain because, if you detain into- So the idea is to keep it moving. You wanna keep it moving or else you're gonna create a big gulp of water at the end of the curve. So yeah, we don't over detain into a FEMA floodway, particularly in a case like this being so close to Jordan Lake. To that point though, we are still very focused on water quality. So we will maintain the 85% TSS and the nutrient removals required for the Jordan Lake watershed. I know they're voluntary or actually they're not law at this point, but we still try to achieve those. So yeah, we're still trying to work towards water quality and we will not try to over detain in this particular case. So I wanna ask one more question because I'm not an engineer and I don't play one on TV. Will the development of this project create or direct stormwater to any part of the developed communities that border you to the North or to the East? Don't everybody talk at once. Where does the water go? I was on mute. I was saying, I'm screaming into my phone, not to the North, not to the East. The gravity flows to the South and to the West and we're discharging in that direction towards the American tobacco trail and under the tobacco trail. And then my very last question and thanks everybody for being patient. I am concerned about bringing martry over the stream into the subject property from the North. What kind of help me envision the roadway as it crosses that property boundary and there's a fairly significant drop-off right there because of the way the land has been graded. What's that going to look like? In other words, I see the road going in at a gentle slope. And I see that it's sitting at the top of a ramp that is going to have fairly broad shoulders in order to make up for the dip where the stream is. And then it would probably cross over one or two big corrugated pipes. Is that right? It'll be one pipe likely. It's not a substantial drainage basin to the East and to the North of that crossing. It would likely be probably a 36 inch pipe in diameter based on preliminary sizing. And between the existing phase one of courtyards and this crossing, it would remain open space and green. Probably would be one of our open space and if we can manage one of our active uses through trails and active uses like disc golf or something that we can use for the community in that green space. But once we cross the environmental feature, that's where the development would commence. Do you see the shoulders of that roadway being supported by broad earthen shoulders? Or are you gonna use some sort of hard retaining walls? Because I noticed as I drove around in the part that's being developed now, you've used quite a lot of hard material in your grating. Right, and part of that is a result of dealing with the core of engineers and the mitigation and permitting through that type of a stream feature. They typically require avoidance and minimization for impacts to perennial streams. In that case, we had to use those, I think they're fairly substantial modular block walls that you may have seen out there. And those were a result to try to avoid the impact to the perennial stream feature there. So we would do something, I wouldn't say so robust as those big block features, but we would try to use head walls and end walls to mitigate the amount of stream impact to appease the core of engineers for the impact as required. All right, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman for the time, allowing me to take the time, okay. You're welcome, Commissioner Miller. Commissioner Baker, before we get to you, I did promise that we continue to have a few residents who already did speak and testify, but they've continued to have their hands raised. I know during these online meetings, it's difficult to be able to have the back and forth. I just wanna give a moment to recognize each individual. I ask that you, if you would like to speak, if you can offer, if there's a specific question that you still have, I'm gonna ask one by one as part of my time, but I do ask that you be brief. We've given each of you the opportunity to already speak in the public comment period, but I do want, in full transparency, to give you each a chance. So Karen Francola, your hand is raised. Is there any additional items that you wanna make sure are addressed during this hearing? Just very quickly, the link for EPCON at South Point, I sent to Danny, still says, Leisure Pass connecting to the ATT. Is that something the city of Durham is okay with them basically promising this? And earlier, EPCON talked about apologies. Well, either EPCON is much more incompetent than any other company that has learned how to communicate during a pandemic or they're willfully misleading the public. And very quickly, I appreciate the comment on retaliation and I would like a contact from EPCON of who I can contact if I do feel I have been retaliated against. Thank you. Thank you. I, Mr. Kulture, you may be able, I think we've talked about the issue with connecting to the American Spatka Trail, but you may be able to address that again. And then I will ask the applicant to be able to address the additional points. Well, I can't, all I can say is that I pulled those site plans of record to show that that's been approved. I don't know any previous, if there are any previous determinations about that, you know, about allowing that through based on future developments. So I don't have the knowledge of that. Okay, thank you. And I think as we've talked about in this case, the connection would be a committed element that would, and they would own this property. So that would then be a required commitment that would need to be addressed. Is that accurate? That is accurate. Thank you. And to the applicant, if you can, you can choose who's the right person. If any of you would like to address the additional items. I guess really the main item is, and you may would just want to be in touch directly, but if there is a point of contact, it'd be useful to be able to share that. I'll speak, go ahead, Jason. Yeah, this is Jason Coffey up con. Yes, we'll provide that. We'll provide a contact for you and moving forward, not only local, but at the corporate level as well. Thank you. Tricia Smarr, your hand is raised as well. Again, if you can be very brief, if there's a specific item that you haven't been able to have addressed or you wanna make sure is noted, please. Thank you, yeah. So I still have some concerns about the drivers who will be using this road connecting Herndon and Fayetteville as a cut through. It's really not a direction about where the residents of courtyards will want to go when they leave their community, but also who from outside will see this as a shortcut to drive relatively quickly, probably and potentially endanger the lives of the families and the elderly folks living on either side. So I have a question for Josh Rankie, who did the TAA. It looks like Herndon and Fenwick intersection was excluded from the traffic impact analysis based on the assumption that traffic won't flow on Fenwick. However, given the potential for cut through commuters, trying to reach 40, as well as the inevitable traffic surrounding the opening of the elementary school, how can Fenwick and Herndon not be taken into consideration? There are three other households who've spoken from my neighborhood, voicing concerns about increased traffic as well as others that are listening in. So I just wanted to ask for clarification and let y'all know that we need more information and communication about how these traffic concerns are going to be addressed proactively. Sure. And so for clarification, we follow the city's UDO and essentially what we're studying in this TAA is the impacts of the site and not necessarily kind of maybe problematic traffic patterns that exist or anything like that. So when we say it's below the threshold to kind of really consider that, it means we've gathered the data. We say, here's the traffic that's expected from the site. If it's below the UDO there and it's a 10% rule, then we say, all right, this site isn't expected to have a big impact. So it's not that there wouldn't be some cut through. I think there are more major roads where people would likely continue up and use the roundabout and such to cover if they're going to Fayetteville, it doesn't mean there wouldn't be any traffic. But once again, the purpose of this study is to see the impacts on the surrounding roadway network of this site. And once again, through communication with the city staff and NCBOT, it is we know that there will be some cut through traffic. We just don't think it's significant enough that we'd say we need to send 100 trips through anything like that in the peak hour. There will be some. You'd also have some of the site traffic going through kind of that way. So that's what it is, is the reason that was eliminated in the TIA is we collected data. We came up with the assumptions of where traffic would go. We coordinated with the city in DOT. They said, that's below our threshold where you need to consider saying this site has an impact on that intersection. So we do have, we're essentially providing a turn lane along Fayetteville at the realigned Atkins Heights. So that should safely get the traffic kind of into the site and off of Fayetteville Road. We don't expect major delays at that intersection on Fayetteville, even if there were some additional traffic, primarily because the vast majority would be turning right. They'd have those gaps in traffic. And then we do have some of the signals that would be provided either by this developer or the other development that are tied to those signals. That's kind of adding capacity and the gaps in traffic for some of the problems along Fayetteville that already exist in Massey Chapel. So it's not that there wouldn't be any traffic. The reason that was eliminated is our site isn't expected to have a big impact on that intersection. And that's the purpose of this traffic impact analysis is to see what our site should be responsible for. Thank you. Barbara Taylor, same thing. If you can give us just a, if there's a specific item that you've got your hand raised that we can help address. Sure, I'll be quick. This follow up to Commissioner Miller's comments on the trail for the record, I want to be noted that EPCON applied for the trail access at the end of that cul-de-sac in what is now being considered phase one. On August 27th, 2019, they withdrew it three months later, November 26th, 2019. That was in, that fourth quarter is really when they started selling the lots. So from 2019 November, when they withdrew it till today, they have been selling and all their advertising on the website, everyone who's purchased has purchased with the understanding as we were told by the sales team that that connector was going in. Yet it had already been withdrawn over a year ago. So to our representative to Jason Coffey, if he could just address, again, what would happen if this is not approved? Is there any plan at all? And if it is approved, how quickly will it be prioritized so that we do have access? Thank you. Jason Coffey, EPCON communities. I think as we've looked at both of these together, a couple of things. One is that we think there's, just from a standpoint of environmental impacts, there's a lot better locations, flatter locations, et cetera, as a part of this phase two, it's gonna make a lot more sense for that direct connection. If you take a look at the site map that was done before, if you see where the parcel was actually owned along the tobacco trail, it was not where the trail was shown because that was not been required. What was required was a connection where we own the property from the UDO. And if you take a look at that, I think it was mentioned before that does not meet ADA. If you're out there, Mr. Miller, if you're out there as well, it's a pretty steep drop off, a pretty steep rise. Therefore, the connection could not be made on our property. The intent all along was for us to make it. We think it's an important component of this community, but we try to work through an easement situation. It didn't work, which led us to potentially buying this property. And I think it's gonna make a better connection for everyone, not only for phase one, but also phase two and then the neighbors to our East. So. And the priority? Thanks for that answer. Marie Bradford. Again, very quickly, is there an item that you wanna address that we haven't been able to raise at this point? Yes, we wanted to just revisit the water aspect. We are at 201 Rocky Walk. So we're at the, I guess you could say the South Eastern side of on South Hampton. And we have the retention pod and everything, you know, by us. I'm just wondering what the water that is going to, the storm waters is gonna run off from the EPCON subdivisions. Is that gonna impact us down here? To our understanding we're not in the flood plain, but could that potentially put us in the flood plain? We're just very concerned with that because we are, I think we would say the lowest level of the South Hampton subdivision here. Thank you. And the EPCON, I know you've given us a lot of information on the stormwater, but if there's any additional information you can share that be great. What was that address again? I apologize. I disabled their talking. Who was the last speaker again? Marie Bradford, I believe. Beyond and Marie Bradford at 201 Rocky Walk court. Right by the retention pod. Right by the retention pod. We're south ended. Yeah, Rocky Walk court is upstream from this development. So there would be zero impacts from this development on that on the development on the east side of the power line easements. Okay, we're upstream. That's good to know. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for the answer. That's really helpful. Finally, Thomas Warsham, you've raised your hand as well. I want to give you the opportunity. I just have a very quick question. My address, we haven't moved into the neighborhood yet, but it's 1453 Cherub, which backs up to the flood plain. But my question is evolving at Ken's height. Can someone explain how that works into the phase two? Is that going to be a connector from Fayetteville into phase two? Or what, I don't understand what that is. And that's the only question I have. Thank you. Can someone from the applicant address that? What's the map? Hey, yeah, Ryan Akerzon, I don't know if you can, this is Jason Coff, Ryan, I don't know if you can handle that. I really wasn't sure what the question was. So I can't. I'm trying to figure that one out myself. He said Atkins height alignment. Re-opening. Where does it go to? It dead ends right now. They can't hear you. Yeah, Mr. Worsham, you may need to provide clarification to be able to answer your question. Can you hear? I think he wants to see a map of what it will look like when realigned. Yes. We just don't know. I don't have any idea. That's just a dirt road right now. We have no idea what that realigned and it dead ends. I just don't understand what that realignment means and how that affects our neighborhood. Okay, this is Jason Coffey. Again, I'll try and know you may add in, but when we're going to align what's now martry, that's the realignment of Atkins height. The Atkins height, it was a, almost a kind of a paper right away. That's going to be vacated and it's going to be part of the whole overall transition with the church that we've dedicated a new right away. You see, you drive up and down to Fayetteville. The old Atkins height will be vacated. It will be a road. And yeah, and if it's helpful, I mean, that language is a little confusing, but that's because the existing road, which is called Atkins Heights Boulevard, which is that dirt road you're talking about. The new entrance, I'm sorry, the existing entrance to South Point, courier to South Point one, is the realignment of Atkins Heights Boulevard. Okay. Got it. Great. Thank you, Mr. Warsham. Thank you to the applicants. Really appreciate you taking time to be able to answer those additional questions during the case here at the Planning Commission. I have a couple other questions, but I want to let other commissioners speak first. So I'm going to give the floor to Commissioner Baker. And then I may ask a question or two before we wrap up. Thanks, Chair Busby. Yeah, I have just one quick and simple question for the applicant just in kind of considering the large size of the site, 40 acres. I'd like to know from the applicant team how this proposal will contribute to climate and energy sustainability or how it will at least offset any of the negative impacts it will have on climate and energy sustainability. For example, are there any green-building elements or any green-building practices? That's all. So I think as you know, there's no commitment in the development plan for specific green-building aspects of green components. I think, Jason, if you want to speak to you, EPCON's development generally, and some of the things you guys do, maybe that would be helpful to answer Commissioner Baker's question. Jason Coffey, EPCON communities. Again, I think that was a pretty, maybe a fairly broad question, but I think a couple of things. One, using our lot sizes, again, they're smaller lot sizes. So therefore, less road frontage is needed. And the maintenance is on a smaller overall lot size, which I think again adds to not only the low maintenance aspect, but also some of the impacts you mentioned as well. We typically get into energy-efficient appliances as well and the amount of open space and some of the treat areas we're saving between the stream and the north property line. I think those all give benefit to some of the items you were asking about. I'm not sure if that's specific what you're looking for and I'd be happy to answer more. And additionally, I mean, it is a 48-cite, but it's also, I mean, this is like pure in-vill. This does not contribute to sprawl in any way. This is in between two existing communities. We're making connections to communities that are existing. So we're not sure it's sprawling that manner. The site is going to add to the existing infrastructure, which I do think helps overall. It's avoiding that leapfrog type development. And you can also see Mr. Baker on the site plan we have as far as, you know, our impact of development is fairly minimal in the 40 acres. Thank you. I don't see any other commissioners raising their hand at this point. So you're welcome to do so. I did have two issues that I wanted to hear a little more on. I know you've talked about both of them, but, you know, what I've heard from the neighbors this evening are a variety of questions. The two that stood out to me that, you know, I know the TIA and the traffic assessment and some of those upgrades to me, I believe will help. There is going to be some traffic in the neighborhood. I think that's inevitable as you have additional growth. That would happen even under the current zoning if, you know, if this land was developed by right. But the two issues that have stuck out to me, one is this question on stormwater runoff. I know you've talked about the unique location, but there is also trying to capture some of the sediment that may be running off the site, but also just continue to give the neighbors the confidence they need that they won't be dealing with that kind of runoff on their property, both during construction and when the construction's finished. And then the second is, if you could provide any additional guidance and thoughts on how do you manage construction traffic if you are gonna have to be coming through an existing community to then be able to reach the construction site and are there things that you can do to work with the neighbors? Do you have experiences in other communities where you've run into this? So any just additional guidance you can give us on the stormwater and on the construction traffic will be great. Sure. And let me, I'm gonna ask Ryan to weigh in but before I do, let me just say, I think it might be helpful. As you mentioned, Chair Bradley, we have talked a lot today about the stormwater. I think it might be helpful if the map were oriented in the appropriate north-south direction because I mean, I think that we've been saying that the water is flowing kind of south and west. That's not where these communities are. But if you look at that map, it's turned on its side. Maybe that's where the misunderstanding is coming. I think that might be helpful. But Ryan, if you could maybe address again the stormwater concern, what specifically is being done on this site? And in a way that will help alleviate the neighbors concerns that they might experience additional flooding. Sure, sure. Yeah, so Chairman Busby, you bring up a comment that I hear it's a ubiquitous comment amongst every municipality in the triangle, most of which are in the Triassic Basin where we have these colloidal soils, the clayey soils that when it rains, the water turns brown. There's nothing I can really do about that other than provide polyacrylamides, which are a colloidal that it's an anti-colloidal that pulls that coloration out of the water. The point being is that there's two things that we have water quality and water quantity. Quantity, I do not want to emphasize that we're going to over-detain and prevent flooding on these properties. There's not a flooding concern because we're entering a FEMA flood plain that's part of Jordan Lake watershed. If we over-detain, we're going to exacerbate the issue. So we want to let the water out because we're closer to the flooding concern. So you want to get the water out quicker sooner. Now, when it comes to water quality, which a lot of people think of as the color of the water, we have to think about, okay, why is the water colored? Okay, during construction, you have a lot of sediment from wheel tracking and things that are happening on these individual construction sites that happens through adding silt vents and construction entrances, things that Durham County regulates and we address. But the fact of the matter is we can't 100% control all of these clay soils getting into the storm water during construction. So we set up these erosion control measures. They're called, I think they're called Faircloth Anti-Siphon. There's these topwater dewatering measures. There's erosion control measures that collect the sediment or detain the sediment and treat it during construction. Having said that, that's a conversation during construction. When all of that sediment is stabilized, the houses are built, the sod is in, the grass is growing, there shouldn't be sedimentation in the storm water measures. And at that point we have true sediment, or I'm sorry, true water quality features where the wetland plants truly take up the water quality, the phosphorus and nitrogen. And that's what I think, a lot of people don't really recognize. They're just seeing the sediment rolling off from the construction site. That's why we have silt vents and treat protection fence and these skimmer basins. So I say all that, that we do the best we can to address the construction and it's by lot and we do, we have measures, we meet the county ordinance, we try to go above and beyond and that's the best we can do at this point. Right, and so if I can say this back to you to make sure I have it right, but also so folks listening understand that given where the storm water will move, it will not be moving toward the current residents. It'll be moving away. And in this case, we are seeing more applicants coming in, offering to put in a hundred year storm water features, which I strongly support. In this case, given the unique location, being near FEMA floodplain and Jordan Lake properties, you're suggesting it's actually better to meet the code but not go beyond the code because given being on a FEMA floodplain area, it's actually better for water quality to let the water keep moving into that area as opposed to trying to capture more of it on site. So again, you said water quality versus water quantity. When you talk to tension, I would advocate that you do not over detain when you're discharging to a FEMA floodway in this case for that poor purpose that you're downstream. And if everybody upstream detains and they let out a certain rate and then you let out a certain rate and you're delayed and then you let out when everybody else lets out, it's a huge glut of water that comes in. We don't want to do that. We want to let our waters out and everybody upstream who is also detaining in a developed basin such as this. So that is true from a water quantity standpoint. You also said water quality, which is different. That's your wetland plants, your settling time. That's the thing where you remove the nutrients out of the water, that's a different metric and that we will achieve to the Jordan Lake watershed requirements. Great, thank you. Yeah, I'm sorry for miss speaking. And then the second thing on the construction traffic, any additional guidance that you can offer us, especially for the neighbors that have come this evening raising that concern? Yeah, this is Jason Coffey again, EPCON communities. Again, this is a unique side of an infill where we're coming through neighborhood streets. I think again, some of this is a, if anybody's been at South Point section one sees how rapidly we have sold and built. Normally they take a little more times. We thought we'd have more time to get into the development of this phase two. But that being said, I think we expect the same type of velocity in phase two. That's one component of this is a quicker we can get in and outs better for both neighbors. And two, I think just what came out tonight, we've been texting with some folks that we need to get a neighborhood meeting pretty quickly. Obviously we've had a lot of people close in South Point in the last couple of months. That's great for us, great for them. But obviously from a communication standpoint, we have some work to do on that end. And I think this is gonna be some of the discussions we can have as far as a timing when we have construction traffic, how that works. We have to get into the site, obviously, that's not gonna be fun, but we can at least have the discussion kind of coordinate and try to get something that works for everyone. Great, thank you. And it's great to hear that commitment to have additional outreach with the community. As I think most folks know, we are the advisory body. And so when this comes through us, it then goes to the governing body, which in this case, it will be the city council. There will be a few months between this case leaving the planning commission and going to the city council. So it sounds like you are planning to do some additional outreach in the interim, which I think is really important and appreciated. Absolutely. Great, thank you. Thanks for answering my questions. Commissioner Durkin. Yeah, I agree. One of my major concerns is the, what we heard from the neighbors about there, the lack of information that they've received about this. But I did have one question for the applicant. If this is, if you're intending this to be a 55 plus community, why are you not restricting it to being a 55 plus community? This is... Yeah, Jason, you wanna take it? Go. Well, and again, no, you'll be able to add in from a, there's a legal component, but from our standpoint is we have a, again, a section one South Point that was not age restricted. We think that from a marketing, a selling would be a confusion as to changing that age restriction between the two sections. Our homes are the same homes we're gonna build with or without it. So there's no change to that. And therefore our demographic and buyer are the same, but it's more of a, just a confusion between two phases of one being age restricted, the other not being, and having it be a later an HOA issue to try to monitor in the future. Neil, I don't know if you have anything else to add. Yeah, I was gonna say more of a, and I think that's exactly right. The phase one was not age restricted because that was a concentration subdivision didn't really require any, it was by right. So on this one being phase two, it made sense to not age restrict this so that they would have a similar format if in particular the HOA is gonna be combined. The other aspect of it is that an age restriction would have artificially reduced our trip count and in fairness, we know that the first phase is not age restricted. So age restricting this would have probably been a disservice from a traffic standpoint. This allowed us, I mean, just by not age restricting it, this kind of regular single family and we did a full TIA and have submitted to traffic improvement to the result thereof. Okay, thanks, you made me remember a question I had when I was reading through this earlier in the week. Why are you not doing a conservation subdivision on this parcel? And I can let Ryan think that my understanding is this parcel would not really meet the standard for conservation subdivision. But Ryan, do you wanna maybe weigh in on that? If I have some more. Just to meet the open space and primary conservation, we didn't meet the tree requirements of the 10 inch caliper. It's just an open space requirement. It just, we didn't need it. Thank you. Commissioner Miller. I just wanna follow up on the age targeted because I think that, I mean, that's even written into the commitments. What makes it age targeted as opposed to just houses available for anybody to buy? So Epcon is an age targeted developer. Many. But what is it? Yeah, I'm getting there. Most of their communities are age restricted. Some of them are not, but they build single family homes primarily that have first floor living. So all of the bedrooms are downstairs. That is what they would consider age targeted. Their communities also are programmed. I'm talking about event-wise targeted for. So it has to do with architecture and amenities. Yes. Those beyond that, this is Ryan from the engineering side. We move a lot of dirt and spend a lot of money making these sites very flat. And when I say very flat, we don't exceed ADA requirements of 5% running slope on any street. And all of the homes don't have steps so that you can age in place and don't have to worry about wheelchair accessibility for aging in place. And so when you talk about dealing with the land that's left in Durham as topographically challenged as some of these areas are left, you guys are obviously focused on the Searles Basin with some of the substantially topographically challenged areas. You have an age qualified or age targeted community. You have to flatten that to make it usable. You're putting in retaining walls everywhere and removing every bit of vegetation just to make that site viable from an engineering standpoint. So there's a lot of money and a lot of engineering that goes into these communities to make them viable from an age qualified and age restricted standpoint. So it's not just something that's architecturally controlled. It's very much tied to the engineering aspect. And Mr. Miller, this is Jason Coffey again. Also we have very strict HOA rules and our yards are passive. So you know, a lot of typical single family subdivisions have the soccer goals and basketball hoops and yard things you can do, we prohibit those. So it's again, it's going to be a really hard time. I saw your sign that said you move along. Yep. Great. Commissioner Miller, it looks like you're finished. I don't see any other commissioners that are looking to ask any questions or make any comments. So I think we're at the point where it would be appropriate to make a motion. I do see commissioner Lowe asking to be recognized. Commissioner Lowe. Thank you, chair. Just for clarification, this age targeted it. But that means that a 20 year old something has just the much right to live there as a 60 year old something. Is that right? That is correct. Yeah, there is no age restriction by covenant. That is correct. Okay. Thanks, commissioner Lowe. So I'm going to ask for a motion in a moment. I do want to just share. I'm going to plan to vote for this. I hear the concerns of the residents. I appreciate that they came out this evening. I think that we're talking about 49 single family homes by right. This would be 72 single family homes in a part of the community that is seeing additional growth. I think this will allow for the long overdue connection to the American tobacco trail. But I do hope and I appreciate that the applicants will continue to work with the community to help answer their questions because it does seem like there has definitely been a disconnect. I think tonight allowed us to start to work through some of those questions. It was helpful for me to hear about the stormwater and the location. I think on the whole though, I'm inclined to see this as something that is worth moving forward and sending to council. But again, I hope that the applicants will continue to work with and address as many of the community concerns as possible as this moves toward approval. That said, I will ask for a motion for approval. Mr. Chair, then with regard to case Z2-0-0-0-0-1-4, concerning the project known as courtyards at South Point 2, a move that we send that forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation. Second. Moved by commissioner Miller, seconded by commissioner Amondolia, and we'll have the roll call vote. Okay, Amondolia? No. Baker? No. Busby? Yes. Cameron? Yes. But right. Yes. Durkin? No. Pension? Yes. Landfreed? Yes. Low? Commissioner Low? Yes. McIver? No. Miller? Commissioner Miller? Yes, I wish you people would explain your reasons better, because I'm torn on this one. I'm gonna vote yes. And if I can, I agree with Mr. Busby. It seems to me unlikely that you're gonna get fewer units on this piece of property than you're gonna get with this project. Morgan? No. Commissioner Steece had to leave, commissioner Williams. Commissioner Williams appears to be on the call, but Chris, is commissioner Williams on the phone or the Zoom call? I see commissioner Williams on the panelists. Yeah, I do too. Asked on you. I know she was having technical issues earlier. Okay. And Chris, if you don't see commissioner Williams and we're gonna move on without that vote, you know what I'm saying? I'm unable to reach it. Okay, well then I'm gonna mark commissioner Williams off and that means we have one, two, three, five. Looks like it passes seven to five, because it looks like we have 12 people that voted. Correct me if I'm wrong. That's correct. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to everyone for sticking with us through the break and through this long case. I appreciate it. Again, this will move forward to council in a few months. So I encourage you to stay engaged on the issue and you will see that when it is, when it shows up on the city council agenda, you'll be able to know when it will be heard by council. I do wanna ask the commissioners just to stay on for another moment or two. I know we didn't add it to the agenda. This is the end of our official business for the evening. I know commissioner Landfrey, you, I wanna give you the floor. I know you have a bittersweet update for us. Thank you. Yeah, unfortunately, I'm gonna need to be ending my time on the planning commission. I had hoped to be able to serve for a lot longer, but my husband's job is relocating unexpectedly for a year. So we'll be moving to Charleston this summer, but coming back to Durham, I grew up in Durham. It's been a real honor to serve with you all and learn from you all. And I'm so impressed with the commitment and knowledge of the staff and the planning commission. So thank you for letting me join you for this brief time. And I'm sorry it couldn't be longer. I'm sorry you have to spend all that terrible time in Charleston. I know. I mean, Durham is the best place in the world. So it's hard to leave, but no one will cry too hard for me, I know. We'll look forward to seeing you when you get back, Jessie. Yeah, I hope so. And I hope by then, I'd love to meet anyone for coffee or drink in person. I've never attended an in-person planning commission meeting. So that would be a pleasure. Yeah, well, Jessely, you've been great. And I'll communicate with you separately. We'd love to have you come back so we can honor your time here at the start of a future meeting. And then you'll get the ability to leave that meeting while we stay for hours and deliberate. Thanks for everything you've done and hope you'll be able to come back and join us when you're back in Durham. Thank you. Grace, anything else that we need to know about and can you give us a quick forecast for our regular meeting in April and maybe the other meeting as well? Sure, so the, hang on one second. The regular meeting in April right now for April, that's April that looks like give me one second, my schedule's loading for me right now. Looks like we have the continued case, parcel K is coming back, the continued case. We have two other zoning cases you have not heard yet, Griffin Place and 1051 Isle of Branch and we have several information items. We have the planning department work program. We have land use engagement initiative that we're bringing to you that we talked about last month briefly and we have, looks like a, maybe potentially this is tentative, an info item about the tier quarry. So it'll be a mix of maybe three public hearings and several info items for the 13th. And then the 27th, as you know, we're concentrating on the goals and objectives for the comprehensive plan. So that's all we're going to discuss in here at that meeting. We are working on posting the details on the website for this week for that and I'll make sure that that is shared with you all. So if you get questions from the community you'll have that information. And that's all I can tell you right now. Great. I will share the environmental affairs board sent, I think at least Armira and I, I think got comments that I will send to everyone just so on the comprehensive plan part. So I'll send that around in the next day or so. Commissioner Miller, it looks like you had a question. I do. And it's concerning what we're expected to do as a result of the hearing that we will hold on the 27th. So on the 27th, the staff will present the draft objectives for the comprehensive plan, goals and objectives. And I suspect that we will hear from groups and individuals who may want additions or changes, et cetera. What are we, when we're done with our hearing are we gonna vote up or down or are we going to consider the things we've heard and say we should add this and are we gonna recommend changes or what's the nature of the action you anticipate we will take as a result of hearing those public comments. It's difficult for me to forecast that because I'm not really sure what you're going to hear. And I know we- But it's just the nature of the action. Do you want an up or down vote or do you want us to? Well, I don't know that we're gonna ask you to make take action that night. I'll delve into that and get back with you as a group and let you know. I'm not sure that how affirmative we are about having to have action that night, but I'll find out and let you know. Cause I just- I'd like to see how it's gonna go first, probably. It's a long document as it is now. Well, not terribly long, but there are a lot of moving parts and to make sure I would like us to be able to say, to deliberate together a little bit and say we liked this and recommend to make some recommendations that are more nuanced than an up or down vote. Maybe other people feel differently. Yeah, I understand that. I mean, I'm not aware that there's any need that it has to be voted on that night. Again, I'll double check what the expectations are or maybe what the environment is gonna look like, but it's a public hearing. It is a large document. It's an important document. So I know that it's gonna, we're probably gonna hear from a variety of different people and different comments or we're expecting that. Commissioner Miller, it's a good question. I've been assuming it's probably a lot like a lot of the items we see at the Joint City County Planning Committee meetings where we're usually not voting on items, but we're offering a lot of guidance and feedback that might get incorporated. But I wasn't sure how this will work either. So it will be useful to hear from staff about kind of your expectations of what you're looking for from us so that we can be productive. Well, at some point you will be asked to make a recommendation, obviously. That is where we're going with this, but whether or not we need it that night, I can't tell you sitting right here right this minute. And we've got another meeting before then. I just wanna make sure that if the staff who has been working, the staff members who've been working so hard on this with the public kind of have an expectation of what our involvement is that we're at least aware of it so that we don't get tangled up and miss the point. If there is a point, tell us. And I would appreciate that because I don't wanna fall short of expectations or to mess up the works unless it's deliberate. I don't wanna mess up the works accidentally. Let's put it that way. Well, I would like to just have a conversation with the staff and get back with you on that because I hate to say one way or the other tonight and get people confused or mislead anyone. So we've got some time. I'll work on that and get back with you directly. You're very kind. Thank you, Grace. Great, thank you. Any other questions or comments? All right, the meeting's adjourned. Good night, everyone. Good night. Thank you. Bye, everybody.