 Good evening. I want to call this meeting of the Durham City Council to order at 705 on Monday night, May the third 2021. I'm sorry we're starting a little late tonight friends we had a little technical difficulty but we're glad to be with you all. Certainly want to welcome everyone here tonight wonderful colleagues are great staff and all the people at home are listening however it is that you may be listening to us tonight. We're so glad to have you. Before we have a moment of silence I want to mention two members of our Durham City family, who we have lost since our last meeting. One is Jocelyn Chadwell, the beloved wife of Deputy City Manager Keith Chadwell, all of us who knew Jocelyn and I did and just knew her to be just a wonderful graceful, lovely person and our hearts go out to Keith and to their family. And we will remember Jocelyn always is the bright spirit that she was. And then to AJ Marsh, the young son of former Deputy Police Chief Anthony Marsh, who lost his life in the bull city not long ago and it was buried here this past weekend. A young man of great promise, a wonderful young man who lost his life senselessly was murdered here. And our hearts again go out to Chief Marsh to freedom to their entire family. So friends as we remember them as we think about our work together tonight and the work we the good work we are planning to do this evening. Please join me in a moment of silence. Thank you. Council Member raise would you please lead us in a pledge to the flag. I will thank you Mr Mayor good evening colleagues, city staff and members of the public who are watching or listening at home, I will now say the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much Council Member. Madam Clerk will you please call the roll. Mayor school here. Mayor pro 10 Johnson. Here. That's a member Caballero. Here. That's a member Freelon. Here. That's a member Freeman. Present. That's a member Middleton. I'm here. That's member East. Here. Thank you. Thank you very much madam clerk and now we'll proceed to our ceremonial items. And the first ceremonial item is one that I always look forward to. And this is the proclamation for Children's Mental Health Awareness Month. And Tika Demson is here from Alliance Health. It's always wonderful to see Tika in person we all know Tika. She's a wonderful friend to many of us. And I'm sorry we can't be with our with her tonight. But she's here to as she is every year to receive this proclamation. So let me read it. Whereas addressing the complex behavioral and mental health needs of our children youth and families is fundamental in the future of Durham and North Carolina. And whereas the leadership in Durham North Carolina recognizes that addressing the complex mental health needs and treatment be on par with medical needs and treatment. The addressing the social emotional development art is essential are essential early foundations to ensure the best outcomes for our children's well being. And whereas the United States Department of Health and Human Services identified that one out of five of our state's 2.2 million children live with a mental health condition and the North Carolina Center for State Health Statistics data report that suicide is the second leading cause of death for children ages 10 to 17 in our state. Families shall not feel stigma and shame to seek treatment for their children youth and be able to discuss openly their need for help without public retribution. And whereas research shows it is important to seek help early and get effective treatment for trauma mental health challenges and substance use disorders among children adolescents and provide them with quality opportunities to live resilient, healthy and productive lives. And whereas available school based mental health programs and positive behavior interventions and supports should be considered as best practice and be encouraged to be practiced in every Durham North Carolina public school. And whereas children are recognized for having unique needs for recovery of mental health emotional behavioral and substance use issues and not being combined with the adult mental health population for treatment. And whereas Durham understands children with mental health challenges and their families benefit from access to timely services supports and crisis response systems and are family driven youth guided and culturally appropriate. They also benefit from the integrated behavioral health, integrated behavioral health and the health care, education, child welfare and juvenile justice systems. And whereas the city of Durham along with the state of North Carolina is demonstrating its commitment to children's mental health through all child youth adult serving systems to support children's emotional resilience and well-being emotional and behavioral health issues joined to recognize Children's Mental Health Awareness Month. Now, therefore, I, Stephen M. Shul, mayor of the city of Durham, North Carolina, hereby proclaim the month of May 2021 as Children's Mental Health Awareness Month in Durham and hereby urge all residents to commend its observance. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Witness my hand the court and the corporate seal the city of Durham, North Carolina. This the third day of May. 2020. So. Thank you very much. Miss. Miss Demson. And are you available to be heard, Miss Demson? Yes, I had to take a moment because I had, and all the years of knowing you, I think this is the first time you ever called me, Miss Demson. So. I'll call you Tika. It was great to see you. That is fine. A lot of people don't even realize I have a last name. So I am really grateful to each of you. And I don't say that lightly because. Had you not had the strength and the courage and wisdom to really acknowledge Children's Mental Health. A lot of our children wouldn't become healthy. They would become healthy citizens and grow your, because of your belief and being steadfast in the mental health movement is opening doors for many children, especially our youth who do not see hope. And that's a sad thing for our community when a child doesn't see hope. I can't thank you enough. We've been on this journey. It's kind of aging myself, but it was since 2020 when we implemented the system of care approach. And I just say, thank you. Thank you for your continued support, including Charlie Reese doing precinct 22. We still, you know, we, we appreciate what you do when you visit. But again, we never, never stop believing in our Children and finding and supporting them with hope. And I say, thank you. So hopefully soon we will see each other in person. And Steve and Charlie will tell you I'm a hugger. So hopefully I get, get to hug again. And I appreciate everything each of you are doing to lead our city. Thank you so much. Ms. Dampson. Thank you so much. We appreciate you. And all the wonderful work that you do. And we look forward to the hugs. Thank you. All right. Our second agenda item tonight is the proclamation for national drinking water week proclamation. I'm sorry, the proclamation for national water week drinking water week. And I'll be reading that one. Where as water is a basic and essential need of all living things. And whereas only tap water provides public health protection, fire protection, support for our economy and the quality of life we enjoy. And whereas the city delivers a reliable supply of high quality award-winning drinking water. And whereas as stewards, we must advocate for water infrastructure maintenance and improvements to meet the needs of future generations. And whereas the city continues to be a leader in source water protection and recognizes the potential impacts of climate change on this precious natural resource. And whereas dedicated individuals and organizations have made significant contributions in developing, operating and maintaining our water infrastructure and educating the public on the value of this resource. Now, therefore, I, Steven M. Shul, mayor of the city of Durham, North Carolina do hereby proclaim May 2nd to 8th 2021 as national drinking water week in Durham. And hereby urge Durhamites to celebrate our staff that we are a more sustainable community by embracing water-wise habits. Witness my hand to the corporate seal of the city of Durham, North Carolina. This is the third day of May, 2021, Steven M. Shul mayor. And we have a special reception for this, for this award. And this will be a video, video reception of the board. And I believe that madam clerk is going to tee up the video. Just a minute. City council, I'm Craig Henderson, I'm planning operations coordinator and a surface water treatment operator at the brown water treatment. It's an honor to be here today to accept this proclamation. On behalf of my fellow operators of water supply and treatment and all employees of Durham's department of water management, producing clean, safe, healthy and reliable drinking water is a 24 seven commitment. I'm proud to be part of a team that ensures every one of one of our customers has access to one of the most basic human needs clean and safe drinking water. It takes teamwork and dedication from our 350 plus department employees to fulfill that mission. Everyone from operators like me to maintenance technicians, engineers, laboratory and water efficiency analysts all play key roles in making the magic happen. That magic keeps our award-winning Durham water flowing to your tap. 2020 was a challenging year across the globe that highlighted the vital role of water in all our lives. Hospitals and nursing homes need water. Fire departments need water. Schools need water. Industry needs water. We have to deliver safe, clean and continuous water to the people of Durham. There's no other choice not only to be faced a global pandemic in 2020 but the city of Durham had to deal with the malware attack in March. Thankfully due to the protections built into our SCADA systems the city's treatment plants were not affected by malware and our frontline staff reported to work daily with all that was going on in the world to ensure that we continue to provide the essential services our customers expect. Going forward our staff remains committed to treating, delivering and protecting Durham's water. Thank you for taking time tonight to recognize the vital role safe drinking water plays in all our lives. We appreciate the support of city council, city administration, fellow city employees, and of course the residents of Durham make this community such a great city. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Hendershot. That was a great video and I'm really appreciated and we're grateful to all our folks in water management for the great job they're doing and this this this proclamation discussed the need for investments in water infrastructure and my colleagues know that we heard last week that in the next 10 years we'll be investing about 1.1 billion dollars in water and sewer infrastructure so super important investments. Thank you Mr. Hendershot job well done. The next proclamation that we have tonight council member Reese is going to do the honors and this is for better hearing month and this will be presented to one of our local audiologist Shelly and I believe I saw in the chat that you pronounce your name Cristobal but I'm not sure if that's correct but she will be here to receive that and I will turn the turn the floor over to council member Reese. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Appreciate the opportunity to read this important proclamation about better hearing month. Whereas audiologists in Durham, North Carolina observe and celebrate better hearing month each year during the month of May and whereas Durham City Council recognizes and values the efforts of all who work to eliminate or minimize the isolating effects of communication disorders in the one in five families affected by them and whereas our citizens who have overcome communication disabilities through the services of audiologists are now able to lead independent productive and fulfilling lives and whereas our veterans are returning from service with the main medical complaint of tinnitus and hearing loss as the second most common complaint and audiologists are diagnosing and helping and helping our veterans and whereas Durham is proud and honored to have audiologists offering quality education and health care services to our residents. Now therefore I Stephen M. Shule Mayor of the City of Durham, North Carolina do hereby proclaim May 2021 as better hearing month in Durham and hereby urge all residents to recognize the achievements of audiologists in improving the quality of life for people with communication disorders. With this my hand the corporate seal the City of Durham, North Carolina is third of May 2021. And now if Ms. Cristobal if you would like to say a few words this would be a great time to do that. Good evening Mayor Shule, council member Reese, esteemed city council members and community neighbors. I want to begin by thanking you for recognizing May as better hearing month and allowing me to speak with you today about hearing loss. My name is Dr. Shelley Cristobal and I am a doctor of audiology at hearing health care services in South Durham. I am also a fellow and scholar of the American Academy of Audiology. There's more information on better hearing months there at www.howzerhearing.org. I also work with advocacy with the North Carolina Academy of Audiology. For anyone who isn't familiar audiologists are doctors who specialize in hearing, tinnitus and balance disorders. Much like your optometrist or dentist we specialize in the functions of the ear keeping them healthy and keeping our patients connected to the world. Hearing loss is a major public health concern and is the third most common physical condition after arthritis and heart disease. It doesn't discriminate. No one is too healthy or too strong to avoid it. It is typically gradual and hard to detect in day to day life often individuals wait years before seeking help. Like vision loss is not just blindness hearing loss comes on gradually and disrupts many parts of life because it is an invisible disability it often goes ignored or avoided written off as brain fog disinterest or normal aging. Did you know that three in a thousand children in the US are born with hearing loss and currently there are approximately 48 million Americans who report some degree of hearing difficulty that's almost 15 percent of our population for those over 65 that number jumps to over a third. Doing the math 15 percent of our population that's approximately 42,000 individuals just in Durham. What would you do if you learned 42,000 of your constituents were suffering from a depilitating health issue? I'm confident you'd want something done to help. Good news there's already help available audiologists across the US recognize better hearing month in May to promote and spread awareness about hearing loss and better hearing and as you all are allowing me to do today. Again I am Shelley Cristobal I find I repeat myself a lot in my line of work. We are encouraging all individuals to have their hearing screened at age 50 and every five years after sooner if there are any concerns. Individuals with diabetes, chronic illness or family history of hearing loss are encouraged to have their hearing tested annually and followed by an audiologist. When you have trouble hearing getting the right care and help can be life-changing with adults and even more so with children earlier detection means earlier treatment and better long-term outcomes and quality of life. North Carolina has incredible resources for those with hearing loss whether they utilize sign language or hearing technology such as hearing aids or cochlear implants to hear. Our local health systems provide world class care and research for emerging hearing technology and our state DHHS has many resources is a great source of support. Audiologists work in a wide variety of settings and here in Durham audiologists serve our community at the Veteran Affairs Hospital at Duke and UNC Health Systems and Durham Public Schools and a variety of private practices like my own. We are excited for the Durham City Council to show your support for Better Hearing Month by coming to our offices for a hearing screening this month. Thank you again for your time. We look forward to seeing you in our clinics. Thank you very much Ms. Cristobal we appreciate you being here and thank you Councilmember Reese. Colleagues we have one more ceremonial item tonight that has come up in the interim the last few days but I thought it was well worth celebrating and I'm going to call on Councilmember Middleton to do the honors you'll understand why in a minute and I believe that I'm just checking the attending groups attend attendees here she's here Mr. Mayor she is here great all right wonderful and I believe already made available to speak so Councilmember Middleton welcome for this special uh special ceremonial item my thanks to you your honor thank you Mr. Mayor and to my fellow Avengers here on the council and to all of our friends watching on whatever platform you may be watching tonight good evening and welcome today starts Teacher Appreciation Week and this is particularly exciting for me because part of the team that raised me was a 30-year veteran of the New York City public school the special education teacher so I had homework when I didn't have homework so I want to honor the memory of my mom tonight who was a great teacher who worked with my dad to insulate me for some things that certainly would not have had me here tonight had they gone their way everybody watching others broadcast tonight if you do anything if you've ever had any type of job you should thank a teacher because you had to be taught to do something and if human civilization is to not only endure but thrive then perhaps the only indispensable profession is teaching and I know that we want to celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week here in Durham because we are big on our teachers and I couldn't think of a better person to help us celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week to receive our acknowledgement and thanks than the North Carolina Teacher of the Year and I know a few things about her I know that this is not just a job tour it is a calling it's ministry tour and I know that she exemplifies those qualities that have her working long after the school day is over I know these things about her because we go to church together so I can say these things about her and we are so excited and proud of our own Eugene of Floyd who is the North Carolina Teacher of the Year and we are excited about the state and we believe ultimately the country finding out what we already know about her so Durham Council I want to introduce and present tonight to North Carolina Teacher of the Year to receive our thanks and acknowledgement for Teacher Appreciation Week and to greet us and say you're welcome back to us in the city for appreciating our teachers ladies and gentlemen Miss Eugene of Floyd the North Carolina Teacher of the Year. Wow thank you so much thank you so much for having me here tonight the city of Durham has always had a special place in my heart the first job I ever had was as a hostess in a Durham restaurant I look forward to working with the city of Durham to advocate and support the students and teachers of North Carolina I would also like to thank the community partnerships the Burles Welcome Fund Lenovo Go Global NC Bojangles NC State Athletics No Kid Hungry NC and Flow Honda because without them and communities like Durham the work schools do would not be possible so today is the first day of Teacher Appreciation Day and if anyone chooses to appreciate teachers for the whole month or the rest of the year I will speak on behalf of all of the educators in the state of North Carolina and the United States in saying we are okay with that and thank you um but in all seriousness thank you so much for allowing me to be here tonight it's truly appreciated when the voices of educators administrators school staff and the people who directly educate and care for children on a daily basis are acknowledged and heard the pandemic has amplified and maybe even shouted over a loud speaker the vital role that schools play in communities the pandemic has shown that schools provide a level of service to communities that reaches far beyond just academic skills so our work as educators evolved and continued during the pandemic because what's expected of our students didn't change and yet and still this is what we do as educators we rise to the occasion daily we take all that we've been given and we provide the best level of instruction to our students so thank you so much to the city of Durham in giving myself and my colleagues a moment to receive appreciation for our efforts in providing an education to the students of North Carolina thank you so much for having me thank you so much miss Floyd thank you to councilmember Middleton for bringing this to us tonight thanks to you for being the North Carolina teacher of the year we're amazed and grateful to you and honored that you were here with us tonight so thank you and yeah we'll all be thanking a teacher uh this week this month and all year long so thank you all right colleagues uh we will now move to announcements by the council and I'll call on councilmember Reese to begin thank you mr mayor good evening again colleagues um I know we've got a long meeting tonight so I'm going to try to keep it short but there were a couple of things I wanted to bring up first of all it is May and May is Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and there are a ton of special events going on around the country in here in North Carolina to celebrate one of them will be next Thursday May 13th uh from 4 to 5 p.m uh it'll be an event sponsored by North Carolina Asian-Americans together and the UNC Asian-American Center centered around Asian-American Asian immigration stories in history um and I will have a chance to share some of my own family history and my mother and grandmother immigrating to the United States from Japan uh interestingly enough I learned today that Asian-American Pacific Islander Heritage Month is May because that is believed to be the first month that Japanese immigrants came to the United States in 1843 so I thought that was interesting also the the month when they finished the Transcontinental Railroad which was built in large part with Asian labor so be on the lookout I will share more information about those events on social media over the next couple of weeks uh on unbelievably enough it's also May is also Bike Month uh here in the United States and especially in Durham uh we're doing a lot of celebrating of that uh Bike Durham our local cycling advocacy organization uh kicked off Bike Month uh yesterday um at um I guess it was Saturday uh with a trail cleanup on Ellybro Trail um and so a bunch of us went out and did that uh and got to talk a little bit I got to ride someone's uh someone's fancy folding bike which was totally awesome um I don't have that kind of bike I have a Schwinn which is fine um and so there's gonna be a lot of great events celebrating Bike Month the one I want to highlight tonight um is being put on by Go Triangle actually it is called Find the Right Bike for You it's a webinar uh on May 6th 2 p.m. uh basically it's a way to select the right bike for your your body type what you're going to be using it for uh some provides some information about safety gear and other organizations that can help lots of great folks will be on that webinar so if you've been looking to get into cycling that's a great way to do that I'll be sharing information about that on social media as well um the next thing I wanted to say is congratulations to Deputy Chief Sherry Montgomery who on June 11th when Chief Davis moves on to her new job Deputy Chief Montgomery will be appointed our interim police chief I know all of us are going to wish her well and count on our partnership with her to continue to keep Durham safe so congratulations Deputy Chief Montgomery um the next thing I wanted to mention is about vaccine equity as as you're all aware many folks here in Durham have been concerned about the widening disparity between different types of folks in Durham along racial and ethnic lines in terms of vaccination rates and so a number of my colleagues have been involved in trying to create a plan to address those disparities and um and uh we're going to get our first look at and discuss it at our upcoming work session this Thursday so I wanted to just mention that and let folks know that that we the city of Durham is going to be in this fight to make sure that we get everyone vaccinated no matter what you look like where you live in the city whatever your racial or ethnic background we are going to find you and make sure you have the opportunity to get vaccinated because that's the only way we're going to emerge on the other side of this terrible pandemic um and last but not least I wasn't going to say anything but then he went and described to me as his publicist in a national interview so just had to point out that my friend and colleague Pierce Freelon released a new album on Friday Black to the Future at the same time I had an interview in billboard magazine which is a great interview actually talked about his art after a few after a futurism and talked about me as his unpaid publicist so just wanted to mention that and don't worry as soon as the rest of y'all come out with a book or an album I'll be right here publicizing it so get to work that's uh but congratulations Pierce that's amazing given everything else you've got going on in your life uh and in your work that you're still dropping art um like it's hot which it is so thank you Mr. Mayor and colleagues that's really all I had to say about that thank you very much council member and congratulations to council member Freelon it's awesome all right other announcements uh Mayor Pro Tem thank you Mr. Mayor um I just wanted to talk a little bit about an exciting visit that we had to the city of Durham over the weekend uh Mayor Shul and manager Paige and I had the honor of meeting John Legend who is was here in town giving the commencement speech at Duke and asked to meet with a variety of folks uh in the area doing different kinds of justice work um John Legend in addition to being an award-winning artist musician is also an activist and it was very interested in the work that we're doing here in the city uh he's also one of the major funders to Fuse Corps which is a national nonprofit organization that is currently funding a number of staff here at the city to do work on our um public safety transformation um racial equity and um equitable economic recovery from COVID I believe the first two fellows started today and there are two more who'll be coming in July so we had the opportunity to meet him through Fuse the ED from Fuse was there as well as several members of his philanthropy team he has a whole team for that which is pretty awesome um and he was just really interested in the work that we're doing it's not often that you meet someone who has that high a profile who's also super interested in local government public policy so it was just really exciting to talk to him and we're really appreciative of for his support and for Fuse's support in bringing those fellows to Durham and look forward to a long and productive relationship with the organization um he also followed me on Twitter we'll shout out to me so yeah I just was really excited and wanted to share thanks y'all thank you very much mayor pro tem it was super cool and we got to spend an hour and a half with him he was a serious person which was awesome he is a serious person all right other announcements council member milton thank you mr. mayor I love it when things go well for ordinary people yeah nice awesome so uh thank you mr. mayor and again thank you again colleagues again good evening uh to everyone I want to thank my colleagues um for their um announcements as far certainly want to add our um well wishes and celebratory commendations that this being Asian American uh Asian Pacific Islander emphasis month so we certainly want to celebrate that I do um mr. mayor want to just very briefly uh talk about two things one of them I'm going to ask for some action from the council uh the first one is just uh sharing uh last week was a particularly violent week uh in our city um the uh the gunfire of course continues and there are many that are concerned as the weather gets warmer and as we reopen as a nation uh that things will will we don't certainly don't hope for it but but we know what happens when you have a conflagration of our conflation of warm weather um people being out of school and now the country reopening after the pandemic um I'm concerned that there there seems to be a tendency when um it's been said that when America catches the cold black folk catching pneumonia and as we're reopening the country we know that there's still disparities uh vaccine disparities we're going to talk about that in the brown community uh the black community but we're still getting back to normal and I often fear that as we celebrate google and apple coming that it's possible for us to literally live in two different cities um that is one city that continues to thrive and to be prosperous and to welcome new arrivals and in another city that part of the city that continues to languish and continue continues to deal with persistent of gun violence um I used to think that you know one of two things could have I still think that one of two things could happen either one narrative can eclipse the up can eclipse the other and folk will stop wanting to come to Durham because things are so bad or will bake the bad stuff into the cape and as long as we have enough money and distance and fencing to isolate those two cities that one will thrive and one will not and and I am deeply concerned uh that that even as we celebrate the Durham that's on the pamphlet in the downtown Durham that that if we're not careful we'll get into a business as usual kind of mode where that's just the way it is in their neighborhoods while the rest of us are flourishing um I want to from time to time uh share some of the messages I received from from residents and citizens tonight let's want to briefly read a letter I got uh from a resident uh and and I'll I'll share why after I read it says good afternoon Mr. Middleton my name is Naisha Atkins I am a current resident of Durham North Carolina residing in Lakemore Apartments if you don't know we've experienced a recent shootings and which led to a murder of a teenager a woman was shot watching television in her home I personally was on my way from work only by five minutes into my apartment when bullets were fired I haven't slept since and was forced to decline a job offer because of the hours I also cancelled my gym membership at Planet Fitness because of safety not one person in power wants to assist those of us that actually care about our community all of my concerns have been taken to the king my father and provider my question could you please assist us in which direction we need to go uh the line has stuck with me is when she said not one person in power wants to assist those of us that actually care about our community which isn't true I know that every one of us I want to help those that are in our community but what also struck me is that she talked about organizing folk to address this issue of gun violence and I just want to say to those of us that already that are already part of the activist class those of us that already have organizational ties and have the wherewithal to do mass mailings and reach large amount of people with the press of a button there's some stuff that that my Asia shouldn't have to do there's enough organizations I think that are already organized that whatever we're talking about we should be adding the concerns of people like her to our ask list and to our agendas because you know respectfully the headline in Durham is black and brown people getting shot that's the headline that's what people are talking about in the streets that's what what folk are are concerned about these where I hang out and the folk that I talk to and the folk that I listen to and I just want to implore every every organization every group every person with a platform including the ones I'm cool with including the ones I'm down with to make sure we don't get caught up in our own echo chambers and exercise the luxury of choosing what we think the issue is because what I just read is the headline in Durham that's the issue that that people and families are concerned about and whatever else we do and there's some important things we need to do and I'm down with them it's important that we keep focus focus on the folk who every night are dealing with this issue every night are dealing with gunfire and now literally are asking for help and they're seeking to organize around this issue so my response to Ms. Atkins is that of course I'll help and I know that all of us will and everybody on this call on this council and many out there but I just want to unbly say tonight that it's important that while we are engaged in our work and in our different silos that we don't mistake our echo chamber for the real headline in our city our children are dying and jumping like soldiers being trained like soldiers to duck and cover in bathtubs that's the headline that that's what we've got to be focused on in Durham with all of the other stuff because I know I'm not alone in not desiring and not wanting Durham to become two distinct cities the one that welcomes Apple and Google and the one that is varying teenagers who were killed in drive-bys and we're giving them platitudes and I include me in that so I want to say that my second announcement or or asked Mr. Mayor tonight and I was very thoughtful before bringing this up but I think that we have crossed the threshold I believe it's time for us as a council to take up and address the issue of the defund in front of the police department I say this and I really was thoughtful about this this isn't about the merit or substantive issue of whether or not you agree with funding or defunding the police I'm bracketing that out I think there are three reasons why we need to take it up one is fairness to our staff it became evident to me after our city manager appeared at a town hall at Carolina Arbor's last week I got a bunch of messages and statements which are attributing some political things to our staff and I believe they're erringly being placed on our staff when we had that summer that that raucous necessary summer in our country last year when the encampment in those freedom fighters set up in the camp in front of the police headquarters we adopted a policy basically of in excuse me this is in the good term benign neglect we weren't going to put them out benign neglect just let it go and let it run its course and I was complicit it wasn't y'all it was us and eventually the freedom fighters removed themselves the paint of course could not remove itself and then we settled into this zone of basically just letting it be it did not start on this manager's watch of course this goes back to our previous city manager but now we are hearing we're getting some of you've seen the emails from folk in the community but there are other voices that I've heard from as well so the first reason I think we should take it up is just fairness to our staff I don't believe that we should either through direct action or through our inaction foist political calculus upon our staff and the reason why I say it's political calculus is because under normal circumstances under normal circumstances any unapproved markings on our city skate we have an impact team from neighborhood improvement services there are some things that would happen that we would not have to order as a city council it didn't happen this time and and I believe the reason why it didn't happen is because it's fraught with political consideration and our staff are very able to read the tea leaves and and and that's a calculus that I think that our staff should not be engaged in either directly by our action or by our inaction so as a matter of fairness I think we need to take the attention off the staff and put it where it belongs on us the second reason why is is an employee morale issue I'm not talking about uniformed officers with guns and badges I'm talking about civilian employees that I've heard from uh from who work in the police department who don't wear a gun who don't wear a badge who have literally asked me do I need to be looking for a new job are y'all sending us a message um we're employers and many of us on this conference call have either are or have been employers and if you haven't been you've been an employee and you know the importance of working in a workplace that is not hostile or threatening again I'm not talking about officers I'm talking about folk that have contacted me who have heard some other things going on in the news and have have literally said to me are y'all getting ready to downsize us should I be looking for another job um I don't think they should be happy they should have to speculate about that I think that from an employee morale point of view we need to take up this issue thirdly from an institutional integrity point of view I've already alluded to what would normally happen if we had uh unauthorized uh street art in our city that there's a team that would go and do it I think that um it's important for us and and I'm haunted and I'm haunted in a good way by something that uh my friend counselor Reese brought up when we passed a non-discrimination ordinance and he admonished us that if we passed it then we it's got to have teeth we've got to be prepared to respond to and deal with complaints that are made under that ordinance I think that's right and I think all of our ordinances and policies have to have teeth in order to maintain institutional integrity I'm not uh uh so much bothered uh by the defund sign as I am by in the future if some group wants to put something anti-immigrant homophobic or racist or if they're really creative maybe all three at the same time on our street and be able to point to our inactivity and I wonder what grounds will we stand on to remove it if we find it particularly abhorrent relative to this so for those three reasons I'm officially as a member of this council asking tonight that we as a council either take up this issue and if we believe through debate and through discussion that this is truly reflective of our city's values if it captures where we are and who we are now then we should put our name on we should own it um and take it off of our staff and put the direction of the the uh the consideration where it needs to be if we decide not to take it up then I think we have crossed the threshold I think that um either staff or city attorney should tell us either on what policy or ordinance we can rest upon not to have it dealt with what what what is our staff what what is our staff appealing to not to do it um whatever the outcome of the discussion I think we should have a a a governance not based on inertia I think that we should as issues come however tough they are we should look at them we should debate them we should vote and then we should hug it out afterwards or give virtual high fives afterwards and a la west wing ask what's next but I think we have crossed the threshold from a from an employee morale point of view from a fairness to our staff point of view and from an institutional integrity point of view that we need to take up this issue um if if we want to say that this is who we are as Durham then we have to earn it we have to do the work our friends in DC with mayor uh kisha no not kisha too too many brilliant black women to keep up with mayor mario bowser in dc and our colleagues on the council that black lives matter plaza they acted and they they codified that our friends in Fayetteville mayor colin and our our colleagues on the council uh at the market house that black lives matter of europe the council codified it and said yes discomfort with our values I think now that we have to do the same we either have to own it as a council and say that this is street art that we're approving or I need to know how legally or through ordinance we cannot not only allow our staff but direct our staff to engage in regular order for the protection of the institutional integrity of the city and of this government I'm prepared to have a discussion but I think that we now we can't be silent about it anymore because our employees are asking questions our residents and citizens are asking questions and our staff is now bearing the brunt of critiques that are political in nature and that don't belong there uh this is what we got elected for the buck stops with us um so I'm calling tonight for us to either take up the issue or uh explain why legally it's okay for us not to order the staff to engage in regular order as they will with anything else the city thank you mr mayor thank you councilmember I'll discuss with our manager setting a time for that discussion in the near future thank you any further announcements all right thank you colleagues will now move to priority items by our city manager welcome madam manager good evening mr mayor madam mayor pro tem and members of the Durham city council I have two priority items for you this evening agenda item number nine construction manager at risk guaranteed maximum price for the miss lake dam reconstruction amendment number six for gilbane building company attachment number two was updated agenda item number 22 zoning map change cassa north duke the title was updated those are all of the priority items I have for you this evening thank you thank you very much madam manager madam attorney any priority items tonight good evening mr mayor madam mayor pro tem members of the city council it's good to see you all the city attorney's office has no priority items this evening thank you very much madam attorney madam clerk any priority items tonight good evening mr mayor and city council members the city clerk's office has no priority items this evening thank you very much madam clerk colleagues will now move to the consent agenda the consent agenda can be approved by a single vote of the council that is consists of items that council has previously worked on members of the public or members of the council can pull an item from the consent agenda and those items will be heard at the conclusion of the consent agenda item one approval of city council minutes item two mayor's Hispanic Latino committee appointment item three green and equitable infrastructure project item four city county planning department f by 22 work program item five approval of the draft f by 21 22 annual action plan item six conveyance of 702 704 and 917 grant street to Durham community land trustees for the purpose of affordable housing development i'm going to pull item six at the request of the resident item seven capital improvement project cip ordinance amendment and contract for signal timing services for the Durham computer our signal system item eight proposed water and sewer rates for f by 21 22 item non construction manager at risk guaranteed maximum price for miss lake dam reconstruction amendment number six for gilbane building company item 10 miss lake facility expansion and number one to construction material testing in contract with falcon engineering incorporated item 11 residential backflow prevention assembly testing and repair award of service contract to acne services of Durham incorporated item 12 residential backflow prevention assembly testing and repair award of service contract to waterworks services incorporated item 13 resolution authorizing the virtual city auction item 14 cooperative group purchase contract three international trucks item 15 contract st 318 c inspections for construction projects item 17 amendment to contract with powerhouse recycling ink for recycling services for electronic equipment you have heard the consent agenda consent agenda and with the exception of item six i would like to have a motion for the approval of that consent agenda so moved second moved by councilmember reason was there a second yes that was me second councilmember freeland thank you madame clerk will you please call the roll mere shul hi mere pro tem johnson hi and some member caballero and some member freelon hi and some member freeman hi and some member middleton i will die and some member reese hi thank you thank you very much madam clerk colleagues normally we hold the pulled consent agenda items until the end of the meeting but i understand that we have one speaker who wants to speak briefly to this item and so that our staff doesn't have to stay at the end of the meeting for this agenda item we will go ahead and do that now and i believe madame clerk that mr ajax woolly is here and has a video of a speaker on this item mr woolly are you available yes we are i think we also had uh passman lucas from uh the neighborhood here i'm not sure if he was able to be yes i see pastor lucas we could ask him later if he would like to speak go ahead mr woolly would we also be able to share our screen yes the clerk will give you permission good evening my name is vivian lores gun and i am a member of the grand street community we would like to thank you for letting us make this presentation to begin with we would like to thank retired manager tom bondfield for keeping his promise to do two donate properties to the grand street community for affordable housing this is only the first step in mending our community after the devastation of homes and properties resulting from the 1960s urban renewal project also it has been over 20 years since the family street project was demolished today we are still fighting for the redevelopment of the 21 acre isle of the land formerly known as favel street aka Fayette place we would like for this area to become a vital part of our community there is debris and trash that lives the street large concrete slabs that once were apartment buildings and laying bare as well as a haven for wildlife that has been observed on this property additionally it's a meeting place for prostitutes drugs and other illegal activities it appears that the only time this area is cleaned is when the Durham housing authority becomes aware of special meetings and walks that have been planned in our community our desire as taxpayers is to reside in an area that is comparable to and the standards of other proud working families thank you mr willy thank you can can you take your screen down thank you very much thank you for bringing uh miss gun to us pastor lucas uh is also with us uh pastor lucas if you um i see that you've also uh says item six by your name as well could um madam clerk could you make william lucas available to be heard please pastor lucas are you with us tonight yes yes i am mr mayor good to have you pastor and uh we'd like to hear from you if you if you'd like to talk to us and you also have three minutes thanks for being here i i knew you through that three minutes in there because i'm a preacher but i'm not i can stay with it i'm gonna do two and a half just because you said three minutes but but good evening uh mr bear and and city council members it's so good to see everyone uh this evening and i've enjoyed just listening to the uh to the conversations i'm going to make this really quick um first i would like to say uh thank you and i'm here on behalf of durham can and the haytack community and i just want to thank you for what you've already done uh there's a chinese proverb that says a thousand mile journey starts with one step i think these three properties are one step it's a good step and it's a step um you know in the right direction i'm here representing so many people um i think about the late skipper scarborough and conversations we had i think about conversations with uh mr edmunds the carolina times who lived adjacent to uh febble street projects and he told me please make sure they put something nice there so many people who have gone on to glory who never saw this property developed and durham can who has worked tirelessly tirelessly for years but i want to as i bring this sermon to a close i just want to bring up one person really quickly to give you a little history there's a a person that i studied and continue to study his life life's work our church is built based model after him he was a early 19 um 1910 1920 new yorker and his name was marcos god he had a mission and a purpose for the african-american community and this was his message to america way back then he said african americas in this country has served in every war since the war of independence we fought valor we fought and we did it with dignity and respect he said that we've given our lives for this country and we've gotten very little in return he talked about how the african-american community is in a pot and that pot is boiling he said i don't understand why we don't have a civil war in the black community right now with the way that lynchings were going on at that time and the way the individuals were being treated well fast forward a hundred years now that pot is not boiling anymore that pot is boiling over this is not a we're not coming begging uh the city council tonight we're coming to try to illuminate and warn and prophesy to the city council tonight if we do not do something as a community as a city like council milton milton said earlier we're not going to have a google or a safe place anywhere because at this point it's gotten so bad that the whole country is a tender box and at this time we can't have a negligent action and and zone this community i was on febble street at south point the same street febble street south point today and i almost had tears as i rolled back toward our church and i saw the difference between individuals sitting out in their communities relaxing not worrying about crime or anything and then i get down by our church and and this area where this property is and i see total devastation so thank you for the good start i think that that thousand mile journey has started and i hope and pray that we will continue in this positive vein thank you pastor lucas i assure you i'll only give everybody three minutes it's not just you or your profession but we're really glad to have you here tonight thank you so much colleagues we're now take up this item the conveyance of 702 704 and 917 grant street to Durham community land trustees for the purpose affordable housing development and i'll accept a motion for uh the passage of this item uh council member freeman i just had a few comments i didn't know if you wanted to have the motion go ahead sure but i i i i'm reminded um constantly about how things operate with council and i'm mindful of the comments that council member middle to may and then also with pastor lucas is sharing and then just noting that you know as a ward one representative with feville street in my ward it specifically calls out a lack in a way that i've not been able to reconcile with just noting that that tale of two cities that council member middle to noted is also laced with the fact that folks are afraid that they're going to be pushed out of the city and i want to just take a moment and just note that the the president just gave a great state of the union and noted how we have an opportunity right now to invest in our future you know the opportunity of a generation i believe is the way he stated it but it's it's really going to be incumbent upon us to figure out how to support um the solutions that community members have been coming up with to actually address those root causes we talk about and so i know that there have been conversations around uh doing the development there feville street i know there's been conversations around um additional affordable housing uh opportunities and i also know that the the push back or the kind of negativity that folks have received around some of the projects that they put forward feel like they're race based and i don't know how to address it in a way that makes it non you know non-race space but i do want to say that i think we all received the letter from a group of folks in the community who asked us if we would be willing to earmark funds for american rescue specifically for black businesses and black development and black work that needs to be done and i think that this speaks specifically to how we can do some reparative work acknowledging that some of the things that have come forward for um people who are not of color in the city have come forward out of policy that was driven from maybe just requests i know there was an example someone shared around uh the Durham women's association requesting the tree canopies in all neighborhoods but the six black neighborhoods and how following that in the 1930s there was this um kind of cascade of of of concerns or issues that arise because the use of the way that the communities were landscaped created the appraisal values for the communities themselves and so the devaluing of those six black neighborhoods occurred on the watch of of the city and so i want to figure out what it looks like for us to really come up with a restitution plan in the same similar sense that the pastor lucas was was kind of leaning into just noting that i mean we were talking about i think this evening you see the infrastructure um and green infrastructure in equity bond and i know we're talking about waiting until next year but i'm hoping that that the in the time that we'll we'll spend over the over the next few months or however long to come up with the plan around it that it really includes a race based solution not just my neighborhood but really based on race i know that the um um what i'm also reminded of is the work of folks like uh cpls and and at water and how this is the time right now right now where we are to really dig in and do this work together in a way that's not divisive that's not about one community or the other but how we all kind of reach back and figure out how to level the playing field in a way that that raises up more of those who are at the margins and i'm i'm hopeful that our council will have more discussion about this because i don't think that i don't think that that we all hear it in the same way and that's a thank you thank you council member all right colleagues uh can i have a motion for the approval of item six so move i can move by council member freeman seconded by councilman freeland madame clark will you please call the roll mere shul i mere pro tem johnson hi councilmember caballero hi councilmember freeland hi councilmember freeman hi councilmember middleton what i councilmember east hi thank you thank you madame clark the eyes have it the motion passes unanimously we'll now move to our general business agenda item 16 you still the utility extension agreement with charter development company llc to serve national heritage academies nha oak Grove charter school madame clark i'm sorry i didn't mean madame clark i'm not sure the staff here tonight who will be uh beginning this item for us is their staff that is taking up this item with us i don't see anyone so uh yes i do i see mr otul mayor shul i'm not the staff person that pushed move this forward i believe rob joiner is the staff person that did that but i worked with rob on this item and can help um if there's no one here from public works who can answer questions i see that mr joiner is here as well thank you mr otul mr joiner welcome would you like to introduce this item for us please yes i apologize i was having a few technical difficulties no problem we understand believe me so essentially what you have before you here is a water and sewer extension agreement with national heritage academies oak grove charter school and this is a request for utilities extension from mr bomb dubston uh dunston of charter development company llc and the purpose of this agreement is to serve provide water and sewer service for two parcels uh roughly 12.37 acres located at 2201 east gear street and 25 23 east club boulevard and these item these parcels are located in Durham county outside the Durham city corporate limits the applicant is requesting service for a k-8 school that will serve approximately 772 students without annexation uh the applicant is requesting city council approve this utility extension agreement to provide water and sewer service without annexation into the city previously this project was brought before city council at a november second 2020 meeting as a consolidated annexation initial zoning and utility extension agreement application at that meeting the consolidated item was denied by council and the applicant has now come back and submitted an application for a utility extension agreement only without a voluntary annexation application uh under the code uh 70-129 which has been included with your packet as an attachment um city council may approve or disapprove water main sewer mains water service connections or sewer service connections a utility service in its discretion to property outside the city's corporate limits petitioning for such service upon the conditions established by this section the city water distributions this misuse collection shall not be extended beyond the limits of the city or without voluntary annexation into the city except under code 70-129 which identifies nine exceptions and the code attached provides those list of exceptions uh this application does not appear to fall with any of the nine exceptions contained within code 70-129 and this information was also verified with the applicant and there has been no documentation provided that it does fall within uh any of these exceptions uh based upon that staff has recommended that this uh utility extension agreement application uh be denied i'm available for any questions if you happen thank you very much mr joiner uh appreciate this is not a public hearing item but there is a resident here tonight who would like to be heard on this item i'm mr bill brian mr brian uh welcome can you be heard can you hear me now yes we can we can mr brian mayor shill mayor pro tem johnson members of the council my name is bill brian and i have an attorney with the morning star law group at 112 west made street neurone along with nil gosh i represent the app of requesting the city interntial utility extension agreement to extend water and sewer to the property located at 2201 and 25 23 east club boulevard our client tends to develop the property as a public charter school this is the same property that you declined to annex last november and as a result you've never acted on the ua ua request that a company of our client's annexation petition because the approval of that petition was a condition of the ua uh the basis for our request tonight is stated in the letter that i sent you on friday afternoon in summary it will not be possible for our client to develop this property unless the city agrees to allow us to extend city water and sewer to the site the staff are making recommended denial of this quest because it does not comply with the city policy on extension of utilities outside the city limits but that policy is intended to require annexation as a condition for the extension of utilities and in this case the city council already has stated that does not want to annex this property therefore the council has in essence determined that the policy does not apply to this request tonight although the staff told us that it preferred not to include the proffers of road improvements that were included in the ua we proposed we petitioned for annexation we're still willing to make those improvements that are submitted an alternative version of the agreement which includes them those improvements will be worth more than one million dollars to the city if this request is not approved the council will leave our client with no option other than to take legal action against the city worse than that however the council will have acted in a manner which seems irrational if the council prevents our client from building its public charter school it will have reduced the number of public educational opportunities available to students in northeast url this is the opposite of what the council says is its goal the council also will turn down a road which leads which will also have turned down a road which leads only to the creation of legal precedent that will hurt the any charter school movement in north carolina which the council says that it supports council's action will make the particular school this particular school a martyr to the charter school cause around which pro charter school forces will gather and in response to which legislative action which both supports public charter schools and further retails the power of cities and counties over them likely will be taken therefore the result of the council's decision will be to undermine the anti charter school cause and it says it supports surely the short-term satisfaction the council will gain from temporarily stopping this one public charter school is not worth the greater harm the anti charter school movement that will result from the decision and of course denying this request also will be saying no to over one million dollars with the road improvements that our client is willing to make at a time when getting private entities to build needed public infrastructure is a budgetary priority and i would add to this this is in an area of the city that everybody is talking about targeting is needing greater infrastructure and improvements for the people who live there accordingly there is no good reason for the council to deny this request and we therefore respectfully request and ask that the council approve our clients ua request either with or without the profit road improvements we appreciate the opportunity to address you on this matter and we are available to answer any questions that you may have thank you very much thank you very much mr brian all right colleagues um you've heard uh mr brian you've heard from staff uh and as i say this is not a public hearing item we don't have any of the formalities that go along with public hearings um if the uh any motion on this item would have to be made in the affirmative although uh staff is recommending that we do not support the motion because uh the uh that what is being requested does not meet uh the uh any of the requirements of the code all right uh council member reese mr mayor in that case am i correct in the motion that we are asked to make tonight upon the advice of council is a motion to authorize the city manager to into into a utility extension agreement and then if there if there is a second the council can then vote to support or reject that motion is that right that's correct great in that case i'll move to authorize the city manager to into into you enter into a utility extension agreement with charter development company llc to serve national heritage academies oak grove school mayor morning second council council member millton sure are we not entertaining uh discussion or yeah we'll we'll have discussion after the motion yes absolutely yeah thank you okay motion by council member reese seconded by mayor pro tem johnson and now we'll have discussion council member millton thank you mr mayor i um i remember the vote when we denied annexation and and i want to say to to mr brian that i actually thought that uh the argument that we kind of created to conditions that would not allow your client to meet one of the nine exemptions was was somewhat compelling um secondly what i thought of is is you know under geneva conventions uh if an army in the field takes a prisoner they are absolutely obligated to feed that prisoner and take care of them i don't believe water and food should be a weapon in any fight uh however i i um i i don't really like to be threatened and i don't i i've never been in a a a debate or a situation where i found that to be a useful uh tactic i i thought that um that you know you are absolutely free to do whatever it is you're legally available to do but i i don't think that uh this particular council is going to be swayed by the specter of of legal action against us or not uh i i think this council is demonstrated they're not afraid of lawsuits and and you know we're going to govern according to the merits of of what's before us so i would disrespectfully say that that while i was i was mulling the the the notion that water and food are just off limits uh you know whatever philosophical arguments that we can come up with against an issue or foreign issue are fine but there are some things that for me personally does off limits and water and sewer water and food are those however um i i don't i don't particularly take um kindly just to kind of the the feeling of being threatened um you know where i grew up in the neighborhood where we don't talk about it is be about if if you're going to do it do it but the the tethering of our decision to the specter of possibly being um having legal action taken against us is is um is just off-putting to me um and i don't think it's helpful to your client thank you mr. mayor thank you council member other discussion colleagues all right seeing none um madam clerk will you call the roll please mayor shul no mayor pro tem johnson no council member caballero no council member freeland no council member freeman no council member middleton no that's a member reese no thank you thank you very much madam clerk um the nose have it the motion fails mr. brian thank you for being with us tonight thank you all right colleagues will now move to our public hearing items item 20 is the first one the consolidated annexation of olive branch reserve i'll remind the council that this item um is one that we had taken up previously um i believe on march the 15th i may have that date wrong but around then and we kept this hearing open uh if you all remember because there were some unresolved issues that we asked um we asked the developer and the planning staff uh to come back to us and that's where we are and so i think i will now turn it over to the appropriate planning staffer and that's mr culture welcome mr culture thank you good evening mayor shul madam mayor pro tem johnson city council members any culture with the planning department um first thing i would like to do is state for the record that all planning department hearing items have been advertised in notice in accordance with the state and local law and the affidavits and of all those notices are on file in the planning department um the request for voluntary annexation i'll do a quick overview in case for some people in the audience that are unfamiliar with this case the request for the voluntary annexation utility extension agreement future land use map change and zoning map change was received from 10 cybers of whorebath and for 114 579 acres located at 1607 olive branch 1607 olive branch road and 802 and 830 virgin road the site is zoned residential rule and falls jordan lake watershed protection overlay district b and is located in the suburban development tier the applicants proposing it to resound the property to plan development residential 3.220 for up to 350 single family and townhouse residential dwelling units the property is currently designated very low density residential on the future land use map the proposed pdr 3.220 zoning is inconsistent with the designated future land use but if the proposed zoning is approved the future land use map will be redesigned to low density residential to ensure consistency this change doesn't require a separate motion would take effect currently with other approvals which would be effective as of march 31st 2021 the planning commission voted uh 0 to 13 at their november 10th 2020 meeting to recommend denial of the requests and you're correct this item did come before you on march 15th uh 2021 in which time you voted for continuance to tonight's meeting to give the applicant an opportunity to address several concerns raised uh the applicant has made some modifications and the and the changes are highlighted on the updated development plan and also called out in the staff report um there are three motions required for the application first is to adopt an ordinance annexing olive branch reserve into the city of Durham and enter into a utility extension agreement with the mf development lc the second is to adopt an ordinance for the rezoning and the mat amen the future land use map and the third is to adopt a consistent consistency statement excuse me uh thank you very much and staff and the applicant team would be available for any questions thank you very much mr culture colleagues you have heard the report from staff and this this public hearing is already open but i'm going to first before we hear from members of the public who signed up to speak ask if there are any questions for uh staff members of the council i have some and i think i'll go ahead and just start with mine mr culture this was continued for the march 15th meeting um the there have been additional proffers and changes in the development plan proposed since that meeting is that correct that is correct and could you um identify for us what those additional proffers are i will pull those up uh they the applicant actually added some uh and modified some of the text commitments uh let me pull those up and i'll read those off to you text commitment uh number one uh they proposed uh modified the commitment to provide a minimum of 50 percent townhome unit townhouse units and a minimum of 20 percent single family uh detached units and what was that previously mr culture i think it was a just a mix of each 20 percent units uh so they upped the ratio of uh to 50 townhouse units thank you uh and and uh on number four they uh changed the uh commitment to a minimum of four of the following items uh shall be provided uh at the time of site plan with structures dog parts top lot pool disc golf soccer playfield nature trails community gardens and greenhouse uh these are some items that they added for the uh for the open space okay uh and number 11 um they modified based on some of the uh concerns with the um with the uh neutral heritage area for the uh corridor uh they uh are proffering uh to develop a developer shall construct a paved greenway trail subject to the term stated in real state book 1503 page 89 89889 to dedicate a 30 foot wide greenway trail easement to the city of Durham therefore the digital data for the easement uh work uh excuse me uh shall be provided the parks and rec department of the city of Durham additionally the developer shall provide a parking lot and a minimum of five spaces for public access to the greenway trail and a pocket park area with a minimum of two benches and two picnic tables adjacent to the parking lot so the change of this one is they're going to provide public access to the greenway trail within their development uh with a parking lot and and uh park park available for the public access and the um other one is on uh number 13 they also made some changes based on concerns for the wildlife corridor they are removing some of the other open space and other measures uh so the use is permitted inside the wildlife quarter as illustrated on sheet d 100 including infrastructure and passive recreation amenities stormwater controls measures shall not be located within the wildlife corridor except for the treatment of the impervious area uh along the stream crossing so they will only be proposing treatment for anything that uh has to be treated for the actual stream crossing itself thank you mr culture as i understand that the stream crossing is the um the collector street that would be the collector street and let me pull that up again so i can make sure um yes that would be the future collector road uh and i believe uh previously they had shown a possible utility crossing but they revised that to show the utility crossing to be uh placed within the collector street as well and that was my understanding that is when i read that thank you and i'll uh and then the the uh the other infrastructure within the 300 foot buff within the um the wildlife corridor what would that other infrastructure consist of pull that back up on that um they just in um they have not defined that i would have to allow the um applicant to define that all right thank you mr culture i'll ask the applicant uh in a minute then thank you um so but the the stormwater treatment that had previously been scheduled to be in the in the wildlife quarter is no longer in the wildlife quarter except for treating anything relevant to the road that crossing the wildlife that's correct that commitment has been modified to address that and the the utility that was going to cross will now cross with the with the road it'll be the same crossing with the roadway yeah and that other crossing was removed from the okay and the um all right um another item uh and i don't know mr culture if you know the answer to this or if we'll need to hear from the applicants of this is around the grave sites you'll remember we had an extensive discussion of that uh the applicant um said that the grave site move removal of the grave site was supported by the family we had some discussion about uh that further do you have any more information from your standpoint on that or do we need to hear from the applicant uh we would need to hear from the applicant i've not got any further clarification on that all right um the in the planning staff summary attachment non uh it says that the um and this was a real i guess the original attachment that was created prior to the planning commission meeting uh that it says that they are not meeting the 300 foot buffer required in the eastern open space plan have they corrected that or i'll use i'll use that term corrected i believe corrected is the right word rectified that uh with the proper uh yes mayor sure that was corrected they did correct uh that and actually uh illustrate the whole corridor to be 300 foot uh on the southern portion of the stream uh channel and on the northern portion uh they are only uh their their property actually only includes uh one side of the stream channel so they are they have the 300 foot corridor on their side of that i i remember that from the map right thank you so but all 300 feet of the quarter will be there but it'll all be on their side of the property learn on the northern portion on the southern portion they have the entire stream uh 300 feet on both sides of the stream quarter okay i see what you're saying all right thank you um on page eight of attachment nine it discusses the transportation infrastructure and says that these and other improvements while being made piecemeal are going to overall improve the transportation network and traffic flow in this area i wondered i don't think this is a question so much for you mr culture but perhaps if mr judge or someone else from transportation is here they could speak to that i think that's an important assertion and and i think it's something we hear a lot about uh mr judge can you offer some thoughts on that yes um as we build judge city of Durham transportation as we've uh discussed before the developer will be making improvements along their site frontage along ala branch there's not a extensive amount of frontage in the grand scheme of ala branch um so we wanted to acknowledge that but they are also making offsite roadway improvements at some of the um nearby intersections turn lanes uh signalization to address site traffic impacts and we'll be providing turn lanes as well as a portion of the collector street through their site between ala branch and virgin road so is it is it true in your judgment that these and improvements and other improvements that are made piecemeal as we approve other developments are going to overall improve the transportation network and traffic flow in this area so there'll be minor improvements i mean generally the improvements that developers are making or for most part addressing their impacts there still will be isolated properties that may or may not develop where the city or the state will have to eventually come back and make those improvements in order to get the the larger improvements needed for the area okay thank you very much mr judge and one other question mr judge the collector street that goes through the riparian uh wildlife riparian border and the or quarter and the wildlife quarter um is is on a wake Durham collector street plan is that correct yes it's from the wake Durham collector street plan which was adopted around 2000 or so where the environmental screening when it went in selected that was not nearly as rigorous as the standards for today so we'll have to work with the applicant to try to minimize the impact by crossing that crossing um and and what's a collector what is a collector street the collector street is generally intended to provide a single lane of travel in each direction depending on if there's frontages or intersections may have may have a third lane for turn lanes but it would have sidewalks on both sides as well as bicycle accommodations either either wide 10 foot trails on each side or on road bicycle lanes and um to minimize and and so to work with them to minimize the if you mean to work with them to minimize the negative effect potentially on the wildlife corridor correct um so I mean we would not mean obviously through the wildlife corridor I think it's 600 feet wide we could narrow down the road to 211 foot lanes at that plus the sidewalks or bicycle lanes rather than carry through parking or turn lanes or other such things thank you very much mr judge and thank you mr culture um mr cybers when it's your turn uh you heard some of my questions and some of the things that when when you're up it'd be great if I could uh hear you uh address some of those but now I ask my colleagues for any questions that you may have for staff councilmember reese thank you mr mayor um good evening mr culture I hope you're doing well thanks for joining us again on this case um I either missed it or you said the applicant was going to have to answer it so let me try to try to get at this another way uh text commitment 13 says uses permitted inside the wildlife corridor as illustrated on sheet d100 include infrastructure and passive recreation amenities what is what are passive recreation amenities within the context of text amendment 13 um I can address that for the ordinance um and let me pull that section of the ordinance up for you um there for private open space an applicant has to meet a certain amount of open space uh for any type of residential development uh so a one third of all of the open space has to be put into a recreational component so the passive open space can be vegetation um it can be uh let me pull up some of the other some of the definitions of what that can be uh so other open space can be agricultural horticultural it can be natural vegetation uh it can be um tree coverage project boundary buffers inventory sites uh it can be it can be stormwater management uh but in this case they've all they've already proffered that it won't be stormwater management except uh for the minimum stormwater management to actually uh control for the roadway crossing uh one passive recreational component that can be put in that is a a uh or passive open space that could be a recreational component could be something like a trail which the greenway uh is something that's required for them to actually implement so the so the greenway trail they're going to build is inside the wildlife corridor that is correct uh in the eastern open space plan recognizes greenways within the wildlife corridors that was my question thank you mr culture i appreciate it you're very welcome thank you councilmember colleagues any questions any more questions at this point for staff all right uh we will now uh hear from the people who are here to speak on this item i see a number of people are signed up to speak on this item mr cybers are you speaking on behalf of your team good evening mayor schul uh nil gush will be speaking on our members of her team and there are also some neighbors that are signed up to speak as well that are proponents of the project thank you mr cybers uh mr gush uh can you are you available to be heard uh i think i am now can you hear me yes we can let me ask you first a question sure that has nothing to do with this case okay mr brian pronouncing your name i was worried that uh over the last decade or so i've been mispronouncing your name how do you pronounce your last name gosh okay good i've got it right thanks you do you do in fact yeah all right good thank you um mr gush uh who are the members of your team that uh are here tonight i see a number of people signed up to speak and i just want to make sure that uh we give uh the opponents and proponents the appropriate recognition sure so mr michael foley and tim and myself have a short presentation uh we submitted a PowerPoint um it'll i don't know five six seven minutes something like that um and uh those are the ones who are official in team i'm aware of a couple of neighbors who intended to speak in favor i don't know if they're here sounds like maybe they are all right thank you so it on the team are you uh mr cybers and mr wand is that correct well yeah he's on the team as well and says mr michael foley all right um and so okay so and who is the third speaker but um besides yourself and mr cybers michael foley michael foley got you yep all right and actually he'll be leaving off all right so we have some other members here there are other people here who would like to speak on item 20 and i am going to just ask them um i'm going to ask them individually okay i see that the the city that the yeah okay so yeah i'm going to just ask uh madam clerk if you could make trip nelson susan boy so kevin curtain and susan d's available to be heard and trip nil trip nelson who could make them available to be heard madam clerk great i'm going to begin uh just uh friends i'm i'm this is not a procedure you're familiar with but i have to ask you whether or not you're a proponent or opponent of this project so that we can uh fairly a lot time so i'll start with mr nelson sir it's the top of my list mr nelson are you here to speak on this item uh mr mayor uh yes sir but i'm going to defer to my aunt susan d's okay and in respect for your time this evening so she'll speak on behalf of the family all right thank you mr nelson miss d's are you here yes can you hear me yes and are you a proponent or opponent of this i'll proponent all right thank you we will get to you in a little bit great thank you um kevin curtain are you also available to be heard yes i am mr curtain thank you for being here are you a proponent or opponent of this i'm a proponent all right thank you and mr foley is on the team uh miss boy so are you here i am thank you miss boy so are you a proponent or opponent of this project i am a proponent thank you uh and i believe that i have covered everyone is there anyone else on the list of attendees who would like to be heard on item 20 and if so could you please raise your virtual hand or make yourself known in the chat if i've missed you all right i don't think that i've missed anyone um so uh again friends thank you for um i just that we have lots of rules around these public hearings and uh when we do it virtually it takes a little sort of calling of attendance i appreciate your patience um i don't see any opponents who are here to speak tonight only proponent so um mr uh mr mr gosh why don't you start and then we will follow up with the other people who've signed up sure actually i'm gonna have mr michael foley uh lead off for us if he is available that's fine i am available and uh denny can you pull up the power point certainly let me just one second i'll do that for you and if i could ask other people who were uh gonna speak a little later just please mute yourself so we can make sure we can hear uh mr foley great is that visible now yes thank you so good evening mayor shul mayor pro tem johnson and fellow council members my name is michael foley i'm with mf development llc and i am the applicant on this project and i wanted to start out talking about uh kind of giving a background on the may family cemetery which is located within the project uh first i wanted to say that the property has not been under the may family's ownership since 1920 secondly pursuant to north carolina general statute 65 106 which governs the relocation of cemeteries our consultant legacy research prepared a family history report conducted a field investigation and sent letters to the 27 descendants uh that we identify notifying them of the intent to relocate the graves to the maple wood cemetery in Durham we also posted in the newspaper and basically we got six responses back from the family members who all wanted to be present during the relocation subsequently we received approval for the relocation application from the Durham board of county commissioners on march 22nd however having done all this work based on feedback from the planning commission city council and follow-up conversations with the family members we've decided not to go ahead and relocate the cemetery and instead we'll design the project around it and basically after a lot of consideration this just seemed to be the best course of action to take next slide and uh thanks mike for leading off members of the council i wanted to take some time oh this is nilgesh by the way with the morning star law group um i want to take some time to highlight the changes we've made to the project after uh having heard feedback from you all and from the planning commission and from some of our neighbors as mike mentioned though the relocation of the cemetery has been approved we have decided to leave the cemetery in place in order to hit the same density we shifted around the mix of townhomes and single family homes and designed around the cemetery plot previously our commitment was for at least 20 of the homes to be townhomes and at least 20 percent of the homes to be single family homes we have increased our commitment on townhomes from 20 to 50 percent previously we had committed to doing three of the listed active amenities but we have now upped that to four we also eliminated the second shrimp crossing which previously was intended for only utilities 10 cybers on our team worked to re-engineer the plan so that we can develop the site with only the one shrimp crossing which is required anyway for that east west collector red mayor shul i believe it was you that raised the concern about whether stormwater facilities and other items would be within the 600 foot wildlife corridor we have committed to moving all of the stormwater facilities out of the corridor and would allow only the stream crossing for the road the utilities within it and the stormwater treatment for only that section of road that's the only thing that would be allowed in a 600 foot wildlife corridor oh and also the passive amenity which in this case is actually the greenway trail and and actually that brings me to the final change which is perhaps the biggest change from last time which is that the developer has committed to provide a public amenity previously there was a commitment to either construct the greenway or dedicate the right of way for it we now have committed not only to building the public greenway but also have committed to building a parking lot in a pocket park to serve as kind of a public trailhead before tonight's meeting i believe i heard councilmember reese say that he had visited many of the city's 68 parks well you can add another one to your list to visit and and i cannot really stress the importance of this commitment enough the developer here recognizes that while housing is crucial to having a place to live it's the other things which actually help make the place a home as the president of Durham Central Park i certainly recognize the importance of and in fact advocate for parks in our city i'm happy to be working with the client who shares the same interest i think this park small as it may be is a step in the right direction and will be the catalyst for many memories um and and i think it's something that is needed in the thrills region if we can go to the next slide so just to recap the highlights this project includes a dedicated 600 foot wildlife corridor with strict limitations on development activities allowed within it again would just be that uh that that road that goes through it and uh through a modern infrastructure for just that road and then also the path of amenity the greenway which we have committed to build it also includes the construction of 2100 feet of public greenway with a public parking lot and a pocket park that will serve as a trailhead the project will require the construction of 2500 feet of a planned east west collector road which is shown on the city's transportation plan and this project also includes a mile of off-site public water three quarters of a mile of off-site public sewer numerous road improvements and more than two million dollars paid into the serals fund and that is in addition to providing homes for 350 families it is a significant investment and a major positive for the community now i'll turn it if you go to the next slide i'll turn it back over to mic to close out thank you nil next i wanted to talk about traffic impact i know that's been a concern in this area and i want to start with reiterating that our development plan has four required traffic improvements and five potential improvements that are the result of a collaborative effort between our traffic engineer working closely with the city and ncdot engineers and the point being that there's been a lot of energy thought and a lot of expertise coming up with these uh traffic and traffic improvements also i wanted to add that as more development projects are proposed in the area additional improvements are going to be required of them as well and lastly i wanted to point out which i thought was very important that based on the tia seventy percent of the traffic from this project will exit onto versial road instead of olive branch road next slide i wanted to talk about the raleigh durham housing market the current shortage of available homes in the raleigh durham market is definitely driving up prices prices which can be hopefully alleviated by increasing the supply this upward pressure on home prices is only likely to continue with companies like google and apple and the numerous others who are bringing jobs to this area and basically you know the word is out that this is a great place to live and work as we all know for this project the starting price point for the town homes is planned to be 250 000 and 350 000 for single family homes but those prices may be impacted by the increasing material prices with the current historically low mortgage rate these price points are affordable to middle income families making 80 to 100 of the durham average median income and in conclusion we feel like this is a great opportunity to provide housing for 350 families in durham and we hope to get your approval tonight and we're all available to answer questions thank you very much mr gush and mr foley we have several other people sign up to speak colleagues and we'll go ahead and hear from them first before we take your questions for their for the applicant i will begin with kevin curtain okay curtain welcome you have three minutes all right thank you um i mostly was uh signed up to speak and uh in case uh susan boy so would not make it but i will use this time um just to let you know that um the property at 1353 and 1501 olive branch um has been in our family for uh many years and so basically to put that more than 40 to put that in to proximity of where olive branch reserve is that would border us on the southern and eastern property lines um and so we just wanted to uh go on the record and and let the council know that we are 100 and support of this development and with the voluntary annexation and along with supporting the wildlife corridor and understanding that they completely wrap around us and continuing that wildlife corridor for we are on the other side of the creek and that would in the future we understand and are in support of us maintaining the 300-foot wildlife corridor and also understanding that both water and sewer will most likely at some point cross our property as well but overall just to go on the record and say that that we support the development and we support the annexation thank you very much mr curtain uh miss boy so uh are are you with us if so you also have three minutes you're on mute miss boy so i would just validate what um Kevin curtain just said um i owned the three 1353 and the 1501 olive branch road properties and these two properties total 20 acres and they border on the proposed olive branch reserve in the southern and eastern property lines on our southern and eastern property lines um i am in support of the development and the annexation and the annexation of this property thank you very much miss boy so um miss d's um can you make yourself available to be heard please can you hear me yes we can welcome you also have three minutes good um first of all i've just been so impressed with how you handle your your meetings um i grew up in Durham and i've been away for quite a long time but uh at any rate it's been very interesting for me to you know watch how y'all work and the questions you ask so what i want to say mr mayor ladies and gentlemen of the council my name is susan d's i am the youngest of four children born to doctors john and susan cd's i've been asked to speak for my siblings as co-owners of this property currently my parents moved to Durham in the 1930s and worked at Duke for 90 years between them oh my father bought this land in 1945 so it has been in our family for 76 years we called it the tree farm because we always found our christmas trees there my siblings and i believe our parents would be pleased with and supportive of the proposed development of this land we hope the council will review this proposal favorably and thank you for your consideration of our request and i yield my time thank you miss d's miss d's um this will not influence my vote but let me just tell you that your mother dr susan d's when i was a young child my i had asked my very badly and my parents would drive me down to from Lynchburg to Duke hospital to be treated by your mother and she was an amazing doctor and i think for about a 10-year period uh from when i was maybe six years old to when i was 16 years old uh your mother was my doctor and so uh i when i saw your name i didn't want to ask because that's private what your parents do but when you said that i just wanted to tell you that uh she was a lifesaver for me i did not know your family was still in town i can see your mother as clear as a bell uh right now uh and uh so uh just uh anyway um wanted to tell you thank you all right uh our next speaker uh will be we have heard from miss boy so mr curtain miss d's is there anyone else that is is planning to speak on item 20 that i have missed um mr gosh uh any any final comments before we have questions from the council no not at all actually um we've got our team available answer question and hope to have your support tonight thank you very much thank you all right colleagues questions for staff or the applicants uh council member reese thank you mr mayor i just had a question for mr gosh and then i wanted to make a couple of comments if that's okay good evening mr gosh good to see you at least hear you virtually um so i understand i keep asking questions about the the corridor and i appreciate your being clear about what is happening there and what's not i think i'm set on the stormwater pieces and i understand that the greenway trail will be built there what about some of the amenities that are going along with the trail like the parking spaces the picnic tables is that stuff going to be in the corridor is going to be beside the corridor where's that stuff going to be beside the corridor yeah that stuff is not in the corridor okay well that was my question um i know other folks will have other questions but i'll just have some brief comments which is that um the this applicant has made a lot of progress but since our last meeting in addressing any of the concerns that i heard from my colleagues about this proposal um and also a number of the concerns that were raised by members of the planning commission when they rejected this proposal unanimously um when i and so so first of all uh thank you that regardless of how i vote tonight i think it's it's a better proposal and will serve the people of our city better if it does pass for me when i look at this proposal i'm i'm struck by or trying to think about how i would vote if the wildlife corridor had not been an issue if the cemetery was not on site uh the two big things that i think were causing a lot of odds at a planning commission here with the council back in march uh how would i approach this project if those two things had never been a part of the the equation uh and i think it's been clear to anyone who's watched our proceedings over the last year so that i've viewed proposals in this area like that uh very skeptically uh but uh having said that um the the extent to which this developer has moved towards resolution of the concerns that a number of my colleagues raised last time um makes it a difficult choice tonight but i will just say that i look forward to hearing from my colleagues and then figuring out what the heck i'm going to do after that thank you mr mayor thank you council member comments or questions colleagues for the applicant or the staff all right um hearing none i'm going to declare this public hearing closed and the matter is now now before the council i'll accept either discussion or a motion uh the motion would be to adopt an ordinance annexing 1101 isle branch road into the city of Durham effective may 31 2021 and authorize the city manager enter to utility extension agreement with mf development LLC dba huma built development mr mayor mr culture's hand is raised and i don't know if he's wanting to speak or if it's oh thank you mr culture did you uh is there anything else that you wanted to add well i do mayor sure um i did notice since the applicant uh did commit to uh leaving the cemetery on site the current development plan does show that still to be removed so if uh if the council is going to recommend approval of this development plan tonight staff would recommend that they update the existing condition sheet uh accordingly to show that not to be removed and also we would recommend that they actually um uh structure a tax commitment also to uh for that uh to be protected and also to provide a public access easement for that cemetery as well thank you very much mr culture mr culture is that something they can do tonight um i think so uh that would be up to the applicant to be able to post something to be able to what i'm sorry propose some time to post something all right mr cybers and mr gosh my guess is that you were feverishly trying to figure out exactly what language that you need uh but uh when you're all prepared uh we'll be happy to hear you on the issue that mr culture raises okay we're not feverishly trying to figure that we talked about this earlier and i think tim cybers will address it thank you yes mayor sure tim cybers with four of us associates um i believe if it's okay with staff and the council that we can work out the final language later but essentially everything that dany stated is acceptable to us including we will provide a buffer around that cemetery to provide some extra protection as well of 25 feet for clarity mr culture is that acceptable acceptable to staff can you just give me just one moment sure and if you need more specificity you can let us know colleagues we have passed the nine o'clock hour but we're going to go ahead and finish this item which i don't think will be long before we take our customary pause to support our closed captioners mayor shul uh we've we've conferred we we would be acceptable to that all right thank you very much um maybe for our benefit mr cybers you could go ahead and just restate what your commitments are yes sure so we will provide public access to the cemetery we will provide we will clarify the item on our existing condition sheet as to remain we will also show that on our d 100 sheet on the development sheet itself as well as providing a 25 foot buffer around the cemetery and public access public access yes that was the first thing i stayed sorry absolutely thank you all right thank you thank you mr culture colleagues uh any other questions or comments and thank you council member caviero for spotting mr culture's hand there any other comments all right in order to pass this we would need the motion that i just read motion one is there a motion to uh proof that item i'll move is ready to adopt the ordinance thank you council member is there a second second moved by council member middleton seconded by mayor pro tem johnson madam clerk will you i'm sorry council member uh freeman short thank you mr mayor i just uh comment to note that this is a very uh different uh circumstance around this development just acknowledging that i a similar to council member reese noting that um it does cause adjuda when there's a cemetery and the concern around uh the crossing and the wildlife i just wanted to note that that in this particular case the developer's actual focus on making sure that the details were actually dealt with up beforehand or up front definitely uh plays well and i can definitely support moving forward so thank you thank you council member uh i actually want to make a comment too about that which is for our our planning commission really helped us here they really helped us by bringing us these issues and i think we did well by delaying um and just to recommend mr gosh and mr cybers it's easier if you do these things before you get to the planning commission so i hope you will think about that next time in all right uh any other comments before we vote all right uh well madame mr mayor just remember freeline short yeah i was uh since you brought it up uh and and council member freeman as well um i was just thinking about how helpful it would be to hear from the planning commission now that you know uh that these changes had been made uh i was reviewing them again in the context you know noting that that these notes were kind of written months ago um december fourth um i was just curious to hear how they would react and i know that's not kind of standard procedure um but particularly given that it was unanimously rejected um i guess uh i just want to reiterate and amplify what you said mr mayor that uh if you take care of this on the front end um you know we'll be in a much better position um to make informed decisions uh because i would i would love if the planning commission could take another swing at this um with the with the additional changes so that's a fantastic point all right any other anything else colleagues mr mayor i would second that if it were possible yeah i think that's where we all are yeah yeah it's uh it's uh but i do understand that you know once the planning commission has heard it which is why they rejected it it would have been better for them to kind of work that out beforehand so yes thank you councilmember freelon for noting that all right thank you colleagues i think we're ready to vote madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul ah mere pro tem johnson hi once a member caballero hi once a member freelon hi once a member freeman hi once a member middleton i vote i once member reese no thank you madam clerk uh the eyes have it the motion passes six to one uh we'll now need a motion to adopt an ordinance amending the udo by taking property out of the residential rural falls joined lake watershed protection overlay district b fj b county jurist hang on second no worries and establishing the same as planned development residential 3.2 2 0 pdr 3.2 2 0 falls joined lake watershed protection overlay district b fj b city jurisdiction and now councilmember all of that move is right attorney really started to want me to read all these things fully now and so i'm stuck with it uh thank you councilmember is there a second second moved by councilmember middleton seconded by councilmember freelon madam clerk please call the roll mayor shul ah mere pro tem johnson hi once a member caballero hi once a member freelon hi once a member freeman nah once a member middleton i vote i once a member reese no thank you thank you madam clerk the uh eyes have it the motion passes five to two and then motion three to adopt a consistency statement is required by ncgs 160d dash 605 move to adopt consistency second moved by councilmember middleton seconded by mayor pro tem johnson that we adopt a consistency statement madam clerk please call the roll mayor shul ah mere pro tem johnson hi once a member caballero hi once a member freelon hi once a member freeman hi once a member middleton i vote i it's reverie's no thank you thank you madam clerk uh the motion passes was it six to one i'm sorry i my apologies mr mayor yes it was six to one i just wanted to note that the rr piece was one thing i couldn't get past though yes all right thank you councilmember um thank thank you colleagues um mr uh want to thank everybody was here tonight and we're expecting a really well done development there and uh appreciate everyone i want to thank all the neighbors that were here thank you for being here and uh miss d's uh it was especially nice to meet you virtually um i can still do the breathing exercises that you are that dr d's taught me those many years ago i might even still have my antique inhaler hanging out somewhere so uh thank you uh and uh it was kind of cool steve that gave me chills man yeah i just i true story true story she was she was my savior all right colleagues um we're gonna take a five minute break uh for our closed caption um team and we'll be back at 921 remember to mute yourselves colleagues in case you're eating an apple and don't want to make noise all right colleagues it is 921 uh and we are back in session and we have our next item is also a public hearing item that's item 21 unified development ordinance text amendment omnibus changes 16 i hope that mr stock is with us wouldn't have it any other way mr mayor thank you very much good to see you mr stock good evening michael stock with the plane department as always i i will be leaving my video off in order to maintain contact with all of you and not cut in and out um text amendment tc 2101 proposes technical revisions and minor policy changes to various provisions of the unified development ordinance or udo the amendments are identified as necessary corrections clarifications reorganization reorganization or other minor changes to clarify the intent of the regulations or codify interpretations regulations or even reflect minor policy changes that are not solely technical in nature the complete discussion of the changes is found within your agenda packet report and the planning commission recommended approval with a vote of 11 to 1 on march 9th changes subsequent to the planning commission have been made and are as follows and they represent most of the discussion that was had at the commission um first of all the neighborhood meeting and priest middle meeting requirements were changed back to maintain a requirement of just uh at least one meeting although more can be performed um if recommended uh at the meetings and um as would be seen on any cases that come before you uh revisions to deviations of development plans were also removed but they will be included in a forthcoming set of amendments focused on applications and permits which are primarily in article three additional text to paragraph nine four one g along rights away is removed but is also anticipated to be included in a forthcoming set of omnibus changes that one is regarding buffers along right away and co-living parking requirements were revised to be consistent with the parking for a dwelling unit and the term co-housing was also removed um that was a discussion also at the planning commission uh as a reminder two actions are requested tonight first on the ordinance itself and then second on the appropriate statement of consistency um thank you and be happy to answer questions thank you very much mr stock colleagues you have heard the report from staff and i'm going to now declare this public hearing open and first i'm going to ask if there are any questions for staff by members of the council council member reese thank you mr mayor um i had a question about the changes to um in article five use regulations adding co-living as a new uh group living use can you help me understand what the practical effect of those changes are the practical effect is to provide for a modernized uh consideration of housing choices today rather than the uh old 1960s version of a rooming house or boarding house definition that focused on number of guest rooms and whether food was being served or not served in that kind of thing um and it does um allow for more of an expansive allowance um of that uh living arrangement or housing choice great thank you um the other thing i wanted to ask about was the um within the district intensity standards the commercial general height limit and in the uh was raised from 50 to 55 feet we got an email earlier today from a resident who had some questions about that um i got a really good answer from uh our planning director on that but for folks who didn't get that email i thought i'd give you the opportunity to explain exactly what's going on there and what's not going on there sure um and i was the um author for most of that email um so um i think the biggest crux of the issue and just to come up at the planning commission hearing was the impact on north gate mall um and the allowance of of additional height there north gate mall is not zone ccg it is zone cc and there are no changes to the height allowances for the cc district um there is a portion i i guess people associate it with um north gate mall but there's the shops at north gate which is up guest road a little bit where um i'll name drop randy's pizza is um that kind of shopping center love rink i'm sorry love the pizza um i'm a northeasterner what do you want um so um that is joke that is zoned cg with a development plan i believe it was done back in 97 and that specifies actually a height limitation of 24 feet so even these changes would not impact that they would still need to rezone that to get a to get additional height um the changes that we made are just really to bring a lot of consistency with height where there's different zoning districts have different variations of height and and they kind of the rum district allows for 55 feet the rs district um which part of these rsm district would allow um currently allow for unlimited amount of height if it's shown on a development plan um but we're we're bringing that back back down for consistency also to 55 feet with a minor special use permit um and then a residential district uh residential uses in non-residential districts like oi or cg they point to those districts anyway um and they would allow for if they point to those residential districts they would get five feet more height than what would be normally allowed um if they were not doing uh residential development if you're just doing an office building so we were just looking for consistency with those with those districts and the different uses that would be allowed mr stock i appreciate that explanation the resident who reached out to us emailed me separately after i centered that and said that made a lot of sense she was especially relieved to hear that this didn't have an impact on the northgate situation uh which is a whole different kettle of fish um the last thing i wanted to say well two things first of all these omnibus packages are always so well done um such such great small changes that in the aggregate over the years have really improved our udo so uh mr stock i want to thank you for that also say congratulations on your promotion as the new land use manager i think that's that will be first of all that's great for you but it's even better for us uh as elected leaders who rely on the advice that we get from great folks like you in the planning department and also great for our community so congratulations that's all i have mr mayor thank you very much councilmember that means a lot to me thank you thank you very much councilmember and mr stock i'll add our all of our congratulations that's great i hope that doesn't mean the end of mic stock however um nope um text amendments us will move over with me into the land use section all right great all right um colleagues other questions for mr stock we we do have a speaker to this item as well but i want to just make sure there if there are no other questions for mr stock first mr stock i do have one um you talked about the changes that were made per the planning commission comments and i appreciated that actually i have two i'm sorry the commissioner miller had comments about granting additional discretion a couple of areas to the planning director which were concerns that he raised these were not persuasive to the rest of the planning commission but i wondered if you had any thoughts to offer on that um we took a look at that section and that was um in regards to the deviations to development plan section and that and quite honestly um that section has currently written is actually somewhat discretionary and we are removing a lot of that text to make it even less discretionary talking it over with the planning director and knowing that we had um an article three text amendment coming forward uh that focuses on uh applications and permits and also taking a look at how how that whole section was really worded um we thought we could do a better job and make it a little clearer and more concise so we took a step back um to to try to just make it better but in terms of discretion i would say that even as written for the planning commission it was removing uh uh removing discretion that's currently in the ordinance there is a group of small local developers who are doing infill and related housing types uh missing middle and they have talked to me and i know to some of my colleagues i'm not sure yet if they've met with all of my colleagues but about some changes that will make it easier for them to build and i know they had uh wanted some of these changes in an upcoming omnibus um and you all been in conversation with them we have um and we got a list uh a very lengthy list of changes um again the planning director and i had sat down with them um so we are aware of their uh which list all right thank you very much and then my final question is this has already been this is uh this has been to jcc pc as well as the planning commission is that right that's correct um all almost all tax amendments start with the joint city county planning committee uh to give them a heads up to for for members to provide comment and feedback and direction um and then yes it goes to the planning commission for the first okay great all right thank you very much colleagues any other questions for staff any questions for staff at this time councilmember middleton i'm sorry mr maryl i was just in my glasses good catch up okay sorry all right okay uh we have memey kessler is here to speak on this item uh miss kessler we're glad to have you welcome thank you miss you have three minutes thank you mr mayor uh good evening city council and mr scott stock i mean i wanted to thank the staff for removing the um section 3.5.12 in response to the planning commission um feedback um i still have problems with these omnibus text changes uh because i think they're very ominous and um so i look at them carefully and um it it distresses me that we made some progress in terms of impervious surfaces related to um driveway uh width but now it's going to be widened again um and i think it should be only widened um when there's a three car garage which is what mr stock had said at the planning commission was that the necessity it shouldn't just be wide open like that um i also don't like the use of this minor special use permit uh track because it's unclear to me if there's any public notice um about those minor special uses which i don't consider to be minor i think that taking um the height of a of a building from 45 feet to 75 feet is pretty major um and i'm also aware that a minor special use permit was used um related to um a neighborhood in adjacent to the new northern high school construction and they're going to have 150 school buses or so twice a day coming and going through their neighborhood and they had no notice about that so i'm going to be uh starting to dog minor special use permit same way that i dog text and then that changes um and congratulation mr stock i i think that you are well deserved of a of a promotion and i'm happy to hear that you're not going to give up the check tonight thank you very much thank you very much miss kessler um mr stock could you comment on the two issues that uh miss kessler raised one is notice regarding a minor special use permit and the other which was also a planning commission discussion which was the the width of the drive ways and i mean i know i'm sure for my colleagues who were on the jcc pc that you will know this and uh you know been through this once but uh forgive me so thank you mr mayor um for the minor special use permits those do go through a public hearing process it's a quasi judicial evidentiary hearing process with the board of adjustment um public notice is given out um very much like for zoning notices um letters go out to i believe 600 feet to all property owners from the site is listed within the public notice listserv that goes out weekly signs are put on the site and it is advertised in the newspaper newspaper so it does go through a public hearing process it is a different hearing than what than a legislative process that um council uh holds um it is follows a much more formal courtroom like type setup where evidence has to be presented uh to the board of adjustment in order to make uh for the applicant to make certain findings of fact about the application um for the driveway uh issue the actual um for the longest time and even into the prior merge zoning ordinance that prior to the udo it used to be that you could just do any width driveway um as long as you showed it on a plot plan um and then we changed that to um that went down to 25 feet just uh very recently i believe last year or so um it was brought to our attention through development review that it was just causing not only um issues with um you know folks who were looking to have three uh three-card garages but it just actually wound up creating creating a lot of non-conforming issues with people who just happened to have wider driveways maybe a driveway that kind of wrapped around the side of the house for additional parking or what have you so we felt that 30 feet was a nominal change it does not get uh change um the additional or the more uh limitations that were put on driveways through uh approval of EHC um as you recall like such as uh infill standards or um the small uh small lot option have uh additional uh limits on driveways driveway widths even driveway construction and that does not change that at all thank you mr stock thank you all right colleagues uh let me first ask is there anyone else present who would like to speak on this item this is a public hearing item if so please make yourself known in the chat all right uh colleagues any more questions for uh council member freeman thank you mr uh mayor this mr scott can you say that one more time you you mentioned the non-conforming issue with 30 foot driveways is there a limit on the length no around the house or you know there's no limit on the length okay so it's just like the curve itself might be 30 feet wide um there's actually uh in i believe in the city code i think there's limits to curb cut widths but they it could flare out a little bit from that once you get on the property thank you all right colleagues if there are no further questions or comments i'm going to declare this public hearing closed and the matter is now back before the council we need two motions the first is an opt to adopt an ordinance amending the united the unified development ordinance incorporating revisions article one general article three applications of permits article five use regulations article six district intensity standards article seven design standards article eight environmental protection article nine landscaping and buffering article 10 parking and loading article 11 sign standards article 12 infrastructure public improvements article 16 design districts and article 17 definitions is there a motion to that effect moved is removed point of order mayor sure councilmember yes i'm just noting it is it possible to pull those items out and approve it or do i have to just vote no on all of them so um let me just ask um i think that if you had something that you wanted to take out about you could make a separate motion to that effect i'm not sure that you know you would you'd have to you'd have to convince the rest of us let's just say so so do you want to do that yes okay why don't we start with that then what what is it that you would like to take out and it's specific to the minor special use i i would like for us to take a look at the minor special use public notice process and so i don't want to move that forward without addressing it other than that okay i do get the wisps the driveway wisps that's fine and the infill standards all that that's fine as well i think so that the minor special use permit because i feel like there's going to be a lot more of them in the coming years um acknowledging that this is the way that folks move forward these single single like one off projects and if we don't get the notice correct now i don't know when that will be within the next six six to twelve months and i know a lot is going to happen okay um would you be you know you're certainly within your rights just to make a motion to take that out and staff could let us know what that would be another option would be that if you had other suggestions you want to make to staff that they could you could ask them to look at those as well but i'm happy to do it either way you want i would be open to if staff could say that if they could extend it to 1200 square feet 1200 feet notice and then also just noting that when it's when it's specific to an old historic neighborhood like um old farm that there'd be some type of um of a distinction made so that it comes forward um because there's what i'm trying to get at is that the folk the equity aspect of this is that there are folks who are fixed income and not focused on these types of matters in that way uh involve you want to make sure that we get as more more folks involved in the conversation so that they're maybe that the inter-neighborhood council or the uh planning commission like there has to be a way for someone who has some understanding about what the issues are to come in and ask the questions right now there's not and so the folks just hear about it on the tail end and then they're trying to figure out what it is that or trying to figure it out on their own and it just becomes a back and forth battle that we can't manage because it's already been approved miss young miss young would you like to uh speak to us yeah sorry i lost my internet connection right it's you were calling on me i apologize that's the way we do it here um so i think councilmember freeman brings up an excellent point and it's something that we as staff have been looking at um one of the things that i've talked with the staff about doing is essentially an equity omnibus re-examining our all of our procedures and requirements and the ordinance from an equity lens particularly a racial equity lens and i will say that um while i'm not opposed to changing the notification distance i think the real problem is that the minor special use permit process is probably not the best process for some of these things that have really large impacts those should be in my opinion legislative processes and so that's one of the things that we're going to be re-examining um the to me something that's very uh cut and dry small variances you know for fence height or something that is really having minimal impact those are the kind of things that should be before the board of adjustment it's really difficult for the community to get themselves together and have the you know we by general statute we are required to give what i consider fairly limited notice 10 to 25 days there's a maximum we can't notice earlier than that you know we could but we'd have to do it all over again anyway to comply with the general statutes and so that really um puts the community i think in a difficult position of not having as much time to prepare as applicants do uh which is not not really an equitable position to be in so there are again i'm not opposed to changing that but i think fundamentally the problem is not a notice problem but it's an issue of what's what's the best uh or the most appropriate approval mechanism for those type of large impact projects miss miss young thank you for that um i was gonna say thank you miss young i noted so the time lapse for the 10 to 25 days is that also in this that's by general statute and that's not being proposed to change and that's this is that's that state most of the reason why i'm trying to to make the adjustment is because of my experience i know what it is to be on the other side trying to pull together a thousand dollars to get an attorney who could actually come to a to a board of adjusted meeting and and argue the case um on behalf of the neighborhood if there is and i'm and i'm really like it's not just racial equity it's also like ability um and so many even on the co-housing side like there are there are a number of nuances in this and this minor special use permit process that i i really am uncomfortable with and i have not figured out what the mechanisms could be to change it so if you're if you're saying that it's the omnibus i would just ask that you expand it a little further around equity and then also include me in those conversations because i think that there are a lot of folks who who ask me the questions and i don't have the answers because i'm not on the joint like jccpc and i'm not paying attention as closely as i would if i were on it absolutely and the i'm calling it equity omnibus but it won't be mixed in with other things it'll be a series of amendments that are focused on all sorts of equity issues like like you raised so the other thing that we're going to try and do i think in response to some community members concern including this kesslers that you know things get buried in omnibus it's kind of dense and hard to get through is when we have enough of the same type of amendment to just call it out pull it out and make it a standalone amendment and be super clear and transparent about what it is so we'll you'll be seeing more of that moving forward too thank you miss young thank you that was super helpful appreciate your response to councilmember freeman's questions i'm excited about what you said i completely agree that the the minor special use permit process is very problematic i didn't know that we had state law that required us to just have such short notice for people i'm constantly discovering state laws that are hindering us but this was one i didn't know about um and i think that that is another reason to do just exactly what you said which is change the things that are inside this the minor special use permit process and make more things legislative so thank you very super helpful um and uh appreciate councilmember freeman for surfacing those all right councilmember freeman i just want to ask are you having heard miss young's plans uh to uh the changes in process she's proposed uh are you good with going ahead with this i am okay with going ahead with this i would not say good but um i will withdraw that request to to pull the item from the list all right thank you colleagues uh we need a motion to adopt the uh as i read uh motion number one there to adopt the ordinance samir i think i did i thought i offered the motion you probably did and i forgot why don't you do it again councilmember make the motion absolutely move is right is there a second second second uh seconded by councilmember caballero uh motion by councilmember middleton seconded by councilmember caballero madame clerk will you please call the roll mere shul mere pro tem johnson hi councilmember caballero hi it's a member freelon hi it's a member freeman hi it's a member middleton i will i it's member east hi thank you thank you madame clerk the motion passes unanimously and we'll now move to the consistency statement is their motion to adopt the consistency statement that moved second moved by councilmember reese seconded by councilmember caballero madame clerk will you please call the roll mere shul your pro tem johnson hi it's a member caballero hi it's a member freelon hi it's a member freeman hi it's a member middleton i vote aye councilmember reese i vote aye thank you all right colleagues the motion passes unanimously uh thank you madame clerk and thank you mr stock thank you miss young uh and we appreciate all the work that uh brought us to this uh this omnibus text amendment and we look forward to more we'll now move to item 22 zoning map change cost of north duke and uh we'll first hear the report from staff thank you very much good evening again michael stock with the planning department uh daniel jewel of culture jewel temps pa proposes to change the zoning designation of four parcels of land totaling approximately two and a half acres located along the west side of north duke street south of west carver street and north of stadium drive the current zoning is office institutional with the development plan or oid and residential urban five or r u five the applicant proposes to change this designation to plan development residential 8.000 or pdr 8.000 the change is proposed to change no change is proposed to the current watershed overlay designation of the fjb the properties are currently designated office on the future land use map if the proposed zoning is approved staff recommends a change to the flum to designate the property as medium high density residential planning commission recommended approval 11 to 1 on march 9th the applicant was granted an expedited hearing by council on march 1st and therefore the planning commission was not permitted to continue the hearing however it does not preclude council from continue its public hearing or limit any other action council may wish to make regarding this request the plan indicates a list of committed elements detailed on the cover sheet of the plan and summarized in the report the foremost is a commitment to affordable housing for all the units as defined by the udo which mandates a maximum of 60 percent am i at a time of lease for rentals 30 year minimum for that affordability clause and monitoring through the community development department subsequent to the planning commission hearing the applicant added an additional committed commitment to prohibit all construction traffic from accessing the site from birmingham avenue the applicant discussed this with staff since residents who spoke at the planning commission hearing were concerned about traffic to and from the site thus all traffic construction and regular is limited to north duke street additionally a planning commissioner brought up a concern regarding the proposed building envelope as you know development plans are required to show them this plan shows two one primary or definitive envelope outside of the required 100 foot stream buffer that is shown on the plan and a secondary one that shows a limited amount of encroachment into that stream buffer the secondary envelope does not automatically allow the encroachment but shows the extent to which the applicant may seek it through the special approvals during site plan review which is through a quasi-judicial hearing with the board of adjustment similar contingencies have been applied to other development aspects on other development plans such as access points that may be may not be approved unless approved by ncdot or even more recently with harriots place where variance to a project boundary buffer was reserved as a contingency which raised no concern by the planning commission the city attorney's office has also reviewed this and had no concern the planning commission did recommend approval as i mentioned before 11 to 1 on march 9th and again council is requested to take two actions first on the ordinance itself and then the appropriate statement of consistency thank you be happy to answer any questions any applicant and a representative of casa are available for questions thank you very much uh mr stock colleagues you have heard the report from staff i'm now going to clear this public hearing open and first ask if there any questions for staff by members of the council council member reese thank you mr mayor um i have can you um hold on a second mr stock can you tell me a little bit more i don't i must not have been paying close enough attention to the harriots place case i didn't know that there was a condition there that uh that was conditional upon some future variance by the board of adjustment can you can you help refresh my recollection about that yeah there was excuse me sorry michael stock with the planning department um yes actually one of the tax commitments was a uh a reservation to seek a variance from project boundary buffers um as as necessary okay that's great the other question i had was um the kind of the notice sign for this particular uh case i know that one was placed on north duke street sort of in the north end of the property was there one placed at any of the entrances um to birmingham avenue there is no no specific entrance on birmingham avenue i don't i can't say for certain whether there was i'm hoping a sign was placed there but i do not know offhand um for certain if there was one okay well there wasn't one today so that's that's what i can tell you about that thank you um and i was pretty surprised to see the only sign the only notice sign was on uh the very speedy north duke uh edge of the property but i'm assuming that that that that if that was the only sign in place that that was sufficient to meet the requirements in this kind of process is that is that right mr stock um i believe so i would have to um i would have to look at the state statutes to make sure that that that does meet it i'm assuming it does meet it um if not we would have to come back and get this re re heard okay um well i don't know what to do about that but those are the questions i had thank you mr manor thank you councilmember all right any questions for mr stock before we hear from members of the public okay uh we have three uh two people signed up for this item we also have another person here i think may want to speak on this item those people are mr dan jewel and is jess brandis i also see zenki batson here zenki batson are you here to speak on this item as well and if you are could you put that in the chat please okay yes all right thank you zenki batson are you here as a proponent or an opponent of this um i live on birmingham so i can just speak to the fact that there was no notification on our street or at um wisteria and i'll just share that the majority of people who's prop who are living in homes um that will be affected by this are renters so the only way they know about it is be as a homeowner letting them know um miss batson yes um we we have a i'm going to get back to you in a minute um we have a process that we have to go through here on the public hearing um so i'll get back to you in just a second okay okay yeah um we'll start with the proponents and then we'll get to you are you are you let me ask you again miss batson are you a proponent or an opponent of this development miss batson can you make yourself heard yeah i guess i'm not specifically one or the other okay that's fine thank you that was helpful all right uh mr jul and miss brandis um would you are are you all uh would you like to speak on this item yes sir just for a few minutes can you hear me all right yes we can and i hope maybe you can address the uh question of the sign as well uh i i will the best i can so uh thank you for your time good evening uh mr mayor members of the council uh dan jul again good good to see you all um all right good folks of kasa have asked us to help them with the rezoning of the site uh it's a somewhat challenging piece of property but we're very excited to bring this request before you uh i want to thank mr stock for all his work he gave you gave a very thorough staff report and i will not be repetitive on on most of it as mr sock said this site is is largely defined by stream buffers in fact 75 of this property is in riparian buffer there's a 50 foot state mandated buffer in durham has another 50 feet on top of that because it's in the fjb watershed there was actually a previous rezoning on this property back in the 90s for an office building that building would have been 100 percent in the stream buffer of course the stream buffers did not exist 25 years ago that's not what we want to do that's not what we're going to do but absent the d on the o and i d portion of the property uh we would actually be able to do this uh project with a site plan approval rather than a rezoning but that's not not what it is so we are here making this request and what we are proposing is a small apartment building with something less than than 20 units and most importantly as mr stock said we're committing to those units being 100 percent affordable as defined by the udo we're not requesting affordable housing density bonus even though we would be uh entitled to one because we we know the site won't support it there's only so much that can go on this site and uh and that's that's the conversation we've had the neighbors with the neighbors uh and to that end um what i would like to say that um when we had our our virtual neighborhood meeting uh last year the neighbors did raise some concerns over the loss of uh of trees on this property of course as you can imagine they they've been able to enjoy for all the years they've lived there uh woods between the back of their houses and duke street this site is sandwiched in between the two so we we let them know that we would meet out there on site and talk about stream buffers and talk about buffers and talk about the woods and we've actually done that twice now uh the rallying point was there on birmingham where a little bit of the uh the site touches uh birmingham avenue i can't recall if there was a sign out there or or not even though if i've been out there a couple times i will i will trust the the neighbors on on whether one was there or not but as you can imagine the the primary interest by the neighbors was again uh the fact that they would be losing some of the trees and woods behind their houses that they've enjoyed for so many years um and what we talked about in both occasions is is how we could mitigate that uh we promised we would we would meet with them when we got to the site plan approval phase talk about strategic buffering even augmenting what's required by the ordinance uh and working with them to select evergreen native plants and in that sort of thing um as mr stock reported we did receive a strong recommendation for approval from the planning commission and and we would hope that we'd have the same reaction uh from you this evening with that i'd like to introduce just brandis she's the senior director of real estate development for casa i'll she'll tell you a little bit about the proposed housing and just might also talk to you about um what would happen to their funding if uh if we had to go back and re-advertise and start this process over again and i'll be here for questions as they come along so thank you thank you dan good evening members of council can you hear me hi i'm just hi i'm just brandis senior director of real estate development with casa glad to be here tonight um as dan shared we're planning a small apartment community that will be a hundred percent affordable um we have applied to the city for funding uh did so as part of the rfp for the first tranche of bond funds were available last summer we were recommended for funding um by the community development department and prioritizing housing for people who've experienced homelessness at that site for um with incomes at or below 30 percent of the area median income so focusing on really that hardest to house population that casa specializes in um the council or excuse me uh the community development department recommended that funding contingent upon getting gap financing from the housing finance agency through the state we've applied for that we believe we will be getting a recommendation any day now um that they have approved that funding their requirement is that the zoning is corrected in compliance um by their board approval which their board meets in june so that is why we requested the expedited rezoning so that we could ensure that we got full rezoning approval in may to meet that nchfa deadline in june so that we'd be able to get their funds and then meet the city's commitment are the request of ours their contingency to have full funding by july so that's a little bit about the timing of the dollars that we're hoping to use to develop this housing and i am here for questions as well thank you miss brandis well now here from miss bat son miss battson can you make yourself available to be heard yes um i i don't i'm just here to listen about the proposal and to learn about it but i did want to share that um i didn't ever see a sign there and in relation to what you're speaking out about prior to this i think it would help renters to be notified of these things um because most many of the people on our street are renters and so none of them were aware of the project through their landlords um so that it seems helpful some people are renting for really long periods of time and they're they're not aware of these things unless someone who's a homeowner lets them know thank you very much for your comments miss battson we appreciate your being here all right there's no one else here uh who's to speak on this item uh and so uh we'll now hear any questions or comments and maybe maybe uh we may hear from uh staff anything you want to tell us about the signs miss young or um mr stock this point uh we looked into the legal requirements and there's no specific legal requirement to have it on on every right of way um the the frontage along um uh birmingham is minor um we do feel that it was satisfied with the signage along north duke street thank you very much all right colleagues uh any questions or comments at this time councilmember millton thank you mr mayor i appreciate uh the work of the staff on this and good evening to to those that are presenting um on this uh a proposal i it'll probably come as a project it's come as no surprise to anyone that um i am predisposed uh to support this because it deals with affordable housing and increases on our affordable housing uh stock um i i do want to ask uh uh dan good to see you good to see your picture um and um our friends from kasa the the planning commission voted overwhelmingly to support it but uh commissioner miller makes a very direct assertion that what you're proposing is unlawful and um that the you should be seeking relief via variance as opposed to legislative action on the council do you want to speak to that i'm sure you read the comments from the planning commission do you want to speak speak to the merits of of commissioner miller miller's characterization uh council member middleton i will i will start i think i'll need staff support on this um yes i was there uh and the conversation came around whether or not the uh the council had the authority to um approve an alternate building envelope that would potentially become a building envelope if a variance was granted uh and mr miller miller felt that the council did not have the authority to um to approve that um our contention and i think mr stock will uh will will step in on this as well as i hope is you are not approving a variance all you're doing is you're saying there's an alternate limits of a building envelope that could be the building envelope if the board of adjustment were to grant that variance and of course the board of adjustment is the only authority that has the ability to grant that uh variance and what it goes back to uh and this is based on my 30 years of experience of doing development plans in durham that we do have to show a building envelope and if we violate that building envelope we have to come back to you and the planning commission so as a timing matter and uh mr stock i don't know if you want to add a little more flavor to that but that's that is my understanding is the reason that mr miller voted against it it was it was strictly uh legal procedural uh is is a way to sum it up and councilmember milton michael stock again yeah um as mr jule stated um this does not grant the variance it just identifies the extent to which they could even seek a variance and it's required to show all potential building envelopes on the development plan um so just as we talked about earlier about um prior development plans reserving the right to seek a variance on other development approvals um uh they are reserving the right uh limiting actually the extent to what they could even seek uh on the development plan so in uh congratulations by the way by the way um so in short the in the staff's opinion we have to choose uh the to do this yes because you're not granting you you're just yes short quick short student point answer yes cool let me let me chime in real quick and just say that this is no different than on some development plans you all may see for instance an access point noted with a comment that um because of some environmental feature or something that the access point may not be provided because at the time the site plan it may be determined that they can't right um or other things like that where the applicant is being really transparent upfront um that some other things may happen in the development of the project that may change and so they're being very um transparent in the if you could have scenario a or scenario b and you can see them um that doesn't mean that you have the authority grant variance you don't that's correct um they're just trying to show just like when folks um uh will will proffer something but then say it has to be subject to ncdot approval or something else it's the same same situation got you very helpful thank you so much appreciate you thank you mr mayor thank you councilmember colleagues any other comments or questions council member reese thank you mr mayor uh i want to thank councillor middleton for really clarifying that point and thank you uh it's mr stockham is young for helping us walk through that um i think the other thing that i found compelling in commissioner miller's written comments was the fact that this even though we're not a granting of variance even though we are not the ones that are making the decision about whether or not it's okay for the building envelope to infringe on the stream buffer it does kind of raise that possibility and we don't really have one of the most compelling things he said was you know how much is this gonna infringe on the on the buffer what are the environmental impacts of that how do we balance that against the need for this kind of low income housing in Durham um i don't know how to do that um but maybe it's good that i'm not on the board of adjustments that i have to make that decision but but i think that's that to me is the harder question not is this a good idea do we need this kind of housing um you know is this a good site for that housing which i think is arguable but that's i i'm fine with it the issue is really how to how how does anybody make that decision what is the what is the calculus that says that that says you can you can infringe on the storm buffer this much in return for this much affordable housing that i don't i don't know how we do that um i don't have any good answers i'm not even really sure why i'm saying this except it's really like i found i found those comments from from commissioner miller really compelling and something that i guess i'm going to have to think about um because we're going to have this is not the last one of these we're going to do god willing i mean we we need we need to do this this kind of housing and the places where the land is is cheap enough to make this pencil out are going to be these kinds of properties um i see councilmember freeman shaking her head i i exactly absolutely right so you know we're going to have to figure it out um you know i think we are we are fortunate to have um a group like kasa be in this fight with us to to create additional housing opportunities for folks who can't afford what the market is offering right now we're very fortunate we're also fortunate that folks like dan jewel are willing to step in and support them as they do that um and we're also fortunate to have a great staff that can bring us these projects with the kind of insight and analysis that we need to move forward as i said i have a lot of questions about this kind of process how how do we figure that out but all said i'm frankly michael stock had me at the city attorney's office reviewed this and said we can do it that that works for me i have so much respect for commissioner miller but ultimately um he's not our city attorney uh and so um i think but i think the more compelling issue he raises is one we're gonna have to think about as a council is how are we gonna keep balancing those issues um and so with that i will stop talking now thank you thank you councilmember any further comments councilmember freeman uh thank you mr mayor and thank you councilmember middleton and reese for getting to some of those questions i just have one one question and a few comments uh what so can i ask what exactly the dollar amount is of this this um request from the housing finance committee because i'm i'm i'm concerned that we're making a lot of compromises for a dollar amount i have no idea what it is and it's my computer frozen i'm no you're fine miss bradis that questions for you i believe it's about six hundred thousand dollars okay thank you i appreciate that it helps to frame the conversation a little bit and just acknowledging that we can't do more of the same and expect different results and so if you build the envelope in the stream buffer and this has been the same issue that i've been having with many of the wetlands and acknowledging that this is where the cheapest land is going to be where our parks are it's where it floods and if we don't do the work to make sure that the infrastructure is in place around it um which i i and full disclosure i don't know when this in this section of north north duke street whether or not their their sewer the water has been updated and and when the last time you know like there there are measures that need to be put in place or stakes that need to be put in place and i usually can depend on the residents in the area to say so or not and in this case where we are using a minimum qualification of a notice on duke street i feel even more uncomfortable and even with the city attorney signing off it's still a bare minimum around what we need to do as a community acknowledging that we're talking about equitable engagement we're talking about equity we're talking about affordable housing but you can't make affordable housing in the stream buffers and then wonder why it's sinking so i just want to just put all those comments out front and just say that i don't feel comfortable with the the fact that the the neighbors who will be directly impacted who are renters aren't even aware that this project is happening and miss miss i'm sorry miss battson i think that's her name is is trying to listen in to hear what's going to happen in her own neighborhood that all makes me like uncomfortable so i just wanted to put that up front and i'm certain folks will push back on it but i cannot support this thank you thank you councilmember other comments okay i'll make one comment um these are 20 units of housing for people at 30 percent of the area median income or less the council has already voted a significant amount of our own funding to support this and it's going to have the north carolina housing finance agency's funding as well this is the hardest housing to build and one of the reasons that it's on such a difficult lot i'm sure is that it's it's as as uh council member risa's pointed out uh this is part of what it takes to build housing that's affordable to people at a very very low income whether or not this this uh this this this will go i think one thing to be clear about is we're not saying that this will be built to the to the outer envelope of the the optional envelope that's provided that will be something that the board of adjustment takes up and they will have to decide that and they'll be measuring whether or not they think this should be done in the in the larger envelope and the smaller envelope but either envelope will contain the affordable housing that we would like to see built and uh i just think you know this is an absolutely critical project by the best developer of this kind of housing for the least of these the least of these that we have in our community any other comments council member middleton thank you mr. mayor first i'm going to associate myself with your comments i'm going to um echo uh my colleague council freeman and i i don't um what she said is so important to keep in mind and and she she's consistently a clarion i think she's a clarion call uh for us to be mindful uh of the least of these as well um is so so i want to underscore that and and think that that should always be before us um i have such immense respect for cost and have watched their work for years in the city and um you know this is almost like having good credit this this is what happens when you've got a good track record my my belief is that if there's any organization that's going to do it right and it's going to be mindful and vigilant and careful about the things that we need to be be careful about uh in developing this housing i i believe it's casa um and that gives me with full consideration of what council freeman is saying what gives me comfort in supporting this tonight is just the the incredible gravitas and expertise and history and goodwill that the the principles in this development played namely casa uh so for that reason and based upon what you said mr mayor i mean he's we need this housing and he spoke me housing um at this level at the same my level i'll be supporting this tonight thank you thank you councilmember colleagues anyone else uh mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor um i didn't really plan on saying anything about this item because it just felt obvious to me that we should do this but i didn't want my lack of comment to be interpreted as not being as being somehow neutral i'm actually super excited about this project i think that it'll be that it's great for our city that we need more projects like this and yeah we're gonna i mean if we as we build more and more of the easy plots to build in the city we're going to see more and more projects on lots that are tricky and that are more difficult to build and thus are more affordable for our affordable housing agencies to to do something with and that's something i think we'll be seeing more and more of is these you know tricky tricky lots with a lot of um you know not not a lot of actual available space but folks are willing to do to do as much as they came with it and i think that is great i'm super excited um about about this housing and just wanted to be clear um that i i really like it thanks thank you very much mayor pro tem any other comments councilmember freelon yeah i just um i just wanted to underscore what what my colleagues have said um affordable housing is one of the most important things that we've committed to as a council and this is a rare opportunity to make a significant investment at a low am i um i've been a little under the weather uh since getting my second covid shot but jillie when you said you know you didn't watch her a lack of speaking up to be interpreted as um you know ambivalence about this that really resonated i want cost to know um and and Durham to know that this is important and we definitely want to find ways to do more of this so thank you thank you councilmember and hope you feel better soon all right colleagues any further comments councilmember freeman thank you mr may i think it's important to just know um this is not about costa this is specific about environmental justice and acknowledging how displacement works and so just just to be clear i don't have a problem with the project i think that there's a process and the parts of the process that were skipped here feel enormous for me and i cannot support this i would wholeheartedly love to see affordable housing on the site in a way that followed the process where folks in the community were engaged and that is a simple like short of it thank you thank you councilmember any further comments all right colleagues uh we'll now move i'll now uh close this public hearing and we'll now accept a motion to adopt an order submitting the udo by taking property out of the office institutional development plan and residential urban five falls jordan district b fjb districts and establishing the same as planned development residential 8.000 pdr 8.000 falls jordan district b fjb district so moved move by councilmember leis seconded by the mayor pro tem madame clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul ah mayor pro tem johnson hi what's the member caballero hi what's the member freelon hi what's the member freeman then what's the member middleton about that what's the member reese hi thank you thank you madam clerk the motion passes six to one will now need a motion to adopt the consistency statement so moved second moved by councilmember reese seconded by councilmember middleton to adopt the consistency statement madam clerk please call the roll mayor shul ah mayor pro tem johnson hi what's the member caballero hi what's the member freelon hi what's the member freeman hi what's the member middleton i will die what's the member reese hi thank you thank you madam clerk the motion passes unanimously thank you to uh miss bassin for being here tonight thank you for miss brandis and mr jule for being here tonight and uh we look forward to this being a great project thank you so much colleagues we have reached the end of our time councilmember freeman thank you mr mayor just appreciate it just a moment to note that i think that the the equity aspect of this is if this was not kasa what would have come about and about moving forward how we address that inequity acknowledging that there are other organizations in this community that could be doing this work as well that will not be expedited in the same way and so i just wanted to just put the pinpoint and thank you thank you uh colleagues we've reached the end of our meeting tonight and i'm going to declare this meeting adjourned at 10 24 p.m. look forward to seeing you at the work session one first day good night everybody good night good night everybody