 We realize. Good morning. The meeting will now come to order. Welcome to the May 25th, 2021 meeting of the Durham Board of Adjustment. My name is Jacob Rogers. I am the chair of the board. I'd like to start by acknowledging we are conducting this meeting using a remote electronic platform as permitted by session law 2020-3. The Board of Adjustment is a quasi-judicial body that is governed by the North Carolina General Statutes and the city's unified development ordinance. The Board typically conducts evidentiary hearings on requests for variances, special use permits, among other requests. Today's meeting will proceed much like an in-person meeting of the Board. On the screen, you'll see members of the Board of Adjustment, additionally planning staff and representatives from the city and county. Attorney's offices are attended in the remote meeting. Applicants, proponents, and opponents were required to register in advance and are also attended in the remote meeting. When a case is called for its hearing, speakers will be promoted within the platform so their video can be seen. The chair will swear in applicants and witnesses at the beginning of each case. Staff will present each case and applicants will then provide their evidence. Control of the presentation and screen sharing will remain with planning staff. Today's meeting is being broadcast on the city's YouTube site and a link to this broadcast is also on the website for the Board of Adjustment. Before we begin the evidentiary hearings on today's agenda, I'd like to provide some important information about steps taken to ensure that each party's due process rights are protected as we proceed in this remote platform. Each applicant on today's agenda was notified that this meeting would be conducted using a remote electronic platform. During registration, every applicant on today's agenda consented to the Board conducting the evidentiary hearing using this platform. We will also confirm today at the start of each evidentiary hearing that the participants in the hearing consent to the matter proceeding in this remote platform. There's any objection to the matter proceeding in the platform, we will, the case will be continued. Notice of today's meeting was provided by publishing notice in the newspaper, mailed to property owners within 600 feet of subject properties, posting a sign at the property and posting on the city's website. The newspaper website and mailed notices for today's meeting contain information how the public can access the remote meeting as it occurs. These notices also contained information about the registration requirement for the meeting along with information about how to register. All individuals participating in today's evidentiary hearings were also required to submit a copy of any presentation, document, exhibit or other material that they wish to submit at the hearing prior to today's meeting. All materials that the city received from the participants in today's cases as well as a copy of the city staff's presentation and documents were posted on the Board of Adjustment website as part of the agenda. No new documents will be submitted during today's meeting. All decisions of this Board are subject to appeal to the Durham Superior Court. Anyone in the audience, other than the applicant who wishes to receive a copy of the formal order issued by this Board on a particular case must submit a written request for a copy of the order. I'll welcome everybody here. I want to take a quick moment to kind of explain the difference for the Board of Adjustment. We're not a legislative body. There's a difference between legislative and quasi-judicial. So our process today is a little different because of that. First, and I mentioned this a little bit ago, but I'm gonna mention it again. The staff, the city and county staff, planning staff will present the case. Secondly, the applicant presents their evidence. Then the opponents will present their evidence, if there are any. Four, applicant will provide a rebuttal if they choose. After that, cross-examination, if requested can happen at this time. After that, we will close the evidentiary hearing and then the Board deliberation. And at this time, only members, Board members, Board of Adjustment members can ask questions. No other party can ask questions to the Board or to at that time. So we'll have plenty of time to make sure everyone's heard, but I wanna make sure that we kind of throw out how the process works today. Also, we always ask that if multiple people are providing the same or similar testimony, please select one person to speak and the rest can either raise their hands in support of what's being discussed. Individuals who are not subject experts, we will be limiting testimony. And this time, I'd like to have a little bit of Board discussion about the length of that non-expert testimony. My thought is two minutes. Is everybody okay with that? Is there, excuse me, Mr. Chair, this is Chad. Is there anything in our rules of procedure regarding length of time? No. Thank you. Hey, Christa. Good morning. Christa Kager, City Attorney's Office. I do wanna just mention it's not specific as to experts, Chad, but the rules do say the Board may limit the length of a public hearing or set a time for a German by majority vote. So I think it's sort of within a public hearing, I think it's reasonable and appropriate to sort of set time limits in terms of testimony, especially given today's agenda. So is everyone okay with two minutes? If you are, you know, maybe we can just have a hand here. Jessica, Ian, are you okay? Okay, well, we'll move forward with that. All right, Susan, would you like to call the roll? Yes, Jacob Rogers. Here. Chad Meadows. Here. Micah Jeter. Ian Kip. Here. Michael Retchless. Here. Tisha Weymour. Here. Jessica Major. Here. Michael Tarrant. Here. Natalie Bouchain. Here. All right, and Jessica, didn't you say you would have to step out? I don't... Yes. Okay, so, well, I know that I don't think, Natalie, I think we're gonna be using you today as the designated alternate. So just wanted to make sure that that was the case. Well, I think you said from 9 to 930, you'll be joining us back around 930. Just wanna make sure that's on the record here. All right, sounds good. And all right, now the next thing on our agenda is the approval from the minutes from the April 27th meeting. Is there a motion to approve those? Hopefully everybody's had a chance. Retchless motion. A motion by Mr. Retchless. Is there a second? Raise somebody, raise their hand. Bouchain, second. All right, and Susan, if you'll call everybody. Mr. Rogers. Yes. Mr. Meadows. Yes. Mr. Kip. Yes. Mr. Retchless. Yes. Ms. Weymour. Yes. Ms. Major. Yes. Mr. Tarrant. Yes. Ms. Bouchain. Yes. All right, one more thing. Tisha will be leaving us at 11.45. So Susan, who would be the next, the designated author? I'm sorry, you said Tisha would be leaving. He's leaving at 11.45. Okay, so Ms. Bouchain would take her place and let me, give me just a quick second. And Tisha will play it by ear to see where we are with cases and maybe best kind of to drop out a little bit before that depending on where the case, where we are in a case. I believe it would be Mr. Tarrant. Okay, all right. So Mike, you'll sit in on that after that time. And that's the first case, correct? No, Natalie will sit in for Micah on the first and then when Tisha needs to leave around 11.45, Mike Tarrant will take over for her. Okay. All right. Would you mind calling the first case? Case B210008, a request for a variance from the Project Boundary Buffer Requirements. The subject site is located at 312 East Unstead Street and 1206 Dalkins Street is zoned residential urban and in the urban tier. This case had to advertise for the required period of time and property owners within 600 feet have been notified, notarized affidavits verifying the sign posting and letter mailings are on file and to verify the seating for this case, it is Mr. Kipp, Mr. Meadows, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Retchless, Ms. Wymore and Ms. Bochane. Sounds right. All right. So everyone who plans on giving testimony in this case will need to have your video on to administer the oath. This is Howard partner. Oh, my video is not operating. My audio is operating. Okay. Well, we can still do it. Mr. Schiller, are you able to turn your video on? I likewise, I'm only getting a choice for the audio. Well, all right. Then there's two questions that we're going to go through the oath real quick. We'll need you to raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you'll give today is the truth and nothing but the truth? I'll need for Mr. Schiller. We enabled the wrong feature. So they're coming in right now as panelists. I apologize about that. That's in my head. I'm now able to raise my right hand. All right. Okay. So let's do this again. Raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you'll give today is the truth and nothing but the truth? I affirm. And Mr. Partner, we've got you on mute. Okay. Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay. My right hand is raised. And do you swear or affirm that the testimony you'll give today is the truth and nothing but the truth? I affirm. And do you consent to this remote meeting platform? I consent. And Mr. Schiller? Yes, sir. I consent. All right. Who on the staff side has this one? Oh, Eliza. Yep. Good morning, everybody. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. Good morning, everyone. Eliza Monroe here representing the planning department. Planning staff requests that the staff report and all materials submitted to the public hearing be made part of the public record with any necessary corrections as noted. So noted. Thank you. Thank you. Case B210008 is a request for a variance from the project boundary buffer requirements. The app is Howard partner in the subject size located at 312 East Umsted Street and 1206 Dawkins Street. The case area is highlighted and read on the screen. At the time of submittal, the parcels were zoned at residential Urban 5-2 and that's what's reflected in the staff report. However, I will note that a rezoning was approved. And so the parcels are now zoned R-U-M or residential Urban M. And they are currently located within the Urban Development Tier. As you can see in the aerial on the Umsted Street parcel or the parcel that has Umsted Street frontage, that there is an existing building there in which the applicant is proposing to repurpose into a multi-family apartment building. Project boundary buffers are defined as a portion of the property designated to mitigate impacts between land uses. Section 9.4, the unified development ordinance provides the standards of the type, quantity and location of the buffer landscaping like trees and shrubs. I'm gonna scroll to the landscape plan sheet which kind of actually I'm gonna go to the next one. The landscape plan sheet might be a little bit too much details this early in the morning. Per section 9.4.3c of the UDO, multiplex and apartment development proposed in any district to be adjacent to single family or two family redevelopments on other properties shall provide buffers in accordance with the R-U-M Urban Tier. So you'll notice that there are single family residential adjacent to this proposed multi-family. All of the site and then adjacent owners are all zone R-U-5-2. The location of the proposed housing apartment used to adjacent to single family requires a project boundary buffer and a project boundary buffer is also required along the right of way as the site is not joining the street that is greater than 60 feet in width. In this case, the applicant would be required to provide a 20 foot buff, 0.6 opacity project boundary buffer along all property lines of the two parcels with the exception of the connecting property line between the two parcels that is currently existing. To allow flexibility in buffer design, we do have what's called the interactive buffer model within the unified development ordinance, which can be used to create a buffer meeting or exceeding the opacity standards using a variety of widths, plant materials, walls or berms per unified development ordinance section 9.8.7. You can use the interactive buffer model within the Urban Tier, which this parcel is located in. However, no alternative buffer shall be permitted to be less than one half the minimum width required. Therefore, the portions of the buffer that are less than 10 feet wide, one half of the required 20 foot width that I mentioned earlier will require a variance from not only the interactive buffer model standard, but the base project boundary buffer standard as well. Given the location of this existing building that's shown here on the screen on 312, on St. Street, the applicant's requesting a reduction in the width and opacity of the buffers on either side of the existing building to permit the buffer to fit within the available space. The buffer widths will be variable as the building, as you can see, is anywhere from five feet to 12.1 feet from that property line. For the rear building, the applicant is proposing to increase, propose to increase to a 15 foot wide using the interactive buffer model. For the buffer along up St. Street, they're requesting a five foot reduction to permit a 15 foot wide buffer once again to be compatible with the existing structure. And lastly, the applicant is requesting a nine foot buffer reduction to permit an 11 foot buffer along the South property line of 1206 Dawson Street and a buffer reduction, an reduction to permit a 15 foot buffer along the North property line of Dawson Street. UDO section 3.14.8 establishes four findings that the applicant must make an order for the port to grant a variance. These findings requiring approval are identified in the staff report and the applicant circumstances to these findings are identified in the application, both of which are within your packet. And I'm aware that this is a lot of different buffers and requests, so if there are any questions or if anyone needs me to pull up a different document, please let me know and staff will be available to answer any of those as needed during the hearing process. Thank you, Eliza. And I think Chad, you got a question? Morning, Chad. Good morning, thank you. Apologize for my voice. I have three questions, Eliza. Thanks for the presentation. First question is, is off-street parking required for this use? The second question is, does the parcel have access to Burnett Street in the South? And the third question is, is there a minimum driveway width requirement? Thank you for those questions, Chad. To answer the first question, off-street parking is required for this use and there is a parking table. I'm gonna scroll through this, so I apologize for anyone that gets a little weary. So the required parking, so I'm actually gonna exit out of this so I can zoom a little bit because I'm aware that might be a little hard for people to see. Can everyone still see the screen? I'm still sharing. Yes or no, not one's head? Yes. Okay, cool being, got a little quiet there. So there's a parking table here, so it's a little bit easier to, and this information is from the packet. Looks like my computer's moving a little bit slow. So they're gonna be affordable housing and family units, so there's going to be 14 parking spaces total for off-street being required, and they are providing the required amount of off-street parking spaces as detailed on the second sheet of this plan. My computer's moving a little bit slow, so I might go to that one if we need to, but they're providing the required amount of off-street parking spaces. For the site, there is not access to the park site from Burnett Street. All of the access will be happening off of Dawkins Street, which is where they're gonna be having the driveway entering towards the rear of the existing building. And I'm gonna go to that sheet if my computer will allow me. And the last question was about minimum width. Yes, there is a required minimum driveway width, which they are in compliance. This site plan is happening review currently. A site plan review is happening in transportation as well as NCDOT have finished their reviews of this project. So they are meeting the minimum width, therefore they have a little bit of a buffer reduction to allow for that driveway. Thank you, Eliza. Let me follow up with that. I didn't ask the question, are they accessing Burnett? The question is, is there anything that stops them from accessing Burnett Street? Is there anything that stops them? There's no intent of the applicant to access from that parcel. And I don't believe there's an existing drive there or easement there to access it. Okay, that property touches the right-of-way for Burnett Street, is that incorrect? I don't believe it touches, but let me just double-check. Is there anything I can provide information-wise? Perhaps the applicant may be able to answer those questions, Eliza. Yeah, we can wait for that one. Okay, I don't believe it touches. It looks like there is a little bit of an easement, a sanitary sewer easement. I don't believe there's any type of access to that right-of-way at all. There's no intent to have an access easement to go through there, but I will reflect to Mr. Partner if he would like to provide further information. Thank you. Anybody have any other questions for Eliza? Shifting through here, okay. Would the applicant like to come forward? Mr. Partner, we'll give you the floor to present your evidence. Okay, thank you very much. My name is Howard Partner. I am a registered landscape architect residing in Durham, and I am the applicant. Ms. Monroe has given you a pretty good overview into anything I say will probably be a bit of a repetition of what she's already told you, but let me go through this presentation anyway. The Harriet Place Project is a total renovation and restoration of the historic Harriet Tubman YWCA building, which was built in 1953 and has played an important role in the African-American community during the era of segregation. This project is being undertaken by reinvestment partners, which is a nonprofit organization located in Durham that is active in housing and community development. And the Tubman YWCA building has been vacant and inactive for 30 years, and the renovation will transform this building into 16 affordable housing units, which will help to stabilize the surrounding neighborhood and once again, serve its community. So in addition to the building restoration, as mentioned, we will be providing a parking lot at the rear of the building, and that will be accessed by a driveway from Dawkins Street, which is just east and around the corner from Umsted Street. Now, regarding the question of access from the south end of the site, we've got two problems and that explains why we're not directly accessing the site from the south end. There is a stream which runs adjacent to the property and then crosses the southern boundary of the property. And so that a driveway access from the south end would require an additional disturbance of the intermittent stream. Additionally, the slopes at the south end of the property are quite steep with 15 to 25% slopes so that any driveway access from the south end of the site would require extensive grading and a lot of land disturbance. It would be prohibitively expensive because of the steep slopes and the existing stream would require additional storm drainage to carry that stream. So even though there actually is access to Burnett Street and Avery Street down at the bottom of the site, there are difficulties with the terrain that makes a driveway from the south end is practical. So just to go on with the rest of the variance request, as mentioned, the existing YWCA building is situated as close as 5.6 feet from the side property lines. And so we are proposing to have to maintain buffers as required along those side property lines but we don't have space for the full 20-foot standard buffers that would normally be required. And so the buffers that we are suggesting to provide will vary in width from as little as 5.6 feet in width to as much as 15 feet. So the problem, of course, is that the existing building is too close to the side property lines and doesn't allow the full width buffers. And then secondly, that's the front entrance of Umsted Street. We have an entry sidewalk to the building. We have a drop-off driveway and we have a handicap parking space and a full width fully planted front yard buffers is really inappropriate for a public space and would create security concerns for anyone entering and leaving the building. And so we are proposing a reduced width buffer for the front yard. And then finally, as mentioned earlier, the driveway from Dawkins Street is over 180 feet in length. And so it has to be a two-way driveway. That's why it has to be 20 feet in width because it's too long to serve as a single lane, a single direction driveway. So as a result of these conditions, we have to narrow the width of our required buffers in order to enable the driveway and to recognize that the building is sitting too close to the side, to the side yard. I do wanna point out that we are providing full landscape planting for the rear parking lot. We are providing a street tree planting on Umsted and Dawkins Street. We have our natural buffers at the south half of the site, which is undeveloped. And we have a 15-foot interactive buffer on the north side of the entry driveway and a reduced width 11-foot buffer on the south side of the entry driveway. So we're not eliminating buffers. We're simply reducing the planting quantities in those buffers and the width of those buffers. And then, excuse me, we have one minor footnote. There's an existing 28-inch diameter Carolina hemlock tree up at the east side of the Umsted front yard. And that tree will be left in place. But 40% of this tree's root protection zone is within the Umsted Street right away. And so we are unable to provide the full root protection zone, which is normally required for large specimen trees in that buffer. So basically that is the extent of our variance requests. We're simply requesting a reduction in the width of the required buffers and the reduction of the planting quantities for these buffers. So if I will be glad to answer any other questions and also, of course, Peter Schilling from the investment partners is here and he too can answer any questions that you have. Thank you, Mr. Partner. Looks like we've got a question for Chad, do you wanna? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Excellent project, a great proposal. Couple of questions about the variance requests. To the variance request for the buffer that is south of the proposed driveway, accessing whatever the driveway is. I thought that it was necessary to apply for a variance when the required buffer was less than or equal to half of the buffer width. I thought that the buffers were 20 and that says it's 11. So is the variance because it's not meeting the opacity standard on the southern side? Is that what the variance is being asked for on that part? The interactive buffer procedure allows for a reduction of buffer width to as little as half of the width, but in order to achieve a sufficient buffer that is reduced to a full half of the width, it would require a wall to be built for the full length of the buffer. In other words, when we go to the interactive buffer process the least width we can achieve through the interactive buffer procedure is a 15 foot width. And so to make a buffer that would be narrower than 15 feet would require the construction of a wall along the entire length of that driveway which would be an excessive amount of construction. So you're not suggesting a wall on the southern side and what was the basis for that decision? To not build a wall? Correct. Just to would be a lot of expense. This is affordable housing project and we're trying to keep it affordable. And I don't think the wall would be a great benefit to anyone really. The proposed 11 foot buffer is gonna be a vast improvement over the existing conditions which is where basically it's just a lot of weed and overgrowth in that area. And so the buffer will be a great improvement over what's there now. And the idea of building a wall that's nearly 180 feet long would be quite an excessive burden, I think to a minimum benefit. Thank you. Any other questions for the applicant? I have a question if I may. Yeah, absolutely. The access off Dawkins Street, was that a lot that was added to the site after the fact or was that always the driveway for the rear of the former Y? Well, that parcel was an empty parcel. I think at one time it had a derelict abandoned house on it which had been renewed years ago. But it was an empty parcel that was available for access and the developer was able to acquire that parcel and it will be combined with the main parcel on Amstead Street into a single parcel. Got you, thank you. One other question, was there a driveway access to the Y's parking lot on Amstead? There was no parking lot previously. There was no parking lot. So there was no parking, there was no driveway, nothing. Okay, thank you. Right, any further questions for the applicant? This is Chad, I have one more, Mr. Chair, if that's possible. Did you guys consider the possibility of using the vacant lot for parking spaces instead of the driveway? Was that a possibility or what was the situation there? Not enough space or what was the? The lot is about 46 feet wide. If you had a single bay parking lot would require a width of 42 feet. And it really wouldn't be a practical alternative to parking directly behind the building. Thank you. Any other questions for the applicant? Mr. Schiller, do you have anything? I just wanna make sure I see you here but I don't know if you've got anything you'd like to say. I have nothing additional on the technical side as regards the compliance of the variance requests. I can say that this is a mission-based project. Just little stories. When you asked the question about was there parking, one of my board members worked at the Y as a youth. And when I said, where's the parking? She laughed, she says, well, we didn't have any cars. Everybody walked. This was a neighborhood-based facility. Coming off of Dawkins, that used to be owned by the Michele family. And it had been abandoned and overgrown in the center for drug activity remains that today and kind of repurposing it for this use. So there's just a lot of history with each and every aspect of this and kind of determines both the limitations, the opportunities and partly why we're investing in and making this a better place. Thank you, sir. All right, is there anyone here to speak against this case? I'll ask Monroe from the staff. There was no one that registered to speak in opposition for this case. Okay, any other further questions of the applicant? One more time. All right, well, let's bring it in for some board deliberation. Any thoughts or does anyone want to offer a motion? This is Chad, I'll offer my thoughts. I think that reuse of this building is excellent. The idea of reusing this structure for housing is excellent. I think it's extremely unfortunate that they can't access the site from the existing street and it's necessary to create the driveway. I don't think that I have any issues, concerns, questions about the variances necessary for the buffers alongside the building. The building is there, the lot lines are there. You've got what you got, I understand that. The creation of the driveway is the variance that, I'm having a hard time overcoming. I understand it needs to be 20 feet wide because it's too far. I don't know why it needs to be so far. I don't, I think there was evidence presented that it's impossible to access the site from Burnett Street because of topographic considerations. I don't know that I feel like I've got that question answered. There was the discussion of the stream, but the driveway crosses the stream on the vacant lot. So we're gonna have a stream crossing here either way. So I'm in this place where I think this is the right thing to do. It's a good, it's a great proposal. I'm just, I'm having a hard time with the buffer. Maybe they've tried to reach the intent and somebody can convince me that that was good enough. That's where I'm coming from. You can try it at anyone else. Hi, yes, good morning, veterans here. I think it's definitely consistent with the spirit and purpose and intent of the ordinance. I believe they're providing some really good trees and whatnot to make up for the shortage of buffer space. But I think it's a great project and I'm definitely for it. Thank you, sir, anyone else? I share my same comments. I think that the driveway is where it is. Looking at that, I think Burnett or that street at the south end has had some challenges. I have been over that way, visited this area. Probably presents a whole lot of different challenges that I understand that this seems like this lot is just a good alternative. I also agree that it does meet the purpose and intent. I think if you've seen this, that empty lot, what's shown on these plans is much better than what's there now, definitely, but would be, as the applicant said, an improvement for that area. And like Chad said, the building is where it is. You can't get a driveway around it. That's just how it is. But just given the code how it is now, they have to have parking for this type of reuse. And of course, it is allowed. So you've got to get it back there somehow. I think this is a good alternative to whatever else could happen. But does anyone else have any thoughts or want to offer a motion? Regulus, I'll offer a motion, please. Okay. I hereby make a motion that application number B21008, a request for a variance from the project boundary requirements. On property located at 312 East Umstead Street and 1206 Docken Street, has successfully met the applicable requirements of the unified development ordinance. And it's hereby granted, subject to the filing conditions. The improvement shall be substantially consistent with the plans and all information submitted to the board as part of this application. We've got a motion for approval by Mr. Regulus. Is there a second? Why more second? A second by Tisha Weymour. Susan, would you call everyone? Well, I would like to clarify the seating. Again, it is Mr. Kip, Mr. Meadows, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Regulus, Ms. Weymour, Mr. Tarrant and Ms. Bouchain. No. I had Mr. Tarrant in for Mr. Lacey and Ms. Bouchain in for Ms. Jeter. Okay, so the none is the case. One, two, three, four. All right, yeah. Okay. All right then. Okay, so I'm gonna call roll. Mr. Kip? Yes. Mr. Meadows? Yes. Mr. Rogers? Yes. Mr. Regulus? Yes. Ms. Weymour? Yes. Mr. Tarrant? Yes. Ms. Bouchain? Yes. Motion carries, seven to zero. By a vote of seven to zero, your request for a variance has been approved. We appreciate you coming for the BOA this morning. Wish you good luck. The next case on our agenda B210016 has been removed. So we'll skip over that one. Susan, would you like to call the next case? Case B210017, a request for a variance from the street yard setback infill development standards. The subject site is located at 2700 Ashley Street, is owned residential suburban and in the urban tier. This case has been advertised for the required period of time and the property owners within 600 feet have been notified. Notarized affidavits verifying the sign postings and the letter mailings are on file. The seating for this case is Mr. Kip, Mr. Meadows, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Wretchless, Ms. Wymore, Mr. Tarrant and Ms. Bouchain. All right, thank you. Look around, this is yours. Yes, it is. Mr. Steve Jolly, I think is coming over and should be here in a moment. And then I'm actually going to, Mrs. Telly Lewis, I'm actually going to move her back because she's not involved in this case. Okay, all right. So we've got two people in, Steve Jolly, I wanna make sure we've got both of your names on here. Who do we have here? Sandra Vanderlinde, I am Steve Jolly Spouse. Okay, and all righty. And the gentleman here is Steve Jolly, I'm guessing. Yes. All right, so if you plan on giving testimony to one of you, please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you'll give today is the truth and nothing but the truth? I affirm. I affirm. All right, and do you consent to this remote meeting platform? I'll need an answer from both of you. Yes. Yes. All righty then, thank you so much. Eliza, you wanna take it over? Yes, before we get started, can I ask the clerk to cheat the spelling of the last name of Sandra's last name or are you good to go, Susan? I'm gonna take that as good to go. Okay, so I'm gonna share my screen. Good morning again, everybody. Eliza Monroe here with the Planning Department. Planning staff request of the staff report and all materials submitted to the public hearing be made part of the public record with the unnecessary corrections as noted. So noted, thank you. Thank you. Case B2100017 is a request for a variance from the Street Yard Setback and Field Development Standards. The applicant is Steve Jolly and the subject site is located at 2700 Ashley Street. The case area is highlighted and read on the screen. The subject site is on Residential Suburban 8 or RS8 within the Falls of New Jordan Lake Watershed Protection Overlay District or the SJP Protected Area and is located in the Urban Tier. As you'll notice, it is a corner lot which will come into play here as we talk about the nature of the variance request. The site is currently vacant, as you can see in the aerial. For UDO per section 7.1.2B of the Unified Development Ordinance, the required street yard setback for a single family dwelling structure in the RS zoning district is 25 feet. So therefore there would be a required 25 feet setback on Ashley Street, as well as stadium drive as this is a corner lot. However, there are additional street yard and field development standards found in UDO 6.8 which are applicable to this site as it is a residentially zoned lot less than four acres located within the Urban Tier. Within the infill development standards, there's what's called a context area and that is used to determine the required yards as well as the building height of the subject line. The context area consists of existing residentially zoned structures along the same block face or in this case along Ashley Street and the 2700 block. The new development on the lot subject to the infill standards would have to use the street yard setback that is within the range of the existing street yards along the block face of Ashley. For a corner lot, the street yard shall be determined separately for each one since there's only gonna be one block face in this case, Ashley. So for stadium, they can determine that one separately. The ordinance allows the applicant to pick either the average street yard of the nearest two developed parcels along the same block face within the same zoning district or the base zoning district requirement. In this case, the other side of Ashley Street which is going to be, there's a parcel there that's an interestingly shaped parcel. So the street yard actually exceeds the base zoning district. So they chose the base zoning district which is going to be lesser than. The applicant will like to put a house that's approximately 30 feet wide on the parcel. The width of the parcel is roughly 53 feet wide and the minimum nine foot side yard is required within the RS eight zoning district including the required 25 foot street yard on stadium drive. The remaining width of the buildable area is roughly 19 feet wide. Therefore, in order to have a 30 foot wide home as proposed by the applicant, the street yard along stadium drive will need to be reduced from a 25 foot street yard to a 14 foot street yard to accommodate the width of the home desired and meet all other dimensional standards. So essentially to sum that up, the applicant is requesting an 11 foot variance to reduce the buffer of the street yard along stadium drive to 14 feet. The video section 3.14.8 establishes four findings that the applicant must make in order for the board to grant a variance. These findings are required to prove our identified in the staff report and the applicant's responses to the findings are identified in the application both of which are within your packet and staff will be available for any questions as needed during the hearing process. So Eliza, those good. Chad, you've got a question. Wouldn't be a board of adjustment meeting if I didn't have a question. Thank you Eliza. One quick question for you and it does maybe require a little speculation if that's the case and just let me know. My question is this, if stadium drive was treated as the front lot line for this piece of property, would it be necessary for them to have a variance? If stadium drive was treated as the street yard for this property. So I'm gonna go back actually to the context map to give a little bit. So if stadium drive was treated as the front yard or the street yard in this case, they would be able to place the structure within the range of homes located on stadium drive that within that block face. So hypothetically no, they would be in line with the other parcels along stadium drive. However, this parcel has a block face and street frontage to Ashley Street. So if it was on stadium drive and if they were able to, if they had a stadium drive address and were known within that block face in that context area, I do not believe they would need a variance as they would be within the range of the street yard setbacks along stadium. And that's because I'm not sure the exact measurements of the houses on stadium. Understood, understood. And one follow-up question, who made the decision that this lot was addressed off of Ashley Street? I believe that's something that would be during the original recording. This is a loud record that exists prior to the unified development ordinance that was adopted in 2006. So my assumption would be the recording record as well as possibly 911, E911 when they were giving out addresses. Okay, last question I swear. Is it possible for them to change the street address of the property so that it's addressed off the stadium? From what I understand, and I might reflect to those that are a little bit more familiar with addressing, the address that they have is the address that they have. And I believe that the changing of addresses is not really an encouraged practice, but unless another staff member knows differently. I believe 2700 Ashley is gonna be the address. Thank you. Any other questions for Eliza? I think Jessica might be able to chime in a little bit about the address. Hello, this is Jessica Dacre from the Planning Department. We do not issue those addresses, but we do it in conjunction with E911 and GIS. And there are ways to readdress a property, but it will take into account some factors that we are not cognizant of. I would believe because stadium is the busier road, it would make more sense for it to face Ashley, but there certainly appear to be houses along stadium as well. So there's no hard and fast rule that I'm aware of that would keep them from using that address. Hopefully that helps a little bit. Thank you. All right, any other questions for staff? All right, would the applicant like to come forward, Mr. Jolly? I don't have a great deal to add, except that the, as I think Eliza rightly noted, the residents across the street that is also a corner lot opposite Ashley, 2700 Ashley is built in such a way that it has a very small street yard on stadium. And the street yard that we would request on stadium would actually be greater than what appears on the building across the street. Essentially, this was a mid-century modern neighborhood built by George Birmingham. In fact, the house then that we would intend to build would be consistent with the appearance of both of the neighborhood or well, with the neighborhood that it would be a part of, assuming that it maintains its Ashley address. All right. Does anybody have any questions for the applicant? Mr. Rexels? Hi, yes. Hi, Mr. Mrs. Jolly. Did you hold off on making any plans for a house because you were hoping to get this approved first? Correct. We, that's great. And just asking, do you plan on putting a driveway off Ashley Street? I think we're required to. We would, of course we will. Our preference would be to have also a curb cut on stadium, but I think we have to go to NCDOT for that request so that we would effectively have sort of an L-shaped drive accessing both. But the stadium request may be denied just as a result of it being such a busy street, which is acceptable to us. How are you determining the proposed footprint on this plot? I'm sorry, how are we? How are you proposing this footprint that you grew in? I mean, how is this exactly what you're trying to build in the footprint with the measurements to the? Within a two foot give or take two feet either direction. I mean, no, if anything would be a 28 foot versus a 30, but the length of the building would be very, very close to what we proposed. Gotcha. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Tisha. Hi, Mr. Jolie. I have a quick question for you. Just a little clarity on the topography between this parcel and stadium drive. Is it level with that road or is it above or below? No, it drops very drastically from the north side to the south side. And so our intent is to actually build up one story with basically a carport and some living space or storage space below. I see. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Have you guys looked into the possibility of readdressing the site from stadium drive so that you don't have to get a variance? We have not. Okay. Thank you. Natalie, did you have something? I did, but Tisha asked it, so I'm good. Thanks. Does anybody else have any questions for the applicants? All right, is there anyone here to speak against this case? I need departments to analyze it here. No one has signed up an opposition to speak against this case. All right, thank you. Thank you. All right, Ben, let's, if there are no further questions of the applicant, let's have some board discussion. Thoughts on this case? Mr. Tarrant? Yeah, so just looking at this proposal, sort of the surrounding area, I know the application indicates that the proposed house is approximately 30 feet wide. I don't know that that's necessarily relevant in this particular case. I think just given the dimensions of the parcel, as Eliza summarized, leaving a remaining buildable area, buildable width, if you will, 19 feet, is, in my opinion, a significant hardship. I'm an older parcel that was planted many, many years ago. Also looking at the adjacent properties, which has been mentioned several times, long stadium drive with front setbacks off the stadium about 10 and 12 feet roughly. I feel like the proposal meets the spirit of the ordinance. Anyone else? Mr. Meadows? I concur with Mr. Tarrant. I'm ready to make a motion. All right, hold on for one moment. Does anyone else have anything? Mr. Rexels? Yeah, I think there's definitely some legal limitations created by other entities and I'm ready to vote on this. All right. Anyone else have any final thoughts? All right, Mr. Meadows, do you have a motion? I hereby make a motion that application B2100017, a request for a variance from the street yard setback infill development standards on property located at 2700 Ashley Street and successfully met the applicable requirements of the Unified Development Ordinance and is hereby granted, subject to the following conditions, that the improvements be substantially consistent with the plans and all information submitted to the board as part of the application. We've got a motion for approval by Mr. Meadows. Is there a second? Rexels second. Mr. Rexels, Susan, what did you call the board? Mr. Rexels? Yes. Ms. Weymour? Yes. Mr. Tarrant? Yes. Ms. Boshane? Yes. Mr. Rogers? Yes. Mr. Kip? Yes. Mr. Meadows? Yes. Motion carries seven to zero. Vote of seven to zero, your request for a variance has been approved. We thank you for coming before the BOA this morning and wish you the best of luck. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good day. All right, Susan, would you like to go ahead and call the next case? Case B2100018, a request for a variance from the maximum fence height to allow a height of six feet along the street frontage. The subject site is located at 5131 Granddale Drive, is zoned residential suburban and in the suburban tier. This case has been advertised for the required period of time and property owners within 600 feet have been notified. Notarized affidavits verifying the sign postings and letter melons are on file. And the seating for this case would be Mr. Kip, Mr. Meadows, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Wretchless, Ms. Weymour, Mr. Tarrant and Ms. Boshane. All right. Do we have the applicants on switched over? Hi, can you guys hear us? I can hear you. Can't see you. Oh, okay. We have our camera on and we can see you. Hold on one second. Join with video. We got kicked out like five seconds ago and said that we timed out so we had to jump right back in. Sorry about that. Okay. Okay. Can you guys hear us now? Yeah, we can hear you. Just can't see you. All right. So, Tilly, who is with you over there? So just so we know for the record, who all is? We may have lost them. Are you there? It also looks like they may have something blocking their camera because they're showing up as if their camera is on. So if we get them back, we may want to ask them about that. Yeah, I thought about that. Maybe it's a block. Can you guys hear us okay? Yes. Wondering about your camera. Do you have something blocking it there or it looks like it's on, but it's just blocked? Not that I can tell. We're looking at it. I mean, we see all of you guys, but we don't see ourselves either. All right. So can you tell us who's with you so that we have this for the record? Sure. This is Zara Lewis and my husband, Tilly Lewis is here with me as well. We're both the homeowners. Zara, did you get that, Susan? We have, just wanted to make sure we have that. All right. Well, we'll need both of you to raise your right hand. We'll do the oath. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you'll give today is the truth and nothing but the truth? I'll need to hear from both of you. Yes. Yes. And do you consent to the remote meeting platform? I'll need to also answer from both of you. Yes. Yes. All right. Thank you. Cole, is this one yours? Yes, it is. I'll turn it over to you. All right. Good morning. I'm Cole. Bye. Okay, so there it goes. Sorry, I was frozen for a moment. Good morning. I'm Cole Renegar, ever seen the plan environment. I'm in staff request to the staff board and all materials at the public hearings to be made part of the public record with any necessary corrections as noted. It's noted. Thank you, sir. I'm sorry, give me one second. B case, sorry. Case B21-00018. Is it request for variance from the requirements that the fence height can only be up to four feet along the street, Randall Drive. The applicant wishes to instead place a six foot fence. The case area is highlighted in red. The site is in the suburban tier, residential suburban RSTN is in, and it's within city of Durham jurisdiction. Existing use is a single family residence. Telelew's applicant and co-owner request variance from the requirements that fence height can only be up to four feet along the street. Randall Drive wishes to instead place a six foot fence for unified development ordinance, UDO section 9.9.1A, the mess might along a street fringe and the suburban tier is four feet. Staff will be available for any questions as needed during the hearing process. All right, does anybody have any questions for Cole? Chad, do you have one? I do, thank you. Good morning, Cole. It said that there is an existing fence on this property. I assume that is the fence that is shown at the back of the structure. There is not currently a fence around the perimeter of the property today. Is that accurate? That is accurate. And this applicant is seeking to surround the property with a fence along the perimeter. Is that accurate? I'm not sure about the whole perimeter. I'll let the applicant answer that, but I know they do plan to put one in the front in this one. Do we have any sort of plan or any sort of placement or notion about where the fence would be placed? Has that been provided as part of the application materials? It is not. The applicant does have some photos and some videos, but I don't know if that'll show where the fence would be around the perimeter of our home along our property line. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions for staff? Cole? Mr. Chan? This is kind of a two-part question. One for the applicant and then two for Cole. I guess, will the fence cross the driveway? Would it be gates along the driveway? Yes, I will. Okay. And then for Cole, then would require the stacking distances be required for those gates? Yes. So if there is a gate across the driveway, the required spaces, the stacking space would be required. The driveway looks as it may be long enough to meet those requirements. Thank you. All right, any other questions for Cole before we hear from the applicants? All right. Then we will turn it over to the applicants. Either one of you would like to give us an idea on what you're proposing here and where or anything you'd like to share with us. Sure. So I guess my husband and I, our residents of Durham and our home is situated on a 0.34 acre triangle shaped corner lot. Our parcels uniquely shaped with a state road, Granddale Drive in front of us and a private road, Daisy Road behind our home, which is owned by a separate HOA community. The majority of our land is located in the front and side of our home and our family, including young children and two dogs. Both of whom are quite active and one of whom is quite large have been living in the home for over five years. And during that time, we've seen a major increase in the population and traffic along Granddale Drive and Daisy Road. We've observed an increase in crimes, including home burglary. We've experienced vandalism and trespassing ourselves. And we've also witnessed an array of wild and domesticated animals running loose throughout our community, even on our property. In order to ensure the safety of our family, we're looking to install a six foot fence around the perimeter of our home, including on our frontage road. We would be installing a black aluminum, white vinyl combination fence, which are higher quality products to ensure that the home and neighborhood look aesthetically pleasing. And just to give you a little bit of background, our family recently installed security cameras, which help provide us with automatic updates on the crime stats in our neighborhood. And we've been becoming increasingly concerned about the increase in crime. Adding to our strong concerns most recently, our next door neighbor's home was robbed with her back door kicked in at six PM on a weekday when my entire family was home. We believe the individual entered from the front lawn because none of our back cameras were triggered. We also recently experienced trespassing on our property. And when we called the police, they didn't arrive until almost an hour later. By then the trespassers had already gone, but the way that they entered our property was by jumping the four foot fence that's a jay home that belongs to the neighboring HOA. For these reasons, for these set of reasons, we feel strongly that a six foot fence would provide our family with a lot more security. We've also seen that many residents in our neighborhood along, including us, are dog owners. Many of them walk their dogs on the sidewalk along the street and along Granddale Drive. Others prefer to walk their dogs directly in front of our home. They're countless individuals who live in the neighboring HOA who also have very large dogs that they walk around the back and perimeter of our home along Daisy Drive. Oftentimes we see these dogs loose without their owners roaming the neighborhood. And on several occasions, our neighbors' dogs got loose and ran directly onto our property from Granddale Drive. We also have our own large dog who's jumped to four foot fence in the past. And we just want to ensure that his safety, as well as the public safety, is taken into consideration. Having a higher fence would eliminate the possibility of our dog escaping and possibly getting hit by oncoming traffic as well as any of our neighboring animals being able to enter our property via Granddale Drive. To add more context directly in front of our home, there's also a bus stop for school-aged children. And we feel that having a large fence would help to protect them as well. Overall, the increased traffic on Granddale has led to a lot more individuals speeding along Granddale. We've witnessed this directly on our security cameras. And in fact, our own home property was vandalized twice once in front of our home on Granddale Drive where a mailbox and garbage can were destroyed. And a second time on the corner of Granddale Drive in Daisy Road where land and trespassing sign were destroyed. We're often awoken by the sound of constant traffic on Granddale. Ms. Lewis, I think we may have lost you. We do feel it'll help reduce it a little bit. I think you're back. Okay, great. We can hear you now. Awesome, sorry about that. I think just to wrap things up, we're just hoping that by granting this request and allowing us to install a six foot fence on our frontage road, the board would be helping to keep our family, our pets and the community more safe. And you'd also be helping to provide our family with more solace and the ability to really enjoy the entirety of our home and our property. Thank you, Ms. Lewis. Chad has had his hands up first, okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So a quick question. The fence placement, let me back up and be sure that I'm understanding everything that's at play here. I understand you want to surround the property with a fence. I understand that a six foot fence is permissible along lot lines that are not adjacent to the street. It's the fence that is adjacent to the street request for that to be six feet that's triggering the variance. So to my question, can you give me a sense of approximately where the fence would be located relative to your lot line? On the lot line, is it inwards from the lot line? It would be, we're looking to put it on the lot line. Okay, thank you. All right, Natalie. Are there any HOA requirements that you have to meet or six foot fence line? We're not part of an HOA. There's a neighboring HOA, but we're individual homeowners. We're not part of the homeowners association. So there's no additional rules besides the cities that we would need to ensure that we abide by them. Okay, and you're talking about a six foot, the whole perimeter will be six feet, not lower in the front, right? That is correct. Okay. Mike. Yes, I believe I saw in the application materials that the fence was going to be chain link. And then if I heard you correctly, it sounded like it's supposed to be some combination of black aluminum and white vinyl. That's correct. It was never supposed to be chain link. It's always been a black aluminum fence along the front of the property and vinyl, like white vinyl along the sides in the back. So no chain link at all. Like an aluminum picket fence in the front and then more of a white chatterbox style fence in the rear, is there? That is correct, yes. Thank you. All right, any other questions for the applicant? Mr. Retchels? Hi, yes. Did I hear you say you were proposing to cover the concrete driveway? We're looking to put a gate along the concrete driveway. Is this a sliding gate or an outward pivoting gate? Yeah, it's gonna be an outward pivoting gate, basically. So that'll have to probably pivot inside. Being you're pretty close to that road and it's a pretty wide driveway. That's right. I think I recall when the fence person came over that they had recommended the same that it should swing inwards towards the home work. Do you have any more material here to show us what that fence looks like, where it's really gonna go? It's generally gonna go right on the property line. That's what we were hoping. And the aluminum fence is just gonna drop right in front of the right there on the property line with the gate being on the concrete driveway. So you would imagine just an aluminum picket fence along Granddale Drive from left to right. And then the rest of the triangle shape that you see along the back and the side of the home would essentially be white vinyl. And we're looking to secure the whole perimeter of the home so it would be placed right on the property line. So this brick and wood sign also at the corner there on that corner, is that like to recognize the neighborhood? Are you covering that up? That's going to be, so that brick and wood sign we've already spoken, I guess to, we've had like our real estate person who's described to us that the brick and wood sign was essentially put in there when Settlers Mill several years ago used to be an HOA. There's actually a couple of brick and wood signs on the Settlers Mill part of the neighborhood. I think there's about three or four additional ones but Settlers Mill is no longer an HOA. And so he had indicated that it would not be an issue for us to cover it. We just are not gonna break it. We're just gonna put our fence alongside it. So behind it. That is correct, yeah. Gotcha. So I just got to ask if you, I know you're only going two feet up but if you tried to design something a little less, I don't know what the word they call it, like maybe a four foot in the front and a six foot along the sides in the back is that it's gonna be six foot all the way around, right? Yeah, we have a large dog. He's a rock waller and we just want to have him have access to our property the same way our family has access to the property. And the only way we can I guess have this or have him wander around the whole property is to put it around the perimeter. And we just feel that that would be more sufficient than just fence in the back. It would give him more territory to roam. All right, and we've also as mentioned we've experienced personally people trespass on our property by jumping a four foot fence. And so that just adds to our concern not just with the pets but also with individuals as well. And I would like to say the things that you're referencing we do have pictures and videos if you guys would like to see those, please let me know. Yes, I would, please. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, absolutely. I'm gonna start off with the pictures since they're easier to share and then go to the videos from there. Just you guys are there opening. Here is the crime grade that they were referencing earlier about other video camera captures of the crime. That's a website for the dog fence, hold on. Here is the mailbox, I believe, vandalism. That's correct. As well as the other vandalism they experienced. And then I'll show the videos but hold up separately so it can be seconds. Here's just a short traffic video of the increased traffic. Yeah, and here you could even see someone walking their dog that gets picked directly up off of his feet from the traffic and he falls onto the ground, it's just, and it's like that all day long. Uh-huh, and then there is also an additional video of the trespassing for the four foot fence. Yeah, they had climbed over that four foot fence and we're on the back of our property right there. And this video, is there any else having on this video, Telly? Or is it just a long video? Yeah, it's just a longer video. I'm gonna go ahead and pause this and there's no more jumping back and forth. Thank you, Cole. Tisha, did you have a question? I saw your hand up. No, it was answered by a question, yeah, thank you. Chad? Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's a question for the applicant. So essentially the rationale, the basis for the variants that you're requesting, which is again, the six feet along the front yard, is that you don't believe that a four foot fence would be sufficient to contain your dog. Is that accurate? Not only our dog, but I believe our neighbors, animals as well. We live directly across the street from several families who have large pets themselves, who have wandered onto our property a couple times. And so we believe a six foot fence would secure not only our family, but also our pets. Have you seen those animals on neighbors property as well? Yes, we have. Yes. We actually submitted a video of the dog roaming, but I think because there might have been a little, like I think the resident was also slightly in the video. And so unfortunately we weren't able to submit that for privacy concerns, but there have been countless times where the dogs are roaming onto our property, sometimes onto the neighbors, but because we're directly across the street, they tend to wander directly onto ours across Granddale. Thank you. Any other questions for the applicant? You did. I think you're muted, Mike. Sorry, Rachel's here. Do we know the setback off the street from the front of the house? Like, what is that from the property line to the street? What is that distance? Do we know? Well, I mean, it looks about their driveway for not necessarily the brick steps, but from the covered porch, it looks to be about 36 feet. So from the property line, of their property line to the street? To the edge of the pavement. To the edge of the pavement. I don't have the exact measurements there. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Tarrant. Set up, follow up question for Cole, just to make sure I fully understood this. As long as the fence was in line with the building line, it could be six feet tall by right without the variance around both the side and the rear portions of the property, right? It's only if it's closer to the street than the building line. That's correct. That's correct for like the side that is facing the back of the property. So it could extend left along Granddale, but then it could not go in front of the front building line. Thank you. All right, any further questions for the applicant? For Cole. All right. Well, let's have some discussion. Cole, will you, would you mind stop sharing? Yeah. All right, any thoughts on this case? This is Chad. So I'm a no on this one. I'm not sure where the fence is gonna be. I don't know what the fence is gonna look like. I haven't seen any compelling evidence that there's a hardship here that's not endured by other members of the community. Applicant mentioned that the dogs in question that are coming onto their property are also coming onto their neighbor's property. And I'm not sure that a four foot versus a six foot fence is, I don't know that the extra increment of two foot of fence is gonna make that much of it is gonna enable a dog to get into their yard or not. Certainly they could have a six foot fence in their front yard as long as it was behind the front building facade elevation. So based on the testimony and evidence I've received I'm not sure that they've met the test of hardship and that's my stance. I'm happy to hear people, you know, tell me I'm crazy. Sorry, staff about to interject. We do have an approximate measurement from the street pavement to the property line. It is about 20 feet. Yes, sir, and I'm that information. Thank you, Cole. Is there any opposition, Chairman? Oh, thank you. Is there anyone here speaking against this? No one has registered. This dude's not registered. I think Mike, you had your hand up first. I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Meadows. I, you know, I'm very sympathetic and hate that the applicant has experienced the issues of crime and violence that they have on their property. But I think from a development ordinance standpoint, I don't know that that's necessarily a hardship that we can evaluate and point to specific parts of the unified development ordinance. So likewise, I'm not sure that there's a hardship that exists related to the parcel itself to which we can evaluate this variance. Can I speak for a moment? I'm just wondering how it's, I guess I'm just wondering how the hardship if majority of our property is in the front of our home, the back, like the way that our property is shaped is a very strange triangle shape. And we can't even enjoy our 0.34 acres that we are paying property taxes on. Our animals can enjoy it. We're not feeling comfortable with our children enjoying it because we've firsthand experienced trespassing by individuals and we have firsthand experienced animals on the front of our property. And so all we want to do is be able to enjoy that property and we feel that our request is in the spirit of what we're trying to do and to keep the neighborhood safe. We certainly wouldn't want to be held liable. We know that our dog specifically has jumped over the four foot fence before. And if that's the case, we just want to make sure that everybody's safe. And so we think it would be a little bit neglectful to not approve the increase to a six foot fence, especially being that the fence is, it's an aluminum fence that can be seen through. We're getting higher quality materials. All that we're asking is to be able to enjoy our home that we've paid taxes on for the past five years and to allow, and to keep our neighborhood safe as well in the process. Thank you, Ms. Lewis. Natalie, did you have something you had your hand up? I did. My question was about opposition, but then St. Tarrant asked that. So I'm good. Thanks. Thank you. Tisha, you have something? Well, I just want to continue with some discussion, I suppose, with the rest of the board. And in my feeling, after hearing the testimony about the fence materials, I mean, I believe that they are doing what they need to do to meet the stacking requirement for the driveway. And also the fence type is in compliance, I want to say with the type of fence that people will have in their front yards versus their privacy fences in the backyard. So I believe that they're trying to maintain compliance with the UDA as much as possible. But I want to speak in favor of having that barrier between trespassers coming on your property and big dogs also, because I believe, I'm in favor of fences because of animals wandering into the street, potential for children to be also getting in the street and also people coming onto property. So I'm in favor of the type of fencing they're trying to put there and also what they're trying to do. Thank you, Tisha. I want to, I got a couple of things that I think the issue here is safety. They've provided some evidence that demonstrates some issues. I also think that this is a peculiar piece of property because it's on this corner that their neighbor doesn't necessarily share or even got two doors down, may not share. It's not the same thing as net storage. It's just a peculiar piece that even has road frontage on both sides, you can see that. And I've visited, I drove past this site on Sunday. So as I do on all of our cases, but I see this as a safety issue. I think that the issue at hand is a four foot over a two foot. I don't really see an issue with that. Also, I think it'd be different and maybe I'd feel a little bit different if it was this six foot wood privacy fence along the front. We've seen those in places before. I mean, this is white vinyl fencing. It's, I'm sure to look really good in front of their homes and I'm sure that sounds like they've kind of gone through all kinds of materials and research what would be a good option. Also think of this as a safety thing, not only with pets, but I would sure want to, given where this property is located. I don't know if I'd want somebody walking through my yard when I've got a young one outside that's playing or trying to ride a bicycle or anything else. I think that that's an issue. I could see how that could be an issue. So from a safety standpoint and also with the peculiar placement or I would say location of this with an angle of where that entrance sign is, I guess, for the neighborhood, but that kind of angle, I think that I could see how I'm in favor of that just because we're talking two feet. You could see through the fence, it's not gonna be, we've talked about this around the perimeter. I don't think that is, I don't think it's unreasonable. That's my thoughts. Chad, you've got something? I don't. The issue is, they could have a fence. Nobody's saying they can't have a fence. It turns on the issue of the extra two feet and it turns on the issue of presentation of evidence about why that extra two feet is necessary. I'm not moved that the rationale for the additional two feet has met the standard. That's all. I agree with everything you said and their right to safety and they can have a fence and there's nothing that stops them from doing that. They could even have a six foot fence in the front yard as long as it was behind the front facade plane. The issue is what's the standard and what's the requirement and what's the evidence about why the requirement can't be met. And that's where I'm coming from. I feel like they did show evidence of that video and pictures as in my thoughts. Anyone else? Mr. Ritchells? These are the hard variances. I hate to even consider, this is a hard one. Yeah, there's a safety issue, no doubt. I wish I had more evidence backing up why two feet would make more sense. And, you know, substantial justice also plays a part as in, you know, if this variance is approved then everybody else in that neighborhood can have a six foot fence going down the front of their property. That's what substantial justice is in this case. I would like to see just a little more accommodation to the neighborhood and your neighbors. Being there's nobody here to speak against it. I just, I want the fairness of approving this with more evidence. I just wanted to mention that our home facing the frontage road of Granddale Drive is not quite common. If you drive along Granddale Drive, most of the neighbors' homes are faced inwards. So the sides of their homes are located along Granddale but not the frontage. The frontage road, there's ourselves, our neighbor and there's one additional home, just really the only three of our homes that are facing the frontage road of Granddale. And so I feel that this is also a very unique situation whereby most of those individuals whose homes are not facing Granddale have six foot fences but it's just along the side of their home versus the frontage road of their home. And so it is a little bit more unique in this circumstance. Ms. Lewis, do you have any evidence supporting what you just said? I don't know if can we share like a Google Maps or I don't know if it's possible for anyone to share a Google Map because you can certainly see the homes. Yeah, directly across from us on Granddale is situated on the side in which they have a six foot right there less than I would say, what would you say? Maybe a few feet from the street. So. I don't know if anyone's, if it's possible, Cole or anyone to share Google Maps but if anyone even just types in our home address and just looks at the street view, you can go along the street view and you'll see my home with two homes adjacent to us to the left. And we're the only three homes that face Granddale Drive if you zoom and go straight down Granddale in one direction, you'll see that there's no home space in Granddale. If you go in the other direction across Granddale you're gonna see that there's no home space in Granddale. All of the homes are in the streets that are adjacent to Granddale and they all face inwards. And so we're really the only three frontage homes for several blocks going in one direction and for several blocks going the other. It's quite a long stretch for you to see. That's why these homes stand out quite a bit because they're literally facing the frontage road. Are those arms working on pulling up an aerial? So we'll have that shortly. Great. And I also just wanna make a mention, you'd mentioned that it's only two feet and there's no evidence showing that the two feet would make a difference but we do have videos. Yeah, so you can see our picture the corner home and those are the two homes next to us. And then everything else, all of those other homes are facing the adjacent streets by Settlers Mill. If you see directly across our home, the side home directly across the street from us, that's a six foot fence right there but it's the side of his home. So it's not an issue, right? If you go across, you'll see several homes the same way. They're all kind of tucked in with the side of their property line having the six foot fences. But there's nothing really on Granddale if you go along one way and you go along the other. You'll just see that those are our three homes that face with our frontage road facing Granddale. So it is quite unique in that way. You know, and another thought I had was that these property owners, the neighbors were notified about this. Correct. And I would hope, I certainly hope that the applicant has talked with at least a few of them about it. I wouldn't mind hearing a little bit more in a moment about that but they also had the opportunity to attend this meeting and they were given, you know, many of these were probably get, well, not probably they were served with notice of this. So, you know, nobody shows up to show support for a case. They always show up to oppose a case. That's generally what we see. So, and we all know this. But so I, again, I'm not sure. I have no issue with that. Ms. Lewis, do you wanna talk about any, you know, just a quick, briefly, any discussions and you can't necessarily tell us what neighbors have told you but have you had any discussions with your neighbors? Yes, yes, we have several times. Most recently we had discussions with a lot more neighbors than we had ever known before, mainly because as I mentioned, the home directly next door to us had a home invasion just a couple of months ago. And so when that happened to her, we had worked with the Durham city police department to try and organize a meeting with all of our neighbors to see, like to think about ways that we may be able to get a couple of signs out and, you know, just keep our neighborhood a little bit more safe. And in order to get the neighbors to dial into the call, we walked door to door to all of our neighbors and explained to them what happened and explained to them that we're just trying to kind of mobilize the community. And at the same time, we had also spoken to them about our concerns regarding how these people were able to get onto our neighbor's property and discussion of our six foot fence had taken place during that time as well with several neighbors. And nobody seemed to oppose it. They actually thought it was a great idea for us to have a six foot fence. So yeah, we did have many discussions. And since they're not here, we can't really take that, but I appreciate you answering that. All right, Cole, would you mind stop sharing and let's, for the folks who have an issue with this, you know, we have the option of continuing this case another month. But can you give us some specifics on if we were to continue exactly what you're looking for on? This is Chad and I would like to suggest the possibility that the applicant have an opportunity to come back with some additional information about where the fence is located relative to the lot line in the street. So that we can- If the fence is directly on our property line, would that change anything? Because we're pretty much want to put it directly on our property line. So I'm not sure what we can bring in that would change that plan. I have nothing else to say. Thank you. Mr. Rathcose, I know, or Tarrant Mike, I'm sorry. Again, I don't have any issue with the additional height of the fence. I think my concern still is surrounding the fencing in the front yard, right? All of the references that were discussed around the surrounding properties. If you look at the front yards, the fencing still starts at the building line and then meets ordinance requirements. Looking at the size of the parcel over 50% of the parcel is behind the front building line and that fence is allowed at six feet by right. So I'm still having a hard time understanding how surrounding the entire property with a six foot fence, six foot tall fence is meeting the spirit and intent of the ordinance, right? I think I understand the safety concerns. I understand large dogs can jump fences that are four feet high. I'm just having a hard time really understanding how we're meeting the spirit and intent of the ordinance by surrounding the front yard with the fence. All right. Okay, has anybody else have issues with this? I'd like to just see some more, I'd like to see a plan. I'd like to see how the gate's gonna work. I'd like to see a plan. That's where I'm at. And I'm welcome to have them come back and I see a little more polished version of what they're trying to do. But I'm having a hard time with this. Thank you. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis, you don't have the votes to approve your variance today. So we'll, you kind of got an idea on what we can do. I encourage you to stick it through. I know that these process is something that the average homeowner does not go through often and can seem very arduous and time consuming. And sometimes it doesn't make sense, I totally understand. But if you'd like, we could certainly continue your case until next month and maybe you guys could just come up with a quick drawing of where you'd like to put this and a little bit of information. And then we could hear it again next month that I think it's our June 27th meeting. What are you okay with that? You know, to be perfectly honest, we're not okay with it. We're a little confused as to why these gentlemen are having a difficult time understanding our safety concerns with our pets as well as our children. But more importantly, the fact that we're home owners and we pay for our property and the fact that we are not allowed to put a fence up in front of our just two feet in front of our home to secure the safety of our children as well as our pets and to say that that does not mean a hardship, considering the fact that we're sitting over here with a triangle shaped parcel. We're just trying to be great residents in our community and we're trying to avoid any type of issues moving forward. I have a large dog, like I said and I'm trying to maintain his safety as well as my children. And if these gentlemen can't understand that, I really don't understand that. We made it very clear. We wanted a vinyl fence in the back, vinyl fence on the side and aluminum fence in the front, all six feet. I don't understand why. I'm just not clear on what else we can come back with. I mean, we brought videos and pictures. Our home personally has been vandalized and trespassed. I just don't know what else we can bring back because we certainly don't feel like, it's been five years, we haven't put up a fence. Our kids haven't been able to be out there so I just don't know what else we can bring. I totally, I understand and sympathize with your frustrations honestly and I will say there is a war on private property rights and this is an issue and I do agree with you. If you would, you know, the staff are more than willing and able to talk with you about this and maybe can help you. I'll give you some direction on this but I think right now we need either a motion to continue or a motion to approve. And I think we, you know, think there are, you know, we could get by with a motion to continue the case so we can have this next month. Is there a motion to continue? This is Meadows, I'll make a motion that we continue this case to our next regular meeting. Oh, Shane, second. Second by Natalie. Susan, I call everyone. Mr. Kip. Yes. Mr. Meadows. Yes. Mr. Rogers. Yes. Mr. Ruchlas. Yes. Ms. Weymour. Yes. Mr. Tarrant. Yes. Ms. Boshane. Yes. All right. Ms. Boshane carries seven to zero. We'll hear this case again at our next meeting, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis. I appreciate your time this morning. We'll continue it next month. Thank you. All right. Before next case, would we like to take a 10-minute break or would that be okay with everyone? 10 minutes. Mike, you got something? No, yes, please. Thank you. You were thinking the same thing, all right? Yes. And Tisha, I know you've got to leave before we break. Do you want to go ahead and leave now and we'll have Jessica sit in on your spot? Well, I don't have to leave until like 10 minutes before 12, but. Well, I think we'll anticipate this case going a little after that. No, boo. Okay. All right. All right, well, I just wanted to just run that by you. All right, well, we'll come back. It is 10-17. Let's just make it an even 10-30, 13 minutes. All right, we'll see you at 10-30. Hey, Jacob. Hi. You're on mute. Can I sit in still and just not vote until I need to leave or do you want me to just not? I think you're welcome, Brian, is that, you know, is that? Well, just tell me after the break, Elvie. I mean, that's fine. She can listen to the case. She just can't deliberate. So, you know, whoever's going to be sitting in her place will have to also listen because they're going to have to deliberate, but she's certainly entitled to sit there and listen if she would like to do that. Okay. Yeah, just so I don't have to leave until almost noon. That's all. I just feel like I should do it. All right, if for some reason, if for some reason the case is concluded before she has to leave, she still cannot deliberate because she's not going to be seated for the case. Got it. Got it. And Tisha, you can always watch on YouTube as well as streaming right now. So, that's an option too. Okay. No, it's just that I have, I've attended to be here until almost noon. But that's okay. I'll just, I'll just go. Thanks. That's good to see you. All right, well, thanks again. Hey, Rick, this is Chris Peterson from staff. I have a quick question. So, we have a lot of people registered to speak for this next case, but some may not intend to actually speak. If I might suggest, can we possibly do a ask everyone to, if they do intend to speak and give testimony today, to raise their hand so that way we can just bring in those who do have intention to participate. And so we don't have to take a oath for everyone who's not going to be sharing today. Okay. That's a good idea. Do you want, are you going to want to bring those over now? Yeah, it's easier to just bring them all over now. And I see your hands actually already going up. So if you could just give us just a few minutes and bring those individuals over. And just bear with me one minute. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Jessica, you'll be seated on this case. And I believe I have everybody, but you have one caller individual ending in 1855. Do you press star nine or star six, if you intend to speak at this hearing? Do you repeat that again? I think you cut out. Vickery, I'm trying to join this meeting. I've been requesting to be heard. I've been asking for an access number to get online. Cole Reigner knows that I've been trying to get on. I just hadn't been given the access. Okay. I'll communicate with Cole Renegar and see if we can get you a link. And so I'll, we'll send that to you. Does Cole Renegar have your email? Okay. I will communicate with him and hopefully have you over shortly. And this is the last call to anyone else in the lobby. If you would like to speak on this meeting, please raise your hand so that we can bring you over. All right, Chair, I believe that's everyone and we'll work on this last individual to bring them in as well. Just make sure to have their link. But I believe this is everyone who attends to speak today. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. So anyone who does plan to speak will need your video on. But first, Susan, would you call this case? Yes. Case B2100019, a request for minor special use permit for a significant alteration to an approved minor special use permit. The subject site is located at 1004 North Mancom Street, is zoned residential urban and residential urban and in the urban tier. This case has been advertised for the required period of time and property owners within 600 feet have been notified. Notarized affidavits verifying the sign postings and letter mailings are on file. And to verify the seating for this case, it is Mr. Kip, Mr. Meadows, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Wretchless, Ms. Major, Mr. Tarrant, and Ms. Bochang. All right. Thank you. I want to quickly go over our procedure again just so everybody knows. I know this is quite different from a city council meeting or planning commission meeting. The Board of Adjustment is quasi-judicial, so it's much like a court proceeding. So it's a little different. And we're going to follow this process that I lay out here. Again, first, the staff will present this case. Secondly, the applicant presents their evidence. Then the next would be the opponents present their evidence. And then the applicant can at that time provide a rebuttal across it and then across examination. If requested, it can occur, much like a court proceeding. And then we will, after the Board asks questions to any, or gets any all answers, all questions answered, excuse me, from the applicant and the opponents, we, the Board will go into deliberation. And at this time, the members themselves can ask questions to certain individuals, but at that time we'll no longer take questions. So, and we also ask, and we put it in the chat just now, if multiple people are providing the same or similar testimony, we ask to kind of reduce the redundancy of maybe appoint someone who can give that testimony. And we certainly can, since we've got everybody on the screen, we can either see you with a hand raised or something like that or nod your head to show that you support whatever is being said. Individuals who are not subject to experts will get two minutes to provide testimony. It's something that's different about a BOA. We make decisions based on, or we have to make decisions based on findings of fact, and that's what we're going to go to today. So, BOA, do you, oh, I've got to, how did I get on this spotlight? Maybe not, I don't know how this happened. I need to- I'm going to ask Chris Peter, I was doing so many people trying to spotlight just the speakers. Okay, I'm going to go to the gallery real quick, just so I can, I'm going to have to administer the oath. So, whoever plans on speaking today, everyone will need to take the oath, and so I'm going to minister to each one. I'll call you individually to get your answers, and then we're going to move forward. So, if you'll raise your right hand, do you swear or affirm that the testimony you'll give today is the truth and nothing but the truth? James Caldwell. I affirm. Diane Rodelli, are you speaking? I will have Ginny Seitz speak on my behalf. Okay, thank you. Going just going through this, sorry guys. Virginia Seitz? Virginia, you're on mute. I'm sorry we didn't hear you. Sorry. Yes, I affirm. Grayson Bauer. Yes, I affirm. Adam Hale. Hi, Hale. Yes, I affirm. Amy Hurwitz. Yes, I affirm. Frank Gray. I do. Andrew Hilton. Yes, I affirm. Julia Cartrelli. I affirm. The person on the phone ending in 1885. Chris, what's the star nine? Jim Vickers. Star six to unmute Mr. Vickers, and we just sent the invite for you as well. Star six. All right, we'll come back. Angel Escobar. Yes. Kimberly Glenn. I affirm. Vince Vincent. I affirm. Joyce Wintermagell. I affirm. And I'm going to have Julia Gartrell speak on my behalf. All right, we will. All right, Susan Johns. I affirm. Jane Lear. I affirm. And Julia Gartrell will be speaking on my behalf as well. Thank you, Kevin Franks. Sorry, I affirm. And I will have Julia speak on my behalf as well. All right, Ruby Tompkins. Got you on here. We got you. All right, Nicholas Levy. I affirm. And we'll also have Julia Gartrell speak on my behalf. All right, just before we should we Okay, never mind. Gene Howard. I affirm. Mike Torrance. I affirm. Frank Borden. I affirm. Rachel Wilson. I affirm. And Julia Gartrell will be speaking on my behalf. Thank you. Rebecca Conrad. I affirm Julia Gartrell will be speaking on my behalf as well. Jacob. I affirm Julia Gartrell will be speaking on my behalf as well. Jim Baker. I do. Then we've got Lucia Constantine. Laura Morrison. Do we get you? I affirm and Julia Gartrell will be speaking on my behalf. All right, I think I got everyone. I'm just quickly going over everybody. All right, now the next thing we have to do is we're going to the next question is do you consent to this remote meeting platform? I'm going to go through everybody as well. James Caldwell. I consent. Diane Rodelli. I'm sorry, I couldn't hear that. Consenting to this remote meeting platform. Yes, I do. Thank you. Sorry, guys. Amy Hurwitz. Consent. Excuse me, I consent. Adam Haley. Haley. I consent. Grayson. I do. Virginia. I consent. Mr. Escobar. I think I got that. Julia Gartrell. I consent. Andrew Hilton. I consent. Frank Gray. I consent. Rest it up. Kimberly Glenn. I consent. Vince Vincent. I consent. Ruby Tompkins. I consent. Kevin Franks. I consent. Susan Johns. I consent. Frank Borden. I do. Mike Torrance. I consent. Jean Howard. I consent. Nicholas Levy. I consent. Jim Baker. I consent. Jacob. We share the same name. I consent. Laura Moore. I consent. Rachel. Wilson. And then either Lucia or Lucia, Constantine, I'm not. I'm not. We've got, if you do plan on giving testimony, we'll need to hear from you, but maybe not if you're not playing on it. All right. Bo, I think this is, are you taking this over? All right. Chris, have you got first? Chris, do you have a question? If I tried to remove those individuals who are asking Julia Gartrell to speak on their behalf, if I missed someone, can you please raise your hand? And then we'll just bring you back as an attendee, but we have listed you as that. We're just trying to kind of tidy up the audience a little bit if that's okay. Thank you, Mr. Levy. I'll bring you back over as well. Thank you very much for your time, everyone. And Chris, did you have something? Yeah. Thanks, Mr. Chair. Chris to Cougar, a city attorney's office. Since it seems that there are a few individuals who are speaking on behalf of other individuals, you know, that sort of outset, the board's kind of by some consensus set the expectation two minutes for non-expert testimony. And I just wanted to revisit that and ask whether two minutes still felt the right amount of time or the board wanted to give a few more minutes for those people who are speaking on behalf of others. Well, for, sounds like Julia Gartrell has, is going to be speaking for a lot of folks. So we can, with the board, I mean, do you guys have, are you fine with five minutes for her? I see a nod from Natalie. That was, that sounds fun to me. Okay. So Julia, you'll have five. All right. Ms. Virginia, do you have something? Yes. I, for the record, I claim expertise and I can explain why. I have a doctorate in environmental design and planning and expertise in participatory research and planning and in social impact assessment. I was senior director and practice lead for social and gender impact assessment for over $8 billion of U.S. foreign assistance aid towards the end of my career. So I hope that I am considered an expert witness. Okay. Krista, I need some guidance here. Do we need, do we have Virginia's resume? Do we need something like that on the record? I think it would be helpful. Most certainly we could ask her to sort of repeat that into the record because I think there was a lot that she just explained. You know, I think there's a few specific items that are called out by statute that experts are required for. Those items are valuation of the property and traffic impacts. I'm not sure exactly for what purpose Ms. Sites is claiming expertise and that may be helpful to explore a little further. Okay. Well, Jen, besides, I think once we get to your testimony, we'll revisit that at this time, if that's all right, just to give kind of a point of order if you will. So we'll make sure to address that and put it in the record as needed. Bo, I'm going to turn it over to you. Mr. Chair, before we get started, I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. We've got, we've got more questions. Adam, you have something real quick. I'm sorry, I just received a call from Amy Hurwitz who's speaking opposition. She accidentally raised her hand and got removed to the attendee section and asked if she could be brought back into the panelists. Hi, Chris. I hope you saw that. And Chad, do you have something? I did, Mr. Chair. I wanted to, for the record, I wanted to indicate that I did receive a letter from a Carol Carino dated May 13th in reference to this case. I have not spoken with the author of this letter, but I want it, and I turned over a copy just to ask if I wanted you to know. And I did receive that. I assume that other people on the board did as well. I don't know. I did not receive any letters. Okay. All right. I think we're ready. I apologize for, for continuing to interrupt you. It's all yours. No, that's great, but glad to see the participation. Morning, everyone. My name is Bo Dabrinsky. I'll be representing the planning department. I'll give you a brief presentation to introduce this case. Please note that the staff report and all materials shall be submitted as a part of the public record. And this is not any necessary corrections as noted. Oh, so noted. Thank you. Case B, 21-00019 is an application for a special use permit. The request is for a significant alteration to an approved minor special use permit. The original permit was for the expansion of the existing non-residential use at this location. This is for a non-residential use in our residential district. James Caldwell of McAdams is the applicant. He's specifically requesting to add relating to the previously approved soccer field that was associated with the Durham Nativity School located at 1004 North Magnum Street. This property is located in the urban tier and is split-zoned RU-5 and RU-5-2 and is within the city of Durham jurisdiction. As you see on this map of the surrounding properties, there's an RU-5, RU-5-2 with a small corner of OI to the southwest. Many of the uses are single-family or duplex. There is an existing bed and breakfast to the south. The existing use at the site is a place of worship and educational facility, the middle school. UDO section 112, the use table, allows educational facilities and their accessory uses to be permitted in a residential district with the approval of a marks-based use permit issued by the Board of Adjustment. Section 3.98 in the Unified Development Ordinance establishes the findings and the 13 review factors that the applicant must meet in order for the use permit to be issued. These have been identified in your staff report, as well as an application with the applicant's responses to the area of photo showing the existing conditions on the site. The church and school associate parking, the proposed soccer field that was permitted is located here on the eastern side. I'd like to give a little bit of additional background or context for this case as sort of the sequence of events are somewhat unusual before you. As previously referenced, on January 22, 2019, this Board approved a minor special use permit at this location for educational facility. The improvements associated consisted of construction of the soccer field associated with the school and there was a corresponding site plan D1800190, also included in your packet. A site plan was subsequently submitted to convert the grass play area to artificial turf. The site plan permitted the removal of trees as well as measures to address the additional burial service. The removal of these trees was permitted per the Unified Development Ordinance. It was determined at that time that the site plan was consistent with the intent of the originally approved minor special use permit. However, the site plan also included six light poles in order to light the field. These should not have been approved and the site plan was partially approved in error as the inclusion of this lighting is considered a significant alteration to the previously approved special use permit. Subsequently, it requires board adjustment review today. A couple of things to note. The proposed lighting is exempted from the specific design requirements in section 7.4 of the UDO as associated with the recreation activity. However, it is required to meet the minor special use permit requirements referenced in your staff report. Also for background, the poles have been installed by the applicant on site as there was a permit issued and then subsequently rescinded. They have been informed that if this request is not approved, they would have to remove the light poles. These light poles have not received connection to electrical service. There's two minor corrections to the staff report that I would also like to note. The site plan D2000030 was referenced as an amendment to clarify it was considered an amendment to the originally approved special use permit. However, it was submitted as a new application for the purpose of the site plan review. I think that's fairly inconsequential, but I want to give you all the context. Additionally, there was a reference in the staff report to the original date of the Nativity Schools being or establishing at that location that date seems to have been incorrect. Representing the school here could probably verify. It does appear with some additional information that the school was more likely established in 2007 or 2008. However, the use permit that was issued in January of 2019 is what is legally established the use of this property. Staff is available for questions throughout the hearing. That's all for this report. Thank you, Bo. Are there any questions for Bo from board members only at this time? May I just get clarity on the actual status? So, Bo, you said that the electrical lights are in place, but the applicant has been informed that if this is not approved today, they would remove the lights. Is that right? That's correct. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any other questions for both? All right. Would the applicant please come forward? And who will be the first to speak? Mr. Gray, are you with the applicant? Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. Frank Gray, if you allow me to say a few things on the preliminary remarks. All right. Are you the one representing the applicant? Just want to make sure I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. My name is Frank Gray, and I'm an attorney practicing with the Jordan Price Group in Raleigh, and I'm pleased to represent the Duram Nativity School this morning. I thought it would be helpful if I gave a forecast, a preview of how our witnesses are prepared to testify this morning, and with your permission, I'll just give a brief overview. We have three expert witnesses we have Mr. James Caldwell with McAdam Civil Engineering, and we offer him as an expert in the field of civil engineering. We have Mr. Mike Torrance, and we offer Mr. Torrance as an expert in the field of design and installation of lighting. And third, we have Mr. Keenan Borden, and we offer him as an expert in the field of real estate appraisal. We then will have several witnesses from the school. We have both the head of school and two members of the board, and possibly a staff member, and we understand from your guidance that there will be limited to two minutes each, and they will try their best to respect that time limit. And then as you heard in the introduction, we have a number of neighbors who would like to testify in support of the application, and Ms. Julia Gartrell is on the call, and thank you for giving her a little bit of extra time. She will speak on behalf of neighbors who support the application, and then you can call on the other neighbors to raise their hand who support her position. And with that, I would just like to say briefly that we understand that you were guided by the UDO in this matter for a minor special use permit, and we understand that the UDO has the general findings, and then the list of 13 review factors. Our team is prepared to answer questions on any of those items as the hearing progresses, but our focus will be on two items. First is the lighting, and second is the effect on adjacent properties. So that will be our focus, but we're happy to answer questions on anything that the board has interest in. All right, before we hear from the applicant's witnesses, are there any questions for Mr. Gray from the board? All right, Mr. Gray, who's the first? We're going to call Mr. James Caldwell with McAdam firm. All right, Mr. Caldwell, will you tell us, give us a little bit of background on you to explain your expertise quickly? Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Chairman Rogers. My name is James Caldwell. I'm with McAdams. I've been with McAdams for 17 years. As Mr. Gray noted, I'm a civil engineer. I'm a registered professional engineer in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. I also hold City of Durham BCE and BMC certifications. I serve as the Director of the Education and Health Care Department at McAdams, and I've been designing and permitting site plans, construction drawings, and record drawings in Durham for 17 years. Prior to McAdams, I served as the Assistant State Dam Safety Engineer for the State of North Carolina. I worked at a local geotechnical engineering firm, and I served in the Peace Corps in El Salvador. Prior to that, I received my Bachelor of Science in Engineering from North Carolina State. Thank you, sir. Continue with whatever if you have anything. Oh, thank you. Bo, if you could switch to the next slide, please. So, as Mr. Gray noted, what we want to talk about today is really the changes from the original site plan and the original minor special use permits. I want to make sure we're clear on this, that the project has an existing minor special use permit and approved site plan. The major changes were changing the field from natural to synthetic turf, and as you'll see in our timeline in just a second, after the approval of the site plan for the grass field, the Durham Nativity School elected to pursue due diligence to look at the benefits of synthetic turf, which include drainage improvements, lower cost of maintenance, and eliminating the need to grow and maintain grass, which we all know here in Durham can be quite a challenge. So, in the interest of playability and student safety, the school decided to change the field to synthetic turf. The second major change is adding lights to the project, and these lights were added solely to extend the use of the fields in the winter hours. It's also important to note that the field and lights are an amenity only to the school, and no expansion of the school is proposed. All of the review factors in our application have been addressed accordingly, and we would like to provide additional detail on items number four for lighting, and number 10 for the effects on adjacent property. So, Bo, if you could go to the next slide, please. This slide lists the approvals and permits and is similar to the list that Bo had previously. In January 2019, the site plan and minor special use of permit were approved for the grass field. In September of 2020, a new site plan was approved with synthetic turf and lighting, and it's important to note that the lighting met the UDO requirements, including a photometric design for the lights. In March of 2021, a land disturbance permit was issued from Durham County. Construction drawings were issued from the city of Durham. A DOT encroachment agreement was issued for the connection of the storm drain pipe to Rocksboro Road, and a city of Durham electrical permit was issued for connection of the lights. Why is it important to know this? It's important to understand the volume and depth of all the approvals that have been required to get the project to this point. April 20th of 2021, Durham called to rescind the electrical permit and require the Board of Adjustment approval. This was a huge blow to our client and something I've never seen before. Our client was advised on all of the approvals and permits and acted accordingly. The Durham Nativity School has met all of the requirements along every step of the way. The list of approvals and permits shown here demonstrates this compliance. Thank you for your consideration today. It has been an honor to work on this project, and I'm glad to answer any questions on this process. All right, any questions for Mr. Caldwell from the Board? We've got Chad. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just one question, Mr. Caldwell. The conversion from grass to turf, what was the impact on site design or day-to-day operation of that change? Yes, thank you, sir. The site design change, the major site design change, was concerning stormwater management. In the city of Durham, any drained athletic field is essentially considered impervious area. So we went from a natural grass field to impervious area. So the stormwater management design totally changed for the project. We actually designed the infield and the drainage layer of the field. So you see the field, the turf of the field, and there's a substantial drainage layer under the field with an underdrain system, a rear wall, slow the water down, and basically provide detention and water quality benefit for the field and the entire area underneath the field itself. So that was really the major change in the design. The day-to-day operations, obviously they won't have to mow grass, which as we all know here, growing and maintaining grass in Durham can be quite a challenge. Synthetic fields are very low maintenance. I'm not a field expert, but really once a year they need grooming. And other than keeping the trash off of them, they're a very low maintenance field. Thank you. All right, any other questions for Mr. Caldwell? Krista, do you have something? Thank you, Chair. I'm Krista Kugro, City Attorney's Office. I believe that Mr. Caldwell was tendering himself as an expert and I just wanted to get on the record whether you did deem him as an expert and if you want me to describe that in a little bit more detail, kind of what goes into that, I can, but he presented himself as a civil engineer, I think with expertise in construction design. Certainly he can correct. He can correct that or Mr. Gray can correct that, but just wanted to have that on the record. Yeah, I think we do deem him as an expert. I believe has, I was looking at the packet, I believe it is included in there, but all right, does that satisfy you Krista? Thank you. Okay, Chad, you have another question? So your hand up. I'm sorry, no, sir. I just want to make sure. Does anyone else have any questions for Mr. Caldwell before we continue? Just looking around. All right, Mr. Gray, I'll turn it back to you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. At this time, we'd like to call Jeannie Howard. Jeannie is a board member on the Durham Nativity School and specifically assigned to work on this project and has been working on it for some time. Jeannie Howard. Jeannie, I apologize for Ms. pronouncing your name earlier. No worries. No worries. Good morning and thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm a volunteer project manager on this project, worked on it for the past two years. As James spoke in January of 19, we received approval for grass field amenity under minor special use permit number B1800028. The DNS board made a strategic decision and spent nine months of due diligence investigating the cost and process required to convert our plan to turf with lights. Prior to any new site plans submittals, our engineer checked with the city planning department to see if converting that would affect the existing minor special use permit. The city told us at that time these changes would not be a problem and would not require a new application. After all due diligence, DNS moved forward with a new site plan for turf with lights. As James said, that was approved in September of 2020 after working with the city for nearly a year. We still had six months of work to finalize construction docs permit requirements, including secured funds in excess of $400,000 before we could begin construction with the city. At every turn, we complied with Durham's ordinance codes and regulations and essence. We had been told twice that our lights and turf and existing minor special use permit was okay once when our engineer checked and a second time when our site plan with turf and lights was approved in September 2020. By March of 2021, with approvals and permits in hand, contractors were engaged and materials were purchased. Construction began in early April. On April 20th, when we received a call from COD, they said the lights had been approved in error, as both said, and they were rescinding our permit. Our first thought was how much this error would cost as we had the construction sequenced already and the light poles were scheduled to be buried. The city allowed us to proceed with the light pole installation minus wiring, but still left us with an impossible choice. Stop all work for 3060 days at great cost or proceed and install $70,000 worth of poles, light fixtures at our risk, whose approval may be permanently rescinded. We understand that human error happens that are not blaming the city, but our school stands to be punished chair for an error not of our making. Dermativity absolutely understands the concerns of neighbors. We held four neighborhood meetings in April and May to share our plans and answer questions. We brought our lighting expert who spoke directly to the neighbors on a technology that would prevent layers spill near their homes. Dermativity also spent over $30,000 in upgrades to ensure the lighting would not impact neighbors. The lighting applies to the UDO ordinance and then we went further. We secured the approvals that the city of German said we needed. We stand to incur huge financial losses upwards of $100,000 should these lights not be allowed. As we lay out our keys today to show the care that we took in designing the lights and consideration of the neighborhood, please keep these unusual circumstances in mind. Thank you. All right, any questions for Ms. Howard? Chad, you have one. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms. Howard. Could you, would you talk a little bit about what changes, if any, were made to the proposal following the neighborhood meetings that you conducted? Changes to the proposal in terms of our site plan. Changes to, I assume you met with the neighborhood regarding the issues that brought us here now. During that neighborhood meeting, I assume the neighbors shared their concerns. I'm wondering if any changes were made to the design or there were any results from those meetings? I think from our standpoint, the results were better shared understandings to that point. We had not talked about our plans. As I said, we had just been approved in late March. So certainly the meetings were designed to share. We understand their concerns because you think, okay, everything's going to glare into our houses. We're very close to this field. So we brought our lighting expert in basically to explain that, and he's going to talk to you in just a minute. He's going to explain all of the elements we undertook and all of those upgrades. Essentially, we did not make any changes to the plan at that point in time, but we showed them what we had done to go above and beyond the ordinance to meet those concerns. Thank you. Yes, sir. Any other questions for Ms. Howard before from the board, before we hear from the next witness? All right, Mr. Gray, turn it back to you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Our next witness is Mr. Mike Torrance. I believe his resume has been submitted in your packet, and we are offering Mr. Torrance as an expert in the field of lighting design and installation. Mr. Torrance, hang on one moment. Chad, you got something? I do. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Is there, this is a question for the applicants. Is there a state certification or a national certification for a lighting engineer? Is there any sort of state or national credential? If I may answer, Mr. Chair, I believe Mr. Torrance will speak to that directly when he testifies. Thank you. Yeah, Mr. Torrance, if you'll do that, tell us for the record your expertise, and you can continue with your testimony, if you will. Thank you, Chairman Rogers. My name is Mike Torrance, and I'm the owner of Torrance Sports Lighting. My background and expertise in the sports lighting design business started in 1998 here in North Carolina. I have over 23 years of sports lighting experience on projects ranging from professional venues to collegiate high school and recreation fields like the Durham Activity School Field. I have been working on this particular project for over nine months. A little bit more about my background. I have completed over 500 sports lighting projects in North Carolina, and a majority of these projects had some type of an ordinance, a UDO, or a performance specification that had to be complied with. I work with architects, electrical engineers, general contractors, electrical contractors, and owners on the design and development of sports lighting projects. Just through the years, some of the projects I've worked on locally in Durham County, quite a few at Duke University, and the last two would be the new softball stadium that was completed with LED technology and Wallace Wade Stadium that I've been a part of a couple of times, but the latest was just a renovation to go with LED on their football stadium. And some of the other neighborhood projects Durham Academy, Durham School of the Arts, Campus Hills Park, or some of the other projects I personally worked on in the area. I have received a Bachelor of Science degree from Appalachian State University. And to answer the question about the there's a question about the lighting standard, all of the lighting that there's a governing body out there called the Illuminating Engineer Society and I'll talk a bit more about that towards the end, but all the designs are completed. There's a standard out there for different levels of lighting. And so this particular project was designed for this IES. And I'll go through that towards the end. The Durham Nativity School Lighting Plan was designed specifically to eliminate the impact on the surrounding adjacent properties, but also to provide lighting illumination solely onto the field of play. The objective and intent from the beginning was to provide adequate lighting for the field of play for the students and balance the needs of the surrounding property owners. Great care and consideration was taken with the design of the field to comply with the city of Durham's UDO. That ordinance is 7.4.3 b1. And that ordinance reads the maximum illumination at the edge of the property line adjacent to a residential zoning district shall be 0.5 foot candles. And I'm not sure how familiar you are with with lighting, but a foot candle is basically light intensity, one lumen per square foot. So that's a pretty common foot candle is used throughout our industry for all types of lighting. So, Mr. Dabrinsky, if you could put up on the screen Addendum B, it says foot candles at the property line. So this lighting design, this Addendum B, if you look at the numbers, you'll see these little numbers around the perimeter of the field, around Trinity Street, Roxborough Street, and East Seaman Street, those are foot candle numbers. And those are numbers at the property lines. The UDO, remember, is 0.5 foot candles. And this design is in compliance with that UDO. But actually the maximum number that we have, if you look up at the little box is a little over a tenth of a foot candle. It's actually 0.12. So this lighting design is in compliance with the UDO 7.43B1. And if I could have the Addendum C drawing put up on the screen, please. That's it. Thank you. So this lighting design, the lighting plan here shows that we designed this for the lowest level of lighting that can be employed at a Class 4 recreational play level. We have an average foot candle, which is also we call light brightness of 22 foot candles. And again, that was, there's a standard out there called the Illuminating Engineering Society. And this falls into the category of a Class 4, which is actually the minimum amount of lighting in this published document for Class 4 lighting. So I'll give you a comparison for some of the other neighborhood parks around the Campus Hill Park. They have 40 or above foot candles. And the other projects, the Durham Academy and also the Durham School of the Arts, they have much higher light levels than what's been proposed here at Durham Nativity School. So next I would just like to talk a minute about the lighting design with, in regards to the, if you could put the same, if you leave the same photometric design up. So we have six poles for this field. The pole heights are 50 feet. And I'd like to point out that these, that these lights are directionally, downward directionally lighting. We decided just through numerous designs that going with shorter poles the lights would have to be angled more and then we'd have a potential glare problem outside the property lines. So we went with a six pole design. This particular field, the field size is 240 feet by 135 feet. So on a normal application, this put this, this field is actually the field size to do two poles on each side. But during Nativity School, actually spent a lot extra money to go with a six pole design. So we were able to cut down on the aiming angles for each of the lights. And if you could, if you look at the photometric designs, just take pole S2, which would be the one in the center. We have two lights on that pole. And you can see those, those lights are only aimed, they're directionally aimed down. And they only aim out approximately 70 feet. So it was a decision made by the Durham Nativity School to add these two additional poles, just to upgrade the plan to have better downward directional lighting just to, to eliminate the glare outside of the field. The technology used for this lighting design is LED technology. And this was an investment that, that during Nativity School May, there's another, there's another lighting source out there called metal halide fixtures. That's probably the ones you're familiar with. I have the big light bulbs that are 1500 watt. So this design was, was completed with LED technology. And what that allows is for just better lighting on the field and to keep the LED directionally aimed onto the field. So we have a total of only 16 mounted fixtures on this project. And each fixture is a 630 watt LED technology. If I could have the, the document pulled out that actually shows the lighting fixture brochure. Yes. Another added feature that during the Nativity School invested money in was this visor that's on the fixture. That's a, that's a, an extra extended visor that's on the top and on the sides. And that's just that helps additionally to to keep light not to spill over into the adjacent property lines and to directly the light, the LED lights to be directly aimed down onto the field. The, the aiming of the lights would be done after the, after the lights are ignited. We have a laser that actually attaches to each fixture. And we do this at night. So every fixture, the, the all 16 fixtures will have a point on the field that a laser will aim to that point on the field. And from there, all the light level readings will be tested at the property lines on the field. And we'll make any adjustments to make sure that, that all compliances are with the UDO. If I could have a dendem D pulled up, which would be, it was called other schools and parks and residential neighborhoods. Are we still waiting on it to pull up? Yes. I'm, I'm looking for the documentaries reference and I don't think my labels are matching the I think it's the last page in the report. Last two pages. Gotcha. If it helps, it's the page immediately following the design of the foot candle levels on the field that you had up is the next page. Keep scrolling, please. Okay, that's the wrong document. The last page in durability, lighting, design, final, wrong document. So Chris is saying he thinks it's page 55 of the staff report if you have access to the full staff report. Thanks, Jessica. Give me just a few more seconds. Sorry, y'all. That's a very large document. Takes a while to load. Understand. No worries. Yes. That's it. This is it. Yeah. Yes, sir. So what I'd like to point out here, there's four other parks within 10 miles that are actually in residential neighborhoods, Durham School of the Arts, Hillside Park, East End Park, and Campus Hill Park. Full disclosure, I was only a part of two of those Durham School of the Arts and Campus Hill Park. But all four of these have much taller poles and a lot more lights and higher foot kennel levels than being proposed here at Durham Nativity School. And thank you for your time. If I can answer any questions. All right. Looks like we've got a question from Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Torrance. I have a couple of questions. I just wanted to be sure that I understood some of the things that you said. You had indicated that the foot candle amount associated with the proposed lights is class four recreational level. So I'd like you to talk a little bit more about that, but let me ask my other two questions so you can do it all at once. Specifically on the class four question, you know, is that the lowest possible? Is there a class three or is there a class five or something like that? If you could just give us some context there. Next question. I think I heard you say that the addition of the two light poles midfield would allow the Nativity School to limit glare. I want to be sure that I heard you say that correctly. And then I also heard you say that LED lights allow for better direction of lighting onto the field. And I'd like for you to explain, you know, why that's better. Okay. So if you could cover those three topics, I would appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. So the first one with the class four lighting, that is the minimal class. There's four different classes. We have class one would be what you would see more in a professional venue where you have 5,000 or more spectators. Mike, can I point out that they have in the tab of the middle here, the illuminating document PDF, you could show them the table you're speaking to. Okay. Okay. So that document. It's the tab of the middle called illuminating. It's a separate PDF. The tab in the middle, top middle of your screen. Okay. So you see we have a class four published document for recreational play. And this is what this particular facility was designed to. And then if you scroll down to the next page of this document to the top left, you'll see the recommendation for a class four is 20 foot candles. And we're very close to that class four. So the point that you're making is that the amount of illumination on this field is low relative to another facility that might be professional or college. Is that the point that you're making? That is correct. And to give you a comparison, a high school football field would be for the North Carolina High School lighting standards is 50 foot candles. So what's being proposed here is class four, which is the minimal amount of lighting that's published in this document. Mr. Tarrant. I think that answers one of the questions I had. Just just curious as to if you could give us a reference of what 20 foot candles might be. So thank you for that question. So 20 foot candles would be what you would see. And for field lighting, there's not a whole lot of 20 foot candles that are done. Actually, I don't know if I've ever completed one this low, but it would be equivalent to a recreational softball field outfield. So the recreational play softball field for a normal parks and recreation would be 30 foot candles on the infield and 20 foot candles on the outfield. And the only other question I had at this point is I notice there's some existing street lighting surrounding at least a couple of sides of the field. Were those lights factored into your analysis of the field light? They were not. But what we did, we do is when it's time to do the aiming, we'll come out the day before and we'll test ambient light from the street lighting LED poles to see what those numbers are. But those were not factored into this lighting design. Thank you. All right. Mr. Meadows, will you reinstate or restate your two questions? I know you have. Yes, thank you, sir. I will. Thank you. The second question I asked Mr. Torrance was you had mentioned that the addition of the two additional light poles midfield would assist in limiting glare. Would you expand on that a little bit, please? Yes. Yes, we'll thank you. So with doing a six pole design for this particular field versus the normal two poles on each side that you typically see on a lot of fields, what that does is it allows the aiming angles to be minimized. So if we had a four pole design, each pole, we would have to shine the lights way out far to be able to get the light on the field. So that would require us to angle the light up. Where with a six pole design, we're able to angle these lights pretty much straight down. So that helps eliminate any of the off-site glare. I see. So the point you're making is that if the lights are angled downwards, there's a reduced likelihood that off-site areas would see the bulb and see the illumination. That is correct. Yes, sir. And my last question was with respect to LED. You said that LED bulbs allow for better direction of the lighting. Could you talk more about that, please? Yes. So the LEDs, what we call it directional lighting. So the LEDs, if you look at the old way of lighting, you have a big reflector out there with a big 1500 watt lamp and a lot of that light on the older technology, a lot of it never makes it to the field. And so what's been really impactful with having LED, these little diodes inside LEDs, those directly, they're designed and manufactured to be aimed straight at the field. It just helps us keep a tighter beam spread. And so it eliminates any off-site light spill and glare control. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I have a question for the staff, but I'll wait until other board members. Okay. My, Tarant, you want to go? Yeah, your hand was up first. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe this is a question for Ms. Howard. If I understand correctly that the intent of the lighting is to extend the operational hours of the field during the winter hours. I'm just curious what the intent is of this field. It sounds like it's not being designed from a lighting standpoint for competition. So it's trying to get a better understanding of what the intent is of this field and what we could expect, just operational hours and so forth. Yes, sir. I appreciate that question. We are a middle school five through eight with boys. We do have sports teams. This is the first time in 20 years that we've had our own field at home, potentially with lights. You will hear from our staff at DNS to talk about our extended day program. So when we made the decision to switch to turf, it was strategic. It would cost us more money. Adding the lights just extended the use of the field during those winter hours when it's getting dark, 4.35 o'clock. We have an extended day that goes till 6.30. That was definitely a consideration. Another consideration is we do have a soccer team. We hope to have more teams now that we have a field for them to play on. So like any middle school team, our anticipated usage is primarily during those winter months when the days are shorter and darkness arrives early. We want to accommodate our athletic trainings, practices. We do have games. And again, this is the first time we can bring them on campus. And this is the first time in the school's history that kids will have a home field. There's, you know, when we investigated and did due diligence on making that pivot to turf, people talked about bringing in temporary lights. We did not, I am intimately familiar with temporary lights. Having been on other soccer fields myself, they're loud, they're noisy, they glare all over the place. We did not want to do that. And it was advised if you want to increase the usability of your field, put a simple lighting plan in place. We did that. And so even though it's not competition lit, we would not have done that or considered that due to the neighborhood in which we live in. We just simply wanted light for the safety of the kids to be able to be out there when it gets dark early. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you, Chair. I had the same question from Ms. Howard that she answered it. This question to Mr. Torrance, is there a, and this is for direct lighting, is there only one color? I know there's several colors for indoor LED lighting. Is there just one color that's used in direct lighting? For recreation play, yes. When we get into the more of the collegiate professional, there's some requirements from some of the TV, from the SPN. So they have, there's a lot of different requirements out here. But for recreational play, there's just the one. Thank you, sir. All right. Any other questions from Mr. Torrance, from board members? All right, Mr. Gray, we'll turn it back over to you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Next, we would like for the board to hear from the school. And our first witness is Mr. Vincent, who is head of Durham Nativity School. I'm sorry, Frank. I think you skipped Kenan. Oh, I did. I apologize. Skipped our third expert. My apologies. Our next witness, Mr. Chair, board members, is Mr. Kenan Borden, and we're offering him as our expert in real estate appraisal. Thank you. And good morning to the chairman and the board. My name is Frank Kenan Borden, Jr. And I reside at 3010 Surrey Road in Durham. I'm a graduate of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. And I'm a founder and manager of Borden-Talley Appraisal. And then I've been active in real estate appraisal in the real estate appraisal business for 38 years and active in the Durham market for 33 years. During this time, we've lit my firm and I have literally appraised thousands of properties in Durham County. I'm a North Carolina state certified general real estate appraiser having received my certification from North Carolina in 1996. I am here today to speak to the Durham Board of Adjustment about the impact of the Durham Nativity's lighted artificial turf field on surrounding property values. The report that I provided to the board of adjustment details the history with regard to the Durham Nativity site specific boundaries of the neighborhood property search, as well as methodology of our analysis. I will summarize the report with respect to our findings. The church and school have coexisted on this site for more than 10 years with existing illuminated parking, buildings and recreation area. With that in mind, we began a baseline study of property sales surrounding the school since 2012 to compare those sales to property sales in old North Durham from 2012 to the present to see if the school has impacted the value and marketability of surrounding property. Based on our analysis of property sales from 2012 to the present, we've found exhibits of the report. The residential properties within one block radius of the school sold for 27,000 more on average than the average sales price for sales from the rest of old North Durham are a 7.8% increase. From this analysis, it appears the school has not had a negative effect on adjacent property values. We then looked at the sale of individual homes surrounding the school to determine if the same home sold had sold more than once during the time period from 2012 to present. We found three homes that sold on streets surrounding the school and one that had sold one block away as shown in the report's exhibits. The four adjacent nearby paired or like-kind sales indicated a positive annual appreciation in the range of 3.7 to 6.3% with an average annual appreciation of 4.7%. Based on this data, property values directly adjacent to the Durham Nativity School are appreciated. When comparing the impact of recreation field lighting on property values for a similar neighborhood adjacent to a lighted soccer field, the Durham Tax Assessor has increased the assessed tax values for properties in Trinity Park along North Gregson Street adjacent to the lighted soccer field at the Durham School of the Arts during the same study period. This steady increase in assessments indicates an increase in property values. To check that indication against a sale, we found one paired sale for a property located at 203 North Gregson Street, which is directly across the street from the Durham School of the Arts lighted soccer field. In 2011, 203 North Gregson Street sold for $208,500 and in 2018, it sold again for $293,000, an increase of approximately 40% or 5.7% annually. The rate of appreciation along North Gregson Street adjacent to the Durham School of the Arts lighted soccer field is similar residential appreciation found in the rest of Trinity Park neighborhood as well as the rate of appreciation for homes in Old North Durham. From this data, it appears close proximity to a recreational field with lighting does not have an adverse impact on residential property, marketability, or appreciation. The approved site plan dated September 23, 2020 shows the detail of the artificial turf field lighting on page L6, which complies with the Durham's UDO ordinance. The plan shows the detail for the light brightness and field illumination. Part of the design includes laser installation, night testing, and adjustment to assure no glare to surrounding properties. According to the photometric design approved with the site plan, the light levels of the property lines are 0.1 or less, which is effectively zero, given that this is a busy urban area with existing street lights, stop lights, adjacent residential property lights, and major thoroughfares of US 15501 North Roxborough Road and Mangum Street. The addition of the lights for the artificial turf field will have little or no measurable impact on adjacent properties. The market study findings indicate that the subject's present use as a school has had no negative impact on adjacent nearby residential property values. It is the professional opinion of the appraiser, my professional opinion that the subject's present use is neutral or beneficial on adjacent nearby property values. Additionally, the proposed lights for the lighted turf field, as approved on the site plan, will have no adverse impact on the value or marketability of the homes adjacent to the artificial turf field and is in harmony with the surrounding neighborhood. Thank you. Are there any questions? All right. Questions from the board members to praise our outcome. So you know, Chad, I'm sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, just one quick question. I wanted to be sure that I understood the you looked at a lot of properties that were near schools and so forth. There was one property that was that sold in the term that you were looking that was adjacent to a field with lights. And so the conclusion about the impact of the lights was based on that property. And I think you also mentioned that the county tax appraiser had been increasing assessed values along a series of lots that border a street that borders the field. Is that right? It's the one sale and then the changes in assessments over time adjacent to a different field. Is that correct? Yes, that is correct. All right. Thank you. All right. Any other questions for the appraiser and board members? Mr. Boarding. All right. Seeing none, we'll turn it back over to Mr. Gray. Thanks, Mr. Chair. Now we'll hear from the head of school, Mr. Vincent, head of school at durability school. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Vincent and I am the incoming head of school for durability school at DNS. Our mission states that we provide an excellent education for young men, empowering them to make a difference in the world. The young men we serve as an all scholarship based school are predominantly black and brown boys, middle school boys from financially challenged backgrounds, 88% on the federal meal program. Boys join our community in the fifth grade and we embark on a 12 year journey tending to the holistic growth of every student supporting them through high school and college. Why a field with lighting? The CDC states that currently 24% of black children and 25% of Latino children are categorized as obese. People of color are also more likely to be impacted by diabetes, high blood pressure, and strokes. If you get a tour of our building, you'll notice that something's missing. There's no gym, no space to exercise. Youth need to move. Youth need a space to do these activities and to learn and care for their bodies. Given we do not have an indoor recreational space, this will fill the gap for several athletic programs and outdoor artistic ventures, especially when it gets dark and the boys are waiting for their families to pick them up. Given our extended day of 7am to 6.30pm, we want to keep our students safe. One of the young sixth graders shared DNS is my second home. He views this as a place to escape and feel empowered through the various opportunities that the school affords them. As we reflect on Durham Nativity School being a second home, we understand the concerns of our neighbors about the field and especially the lighting. If prospects arise to support philosophically aligned programs, we will always use thoughtful discernment to ensure that our campus and neighborhood is not overrun with trash and or excessive traffic. We certainly don't want these things anymore than our neighbors do. We want to steward and care for our home and immediate community well. Our home. We need this project to move forward as planned because what is a home without lighting? I'm determined as I enter to find ways to engage and serve the greater Durham community. In order to embark on this partnership, I hope to arrive to a lit field that I can meet with the students, get to know them, delve into a journey of transformational growth and empower them to return to our community as serving news. As we strive to improve and enhance our home, please afford us the blessing to have lights on and around our home. Thank you. Mr. Benson. All right. Mr. Gray. Thank you, Chair. Our next witness is we like to hear like the board members to hear from a student. And so we'll call on Mr. Ongel Escobar. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My name is Angel Escobar and I'm in a durability school. My friends, I will be graduating on June 4th and moving on to private high schools. I will be attending Durham Academy in the fall. Without durability, this would have never been possible for me. My goal is to attend college and major in engineering or become a professional soccer player. But I'm here to talk about, I'm here today to talk about our soccer field. I'll never get to use it despite waiting for the past two years to see it done. I'm grateful for those that have worked so hard to make this a reality for us. And I am beyond excited for my younger brothers to have this after I leave. It shows me how my school is evolving and growing. Frankly, I've always wondered why other schools have facilities and we didn't. I know money is tied for us and all of us students receive a hundred percent scholarship, but it still didn't change the fact that we needed the place to play. We don't have an indoor gym, so having an outside field where we can play our games and go to practice after school is huge. Usually during the winter months, we play from 4.45 to 6 o'clock and it gets really dark and hard to see and play. It would be so much better to add light so my Dean and his brothers can play safely and have fun out there at dark. Our old field was pretty bad. There was no grass, a lot of rocks to get hit instead of the ball, and also roots on the trees would always make you trip and fall. Once a month, our school holds a meeting for all the parents to come to campus to hear about all that is happening at school. The meetings last pretty long and we play in the dark sometimes seven o'clock. Also, when we would travel to different soccer games to play against different teams or even practice, Mr. Glenn, our social studies, lead teacher, and soccer coach would have to drive us there and it was a hassle. We have to bring all of our gear and backpacks and it was very tedious at times. Same for the parents. They have to drive pretty far to come pick us up in FWEND at another school. Also, I think bringing other soccer teams to our campus would be pretty cool since we have never done that before. So adding the lights and soccer field would be pretty nice because it makes it easier for the students, staff, parents, and for the school in general. Thank you for letting me talk with you this morning. All right, Mr. Gray, are the next speakers you have? Are they non-expert? We have one last Durham school board member and then the neighborhood group testimony. All right. Susan, we'll need to keep time on these two minutes each with the exception of Julia Gartrell, who was at five. Mr. Rex, let's get your hand up. Yes, I'm sorry. I did have one more question from Ms. Howard before you proceed with other testimonies. Is she still available? Yes, sir. Yeah. Hi. Hi. I'm Reginald here. Ms. Howard, do you know once this lighting is approved, does that open the door for like weekend tournaments and things like that? Or is this just for like winter months? I mean, are we opening a door for more events? It's really just winter months like during the week. It's interesting you asked about weekends because normally on the weekends people aren't working and so the tournaments are scheduled. I'm not sure I've ever gone to a tournament that's actually gone at night. Normally the games are done by four or five and that is because we may be at home, but the people coming to the campus have to travel. So typically lights are not needed for weekend tournaments. It's primarily a weekday night. Again, what we said, which is in the winter months when it gets dark early. Obviously when it, you know, mid-March through end of October, you know, the length of the days varies, but in the summer it can be light as late as nine o'clock at night. So we don't, we actually he's being used pretty minimally in a four to five months time frame a year in the evening hours, like we explained. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Grave turning it back over, hold on, hold on, hold on. Natalie, you got something? Yeah, I'm sorry, just to piggyback off. So this is primarily for the schools use. Other community teams will not be using this field like on the weekends when there's no school. It's primarily for the schools use, right? Is this a question for me? Yes, I'm sorry. Yes. I think you're referring to whether or not we plan to rent the fields. And at this time, we built the fields primarily for the use of our school children. We currently have no plans to rent the fields. What we've shared with the neighbors is we're building this for our school and to accommodate our DNS program. That's our current plan. We're happy to have a discussion about reasonable hours of operation if they're concerned about that. The lights, again, were a consideration for those winter months. We do know, and Durham actually knows this well because they're building their own turf fields, but there's a huge shortage of turf fields in the city of Durham. So while we have no plans to rent it out, the local organization needs space to rent that fits our standards. And we want the same thing the neighbors do. We don't want the campus overrun. We don't want excessive traffic, excessive garbage or anything like that. We would consider those requests or those partners, I guess, if they, I guess, aligned with our mission and aligned with our standards. Okay. Thank you. I just want to mention one other thing along those lines. If we use the lights, we do plan to turn them off when we're done. We did invest in an automatic timer to make absolutely sure if they are scheduled, let's say for our teams or whatever, that they are going off at a certain time. Thank you. Both? Yeah. I was going to comment as these last two questions came up irrelevant. So the UDO actually requires, it does have some hour limitations, which I don't think are a concern for most middle schools, but on the weekends between 1 a.m. and 8 a.m., lights couldn't be on. And during the week, 12 a.m. and 8 a.m., it couldn't be on. And in addition to that, when the activity is not taking place at the facility, lights cannot be on. They'll be turned off an hour after use. So there are some UDO limitations on the lights, even though they're exempted from some of the other requirements. All right. Thank you for that, Bo. Mr. Gray, we'll turn it back over to you. Thank you, sir. Before the last witness who testified on behalf of the neighbors, Ms. Gartrell, we have one last witness, and that's Ms. Ruby Tompkins, who is a member of the board and a grandparent. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Ruby Tompkins, a long-time resident of John. I have served on the board of trustees at Durham Nativity since 2014. I am the grandmother to Durham Nativity School graduates. My oldest son graduated in 2015 and attended Raven Gap McCutcher School in Raven Gap, Georgia. And my youngest son is ending his first year at Carolina Friends. I am always delighted when I get a chance to talk about my experiences and those of my grandsons at Durham Nativity. Like many of the young men who attend Durham Nativity, my grandsons entered the school with some academic challenges. They didn't have a lot of confidence, felt ignored in their former schools. And in many cases have been deprived of opportunities that so many other young people in Durham get to experience. The teachers and staff pushed them academically, held them accountable, and opened doors for new experiences. One of the new experiences and favorite things for my grandsons to do while at Durham Nativity was to play soccer. In fact, the 2015 soccer team, which included my oldest grandson and several other young men who had never played soccer before, went undefeated that year. We were so proud of them. And let me tell you why. These young men despite having to practice on an old rocky dirt field, even in the dark, despite having to load a bus and travel across town to practice, they prevail champions and never complain. That's what D&S taught them. It thrills me that the board and our donors are fit to provide these young men with the soccer feel that they deserve. One that takes their safety into consideration by having a well lit field, a field that will provide a sense of pride for them and the neighborhood. Our young men will be able to host games on their own feel like the competitors at Durham Academy and Carolina Friends and other private schools. In closing, I respect the concerns that our neighbors have. And we have done so much to ensure that our neighbors are not impacted. But I hope that they will agree that having these young men as a part of their community has been an asset. This field will be an asset. And as always, D&S will continue to be good neighbors and contributing members of the community. That's the exact thing that we teach our young men each and every day. Thank you. All right, Mr. Gray. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Our last witness will be Ms. Julia Gartrell. And as was discussed in the opening, if you would allow her to speak and then recognize those neighbors to raise their hand to support her statement. Ms. Gartrell, you have five minutes. Thank you. Hi, everyone. My name is Julia Gartrell. I live at 209 Monmouth Avenue. And I'm here today representing a group of Old North Durham neighbors, including 13 of whom are here on this call to support the approval of field lights at the Durham Nativity School. I would like to note that there's also at least 10 other vocal supporters who could not attend owing to work conflicts. Should I identify people now or at the end? We can identify them at the end. We can either give them to raise their hand, you know, through the raise hand feature. We'll make it. Okay. Thank you. So the Durham Nativity School has been part of our neighborhood and community for 20 years. They provide an enriched learning environment and enhanced support system for middle school boys from financially disadvantaged families. They primarily serve Black and Latino students from across our city. The school has never had an indoor gym. And the field that is being built will be the first fully dedicated recreational space that the school has ever had. The lights allow it to be used year-round as part of their extended school day. Active play is essential for the social, physical, and emotional development of all children. Most Durham schools, public and private, have at least one lighted field. Durham Nativity School has gone to great lengths to provide comparable facilities and programming for their students, many of whom already face a number of barriers to health, opportunity, and educational success. Having a dedicated field that they can use year-round reduces the barriers to participation and access, giving the students and family an opportunity to enjoy the benefits of athletics while not making their lives more legitimately challenging. From the earliest stages of planning, the school has sought to minimize the impact of the lights on the surrounding neighborhood. They instructed their lighting engineers to go above and beyond to minimize the impact on surrounding neighbors, spending tens of thousands of dollars beyond what they had to. These upgrades include taller poles which allow the lights to be directed downward rather than at an angle that could shine into houses, six poles rather than four decreasing the area each light needs to illuminate and thus allowing them to face almost directly down, advanced hoods that prevent lights billage, directional LED technology, and an auto shut-off timer which eliminates the possibility that the lights will ever be left on through the night. Beyond all this, the number of foot candles that these lights provide is the lowest level of light recommended for recreational use. All of these upgrades were made before any neighbors had raised concerns which we feel speak strongly to the school's good faith. We understand that the poles may seem tall now considering how bare the site currently is, but we do need to keep in mind that the school is replanting trees which will quickly grow to help cover and soften the feel of the poles. Furthermore, the use of lights will be primarily kept to evening hours during winter months when sunlight is more limited, a few hours a day, a few nights a week, a few months a year. This means that the total number of hours of use per year will be significantly less than comparable neighborhood fields. In fact, they will be dark by the time most of us are done washing up dinner dishes. A small and vocal group of neighbors has expressed concern over the intentions of the Durham Nativity School and have accused them of a wide array of ulterior motives. We understand our fellow neighbors' frustration and the surprise of seeing the lights go up, but we do not believe this is a reason to deny this proposal. In our direct communication with staff and members of the board, the Nativity School has reiterated that the feel is primarily for their students' use. For reasons of neighborliness and liability, the school has also been clear that the field will be rented sparingly and never late into the evenings. The Durham Nativity School has been in dialogue with neighbors about the lights since the construction began, going beyond the level of public engagement required for the project. The school has followed all public notice requirements outlined by the city and has held four public meetings, including an opportunity to hear directly from the lighting specialist. Staff and board members have spent hours of their own time corresponding with concerned neighbors by phone and by email, in addition to in person. They provided very specific details about the project and process and addressed questions and concerns raised by neighbors, many of whom have aggressively attacked the school's plan and spread misinformation widely about the project. Staff and board members of the Nativity School have proved willing to continue to engage with neighbors during and after installation and have welcomed opportunities for further collaboration and relationship building. As neighbors and members of the Old North Durham community, the 13 people here today who I'm representing believe current and future students at the Durham Nativity School should have a high quality field to support their athletic interests, abilities, and talents all year. They deserve the same access and opportunity as their peers across Durham. The field as- Not just an improved amenity for the school and our neighborhood, but an opportunity to advance racial equity in our city. Thank you. So people can identify themselves by raising their hands who are in support of our students. Looks like they're 10, 11, 12. And I don't see all those on my screen. I'm seeing 15 all together, 16 who are attending. All right, so 16 in total. All right, thank you for that. Thanks so much. Mr. Gray, anything further? That concludes the applicant's testimony. Thank you, sir. All right. Well, before we- our next part of this is the opponents present their evidence. Before we do that, I think I may want to do a quick bathroom break. Is everybody okay with that? 10 minutes. It's 10, 10, sufficient. All right. So let's do that. 10 minutes. We'll reconvene at 12.20. That's all individuals to just disable your cameras at the moment. Thank you. And we'll please read Able once the meeting- once we are- we have return from recess. All right, we're almost back. All right. I think we've got everyone here. So we're- we're now at the point for the- the opponents to present their evidence. And at this time, we'll- we won't have the- the after- after this part, we'll have the cross examination where the opponents can ask the- you can raise some- some- some issues, if you will, during your testimony or your- the evidence. But if you have specific questions that you'd like to ask the applicant, we'll have that during the cross examination. So at this time, we'll have the opposition present their evidence. Again, we'll- we'd like to- and I'm not sure if there is someone who wants to take the lead, or if there is someone on the lead from- on the opposition side. But is there anyone who- who prefers to go first? Just to confirm, this is timed at two minutes. Yes, for- for non-expert testimony, yes. I- I may be the only person here in person who lives directly across from the soccer field. I also am an expert in social impact assessment. And I think I'd like to go first and a number of my neighbors who will follow me or who have submitted comments. I'm- I'm hopeful that they will strengthen what I'm going to say and compliment. Ms. Sakes, can you- can you explain to us how you're an expert in- in what social- just to- just for the record or if you don't mind? Social impact assessment is the field that looks at the potential and unintended consequences of any project development and works to either remove or mitigate a negative social impact. I've worked with engineering firms all over the world, you know, it's not just meeting the- the actual specific requirements and I do contest- contest some of the findings here. But it's about ensuring that what happens after the project is built does not negatively affect those people who are around or directly in front of the development. Right. Does that help you at all? A little bit. I think that we need to, you know, understand, you know, what the- the curriculum or what- what constitutes that and what- what makes- Well, the field of social impact assessment is global. It- the probably the most relevant standards are the standards used by the International Finance Commission and consequently by the World Bank and also by the U.S. government in assessing its foreign assistance programs. And the goal is to ensure that the people who will be impacted by a particular project, whether they be beneficiaries or associated communities, will not suffer because of the- of the- of the development that is being done. And, you know, you have a responsibility as a city to ensure that this development does not have a negative impact on the neighboring community. So that's what I'd like to speak to. All right. I think, all right, Krista or- or Brian, do you want to offer any guidance? Sure. Krista Kugro, city attorney's office. So the board can, you know, of course accept evidence testimony from people who have standing. I think that Ms. Sites was at first sort of articulating that, that she lives across from the property. In terms of expert testimony, you know, there's a very clear definition of what is competent evidence under state law. And competent evidence cannot include opinion testimony of lay witnesses on issues of property value, traffic safety, and matters about which only expert testimony would generally be admissible under the rules of evidence. Here, I think, you know, we do have the- in terms of the criteria that the board is tasked with considering today, property value is one of those criteria, you know, the board can determine whether Ms. Sites has sort of become qualified on that basis based on what she described. I don't think she was intending to speak about property values more about social impact. One of the other criteria that the board has to consider is whether the project will adversely affect the health or safety of the public. Again, you know, I'm not sure that that's something that an expert is required to testify about. Most certainly if the board wants to hear from Ms. Sites, it can hear from her, kind of from a lay perspective, or it can hear from her sort of positing herself as an expert, and the difference there, of course, being the time that she's given under what the board set forth at the beginning. All right. Is that helpful? No. Yes. All right. Well, I would add in addition to what Christa said is that if Ms. Sites is offering her testimony as expert testimony, she would have to present some evidence to support the fact that she is an expert, and that would be in the form of either some kind of a curriculum beta, some, you know, maybe background information about what she's done in the past in this field, and that would be appropriate if she doesn't do that, and it is lay testimony, and it will be treated as lay testimony by board, and therefore she would get two minutes to testify. Ms. Sites, do you? Yes. I'm happy to submit my curriculum detail about my expertise. I am not so much concerned about whether or not you consider me an expert, but I am concerned that you might limit the testimony of probably the only person so far, or perhaps in total, that lives directly across from the soccer field. So I'm hoping that I can have more than two minutes. This, I've listened to your proceedings today, and based on what I've heard today, this is a really, really critical request that the applicant has made, and I want the opportunity to be able to present the perspectives of people right across from it. I appreciate that, Ms. Sites. I appreciate you being here as well. I think that we're going to have to, given that what you just said, we'll have to deem you as a non-expert witness here, but certainly as someone who lives across the street. So we'll have to give you that time. Mr. Gray, I don't know if you had an objection or why your hand was up. Yes, sir, Mr. Chair. I was going to object, but since you've made your ruling, I withdraw my objection. Okay. Well, Ms. Sites, we'll start with you and you have a couple of minutes to please provide your testimony. Okay. For the record, the issues I raise are not about the Nativity School, its students, its mission, or even the original soccer field. And a lot of the discussion so far has raised issues about the admirable mission and accomplishments of the school, but that's not what is the agenda today. It's about the soccer field itself and its lights. The addition of 50-foot lights and astroturf instead of grass, cumulatively established a soccer field on a level and standard far beyond use by 58 middle school students. It's not unreasonable to conclude that this new soccer facility has the potential to become a revenue source for the school. I recognize and appreciate what the school has said, but the school has also not made any binding commitments about this issue. I also want to note that planning has incorrectly allowed the applicant to limit the project boundary to exclude areas of DNS property adjacent to the field, like the parking lot in Dumpster, areas that are necessary to the use of the field, and with this new design, our sites for negative impacts that will require prevention and mitigation. We already experienced significant traffic and parking problems with the recent increase in use by the DNS tenant, Christ Central Church, whose congregation uses the adjacent streets department as well. With nightgames at DNS soccer field and increased traffic, cars will be shining lights in my front window and negotiating turns on a very narrow street to avoid hitting any car parked in front of my home. I live, as my neighbors do, in mostly one-story, historic homes on small lots, and my home, the street in front of my home without a sidewalk, is 25 feet from curb to curb. That is a little over two minutes. Pardon me? That is the two minute, a little over two minutes. Well, thank you. Mr. Jennifer, can we give Ms. Sites to four more minutes, please? I feel this is incredibly germane to this. Very, very important. All right. I guess I would probably need a consensus. I'm okay with it. This is Chad. I'm okay with it. Ms. Natalie, I'm fine with it. All right. Ms. Sites, I'll give you an additional two minutes. Okay. I appreciate the fact that the school has made attempts to discuss the issues raised by the recent site plan, which was never discussed in public venue. However, discussing it and having reasonable limitations on use have not happened. I'm going to skip to the very end of my presentation and read what many of us would like to see. Obviously, the lights on the field will be a significant problem with extensive use. If the lights are allowed, require a binding agreement on use restrictions for the soccer field, both in terms of time and frequency, correct the planning error and extend the project boundary to include sites of risk. The non-compliant dumpster that I have complained about for seven years, parts of the pocket and parts of the parking lot, require a traffic flow plan that establishes points of access and egress that protect homes facing the field. Ensure compensation for the loss of the remaining mature trees from the astroturf installation by amending the landscape plan to include more native species and sufficient evergreens to provide a meaningful buffer. And ensure the applicant does not construct viewing stands in direct sight of any of the homes on Seaman Street or Trinity. And I'd like to mention the non-comparability of Durham School of Yards. If I don't have time, you can ask me that in a question period. All right. Thank you, Ms. Sites. I apologize for the mispronunciation. I do want to mention that we're, you know, it sounds just as a reminder, we're here to discuss the minor special use permit of only the light poles, because the sound sounds like the field and the synthetic turf have already been discussed and approved at a prior meeting. No, they haven't. Amy, Hurwitz, would you, are you going to clarify that? Because it just speaks to what I want to talk about. My understanding is there has not been public discussion about the turf field. And in fact, that is also should be under discussion here today. Hey, Bo, was that included in the BOA case? So the conversion of the grass field to our official turf was not included in the original board of adjustment case. However, it was determined at the middle of that site plan that converting the field to turf was consistent with the intent of the use permit that was approved previously. Okay, thank you. It was also determined that the lights were okay. And we know that we're having this whole meeting because that single application was in value. All right. Krista? Krista, you can go to the attorney's office. Bo, I don't know if it would be relevant to mention kind of the decision making around the turf, if that's worthwhile to bring up in sort of was that a decision of the planning director? That's correct. Yeah, that was an administrative decision, not a decision of the board of adjustment. So for clarification for the record, the decision to change the turf was an administrative officials decision that is an entirely sort of separate process. It does not require to be part of a public meeting. The subject matter here today before the board is the lights. The turf is not part of today's application or what the board is considering. All right. I have a question. Besides, unfortunately, we've already heard your testimony. We can get to you during the cross examination, if you'd like, during that time. Just want to get through everyone's testimony, make sure everyone is heard. Bo, do you have something else? I'll see your hand. Okay. And Krista, you still have your hand up. Do you have something? Okay. Grayson, you were the first I saw. We'll give you a couple of minutes as well and welcome. Thank you. I'd like to offer my testimony as an expert witness, as a landscape architect with 25 years of experience. I've sent my resume to Bo. Mr. Dabrinsky, just briefly on me, I have 25 years of experience, 13 of those in Durham. I'm a licensed landscape architect in the state of North Carolina and also in California. In the last 11 years, I worked with Surface 678 and another local firm. I know now I have my own firm, Katalpa Land Design. My work has included local projects like Duke Softball Field, I think that was mentioned before, as well as Wallace Wade Stadium as a project manager and landscape architect on those projects. Further field I've worked on projects such as the Atlanta Belt Line in Atlanta, Georgia. And so I hope James got Mr. Dabrinsky got my resume. I apologize for submitting it a little bit late. I think that a license that we'll permit that as an expert testimony. I'm not sure what but we'll let you speak on what you would like to discuss. Thank you. I won't take much of your time this afternoon. I've submitted many plans to the planning department in the past and I wanted to offer my professional perspective on the school's current site plan and the approval process that is unfolded today. I found in looking at the plans available online, several deficiencies in the plans and the city's review of those plans that I hope members of the Board of Adjustment will take into consideration as outlined in the following six points. The planning department's contention, as I understand it, is that only the addition of field lighting triggers the need for a re-review by the BOA. I think this is an error. Beyond the question of lighting, the change from natural to artificial turf, along with the removal of additional trees that that compelled due to excavation concerns, plus the increased use that is anticipated with the use of that field are also, in my opinion, additional site and neighborhood impacts that justify BOA re-review. All of these changes, not just the lighting, were significant deviations from the plan the BOA initially approved two years ago. Number two, the school envisions league play at the new field in addition to its use by nativity school students. I presumably this is one reason for choosing artificial turf fields as we heard from Mr. Caldwell for its durability. I agree with Mr. Caldwell that that is a reasonable choice for the owner to make. However, no attempt has been made in the approval process to address the increased night and weekend use of the site and its impacts on surrounding residential properties, including noise, vehicle queues, and headlights. We all understand from our knowledge of the UDO that a traffic impact assessment is only triggered for site plans generating at least 150 vehicle trips at the peak hour. It seems doubtful that that scale is happening here, but we have not seen evidence of it. In any event, some attempt to address these impacts in a long, subtle residential neighborhood seems appropriate and necessary. Number three, the school has been using a standard eight-yard dumpster, a big square kind, cube kind, about six inches on a side, seven feet on the side. Four years on the east side of the building, directly in front of the site's house, the existing dumpster location for the school was omitted from both sets of site plans, the early one and the present one. And there is no provision in the current plans to screen it as required by the UDO. In my opinion, the planning department was mistaken when they omitted this item from consideration in their review and approval. Number four, there's no indication on the current site plan of what planting materials will be used to stabilize the site as required by the ordinance, such as lawn or other plantings. Please refer to sheet L5 of McAdams Plans. Only trees are shown on the current plan, nothing on the ground. This is a concern for all areas facing surrounding properties, but particularly for the two-to-one slopes, and that's a steep slope, on the south and east sides of the field facing residential neighborhoods. It will be difficult to establish and maintain grass on such slopes, and mulch and soil will tend to wash onto city-owned sidewalks and inhibit the use of those sidewalks unless vigorously maintained. Once again, it appears to me the city's review was not complete in requiring the measures that the UDO calls for. Number five, the plans do not appear to include the diversity of tree species that is required by the UDO. Thirteen of the 17 trees in the field sketch are the same species. This represents 76% of the total number of trees. However, the UDO in this case limits this to 70%, as shown in the table at UDO 9.2, 0.3, 0.5, 0.6. Here again, the planning department has failed to all these plans to the standard called for in the unified development ordinance. Finally, number six, the project boundary has been drawn in such a way as to exclude the building, the dumpster, and the existing parking lots. Given the increased impacts presented by the current plan, together with increased use of the parking lot, the dumpster, the use of the building itself for restroom and other functions to support the field, the project boundaries should be expanded to include portions of the parking lot and the building. In conclusion, aside from the obvious deficiencies in city review exposed by the issue of the proposed lighting of the field, I've shown you several examples of other problems with the current proposal that were either ignored or overlooked. I think my neighborhood and my city deserve better than that. I urge the board to take a few of this project in its entire site and work toward a solution that benefits the Nativity School and protects its neighbors from the unwanted impacts that you are hearing about today. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Who would like to go next? Adam, I think I saw your hand up earlier. I'm happy to go. Give me one second to bring over my testimony. Thank you. Yeah, so my name is Adam Hale and I live at 114 West Trinity Avenue, a half block from the Durham Nativity School. I'm speaking today in opposition to the application in deference to the board's restrictions on time. I've summarized the main points of my testimony as follows. Durham Nativity School moved to 1004 North Mangum in 2008 after the 2006 adoption of the UDO. Consequently, they are subject to the UDO land use tables, which require a minor special use permit to operate a private middle school in a residential area. The applicant was made aware of this need and the feedback they received for their 2008 building permit, quote, please consult planning department concerning any type of special approvals which could be required for this usage, unquote. Despite this feedback, neither the applicant nor the landholder at the time, Grace Baptist Church, ever applied for such a permit. The lack of an initial hearing has led to continuing tensions that such a hearing could have resolved, such as the impact of the resident on the residents of the school's rental use and the nonconforming parking lot and dumpster. Despite not having an initial permit, the applicant represented their 2019 application for a special use permit as an expansion of existing permitted use, quote, the minor special use permit is to expand the use of the existing school facility. The scope of the expansion is limited to the play field. There are no additional students proposed with this application. Yet in their case today, the applicant has represented that same 2019 case as approving their presence in the neighborhood in general, stating that they, quote, received an approved special use permit in 2019 for an educational facility to operate in a residential neighborhood. The applicant cannot have it both ways, limiting the scope of their 2019 hearing to include just the field, then retroactively claiming that it approved them to operate the entire facility and student count. Without an initial special use permit, approving the applicant to function as a school at this location, they cannot apply today to expand their use. Consequently, the current application fails the test of UDO 39882, that it be, quote, in conformance with all special requirements applicable to the use. I urge the board to vote against the case, which does not deny the school a soccer field, merely returns them to the unlit grass field approved in 2019. Voting in support would mean residents now have a private middle school occupying an entire block of our neighborhood without that ever being reviewed by this board and denying us the right to provide feedback about the school's presence. I further urge the school to apply for an appropriate special use permit in our neighborhood, so I haven't worked out appropriate boundaries and get back to being good neighbors to each other. Finally, I just want to close, I'll quickly summarize by saying we have many points of agreement between us and the school and their mission. I think we can find common ground. I thank the board for their extreme patience today in hearing our case and helping us with this health. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Who would like to go next? I'm looking, if you'll raise your hand. Yes, Mr. Hilton. All right. Hi, my name is Andrew Hilton. I live at 125 East Seaman Street. I come to this hearing today to impose the, to oppose the inclusion of lights at the Durham Nativity School. There are several factors about these lights which deeply concern not only my family, but many other residents of this area. First and foremost for my family is the potential for games to be played late into the night, making significant noise and disruption to family lives. Such late night games could come from renting the field out commercially to adult leagues, but also from hosting games or other events, even without a rental fee. Many residents of this area have small children. My family has a two-year-old. If any of you have children, you likely know that bedtime is difficult under the best of circumstances and sufficient sleep is critical to small children, both for their health and well-being, and for them not to be a walking temper tantrum the entire next day. We have heard that this is only for use by the children for a little bit in the winter months. However, this claim is rather implausible. If you look at when daylight hours end before 6.30 p.m. in Durham, you would find this only happens between the end of daylight savings time in November and mid-February. How much time varies from minutes in February to at most an hour in mid-December. If you consider any time that the students need to do any other things before stopping play and going home, you find an incredibly small amount of time remaining. But we should also remember that this is winter we're talking about. That is not exactly what I think of when I think, hey, let's go play outdoor sports at night. Many of these days will be too cold to play, especially at 6 o'clock in the evening. I point out these details to point out that removing these lights would not have a major impact on the athletic facilities and programs of the school, but rather an incredibly small impact. It seems strange that the school would invest so much money and create so much anger over something that would see so little actual use. However, once you start to think about other uses such as rental to other leagues, the lights make a lot more sense from the perspective of investment and the cost of their relationship with the neighborhood. This concern is especially magnified when you consider the other recent changes to the field design such as switching from grass to astroturf and adding fencing and netting reaching a combined 20 feet high. And this, as I mentioned before, is one of the biggest concerns here. Rending this field out to league play late into the night will cause significant noise and disruption to families living in the area. While there are time limits on such things in the UDO, they are incredibly late relative to family life. If our toddler cannot fall asleep until midnight due to a late game, that would be disaster. To that end, regardless of whether you or not you approve the lights, I would ask you to at least restrict the field to only being used for school purposes. In particular, it should not be rented out and should only be used within school hours 7am to 6.30pm Monday through Friday and by school children only where at least one team is comprised of students from DNS. I would like to reiterate that I oppose the lights and thank you for your consideration. Thank you, Mr. Hilton. Jim Vickery. Mr. Vickery, I can't remember, but did you take the oath earlier in the hearing? You're on mute, sir. Am I on muted now? There you are. I signed the oath statement for Cole. I don't know if that satisfies or do I need to take the statement? Yeah, we'll need to do another one now. I don't remember being done before. Things just turned around on me. Where are you now? There you are. Sorry, there's quite a few y'all in here. If you'll raise your right hand, do you swear or affirm that the testimony you'll give today is the truth and nothing but the truth? I do. And do you consent to this remote meeting platform? I do. All right, sir. We'll give you two minutes. Thank you. I'll try to do this very quickly. My name is Jim Vickery. I live at 922 North Mangum, the bed and breakfast directly across from Cole. My wife and I have been here for 30 years. We have been very strong members of our neighborhood association doing utmost of improvement activities, serving on the board, posting cleanups, caroling, engaging the community at large continuously throughout the last 30 years. When Durham Nativity first moved in, they were wonderful neighbors. We welcomed them. They helped take care of immediate issues such as noise from the children. They really worked with us nicely. But things have changed. They have rented out the church that is now holding amplified services outside. We hope that will end soon. That's only, it's not their fault. It's only a reflective fact that things change. And once we put these light poles in, they'll be there forever. I spoke in favor of the building of the athletic field at the previous board of adjustments meeting in January. But now it has changed to include 50-foot lights. This lighting, once it's in place, will be there forever. It will, very much as we just heard, be able to be quickly used by others. The current board members may not be there in time anymore. So I'm very concerned about this. I'm hoping you will protect our community as well as our property values. In terms of the property values, I would very much like to know if there was any experience with property changes where there was no former field or lighting and then home sales where there was athletic field and lighting. I also, by the way, as the director of research for EPA and I know all about cherry picking data. So I would like to, if we go, if this goes forward in terms of home values, did I know where the nativity school stands to lose $100,000? We as immediate neighbors stand to lose a lot more than that. So I would like to have a chance to bring my expert neighbors or my expert and thank you. Thank you, Mr. Vickering. All right. Going through here. If the next person who would like to speak, if you'll raise your hand. I'm not going to quickly go around here. Amy, I'll turn it over to you. You've got two minutes. Hello. My name is Beanie Hurwitz. I live less than a block from the Durham Nativity School. I'm also a Puerto Rican whose school playground in Spanish Heartland was a swath of pavement surrounded by an enormous chain link fence. I'm very well versed in the experiences of being an urban minority student. With that in mind, let me be clear. I love the DNS's mission and I love that their students have a new playing field. The original special use permit, a grass field with no industrial lighting is a wonderful compromise between the needs of the residential neighborhood and the benefits to these school children. Unfortunately, this new special use application violates that compromise and does so for minimal added gain to the students as other people have spoken about in terms of the time of day. 57 middle school children, independent of race or wealth, do not need the turf field and industrial lighting structure that is being constructed on that property. Rather, there is a more logical expectation for the field use in the future field rentals. Keep in mind, the school has already rented their building and grounds on move non-school days to the predominantly white Christ central church and has so no regard for our residential concerns about the noise pollution and parking congestion we are already experiencing from the church's weekend research. Again, the difference between the original special use permit and this application is the range of possibilities for use. The future use is going to be rentals. The school representatives have refused to rule out rentals during our neighborhood meetings and offer no clear restrictions for rentals. When this field is rented out, it will violate criteria one and three for the special use permit. The traffic parking and light noise trash issues would be prohibitively disruptive. For these reasons, Durham Parks and Rec would never attempt to tuck such a facility in our residential neighborhood. I know this because I also play soccer in Durham where fields are at a premium and filled with crowds of 50 to 100 people every evening. Such usage is simply the natural course for a durable surface and a well-lit venue. People will relentlessly seek out to rent this field. The school has been intentionally begged during these proceedings about rentals and they will rent it in the future. Please remember, DNS is not building a public good providing housing, food, or medical care for Durham residents. They are a private school building, a fancy soccer field in our neighborhood. One that would be locked and inaccessible to my two Latino children unless we can pay their fees. With respect, I ask you to reject the special use permit. Please insist the lighting be removed from the property and the field construction be returned to natural grass if you have that capacity. When this happens, I really can't wait to see these kids playing on their field during recess and after school in harmony with our neighborhood. We see them run by our house every day and we cheer them on. I love this school, but this plan is unacceptable. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Hurwitz. Anyone else? I'm going through the audience here. Did we get everyone? I believe so. All right. At this time, we'll cross examination if it is or actually the applicant may provide a rebuttal to anything that has been brought up by the opposition. Mr. Gray, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Since there was some recent testimony about the use of the facility as a church, I would just like to ask Mr. Jim Baker, who's been on the call, been in the hearing and has been sworn to speak briefly to that issue. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to participate today. Just so for the record, everybody understands prior to germativity taking ownership of the property in 2016, the church, Grace Baptist Church, was the original owner and they had been there since 1907. The current tenant in the church did experience some outdoor services primarily due to the COVID regulations over the past few months. I believe since then, they are back in church inside the actual sanctuary itself and are not having church services outdoors anymore. But the reason for the patently false, they just had one this weekend and it was the loudest one. Sorry, Ms. Hurwitz, we're going to have to point of order here for back to, we'll have that cross examination. Jim Baker, floor is yours. Right, so they're experienced social distancing based on their own personal rules and that is why they've been outdoors. Mr. Gray, do you have anything else? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't believe you have anything further on your bottle. Thank you. One point of order. There was a statement made that about student fees at germativity. I just want to make sure it's understood our students don't pay tuition. We don't charge student fees to attend our school. And even if you did, it's not a part of this application and what we're discussing today. All right, this time we'll have any cross examination for questions to the applicant. The applicant may also cross examine the witnesses for the opposition. Adam, I'm sorry I don't know your last name and I apologize for that. I saw your hand up first. Thank you. I have two questions for Mike Torrance, two for Ken Board and two for the applicant. Just asking. I don't know the format here if that's appropriate. Yes, go ahead. Thank you. Starting with Mike Torrance, I wanted to ask you about your list of nearby schools. In particular, I noticed you did not include NCSSM and your list of nearby schools that were comparable residential facilities with lights. It's disappointing because it is probably Durham's largest case around zoning and light use. If those of us who've been in town for 15 years of call, they went all the way to the chancellor and the state legislature weighing in on that one. Are you aware of this case and are you aware of the agreement between the school and residents to keep light led to under 0.05 foot candles at the curb? And can you speak to whether the school's installation would meet that standard of 0.05 foot candles at the curb? Mr. Torrance, you may have lost. I was muted. You broke up at the beginning on the name of the project you had mentioned. NCSSM, the North Carolina School of Science and Math located in Montreal, Maryland. It's the only comparable field in Durham that's in a residential area and has residential homes on more than one side. Yeah, I can't speak to that particular project because I was not a part of that project. In terms of the agreement reached between residents in the school to keep after much negotiation, to keep the light to less than 0.05 foot candles at the curb, can you say whether the current project for DNS would meet that standard? Yes, it will meet the 0.5 foot candles at the property line. I'm sorry, their standard was a tenth of that. It was 0.05 foot candles is what they agreed to with the residents. Would this project meet that standard? It will meet the standard of the UDO. Will it meet the standard of 0.05? I think this is a yes or no question. That would be no. Okay, I'd like to point out that this is one of the locations cited by the staff report as being a comparable spot within Durham and we have here expert testimony that it would not meet the lighting of that location. Second, I have just a quick factual question as I'm going to follow on with another witness. You said you were involved in installation of lights at DSA. Can you speak to what year those lights were installed? We do a lot of projects. This won't take me just a minute to pull that up. If it helps according to Google Maps, it was sometime between 2007 and 2011. I'm pretty sure it was in one second. I'll look that up. I have a clarification on the last point that was brought up by Mr. Hale. I'm not sure the school understands the question, the UDO being 0.5 and our average foot candle being 0.05. Correct. 0.5 would be the standard for by-rights use within the UDO. This being a special use permit, it's not uncommon for applicants and residents to engage in other negotiations on special use conditions beyond what the UDO requires. Right. We don't have an agreement between residents in school. We showed you a photometric diagram where our average foot candle was 0.05 and our maximum foot candle was 0.12 compared to the UDO 0.5. This is to be clear, I'm talking about the similar site sited by the planning department in their staff report, the NCSSM location in Los Angeles neighborhood. Are you asking the question in relation to that site? Because you mentioned that there was an agreement between the neighbors and us. Are you speaking with the neighbors and them regarding their site or our site? Between the neighbors at the NCSSM site and the NCSSM school. Okay, thank you. Okay. Sorry if that was a mistake. Okay, go to Brent's give us staff. Just to clarify and point on the staff report, certainly the inclusion of another school in a somewhat urban environment near residential. That was based on zoning district and use and proximity of the polls themselves. It wasn't a statement on the performance of the lighting there or DSA. I'm not aware of an agreement, but certainly it could exist. I mean, I don't know, but I just want to tell you what the intention is. Sure. Sure, I understand. But I was clarifying the intent of the statement in the UDO. It was not to suggest that it would be 100% performing a particular way. Mike, if you don't find the date, I can move on. I don't mean to stall. That's fine. I found it. So that project was, so Durham School of the Arts was October of 2007. That's what I thought. Okay, thank you. Yes, then you are. If I may, Chairman, can I ask two questions? Ken Gordon, to follow up on that? Yes. Thank you very much. Ken, about your, you listed a school and a study at DSA covering, if I remember right, the years, was it 2011 to 2017? Was the range of time you looked at? 11 to 18. Thank you. So following on Mike Torrance's testimony, that would start four years after the installation of the lights, meaning that any depreciation based on the lights would probably have already occurred, and they would be capturing appreciation after that point. But my real question to you about that is, you've listed a specific location and a sale at one point and a sale at another point, and you've listed the address of that location as 203 North Clarkson Street, I believe. Correct. And indicated on the map where that might be located. Is that correct? Yes. The DSA school is in the 400 block of North Clarkson. Can you clarify why you've shown a location adjacent to the school in response to a housing price from 203 North Clarkson, two blocks to the south? I would ask Mr. Dabrinsky to pull up that the exhibit that we have that shows that particular property. So it's one of the exhibits that we have. And given the mistake in your address, are you confident that you were looking up the values of a home that was adjacent to the DSA field or is it possible that you did a wrong address? As far as I know, we have the correct address. Then it is not adjacent to the school? It's adjacent to the soccer field. 203 North Clarkson is not adjacent to the school. The field is located, as a resident Durham has evenly numbered blocks, it is in the 400 block of North Clarkson. So yeah, you want to go to the Durham School of the Arts exhibit. That's it right there. So it shows the location of the ball field of the soccer field. And then it shows the location of the 203 North Clarkson Street. And it shows its proximity to the soccer field. That's incorrect. So that is not 203 North Clarkson. The entire block is the 400 block of North Clarkson. 203 North Clarkson would be two blocks to itself. This is what our research showed. The location is directly adjacent to the soccer field. Bo, would you bring up Google Maps and search on 203 North Clarkson or search on 400 North Clarkson to show what is adjacent? Either one. If that's acceptable to the board, I don't know if that's the appropriate testimony. Right with it. I mean, Bo, I don't know if you have got capability of doing this right now. We're going to pull this up now. You're looking for 203 North Clarkson. Correct. If it's adjacent to the location indicated in a Ken's map. It could have been a typo. I'm looking for the specific comment. You're right. There was a typo. It's actually the address is 401 North Gregson. Excuse me. That's a typo in the report. So the correct address is 403. I'm sorry, that is a typo in the report. I'd like to state that to the record that that address called out is actually 403 North Gregson Street. There was a typo. I'd like to just confirm. I've got to pull out the RGIS and that's what it's listed as as well. And are you certain of your prices or the other pieces of your testimony at this point? I am. Okay. Can I know that the applicant submitted incorrect testimony before the board here that we're not given proper opportunity to review it until they make correction, of course, in the case, but I'm willing to move on from this point for another question if I can for Mr. Gordon. Is that all right? Yes, let's yeah. Thank you. Mr. Gordon, if I understood, you did a comparison of homes in the near vicinity of the school to comparison of schools in a wider donut around the school to see whether proximity to the school adversely affected their property values. Is that correct? That is correct. I can say all of us residents were surprised by your assessment that the schools in proximity to the homes in proximity to the school had a higher value. So I did a couple of things while we were in the break. I obviously didn't have time to tabulate all of your results, but I simply took a transaction of West Trinity and counted up by block how many homes we had along the length of West Trinity. Those of us in the neighborhood know we have a very strong West to East divide, with West being older, more established home stock, higher values, larger properties, East being older, lower value homes, and we've been seeing a wave or gentrification sweep across the neighborhood that has caused many of the homes to the West of the neighborhood to sell more slowly, and homes to the East of the neighborhood to sell more quickly, leading to if you just take a region, we're shifting Eastward toward less valuable properties. So for your center of the zone, it is properly centered in the middle of the 100 East Trinity block of the neighborhood. But in terms of your donut zone around that, the median home is not centered at 100 East Block of Trinity. It's centered all the way over in 317 East Trinity, almost into Avondale and Northeast Central Durham. So I have to ask you, in doing that assessment, did you make an adjustment for the quality of these homes or their location or indeed their sales price because one of your groups has a median sales date seven months off of the other one? So in terms of picking the neighborhood, we just looked at the neighborhood, the old North Durham neighborhood, and there's a wide variety of ages and housing types, I think single family, and some small multifamily. And so what we wanted to do is just focus on the impact right around the school and look at that compared to the old North Durham. Overall, that neighborhood has been transformed. A lot of the properties have been purchased and renovated. So there have been a lot of values, but that's why we wanted to pick those specific properties around the streets, around the school to see how they had appreciated. Because we thought that would would be very helpful in showing increases in values and those homes that have been purchased and then sold had gone up in value. So just as a professional home appraiser, can I ask you like, would you consider home to the east of the school or to the west of the school that's having higher home prices right now? I'd have to do more research. I'd say that overall the neighborhood is appreciating and there are a lot of different varieties of housing all over that old North Durham neighborhood. So I looked at it as a whole neighborhood. I have to, those of us in the neighborhood are marking right now because there's very clearly any west of I, that dates back unfortunately. I'd like to clarify it's not everyone in the neighborhood. I'd just like to clarify it's not everyone in the neighborhood talking about I can only see six of us across the top who are in I think recent testimony, your point noted. The, what I'd like to point out is that simply taking this transect across the region of Trinity Avenue, you have 18 homes to the east of Trinity and only eight homes to the west, which is a substantial shift to the east of the neighborhood and lower value homes. I have to question whether that's representative of the general home values within old North Durham that you're comparing to. Well, we just looked at all the sales in that area, looked at the raw data and maybe those homes have been renovated and sold for more or have been renovated and changed dramatically, but we tried to just look at the whole neighborhood and then the area around the school in comparison with that. I'll note that it had a substantial eastward shift in the lower value homes. Then I have two final questions if I may. You had two final questions for the last four. I tried to have two for Ken, two for Mike Torrance and two for the applicant, but I have certainly been talking a while. If you would like to give someone else the floor, I am most happy to do so. No, that's not what I just made that point. Go ahead and ask your final question. We'll open on a call for five hours. So just with the applicant, about the rental use, because this has been a very substantial point of conflict between residents and the school that we have been looking for flexibility on, and I don't want to miss both of them. I understand Jim Baker said, to the residents in our list, we simply want the right to choose if we can help other athletic youth, meaning not the school, using our field, aka referring to rental use of this field, or at least whether rental use or not third party use by the field. I wanted to ask the applicant a couple of questions. One is in our neighborhood meetings, as was pointed out earlier and as I understood, the school's current position is they will accept no restrictions other than an unbinding limitation on using the field up to 9pm any day of the week. I want to ask them if that is still their position, and their second is to ask if they would accept any restrictions on field use by third parties, as has been suggested in some of the testimony here, because I really think that could put us on a much better footing between the school and the residents, and I'd like to urge you to take that step. I can answer that question. In our meetings, I believe I said that it would be our intent if we were to rent the fields to youth clubs only. I think the big concern during the meetings was whether or not we're going to rent to adult leagues, and obviously that stemmed from the fact that the adult leagues would tend to play later in the evening, and the light being on would be a concern. To reiterate again, we have no intention to rent to youth leagues, and I believe I also talked about the fact that we also wanted to have the freedom to have the field utilized by the young kids in the neighborhood on weekends as well. So at that point in time, so because of all that, we were not willing to offer any restrictions on the field, and that's where we stand at this point in time. So no adult leagues is the best I'm going to tell you at this point. Okay, but unbinding agreement on no adult leagues and usage by youth leagues up to 9 p.m. 89 to the week. Is that correct? I'm just trying to paraphrase. Yeah, I don't believe I ever put a time limit on the light usage. Okay, so I'm just saying I'm not going to put a time limit on it. I'm sorry, I was trying to quote 9 p.m. from the discussions in the community meetings. I did not mean to invent a time there. 10 obviously if it's a youth league, you know, we talked about this and I believe you recorded the meeting at that point in time as well unbeknownst to us, but that's not me. I don't know who recorded it, but it was not me. I'm not that organized. Somebody for the and I think one of the things I was also asking for at the time is who is speaking for the entire neighborhood? Who is the leader of the neighborhood? And it's evident today that we still don't have that answer. But getting back to the question at hand, the youth programs that I'm aware of in and around the city of Durham, don't utilize the fields in the later time frames during the each evening. So common sense would probably tell you that, you know, most of these participants would be off the field, you know, by 8.39, 9.30 at night. Okay, so unrestricted used by Health Secretary of Youth Leagues up to 8.39 at night in the United States. Thank you. All right. That's all for our examination questions, Chairman. Thank you for giving me the time. Bo, hang on one second if you mind. Mr. Gray, did you have an objection? I shipped him back and forth and I don't know what your hand up was for. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I know you've got a lot to referee there. I would like to just register an objection, but now that Mr. Hale has finished to testifying, he's certainly entitled to ask questions, but then he would testify. I was trying to make a distinction. One is fine, the other is not. Thank you, sir. Bo? I just wanted to bring up the staff position and this was, I think, noted in the staff report materials as well. But from an enforceability standpoint, I believe Mr. Hale has brought up a time limit condition. That's certainly an enforceable condition, whether it be 9 p.m., 10 p.m., 8 p.m., whatever those parameters would be. However, some of the other talks about, I'll just stop and say that that would be our preferred method to condition the property and try to ensure some of those concerns. Thank you, Bo. Krista? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Krista Kukro City Attorney's Office. I also just wanted to remind the board that in terms of conditions placed on its approval, if that's what ends up happening, that the applicant must consent to those conditions. That's a recent change in state law. And typically the way we proceed with that is getting that consent on the record and then the applicant signs a statement later as part of the order consenting to those conditions. So I also want to note that that's also a requirement. Right. Thank you for that. Jim Vickery, your hand was up first or before the others. Who do you plan on and what kind of questions do you have? Looks like we still have you on mute there. I'm muted now. There you go. Thank you. I have a question for Mr. Borden and a question for you and the board. Mr. Borden, your statement kind of defies logic about whether or not this is going to have a negative impact on my home right next door. And I'm wondering if in your research, did you do comparables where there was no previous athletic field and lights in a community and now where there was such an installation and a change in effect on property values in that case, because that's what we have here. We looked at the impact of lighting on property values. And I think that that comp on at 403 North Gregson Street showed that there was no negative impact on values. The property values in around the school have been increasing. And I think there's current lighting there for parking. So our task was to look at lighting's effect on value. And I think the North Gregson Street was a very persuasive comp for us. And we did look at that. I'd like to have the opportunity to bring my own witnesses in and because I think this is not even close to comparable. That is the school has been around for decades. This is a facility that has just been installed. There's no field there. There was a field at the Durham School of the Arts for decades. And all they did is add lights. This is a very different situation. Now, I'm sorry, I gave testimony. But then my last question is to the board. Would you, by a house immediately adjacent to a lit commercial scale athletic facility, would you buy one? Because that's what I'm going to be trying to sell one. And I'd love to sell one to any of you. I agree. I don't think it's appropriate for that. We can we'll answer that to ourselves. Thank you. Diane Rodelli, I think you were the next one with the hand up. But I'm not sure. I don't remember you being on video for the oath. Did you take the video for the oath? Yes. Okay, you were okay. Just wanted to make sure. I had two items to mention. One was I went to two of the meetings with DNS locally in the school. I live about a block and a half away. I do remember that when we were trying to negotiate some kind of constraint around usage, that well, Mr Baker just said basically what he just said earlier that he was not going to be bound by any constraints. But they did mention that they thought they might rent it for other activities as well. And the example was given of a wedding. The other item that I wanted to mention was I don't really understand the assessment. There is a lot of smirking going on by some of us because the assessment, there are there's been no properties on the perimeter of the school since those trees have come down that has sold. Mr Gill, you have any questions for cross examination? So I'm I am asking the man who did Mr. Gordon who did the assessment if he can one explain what the parameters were for Old North Durham for him. And if in fact his the the sales that were on the perimeter of the school site, if any of those has happened within the last 18 months. So the perimeter, we looked at the entirety of the Old North Durham neighborhood and its average sales price in comparison with the area right around the school and the area around the school had increased at a higher percentage. And then we looked at the four comps along Seaman Street and Trinity East Trinity and East Trinity, all of those one of them had closed in in July of 2020. I'm not sure and wanted closed in December of 2020. So those are very recent sales. I'm not sure exactly when the trees came down, but that particular sale that sold in 2020 on East Trinity had gone up an average of 4.2% annually, which is so which is a very positive indication. But go ahead. Yeah, I don't know when the trees came down. I'm just all I can speak to is the data and and the most recent sale was in December of 2020, which is a very recent sale. But that is not it. That that address is not on the perimeter of the school. East Trinity. East Trinity is a long block. Yeah, I just thought the company number 204 is a block away from the school. We we tried to get the most closest comps in terms of proximity, but these were these were the ones that we selected just because they had not had renovations. The sale had a lot of substantial changes had not been made to the property. So it showed a good indication of appreciation because the house had sold and then time had passed without with a little work done to the property and then it sold again. Thank you. All right, Miss Hurwitz, I believe you were the next one. Who do you have questions for? I have gone again. I wanted to just get a yes or no answer from Mr. Borden. I think we all have different nuances. We're concerned about your appraisals. It doesn't seem to match the logic test, but I just want you to answer this yes or no question. Did you compare any property sales before and after the installation of industrial lighting? Did you have any single property that underwent that change in its neighborhood? Yes or no? The comp we had that that was adjacent to sport lighting was 403 North Greggsson Street and while I can't speak to lighting because the approved plan shows almost no light coming from the site, we felt like it really would not have a measurable impact on the neighborhood given that they're already street lights. It's a busy area. I'm sorry sir, I really just want to yes or no question. I want to remind you that the lights were installed before your 2011 starting point for your comparisons of the North Greggsson Street properties. So I'll ask you again. Did you have any properties where lighting was installed during the interval for which you measured the change in value? We don't, but we did measure the increase in values of lighting. Thank you sir. Mr. Gray, do you have an objection? Yes sir, I was objecting to the use of the term industrial lighting. I don't think that's ever been an issue here, sports field lighting and I was object to the testimony about facts that are not in evidence about what was installed when that is not in evidence. It was presented by Mr. Hale during his discussion. Mr. Gray, I asked Mike Torrance as an expert who had installed those lights at what date they were installed and he clarified they were installed in October 2007 for four years before the interval that Mr. Borden was looking at price values on. I disagree and repeat the objection. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can we get a clarification from Mike Torrance on when the lights were installed again? I believe he already answered that. I think so too. I don't know what the objection is about October 2007 being before 2011. All right. I have one more question. I think this is for Mr. Dabrinsky, but I'm not sure if the city attorneys can speak better to it, but I do want input from the government in general. Mr. Hale brought up a question as to whether the school has a rightful permit to operate in our neighborhood and thus a right to apply for this specialty permit. Can anybody clarify whether the school has that original permit? Krista, would you like to answer that? I'm Krista Cougar, City Attorney's Office. My understanding is that the school does have the right to apply for this minor special use permit. I think that planning may be able to provide a little bit more detail, though, if you want to jump in. That's correct. There was a minor special use permit issued in January of 2019 for the expansion. That use permit itself gives the legal ability for the educational facility to operate in the residential district. Can I ask a question on that, Bo? I quoted language from their 2019 special use permit, saying that it was specifically only for the expansion and covering the field at the site and not for the entire installation. Can you explain how that permit can be seen as covering initial approval of the school to operate in the neighborhood, especially when any such approval needs to carry a student number in order to qualify for the UDO's 20% increase requirement and there was no such student number stated in the 2019 UDO. So the special use permit, the use that was approved in 2019 was an educational facility on residential district, or I'm sorry, any residential district. I don't have the information on the original establishment of the educational facility and what the UDO requirements were at that time. That's something that I would have to take some research. Whatever that original date was. So all the references to the school being existing in that staff court from the 18 case are accurate because the school did exist. But I don't have certainty on how it was permitted then previously. Can I ask a question of the attorney? I believe there would have had to have been existing on this site prior to 2006 in order to qualify as pre-existing use per the UDO. Is that correct? The UDO was passed in 2006 and so that is when kind of non-conformities were sort of acknowledged under the passage of the UDO. The city's position is the board has the authority to rule on what's before it today. So that's our position. Yeah and that's what I'll reinstate that the reason we're here today is solely before the likes, not for the use of the school or the field itself. I got a hand up now Mr. Andrew Hilton who do you have a question for? Yes my question is actually for the board slash attorneys which is if this were brought forward as we want to make this soccer field and rent it out to all hours of the night to whatever leagues we want would that even be a legitimate accessory of a school or would that be completely ruled out under the UDO as a commercial enterprise that needs specific zoning and so forth? So the education facility will have athletic field or may have athletic field and they may be used. I'm unsure of their, I've not heard any of the intention that we've talked about in terms of leasing it out to others but certainly it is a common use for a lot of the schools and the church to come. Let me pull the UDO up now to see if accessory uses are listed specifically. So according to the UDO educational facility section five to four C there's a long list of accessory uses to the front speeds and among them are the area recreational or sports facility and then health facilities because they're the only ones that are relevant. So it is a listed accessory use for the educational facility. Thank you Bo. All right we're going to next in the the cross-examination looks to be complete. I think it's now appropriate to move into board deliberations. This is a time where the board will discuss the case. We won't take any further questions from the applicant or the opposition but we will board is able to ask questions as they want. Anybody want to start us off? Thoughts on the case? Mr. Tarrant? I just had a couple of follow-up questions from Mr. Dabrinsky to the accessory use. That accessory use pertains specifically for the school using it for its intended use. Does anything change if they were to lease it and is there anything that's enforceable from a planning standpoint that could control that? So there's been no indication that that other than lease net for other use sponsored programs that they would partner with or support and that would be in the realm or that would be allowed as an accessory use for them to create those partnerships with. I think the term I don't speak from Mr. Baker but that shared their vision. From an enforceability standpoint earlier I had made a comment about our preference being a limitation on the hours of operation because that's a little more objective in terms of being able to drive by and say you know they're using that field after X time. Trying to determine who's a student who's not a student who's a particular use leave or not is not something that we would be able to enforce easily. Okay then the second question I had is related to the UDL lighting standards and there was a question about the the school of science and math and being 0.05 foot candles at the curb I believe was what was indicated. Does the UDO have any requirements for lighting within public rights of way or rights of way maintained by NCDOT? The the UDO uh defers to city standards for lighting that's enforced by the transportation department. I think what you're what you're getting at is that the street lights that exist there probably are greater than what that 0.05 of the candle is. I'm not an expert but I would I would be inclined to think that that's the case as well. I guess it's from the UDO standpoint as far as the the lighting levels that are indicated in the the lighting section. Are there any standards for lighting within the rights of way? The standards are at a property line and and these would be exempt from it but the typical standards are as a property line adjacent to a residential zoning district and that would be half our foot candle which is standard and just to for to clarify for the board the way that is shown for a lot of educational lighting for non-residency use at the time of specific compliance the the development is required to submit a certification that's the lighting standards are met per the group plan. Thank you. All right any anyone else? I guess Mr. Chair I did have one other question if nobody else has anything at this point. I think this would probably be more applicable for Mr. Caldwell as it relates to just looking at the site plan. I didn't see any bleachers or anything and then the the field itself looks to be dimensioned at 45 yards wide by 80 yards. Can you speak a little bit about what sort of athletic field soccer field standards are and whether this is really designed as a stadium or literally just a recreational type facility? Yes sir. Good question. Thank you. The dimensions of the field like you mentioned are 240 feet by 135 feet. We did have a professional field designer Dan Dodd with Fitfields who designs you know NCAA level fields and professional fields all over the place. I'm personally might not familiar with the actual dimensions of a standard NCAA field or such but I do know that this field is smaller and as you mentioned there are no bleachers there's no seating so this was never intended to be any kind of stadium field it's purely for use of the school the school's games and their recreation. Thank you sir. Good clarifying point. Thanks Mike. Mr. Retchels. Hi Mike Retchels here. Mr. Caldwell, being this is a factor for the lighting can you speak a little bit more about the screening or buffering or landscaping that would help defer a lighting problem you know with the neighbors? Yes sir. We provided the street trees along let's pull up that plan right quick. Along all the adjacent streets per the UDO. Essentially the field you know like I mentioned addressing Mike's question is is smaller than an NCAA regulation field or you know bullseye high school field or such as that may be but it also takes up a significant footprint the site and essentially goes to the limits of the site without putting in walls or such so essentially we come off the DOT and Durham right-of-ways on Trinity, Roxboro and Seaman and then come up with our slopes with no walls we didn't want to put walls around the perimeter of the field and we still have room for the required street trees against that field up to the fence area so it was really a balance between the street trees having the large trees dropping leaf litter onto the field which is a significant maintenance concern for the field and the decision was made also to remove a lot of the existing trees not only for the footprint of the field but for the leaf litter on the field which is a huge maintenance burden for the school to clean up and also for player safety you don't want branches and such as that interfering with the students and the players on the field. But what is being replaced for all these nice trees that we're taking down? We're replacing we're putting street trees along Seaman, Roxboro and Trinity Avenue. We're specifically replacing 17 trees actually that's what we're required to replace based on the landscape amendment document that you have we are actually planting 19 trees we're planting two elms on each corner as we share the erosion issue that the neighbors brought up that is just the UDO ordinance required plan that you see in front of you we'll be doing more than that to stabilize the slopes and prevent anything from coming down as you may or may not know we have erosion control fencing up and we can't even remove that fencing until those slopes are stabilized and we will be doing that. Thank you. Chad. So I wanted to share my thoughts about the application just for the purposes of board discussion. So you know the the UDO standards are challenging here because this is recreational lighting some parts of the UDO that pertain to exterior lighting apply others don't and it's it's it's a kind of a tangle to understand you know we've we've heard testimony we've seen evidence that the site is is configured to to limit the maximum amount of light overspill the amount of illumination that would happen off of the property to 0.5 foot candles which is in fact consistent with the standard that the that the UDO applies to uses throughout the planning jurisdiction. So Bo correct me if I'm wrong I don't believe they're required to meet that standard but they are meeting that standard or what they've submitted indicates that they're they're they're willing and able to meet that standard. So I think that's good. I I would suggest that we consider the possibility of an additional condition where we to approve something like this that that expanded the limitations or or reduce the amount of time available that exterior lighting could be on in the evening hours we've heard numerous people provide evidence that 6 30 p.m. is when school stops we've heard numerous people tell us that this lighting in this field is intended for the school the kids the the school use and that the extended school day stops at 6 30 so I would would be comfortable with an additional condition. I don't know exactly what what it would say but that it would be to in the nature or realm of limitations on illumination say between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. on on weekdays and weekends and you know in in light of the fact that that this lighting would meet the standard that that we would apply to anybody else that seems fair in if we're able to agree on some timing limitations that maybe go speak to some of the concerns that we've heard and are still consistent with kinds of limitations we've used elsewhere and consistent with what we've heard from the staff it feels like that might be a path forward and so that would be those are my thoughts about about the application and and the evidence and testimony we've heard today finally I just want to say I'm very impressed with the applicant I'm very impressed with the neighborhood it's it's been an incredibly insightful discussion and people have put in clearly a great deal of time on this and I sure do appreciate their effort because this this is it's it's made for a much more thorough review and so I thank you and that those are my thoughts thanks thank you Chad Mr. Gray do you have something real quick yes sir thank you Mr. Chair got the appropriate time whenever you say this appropriate I'll ask Mr. Jim Baker who's the chair of the school board to speak to any time limit okay well when we get there we'll talk about that appreciate it uh Jessica um so I was kind of thinking along the same lines as Mr. Meadows but I wanted to make sure that any restrictions that we propose um still allow the soccer field to be usable for the school so I know that there was discussion about what time the school day ended but I didn't hear any discussion about um what time the soccer games actually occurred so I don't know if anybody has any information or can testify about that that would be helpful yes ma'am I can speak to this and we appreciate that question you're right we spoke about the school day but our athletic programming athletic programming itself is is another issue so our games typically start between five and five thirty if we have multiple teams playing um the second game may start around seven o'clock now sometimes they start at four thirty so I'm just giving you sort of our history knowing that we don't have we don't have this done yet so we're we're desperately trying to extend goodwill here but and predict the future but we we don't have a lot to go on so we do have to accommodate our athletic program one of the things we discussed with the neighbors in imposing a time condition of let's say eight o'clock we don't anticipate using it late into the evening I'm talking about that you guys mentioned nine ten eleven o'clock at night we don't anticipate that but we do have folks that travel to our we'll be traveling to our facility for games as we travel to their facility for games we experience weather delays and things like that and so it's possible that a game could go uh past eight o'clock so those are considerations that we need to be careful with because we don't want to be walking on eggshells to say oh we have we have to get these lights off I think it will be a rare occasion and we will certainly be good stewards of that but we want to be careful that the restrictions aren't aren't actually restricting our programming thank you miss Howard I want to say a few things as well you know and the law states that that an applicant is entitled and I use the word entitled to a minor special use permit having met the factors you know we've we've heard from expert testimony on lighting property values we heard from a professional engineer we have the reports of these individuals included in our packet which I hope we all were able to review prior to this meeting I hope you also had the chance to uh visit the site uh I'm not all I'm not comfortable with an eight o'clock time limit um I the first thing I thought of uh Chad when I heard that was you know same thing actually that um I'm sorry I forgot last name I miss Howard just mentioned is is the delays you know things happen uh eight o'clock is on in the summer is certainly early um never there's things I don't I think that's kind of a strict limitation on on you know if this was you know we're not looking at a stadium I think when we we've had cases and talk about lighting before this isn't a stadium I think we've got you know you look at a recreational field compared to something with bleachers or or more robust um you know accommodating spectators and visitors um I just don't see that uh so those are my thoughts I'm not uncomfortable with limiting it to eight o'clock I don't think that's necessary either but so those those are my thoughts does anyone else want to offer anything Mike they just had another question for Mr Brinsky as it relates to I guess amending the special use permit should we decide to put a time limit on the operating you know the operating time of the lights and the school seems you know in the future that I need to extend those hours what's the process for updating the special use permit in that regard if there was a condition placed um that limit at the time um and that needed to be altered they would have to come back to the board of adjustment um that would be considered a significant change to the use permit thank you so uh Mike is that all yeah sorry somebody usually puts my hand down for me I know it was but I just wanted to make sure yeah Ian thanks um I just want to say that uh this is watching this field get um changed has um been kind of harsh and I what I don't what I'm struggling with here is the fact that information didn't seem to flow until the neighborhood started complaining bitterly um so I just want to say I would not be able to approve this without some kind of time limitation because I really think that it's important that the parameters be set and right now the parameters don't seem to be set they seem to be completely fluid and I'm not okay with that all right uh Natalie um quick question is this a traditional school or a year-round school Mr Gray I will defer to Ms Howard we have extended day and extended year programming so you're you're in school all year like a year long okay I believe um it's been Jim on this call there yes so me me it's an extended year programming and part of that also is the work that we do as I mentioned it's a 12-year journey it's about part of for me coming in for example as head of school her soccer field was going to be a resource to bring alumni together a resource to bring our students that are in college together let's talk let's process how things are going because we part of our support is their social emotional growth so it's not just you know playing the soccer games but it's throughout the year we're working with these boys and then over the summers that those summer months we're also working with them because remember our demographic we're trying to keep these boys safe and making choices that aren't going to be destructive for their future and keeping them away from situations that are going to harm them so being able to get them on a field for a few hours with us is a great way to do that and we also have a reading camp as well thank you just yeah I was just going to add that Bench has just mentioned that we do have summer camps uh that um are inclusive of the community both boys and girls uh that utilize our facility throughout the entire summer Jessica do you have something yes um so in thinking about whether or not to approve this minor special use permit um originally I wanted to include a limitation on the hours that the lights could be on but I think realistically that would be very difficult I mean if you can imagine kids outside playing and then all of a sudden game is stopped because the lights have to be turned off I don't think that's fair to the kids and I don't think if we're going to approve the permit that makes sense um so then I feel like I'm stuck on whether or not this is really in harmony with the area um because while we're approving lighting um we're also approving activities going into the night in a neighborhood um and the staff report talks about um yes there are similar conditions at other schools being Durham School of the Arts and North Carolina School of Science and Math but the staff report says that at those schools um the light poles exceeding 30 feet are located along the right of way and are used only when the athletic facilities are used at night um so those are shorter poles um and they are not in an area similar to this school it's a more dense urban neighborhood um so I'm a little bit stuck about whether or not this is going to be in harmony with the neighborhood given that it's not just bringing lighting to um this situation it's also bringing activity and noise can we comment on the activity and noise sure that I think we've tried to talk about the the things that we did with regard to the lights in um trying to make sure that it stayed in harmony with the neighborhood in terms of activity and noise it it it struck us that we we reside between the very busy arteries going in and out of Durham of Rocksboro and uh Mangum Street and like many other urban schools we're a school operating a residential neighborhood we don't anticipate any difference in the neighborhood noise levels caused by our lights or the conversion of our athletic field as we've said we don't anticipate using these lights late into the night and again we're happy to have a discussion on uh uh uh hours of operation as as we're having um noise from excited kids in the occasional whistle kind of pale in comparison to the traffic noise on our surrounding streets and during COVID our kids um on any given day they try to have lunch outside and we actually had our neighborhood meetings outside and it's interesting how many times our voices were drowned out by the sound of dump trucks and airbrakes and sports cars that were far noisier than kids you know playing on a soccer field so in our minor special use permit application I believe that we address that but our feeling at least was the noise from the very urban area in which we reside would have far more impact on the quality of life than then kids playing on a on a soccer field at at the home campus all right um anything else from our board members is there a staff recommendation jacob yeah i'm getting to it just making sure everybody had gone uh bo do you have a recommendation for the board yes uh staff recommends approval of application b210019 um with the condition that the improvement shall be substantially consistent with the plans uh that have been submitted any further discussion from board members sounds like we've had uh at least three or four of us discuss timing do we want to explore this mr chair are you saying no i'm i'm uh of like mind um to uh to e and i would like to see some kind of temporal constraints uh around timing um this is something the applicant has said several times that they're open to discussion um i'd like to hear what the applicant has to say about timing right uh mike um i was just going to mention something similar um you know i think you know i'm kind of on the fence uh regarding timing what what is appropriate i feel um i'd like to hear from the applicant before i make a suggestion on what that might be all right mr gray said jim baker would be the one to talk about this is that so yes sir so two concerns on the timing and i think it was alluded to a little while ago um if we i don't want to obviously i don't think anybody's want to go back and um ask for another special use permit uh if we aren't a situation where we have to try to expand the lighting times for the field in the future uh with that said yes we are willing to come up with a reasonable time frame to turn the lights off first and foremost we will not put keep the lights on as we said earlier once the field is finished its use and the players and parents have exited the field um as everybody knows game ends are eight or eight thirty at night doesn't mean everybody exits the fields right at eight thirty uh we are concerned for the safety of those individuals i think in fairness to the neighbors uh and to uh everybody on this hearing um i think we would certainly around nine thirty at night bring it back to the board i was yeah i think nine thirty is is a reasonable hour um mike you have something yeah i was my my initial recommendation was going to be 10 o'clock just thinking you know by the time i think i read in the report that there's a there's an hour timer for one event ends right assuming a game starts at seven and ends by eight thirty gives uh you know an hour hour and a half to to get things cleaned up put away and for people to safely leave the property so my recommendation would be not not any earlier than 10 i actually agree with that because uh i do agree with that as well um any thoughts from board members i have a retch list here i support that as well jake and natalie jessica my follow-up question is who maintains that who who enforces that because the police are going to enforce it the planning board doesn't the planning doesn't work at 9 30 at night we we the city has an enforcement department that's you know that's just not something we get into um you know we've talked about that you know uh bo you got something yes uh they would be subject to a notice of violation um if they were found to um have the lights on past in this case 10 p.m um you you're right our enforcement folks aren't typically working during the day but there are nighttime operations uh quite a bit so certainly um if there were a complaint we would investigate we have invested in an auto shut off i think as we talked about an earlier testimony so we would also self-regulate that i would i would add that uh this uh provision would be enforced just like every other um condition on every other special use permit in the uh city and county of Durham so um you know there shouldn't be any with regard to enforcement yeah agreed thank you brine uh natalie what are your thoughts or do you have anything or or jessica um yeah i was just going to comment the 10 o'clock sounds very reasonable um you know and with children's and and if they're young children playing they're not going to be out past 10 o'clock they're you know their games are going to be scheduled earlier so yes no earlier than 10 i agree call did you i mean i'm sorry not cool uh bo did you have something uh i know you had joined up i was left left it up okay i'm sorry chad um i have one one question uh for for bo and the and the um and the board and that is um i mentioned earlier that this site um appears to as part of this application uh meet the 0.5 foot candles at the at the edge of the property line um i i understand that that you know that standard is inside the udo uh however that standard is not applicable to this use um and here and to my question because that provision is set down in this um application uh and is on the record here is that sufficient for staff uh to ensure that that 0.5 foot candle maximum is maintained or is it necessary in your opinion for us to to include a condition to that effect um should this get approved so i i think the condition that the improvement shall be uh substantially consistent with the plans and all information submitted to the board um would be sufficient for planning staff to require that the certification um meet those standards however if you wanted to further clarify for the sake of uh transparency um for all those in the hearing that would uh make a lot of sense as well i mean it's well but without the condition we would you we would read that uh condition and enforce um that they meet the budget they've submitted thank you i kind of feel like that's part of that substantially consistent um as well as i mean we we have this standard um any other final thoughts uh does anyone if there's no further uh discussion or thoughts does anyone want to offer a motion i'd like to uh chair roger's retch list here i'd like to hear uh the opposition if they're okay with the uh agreed time well we're not going to go through every person here and ask them um but uh i see a hand up i i think that that could be on one thing that we ask uh mr hilton yeah i was just going to say that 9 30 p.m is incredibly late for a toddler um i would prefer to see something more in the eight to eight 30 time my child's bedtime starts at 7 30 and we aim to have him in the crib at eight i think that's probably consistent with a lot of families around here we have a lot of small children and uh you know they said their games start at four like four hours of of playing soccer sounds like a lot to me you can probably fit in two or three games so i would ask the board to please consider moving that a little earlier to balance the interest interests of families who have children that need to sleep all right um so if we're going to talk about time um i guess we need to agree upon this uh and also get consent from the applicant in our chad and then you both have uh your hand up i don't i don't know if that was from a previous time or what um in in yeah yeah i have my hand up i just this is pretty complicated i really don't see us after meeting for six hours hash this out in the next hour i think we need to extend this figure it out and come back next month and do it appropriately as opposed to hurriedly which would be short shrift to the process to the church to the soccer field to the community to the board and to Durham what what is left for you for you i don't understand i think it's extremely important that this be ratified legalized that the lights go out at x time um i mean the process has been very um bumpy so why don't we end it on a smooth a smooth where everyone can feel like they're getting something out of it as opposed to hurrying it because i feel like this is hurried there there's still more things in my mind that i'm not sure about i'm not ready to vote on this can you i have to vote i'll vote against it can you identify what those specific items are for the record yes for the record um it just seems like the soccer field has gone full tilt with the lights even though they were told to stop more than a month ago so we're also given approval first right listen um no developer that i know is told to stop and then keeps going so the fact that they're doing that i just question why they were they were told that they could by the city they were told they could yes they were told that they could that was actually in the beginning of of this they were told that they could continue but not have them connected okay um i'm not comfortable with this i think this is not appropriate for this site at all i think it is injurious to property value i think the appraisal submitted the appraisal report didn't tell us anything except that Durham's a hot market it didn't tell us anything so i'm not comfortable with this and i need more time to think about it and if you got a hurry me then hurry me and i will be heard i don't think i think that today is there's nothing about today that's been hurried i'll tell you that there's nothing about this case that's been hurried uh i'm not i i'm just trying to figure out what specific item it sounds like you're just not comfortable with the lights period uh there to me i think that if there was going to be a continuance it needs to be a reason why we're continuing what specific item we want in our net you know the next time and i haven't heard that other than you're just not comfortable with it no i think it needs to be agreed upon by the church and the school and the city about when the lights will get off well when they'll be shut off and i think this is important like like this has become incredibly complicated and incredibly contentious and it wouldn't have been that way had there been more information from the beginning but there wasn't so that's where i am so i think we're here now talking about that time but christa do you have something thank you mr chair christa kukura city attorney's office um i just wanted to speak to ian's concern about sort of making this legal um and kind of reaching an agreement the way to do that is to put the condition on an approval if that's what the board chooses to do um that is the mechanism for getting that in place and making it legal at least from an enforcement standpoint um planning perspective um so there's not anything else that would need to happen uh for that and like i said earlier the applicant does need to consent to the condition um and so that's a discussion i think that can happen in more detail i feel like we have heard what the board some of the board members want to do um and so it'd be a matter of getting the applicants consent to that and that that is what's legally required uh mr gray thank you mr chair uh the applicant will consent to 9 30 and we have that as a condition you've got three or four of us who are fine with 10 o'clock so 9 30 is what you're consenting to if it happens yes sir okay thank you um christa did you have something else or i'm sorry ham is still raised uh okay all right um the applicant has said 9 30 um any other thoughts on that this is chad if the applicant suggests the 9 30 condition who are we to tell them that's not the right number uh that sounds suitable to me if that's acceptable to them i agree much less here i concur as well major i agree as well mr chair i think i think the mad is right for emotion it is you are correct um does anybody want to offer the motion i will try and if if you'll have me i was gonna try to chat but why don't you try i'm gonna let you yeah let's go ahead okay uh the motion to grant application conditions i hereby make that motion that application number b21 00019 an application from minor special use permit on property located at 1004 north mangan street has successfully met the applicable requirements of the unified development ordinance and is hereby granted subject to the following conditions one that the improvement shall be substantially consistent with the plans and all information submitted to the board as part of the application in condition number two that the applicant will agree to a time limit of 9 30 p.m um seven days a week we have an uh a motion for approval by mr retulis is there a second meadows second in a second by mr meadows susan will you call the board did we lose susan i'm just talking away i'm sorry i was speaking mr retulis yes mr meadows yes mr kip no mr rogers yes yes miss major yes that's why you now see the judge mr tarrant yes miss boshin yes motion carries seven to zero nope six i'm sorry motion carries six to one by a vote of six to one your request for a minor special use permit has been approved uh we thank you for coming before the boa this morning we appreciate the entire community uh coming in for this this has been a true public process this morning i appreciate we now understand the uh the difficulties with online but we appreciate you coming wish you the best of luck all right moving forward uh looking on the agenda we have no old business i'm looking at new business we've got some revisions to the rules a procedure i'm guessing this is from 160 d at the general assembly something that we worked on you know my industry worked on so christa you want to take it over explain it sure um so you should be able to access those um the amendments in the agenda there's a hyperlink to the document there um we will not be voting on them today the the rules themselves require that you first have them before you and then we'll vote on them next month um the rules are the amendments are pretty much just sort of tidy things up to match with our current practices and like um chair rogers mentioned kind of articulate explicitly some requirements in the 160 d recodification and amendments um so i'll just run through them really quick um the first substantive change is on at the top of page six is section 2.1 d allowing for remote meetings explicitly we do have a law that allows us to operate currently as we are but just putting it into the rules um to allow for that the next amendment is section 2.2 um just making it clear that the board needs to vote on excused absences because that's relevant for the county's procedures as it relates to its appointees that is something that we already do um but just again putting it into the rules to match our practices the next substantive amendment let's see here um section 3.4 at the top of page 8 um this is just something that was articulated in 160 d that if something has been properly noticed um and it's continued notice does not need to be given again um so just kind of saving some administrative burdens on the back end next substantive change is section 3.5 immediately below just clarifying that um agendas are mailed out to everyone um at the same time to the members of the board landowners applicants interested persons the next substantive change section 4.1 kind of midway down page 10 um this is sort of talking about again just I think this came from 160 d if there's no quorum present um hearing is just automatically rescheduled and I am going to just fly through these because I know we have been sitting here a long time if you have any questions please interrupt me again we're not voting on them today you just need to be aware of the contents um section 4.2 this just makes it clear that if there's the rules are silent roberts rules govern section 4.3 um h and i are the next changes these are 160 d amendments just that staff materials become part of the record staff typically asks that they become part of the record that's not necessary I believe we'll continue to do that um and then the next section I expert testimony required on specific issues this came up today in the meeting um so should be familiar to all of you um the next substantive change section 4.4 page 13 that this is what came up in the the last case um that consent the applicant must consent to conditions that are imposed on its approval and then the next change 4.4 f um did there was some language in the rules of procedure that didn't quite match up in terms of when the clerk mails the order um and when that is considered effective so this language here in the rules of procedure basically just refers back to the udo to keep it simple um because we want to make sure that everyone knows the correct accurate date there and that's it so um please take a look at them uh in between now and the next meeting if you have any feedback questions comments please um let me Brian staff know happy to answer those and we'll intend to vote on them at the next meeting and we'll these I think these have to be approved by July 1st right um I think that's right the changes I thought that was the case yeah I think that's right yeah I thought so too so we'll prove we'll approve these up next I think that was the what the general assembly was extended it to okay uh so uh Chad you got a question before we continue I don't uh I just wanted to ask if um what the process was if we wanted to um uh not necessarily ask a question but propose some alternative language I wanted to be sure that there was adequate time for the board to look over any suggestions or if there was a process for that that's all there's no prescribed process obviously we want to be able to have a meaningful discussion at the next meeting and you know the board can vote on them as amended as it chooses to amend them the next meeting um so just if you can sort of send that over to to myself Brian and staff um maybe a couple weeks in advance that would be great ten four thank you also I think there's uh we already called them evidentiary hearings in Durham a lot of times they're called public hearings I think it moves it over to you know everything is evidentiary for DOA um all right so we've got a few orders here and we'll need a motion and a second for each one of these will and in a vote so um b2000043 was from April 27th Chris go ahead I wanted to make a note that Miss Wymore was not at that meeting and Mr. Tarrant was not seated all right well who who's eligible to vote do we know kip meadows rogers wretch less major but jaco is that is that the uh the EMS fire station order okay that order is is not ready because we're still waiting for um additional information from the applicant so we could finish the order uh and I'm hoping to get that and once we get that we'll finish the order good good deal so um I don't remember b200004 is that from today or last last meeting it is actually same oh go ahead uh this is Susan I was I had just made noted that's the one that Meadows wretch less and Wymore voted no and Bo Shane was not seated this one from March it's uh the Hillcrest parking deck variance um so it was not from last month but from the previous month and it was that I'll deny Susan go ahead and tell us who can vote on this one kip rogers major and Tarrant so um one of the three of you only didn't make a yeah Chad that was the Hillcrest parking yeah the the so the order is denial so the people who voted to deny don't sign don't vote on the order no the the motion was to approve and that failed okay and so the order the order is is what so it's an order for denials so the people who voted for not who voted for the denial who voted no are the people who can vote on the order today thank you so the people who are voting on this order are the people who voted to deny the application so that's Meadows wretch less and Wymore I'll make a motion wait hang on Brian were you gonna say something was it three or four people who voted against it it has to be at least four no it was three they voted against it right that's right I think so okay all right so we've got a motion from Meadows I need wretch less second wretch less second uh Susan call call those two Meadows yes wretch less yes all right moved it on all right today uh b2 1 0 0 0 0 8 this is a unanimous vote Tisha was in on this a sheet obviously um I don't think Jessica you took her spot so um one of the other six of us uh who would like to motion Meadows the move approval Meadows who's the second second second um I'll call Kip yes yes Meadows yes Rogers yes wretch less yes major yes all right next one uh b2 1 0 0 0 1 7 this is also a unanimous vote uh Tisha voted on this but she's not here today so there's only six of us who will be voting is there a motion wretch less uh all right Bo Shane second yep yep second I kept you know I had Bo Shane as second I was just calling Kip for the role so yes you're on mute yes Meadows yes Rogers yes wretch less yes all right um hold on I think I also need to call uh Tarrant was seated correct yes yes all right carries all right our next meeting is June 27th at 8 30 a.m until then we shall see you all then have a good afternoon did you say June 27 June 25 Saturday 22 22 I can't I can't be uh 22nd is it the 22nd June 22nd excuse me that's what I have I can't be interested y'all don't want to work on a Saturday no I already do it's gonna be this quick all right guys y'all have a good day see you thank you thank you