 He is indeed, it's a hot job. Yeah, which side do you want? Yeah, we'll sit this early today, right? Here we go. Color. Love it. It's a couple of months. Sorry, no such luck. It's just donker pay. Yeah, thank you. Well, I like this video a lot better than the other one. I can actually see this. Yeah, it is better. It is better. You got an extra copy. Otherwise, I can follow along on my email. I'm good. Thank you. Good evening. We'd like to call the Durham City Council meeting to order. This been Monday, the 7th of July, the 7th of August. And I certainly want to welcome all of you to here. This is our first meeting since our recess. And thank you. I asked Councilman Davis if he would leave us in the pledge. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. May we rise, please? United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God and indivisible with liberty and justice. I'm going to call the roll, please. Mayor Bell. Present. Mayor Pro Tem Cole McFadden. Present. Councilmember Davis. Here. Councilmember Johnson. Here. Councilmember Moffitt. Here. Councilmember Reese. Here. And Councilmember Shull. Here. Thank you. I'd like to recognize Councilmember Reese. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Before we get started with most of the rest of the agenda tonight, I wanted to share with the council and with the members of the public who are present as well as those watching a poem that I discovered online about two weeks ago. I believe it was originally written at the third Thursday art event here in downtown Durham. And I really felt that it was fitting for the place that we find ourselves in this city right now as we open up a new political season for the next round of city elections. The poet is a local dignitary, famous person here in Durham, the Poetry Fox, who has been writing spontaneous street poetry at events and gatherings in this area for over five years. Everything from kid birthday parties to street festivals to midnight masquerade revelers and Duke hospital cancer patients. Give the Fox a word. Bam. Get a poem with that word in it. The Fox is also Chris Vitello, an award-winning arts writer and chief contributor for Indie Week. I'd like to ask the Poetry Fox to come up now to the podium here and read the poem that he wrote. Foxy. I'd like it to be recognized that I did that without tripping on anything. First word of business, thank you. I want to thank you guys for this opportunity. This poem was written at a third Friday, and it was sort of through a partnership through the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau that Cara Russo asked me to read it, and Duke's Art Stigators program that Amy Unnell runs. It's sort of a great example of a public-private partnership and the kind of great cultural stuff that can come from it. So it was a busy night. How I work is somebody gives me a word, and I immediately write a poem with that word in it, and I was given the word Durham, and I wrote this. Place names are nouns. People, places, and things the stern teachers taught us. But some places are really verbs, because they never sit still enough to mean the same thing. Durham, the city of people running into each other on the street and starting a project or company 10 minutes later. Durham, the city of fences leaned on for a conversation over tomatoes and politics. Durham, where we trot our problems right out so we can solve them together. No nouns here. Only verbs conjugating all day long. Thanks very much. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. I'm going to ask if Councilwoman Johnson, if you go to the podium, as most of you probably know, we lost a young man a few weeks ago in a motorcycle accident. There was a memorial service Saturday. I was able to attend very briefly. But Councilwoman Johnson has prepared a proclamation. And if you don't mind, you could present it, please. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So this is a resolution to recognize and honor Umar Muhammad, who's a local activist who was killed a few weeks ago in a motorcycle accident. Are there folks here from his family? It's been kind of a busy weekend. So I wasn't sure if anyone would be able to come. Okay. There was a memorial service for him on Saturday with over 500 people in attendance over at the Haytai Heritage Center. And it really showed the impact that he's had in the community and how many people really valued his contributions and his work. So I'm going to go ahead and read this and we'll make sure his family gets this resolution. Whereas Umar Musa Muhammad was born in Durham, North Carolina on January 7th, 1987 to Joyce and Musa Muhammad. And whereas Umar attended Durham Public Schools and whereas Umar was a local leader of All of Us or None in Sea, a state chapter of a human rights organization advocating for current and formerly incarcerated people. And whereas he was an advocate for the ban the box movement to have questions about criminal history removed from employment applications advocated across the region for spirit houses, harm-free zones movement for community resiliency and restorative justice. And whereas Umar was a leader in Durham's Fostering Alternative Drug Enforcement Fade Coalition which works to end the racial disparities of the war on drugs in Durham and other forms of police violence such as racial profiling, racial disparities in marijuana arrests and the killings of black and brown people. And whereas Umar worked as a community organizer with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice from 2014 to 2017 where he organized clean slate clinics to clear old criminal records for hundreds of people in Durham and North Carolina. And in July 2017 he joined Forward Justice to become the lead organizer and campaign strategist in order to work on national issues through the formerly incarcerated, convicted people and families movement. And whereas Umar participated in a City of Durham Human Relations Commission panel on the impact of the Durham County Jail on the residents of the city and shared his experience and wisdom with the community about the impact of incarceration on our residents. And whereas Umar was a member of the Jamat Ibad Alhrafman Mosque and a member of Curve Assassin's Motorcycle Club and a member of the advisory committee for the Durham County Criminal Justice Resource Center. And whereas colleagues and friends described Umar as eager, earnest and passionate, an extraordinary person and an unapologetic truth teller. And he was known for his charismatic personality, his infectious smile and courageous leadership, his love for Durham, his dedication to his community. And whereas Umar was a consistent advocate for the needs and rights of formerly incarcerated people in the city of Durham. And his voice was instrumental in the implementation of policies to require the Durham Police Department to use written search forms in order to reduce racial disparities and traffic stops and searches. And whereas he advocated to the world every day that people are not the sum of their worst mistakes and embodied this truth through his consistent and dedicated work to make Durham a stronger community that values all people. And whereas Umar is survived by his partner, partner Krista, stepson's Christian and Christopher, daughter Ella Asada, parents Joyce and Musa, siblings Nikki, Hadea and Nasheed. He will also be missed by his two grandmothers, two nieces, four nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins and many other loved ones. Now therefore be it resolved by the Durham City Council that this city council pauses in a moment of silence in memory of Umar Musa Muhammad, that this governing body pays tribute to his life and his contributions to the community and that this resolution be spread upon the official minutes of this governing body and it's signed by Mayor Bell. Thanks Councilwoman Johnson. That was well prepared, well written, well spoken. Most of that opportunity, Umar really appreciated him as an individual and so questioning. The person in this community will miss just as his family will miss him. I will ask, are there, we're asking the clerk, do we need to vote on that hand? Yes, sir. All right, I'm taking the motion. So moved. That's been probably moved in second and all in favor of the motion. I'm sorry, we've got new gadgets up here. We open the vote, close the vote. It passes seven as you are. Thank you. Our announcements by members of the council. Let me make one announcement as probably most of you know, we each year do an evaluation of our three employees at the city council hires, the city manager, the city attorney and the city clerk. We had their annual evaluations on July the 27th of this year. Today in closed session, we reviewed the evaluations with the respective employees and as a result of their evaluations, the council has recommended salary, salary increases for the city manager, the city attorney and the city clerk. The recommended salary for the city manager is $234, 137,000, $234,137.89. The recommended salary for the city attorney is $215,368.22. And the recommended salary for the city clerk is $124,319.67. I would entertain a motion to approve those salary increases. So, Mr. Mayor. Second. It's been properly moved to second. Madam clerk, again, we open the vote. Will you close the vote? It passes seven as you are. Let me recognize the city manager for any prior times. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everyone, and welcome back, as the mayor said. You may have noticed in the council chambers look a little bit different than the last time you were here in June. Hopefully the work done over the last month since our last council meeting are as visible on television and online as they are here in person. We now have a new high definition broadcast quality council chamber. Among the changes are the new LED TV lights, which are pretty bright up here right now, and room lights, which are more energy efficient and make a big difference in the brightness of the room. There's new microphones, new high definition cameras, a new vote board system, and larger monitors behind the council chambers that have closed captioning. Also, the council member monitors were replaced with horizontal ones and better views of the audience. The monitors in the lobby were also rewired for closed captioning and better audio, and any Apple users, product users, will now be able to use their iPhones and iPads to watch the Web stream live in the past that was not possible. I do want to take just a minute to thank the many departments that were involved in this upgrade over the summer. Certainly Beverly Thompson, also like to recognize Vivian Cruz, Audarity of Public Affairs, Donna Maskell, the General Services Department, and our own sitting clerk, Ann Gray, for leading this effort over the last month and I think it's going to be a big improvement. So thank you very much. Thank you. Recognize the Mayor Pro Tem. I would just like to recognize that Umar's family just came in and Jillian there in the back. Good evening. We just had a resolution that this council adopted, a resolution prepared by Councilwoman Johnson and has indicated that resolution will be presented to you as members of the family. But we all are all for our condolences on Umar's passing. I think all of us knew him at one point in time having had an opportunity to meet with him and it's no question he's a loss for this community and as much as he's a loss for your family. While he was yours, we also confided in him, I was also so please accept our condolences. Mr. Mayor. I would like the public to know who will be offering a resolution in memory of F is still in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any of the announcements by councilmembers before we go to the prior items by the city attorney? Was that all of your prior items? That's all I had, thank you. Prior items by the city attorney. Thank you Mr. Mayor, no priority items. Likewise the city clerk are there any prior items? No items Mr. Mayor. I will read each item. The consent agenda is an item. Part of the agenda can be approved for a single vote unless a council member of the audience chooses to pull an item and at the appropriate time we will discuss it. The first item in the consent agenda is the item one, approval of city council minutes. Item two is budget measures, performance audit, June 2017. Item three is capital assets measures, performance audit dated June 2017. Item four citywide safety performance audit dated June 2017. Item five is city county ICMA local government management fellow in the local agreement. Item six is 2016 historic preservation commission annual report. Item seven is 2016 Durham city county appearance commission annual report. Item eight is 2016 Durham environmental affairs board annual report. Item nine is the 2016 planning commission annual report. Item 10 is 2016 Durham board of adjustment annual report. Item 11 is 2016 Durham open space and trails commission annual report. Item 12 is city code amendment Sunday morning alcoholic beverage sales and I'll pull that item. Item 13 is a resolution providing approval of a multifamily housing facility known as Daymark court apartments in the city of Durham, North Carolina and the financing with housing authority of the city of Durham multifamily housing revenue bonds. Item 14 is a resolution providing approval of a multifamily housing facility known as Mormon road apartments in the city of Durham, North Carolina and the financing thereof with housing authority of the city of Durham multifamily housing revenue bonds. Item 15 is a pass through agreements with Orange County, Durham county town of Chapel Hill go trying on Durham center for senior life for multiple federal transit administration grants administered by the Durham Chapel Hill Carver metropolitan planning organization. Item 16 is a supplement agreement number two between the city and BHB engineering NC PC for the North Carolina 54 corridor study. Item 17 is emergency action plan for critical sewer main crossing amendment number one to professional engineering services contract with KF Carter engineering company. Item 18 is correction to water and sewer rates for physical year 2017-2018. Item 19 is a bid report for June 2017. Item 21 is construction contract with DW Ward construction company for Maplewood cemeteria improvements. Item 22 is proposed acquisition of approximately 1476 square feet of permanent right-of-way and 1445 square feet of temporary construction easement across a portion of 1304 and 1308 western North Carolina Highway 54 pit 135 916 and 135 917 from FMR properties LLC. Item 22 is grant agreement with North Carolina Department of Transportation for the West L.L.B. Creek Trail Phase 2 project. Item 22 is a downtown parking garage project construction manager at risk pre-qualification procedures resolution. Item 25 is construction services contract with braiding integrated security for the citywide project. Item 26 is a member to professional services contract with L.L. Alert and Associates Network and Division Inc. Phase 3 of citywide security project security improvements design and implementation at Durham City Hall. Item 28 is a contract for athletics booking agent. Item 29 is a contract with Morris and McDaniel Inc. to conduct promotion testing and assessment services. Item 30 is a utility extension agreement with D.R. Horton Inc. to serve southern point townhomes. Item 1 is a recommendation for completion of stormwater infrastructure and Ravenstone and Stone Hill Estates subdivision and I'll pull that item. Item 32 is a resolution for the public works department to develop a certified third party permitting and inspection program and to certified qualified third party consultants. I just noticed that I have a card here for item 5 on the consent agenda. Challenging of neighborhoods. I'm sorry, this is item 31 also. Item 33 is contract amendment number one for SW 16, 2017 sidewalk repairs. Item 34 is a contract ST 282, 2017 street repairs and repayment project award. Item 35 is a contract SW 47D, Marlene Road bike and pedestrian improvements tip number C 4928. Mr. Mayor. Would you pull item 33 please a contract for sidewalk repairs. Item 35 is a contract SW 47D, Marlene Road bike and pedestrian improvements tip number C 4928. Item 36 is contract SW 44D compliment Fletcher Road bike and pedestrian improvements tip number U4726H0. Item 37 is hazard mitigation grant program HMGP 4167-0009-R resolution. Item 38 is new software annual support license agreement for 2018. Item 41 can be found on the general business agenda. And items 43 to 47 items that can be found on the general business agenda is public hearings. I would entertain a motion for approval of consent agenda with the exception of item 31 and item 33. Second. Second. Second. Will you close the vote? It passes 7 to 0. We'll go to the general business agenda public hearing, not general business agenda item 41. Property tax relief deferred loan program. Mayor Bell, members of council, Reginald Johnson, director department of community development. Item number 41 is the property tax relief deferred loan program . The purpose of this program is to provide guidelines for the property tax relief deferred loan program designed to assist eligible homeowners whose property taxes have increased due to an impact of city of Durham neighborhood revitalization. I will stand ready for any questions that have ready to be asked. Let me ask you there. Let me say this. We had this item at our work meeting. We deferred any comments on it primarily because two of our council members left. We did here have questions from the audience. But I think it would be better if you could present what has been proposed if you don't mind. So I would say as the presentation has been being uploaded earlier this year, end of last year, the citizens of south side neighborhood were presented before the city council and talked about the increase in taxes due to the neighborhood revitalization that had occurred. And after that discussion and presentation, the city council asked the administration to prepare a proposed deferred loan program to engage in some assistance for tax relief. So after some evaluation, the administration and department of community development proposed the program which I'll share with you now. The city of Durham property tax relief program will offer deferred loans to eligible long-term homeowners who experience an increase in property taxes due to the impact occurring from the city's revitalization or home improvement efforts in south side, southwest central Durham target areas. The purpose of this program, like I said, is grounded in the strategies that were adopted by the city council relative to affordable housing. And this program proceeds out of a policy that we focused on targeted areas to assist persons or households with tax increases. And it's consistent with the goals and goals that were adopted by the council. The proposed program guidelines were created to assist the department of community development staff in administering the program. I'll first start with the borough eligibility. The household income must be 80% or below of the hood median income, area median income. There is no asset limitation. Housing costs must be above 30% of the total household gross income. A property tax increase must be the result of direct city investment in the defined target areas, and this does not include private investment. In terms of borough eligibility, applicant must have resided in their home prior to the qualifying event and for a minimum of five years. Eligible homeowners must have applied for the homestead exemption, a disabled veterans exclusion or other available tax relief programs prior to applying for the deferred loan program. Homeowners may be approved for loan assistance for a maximum of four years with a maximum of four annual disbursements. Homeowners must have their incomes recertified annually to verify ongoing program eligibility. Eligible properties. The property must be located in a target area where increased property values are the result of a direct city investment whereas the property is located within 500 foot feet radius of the investment. Revitalization projects or home improvements must have occurred between 2010 and 2015 that's inclusive of those years. The loan will have a 0% interest rate. The loan will be deferred until the property is sold, transferred or is no longer occupied by the borrower. The loan amount will be the difference between the amount of the previous years property tax obligation and the 2016 property tax obligation. The deferred loan terms the increase in tax obligations must be a minimum of 10%. The borrower must occupy the home as their principal residence and continue to do so until the home is sold or transferred. A deed of trust or lien from the borrower in favor of the city will be part of the loan documentation. Additional annual disbursements will increase the amount of the principal secured by the deed of trust. Additional deferred loan terms the city will look to recapture the entire balance of the loan term if the loan is sold, transferred or if a qualifying disqualifying event occurs. In the event that the home is sold the city would not look to recapture more than what is available from net proceeds of the sale. Net proceeds are equal to the sale price minus superior liens and closing costs associated with the sale. Upon the death of the homeowner or borrower the heirs to the property that receives the loan assistance may apply for and receive additional loan assistance or continued loan deferment if the heir is sold and continues to reside in the property. The total estimate in terms of cost for the program is $585,977 and this is based upon an estimate of the number of properties that a tax increase face tax increases in the area and also will percentage an estimated percentage of households that may participate in the program. So this is a projection. The final slide I have before you shows the target areas that have been previously adopted by council. It also shows the blue dots are the investments that have occurred for affordable housing within the zones and then the additional rings that you show that are in gold are the 500 foot radius from those investments. That concludes my formal presentation. Thank you. We have several people that have signed up to speak on this item but before they speak I want to ask if there are any questions or comments by the council at this time. If not then I will recognize persons who have signed up to speak on this item. You each have three minutes. As I call your name you proceed to the podium to my right. Sandy, Anthony, Jones, Jim, Savara and Joy Mikkel in that order. My name is Sandy Demary and I live at 819 B North Street and I'm part of the North Street community that I think a lot of you know is for people with and without disabilities to all live together and support each other. It was crap. It was all boarded up and it was awful looking before it got redeveloped and renovated. So of course our taxes have gone up and we assumed that. I hadn't given any thought to my neighbors kind of foolish. We've lost a lot of our renter neighbors through gentrification and now I'm concerned about the homeowner neighbors that we have one of my neighbors is with me tonight. We thought or I thought at the time that they were going to be grandfathered in at the old tax rates and I don't think that's what's happened. I personally support Steve Schuels new idea. I think I've heard about that anyways about a proposal for a grant for Southside. Southside is a big fan of especially after serving on the steering committee for rolling hills but I also think that we need to step back and rethink city wide about tax relief. For instance in our neighborhood we've been impacted by both city activity as well as market activity but we're not inside the city we're from northeast central Durham so at that I'll just hand it over to Anthony. Good evening. I am Anthony Jones and I live in this area that she's been talking about in Northwood Circle since this revitalization came upon us my taxes have increased 80%. They said if it don't work if it's too much appeal I appealed and thanked for the paperwork but it didn't do me any good. That's the same and as it's going now I have no idea what to expect and I shared with some of the other homeowners in that area if I am retired and my income is fixed and you give me a piece of paper telling me how to pay my taxes but you don't tell me how to get the money to pay the taxes. So that's the best I can tell you. Whatever you do for me I greatly appreciate it. I thank you much. Good evening. Jim Savaro 1114 Woodburn Road. I have come to speak tonight on behalf of the Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit and I want to encourage you to not approve this proposal but rather to consider how we can make it better. Durham should create a local tax relief program and I want to credit the mayor and the Community Development Department for recognizing that there are ways that we can develop our own program and let's do it right. There are many shortcomings with the proposed program. It is unfair for persons outside the boundaries of the three target areas and we just heard an example of that. There are lots of cases of people that are close to those boundaries and they don't get assistance but let's recognize that the changes the city has made downtown and throughout the city have impacted the property values that homeowners have and in areas that were formerly low income these dentrifying forces are pushing up values and pushing up the tax burden and this is a destabilizing force. So let's make let's provide assistance let's look for a way to provide assistance to low income homeowners throughout the city that are paying excessive taxes. Now the community development department does not address this issue of excessive taxes paying too large a percentage of income in property tax it addresses only an increase there are people who are paying a burdensome amount not because it's an increase they've been paying that amount for some time let's address that underlying problem the most serious limitation I think with this approach is that it doesn't really solve anything after four years those high taxes are still going to be waiting for the homeowners that have been able to benefit from it are we going to add more loans on top of the four I think we need to think again about how to broaden the coverage think about the basis for providing that assistance and link it to income earlier this year the council approved endorsed the idea in its legislative agenda of expanding the state circuit breaker tax to cover all families not just those that are elderly and handicapped the principles on which that kind of program are based have not been included in the community development department proposal so let's rethink let's include those and add the key elements are a cap on taxes based on a percent of income let's make it an ongoing program without this limit to four years and we will we will all benefit in the long term by doing that the benefits would be those for people that are 50 to 80 percent that are under 50 percent or under 80 percent of area median income in the meantime let's recognize the special burden that residents of south side have been through with the massive renovation that has occurred there and do something about their taxes from last year thank you welcome joy good evening i'm joy michael i'm also with the coalition for affordable housing and transit and i am in favor of creating a program for helping homeowners who are having trouble with the increase in taxes due to development especially those for south side however in favor of creating the circuit breaker type of program instead of a loan program as a rule i don't really think that giving loans to people having trouble paying their taxes is a good policy move and i think that there is a better way that we could create a program that helps everyone in the city and i think that i know that the housing stabilization program that jim savara pulled together originally was a grant program i'm not sure when and how it changed to a loan program but i think that with it not having any interest the loan program not having interest in basically being probably more expensive to administer that way why not just do a grant program i'm not sure i understand that i think that the council should reject this proposal and or substitute this motion substitute this program this loan program and then go about the work of creating something citywide like the circuit breaker type program that jim mentioned and i think councilman shul has afforded also to the council i think that something that limits homeowners exposure to two or three percent is a much better way of helping homeowners than putting it into debt and then in four years their face with the same tough choices of high taxes if and also the fact that if we do create some type of program that limits tax exposure we're really helping to slow gentrification displacement in a serious way this program is a short fix i really don't think that it's good policy to give loans to people having trouble paying their bills i just think that going back to the drawing board a little bit and putting together something that makes a little bit more since policy wise is a better move thank you they were all the people that signed up to speak i'm going to recognize persons on the council and i have some comments i'll make last recognize councilman moffitt and then councilman shul and then the mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor to say that i echo some of the comments we've heard tonight i've had some concerns about this this is relatively modest amounts of relief it's really only for a small portion it's only for the tax increase and as loans and not only the issues that they've talked about about lending to people who are already low income houses low income households but also it's expensive to administer to keep track of everything the 500 foot radius has bothered me because you can live 10 houses away and be outside that radius i think that's too small i've been troubled by the fact that it has a double layer of limitation you have to be within 500 feet and live within one of these areas and at the same time i don't want to keep sending it back to staff so those are my comments at this time thank you recognize councilman shul the mayor thank you very much mr mayor excuse me so i've been thinking a lot about the housing stabilization program we're going to be voting once a night and i've said this i'm about to say here to my colleagues earlier today i really appreciate to work on the staff of the staff on this over the last several months our staff has been trying to craft a program that meets a complicated set of criteria and also responds to the council's wishes that we've expressed both informally and formally at work sessions over these last several months i'm in strong support of figuring out a comprehensive efficient equitable and cost effective program to keep our low income homeowners in their homes and i know that is a goal that all of my colleagues share after a lot of reflection i don't think the program in front of us tonight can do i do think it's a really good effort but i don't think it's the best we can do and i'm afraid that if we vote for this program we're going to be locking ourselves into a long-term loan program that we may well regret having adopted so to cut to the chase i believe we ought to simply vote tonight to give the south side homeowners grants to cover the difference between the 2015 and 2016 property taxes should then take our time to get a comprehensive housing stabilization program right one that considers home repairs as well as tax relief with the advantage of having a new housing director on board we haven't had our housing director position filled in a long time and when we fill that position it should be soon that would be very helpful i've spelled out below what i think the details of this one year grant program should be which i'll say in a moment i think it should be simple it should be easy to administer and it should be inexpensive to taxpayers the creation of this program is the kind of problem that shows why governing is harder than slogans we all know that we want housing stabilization for our low-income homeowners that's the easy part is to say that social policy involving public expenditures to help one low-income subgroup is hard to get right in the case of the policy in front of us now we've got a subgroup that is in my opinion fairly arbitrarily defined we have significant loan closing costs for very small loans so the efficiency of the program is very low we're leaving out people who are not defined as housing burden but whose home ownership is still threatened by rising property tax we don't have a good handle on the potential long-term costs and we're not looking comprehensively at the best way and this is I think the most important thing we're not looking comprehensively at the best way to spend our scarce affordable housing fund dollars to help keep people in their homes we need to consider home repair spending needs too and how our total housing stabilization spending should best be configured what is the right balance between our spending on tax relief versus home repairs for low-income homeowners which has the best chance of keeping them in their homes over the long-term in short I think we need to spend more time to get this right and we're about to get soon some more in-house expertise to help us do this we all know that any local housing stabilization program involving tax relief is another Durham workaround a problem that should be solved at the state level the state's elderly disabled homestead exemption provides significant property tax relief for low-income seniors or people with a disability ideally the state mitigation program would simply be extended to all low-income homeowners instead Durham is trying to find our own local progressive solution but as we do let's try to find the right solution so in the interim I think we ought to go back to where this whole process began with the low-income Southside homeowners who brought this need to us in the first place their taxes have gone up significantly as a direct result of an enormous city investment in their neighborhood a much larger investment than the city has made in any other neighborhood their situation is unique while we are figuring out how to craft the best possible comprehensive housing stabilization policy which will include tax relief and home repairs we need to go ahead now and provide tax relief to the one group of low-income homeowners who we know are significantly affected by the city's investment and that is Southside's low-income homeowners I propose that this assistance come in the form of a grant to those homeowners in the Southside area as described on the staff's current map who are at or below 60% of the area median income till the eligible homeowners must have lived in their home for at least five years and their property taxes must have gone up at least 10% from 2015 to 2016 the grant would be to cover the increase of property taxes from 2015 to 2016 minus any tax relief already provided to these homeowners through the state circuit breaker programs this would be a one-year program covering the 2016 property taxes only and we should further direct the staff to come back to us with a comprehensive housing stabilization program during this next fiscal year during this fiscal year so that we can deliberate on this program during next year's budget sessions that's my proposal and I hope my colleagues will consider thank you Mr. Mayor I want to hear from some folk from Southside were you going to speak Ms. Faust Ms. Faust nobody from Southside when the residents of Southside came to us initially asking for tax relief there were a predominance of black women heads of household people who were of low to moderate income who because of our work there or our partnering with others were suffering because of the escalated taxes now I tend now so much about racial equity I tend to look at this through a racial equity lens and I wonder if that group had been from some other ethnicity or race would we be going through this tonight I am not willing to change the program that was originally shared with us by staff however if we want to do something later and look at the cost and other sorts of considerations I am willing to do that but I am ready to move on what staff has presented because I don't want Durham to be perceived as a place where we don't listen seriously to people who really need it now I know that Southside has suffered quite a bit over the years and I think that just that location enough has suffered sufficiently and they are now do some burden relief and that's where I am in my walk thank you Mr. Mayor I want to thank my colleague Council Member Shul for coming forward with this alternative proposal about how to address this particular agenda item as all my colleagues know we have been wrestling with this for quite some time I know that when I first went into this office 608 days ago this was one of the issues that was foremost on my mind was the recent with respect to the recent property revaluation what would happen to the property tax burdens for working families in this city and I think we've seen through the advocacy of the folks who are here from the Southside neighborhood we saw some very cute examples and that's why Madam Mayor Pro Tem I am in support of Council Member Shul's proposal because it would provide the Southside homeowners with even more relief than the proposal that is on our agenda tonight that proposal which has been put forward by staff after a lot of hard work and in response to quite frankly a variety of opinions on this council the has been would saddle the Southside homeowners with debt instead of providing them actual tax relief and as I've said in other meetings where we've discussed this I simply don't understand the rationale of providing city funds to all sorts of private entities for a perceived economic benefit while being unwilling to extend the same type of public investment in some of our most long standing Durham residents who have made incredibly deep and lasting contributions to our community and that's why I support the proposal the other thing I wanted to add here is that the staff proposal was designed to maximize the certainty that the city is acting within its authority here we heard at our last work session city attorneys and their in his staff that that nexus between public investments by the city of Durham and affordable housing and the area in which this program would from which the eligibility would spring was premised on the theory that where the city puts public dollars to into a community for the purposes of of increasing the amount of affordable housing there would be paradoxical getting sound effects it would be paradoxical to allow those investments to create unaffordability in the surrounding area as a result of increasing property values I think that that analysis is very sand and I appreciate the city manager's office for putting that before us but I think it's just a sound to say that public investments over the last 15 to 20 years in the downtown core incredible benefits for this city in which members of this council were very brave to stand up for but those investments also create areas of new rising unaffordability in neighborhoods that surround the downtown core and I believe it would also be paradoxical for us to have said we're going to invest millions of dollars in the downtown core in private developers and not have the ability to ameliorate the impacts of that downstream once those investments reap benefits for us and once we begin to see increasing property values in that area that's why I believe the argument is perhaps strongest where the city has made it's affordable housing investments I still believe the argument is strong and sustainable that a broader area of laudability should be applied to this program as I've also said what Michael said I'm not sure I don't really understand the logic of using debt to defray property taxes so the last thing I wanted to add is just to echo what council member Schultz said about how difficult this is I understand full well and hear from taxpayers all the time that essentially we are trying to short circuit or work around a state system that is generally designed to prevent us from achieving progressive goals with respect to the property tax but I believe that in this area given the arguments that we will have at our disposal about public good and public purpose I believe it would be appropriate to adopt a wider program that's why I support council member Schultz's proposal to do a short term grant program immediately for the south side homeowners for the last property tax and then move forward with a broader analysis of how we can do a better program going forward let me make a few comments I appreciate what has been said council member Schultz's proposal I just got this evening so I really haven't had a chance to look at it as thoroughly as I would have liked but I accept the comments that he's made first of all from my perspective what we're talking about is fairness what I'm talking about what's equitable we're talking about what's equal we're talking about what's fairness and my wife constantly reminds me that when you're dealing with kids you love them all but you can't treat all of them equal because they aren't equal I mean what you try to do is to be fair I mean you might be given bicycles you have four kids, you can buy bicycles for kids you might decide that you're going to give this type of bicycle to the kid that's 18 years old if you're going to be equal you give the same type of bicycle to somebody that's four years old, 12 years old, 13 years old but you don't do that you make an adjustment so you give a bicycle to the younger kid that has trainers on it is that bicycle equal to them? no it's not equal but it's about being fair and this is what we're talking about at least what I'm talking about and this issue we're trying to address about what is fair my interest in neighborhood revitalization was affordable housing and neighborhood stabilization it began long before I became mayor in 2001 it really began when I had an opportunity to take a bus ride with some people who were affordable housing, Larissa Sybles she knows the name of the group when we toured this community and what I saw was quite evident that we needed to do something as a city in terms of trying to help revitalize those neighborhoods for long periods of time and we needed to find a way to do it to scale not a house here, a house there but to do it scale and so we took on Barnes Avenue which is now Eastway Village 40 plus houses we didn't push anybody out it was fair willing to buy or willing to sell but we transformed that neighborhood we transformed that neighborhood and as a result of that we helped transform a part of northeast central Durham it wasn't everything but you can't do everything overnight these neighborhoods didn't get in the positions they in overnight you aren't going to change overnight we did the same thing over in Southside with Rowland Hills formerly Hattie community where we just completed 140 apartments mixed income about to complete another 85 we have home ownership that's going up along that area and we just didn't do this arbitrarily as has been expressed we didn't do it arbitrarily this council made a conscious effort that just as we were going to support downtown we were going to support our neighborhoods and we chose the two neighborhoods we were going to focus on northeast central Durham and the southside community it wasn't arbitrary we looked at where the worst conditions were and what could we do in a scalable way to make a difference and we did that now we are here in August almost 10 months away when the southside community first came to us with this problem in November and we are still trying to wrestle with it they came to us because their issue was their property had been assessed, re-evaluated and this is not the city is doing it's the county is doing everybody knows that the county the county and the city they do it every eight years now they talk about doing it every four years but the county made the decision that the values of not only their property every piece of property in here had a certain value on it that was the county decision that didn't cause the taxes to increase that didn't cause the property tax to increase what caused the property tax to increase is that the city council and the county commissioners set a tax rate that caused those properties to increase now we could have said if we don't want the property to increase we will have a lower tax rate and we could have done that and then what would have been the result in terms of how this city is operated the type of services we provide it wouldn't have happened so the valuations themselves didn't cause the problem the problem is that because of the values the city and the county set a tax rate that caused the property tax to be high this is an effort and when I say an effort when the city decided to try to help revitalize those neighborhoods unfortunately what we're having is an unintended consequence an unintended consequence it wasn't an attention that when we revitalize these neighborhoods that homeowners lower income homeowners in particular were going to have this taxes to the point where it was unbearable that was an unintended consequence that was done because the actions that the city council took and as a result of that I think we bear a certain obligation to try to iterate that and that was the proposal now whether we call it a loan or grant or whatever what we did and I'll come back and take the blame on me because be truthful what we did is after we heard them this council said maybe we need to get the county involved because the county raised their taxes also and we went to the county and the county said no we aren't touching that now I understand what they did I served on the board of county commissions for 26 years I understand what they were wrestling with so I'm not faulting them but the fact is we're talking about taxes property taxes that increase because the city has a tax rate and the county has a tax rate so if you're going to solve the problem what we ask the county to do it they aren't doing it so if we were really saying we're going to deal with our problems only we don't talk about the amount of taxes increase that has been done because of what the city did but the staff took this proposal and they went back and spent time with it and not only did they say okay we bridge the gap between the city tax increase but also the county tax increase and we'll pay for it and I think that's the argument then this is what they came back with to me that's fairness it's not necessarily being equal but it's fairness we caused the problem so we're trying to mitigate the problem and that was one of the proposals that we had you know I've heard you talk about circuit breakers go to the state to the general assembly to get something done who thinks we're going to get the general assembly to do anything with a circuit breaker nobody on this council thought about you know for me you deal with what you can control and that's what we're trying to do we don't control the general assembly we do control the property tax rate that we set we do control which neighborhoods we're going to invest in these are things that we control and this is the guidelines on what you were trying to work when the staff came back with this proposal at the work session someone raised the question in fact I think it was councilman Davis well are we really being fair to people equal what about the people who don't live within this this particular area how can we justify that well you know the administration looked at this but also our attorney looked at it and if Shelly is here I would like you to speak to that point as to what is the legal basis that you've derived that as to why we could target these particular areas for what we're talking about doing and share that Mr. Mayor, members of council Ms. Anne Rosenthal senior assistant city attorney when I met with staff in spring of this year what I asked them to do and that we then set up jointly was a meeting with the GIS staff and they did an analysis which showed that in each of the target areas that you have designated and have worked in for a number of years there has been a disproportionate increase in the tax valuations as compared to either the median or the average for the rest of the city and so at that point I felt that whichever way the administration and the staff decided to go as far as choosing one area versus another as long as we could have that statistical showing that there had been a disproportionate impact I felt confident that I would have grounds to defend whatever direction you and the administration decided to pursue well the point is thank you the point is I think what the administration has done they've come back with a program that is physically responsible that is legally sound and it's something that this council chooses to do can do now I've heard a lot of talk about loans on low income people it's a zero percent loan I've talked about what happens after four years what happens after four years if the person still want to be in the program and they still qualify in terms of income and all the criteria we set they can continue that there's no money out of their pocket it's a zero percent loan a zero percent loan a zero percent loan I mean that's what it is and the only way that that it gets paid back if it gets paid back at all because the person lives in the house and they continue to qualify they don't have to pay it back it gets paid back if for whatever reason they decide to sell the home now home tends to be our biggest asset tends to be our biggest asset so if a person decides that for whatever reason they want to sell their home because they want to take the advantage of the increase in the property value and they get a higher price then they've got a lump of money and all we said is that's fine but since you've also been able to have this tax free money for a certain period of time we'd at least like you to give the city back what it invested in no more than what we ask but if it's enough you pay us back but that's the only requirement that they have so it's a zero percent interest loan the reason it's four years is because the county is now thinking about re-evaluating property every four years rather than every eight years so the point is four years from now if the county does a re-evaluation and the property value changes then the tax owner will be entitled to come in on the same circumstances they had a state where they are and apply for the loan again but again for me it's about fairness it's physically responsible it's legally irresponsible the other program is being proposed we haven't had any assessment of that we don't know what it's going to cost we don't know what kind of burden it's going to be this council is not going to administer the people going to administer are the city manager and his staff so they should be the ones that come back and tell us what it's cost going to be they've done that on this this proposal so if you're talking about doing something different to me you've got to have a similar type of evaluation but why hold up those residents who first came to us with this problem almost ten months ago to say we want to look at a much broader program they aren't mutually exclusive you could very easily adopt this program that's been proposed and still have the staff go out and do the study that has been proposed and come back and see what it comes up with but don't penalize those persons who have been waiting who came to us with this concern ten months ago and say we're going to put it on hold and know we're going to change it we're going to call it a grant which again hasn't been vetted by the administration I don't know if we can give grants like that or not you're talking about giving grants to the south side the reason the staff came back with northeast central Durham was because it met the same criteria the south side did so you're going to give a grant to the south side and forget about the people over in northeast central Durham where we've caused these problems wait until we do a further study until we do a county-wide study and another thing about the proposal I saw is that eventually the proposal says we got to go to the county to see if the county would buy into it that's not going anywhere the county's already told us that they aren't interested in doing that type of program for a valid reason and I'm not getting into whether they should do it or not so again I think we have a valid proposal by the administration I think the questions that have been raised about alternatives are alternatives that should be vetted by the administration to see if they can come back with something that fits that criteria but I think we have a program that sound sound physically sound legally and will work and it's not something that's going to cause a burden on those property owners who choose to participate and nobody is forcing them they might decide they don't want to participate but if they do it's not going to cause all these negatives that I've heard spoken about here this evening so there are my comments on that I just hope that we take some action on this tonight I don't care what we do but we need to take some action so we stop leaving these people in Limbaugh who have come to us originally for this program and I'm not just talking about Southside I'm also talking about the people which is a targeted area that we had gone into that the staff has recommended be a part of this program the motion is in order I move that we adopt the plan presented by staff the property movement second further discussion on the motion further discussion I would like to ask our city attorney for a question about the rules of procedure this point would it be appropriate to make a substitute motion or to vote on the existing motion if council is interested if a council member is interested in making a substitute motion now would be a time to do it I would like to make a substitute motion that we adopt councilman Schultz plan to give grants to Southside homeowners now for the I'm sorry we have new microphones can y'all hear me now alright something's wrong with my microphone how's this one okay great thank you I'd like to make a substitute motion that we adopt councilman Schultz plan to provide grants to the Southside homeowners for the difference between their 2015 and 2016 taxes now and ask staff to continue to develop a comprehensive property tax grant program for the rest of the city this is a substitute motion second it's been properly moved and second we're now voting on the substitute motion if there are no further questions Madam clerk I would ask if you would open the vote are you comfortable? we're voting on a substitute motion Madam clerk would you open the vote will you close the vote it passes something's wrong with my mic it passes four to three with mayor bell voting no mayor pro tem colmick fadden voting no and council member davis voting no thank you let's move to the next item please item 40 item 43 your own business agenda public hearings thank you very much michael stock with the planning department before I begin I would like to state that all required notification for the all the planning related public hearing items before you tonight have been performed per state and UDL requirements and are on file text amendment tc 14 0 0 3 is a set of updated and reorganized standards as detailed within your agenda packet and presented at work session the design district zoning regulations design district zoning districts were implemented within downtown tier in 2010 and nine street compact neighborhood tier in 2012 to establish a version of form based zoning regulations staff has reviewed how the design district regulations have functioned by compiling comments received from staff responsible for development review the development community and the general public based upon this staff has developed a set of proposed revisions that do not change the fundamentals of the district to provide standards to better achieve that intent staff has utilized focus groups and has met with various other departments the parents commission bicycle pedestrian advisory commission downtown derm ink sinking input and comments drafts have also been released for public review and comment we've held public meetings and have also been reviewed by JCC PC in January 2017 the planning commission recommended approval 14 0 the text at its April 11th meeting. Earlier today staff had met with county commissioners to provide a presentation at their work session similar to the one that council has received and the county commissioners directed staff to discuss with council following three items first was to consider removing self storage facilities has allowed use in the downtown design district. Second was that council consider adding Rigsby Street to the list of streets with ground floor residential use limits within the newly proposed section 1613 3 ground floor use limitations and thirdly explore developing low impact development strategies within right of way such as rain gardens enhanced landscaping and such. As for number one I'll just kind of briefly discuss those with you as for number one JCC PC recommended not removing this use from downtown but to ground floor use uses other than self storage or a mixed use type strategy and that has been proposed within this document before you. This was further revised that planning commission to allow minimal amount of office space related to that use at the ground floor. Unless directed otherwise staff will continue to look at and we are continuing to look at uses within design districts as we take a look at further station areas and we will continue to look at those areas. As for number two the areas proposed within section 1613 D3 were those proposed by DDI and the focus groups but staff doesn't see any issue including Rigsby Street that would be extending from Morgan to gear and I can discuss number two if you have further questions with that and then for number three staff supports considering how new low impact development strategies require a much more analysis and coordination with other departments such as public works and transportation departments and we have already identified this topic for further discussion when we take a look at adopting design districts in the other station areas. As a reminder City Council will be required to take two actions for this item tonight. The first will be vote on the appropriate statement of consistency which is attachment B in your packet and the second will be vote on the ordinance itself which is attachment A also A1 through A6 also in your agenda packet. Be happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much. Thank you. This is a public hearing. The public hearing is open. I will first ask questions, comments by members of the council. Can you say a little bit more? I didn't quite understand. I don't know whether the shout would you can hear me but there's a map to it and if you have your packet open I can lead you to exactly where we're talking about. If you go to attachment A1 and it's actually the last very last page on A1 and you'll see a map there and that's probably the best way to go about it is that this is an area you'll see downtown loop is highlighted and that the main street and foster kind of Blackwell Street axes are highlighted and that's where the proposal is to limit residential use on the ground floor. Still allowing residential uses on the other floors but to encourage more active uses on the ground level or street level non-residential, non-parking also so commercial activity, office activity. County commissioners were supportive of that idea but they also felt that Rigsby Street would be a worthwhile component of this strategy also. They felt that foster and Rigsby would be the best way to go about it. So they asked us, asked staff to bring that as a proposal to you tonight. Does staff have I understood your comments about self-storage if I understood them. What you were saying about self-storage as a use in downtown is that currently the this proposal now still includes it but with an allowance for the required office to be on the ground floor. That's correct. It's not removing prohibiting self- storage. It's adding a limited use standard that would require a different primary use on the ground floor with the exception of around 20 by 400 square feet of office for that self-storage use on the ground floor. And does staff recommend that approach? That was the for self-storage. Well that was the approach that we took based upon what we heard from JCCPC. We did broach that approach of prohibiting self- storage completely for downtown and the direction we thought we would see from JCCPC was to not prohibit it but to encourage a more mix of use that self-storage can be appropriate component for downtown development. So we went with that strategy. So but we heard the alternate request from the commissioners today. Right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Sure. Although the questions by members of the council, I recognize the council's stool. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So there are two excellent suggestions or there are three suggestions for the future here too out of particular concern to me. One is the multimodal TIAs in design districts as a and the other was new kinds of trash and recycling receptacles in design districts. How will these things move forward? They're not in this set of changes. So what would be the process for moving them forward? Very good question. So for multimodal TIA we are exploring that now when we're we just for a little background those items came up as we were going through these and there's so much of the Apple we could bite off at one time without bogging down this process whatsoever taking on the street design cross-section standards was enough for even this project but we felt that multimodal TIAs and taking a look at enhanced trash handling management were interesting topics that popped up. The multimodal TIA we have on our list to work with actually we've been talking with GoTriangle, they're interested in that and also we have mentioned it with Transportation Department to look into that kind of transportation analysis type packet as we move forward with developing any additional standards for the future transit areas and as a refresher on that when we take a look at those future transit areas and I think this was brought up at work session or at least clarified at work session I believe we anticipate around 90% of these standards to apply in those areas also but we understand that when we take a look at those other areas there might be unique instances that pop that occur that need to be addressed just for those areas but also incidents such as multimodal transit analysis that might be required that should be maybe applied throughout all the design districts such as even downtown or 9th Street where it already applied. For trash handling that was a topic that came up and there's actually we've been recently working with General Services and I believe this is partnering with DDI and if General Services is here and needs to correct me please do so. They are doing a pilot program of doing a little more automated or remote sensing type trash handling so you know when to go pick up the trash instead of having to service it every day and taking a chance on it and it's going to become more important when you have those public trash facilities in these other areas in terms of utilization of resources sending trucks out and manpower out to service those areas so that's where that came from. I think one won't be too long before we're going to have a self-driving dumpster that's going to drive that you know or something. Could you explain the changes mentioned on pages 5 and 6 of the memo regarding open space? I wasn't sure I understood what it meant. Item E I'm sorry my notes don't show me that much. Just the new open space requirements? The changes in the open space yeah. Okay so part of this this proposal is implementing an open space recommendation from the downtown open space plan that was recently adopted by council I believe a year or so ago and within that plan it recognized that there should be some amount of dedicated open space for larger development sites and those were identified generally around 80,000 square feet of new development on sites I believe we have it for three and a half acres or more and that's just being consistent with that policy direction given from that plan. There are parameters we've added specific parameters for that open space requirement and there's even a special use permit option in there that would allow for if there's some innovative design of open space that we're just not thinking of allow that to be considered. I think that's a great change I appreciate it. The height and density changes how would the changes that you've talked about in this that you're writing about here in the UDO affect something like the soulless non-street development in relationship to its neighbors to the east across Irdell street. Are you with me there Mike? You know okay so you know you have this big development apartment between 9th and Irdell and then across Irdell you have some small houses with this how would this affect that relationship at all? Not substantially and that development was actually proposed even prior to the design districts that was done under a development plan rezoning mixed use development so I believe that is support one zoning in the compact district which has reduced heights and core but might not this might not reduce the heights much significantly. I don't can't say for certain but I can't imagine it's going to drastically change that. Okay well that relationship worries me sometimes not just there but in other places and I hope you all will look at that as well and that the JCCPC will think about that. And we just recently had just for your benefit meeting on Patterson Place and we did actually a charrette with stakeholders and residents in and around Patterson Place and you might remember getting an email on that or a notification on it and we got some really good input on location of or suggested locations of different sub districts and intensities and where that goes and we plan on doing that in all the station and we'll look back on that. I think if I was a person that lived on Iredale Street and that big building I mean I understand you're living in a design district and we want densification there we're expecting transit to be there the neighborhood and doorstead and so forth but I think if I lived there I would want some sort of step back in height and you know and we do maintain those step backs and the changes don't get rid of any step backs to achieve your ultimate height. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You're welcome. Oh, the other comments from members of the council. We have one person that has signed up to speak on this item, Bram Likenit? Hello, Bram Luke 93517, Rosa Sharon Road Durham. My purpose of me standing up to speak today in the planning department had talks with them within the past 30 days regarding what would have been an unintended consequence of eliminating single family residential in the support to district which is often residential neighborhoods thus requiring only commercial development in some areas that would in some areas that are definitely residential areas they were very receptive of those concerns, worked diligently responsive and crafted language that allows for residential use in the support to district when it's adjacent to residential use or zone. So thank you, guys. Let me ask the other persons want to speak on this item. This has been a public hearing. Let the record reflect no one else asked to speak. I would encourage public hearing to be closed as a matter of fact for the council. Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to echo those comments. The planning department has been exemplifying itself I think I use the right term but they've just been great at reaching out to the community and incorporating comments from the public and working hard to bring all the stakeholders to the table and it's often reflected in the comments we receive here. So I I'm very much appreciate that. Madam Mayor Pro Tem, I heard your motion. There were three items that they raised and I would ask to I'd be happy to second the motion if we could amend it just to say that we at this time that we're approving the item with the self-storage issues as recommended by the Planning Commission which is ground floor ground floor retail allowed in it's what's currently in your So what about Rigsby Street? Rigsby Street is not that again those two items were brought up actually just today so The Board of County Commissioners went something different then I'll forget my first item please. The second item would be that Rigsby Street would be included in the area where ground floor residential would not be allowed just that item actually so that's accepting I accept the department's statement that to work on low impact development in the right of way did I have that right? Yes. That requires more study and that can come back at a later date and I think that the Board of County Commissioners I did include Rigsby in that more the street level more active I think that's a great idea and so I will ask that inclusion. What is the motion we're voting on? The motion would be to approve the item but while including Rigsby Street in the area where ground level residential is not allowed. That's within section 1613D3 we'll make that amendment and get it to the clerk's office before we even do that motion we will need to do the statement of consistency first based upon the new way of doing things so I'll move the consistency statement. Did you have anything to add? If I might add a point of information to the modified motion I'm sorry to do that so late. I might mention this briefly our recommendation and I think this is consistent with what the Board of Commissioners indicated was Rigsby from Morgan to gear there's some city property at the south side of Morgan that we're looking to do parking along and we wouldn't want to create a conformity there. Certainly I would incorporate from Morgan to gear into my statement. So is the motion now for consistency is you making that motion? Yes sir. Someone second that motion? Second. It's been properly moved and second Madam Clerk will you open the vote? Close the vote. And then I will move that approval of the item incorporating the recommendation of Board of County Commissioners to include Rigsby Street from Morgan to gear as an area where ground floor residential is not allowed. It's been properly moved and second Madam Clerk. I have a question. Recognize Mayor Pro Tem for a question. They might want to check the spelling of Rigsby. Absolutely. We will. We don't want the wrong street. Understood. Madam Clerk will you open the vote? Close the vote. That's a 7 to 0. Thank you. Next item is item 44 consolidated annexation for 4000 Danube Lane. Good evening Jacob Wiggins with the planning department. Request for utility extension agreement, voluntary annexation of future land use map amendment and the zoning map change have been received from Marlene Coulter for a nine and a half acre contiguous parcel located at 4000 Danube Lane. If approved the annexation of the site will become effective on September 30th 2017. The applicant has requested an initial zoning designation of plan at residential 10.000 and the site is currently zoned residential suburban 20. The development plan associated with this request commits to a maximum of 95 residential units in a multifamily setting. The site is designated as low to medium density residential on the future land use map in order to accommodate the proposed PDR 10 designation. The applicant is requesting to change that designation to medium density residential which allows a range of 6 to 12 dwelling units per acre. Some key commitments on the development plan include the aforementioned 95 residential multifamily units access points to the site riparian buffers at a maximum height of 35 feet. Public works in water management departments as part of the utility impact analysis determined that the existing city of Durham sewer and water mains have the capacity to serve this project and the budget and management services department perform the physical impact analysis which determined this request would be revenue positive immediately upon annexation. Staff determines that these requests are consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and recommends approval and the adoption of a consistency statement and I'm happy to answer any questions that you all may have at this time. Thank you again. This is a public hearing. The public hearing is open. I would ask first of the questions by staff and members of the council. We recognize councilwoman Johnson. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Is this working now? Yeah, sounds better. Okay, great. I had a question. I have not seen yet a case like this where an applicant has asked hasn't asked for a direct translation of the county zoning. Can you just explain what the options are? I thought that it was required to ask for a direct translation just because I had never seen something else before. Sure. There's two options. You can ask for an exact translation or if someone submits a formal rezoning petition to go along with that as they have done in this case. Doing the latter step the request will go to the planning commission for recommendation before coming to this body. Do they have to go through all the same processes as they would with a typical rezoning? Okay, thank you. That's all. Thank you. Any other questions? I remember the council. If not... Yeah, I'm sorry Mr. Mayor. I didn't quite understand what you said, Jacob. I thought I understood what we were talking about but now I don't. If we were to approve the measure tonight did I hear you to say that they would need in order to get the rezoning they're asking for tonight to go to the planning commission? Jacob Wiggins of the planning department. No, my apologies. They've already gone to the planning commission on the zoning match change. Okay, so here we're here to do both the annexation consider the annexation and the rezoning at the same time. Correct. Thank you, sir. I recognize Dan Jewel and Kim Griffin. Each have three minutes. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, members of the council. I am Dan Jewel with Culture Jewel Thames. I'm here on behalf of my business partner Coulter, now deceased seven years. And his wife, Marlene Coulter, with me here tonight. She's hard to see. She's small in the corner here. And her son, Martin Coulter, who's an intern landscape architect in our office and has been working on this project with us. Also here is Kim Griffin, as I said. Let me explain why we're here. Ken and Marlene purchased this property over 30 years ago. Ken often related me the story of how he outmaneuvered Gary Hock in acquiring it as a blocking move. Gary wanted to expand Independence Park to the east and eventually extend Ben Franklin Boulevard through the site all the way to Old Oxford Road. Ken, though, had different ideas about that. He wanted to protect Cub Creek, which runs along the eastern side of this property, and the bottom lands from development. Some of you may remember that Ken was one of the original founders of the Triangle Land Conservancy, Triangle Greenways Council, and did the New Hope Creek Open Space Plan back in the 80s. Ken had walked Cub Creek many times and was impressed with the fact that there was an intact riparian corridor from Carver Street all the way to Eno River. Remember, this was in the days before we had riparian buffer and flood development rules, stormwater rules, designated open space on our future land use map, and tree coverage requirements. So Ken was so adamant that this be protected, he and Marlene bought the property, and they have sat on it now for 30 years. Marlene is now 80 and has decided it's time to sell the property to help with her and her family's retirement. She has two primary goals. One is to create some value, which of course we know that's one of the reasons we're here, and the other is to rezone with a specific development plan that guarantees preservation of the sensitive areas of this site. We had a neighborhood meeting where we heard four specific requests from those neighbors that we limit the height of the building to 35 feet, which we have done, that we provide a landscape buffer along the northern side of the property where one was not required, which we have done, that we extend the sidewalk along the frontage of the property, which we have also committed to, and that we provide a bus stop for the children who are waiting for the school bus to wait at, and on behalf of Marlene, Ken and the family, we respectfully request that you follow the Planning Commission's recommendation, and I would also like to say that after consultation with Marlene, due to the 21 children that the staff report expects we will add to this project, we would commit to an $11,000 contribution to the Durham Public School Systems prior to approval of the site plan, which represents a little over $500 per school kid, and that's that exact wording to the Planning staff. Thank you. I recognize Kim Griffin. I'm Kim Griffin with Griffin Associates Realtors, 1816 Front Street Durham. I first met Ken Coulter in 1977 when I did my first development, and he convinced me not to develop the land that went halfway into the Eno River, but to incorporate it so that we would have a trail that goes from Guest Road to Coal Mill Road and that people could walk on it. And so when Marlene wanted me to sell the property, I was naturally very excited about it because he's one of the people that helped me when I first started in real estate. We are basically down to two serious potential developers. One, both are going to use finance agency financing. One is considering senior. The other is considering family. And this site would meet the criteria if it is properly zoned. The big objection we've had is the time that it takes to get property re-zoned and by moving forward with this tonight, I think you will assist affordable housing as well as the Coulter family. I think it's important to have the public support in this. Let me ask is that anyone else that wants to speak on this item to speak on a public hearing item. Let the director reflect and anyone else ask to speak. I will be closed. Matt is back before the council. Move the item. Second. The property moved in second. Jacob, could you just walk through the sequence of the motions, please? Oh, I'm sorry. Sure. Jacob Wiggins, the playing department. It contains the utility extension agreement, the annexation petition and the consistency statement. The second item will contain or I'm sorry, the second motion would contain the future land use map resolution and the zoning ordinance. That's still second. It's still two motions. I'll move the annexation agreement, the utility extension and the consistency statement. Second. Madam clerk, we open the vote. Close the vote. I'll move the future land use map changes and the zoning map change. Second. The property moved in second. Madam clerk, we open the vote. Close the vote. Move to the next item. 45. Good evening again, Mr. Mayor and members of council. Pat Young with the planning department. I wanted to briefly introduce you to a new face. New to you, at least. Miss Jamie has been with our staff as a senior planner for just over six months. Has presented a number of cases to the planning commission but this is the first time before you and you will be seeing her going forward. Jamie is a very experienced planner. She's a licensed principal planner in New Jersey which is where she's from. The only state who licenses planners and has a wealth of experience. It's been a great addition to the staff. So I just want to briefly introduce Jamie and turn it over to her for this case. I'm Jamie Sanyak with the planning department. The request has been received from MREC Brightleaf LLC for approximately 34 acres at 3 220 flat river drive. The subject site was zoned plan development residential 3.990 by the council on June 4th, 2001. It was case P 00-05. The approval involved 178 acres with this track 12 designated as a school or townhouse. The development plan also committed to the construction of the northern Durham parkway from Sharon road through the Brightleaf track which has been completed to flat river drive. The applicant seeks two amendments. First is the elimination of the commitment to construct the portion of the roadway from flat river drive south but the 120 foot right of way dedication will remain. And second the applicant is proposing 65 single family units which requires a zone change from PDR 3.990 to PDR 1.902. The applicant also seeks a comprehensive plan amendment to change the future land use map designation from low medium density to low density residential to coincide with the zoning request. Key commitments as shown on the associated development plan include site access points tree preservation areas project on new buffers and uses limited to single family residential development. The planning commission recommended approval of this case by a vote of 13-1 at their May 9th 2017 meeting and staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plans and other adopted policies and ordinances. And I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you again. You've heard the staff report. This is a public hearing. Public hearing is open. I would ask questions, comments, comments from staff. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Is there a graphic commitment for the trail easements on the existing site plan? It shows a green way easement through the property and as also shown on the development plan which is sheet 02 it's also highlighted there existing 100 foot public green way easement and it's in the south eastern portion of the property. Thank you. I was just wondering in the summary of development plan it says that 72% and pervious surface consist of 79 acres and I wondered if this was just a typo. I think it actually may have come from a template that was for maybe the next item or something like that so you all might want to look at that. Thank you. Those were my two questions for staff. Mr. Mayor, thank you. Welcome. Are there other questions, comments? If not, we have two persons that speak on this item. Sean Gekko and Patrick Biker. We have three minutes. Good evening Mayor Bell, Mayor Pro Tem Co. McFadden members of the City Council. My name is Patrick Biker and I live at 2614 Stuart Drive. I'm an attorney with Morningstar Law Group in Durham and I'm here tonight representing L-Star Management, the developer of Brightleaf at the park for this down zoning from PDR 3.99 down to PDR 1.902. The main issue in this zoning map change is the removal of a developer obligation to build a segment of Northern Durham Parkway to look into the historical context of this obligation which stretches back over 20 years. Our community back then was embroiled in a controversy about a road called Eno Drive and Eno Drive eventually transitioned into a project called Northern Durham Parkway. I think Mayor Bell and Council Member Moffitt had a front row seat for those events. More recently and I think wisely our local and state elected leaders saw fit to reallocate all the money from Northern Durham Parkway to the East End connector and we see that construction going on today along NC 147 and US 70. I bring this up because it has been my privilege to work on Brightleaf at the park for many years initially assisting my former partner Jack Markham on this fine neighborhood. In fact, I recall driving former City Council Member Diane Cattati through Brightleaf and her remarks that this development was well done with a walkable elementary school as well as great recreational amenities for the residents. Fast forward to August of 2017 and the requirement for Brightleaf at the park to build a section of Northern Durham Parkway after our public sector leaders have abandoned that project makes no sense. Please keep in mind that all of the right-of-way has been dedicated from Northern Durham Parkway within Brightleaf at the park, but to build a road to nowhere that will inevitably require maintenance dollars from the City of Durham does not represent wise policy. Furthermore, it is important to recognize that Brightleaf at the park was a failed subdivision and L-STAR purchased it out of foreclosure. After that purchase, L-STAR invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring inadequate streets standards and to address the complaints of new residents so that the City did not have to do that. In closing, since the City of Durham and N-C-D-O-T have moved on from Northern Durham Parkway, it is only fair that the same standard apply to this neighborhood. For all these reasons I have discussed along with the positive staff report, the vote of the Brightleaf homeowners, 180 to 13 in favor of this item, and the 17 to 1 recommendation for approval from the Planning Commission, we respectfully ask for your approval of this agenda item. Our team, which includes Adam Ashbaugh from L-STAR, Tommy Craven, our lead engineer from Priest Craven, is here to answer any questions you may have or to provide you with further background on this item. We thank you very much for your time tonight. Thank you. Sean Zechel. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and honored council members, thank you for hearing my voice. My name is Sean Jecko. I live at 1705 Creighton Hall Way, which is in the Brightleaf community. My family and I have lived in that subdivision since 2010. As you know, L-STAR and M-REC Brightleaf are petitioning to make changes to an agreement penned with the City in 2001, in the case P-00-05, and I'd like to provide an alternative point of view on the matter. There seem to be several issues at play in the request, but I'd like to present to you, should the next portion of Northern Durham Parkway be built and who should pay for it? L-STAR and M-REC Brightleaf seem to be making the following argument. Currently, Northern Durham Parkway is a road to nowhere. Extending this road could create a hot spot for crime. Therefore, L-STAR and M-REC Brightleaf shouldn't have to pay for the road extension. L-STAR and M-REC Brightleaf have also submitted evidence to suggest that the residents are in support of this rezoning request. These two entities seem to have been less than forthright with their evidence. In a presentation to the Durham Planning Commission on May 9th, 2017, Mr. Tommy Craven, a priest Craven and associates, and Brooke White of L-STAR and M-REC Brightleaf submitted a letter purportedly from the community HOA endorsing L-STAR and M-REC's position. I have a copy of that letter if you'd like to review it. There's at least one problem with this letter. The letter lists members of the Brightleaf neighborhood watch committee in a way that doesn't have the land use change. But at least two of those people, Felicia Scott and Deletha Lloyd, and possibly all of them listed on the letter had no idea such a letter existed or that their names were being used to endorse its contents. But back to the two issues at hand. Should the road be built? Possibly. I'm not versed enough in the topic of road construction and crime, and I defer to the experts on that matter. Should L-STAR or M-REC Brightleaf pay for it? The fact of the matter is that the road is in the comprehensive plan for Durham, and it will become a reality one day. And that means someone will have to pay for the next phase of Northern Durham Parkway. Either L-STAR, M-REC Brightleaf, or the citizens of Durham. I'd urge the council to carefully consider the rezoning request being made. This is not a question of safety as L-STAR, M-REC Brightleaf would have you believe, but a question of fiscal responsibility. As it stands, the expansion of the road is funded. However, if L-STAR, M-REC Brightleaf is released from fiscal responsibility, then the city will have to find funding elsewhere, possibly diverting funds from other NC DOT projects or through tax increases, neither of which seem like attractive options to Durham's residents. If L-STAR, M-REC Brightleaf wants to live into the motto posted on their website, do the right thing and do it with passion, then I suggest the company place the full dollar amount of the Northern Durham Parkway extension in an escrow account, so the extension can be fully funded when the time is right. That Mr. Mayor and honored council members is doing the right thing. Thank you for your time and thank you for considering this alternate point of view. Oh, the other persons that want to speak on this item before I come back to the council, I'll let the record reflect no one else has to speak on this item. Recognize the planner. Yes, just for point of clarification, I wanted to correct the typo that was in attachment 7, summary of development plan. It should be 29.1 percent or 10 acres of impervious coverage. Does anyone on the staff speak to the road issue? There's a question. The question is whether it's funded or not funded. Yes, bill judge with City of Durham Department of Transportation. The road is in our adopted metropolitan transportation plan as well as comprehensive transportation plan but it is currently not funded. We would anticipate that it would be constructed through the state TIP funding project, the remainder of the road and thus far it's not currently funded. Recognize the Mayor Pro Tem. Mr. Biker, attorney Biker mentioned two very dangerous words in a drive. Tell me about how that correlates with northern Durham Park. That's a great question Mayor Pro Tem and I could take three hours instead of three minutes to answer that question. It was a, I believe Nick Tennyson described it as a toxic project if I recall and working with council member Moffitt back when he was involved with the Eno River Association numerous community leaders, great people like Wayne Cash and Donna Deal we worked out a compromise called Northern Durham Parkway. However, I did talk to former Mayor, former NC DOT Secretary Nick Tennyson to ask the question that bill judge just answered. I wanted to confirm my understanding that all of the money that at one point time had been reserved for Eno Drive and then Northern Durham Parkway was in fact allocated completely to the East End Connector and we all see that project every day on US 70 and at 147 it's a huge project it took all that money accordingly it's many years I would say decades until there's any funding available based on my experience with state transportation funding. So I welcome that question I certainly don't mean to belabor the point but there is no funding for that project and we as a community move beyond it. I think that's a fair statement. I know that Eno Drive is definitely dead that's the one we are post. Well I recall one of the first things that I did when I became Mayor was convene both proponents, opponents members of the Chamber of Business Community in the committee room to specifically talk about an alternative and that's where Eastway Expressway got its genesis but having said that we're back on the point now if there are no further questions I'll declare the public hearing to be closed as a matter of fact about the council. I'm sorry Mr. Mayor. Thank you Mr. Mayor I have another question Sure I'm still not clear about Mr. Judge you can maybe help me a little bit so it's in the transportation it's in the Metropolitan tell me which plans it's in again it is in the comprehensive transportation plan which is the and the Metropolitan transportation plan but it is not currently in the funded state TIP okay have we applied for any funding through the state TIP for this road it is on the project list that we're considering for the next round of spot 5.0 okay some of the indication I've gotten preliminarily is it doesn't look like it's scoring very well but that'll be a determination that the MPO board will have to make whether to submit that project forward for consideration in spot 5.0 okay in this round of spot 5.0 yes okay and thank you I'm not sure who can tell me this is probably in the memo and I missed it and I apologize how many the length of this road that the developer was committed to and would not be building and Patrick you may know that as well as my name is Tommy Craven with Priest Craven and dissociates the length of the road from Flat River to the property line that would not be built is approximately 900 feet or so a fifth of less than a fifth of however all the right of way has been dedicated at 120 feet wide that's correct okay thank you yes I want to start by thinking the citizen that came to speak and raise the issues the issue about letters that might have been submitted to the planning commission I've seen those and the people that you spoke of as having not been signatories are not here tonight and I don't really know how to address that but I really want to appreciate you for coming and bringing that forward I wanted to talk for a moment so that the Northern Durham Parkway is a key component in the resolution to the Eno Drive conundrum that we had seven components the largest and most expensive one was East End Connector and Caleb Southern actually wasn't been mentioned and I was the one who really pushed this the total compromise package so eventually Northern Durham Parkway will be built it is an important connector that should connect from I think it starts at 70 but it may go south of there but goes all the way up to Eno and Old Oxford and connects into 501 so that eventually people coming south into Durham and headed towards Raleigh, towards the airport will not have to actually drive through downtown Durham in order to do that and we will like that when it finally happens that's being said the case tonight is we can either vote it up or vote it down but it changes the overall density of the project down zones it to a much lower density and then the second aspect of it is this aspect of whether or not the paving should be done or at least paid for and I accept the arguments, I look at the site it's a very complex site to develop and I accept the argument that with the all of the different easements on it and the topographic issues that the lower density is appropriate I have lived in the country here in North Carolina I have seen paved roads where there were no residential along it and I have seen that people tend to like to drive their cars there hang out late and typically the ones that I've seen were very trashed so I can imagine if I lived in this community I would not want a piece of road that was to be unused to be paved and left sitting there the developer when they acquired the property did acquire it with this requirement on it but with the higher density so I guess the question could be raised is whether or not with the lower density they should be expected or could be expected to come up with that the funds required to do all of the things that they've committed that were committed previously the commitments that came with the property I am comfortable that with the lower density that the most appropriate thing to do is for them to dedicate the property but not pave the road thank you Mr. Mayor there are other comments if not the public hearing disclose entertaining a motion on the item getting the consistency statement first Jamie Sanyak planning department you would vote first on the land use designation and that would be for low to change it from low medium residential to low density residential then the consistency statement and then the zoning designation so I will move I think I have this correct I will move to accept the staff's recommendation to approve the staff's recommendation for changes to the comprehensive plan second is that all he has to do it's properly moved to second any questions Madam clerk will you open the vote open the vote close the vote and now I will move I'm sorry thank you I will now move the consistency statement it's been properly moved to second close the vote I'm sorry second motion is the consistency statement and the zoning combined I only made the one motion so I will make another motion now which is simply to accept the staff's recommendation for the new use zone second it's been properly moved to second Madam clerk will you open the vote open the vote close the vote close the vote and now I will move it to third we will move the consent finally okay residential 3.906 in order to construct a 56 room congregate care facility there are no changes to the future land use designation key commitments as shown on the associated development plan include site access points building and parking envelopes tree preservation areas project boundary buffers and design commitments for the building the planning commission recommended approval of this case by a vote of 14 to 0 at their April 11th meeting and the staff recommends that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other adopted policies and ordinances I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have thank you the staff report has been made public hearings open other questions first by members of the council here and I want to recognize Robert Stinson and Pamela Porter good evening mr. Mayor and counselors that thank you very much for hearing from us this evening my name is Robert Stinson 49-1 Waters Edge Drive Raleigh I'm with Caroline assisted living I am here to speak in favor of the project of course very briefly because it's getting later Caroline for those of you who don't know us is a local North Carolina company we provide assisted living and and Alzheimer's services through 21 licensed facilities in North Carolina a Caroline facility is residents for the frail elderly the typical resident is an individual in their 80s who needs some help with activities of daily living we also provide secure care for those suffering from Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia we are not a medical facility Caroline is not a developer in the traditional sense we are we are owners and so when we come to a community we stay we still operate every building that we've developed since we were founded in 1996 we also try to serve the needs of the entire community as unlike many new assisted living facilities a Caroline accepts the the state assistance and Medicaid programs for low-income seniors there is a strong need for additional assisted living services in the northern part of Durham if you took the five-mile ring around the site there are today five thousand seven hundred eighty-two seniors age 75 and older that population is projected to grow over the next five years by 20 percent to just under seven thousand seniors at present in that same circle there are only 296 licensed beds to serve that population and only 20 of those beds are dedicated to the care for those suffering from Alzheimer's the Caroline project will add up to 84 beds and up to 48 of those can be dedicated to caring for those with Alzheimer's disease we have been looking for five years for a suitable location in this part of town and we think we have finally found an excellent one as noted the Planning Commission gave us a unanimous approval we also while it's not required by the ordinance we did hold a neighborhood meeting on July 11th to meet our new neighbors and answer any questions that they may have had we had the unanimous support of those in the neighborhood as well so we we respectfully request your support and I am I am happy to answer any questions that you may have thank you thank you Pamela Porter good evening Mr. Mayor Mayor Pro Tem members of council Pam Porter 5714 Williamsburg way I work for Tony Tate landscape architecture I'm the landscape architect on this project and I'll be happy to answer any technical questions you might have on the plans we did the development plan for this thank you are the questions of the developer by members of the council is there anyone else in the audience who wants to speak on this item this being a public hearing let the record reflect and no one else asked to speak the public hearing is closed matters back for the council move the item second Jamie Sonnyak the first motion would be the consistency statement move the consistency statement second the property moving second madam clerk will you open the vote close the vote it passes seven a zero second item would be the zoning map change second proper move the second madam clerk will you open the vote close vote it passes seven a zero move the item item 47 zoning map change for Andrews Chapel good evening Jamie Sonnyak with the planning department a zoning map change request has been received from Jared Jeremy Midland land development MI homes of Raleigh LLC for a hundred and fourteen point one seven acres located on the south side of Andrews Chapel Road east of Delaware Arbor's Drive Drive the subject site was owned plan development residential four point seven nine three approved by council on June 1st 2015 for residential development with up to 500 units the applicant is requesting two changes from that plan first they are seeking to enlarge the building and parking envelope for the townhouse component component and the second they are seeking an increase in the number of town home units no other changes are proposed the zoning district is consistent with the low medium density residential future land use designation and there's no change to the recreation open space future land use designation the planning Commission recommended approval of this case 14 to 0 at their April 11th 2017 meeting and that determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other adopted policies and ordinances and I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have other questions by members of the council the public hearing if not we have Chris mail meal good evening Chris mail with Eden's land a civil engineer and project manager for this project we're at 2314 south Miami Boulevard in Durham don't have a lot to add what what Jamie said this was mainly the changes mainly to provide a large larger envelope for townhomes on the proposed development site and an increase in the proportion of townhomes to single family Jeremy Medlin from MI is also here tonight and we would be happy to answer any questions you might have thanks for your time thank you are the questions of the developers on council I recognize Councilman Reese thank you mr. Mayor I didn't have a question I just wanted to thank you for your accommodation anyone else that wants to speak on this item let the record reflect no one else has to speak the public is closed matters for council move the consistency statement proper move second madam clerk we open the vote close the vote it passes seven is zero I'll move the ordinance amending the unified development ordinance some proper move in second madam clerk we open the vote close the vote it passes seven is you thank you okay we'll move now to the items that have been pool item 12 city code amendment mr. minister Zae this item 12 city code amendment Sunday morning alcoholic beverage sales you have three minutes thank you all thank you council member for this privilege very briefly on item 12 I want to say something before I said it councilman Julian Johnson and councilman Steve sure we really appreciate your presence at the commemorations and memorial services for brother umar you showed us something as councilman and councilwoman you're concerned in our community I was there too thank you I'm sorry I was there also I mean just because you raised the question we all heard about this solely eclipse that's in the process of August the 21st I'm concerned about the conspiracies of solace here in Durham in the religious community regarding item number 12 I know it's campaign time and it's not a issue to be brought up alcohol in the community on Sunday morning there's no Sunday school children riding down main streets seeing people drinking and sometimes maybe be partying on a Sunday morning have we given up on a religious holiday have we given up on a religious day Sunday morning or how we in this conspiracies of solace we already have concealed weapons with no permits mixed with alcohol on a Sunday morning we got a blood eclipse in Durham crime has increased and his blood is on the screen mr. Townes-Bonsfield you made a statement on August the 5th and it was reported in the Virginia pilot that's in my hometown Virginia also in the hurl Sun you stated that there's no mind there's no program that we can come up with that can deal with the mindset of the violence in these conditions that is going on in Durham and I agree with you 100% in my conclusion about 45 seconds I come to bring you the handwriting on the wall I understand male male or bail you can't do everything overnight but this audience that you have already passed it happened overnight because of money tax revenue the hell with the church on Sunday and what people think we're going to do what we want to do now I'm sending the blood is going to continue on the street as long as you renounce your moral character your civil obligation as a civilized individual you will continue to see blood in the street and Durham and in my conclusion I will act to say this those of you who have said I'm not in solace and seeing them pass this order the blood is on your hand we have the item before us I would entertain a motion on item I'll move the item second second discussion I want to find out from mr. Baker what does this one truly do I thought explain what the bill does the bill basically these ABC establishments the these AB the ABC establishments are the mayor great the mayor's microphone works better so for the establishments ABC establishments can start to sell alcohol at 12 on on Sundays as the law currently I'm getting there as the law was but the law recently amended allows localities to amend that to to bring it down to 10 o'clock so all retail establishments restaurants should you pass this ordinance they can start to sell alcohol at 10 o'clock in the morning on Sundays that's the extent of the ordinance I just want to address my friend a pastor in Durham gave me his opinion and I don't know if that's based on all the pastors but he encouraged us he encouraged me to vote for it well at 10 o'clock most of people that I know are in church anyway and I would like to think that they're not gonna stay out of church just to go get a drink I should hope not but I certainly understand what you're saying thank you was there motion yes it was a second it was it passes seven is around 31 reads recommendation for completion of stormwater infrastructure and Ravenstone the Stonehill states subdivision yes mr. mayor I pulled this item it's a public works item I see mr. Joyner coming to the microphone the staff has put together so they brought this item to council a couple years ago in 2015 I believe well they've actually been to us several times it has a long history and they've done an admirable job of trying to follow staff excuse me council's directives and really work with the people in the community so I asked this to be pulled and I think you have a number of speakers as well so right okay so I'll wait I'm sorry I'll stop and let the speaker speak and then start again but I do have a proposal to change the way that we do assessments here we have seven people persons that have signed up to speak on this item I'll call your name you can go to the podium to the right Linda Hedge the person Joetta McMillan Miller Michael Kerr Cam Kerr Kaye James O Williams says Charlene C Keith Davis and John McLean does anyone else that wanted to speak who has not signed up whose name I did not call okay if you proceed to state your name and address again please and you have three minutes each members of the council my name is Joetta McMiller and I live at 113 English Ivy Drive Ravenstone and I would like to just I wasn't planning and well we're not on camera anymore so this isn't going to be as embarrassing but one of the things that has been talked about is the assessment to the homeowners one of the things that I wanted to bring up is when I bought my home my husband and I bought our home in May 28th of 2008 we were both living a different more comfortable life at that time through several job changes losing of jobs we've gone anywhere from making $40,000 a year to $20,000 a year less right now to avoid losing our home we are in bankruptcy and we are working through being able to save our house so any kind of assessment at this time being due to the fact that the trustees take the majority of our money from our check because we had to tell them what our expenses were versus what we were making we really don't have any extra money left at the end of our paycheck to be paying any additional fees for something that wasn't necessarily our fault to begin with so that's all I really have to say and you know I just appreciate you thinking about this and the assessments that are going to come forward thank you good evening to the council mayor bell good to see you again mayor pro tem cool McFadden good to see you again unlike most of the folks that could you start to name just I'm sorry thank you Michael Kirk you on the HOA president for Ravenstone I live at 221 Hillview Drive unlike most of the folks who come to talk to you we're not asking for help in Ravenstone need to be clear Durham is asking for Ravenstone and Stone Hill Estates help I'd like to share with you that our community as of this morning it has a 3 at 35.6 percent delinquency rate on HOA dues alone this number indicates that a large percentage of our families are still living paycheck to paycheck the additional more than $2,000 bill for the city's errors is not insignificant what we are faced with is not how to share and paying a bill that the city has incurred it would not be proper to seek a fair and equitable solution to this problem which shares the penalty for the city's mistakes 50-50 what we face here is what is right and what is wrong the city ordered the developer to write the specific verbiage in the bonds and to pull out enough in bonds to cover any potential failure the developer did as the city instructed there were sufficient bonds to cover 100% of the work after the failure however the verbiage the city required ultimately meant that the insurer was not required to pay on the bonds since the case began due to the city's willful neglect they literally instructed the DPW not to work in our neighborhood because it would bring the appearance of an implicit accountability and responsibility the costs approximately tripled still with services not rendered to our citizens we have paid more than $9 million in city taxes but none of the buses we paid into come into our neighborhoods no city parks were built anywhere near our community and the American tobacco trail is still too crime-ridden for our residents to safely use now there's a new train coming to town nowhere near our residents most importantly until this summer our streets were treacherous to travel on and our drains would not function until there was at least two inches of rain in the streets I asked that tonight you don't consider how easy the bill for you or for me might be to pay I'm confident you all have wine bottles or heirlooms that exceed the price tag of this water retention project the only entity at fault in this debacle has been those in our elected and employed government as the judge ultimately stated the city is solely responsible for the failure I asked that you do what is right not what is easiest I asked the city of Durham pay the bill so we can all move on thank you my name is Lindsay Heggy my husband and children and I live at 312 ronda lay drive in Ravenstone we just moved to this neighborhood last year when we moved we were given some information that said that there was a kind of pending I don't even thought word was lawsuit that there were some possible charges that could be incurred to us that we were given the information we look through them and by reading what we could find it seemed like obviously there had been some disagreement clearly it would be worked out in the sense that if there were city roads that needed work done on them we pay city taxes they would be covered that's part of why we pay city taxes my husband and I have lived in Durham since 2010 we chose to move to this area because we have a special needs daughter and she needs to be closer to the public schools that have the special needs programs where we lived in South Durham because of the way that the school system functions because of the socioeconomic economic climate of South Durham they don't have the title one pre-k programs that our special need daughter needs and we choose to keep her involved in public school because we think it's important for her to have the same opportunities as some other children might have in different kinds of private education that she's not able to get and so we chose to continue to stay in Durham County and Durham City because of that we could just move over a couple streets and we'd be in Wake County where the schools could be argued better they could have different things for our child but we love Durham we have a child an older child who goes to school at a charter school in downtown Durham because we want her to be involved in a community that supports socioeconomic diversity that she gets to come home and tell us about working in their garden plots at their schools that they can share them with their neighbors that are homebound in different parts of downtown Durham this is part of the reason that we live in Durham because we love it here so to us to now be told that the city taxes that we pay a city residents the reason that we continue to live in Durham the things that we love about it are now going to incur us additional costs that have never been a part of for my understanding any charges that have ever been brought to specific residents of a neighborhood that again from my understanding of this and I'm new to this I understand I've only been here for about a year that any time that there has been a an issue with a bankruptcy from a developer that the residents themselves haven't been asked to incur these same costs that we are being asked to incur and I'm left to wonder why why now why this neighborhood are we being asked to cover these costs that from all of my understanding are something that should be the city's responsibility that we as city residents who pay our taxes should be able to have safe streets for our children to play in should be able to have safe streets for our cars to drive on and not be injured not have their bottoms drug out from them from large potholes not be concerned about buildup of rainwater. I would just ask that you consider for our families that choose to live in Durham because we love it that we now not be penalized for that same choice. Greetings to the mayor. Greetings to the city council members. My name is Keith Davis. I live at one zero eight grand in court. I've been living in Ravenstone for about two years now and I'm a disabled that I'm gonna fix income. So mostly when everybody else get their raises and money, I'm fixed from year to year to year unless I get a cold erase from the government. That usually doesn't happen, but every three, four years as you're probably enough. So this assessment when I got when I bought my house, it was the streets that was an issue. So my team of real estate agent and my lawyer actually had it with the last homeowner has to pay for the streets in my area. So that means I have to still keep in contact with my previous owner. So when the bill finally does come through, I can try to get them to pay some of the up to whatever point up to $500, which would be agreed upon anything extra is on me. Now we have the storm drain situation that's coming up now. It's really hard for me to afford with my medical care going back and forth to the doctors having surgery to actually come up with more money to sit and in try to pay this extra bill, which is unforeseen. Also the fact that again, from my understanding that no other community except for Ravenstone and Stonehead has had this assessment put on them out of believe 52 communities. So that means a little daunting. It's like if there's a reason why I would like to know what the reason why is because this money coming out. Like he said, I'm on the board as well. And I do see a drop in H o a do fees and we have to cover all of this. So that means people are not moving into the area. People are not paying the H o a dues. So that becomes a major problem when this should have been taken care of. The community was built in 2005. There was a barn issue that was which was rendered and the city lost that due to how the barn was written for the developer, the developer went bankrupt, went belly up. That is not the residents for the residents should rely on the city to protect us and for litigation such as that. That's why we have the city. That's why everybody comes out. The state inspectors. Everybody comes out to look at the water, the sidewalks and the sewers and all that to make sure we are protected. Thank you. Council. Hello, Mirabelle. My name is Jonathan McClain. I live at 12 Red Sage Court within Ravenstone amongst echoing what all of my neighbors have already said, you know, 10 years plus of neglect, lack of public services such as plowing in our neighborhood for when, you know, weather does come in and cause issues with our bus routes and all of that. You know, it was it was spoken about earlier earlier today about fair versus equal, right? And I think that's what this comes down to really today is that what happened in Ravenstone, it's unfortunate. It is. But right now, we're asking the residents, our neighbors to put 50% of that bill. Well, that's equal when you think about it, right? 50% from the from our local government, 50% from our neighborhood neighbors. But it's not fair, right? And so I've already heard some some motions being passed on what's fair, what's what's versus being equal. I just want to make that note, because, you know, I'm a new father of a nine month old. I, you know, I unfortunately budgeted poorly when it comes to diapers, formula, you know, baby visits, you know, these things were a big old kick in the budget for me. And I'm not saying, you know, I'm gonna be bankrupt and unfortunately, as some of our residents are, I have the I'm fortunate enough to be able to pay these. However, it's gonna hurt, you know, my wife and I, we don't get much time to go out anymore. That's because of time as well as financial constraints. My student loans are still hammering on me and they will be for the next six years. You know, I'm paying around $1,200 a month and just that alone. But, you know, adding this on top of it, I mean, let's break it down $750 to me is six months of baby formula. It could be eight months of baby diapers. It's also a year's worth of my wife and I going out on dates, let's say like once a month, and we spent like, you know, 60 70 bucks, we go grab dinner in a movie. That's gone. Now granted, we might try and stretch that out across the years. But I mean, the total is the same. So I wanted to just go ahead and sum up there that, you know, it's unfortunate what's happened. And, you know, it's it's not a it's not a conversation of equal. It's a conversation of fair. And it shouldn't be placed onto the neighbors or the residents of Ravenstone community. Thank you. James Williams. He had to leave his wife is not well. Okay, Shauline C. Is anyone else that wants to speak that hasn't spoken? If not, we're going to bring this back to the council. I'm going to I have some comments I'm going to make on American eyes. Councilor Moffitt. Thank you. First, I wanted to ask two questions of staff just based on the comments that we heard. Mr Baker, we heard one of the speakers say that that the problem with the bonds with specific language that the developer was instructed to include by the city. And I wanted to just ask you if you concur with that. I asked Don O'Toole, who actually was a was was a litigant in there. Well, one of the attorneys that was litigating the case. I'll let him start and and I may add to that. Don O'Toole said he was the attorney's office. That is correct. The language on the bonds is language that was provided by the city. Okay. And that language was also at issue in the declaratory judgment case. Okay. The second question I have for you just the statement was that the judge in his in his findings said that it was solely that this problem was solely the responsibility of the city. That's not accurate. Okay. The the case was solely interpreting the language in the bonds. And as I've told council before, that was one federal judges interpretation. I believe the city had a very strong argument that the bonds actually covered more of the unfinished work than what the judge found. But the judge didn't agree with the city's argument. We had an expert in the construction industry that testified through affidavits what the language in the bonds meant to him as a professional engineer, as a developer, and he completely agreed with what the city said. So it came down completely to bonds that the city had used for decades and the way a judge interpreted it. We've since changed the bond. Thank you. There's many, many issues at play. These are just two that were raised. Mr. Jordan, I have a question for you. I heard the comment made that no other there's been no other failed subdivision. I'll use that term. It wasn't what was used when paraphrasing where people have had to pay for any improvements. And I know that the staff has worked really hard for to to to find developers to come in to use bond proceeds and whatever assets remain in a failed subdivision to get it worked out. So that doesn't happen. But my my recollection is there's been at least one where there was an assessment, which was a lower dollar amount, but a much higher percentage than what we're talking about here. Is my recollection anywhere close to accurate? Your recollection is correct. Robert Joyner, Public Works Department. So the subdivision question was by the name of Dunwoody. It was a 12 lot subdivision. They did not have enough securities to complete the street. There was a street only assessment for that project. And it was a little over $300 per house. So the so Mr. Wavekey, thank you for being here. It's actually a stormwater case. But this is as we can tell is a much bigger issue. You don't have to get up. It's not like I'm not going to ask you a question right now. But but that's why I'm turning to Mr. Joyner because he's shepherded through the earlier part of the case with us. And so but thank you for being here. In 2015, that's when Council considered the first ordering the paving. Is that correct? The pavement was ordered actually earlier than that. We went through, excuse me, you're correct. 2015 was the year it was ordered. So in 2015, we took our first, first of all, I feel your pain. Let me just say that. It's been a long time when I first joined Council, I went to my first coffee with Council over in PAC one. And there was a whole presentation there about these issues. And and they're and they're still going on. So I absolutely feel your pain. And the we struggled with, I completely understand the perspective this city should it's all the city's responsibility also understand a perspective. This is the homeowner's responsibility. What can the city do to help? That's not your perspective. I totally get it. So where we are, is that we started out the Council in 2015, which didn't include all the people up on the day as today, that Council said, it did include me 5050. And that was on paving. But that was a final, but that was our sort of initial. And so based on that, the staff has brought forward now stormwater on the same while looking for guidance from the Council. And in looking at this, I've really struggled to wrap my head around all of the issues and to go, well, what's what's really equitable here? There's, we have in in these two subdivisions, and they're lumped together, I assume, because it's the same developers that right. So they were lumped together, because it's the same developer. And the lawsuits that went forth were between two insurance companies that were present in both subdivisions. So they're sort of linked together. And in these two subdivisions, there's, as I understand it, there's three separate cases. In Ravenstone, there's 85 lots, which have finished streets, but unfinished stormwater. In Ravenstone, there's 221 additional lots that have unfinished streets and unfinished stormwater. And in Stonehill Estates, 187 lots with unfinished streets and unfinished stormwater. So if I'm a home buyer, and I go out to these one of these subdivisions, and I pick out a lot. And I think, and to me, I reasonably, I think it's, I don't have an, I don't question the reasonableness of thinking, Hey, the streets aren't done yet, but they're going to get done, and I'm going to buy a home and my money is going to help pay for these streets. It didn't happen. Stormwater is even a little harder because streets right out in front of the right out in front, the stormwater facility might be two blocks away. And so depending on where I bought my lot, based on the 5050 split on for both stormwater and paving, I might be assessed over $3,000, over $2,200, or just under $300. And it seems sort of random to me. So and I, so what I've done, I worked on this thought about this. And I said, Well, I want to do, I think I can't get to zero. I'm sorry, I can't get to zero. What I got to was, is that the 85 lots, I did a little rounding here, but the 85 lots that have stormwater only, I said, Well, excuse me, for every lot that has stormwater, where a stormwater facility has to be repaired, that we would, in my proposal, we would assess every home $300. And for every lot that has paving that has to be repaired, we would assess $1,200. That comes up to a total of $637,000. So that you don't care about what you care about is $1,200 and $300. The city cost climbs to a million and a half dollars. That would be our share. It would be 70%, just over 70%. Now, on these assessments, the way they're currently conceived is that they would be over time. Is that correct? Yes, sir. Over how many years? I believe the proposal, eight years. Yeah, eight years, 0% interest. And then if, of course, we went up. And then over eight years, if people are unable to pay them over eight years, they remain as a lien on the properties, that's correct. And under the way they're conceived, that lien would be satisfied only when the property was disposed of. On the sale of the property. Right, on the sale of the property. But hopefully we wouldn't get into a lien situation. Right, we don't want to get into a lien situation, right? So I could go through the whole language, I could get through all the numbers. But I'll spare you that. And just say that that is my substitute proposal for a 50 split, which is what we're looking at right now. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Let me comment. You know, this is so to me so analogous to what we're talking about here earlier, with trying to help the homeless from Southside. And this gentleman said it, I mean, it was in the back of my mind before he said it was in back of my mind when I saw your proposal. It's about fairness. It's about fairness. It's not about treating people equal, it's about fairness. And I looked at your proposal, Don, and no matter how you came out with $300 and $1,500, the bottom line is you're willing to take the city from 50% to 70% of the cost. I didn't get to rationale for it, but that's what you're willing to do. Yeah, I think city ought to eat the whole bill. I mean, that's that's really what I feel about it. I think they ought to eat the whole bill. I think it's I'm not I'm I'm not asking for that. I'm not I'm not asking for that. But we're talking about fairness. Okay. And we're talking about what's what's equal and what's not equal. And we had the same discussion earlier when we did Southside. And you weren't willing to spend $450,000 as a staffer proposed over four years for that development, because you wanted to look at something else is going to be cheaper. But now you've decided that you don't want to you think the city shouldn't do 50%. They ought to do 70%. You haven't given me a rationale why. And you've made the numbers work out. But you haven't told me why you want it. Why don't you take it 80%. Why don't you take it 90%. There's no rationale in here for what what you did other than the fact that you felt that the city ought to pay more. And so why should the city pay more because was the city wrong? And we've heard some indications here that city was culpable in this and I'm not taking anything away from our staff. I think they've done an excellent job of bringing us to where they are. But we're the final operator on this issue. They've given us their best recommendation. They've done it thoroughly. They've studied it. But now we're talking about what what do we want to do? I think we ought to pay the whole thing. And I think we do it because it's fair. And because of the city's role and where what got us to where we are. You did the numbers. These people spent about three plus million dollars in property taxes. I'm not questioning that. You showed how you did it. They spent about and the question is what do they get for it? And you know we provided the services. They had police protection, fire protection, garbage protection. They got something. I'm not saying they didn't get anything. But the fact is they spent that amount of money on taxes on streets that were unreasonable to be in the neighborhood. So my sense is if you're going to go seven percent seven percent go a hundred percent and you know leave it there. So that's that's where I am on this and I appreciate the numbers that you've done. As I said, I don't see the rationale for why you went from 50 to 70. But you got a good number. You got a good number. It's $300 for the people who have the the storm water piece and it's $1500 for a lot for people who have the paving and storm water piece. That's that's what you got. But I'm saying you know I could have said do 80% do 90% or do 100% something. I recognize whoever wants to speak Councilman Johnson and Councilman Shul and the Mayor Pro Tem and Councilman Reese. Thank you Mr. Mayor. I was wondering if someone could illuminate for us why the 50-50 split was chosen in the first place and if there are circumstances that have changed to this point that would give us a reason to go to a different split. Well there was detailed conversation with staff and council back in 2015 a series of work sessions and city council meetings and for the streets in these two subdivisions it was agreed that there would be a 50-50 split. Now that that can be changed tonight if that's Council's decision. Sure I think it was the Council's decision at that point that that's what they viewed as fair. Okay so I guess I'm not clear from either the Mayor's proposal or Don's proposal why a 50-50 split now seems unfair. So if one of y'all could yep okay but I'm not asking you I'm asking them. Well I said my rationale for it but my rationale was that I was there when we did the 50-50. I understood that but I've given additional thought which I'm entitled to just like everybody else seems entitled to and I've come to say well why are we going 50 to 70 percent. Don has explained his rationale for it. My rationale is in terms of fairness in terms of what the people have been put through the time involved in it and what they've gotten in terms of what they've been paying in taxes. Don's proposal says the city puts in $450,000 more. I'm saying in my opinion we ought to really treat it fairly and pay the whole bill. That's that's it I mean no no other rationale behind it. Thank you Don I don't understand your rationale either. Right so I did want to just address that which is first of all the most significant change since 2015 is the make-up of the council. So the second thing though is that like as the Mayor said we all have an opportunity to continue to consider a situation position. So one of the reasons why why 70 the question was asked why 70% why not 100% and the answer was I remembered how difficult it was to get 250 50 in 2015 and I didn't think I could get it further than 70 percent. So I may be well wrong on that. The second answer was is that we have assessed I did think about the fact that we have assessed Dunwoody estates that there were people there who did have to pay to help repair their treats and that that while the dollar figures here are significantly more the percentages are significantly less. So I was trying to find the balance of what we've done with other people in the same situation with what I thought council would might be amenable to doing and to what I thought was reasonable and what I thought was reasonable and fair for the people in the community I don't know if that helps. Thanks. Councilor Schuylen. Councilor Reece and then the Mayor Pro Tem. So I guess I have a question for you Mr. Mayor are you saying that you want to are you talking about when you say pay 100% are you saying for the stormwater are you saying go back and rip up what we've done on the roads as well and go back to you know are you are you saying what the item in front of us now are you also saying go back to the road? What I'm saying is that the staff recommendation is here's what the total bill is going to be I mean John just gave you the numbers the total bill to repair a stormwater paving for those two developments is 2.159 plus million dollars that's the that's the path and the initial path we were on well the city will pick up half of that cost and the residents will pick up the other half and that's that's that's what I understood what I'm saying is that why not pick up the whole piece Don came up with 70% and he came he told you why at least he's being honest with you he wanted he wanted to do something better than 50 he didn't think he could get much more so he stopped at 70 and his numbers worked out to the 1500 dollars and 300 dollars I'm I'm saying so you're you're saying for you you want to do this for both Rose and the storm yeah I'm doing yeah the stormwater and the paving is you know it's 2.159 if you're talking about doing something I mean you know you we can always compromise we can say okay just do the paving and let the residents pick up stormwater but what we know is that everybody doesn't have that situation Ravenstone has 85 lots with unfinished stormwater only they've got the paving done but the other two so required the stormwater and paving I mean that's that's what the staff report says and again my my knock isn't on the staff did what in their best wisdom they did they brought it back to us at the time we were looking at it we said 50 50% and the staff has brought to us today how would look at 50 50 our colleague has looked at it and says well not 50 why not 70 and I get to 70 because I think that's about all this council might do because they had to change so I'm saying no for me I'd say go ahead and do 100% and the rationale is what I said earlier I think it's fair based on the circumstances and what was involved so Mr. Bear so I'd like to offer what I think the rationale for the 50 50 is and why we were at the 50 50 two years ago when we made the decision whatever exactly it was I was there now I know okay I'm not I know I know you were there okay you know we voted for yeah that's that's what I said and I meant we voted for it and I think the rationale is this so for so we'll just take Dunwoody because it's case Mr. Joyner cited but this was our basic philosophy which is that if you were and we adopted the council adopted guidelines like this I believe that we would pick up 10% Mr. Joyner of the cost and the residents would pick up 90 is that right yes sir that is correct at that time that philosophy was discussed that was at the beginning of the failed development program we were faced with 191 projects over 54 distinct subdivisions right so we decided that basically what happens is people are you're buying into a subdivision and you're taking a risk and you're taking a risk on that developer and that developer in these many of these cases I think we ended up would you say 54 of them or something like that those we had 54 developers who weren't able to complete their subdivisions and so our staff Mr. Joyner and others did a great job in trying to find other developers who would take over those subdivisions and develop them would would fix up their roads and would fix up the stormwater infrastructure and was successful in in almost all the cases um and so but what we had decided at that point was that the the reason that we had decided that we would decide the city would pay a little of it 10% and the homeowners would pay the other 90% because the city was not had not had no culpability in this case we decided the city does have some culpability because of this the situation that you all have pointed out about the bonds I do want to say that and and Mr. O'Toole can confirm this I believe but that would this bond language was not anything unusual it was not something that we the the city put particularly into this bond package it was in all bond packages that we had or it was an all bond language that we had and it was standard language it wasn't something that you know no one ever used or anything like that it was it was typical there was a judge that ruled against us and that and so we decided okay instead of charging 90% to the homeowners we would charge 50% to the homeowners and the city would assume 50% of the responsibility I think it's further complicated for me by the fact that I mean I I really appreciated hearing the stories of you know the individuals and the hardships that you all face and I get that and but you know it's complicated for me also by the fact that for people who've moved in recently of which I can't remember the number but it's a large number we a couple of years ago we looked at the percentage of people who moved in since this thing had started and it was a pretty high number and now there are more people who've moved in recently and it's hard for me to feel like we ought to be paying more than 50% the city ought to be paying more than 50% when so many people have moved in recently and at least in my mind ought to be able to you know arts should be at risk for this if you move into the neighborhood in the last couple of years and you know the situation with the stormwater and you know or and the and the and the roads it seems to clear to me that the city should not assume that risk and should not it doesn't seem fair to use the words that people have used that the city would would do that and so I you know it's I think it's you know so we have the taxpayers to think about as well we have you all to think about who are in the neighborhood but we also have this large group of you know we have all these taxpayers whose money we would have to use to fix this up and I think we ought to use part of it because I do think the city bears some culpability you know exactly is it 50 50 and it was at 60 40 you know we could argue about it but I don't think it's true that the that the that the city ought to pay 100% of it it would be generous but I don't think it's fair because I do think that the people in the neighborhood had a risk like we all do when we buy a piece of property and that especially for the people that have moved in recently which is a very large percentage of the neighborhood since this started I definitely think that there is even more responsibility for that risk so I do think there's a good rationale for the 50 50 and that's what that in my mind is what it is and that's you know I would like to say you know I understand the impulse to make you all hold but I also think it's not fair to the taxpayers of Durham we all take risks when we buy property and I think that that was the situation in this case the developer did not do what the developer should have done the city has some culpability for that and I think that because the city for the bonds and because the city has this culpability I think that the 50% is fair and then I think we're we're given we're stretching that you know we're trying to given this policy stretch this out over an eight-year payment to try to lighten the load and so that's where I recognize councilman Reese the mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor I wanted to put some numbers to what we've been talking about for the folks here in the audience because I did hear someone at the podium reference an incorrect assessment amount and I address this with a couple of folks by email over the last couple of weeks the assessment that the staff has recommended for stormwater for folks who live in Ravenstone is 287 dollars and 81 cents that count that comes out to a little less than 36 dollars a year over eight years is your interest that's just for stormwater so if you are a Ravenstone property owner who has completed streets and is is just needs the stormwater completion the proposal before us that the staff is recommended recommended is 287 dollars and 81 cents under councilmember Moffitt's alternative proposal Ravenstone homeowners who only need stormwater would pay 300 dollars so let's understand that his goal in this plan was not to ask Ravenstone residents to pay less of an assessment actually you would pay more under either under whether you have completed streets and only need stormwater whether you have a street assessment and stormwater the goal of councilmember Moffitt's plan was not to help Ravenstone residents pay less of an assessment because you will pay more under his plan it was to make Ravenstone and Stonehill residents equal in terms of the assessment they would pay and then to find an even number that seemed reasonable 300 streets only 1500 streets plus stormwater and then that gets you back to a 70 contribution from the city so understand that under the staff proposal for streets and stormwater if i've done my math right the staff has asked and this is 50 assessment the total cost for streets and stormwater is $1,214 for a little over $150 a year over eight years is zero interest councilmember Moffitt's plan would be $1,500 for a home with streets and stormwater to be done the reason i believe and staff can correct me if i'm wrong but the reason is it's going to be a lot more expensive to fix up Stonehill stormwater facilities they look horrible i was over there last week they're just big holes in the ground with trees in them and Ravenstone's stormwater facilities actually look like stormwater facilities they there's a they i mean it looks like what they're supposed to look like a a constructed wetland a detention pond and so that's the ultimate effect the real world effect for folks that live in Ravenstone is that councilmember Moffitt's plan would increase your assessment the benefit that i believe he's proposing is that it's fairer given that when these developments were created in the original property owners bought their lots they it was a random walk whether or not they would they would end up in Stonehill or Ravenstone and so today property owners whether you are that buyer or a new successor in interest that today's property owners should not be penalized for the original buyers even if that was them took a random walk uh and it can't shouldn't be penalized for which development they ended up is that fair councilmember moffitt well i agree with the second part but i'm not sure i agree with what you were saying about the i agreed that the stormwater assessments for Ravenstone the total assessment for the 85 lots that have stormwater only a Ravenstone would those lots would be assessed a little over $12 more but not i'm at the part about the paving i didn't follow that so but the second part about trying to even out the random walk yes i agree with that well this is the in fairness councilmember moffitt i asked you for these numbers over the weekend you said go find them yourself so that's what i did oh no i put them they're in the spreadsheet i sent you i told you which columns are not exactly so the the assessment per lot on streets for Ravenstone is $927 that right or wrong that's 50 percent of the what's what i found in the plan Ravenstone for this the proposed assessment for streets would be $1945.52 and that is a 50 percent that is 50 percent that is 50 percent okay yeah the uh and on a to give you just a quick list of the numbers the on the the total assessment per lot for streets for Ravenstone would be $3,891.03 for Stonehill States would be $2,998.47 that is the unadjusted total okay i uh i apologize councilmember moffitt i misread the what the spreadsheet what the that number actually said i didn't see that column um in any event uh so forget most of what i just said because that was wrong what i will say is that i applaud councilmember moffitt's attempt to come up with some reasonable basis uh to reach the goal that he's that he's approached um he obviously spent a lot of time putting uh putting this together um and i will consider the other arguments of my councilmember colleagues make before we vote thanks thank you councillor reese so councilmember protan um good evening i'm looking at a couple who is in bankruptcy there's a another couple who had to leave because the wife just finished treatment for cancer on all kinds of situations confront me and just because of my foundation spiritually i have to have mercy on on you and what you're going through so i i would agree with what the mayor said about 100 percent uh for you but to go back to the other um development also and and they'd have to have the same mercy but i'm in a state of mercy tonight and nobody can argue that that's me i'm in a state of mercy and i think you have some hardships that we need to be sensitive to um and i'd like to know from somebody in storm water what the budget is right now how much money do we have in storm water in the storm water count we have boo coos of money this i know that's the official accounting term boo coos yes that's in french paul we've got public works storm water services by the mayor protan but we'd be happy to get the fund balance and in the storm water budget but i don't at this point i'm not sure that that's the number that paul's gonna have on the back of his uh in the pocket okay you have it i doubted you and incorrectly can we have money i believe the question is do we have money to cover the cost for the completion of the storm water devices ravenstone and stonehill we do case dismissed thank you i'm glad you have a variety of opportunities we do need to be sensitive to the needs of people i know those of us around here you know we don't have to worry about the money except i'm uh i'm a little different from the rest but we do need to have mercy there are times for mercy and for me that's what i am that's who i am and that's what i'll be able to sleep tonight because i said that well again it i'm gonna sound like a broken record so i'm not going to say that again this council can move in any direction that it wants to that's the bottom line can move in any direction it wants to all right based on where i am i think 50 percent is unfair don has come up a rationale for 700 percent i'm talking about 100 percent we've heard that we've got money to cover the storm water piece in the budget uh to me don is willing to move 70 i'm at 100 i'd be willing to split the difference in terms of where we're i'm i'm serious it's that's what it's about how much money is the city willing to pay towards this project given the history of it and the rational how we got there and i'm not faulting the staff but the fact is the judge ruled against us i mean you can count it any way you want the judge ruled against us they didn't rule in our favor you know so we're culpable at least by the courts and that's generally where we go to try to get things resolved and so i i mean for for me i i think a reasonable compromise is if you don't if you don't do 100 you don't do 70 split the difference and let the staff figure out what the assessments would be for the property and the difference between 70 and 100 is 30 you split the difference that's 15 so it would be 85 percent covered by the city and the property owners are covered 15 percent and you let them work to work the numbers the way we can make a suggestion about a path forward here um the memo prepared by staff has certainly has a recommendation but it provides us with a menu of different options for us to go forward one of those options is alternative to city contribution and per lot assessment and the um they offer an option of 100 percent city contribution um it sounds to me like that is the path that you believes the proper choice and i do if given that um i would recommend um i would recommend that you move that option from the menu and see how many votes it gets because i don't know how many there are right now i you know and if that if that is is successful congratulations uh mercy is achieved if it's not successful then we could consider our next options is that well i i've told you what my my my options were i suggested 100 but i also said this council can do what it wants i have suggested that maybe the compromise might be a different split in the difference between don seven percent and my 100 percent which is 85 percent that we will cover you know i don't get everything i want don doesn't get everything once nobody gets 50 percent and the residents don't get everything they want so my recognize councilman martin thank you uh there's two two things um i actually have my spreadsheet here so i can tell you how we can get to 85 percent very close um but i wanted to ask you a question mr. Joyner um one of the things that my colleague councilmember shul um said was that in the beginning while i was on council in the beginning when all this was getting worked out was that there was a concern uh that there was um a large number of failed developments and that the city's liability was significant and that uh what the council did was adopt a policy limiting saying that that's that the city would only participate to 10 percent that's correct okay do you remember those dollar figures so that the beginning there was a lot of unknowns and i'm wondering if you had some sense of the scope and scale of those unknowns yes so there wasn't actually a dollar figure attached to that uh but there was actually uh so 191 projects 54 subdivisions that will total out to be roughly around 75 miles of streets that needed to be completed in the subdivisions 38 stormwater facilities total that were not completed okay and it represented almost 3000 homes okay and um so so no dollar figure attached to it would you agree that it was a significant number of dollars it was a significant amount so so so i would uh then i would just observe that we're now at the end of that process is that correct yes sir there are actually seven subdivisions left uh two of those have complete developer agreements they are under construction two of those represented here tonight as ravenstone and stone hill estates and there are three developments that currently do not have a deal on the table although we are working on those so it would be is it reasonable to expect that whatever that the ravenstone and stone hill those are the last of the projects in which some city and dollars or some um residential dollars are going to be required so the other three projects are um which is a 12 lot subdivision it needs completed streets again it's a small subdivision 12 lots and one completed stormwater facility which is a dry pond that's very small uh the second developments landings at south point that is a private development with private parking lots it has no public streets that would need completing and it has uh three stormwater facilities that are in various stages of completion right then the third development would be amberland valley townhomes uh and there is a parking lot a small portion of street that needs to be completed that is public and there are no stormwater facilities that need to be completed for that they were all completed as part of the development it's what i was trying to get to was we started out years ago concerned and after the great recession concerned that there would be a very large city liability that we were limiting our delight the city's portion of that liability and that today what i'm what i was thinking was we're now to a place when we know that the city's liability as a whole is less than what we we're trying to limit it to it is drastically reduced so because of the work of your department in getting these projects worked out so um so i can see a logic for saying we're there we're good we're in good shape we can be a little more generous than we set out to be when we were worried about a huge liability for the city's taxpayers um and uh comment that if we assess nothing for stormwater and we assess every uh property which requires street improvements a total of eight hundred dollars that will result in the city's portion being 84.9 percent of the total cost so that is a way to get to that number as well well again i i'm i'm about compromising trying to find a solution this fair i could i could support that and i think we've learned a lesson it's an expensive lesson it's at the cost of the property owners and it's also at our cost but we know how to write better bonds now i mean you i've heard you say that that you know we won't we don't make the same we won't make the same mistake we made before you didn't say that i heard that i heard i heard it very clearly that you had learned from this and you had written a better position to make sure you had better bonds written by the developers we have multiple measures in place not just the bonds um to try but it came as a result of this it came as a result of this that that's a lesson learned it but not for this we never would have learned that i don't watch and say wouldn't but for this we did do this you're in a better position recognize councilman shul thank you mr mayor so uh what are we talking about here we tell them let's see a hundred percent of the of the of the stormwater is and i'm sorry my seven hundred and thirty eight thousand three hundred and sixty five dollars last couple pages of my memo aren't coming in so what is that number seven hundred the stormwater alone total total cost is seven hundred and thirty eight thousand three hundred sixty five dollars okay robert or i guess whoever is knows about the streets what's the street number what would be a hundred percent of the street cost one million four and twenty thousand nine and forty hundred this is do you want the unrecovered cost no i want the one hundred percent one million four and twenty thousand nine hundred forty five dollars that's unrecovered that's after the bond money is applied that's correct okay so say that again uh so the total cost is roughly about one point eight five and after the record after the uh securities are applied to it it would be uh just over one point four one point four four four so one point four million in in street uh so tax money and seven hundred and sixty something in stormwater fee money so two point one to two point two million dollars shot two point two i believe we're talking about money that the city has to spend and that's why i said we spend one point four million dollars for pavement that city would have to spend and the barns will cover the other eight hundred whatever that number is so out of parking for the city is one point four million dollars plus a million dollars to cover the pavement out of parking expenses for the city to cover stormwater seven hundred and thirty eight plus thousand dollars the other numbers we're working with and dine can can you say again what what your proposal is well d just say what what's your proposal that's my original proposal no i'm not talking about the original i'm talking about the one where we came to 85 percent yeah it is to for the city to pay the entire cost of the uh stormwater facilities and to um assess the lots in Ravenstone and Stonehill states which need road improvements to assess them eight hundred dollars a piece but that's the proposal and i guess i will do it on my calculate but what is the total cost to the city with this proposal if we do that proposal the city's share would would be if if the costs come in of what they're estimated to be the costs would be one just over one point eight million dollars it's eight hundred dollars times two hundred twenty one lots plus 187 lots right so the um that's correct okay and if we look at that number so the the 800 times all of the lots which need road improvements that's 326 400 dollars uh if i may uh just add just one small item in there i'd like to remind everyone that the stormwater has not actually been bid yet so we are talking about dollars and the final numbers for the paving have not come in yet although that work has been bid and the project is almost complete we would expect those numbers relatively soon after we've got the final pay invoices in from the contractor so i just want to remind everyone about the final numbers i'm hearing you say that the paving costs you have a pretty good estimate on the stormwater you have a little less confidence in the estimates so far that work has not been bid right right it's estimated right so we want to put that in the form of a motion i wish i had a better reading on how much support it would get the point is that i mean i i guess i'm trying to go with charlotte was charlotte's one is to vote on her to see where the votes were i'm saying vote on the compromise to see where it is okay so um so the first thing we what the first goal of the staff tonight is to get us to order just move forward with the improvements to the stormwater facilities is that correct tonight it's really just to get a recommendation for staff so that they could move forward with an agenda item for council to order the work so okay it says city council direct public works to schedule notice public hearing cost to completely be paid to a combination of assessments so i'm going to recommend that we move forward from here with assessments that would be that we would um we would not assess any of the residents of raven stoner stonehall states for stormwater improvements then these are not final right we've already we're watching things change as we go but that at this moment we're saying we will not assess them for any stormwater improvements and that we would assess each of the homeowners which are on lots which require road improvements that those homes would be assessed eight hundred dollars a piece could we step back from that a little bit yes so if council elects tonight to 100 fund the stormwater completion then the work doesn't need to be ordered you're just telling public works go do the work with city money as far as the streets that work has been ordered and it was ordered with the idea that there would be a 5050 cost share you the council does not ultimately need to stick with that recommendation right so what would happen with that is the streets the street work is currently being done public works is going to put all of that cost information together if you move forward with a direction to cap street assessments at eight hundred dollars when public works brings forward the final assessment for the streets that could be the way the final assessment for streets reads but you're saying we don't need to we don't need to do that right now no i think it would be good if you gave a recommendation to public works move forward and fully fund the stormwater work and then when you're done with the streets and these two subdivisions bring forward a final assessment capped at eight hundred dollars per lot if that's if that's what council wants to direct staff to do okay can i ask a question recognize the mayor pro tem uh mr joinna how long they'll have how many years to pay that uh the current proposal is eight years at zero percent at zero percent interest is that is that correct yes sir yeah this work was ordered that was the proposal a 50 50 cost share paid over eight years zero percent interest when these assessments are finally ordered council would give the final order for how the assessment is being handled so if it's no more than eight hundred dollars per lot and then you could say payable over eight years zero percent interest if that's what council wants to do one hundred percent that's good do i have to make the motion oh i would move that we capped the lots at eight hundred dollars more capitated eight hundred dollars and usually rationale that don gave a few minutes ago for paving for paving for paving and storm waters for i mean that's right 100 percent so the motion is that we kept the paving fee to eight hundred dollars per lot and that the city be responsible for paying all of the storm water payments is that yes sir i'll second the motion okay sure and recognize this system just before adoption i i think staff is clear on what council's proposing i do want to offer clarifying comments to mr wibke's response about the ability of the storm water budget to absorb the costs he is correct there is fund balance that is able to absorb these costs but i don't want to leave council with the impression that that might not have some future impact on the storm water fund that fund is rebalanced each year to plan for the expenses that come from that from that fund capital projects and so the rates are set each year and recommended to council there is the ability to pay for it but i don't want to leave the impression that that would have no impact i'm sure council's aware of that but i just wanted to state that for clarity thank you and that impact would be that we would pay more to cover that everyone would pay more to cover future costs yes okay uh we've got a motion on the second we have a question by councilman shill i just have a comment mr mayor um i uh just want to say that i'm going to vote against this i i appreciate the impulse behind it but i i really feel pretty strongly that this is a shared responsibility i don't think it's true that the city is 85 percent should be paying 85 percent and takes should take 85 percent of the responsibility i especially feel true that's true of the you know scores dozens you know i don't know i can't remember that i wish you would you know be nice to have this number in front of us as we did the last time we deliberated uh that new people moving into the neighborhood since this has happened i can't imagine why it is our responsibility especially for them to be paying 100 of the the fee so i understand the impulse but i feel pretty strongly that our taxpayers and rate payers are should not be paying 100 of this i think that the 50 split uh seems fair i understand that i understand that generous impulse behind the 85 but just wanted to state how i'd be voting i can recognize councilman johnson thank you mr mayor um so i agree with councilmember schull that i'll also be voting against this and i think i just wanted to say i feel like this is an example of privatizing a benefit while socializing a cost instead of the homeowners covering 50 of the cost we're shifting that cost onto the taxpayers of Durham at large i'm willing to do that when there's when there's a clear public purpose and a couple of my colleagues have brought up the housing stabilization grants that we voted for earlier today in that case i believe that there's a clear public purpose in neighborhood stabilization um in a situation where people have been subject to these very severe waves of price appreciation and that we are and that we are trying to um that we are trying to keep neighborhoods stable right in a in a very different way than just paying for for incomplete infrastructure in a particular community i feel like like councilman schull's rationale for a 50-50 split is the most reasonable argument that i've heard up here tonight the city is responsible and the homeowners are responsible i don't understand why you think you're not responsible at all i mean i think i think the i understand i understand everyone's upset i wasn't here in 2015 so i don't have the context for this issue that other folks that other members of council have but i but i don't think that we came to that 50-50 was a bad decision i honestly don't know why we're going back and saying something else i'm i can count to four so i'm aware that this is going to pass tonight but i do want to say i do not think it's fair for taxpayers of Durham to be asked to pay for a benefit that will primarily accrue to a few individuals at an 85 percent level i think it is completely reasonable for the city and for y'all to share the responsibility and i understand why you wouldn't want to pay anything if i was in your position i wouldn't want to pay anything either but my but what we're trying to do is make public policy no no no we're talking about going back and changing your assessments completely quieted down please councilman going back and having councilman just a minute please just a minute respect our comments please and i'll be able to say that if we go back and both cap the street assessments right that's the maximum that you'll pay is eight hundred dollars so so is i mean so no you're not already paying the street assessments right like that we're going back and undoing what council did before and replacing it with another with another option again that's what's going to happen but to me it feels like we're taking taxpayer money and giving it to a small group of people and that everyone will pay for that everyone in the city will pay for them so i would be comfortable with them paying for for half of the responsibility but i'm not comfortable with them paying for 85 percent of it further comments if not i'm going to call the question is everybody clean on the motion yes madam clerk will you open the vote please open the vote close the vote it passes four to three with council member johnson voting no council member reese voting no and council member hua voting no all right let's move to any other items that come before the council tonight 33 oh yes thank you this was brief i'm sorry this is on um the reason i pulled this item is that i got an anonymous letter so i didn't have a way to address it but to ask staff to answer just see if they could answer the questions this includes sidewalk repairs downtown and the question is i'm sorry i didn't send this to you earlier i just opened it up i think i got it today all the sidewalk on north and east side of city hall is being replaced so i don't know if that's true but that's what the letter says even though some of the sidewalk appears to be very new what makes this project a high priority for limited sidewalk repair dollars good evening tasha johnson public works assistant director so that particular location had several service requests and it had been identified through um citizen concerns over the last couple years and so as we develop the project we look to identify locations that had a backlog of service requests as well as a high pedestrian use okay the next question they asked would be is would this sidewalk be removed and replaced if the city does the two-way loop project i don't think so i don't think the two-way loop project should have very much construction associated with it but i'll have to look to transportation to confirm that okay transportation yeah the concept behind most of the loop project would be to maintain the curb lines in the existing locations so it should have minimal impact on the sidewalk thank you the next question they asked was are there greater sidewalk repair needs elsewhere in the city's neighborhoods and even downtown in places like church street so we have uh quite a bit of sidewalk repair need throughout the city um their locations throughout the whole city that we could look to um for future projects and what we are trying to do is uh spread them across a geographic area across the city as well as identify locations that have have high pedestrian activity great thank you very much we do have another number of other sidewalk repair projects in the hopper for repairs all around the city so this work is in addition to several other projects thank you i want to appreciate you for staying so late for answering the questions and mr mayor if no one has any other comments i'll move the item second it's been proper to move the second madam clerk will you open the vote all right open the vote it passes seven is zero uh i need to ask for an excuse absence from work session thursday second it's been proper to move the second madam clerk will you open the vote open the vote close the vote it passes seven is zero thank you any other items come no sir if not councils during 10 35 p.m thank you thank you mr mayor thank you