 I'd love that. I love talking about renewable energy. I have to hit it twice, sir. But I have a question for you on this. This doesn't... I think it's okay. I mean, it should come off here, because it was read before. I love this. Please don't break the microphone. Well, now I won't. But if you hadn't told me. Good evening. Good evening, friends. Good evening. Good evening. I want to call this meeting of the Durham City Council to order. 7 o'clock on September the 3rd, 2019. And I certainly want to welcome everyone here tonight, those who are here, and also those who are watching our meeting on television. We're really glad to have you here. And now I would first like to ask you if you could join me for a moment of silent meditation. Thank you. And now I ask Council Member Reese if you can lead us and pledge the flag. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and colleagues. Good evening, everyone. If it's your practice to do so, and if you're able, please rise as we say the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you very much, Council Member. And now, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuhl. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Here. Council Member Alston. Here. Council Member Caballero. Here. Council Member Freeman. Present. Council Member Middleton. Here. Council Member Reese. Here. Thank you very much. We are now going to begin our ceremonial items. And we're going to begin with an awesome presentation to some young people who are sitting up here in the front. And I want to ask Council Member Charlie Reese to join me here and he's going to do the honors. And I'm going to ask the Sergeant Dante Farrell, the coach, and his team, if they could please come up here for the presentation to the South Durham Little League. And I'll welcome them and I will ask Council Member Reese to do the honors. Whereas South Durham Little League is one of only two Little Leagues in the City of Durham and is a valuable, all-volunteer community partner for recreation and youth athletic development in the City of Durham. And whereas South Durham Little League's seven to eight-year-old Orange All-Star Team won the 2019 Little League's seven to eight-year-old District Six Tournament Championship for the second consecutive season after posting a record of six and zero in tournament play winning the championship by a score of 14 to seven at the J. Burt Gillette Athletic Complex in Wilson, North Carolina. The victory of the team earned a birth in the North Carolina Little League's seven to eight-year-old state championship tournament at the J. Burt Gillette Athletic Complex in Wilson, North Carolina where they posted a record of five and zero and defeated their final opponent for the North Carolina state championship by a score of eight to four. And whereas the team outscored their District Six Tournament Opponents 98 to 26, they outscored their state tournament opponent 62 to 12. The team scored 160 runs, recorded 201 hits in 11 games, including 171 singles, 23 doubles, two triples, and five home runs. And whereas beginning in June, the team practiced 23 times for a total of 45 hours, sometimes practicing for over three hours at a time. And whereas the team finally cemented themselves as one of the best and most dominant seven to eight-year-old Little League teams in the state of North Carolina for 2019, and whereas collectively this team will long be celebrated for its hard work, athletic excellence, and the enormous sense of pride it brought to Durham and the South Durham Little League community for bringing home South Durham's third Little League state championship banner. Now therefore, I, Stephen M. Shule, Mayor of the City of Durham, North Carolina, do hereby salute President Jamie Clegg, Coach Dante Farrell, and his staff, all the volunteers and members of the 2019 South Durham Little League seven to eight-year-old Orange All-Star team in the South Carolina Little League seven to eight-year-old District 6 and state championship tournaments and call upon all citizens to join in saluting these outstanding athletes and the South Durham Little League coaching staff for a job well done. We are confident in a bright future for this program and can't wait until next season. Congratulations, gentlemen. Woo! Thank you, Mayor Shule. Thank you, Council. Thank you, City Manager Bonfield. And to my Chief, CJ Davis, thank you. I appreciate everybody taking time to honor these boys. They worked really hard. And we told them from the beginning if they put the hard work in, they got with the game plan, they put it in, then it was going to turn out the way that we expected. And they were good enough. They went out there. They put the best foot forward. Their parents, we had the best support and staff. I think that was really the thing that put us over the edge was a really great group of parents and a very supportive Little League. I'd like to thank Jamie Clegg, our outgoing president, our new president, Phillip Holmes. They supported us all the way through and as a team, we got together and accomplished our goals. Thank you, everybody. You want to have your picture over there, coach? Sure. Nobody will wonder who you are. Come on, we're going to get a photo. Thank you, Charlie. This Chief Davis here, I didn't see the Chief. One of your finest right here. Congratulations. Now we're going to do a little more baseball. I'm going to ask the 2019 Long Ball RBI senior All-Star team and Pat James and any of the members of the team that are here, Pat is the founder and president of Long Ball. She would come forward and any of her coaches and team members that she would like to bring up. Pat, there's seats up here if anyone would like to take them. I'd like to ask folks to come on in and sit up front if you don't mind. So Charlie has been known to throw out a little league pitch and I've been known to throw out a few first pitches myself and I'm honored to say that I got to throw out the first pitch last year at Long Ball and how did I do, Pat? Awesome. She has to say that because she's up here getting a proclamation. Pat, would you come to the front, please? Whereas Long Ball Durham triple play RBI, Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities is a program for 13 to 18 year old young men in their love of baseball with a focus on the educational, economic and cultural advancement of Durham and whereas the Long Ball senior All-Star team won the 2019 RBI Mid-Atlantic Regionals putting Durham on the map in youth baseball thanks to the staff and coaches continued dedication to these young men of Durham plus the surrounding cities of Raleigh, Cary, Hillsborough and as far as Norlanna, Henderson and Charlotte and whereas with the regional's victory the Long Ball senior team earned a bid into the RBI World Series. This is the first time a team from North Carolina has won the Mid-Atlantic Regionals and Long Ball is the first North Carolina team to participate in the RBI World Series and whereas Pat James, where are you, Pat? Right here. The president of the program for the past 11 years and can I add, an amazing force of nature that's not in the proclamation. Along with her staff and coaches has done an outstanding job enhancing the program and opening doors for these young men year after year and whereas the RBI World Series took place in Vero Beach, Florida from August 5th to 9th where Long Ball won their debut game and finished seventh in the tournament and whereas the All-Star team consisted of Tyleek Allen, Jaden Bailey, Justin Campbell, Octavus Faizon, Clay Faulkner, Taven Johnson, Emery Leek, Angel Maldonado, Malik Powell, Clarence C.J. Robinson III, Josephus Shabazz, Aaron Smith, Junter Stallings, Gariah Wilburn, and Kee Yamagishi under the leadership of coaches Frankie Jacobs Sr., Paul Enslin, Larry Yates, and Mars Jones and whereas collectively this team will be long celebrated for its excellence, athletic prowess, and the enormous sense of pride brought to the Long Ball RBI fans and the larger community of Durham, the surrounding cities. Now, therefore, I, Stephen M. Schur, Mayor of the City of Durham, North Carolina do hereby salute Mrs. Pat James and her staff and members of the 2019 Long Ball Senior All-Star Team for winning the RBI Senior Mid-Atlantic Regional Tournament and call upon all citizens of the City of Durham to join in saluting these outstanding athletes and the Long Ball Athletic staff for a job well done. Thank you so much for joining us on this program and can't wait until next season. Congratulations. Thank you all. Long Ball wouldn't exist if it weren't for the volunteer staff and coaches of the RBI program. I read an article at ESPN that said that youth athletes baseball had participation at increase. What it didn't say was they were talking about the 15U athletes which lead athletes a place to showcase their talent. It fails to mention that RBI is bridging the gap for those players to ensure they continue to play baseball minus the expenses. There are players on our team who got cut from their school teams players from out on this team that's not even in their starting lineup but they can go back to school with a smile on their face because regional champs says it all for this reason it is needed RBI is needed and should be supported as we continue to be baseball's favorite pastime. We made history by being the first North Carolina RBI program to host Mid-Atlantic regionals in 30 years. We are a three month summer program competing against teams that play year round with major league sponsors, indoor facilities and yet we were playing with the best of them. The regional economic impact to Durham was 4,970 $462 yet our local news meter didn't think it was news worthy. The last six years Lone Ball has had 100% of our high school graduates continuing their education at two and four year colleges. Young men making an impact on the field and off the field should always be news worthy. We also give scholarships to our seniors along with A&W help. Lone Ball's staff coaches and volunteers minority baseball, Durham Bulls Durham Sports Commission Durham Public Schools Durham Parks & Rec North Carolina Central University and Duke baseball program major league baseball RBI program discovered Durham and other volunteers and workers were all a part of steering committee that aided the success of the regionals this year. I am glad to announce that Lone Ball has been asked to host the regionals again in 2020. Over 600 people will be traveling in the regionals this year. This year is the year of the 19-20-20 and this time we would like for all Durham to be there as well. Special thanks to my staff and coaches for the many years of continued volunteerism to Lone Ball. We're gonna win it again. Pat says that when she was reading her statement she made a mistake. The amount of money brought in was $497,000. Thank you for joining me at the podium for the proclamation for National Recovery Month and I'm gonna ask Robert Thomas chair of the recovery community of Durham if he would please join me here at the podium with anyone else that he would like to bring up. Mr. Thomas, nice to see you all. Councilmember Freeman. So in recognition of the National Recovery Month all the many years of service you provided I think it's well deserved. Whereas behavioral health is now recognized as an essential part of one's overall health and well-being and whereas the cost of not encouraging mental health and substance use recovery is significant for individuals, families, and neighborhoods and the community at large and whereas people in recovery strive to achieve healthy lifestyles stable homes, meaningful daily activities, stronger neighborhoods and contribute communities to the larger community and whereas the Center for Disease Control the CDC reports that drug overdose is now the leading cause of accidental death for adults under age 55 in the U.S. with over 72,000 lethal drug overdoses in 2017 and whereas SAMHSA reports that and in any given, I'm sorry SAMHSA sorry reports that in any given year 20% of us will experience a mental health issue but only 44% of adults and 38% of youth will receive appropriate mental health treatment given these statistics we must strive to reduce the stigma shame and negative stereotypes associated with brain disorders and help individuals, families and the larger community learn to view them as we would any other medical condition and whereas to help more people achieve and sustain long-term recovery the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services HHS Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration SAMHSA the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy I'm not going to say that one and the recovery community of Durham RCOD invite all residents of Durham County North Carolina to participate in the National Recovery Month now therefore I, Stephen M. Schul Mayor of the City of Durham, North Carolina do hereby proclaim September 2019 as National Recovery Month and hereby urge all citizens to observe this month with appropriate programs activity ceremonies and to support this year's recovery theme join the voices for recovery together we are stronger thank you I want to thank the Mayor and the City Council members for that proclamation and also their consistent and ongoing support for health wellness and recovery here in Durham my name is Bob Thomas I'm the chair of the recovery community of Durham we are a nonprofit that works to promote recovery from mental health and substance use disorders we're essentially a group of volunteers and one of the ways we do that promote recovery is to hold community events so we are hosting a recovery event in support of SAMHSA's designation of September's National Recovery Month on September 14th at Durham Central Park from 2 to 6 p.m that's a Saturday so I know you can all make it we will have live music, two live music acts we'll have line dancing we'll have health screenings we'll have inspiring speakers we'll have activities it's really a family event and we really want it to be thought of as a celebration because we really do need to celebrate the fact that despite all the stigma and negative stereotypes people do recover from mental health and substance use disorders here in Durham we need to acknowledge that as a community support that as the proclamation said we really need to look at these brain disorders in a medical condition no different from any other chronic health problems such as diabetes or hypertension and support people moving into treatment and early is much better let's put it that way many times when it comes to brain disorders family and friends are the ones that notice the changes in people first and if they can intervene and start to move those people into treatment let's just say that as I said before earlier is better because why is very clear is that if people move into treatment early that means they still probably have some family support they haven't burnt all their bridges they still have employment possibilities they haven't developed a criminal record in other words there's a lot of support that they can build on so let's try to work on making people not shamed, not stigmatized but recognize that they have a medical condition for which there are medical treatments and to treat it no different than we would any other chronic health problem now I know in 2017 we've been dealing with a little bit of a different issue in terms of this fentanyl I'm sure everybody's heard about fentanyl and the use of it and for someone who's worked in behavioral health for 45 years this is really a different kind of an animal we've seen drugs come and go heroin, powder cocaine, crack cocaine but fentanyl is a whole different I mean they measure it in milligrams and only 2 or 3 milligrams of this drug will cause an overdose 70% of the overdoses in 2017 were the result of fentanyl mixed with some other type of drug and that means that drug overdoses for all classes of drugs rose in 2017 even for drugs like tranquilizers death overdose with fentanyl also rose so we're talking about 72,237 deaths in 2017 that's about 200 people a day dying from an opioid fentanyl drug combination over 70% were related to fentanyl but to put that in perspective where is it 480,000 people in 2017 died due to tobacco related illnesses and 88,000 died due to alcohol related illnesses so we have a drug problem and as soon as we acknowledge that and get people out of the open and into treatment the better off will be this fentanyl thing is scary the CDC says that for 2018 they're predicting 68,000 deaths which would be about a 5% decrease so we don't know if 2017 was the peak if it's going to go lower but we know it's a problem that everybody in the community should be aware of and should deal with or help deal with or help deal with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services also reports that suicides are also on the increase so we live in a very divisive time but I think recovery is something we can all come together to support and so I'm hoping you come out and support our event on September 14th at 2-6pm everyone's welcome I'd like Randy to say just a couple of quick remarks as a voice of recovery I'm Randy Tucker and I'm a person that is in long term recovery and the recovery community of Durham is all about there's many pathways to recovery recovery for me means that I've not seen a need to go return to drug use I've been a parent to my children I've been a son to my parents I've been a part of the community and I've been a Durham County employee for 29 years and I'm an employee that is also a substance use counselor so not only did I get a new life I got an opportunity to also provide service to people around me in Durham it's just another group that there's no wrong door for recovery come out to the event bring the kids bring friends it's all about celebrating that people do recover thank you we have one last celebratory item tonight and I'm going to ask our public historian Eddie Davis to come forward for a presentation as you all may know this is our sesquicentennial year and we have historical historic presentations here at the Durham City Council member that we are so glad that Eddie has been leading us in over this last year and we are now going to have a presentation about Durham murals and Emily Eve Weinstein is here as well so Eddie take it away thank you Mr. Mayor good afternoon evening to the council and the staff the arrival of September and yesterday's commemoration of Labor Day reminds us of the pending seasonal change we also reminded of the colorful annual program we know as CentroFest as residents and visitors participate in CentroFest watch football games and attend concerts we hope that their eyes will be attracted to the many murals that are creatively and artistically depicted on the walls of buildings across our wonderful community with the assistance of our AVE department we're going to have several of those murals that are some of my favorites displayed for you okay here they come okay there are some that you probably recognize from different parts of the city that's one of several polymury there's another polymury that one is on Buchanan another polymury that is on Carroll Street where she used to live and another polymury that is on Foster Street that's that community Montessori which is in the Lakewood shopping center Southern Boundaries which is a facility that is operated in the Durham Parks and Recreation the famous Duke sometimes called graffiti wall that changes every single time you look around there's the John Avery Boys Club mural Emily Weinstein's mural that depicts the 50th anniversary of the of Durham Tech another Emily Weinstein another Emily Weinstein both of these last two have come under some scrutiny and needed repair for the city that was called Angel of Spring here comes the sun it's on Main Street that's been there since 1975 two-way bridges that celebrates the cooperation of the Hispanic community and of course the Civil Rights mural if you like blues music jazz music see that one at the Blue Note Grill and of course that is Angel of Hope so those murals are some of the many that we have here and many of them are the work of Emily Weinstein we will now hear about three minutes remarks from the renowned muralist Emily Weinstein about her work and Ms. Weinstein will be followed by three minute remarks by Dr. Bill Ingram the president of Durham Tech Dr. Ingram will talk a bit about the importance of mingling history of Durham and her prestigious community college Emily? I'm not as tall as you hi gosh I have a lousy memory so I'm just gonna read right I thought I was coming after you so anyway I landed here in Durham in 1982 after three years of living on the road as an itinerant artist I moved to Durham I've been working as a career painter doing murals portraiture of fine art for over 40 years now the Ena River mural was possibly the most complex with over 800 native species of flora and fauna and took six months to create but also at Durham Tech I was hired by the student body to create a mural about higher education the work was very collaborative in nature and kept on changing I had many excellent volunteers volunteers are very often the root of what I do when it comes to murals I I did my first mural at age 22 but it wasn't until 20 years later that I discovered how important it is to include children in the production of public art when I've been doing murals kids as young as seven have come around my scaffolding to see what I'm up to they were always unsupervised and I viewed them as untapped labor I put a brush in their hands and put them to work after all kids absolutely love to paint if there are any adults around that are volunteering I pair them up with a child we get a lot more work done that way after creating the haytime mural I overheard a group of kids talking with pride about their participation in it to grow into a contributing citizen we all need to be a part of something larger than ourselves public art offers an incredible opportunity to engage the public particularly youth to identify with their community and recognize that they are very valuable so I implore you to always choose artists that bring children into the mix so that they can be part of our community and grow up strong you can see my artwork here in Durham at Bull City Art & Frame Shop on Main Street and also at Celie's studio on Foster Street right next to the farmers market there are invitations if you're interested in coming by my art studio and learning what I'm working on right now I'm working on a 25 year project I'll be 80 when it's finished don't ask me how old I am well in any case I'm on the 10th year okay so now you know but I'm working on this project you are all invited and I have invitations up here with the city clerks yup and also my books can be gotten I have four published books on this project in which I publish a book a year for 25 years it's absolutely crazy my website is Emily Weinstein.com and do stop by my open studio you're all invited it's a lot of fun there'll be about 80 studios open on the first two weekends of November thank you to Hunter Durham Tech and see the 50th anniversary mural that Emily and our students created to celebrate our 50th anniversary in 1957 the North Carolina General Assembly authorized a small appropriation to establish a network of regional industrial education centers at that time Durham had already had a vigorous program in adult education through the vocational and adult education department of the Durham City Schools the practical nursing program had been established in 1948 and other programs included training in mechanical and architectural drafting and electronics technology literacy skills training and courses and a variety of trades were also offered to build an adult educational foundation and upgrade a worker's skills and thanks to the actions of the Durham City Board of Education Durham was among the first of six counties in North Carolina for funding and through a successful referendum in June of 1958 Durham County residents made $500,000 available to purchase a site and erect the first building of the Durham Industrial Education Center the center was always envisioned as an institution that would serve all of Durham's residents when the center opened its doors a racially integrated class of 34 students entered to study mechanical engineering distribution and marketing automotive mechanics and dental laboratory technology when the Board of Trustees was appointed and met for the first time both the school and the board were integrated ensuring a representative voice for the community being served today nearly 60 years later Durham Technical Community College remains committed to our founder's vision of service over 18,000 students as a comprehensive community college Durham Tech awards high school equivalency credentials to over 200 adults each year we help prepare community firefighters emergency medical responders and law enforcement officers as the community college for the city of medicine Durham Tech prepares local residents for important careers in nursing respiratory therapy, surgical technology and clinical trials and over 4,000 employees of our community's largest employer health system this Durham Tech on their resumes as a place they received education and training Durham Tech's information technology program prepare residents for a range of careers computer programming, web design and development and network support and security each year hundreds of Durham Tech students transfer to North Carolina Central University North Carolina State UNC Chapel Hill and dozens of other prestigious four-year colleges and universities where they study they pursue bachelor's degrees and everything from accounting to welding to world history and dozens of local businesses and industries turn to Durham Tech to prepare their workforce in pharmaceutical research and production, advanced manufacturing and logistics today Durham Tech exists at the intersection of two of our community's most critical issues employers turn to us for talent so they can continue to build the robust economy that many of us in this room benefit from tonight meanwhile residents of Durham Tech has a road to economic opportunity and mobility, preparing them to move from $8 an hour job to an $18,000 a year job to an $80,000 a year career community is the most important word in our title it represents both the community that we are and the community that we are part of great communities are both surprised of and served by great institutions and Durham Tech aspires to be the community college that Durham both deserves and demands Durham Tech is here to help reinvent our communities and the people who comprise them we are proud to be the community college of the city of medicine the community college of the search triangle park and northeast central Durham and Woodcroft and Trinity Park and Old Farm and Haytide and Bahama and Bethesda and Parkwood we are proud to be Durham's community college thank you thank you Eddie for that historic historic or history moment and to Ms. Weinstein and to President Ingram we are glad you are here, thank you so much alright, thank you everybody for being present for our celebratory items they were a little longer than usual tonight but they were good ones and we were able to do them and now I will ask are there any announcements by members of the council thank you Mr. Mayor given that we are expecting a hurricane to approach the North Carolina coast later this week I was hoping we could get a report from our emergency management director about the plans that they have for helping us cope with this hurricane and also for any assistance that we might be able to or expected to provide to folks who might come to Durham from the coast as those areas might experience some more significant impacts, thank you yes ma'am good evening Mayor Mr. Manager Mayor Pro Tem council members my name is Jim Groves and I am the city county emergency management director I would like to give you a brief on preparedness efforts for the storm coming in from out of state and at our coast that might come into Durham to stay supported shelter I think first of all we have learned a lot of lessons from what happened in Orale and Owens County with the Friday center last year with the large shelter opening so we have been trying to use best practices and lessons learned to prevent maybe some of the issues from happening here in the city of Durham but north gate mall at Sears so we have been in constant communication with the state emergency management and any state resource that has been mobilized towards Durham County and I will go over those in just a minute to make sure we understand that the biggest thing that we are trying to prevent is an overload on our community resources to make sure that the people are taken care of but we are also still able to take care of our community so the actions that I am going to talk to you have been performed in that light we have conducted numerous conference calls, webinars with our city and county department directors already our shelter staff operators any support mechanism that we have used if we have to open up our own shelter separate from this one we will be able to do that and carry on we have also been talking with all of our emergency services agencies to make sure that we have a good plan and contingencies in place for that for the statewide shelter Sandy Bridges which works with the emergency management she has been designated as a shelter incident commander the state actually reached out and asked if our staff would run the shelter for them so we have gone through decorations of authority with them to make sure that we are well covered from liabilities as Sandy but she will be working with an incident management team from Winston-Salem foresight an overhead planning team and she will also be working with the Red Cross Salvation Army and other folks that will come and be supporting the shelter the shelter is pet friendly so the Department of Agriculture the State Department of Agriculture has several animal excuse me animal support teams, cast teams that are available and also companion animal equipment traders, camuts to make sure that the animals that come down are safe and well taken care of in a way to feed them the American Red Cross will be providing shelter registration and feeding security the shelter is going to be provided by the State Department of Corrections but we have been working with their police department to make sure we have contingency plans if that does not appear like it is the best option but right now State Department of Corrections will be doing the shelter security with DPD making a presence every hour by the shelter and actually showing a presence there medical needs at the shelter will be provided by a five ambulance strike team that strike team comes out of the Charlotte area and they will be self sustaining under the state of emergency they can provide paramedicine and so they will be taking care of any acute need at the shelter and they will be able to transfer from the shelter to our local area hospitals Durham County EMS is on the hook for standby but right now we don't anticipate using any medical resources for any medical transport in addition to the five county ambulance strike team we will have nurses, physicians and pharmacists to make sure that we can take care of any other medical needs and prescription needs if they arise while folks are there sanitary needs are going to be handled mostly by external traders so there's a lot of traders out there at the mall those are going to be accessible but the majority of sanitary needs will be handled out there and solid toilets will also be available the state has a contract to make sure those are cleaned and stocked well we have been working with the state to make sure that the solid waste contract is going to be taken care of that we do not have trash left behind or the mall left in the mess although we have not been notified that contract has been signed a special medical needs shelter is going to be opening up in Clayton, North Carolina so when people are leaving the coast to go to Clayton if they have a special medical need with their provider so with all that we've deactivated our emergency operation soon this evening we'll go back into operations about 6.30 in the morning and we're going to plan on going 24-7 until Dorian no longer poses a threat to us thank you very much Mr. Groves so appreciate it Madam Mayor Pro-Towns I just wanted to thank you so much for that report it's very comprehensive and your staff always do a great job making sure that we're prepared and that we're able to take care of people who might need help coming from their areas and we all really appreciate all the work that you do it makes me feel a lot safer thank you very much just specifically around medical needs for folks who might be on dialysis and specific like conditions how would you attend to that as well correct so part of the nurses and physicians assistants their job is to coordinate with people who depend on dialysis and to schedule that with our local companies that do that and the five ambulances will be used to transport those people back and forth if another means cannot be found thank you Mr. Groves we very much appreciate your work thank you so much now we'll move to priority items by the city manager any priority items thank you Mr. Mayor good evening everyone no priority items Madam Attorney thank you Mr. Mayor no priority items glad to have our senior deputy City Attorney Sherrys Ann Rosenthal joining us tonight and Madam Clerk good evening Mr. Mayor and Council I have no items thank you so much alright now we'll move to the consent agenda we've approved a single vote of the council any council member or member of the public can pull an item from the consent agenda and if an item is pulled we deal with it at the end of the meeting so I'll now read the consent agenda alright item one approval of city council minutes item two Durham Convention Center Authority appointment item three recreation advisory commission appointment appointment to civilian police review board item six 2020 city council meeting schedule item seven city of Durham transit advertising policy item eight U-472-6 H-O Carpenter Fletcher Road sidewalk and bike lane municipal agreement item nine U-472-6 H-N Hillendale Road sidewalk and bike lane municipal agreement item 10 bid report item 11 acceptance of 2019 National League partnership and community resilience program grant item 12 design services with the vines architecture Inc. for the Weaver Street and WD Hill Recreation Center renovations project this item was pulled by Mrs. Victoria Peterson item 13 Durham 150 grant to support an event that promotes awareness of the 2020 census and honors the city sesquicentennial item 14 intergovernmental agreement with the U.S. Geological Survey for operation of the WD Hill and streamflow network item 15 contract SW 67 sidewalk repairs 2019 also pulled by Mrs. Peterson those are the items on the consent agenda and with the exception of items 12 and 15 can I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda moved the second that we approve the consent agenda Madam clerk please open the vote please close the vote the motion passes 7-0 thank you very much and we'll begin with item 16 the 2019 second quarter crime report and I will welcome chief Davis and her staff good evening everyone good evening chief thank you for giving me the opportunity to present the Durham Police Department second quarter report before I get started I want to thank my staff for being here the exec team and other employees who work with me daily to make sure that we provide the highest service delivery possible to our citizens so I thank them for their support tonight this report covers our department's five performance measures part one violent crime part one property crime clearance rates response times to priority one calls staffing levels and following my crime report we will also have a report by Jason she's our analytical services manager on traffic stop data part one violent crime includes homicides rapes robberies and aggravated assaults part one violent crime was up 16% during the first six months of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018 it is currently up by 7% so we've made some improvement to that percentage point there were 21 criminal homicides in the first two quarters of 2019 compared to 14 in the first quarters of 2018 during the first six months of 2019 there were also three additional fatal shootings that have been ruled as self defense in one case classified as negligent manslaughter arrests have been made in 14 cases and warrants have been issued in one additional case one case involving two victims was classified as a domestic violence case investigators have also cleared four cases from 2018 and one from 2016 homicides the number of reported sexual assaults during the first six months of 2019 was the same as the reported period during the same time in 2018 the number didn't shift 57 2018 57 in 2019 robberies occurred by 7% during the first excuse me robberies increased by 7% during the first six months of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018 86% of robberies were from persons during the second quarter we continue to experience a trend of robberies from Hispanic victims particularly in apartment complexes 44% of the robberies from persons involved Hispanic victims to combat this this particular trend we increased our patrols in those affected areas where these crimes were were occurring most and met with residents in several of these complexes officers passed out crime prevention information flyers in English and in Spanish and provided information and tips to local media our Hispanic liaison coordinated successful forms at Hispanic churches and other locations we plan to continue these type meetings in order to continue to pass on information to our community members and build relationships our Hispanic liaison officer also participates in a monthly Hispanic radio show and provides crime prevention information during those opportunities as well the percentage of robberies improved during the third quarter this year 28% so far in the third quarter as opposed to the 44% increase in the second quarter robberies as a whole are down by 2% year to date there were 41 commercial robberies which included 7 bank robberies one person has been charged with 4 different bank robberies in the city of Durham 2 thirds about 37% of all robberies involved firearms and 15 people were injured in the commission of robberies in the city of Durham 31% of all aggravated assaults during the first two quarters were from multi victim firearm incidents versus 34% during the first six months of 2018 our target for this particular category is 30% 28% of all aggravated assault cases were domestic violence related the number of shooting incidents rose by 35% from 231 during the first six months of 2018 to 312 in 2019 the number of shooting victims increased by 19% from 68 in 2018 to 81 in 2019 there have been an estimated 36 additional non domestic violence assault by pointing a weapon cases in 2019 compared to last year during this same period there have been a total of 415 illegal weapons confiscated by the Durham Police Department year to date 185 individuals have been arrested on gun charges while in the commission of a crime year to date either the weapon was used to commit the crime illegally possessed stolen or in the possession of a felon moving on to part one property crime part one property crime includes burglary larceny and motor vehicle theft part one property crime makes up 84% of all part one crime part one property crime was up by 10% at the end quarter it was up by 3% at the end of August so we made some improvements there as well burglaries were at a 10 year low for the first 6 months of the year we have recently seen an increase in break ends to sheds and construction sites where materials are left out in the open we continue to post information about these particular types of situations to next door and on other social media platforms our part one property crimes was driven mostly by a 23% rise in larcenies which make up almost 2 thirds 63% of part one crime 43% of larcenies were from motor vehicles during the second quarter we noticed a significant increase in larcenies larcenies of catalytic converters and you may have heard some of the news announcements that some of our local stations have helped us with so that we can get the word out to our churches and other companies that have vans that typically have these catalytic converters that are being targeted we've distributed crime alerts along with other crime prevention tips to our churches through various media sources officers from our community services division reached out to the local churches in person and also sending out information via mail ways to help prevent these thefts part one clearance rates we compare our department's clearance rates to those of other departments our size we are in the FBI's 499 499,000 almost 500,000 population range our clearance rates were better than the average for cities our size in all property crime categories and homicide and robberies during the first two quarters of 2019 note on the rate clearances approximately 35% of the cases of rape were from prior years also rate cases often require tests such as DNA and these results typically take some time to get back so we expect our clearance rates to improve as the results from various types of tests come back we recognized this year earlier this year by the North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein for our expeditious clearing of backlog cases sexual assault cases cities in the state of North Carolina have struggled with I believe now we are number one as far as clearing up those backlogs priority one calls for service there were 3,954 priority one calls for service in the first half of 2019 which was a 10.5% decrease from 4,420 priority calls during the same period in 2018 our average response time was 5.8 minutes which met our target 5.8 minutes or less this was a significant improvement over the 6.12 minute average during the first two quarters and we over the several months we kind of hovered at that 6 minute range so we did meet that particular target we answered 54.9% of priority one calls in less than 5 minutes in the first two quarters of 2019 this was an improvement over the 51.3% during the first two quarters of 2018 we continue to use our overtime funding to pay for supplemental patrols which increases our ability to respond quickly to emergency calls we have adjusted supplemental staffing to make sure officers are on the road during peak times when we need them most these improved conditions are predicated on officer volunteerism however we continue to try to utilize overtime to fill gaps our staffing levels our sworn staffing was at 96% at the end of June 2019 it is now at 98% which includes BLET 50 our non sworn staffing was at 97% at the end of June 20 recruits will be graduating from BLET number 49 on September 18 this in another week or so we currently have 28 recruits in our basic law enforcement training academy number 50 which started today we have hired ALET lateral recruits and plan to screen a few more these are the individuals who are already state certified that come on to our department that do not have to take the entire training curriculum we're looking at several other recruits at this particular time and we will continue our recruiting to to match our attrition rate or at least to fight our attrition rate as for U-Visas the Durham Police Department processed 59 U-Visa requests during the second quarter of 2019 76% were approved in an effort to assist the investigation and successful prosecution of certain crimes the Durham Police Department will review applications for you non immigration status by reviewing and certifying applications the department seeks to secure the assistance and testimony of crime victims who may otherwise become unavailable due to their immigration status as you can see their significant improvements as it relates to the U-Visa approvals some highlights over the last few months the Durham Police Department held its annual service awards the ceremony was in May 23 2019 awards were presented to Durham Police Department employees as well as citizens who went out of their way to assist officers in the commission of their duties this photo is of the members of our property and evidence unit who won the first time ever unit of the year award you can read more about the award winners in our accompanying second quarter written report the Durham Police Department's employees were also involved in numerous community events and outreach activities during the second quarter these are just a few examples of the many events that they attended District 3 held a meet and greet at the Garrett apartments on April 16 DPD employees joined with employees from numerous other city departments to meet residents to provide information and resources it was one of several meet and greets held in the District 3 area to try to to provide information for community members especially as we were experiencing upticks and certain types of crimes on April 24 officers were from squad 4B passed out Easter eggs to children at a local park and enjoyed getting to meet the children and their parents the Durham Police Department employees attended the Durham County Special Olympics as well which is an event that we take part in every year they helped out with the event and cheered on our Special Olympics athletes we held our first of three week long sessions of the Durham Police Department summer camp on June 17 through the 21st we have three different sessions during the summer 30 children ages 9 to 13 attended the camp which was coordinated and hosted by the Durham Police Department Community Services Division the camps aimed to to add structure and youth activities to summer months and to strengthen law enforcement's relationship with participating youth and their families campers take daily field trips and participate in recreational educational educational and social activities with police officers and other campers these experiences are both educational and they build bonds between our officers in the community at large on May 18th officers from the Durham Police Department Selective Enforcement team helped make eight-year-old make sure I tried to get this name right a cell wishes come true during a make-a-wish party for him at UNC Hospital a cell loves the police so the set officers brought one of their specialized equipment vehicles for him to see and present him with a certificate bringing him an honorary DPD officer for the day the Durham Police Department Officers were joined by officers from the UNC Hospital Police as well these are just a few of the community activities that our officers participated in during this particular quarter and that concludes my report and is your wish to hear the traffic report next or ask questions now what I would prefer Chief is to go ahead and any questions for you and then we'll go to Mr. Shee's for the traffic report, thank you let me just say that we have the Chief is listed in her report some of the honors that people have won and some of the community efforts this is the first time that we've had another one of our officers in the building since she received a signal honor Chief Davis was inaugurated a couple of weeks ago chief down in New Orleans as the national president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives we are incredible this is a signal honor for Durham and a tremendous achievement and it was obvious to myself and City Manager Tom Bonfield Council Member Freeman Council Member Middleton and the other your leadership team and I think there were probably 25 people from Durham officers and others who were down there to support you and the Chief was inaugurated in a room of I would say 2,000 people it was a giant crowd of support and you are held in incredibly high esteem and we are lucky to have you thank you for your support I appreciate it alright I'm going to now ask council members for questions comments I'll start with Council Member Freeman I just had a couple questions specific to the I think it was hold on the slide where you're listing out the crimes that have occurred I just wanted to know specifically around rape if minors were included or if it was delegated out in any way shape or form that showed numbers actually we don't take the numbers out if there is an incident I do know during this particular period we didn't have an incident of a minor being involved in rape allegation however in the numbers themselves but we do protect the identity of those victims including that that clearance rate was really low and I recognize that it's low across the state but if there's any way that we could work on that I would love to have that conversation absolutely and I also wanted to commend you on clearing up the backlog you're working on that a lot of collaboration with the state in their labs on that and I don't know if you if it's, I know it's the average that's shared in response time you know what the longest response time is and the shortest for this particular period it could range because we have some areas in the city that if they get a call it could be 10 minutes however during this particular period and of course if that happens that number could sort of shift you know the overall numbers as well but we have worked on response times by utilizing supplemental officers and also dividing beats up so that we have more than just one officer responding to large geographical areas so I can get you the information for this particular period but I've seen response times in some of our beats up to 11 minutes and fortunately not priority one calls to priority one calls we typically try to get to them in a very expeditious manner but I can we have that information broken down too I just wanted to verify that there was someone that mentioned a 45 minute wait and I was just like that's impossible so I was just trying to verify Councilor could you pull the microphone I'm sorry I was just trying to make sure I had heard that there was an incident where it was a 45 minute wait and that was not the case well and it depends on two when the call is dispatched so when the officer receives the call it could have been in a holding pattern depending on the priority of it and the priority is set by the dispatchers so if it's not a high priority then if it's a very busy night we have many priority one calls where people are you know are really needing the police for serious types of it doesn't mean we're not coming but it means that you might end up waiting a little bit longer especially for crimes where there isn't a suspect on the scene or a theft or something of that nature but we can always check into if you have that person's information okay any further questions council member all right thank you I've called on council member Austin and then council member Reese and then Mayor Pro Tem I'll be quick thank you for your report chief and I appreciate the questions by my colleague about response time and I just simply wanted to congratulate you on kind of reaching your target for response times I know in the short time I've been on council I think this is the first time that I think you reported that you've hit your target and I know a tremendous thing in three years this is the first time I've reported it I just know a tremendous amount of work has gone into to hitting that number so I just wanted to acknowledge that thank you thank you council member I think I said council member Reese then Mayor Pro Tem then council member Middleton thank you Mr. Mayor Chief how's it going? I'm good thank you I wanted to highlight some of the progress that your department has made over the last six months around domestic violence cases I think when you look at the trends year to date 2017, year to date 2018 year to year 2019 it's really remarkable the amount of progress that you've made and I just wanted to say make sure that folks know that a big part of the progress that's been made this year especially in the last quarter this is the first full quarter I believe that your officers have been equipped with the new lethality assessment program that you've put together in cooperation with the Durham Crisis Response Center and a group of an interdisciplinary group of professionals who work with victims called the Family Justice Center that new program has really been phenomenally well received both amongst advocates but also by your officers and they have really taken it to heart and are using that new program to really make a difference in the lives of the victims of domestic violence as you may know that was one of the things that I've worked on in my three or four careers ago and it's just really really amazing to see that progress and how great that partnership has become I just wanted to also thank you for sending one of your officers from the domestic violence unit with a group of folks to Guilford County last week to visit their Family Justice Center that's a really transformational facility that they've put together in Guilford County looking forward to working with you and our County commissioners to try to make something similar happen in the city of Durham I believe in the lethality assessment program I know it's sort of new for us but it works it helps our officers for individuals that aren't familiar with lethality assessment it helps officers to recognize potential domestic violence indicators on just a normal call and not to ignore what those indicators are because they could potentially save lives if you have intervention involved so. The folks at the Durham Crisis Response Center have just been glowing about how patrol officers are really taking that initiative and really identifying those factors and so I just wanted to say again thank you I know this is something you've been personally involved in and wanted to make sure it got implemented well it's been phenomenal. Thank you Chief. Thank you. Thank you Council Member Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you Mr. Mayor and thank you Chief for your report I wanted to ask you to talk a little bit more about the misdemeanor diversion program I was really excited to see that this quarter you've expanded the program to older adults and just wanted to give you the opportunity to talk a little bit more about that work and your experience with it so of course it's still fresh but the same policy applies we just changed the age range to 25 the officers are aware that an individual who has not been in the criminal justice system before that this is a first offense up to the age 25 can be referred to our misdemeanor diversion program so we haven't gotten to a point where we have gotten all of the numbers together as it relates to that particular group but we'll be monitoring that so that we can report to see how many individuals were outside of that 21 range going into the 25 window that actually took advantage of that program In the report it says that there were four people over 26 were also included is that kind of just a judgment called by the officers if there is an older person with the first offense that they could choose to put them in the program as well? Well after 25 officers still have the discretion just based on the type of scenario if they feel like this is a person that could benefit from this particular program they can do that they can do that if the person is 50 and it's a first offense because the court systems have made it clear to us that if we recommend them based on the scenario that they will receive under that same program Great, thank you that's very helpful I just want to again commend you and your officers for making use of this program I think it's a really valuable service for our residents and we want to make sure that we continue to use it to its greatest utility that folks who are committing their first offense helps with these sorts of mental health services of since use employment assistance rather than entering the criminal justice system that that's a win for all of us so thank you for focusing on that work and we really appreciate the work that you do to make that possible Thank you Councilmember Middleton Thank you Mr. Mayor, good evening Good evening Chief and Man Staff, always good to see all of you Chief I think this is your first time appearing before since you assumed the presidency of Noble If you hear any reports from elected officials around the country that I've been calling them and harassing them and bragging, they're all true Okay, I'll remember that Congratulations You said something and I don't want to mischaracterize it that kind of caught my attention The success of the clearance rates I thought I heard you saying you'll correct me if I'm wrong, what was predicated upon the use of overtime were you talking about the clearance rates Not really the clearance rates just coverage response times as well Which are good The more officers we have on the street that sign up for overtime to work in these slots and gaps, the better we respond, the better our service delivery is I heard you say that the overtime is predicated upon volunteerism Yes That disturbs me The numbers are good but it disturbs me that essentially the protection of 300,000 people is predicated upon goodwill and I know there's a lot of goodwill amongst our officers that's why we call them the finest we call the fire department the bravest but that's problematic to me as an elected official I've been entrusted with governance of this city I don't believe that that goodwill will ever run out but from a governance point of view I think depending upon volunteerism and goodwill from officers at a city that's operating way in the black is problematic and I think that that should be a matter for us to consider moving forward as a council The upticking in gun incidents What are you attributed to? A number of things it's very concerning not just here in Durham but around the country the prevalence of guns on the street and the willfulness to use weapons even in the most minor kinds of situations is alarming so affinity to just shoot is very troubling and puzzling especially as we continue to try to address gang issues in the city a lot of what we see is supported by gang activity as well There's certainly no argument that there's a gun culture in America that's a problem for the country but insofar as we have a baseline of these incidents and there's a definite uptick Is there a gang war going on? Is there a flare up on the streets that you're aware of? Well we can say that there are various elements to what we're seeing as it relates to different groups fighting I would not say that Durham has a number of gangs there are certain specific gang groups that or enterprises whether they're hybrid gangs or some of the traditional names that we have seen quite a bit of activity especially as it relates to just beefs you know kind of back and forth between two or three groups so without getting into too much detail it's very real for us and our efforts to combat this has been I would say three fold to ensure that we have the visibility in the hottest areas to ensure that we publicize information as part of our laser focused campaign against gun violence in the city of Durham and to ensure that community members are aware as well of what we're doing to try to combat this so when I say laser focused we're looking for individuals who are committing these types of crimes and we are not trying to cast a wide net on certain communities we know that there are specific individuals that are involved and we have made significant progress we had a really quiet weekend which is very different than the last few weeks so we have to continuously impress our officers to do what it is that taxpayers expect us to do and that is to make our streets safe in the best way that we know how to defend people but at the same time finding that balance and addressing individuals that would do harm to anybody in this room or anybody on this council and deal with them in the appropriate manner. Thank you for that. Final question I guess some would have a management metric question some of us as lay people look at the number of authorized officers 547 and the number of actual 523 and we look at that gap as indication that we got empty spaces but I heard you talk about how many folk are going to graduate from the next BLET class and from a management point of view do you wait to their actual all filled before you ask for slots to look behind that gap and what does that look like actually from a managerial point of view particularly taking into account attrition. Exactly so no matter what you're going to always have attrition people retire people decide you know what my wife's got a job somewhere else we always have to factor in attrition when we see officers leaving out by the drolls we get concerned we're not seeing that in the city of Durham right now working and recruiting to address just natural attrition so when you have 25 officers that are in the academy they're filling police officer positions but they're not operational officers they're going through a training program so it might say that I have 98% fill but I've got 25 or maybe even 50 that are in some form of training so hiring and recruiting continues to be a priority for the department when we get to a point where we're 100% staffed we don't stop recruiting because we know people continue to retire and so on hiring more officers or over hiring officers sometimes is so that we can take into account that 10% of the individuals that go to our training won't make it through the training so even though I sent 25 officers in that class I could lose 7 out of that class so we continue to continuously hire so as a manager you don't actually build capacity at the moment you need it you build it in anticipation is that a fair I build it in anticipation we keep the the system of hiring moving because we know those different nuances that occur in our department that would cause us to be 30 officers down if we didn't continue that movement and we also project for the future what do we need for the future what does the city need for the future and in order to hire for the future we may start an aggressive recruitment campaign so that we're hiring more officers in anticipation of potentially feeling vacancies thank you chief thank the men and women under your command thank you Mr. Mayor thank you council member any other questions or comments from members of the council chief I have just a couple of things in recent weeks we've had a very difficult endurum we lost a 9 year old child and you and I have talked about this we've met and managers and part of this group and all of our law enforcement folks around the city and the county have come together to strategize and I think that you and the sheriff and the district attorney and our federal district attorney have all been very much in sync on this focused deterrence approach that you mentioned to make sure that we are doing everything we can to stop the relatively few people who are creating a very significant amount of this violence and I just want to say that I very much endorse this focused deterrence approach as you know I know that our community does as well we are a city of second chances as witnessed by the Mr. Minier Diversion Court which Mayor Pro Tem talked about as witnessed by our transitional jobs program for people coming home from prison our welcome home program all the work we're doing to restore driver's licenses for example I believe we've now restored 34,000 driver's licenses people lost them because of nonpayment of fines and fees and we also know that at the same time we're a city of second chances that we are also a city that is not going to tolerate violent crime and we can hold both of those things in our mind at once and do both of those things and I just want to commend you and the department for striking what I think is a really good balance the UVS is another example of a second chance not a second chance but a chance and for people to be here in this country who have assisted our police department we have many reforms like that that you have introduced and at the same time I think you're absolutely focused on the right thing in terms of your strategy for finding this gun violence that we have faced but I wondered if you had any more comments on the last couple of weeks you did mention that we had a quiet weekend Labor Day weekend and we were all very grateful for that but do you have any other observations that you would like to make to the council regarding our current situation we made some significant arrests in the last three days and we believe that some of the individuals that we thought were involved in some of this activity some of the arrests that we made may help us to or lead us to bring in some closure to some of it I'm not saying that it's going to completely stop we're going to pray that it will but we will continue to and I have to commend my team because they have been working around the clock and not just because of the young man that was in all of this I'm saying foolishness that there are other young men in the city of Durham and other children that deserve to ride to get ice cream without being a victim so we've taken it personally and I know everybody else has too and we plan to continue to identify those that would do that type of harm and I think that's what's expected of us Chief, thank you very much Council Member I just wanted to highlight and notice the officers mentioned officers Johnson and Taylor in your report I just want to uplift that those life-saving measures specifically and I don't want to mess up but in this thing say that again officer in this thing how do you say her? her last name I mean I think it's important to also highlight just how well our officers have adjusted under your leadership and noting that this officer recognized that a woman trying to find food for her child was feeling out of necessity and rather than charging actually paying for that family's food for the evening actually makes such a huge impact I mean it just goes to show like the culture of your office is definitely changing Thank you Chief, we'll now turn to the traffic stop report and I believe we're to welcome Jason Sheace Thank you very much Chief I'll just tell the folks here because they don't know this Chief that we are very very lucky in our department to have the services of Mr. Sheace as a statistician extraordinaire he does a tremendous job in providing us with information and we're I mean that very much, you do a fabulous job and it's good to have you here tonight Thank you Mayor The public comment I will call on you with public comment when the time comes Mr. Sheace Good evening My name is Jason Sheace, I'm the analytical services manager for the Durham Police Department Tonight I will be presenting traffic stop data for the first six months of calendar year 2019 along with some trends for the same period in prior years All data is derived from SBI 122 traffic stop reports that are completed by law enforcement officers in accordance with state law The first slide covers the volume of traffic stops made by members of the agency over a 10 year period There were 7,616 traffic stops made in the first six months of this year which is a 14% increase from the same period last year The number of traffic stops in 2019 is less than half of what it was in 2010 The red vertical line on the chart represents October 2014 when the requirement to obtain written consent to search vehicles was implemented as agency policy This slide covers the racial composition of who was stopped The chart shows the ratio of drivers stopped in the first six months of this year who were black compared to the residential population for major cities in North Carolina For Durham the percentage of stop drivers were black This ratio has ranged from 58% to 63% over the last five years and is noticeably higher than the underlying black population of the city which is 41% Similar disparities are observed elsewhere in North Carolina ranging from a spread of 16% in Greensboro to 27% in Raleigh However, research shows that benchmarking traffic stops to U.S. census population is not a best practice for determining racial bias as it does not reasonably estimate the driving population at risk An alternative method developed by RTI International shows there was no difference for Durham between the risk of a black driver being stopped during daylight hours and the risk of being stopped during darkness The text box that you see on the chart shows the total traffic stops made this year by the cities on the chart Durham had by far the fewest number of stops with only Greensboro being close The first two slides covered the volume of traffic stops in the racial composition of who was stopped This slide covers the reason for the traffic stop There are three major categories of reasons for traffic stops Driver based violations vehicle based violations and other violations of traffic stops The chart shows the ratio of traffic stops that came from vehicle based violations over the last five years for black, white and Hispanic drivers Vehicle based violations include both vehicle regulatory and equipment violations In the first six months of this year 46% of all traffic stops came from these types of violations for black drivers 26% for white drivers and 32% for Hispanic drivers There is a very consistent pattern that you'll see for how this ratio has changed over the last five years for each of the major racial and ethnic groups The increase in enforcement over the last two years is pretty evenly distributed among these groups Vehicle based violations produced the majority of probable cause searches which is also a very consent across the racial and ethnic groups 59% of all probable cause searches came from these types of stops for black drivers 56% for white drivers and 59% for Hispanic drivers No enforcement action was taken in 61% of all traffic stops for black drivers which is the highest ratio over the five year period The ratio was 53% for white drivers and 46% for Hispanic drivers in 2019 This slide covers the searches that occurred over the last five years broken down by the three most common types In the first six months of this year there were 376 probable cause searches and 40 searches each from the consent and search incident to arrest categories The table shows the ratio of all traffic stops in which a search occurred over the last five years for the major racial and ethnic groups For black drivers the ratio went up from last year to 8.67% which was virtually identical to 2016 The ratio went down in 2019 for white and Hispanic drivers to 2.11 and 3.01% respectively The overall increase in vehicle searches over the last two years has been from the probable cause category representing 79% in 2019 The ratio of consent searches in which some contraband was found was 8% in 2019 It was 51% for probable cause searches and 15% for search incident to arrest The last slide covers the result of the searches that were conducted The chart shows the ratio of searches that resulted in a hit over the last five years for each of the major racial and ethnic groups A hit is defined as a search in which some type of contraband such as money, drugs or weapons is located regardless of whether it was the type originally being sought For all racial and ethnic groups the hit rate increased from last year to this year For 2019 the rate was highest during the five year period crossing above 40% The text box shows the categories of contraband represented by the 206 searches in which one or more items was found 70% were drugs In summary, the frequency of traffic stops up over the last two years but well below most other major North Carolina agencies Vehicle based violations are more represented over the last two years and produce the majority of searches for all major racial and ethnic groups Black drivers are searched at a higher rate than white and Hispanic drivers but have enforcement action less frequently The hit rate on searches in 2019 was the highest over the last 10 years for all major racial and ethnic groups Overall traffic stops and searches are up over the last two years but they lead to less enforcement and more contraband found Thank you Thank you very much Mr. Shea I'm going to now ask if there are questions or comments by members of the council Anybody? I have a question The 51% hit rate in the probable cause searches and the increase in that hit rate what does that mean? Does that mean that the searches are that the decision to search is a higher quality decision than we were making in the past we're making better decisions about when to search that's a fair observation so above 51% or above 50% is significant and so I would concur that better quality searches are occurring and therefore they are producing results of the way of contraband being found When we on the council in 2014 I believe the year was we made the decision for written consent for consent searches one of the things that we found then was that the consent searches were producing very low hit rates and that continues to be true even though the consent searches are way way down and so any observations that you have any other observations that you have about our searches are we making in general the right decisions and do you have anything to say about any conclusions to draw about the fact that our there's the percentage of enforcement actions against African American drivers who are stopped is lower than the enforcement actions against any other groups any observations to make about that or any thoughts that you have to offer us two things that I heard in your question one is really the hit rate on consent searches so that policy change occurred in October of 2014 yes sir I would postulate that the hit rate on consent searches will always lag far behind probable cause searches for a number of reasons one consent searches are completely voluntary probable cause searches are based upon observable and specifically articulable facts by the officer that would lead a reasonable and prudent person to conclude that there was contraband inside the vehicle so immediately there is a higher likelihood of there being contraband found so that does not surprise me the other part of your question I'm sorry is the the difference in what conclusions do you draw when you thinking about the difference in the enforcement that we see against African American drivers versus other groups after a stop what I would say is that black drivers are more represented in the vehicle equipment and regulatory violation stops as you saw in the presentation equally though both black and white drivers for those types of stops 70% of the time 7 out of 10 there was no enforcement action taken for those specific type of stops therefore the reason is for the stop is not to write somebody a ticket one could be simply to make them aware of an equipment violation that they may not have otherwise been aware of so it may very well be educational in some cases it may lead to a probable cause search as I alluded to in the presentation but the underlying pattern is that 7 out of 10 times there's no enforcement action taken and approximately what percentage of the stops are in that category 39% of all traffic stops in the first 6 months were from vehicle based violations so that's a lot of them and I appreciate very much the department's policy not to criminalize and I think it's been a real benefit to our community so Chief and all of you all thank you for that and finally Mr. Sheace you mentioned the Vale of Darkness study our the Vale of Darkness study that the first one I remember was conducted perhaps 4 years ago I'm thinking I believe the report was produced in 2015 2015 and in that study we found that black drivers that the same officers were stopping African American drivers at a higher percentage than white drivers before dark but not after dark did I say that correctly yes sir and there I believe there was a 5 year study period that the RTI report covered in the earlier years of that 5 year span there was some disparity so the Vale of Darkness method does not specifically look at the ratio of drivers that are black or white or Hispanic it could be 63% it could be 20% it specifically looks at whether there's any difference in that ratio during daylight hours and in darkness and towards the end of that study period into 2015 that disparity started to go away and what we've seen over the last several years is there is no difference the risk ratio for the first 6 months was exactly 1.0 and that's a great change and I just want to again commend the department I think it's this Vale of Darkness study is a really interesting methodology and I want to thank the department for continuing to work with RTI because this is one of the ways that we make sure that we're not policing in a discriminatory manner and I just want to thank you and Mr. Sheast, thank you for continuing to provide us with this information yes sir my pleasure alright any other questions or comments from members of the council Mayor Pro-Tam and then council member Freemann thank you Mr. Mayor and thank you for this data it's really helpful could you give me an example of when a vehicle or equipment or regulatory violation might lead to a probable cause search so the original probable cause for the stop would be something having to do with a safety violation having to do with the vehicle itself such as it could be a smashed windshield or some other type of a safety issue or a regulatory problem like the vehicle's registration is expired during the course of the officer conducting that stop and getting the driver's information and the information that they need in order to determine whether a violation has occurred and to determine how to resolve that the officer may observe specific factors which would lead him or her to conclude that there's probably contraband within the vehicle and that is a probable cause standard for them to act on that and what kind of observations might those be it could be the smell of burning marijuana emanating from the interior of the vehicle it could be a handgun in plain sight those would be a couple of the immediate types of things that an officer may observe thank you and do we do we have data on what the probable cause was for these sorts of searches the SPI 122 form does capture the basis for the search that's not within my population but there is data captured there are several different categories and the basis could be one or more of those categories it won't always fit into just one so we certainly could provide that as a follow-up if needed thank you yes ma'am thank you I just also wanted to note that the HRC recommendations were included and I just wanted to just express an appreciation for continuing to work towards meeting those goals and keeping it going yes ma'am thank you thank you very much Mr. Sheese thank you and we're going to have some public comment and thank you all very much but you all can take a seat chief thank you alright we're going to begin the public comment and I'm going to call Mr. Chris Tiffany Mr. Tiffany welcome please give us your name and address and you have three minutes Chris Tiffany PO Box 2533127702 fight crime not the usual suspects young black males profiled as suspects on site harassment is not law enforcement the shots of water proposed by council was supposedly too expensive at less than one dollar per person in a budget of a couple hundred million dollars less than half a penny on the dollar you spend lots of time and money on PR but this is real life and death stuff it helps if it helps catch one shooter prevents one shooting or saves one life it's worth trying try it give it a shot and any committee supposedly taking suggestions from the public should have well publicized public meetings and members of the public with information and or suggestions should not be subjected to slander or threats you need criminal gang intelligence but you won't get much if you won't protect your sources general order 1036 still fails to do that fix the policy you know what I'm talking about fix it thank you very much Mr. Tiffany we're now going to call I'm going to call several other people excuse me if you could come over here to my right I will begin with Ms. Jackie Wagstaff Shay Ramirez Cheryl Smith Dennis Garrett please come over to my right that would be great please Wagstaff welcome it's always good to have another former city council member in the in the house who's that you know I never get that please Wagstaff welcome you have three minutes please give us your name council members I'm not going to stay up here very long I probably won't use up those three minutes but I just wanted to say that I think that our city is in a crisis now you know we've had council members and I really right now I'm feeling some kind of way because I know that I believe that this city is in a crisis and some things could have been done differently from certain council members and we should not be at this point that we're at where the citizens deserve better from this council this community deserves better there are people out there in the community that are boots on the ground now I see a lot of people in here and they come in here and they do that little thing and everything but I'm on those streets every day and I see a few people that's out there with me with the boots on the ground unfortunately when you're not in that group of people in favoritism you're normally not heard here and we know this and we understand that but it doesn't stop us from doing what we do out on the streets now I'm very concerned I think it's very insensitive for a council member to approach another council member and accuse a council member of capitalizing off a nine years old deaf that's a problem for me and the streets are talking they heard it all insensitivity to the fact that if another council member felt that they needed to go and support a family during a time like this when they lost their nine year old child to this street this violence is going on and I heard somebody ask what is the cause of it gang this gang that everything is not about gangs but if you're out here in these streets and you know what these streets are saying you know why these crimes are being committed they're driving force to most of this crime if their economics are improved this crime will go down this council has to start refocusing on investing in the things that worked we had things I heard a young man say he got out of prison ten years he said his downfall was when the city council closed all the rec centers in the black community that was the downfall that's what caused him to go into the criminal life because he left the rec center and the streets called him and when they started shooting at him he started shooting back and they got him ten years and then you say this welcome home program this welcome home program those are people that you welcome back to Durham do you give them the keys to an apartment to welcome them home because most of them when they come back out of the system that they've been in for ten or more years they don't have a family structure anymore and if there are people out there who live in their properties it's probably public housing where they can't live because of regulations so what is welcome home a bag of toiletries and a letter from the mayor does nothing for you when you have to sleep on the streets I am upset thank you Ms. Wackstaff we're not here for Miss we're not we're not here for Miss Shay Ramirez Ms. Ramirez welcome please give us your name and address Shay Ramirez ten fielding court good evening how is everyone doing good thank you so much okay so my name is Shay Ramirez I am a twenty two thousand seventeen mayoral candidate I'm a mother a substitute teacher and a wife and a business owner also a community leader and I am sick of the crime myself we've been doing a lot of visuals praying we're doing a lot of talking about what we're going to do and I am a person of action I don't like to do a lot of talking I like to do things so I'm going to be doing the very first ever Derm full city ceasefire I need you guys help I I have a leverage I mean I have a recording studio I am the first and only African-American woman in North Carolina to have a recording studio so on a regular basis a daily basis I deal with a lot of the gang members so people that you might not want to interact with you might not want to talk to be around I'm around them every single day a lot of them are very respectful I don't have any issues with them they respect me and I've spoken with them about this and they are willing to do it because I asked them to so I am willing to be the forefront of this I'm willing to stand the front but I need you guys to help me the ceasefire is going to consist of a whole week from Sunday starting out as a mentoring day to getting the young men ready job ready resume skills interviewing skills etiquette dressing properly other than going to court teach them how to tie a tie Monday I mean I'm sorry Monday will be a job fair that's fair individuals that have criminal backgrounds they will be able to possibly get jobs when I'm talking to some of the gang members there are things Ms. Shea we can't get jobs we need jobs so I'm trying to find out what they need and then incorporate it in some type of event present it to the community and then you guys follow Tuesday will be a fitness day fitness you know for me works for me it produces a happy gene we're going to be doing Zumba and line dance on the ccb plasma at the bull on that Tuesday from six to eight Wednesday I am working right now I have a meeting with Durham Tech on Monday to possibly have them come out and present to them schooling because a lot of them they want to get better jobs but they don't want to go to school for two or four years so they can go you know get their CDL something some type of training that they can get quick to make decent amount of money to make a you know affordable living wage thank you very much Mr. Miraz we appreciate it and thank you for those ideas and we look forward to hearing more about them I have the information here if you guys want it yeah my card Cheryl Smith hello thank you for giving me this opportunity tonight I'm here because November made 14 years since my son was murdered gun violence that's just how long I've been fighting and we're still going through the same problem we get gang adventure money you all get all this money where is it going I mean gang this stuff should be at least not this bad we've been going through this for years where this thing going to change even when we get new council members we still had the same problems now I'm here to say we can't act if community does decrease crime I know this we did it in Franklin Village until this year we went from going having shoes every day to not having any because we saw having activities in our community we was there for those children we had our community center open now all we have is shooting we had six shooting in our community already this year this community where the eight year old got shot in the back laying in her bed asleep that was the six shooting before the first, second, third, fourth and fifth I reached out to all of you not one person did a thing this shooting could have been prevented a lot of stuff could be prevented I'm here because we want our community to seal them back open we don't want to be part of the council anymore I just want some activities in our community this community our community still has been shut down for almost a whole year now and not one of you came out and did a thing not one of you been a national out in Franklin Village last year and I was told you weren't there this year because I didn't attend because of what's going on in our community our community has went down myself and Charleston were very hard in our community for the last ten years to keep a child from being shot and now here we go again and our community has really gone down now our community center, the back of the community center is where people come to meet drug dealers this is all day long back and forth residents still complaining we're fighting to get sets of feelings out of our community no one is helping us and we continue to look but y'all want to know why we continue to have these crimes in our community you don't listen to the right people that's out there that's seeing this and you all know what's going on but you just look the other way I would like to see every community recreation center open activities for all these kids the school system needs to stop treating our children like they're not human or that's what's going on the problem is starting from the school system then to that courthouse you need to start working with that parent not all of us are bad we're out there I fought for my son for two years and I let the fisherman do a thing thank you Mr. Smith Mr. Dennis Garrett Mr. Garrett welcome please give us your name and address and you have three minutes my name is Dennis Garrett this little gentleman with me is nine years old eleven years old and he was killed on Duke street and the reason why he came he said he wanted to meet the chief of police and he wanted to meet the mayor because he ain't hanging out with people that are still in Omo he wanted to do something positive in his community so the time that I got I want to say that the young lady that came up you made a lot of sense about the city council members not being in our community however we do got some city council members that are active Mark I like the questions you were asking like it went so long I forgot what I really wanted to say but chief I do want to say thank you because just the other day your presence make a difference the other day I was pulling up in my community and I saw Captain Allen and Captain Tate they was walking the block they was walking and they took time to stop that's what we need back is communication amongst our officers like this little man was raised to believe that so he automatically assumed that the police is bad well he know today that you guys are here to protect and to serve but if you ain't got the right police officers to protect and to serve because you know I heard you say priority what's the priority you know whether or not who's to determine what's the priority whether or not the police can answer my call because another call is being going on and also talking about city council they are for re-election you know are y'all running around saying vote for Tom and vote for well I'm saying don't vote for Julia I'm saying like don't vote don't vote for those that ain't doing for our community like spread the message they don't vote for those that ain't doing right for our community why we gonna keep them up there and they ain't doing right by us so I want to say thank you Mr Mayor for coming to my neighborhood I want to say thank you DJ for coming to my neighborhood I want to say thank you Charlie for coming to my neighborhood but those who I didn't name they ain't coming to my neighborhood so why we gonna keep voting for them don't vote for Julia thanks for letting me share we'll now hear from Mr. Rafiq Zayedi I'm sorry I was saying thank you Mr. Rafiq Zayedi Mr. Zayedi, welcome please give us your name and address you have three minutes yes my name is Rafiq Zayedi I reside at Adles Southern South Dukes Creek I'm the president as of now of fearless men and women with boots on the ground first I want to thank Chief Davis for your second annual quarter report which was very enlightening and I want to thank Deidre Anna when I called her when I sent the message to her the other day I said I want to make sure that our children on these school buses are being safe in light of all the shooting that was going on in the city and you told me that you would go speak to members of the school board to make sure that there's some safeguards being put on our children shooting this city has become known not as Bull City but Bullet City all across the country and I want to say this we are tired of being traumatized in the city of Durham with these shootings the Medal of Brothers on Wilson will be captured let me repeat that again he will be apprehended I have a question about gangs let me give you a root underneath what you see as gangs there is a video and the police have access to this video a former police officer showed it to me approximately four days ago in this video it's called the CAP CAP all across the country gangs are being recruited out of the community on the basis of who can create the best hip hop music the CAP despits young men and women in Durham in a hotel going through sexual activities the CAP despits MacDougal Terrace our children in MacDougal Terrace is in this video they are in this video the background to this video despits our young children and there is a robbery going on across the country with these gangs who can capitalize and get the best video on the scene will go to the top that's why they call it the CAP and in my conclusion let me say this we know who these people are but I'm not the law enforcement so we form men and women with boots on the ground we have a hotline number for them to call us and we want you to put down these weapons come to us we're not going to turn you into the law enforcement Chief Davis you need more men who are on the ground I'm sorry that they denied you what you need you need some officers on the ground when you requested for that relief you were denied and that's a big mistake that was made by certain members on this council in my conclusion ICE there are some of my Latino brothers who are refusing to be deported thank you Mr. Zayedie and they are arming themselves Ms. Victoria Peterson Ms. Peterson welcome please give us your name and address you have three minutes and I do not want to be rude but Mr. Mayor you had no business telling that chief to go sit down we had some questions for her you had no business of doing it Mr. Mayor I had some questions for the chief and I would like the chief to come up here so I could ask her my questions Madam Chief here is my question Chief Chief Davis right where you are is good can you please tell me Madam Chief Davis when you do the crime report Ms. Peterson your crime report includes part one, part two as well as the juvenile Ms. Peterson I would ask you to please address the council not Chief Davis thank you very much well these meanings when they give you the rules Ms. Peterson but anyway I can still face this way Chief Davis I would like that answer if you can send it an email or whatever I want to know when you do your police report and when you do your budget and folks the African American community we are upset with the crime and the murdering that is going on in this community and we have votes that are sitting on this council that deny this woman this chief additional officers can I give you the real crime report for last year we have over 16,000 crimes committed in this city I have two degrees in law enforcement this year we've had over 20 some murders the majority of those murders are people of color and then I'm not trying to be rude to my mayor but my mayor is white I'm black I live in the African American community we hear the shooting and the killing they're not shooting at him and they're not killing trying to kill him and I'm glad and I'm happy but I'm upset with the mayor and I'm upset with these three up here you three up here who voted against to give this woman additional police officer and we have a 9 year old boy murdered in this community we have a citizen in this community that lives around the corner was shot last year and in three days she died I was told she was shot by a 15 year old boy where his father gave him a gun and they were out there shooting this is what is going on in the black community in Durham North Carolina and you tell us to come over here sit down and shut up you tell the police chief to go sit down and we've got questions and concerns police chief gave us could you please have a meeting with the community I want a meeting with the community thank you Mr. Peter I want the state department in here thank you I want the military in here too I know what the constitution says chief davis thank you all very much for being here liberty and the pursuit of happiness in this city is in violation of the constitution of the united states of the amendment of the 14th amendment And I want to thank all of the police officers for coming out. Thank you and God bless. Ms. Peterson, thank you, Ms. Peterson. We're now going to move to item 12. We're going to go ahead and do these items ahead of the public hearing item so that we can get our staff home at a reasonable time. And Ms. Peterson, I believe you called item 12 off the consent agenda. Please come to the podium, welcome, and you have three minutes. I'm glad that we do need to have some of our recreation centers. And I think I heard somebody here say something about our recreation centers. I have been around to some of our recreation centers that look like they're just shut down and went over there in Madukah Terrace. So whatever these centers need, we need to start funding and also citizens. Our city is sitting on $47 million. And the balance fund, or what's the fund called, Mr. Mayor? The fund balance. Our mayor and city officials are sitting on $47 million of tax money. And we've got all this crime and these kids out here on the streets and have nowhere to play. And the seniors, we have seniors in this community. We have a right to go out in our community. One senior facility downtown, come on. Come on, Mr. Mayor, I believe you're running for office also. And I think it's time for a new mayor in this city. I think it's time for some new leadership in this community. Steve is okay, but you've got to have some fire be cleaned up. And we need some more senior citizens programs in this community. And if we can give this rec center some monies to fix it up, to expand it, and also have a part there, Mr. Mayor. And actually, I gave Bill Bell that name. I didn't give that name to you, Steve. I gave it to Bill Bell. He was Mr. Mayor. I gave it to him. You need to step up and do better in this community. And you other folks who are on this council, you need to support him. And let's start using some of that money in that fund balance. Now, besides the WD Hill Recreation Center that you want to expand, let's try to look at some of the other ones, Ms. Freeman. Ms. Freeman, she represents my area. She knows about the TD Grady. Does that not look like a mess over there? Oh, I thank God now the chief, the old police chief, he's running Ms. Freeman. He is running a karate program out of there for the kids in the evening. But that building still sits up there, basically 24-7, all during the day, all during the night, and walking distance of Maduga Terrace where the shooting and the killing is going on. Why can't you put a GED program up there? Did I not hear Durham Tech talk about the stuff that they're doing over there? Durham Tech is in walking distance of Maduga Terrace, in walking distance. I know, Mr. May, I know you wish I go sit down. I am. Thank you very much, Ms. Peterson. We'll now have design services with Vines Architecture. Do I hear a motion that we improve the motion to design services for the Weber Street and WD Hill Recreation Center renovations? So moved. I can't. And moved and seconded. We approve the item. Madam Clerk, please open the vote. Please open the vote, Madam Clerk. Not working. It's open. Please close the vote. Thank you. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you. We'll now move to item 15. Ms. Peterson, I believe you pulled this item. Welcome. You have three minutes. Ms. Peterson, we're starting your clock right now. You have three minutes. I like to get up here with your foolishness. I just would like to just say that we need to have a better way for our zoning and our property and what you want to build on the various properties. And that's the only thing I really want to say on that, Mr. Mayor. And thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Peterson. We'll now have a motion on item 15, contract SW67 for $1.5 million and approximately in sidewalk repairs. Madam Clerk. Sorry. We have a motion and a second. Madam Clerk, please open the vote. Close the vote. Thank you. The motion passes 7-0. Thank you very much. We'll now move to item 17, the last item on our agenda, public hearing items, unified development orders, tax amendment, expanding housing choices, and forward to hearing from staff. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of council. Pat Young, planning director. Before I briefly introduce this item, I want to quickly recognize and appreciate the project team who produced the material you see tonight and that has most importantly led the community engagement and the outreach and the development of this project. Scott Whiteman, our policy and urban design manager, Michael Stock, senior planner, not with us tonight, a senior planner, Kayla Seibel. And I also want to recognize Hannah Jacobson, who left to be planning director in Salisbury but worked a lot on this project. So thanks to them. I'd also like to quickly certify for the record that this public hearing item was advertised in accordance with requirements of law. And there's an affidavit to that effect on file planning department. Expanding housing choices or EHC is a project that's intended to allow more housing and greater diversity of housing types in Durham, particularly in our urban tier neighborhoods, which are the map is provided of the urban tier in your material and is approximately two miles in every direction from downtown. These are the neighborhoods where there's the highest demand for housing and where we've made the greatest investments in services such as transit and infrastructure. The goals of the initiative are to make housing more accessible to more households across the spectrum of household sizes and incomes and to help promote a sustainable pattern of growth. Historically, in Durham and across the country, neighborhoods adapted slowly and incrementally over time to increasing demand for housing. In many of our pre-World War II neighborhoods here in Durham, you see a diversity of housing types, such as duplexes, triplexes, and garden apartments. The map on this slide overlays area where the federal government through the homeowners loan corporation restricted lending, also known as redlining in the 1930s, and that overlays that with areas that currently have single family only zoning or zoning that allows only single family housing. Although no one today intends it, single family only zoning was and is a vestige of and a key tool of and a perpetrator of historical structural racism in our city and other places where it's been applied. Single family only zoning worsens racial and intergenerational equity by restricting opportunities to housing in the areas of our community where there are the greatest opportunities for employment, education, access to governmental services, and the EHC intends to be a small part of helping reverse this loan with other policies that this council has promoted. There's a constellation of factors which we've spoken to you about and to the community about extensively over the last 15 months as we've developed this project. They're depicted on the slide that have worsened the impact of single family only zoning on affordability and housing access. Most significantly, and there are many in our opinion as the projected increase in Durham's population, the demand for housing in Durham is driving all of the factors that are leading to our affordability crisis here in Durham. Durham's population is projected to increase by approximately 160,000 persons over the next 30 years, which translates to a need for approximately 62,000 new housing units. And these factors have led to significant increase in the price of housing in Durham since the end of the last recession, 2013, 2014. And this is a phenomenon that's been seen in urban areas across the country, where there's a preponderance of area zone for single family only zoning. Since this is such a widespread phenomenon, the National League of Cities recently released recommendations for cities to help address housing affordability and access. Two of the key recommendations are on this slide. The first is one that city council has been very aggressive and progressive in pursuing, which is establishing local programs to finance affordable housing and support housing equity. The second is what they call, quote, modernizing local land use policies to rebalance housing supply and demand. And that is exactly what the proposal before Unite intends to do. You see also in this slide a partial list of cities that have either begun or completed a very similar effort, and we published a detailed literature review on our website to talk about the status of these. But we are not alone by any means, but we are leading the way in North Carolina. So as noted at the beginning of this presentation, we began this process in May of last year, 2018, with the goal of allowing for increased housing where it's most needed. But it always was and remains our intent that this be done in a way that is incremental and that respects existing neighborhood character. Incrementalism is critical because it is undesirable to accelerate neighborhood change. Change that's happening today, as I said earlier, due to high demand for housing. But it is critical that the proposed changes before Unite incentivize the private market and nonprofit builders to build new housing units where they're most needed. And so this is a delicate balance that we've tried to strike throughout the process by listening to all parts of our community. And we believe that what's before Unite strikes that balance. Another goal of EHC is to reduce the rate of increase in housing prices, especially in the highest demand areas. Although this initiative would incentivize and allow for additional affordable housing supply, specifically, we have stressed throughout this initiative the development process that EHC is in no way a silver bullet solution for housing affordability. The vast majority of direct beneficiaries of the provisions in this initiative would likely be middle and upper middle income home buyers and renters who can't afford to compete for new market rate housing that might be built under these provisions, although we do believe a significant amount of new affordable housing would be built because of changes to the affordable housing density bonus associated with this initiative and other incentives for affordable housing. The most significant impact of EHC, we believe, is potential to have large but indirect impacts on housing affordability. There's recent scholarship by Dr. Evan Mast of the Nonpartisan Upjohn Institute. The full study is linked on our website. Dr. Mast found that building 100 new market rate units in a community opens up the equivalent of 70 units in neighborhoods earning below the area's median income and in the poorest neighborhoods opens up the equivalent of 40 units. This is due to relatively higher income households in those neighborhoods taking advantage of new housing opportunities in higher demand areas and making their existing housing available to lower income residents. In other words, there's emerging evidence that new construction makes homes more affordable even for those who can't afford the new units. As we've discussed previously, we may see a priority because it addresses one of the city's top priorities, the housing access and affordability, but we also committed to a thorough public engagement process which lasted the entirety of our initiative for 15 months and we participated in or conducted over four dozen community events, consultation with neighborhood groups, boards and commissions, developers that do small housing development of the type proposed by EHC and our goal was to listen to all parts of the Durham community and we did that effectively. Our efforts to listen to all parts of Durham community and to continue to refine the EHC provisions based on what we heard led to a number of different revisions and drafts to the EHC. In November of 2018, we released what we call the discussion draft. Then in March, based on feedback we got from community members, we made modifications and changes to what went to the planning commission for their consideration. The planning commission appointed a subcommittee of members that made a separate and independent recommendation which you have in detail in your report that they adopted in June and then the current staff proposal differs from those and I know that is a lot of, that makes this a complex subject matter, even more complex, but there is a very detailed overview and summary and then of course a detailed description of those changes in your agenda material. And so we think that the balance that's before you tonight meets the intent of the initiative as I described it earlier. It was shaped very extensively by public input and feedback on earlier drafts. And one of the things we heard from across the community is that this should be as clear and simple as possible and we certainly think the draft before you tonight does that. There's four key areas that the expanding housing choices text commitment that's here in front of you before your consideration addresses and I'll briefly summarize each of those again much more detail in your report and we'll be happy to answer any questions. The first is accessory dwelling units. As you know, we've allowed accessory dwelling units on single family properties since 2006 by right meaning with an administrative approval throughout the county, but we've only had approximately 80 of these units permitted in that time. There's a number of reasons for that, but one of the reasons is the restrictions that were embedded in that 2006 regulation. So what we are proposing with this initiative is to allow a standard meaning up to 800 square feet accessory dwelling unit for every residential structure including duplexes, as well as three accessory dwelling units for properties and civic uses, such as places of worship. A second key area is duplexes in almost every regard. Utilities, building code, for example, duplexes are regulated and treated like single family houses. They have very similar impacts in neighborhood character as single family houses. And as such, we are recommending that duplexes be allowed throughout residential districts in the urban tier and that lot size requirements be the same as single family housing. This would essentially make single family only zoning illegal and increased by at least 100% the number of housing opportunities in the urban tier. A third key area are lot sizes and densities. We left zoning densities and lot sizes unchanged except for two key changes. One is that we're proposing a 2000 square foot small lot option that would allow for a duplex or single family dwelling in the zoning districts identified on the slide. The footprint of a structure built on that would be limited to 800 square feet with a maximum heated square foot, building square foot of 1200 square feet. We also are recommending standards that minimize impervious surface through driveway design and that require additional trees to help enhance our tree canopy. In that we are proposing a narrow flagpole option so that lots with limited frontage on streets can have a smaller access drive and that property to the side or rear properties can be developed without significant impact on neighborhood character. And finally, we're making two key changes to our infill standards. These are standards that have been in the UDO since its adoption in 2006 designed to ensure compatibility of new development with existing development and existing neighborhoods. And they've largely worked well so we're making very few recommended changes. One group of changes is to increase tree canopy and mitigate stormwater runoff as I mentioned a moment ago. And the second is to remove the lot with infill standard. Having minimum lot widths significantly impedes the ability of housing to be developed on lots that are smaller which many lots in the urban tier are. And there are host of miscellaneous changes that are detailed in your staff report. One I'll point out is to allow duplexes and townhouses and cluster and conservation subdivisions and the suburban tier which is something that's been we think has a lot of potential to be used and significantly increase the amount of affordable housing in that location. So one of the questions we get asked most frequently is how do we know exactly what EHC will do and the answer of course is that we don't. There is evidence to suggest that it will result in the creation of more housing, greater diversity of housing and help ease housing price pressure. But demand for housing is very strong across Durham. It varies across time and across geography streets of street. Identifying the exact impacts in advance is very difficult to predict. So which is why we're completely committed and fully committed to carefully tracking monitoring the impact of these provisions if it's passed and reporting those back to you within one year or with whatever periodicity you wish so that we can course correct and make sure it's meeting the intent that I described earlier or any goals that you all have for the initiative. I'll conclude with this. Everything proposed in this initiative is consistent with the goals of the 2005 comprehensive plan. As part of that plan, it was anticipated that in order to ensure that we manage the cost of growth and that we manage and minimize the cost of growth at the edges, which are very expensive in terms of new services and infrastructure that approximately 15% of all growth would occur in the urban tier totaling about 300 units per year. In the past six years since the end of the recession, there's been an average of 95 new units produced in the urban tier, which is less than a third. About 5% of our new growth is going in the urban tier and we need at least 15% of that growth to go in the urban tier to meet our 2005 comp plan goals, which of course we're updating now. The urban tier, as you know, has our highest demand for housing. It has our highest opportunities neighborhoods and growth there is much more efficient in terms of public investment. Failure to grow at a reasonable rate of 15% will result in more infrastructure costs and more service costs and impacts on the environment by growing at the urban fringe. So with that, I'll be happy to take any questions and thank you for your time. Mr. Young, thank you very much. Colleagues, you have heard the report from staff and now I'm going to declare this public hearing open. And first I'm going to ask if there are any questions by members of the council for members of our staff. Questions for staff at this point. Council Member Freeman. Just some clarifying questions before. So just noting the, I think I caught at the tail end, you were saying that there would be an uptick of 300 units added per year rather than 95 with this plan. And that prior to that, there was a goal that was set based on the previous comprehensive plan. And so what you're alluding to is that we failed to meet the goal. That's right. We never changed zoning, following the 2005 comprehensive plan to match the future land use densities, which were six to 12 units in most of the urban tier and eight to 20 in some portions of the urban tier. And so we didn't meet our goal. I'm glad you mentioned that, Council Member Freeman. We don't think it's reasonable to go to 300 units a year right away and we don't think these provisions will result in that. We have a target of an additional 45 to 50 units to go to 140 units the next year. And then we'd like to see that increase maybe by 10 or 15% every year after that to eventually get to the 300. So we think that would happen over time as the market adjusts to these proposals. It's unlikely that the types of proposals here would result in a scale of change that would get us to 300 in one or two years. And then just for simplicity, if you could just lay out because it felt like it was a jump and I missed it, exactly how does the increase of 300 units over four years we're talking about? So based on our 2005 conference of plan projections, we needed 300 units a year to meet that 15% growth goal in the urban tier. So if we start with a goal of 140 units next year and that goal grows by 10%, within five or six years we'll get to near closer to 300 units and try to incrementally meet that goal. By the time this is fully implemented, we'll likely have a new comp or answer plan recommended for you and that we'll just kind of bake that in and reflect those changes going forward if this passes. And I highlight that because it's specific to the premise that this will create affordable housing if we're increasing the number of units that are available and highlight in the fact that it's only 300 means that we need to do a lot to make sure that we're engaging the development community to actually build because it's not gonna happen without them. And so just noting that there's also the point, the point I wanna make, you pointed out the historical and structural racism aspect of our own redlining and the areas that you highlighted were in the blue and the green are those the only areas that are gonna be impacted by this expanded housing choice? Are you making it specific to those areas or is it open to all across the city? Well, the largest impact would be in communities where the zoning currently allows only single family housing. There are portions of the urban tier that were historically redlined that allowed duplexes and multifamily housing today. So they'll be less impacted, but these provisions before you would apply across the urban tier. And then some of the provisions would be countywide if passed by the county and citywide if only passed by the city, such as the accessory dwelling unit provisions you heard about, those would be citywide. I just wanna make sure that we're careful in how we frame this because what'll happen is that you only afford the people who already live in the blue and the green areas, the funding sources that we're talking about and that have yet not yet been developed to actually do the accessory dwelling units when in fact, those who might be in those red areas actually might need the funding as well. And so just making sure that that point is noted. And then you mentioned that the lot whiffs had the minimums have been removed. So that means that if I wanted to build two duplexes side by side, that would be allowed. So the lot wits have not been removed. The lot with infill standard has been removed. Let me explain the difference. Currently, we require that the existing lot wits on a street be considered when looking at whether or not a home or a duplex can be developed there. So if you're on a street with large lot wits, your lot has to mirror or mimic those lot wits. Or saying is we're gonna allow everybody to have the minimum lot width, which is between 35 and 50 feet depending on your zoning district. So that would allow for the creation of more lots. So we would just be allowing more lots, not more housing on the lots. Both, it would allow both. It would allow, in all districts, it would allow a duplex under these proposals. And we are also recommending that accessory dwelling unit be able to be developed with the duplex. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Are there any other questions at this point? Council Member Alston. Hi, Pat. Could you explain the relationship? You mentioned briefly the affordable housing density bonus. Could you explain the relationship between the density bonus and this proposal? Sure. Mike, would you come help me with that? We've had an affordable housing density bonus in the ordinance for about 30 years. And we've tweaked it and refined it to try to get it to be useful over time. And we did that again with this provision. I'll let Michael describe exactly what we did as it applies to these provisions. Thank you, Michael. Stop with the planning department. So the affordable housing density bonus allows for additional reductions and relief in standards to the base standards. So for changing the base standards, you're building upon additional allowances for those who are implementing the affordable housing density bonus. So that's how the greatest impact is happening. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions at this point? Great. All right, I want to thank, excuse me, please don't yell out. I'm sorry, my mom. Yeah, this is time for the council to ask questions of staff. I don't understand. And if I appreciate, I will ask staff to speak up in the future. Okay, thank you. Please don't, we need some more. Thank you. Okay. All right, Mr. Stock, would you give your answer again, please? Absolutely, and I apologize for not communicating clearly. So the affordable housing density bonus allows for additional reductions to base zoning requirements. And thus, if you change the base zoning requirements or reduce them, those reductions carry on, still would still apply. So if you're reducing, so you have a small house lot size and there's a minimum size there. And if you're reducing it, you still get to apply those additional reductions through the bonus. So there's a built upon additional incentive for doing the affordable housing density bonus. Thank you, Mr. Stock. So this is complicated. We've all got to accept the fact that this is complicated. All right, friends, we're now about to, I'm gonna invite speakers up. I wanna say a couple of things. First of all, thank you all for your patience. It's been a long night already and I wanna appreciate you all for hanging in there. I know this, we've had some important discussions about a report from our police chief and a report about crime, discussion about crime in our city and gun violence and it's been important to have it. What you all are here for is also important. I do wanna stress that although you can see that we don't always have civil comment, we do strive for civil comment and I look forward to that on the part of everyone speaking tonight. We have more than 30 speakers, so I'm going to give each speaker two minutes. I'll call you in groups of four or five and they ask you to come over here to my right. We'll go through all the speakers and then the council will have time for questions and comment. And then we'll take action. All right. And I guess one more thing I do wanna say is that I really appreciate hearing from all of you all. Well, maybe not quite all of you all but we've heard from a lot of people. No, I mean I really appreciate hearing from all of you all that I did hear from and very glad to get the very thoughtful ideas and emails from everyone that we have received. And in the last few days, we've gotten maybe 40 emails and prior to that we had many and a lot of you all have been involved in discussions over time and just wanna thank you and appreciate everybody's participation in the process. It's been very valuable and I know that it has certainly sharpened this proposal and wanna express my appreciation. All right, we're gonna, I'm gonna ask the first five people to please come over here to my right. Allison Schauger, Jim Anthony, Susan Sewell, Becky Winders, Marcia McNally, and Dick Hales. You all could please come to my right, is Schauger, welcome. Please give us your name and address and you have two minutes. Sure, thanks for being here tonight. I'm Allison Schauger, 1528 North Duke Street. I'm a Trinity Park resident and also a board member of Bike Durham. As many of you know, Bike Durham is an all-volunteer nonprofit coalition of individuals and organizations working on behalf of those who bike, walk and take transit in Durham. Bike Durham consists of more than 230 supporting members, 1300 newsletter subscribers and approximately 4,000 social media followers. We are currently working to envision a low-stress network of bicycle facilities that allow people from eight years old to 80 years old to ride safely and comfortably to and from any destination in Durham. We believe that everyone should have access to safe and affordable transportation regardless of race, wealth, gender identity, ability or where they live. Affordable housing and safe, affordable transportation go hand in hand. We strongly urge council to approve the amendment to the unified development ordinance as proposed in front of you tonight. By allowing increased quiet density to be built by right, we hope to see more and a wider variety of people living within walking distance and biking distance of transit, jobs and goods and services rather than displacing people further from downtown in order to find housing affordability. We are particularly pleased to see that the specific proposed changes to EHC incorporate the recommendations of the Neighbors for Housing Equity Coalition who conducted significant outreach in neighborhoods and with people most impacted by a lack of affordable housing. Please vote tonight to pass this item. If we wait for perfect solutions to every complex interrelated issue, then we do nothing while the problem of affordability only gets worse. Let's pass expanding housing choices and next start to work on the affordable transportation bond, building a connected network of low stress bike lanes and funding more sidewalks. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Schauger. We'll now hear from Mr. Jim Anthony. Mr. Anthony, welcome and please give us your name and address. You have two minutes. My name's James Anthony. I am, I live in Raleigh. However, my address there is 1201 Edwards Mill Road. Tonight Durham has the opportunity to lead not just the Triangle in North Carolina but the entire nation by passing this expanding housing choices amendment. It is bold, it's visionary and it is going to result in real change. I represent the development community and I appreciate the comments from the council earlier about the vital importance of our engagement in this process of delivering affordable housing solutions in our community. Most of the contents of the EHC was in the affordable housing toolbox developed in 2016 by a group convened by the White House, the Obama White House. I support the EHC amendment and the visionary work of the planning department who truly busted their fannies to get this thing done and the many coalition groups that exist in this community to support affordable housing from many different perspectives. I also wanna go on record as stating that the development community of which I'm a part supports the affordable housing bond which is vital to creating the public-private partnerships, the land banks, and the other tools that are needed to finance the expansion of affordable housing and it can be done in a sustainable way. I also urge you to go bolder. Beyond just land banking property, deploy it, get it to use as quickly as you can, pursuing public-private partnerships and expanding the boundaries into the suburban tiers. Mr. Anthony. Thank you. Thank you very much. We'll now hear from Susan Sewell. Miss Sewell, welcome. Please give us your name and address and you have two minutes. My name is Susan Sewell and I live at 2904 Legion Avenue in Durham. I speak tonight on behalf of Tuscaloosa Lakewood Neighborhood Association. TLNA strongly agrees with Durham's goals of equitable growth, affordable housing, increased density in the urban tier and other areas, and neighborhood diversity. However, we doubt that expanding housing choices alone will lead to any growth towards these goals. After several months of study, almost the entire planning commission agreed and asked you to slow down on this proposal until other parts could be added to it. Most other cities cited as examples of this kind of upzoning have rezoned as part of a full quiver of changes that helped make new building options available more equitably. They also rezoned their entire county. EHC increases pressures on only the donut around downtown and provides no relief from the market forces that will continue to push large single-family homes. Our growth would continue to be at the expense of the most vulnerable people and some of our oldest neighborhoods. We expect better from Durham. We advocate for a comprehensive set of programs to address the multiple actors in our current situation. For instance, programs that would provide access to designers, contractors, and capital so that small homeowners can repair their own homes and build rental units on their own lots. This would preserve some of our heritage, add density, and spread the benefits of Durham's growth more broadly. We oppose expanding housing choices at this point. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Sewell. Ms. Winders. Mr. Hales, welcome. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We have two minutes. Good evening, Mayor and members of City Council. My name is Dick Hales, 100 Briar Cliff Road in Durham. I'm speaking tonight on behalf of the Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit. The Coalition is a volunteer group of Durham citizens and organizations that work to support policies, programs, and projects that provide safe, affordable shelter for all residents of our community with good access to transit. You've just received an excellent staff report and presentation covering the extensive community input process carried out, interviewing these draft changes. Coalition speakers tonight will try not to repeat much of that information, but will instead focus on what we feel are the most critical EHC issues. After much input, participation, study, and debate, the Coalition voted on July 15th to support adoption of the March version of the EHC, which is the majority of what's in front of you tonight. We also believe one additional major concern needs to be addressed as well. This concern is that by encouraging development of more ADUs, duplexes, and flag-lot housing, the EHC could add to the gentrification, displacement in some Durham neighborhoods. That's why we support the following five actions to be taken immediately following EHC adoption as safeguards to discourage displacement and as ways to encourage more small-scale compatible infill housing. Number one, Coalition strongly recommends that the EHC changes be initially focused on production of additional affordable housing units and implemented in a way that will counter the gentrification displacement of existing residents. To help achieve this result, there should be at least a 12-month delay in the effective date of the EHC changes, with an exception and additional steps outlined below. Number two, as an exception to the 12-month delay in implementation, we urge that the EHC provisions be allowed to be used immediately upon adoption when new affordable housing unit is being created. Offer a head start for nonprofit providers of affordable housing. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Harris. Ms. McNally, welcome. Please give us your name and address. You have two minutes. My name is Marcia McNally. I live at 203 North Church Street. I'm continuing with the Coalition's five points. The third point is that we strongly urge the Council to direct staff to have a technical assistance program as well as a program for financial assistance for homeowners considering to do duplexes, flaglots and so on, partly so that they, if they need help figuring out how to do it or if they are willing to commit to adding an affordable unit, that they would do so. Fourth, we would like to add some considerations to what's been proposed and primarily it focuses on revising the maximum number of unrelated individuals who occupy a house from currently three to either four or five people which would allow more households and persons in infill housing. And that the requirement for the number of years of affordability for new homeowners could be reviewed with our nonprofit community to figure out what works best. And this you already, Pat Young already spoke about, but number five, recommend that the city staff monitor to make sure that we actually are getting what we're paying for with the EHC. Thank you. Thank you very much. Swinders, welcome. You have two minutes. Good evening. My name is Becky Winders and I live at Four Glenmore Drive and I'm also speaking on behalf of the Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit. As Dick said, we endorsed a position in July to support EHC and to recommend some additional actions. But since that time, the proposal has continued to evolve and we have some additional comments about the most recent changes. First, the EHC language has changed to, made some small changes on building heights and allowing ADUs and duplexes in more places. And we see this as these as being minor and will mostly remove barriers and we support those changes. We also feel that we have not taken a position on the question of whether or not a historic district should be, local historic districts should be exempted and we are encouraging you to, we support the EHC with or without the exemption of historic districts. We also support investigations into modifying development standards to support higher density development in appropriate locations in the suburban tier. So to, in summary, the Coalition believes that there are many good reasons to pass the EHC with the additions that we have suggested. And one of those is to, you have your resolutions and in your agenda, do not include a delay of the start date. And we're suggesting a delay of the start date. The default is to start in a month or something. We want to delay the start date to allow some of these other things to be added on to it. Thank you, Ms. Wonders. I'm gonna ask now another group of five to please come to my right. First, we'll have Mimi Kessler. Second, we'll have Ellen Pless. Then we'll have Pellager-Refy, Linda Wilson and Michael Schwartz. If y'all could please come to my right and we'll start with Ms. Kessler. No need to run, you're in good year. We're moving along at a good pace, but you don't need to go that fast. Thank you, I appreciate that. Ms. Kessler, welcome. You have two minutes. My name is Mimi Kessler. I live at 1418 Woodland Drive. This is a very divisive issue. It has divided many people in all of the neighborhoods across the city. And I want to say that it would be fine with me for every house on my street to have persons of color, every religion of the world and every ethnicity of the world. I would like for there to be diversity across the city and not drive out those not making a living wage. But I'm not fine with taking the small lot definition is 25 feet wide. My lot is 50 feet wide. According to the language, as I understand it, my lot could be divided in half lengthwise, two duplexes and two ADUs. So that replaces one dwelling with six. That's not incremental. I'm all for incremental. We hammered out a compromise with the Planning Commission and it disturbs me that it's not being adequately thought about a lot of what the Coalition for Affordable Housing is good. Delay it, we need people who will help fund ADUs in the sections of town which really could benefit from it. But, and I'm all for duplex by right, but not taking lots and dividing them and then doing a six fold increase is just not incremental. And I don't think that we have information that if we were to do that, we don't have an environmental impact study. Apparently, apartments don't count in the counting of dwellings. I don't really understand that. And ADUs don't count as dwellings even though dwelling is part of the name. So I think there's a lot of things that still need to get hammered out about this and I urge you not to pass this tonight. Thank you, Ms. Kessler. I will now hear from Ms. Pless. Yes, sorry. Yes, I'm sorry, Ellen Pless, welcome. Yes, hello, my name's Ellen Pless. I live at 706 East Forest Hills Boulevard. Thank you for letting me speak. I ask each of you to please vote no on the EHC in all of its shifting forms. And I'd like to take a moment to discuss some numbers with you. 13 people per day moving to Durham. That is the actual number of people who arrive in Durham County instead of 20, the seemingly unsubstantiated number, you and the planning department have been pushing to the media and the public for many months heading up to this point. One city misled into thinking that it is growing much faster than it really is. Its sense of reality warped by the pervasive 20 per day message. 105 days since I asked for your assistance in correcting the daily growth figure and communicating it to the public and the media so that Durham might have a more accurate sense of itself and its image and its needs. 15 rushed months to develop and sell EHC. 48 months for Minneapolis to study and consider the ramifications of their plan. One confusing name, expanding housing choices rather than being clearly named what it is and up zoning. Zero paper notices mailed by the US Postal Service to property owners. Zero notices included with utility billing statements. Zero amendment signs erected by the planning department within impacted communities. One formative practitioners panel comprised of potential beneficiaries and profit makers with zero normal citizen stakeholders at the table. Zero protections for national historic districts with multiple incentives for tear downs. Two NPO's severely altered without their representatives being at the practitioners panel. One prioritized NPO applications severely delayed. Zero environmental impact statement. Zero. Thank you, Ms. Cross. Friends, Mr. Refi, Mr. Refi, before you start, let me just say, you have written me two great emails which I have not answered and I apologize. I've answered a lot of emails on this but I haven't answered yours and I apologize to you. You didn't need to apologize. I just sent it so you will have the information. Sorry, I didn't. Good to have you here and you have two minutes. My name is Bella Gerefi and I live in 1-008 Monmouth Avenue. I live in Durham for 40 years and ironically I work with former city councils for rezoning so that we can reserve the beauty of Durham and its homes and its trees. I worked for the tree committee for a couple of decades that Mark Rogers started. I work as well on the truck routes so the trucks will not go following our neighborhoods because that's the way it was in 1980 and before. Most of those homes that a lot of people lived in that are some of them historical, we basically refurbished them most of us ourselves because at that time we really didn't have any money, not that we have any more now but we really did not have. We had children to support, et cetera. So I worked for this Durham public schools for 25 years. Every single day I went to school as a volunteer. So I really do love Durham. Unfortunately this February I heard from a neighbor what was going on about this EHC. I've never heard before and Steve will know I'm really involved in Durham and I've never heard anything. So I really was surprised to hear that Durham had worked for a year with some developers on re-soning mixed it with affordability. I will tell you that affordability does not exist. There was a house in my block that was turned into a house with a grandmother or mother-in-law or whatever. They rent every single room for $2,000. That's not affordability and that's not what's gonna happen, especially in some areas where the new people are coming. So I beg you not to pass it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Effie. Linda Wilson. Linda Wilson. Yes, ma'am. Ms. Wilson, welcome. And you also have two minutes. And I also did not get a response to my email, Mr. Mayor. Nor an apology. I apologize to you, Ms. Wilson. But we did meet in person. We did do that. Yes, we did, in my office. Yes. Thank you. All right. My name is Linda Wilson and I live at 302 Watts Street, which is the original Watts Hospital. I have this terrible feeling of deja vu tonight because most of us sitting in this room have been in this room on and off for the last six or eight months trying to figure out how to do this EHC. I know that you all have gotten lists of our concerns and I won't repeat them here, but I do have just a few things I'd like to mention and ask you not to pass this project until you've addressed these concerns. Some of these have already been mentioned, but I'm gonna go over them very quickly. We really need an environmental impact study. We are talking about tripling the number of units in a neighborhood. Tripling, we need a study. We need the corrected population growth estimates. The estimates from the planning department do not match the state's estimates. In some year groups, they grip it at 10-year groups. In some cases, there's a 25% disparity, so we need the planning department to look at that really carefully. We need an assessment, a 20-year assessment of public safety needs. I wish the police chief were still here. I'd like to know how many additional police officers we're gonna need to cover this tripling in population. We need an assessment of a 20-year assessment of water and sewer needs, sorry, needs. In my neighborhood, we cross our fingers that our streets won't explode when there's a heavy rain, and they did explode in my basement some years ago because the sewage system was not adequate to take care of the rain. We need a 20-year assessment of what our public schools are gonna need to look like. None of this, as far as I know, none of this has been done. I would go back to zero. And we need an assessment tool for the EHG itself so that when it does go into effect, and I know that eventually some version of it will, when it goes into effect, we need to be able to evaluate it. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Wilson. Mr. Schwartz, welcome. Thank you, good evening, Councilor Mayer. My name is Michael Schwartz. I live at 1011 West Knox in Trinity Park. And you're hearing a lot tonight about things that could happen if this passes, and as the director said, we don't know everything that will happen. But there is one scenario where we definitely know what will happen, and that's if we do nothing. And this affordability crisis will just go on as it's been going on. I moved here from Oakland, California, about two years ago, and they can provide a cautionary tale of what happens when there's inaction. There I watched over 10 years as the middle class evaporated, as housing costs rose, and the lower income families got squeezed and eventually displaced, not out of the city, but out of the region. This proposal represents a solid piece of legislation, and it's clearly just the first step in a long fight to preserve affordability in Durham. As a transportation planner, I'm pleased that this proposal addresses the racist policy of single-family zoning, which is a shameful legacy of my profession. I urge you to pass this legislation as proposed, and let's move on to the many other pieces in this complex puzzle. Thank you for your leadership on this issue. Thank you, Mr. Schwartz. I'm gonna now call the next group of five, and if you all could come over to my right as well. First will be Nick Doty. Second will be Jamie Greener, Dan Bach, Dan Reed, and Barbara Bratz. And Mr. Doty, welcome. I will begin with you. Please give us your name and address. You have two minutes. Sure. My name is Nick Doty. I live at 300 Blackwell Street. Thank you, Mayor and Council members for staying late talking with us. I think you've heard a lot already from staff and from some others here about affordability. I think it's important for you to also look at the comments from your Environmental Affairs Board. They gave detailed comments on the expanding housing choices, and this is a great opportunity where affordability and environmental sustainability go hand in hand. So in-fill development, having more people living in the urban tier makes it easier for people to walk to work or walk to restaurants, to bike around, to take public transit. Those are vitally important things, especially given the urgent needs around climate change. So I would encourage you to support the proposal based on those recommendations from your Environmental Affairs Board. And I would also have you look at the comments from your Environmental Affairs Board about parking minimums, which they and I were frustrated were not reduced as part of expanding housing choices. Building that extra parking garage makes housing much more expensive. And it also locks us in for years or decades by sustaining, by subsidizing car usage, subsidizing fossil fuel production. Yeah, so again, affordability and environmental sustainability will go the same way. If we build housing for people and not housing for cars, then our housing can go much further. So I'd encourage you to support this proposal and also go further in talking about reducing parking minimums. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dowdy. Well now here from Jamie Greener. Mr. Greener, welcome, you have two minutes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of the City Council, thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts tonight. My name is Jamie Greener. I live at 2410 West Club Ovard in Watts-Hillendale. I am a member of the Watts Hospital Hillendale Neighborhood Association. But to be clear, I am speaking tonight for myself as a private citizen and not a member of the WHHNA. My views are my own. Many of who have spoken before me and who will speak after me have gone into the weeds of the EHC. Weeds about the details of height and width and setbacks and square footage. Weeds about developers. Weeds about the thread of tear downs. I'm not here to talk about the weeds. I'm here to talk about the garden that is the city of Durham. People are coming from all over to plant their roots in our garden. The city center is growing and thriving and folks want to live near it. Let's make room for them. Let's let more Durhamites, whether they be recent transplants or old growth, live in our garden. City Council, plant the seeds that will provide homes for those who want to live here and share in our bounty. Passing EHC that permits duplexes throughout the urban tier. Passing EHC that reduces the whole width for flaglots. Passing EHC that allows ADUs up to 800 square feet everywhere ADUs are allowed. Let Durhamites define for themselves what is a family. Rise above the weeds, plant the seeds and water our garden with the EHC. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Greener. Mr. Bach, welcome. You also have two minutes. Thank you. My name is Dan Bach. I live at 915 Urban Ave. I am here to speak in support of expanding housing choices. We have a quantity problem. There's a lot of things that are complicated about land use planning, but there are some things that are very simple, such as there are more people who want to live in Durham than we have housing units for and there are more people who want to live in the urban tier than there are housing units. I wanted to address one thing that I heard recently and an idea to limit the EHC options to affordable housing only, whether permanently or for a period of one year. My concern with that idea would be we don't want to create a choice where someone can build a single family home with no strings attached or they could build a duplex or an 800 square foot ADU if they have to jump through some hoops and they have to qualify it for affordable housing and they probably have to forego some rental income and I worry that if that's what the choice is, then you end up with a lot of people who decide to skip the headaches and build a single family home. We shouldn't make it hard to build duplexes and ADUs while making it easy to build single family homes. The last thing I want to address is the resident survey, the 2018 Durham resident survey. 60% of respondents thought adequate supply of housing should be an important priority for the city. We have a small group that shows up to these public hearings and as a self-selected group there's not necessarily a representative of the city so the resident survey is a valuable tool for gauging the messages clear, people want more housing. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bott. I'm not sure Dan Reed is here, is Dan here? Yes, ma'am. All right. Are you Ms. Bratz? Yes. Welcome. Hi, I'm Barbara Bratz, 1918 Wilshire Drive. I urge you to vote against this proposal. I really fear that it will have severe unintended consequences, particularly, I don't see how it helps with affordability. I urge you to tackle that problem in a more comprehensive way. I think that this proposal needs to be part of the comprehensive plan which I understand maybe has already started, but it seems a little bit like putting the cart before the horse. I really fear about environmental degradation as a result of that. I've heard concerns over or support for this proposal because of access to or reduced transport problems, people walking, biking, busing to work, closer to jobs, but I know in my own part of the neighborhood nobody walks to work, nobody bikes to work. My own property could be replaced with one house with six dwelling units. That's one car to six to 12 cars. So we're looking at perhaps a 12 fold increase in automobiles on my street because there is no public transportation. And my understanding is that buses are banned from University Drive. So I don't see how this improves the transport problem. So I urge you to consider other ways to address affordable housing in a more comprehensive way with other issues like transport and environmental considerations within the city. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Bratz. I'm now gonna call the next group of people. And if you could come over to my right. I believe this name is Lorand Maturi and I expect I've got that wrong and I apologize if I have. Robert Chapman, John Swansea, Rand Barron and Stacey Murphy. If you all could please come over here to my right. I would appreciate it. And first, I'm going to welcome Mr. Maturi. Thank you, yes. And you can tell me what your name actually is. Jay Lorand Maturi. All right, apologies. And welcome, please give us your name and address and you have two minutes. James Lorand Maturi, 1014 West Marquam Avenue and I salute this democracy and your patience and listening very fully and carefully to our thoughts. I really do appreciate it and I appreciate you giving your thoughts. I've lived in Trinity Park for just over 10 years over a decade and I'm sympathetic to the official concerns of the EHC. I like living in a diverse neighborhood and wish that Trinity Park were more diverse. What is a diverse neighborhood? To me, it's where people of different races, religions, national origins, stages of life and classes have the opportunity to rent or to buy. And we should all feel safe in such a neighborhood as well so that we can learn from each other, break bread together, share with each other. I admit I did not feel safe when one of my neighbors displayed a Confederate flag on the streets that we must share but fortunately most of my neighbors objected and denounced his communication of unwelcome to people like me. A diverse neighborhood should and can also be healthy with plenty of trees, with sufficient parking, with adequate systems of sewage, water supply and storm drainage. Trinity Park has the makings of all of the above which is why we chose it as our home. Its virtues include houses of remarkably diverse sizes, numerous apartment buildings. It was clearly not zoned for single family only. There are many high-rise apartment buildings in our neighborhood and 70% of our units are rental units. Given market trends, I must admit it is becoming harder for moderate income or young people to buy or rent in Trinity Park. But sadly, it's not obvious to me that the current proposal will reverse or stop that trend. In fact, it's likely to increase the commercial value of our properties and both encourage the replacement of small houses with big ones, which no moderate income person could afford and to encourage also the dividing up of lots that will generate up to six units. Oh, that's two minutes, up to six units. It goes fast. Thank you. Thank you, sir. And now, we will hear from Mr. Robert Chapman. Mr. Chapman, welcome. You have two minutes. Thank you, Mayor. I'm coming before you to strongly support EHC. I live at 2525 Lanier Place in Durham. The zoning for my lot is RS 20, which means a minimum 20,000 square foot lot. Whoever thought that up wasn't thinking very clearly. We sort of feel in our neighborhood that we only get together after ice storms or hurricanes. We might get to see each other if a tree goes down in the next few days. I'm a new urbanist developer. I believe in walkable urbanism. I believe in building places that people love. I love Trinity Park. If you look at Durham's zoning code, that was in effect when Trinity Park was built, it was 16 pages long, and the density was 70 families per acre. We've come a long way from that. Our zoning code and all of the related documents, the standards and the overlays and so forth, is now 1,000 times longer, 1,600 pages. And we haven't had it been heading in the right direction. I think we've been heading in the direction of addressing our fear. And I think we need to move toward what we had before, which is places where lots of people could afford to live. Of the 80 ADUs in Durham, I actually was responsible for building about 40% of them over in Trinity Heights. Everyone who built one of those paid for three-fourths of their mortgage payment from the rent, which was also a fairly affordable rate, and it created affordable housing for everyone. I'd like to see us move back toward building places that people love. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is John Swansea. Thank you, please give us your name and address and you have two minutes. Good evening, John Swansea, from 110 North Buchanan in Trinity Park. There are lots of things in the EHC that I do like. My street already has duplexes, fourplexes, sixplexes, apartment buildings. More of the units are in multifamily than they are in single family. Some of the things in the EHC are thoughtful and progressive and I support them. The use of ADUs, duplex on full-size lots, respectful infill, small houses on non-conforming lots, and I also support the affordable housing bond and project. But the EHC has what I see as a time bomb in it. You've heard it mentioned by multiple people before and it's the one into six provision. You didn't see any pictures of that when they showed it. They didn't mention Nashville or Houston in the cities that they studied because if you Google Nashville skinny houses or Houston skinny houses, you'll see the nightmare that potentially could happen in Durham where this EHC will create new incentives for aggressive tear-downs, displacement, gentrification, and the replacement of single historic houses with cookie cutter luxury boxes. If you look downtown, you can see when a developer figures out the magic formula that's the most profitable, it's repeated over and over and over again as fast as possible. And by the time anyone realizes what happened, it would be too late. You could have lot by lot, street by lot, street by street of historic modest homes displaced. The other thing that's a problem with this is it will result in the transfer of ownership from lower income homeowners to the investor class. These six unit buildings are not being built by the homeowners, it will be the investors. Thank you, Mr. Swansy. Our next speaker is Ron Barone. Ron Barone, 208 North Driver Street. You have two minutes. Thank you. I won't belabor many points made by my fellow proponents except to briefly say what's you sitting up there already know. Single family zoning is and always has been an ugly tool of racist policy. A racist tool cannot be wielded for good. It must be discarded in the trash heap of history. We cannot claim to be anti-racist while using a policy that's replaced redlining as a tool of white segregationists. Having said that, I wanna talk about something else. I've heard so many bemoaning a process by which EHC was arrived at. I've attempted to be engaged every step of this process, from neighborhood meetings to planning commission meetings. I've been active online and even attended the tiny planning subcommittee meetings. Without all this, the loudest voices have always been middle and upper middle class white folks from wealthy neighborhoods. For them to cry out that they were not heard is the height of absurdity and the epitome of white privilege. I am confident that this excellent item will be approved tonight. In considering future land use policy, I urge you to continue to develop a process of equitable engagement to not to center the loudest and whitest voices but to continue to engage with and learn from anti-racist and anti-class practice and to privilege those voices to be able to speak. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Stacey Murphy. Please give us your name and address and you have two minutes. My name is Stacey Murphy and I live at 1014 DeMaria Street in Trinity Park. I'm a small business owner who does historic renovation on smaller homes and I own a handful of rental properties in the urban tier. I'm passionate about Durham and I'm active in the affordable housing space through volunteer efforts that I do with Habitat for Humanity. I work with families moving forward and I also have personal rental units that I rent below market rate. I've been active in these discussions for over nine months now as originally as a member of the Trinity Park Neighborhood Association Board but I come here today just speaking for myself, my own personal opinions. I urge the council to please vote to pass expanding housing solutions. I believe that EHC removes the exclusionary single family zoning practices and policies that were adopted in this city and in my neighborhood around the same time that 147 was built. That's the same time that the Hattide community was destroyed and there were hundreds of African-American families and poor families that were displaced by that construction. At that time, that's when we saw all the single family zoning policies come into effect. It was also about the same time in history that the Fair Housing Act went into effect and racial discrimination housing was officially outlawed. So single family zoning practices are at best exclusionary but realistically they're pretty racist and I think it's time that we recognize that as a community, we take the progressive action and stand up against single family zoning policies. In addition, if EHC is passed, I do believe that affordable housing units will be built. I'm part of a coalition of neighbors who are working hard to partner with nonprofits to build ADUs for making real low cost affordable housing solutions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm not gonna call the next group of speakers if you'll come to my right. Scott Harman, Theresa Seibel, happy birthday Ms. Seibel. Mary Barzee, Rainer Rachel Galper, Galper and Ideal Ortiz. If you all could please come to my right and we'll begin with Mr. Harman. Mr. Harman, welcome, you have two minutes. Thank you, Scott Harman, 600 West Main Street. When I was born, my parents were on the low end of the middle class. Their wealth and economic status grew mostly through home ownership. When my mom died in 2005, I inherited what was left of her IRA and invested it in downtown real estate which advanced my career as an architect in real estate developer. This is the American dream, work hard and pass wealth down to your kids. Every system in this country is designed to help me reach that dream. The education system, healthcare system and especially real estate. I didn't ask for these advantages. I didn't have to. These systems are designed to help me thrive. Privilege is a good thing until we realize that not everyone has access to it. That same real estate system that helped me is an obstacle to people who don't look like me or whose parents weren't allowed to buy homes in the same neighborhoods that my parents did. Our zoning system is unfair. We continue to segregate our neighborhoods by economic status and pretend that these rules have nothing to do with race and class despite four centuries of history that prove otherwise 1619. Our zoning system is unsustainable. Density is not the enemy, it is the solution. Our zoning system is not progressive. What if we threw out the entire ordinance, started over and asked our new generation of planning professionals to design an ordinance that was fair, sustainable and provided plentiful and affordable housing? I promise you such a system would look nothing like the one we have now. No individual in this room is to blame for our broken zoning system. We inherited it from our parents who inherited it from theirs. That's what makes systemic injustice so hard for me to see as a white person. When the world is designed to make life easy for me without my having to think about it, it's hard to believe there's anything wrong. It's hard to give up these advantages, this privilege. But surely we can share our privilege with others. We can learn to see it, leverage it and make sure we're not asking the entire community to carry the burden of our personal comfort and affluence. Thank you, Mr. Harmon. Ms. Seibel, welcome and you have two minutes. Good evening. My name is Larissa Seibel and I'm a member of the Durham People's Alliance Housing Action Team. There's still a few of us left. We support expanding housing choices as an affordable housing density bonus that will make a significant difference in Durham. Using expanding housing choices as an affordable housing density bonus is an effective way to reduce displacement of lower income residents. California found that building affordable housing was twice as effective as just increasing density in reducing displacement. You need to build affordable homes in addition to eliminating single family zoning Expanding housing choices has the potential to push the market towards building affordable homes for low and moderate income residents. Aport to work, the city must create new financing programs so low and moderate income residents can build, buy and rent affordable homes themselves and with nonprofit and for-profit builders. This will take time. For several months, the planning commissioners and staff, housing groups and community members talked with each other. These conversations informed the planning commission's consensus recommendations. They agreed that expanding housing choices should be used as an affordable housing density bonus until the city creates programs that are effective in ensuring equal access to affordable housing in Durham. We encourage the city to continue to meet with all who want to build equity in housing as we expand affordable housing for all. Tonight, the city council can begin to bend the arc of the housing market in Durham by making expanding housing choices a big old affordable housing program. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, if I could just also just saying thank you for your service also as a former council member and then happy birthday. Thank you for that important reminder council member. You're right. Yes, welcome. Nice to have another council member in our chamber. Mary Barzee, Ms. Barzee, welcome and please give us your name and address and you have two minutes. Thank you. Hello, my name is Mary Barzee. I live at 1014 Onslow Street in Walltown. I've lived in the neighborhood for 15 years. In response to somebody else, my kids and I rode our bikes to school this morning and I carpooled to work and then walked home. So some of us are taking advantage of that walkable, bikeable neighborhood. I have a personal interest in the EHC because I've been interested in building an ADU on my backyard for some time. Like many people in my so-called sandwich generation, our family is raising small children while helping to support and eventually more extensively care for our elderly and partially disabled family members. We first approached the planning department to get clarity about our options for building an ADU in 2010. Our neighborhood is zoned to allow duplexes in ADUs but it was then that we learned that our home was too small at a little over 1,200 square feet to be able to build an ADU under the current main house ratio restrictions. I'll cut to the chase. I enthusiastically support the EHC because of its thoughtful quality of life and cost of living solutions. Also with us being allowed under the new EHC proposals to build an 800 square foot ADU, that would allow us to get the accessibility needs met that we have. And we would no longer have that too small house issue. Multi-generational living is not just a cultural practice honored in Africa, Europe, Asia and Central America. It is an economic solution that should be valued and supported here in Durham. I'm pleased to see that there are no additional parking requirements mandated as the beauty of living near downtown is its walkability and bike ability. Thank you, Ms. Barcy. Ms. Galper here. All right then, we'll go to Ideal Ortiz. Ms. Ortiz, welcome and you have two minutes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. My name's Ideal Ortiz. I live at 1808 Bale Street. I've been there since 2003. And I just wanna remind people in this room that there are black and brown homeowners. There are black and brown contractors. There are black and brown real estate agents. And when they have the right policy conditions these folks also benefit and spread that wealth to their families and to their community. I just wanna remind that our community did not arrive at the present moment of gentrification and unequal access to housing by mysterious fair market forces. We arrived here because of laser precise and intentional local policies that were designed to make sure black and brown residents did not move into certain parts of town. The market currently makes what the policies make easy to produce. Right now it encourages expensive single family homes in about 40 some odd percent of our inner city. As a longtime community advocate in my neighborhood and throughout Durham on a variety of issues I've been diligent to sit with people who are deeply impacted by the lack of affordable housing and not one of them has objected to the idea of allowing more ADUs or duplexes throughout Durham. In fact they're surprised that anyone else is concerned for them on this point. They do not have any negative opinions about such type of housing. The one thing low income people did mention was missing from these policies as a removal of the current rules about how many unrelated people can live together in one dwelling. We are in a moment in Durham as our many cities where we are reckoning with the racist roots of our local zoning policies and the historical evidence is clear. Their rules regarding restrictions on certain modest housing types and promoting the single family home with a large yard was a creative policy manifestation in the wake of the Fair Housing Act when race could no longer be used in local policy around housing. So single family zoning was created to maintain neighborhoods as white as possible. Thank you Ms. Ortiz. Good to have you. So now I'm gonna call five more names if you could please come to my right. Tiffany Elder, Rob Levinsky, Christian Santiago, King Kenny and Sam Gunter. And we'll begin with Ms. Elder. Welcome Ms. Elder, please give us your name and address. You have two minutes. My name's Tiffany Elder, I'm at 3509 Rodden. I'm a realtor, general contractor and small scale developer, rental property owner in Durham and I'm here as an individual and as a representative of the collective which is a cohort of minority real estate professionals spanning realtors, appraisers, landlords, property managers, developers, lenders and others who serve the Durham real estate community. Few of them are in the back, you'll hear from some of them later. We are committed to ensuring the viability of our real estate communities and we fully support EHC. To give you a real world example, minute and a half, as a landlord, I own properties across the broad rental range, the very lowest of which is 850 a month. That's below market rent in an area that currently rents for 1200 a month for a comparable home. And I've kept the rent low because my tenant who is an elderly female on fixed income has been in place for six years. I know she can't afford a large increase. I don't receive any subsidies for providing housing and despite this being my bread and butter, I've made an intentional decision as a responsible landlord to balance it out across my portfolio so that I can keep a good tenant who needs a good home in place. I do this because I believe this is how communities are created. Unfortunately, as property taxes continue to rise, I may be forced to increase and potentially lose this tenant and a similar situation happened on another property of mine in the West End when overnight the property taxes went from 1400 a year to 4400 a year, which is 250 a month. And unfortunately, I was not able to keep my longstanding tenants in that home. So I share these examples with you because EHC can positively impact my ability to continue to provide a range of housing in our city. Both properties that I mentioned have very large yards that neither tenants even use and per EHC I'd be able to leverage the art space to build a reasonably sized ADU or subdivide the existing lots to create a small second home. And the additional cash flow would allow me to continue to provide housing to a broad range of tenants in our community. So EHC can create housing opportunities for both buyers and tenants in Durham across price ranges. I applaud you for your work on this and I urge you to vote yes. Thank you very much, Rosalba. Rob Levinsky. Mr. Levinsky, welcome. You have two minutes. Thank you very much. I'm a new resident as of last October to Durham. I appreciate the opportunity to live in such a beautiful community and to address you tonight. I think that I come from, lived in several different places in my life. I grew up in Boston, then lived in Sonoma County, California, and then in Asbury Park, New Jersey, revitalizing community on the Jersey Shore before coming here. And I think one thing that's very important in my experience but living in all of them is the decisions you make in planning and zoning affect the entire quality of life for people now and for future generations. The key more than anything else is not to have urban sprawl. When you have that, you have a lower quality of life for everyone. You have more traffic, you have more pollution, you have less open space, you have, if you look at places that have had poor zoning, say, and I don't mean to knock anyone else, but other cities that, new cities that haven't done a good job of that, the results have been disastrous. So as a general rule, I support what is being proposed here because I think good, sensible, thoughtful infill makes communities more vital, more livable, and a higher quality. I would add, however, one caveat that one gentleman mentioned that I think is very, very important in this process and that is not to have a tear down of existing homes. There's a difference between adding to an existing lot as you're proposing a second unit, a guest unit to have infill. That's great. When you tear down old existing homes, historic homes, you change the quality of life forever. I've seen cities where well-intended people did that and the gentleman's right, Nashville, Seattle being another, and suddenly you had a massive amount of very ugly development and a quality of life that was destroyed. So I support the proposal as a whole. I don't know the details and when I don't know, try not to speak to pontificate on something, I'd simply say go forward with it but don't tear down existing properties. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Levinsky. We'll hear from Mr. Christian Santiago. Mr. Santiago, welcome. You have two minutes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. My name is Christian Santiago. I live at 300 Blackwell Street. I would say first of all that I am from Tampa, Florida and I just graduated Duke in December and Durham's character is what kept me here in Durham. I really want to make this my home. I want to build my career here and I just love this city and this is why I came out to speak tonight in support of today's proposal. To me, first of all, I'd like to say that the Afoto Bajazeba and I can really appreciate that it works in conjunction with EAC and I hope that you guys maintain being intentional about using that money in order to support this proposal as well. But to me density means sustainability but more importantly density means community. And if we are limiting, we can move into our community, we are in effect limiting our character and this is exactly why I moved to Durham is for our character. We want more people to live here. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Santiago. Mr. Gunter before you is Mr. King Kenny here. I'm sorry. Mr. Kenny, welcome. And you have two minutes, sir. In a lot of the hour, I'll keep this brief. My name is King Kenny. I resided 814 Yancy Street in a duplex which permits me to live in this city that I love. I enthusiastically support the EHC and I want to thank you for your work and other research you've done. Thank you, Mr. Kenny. Mr. Gunter, welcome. You have two minutes. Thank you. I was just so excited. I'm Samuel Gunter. I live at 515 Shady Bluff Street. I'm also the executive director of the North Carolina Housing Coalition. We're an organization whose mission is to lead a movement to ensure that every North Carolinian has a place to live with dignity and opportunity. And our membership consists of basically anyone who does affordable housing work, homeless service providers, housing counseling agencies, habitat affiliates for profit and non-profit, low income housing tax credit developers, and all of the advocates who care about affordable housing. And a lot of the work that I do is spent trying to get resources to help folks at the lowest end of the income spectrum. Because in our country, no matter what county you're in and every county in the United States, if you're an extremely low or low income family, it is impossible almost to find housing that you can afford. I cycled into this work, I was a pastor at one time and realized after doing that for a while, I could spend 75% of my time on walk-ins, folks needing to make a rent payment, make an electric bill payment, and so on. Cycled into work at a habitat affiliate and all these stories of folks that are working towards home ownership are incredible, but the stories that I also got to see were the long pipeline of folks that didn't even qualify because they were spending as high as one family, 78% of their income just on their housing payment. So I work a lot of times finding subsidies for the folks at the lowest end of the spectrum. But let's say you get something like a housing choice voucher, a section eight voucher in your hand. A lot of folks get that golden ticket and can't find housing, because why in a hot market like this and in hot urban markets across the country when you could find 18 other, why would you want to rent to someone where you got to jump through a hoop or two? That it's a big challenge and the game is in land use. We play around at the subsidies trying to make that work, but if we are not expanding housing choices, we're missing the boat. And I echo the comments about our racist street of single-family zoning and that the environments we see did not happen by accident and we are not going to get out of it by accident. I support passage. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Gunford. All right. I'll now ask for Mr. Dan Jewel, Mr. Joseph English, Precious Allen, and Germany McNeil. If you all could please come to my right. And as they come up, let me ask you all, let me just, so this is a public hearing and I want to make sure that everyone gets heard. Is there anyone, because those of the last speakers are signed up, is there anyone here who has not been heard who would like to be heard tonight? And could you please come and sign one of the cards, please, at the clerk's desk? Is there anyone else who has not been heard that would like to be heard tonight? I want to make sure everyone that wants to be heard is heard. All right. Thank you very much. Mr. Jewel, welcome. You have two minutes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. My name is Dan Jewel. I reside at 1025 Laurier Avenue in Trinity Park. I'm here representing myself. I want to come right out and say that I believe the proposal before you this evening is a necessary and important step and a first step in what needs to be a long community conversation to figure out how we handle the growth that is happening, whether we like it or not, and how to try and reduce the pressure on all the neighborhoods in Durham of the continued cost escalation that's being created by there being more demand than supply. I followed the planning department's proposal going back to their workshops in December. It did not seem unreasonable to me that I attended neighborhood meetings, listened to individuals, heard some concerns, particularly those over parking and densification of our urban tier neighborhoods. So I looked at my own block in Trinity Park. Laurier Avenue, Gregson, Lamond, Watts Street, with a nice alley running down the middle. And here's what I found. This block already represented a pretty high level of diversity and density. 32 single family houses, 25 apartment units, a half dozen ADUs already there, commercial buildings, and duplex units. What I found was that that block is less dense than when I moved there 18 years ago because of conversions of duplexes and rooming houses into single family houses. And I'm not talking about any of the student stuffers. I know most of my neighbors, they're great people. I love the fact that they are my neighbors, no matter what type of housing they live in. And I have never not been able to park either in front of my house or within one door of my house in all of that time. So the proposal before you today, I think is a great compromise from where we were, where we went, and where we are now. And I strongly support you passing it tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jules. Mr. Joseph English. Mr. English, welcome. You have two minutes. Hello, Mayor Shull. Thank you for the city council and Mayor Shull for listening to our comments tonight. I followed this planning process. I would say not directly by going to all the meetings, but I have read about it over time. In my opinion, it goes a long way. But what it doesn't do is it does not address the question of affordable housing with teeth. It does not. Now, what we do do with the bond is something that no one else in the nation has ever done. This is a bold proposal by Mayor Shull, $100 million bond. That is something I am all for. And I'm all for us passing that. And I'm going to work to help that be passed. But this compromise proposal, as I'm learning more and more about it tonight, could lead you in another direction. And why don't we just hit the pause button for another six months or another nine months and see how other things move forward. And I think a big part of this is going to be that bond and to see how much the public truly cares about the public getting behind something like that. Because no other city has done anything like this, not even close to it and had success on it. And if we do, then bring this process back in. Because again, I hear all about compromise. I hear about a lot of, well, we might do this if we can possibly in the future. But that's not part of the process. We're hoping it is. We're hoping that this generates other things in the future. But that's a possibility. And until those things are part of the future and part of the actual teeth in the new code, then I would say vote against it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. English. Ms. Allen. Welcome. You have two minutes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Precious Allen 1027 Slateworth. I am in support of EHC. I understand that it is a part of a multi prong approach to address housing solutions in our city. I am also for accountability for that process. And I want to encourage neighbors in the community to take the time to begin to educate yourselves about your current home ownership, your equity, what it allows you to do. I keep hearing the word affordable and affordable is relative. I would love to hear more about the word accessibility in education because when you talk about affordable and the most underserved in the community, what they lack is education, making sure that the language that we have moving forward is plain language that people can easily understand and don't have to incur additional costs to translate that language. And so if you are truly concerned about your neighbors in the community, take the time to educate yourselves, access your local professionals, small developers, realtors, go and talk to your banks. I want to remind you that change happens in one conversation at a time. So when you walk into your bank, ask them, how can you use your equity to create an ADU or a granny flat or a tiny house? What does that mean? Do you even know what that process entails? Right now you're fighting for something and you don't even understand the process. As we continue to grow in age, you're going to have children that return to this city and may not be able to access housing. Not affordable, but simply access. Everybody doesn't come here from New York or California or somewhere where they make a gross amount of money and they're able to retain that. In the news, we're talking about a shift coming in the economy. What's going to happen? I work on the front lines of real estate. I deal with people who had modifications in the last five years and are currently under-employed and may not be able to maintain their current single-family residence. So I encourage you to educate yourself and plan. It's about leaving a legacy and what you learn, share with your neighbor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Allen. Ms. McNeil, welcome. And you have two minutes. Thank you. My name is Germany McNeil. I live at 104 Acre Court. I am the owner of Durham Real Estate and Management Services and also a member of the Collective. I manage about 60 properties around Durham ranging from 800 to 2,500 per month and I am for the EHC. There's an urgent need for more housing in Durham. The lack of supply is causing a higher demand and driving up pricing throughout Durham. Increasing the supply will hopefully help to lower the demand and regulate pricing. Hopefully this will also open the door for smaller builders to build a product that is more affordable. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. McNeil. And I would call that admirable brevity. Thank you. We have three more people signed up, Mr. Brian Fox, Mr. Matt McDowell, and Jay Royster Hills. And is there anyone else that would like to speak tonight? If you all could please come up. Is there anyone else that would like to speak? Anyone else like to be heard on this issue tonight who has not been heard? Anyone else? If you would please go to my left and sign up with a clerk. We'll be closing the public hearing soon. Thank you. Mr. Fox. Good evening, Mayor, Council members, Mr. Manager, staff, and neighbors. Thank you for the extra minute. I just wanted to add the names of the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce, the Home Builders Association of Durham, Orange and Chatham Counties, the Triangle Apartment Association and the General Community Coalition publicly in support of expanding housing choices. We recognize and congratulate the city on taking a proactive and bold stance on housing affordability and being one of the first communities in the Triangle to make changes to its zoning regulations to allow more housing. The necessary changes as depicted in the Expanding Housing Choices Initiative will create a multitude of housing options for such a dynamic city, of which I think I forgot to call myself a resident. Brian Fox, 909 Exham Street. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Fox. Mr. McDowell. Hi, good evening. I'm Matt McDowell. I'm at 1540 Hermitage Court. First of all, it's wonderful to live in a community where it's nearly 11 o'clock and there are over 100 people here still in the room discussing a zoning policy. It's a unique place. Full city. I would encourage you all to vote against this proposal tonight. And there are just a couple of points. I don't want to rehash what's been said, but maybe just a couple of things. First of all, so much of the success of EHC would hinge on this idea that a less regulated free market will yield more affordable housing. And unfortunately, I think when we look at what other cities, you know, the experience of other cities, even the experience here, there's just not a lot of evidence to support the idea that an upzoning will yield some of the outcomes, I think, on which there's great agreement in the room. And the second element of EHC that troubles me is the fact that it is tailored so much toward one part of Durham, toward the urban tier. And it's the part of Durham that's already quite built up, unsurprisingly. And I wonder, a lot of us wonder why this discussion isn't part of a broader discussion about our schools, about our transportation, about our environment. And conveniently, we're already in the early stages of a comprehensive plan rewrite. I believe the last one, based on an earlier comment, was done in 2005. So we have a great opportunity. You've already heard some trepidation, even from folks who are generally supportive of EHC, you know, talking about, well, maybe it would be prudent to delay this for a year or something. We have an opportunity through the comprehensive plan rewrite to talk about how zoning fits with that plan and with so many other things that are important to Durham. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McDowell. Ms. Royster-Hills. I'm sorry. You have two minutes. Hi, my name is Jean Royster-Hills. I'm a transplant from New York. I came to Durham because it just got too expensive and I didn't want to grow old in New York. First of all, let me say that I understood what the gentleman was saying. Most of you, Mr. Mayor, to say that it was complicated because most of us did understand what he was saying. It was the way it was presented. Second of all, I want to say that I am the face of those people who are renting rooms in big apartment and houses because I pay over 50% of my social security for housing because I cannot afford to find, I cannot find decent housing. The word is decent housing that is affordable in Durham. I've been here 15, 15 years. No, I've been here nine years and the places that I have been able to afford I've picked up and moved out of because there's a certain element that I just do not and refuse to want to live with. So what I would, I see that the die is already cast for this thing that they're talking about because I see that when you get a lot and you divide it in half so you're selling both lots at double the money. So you're making your money and I already see that die is cast. I just want to say that I'm the face of the individual who cannot afford, have a decent affordable housing and I say that to say that it's going to get worse before it gets better. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Reister-Hills. We now have three more speakers who have signed up. Ms. Constance Wright Mr. Brian Burwell and Ashley Strom. Is there anyone else who would like to sign up to speak? Is there anyone else who would like to speak? If you would like to speak please come to the podium to my left and sign a card. This is a public hearing and I'll make sure every voice who would like to be heard is heard. Ms. Wright, welcome. Please give us your name and address and you have two minutes. Yes, my name is Constance Wright and I live at 2605 Middle Street and I am a lifelong resident of Durham. I've been here for 66 years and I have seen all kinds of changes. To me, and I'm not versed on all the EHCs and all of that, but to me Durham is pushing the people who have been here the longest and have done the most for this city you're pushing us out, okay? Every part of Durham that I've lived in is either gentrified or you're trying to take away part of it. You've taken away the Fever Street projects. You know, you're just taking everything away and like I say, gentrification is real. My friend lives on the street that the houses are like three, four hundred thousand dollars and they have lived there all of their life, you know but now they're getting ready to be pushed out. My taxes are going up my neighborhood is changing and everything is just not affordable and then the people who have been pushed out of the city, they are out in the outskirts. There's no transportation out there. You have to walk for miles to catch a bus to get to anywhere and I just wish that the city would at least look at everybody. You know, you've taken care of people who've never lived here. You make a room for people to come in here and move us out of our own place. So that's what I got to say. Thank you. Mr. Brian Burwell followed by Ms. Ashley Strom and that will be our final speaker. Hello, I'm Brian Burwell. I live at 106 Spring's Lane. I can't support the initiative as it's been proposed. We need something that will promote diversity of equity, not just diversity of neighborhoods. Explaining properties into smaller units and leaving the equity with this original owner only will delay the gentrification by lowering the rent initially but it will continue to rise and it does rise. It will push people further out into the units that are farther from where they want to be. I would have to say that part of the proposal should include at least the relinquishing of part of the divisions of the properties so that you can have new ownership and allow more people to have equity into the place they want to live. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Burwell. We're now here from Ashley Strom. Ms. Strom, congratulations. You're the final speaker. Thank you. I'm very excited, my heart. I'm so excited about this. I've been to City Hall multiple times about this. I've met in your Innovation Lab. We talked about housing displaced populations that are recently incarcerated. I've been speaking to Scott Harmon at Studio Center Architecture. I've been to City Hall multiple times. I'm currently a resident of 1222 North Miami Boulevard. I live on a double lot and I am $80,000 in student loan debt. And my husband and I have been together for four years and we have housed five people in our home sharing bathrooms and other associated things because I believe that people all deserve a great place to live. And not everybody is like us. Not everybody wants to share a bathroom with a other. I'm excited about this. I have a lot of stories here, especially with you, and you have to stay for free with your reptiles and bow constrictors and all that stuff. I've got a lot of stories about people living in our home. Wouldn't it be nice if I had the money to build an A to U in my back yard? I've met with contractors. I've met with tons of people. I don't have the money and it needs to come from a systemic place. and are probably gonna be paying on their student loans for the rest of my life and are delaying having children because my baby is my mortgage of a student loan every month. I believe in a future for my generation and for people who are like me and who are just trying to get a college education and make a way, but I don't foresee this being sustainable. So I appreciate you guys taking the steps to making sure that people who are young, people who are old and people who are everywhere in between have a safe, awesome place to live in Durham. So, thank you. Oh, yes. Thank you, Ms. Strom. Okay, I wanna thank everyone who's come out to speak tonight and I'm gonna declare this public hearing closed and then we will have now any questions, discussion and so forth from members of the council. Anyone like to start? Council Member Caballero. Yeah, and could Pat, could you come to the microphone because I have a lot of questions for you. Sorry. I know it's a late night already. I just wanna have some clarification on some of the things that I've heard which was this being able to get six units on a lot and that seemed to not, I think there was a version where we were looking at lot sizes more aggressively but in this current version there's only just a small lot size, it's 25,000. Right, so the specific yield from any lot would depend on the size of the lot and the zoning district that it's in but if you select the small house option, you could potentially get on an existing a lot of a minimum of 50 feet width, get six units. The maximum size of the primary unit on each lot would be 1200 square feet. So if it was a duplex it would be 600 square feet or 800 and 400. So you could yield potentially depending on the zoning district the size of the lot, six units from where there's currently one but the units that were yielded would have to be small units and essentially for lack of a better term affordable by design, meaning a maximum of 1200 square feet. Right, so I'm just trying to, so it's a, you can get there but it's not a likely outcome. I think it's unlikely in a lot of areas because existing high. Friends, excuse me a second. Everybody has been listening really respectfully to all the speakers and I'm gonna ask the folks in the audience to please afford everyone the same respect. Thank you. As I tried to allude to in my earlier comments that the economics are changed from block to block and across time. So it's any of the outcomes that are legal are possible but I believe that there are large portions of urban tier where land values are already very high and therefore it's somewhat unlikely that there's going to be that kind of conversion. It's possible, certainly possible and it almost certainly will happen somewhere. Thank you. So going along, so that was a question. What did you, what was your opinion and it changes from the planning commissions, I guess. June proposal and then hearing from some of our affordable housing folks around these technical assistance and financial assistance and then initially potentially holding off up to 12 months. Just curious about why staff moved away from some of those ideas. Sure, so I think I'm hearing three things there. Let me take the middle one first. I think was about the delay. Yeah. So something we've talked about a lot with the community as we've been out is that to the extent to which and several speakers alluded to this, the extent to which public and nonprofit funds are focused on using these provisions to produce affordable housing, it will be more effective at producing affordable housing. So, but there to my knowledge is not any current plan or program to ensure that alignment. We will certainly work with our partners and community development and OED and other departments to see if that can be created. I think we'll do that independently whether there's a deferred date of implementation. So that's something that we certainly support but we understand that there are competing needs for the bond proceeds for example and for our federal allocations. So we'll have to work through that with the administration and with our partner departments. As I said, tried to say earlier we're gonna do that regardless of whether there's a deferred date or not. And that same applies to technical outreach programs and community engagement. That's certainly warranted. There is some chance that although the per unit cost should go down because you can get more units, land values may go somewhat up. And so there could be increase in speculation and unscrupulous folks trying to buy property. So the extent to which we provide high quality information to the public is beneficial. I don't think that needs a 12 month deferral period but that's certainly you all's judgment. Thank you. In general, I just wanted to say that the material you all provided us was excellent. I definitely appreciated some of the shifts that I saw especially around their height requirements. I appreciated the nuance that you all applied there and in fact in some cases it's more restrictive under EHC than it is currently. And I think that that is actually aiding some of these very tall three-story houses that we are seeing that are actually already tear downs that we're seeing everywhere in their massive single family homes. So I really appreciate that. I also appreciated the work that you all did. Just clarifying some of the building within the infill was really helpful just seeing that it's back to context and understanding that better. I appreciated a lot of that. I appreciated some of the simplification especially like around the side yards where it's just more continuous depending on the housing type and it didn't look like before there was a lot more variations. So I think it will be a benefit to builders and developers because now it's just a more standardized process. So I just wanted to provide that feedback. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Council Member Caballero. Council Member Austin. Thank you. I mentioned a policy about the number of unrelated people allowed into one dwelling unit. Is that a part of this proposal? So Council Member Alston, it's not. One of the principles we tried to adhere to from the beginning was to not propose changes that are beyond the policy scope of the 2005 conference plan. And that limitation on households, unrelated individuals has been in place since late eighties, early nineties and carried through into 2005 comp plan. That being said, I think expanding that number of unrelated individuals would be a very significant way to improve housing access and affordability is something we would support but we want to pursue that under a different initiative concurrent with the comprehensive plan. That's helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Anybody else? Council Member Freyman. I just have a lot of questions and I'm recognizing this late in the evening and it would be nice to have this laid out in a format that was more like a chart. But the one question I keep playing back and it's based on some of the comments that I'm hearing. I think this is a lot of folks who are supporting and contingent on a lot of other things and I don't know that they're actually included in this conversation at all. And so it's worrying me that I think folks are misguided in their support if they think that it's gonna change unrelated, change or be actually included with the bond because there's been no conversation about that. If there has, I've missed it. And there were a few other things that have come up that I'm kind of like, it's 11 o'clock. Is there a specific reason why this has to happen now as opposed to next year when the comprehensive plan is being implemented? Is there something that pushes us to move within the next hour versus 12 months? I think that just that the housing, our housing accessibility and production problem is significant and is contributing to the lack of affordability and that everything we're proposing is consistent with policy guidance we've had in place for over a decade. I think those are the only two reasons. And I think I come back to the question, just based on where I was going earlier with the question around, if you missed the goal the last time with the plan, what's the likelihood of that being this, this time with the plan? And how do we factor in all of that so that we're not chasing our tail on the affordability because that is essentially what we're selling this as as a way to build affordability. And I'm still not seeing a connection because I recognize that increasing the number of units and what we're talking about at this point is about 300 over the course of five years with the help of development. So that's not even like any major, I'm missing something, because I mean folks are telling us that there's gonna be like this exuberant amount of units and we're talking about 300. So the 300 was the 2005 projection for the number of units we would need annually in the urban tier to meet our growth goals of the 2005 comprehensive plan. So we've been producing about 95 new units a year. We think if we can get that to 140 in the first year which is an increase of 45 over the average and then that number, the 140 would increase by 10% every year after that. Eventually we would get to 300. I think as I tried to allude to earlier after the policy document of the 2005 comprehensive plan was adopted, we the plan department did not take action to take implementing zoning regulations that realized the vision and that's what we're doing now 14 years later. And a year before the comprehensive plan would be looked at. Well, I think the conditions that we've tried to describe warranted, that's certainly a year of judgment. I'm gonna have a few questions. Yeah, sure, Council Member Middleton, please. Oh, if you want to. No, no, go ahead, go ahead. Thank you, sir. I know the hours upon us. The EHC on its face resonates with me. It resonates deeply. So did the Declaration of Independence and the GI Bill but we know that the devil is in the details. I am inclined to support it but I wanna put some caveats out there. Firstly, single family zoning is indeed a vestige of racism but simply removing that vestige of racism without cutting the check for all of the equity and all of the generational wealth that was generated over decades for people is not gonna address the problem. It's well-intentioned but the effect of those single family homes was wealth being passed down to Johnny and Jane over and over again and simply removing that without cutting the check is not really addressing the issue. I am concerned because the EHC may indeed address growth but who are we growing by? The folks that are coming to our city are coming $10,000 wealthier, the average person here. They've got more disposable income there, largely white, no problem with white folk. So my concern is that if we sell this, now if we put a bunch of folk in one place, that will indeed address growth but I have some questions and concerns about the affordability issue. I grew up around a lot of affordable dense housing. It was called the projects and a lot of folk lived there but the difference was that the affordability wasn't based upon the amount of space you had, it was location, location, location. So the same amount of space in Redhug, the old Redhug where I grew up, may be one price but you take that same amount of space in Brooklyn Heights and it's astronomically more because you can look out the window and see the Brooklyn Bridge or see at that time the Twin Towers. So if the urban tier is our Brooklyn Heights, if it's that desirable, I'm a little suspicious of leaning on the private market to yield affordability. Consider the forays that our city has had into affordable housing. 80 units at Jackson Street. I actually was part of the team that led the effort for Durham County to get it there. Look at how much money we spent. It was our land. We needed a low income housing tax credit to yield 80 units. Now we might do it again with the new police headquarters. We may have, we'll have 80 units, probably have 80 units of housing there. That's 160 total, that's the dent and that's what the government, the full weight of the government using all of our levers, all of our power, our land, our foray into the market will yield at best 160 units. And the affordable housing density bonus, what kind of track record, how successful have we been using that? So my question is, is that the only inducement that we have to private developers to develop affordability? I know they'll get more housing on the lot, but if you have a bunch of folk paying really, really high rents, not because they've got space, but because the neighborhood is desirable. Location, location, location, is what all my real estate friends always tell me. So it's quite possible that we'll have density of wealthy projects, no offense. Oh, right. Living, living, kind of like what we're seeing already. So much like the Declaration of Independence needed to be worked on in the GI Bill, needed some work in tweaking. If we pass this, I don't know if I trust having a report every year. I may want it every six months. Because, and we saw what the unintended consequences were with Southside when the government had a foray into that. Well intended, but we saw what happened. So I don't want to put gentrification on steroids and put gas in the engine. Because if the density bonus, which has not had a stellar track record, let's just be honest about it. If that's what we're counting on to induce private developers to make units affordable in the most desirable neighborhood in our city right now, when we've done it, we only got 160 units out of it for a whole lot of money. So if that's the only inducement, I want to be very careful that we don't oversell it to folk, particularly poor black people, once again, getting our hopes up, getting us all in our feelings. And then we do address growth. But what we've done is put a whole bunch of rich people on top of one another. But America is a promise to no ongoing conversation. So we have to keep working towards the Declaration. Have to keep working to make sure even well-intended things are executed well. So I wanted to say to my colleagues and to us up here, my vote is gonna be a yes vote, but we need to be very, very, very diligent and mindful and I will apologize if a year from now, two years from now, this does exactly what I've outlined the possibility of it. I don't trust the market to itself produce affordable housing. And if our only sword, our only quiver, our only arrow in the quiver is the density bonus, we don't have a great track record with that. So I would recommend that we look at this every six months rather than 12 months and that we be prepared as a body if we see, because we've seen this movie before, I come from a community that's been hurt before, if we see those trends that we've seen so many other places take place that we should be prepared to take corrective action, but I will support EAC. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. I have some comments. I am, first I wanna speak a little of the process that I really appreciate all the public input we've had on this for a long period of time. We've had a lot of people participate and I am just very grateful to all of you all on all sides of this who've been here and who have written us and have met with us and with each other. It's a great, the gentleman who said, it's great to live in a city where people are here at 11 o'clock now, 1117 at night, talking about zoning is absolutely right. This is a great exercise in democracy and whatever side of you this sea or a one, I'm grateful. We often are faced with very easy decisions and then sometimes we're faced with difficult ones, issues that have a lot of tangles to them and sides to them and this is one of those and so it takes a lot of work on our part as well as on yours. What I try to do in situations like this in my way of dealing with this is I try to listen through the whole process. Last night I sat down and wrote out some remarks and then what I try to do during the public hearing is really listen to see if there's anything that substantially, I've been listening for months and now is there anything at the end that really substantially challenges what I thought and I heard a lot of great comments tonight but nothing that's substantially challenged what I thought when I sat down last night to write so I wanna talk about that a little bit. First of all, I wanna just say to our staff, there's been some crisis in the process and I just wanna say very clearly to Pat and your staff that the level of outreach, the professionalism that you all have showed I think has been exemplary. That's been a, our agenda package for this meeting was absolutely terrific. It's really one of the best we've ever had in my eight years here and the public has been the beneficiary of this level of information including the survey, the research review which I thought was great to add to the agenda packet, the panel that, the public panel from Minneapolis, high level of outreach that you've done and I've heard criticism of the outreach but I don't agree with that. I think that the outreach has been substantial. I think you've engaged as well as we've, I think it's been a very, very high level of engagement and I'm not trying to get you to stand there Pat. I don't have any questions or things so if you want to you're good but. I am also satisfied with the staff's commitment to and I have very much confidence in their ability to successfully monitor the results of the EHC on an ongoing basis and report back to us annually or semi-annually, Council Member Middleton. And I agree that that monitoring is extremely important. The staff has said and many of you all have said that we don't really know all the exact consequences that are of any policy like this that we pass and so we are going to need careful monitoring and I think that that's going to be very important and I have very strong confidence in the ability of our staff to do that and in the desire of this Council to make that happen. So I'm going to be voting in favor of the EHC tonight and I want to tell you a little bit more about that. One issue that we've talked about a lot Ms. Pless and I really appreciated your efforts. You've been a fabulous advocate for your position and others have talked about the issue of the growth of our population. I'll just say simply that according to the census in 2014 our population was 251,000 and according to the census in 2018 four years later it was 274,000 and this is a growth of a little more than 8,000 people per year for the past four years. Certainly some of that is births but a lot of it is people moving in. The growth of our city and the lagging growth of our housing stock is indisputable and if you're poor and you live in Durham you're living that reality every day. We heard from a couple people, Ms. Royster Hills and others who talked about that reality. There is no question that our city is growing fast and that our housing stock is not keeping up with it and it is driving people farther and farther out of town in places that because where they have been living is less and less affordable. I'm glad to see in this proposal the additional housing types that will be allowed in cluster and conservation subdivision something we didn't talk about tonight but something that members of the council have been asking the department to review for some time and I'm grateful to see that you all have included that. I appreciate the tree requirements that are coming with the expanding housing choices. I agree with the planning commission and staff and others who have spoken here tonight that the three person rule is something that we need to discuss and I'll be looking forward to that discussion in the coming months. I appreciate planning commissioners George Brine's concern about the Airbnb growth in Durham and his fear that ADUs and other kinds of housing could be used predominantly for Airbnb. I think we need to keep a close eye on our Airbnb situation so we don't get in the situation that we know that our friends at Asheville are in where Airbnb's were badly hurting housing affordability. We aren't there yet as far as I know but this is something we need to keep an eye on and I appreciate his expression of that concern. I am and now I wanna talk why I am planning to vote for the staff's recommendation and why I'm enthusiastically in support of this. I have very much appreciated all the public input we have received. We have heard especially from folks in a couple of neighborhoods in opposition to EHC with very important concerns and I understand these concerns, especially the concern about additional tear downs that could be caused by expanding housing choices. What I see in response to that and I wanna say this very clearly because I think that that's a very, very, very important and valid concern is that we already have accelerating tear downs in Durham and that the houses that are being torn down are being replaced by large single family homes that are not contributing to the increased supply that we desperately need in the urban tier. I don't believe that EHC will significantly accelerate that trend and I do believe that EHC has important benefits that outweigh those concerns. I do agree that that needs to be monitored and we need to monitor that carefully but we are already seeing accelerating tear downs for large single family houses. We all know that. The staff says that EHC is quote, anticipated to aid in providing more affordable and attainable housing options end quote and I believe that that will occur over the long term. One of the things that the literature on this makes clear is that the filtering process that occurs with this kind of policy takes a long time. We can evaluate this in six months, we can evaluate it in a year but we're not gonna know the real results of it for some time. This is not an instant or quick process. I agree with staff that single family zoning in some in-demand neighborhoods does as they say, quote, set dominoes in motion causing displacement in other neighborhoods where housing is less expensive and newcomers can afford to outbid existing residents. Single family zoning in some in-demand neighborhoods sets dominoes in motion causing displacement in other neighborhoods. As long as we have exclusive single family neighborhoods in the urban tier like my own, we're going to have this cause and effect and that is not fair and it's not good for our city. On page six of the staff memo, the staff lays out what they call an aspirational goal of expanding housing choices. An aspirational goal of expanding housing choices is to make it possible, legal under the zoning ordinance, to build attainable market rate housing for middle income households which in turn may reduce economic displacement of low income households. Along with the increasing cost of labor and construction materials, zoning rules that require large lots, land is increasingly expensive and limit housing types makes it very challenging to build a housing unit that is market rate affordable or attainable for middle income home buyers. While developers will still build luxury housing if the market demands it, EHC aims to make it economically possible to build for middle income households by allowing smaller lots, more housing types and more flexibility with accessory units. An additional goal behind the proposals for accessory dwelling units and the option to subdivide to a small flag lot is to help existing homeowners who may have access land that they're willing to either build on or to subdivide to generate additional needed income. Building an ADU can provide rental income to help with mortgage payments or tax bills but can also be a complex and expensive process. Simplifying the approval process and providing access to financing mechanisms for middle and low income households is a next logical step. Subdividing the backyard into separate flag lot for a small house is an alternative to building an ADU and could offer the existing homeowner an opportunity to do access equity that they have tied up in the land allowing them to stay in place. That's what the staff wrote. And I think these are very important and very worthy goals that the staff has set out. Plus they are limited goals which take out, take into account, I believe the reality of what expanding housing choices can aspire to do. I appreciate these goals and the moderate, the moderate tone with which they are set forth. These are not set forth as goals that are, that are set forth as goals that are going to make instant change tomorrow that's huge. They're set out as goals that will be incrementally achieved and they are set out as goals that are modest and understand their limitations. And so those goals are to create more, the ability to have more housing for middle income families in what are now single family neighborhoods so that people who are moving here will have other choices and won't be driving up the prices in low income neighborhoods. And that is what is having now in our city. And that's what's causing enormous displacement and the increasing unaffordability of our city. I live in a historic district and I want to comment on the planning commission's recommendation which the staff did not adopt to exempt historic districts from the EHC. As the staff said in its response to this recommendation there will be no change with the adoption of EHC in the protections for historic districts through the certificate of appropriateness process or the ability to delay demolition. As I know only too well from some recent experience with trying to save some historic properties from the bulldozer calls that I have been making on behalf of Preservation Durham, the demolition delay is an imperfect solution that doesn't always work. That won't change for the good or the bad with the adoption of EHC. I strongly agree with the staff's decision not to exempt historic districts like the one I live in from these rules. I especially want to allow myself with a passionate and powerful comments of planning commissioner Santiago who spoke to us earlier today concerning the recommendation for this exemption. We have some planning commissioners in our city. Mr. Tom Miller, Mr. Al Turk, Mr. Nate Baker and others who often write stirringly and with incredible knowledge about important issues. And I really value the commentary of our planning commissioners but I have rarely read testimony like this from a planning commissioner, Mr. Santiago. You wrote at the end of a long essay and I quote, due to countless years of social injustices for communities of color related to housing, employment opportunities and education, to name a few. I would like to highlight how these studies observations over decades helps identify how we must be cognizant of the systemic issues that create and perpetuate the predicaments we find ourselves in today. By excluding local historically designated neighborhoods in the urban tier, I worry that we are voting to perpetuate systemic injustices. As mentioned earlier, the areas at greatest risk have continued to gentrify more rapidly and most importantly displacing long-term residents are largely communities that do not have this designation. This designation, the historic designation should not be exempted from EHC rules. He is exactly right. Exempting historic districts from the EHC would perpetuate systemic injustice, just as he has said. I want to address the planning commission's request for a 12 month delay in the implementation of EHC except for affordable housing developers. The commission gives three reasons for this proposed delay and this has been supported by the coalition for affordable housing and transit as well. First, they want to allow time for the city staff to develop a plan for low income homeowners to be able to finance ADUs. This is a very important and worthy goal and I'm very appreciative of the planning commission putting this concern forward as did the coalition. I want to point out that the financing for these ADUs is in the affordable housing bond that we'll be voting for in November. If you care about low income homeowners ability to finance ADUs, it is critical that you get out and vote for the bond on November 5th. At the same time, I believe that the good that the EHC will do over time to promote affordable housing means that we need to get started with it right now. It is important to have the tool to fund ADUs but that should not delay our decision to go forward with this important policy which on its own over time will increase housing affordability. The planning commission also recommended delay for 12 months so that the planning department could have time to set up a system of data collection and monitoring. I do not believe this delay is necessary to set up the system. That work has already begun as we know as the resolution we are being asked tonight indicates. And finally, the planning commission urged delay for more ongoing public input. Since they met, we have had more and more public. I'm very satisfied that we have a full, robust community conversation about expanding housing choices. I see no reason to delay this implementation. I have read not all perhaps but most of the articles that the planning staff has listed in the literature review and other articles that those of you all have sent to me as well. I have read Richard Rothstein's The Color of Law which includes a devastating critique of the way zoning laws, including single family only neighborhoods have deliberately discriminated against African-Americans who are effectively locked out of these neighborhoods by this zoning which created conditions which were impossible for these African-American residents to meet. Durham's own uneven ground project details this racist history in Durham. And Andrew Whittemore's research on every zoning decision in Durham over many, many years, every single zoning decision creates a devastating picture of how the creation of single family neighborhoods through zoning operated against African-Americans here in the city we love. Although there are some disputes within the literature, a consensus does emerge from this literature. That consensus is that the history of racism has driven the creation of these single family neighborhoods while other neighborhoods allowed much more varied housing as Whittemore has pointed out. The consensus is also clear that more market rate housing such as EHC would facilitate does not have near the effect on housing affordability that the production and preservation of subsidized affordable housing does which is why we have to pass the affordable housing bond if we want to make the biggest difference we can in housing affordability in Durham. But the consensus is also clear that the production of more market rate housing does hold down increases in rent across the city through the filtering process over time and it does take time. It isn't a quick fix. Finally, as the staff says, EHC isn't a silver bullet for housing affordability but it does help. As Baca and Lebevet say in the title of their article zoning reform isn't magical but it's crucial. I am proud to support this important step towards a fairer Durham and towards housing affordability. I'm appreciative of everyone who's come out to speak tonight and everyone who wrote to us on both sides of this issue and I look forward to monitoring results of EHC going forward should it pass tonight. All right, other comments or questions by other members of the council? Anyone else? Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just wanted to really a couple of thoughts and then respond to some of the other concerns that we've heard tonight. So no public policy can do everything that we need not in the housing space or in any other space and accordingly the EHC is not gonna do everything. It's not designed to do everything. We need many different tools and this is just one of those tools and it's designed to do one very specific thing and I think it's designed well and that's to help make room for people to live in our urban core where they can be closer to jobs, closer to schools, closer to transit and live a more environmentally sustainable lifestyle. I wanna be clear that I don't want people to feel like we are overselling what EHC can do. There are some things that we as a city government just cannot do at all and in the context of a private consumer market for housing that we especially can't do. So we're taking action within a range of very specific constraints that are dictated by state laws, by our economic system, by the system of housing that we have and we're trying to figure out how to make the best and most effective moves within that space. And as the mayor said, everything that we're already, everything that we're afraid of is already happening. I live in a neighborhood where we have already seen an incredible amount of displacement of people of color from my community. We have rising rents, it's already happening. We have tear downs. We have conversion of duplexes into single family homes and so we can't stop those market forces from happening. What we can do is act within the scope of what we are allowed to do as a local government to try to make the situation better. We can't stop the growth that we're experiencing at whatever rate we decide that we're experiencing it but we can provide better options. Again, in the hope of not overselling, I don't know if EHC will create more housing affordability. I hope that it will. I think there's strong evidence that it will but it's absolutely true that we cannot say that for sure. But what I do think that we can say for sure is that it will create more housing access and that that's also critical for the situation that we are in right now. The city has been rightly focused on affordable housing for a long time. We know that's a crisis and we continue to work really hard on that crisis. For example, with the affordable housing bond but and we're not only doing EHC, right? We're doing a lot more than that but we need more market rate housing too. We also have a shortage of market rate housing and that's also a critical piece of building a community where everybody can afford to live. Again, I'm not excited about a delay. I think if this is good public policy, we shouldn't wait. We should pass it now because we need it now and I believe it is good public policy. A couple of the concerns that people brought up that I just wanted to comment on around technical assistance. I agree completely that we need to make sure that we have technical assistance available for people who might wanna build an ADU or might want to figure out how they can subdivide their lot and either build something or sell their backyard for development. There is technical assistance available already through our development service center in the planning department. I'm working on, I live in a neighborhood that's already, that was redlined and it's already zoned for duplexes and in building a duplex and have gotten a lot of great assistance and the folks that I'm working with have already from the planning department so that's available. I'd be really excited about building some more specific assistance for people who wanna take advantage of the new EHC provisions. I think we should do that. Financing for ADUs is included in the five year housing plan that we're hoping to fund with the bond and so again, this is part of a larger package. It's not gonna do everything but with all these different tools combined I think we can really make a difference. Again, we talked a lot about the monitoring that's happening. I am really excited about expanding the number of people who can live in a single family dwelling and I'm glad that we're gonna be looking into that with a cop plan. Definitely agree with folks about parking minimums not being a great idea. I need to learn more about why we have them. I know that there are, in certain cases it's hard to get financing if you don't have parking but that's not necessarily a reason why we should have it in our zoning coach. I'm looking forward to having that discussion as well as part of the cop plan and with regard to the environmental sustainability questions we know definitively that infill is more sustainable than sprawl and if we are gonna grow we need to grow in as much as possible so I don't think that an environmental impact study for example would show us anything different. We need infill development. We need it in our urban core and we know that walkable, bikeable neighborhoods are always gonna be healthier and more sustainable in ones where you have to own a car to go anywhere. So I'll be supporting this proposal I'm looking forward to the opportunities that we'll have to continue to monitor implementation and make sure that it's doing what we wanna do but I'm confident in the opinions of our planning staff and in the reading that I've done that this is a good policy for Durham and that we should move forward with it tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. All right, if there are no more comments. I just have Council Member Freeman. I appreciate Mayor Pro Tem expanding on their framing around how you would support this proposed expanded housing choices solution and I agree on many of those, the way in the way it's framed. I agree on many levels but there are some caveats that I think we're not even discussing which should be on the table and mainly around if we're gonna go about addressing affordable housing in a way that's so loose we're gonna have to make sure that we're looking at how we're making a way to plant or setting forward a way to have a conversation around source of income and not being able to to discriminate against people who receive Section 8 vouchers essentially and also we are gonna have to have the conversation about how unrelated residents in a home like what folks are actually thinking should be involved in this conversation needs to actually be involved and it doesn't need to be surface and so I'm still concerned and I will be voting no. The context of setting up how the bond is set like the bond is the passage and this is how we're gonna get all of us through. I get it but the only way for this to work is for you to go forward with it and so I'm walking this walk and I'm going along with the ride but I mean I'm also in a neighborhood in a historic district that was designated specifically for a middle-class neighborhood where there were some where there was some people of color who own their homes and the ability to get those accessory dwelling units the ability to do all the things that we're talking about even the flag lots in areas where there is a extra space. These are all concepts that have been implemented by developers in our city and I don't see it, I just don't see it. I know you hold faith into it but I can't see it. And I hope that we'll continue the conversation because it's not done. All right, thank you, Council Member. All right, if there are no more comments, I'm sorry, Council Member Rawson, I apologize. And I think my colleague as well. Also, it looks like there are more comments, my bad. Sorry, I'll be relatively brief. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Expanding housing choices is a significant change to our zoning code. It's one that reflects a lot of work and expertise and courage on the part of our staff, one that has forced all of us to confront systemic racism, class bias. And it's also a change that will begin to orient us towards a more sustainable future, as described, I think very well by my colleague, the Mayor, Pertin. Expanding housing choices does a lot but it is also limited in its scope. It is tailored to address specific aspects of our code in specific residential areas. It's not intended as a substitute for our comprehensive plan revision or our affordable housing goals. And because of that, this proposal does not mark the end of our work together to address other issues with land use, transportation, environmental demands and concerns that will still exist even if we pass expanding housing choices tonight. We are and will continue to aggressively prioritize affordable housing, including historic levels of investment if our residents do support the $95 million housing bond this November. Adequate and sustainable development in our suburban tier to respond to our growth in transit oriented development here and across our region. These are not just our goals, they're our responsibilities. And I just wanna say to you all that I intend to continue to excuse me to work aggressively on those issues. And I hope that we as a council and our staff and our community can work on those issues together. And I also look forward to a voting in favor of the expanding housing choices tonight. Thank you, Councilor Rosha. Council Member Caballero. Thank you. I also will be brief. I just wanted to say I will be supporting expanding housing choices this evening. I think that thank you for everyone who was here this evening. I hear the concern from community. I also recognize that this is incremental as was stated by our planning director Pat Young. We failed in 2005 and we're in 16 years of a failure. These are changes that should have happened earlier to meet our housing goals and we've only added more residents. I also wanna highlight many of the folks who came out and share their personal stories of being small developers, small homeowners that are willing to, are already thinking about ways that they can improve their land to allow for more units. And I think that what we miss in a lot of this is the more restrictions that we create, the harder it becomes for the smaller developers to even play in the sandbox. And so what's left are only very, very large developers who have the capital to come into Durham and actually develop. And something like expanding housing choice opens that up. It allows more local development and I believe we will have a better product and better partners in that work, which is another reason that I'm supporting it. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Reis, I guess you're the last person in the... Who me? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. One of the great things about going last is that everything's been said but not everybody's had a chance to say it. And so I'm gonna try to avoid that tonight by saying first of all, I wanna thank everyone who stuck with us tonight until almost midnight on a Tuesday night. It's a testament to the passion that people have for our city and how we decide to grow that folks care that much about. What I think most people would agree is a fairly arcane set of text amendments to the UDO, if the UDO weren't already arcane enough. I also wanna say that I can't make a case for expanding housing choices any better than Mayor Steve Shull did just a little bit ago. And so I'm not gonna try. I tend to support the measure tonight for all the reasons that he said, along with Mayor Pro Tem, Council Member Alston, Council Member Caballero. But what I wanna spend my time lifting up were the more cautionary remarks made by Council Member Middleton and Council Member Freeman. I think their call to action tells us that tonight's vote has to be the beginning of this process. It cannot be the end. I take from their remarks that the passage of this item emplaces upon this city and this city council a special obligation to make sure that we do it right, that we find a way to cut the check, Council Member Middleton, that we find a way to encourage landlords to accept housing choice vouchers and not to discriminate on payment methods that we find ways to connect low income property owners with the financing they need to make use of these amendments. But I think right now, today, we have many friends in the community of developers that work on affordable housing, that build affordable housing, who have told us without the passage of these amendments, we can't do as much good work in the communities we want to do. And while the bulk of expanding housing choices will operate in the manner that the mayor said, I do wanna just also lift up those folks who came to us tonight and said that they want to be able to continue to produce small projects that are affordable for folks. And I think that's also worth lifting up. But mostly I just wanna say that this, as I said, cannot be the end of our process. We have to remain focused. We have to be vigilant. I love the fact that Council Member Middleton wants to get reports every six months because I think that's exactly right. We need to know what the impacts of this are in the communities that it will impact. And so for that reason and with the mindfulness and intention that Council Member Middleton and Council Member Freeman, that their remarks suggest, I believe we have that obligation and we should live up to it. But I intend to vote yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much, Council Member Reis. Are there any more comments by members of the council? I just wanna say how much I appreciate serving with each of you on a night like this where we get such thoughtful comments from everyone, much appreciated. Alrighty, do I hear a motion to adopt the appropriate consistency statement as required for NCGS 168-383? So moved. Second. So moved and second that we adopt consistency statement. Madam Clerk, will you please open the vote? Will you please close the vote? And the motion passes six to one. Thank you. Is there a motion to adopt an ordinance amending the UDO? So moved. Second. So moved and second that we adopt the ordinance amending the UDO. Madam Clerk, please open the vote. Please close the vote. And the motion passes six, one. And Madam Clerk, would you please, I'm sorry, we're not there yet. Do we have a motion to adopt a resolution regarding the development reporting of metrics for expanding housing choices? So moved. Second. So moved and second to adopt the resolution regarding the development reporting of metrics for expanding housing choices. Madam Clerk, please open the vote. Please close the vote. Motion passes seven, zero. Thank you so much. I believe that is the last business to come before this body and I'm declare this meeting adjourned at 1151.