 Good evening and welcome to the Durham City Council Planning Commission meeting on January 12, 2016. The members of the Durham Planning Committee have been appointed by the City Council and the County of Board of Commissioners as an advisory board to the elected officials. You should know that the elected officials will have the final say on any issue before us tonight. If you wish to speak on an item tonight, please go to the podium to my left and sign up to speak. For those of you who wish to speak, please state your name and your address clearly when you come to the podium to speak. Please speak clearly into the microphone because this session is being televised. Each side, those speaking in favor of an issue and those speaking in opposition to an item, will have 10 minutes to present for each side. The time will be divided among all persons wishing to speak. Finally, all motions are stated in an affirmative, so if a motion fails or ties, the recommendations will denial. Could we have the roll, please? Mr. Busby? Ms. Freeman? Mr. Gosh? Mr. Gibbs? Mr. Harris? Present. Ms. Huff? Ms. Hyman? Present. Mr. Kitchin? Here. Mr. Miller? Present. Mr. Wigley? Mr. Vann? Mr. Whitley? Here. Ms. Winders? Here. We have a poll. We have what? Nine. Nine. Okay. I have a request for excuse absence for Commissioner Vann, Commissioner Riley, and possibly Commissioner Gibbs. Could I have a motion that these people be excused? Mr. Chairman, I move that we excuse the aforenamed members. Do I have a second? Second. All those in favor of the motion to excuse Commissioner Vann, Commissioner Riley, and Commissioner Gibbs, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Thank you. The next thing, do we have adjustments to the agenda? Yes, sir. Good evening, Off-Lending Commission members. Grace Smith, Durham City County Planning. We do have a couple of adjustments to the agenda. As I previously notified you, the case Z-150023, there was a notice and error, so we're going to have, excuse me, an error notice, I apologize, an error notice, that we would have to remove that from the agenda tonight and it will be considered next month. So that needs to be removed. 5A needs to be removed from the agenda. And also, case A-150020 needs to be moved in front of the cases beginning with A-150014. So it will be, in the new order, A through F, but F would become A. Thank you. That's okay. And I believe Mr. Young has something he would like to speak with the board about. Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission. Thank you very much. I'll be brief. It's been my great pleasure to serve as primary staff liaison to the planning department for this board for now going on seven and a half years, but we have had some administrative changes reorganization within the department. My focus is going to be on the engagement efforts you heard about with the work program last year, customer service and our administrative reviews and approval subdivision and site plan reviews primarily. So Ms. Smith will here 2-4 be your primary liaison. You will see me in other capacities occasionally. Ms. Smith is supported by Sarah Young, who is my colleague as assistant director. I want to thank you all so much. It's been one of the greatest pleasures and best experiences of my time here. And I'm not going anywhere, but you won't see me as frequently in this role. I wanted to thank you and I'll turn the proceedings over to Ms. Smith when you need staff assistance. Well, thank you, Pat. And you will be missed. And we still may be calling on you. As I said, I'm not going anywhere, but I'm just not going to be in the same role. So thank you all very much. Thank you. And I'd like to add one additional thing on the new business. As Ms. Smith stated when she sent the notification out about five item five, she also included a document with reference to the guidelines for the submittal of the development plans and also the committed elements. And I'd like to speak briefly to that under new business. Is there any objections to the adjusted agenda? If not, could I get a motion that we approve the agenda with the adjustments? So moved, Mr. Chairman. I have a second. All those in favor of the adjusted agenda police racial right hand. All those in oppose, raise your hand. Thank you. The minutes was sent out. Are there questions, concerns, corrections on the minutes that were sent out? If not, could I get a motion for approval? Move approval. I have a move to approve by Commissioner Bugsby. Second. Second by Vice Chair Hyman. All those in favor, let it be known by raising the right hand. All those in opposition. Thank you. Okay. As you know, item five public hearing for the Hope Valley Commons business part, if you were here for that particular item, that item will be coming up next month. So if you were here to speak to that item, it will be next month. Item number six, the public hearing for zoning map change requests, Straw Valley Z1400033. The chair will now open this up for public hearing. And we have staff presentation. Thank you. Good evening. Amy Wolfe with the planning department presenting zoning map change case Z1400033. Straw Valley. This request is put forth from Scott Bednaz. This is in the city's jurisdiction. The request is from the current designation of office institutional and commercial neighborhood to the designation of MUD or mixed use with a development plan. The site is 4.53 acres and proposed uses for a mix of uses for office residential and commercial. The site is at 5441 New Hope Commons Drive. It has frontage along New Hope Commons Drive, Durham Chapel Hill Boulevard Service Road, and Interstate 40. It is within the MTC overlay, which is the major transportation corridor overlay, which abuts our major intersections. To the north of the site is the shopping center. To the east is a self storage facility. South is on the opposite side of Durham Chapel Hill Boulevard is other commercial uses. And to the west is Interstate. It is in the suburban transit area known as Patterson Place, and it is so designated with the 2005 comprehensive plan, which showed a transit stop in this vicinity. The request does meet the criteria for a development plan and satisfy the requirements of the mixed use district. The site will be vertically integrated. There's a commitment for that in the phasing plan, which I'll get to in just a moment, but it does satisfy the requirements of the mixed use district and it includes a development plan. The existing conditions of the site are shown on this slide. On the left hand side of the slide is the OI district or office institutional, which is presently vacant. On the right hand side of the screen is the commercial neighborhood district, which is currently commercial development. And through the, approximately the center is a hoffler lane. The proposed conditions meets the criteria for development plans. It shows the proposal for uses and other minimum commitments required. Tree coverage will be along Interstate 40. 10% tree coverage is required. There's a 100 foot buffer for the major transportation corridor overlay shown abutting Interstate 40. There's a commitment for a relocation of hoffler lane. There will be a mix of uses. These dots signify internal pedestrian circulation and I'd like to go over some of the other commitments of the plan. This is your visual representation. The site is committed to a maximum of 50 residential units, which puts it at 11.55 dwelling units per acre. Total of 75,000 non-residential square feet, 25,000 being office and a maximum of 50,000 being commercial uses. There's five access points shown. Those are committed in pervious surface maximum at 100%, which accounting for a dedication of right away would be 4.33 acres and tree coverage area of 10%. Graphic commitments are the location of the access points, the location of the building and parking envelope, the tree preservation area along Interstate 40 and the relocation of hoffler lane, which is referenced from one of the text commitments as well as shown on the graphic. There are a number of text commitments. There was a transportation impact analysis performed with this review and these commitments address those. At Durham, Chapel Hill Boulevard and Mount Mariah Road, there will be an additional southbound right turn lane. There will also be improvements at Mount Mariah Road and New Hope Commons Drive, including a traffic signal and other ingress and egress improvements. I'm not going to read them all to you. They are in the staff report for further information. There's also improvements proposed at New Hope Commons Drive and site access three, which is hoffler lane and pertains to the relocation of hoffler lane in the construction of that facility. There is a phasing plan with this request. It is a mixed-use district and projects within a suburban transit area require a phasing plan. This plan has identified two phases. The first phase will be vertically integrated with anywhere from one to 50 residential units and a minimum of 1,000 square feet of non-residential development. The second phase will be anywhere from 1,000 to 25,000 square feet of office and 1,000 to 50,000 square feet of commercial. Other commitments include dedication of ride-away along the Durham Chapel Hill Boulevard service road as well as accommodations for pedestrian accessible ramps to cross New Hope Commons Drive and transit-related improvements that could be identified at the time of site plan. There are a number of design commitments that have been proffered with this request. Design commitments are required of non-residential projects that address the architectural style, roof lines, building materials, any distinct features of the buildings as well as how the building will fit into the context area. This request is designated commercial on our future land use map. You'll see on this map red will signify commercial designation. There is commercial proposed in this development plan and this project and therefore this request is consistent with our future land use map. It is also consistent with the applicable policies of the comprehensive plan as identified on this slide in the staff report. And staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances. And staff's available for any questions. Thank you. Those people that are standing in the back, there's a few seats down here. There's also seats to my left up here if you would like to sit down and be a little bit more comfortable. I have one person signed up to speak, Dan Jewel. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Dan Jewel, landscape architect, president of Coulter Jewel Thames. I've been asked to say a few words in front of you. We've assisted the applicant, Mr. Scott Bednaz, with this application. He is the owner of Straw Valley. Also with me here tonight is Jeremy Anderson with my office who can help me with some of the technical details since he did a lot of the work on the plans as well. Amy, thank you for a very good staff report. We've, those of you who have been in Durham for a while and know the history of this area, especially New Hope Commons, this property under consideration tonight was actually part of the property, same ownership that New Hope Commons was built upon. But the owners of that property at the time wisely felt that this particular tract along 15501 deserved something maybe a little more special than just doing a big box power center, which of course is what we have at New Hope Commons. It's great to do stare. There's a lot of jobs in tax base for Durham, but it may not necessarily be the best thing to see from 15501. So what we are proposing to do is a committee to a vertically integrated mixed use development with a mix of residential, retail, and office. Keep in mind this proposal does not include the mini storage facility, Swedish imports, or the bicycle chain, which are directly east of here going over to Montmarai Road. Hopefully someday those things will be up for consideration redevelopment as well to help add to creating a better image along one of our major gateways into Durham. Just a few key points I'd like to get across. One, Amy mentioned the roadway improvements. Access in and out of New Hope Commons in this site has been challenging, particularly if you take New Hope Commons drive over to Montmarai Road. Heaven forbid you should ever try and make a left turn onto Montmarai from New Hope Commons or go straight across into go corners. Well, our traffic engineers have worked out a solution with NCDOT and the city traffic folks to make that better. We are able to actually handle the traffic now without a reduction in level of service at any of the interchanges adding what I'll call a partial light at New Hope Commons drive in Montmarai Road. It will not impede northbound traffic on Montmarai Road. They will continue to be able to function too, but what it will do is force and allow folks to make a right turn coming out New Hope Commons drive. We'll be adding an additional right turn lane on Montmarai Road onto Chapel Hill Boulevard and we'll also have controlled left turns. What it will do is it will prevent people from trying to make a left turn on Montmarai Road and going straight across. As we all know because we've been out there there are other opportunities for getting out of Montmarai Road if you want to make a left and go up toward Urban Road to signalize the intersection farther up. Interestingly also if you happen to look at the traffic portion of the staff report this proposal actually creates over 2,000 fewer trips than the current zoning designation does. So we have what we think is a relatively modest proposal for mixed use particularly the 50 units and only 75,000 square feet of non-residential. Kind of to put that in perspective that non-residential portion is not much larger than just the Dick's Sporting Goods over at New Hope Commons and the building next to it. And rather than doing a one level we are committing to doing multiple levels which means that the buildings will be much smaller in scale relative to everything else going around down here. The big items on your agenda tonight obviously your conversation on the compact neighborhoods. And this area is already within the suburban transit area suburban transit support district it used to be called which contemplates that compact neighborhood coming in the future. The compact neighborhood is not there yet. It may be soon or it may not be soon depending on what our city council and county commissioners do when it finally gets to that. But with that in mind when we had our early conversations with the playing department we were asked to at least think and demonstrate how we might make our proposal as compatible as possible to what is anticipated as the future compact neighborhood and a future compact design district zoning. So what I'd like to say is a couple things. One, if you're familiar with our two compact design districts in Durham we have downtown and 9th Street. They both have a core district which is the higher density taller stuff and then they have two support districts around the edges where the intensity and the height transitions down ultimately to what's called the support two district which is intended to be next to the single family neighborhoods that surround these with lower heights and that sort of thing. What we are proposing is very much in keeping with what we think this will end up being which is probably the support one district because we're not adjacent to a single family residential neighborhood. We're adjacent to Interstate 40 and the service loading backside of Best Buy. That's what this site is actually adjacent to other than the mini storage on the other side. So I'll take the compact design district around 9th Street which is the only one non-downtown that exists in example. That compact design district allows maximum building heights in that support one district of 60 feet. We, this proposal is limited by ordinance to 50 feet maximum height unless we request more height. We are not requesting more height so we are actually going to be lower than the S1 district would allow once the compact design district is adopted. The minimum and maximum residential densities in the 9th Street S1 district is 16 to 53 units to the acre. We are proposing only 11 units to the acre. So we think we're still supportive of being in the spirit of that design district but we are also not pushing the limits in terms of the intensity and height of the use that we are proposing. As I said there is actually no limitation on non-residential flurry in the design districts and we are proposing to impose a cap of 75,000 square feet total again a little bit bigger than Dick's Sporting Goods. Committing to the vertical mixed use and one thing lest you think we're proposing to do one big building in the middle of a sea of parking. Design commitment number four on our development plan I think Amy read it states that our buildings will be oriented around a central courtyard area. So it will be anything but a big building in a sea of parking. I hope you agree we may be making this proposal as compatible with the future design district intent as possible while still having to meet the current suburban transit support district requirements and mixed use requirements. The last thing I want to say before I open it up for questions conclude my presentation is about affordable housing. Of course we know affordable housing is of great interest to the council, to the citizens of Durham and of you. I think many of you know I have probably been involved in most of the discussions about affordable housing that have come in front of you and the city council over the last 16 months or so. And what I will say is we don't have a policy yet. The council is treating every project differently. So what I can commit to is we know that the council will have some expectation of something to do with affordable housing and we will follow their lead. We will have to have conversations with the city council about how they want to handle it because every project they've done so far has been different. So we will start conversations with the city council soon after hopefully you move this item ahead to a city council agenda and ask them what they want to do because as I said as of yet the four times we've had conversations with them there have been four different outcomes and I suspect we'll have a fifth different outcome on this project. So that concludes our presentation tonight. Thank you for your time and certainly here and happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. Are there other members well before that? There are some seats over here on this side if you would like to sit down. Seats on this side of the auditorium. There's a few seats scattered in the front down here but there's some seats over here. Are there other members of the audience that would like to speak to this item? Do we have other members of the public that would like to speak to this item? If not, then I close the public hearing and bring it back before the commissioners. Do I have commissioners wishing to speak? Okay, I have Linda. I have Dr. Winans and I have Mr. Mill. Linda, turn your mic on. I'm curious where the residential is going to be on this piece of property. We're not sure yet. As with any project we've done multiple schemes on what we think it's going to look like, that's not part of your application. I may get yelled at by Mr. Young here but right now we anticipate that being sort of in the middle of the property, the residential portion. The reason that I ask is because studies show that living next to a freeway and a busy highway like 501, people are out to get sick from particulate matter and that's 100 yards is, or actually, it's 165 feet from... It's relatively close, yes. Yeah, but in any case, depending on the prevailing winds, you're going to have particulates. You're right in the armpit of those two highways and so I think it's important that the residential not be abutting the interstate in 501. Yeah, thank you. We're taking that under consideration. That's also one of the reasons that we decided to put our tree-save area along the interstate so we could save that natural buffer. Fortunately, in the 30 years now since that section of interstate 40 was built, what was once just grass has now grown up in nice pine trees and things like that to create a buffer. Thanks, thank you. Commissioner Wyanders, turn your mic on. Two topics to discuss with you. Could you tell us about what kind of pedestrian and bicycle connections you might expect between this development and New Hope Commons currently, it would be important now and then how would people get to the rail station if it is built? I don't know. I don't know. Certainly we're going to be putting pedestrian and bicycle accommodations on our property and around the perimeter of the property. I can't recall if there's a sidewalk on the south side of New Hope Commons Drive, but that will certainly be a requirement of our site plan approval as it always is. Yes, I've been wondering about that myself since we've been looking at several things in this area. Several times I have tried to cross the intersection of Mount Moriah Road and 1501 and it is a nightmare. You wait for two minutes for the signal to change for you and then you can make it halfway across and you have to stop and go again. I think there needs to be, of the strategic infrastructure planning efforts study that the Planning Department, the Public Works Department are doing in Durham for the station area and as you know, right now it's proposed kind of in the area of the Kroger over Patterson Place. I think one of the things that I hope they're looking at, our suspect are looking at is how do you actually connect the properties on the north side of Chapel Hill Boulevard down to the station site? I mean, I've got some ideas, but we're certainly going to be involved with the Planning Department on many levels to try and figure that out. And then the second, of course, is the affordable housing. And actually what you say sounds pretty good and reasonable, but I'd like to, and certainly I think that we should be able to expect out of this development a few units to be committed so that people who work over there in Dick's Sporting Goods in Walmart, there might be a couple of people who could live in this development and walk to work. And plus, since the current, the statistics we got about the current affordability, that there's 22 or 24 percent of their affordable rents there, so it probably wouldn't be a huge stretch at the present anyway. And if you could just make that commitment to keep it that way when everything else goes sky-high, that would be greatly appreciated. You still have a minute, 25. But you mentioned that there were four different, you had four different conversations with the council or four different cases or something and everything had happened, everything had been different. Which ones, specifically what were they? Irwin Terrace. Which has been decided. The council has made a decision on that. Oh yeah, that's the only thing that was approved back last December, no, two years ago. December of 2014 I think is when it was approved. Two that you didn't see because they were land transactions, that sort of thing at Durham Central Park, one being the 539 Foster Project, the other one being the Morris Ridge Project where there were, in both cases, proffers that have different amounts that came together at different angles. And of course the fourth, the case you heard a month or two ago that we presented on Rosewalk, which is a different kind of project because it is a single family project with a small multifamily and accessory dwelling component which made it, let me just say it made it easier to figure out what to do in advance on that. So in this case, since we're not sure what the council is going to be looking for, we're not sure if it's going to be a financial contribution or a couple of units. And every time we've talked to the council, there's been a slightly different angle. That's why we say we want to, what the council asks us to do is what we will do and I think you can expect the council will ask us to do something because that has been the track record. So it's a Rosewalk when already been approved? Has not gone to council yet? No. Okay, well you still have another minute. You still have another minute. That's all right. Yeah. Okay. All right. Time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dan, so as I look at the, help me understand the calculation of traffic impact that results in 2,000 fewer trips per day or peak hour trips per day. That's based upon a calculation of the, of maxing out the property the way it's currently zoned, which is a combination of C and a no line. That's correct. That is the way the transportation department does that. And then for the purposes of your project, then maxing it out would be 50 residential units, maximum number of office square feet, maximum number of commercial square feet. Actually, it's sort of, but we are not, we are certainly not asking to max out the site. We could ask for more. It would, it would do more. No, no, I'm talking about under your development plan, what would be the maximums in the residential, commercial and office categories. If you were to, to max each one of those categories out under the limitations you've imposed upon yourself in the development plan. We are at 11 units to the acre. I believe we could go up to 18 units to the acre under the mixed use zoning. No, no, I'm not interested in the zoning. I'm interested in your development plan. Under your development plan, what's the maximum development potential of the property? With what we have proposed before you today. What is currently proposed? 50 residential units and 75,000 square feet of non-residential. That's it. That is the maximum. And so when you add that together and multiply that times the factors, is that what the staff did to compare against the, the current zoning for traffic impact? Yes, Mr. Judge can explain that better than I can because he's a traffic engineer. But my understanding is what they do is they take our proposed square footage of each use and apply the recognized trip generation for each of those uses. Mr. Chairman, I'd be happy to hear from staff on that. Bill Judge with transportation. Because this development plan submitted a traffic impact analysis with the application, that application or that TIA included certain land uses, which is what was assumed in the table that would generate it. There is in the deviations on development plans when you submit a TIA with a development plan, you're essentially limited to those maximum trips up to 3% additional. So, and generally it's looking at the peak hour trips, but we basically just converted it to that 103% of what was in the TIA for preparing the staff report. All right. Otherwise. So, and your text commitments in your development plan don't require you to build to max out your potentials in those three use categories. That's correct. In other words, you could have one residential unit and 25,000 office and 50,000 commercial. That's correct. Or even less than that. Yes. Well, not less than one, but less. Yeah, but less on the others. Non-residential. The others move by square feet and then residential units are by the unit. So, this project could be, could be, it build out substantially less intense than the maximums you've imposed. It could. Yes. But we should assume that you'll max it out for our purposes. Yes. And making that assumption, it still has a lower impact than the maximum potential of the current zone. Yes, sir. That's all I had, Mr. Chairman. Okay. Do we have any other questions? If not, yes. Commissioner Huff. Yeah. Out of curiosity, are you tearing down those buildings? So, we have not committed to saving them. I know our client, one of the reasons he bought the property is he fell in love with that old, you know, the nicest buildings are actually in the back. If you've been in the black house and the old residential stuff, I mean, and if you ever had the pleasure and the time it was open of going to the restaurant there, the black house, it was, it was just wonderful. But what, what we have not committed to though is even though he fell in love with those buildings and bought them, he is not sure about the structural integrity of all of them and what it might take to, to keep them. So, I can go out a limb and say, say, Scots would like to keep those buildings. It's his intent. But at the end of the day, if he starts digging in and finds that maybe changed the facades on the building out front, it's so prohibitively expensive. And by the way, I, I, back in the day when I was a young guy, I used to work for the firm in Chapel Hill that designed the buildings out front. Then, then he might have to take those down. So, you know, that's not a commitment. His intent is to keep the building, but if, if, if structural analysis and that sort of thing show that the buildings need to come down or, or some of them, not all of them, then we want to keep that eventuality. But if you notice the committed elements, the design commitments, we're, we're committing to do a, a modernist form of architecture that is, is compatible because that's the aesthetic that he has fallen in love with. Well, part of my reason for asking that is because I, because again, I wonder where the residential is going to be and if it's going to be too close to the highway. Because if you keep those buildings on. Yeah, those, if those buildings remain, they would not be the residential buildings. So then you would put the residential over there in that section that's right next to the interstate. If you look at the site, there's a lot of room around those buildings that wouldn't necessarily be right next to the interstate. So there's some flexibility. Okay. Okay. Thank you. If there are no other questions that you would entertain in motion, Commissioner Buxby. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I would just add, it's a remarkable property if you, if you've been there, especially given its location, I think this is a really strong plan. And I urge the commitment to continue to look at options for affordable housing as well. That said, I would move for a favorable approval of a case Z140033 to send forward to city council. Second. Motion by Commissioner Buxby. Second by Vice Chair Hymons to move this forward with a favorable recommendation. All those in favor, please let it be known by a raise of hands. All those opposed raise hands. It's unanimous nine to zero. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. The next case will be a one five zero zero zero two zero compact neighborhood tier policy update. It's item F, but we're receiving it first. So, and this would open the public hearing. Good evening commissioners. I'm Hannah Jacobson with the Durham planning department. And as we just said, these are public hearings for a project that we've been working on in the planning department for just over a year now. This is our fourth occasion to come before the planning commission to give you an update on this project. Most recently was in November when we presented the recommendations as well as gave you the draft reports that document what those recommendations are. I have a few introductory slides. There's a lot of people in the audience, so I want to get everybody up to speed, but we'll be quick. The purpose of this project overall is to update the future land use map looking at compact neighborhood tier boundaries and future land use designations. We're also recommending two additional policies be added to the comprehensive plan, which we'll discuss in a minute. But overall, this project is to help align our future land use plan with the recently planned Durham orange light rail transit line. It's also to respond to land use changes, development, transportation changes that have occurred in the last 10 years since the comprehensive plan was adopted in 2005. It's given us a chance to engage, re-engage with the members of the community, and they've helped us to identify some issues that are, that ought to be addressed prior to any rezoning or prior to even opening day of the light rail expected in 2025 or 2026. This is just one piece of a broader framework that we're working on to do station area planning around the Durham orange light rail line. In addition to our land use planning, which we're here to talk about tonight, there's also plans for infrastructure planning that will help to address some of those questions. One of the commissioners raised about how people will get to the transit station, so looking at access, particularly bicycle and pedestrian access. There's also an initiative to work on affordable housing. But again, tonight the focus is on our land use planning initiatives. And the way that we've been thinking about the land use planning is in three different steps, and we're at the very first step, which is to update the comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan provides a broad-based policy direction for how growth occurs over time. And that's where we are tonight. The next step will be to update the specifics of the unified development ordinance. And the final step would be to initiate zoning map changes within these areas. And we would work very carefully with the community to tailor exactly what the requirements with the zoning regulations would be and to map out where the highest density land uses should be in relationship to where the areas of transition would be. Before we initiate any of the zoning map changes, we would hope to have the station area strategic infrastructure study recommendations completed, as well as strategies for affordable housing in place. And finally, after the zoning map changes occur, then change in development of a lot of these areas would be incremental and would really only happen through private development and over a significant period of time. So it will not be change overnight. We've been looking at five different areas along the Durham Orange Light Rail corridor, which we'll discuss in subsequent agenda items. Over the last year, we've had 12 neighborhood meetings in which I think roughly 600 members of the public have attended, including many members of the planning commission. And in those meetings, the members of the public have helped us map and outline some of the boundaries that we'll discuss again in subsequent agenda items. But at the onset of the project, staff had established some guidelines for looking at compact neighborhood tier boundaries. Some of those included preserving significant environmental features using large rights of way, like highways as boundaries, preserving intact single family neighborhoods, avoiding university college zoning districts, and then including large undeveloped or underutilized tracts of land. So to get to the matter of A-15-00020, which are updates to the text of the comprehensive plan introducing two new policies, these are both issues that have been identified repeatedly through our public engagement process. The first deals with the idea of how development in these areas will transition to areas that are outside of the compact neighborhoods. So we are proposing a policy that describes how that transition may occur, where the area closest to the transit station is known as the core, and then as you move further and further away from the transit station, you decrease the development intensity and transition to single family neighborhoods or to other sensitive environments. And these sub-districts were proposing the policy tonight, but they would be mapped out in much greater detail as part of the zoning map change process. The second policy has to do with affordable housing in transit areas. The City Council and county commissioners have adopted a resolution on affordable housing within a half mile of future light rail stations. It's not been adopted as part of the comprehensive plan as of yet, so that is what we are proposing to do. I'm happy to take any questions on this agenda item. Thank you. I have two people signed up to speak. Dick Hale, are you speaking for or against? Dick Hale? Okay. And Ed Harrison, for or against? Okay. So 10 minutes each. Timer. Good evening, members of the commission, staff. I'm Dick Hales. I've been active in the coalition for affordable housing in transit for recent years, and we've actively participated in many of the public meetings noted. I had many opportunities to interact with the staff. We've always appreciated their professionalism and their very tough job of trying to balance lots and lots of different interests around the community in these topics. I think in recent months we've participated in a number of meetings. We've had some concerns. We spoke at a matter here on some text amendments last fall where we thought there was an opportunity to make more specific references to affordable housing in there in reviewing the text on these matters tonight. We thought there were a couple of opportunities missed. We would like the opportunity to talk further with staff on those. We think most of what's in the policy that Hannah described very well as making perfect sense, it's not only the right thing to do around our transit stations to promote higher density and effectiveness for the huge public investment going in, but it's also what's going on in downtown and Ninth Street and so on. We don't have a problem with that. But we are sort of looking around the edges at some of the portions of the text that talk about affordable housing. There's certainly a lot of things under discussion about more specifics, things like reserving public land for affordable housing and other things. And we'd like the chance to talk a little bit more on that. I say we will take responsibility. I talked to Scott a little bit for the meeting and just said over the holidays and so on, we haven't had as much time as I'd like to interact with staff. But on behalf of the coalition, I think we would like to request a 30-day delay on this. A chance to meet with staff and perhaps bring back a few tweaks that might strengthen it further next month. Thank you. Thank you, Ed Harrison. Ed Harrison, 58 Newton Drive Durham 2707. That is where I've lived for almost 26 years. It's five hundred feet inside the time limits of Chapel Hill. And as some of you know, I've been a council member there for 14 years. And I'm not representing the town formally. We do have a staff person here who's really engaged in this process. But I think I'm going to come in somewhere between the viewpoint of the nearest residents to, in this case, the Lee Village Compact District and the position of Go Triangle, what happened to you, a board member, had been for a long time, six years. And it's to support the staff recommendation for the first policy in your two recommended amendments for sub-districts of design districts, page 16. And I've been watching the process, participating in it for quite a while. I've had a lot of good conversations with Hannah. I'm very glad that she took my calls. Always a good idea to call her and talk with other people about it, too. And what is most appealing for someone who is seeing a half-mile-long boundary with this Compact District in Chapel Hill is the potential of having a support to transition area. And there are a lot of these districts somewhere in any of the five, would this be a good idea? And my understanding from the staff memos, this has been done in the Ninth Street District already. We don't know how it's working yet. And to read it to you, it's the portion of a design district intended to provide a sensitive transition for more intense development to development adjacent to the district, often residential in nature. And apparently that could be clearer because I read it to the man who taught me planning laws in environmental manager 40 years ago. And he said, now, what does that mean? And you have to step back a little bit. And what it means is that, as I understand it in talking to Hannah, is that there could be a community concurrence, the landowners, if they're interested in the district itself, and those abutting to tailor the intensity of development up against that boundary. And as someone who's advocating for this high-capacity transit system, as I call it, it's light rail, but it's high-capacity transit, and the stations themselves will be very densely developed. If you're a Carolina alumnus, it will look like West Franklin Street now does with votes from people like me. And there are parts of West Durham particularly where it's beginning to look like a rail station, an immediate station area, the core district. And that really doesn't work well, based on my experience, particularly the last five years, next to single-family residential. Single-family residential does not appear to be a use that's going to be happening in compact districts. But having some kind of gentle transition worked out in a set of layers. In the case of the Lee Farm District, Lee Village District, when you get to the map, you'll see two north-south roads. Farrington Road, which is a fast-driving highway that I used to get places, 11,000 trips a day. The one on the west is George King Road, which right now is about 80% gravel and 20% new pavement. The character of that road will change a great deal over time, but it's the boundary beyond which the district was moved in this last change. And it took in the whole area, west of George King Road, which abuts the Army Corps of Engineers, Jordan Project Land, and abuts again a half mile of Chapel Hill boundary. But this offers a lot of potential for making these districts much more palatable than they would be otherwise, if a, in what we call in Chapel Hill, a form-based code were applied to the entire district with the intensity of the Corps put to every boundary. That's really hard to envision. It was hard to envision to my old professor today. I mean, he said, are we talking six or eight units a day? And I said, yes, we are, probably. But that's pretty low density compared to what you have in the Central District. Eleven-story building in West Franklin Street is, and Rosemary Street is 90 Utson Acre. And that's what happens in the Corps of Stationaries. Anyway, I hope you will support this, think about it. Your role does not go away with this evening. We really need your thinking about this, and I will be watching every step from Chapel Hill as we start our stationary planning as well. But thanks for your service. Thank you, Ed. Do we have other members in the audience that would like to speak to this policy update? If not, we will bring it back before the commissioners, so I have commissioners wishing to speak. I've got Commissioner Miller, Commissioner Winderz, Commissioner Hyman. Commissioner Winderz. Okay. Again, there are two things. I asked Hannah a question in email today, and she gave me a very nice answer. And I thought I understood it, and I looked at a matrix that shows the land use designations. This amendment, amending the plan, this overview and policy change is going to assign a land use designation to the compact districts, and all of the land within the compact districts will be designated design district. Am I correct, Hannah? And then the only zone that fits, that will be consistent with that land use designation is the design district compact design or downtown design. Isn't that right? The design zones. That is correct. I just have one quick exception to the rule. And that is the recreation and open spaces also allowed within the compact neighborhood tiers. Okay. And the station area plans, we don't expect to have completed the land use plans for the stations that will be comparable to the Ninth Street Compact District Land Use Plan. They will not be done for three to five years, as my understanding. What's the timetable for that? And the sub districts, the sub areas will be done at that stage. Correct. So as I described earlier, we have a three-step process. The first step is to update the comprehensive plan and the future land use map. The second step would be to look at some of the, to tweak some of the regulations to our existing design districts. That process is already underway in-house and we're expecting to bring that forward to the public in late spring, early summer. And then the next step in the process is to relook at some of these areas, at all of these areas, work more carefully with the community, tailor some of those regulations and apply where those sub districts would be located on the ground. And you're right, we don't have a timeframe yet. We haven't received priorities from the city council and the county commissioners about which areas we might need to look at first. This will likely be a very staff-intensive, time-intensive process. So again, we don't have our work plan worked out that far into the future. So what will happen when Mr. Jewell comes up and wants to develop or is presenting for somebody who wants to develop a property that is maybe zoned R-20 but is in, on the plan shows it as being design district. Good evening. I'm Scott Weyman from the Plain Department. So if, when, even when this is approved, they would either, the property owner would have to develop under their existing zoning or would have to apply for a design district zone, a compact design district. So what, since we haven't done the standards and we won't know which is the core and which is the sub-core, the sub-district, then how can we have a rezoning? Well, we know what the standards are. And be clear, we're not, we're not, we're not hoping to have a bunch of piecemeal rezonings in these areas. And we don't really anticipate there being a whole lot of those. But that's one of the reasons why, as Hannah presented, the policies for the sub-districts, we're requesting that that be added to the comprehensive plan. So if the situation comes up where you have to consider the rezoning of one property in an area, you can use those policies to help guide your decision as to what sub-district would most be appropriate. So people will ask, we're not going to zone where the sub-districts are, we're just going to just, the developers will ask for what level of sub-districts they think is appropriate for their project. And as Ms. Jacobson said, it is our intention to work within each of these areas individually to do a more detailed plan and rezoning, like what happened in Night Street. But we'll have to understand that. Years later. There will be, we're hoping to begin that next year if that's, if the, for one, at least one of them, if that's in the desires of the council and commissioners and the Joint City Gang Planning Committee. But it will take a while. Okay. Okay. That, so your answers, you know, make me agree with, with, with Mr. Hales that, that maybe we should defer this while we think about a little bit. And, but also because of the affordable housing thing. I, we, we don't have, since we don't have the program defined about what the expectations are with regard to affordable housing, it makes me nervous to make these changes to the comprehensive plan without putting the conceptual framework into the, the land use element of the comprehensive plan to support the development of the affordable housing program. Okay. And just Ms. Cole, as the time is running when they're answering the questions for the commissioners, that time is not charged against them. Okay. So that's why my time of your time was different. Okay. Okay. I agree with Commissioner Winder's in light of the, the questions and the suggestions that additional tweaks are necessary. I would like to recommend or make a motion that we table this item for 60 days. Okay. Commissioner Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Hannah, if you could step to the mic, I just want to make sure I understand what's going on here. With regard to the item that's in front of us, which is F on our agenda, even though we're talking about it out of alphabetical order. This is a change, a proposed change to the text of the comprehensive plan regarding our now refined vision about design district planning in the future. We're not proposing to make any map changes, future land use map changes as a part, as a part of the consideration of this document. That's correct. We have created a downtown design district and a Ninth Street design district, which, which employ this idea of concentric design district zoning categories of core sub one, sub two and special Ninth Street's got the pedestrian business. And so what this is doing is essentially catching the text of the comprehensive plan up to what we're doing so that it can work as a guide to what we'll do in the future if we create more design districts. Help me make sure I understand correctly. We are not decreeing though in this text change that all compact neighborhood tiers, the ones that exist now and the ones we may create in the future will necessarily become design districts. That's correct. Nor are we saying that all design districts necessarily have to fall within the boundaries of a comprehensive of a compact neighborhood tier. Hold on for just a moment. Okay. I've evidently wandered off the edge of the page here. I do that from time to time after conferring with my colleagues. Design districts need to be located within the boundaries of a compact neighborhood tier. Is that actually is that in the code actually? It isn't the code. All right. Good. That's good to know. I'm glad I asked. So but it's not necessary that every compact neighborhood tier be converted to a design district. Even though that is currently kind of what we're looking at. That's the intent. We can do it, but we don't have to do it. And currently we have compact neighborhood tiers which are not design districts, even though we'd like to change them. And they function because the zone, the existing zoning districts inside those are interpreted inside their tier boundaries in the UDO. And you can change the zone inside those tier boundaries just like anything else. And we have in fact done that in the past. Ninth Street, that comes to mind. And I don't know whether we've done it. We did it at Ninth Street before we created the design district. So it's important to my way of thinking to understand that this text change is catching, at least with regard to part one, is catching the comprehensive plan text up with the practice that we have developed in creating the design district. In creating the design districts downtown and at Ninth Street. And then Mr. Chairman, if I may, I appreciate that opportunity to make sure that I was understanding correctly with regard to part two. I read this and while I agree with what's being said there, I don't really see it as a matter of it's not a guide to development planning in Durham. It looks to me more like a work plan item, something that we should do and I support us doing, but it really doesn't tell the development community or the planning community how they should respond to proposals to develop property. And so, and I heard Mr. Hale say that he was looking for refinements. And so, and I also heard my colleague on the commission, Ms. Hyman say that perhaps a 60-day delay would be a good idea, a continuance rather. So I agree too, especially if the Affordable Housing Coalition has specific language, like the staff and the community including the Planning Commission to consider, I'd like that to be brought forward. So I'm going to support the continuance at the time Ms. Hyman makes that motion. Commissioner Whitley? I have a question. I have really two questions. Would this apply to all of the compact districts? No, this is just this item. But there's no affordable housing plan for any of them. So why wouldn't it apply to all of them? It would apply to all of them, if it's adopted. Right. And the second question I need to ask staff, have Austin Avenue meet the criteria for design district? Okay. That's kind of out of order. We're not on that yet. It's coming, but we're not on that yet. That's not a matter before the floor right now. So I have to wait. But if we make decision to postpone it for 90 days, we'll still get to it? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Additional questions? If not, the chair would entertain a motion. I'd like to make a motion that we have a continuance of 60 days for item number 8150020. Mr. Chairman, I second that motion. There's been motion and second that we have a continuance of A150020 for 60-day continuance. Understanding that if we continue this item, which will apply to the other items following this, that it will continue those items also. Let's go ahead and do the district boundaries. Mr. Chair, each one is in a separate case. So it's up to the commission. You can choose to continue all of them and put them on the same meeting where you can dispose of them each separately. So right now we will dispose of them each separately. So we will continue. Okay. So understanding the motion to continue the policy update, all those in favor of continuing the policy update, let me hear a roll call. Mr. Gouche. In favor. Mr. Busby. Aye. Ms. Hyman. Aye. Ms. Huff. Mr. Harris. Aye. Mr. Kenshin. Yes. Mr. Miller. Aye. Mr. Whitley. Aye. Ms. Winders. Aye. Unanimous, nine to zero. To continue. To continue. Thank you. The next item is actually an item. Chair Harris, could I interject for a moment? Yes. I just want to raise this now so that it doesn't become an issue later. I work for Morningstar Logo. They are here representing one of the cases today. It is the South Square. Yeah. South Square Compact neighborhood. And okay, so I want to be sure to recuse myself timely when that case comes before the planning commission. Okay. I don't have a problem. Anybody on the commission have a problem with that? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So the next item is actually item A, Lee Village. A-150-00-1-4. Mr. Chair, we'd ask for a brief pause because one of the speakers would like to load a PowerPoint presentation. Okay. It's like a run. Yeah, so we pulled Crestree to house this. We wanted this, which is a new place, and that. What's in Crestree? Crestree wanted to be out. Yes. If you're in a compact neighborhood to some of the final homes, you can't have single-family homes. My problem with this is this is now completely divorced from this. It's kind of managed the entire way. Right. And so this guy was in a long time. Give me a week. Yeah. Give me a week and maybe. Okay. Except for if they were going to do that. And let's consider it. Okay. All right. I have two items I need to take care of before we start this. First of all, Ms. Cole, Commissioner Huff did not get a signature package. Here. Okay. You can have this. Okay. Okay. Okay. The second item, we have two commissioners, Commissioner Huff and Commissioner Hyman that needs to leave before we finish this case. So if I can get a motion that they can be read. We have seven. We have 50%. So if I can get a motion that they can be early release. Mr. Chairman, I move that we allow commission members. I'm so sorry to interrupt. If you excuse these two members, we're not going to have a quorum. You need 51%. Eight. Eight members. Okay. Yeah. So when we're down one on appointments, does that still obtain? I mean, it's clearly safe to look at it that it applies even if we're down one. Okay. The quorum, it's a number to require a member who has withdrawn from here. Chair Harris. By vacancies. Yeah. Chairman Harris, per your rules of procedure, this is the quorum shall consist of eight members. The number required for the quorum shall not be affected by vacancies. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. But Commissioner Huff has to leave. But Commissioner Hyman will be here for another 30 minutes. So we can continue. So in that case, Mr. Chairman, I move that we excuse commission member Huff. Second. All those in favor, let it be. No. Miss and I pose. You ready? Okay. Ham. Jacobs. Mr. Jacobs. Okay. This is case A1500014, the Lee village compact neighborhood. For those of you who aren't familiar with the area, Lee village is nearby the intersection of NC highway 54 and interstate 40. It's largely developed in a low density suburban character with a kind of a semi rural feel to it. And despite how rural it appears today, it's near some of the most highly congested transportation corridors in the state and C54 and Farrington road. There's also some significant natural features, including the Little Creek bottom lands in the area as well. The future land use map today shows a suburban transit area of 356 acres made up of commercial office and res and higher density residential land uses. The proposed compact neighborhood would be a 423 acre compact neighborhood designated as design district with some recreation and open space inside. There are two additional sort of cleanup amendments to the future land use map that are proposed. One is for Eastwood park, which is an established single family neighborhood largely built in the 1960s. It's currently designated as commercial through our public engagement process. We heard a strong support for the neighborhood to remain as residential. So that is consistent with our proposal here. It's not a unanimous consensus among the neighbors, but that was the overriding sentiment at the public engagement meetings that we held. A second sort of cleanup change to the future land use map would be looking at a property that's owned by the North Carolina Botanical Garden Foundation. There's an existing conservation easement on the site. So consistent with other privately held conservation easements, we're recommending that it be designated as recreation and open space. Looking at the boundary itself that we have developed along with the, according to the guidelines that we laid out at the onset of the project and in working with members of the community, we've expanded the boundary to the west of George King Road to align with the town of Chapel Hill boundary. This will help to facilitate the collector street plan. And as we've mentioned before, we'll work in the zoning stage to help to clarify kind of what the transition to that single family neighborhood will be in Chapel Hill. The boundary does not include the village, the village at Culp Arbor to the north, but it does use Interstate 40 as the boundary to the east. It includes the Falconbridge shopping center, which is near N.C. 54 because of the N.C. 54 corridor study recommendations that would help to facilitate some movement from the north side of 54 where the station is to the south side of 54. We have, again, we've removed the area eastward park from the compact neighborhood boundary, and this boundary does not infringe upon the Little Creek Bottom Lands property owned by the Army Court of Engineers. There are some, we recognize that this is just a first step in planning for the Lee Village area. There are a number of key issues that we'll need to address as we move forward. Primary among those is extending some public utilities, this area is mostly in the county today, so public utilities are not present. Building sufficient transportation infrastructure to relieve the very real traffic congestion issue that's in this area. Coordinating and phasing developments so that it makes sense in this kind of a green field setting is something kind of unique to this site. And then again, how we transition to adjacent environmentally sensitive areas and the low density residential areas will be another issue that we'll need to pay close attention to moving forward. Finally, staff does recommend approval of this complaint amendment. Thank you, Ms. Jacobs. Gail, Abraham, Abraham, you speaking in favor or against? Okay, I have six people speaking in favor of it. I have four people speaking against it. And I have one person making comments. Okay, I give the... Okay, so I will have, each person will have two minutes each if you would, if you would. So I have John, Eddie, Eddie, Ebe, and following him I have Jared Harris, Wendy Martin, Dan Jewel, Chris Selby. My name is John Edie. I live at 5708 Crescent Drive in Chapel Hill, which is in Durham County, and president of the Woodland Acres Homeowners Association, which is comprised of many of the residents who live in the proposed Lee Village Transit District. My homeowner's association is not a member of the INC, and many of the resolutions put forward by the INC do not represent the position of myself or my neighbors. My neighborhood association has long been involved with the potential development of this area. We have participated in the last 15 years or so in numerous public workshops and meetings, including the 54 I-40 corridor study, the Collector Street Plan, the Durham Orange Light Rail Transit workshops, and most recently, the Compact Neighborhood meetings. We believe that approval of the Compact Neighborhood design will give some of the much needed clarity necessary for the future development of this area and protection from the piecemeal development that is now occurring. Now, we do share some of the concerns expressed in the INC resolution for a more inclusive, in-depth process for public involvement in planning compact neighborhoods. Having participated in the planning department's public meetings to determine the broad concepts and boundaries of the Lee Village Compact Neighborhood, we do not want to be left out of the more detailed planning. The large tracts of open area in the Lee Village District have great potential, but coordination among many developers is crucial to the success in building an exemplary transit village. Since we live in the area and have invested interest in the outcome, we want to have a mechanism for providing our input on the implementation of the design district. We like the INC's proposal of a local planning committee for each transit district. I think this would be a good mechanism for providing neighborhood input. Can you finish up in a minute? I can. Okay. It would also allow input for other issues such as affordable housing, but the first step is to approve the overarching guidance given at the Compact Neighborhood Amendment to the comprehensive plan. Therefore, the Woodland Acres Homeowners Association supports the approval of the amendment to the comprehensive plan for the Lee Village Compact Neighborhood, but with requests from Durham City County Planning that they will develop such a mechanism for continued input from the affected property owners during the more detailed planning phases of the design district. Thank you. Thank you. Jared Harris. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Jared Harris. I lived, my family lived in the Lee Village area for several years, quite a while back, and we owned two houses and some land in the district. We've been getting offers to do typical single-family development on our land for 35 years, and we've always turned those down because we always felt we should wait for something better than just that. And for the last 15 years, as John was saying, we participated in a lot of planning efforts when Lee Village was not named that, when it was just a transit district, and then as it became renamed Lee Village, and then as this amendment went forward. And we're very grateful to the Planning Department for taking on this work and for producing this amendment, which we fully support. Our concern is that during this very long planning period, these offers keep coming forward to take pieces, seven acres, five acres, 10 acres, and carve them off from the district. And in fact, on the map just above Eastwood Park, you can see a triangle that was just recently carved off from the district, hasn't even been built yet, was approved, was actually, went through the approval process with the recommendation of planning because they were following the rules. And we see no reason why that just can't keep happening. It's going to keep happening, we believe, until this is made into a compact neighborhood and the rules are changed. So we think that as long as that hasn't happened, developments that don't contribute to solving the traffic problem, they don't support long-term sustainable development, they don't contribute to affordable housing. All these developments that have happened are outside that. So we think it's extremely important to move forward now with a compact neighborhood designation for Lee Village to prevent this kind of bad development, which has been occurring, which has occurred right up to the boundaries of the current district and which will continue in the district if the commission and the city council don't rule otherwise. Thank you. Wendy Martin. Good evening, commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm Wendy Martin, and I lived in Durham on Wendell Road for many years. My daughter was born there, and I love this neighborhood. I'm speaking in support of the compact neighborhood designation for Lee Village. Compact neighborhoods have a much more positive impact than that many people understand. High-density development neighborhoods can actually preserve green space, creeks, and wetlands better than developments of single-family homes. As it stands now, every single housing development that is approved whittles away at the diversity of compact neighborhoods and the opportunity to preserve open space and affordable housing. It is important to note that the current situation kicks the can down the road in regard to confronting and finding solutions for traffic challenges, which we've been hearing about. We need to approve compact neighborhoods now. Allowing piecemeal development means losing an important opportunity to preserve open space and for affordable housing. Finally, if we have a compact neighborhood designation, this will help with federal funding for light rail. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you. Thank you, Dan Jewel. Good evening again, commissioners. Dan Jewel, 1025 Glory Avenue. I've been asked by the neighbors to come up and give a one-minute and 55-second history lesson. Hannah's report starts at 2015. Mine goes back to 2001 when the neighbors knew the light rail was coming. They saw uncoordinated development whittling away around the edges. No advanced planning for infrastructure, traffic infrastructure, a good diverse range of development. They asked a group I'm involved with during our designers to hold a charrette workshop. We had the neighbors there. At that time, there were actually two transit stations, one at Farrington Road, one at Lee Village. Had so much fun, we did it again two years later when the other transit station was dropped and had even more folks there. Since then, as you've heard, what these folks have done is they have been intimately, actively involved in getting this adopted on the comprehensive plan in 2005, being involved in all of the road planning efforts, literally driving where the alignment of the light rail would go and where the station would go, so it is best suited for a transit neighborhood to develop around it. In fact, they have been so impatient with this effort to move forward so they could stop all of these low-hanging fruit developments that are coming forward that don't contribute to transit supportive development. They actually submitted a privately led application to create the compact neighborhood two years ago. And the planning department said, we're going to work on this, no problem. Go ahead and withdraw, which they did. But the time is now because as the economy approves and single-family developers are looking for building lots at any cost, I can guarantee you every one of these property owners out here is getting weekly phone calls to sell their property to do quarter- and half-acre lot subdivisions. What kind of affordable housing is that going to create? Thank you. Thank you, Dan. Chris Shelley? Selby? Selby. Chris Selby, I've lived at 138th Sles Circle in Eastwood Park in the city of Durham for over 19 years. And thank you for this opportunity to speak, Mr. Chairman. I'm here to express my strong support for recommendation in the Lee Village item. I think it's number three, and it's to change the future land-use map designation of Eastwood Park from commercial to residential. I enjoy living in my neighborhood. And as to the future, there are changes anticipated all around Eastwood Park, including light rail, Lee Village, and widening event in C54. I believe that these changes offer opportunities to improve our quality of life. I ask the members of the Planning Commission respectfully to help preserve and protect the future of Eastwood Park as a residential neighborhood and recommend a residential future land-use map designation for us. Finally, even if the Commission finds fault with the other recommendations associated with the Lee Village compact neighborhood item, I ask that a recommendation be made for the Eastwood Park residential future land-use map designation. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Lynn Scott. Good evening. Good evening. I'm Lynn Scott. I live at 211 Sles Circle, which is in Eastwood Park, having a Chapel Hill address but in Durham City and County. I've lived there two, three years, so I'm a very new resident, and I just wanted to come out and speak on behalf of the neighborhood and say that we are very much in favor of staying residential. If you look at item six on the map, where the rectangle in the front, it's houses about 50, and I'll say that the piece behind it, which is the triangle that was referred to, that's Chapel Creek, it is designed to be a higher density it's one to eight, and so you've already got started that transition circle that Hannah talked about from residential and the edges being lower and then moving up towards the center. So I hope you'll support keeping Eastwood Park residential. Thank you. Thank you. And we have Phil Post, and Phil will begin to speak to those who are against us. Recommendation. Hi, Mr. January. My name's Phil Post. I live at 104 St. Andrews Place, and I've lived in Durham County in this area for 38 years. My neighborhood is strongly against the encroachment and expansion of the Lee Village Compact neighborhood to the west and to the north that severely violates the Collector Road Plan that myself and many of my neighbors spent a lot of time on. It wasn't perfect, but our neighborhood agreed with the representatives of Orange County, Carbwell, Chapel Hill, Durham to establish the Collector Road Plan. What you see on your screen now is the Collector Road Plan and the density map that was in place at the time of the Collector Road Plan. So the high density around the station was here and there was low density to the north. But the key element of the Collector Road Plan and I'm glad that Mrs. Jacobson mentioned that as a planning principle when you were laying out the Compact neighborhood was that roadways are very often used as boundaries. So it was very well thought out when we did the greed on this Collector Road Plan that the Collector Roads would circumscribe on the north and on the west the Compact neighborhood This happens to be the density map that was used for the Collector Road Plan just to show you that I've acted and this is your current plan and the blue areas are these expansion areas where you've sprawled across our well thought out Collector Road Plan. So here's what happens instead of these Collector Roads forming the boundaries of the Compact neighborhood we've now sprawled across all these Collector Roads and the strong opposition of myself and my neighbors in Durham County in the Oaks neighborhood is that the Collector Road Plan needs to be altered before you would take the first step to implement this vast expansion of the Compact neighborhood. Our neighborhood is not satisfied that these intensity transitions are going to protect these existing Durham County residents. So we'd ask you to not allow these pink areas on the west and north to be added to this plan. Thank you. Thank you. We have Chris Hank. Hello, I'm Chris Hanky 101 Tweed Place, Chapel Hill. I live in the Oaks Villas neighborhood which is along that west boundary that was just being discussed. So I represent our Homeowners Association. We're obviously the existing neighborhood that gets impacted the most by that expansion to the west of the boundary beyond George King. I can't really speak for everyone in our association and we're not against the Compact neighborhood development in general, but many of our residents participated in early planning meetings and the big thing we requested was some sort of visibility into what the buffer zone would look like. We don't own the land so we can't control all that, but we got no feedback on the process on how any buffer zone would get defined there. I lived in Blenheim Woods development which was budding a different part of the Oaks and the developers take full advantage of impeding on any kind of buffer zone and what would have been maybe 50 feet of wooded area becomes all of a sudden 20 feet. This is an area that's been in existence since 1989. This area is densely wooded. It's going to completely change the character and we'd like to have the ability I think the first gentleman articulated it well to be involved intimately in the process of how these zones are defined specifically and our concerns how a buffer zone is defined so we don't get, we know development is inevitable. We can't fight it but we'd like to have some control or participation in the process and that's our main position in our main concern. Thank you. Debbie McCarthy. Good evening. My name is Debbie McCarthy. For 30 years I've lived at 4517 Trenton Road and I've been very involved in land use and thoroughfare planning for all those years. Three preliminary points I would like to say that the Lee Village compact neighborhood is not compact. 400 plus acres is massive. Secondly I'd like to say that the zoning seems awfully nebulous as you all said earlier. No one really knows what is going to be allowed within that design district and that compact neighborhood tier. Thirdly, the densities within this Lee Village area are too intense. The impervious surface too great and the traffic and environmental impacts too severe. We're talking about the new hope in the little creeks both of which are very significant. But I know change is coming to the Farrington Corridor as much as I love it the way it is. I want to focus on one key factor tonight that is really a life and death issue for our neighborhood. That's the location of the light rail romp, the rail operations and maintenance facility. Now is the time when the planning department is defining what's going to be allowable in this compact neighborhood and updating the UDO to allow a light industrial use in the setting would help pave the way for the rezoning of a romp site within Lee Village's massive acreage. The landowners in this area you've heard from them tend to sell out and leave. They would not object to a romp properly sited within the compact neighborhood's vast acreage as long as it's not too close to Culpe Arbor or Celeste Circle. Development intensities within the compact neighborhood are going to be extreme 60 to 100 units to the acre, 7 story buildings, impervious surface the norm and a romp would not be out of place in the midst of all that. By focusing the development within the like the romp within the compact neighborhood there would be only one location to remediate with respect to storm water runoff, not two as would happen if the romp is further north on Farrington. So there would be no residential relocations, no imminent domain lawsuits, no incompatible land use, no underground diabase dykes, no Trenton Road to rebuild, no wells to contaminate, no Creekside Elementary School to safeguard, no major transportation card or overlay zone or sewer easements, no angry homeowners to contest rezonings. Finally and best of all, Lee Farm Park, which is southwest Durham's remarkable, unique, 86 acre oasis of woodlands and wetlands would not be harmed. It would be spared. Current and future generations could continue to enjoy the sole refreshing benefits of its natural, historic, educational and recreational offerings. Thank you. Thank you. Ellen Mitchell son Michelson Michelson. Thank you. I have a visual that I could pass around. I just couldn't print it if you don't mind. I'm Ellen Michelson. I live at 43 24 Trenton Road and have been within two miles in Durham County, just so you know. I've lived within two miles of the Lee Farm Village area for the past 30 years and our street is just over the 40 on the other side of 40 from where Lee Farm and the ROMP, the Lee Compact Lee Villages. And I wanted to point out that although the planning department has done an incredible job, including the commissioners, the committee, Hannah, it just seems like we've been doing these meetings for the past 20 to 30 years and they've done one year's worth of research, done an incredible job of getting, my understanding is 1,200 comments that are supposed to be responded to by February and we're sort of putting the cart before the horse. We're creating the problem before we've gotten this. It's like what comes first, the chicken area at 54 in Farrington doesn't seem to be addressed by the compact density. I wanted to point out by this picture that you can't tell me the environment's not going to be affected. That picture was taken yesterday when right at the intersection on Farrington Road. Thank you. This deer was hit and you can't tell, I mean there's a beautiful farm. I mean I just happened to be going by and there was vultures and about two weeks ago I had a coyote in my front yard. I mean you've heard it all before some of us don't want it there. There are, on our street which is just on the other side of 40 from where this is proposed 40 is going to have to be expanded for the romp and for the light rail. I'm all for public transportation hybrid use, bike riding, walking but it's just not the right place and again we have a lot of development going where it doesn't need to be. You should take something that's already partially developed and expand it more not trees, wildlife the deer are being pushed out the coyotes are being pushed out and they have nowhere to go and it's just not fair to the people who moved to Southwest Durham because of the nature of the vicinity as it stood 40 years ago when we moved there and we're still there. Thank you very much. Alright thank you and Gail Epp. Oh thank you. Hi my name is Gail Abrams at 4123 Newburn Place in Durham thank you for this opportunity to speak I'm also the executive director of PMOT Wildlife Center we are located in Lee Farm Park which is directly on the other side of 40 the Compact Village concept as I am about where it's placed in this location I echo both Ms. Michelson and Ms. McCarthy's comments about wildlife and the environment right now there is a Lee Village Compact neighborhood as well as a romp sighted in both very very close to each other and with those two sightings both the New Hope Creek and Little Creek are both being impacted by these very very close and compact neighborhoods and I would say if Lee Village is going to happen which I don't agree should be because of the environmental impacts I agree with Ms. Michelson that this is not the right place to have this intensity put the romp inside the village so that only one of these environmental corridors is affected. Right now, Lee Farm Park we wiped out our boardwalks and our bridges just from the storms had over Christmas time and with the addition of a romp in that same area and Lee Village this park is going to be even more impacted by what's happening so look at the mitigation of both of these locations and let's combine them into one if you're going to make them happen but I thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Do we have other citizens in the audience that would love to speak if you would come up and give us your name and address before you seat yourself. No, speak first. My name is Dottie Williford and I live at 5103 Marcella Court in Glenview Park and we are literally back up to the rail as it's proposed the romp I had a study done by the light rail and they told me it was 300 square feet or 300 feet the size of a football field behind me so it did not impact my house however the bridge that I can throw a rock at from my house is going to be widened and lifted to accommodate that rail have the rail behind me in the rock there's no one that can tell me it doesn't impact my house my neighborhood I can't speak for them all but for myself I am so against this I've been told that by a rail I mean it's a name project I can't sell my house without letting them know this is going to happen and once you break ground it will probably drop $100,000 in addition to at-grade crossings on Farrington Road I mean the traffic we can't go left we can't go right the romp is I understand two or three times larger than the Blue Cross Blue Shield Building I mean for light pollution I can already you know hear a little bit of 40 but I mean in the winter time all I'm going to see is the romp building and everyone in my neighborhood the same thing we're pretty close I just don't think Farrington Road is the place for it I have three neighbors who live on Celeste Circle they're not here and I really don't presume to speak for them but I do know personally that their houses have been ruined one has taken it off the market and their only hope is that they buy the entire neighborhood so I just don't agree with the ones that are saying they agree with it they're just waiting for a big buy out now someone would bought my house I would probably agree as well but it just seems the ones that are for it in my neighborhood stand again monetarily everyone who wants to live there is not for it and we're very much against it and it just found out about it literally this past fall that it was going to be our the last route that was going to be approved I've been going to meetings since the fall and that's just the way it seems to be and we try to be heard we've gone to all these meetings and I just don't feel people are listening to us but that's all I have to say Hi I'm Sherri Hardman I'm president of the Oaks 3 neighborhood association that's also being affected particularly with the extension of the compact neighborhood I think one of the things that I've seen in this whole process it has been very dubious in terms of the communication now the Hannah Jacobs said there was a lot of outreach to the neighborhoods really don't think that's true and most people even in our neighborhood trying to communicate what's happening they really don't know that there's this huge neighborhood that's going in right next to them and they don't know there's a big right across Farrington Road a large you know light industrial type of complex so I think once the neighbors really find out what's happening they're going to be very upset in Durham County and these are high end neighborhoods with large tax base and they're being currently upgraded right now their tax bills just all came in and they all went way up so I'm just thinking that there just needs to be more communication and more time for the neighbors to truly have input because when these meetings happen the neighbors don't get the chance to come up and talk basically this has been one of the first times that we've actually been able to say something about this as a matter of fact I think it's really the first time other than just being able to hand a piece of paper to somebody and saying I don't think this is the right way to do it and as far as the extension we just saw that really a month or two ago so I would like to see true neighborhood participation thank you my name's April Apple I live at 107 Marcella Court Durham County I thank you for the opportunity to come forward and speak to you on this issue I am not in favor specifically of the romp like it's been said before I do understand that we have to make changes we need specifically changes to our road systems and we do need some kind of improved system for traveling for people who come out of Durham County to work but this small light rail system is I think just a joke it's not going to improve the road system in any way it's not going to improve commuter transit and I like Dottie I live in the same neighborhood as she does and we're going to have this huge industrial complex right behind us and so I'm very much against it again I can't speak for everyone in my neighborhood but I would like for you to think if it's going up in your neighborhood behind your house would you want it and it is going to kill our property tax values so I would just like to say I am against it and that's all thank you okay do we have other citizens did she take my pen motion to return the pen Mr. Chair do we have other citizens that would like to speak if not then we will close the public hearing and bring it back before the commissioners realizing we don't have the numbers to vote on it tonight but we do and we do appreciate you coming out speaking and expressing your opinion about their proposed zone and change Mr. Chairman I believe there's a point of order may I make a point actually Ms. Huff was excused and Ms. Hyman left without being officially excused so technically you could take a vote according to the rules of procedure I just wanted to clarify that Mr. Chair I would actually like to make a motion to officially excuse Commissioner Hyman I appreciate everyone coming tonight but I also think it's important that we do have an official quorum before we make an important decision like this so I'd make a motion that we do officially excuse Commissioner Hyman this is a motion on the floor that we excuse Commissioner Hyman second motion all those in favor of the motion please Mr. Chairman other thing a lot of you came here to speak tonight we still can't we may not be able to vote but we can at least get your input and the minutes will be available for the other commissioners who's not here but I don't want to waste your time you came here tonight to speak and I would well let me hear from staff excuse me Sarah Young staff would request that if the quorum we cannot continue with the meeting instead of having to redo this again at some later date that we just cease the meeting and with all due respect to everyone that came out we don't want to have to do this twice and now we're going to have to alright seems like I have been out of a room but thank you for coming and the next meeting date is yeah we we can the next meeting date is February 9th at 5.30 no no the we can still we have an item on the new business that I would like to speak to the commissioners about the email that was sent out by excuse me Commissioner Harris there is no quorum you've declared that there is no quorum you cannot continue just to transact business this is information it's not this is just information again the memo that was sent out by Miss Smith earlier this week and this to discuss the guidelines for the submittal of development plans and committed elements I hope you guys read that as a policy for the revisions of development plan and for committed elements yes sir just for information earlier tonight we passed and I'm glad we passed it because I don't like the idea of holding development hostage until something comes and put in place but the last meeting we voted to deny a developer because of the lack of affordable housing and I think we ought to always be consistent and to treat people fairly I don't understand your point we passed a development project unanimously and we knew that there was not affordable housing component to it okay now I understand what you're talking about okay my only point is that we ought to work to be consistent I agree with you we did have a conversation excuse me conversations in the car to police Commissioner Weinders I was just going to say that it wasn't totally inconsistent because it was comparable to the Rosewalk case where they also came in with more of a commitment than this one was but he had kind of a good point that that that the council was doing different things for different people but I took it to mean and put in my comments that I think it was mentioned in the motion that we were conditioning our approval on the fact that he made a commitment that there would be some contribution to affordable housing in accordance with the council's expectations I just was just beyond God so that we're consistent and we're going to make a point in the middle of the meeting so but I make that point now thank you do we have a look at next month's agenda so next month you'll have the two cases where we had the error and notice we had to move to next month which is the Hope Valley Commons business park and the associated plan amendment you'll also have a case where you have a revision to a development plan previously approved development plan and then the Cornwallis revision case the plan amendment zoning case is actually going to come back to you next month the revised Cornwallis case plus the ones that we didn't get to tonight okay and we'll have to re-advertise all of those cases because they weren't opened and continued so we'll have to start the whole advertisement proceeding over for the ones that there at the end you could have voted that was our our preference was that you vote you open them to continue them versus not take action because now we have to do some rather large extensive advertisement and mail outs because of that okay okay if there's nothing else before us that you will entertain a motion for adjournment we're not already well I mean we can't transact business so we're at it