 Just take a moment of solid meditation, please. Thank you. Some of you may have noticed as you came into the council this evening that there was a brief ceremony, a flag raising ceremony. And what I'd like to ask if the Liedem family, if they are still here, there was that put this before us. You mind coming to the microphone here? We're going to have the children to recite the pledge. We're pulling the microphone down, if you don't mind. While we are, let's please rise. Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I should have given a little bit more of an explanation. Some things we take for granted. One of the things that I can't say we took for granted, but we just hadn't focused on, was the fact that we have a city flag. But somehow that flag wasn't being primarily displayed. And it was brought to our attention by the Liedem family that, you know, why don't you have more flags of the city displayed? And we said, you're right. So this evening, we had the flag raised this evening out in front of City Hall. But as I understand it, there are going to be flags among the 11 city buildings. And I'm going to turn it over to Lord, if you will introduce the family and make the presentation. All right, Mr. and Mrs. Liedem, thank you again for your inquiry about the flags. As Mayor Belger said, we will be, as a result of your inquiry, we will be raising flags at 11 additional facilities. Derek and Morgan, on behalf of the City Manager's Office and the Department of General Services, because of your inquiry, we would like to present you and your family with the city flag, city of Durham flag, for your own use and flying pleasure. And thank you for helping us, the city, to show our city pride. Thank you so much. Thank you. I just wanted to thank the council for acting on our observation and inviting us here tonight for the flag raising ceremony. Again, I would ask the clerk if she would call the roll, please. Present. Mayor Pro Tem Cole McFadden, and I support that. Council Member Davis, Council Member Johnson, Council Member Moffitt, and Council Member Shul. Council Member Reese has an excused absence. Thank you. Well, this evening, we have a very special resolution that we want to present. As probably most, if not all of you, know that we recently asked one of our colleagues who served over 30 years on the Durham City Council on Howard Clement. And what we'd like to do this evening is to present a resolution recognizing the services of Howard. And I can ask of his wife, Annie, and the family members who would join me. This is a resolution on memorializing A.J. Howard Clement III. And we're joined with some of his fraternity brothers, Alpha Phi Alpha, and other friends. It speaks to us Howard Clement was born in Cleveland, North Carolina, Rowan County, on March 12, 1934, to the late Arthur J. Clement and Erwin Robinson Clement. When it was in 1955, Howard Clement graduated from Howard University with a degree in political science and history. And in 1960, he graduated from the Howard University School of Law with a bachelor's of law degree. He was on March 1, 1961, to December 31, 1991. Howard Clement was employed with North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company. He was Howard Clement joined thousands across the United States with the March on Washington, featuring the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on August 28, 1963. As he listened to his I Have a Dream speech, he represented a defining moment which stirred Howard into making a commitment to becoming more intimately involved in the life of his community. Whereas after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a group called the Black Solidarity Committee for the Community Improvement was formed to challenge the resultant anger into positive and meaningful action. And Howard Clement served as chair, which was quite successful in obtaining better housing, employment, and recreational opportunities. And as a result of the action of this organization, many changes were made in Durham, including the formation of the First Durham Human Relations Commission, whereas in August, 1977, he was appointed to serve in the North Carolina House of Representatives, where he served until 1979, and whereas Howard was formally married to Dolores Williams Clement, now deceased for 41 years. And to that union, they were blessed with three children, Irma, Sandra, Marcella, and three grandchildren, some of them are here with us today. Whereas Boy Scouts was an active part of the Howard Clement daily routine, he was the first African-American to chair the Durham District of Boy Scouts. As a result of his relationship, the Okonichi Council of Boy Scouts of America granted him its highest award, the Civil Beaver Award in 1982. Whereas Howard Clement was a member of St. Titus Episcopal Church, and served as treasurer, vestibule member, licensed lay member, second, Chancellor's Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina member, Chair of the North Carolina Episcopal Foundation, and Chair of the Diocese of North Carolina, 83, Howard Clement was appointed to the Durham City Council to fill the unexpired term of Council on Macyl K. Sloan. He was elected to the Durham City Council for a four-year term in November 1985, having served 30 years of dedicated service and commitments as Council Member and Mayor Pro Tem to the City of Durham and Citizens of Ward 2. City Council leased on to the Durham Housing Authority and the Citizens Advisory Committee, member of the Durham Chapel Hill Study Group, Chairman of the Passage Vehicle for Higher Committee, Chairman of the Torn Committee, delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1992, the 12th congressional, second congressional district, to just name a few, whereas Howard Clement was honored on Saturday, September 18th, 2010 at the Durham Marriott Convention Center. A celebration of his life and proceeds went to the Howard Clement Scholarship Fund, whereas Howard's civic affiliations were many, such as member of the Board of Directors, Durham Chapter of American Red Cross, Operation Breakthrough, Habitat for Humanity, and the Durham Public Education Network, Durham Rotary Club, Co-Chairman of the Crime Cabinet, Life Member of the NAACP, and et cetera, whereas Howard Clement was a Life Member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated Member of the A.S. Hunter-Lars, number 825 Prince Hall Masons, and Alpha Tall Boulez Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, and whereas from March the 1st, 1961, up to his passing, A.J. Howard Clement III played an intricate part to the revitalization of the City of Durham, and whereas he now leads to chair his memories, his loving and current wife of nine years, Annie Jones Clement, and many relatives and counselors and friends, and now, therefore, it be resolved by the Durham City Council, one, that the City Council pauses in a moment of silence in memory of A.J. Howard Clement III, two, that this governing body paid tribute to his life and contributions by observing this great humanitarian leader, that this resolution be spread upon the official minutes of the governing body, that a certified copy of this resolution be presented to his wife, Annie Jones Clement. And it's signed by myself as mayor of the City of Durham, and Ann Brady, duly city clerk of the City of Durham, North Carolina, who did by certifying that the above resolution, true and accurate copy, adopted by the Durham City Council, and its regular meeting held on Monday, June 6th, 2016. Again, with my hand, the Corpus Cedar Durham, North Carolina, this is the sixth day of June, 2016. And I'm gonna present this to Annie, and just let me say, for those of you who may, I did have an opportunity to do that. He could have not found a more caring and loving person to be by his side. I mean, I visited him in the hospital a few times in his home, and he was blessed indeed to have Annie beside him throughout this whole ordeal. And I'm gonna present this to Annie, and I think she has someone that she wants to speak on her behalf. Good evening, everyone. On behalf of the Clement family, Mrs. Clement would like to thank you for the resolution for her husband, father and grandfather, Arthur John Howard Clement III, also served in the body, in this body, as a former city council for over 30 years, of which he was most proud. To his children, he was just daddy, and Papa C. And to his grandchildren, he was granddaddy, and granddaddy C. We will miss him. I know I will. By now, he is saying the three be worse, be seen, be brief, and be seated. Thank you. Hello, I'm Sandra Clement Daniels. I'm daughter number two. I just want to thank the city council, as well as the citizens of Durham. On behalf of the Clement family, we really appreciate the outpouring of love and support we've received over the past two weeks. This has been a very difficult time for us, but we know that my father is no longer suffering. And again, thank you very much. And let me say this, if you all want to leave, feel free to do that. I'm not asking you to leave, but I know you came for a special purpose, so. Let me ask if there are comments by members of the council. I'll make one comment. I received an email last week, bringing to my attention that Hillside High School graduates had received almost $18 million in scholarships. I think that's something to be applauded for. If there are no comments, move to prior to items first by the city manager. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everyone. Priority items for the manager's office this evening, agenda item number 43, sewer only extension agreement with Samuel and Amanda Darer to serve 549 Continental Drive as a supplemental item that has been added to the agenda. And I'd also ask that public hearing items 38, 39, and 40 be moved up the agenda to immediately follow the public hearing item number 29. Thank you. You've heard the city manager's prior items, entertain a motion on the item. It's been properly moved. The second, Madam Clerk, we open the vote. Close the vote. Recognize the city attorney. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, no priority items. Likewise, City Clerk. In that case, we'll move with the agenda. Recognize Councilman Schewel. Mr. Mayor, thank you. I'm not sure when the appropriate time is for this, so I'm gonna ask your, for your guidance. Item, I know there are a lot of people here for item 31, zoning map change for Cornwallis Road property and the attorney for the neighborhood had a death in his family and has not been able to attend to the needs of his client in this period of morning and has asked that we delay this for two weeks. And I think that is a very reasonable request and would like to recommend at the appropriate time that we do that. But I was thinking since people are here and it might be a long night, we might wanna act on that whenever you think is appropriate. Let's do it. When the item comes, I'll move quickly through the consent agenda items and I'll jump to that. I'll finish the consent agenda. The consent agenda items may be approved single vote. If a council member or a member of the audience asks for a consent agenda item to be removed, it will be removed and we discuss that later in the agenda. And I just read the heading of each one of the consent agenda items. Item one is approval of city council minutes. Item two is the Durham Sports Commission appointments. Item three is the Durham City County Environmental Affairs Board reappointment. Item four is the Human Relations Commission appointments. Item five, the Citizens Advisory Committee appointments. Item six is the Durham Open Space and Trails Commission reappointment. Item seven is the Durham Board of Adjustment reappointment. Item eight is controls of the lethal and less lethal weapons and ammunition performance audit, March, 2016. Item nine is the City County ICMA Local Government Management Fellow Interlocal Agreement. Item 11 is adopt the resolution approved in 2016 Eno Hall Hazard Medication Plan. Item 13 is an item that can be found on the general business agenda. Item 14 is roof replacements at Lake Mickey and Little River Dam. Item 15 is amendment one to contract for utility easement maintenance tree removal, SR 62, 2015. Item 16 is East Main Street Waterline Replacement Project. Item 17 is resolution approving the applications of the local government commission for the issuance of water and sewer utility system revenue bonds. Item 18 is April 2016 bid report. Item 19 is annual property casual insurance plan, FY17. Item 20 is a resolution designated Durham NCAB City, USA. Item 21 is land lease between the City of Durham and New Singular Wireless PCS LLC. Item 22 is construction manager at risk guaranteed maximum price amendment for site demolition and abatement and soil remediation with Lynn lease US Construction Inc. and pre-qualification procedures resolution for the police headquarters complex. Item 23 is an off-counter department commerce one North Carolina fund grant project ordinance FY 2015, FY 2018 for the Willow Tree Inc expansion. Item 24 is agreement with the US Geological Survey for the study of urban stream nutrient loads and recommended monitoring methods for Durham North Carolina city streams. Item 26 is 2016 street repairs and repaying project ST-280 contract award. Item 26 of the amendment number three to the contract between the City of Durham and King Management LLC for management of the city own yard waste and compost facility. Item 29 through 40 items that can be found on the general business agenda is public hearings. Item 42 is purchase of a cloud based learning management system for the City of Durham from Cornerstone on demand Inc. That concludes the consent agenda items and take the motion for the approval of the consent agenda items. So moved. It's been properly moved and second Madam Clerk, we open the vote. I'm sorry, recognize. I can pull 22. 22 was construction management at risk guaranteeing maximum price amendment for site demolition, abatement of soil, remediation of land lease, construction, Inc. and pre-qualification procedures, resolution for police headquarters complex. Was there another item that needed to be pulled? If not, then entertain the motion for approval of the similar agenda items with exception of item 22. So moved. It's been properly moved and second. Madam Clerk, we open the vote. You close the vote. We pass the 6 to 0. The general business agenda, let me take point of personal privilege to move to item 31 and recognize Councilman Schultz. Let me say that the proper way to do this is to continue the public hearing. Open the public hearing and then continue so. And this is the zoning map change corner on this road property. 2 Z15, 0, 0, 0, 3, 1. Is your microphone on? It's not working. The motion is, if close the doors, please. Can you close the doors? The motion is to continue, we've opened the public hearing, is to continue the public hearing on item 31, which is zoning map change, Cornwallis Road, Procuret 2, Z15, 0, 0, 3, 1 until our meeting on the second two weeks from now, which would be the meeting on June the 20th at 7 o'clock p.m. That's the motion that was second and can we open the vote now? Can you open the vote? Close the vote. It passes six to zero. Thank you. Let me say again, for all of you who signed up to speak for 31, unless you're interested in hearing the rest of the council meeting, you're free to leave if you like to do that because we're trying to get space and et cetera. If you can leave quietly, you don't have to leave. If they're quick, yeah. Okay. We're going to proceed and the city manager had a prior item that he'd asked to be moved up. We're gonna move those items up to now and it's 38, 39 and 40. Item 38 is modification of city of Durham's removal of trash and underdrove from property ordinance and abandoned hazardous and junk vehicle ordinance and periodic inspection and registration of rental dwellings. Mayor and city council, my name is Faith Gardner. I'm the housing code administrator in neighborhood improvement services and I would like to make a brief overview presentation of the proposed modifications to some of the ordinances our department enforces. If you have any questions during, please feel free to ask them. Listed are the ordinances that neighborhood improvement services enforces. These codes and ordinances set and govern safety and sanitation standards for structures and environmental spaces as well as promote livability. A quick review, this is a list of our modification process. What is important here is that we had two community input sessions which were critical to getting feedback from a variety of stakeholders. I'll present an overview of the proposed modifications for each ordinance and then talk about what kind of feedback we receive. The ordinances under consideration this evening for modification are the periodic inspection and registration of rental dwellings and the associated registration fees. This is sometimes known as PRIP. We're also looking for modifications to removal of trash and undergrowth from property and the ordinance governing removal and disposition of abandoned vehicles, hazardous vehicles and junked motor vehicles. The periodic inspection registration of dwellings, we're requesting the deletion of the residential rental property registration section in its entirety as well as the deletion of the associated fees. In consideration of this, the scope of the registration is restricted by state statute. We, since the ordinance was passed in 2012, we have not implemented this section. We feel it would be an inefficient use of staff resources. And our focus is compliance. Our goal is compliance, not punitive action and the majority of cited properties are brought into compliance within the enforcement timeframe. We did not receive any negative feedback for this proposed modification. The next item before you is the removal and disposition of abandoned vehicles, hazardous vehicles and junked motor vehicles. We're asking to amend the definition of junked motor vehicle to include vehicles with an apparent value of up to $500 from the previous $100. This is simply an alignment with the current North Carolina state statute. Removal of trash and undergrowth of property. We had a number of considerations when presenting these proposals. One is to modify various sections of the ordinance for clarity and strengthening of the code. We've also requested some additions to address community concerns. These include appliances stored outdoors, rags and other cloth items in front yards or on front porches and the maintenance of front yard vegetable gardens so that folks will keep the weeds down. These community concerns have been expressed to us through multiple requests for service, individual concerns and in response to the most recent resident survey which showed a decline in satisfaction related to enforcement of undergrowth and trash and debris ordinances. And this is in spite of maintenance and a slight increase actually in cases cited. We would also like to propose modification of a couple of sections for process improvement and efficiency. This includes having posting of the property as the primary form of owner notification and to allow cancellation of nuisance abatement liens when the property is used for affordable housing. The housing code already allows for cancellation of demolition and stabilization liens in these circumstances. The considerations and community input for the more significant modifications proposed are the reduction of maximum grass height from 12 inches to 10 inches. All our feedback we received was positive. And when benchmarked against other North Carolina cities, the height range is eight to 12 inches with the majority of cities requiring a maximum height of between eight or 10, not between just eight or 10. Removal of appliances outdoors, responses were positive. We did have one concerned response regarding the limiting of cloth items hung in front yards or on front porches. Some residents will hang clothes out to dry in the yard. We're very sensitive to that concern, but feel that this activity is best limited to a less public location such as a backyard. I wanna skip to the last item in this list for a minute. That's owner notification of violation or service to an owner. We're proposing that posting of the property be the primary notification to owners and mail notification be secondary. North Carolina statute does not address or limit notification requirements for this type of municipal ordinance and we would like to simplify our process. Concerning mowing and cleanup of grassy strip and other right-of-way areas adjacent to private property. This section is a modification of existing text now in the housing code. We have clarified the text and included grass height and overgrowth limitations in the right-of-way. These issues are more appropriately located in this trash and overgrowth ordinance for consistency and efficiency of enforcement. General Services, a frequent partner with Neighborhood Improvement Services in addressing these issues strongly supports the proposed modification. The feedback on this proposal was primarily positive, but some people feel that the city's, it is the city's responsibility to keep these areas mowed. Faith, excuse me, in the interest of time, I know the council's seen the photographs and we can skip those and just see if there's any questions, or any closing comments you wanna make. Okay. Thank you. So we have some photographs, but I'm glad to answer some questions. I just wanna comment. There is one business shown here and it's not there right away that's in the picture. So I noticed there was one sign and it's the adjacent property. Recognize Councilor Schultz. Faith, I just wanted to comment on the, I see we're changing the registration and of course I have no problem with that and I know that's bringing us into compliance with state law, but I just wanna thank you and congratulate you and Constance and NIS for the work you've done on the proactive rental inspection program. If my memory serves, I think we inspected about 2,500 houses last year and for those of us who care about affordable housing, this is a tremendous tool we have to keep our private stock of affordable housing decent and make it good housing for people to live in and you all do a tremendous job. And I also wanted to say I really appreciate that you're changing the what you've done with the abating the liens in case when that can be converted to affordable housing, when that unit can be converted to affordable housing, I think that's a great change and wanna thank you for that. So much appreciate your work. Thank you, Steve. Thank you and the Council for supporting us. Let me recognize Councilwoman Johnson. Before I do have a couple of questions for you Faith, but I wanted to ask you Mayor Bell, there are a number of empty seats in the audience here since folks have left and there seem to be a lot of people waiting outside. I was wondering if we could allow some more folks to come in from the audience. Okay, let's move to other comments on this. Yeah. You can still speak into the microphones. They're working for the air just not in the room. I had a couple of questions. First, I wanted to say that I'm really glad about the removal of overgrowth from neighboring lots onto sidewalks provision that's in this. This has been a problem in an elementary school in my neighborhood where several of the lots are wooded and the debris from the lots fall onto the sidewalk and make the sidewalks impassable. And so having that being able to enforce that so that property owners remove that from their sidewalks I think will help a lot. I had a question about one about the clothesline provision. Having clothesline, there was a statement that the clotheslines need to be not in the front yard or in a street, like on a street. There are houses where the backyard is also on a street. And I was wondering if those folks would be able to allow to have clothing in their backyard or if they would be prevented from hanging clothes outside at all under this ordinance. And my other question was about the furniture outside, inside furniture outside. I've had a couple of people ask me why we regulate this and I know in the ordinance it's stated that these items are subject to deterioration but this is the only example that I could find where we have a preemptive ban on something before it becomes a problem rather than after. And so I was wondering if you could explain the rationale for that. Thanks. So in terms of the clotheslines in the backyard, we've written the ordinance in such a way that it talks about street yard. So if it's a yard that is open to a street, we certainly can address through policy so that every owner has an opportunity to have a place to hang their laundry out to dry. So if the backyard is also against a street, then we can address that through a policy within the department. Second is to address the indoor furniture on the outdoors. This was in direct response. We originally adopted this ordinance in direct response to citizen request, resident request. And it addresses the issue of the deterioration and the safety concerns possible infestation, particularly of upholstered furniture that's left outside. So I guess I feel like that doesn't completely answer my question of why we preemptively ban furniture that's in good condition but is considered to be indoor furniture being outside as opposed to after it becomes a problem, then have a citation process. Again, it was originally adopted in response to citizen concern and the deterioration process can happen very rapidly when things are exposed to the weather and left outside. So for instance, we might cite the deterioration of houses siding, but that deterioration process is relatively slow, but the deterioration of say, a couch or an upholstered chair left out in the weather would be a fairly rapid deterioration. Once it's rained on, it becomes a problem. Does that conclude your questions? Let me raise one other point, just a clarification. I know there are certain public housing developments where they have clothes lines. Other people are hanging their clothes now, assume that they will not be impacted by this particular regulation. That's correct. Okay, that's just a clarification. I recognize the city manager. I'm fine, Mr. Mayor. All right, any other questions? This is a public hearing. Let me ask, does anyone who wants to speak on this item, either for or against, or has comments? Let's reflect no one asked to speak in the public. Someone raise their hand. I see you pointing. Mr. Chavis. All right, James, you want to come? Good afternoon, Mayor and City Councilor. Two of them I'm going to speak of, because I- Could you just state your name? Yeah, my name is James Chavis. I stay at 2813 Ashbury Apartment B in the Eastern Area. One of them is, and I'm a four of a housing, but I'm against the policy of removing the lien. And the reason why I'm against removing the lien is because the city is not going to remove or lower the price of the land for the poor of a housing. And I'm going to give you an example of that. You have giving, they have given, rather, and I got a copy, I didn't bring it because I didn't think it was going to come up. Habitat, the right to remove a $40,000 lien against two properties in each dorm or on-street. Okay? Now, but they only going to give the schoolbook $5,000 for those two properties. Looking at the value just for the land of those properties is at $16,000. But when they get ready to sell it, they're going to make a grand profit off of it because the city will not let them reduce the land value of their house down to $2,500 for each of those houses. If I'm incorrect, please let me know. So who's making the profit? Habitat. And you're saying you're going to make these houses affordable. But Habitat said they're not making any money. I'm not talking about the building of the house. I'm talking about the property value. Okay? Now, if the land is going down to only the school, they're going to give the donation to the school of $5,000 for these two lots. That means that when you divide those two lots in half, it's only going to be $2,500. The bulk value down in the county says about $16,000. Habitat is going to sell both of those land value at that property because the city of Durham is not going to reduce it down. So Habitat is going to charge the owners only $13,500. Now, who's making the profit? The city is not getting that money and it's not having the taxpayers as well. So why are we giving away without being helped? You are trying to raise taxes, but you're also refusing to help the taxpayers. That's my first and I want to complete answer on that one. The second one is you're talking about forcing taxpayers to pay high taxes as you raise up again, but you're also making them slave workers. Now, what you call slave worker? Ms. Jody, you just gave an example. The property in front of that home does not belong to the homeowner. It belongs to the city of Durham. So the city of Durham should be creating jobs and still trying to make hormones become what slave workers because if they do not clean it up, they will be fine. Is that right for a citizen to be fine, but for not cleaning up the city's work that they pay taxes for? Thank you. We're going to refer your questions to the administration and they'll have a response for it. Is anyone else that wants to speak? This being a public hearing. If not, let the director, no one else has to speak. I'll close the public hearing as a matter of fact before the council. Actually, you need to check. Adopt the orders. I move that we approve the ordinance. Angels. Is that enough? It's been proper to move in a second and refer the questions. Recognize Councilwoman Johnson. Okay, I missed you, come on. And let me do this. Let's limit the comments to three minutes because just state your name and address, please. Sure, my name is Danielle Purifoy. My address is 1505 Duke University Road. Well, I just wanted to address, as Councilwoman Johnson was addressing the issue with the clothesline and the issue with the inside furniture outside. This is admittedly the first time that I'm hearing about this ordinance today. So I have some questions about it, but I'm assuming that failure to comply with these things, even if the citation process is, takes a while. There's some sort of financial citation or financial penalty for disobeying these ordinances, right? Am I, is that correct? I'm sorry, I just, it's a question. Okay, sure. Well, my question is about the penalty for not complying with these laws is some sort of financial penalty. Is that correct? Erin, and we want everybody to get answers to questions. You asked a question. This is a very quick question. You asked a question. I'm going to ask the administration to respond to that. Okay. Mayor and City Council, this is Faith Gardner. There is penalties and fines associated when violations are not corrected. However, there is a period of time once the property owner is notified of a violation. They have in this case, 10 days to resolve it. They also have an opportunity to contact staff and ask for an extension of time to correct the violations, if that's appropriate. And then after that, there is a, the property case is turned over to our impact team. The impact team will bring the property into compliance doing whatever the property was cited for. There is a $250 administration fee associated with that plus the cost of the remediation, which is then applied as a lien against the property. So I really think that that's a problem, right? I mean, the kind of fees that you're charging, first off, I'm just really unclear about like why this is something that the city really feels the need to regulate people, you know, pulling furniture from the inside, outside on their porch to enjoy because ostensibly maybe they can't afford the, to go buy like lawn furniture, right? And then to tax them in that way, to penalize them in that way, just seems really unduly harsh. And again, as someone who's just heard about this today, it just seems really punitive and seems to be targeting people who may not have that sort of, those sort of finances to begin with. So that's my comment on that. Thank you. Thank you. That's the last person that asked to speak on this item, that motion was made and seconded. I'm going to call the question, Madam Clerk, we open the vote. Open the vote. Close the vote. It passes six to zero. Thank you. Well, we thought we would make it some time by jumping to these items that the manager recommended. Let's see if we can go in 39, let me give you the order. We're going to do 39, 40, then we're going to jump back to 13 because that was the general business agenda item. And then we're going to start the public hearings. Mayor Bell, members of the council, my name is Chris Stickey from the Office of Economic and Workforce Development. Before you, what you have is a incentive grant request, migrant property to LLC as applied for a neighborhood revitalization grant incentive. What they do, they propose to renovate an underutilized and blighted building at 2201 Andrew Avenue, which is located along an OED target commercial corridor in Northeast Central Durham. The plan is to redevelop a 1200 square foot gas station into a 1600 square foot adaptive reuse commercial property. The proposed project will produce 359,000, 380,000 in private investment with the city investing $100,000. The initial recommendation, the initial request was for $160,000 from the applicant, but the Office of Economic and Workforce Development has only recommended $100,000. The projected impact of this particular project, it's gonna potentially create approximately seven new jobs. It's going to create an outdoor slash indoor eatery that promotes the increased likelihood of a walkable neighborhood in this particular community. It's a part of an implementation plan in 2006. Council approved a neighborhood assessment plan, and this is one of the buildings that was identified that was abided and could use city dollars to make it better. And in addition to that, Council recently spent about $3 million investment to improve Andrew Driver Avenue, and this particular project would compliment what the city has already spent in that particular corridor. We'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. This is a public hearing. Let me first ask other questions by members of the council. We do have one person to sign up to speak on this item. The question by members of the council. Here and now, and I'm gonna call on Mr. Ait and Graham. To my right, and you have three minutes, Mr. Graham. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, City Council. And I apologize, I actually just found out about this proposal today, so I don't have prepared remarks. But I did wanna take the opportunity to get up and say, given that this is a budget hearing that will be discussed later today, it's a perfect opportunity to get an understanding of the city council's priorities. And as several council members know, I've been working hard with several people who are here today to fund and push for a neighborhood stabilization program in the neighborhood where this project has been proposed. And I have deep concern with the little bit that I understand, and looking at the proposal today, that what it looks like to me is actually a gentrification project that is going to further contribute to the displacement of the folks who are living in the neighborhood. And so, while I applaud the Office of the Economic and Workforce Development on the attachment of pushing for living wage jobs and access to jobs for folks in the community, it doesn't seem appropriate to me that we would fund such a project with $100,000 that could go to keeping long-term residents in their homes, just to create seven jobs where I'm not actually clear, I don't see any plan about how neighborhood residents are gonna access those jobs, what they're gonna make. And so, I stand up today just to urge council some patience. It doesn't seem to me like it makes sense to rush pushing such an investment through, but potentially to ask the people who have made the proposal for more information about who's gonna be served by the project and who's gonna access the jobs that are created. Thank you. Let me ask again, are there other persons that want to speak on this item, this item being a public hearing? Let the record reflect that no one else asks to speak on this item. I'm gonna collect a public hearing to be closed as a matter of fact before the council. And let me say this before the council votes. And I respect everybody's right to raise questions and they're very appropriate. And if you haven't been involved, I can understand where you may not understand some of the workers of this council. But one of the things that this council is focused on in terms of neighborhood revitalization has been a certain section of town, Nofi Central Nurembian, one of them, you know what it is. We've heard comments about jobs. We've heard comments about dilapidated property. This is a property that's been sitting vacant for a long, it's a commercial property. And the plans are basically to provide an opportunity for business to get going in this property. And obviously they're gonna be jobs. So I would, I'm not here to disagree. I don't consider this to be a case of gentrification. This is a case of this council falling through on itself just to try to revitalize neighborhoods that have been depressed for long periods of time in many ways. And one of them is trying to create active economic opportunities, businesses. And this is what this represents. I haven't said that. I'm gonna call the question. I'm gonna ask, I'm sorry, I didn't recognize Councilman Gilliam Johnson. Is there someone here from the company that's requesting this money who could answer some questions? Yes, she's here. Great. I'm Camille Voorhees. Hi, thank you. So I just have a few questions about the market for the restaurant. Could you tell us a little bit about who the intended, who your intended customers are for your project? The intended customers or tenant? I would, well, both, I guess. You're planning to develop this building and then find a restaurant that was directed from you. Okay. Yeah, so we're in the process of looking at tenants. I mean, ideally it would be someone who is a local business already. So maybe wanting to do a second location. We're still in that process right now. Okay. So I guess I'll just tell you what my concern is, which I think is similar to the concerns that were raised here, which is that when I looked up the information, the demographic information for the area around the restaurant, it's 69% black, 22% Latino, has a median household income of 18,000 a year, 80% renters and 75% of those folks who are renting or housing cost burdened. And so for me, I was a little bit concerned that the folks who would be coming to this restaurant are not the folks who live in the community. And also that there's nothing stipulated in your plan about specific community benefits, like that the jobs that are created would go to folks in the community. And so I feel like I'm not, I don't feel totally clear that the community itself is going to benefit from this project without some more details about what, about how you intend to create a community benefit through either your hiring practices, through providing accessible food that's both financially and culturally accessible to the community and without a tenant in place. I realize that it's difficult for you to answer those questions because you'll be the person who that runs the building from you will be responsible for some of that. So I'll just say that I'm a little concerned about the city putting public money into a for-profit project without a very clear idea of what the benefits to the community around that project would be. Right, and again, we're not, and again, it's gonna be up to the tenant on how they run their business. But I mean, we would definitely like to, and this actually was in the plan, we would definitely like to provide the space for a tenant who is interested in employing people from that immediate community. I mean, that is our priority. And so finding a tenant that is an appropriate fit for that is something that we did lay out. If I can help out a little bit here. Excuse me, we have been working, like any other applicant that comes with this to the Office of Economic Workforce Development. When the project's happening there, as I indicated here, we're looking at to project potential jobs that could happen in that particular area there. So far this, in working with Cameo, we've already referred a couple people to her that she tried to work with. It's just that what happened was it just didn't work out. She's also trying to put some public art in the particular area that she talked about. So there's a lot of things that she's working in junction with our office to try to make happen in that particular area there. So although we haven't identified a particular tenant in this particular area, it won't be something that's big box. And I've been working along the Andrew Driver for a long time and what I can say is a dollar that the city has committed to Joe's diner, although it's not there, but he has a commissary now. He has hired some of the local people there, Sam Lajankins and some of the other folks. So there is impact and even she's also committed to when she does the construction, she's looking to work with Durham-based business plans. She signed that, that's a part of the application where she's gonna look for a Durham-based business. So she's looking to make that connection to the community. Thank you, that's definitely helpful. I think that, sorry, we're having microphone issues tonight. I wanna stress, I don't think this is a bad idea. I think it's great to get some city investment in some of these areas. My concern is having a way to ensure that there are community benefits laid out in the plan and then an accountability process to make sure that those things happen. And so I would support this proposal with more details as to how that would happen with a tenant in place who would commit to, would make some commitments to this. But without those details, I don't feel comfortable with the proposal. Have you completed? Other questions? Recognize the mayor? Councilman Davis and then the mayor, Pro Tem. Well, thank you, mayor and council. I guess this is an issue that really cuts both ways. I mean, the discussion about what is and what is not gentrification comes up a lot. I'm not quite sure if we would want to veto a proposal that would bring some kind of renewal or revitalization to a certain area because of the, the cultural or the traditions that may go into such a business. I think we need to be very careful about how we do that. And we ought to, on the other hand, do everything we can to try to bring commerce and a bustling economy to a neighborhood that has not had that opportunity along the way. So I think it's very, very important for us to balance our discussion about revitalization and not deny the opportunity for businesses to find a way to the communities that need traffic and business that come along. I understand on the other hand how that may be viewed as gentrification, but I think we need to balance the view of that. Councilman Mayor Pro Tem. Citizens often complain about our only promoting things in downtown Durham. And I believe that the PAC has wanted this kind of revitalization in this CARDA. And so I support it fully. The comments recognized Councilman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Couple first, just a comment. I appreciate Aidan year comments. I don't think that this kind of investment and the housing investment that you are interested in are mutually exclusive at all. So, and now just a question for Chris, hi Chris, good to see you and thank you for your work. Thank you. What are our our rights, the city's rights in terms of requiring employment from a certain area of town. Could we, can we make those kinds of requirements or not? In this particular case we cannot because we have a owner who's looking to make a private investment into a building. So what she's looking to do is to create an opportunity for a retail service business to come into that particular area. So what we have done as an office and what she's committed to do is the Durham based business plan where we're saying, although you cannot tell the actual, whoever's gonna be the vendor in the business there to tell them who the hire, we can try to sit around the table and talk. But what she has said is what I'm willing to do is work with a contractor here in Durham that will do the construction work. And as I stated here and the memo to you all here is that there's approximately $400,000 worth of work that's gonna get done. And she's committed to at least doing about $100,000 to $125,000 of that to Durham based business from a projection standpoint. And I think that's quite significant. Okay. So what I'd say is, I'm sorry ma'am, I can't remember your name. Camio. Camio. Okay, that's your first name? Yes. Okay. Ms. Voorhees? Yes. Is that right? Thank you. So I would say that in appreciation of the work of our staff that we have had good luck in terms of the money that we have put into this area previously, Chris, thanks to you and OEWD for in having people who live in that neighborhood employed with the money that we use. And so, based on that, I'm trusting our administration to work with you. But a lot of that will be on you. To you say you're interested in finding a tenant who will be employing people from the area. And so, that will be our expectation. I understand that Gillian's desire to tie it down more tightly, I understand that. But I do feel like our administration has a, our staff has a really good record on that. And I'm sure that they will work with you to that end. But I hope that you will know that we'll be holding you accountable for that. And that our interest in that is not a passing interest or one that is insignificant to us. I understand. Can you talk about that a little bit more? Yeah, again, it was actually was part of the plan that we initially laid out with Chris. And I mean, we do plan to stick to that as much as we possibly have control over. In the end, the tenant will make that final decision, but it is something that we are imparting from the very beginning that that is part of the philosophy of this project. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Are there other comments by members of the council? If not, I'd entertain a motion on the recommendation. It's been proper moving second for the discussion. Hearing none, call the question. Madam Clerk, we open the vote. We close the vote. These are healthy discussions. We don't have all the answers and we appreciate those that have questions and we try to resolve them as best we can. We're gonna move to item 40, public hearing on a proposed economic development incentive agreement with Habitual Space LLC. Again, Chris Dickey, Mayor Bell, members of council, Chris Dickey from the Office of Economic and Workforce Development. What you have here is a proposal from Habitual Space LLC and what Habitual Space they applied for a neighborhood revitalization grant. And what they propose to do is propose a renovated blighted and underutilized building, 1288 square foot church, into a 21, 2138 square foot restaurant that would offer a dual option of dining, catering food service, which is located in OED Targeted Commercial Library. And the Targeted Commercial Library we're talking about is West Chapel Hill Street. What's currently there now is a church that was there, but it's actually a gas station. It's not the best use for it. And then what we're looking to do is to bring something to the neighborhood that the community has asked for. The proposed project will produce about $722,000 in private investment with the city investing $100,000. The initial request was for $170,000, but the Office of Economic and Workforce Development is recommending $100,000 for this particular building. The projected impact on the community is the creation of approximately 30 new jobs over a three-year period. Currently, there's not a restaurant along this Targeted area that offers a combined indoor outdoor dining option. It's promoting the continued revitalization and vitality of West Chapel Hill Street Commercial Corridor and surrounding neighborhoods. And also the city just recently in conjunction with self-help, we did a streetscape enhancement project there and this project is right across the street. So this would be supporting some city dollars that we put into infrastructure that's there now. This is also a homegrown business. The individuals that are looking to do this are extending a business that they currently have right now. The individual applicants that also live in this particular neighborhood. So I think this is a particular project where it's what I consider something that addresses one of Councilman Gillian's issue about having a business come in and it's a homegrown business. That's already employing people and they're talking about guaranteed at least a livable wage when they hire people. Like you've heard the staff report are the questions by members of the council on the staff reports. Recognize Councilman Gillian, Johnson. Thank you. Is the applicant for this project also available for questions? Just there. Great. I've really been in front of one of these. I'm Wendy Woods. Hey, thank you. So could you talk a little bit about the intended market for your project, community benefits and the accessibility of the restaurant to the community? Yes. I personally have lived in the Birch Avenue neighborhood since 1999. We love the neighborhood. We have been trying to invest. We have invested in the neighborhood but trying to invest in a business in that area for a long time. We were interested in the old food co-op building in 08 but wasn't quite the right time. We like to keep our menu prices down so everyone can come to the restaurant very often. And we want our customers to come from the neighborhood within two, three, four, five mile radius. And we also want to do some catering. There's some businesses close to our proposed restaurant. So we just kind of want everybody to come there. And that's always been our philosophy. Thank you. Could you, for the 36 jobs that are gonna be created, are those permanent jobs or temporary jobs and will they pay living wages? Yes. They will pay living wages as we do at our restaurant that we own right now. Most of my people always work, I'd say 75% of my people are full time. I believe in having a core staff and they're my core staff and without them I couldn't have the restaurants. So yes, to both those. Mostly full time and all living wages. Yes. Thank you. And you mentioned in your application that you would be interested in hiring from the neighborhood. Can you, I just wanted to make sure that you all are committed to hiring local folks for the restaurant. Absolutely, absolutely. I was brought up in Durham and I'm definitely gonna support my community. Thank you. Well, had you finished? Recognize Councilman Schuhl. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Ms. Woods, is Nosh one of your other restaurants? Yes, sir. And do you pay a living wage there? Yes, I do. So one of the points I wanted to make is that there are a lot of, it can be hard in the restaurant business to pay a living wage. And so I want to thank you for that and congratulate you for that and appreciate it. And also, I think given that, you do a good job of keeping the prices in your restaurant to something that many, many people can afford. So thank you and we look forward to having you on West Chapel Hill Street doing the same thing. Thank you. Thank you. Let me ask all the other questions from the Council. Recognize the Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you for continuing to invest in Durham. I love the way real, I do too. I was raised here too. And that's all I wanted to say and I do support this. Thank you. Are there other comments, questions? Councilor Moffitt? Mr. President, excuse me, any speakers? No one, no one had signed up. I was going to ask at the appropriate time if anyone wants to speak, but I was trying to get through the Council. I normally hold my comments until after the listing of public speakers, I can say this that one of the things that people can do if you want to know what the priorities of Councilor is to look at the strategic plan, everything that flows into our, when you get to this point in a life of an issue, it's been measured against the strategic plan to start with and then against subsequent policies that support the strategic plan. In this case, in keeping with the concerns that downtown has received most of the investment of the city, we have a policy that was developed several years ago that actually identifies five corridors around the city for further investment. And just like NGIR and Driver is one of those areas, West Chapel Hill Street as well. So this is definitely in keeping with long-term strategies that have been put forward by the Council and I am in support of it. Thank you. All the other comments by members of the Council. If not, let me ask, is it anyone in the public that wants to speak on this item, this being a public hearing item? Let the director reflect, no one else has to speak. I will declare a public meeting to be closed as a matter of fact before the Council. Move the item. It's been properly moved in second for the discussion. Hearing none, call to question. Madam Clerk, will you open the vote? Close the vote. It passes six to zero. Okay, we're going to move now to the one item that's on the general business agenda. Item 13, which is to propose new downtown parking garage and after that we'll go back into the public hearings for the budget. Good evening, Mayor Bale and City Councilman. My name is Harmon Crutchfield. I'm the interim director of transportation. And before you, you have an amended motion which includes authorization for administration to proceed with the design, construction, delivery of the new mixed use parking garage with 15,000, up to 750 to 850 parking spaces with 15,000 to 2,000 square feet of retail commercial on ground floor in addition to having 5,000 square feet for administrative office. The motion has been amended to include the ability for the administration to investigate incorporating affordable housing within the development of this project. And it's cost, and in fact turning in, bring back different cost model considerations for you to consider. And we're here to, not just me, other team members are here to answer any questions that you may have. Let me ask one question just for clarification. Is the budget for this, the 23 million dollars, what is the budget for the project? Mr. Mayor at this point, the budget that is before you is the projections for the commercial and parking components. But what we hope to obtain as a part of this recommendation is that the architect will be able to evaluate opportunities for adding housing components. It's possible that those might be incorporated into the budget, but we would anticipate that having a separate discussion with the council about where the money would be coming from in terms of how the budget could be, or how the housing could be supported, whether that would be paid for back to the transportation fund by another source. But we would really have an opportunity to look at that during the early design phase of the project and come back with recommendations. We will be building in the, into the design budget though, the cost of that initial assessment for housing. I guess I'm trying to determine if a developer comes in and looks at this project and he knows what we want in terms of parking, what we want in terms of retail space and what the budget is. Is he gonna try to make any attempt at all to ship being put affordable housing in that budget? Is he just gonna say, well, I can do what you asked for, but if you're gonna do affordable housing, it's outside of $23 million and therefore you gotta figure out what you're gonna do. I'm trying to understand that we really making people understand that we like as much as possible to include affordable housing as a part of this assessment in this project. So this project is a city project. It's not a development proposal project. So we will actually be engaging an architectural firm to do the design, which could include the affordable housing. Then we would also engage a CMAR to do the construction. So there really isn't an opportunity here for a development proposal as a city project. Let me ask other questions by members of the council. We do have one person to speak on this item. Recognize Councilor Moffitt. Yes, Mr. Manager, I'm a little confused. Is the item tonight to approve a contract? Or is there gonna a contract with the designer gonna be coming back to us for approval? This is to move forward with the selection. We've already selected a design firm. It's to move forward with the negotiations for the design service for the new parking garage with that affordable housing component to be evaluated at the same time. Yes, before we proceed with the contract with the designer, they will be coming back to the city council. So we would be endorsing a concept tonight. Okay, thank you. Let me ask a little questions on members of the council. If not, we had one person to speak on this item, Bob Chapman, you have three minutes, Bob. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. I'm gonna show some slides. It's just gonna take me a second to figure out how to do that. I don't want you to wait. Can someone help him with this, please? There is a button that I am supposed to push. But, oh, sorry. Thank you very much. My name is Bob Chapman. I live at 2525 linear place in Durham. I am a new urbanist real estate developer. I've been doing that for 26 years. I serve on the national board of the Congress for the new urbanism. I formerly chaired the North Carolina Smart Growth Alliance, and I'm completely committed to walkable urbanism. I think this is a terrific opportunity to do something that really changes the course of development in Durham and changes the future of the effort to fix the downtown route. I think we can do it at no additional cost. This is the proposal that was worked out by the design charrette a year ago for this very valuable corner, which was mixed use and a parking deck. This is the Kimley-Horn study, which showed some availability of additional airspace. We looked at that and realized that there was area within the footprint of the building to go up, and that could actually be used in this particular version for up to 70 apartments. If you didn't do the apartments along Mangum Street, that would drop down to about 42 apartments. This is a rendering of what the building would look like if it was lined with apartments on two sides, on the curved side, and on the Mangum Street side, and you really wouldn't know that it was a parking deck. You'd think it was a nice-looking building. This is the alley. It really is a T alley, and there's very little encroachment on that alley in the approach that we're thinking is feasible, and also in the Kimley-Horn study. I was just in San Antonio, Texas, and I saw a couple of apartment buildings on top of city parking garages, which is another approach, which would make a lot of sense. There were actually two right next to each other. These are examples of them. And then I went out to the Pearl District and saw a wraparound apartment building on two sides of a parking deck that was extremely handsome. This is how we think you could build 70 units of affordable housing and not increase the budget by $23 million. And one of the things that it might entail would be using a precast deck. You may have noticed the new deck that's just appeared over off Pettigrew Street at the Gateway Center. That thing is gonna be done, I predict, within about a month, month and a half. So I'd like to endorse your motion and really thank the city council for stepping up and suggesting that the design really consider, including affordable housing. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Are there other persons that want to speak on this item? If not, let Director Fleck and no one else ask to speak. The public hearing is closed, as a matter of fact, before the council. Entertain the motion on an item. It's been proper to move to the second for the session here in Uncalled Question. Madam Clerk, open the vote, please. And close the vote. Yes, six to zero. Okay, we're gonna move back to the agenda and we're now at the public hearing. General Business Agenda Public Hearing, item 29, Public Hearing on the proposed FY 2016-2017 budget. FY 2017-2022, Capital Improvement Plan. Bertha Johnson, Director of Budget and Management Services. This item is the public hearing on the proposed budget for fiscal year 2016-17 and the Capital Improvement Plan for fiscal year 2017-22. Notice of the proposed budget for tonight and the public hearing was published three times in the Herald Sun on May 29th, 17th, and 22nd. This past year Durham County reappraised all real property in the county. General Statues 159-11 requires us to publish a revenue-neutral property tax rate. The revenue-neutral tax rate, as defined by General Statue 159-11E, is 54.41 cents. The proposed property tax rate for fiscal year 2016-17 is 56.07 cents. This is a 1.66 cent increase above the revenue-neutral rate and a 3.05 cent decrease from the current property tax rate of 59.12 cents. I'm happy to answer any questions. Okay, let me ask other questions by members of the council first on this item. Well, first of all, let me say I'm glad to see so many people have signed up to speak on the public hearing for the budget. I really appreciate it and the council might need to sit back and relax because we've got 35 people that signed up to speak. And fairness, we've dealt with this budget over the periods of weeks, so we understand it. We've gone through the ins and outs of it, but you haven't. And so I wanna make sure people have an opportunity to speak and raise concerns that they might have. So I'm gonna allow three minutes for each speaker. So three times 35, you can figure out what time of time we're talking about. So what I'm gonna do is to call each person name if you come to the podium to the right. We aren't yielding time, so you've got three minutes. If you can't use three minutes, we'll move on. Katie Rose Levin, if you can start moving to the podium to the right. James Briggs, Daryl Bronson, Gregory Williams, Rachel Storer, Destiny Hemphill, Jasmine Williams, Nancy Wilson, Andrea Hudson, Larry Williams II, Jeffrey Bacchalichuk, Faith Holzer, pronounce your name when you get there because I'm a butcher and I'm a shearer. Katherine Edgerton, Walter Lee Best, Jr., Augusta Knett, Lyle Nunn, I guess I said Max Davis, Rami Gaddy, Daryl Bronson, Darren Smith, Tia Hall, Elizabeth Brunch, Abdel Racheek Burnett, Emmanuel Javres, John Goble, Brian Schlecht, Fern Hickey, Jen Suara, Matt Copic, Carl Riss, Catherine Searles, Holly Francono, Deborah Hawkins, James Williams. Now is anyone's name that I didn't call and maybe I mispronounced, they're signing up, okay. So again, if you would just set your name and address and make your remarks, thank you. And let me say this, this isn't the time for a question and answer of the council. We're trying to take your remarks and we'll move after that. All right, thank you. Hi, my name is Katie Rose Levin. I'm at 322 Green Street. Thank you for your time and how thoughtfully y'all are proceeding with these budget discussions. The budget shows the priority of the council and where the rubber meets the road. So we appreciate that. I'm here with Adrienne Durham Tree Advocates and there's a group of us here, one here and then others in the back if y'all stand up and then others I think who are still standing in the other room. We're here to sort of emphasize that trees are a vital city infrastructure, one that creates health, wealth, and well-being in our community. About 80 years ago, a group of citizens funded by the government and led by our passion invested in our city and planted the trees that we have today. Unfortunately, as a product of that time, many of the neighborhoods of color were left out of this investment because they didn't have the money nor the time, as well as there was systematic discrimination in housing loans. A study put out by the Duke students showed how this systematic racism in housing was reflected in the canopy that was planted at the time and the canopy that is today. But even for those places that did get trees, now all over town as we grow, these trees are aging out. And also as we move into new areas, poor and rich, white and black and Latino alike are lacking this investment in health and this investment in communities. It's time again for our investment in our communities and not just those who have money to spare, but all of those who want their children to be able to play in the shade of a large tree on a hot summer day. We have the Durham Tree Advocates request that you fully fund the urban forestry budget as requested, but also look at it as a first step in the process to create a healthy and green Durham for now, for our citizens today, but also for the citizens of the future. Thank you for your time. Look, let me ask this, I've had one council member to ask if I could move a person up because they have to go to work. The person is Walter, and I know others have things to do too. Is Walter best? He normally be number 14, so if the people before him don't have any objections, he just left. Okay, well that takes care of that. Thank you, move on. Good evening, my name is James Briggs from 1522 Horn Creek Drive, which is out on the eastern edge of Durham County and the city of Durham. While most of us in that neighborhood are 55 or older, our biggest concern is the lack of ambulance service. There is no efficient way to get an ambulance to the Durham County Way County line. We currently need firehouse number 17, which is a proposed project, which is currently in the state of being redesigned to be both a county EMS building and a city fire. We need that project expedited because we did have one case where a person literally fell and died before the ambulance got there. So while we're appreciative of the fire and EMS service in the core of the city, the city now expands all the way out to the Wake County line. And we want to thank Durham City Manager, Beau Ferguson, and we want to thank Councilman Eddie Davis for both coming out and seeing this new area of development, which is up to about 600 homes now. We are in favor of the budget being passed, but we have a concern about the police department. For some reason, being a police officer in Durham is a difficult thing, and now we have an attrition rate where every month five officers leave. They're quitting, they're retiring, they're just going into other fields. So we've made it so difficult to be a police officer that you almost have a crisis now with the attrition rate. In addition, you had the violent crime rate up 7% in Q1 of 2016. So hopefully the staffing adjustment that Tom is proposing will be one of the factors. We send a lot of people into Durham for Habitat Humanity for Volunteer Labor. We would like those folks to be just as safe as the people out at the eastern edge. And we would like to see one item removed from the preliminary budget for the past three of four years. The preliminary budget always indicates that the funding is not adequate for training. Now, that might be something that's debatable or resolved, but if you study the actual 350-page document for the past four years, you'll see this theme about not enough training money. And in conclusion, we're very thrilled that the Neighborhood Improvement Services budget, constant stencils, very satisfied. The Neighborhood Grants, the Neighborhood Spotlight, and the City Hall on the Goal are all areas that can make all of Durham a better place to live and fulfill the vision of the city plan and as a bottom line, we want you to pass the budget. Thank you. Hello, my name is Jeff Bacalchuk. I'm with the Durham Open Space and Trails Commission. I live at 106 St. Paul Street. I'll try and be very brief. I'm here to advocate for funding for Master Plan for Durham Trails and full funding for the Third Four Creek Trail, which is a shovel-ready project in a part of Durham that's underserved by trails. Trails are not a luxury. They happen to represent a vital piece of public infrastructure. They represent a safe transportation corridor that's vital for the folks in our community who are at the lowest levels economically. We have people in Durham who can't afford to own or operate a motor vehicle. Those people need a safe way to get to jobs, to get to schools, to get to shopping. And trails represent a way for them to be separated from streets. Many of our streets don't have adequate sidewalks and they require people who don't have an automobile to put themselves in danger every day when they walk to school, when they walk to stores, when they walk to jobs. So trails represent an important piece of public infrastructure to serve everyone in Durham. Thank you. Good evening, council and citizens of Durham. My name is Darryl Brunson. I represent 1515 Kindle Drive. I represent the UE150 Workers Union. And it's been passed along to city council to propose city council budget. Item number five, due process and fair grievance procedure. We're suggesting to modify city grievances policy to include employees being able to file grievances on a broader array of issues in addition to current disciplinary actions of demotion, suspension, and termination. Allow all employees, temporary and part-time, included to have access to grievance procedure and representatives or support persons present at every step of disciplinary and grievance process. Also stop unfair terminations, suspensions, and demotions and prohibit city manager reversals of grievances, hearing rulings, and grievance hearing panels, which favor employee filing the grievance. As you notice, all workers need to be able to file grievances. The department's director appeal should be removed from the current policy. City manager's office should be required to review grievance panel decisions within seven days and notify the grievance of the outcome and not reverse grievance panel decisions which favor the employee for filing the grievance. If it is determined that management's discipline of an employee was unwarranted and unfair, those supervisors or managers initiating disciplinary action should be sanctioned. Also an alternative would be to have grievance process where an outside arbitration judge or panel conducts grievance hearing and decides the outcome. Also, item number 10, formal meet and confer resolution. The city should pass a formal resolution promoting and allowing meet and confer between city managers and employee organizations. We feel like this would better help communicate and resolve some of the issues that go along towards management favoring employee, favoring management, and certain employees that they closely work together. We want to work together with the city council and directors on a more continuous basis to help make Durham a better place to work and live. As the next speaker comes, what I should have indicated, although you have three minutes, if you have written remarks, if you would like to leave them with the clerk, we advise you to do that. Good evening council and community members. My name is Nancy Wilson, although most of you know me as Nia or Mamma Nia and I prefer that name, thank you. I live at 224 West Trinity Avenue here in Durham. I'm gonna take my time here to ask you all to participate in something unconventional, a bit of popular education that I hope will set the context for a lot of the conversation that folks wanna have about policing here in Durham. So I'm gonna ask you all to take a moment and remember your being, the video is on so folks can see you if you don't participate. I'm gonna ask you to take a moment to close your eyes, everyone, take a moment to close your eyes, take a deep breath. And I want you all to think of a time in your life when you felt the most safe. I want you to think about who you're with, what it feels like, what it smells like, what it tastes like, is your belly full, are the lights on? Are you worried about your material needs being met? I want you to think about what you're feeling in this moment, actually take a moment to like feel what's happening in your body as you think about safety and what safety means to you. How does it feel? And then I want you to hold on to that feeling for a moment and open your eyes and come back into the room. Now I'd like you to raise your hand. If the thing that you thought about when you thought about being the most safe, the first thing that came to your mind was a police officer, an ADT sign, a security guard, guns, police cars in your neighborhood. Was that the first thing that any of you thought of? And yet we're here to discuss adding 20 new police officers to Durham as a means of keeping our community safe. I'm not here to argue whether police officers are necessary, but I am here to say that many of us do not believe that police officers are the things that are going to keep us safe and that there are other ways to spend money in this budget to ensure that people have full bellies, that people have jobs, that people have the education that they need. These are the things that will keep community members safe. And as you hear from the community members here tonight, who are going to begin to discuss that, I'd like you to continue to think about the feeling that you had as I took you through this exercise. There are many people who do not have that feeling and it is not because they need more police officers in their community, but they need their material needs met. And Durham has been a leader in so many ways. We can be courageous and fund the things that are needed here to keep people really safe. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Gregory Williams. I live at 904 West Murray Street here in Durham. Like many people here, I'm here to speak against the tens of millions of dollars that are being proposed in this budget for policing and police officers. And there are a lot of good reasons to oppose that that I will not attempt to even go through. There are too many to go through. But a key one has to do with the links between policing and incarceration. I work with a community organization that spends a total of hundreds of hours each week in direct conversation with people in the Durham County Jail talking about human rights abuses there. And just this week, we received a letter that I think speaks to this quite well. And I'm gonna anonymize all of this, of course. Being in here has set me back, this person says, way back. I lost my job at McDonald's. I had to drop out of college. It's crazy how they will incarcerate before they investigate. That's why I'm in here. How much power the system has. You know what I call it? It's the 360, why? You walk for days in a circle. Then you take a plea. And then it's hard for you to get a job so you go back to the street, to the police, then back in jail, walk in the same circle. Instead of locking people up, help them or find help for them. And instead, they want new police cars and headquarters. Why? If you're not going to help people, you're gonna hurt them. The 360 goes on and on and no one trying to figure out how or why or trying to help people get out of this hell circle. So people on the ground are already making the connection between incarceration and the issues at the Durham jail and policing. And I will just close by saying this. Our group has come to, we're working with the county level, but we've come to the city level repeatedly to try to get some action from y'all about what's going on in the Durham County jail. And repeatedly, we've been told by a number of you that there's nothing that the city council can do. That there is nothing that the city council can do about the 12 suicide attempts in the last year in the jail or about the malnourishment or about the price gouging or about the three murders by medical neglect that were committed in the jail last year. You've told us that you don't have anything that you can do. Now, mind you, we don't believe you on that. And we're gonna keep on coming back for you. But even if you're right, even if we take you at your word, you're wrong. You know why? Because there is something that you can do tonight about what's going on in the jail. And that's to vote against putting more money for police, more money for police cars, more money for police stations, more money to put in the hands of police that will put more bodies in the hands of the murderers that are running the Durham County jail. And don't get me wrong, this is murder. Thank you. Greetings, council members. My name is Rachel Store. I live at 2631 Glenbrook Drive. And I am here to speak against budgeting that is alighting millions of dollars towards the police department. Right now the police department is proposing a 71 million dollar investment into a new police quarters. And they're also looking to add more people on their team of murderers. When we think about crime in this community and we think about why things happen, it's a need base. A lot of it is mental health, material based needs. And I propose that instead of spending 71 million dollars on police, that we spend that on schools, that we spend that on after school programs, that we put places in these communities where people can get the mental health that they need. Instead of adding more police officers, adding more people that are able to deal with mental health crises. There's been so many incidents where people have been killed because they're not following orders by police. But when you're not in the mental capacity to accept those orders, death should not be the price to pay for that. So I say no to more police. I say no to a new police headquarters. And yes to help for mental health for our citizens. Yes to more education for our children. Yes to more arts for our community. And no to murder, thank you. Hello, my name is Andrea Farrier. I'm an active member of All of Us A None NC. And I come before you today because I don't feel comfortable with having 20 more police officers. I live at 32D, 322 Junction Road, that's been with, that's the hood. I do not feel comfortable when I look out my window and I see police cars there. You know why? Because my 21 year old daughter was stopped by one police officer who called three more police officers to her car. And he said, oh, I only stopped you because you're coming out of the hood. If I have police officers already doing that to her now, why would I want more police officers to terrorize her? I don't think that that's right for anyone to be in fear of a police officer. When I'm in my car and I see a police behind me, I don't feel safe. I don't feel comfortable. I feel worried. I feel worried about my 11 year old son, whether or not he can go outside and play. And I have to worry about a police officer attacking him as opposed to someone in my neighborhood. In my neighborhood, I'm good. I'm nervous in my neighborhood when the police get there. But we sent an email to the city council members. I'm not sure if you guys got it or not, but I just want to read just a portion of it. And it says, we're sending you this email prior to tonight's city council meeting to request that the council not approve the hiring of 20 new police officers in the New Year's budget. In February, the Faye Coalition provided you with a four year assessment of the Durham Police Department, which expressed our continued concerns regarding the racist culture policies and practices that continue to exist within the DPD. Since this time, you have heard from many community members whose rights have been violated by the police. We made you aware of what happened to Ms. Vera McGirt an Iraq war veteran and her family when the police forced their way into her home and below was the story of Lidarius Riley. Lidarius Riley, whose constitutional rights were violated when the police held him for longer than it was necessary to cite him for a traffic violation. And inciting him for that traffic violation, they had 10 police cars for a traffic violation. And the police officers that were there spoke to him and advised him that the incident he had in his car was used to mask the smell of marijuana. The officer asked to search his car. He refused. The officer then told Lidarius that he had a history of weapons and drugs and that he had the right to search him, which is not true. To be clear, Lidarius is not facing any charges. He is not on parole or probation for anything. And any prior history he had was irrelevant at that point. Lidarius was forced out of his car and was padded down. He was told that since he refused to search that they were going to call a K9 unit, two of the officers told Mr. Riley at two different times during the encounter that he could file a complaint if he wanted to, but it wasn't gonna do any good because they don't answer to anybody and they cursed. One officer's name is Stuart. And Stuart said that he doesn't answer to anyone. The three officers named in Lidarius complaints are R.K. Shepard, M.A. Monroe, and Jim Stewart. While we applaud Lidarius for filing his complaint, we know that incidents like this one is not isolated in our community. Like I said, my daughter had the same issue with officers harassing her, taking her phone, and everything. Lidarius had someone there to record for him. My daughter did not. Andrea, you have that written. Could you give it to the clerk? Okay, I will do. I'm gonna turn this to others. Okay. We disagree with the city manager when he says that these funds will transform policing by taking it to the streets. We do not want any more police on our streets. Instead, please use those funds to support jobs, housing, education, and community programs that are already doing the work to keep our neighborhood safe. Good evening. My name is Larry Williams II. I'm representing all of us and none in the Fade Coalition. I'm 25 years old. I was born and raised on the east side of Durham. I'm sorry. What's your name? Larry Williams II. Okay. A lot of y'all probably know my father. Like I said, I was born and raised on the east side of Durham. I come from a generation that has never seen the police in a good light. And what I mean by that is there has never been a situation since I was born that I was glad the police was there. That by the police being there, by there being increased police presence that made the situation safe or even made us feel safer. Never for 25 years of my life. Me being a victim of racial profiling, unreasonable, and illegal searches and seizures, I can say personally, 20 officers won't make the city safer, won't make the city better. There are many of my people, along with myself, voluntarily out here in the streets doing the work every day to make Durham a better place, to make it a safer place, to make it a harm-free Durham as we like to call it. And we understand that doing this work to make Durham a better place doesn't start with policing. It starts with being in the community. It starts with understanding the people and the struggles and the lifestyle that we come from and that we're dealing with every day on a consistent basis. Y'all would put money in the program such as the Cure Violence and the Cease Fire program. But like I said, we got people out here doing this work every day. And to be honest, an initiative like that is not going to work. And you know why it's not gonna work? Because it's being brought forth by the police. There's gonna be no trust at all. Part of the harm-free zone, we watch a video called The Interpreters, talking about the Cease Fire program that I just spoke about. And the documentary itself, they say that by working with the police, it will be proven ineffective because you have community people worrying about, basically people snitching and giving up information that really doesn't need to be given up. So basically, we don't need 20 new officers out here enforcing unjust laws already. What we need is more people to say what we truly need instead of allowing people who know nothing about our lives making recommendations for us. Thank you. My name is Jasmine Williams. I currently do not have a formal permanent address. I would like to bring up at this time the hypocrisy regarding the mentions of revitalizing Durham and the bringing in of 20 new officers and how bringing in police officers at this time makes no sense logically considering as it's been established, nobody feels safe. And the fact that Durham is very black and it's very minority based and it has already been established statistically continued that the police officers serve no purpose for these people and that they only serve to protect the rich masses, specifically the rich white masses. And the revitalizing of Durham only serves to serve those people and it does not extend to those poor black, Latinx, indigenous people at this time. They don't serve anything. I would also like to address the fact that by increasing the amount of police officers, it goes into the item number 22 of the extended budget of the police headquarters. And it makes no sense that a police headquarters should cost or new jail should cost $2 million, especially when jails are supposedly temporary. I just don't understand why the city council is interested in revitalizing yet also policing its people to a degree where these people feel unsafe and where these people are, what's the word? Unproportionally targeted and killed. Good evening. My name is Destiny Hemphill and I'm a five year long Durham resident who lives at 3611 University Drive. I'm addressing you tonight as part of a powerful coalition of folks including organizations such as Song, UE150, BYP Durham 100 and to say her name Durham Collective who asked that you imagine a Durham beyond policing. City council members have been increasingly vocal about their desire to be transparent, to take into account community voices and find solutions for a rapidly transforming Durham. However, if the city were actually intentional about listening to the voices of Durham residents, we would not be seeing the unchecked, unbalanced, unquestioned, exorbitant funding of violent policing in Durham. We have study after study demonstrating Durham police engage in racist policing. We have years of letters of community members held at the Durham County Jail who have been arrested by police officers and have experienced extreme verbal, physical, emotional abuse while held in jail. We have the abuse of Carlos Riley Jr., Stephanie Nickerson, Vera McGriff, and Lidarius Riley, and the deaths of Chewie Rehta, Jose Alcampo, Derek Bell, and Levante Biggs. Instead of accountability, we see 20 new cops to be added into the budget. Instead of accountability, we see a $71 million police headquarters to be built. Our experiences and numerous studies attest that more policing does not, in fact, equal greater community safety. Our experiences and numerous studies demonstrate that what underlies those behaviors coded and penalized as crime is actually systematic and institutionalized oppression, which itself is historically actually reproduced by police patrols nationwide. Furthermore, what is even more atrocious about the proposed police headquarters and the funding of 20 additional cops is that many community members, especially black and brown communities who are affected most by DPD's history of unchecked violence, aren't even aware that such an extortionate amount of money is being spent this way. So if the Durham City Council is actually committed to creating a safe and secure community and thriving a livable neighborhood, as written in the budget proposal, you all will halt plans to build the $71 million police headquarters until you receive more community feedback and investigate more affordable options. You will divest from policing and invest in community building. We want more affordable housing, not cops. We want improvements in the roads, not cops. We want bus shelters, not cops. We want shelters for our community members who are experiencing homelessness, not cops. We want more money invested in the education of our youth, not cops. We want living wages for city workers, not cops. We want more jobs, not cops. We want access to mental health crisis centers, not cops. We want to see a participatory budgeting process in which community members democratically decide to spend our city's money in ways that actually sustain us, support us, and keep us safe, not cops. Good evening. My name is Faith Holzart and I live at 2109 Sprunt. I oppose adding 20 police officers and the building of a new police headquarters because of my organizing experiences since the 1960s. And my work with Durham's Harm Free Zone sponsored by Spirit House NC. I live in Watts-Hillendale, Durham's most white identified neighborhood. But I still believe my personal safety will be enhanced if our entire city is a just and fair one. Meaningful investment in education, jobs, community infrastructure, and affordable housing will do more for the public safety of our community than investment in a police force with a documented history of racist practices. Working with the Harm Free Zone helped me think about community level trauma and the role of an overbearing police force in creating such trauma. Creating safe communities has conventionally been seen as a police function, but with imagination, we ourselves can make where we live harm free. For four months, I worked with an intensely diverse group of 30 people, which included elders like myself, up-and-coming professionals, mothers and fathers of young children, people who had once been incarcerated, and activists and students. Our task was to imagine an environment in which a child could thrive. My work group addressed the needs of five-year-olds. This was not an idealistic exercise. The charge was to create solutions for children today in the context of white supremacy. The most notable fact of our team's work, which took two months, is that not once did the word police come up as an enhancement that would allow a five-year-old to thrive. We call for safe spaces and outdoor spaces, we call for schools and training and mediation. Let me, again, we want to be fair to everyone. You have written remarks, if you can leave them with the clerk, and we'll consider those. We want to give everybody an opportunity to speak. Appreciate that, thank you. Hello. Hello. Hi, y'all. Hi, y'all. Mayor, city council, how y'all doing? Doing well. Long day. My name is Layla. I live at 805 Massey, right around central area. One thing that I want to echo on actually before I start is I realize that today is the one-year anniversary of the suicide of Khalif Browder, who was a 16-year-old boy from the Bronx who was picked up for supposedly stealing a backpack, served three years at Rikers, and then committed suicide once he was actually final at free. So, the conversation that's been happening around a dorm beyond policing definitely made me think of that, and so I appreciate y'all being out here. I want to thank y'all first for the space to come up here and speak briefly about a shared initiative that I think we have, which is around supporting and uplifting dorm residents, and hopefully lessening the blow of displacement of a lot of its residents. It's a little backstory, really short. I've lived here in North Carolina for over eight years after relocating from Brooklyn, New York, which is one of the fastest gentrifying cities in the U.S. We just couldn't afford rent anymore, so before the age of like 15, we had already relocated nine times due to the affordability and rent hikes, and so I began to understand very young who had value and who didn't, and how usually that fell along racial lines as well as income. So, living briefly down the street over on Gilbert a couple years ago, I've seen houses in the Cleveland Holloway area jump insanely in rent prices, and the residents that have lived there for a very long time get pushed further and further east and away from their homes. So after living in a home that gets rundown and gets neglected and ignored, they're kicked out for a new wave of higher paying residents, and it's a sad truth that a lot of black and brown folks, a lot of lower income residents are having to deal with right now. I've actually spoken with a lot of really sweet and brilliant folks in Northeast Central Derm. One of them actually Barbara Hunter. She lives over on Holman. She actually couldn't be here today because she's having issues with having her rental property landlords come and take care of a lot of repairs. It's not properly insulated, and so she's getting a lot of bugs and ants and things like that in her house. She's elderly, I think 67, and has asthma, and so that's why she shouldn't come here because she's spraying a lot of these chemicals. That's actually hurting her a lot. We actually had a gentleman here today, Walter Lee Best, who just inherited a house that his father owned over in Northeast Central Derm, and he wanted to come out here and speak. He had to go leave to work at Third Shift, but he wanted to come out here and speak also just concerning how difficult it's becoming to be able to keep his home, and he's worried that this place that has been a hub for him growing up, and now his nieces and his kids could potentially be taken away from him because of repairs, because of property taxes. Yeah, so I know it's something that the city of Durham has already identified as a concern and has already put some funding and programs in place to address, so I'm coming out here with Durham for All, my crew, requesting for existing tax release program to just be a little bit more robust. Thank you. Thanks. Good evening, Mayor Bill Bell. Councilman, how you guys doing? Good evening. My name's Abduljah Ashid Burnett, and I'm a worker at Bojangles, a single father of three kids. I lived in Durham for over 20 years now. I live at Durham 6th Lake Place, about seven miles away from where you all want to put a brand new $7,000 police headquarters. I'm here inside the building with Durham Yarn Policing, and Durham City workers who deserve a raise and deserve at least 15 miles an hour. I don't want to run down residents who already faces harassment and racial profiling by the Durham Police Department. When I see that, you all are not only going to put over $7,000 dollars to a police headquarters, but on top of that, one of the art only cops use on our tax dollars. I feel angry. There's no cops not approved by community. They don't want to help my children go up safe and healthy. What we need are programs and services to help drop the crime rate. We all want you to, when all you want to do is add cops and call it safety, you are actually just adding harm to folks who are already struggling to keep a roof over our heads. Imagine what kind of affordable public housing we could have with $71 million. Instead of more police, kids deserve to have youth centers and activities. Their parents deserve access to good jobs. All of us need better health services. These things keep us safe, not just more cops. I am to say no to 20 more new cops in the budget. It's insulting, especially close after the murder of Levante Biggs and I'm here to ask you all to please delay the building of the new police headquarters so we can find more affordable options and invest more money into services like the home repairs, funds that keep people in their homes and keep us actually safe. Now, mind you, that building that they're talking about building is right on Main Street, right? Right across from Main Street townhouses, right? Then you got the projects over there, right? We all know that it's a private investor already investing in the property. I know this because I be in the community. I work in these streets. I do work in these streets, right? I fight for 15, right? I go everywhere. So I know everything that the council don't know. I know everything that the mayor don't know. I know everything that the city manager don't know. I know everything that the city attorney don't know, right? When you do that, you kicking these people out to the streets to open up more crime, right? So let's open up more jobs. Give me a better job. Give me a raise. Give me a affordable housing. Help me build a new house with $81 million. Give me some money. Give my kids a better education. Give the school teachers better jobs. Give them more money for teaching our kids. Don't give the money to these police. Give it to the community. Our people's budget is what we want. Well, I don't know how to follow that. My name is Emmanuel Jarvis. I'm at Sixth Water Oaks Court. Nebel Patem. Good evening. I'm a council. I'm gonna change things up a little bit. The topic this evening and the reason why I'm here is to actually talk about the Business Improvement District, the excise tax, so known as the bid tax. I understand the purpose of this tax was to sustain and help the downtown continue to grow and to continue to thrive. I've been here for 16 years. I've seen how the streets of downtown has just changed dramatically. It's phenomenal. I love it. I understand that you truly want the city to be vibrant and attractive to the downtown area. And I also believe that your intentions, every single one of you, your intentions are pure and that you really, really want Durham downtown to be the best that it can be. However, I think laying additional taxes on these small businesses, owners, it concerns me greatly. I'm scared that small restaurants who invest so much of their resources into making amazing environments for all of us may close because the profits are not great enough to pay for the taxes and the permits and the licensing needed to operate in the city. Everything from the yummy ice cream shops and the specialty coffee shops and the barber shops and the startup tech companies and its call centers and all these other businesses that are downtown, even if one of these amazing Durham businesses close or that are at risk of closing because it's additional tax, we have to think to ourselves, was it really worth imposing it? You know, maintenance services and enhancement projects are all things that people expect city taxes are supposed to pay for it. You know, I'll give you this before I leave. When does a hug become a squeeze and a squeeze becomes a choke? It all comes down to the amount of pressure that's applied. I hope you can agree. When do enhancements and ambassador teams start to choke out the profits of mom and pop businesses? As the chairman of the Durham County Republican Party, I ask that you reconsider and that you lessen that burden and allow the ingenuity and the talent of these business owners flourish. Then tax increases and tax revenue will increase and you guys would have more money to spend on additional projects. Thank you. Good evening. My name is August Canapa. I live in Old East Durham on Angier Avenue. Used to be the hood. It's changed quite a bit. And I'm here to address the property tax issue. Winston Churchill famously once said that there's no such thing as a good tax. I agree 100% and since we're stuck with a bad tax, I think it's everybody's duty to try to make it less bad. So how does it become really bad or onerous or unjust? Well, when a homeowner is forced to pay more than he originally agreed to when he purchased his property, I think it becomes too bad, too onerous and unjust. Why not reframe from raising the taxes on that particular property until the property is sold to the new owner who is buying a house way more valuable than the original owner. It wasn't the original owner's fault that his property skyrocketed. The new owner would be willing to pay the higher taxes because he's obviously that's where he wants to be. When a homeowner is forced to forfeit his property because he no longer can afford the real estate taxes, then that tax is too bad, too onerous and unjust. When a homeowner has to decide whether he should pay his taxes or perhaps buy something that his family is in need of, then I think the taxes are too bad, too onerous and unjust. You have the opportunity to do something about that. You can. Question is, will you? Thank you. Good evening. My name is Tia Hall. I reside at 306 Gray Avenue. I stand here as a member of Fade Spirit House and a Durham resident. In September of 2012, we came to city council to address the culture of racism in the Durham police department. As instructed by Mayor Bell, we followed through with the investigatory process conducted by the Human Relations Commission. In May of 2014, the HRC declared that racial bias and profiling does exist in Bulls City's police department. As we know, the proposed budget for fiscal year 2016 through 2017 has provisions for 20 additional police officers. We ask that the city council not grant such funding to an organization that has not demonstrated to our satisfaction a true shift in creating an anti-racist culture in its practices. While city council has adopted four of the five Fade recommendations, we continue to see police practices that circumvent these changes. While we now have mandatory written consent, we also see a considerable rise in racial disparities of probable cause searches. Through our own research of public records, we have noticed that more than 90% of resist delay and obstruct charges are of black people. City council members, as your constituents, we commend the task to you, to request of the Durham Police Department to include in its quarterly report, RDO data that is disaggregated by race. Please do not reward the police department with more public funds when they have not been good stewards of our trust. They are implementing race neutral solutions to race-based problems. Where is the fidelity in their actions? Thank you. Good evening to the community, the mayor, city council, and our new police chief. Hello, my name is Darion Smith. I'm a state employee. I'm a member of UE150, North Carolina Public Service, a workers union and a resident of Durham. Durham city workers keep this city running. None of us could get around if it wasn't for them. We hope the budget you are about to pass this year will reflect this. As I have talked to my coworkers, family members and friends, about the fact that Durham is about to spend 71 million for a new police headquarters, most are all completely shocked. That is way too much money, especially after hearing recently that the family of Levante Biggs gets no justice for their son being killed. How is a fancy new building going to address the real concerns of the community? This past year, the major campaign themes of our statewide union have been Black Lives Matter at work and also fight for 15 union rights. These hit home in Durham. City workers have not had, and across the board, cost a living adjustment since 2004. In the last 13 years, they have either gotten zero, a one-time bonus, or a pay performance percentage raise only. The problem with percentage raises is that it gives more to those that are already making more money. If the city gave a flat amount like the $2,000 across the board that we are proposing, the city could spend the same amount of total money but shift the focus to give more to the lowest paid and hardest working folks. City workers, particularly those in non-management positions, have lost a lot of economic ground over the years by not receiving wage increases that match the rate of inflation. City workers like many others are drowning. Front-line workers, wages have not kept up gas, food, utilities, taxes, and other goods and services increases. With nearly 400 city employees earning less than $15 an hour, we think the city can do better. And be a pay-setter and raise the wage to $15 this year in 2016. Our members here are also asking for more institutional channels to give feedback to the daily functioning of the city. We are requesting you adopt a formal resolution for a meeting conferred between city managers, department heads, and human resources to meet with city workers union elected leaders quarterly to discuss departmental and budget issues. We think this will help the city run better and give workers more of a voice. Also for years past, our city worker union stewards have had access to represent their coworkers in grievance meetings until recently when the new human resources director took over and unilaterally changed the past practice. We hope you can help rectify this and once again allow our members to represent, witness, and support each other in these important meetings. When management and workers have a breakdown on communication, have an outside employee representative from the union can help get important information on the table. Please consider the 11 points budget proposal from the Durham city workers with supportive value community partners like the Durham beyond police coalition are proposing this year. Thank you all for your time. Good evening, my name is John Goble. I live at two Creek View Lane in Durham. I'm the chairman of your open space and trails commission and chair of the new Durham Parks Foundation. I'm here simply to urge you to continue the good work you've done in funding trails and parks. You're making good progress, but it's a lot slower than it needs to be. We have some plans for trails that we've given to you that you've looked at and in the budget, there was no real specificity. They were gonna be done sometime by 2020 and we hope you find the money to build these at a little bit quicker pace so that we don't continue to fall behind all of our cities in this area. Thank you. Hi, my name is Catherine Edgerton. I live at 406 North Queen Street in Cleveland, Holloway and I've lived there since 2006. I just got noticed that my property taxes have doubled. Some of my friends and neighbors have tripled and quadrupled, which means that there's a chance I won't be able to stay in my home if I don't get assistance through a repair program and some kind of offset to the taxes. I was born and raised in Durham as was my dad and his parents and their parents. My grandparents and my great grandparents were sharecroppers on the land that's now Umstead Park and my grandmother worked at a hosiery mill that's now golden belt. And last week, my dad who has since moved out of Durham came in town for a visit and while he was standing in my yard, he told me that he was as proud of me of my tomato plants as anything else that I do. He teared up saying that everything that he knew about Durham is getting paved over. That the only connection we have to our ancestry is through these plants that I'm growing. I didn't tell him that it was actually my housemates that grew the tomatoes. But anyway, I'm done feeling helpless as I watch Durham changing. I'm all about growth, but I'm not about erasure. And we're at one of many crossroads and you all are deciding what to do with funds for this city. I'm standing here not just to ask for assistance so that I and my housemates can stay in our home. And so that I can continue my family legacy in Durham as somebody who loves the city and can be here. But I also am here to speak to all the people I love and the histories that have made Durham a place that I have wanted to live for 34 years. Police did not keep me here in Durham for my whole life. So anyway, I'm asking you to please use those funds to a repair program and to commit to a just tax system so that we can honor other people and communities that have always made Durham such a sacred place. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Beth Brooke. I live at 1010 Irodale Street in Durham. I've lived in Durham since 1977. I'm here with Spirit House also just in solidarity. I just want to, as a citizen, just really appreciate the remarks made by the folks from Durham Beyond Policing, Durham for All, The Fade Coalition, All of Us or None, UE150 Fight for 15, City Workers folks. What I'm here to talk to y'all tonight is a little bit more obscure issue. I'm really just asking y'all to adopt the recommendations of the Human Relations Commission regarding the Bull City Connector. They stated, I'm gonna quote a little bit, we are concerned that the implications of the current route appear to value some members of the Durham community over others, making the downtown area more accessible to some people and less accessible to others, particularly people of lower income and people of color. The Bull City Connector route was changed last year's budget and it would need to be restored or improved with this year's budget. So I'm asking that y'all consider this now. The route was changed to eliminate the stop at the downtown main terminal and also to eliminate the stop at the Duke South Clinics and create like a quarter mile walk for people needing to get healthcare there from the nearest stop. The first recommendation is the Bull City Connector should focus on serving the Durham community and not primarily Duke. I went to grad school at NCCU, they make recommendations to serving NCCU just as much as Duke. When I was there, they have, I saw a bunch of students with t-shirts that said, I survived the Bull City Connector, just speaking to the experience of those students trying to deal with those changes. And that was back when it did stop at the main terminal. The second recommendation is that the route should be restored and improved to again serve the Durham station. And the third recommendation is the route should be restored or improved to again serve Duke South. And I'm happy to email y'all the report of the ad hoc committee of the HRC. But thank you. Good evening, Mayor Bell. Thank you for allowing us to speak. My name is Kathy Rimer-Searles. I've been in resident of Durham since 1980. I've lived in many places in Durham, currently 23 Indigo Creek Trail. I'm here tonight representing the leadership team of the Durham chapter of organizing against racism. And we are a coalition of anti-racist organizers, both people of color and white people. And one of our primary things that we focus on is hosting the two-day racial equity training that is run by trainers from the Racial Equity Institute. And those of us who are on the team have found this training to be absolutely transformative in our understanding of racism as a historical construct and how it lives today in our systems and institutions, right here in Durham, in every system, from housing to education to criminal justice to the vast wealth disparity between white people and people of color. We oppose spending money on more police officers because we believe that the greatest threat to the safety of the people in our city and particularly people of color is racism. And the only way that we can fight racism is if we have a common understanding of what racism is and a common analysis of how it works in our systems and institutions and in our implicit biases. So we support the recommendations that have already been made over time by the FATE Coalition to send all police officers through the two-day racial equity training. But tonight, we are here to advocate for using the funds that have been allotted in this proposed budget for leadership development to send all city leaders in Durham through a two-day racial equity training because we believe this is the only way that we can fight racism in our community. So we thank you for that and we do also offer these trainings in the community and we do believe that the community-based training is the most effective because we have folks from all aspects of our community in the same room talking to each other and holding each other accountable. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Fern Hickey and I live at 1014 Rock Street. And I'm here today to join the course of voices that's asking you all in this 2016-2017 budget to prioritize low-income housing, to prioritize the neighborhood stabilization program, to prioritize living wages for city workers, as opposed to prioritizing funding to the policing of our communities. A little while back, I assigned a petition that Durham Beyond Policing put out, asking you not to fund a new police headquarters. And I followed that up with an email to y'all along those same lines, not to fund this headquarters with our tax dollars. And I got responses back from a few of you, including Council Member Shul and Council Member Reese. And I don't wanna pick on Council Member Reese when he's not here, but I did want to share a little bit of what he shared with me. Both emails were very lengthy and I really appreciate the time that both of y'all took to respond to that and both of you shared that you are in support of funding this headquarters. Both of you alluded to the fact that the real solution to the problem of crime comes in fighting the underlying causes of crime, which many of folks have spoken to today. But Council Member Reese then went on to say that we must also maintain a public safety function in our city government that aligns with our community values. I wanna say that again, that we must maintain a public safety function in our city government that aligns with our community values. And given that Council Member Reese is supporting the headquarters, I'm assuming that he is suggesting that increasing funding to the headquarters and the police is in line with our community values. But actually the Human Rights Commission has declared as a finding that racism is embedded in the Durham Police Department. And so far as I know, I don't think any of us here want racism to be the community value that's guiding our decision making. So I know that y'all's jobs are very, very hard and that these decisions are very, very hard and that part of your responsibility in this is to be looking out for the safety of our communities. I don't think any of us here tonight are saying that safety is not important to us. As Nia pointed out in the exercise, we all have very vivid visions of what safety looks and feels like. And none of us here tonight, including yourselves, envisioned police as part of that. So given that that is true for all of us, I really don't think it makes sense to be putting money into further policing. And so I'm not gonna ask y'all to close your eyes going to ask you to do one more visioning exercise, which is to imagine if we put that $71 million into a harm-free zone pilot program that was city-wide and all the things that could come up out. I don't know what would come of it, but I know that it would be very different from what we're looking at right now. Thank you. My name is Jane Williams and I'm a board member of Habitat for Humanity of Durham. I would like to express our deep gratitude to the city for its commitment in addressing Durham's affordable housing issues and its support of Habitat with interest-free second mortgages to Habitat home buyers. Habitat guarantees repayment of these loans and during this fiscal year, over $175,000 have been collected and repaid to the city. We currently build and sell 20 houses per year to families in the 20 to 60% AMI range of Durham. As you know, the need is great. We would like to build more homes and our board recently approved the building of 22 to 25 houses in the next fiscal year. We need your continued support to reach the upper end of that range. We ask that you continue to provide city seconds for every home that Habitat builds. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council members, Mr. City Manager. My name is Matt Kopak. I live at 1510 Woodland Drive. I am with the Durham Living Wage Project and so I'm here this evening to speak to your discussions around wages for city workers. And in particular, we wanna speak to your living wage policy, how we believe an evolution in the methodology used by the city could benefit. The city and help accelerate the pay scale toward $15 an hour. And also why we feel it's important to include part-time workers as well in the living wage policy for the city. So first there's a question of methodology. The Durham Living Wage Project currently pegs to the city's 7.5% over federal poverty for a family of four. I think that's been in place for some time now and I think there's some limitations to the use of that policy. One of them is that it doesn't accurately reflect expenditures such as increased housing costs in childcare. And so we wanna recommend that the city consider utilizing a methodology called the Universal Living Wage, which is based in HUD data and it sets wages that ensures that workers aren't paying more than 30% of their income for housing. And so we think that could be a good fit and depending on the assumptions used by the city could accelerate the pay scale to $15 an hour within one to two, potentially more years, but one to two years. We know there's some consideration about the health benefit offset because you do provide good benefits. We understand that is a cost to the city. The Durham Living Wage Project, we do provide that offset though we would like to recommend the city that that not be provided. But if you do decide to provide that to ensure that you are increasing the base scale to make sure that that is not eroding too much what the wage increase that you could be providing to workers across the board. So one example to look at is Wake County, which on December 31st set their baseline living wage at $15 an hour. They do have a $1.50 offset, which leads to $13.50 in current year. And in July 1st, they're gonna move to $15.75, which will be $14.25 with that benefit offset. To use a comparison for Durham, if we followed suit, we'd be at $15.31 on July 1st, or at $13.81 with the offset. So close to $14, and in one year could arrive at that $15 level, particularly when you consider the importance of housing as a cost driver in Durham, which relates to so many of the conversations this evening. Next really briefly, we would like to encourage the city to include all workers, including part-time workers in the living wage policy. Many of these individuals are adults with families, and in the case of youth, often are also called upon to support their families. And so I think it's important to consider. And as a benchmark, Orange County and Wake County both cover most of their part-time workers under the living wage policy. Currently there's over 200 in Durham that aren't covered. So in closing, we urge the city to increase worker wages, looking at this new methodology, avoiding the offset if possible, or accelerating the path of the base wage. If not, and looking to include part-time workers. Thank you very much for your time. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, Mr. City Manager, my name is Carl Rist. I live at 809 Watt Street. Tonight I represent the people's lines and our 800 plus members in Durham County, many of whom are here tonight. I also chair our Economic Inequality Committee. Among other issues, our members care deeply about economic justice and are concerned about growing inequality in Durham. For example, according to the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center in Raleigh, on average from 2010 through 2014, the richest 5% of Durham County households had a mean income that was 29 times greater than the poorest fifth of households and six times greater than the median fifth of households. We don't think this is fair. And we urge the council to use the power of the city budget to raise wages for all public employees and to set a standard for fair wages among the lowest-paid workers. In particular, we ask the council to do three things and these largely track the recommendations from Matt Kopeck from the Durham Living Wage Project. Number one, adopt the universal living wage methodology for determining the annual living wage for city employees. This would put Durham on a path to $15 living wage by 2018 and this would also align Durham with the living wage methodology set by Wake County and Orange Counties. Number two, include all part-time employees in the city's living wage policy. Number three, to address and part concerns about wage compression by raising the floor and to catch up with a decade, nearly a decade of stagnant wages, we ask the council to provide an across-the-board increase for all the city's frontline employees as proposed by the City Workers Union. With these changes, Durham will ensure fair wages for all city workers and continue to be a leader statewide and nationwide in the living wage movement. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor Bell, City Council. I'm here to represent, excuse me, Robin Davis. I'm here to represent Habitat for Humanity. I recently marched to 6th Hampton-Biggs Act bought my home through Habitat for Humanity. I've lived on Spruce Street for over nine years. I, living on Spruce Street, I dealt with drugs, dealt dealers selling drugs on my steps. I dealt with prostitutes jumping in and out of cars in front of my home. I nipped my children, I didn't have to keep them in the house, they wouldn't go outside. We dealt with drug drive-bys, all kinds of people throwing drugs in the yard, hiding drugs in the yard, everything's like that. Two years ago, Habitat came through my neighborhood. And the good thing about Habitat coming through my neighborhood is that the drug dealers left, the prostitutes left, and since March is so amazing because my kids stay outside, I have to make them come in for dinner, I have to make them come in to take a bath, different things like that. They love being outside. Habitat made a huge, I would always say, well, you know you're at the top of the bottom on Spruce Street. Now, Spruce Street, they're like, this is a nice street, this is a, and all of that came through because of Habitat and the homes that Habitat has put there. And even my neighbors, we are owning that neighborhood, we are protecting that neighborhood. The police come down through there now and we don't have to worry about them harassing us. Because even when we, if they came through and the drug dealers were out, they would threaten us if we didn't say, oh yeah, that's, he was the one that was doing it. So, you know, yeah, I'm gonna go tell the police right in front of the drug dealer that he did it, you know. So, but the neighborhood has truly changed since Habitat has come into my neighborhood, come down Spruce Street. So I implore you, please, please, just, you know, like, there's money to be put into affordable housing. Please put that money into affordable housing because instead of it being a one single parent trying to do something with the kids and pay the rent. And I mean, like with me, my electric bill used to be as much as my rent was. I couldn't move on my own even with making the complaints with them about the substandard housing. The landlord would call and say, he would call Child Protection Agency on me when I asked him to make changes. So I was stuck in a substandard housing unit with my children. They couldn't go on trips with their school and different things like that because I couldn't afford to do it as a single parent. But now that I'm in Habitat, I actually have a savings account. You know, Habitat made that difference in my life and in my community. I asked that you all put that money into affordable housing. Thank you. Good evening, Jim Savar, 1114 Woodburn Road. Thank you for your endurance and your patience. I'm here to encourage you to support housing stabilization grants. We've talked about them before. This would provide grants to offset the increased taxes for long-term hominomers who are low income, who've had a 60% or more, a five times greater than the county-wide average increase in their property value. I commend you for the affordable housing goals that you've established, but I would argue that the housing stabilization grants provide a foundation for that strategy to work. How can you have a sound strategy that ignores the destabilizing effects of increasing property tax on long-term homeowners? These grants will help these homeowners offset the increased tax burden that they face. How can you tell long-term low-income homeowners that their tax increases are not important? You didn't intend these increases to happen, but you are sending a signal that it's not important to you and there's nothing that you are willing to do about it. We need to take advantage of other tax relief programs, but that's not going to be available for anyone this year. Are you aware that the deadline has already passed for the tax relief programs for this year? So we need the grant to provide assistance that would be available. There's been some objections raised that this would take money away from other housing rehab programs. I think that does not need to be the case. This will help to keep that problem from getting worse while the rehab programs are slowly, over five years reaching 200 families in the goals that have been established. The question has been asked, when will this program end? I think the more important question is, when will relief start? It is important that these be put in place now so that all the homeowners who would qualify for this program could start receiving assistance immediately. It appears the number of qualifying households is not all that large because so many houses are already rental or have been acquired recently. So let's intervene now. The estimates for the expense would be about $120,000 in the first year. The program should be operated as the county is recommended by a nonprofit organization that would be able to help people get involved, get signed up for these other programs and also alert them to get them involved in the housing rehab programs that you're starting. So don't wait until this summer to see whether there's a problem. There is a problem. Earmark funds now identify an administrative group that can run the program so that information can be sent out with the tax bills when they go out at the end of the summer. Thank you. I was a passionate sequence to follow, but I'm gonna try. Deb Hawkins, 311 Greenwood Drive in Durham. Thank you all for the opportunity to speak. Thank you for the good work that you do. I have been a proud four-year resident of this beautiful city of Durham and married Durham itself a year before that. I wear my community commitment very proudly. All over me, as you can see, I work with a lot of organizations. I'm very excited and glad that I do that. It may seem from the things that I'm wearing and what I'm gonna speak about that I might be a one-issue advocate, but that's not entirely true. It's just because my working-class daddy gave me a passion for this green world and encouraged me to get to college and get an education so I could do something about that in the world. But I had decided to become symbolically last to speak to you tonight because I heard a lot of very important conversations about things that are going on in Durham right now and for the future of Durham that we all wanna see. And the reason I went symbolically last is because oftentimes the green world around us and the environment outside our doors and open space and trails and community access to those things is something that tends to kinda come last on the list, lasting people's thoughts when they're thinking about all the problems that our world has. And that's no stranger thing in Durham either. I'm kind of actually an advocate for a vision that everything should progress together because if that does not happen and things are left out of the loop, sometimes it becomes too late to do anything about it further down the road when other things are dealt with. So I'm here to talk a little bit about open space and trails in Durham and where we are with our commitment to taking care of that and seeing that grow and prosper and be available for people as well. I honestly coming from the background I do, I really do think that access to amenities like trails and open space is a justice issue. There are a lot of people who can't afford a car, can't afford a bicycle, have to find some way to get around this town, make a living, have to find some way to have some access to clean air, clean environment, places to be with their children in the outdoors, let them understand about the value and importance of our outdoors and have equal access to spaces in downtown rather than that just being for the few who can afford it. I also think that it's important for people who cannot, who want to be able to get exercise but they cannot afford membership at the Y, they cannot afford membership at the gym, they cannot afford a membership or a price to go into enjoy amenities at Parks and Rec. So as we're beginning to try to carve our way through all of these issues to look at a vision of a greater future for Durham, it's important to keep all those things in perspective. I'm here to advocate for something to be applied to this important issue as well. We're symbolically last but we shouldn't be non-existent. So the budget proposals are out there for this year. We did not make it anywhere on that list in terms of some funding nor in the CIP and we have a 10 year old out open space and trails master plan. We have no roadmap or blueprint for the future let alone money committed to fund it. So I think it's very important that we consider that we don't allow that part of our growth to be the invisible child, the forgotten child in the process to making Durham great. And that's really what I was here to advocate for. Please consider that for the upcoming budgets and thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it. I can call some names. I have some cards up here. Max Davis, Romney Caddy, Brian Schreck, Frank Carroll, Brian Schreck, I guess it's George Davis. Okay, let me ask again, is anyone else that wants to speak on the side and it's being a public hearing that it's not had an opportunity to speak? Not let the reflect that no one else has to speak. I will close the public hearing and I'll turn it back to my council members for any comments if you have any. Okay, let me say that we do appreciate those that took the time to come and make their voices heard. I heard someone back in the back and Mayor Bell, are you listening? I listened very well. I listened very well and I take into consideration everything that's been said and I'm sure my colleagues on the council will do that too as we come to grips with this budget and all the demands that have been placed on us. We have one other meeting scheduled for Thursday at 11 o'clock where we try to deal with those issues, flag issues and it's intent for the council to adopt this budget at our June 20th meeting. So again, if you have comments or concerns, feel free to email us, give us a call in terms of your desires. I haven't said that, I wouldn't entertain a motion to accept the comments that have been presented to this public hearing on the budget. I'm gonna probably move to the second all in favor of the motion and they give a say in aye. I didn't open it because I didn't know if it was working I said, okay, you got it. All right, passes unanimously. Thank you. Let's move to the next item on this. Zoning map change, this item 20. 30. Yeah, I'll say 20. Zoning map change, Hope Valley Commons Business Park, Z15-0023. Good evening council members. Grace Smith with the planning department. This request was continued from your April 4th meeting and the applicant is present. The zoning case for Z15-0023, Hope Valley Commons Business Park is a request to change the zoning designation of 4.536 acres located at 7101 and a portion of 7103 west NC 51 highway from office institutional with a development plan and commercial center CCD to commercial general with a development plan for self storage. The development plan associated with this request commits to the following 25, excuse me, 250,000 square feet of building footprint, one access point, 70% maximum pervious surface, 10% tree coverage and the use of self storage as a use specifically that came up at the last meeting and the applicant has committed to that. Graphically, the development plan commits to general location of one site access point, location of tree preservation areas and a building and parking envelope and project boundary buffers. Staff determines this request is not consistent with the comprehensive plan and other adopted policies and ordinances due to the city council action not to approve their quest to change the future land use map on April 4th, 2016. Specifically, UDO section 354 states that all petitions for zoning map changes must and this is a mandatory condition be consistent with the comprehensive plan including the future land use map. Additionally, this ordinance states that the council cannot approve rezoning once a determination of non-compliance has been made. Staff is available if you have any additional questions. The public hearing matter, the public hearing is open that we ask them to have questions by members of the staff of the council. How can I ask the councilwoman, Johnston? I'm wondering what would be the appropriate time so I'd like to renew the decision that we made to change the, that we voted down to change the use from office to commercial. I've had a request to do that after we do the zoning, after we vote on the zoning, whereas previously there was a discussion about doing it before so I was just wondering if there was a, what would the appropriate time would be to do that? I see councilor Moffitt raises hand. I see planning director Steve coming forth. So, Medlin. Steve Medlin with the planning department. I'll certainly defer to the city attorney but it would be my recommendation that you consider the plan amendment before you take any action on the zoning case. That's correct, that's what we had addressed before. I recognize councilor Moffitt. Okay, the reason I asked, I will vote against a plan amendment without knowing what the rezoning is because there's only one case in which I would consider the plan amendment to be appropriate and that's with the rezoning with the development plan and the committed elements that are on it. And that's why we're not required by law to follow the comprehensive plan. We can change the comprehensive plan immediately but I would ask you that if the comprehensive plan indicated commercial, would the staff then have a recommendation of, I'm wearing out a recommendation for approval. So, just to clarify for the record, certainly the general statutes gives the council great discretion when considering zoning cases, however your own unified development ordinance is very clear. There is a provision that basically council cannot approve a zoning inconsistent with the comprehensive plan. So the prior, if you can remember your last meeting, council member Moffitt, where you raised the issue with South Point Trails. At that point, we recommended that you reconsider the item. Council move forward in violation of our own unified development ordinance. Do I understand then that the South Point Trails rezoning is not a legal rezoning? You're saying it's against our ordinances? The action taken was against the ordinance. However, for someone to challenge that, it would have had to file an appeal within the prescribed timeline under general statute and unified development ordinance. We've lost our fearless leader. So, okay, so given that, I would like to make a motion that having conducted a public hearing and received public comment on the Hope Valley Commons Business Park Plan Amendment at City Council's April 4th, 2016 meeting, I would like to review the previously considered motion to adopt a resolution to change the future of land use from office to commercial. Second. We're moving second to other questions on the motion. Erin on a call to question, Madam Clerk, will you open the vote? Close the vote. It passes five to one. Would council member Moffitt voting no? Recognize the council member Moffitt. Just out of curiosity, can we take this up without a public hearing and do notification? No, but the Comprehensive Plan, did we put out notification at Comprehensive Plan, Erin? We included in the information distributed and noticed that there was consideration that this motion would be made. That is correct. All right, that motion is passed. We did have people that signed up to speak on this item. James Shretler, is that it? Steve Macko, Joe Jernigan, and Ron Harvard. Now, all these persons are speaking in support of the proposal. Is there anyone that wants to speak against it so I can allocate time? Not then, I'm going to limit the time to three minutes each, total of 12 minutes. Thank you, Mayor Bell and members of the council. My name is Jamie Shretler. My address is 301 Fayetteville Street in Raleigh. I am representing the applicant in this matter. It's a question to rezone. Two parts of the property are about 4.5 acres. This matter came on before the council and the initial public hearing in April. At that time, we covered the Comprehensive Plan Amendment and discussed a little bit about why we believe the Comprehensive Plan Amendment was correct. And now that that motion has passed, I would just like to echo Steve Medlin's comments that that has now satisfied that portion of the UDO. And so that council is now in a position where they can vote in favor of the rezoning because it's consistent with the Comprehensive Plan and adopted policies of the city of Durham. It's consistent with the Development Plan requirements and it's also consistent with the UDO specific requirements. It's been a very late meeting tonight. We do have several people here to speak. I have a presentation prepared but I don't think we need to go into it. The main key things from before are just that the concerns were a lack of a text amendment for self-storage and the square footage. We have changed both of those things. We've added the text commitment that limits it to self-storage. That's guaranteed on the Development Plan. We've also reduced the square footage from 400,000 square feet down to 250,000 square feet. So with those concerns that were raised at the public hearing, taken back through staff and received comments, I believe we're in a situation now where the planning staff can recommend approval based on the consistency with the Comprehensive Plan and the changes the applicant has made to limit this to self-storage. As I said, I have additional speakers that are here, that are adjacent property owners. More than happy to answer any questions but I don't want to keep y'all here longer than necessary. I can represent that we did have our public meetings and neighborhood meetings and we've since heard no opposition to the matter. Thank you. You're welcome. Let me ask again, is it anyone else that wants to speak on this item? If not, let the record reflect that no one else has to speak either proponents or opponents, I'll declare the matter, but we can be closed matters by court counsel. Who's the item? Recognize Councilor Moffitt and then Planning Director. Listening to the, I want to thank the applicant for, I want to thank the applicant for listening to the concerns expressed by the council the last time that we met, concerns that were, so just thank you very much for addressing those concerns and doing so in a way that I'm very comfortable with this and I plan to vote for it. Recognize the Planning Director. Steve, did you have some comments you want to make? Please excuse me. We're a little confused with this process. We're just, we're trying to verify procedurally. One, have you taken an action on the plan amendment? I did not hear a motion on the plan amendment. I heard a motion to reconsider. Well, we need to get the proper wording on. State. State, did you clarify what, what that properized? At this point, we would need council to move approval of a plan amendment to modify the future land use map to low density residential, which just, you'll find this out when we get a little deeper into the zoning case with a drop in density at, excuse me, wrong project, wrong project. It's late night. I apologize, I apologize. What? Yeah, I apologize. You just need to make a motion to prove with the plan amendment as originally proposed by the applicant on this case. Is there a second to that? It's been properly moved in second. Any further questions, questions? My call to question, Madam Clerk, will you open the vote? Close the vote. It passes five to one with council member Moffett voting. Mr. Mayor. It is late. Mr. Mayor, I'll move that we approve the rezoning application that's predicted in the timeframe. Second. Where is it? Oh. Okay, I got it. Madam Clerk, will you open the vote? Close the vote. It passes six to zero. Thank you very much. It's been properly moved in second. Madam Clerk, will you open the vote? Close the vote. It passes six to zero. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Item 31, zoning map change, Cornwallis Road property, two, zero, 15, zero, zero, zero, 31. We're back here. Item 32, conference of plan amendment, compact neighborhood, tier policy updates, eight, 15, zero, zero, zero, 20. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. My name is Hannah Jacobson with the planning department and I am pleased to be here tonight to, excuse me, to present to you on the compact neighborhood planning process. This first item, eight, 15, zero, zero, zero, 20, deals specifically with text amendments to the comprehensive plan, but I will also use it to briefly provide some background context and information about this project. Over the past year, we've been working to develop recommendations to update both the future land use map and policies of the Durham comprehensive plan to better align our land use plans with Go Triangles proposed Durham orange light rail transit system. In the last 10 years, since the comprehensive plan was adopted, light rail stations have been added, some have been moved, some have been removed, and our future land use plan has not kept up. The project has given us an opportunity to engage with many of the communities along the light rail corridor, which have seen change in growth in the last 10 years, and finally it's enabled us to scope out some of the big issues that we're going to need to look at as we move forward towards future planning efforts, such as rezoning. A very brief background, the 2005 comprehensive plan introduced the concepts of development tiers that range from the downtown tier to the rural tier. Development tiers provide a basis for context appropriate policies and regulations. The compact neighborhood tier and the suburban transit areas were included in the comprehensive plan to provide areas for higher density, mix of uses, and more walkable environments. They were applied on the future land use map in areas of the proposed regional rail transit station. We of course now know that the Durham to Orange Light rail line is the first phase of the regional rail. So for this project, we have focused on the five areas in blue, from east to west, Alston Avenue, Irwin Road, South Square, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Parkway, Patterson Place, and finally Lee Village. Over the last year we've hosted, the planning department has hosted 12 community meetings with over 500 participants. We've updated the planning commission on three separate occasions, and those of you on the Joint City County Planning Committee we visited twice. But this is just a beginning. It represents only a first step in our land use planning around the light rail stations. The proposals tonight are to update the comprehensive plan to reflect the current transit proposal. Future projects that are already identified on our work program for the next year will look more specifically at, and in more detail at the Compact Design Zoning District that will be applied in these areas. Step number three is to work very closely with members of the community to propose zoning map changes. But of course, before we can do that, we understand that strategies for infrastructure and strategies for affordable housing need to be in place. So this will be a long effort that will require continued participation and diligence and I have good faith just by looking at the number of people in this room that that will continue to happen. Throughout the process, we've received a number of questions about our approach and why we need to do this now. And to that question, we have four primary responses. The first is that the future land use map does more than direct and guide zoning map changes. It's very important for infrastructure planning. For instance, to plan a water and sewer system, the city's engineers need to know where and how much in density and intensity there will be so they can do things like appropriately sized pump stations and other infrastructure. This is especially important in the Lee Village area where there is very little existing infrastructure but also in the Alston Avenue area where infrastructure is aging and will need to be replaced. Additionally, a component of the new starts application for federal funding for the light rail itself is a demonstrated commitment by local governments towards transit oriented development. One way that they measure that is through the adoption of transit supportive plans and policies. So updating our comprehensive plan would demonstrate that commitment. Thirdly, the recently adopted affordable housing density bonus which gives a three to one bonus only applies in compact neighborhoods. So by adopting additional compact neighborhoods, you more people in more places can take advantage of that bonus. And finally, it introduces the concept of more urban development pattern which is important in places with kind of a long suburban history like South Square for instance. I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation that we are recommending policy updates to the comprehensive plan. We have two that we're recommending. The first reinforces an idea that's already within the unified development ordinance. It aims to describe how development in compact neighborhoods will transition and blend smoothly with the surrounding neighborhoods. The intent in design districts is to have the most intense biggest, tallest uses closest to the light rail stations with intensity tapering down as you get towards the edges. The policy describes how we intend to do that using zoning sub districts which will be defined and very carefully mapped with community input during the zoning map change process. The second policy addition would be to incorporate the resolutions for affordable housing and transit into the comprehensive plan. This gives the staff and elected officials another tool to use to reinforce the importance of affordable housing. And finally, staff is recommending approval of plan amendment case A1500020 to amend the text of the comprehensive plan. The planning commission also supported these amendments by a vote of 13 to one. Staff is happy to take questions. Okay, let me first do a housekeeping piece. I've just been informed that for the council members, everybody needs to turn their microphones off and only turn them on when you're speaking. That's a problem they have in the back room. Again, this is a public hearing matter. Let me ask first, are there questions or comments by members of the council on this item? We do have several people to sign up to speak on this item. If not, then we'll go to the public and we have one, two, three, four, five persons to speak. I'll call your name. Each one is three. Is anyone that wants to speak against this proposed amendment? Because all, okay. And we have two people who want to speak against it. Can you sign up at public? Because I don't have a car. Well, let's do this. Three minutes, we have a total of 15 minutes for each side. Steve, no, is that it? Lynn Scott, Linaire Boone. Oh, you had signed up to speak Linaire against it. Jared Harris, Ford, and Dan Jewel. I don't have yet, you know, the car. Okay. All right. Oh, I have it, Denise, I see it. Good evening, Mayor Beall, members of the council. My name is Dan Jewel. I'm a landscape architect and private practice. I reside at 1025 Gloria Avenue in Durham. As many of you probably know, I've been a staunch advocate for our transit system and transit-oriented development for many, many years now. And I will simply say, for all of the reasons that Ms. Jacobson stated and more, I strongly would encourage you to go ahead and vote approval of this agenda item in front of you because it does set the stage for many agenda items to follow. Thank you. My name is Jared Harris. I don't currently live at our house at 5623 Wendell Road in the district but we did for many years. Currently, I live in Berkeley, California. So this is a process that we've been involved in since 2000, maybe a little bit before 2000. It's, we regard this process as essential to support the transit, as Hannah was saying, of fight the sprawl, fight traffic, achieve better environmental results, achieve affordability. This creates the opportunities for affordability which wouldn't otherwise exist. And it's been a very long and halting process. There was a huge hiatus between the original transit districts and the current process. And it's, we regard it as essential not to enter another indeterminate pause that will derail the process. And I know that there are concerns about exactly what the regulations will be as Ms. Jacobson was saying, that is another step or two or three down the road. And there'll be a lot of public consultation. The questions that need to be answered, the questions that are pressing will be answered before the development actually takes place. There are a lot of reasons why the development can't just proceed a pace. And it would give the city council and the planning department more control, not less over the process. So I strongly urge you to pass this today. Thank you. You did mention my name. I did give a card to Tenelle. My name is Mike Waldrop, 3524 Sayward Drive. As many of you know, I've been a part of Patterson Drive for a long, long time. My personal involvement with the concept of station area planning and the light rail system goes back into the 90s. And I was on the citizens advisory committee that put together the first comp plan. And one of the great triumphs I think of that thing was the fact that we did develop the suburban transit station areas or support areas as placeholders for future transit stations. I think the road to transit is hard. I think last year's experience in the General Assembly proves that. I don't know how that will be resolved. But in my very simple minded way, I see us ultimately in competition with the nation for funding, including federal funding. And so when Ms. Jacobson mentioned the new starts initiative, I thought that that really pointed out as it should the fact that we need to make regular progress towards what I consider to be an environmental and social imperative, which is basically the conversion of Durham to a transit centered, transit driven city. So I would urge you to support the designation of the compact neighborhood for Patterson Place and for all the others, I realize some are more controversial than others. But this is one step in a long process. There is a boundary defined in the future land use map for the suburban transit support area. This changes it in a few instances. It's a boundary that really doesn't dictate what happens inside. I realize that there are going to be many more conversations about how that evolves and how those regulations evolve. But I think we need to show regular progress in conjunction with what's happened in the transit arena with the environmental impact statement where we've made good headway. So I urge you to support this. I'm going to recognize those that are in opposition. Ms. Hester in a near balloon in that order. Good evening, Denise Hester, 3526 Abercrombie Drive. First of all, I wanted to say I'm not an opponent of rapid transit. In fact, before returning here to my hometown in Durham, I was an engineer for Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit when it was first initiated and through its first phase. So please take my comments in the context of the power of transit to transform communities both positively and negatively. The negative part is what I'm concerned about in a place like Durham because when you put a compact land use over an existing area, this is not raw land. This is area where people currently live and own businesses. So it's very important, I think, to take our time. We know this system is not funded fully yet. So it's not like we're in a race to do something tomorrow. And I would like to see us air on the side of caution for these particular reasons. Now the compact boundaries show where the proposed core and sub districts are on the map. I said it should show, it does not. It only shows the exterior boundary. Now I understand tonight's discussion is a policy discussion about the comp plan but the UDO already references sub districts and various restrictions that come with those sub districts. So there's already a precedent as such to distinguish between land use within the compact boundaries. And I believe that the comprehensive plan should be consistent with the UDO in this respect but it is not in all aspects. For example, paragraph 2.2.4 D says we should ensure passenger terminals are permitted in the zoning districts in the compact tier but yet the UDO prohibits passenger terminals in the support district too. The same prohibition exists with commercial parking in paragraph 5.3.4.f and also no convenient stores or gas stations which would affect existing ownership rights in those areas. But one interesting part about this discussion is that in the downtown tier, the central business district has been defined as having one in the same boundary which you all call coterminous with the downtown tier. So that eliminates that inconsistency within that downtown district. I would expect to see the same kind of consistency in the compact area which in my opinion does not fully exist. The other reason for looking at land uses in the compact boundary more closely is that you want to avoid potential unintended consequences by just drawing a boundary and passing it without looking at some of the existing land uses that you may not want to include such as industrial parcels and other businesses that may be zoned out. And finally for my last point, I'm concerned about homeowners who have single-family residences in the compact area. It is not clear to me exactly what a citizen can and cannot do with their own property if they are in the core of the sub-district. It also appears that the single-family homeowners rights to expand beyond their existing footprint are no longer guaranteed by right in the compact area but would require another approval level which is a special use permit. I personally don't think that's right. I think that a homeowner should be able to use their property as long as the physical and the zoning configuration work, they should not have to go through an extra step which may or may not be granted as a special use permit. So to kind of describe it, if I've got a single-family home in a compact district and let's say I want to add a bedroom or a family room or a bathroom or a mother-in-law suite for my mother or older relative, I have to get a special use permit to expand that foundation but I don't think you have to do that in any other zoning district. I could be wrong about that but I hate to see a citizen's rights unduly restricted in the name of progress and in the name of rail line and I don't think the public fully understands, I know I don't, all of the ramifications for single-family ownership which we say we want and we want to preserve affordable housing but yet you have these rules and kind of contradictory things embedded in these policies that I don't think have been fully fleshed out yet and as hard as it is for people to afford a home in this day and time, I hate to see citizens' rights curtailed in the name of progress so I would urge a delay so that people can really understand what is really being proposed. Thank you for the extra time. You're welcome. Let me say the reason that we had five people to sign up to speak as proponents and I said 15 minutes and we had two people to sign up to speak and our proponents so it was really a total of 15 minutes on each side, that's why I allowed Ms. Hester to go beyond three minutes. The next person is Lanier Blum and if you could put six minutes up there. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. It's time to listen. But I do appreciate the opportunity to raise some questions. I have tried and tried and studied and studied with a great help of the planning department to understand exactly what's on your agenda tonight and what the impact would be for affordable housing. And in short, I feel like adopting the tier boundaries tonight is in fact the logical next step towards planning our transit areas and of course I totally support both transit and affordable housing. So I'm only half and half tonight. I do think we should adopt the tier boundaries. They describe where the additional transit oriented development needs to be. They can be used for the SASE, they can be used for planning, they can be used for go transit. However, I think we really need to pause to make sure that when we change the future land use map, we do it in such a way that it doesn't undermine affordable housing. And here are several things that I think do have the potential to undermine our affordable housing goals in the current proposal. In 2007 and 2008, we changed the future land use map and zoning for Ninth Street and downtown. We can learn from what happened there. Those changes did long before any train was in planning, ready to run. They've already incentivized more than 26,000, 2600 apartments in Ninth Street and downtown. Not one single one of those is affordable, not even a studio, to people whose incomes are below 30,000 or $40,000 a year. So this experience teaches us that before we change the future land use, we must plan first for housing. Future land use establishing that now can undermine the likelihood of meeting our housing goals. So why not plan first and at the same time for affordable housing? I think there are three high impact tasks that we need to do before we change future land use. The first one is we definitely need to update and amend the comprehensive plans housing policy. Injecting that little one-liner 15% goal. And then otherwise inconsistent and out-of-date housing section is not gonna do the trick. Our housing section now makes it a violation of the comprehensive plan to add new subsidized housing in the Austin Avenue area, the downtown area, the Dillard area, and it makes it a violation of the comprehensive plan to add more than 50 homes in a Durham Housing Authority neighborhood. It also, there are all kinds of other inconsistencies. It's completely out of date. You guys just spent a whole year doing great work to set new goals for affordable housing. Those should be incorporated in our housing element of the comprehensive plan before we move forward to change these future land uses. The next thing that we need to do is incorporate the changes that we're all talking about in terms of transit oriented density and so forth in the zoning. As we set out the core and the sub support areas, those planning standards need to be in there before the future land use is changed. Just tonight you saw that if you don't change the future land use, an incompatible proposal from a developer cannot be accepted. That's right where we wanna be right now because it's true that the planning department is saying that the city won't initiate rezoning but there's nothing to stop an owner. And in fact, there's sort of an encouragement to an owner. There's a window here to go ahead and apply for a rezoning before any limitations having to do with affordable housing might be considered unimposed. So it's really important to get the zoning right before we change the future land use. The third thing that we need to do, and this is the most important in a way because as soon as you change the future land use, you're giving the owners of property in that area an increase in property value. We've seen it already not only in downtown and Ninth Street compact areas and even the compact areas that haven't been rezoned but we've also seen it in the neighborhoods surrounding them. And the only way that we can really meet anyone's needs who's at the poverty level and these are the people who need transit the most. They're the people who need transit to be able to get to work into their daily services. The only way we can really address their needs is unfortunately not gonna be through developer density bonuses. The only way that we can do that is through investment. Isn't it better to plan those investments before we raise the prices on ourselves? So the comprehensive plan includes standards of service, levels of service and it encourages joint development and includes a capital improvement program for all the other community facilities that we're investing in and station areas but it doesn't include one single affordable housing note. So these are the three things that if we do before we change future land use we'll strengthen and make more powerful our ability to get affordable housing in transit station areas which is a goal I think everyone here totally supports and I so appreciate that, thank you. You're welcome. That concludes persons that have signed up to speak either for or against this proposal. I'm not gonna close the public hearing yet. There may be some redness but I wanna bring it back to the council for comments. Recognize, council Marford, council Schuhl in that order. There are two items on tonight's agenda. The second item has to do with tier boundaries and designations. This item is actually just about putting into the comprehensive plan. It establishes in the comprehensive plan definitions of sub districts in compact neighborhoods. That's the first thing it does. And the second thing it does is it formalizes the city and counties commitment to affordable housing. Those are, it doesn't do anything with the tiers. Doesn't do anything with designations. So I support this particular item on tonight's agenda. Thank you. Recognize, council Schuhl. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Appreciate everybody's comments and this is important. And I also appreciate what Don just said about what we're actually taking up with this motion but I think it does bring into, I think we might as well take up some of the important questions that have been raised that are gonna be relevant in our next item which is intimately related to this one. So I do have some questions. I guess the first thing I wanted to ask, Hannah, is just the information in the attachment, the compact neighborhood introduction and in the next item that's related to the description of each of the compact tiers and the different tiers, who wrote them? I did. They're awesome. Thank you. They are an amazing job. Thank you. I mean, the way in which you described the pros and the cons of each tier and the clarity of it and it was a really, it was just excellent work. So I think that the main question in front of us that I've heard from people about and I think is a very important question and I've heard lots of different things from lots of different people is should we wait till the UDO is updated to amend the future land use map? Should we, do we need, why do we need to amend the future land use map now before updating the UDO and being ready to put in the new zoning? Why are these the steps in this order? So let me start with that. I might call out the rest of the planning department, send out the bat signal for some help here. But typically, these are very good questions but typically in planning processes you start with a plan and then you work towards implementation. It's somewhat like you're in an airplane and you're flying at a very high altitude when you're at the planning level. You might not be able to see the ground very clearly but as you approach landing, the details become far more clear and that's kind of the way that planning works as well. You start with goals and the goal being we would like to support compact development around our regional transit stations. We might not have all the answers but that's where we are at this point and then as we work closer with the community we will get more of those details. That's probably the best answer that I have but I suspect that my colleagues have better answers than that. Do any colleagues want to help? Good evening, I'm Scott White from the planning department. I don't have a whole lot to add but I think it is important to realize that our comprehensive plan is supposed to set the table for our zoning and UDO regulations and it's not the other way around which just seems to be what some people are arguing. I think that the argument that I'm hearing is not so much the other way around is that these need to be adopted simultaneously. Can you speak to that? It's certainly an option but I think the reason why this process came first is we need to answer the where question before we get into all the what's. We do want to encourage affordable housing. We want to encourage improved infrastructure in our compact neighborhoods but right now our comprehensive plan is stuck in 2005 when the rail system was in a different place. So by taking this first step we'll know where these new regulations are going to apply. People who are currently in compact neighborhoods like the Golden Belt neighborhood, the Crest Street neighborhood can know that they're no longer in it. We don't have to worry about figuring out how to craft regulations around those. So I think that's unless you have some other questions about that. So my other question would be and I feel like I am kind of bleeding over into the next item but I think they're so related and the speakers have certainly spoken to these things so I'm gonna go ahead and ask this question which is how will the staff and how I'm not sure who I'm asking this to exactly but once we make these changes, the tier boundary changes as well as the changes to future land use map, how will staff respond to requests to rezone to higher densities during the period before we have the zoning in place for core support wads, support two and so forth. Before we have the transit oriented density bonus option in place that the staff will be working on this year. What kind of recommendations will the staff make to council on these rezoning requests? I agree with linear that we may get these private requests and then let's start with that. Sarah Young with the planning department. I'll answer that question. One of this is one of the concerns that we have heard often and one of the main reasons actually that we are proposing this approach, this as was alluded to in a previous zoning case will give council the ability to say that a private rezoning is just not in keeping and supportive of the vision for the area and deny it if they subject. I understand what council's prerogatives are. I'm actually more interested in what the recommendation of the department would be once the future land use map is amended. Is that the right word? Sure. And someone comes to you all because we rely on you. Staff's position at that point would be that it is not consistent with the comprehensive plan and we would not recommend for it. So a private developer comes forward and wants additional density inside the compact neighborhood tier and you all would be recommending against adding that density until when? Well, as you alluded to we do have a proposed work program item that is somewhat contingent on what happens here tonight because this would give us the basis to do that but our intent is to as quickly as possible bring back to you all an item that would allow for an increase in density with affordable housing and some minimal TOD related provisions. And how long do we think it would be before we would have that, Sarah? I don't remember right off the cuff. I can tell you that some preliminary work has already begun in anticipation so it would be our intent to bring it as quickly as possible. I guess I'm asking for a very rough time more like a year or more like five years? A year or less. A year or less. Yeah. Okay. Let me ask you what about a situation like wood partners? We just had wood partners ask for a rezoning for more density. They said that their development was highly compatible with transit oriented development. You all agreed that it had a lot of transit oriented development characteristics and the department recommended in favor of adoption. What would happen in this current situation would this be the, what would you be recommending in a case like that? Well, there's two things to take note about that particular case. One, it was consistent with the future land use. So that is kind of one issue aside. But I think so. In other words, in the existing, it was consistent with the existing future land use map and you're saying under the compact tier it would not be any longer consistent with the tier. Correct. With the future land use map. Correct. I'm sorry, Sharon, then I interrupted you. The second thing I would say is that while we would not necessarily recommend approval, we would certainly identify all of the places where a proposal was supportive and consistent. That is something that I don't think will happen very often in that we only have, I think I looked up four pending cases that will continue to move forward. We have not received any new ones. So the likelihood that we're gonna have an onslaught of cases before we bring that item back to you all is relatively slim. And with those four cases, I've looked at them and I don't foresee huge problems. And I think what you mean is, and correct me if I'm wrong, you have four cases that are requesting a rezoning for more density inside one of these proposed compact tiers. Is that what you mean? Not necessarily more density. They are requesting rezoning that would not necessarily be compatible, would not be a design district rezoning. And so you all are planning to recommend against those? We have taken the tact that all of the rezonings that came in before this process has come to fruition need to be dealt kind of with a special. It's a little problematic, I think, to put folks in double jeopardy that came in under one set of rules. The rules change while they're in process. So I think it's fair to say Steve has abandoned me. That's what he does, Sarah. He gets up there, he pretends like he's helping and then he leaves. I've noticed the shadow goes away. But that we would bring those kind of with caveated recommendations. They may not on paper meat, but because they were submitted beforehand and we have already been working with several applicants to make their applications as transit and affordable housing supportive as possible, giving what those applications are. And some of them are not actually even for built development. So there's some other nuances to some of those cases as well. So I think what I'm hearing is, there are four cases in the pipeline. Some of them want more density, some don't. These are all residential? No, actually two of them are for what I call non-development. One is for a parking lot and the other is just to bring some right of way into a particular rezoning district to clean up something. Are they of any size? Only one. Steve Mendel of the Planning Department, Councilman Shul of the four projects as Sarah indicated, one is for right of way associated with the Wood Partners Project. That's an annexation request. The other is if you can remember the parking lot that was adjacent to Celeste Circle. Never forget it. It's coming back through the process for potential consideration, modifications to the location of the access and how it relates to that neighborhood. The third case is on Shannon Road, which is a commercial application, so no residential involved in that, and then the fourth is a mixed use project, which is the old Witherspoon's Rose Gallery site at Patterson Place. Okay, and so I guess I'm, what I'm seeking is a level of confidence that the department is, about what the department's practices are gonna be. I understand the dilemma with those four cases, but there are gonna be others before this, I think there's two pieces of work. I guess one is the transoriented development density bonus idea. And the other is the development of the actual zoning within these design districts. Compact neighborhood tiers, design districts. And so on Sarah, I guess, commented already on the time that it would take to do the first. How long will it take to do the second? I know that there are five of these and yet less than a year, if you said to me. So just to remind the council that in the past we've actually indicated to do both would take us a period of between three to five years. With the intent trying to make it closer to the three, we've added additional resources to our work program to focus on doing it quicker. So best case at this point would be approximately three years. Yeah, so then it sounds to me like, let's say that there are not many more cases that come in this year. Insofar as they did come in, you all will be recommending against them. That is correct. And then we would have a period, let's say that we did get the COD, the affordable housing part of this done in a year. Then we still got a couple years before the zoning is done in all the districts. They would be done in some of the districts before that. Yes. And what would be the staff's posture on developments that come in in that window, between the one and the three years? Again, if it's not consistent with the conference of plan, then we would be recommending it against the request. Is that sustainable over a three year period? I believe so. I think it also serves as a driver for the staff to work as quickly as possible to execute the creation of the design districts so that we're not keeping people on limbo for that length of time. So it seems to me that we've got this, I completely believe and respect your intentions. I do think that pressures arise. One of the things that people are saying, who are saying, do these things at the same time is, if you don't make the change, then those pressures wanna arise in that way. So can you speak again about what you think the compelling reasons are to do the future land use map before making the zoning changes? I think what it comes down to is that it sets the strong policy foundation for the department as it relates to the conference of plan. One in terms of the boundaries of these compact neighborhoods, but two in terms of the future land use. If we don't do, if we do one and not the other, then you will have similar types of cases coming before you like wood partners, where people will be coming under. Keep in mind that the land use map already has land use designations on these areas. That doesn't preclude people from coming in and asking for rezoning under those existing land use designations, and I would anticipate that to continue, which is why we have the four pending cases, why we had the wood partners case that you heard just recently. Those will still be there. I think what we're arguing is that by establishing this policy guidance that gives us clear guidance to work with the development community to keep them from being as aggressive on trying to develop those properties until we have the regulatory framework in place to support what we wanna see there as a long-term vision. And so you would say that the future land use map already has designations on it under which people have been and are now coming in for rezonings, including, as in the case of wood partners, more density. Correct. And that that would continue anyway, and so therefore we would have these exact same pressures as we would have, or maybe even more pressures, is that true? That is true, and we would not have no basis, excuse me, we would have no basis to recommend against those. We would have no basis to recommend against them, okay. I really appreciate it. I'm gonna have some more questions on the next item, but I appreciate this very much. Thank you. Look, look, look, let's do this. First, we need to have an excuse absent for the mayor pro tem she had to leave. So who? It's been a proper move in second. Madam clerk, can you open the vote? The close the vote. Thank you. Okay. Okay. I want to bring this piece to a close. I think we've had a pretty healthy discussion on this item. I'm gonna close the public hearing and bring it back to the board for an attain a motion. Recognize Councilman Moffitt. Two things. First, I do plan to move approval of this item, but I will say that Councilman Schultz's discussion of the next item has raised a number of issues for me that I'll be asking about at the proper time. So I will move approval of this item. It's been a proper move in second for the discussion hearing on call to question. Madam clerk, will you open the vote? Close the vote. Passes five to zero. Okay. As we move to this next item, I'm gonna have to do some counting. I've got all these cards up here that people have signed up to speak on this item. We're talking about items 33 through 37, Conference of Plan Amendment, Compact Neighborhood Tears. I have some people that signed up but didn't say if they were in opposition to it or not. So I just need to get this clarified first. I have Jacqueline Bauer that signed up for 33 through 37, Mack Hirsch Hirsch and Kathy Abernathy. Are those persons still present? Say what? I just need to know are they for, these items are against, so I can figure out the time. The name is who? What's, what's? Yes. Okay, the staff wanna present this and then we can figure out how much time we have on each one. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, again, I'm Hannah Jacobson, the planning department. Now we have the opportunity to dig into the specific changes to the future land use map in each of the five areas. And in each of the five areas, we are looking to make three types of changes. The first affects the development tier where our recommendation is to either amend an existing compact neighborhood tier boundary. That's the case in Irwin Road in Alston Avenue or to convert a suburban transit area to a compact neighborhood. And that's the case in Lee Village, South Square and Patterson Place. In general, the areas that we've included within the tier boundaries are places where we expect there to be some kind of change or redevelopment. And typically they include places that are older shopping centers, for example, older apartment complexes or vacant or some underdeveloped properties. Excluded from the boundaries were generally staples, single family neighborhoods and environmentally important areas. The second type of change we are proposing is to change the underlying future land use designation to design district. Design districts are, emphasize the urban form and design rather than specific land uses. Operationally, the future land use map works by guiding how land can be rezoned. So if there is a request to rezone a property in the future, it must be consistent with the design districts. Finally, there are a number of other handful of other changes to the future land use map that made sense as we studied these areas in greater detail. Begin on the east side with Alston Avenue where our existing plan, which is shown on the left-hand side of the screen, is for a 302-acre compact neighborhood tier. Our recommendation is to redraw the boundaries and change the future land use designation to design district. The biggest changes to the tier boundary are in the north and in the east, where our proposal actually removes the golden belt neighborhood and the Eastern National Register historic districts, as well as part of Eastway Village. This is because, again, that they are stable neighborhoods that we don't expect any major redevelopment. South of the Durham Freeway staffs recommendation does include the former Fayette Place as a potential large-scale redevelopment area. There's another existing compact neighborhood tier along Irwin Road near Duke University and the Duke and VA medical centers. There were three main drivers that influenced staff's recommended boundary here. First is the LaSalle Street Station, which was not originally part of the 2005, sorry, originally part of the transit proposal in 2005. That brings into play the area to the west of LaSalle Street. Second major driver is Duke University and properties that they owned that are zoned for University College. In meeting with campus planning staff, they expressed the desire to remain outside of the compact neighborhood. And finally, we also met with residents of the Crest Street neighborhood who also expressed a desire to remain outside of the compact neighborhood and preserve the single-family character of that area. This has left a somewhat funny appendage on the north side of 147 that for all intents and purposes would likely become an extension of the Knight Street compact neighborhood. Additionally, in this area, we propose changing the future land use map designation from commercial to institutional for parcels that are owned by Duke University and zoned University College. This is consistent with the rest of the campus. Moving down the line quickly to the South Square and Martin Luther King Junior stations, the 2005 plan shown on the left showed a suburban transit area. Our recommendation is again to convert it to a compact neighborhood, redraw the boundaries and designate the land uses as design district. Three main things, again, influenced the boundary. The first is the Martin Luther King Junior station, which was not a part of the original transit proposal. The second is the South Square station, which moved from a location on Westgate Drive over to Shannon Road. That brings into play areas to the east. And finally, there was originally a picket road station, which is no longer in the transit plan. So the area that is on the west side of 15501 bypass no longer makes sense to include. In Patterson Place, our recommendation is to convert the suburban transit area to a compact neighborhood tier, redraw the boundaries and convert the future land for future land use map to design district. The existing boundaries on the north and the east side follow 2005 flood plain lines, which is somewhat problematic from a legal perspective because flood plain lines move. Our proposed boundary follows either property lines or recorded sewer easements or trail easements. We are concerned about how close those lines do approach to the New Hope Creek and to Dry Creek. So we are committed to looking into new environmental protection regulations in the compact design district for this area. The other major change is to extend the boundary south to Old Chapel Hill Road, where there are planned bicycle and pedestrian improvements. This area, as you can see on the map, is also extremely close to the gateway station right across the city limits in Chapel Hill. Finally, Lee Village, it's currently designated a suburban transit area on the future land use map. Our recommendation is to convert it to a compact neighborhood with new boundaries. The biggest change is to areas to the north and to the west. It does remove Eastwood Park, the Eastwood Park neighborhood from the boundary, which is here in the southeast corner. A big issue that has been raised in this area have been buffers against the single family neighborhoods, both in Chapel Hill and on the north in Culbarber, which is one of the main reasons we included the policy language in the previous item about zoning sub districts, ensuring that the development intensity will taper down and to blend better with those neighborhoods. This area is largely within the county's jurisdiction, so it lacks many of the city's services such as water and sewer, and there are also some significant transportation issues if you're familiar with this area. So we do know that this will require some significant amount of coordination and planning in the future, and we look forward to doing that. In addition, there were two amendments that we are recommending. The first is to amend Eastwood Park's designation from commercial to low density residential. This is consistent with a lot of the feedback we received at public meetings. And just to note that the planning commission members, although they did not support the overall Lee Village plan, they did express support for this change. And then finally, we are also recommending that a property that's owned by the North Carolina Botanical Garden Foundation, which has a permanent conservation easement on it be amended to recreation and open space. Staff is recommending approval of all five plan amendments. Results from the planning commission varied and are shown on the slide. Thank you for your attention, and we're all available to answer questions. Let's start first with council, and then we get out into the public for public comments. Anybody have any comments? I'm not asking to review. I recognize councilwoman Johnson and councilman Davidson that order. Thank you. I just wanted to comment specifically about the Alston Avenue station, which is that the first one on the list? Great, so yeah, I think that's the one that is the most concerning to me specifically because of the very dense network of housing that's currently providing residences for disproportionately low income and black and Latino community. And my concern is directly related to the concerns that councilman Schill brought up earlier about the capacity to continue to create and maintain affordable housing in this community if we move forward with changing the boundaries and turning this into a design district because of the intense pressure to the intense pressure that the increase value of the land will create on residents and on folks who own land in the community. And so without, I'm concerned that without a plan in place to ensure that we maintain the affordability of this community that we end up in a dangerous situation where we are risking the destruction of a community that is currently housing a lot of our folks and a lot of our folks who most need access to transit. And it reminds me very much of the legacy of Highway 147, another transportation project which came through our community and very quickly changed the way, the entire layout of Durham and the folks who live in the community and destroyed an entire neighborhood. And so I wanna make sure as we go forward, particularly at Austin Avenue, but also at all the transit stations because I think this, as other folks had said, we need affordable housing here the most because these are the people who most need affordability, the folks who also need access to transit that at the same, I am concerned about doing, about rejoining the boundaries and then doing the rezoning. I would like to have tools in place to enhance the possibility for affordability before we do anything to continue to make this skyrocketing land value situation into a reality. I know that there's only so much that we can do. People already know where these districts are probably going to be. And so we're already seeing requests like wood partners request for rezoning and I'm sure that we're going to be seeing more of them, but I do think that doing the land use and the zoning at the same time would allow us to have more affordable housing tools in place that could help mitigate the potential negative impacts on existing housing and existing communities. Thank you. I recognize Councilman Davis. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to ask the planning staff if you can go back, I guess a few minutes ago when one of our speakers talked about, Ms. Hester talked about delaying and talked about the concern that she had concerning changes that people might make in private homes, renovations, batting on rooms and those kind of things. Is that a fear that is justified or is that something that there would be any prohibition against based on the plans that we have here? This is Scott Whiteman again, Council Member Davis. Two things I would like to say about that is one, when drawing these boundaries, especially in Alston Avenue where it's with the one that's actually shrinking, we're trying to avoid single family homes as much as possible. It is a little bit harder in Alston Avenue because the land use is kind of mixed around there. The second thing is in the omnibus text amendment nine, which Council and the Board of Commissioners passed a few months ago, it included a provision that any single family house that existed before the UDO was adopted, which was January 1st, 2006, that's not conforming to the zoning would be treated as a conforming use. So they would have all the rights and privileges that a single family house and a residential zoning district would have. So I think that would take care of most of those concerns. Okay, thank you. Other comments on Council? Okay, let me try to put some structures as to how we move forward. We basically have five different, I'll call them neighborhoods that are being considered. I have people who have signed up to speak, and what I'm going to do is try to go through each one of the neighborhoods first in terms of those who are four against what's being proposed and see where we are. I'm going to start with Lee Village, and I'm just looking at names now. I'm not sure how you've signed up. I have one, two, three, four, three, four, five, six, seven persons that have signed up to speak as opponents to Lee Village's compact neighborhood. And I'm trying to find out who's speaking and supportive of what's being proposed. I don't see anybody. Is anyone in? Okay, well, I guess I don't see your names on here. Okay, okay, I've got to now. Mac Hersh, Jacqueline Bowles, Chris Selby, Jonathan Reber, Paula Cook, John Edie, Jared Harris, Dan Jewel, Curtis Booker. Now have I left someone else named I didn't call? I'm talking about Lee Village, I'm just looking at Lee Village right now. Okay, all right, well, let's do this. Let's take two minutes each for the speakers. And I'm going to call the persons who have signed up to speak for Lee Village's proponents. You said Curtis Book has left. Curtis, Dan Jewel, Jared Harris, John Edie, Paula Cook, Jonathan Raibn, I can't get the last name, Chris Selby, Jacqueline Bowles, and Matt Hersh, all those persons present. You want to speak to Lee Village? Okay, two minutes, two minutes. And just state your name and address, please. My name is Curtis Booker, I live at 5117 Farrington Road. I have five properties within the designated Lee Village District and I own one third of the property outside of that tier on the Northern Boundary. I've been working on this project since the 1990s. I've lived on Farrington Road for 68 years. And I have seen inroads into the projected project, both the Blackwood property, which you rezoned single family to the South and West and then the Woods property, property which you have also indicated. And the problems with these have not been fully fleshed out. Not only was there really no provision for affordable housing there, but road network wasn't dealt with. These two projects contribute next to nothing to the road network that is absolutely necessary for that area. And so unless we can put some halt on development requests, even if they're compatible with the existing land use, then it's just going to be piecemealed. And nothing will happen to bring about the, especially highways and roads within the district that only district-wide proposition can support. So I recommend moving forward with designating this to stop that creep. The Woods property, both those properties were redeveloped because the owners died. And all of us out there getting older. Good evening again, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Again, I'm Dan Jewel, 1025 Glory Avenue. In my 32 years now of land use planning in Durham, I can't recall another instance where the property owners in a specific neighborhood have been as proactive as this group in trying to plan the future of their neighborhood as the Lee Village folks have been. They've done this because they desire to see a coordinated plan for growth in the neighborhood that will result in an orderly development of infrastructure. Unfortunately, over the past several years, there have been projects to prove that have in fact not contributed all to that orderly growth, but rather have done just enough to meet their minimum level of service as required through the ordinances and policies we have in place. There has been an assumption that deferring the adoption of this specific compact neighborhood will largely limit the density that can be developed there today. I think as Mr. Medlin said, that is not actually true since this preponderance of this area is already within the suburban transit area. Densities of up to 53 units to the acre can be developed within some of the zoning districts. And finally, I have a concern that is more timely than others, and that is with the current, I'll use the term shenanigans that's been going on in Raleigh over the last six months over state funding for our light rail system and quality public transit. I fear that if we were to not move this and the other compact neighborhoods forward, we would inadvertently send a message that could be used by those opponents of light rail funding that Durham isn't really serious at all about this, so why should we be setting money aside for them? Thank you. I would ask you to approve this in the other districts. Thank you. My name is Jared Harris. I do own property in the Lee Village District. I've been working with Dan for a very long time and the other property owners. I'm one of the folks he's referring to there. We've hung in through a lot of changes in the planning staff and a couple of different planning directors. We've always been focused on this as a good development possibility that would have good environmental and social value. And we've watched with horror as parts of the district have been chopped off, have been amputated. Woods Partners is an example. Worst example is Chapel Creek, which is not even particularly high density. It's not transit oriented. It's not at any way accord with this. And there's nothing at all, if this amendment isn't passed, there's nothing at all to prevent that from happening again and again and again. And every time it happens, it not only takes land out of the district and reduces the value of the district, it also creates the need to buffer, as with Cul Barbara, buffer more and more and that reduces actually the value within the district as well, what's left of it. These amendments, and this one in particular, are a step towards more affordable housing in their own right, because they create the opportunities to build affordable housing, and they create the ability for the planning department to recommend against non-compliant uses, which doesn't exist today. And if we delay the approval, every day, every week we delay the approval. It leaves the opportunity, leaves the door open for more developers to come forward with non-constructive uses, things that are just gonna get in the way. So, but approving now would give the planning department and you the ability to reject developments that are not constructive, that don't conform to the policies you're looking at going forward. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Mr. Merrick, city council members. My name is John Edie. I live at 5708 Crescent Drive. I'm president of the Woodland Acres Homeowners Association, which consists of many of the residents that are living in the proposed Lee Village Transit Area. My neighborhood association has been involved with the potential development of this area for the past 15 years. After recovering from the initial shock of finding the transit line running right through the middle of our neighborhood, we began to realize what a great opportunity our area offered for doing something really unique in Durham County. Essentially it was like being given a blank sheet of paper to create a mini city based on mass transit with a blend of aesthetically pleasing mixed use buildings and walkable neighborhoods. Thus we have participated in numerous public meetings and workshops, including the 54 I-40 corridor study, the collector street plan, the Durham Orange Light Rail Transit workshops and the compact neighborhood meetings. Our main goal has been to try to protect our area from the type of piecemeal development that is now occurring and to have some type of comprehensive plan that would give some unity and guidance for potential developers and to compel developers to work together to address the major issues of transportation and infrastructure improvements. We believe the concept of the compact neighborhood does exactly that. However, we feel the opportunity could be lost as current developments like the Culp-Arbor, Wood Partners and Chapel Creek eat away at the periphery of Lee Village. We believe that our area has the potential to become a real jewel in the crown for Durham and a national example of a transit oriented neighborhood. We urge you to approve the amendment for the Lee Village compact neighborhood as a first step in imposing some control on the development of our area. And we urge you to do it now before the opportunity to do something really special for Durham is lost. Thank you. Good evening. My name's Pam Cook. I live at 5511 Crescent Drive. My husband and I moved there 25 years ago. Still live in the same house. John's our neighbor. Curtis is our neighbor across Farrington Road. We've worked as actively as possible with the various departments. We've attended meetings. We've participated in charrettes with Dan and his partners. And now we're back at the discussion about the compact neighborhood design plan. It's just a step in the process. We realize that over the years we've seen development creeping in from all directions. Other people have mentioned Culp-Arbor, Chapel Creek. And not only that, but all of the commercial development along 54 at Farrington Road intersection. The traffic impact is devastating our area. We believe that this compact neighborhood design plan needs to be approved not only to protect our area from further piecemeal development, but to provide guidance for better planning in the near future. We believe that the Durham City Council has the vision to do something great for our neighborhood Durham and the triangle. The compact neighborhood design plan, as you well know, is not a zoning plan. People start getting panicky about getting rezoned. We're not asking you to change the zoning for this area at this time. The compact neighborhood design plan will not resolve present traffic problems. Those problems have been ramping up to use a pun because of poor design location for the exit and exit ramps at our neighborhood. We've had questionable development decisions made about the corner of Farrington and Highway 54. And we have inadequate mass transit options. So traffic just will come just it's gridlock every day now. And we realize these issues will not easily be resolved. The compact neighborhood design plan does not dictate where transit maintenance facility is located. That issue keeps popping up. We're not asking you to make a decision on the location of this facility. We ask you to respectfully to consider passing this. Thank you. I am Chris Selby. I've lived at 138 Celeste Circle in the Eastwood Park neighborhood for over 19 years. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I am here to express my strong support for the recommendation to change the flume designation of Eastwood Park from commercial to residential. I also support the recommendation to remove Eastwood Park from the suburban transit area. I enjoy living in my neighborhood. As to the future, there are changes anticipated all around Eastwood Park, including light rail, Lee Village, and widening of NC 54. I believe these changes offer opportunities to improve our quality of life as a residential community. I respectfully ask the council to help preserve and protect the future of Eastwood Park as a residential neighborhood and vote in favor of the change in flume designation of our neighborhood to residential. I also ask that the council, depending on the course of the discussion, to consider deciding on our flume designation change independently of the other Lee Village issues, which are perhaps more complex and require further deliberations. Finally, I'd like to note that a decision to change our flume to residential would not tie in the hands of the council in delineating the compact neighborhood boundary of Lee Village at a later date. Thank you. And as I mentioned, three of my neighbors who were in favor of this flume change left early, one of them left written out. What do you plan to say? Well, I didn't. Good evening, and thank you for allowing me to speak. My name is Lynn Scott, and I live at 211 Celeste Circle. We've lived there about three years at this point. It's an interesting dichotomy to the Alston Avenue that you were talking about earlier. It's the opposite end of the spectrum. The land is open, and you're constantly hearing of ways people want to develop it. And there are a great deal of people in the area that have tried to keep that to be something special. I hate to interrupt you. Yes. Could you give me your name again? Lynn Scott. OK, I was trying to find a card. It was on 32. We put it in the wrong place. Thank you. So back to what I was saying. It's a beautiful neighborhood Eastwood Park. It was residential. Chapel Creek is built on the other half that was supposed to be Eastwood Park that was never developed. Those developers came to the council asked to be residential. We're asking to be residential as we were originally in asking you to change the future land use designation so we can be that. We are on the outer tier. And that is one of the transitional areas. We're probably looking to rezone or remap to in future land use to commercial because it looks like a great place for strip mall some point. There's already one across the street. And if you want people to go to a transit station, you don't need to put things where they're going to put cars. We just love to stay in neighborhood. And we'd love you to support us. Thank you very much. And I have the three letters from other people that were here who didn't make it the whole way. Good evening. My name is Steve Noe. I live at 211 Celeste Circle with the redhead there. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. I've lived in Eastwood Park now for three years. And it's a really nice place in the woods. And we really did not have any idea that we were moving into a commercial neighborhood when we moved in. And the history came out and we found out that somewhere along the way, the residential designation and the flum got changed to the meeting when none of the residents of the neighborhood were there to discuss it. And it was kind of interesting to find out. So all I'd like to say is we'd really like to have our residential flum designation back so that we can continue living this life and this ranch that we bought that we'd like to stay in and retire in. And I'll give you back the rest of the time. Thanks. OK, that concludes the persons who were in support. Again, we're on Lee Village, Linda Spillone, Karen Sanders, Karen here. Karen's here. OK. Well, you can start moving to us in voting if you don't mind. Lisa Brack. Lisa here. Brock. Chris Hanks. Move. Sherry Hartman. Barbara Post. And Phillip Post. That concludes all the persons that are just signed up in opposition to renaming Leavos to come back to neighborhood. You can go ahead and just give me your name. Again, an address, please. My name is Linda Spillone, and I live in the Culbarber neighborhood. And I want to say in defense of the Culbarber neighborhood, it was granted by Mayor Bell to be a senior neighborhood because he was looking for senior housing. So please don't blame encroachment on us. Thank you. Our development of our neighborhood has been delayed for over five years because it became embroiled in a tax contest between the IRS and the property owner. So we were unable to complete full development of it. And it all that meant that our neighborhood has not been able to be fully funded, which brings us to a precarious situation. And by the way, I want to thank you all, I really am understanding what public service is. So my notes have changed a little, listening through the evening. And I do support the compact neighborhood designs because I think we need affordable housing in every part of our county. And I support what you're trying to do with Lee Village. What I am concerned about is our footprint on the environment. Because we have a watershed that goes into Lake Jordan. And our wise legislatures in Rawley tried to clean it up with solar bees. They voted down your restriction of the development of Lake Jordan. And now they're trying to put clams in it or mussels. Can we just clean the water up? So I'm really concerned that expanding that Lee Village footprint brings it more into that watershed. And that's really what I'm concerned about. So I just want to caution us, number one, to make our footprint as light as possible, which is another reason I have a problem with the Lee Village plan because it's a surface parking lot, not a garage, but more all across the surface, which I think is an unwise decision in this time. Because water is going to become a very valuable resource for us all in the very near future. Thank you. Good evening, Councilor and Mr. Mayor. My name is Karen Sanders. And I live at 121 Celeste Circle. And our family has lived there since the fall of 1998. Our street is part of the Eastwood Park. And at present it has a current future land use as commercial. The proposal tonight requests that the change be made. We ask you to vote no on that change and keep it commercial. Do you truly consider a stable neighborhood being one where 60% to 70% of the homes are rental? There's a change in the zoning. There's some people here who apparently don't understand. There is a change in the zoning that's a result of this proposal. Another thing to consider is that only some of the residents want the low density and to stay at residential. The rest of us want to remain commercial. We are surrounded by commercial development. There's several of us here tonight that live at the east end of Eastwood Park. Within our area, out of about 15 homes, there are only six that our owner occupied. At the March meeting, we asked for some definitions. Tonight did a better job of giving us some clarity on that. We are surrounded by commercial development, all approved in the past six to eight years. And we are about to have construction begin on two or three six story buildings with a parking garage structure taking the place of Farrington Baptist Church. And the Journey Church, their replacement, is hosting a meeting next week concerning the parking lot proposal at 108 Celeste. This was defeated by all of you by just one vote. UNC, in fact, sold it at a loss to the dermatology clinic that bought it. We also asked that you recognize the property owners at the east end of Eastwood Park and our desire to remain commercial. So we have an opportunity to sell our properties for that type of development if that's what our wish is. Just this morning at 7 30 AM, eastbound traffic was backed up past Meadowmont. I could not get out and make a left. I had to go instead on the dirt road, George King, to take my usual route to my position at East Chapel Hill High School in the north side of Chapel Hill. I ask that you consider the lack of repairs by David Wheatley to our streets. And again, to consider that our next consideration for our home and some other homes is to turn it into a rental, perhaps to UNC students. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Chris Hankey. I live in 101 Tweed Place in the Oak Villas neighborhood. And I also represent the Oak Villas HOA. We'd first like to thank the Planning Commission's process, thorough and thoughtful process, in which they voted unanimously against the proposed Lee Village boundary change. One of the main comments that I heard coming from the Planning Commission at the conclusion prior to their vote was that what they felt was critical was if you're going to have a boundary change, there needs to be a planning component to it. And I think I've heard a lot of illusions to that. It's kind of the cart before the horse if we try to do this grand scheme first without common sense design components. And one of the main common sense design components is clear definitions of buffer zones and setbacks at the boundaries of existing neighborhoods. And then the third thing that I'd like to say, maybe not directly related, but I'm pretty related. And it's also been alluded here is that there really needs to be comprehensive planning of the traffic flow situation at I-40, NC 54, Farrington Road. You've heard a lot of comments about how traffic is. And regardless of how mass transit goes, the cars aren't going away. And it's going to take a long time. And the density is increasing. So I know much of that's not in your jurisdiction, but I think we need to have an effort to aggressively start planning that. Thank you very much. Hi, it's getting late. Appreciate everybody's patience. My name is Sherry Hardman. I live at 228 Galway Drive in Chapel Hill. And I'm president of the Oak Street Homeowners Association. It's about 120 homes that border on the new changes to Lee Village. I am opposed, as well as our neighborhood. We took a vote in our last board meeting. And specifically, we're against the expansion of Lee Village, which has happened very quickly. Suddenly, the maps all changed. And it was like, how did this happen without really any input specifically from our neighborhood? And like the 14 member planning commission, they said, 14 to 0, we're going to reject this change that you want to make. So I'm not sure how they're consulting, their influence, their study affects you. But I mean, to me, that's a pretty big resounding no when your planning commission says, we don't approve it. Secondly, and it's been brought up a number of times, but the actual environmental area that we're talking about right now has tons and tons of flooding. And if you drive through the Chapel Hill Country Club area and you see roads that are all flooded and you see the country club is flooded, you wonder, how are you going to have this huge, dense, compact neighborhood right next to an area that floods and the roads close, not to mention how that's going to impact the Jordan Lake track that's really right through that whole area. And that area, if you look historically, has always been, you can't develop it. You can't develop it. While, all of a sudden, we're developing it, and not only are we developing it, but we're putting in a compact neighborhood with 10-story buildings. I mean, that's what it says. So, I mean, to me, this really is such a change from what that land was originally looked at over the years. I just don't think the study has really been done to say that this land is suitable for that kind of density. Our neighborhood is a very high tax area, and anyway, I just wanted to throw that piece in. Mr. Mayor, my name's Phil Post. I have some slides I'd like to get to. They told me how to do this. I hope I can do it. You're still gonna do two minutes. Yeah, okay. Okay, if I can get to it, then come back. Well, at any rate, pardon. Mr. Mayor and members of council, my name's Phil Post. I live at 104 St. Andrews Place, which is in the study area here. This is the existing collector roads plan that my neighborhood worked along with the city and the staff in 2007. At that time, Lee Village was all on the east side of George King Road. With my cursor now, I'm tracing George King Road. That's really an important boundary. I know when the staff presented to the Planning Commission on March 8th, they said that one of the planning concepts was that the collector roads should help form the boundaries of these tier neighborhoods. And my neighborhood and the 125 homeowners that are part of my homeowners association really object to this expansion of the tier boundary on the west side of George King Road. I've lost the... So my house is right about here and Lee Village is right here centered around that dot. This is the current boundary. The blue boundary is the existing land use plan. As you can see, here again is George King Road and you can see that the current land use plan, none of the tier boundaries go west of George King. And that's really the essential argument of myself and my 125 neighbors. This is some of the environmental concerns. I know that the staffs just told you that in considering the tier boundaries, they tried to take in consideration environmental concerns. This is the natural heritage area that's been designated. It comes away and this is again on the west side of George King Road. There's a tremendous natural heritage area. There's existing ponds. There's existing stream buffers. And this hatched area, as the staff has told you, is the lands owned by the North Carolina Botanical Garden need to be preserved. My neighborhood is asking that all lands west of George King Road be eliminated from the tier. That's similar to Eastwood Park where those lands have been eliminated. And we're asking if the same lands west, and this is the new addition, be eliminated from the tier. And we really respect that you would, as you adopt this plan, that you would eliminate those western lands from this tier. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Well, hello, my name is Kathy Aberlathy. I live at 233 Culp Hill Drive. And I was taking care of my 95-year-old father in Nebraska when March 8th came around. Boy was I surprised to find the boundaries had changed west to cover the Little Creek bottom lands that had been rejected for one path of the transit, as well as the northern boundaries coming within six feet of some of my neighbors. But tonight, I speak for the right of us neighbors to be maximally involved with the new development that will be flooding into this forested buffer for Lake Jordan. I support Durham's strategic goals, thrive-able living neighborhoods. And I quote, expand engagement with neighborhoods to ensure that residents feel empowered to preserve and improve quality of the neighborhood. Protect natural resources, like the New Hope Corridor Master Plan that I was mentored by Hildegard Riles to watch out for. How do the Little Creek bottom lands not be like New Hope Creek? Fragile environment, along the 54 corridor. 54 has not been widened, why? It's a fragile environment. Secondly, despite the planning department's claims to involve neighbors, over 80 citizens living in Culp Arbor were not notified to participate in the initial boundary meeting in the spring of 2015. We were apologized to. Oh, our addresses weren't on the database. Should we be wary? Should we be letting developers come in? And my question here is how and in why were the Lee Village boundaries drastically expanded? And finally, this special form-based zoning district. What does that mean? How can I be involved? The Interneighborhood Council has foreseen that this is not something that is neighbor-friendly over the last 20, 40 years of neighborhood involvement. And so we hope that the planning department will make extra efforts to involve us since we can no longer protest a development that's near our neighborhood. I thank you very much. What is your name? Okay, I got you. I don't know what to tear it up, I'll just mark it as having to spoil that. Okay. Deidre Anna Friedman, who wants to speak on everything. That's what you said. Just gonna make it really short and brief and just, I'm about ready to tap out. I initially wanted to get up to say that much to what the conversation was around Lee Village, you could see that this conversation needs to be continued and that we're not there yet. And I've only asked for more time in this conversation around the compact neighborhoods because we see what happened with Ninth Street and we don't wanna repeat that. So just understanding as someone pointed out, the point is to get to the light rail and to move us forward in the right direction. I think we're getting there, we're just rushing ahead of ourselves. And that's the only point I wanted to make. Thank you. Deidre Anna, is that your remarks for all of them? I'm sorry. So. On Austin Avenue. I'm just asking. I did have remarks for all of them, but it's almost 12 o'clock at night. Okay, thank you. Do we have anyone else? Okay. Let me come back to the council. Mr. Mayor, it looks like you have something to ask me. Well, no, I was just dealing with Lee Village. I know we've got these other, I'm trying to get back to the council on Lee Village. We can hear all of the rest of the areas, or we can deal with them on a one by one case. And I'd like you to pull that planning commission chart back up if you don't mind the record. Don, you said you were gonna make some comments. Do you wanna make your comments now? There are speakers for each one of the other areas. I'm trying to deal, I like to deal with each one separately. What I was suggesting is, could we not deal with each one individually rather than here in all five and then coming back and dealing with them? Because clearly, the reason I asked for the planning commission chart to be shown up, it appears that there was only one plan that was approved by the planning department, planning commission. And that's 15071, what that number is. Is that, what is that? Irwin Road. And I don't have anyone here that has signed to speak for Irwin Road. I don't think. Is anyone here to speak on Irwin Road? Yeah, go ahead. This involves both, each one of these cases involves both changes in the boundaries as well as changes in designations. And then I have some general questions that I wanna ask staff about regarding, I guess you have to please excuse me. I woke up halfway across the continent this morning and I'm only at about 30% of my best and I regret that. But I have general questions about some of the things that were said about having to do with the designations themselves. And then each one of these areas has complex boundary decisions that we have to think about. In the case of Lee Village, we certainly were talking about both Eastwood Park and West of George King Road. So, I don't really, I mean, it's a lot. There's a huge number of different issues to take on. Let's hear from all the people who wanna speak and then we'll come back to the council. We might not end up making a decision. It's almost 12 o'clock tonight. So, I'm gonna call on those persons that wanted to speak that haven't spoken and I'll start with those that are on Austin Avenue. Marion Labyrinth, Denise has gone, James Chavis has gone, Michael Waldrop, Marion, Beverly Massey. Is Beverly Massey still here? All right, this is on Austin Avenue. Again, we're doing two minutes on these. You can go ahead. Okay. First of all, my name is Marion Labyrinth. I live in 913 Dale Street and what is called Edmont Village. According to the Compact Neighborhood Planning, future land use updates frequently ask questions that I downloaded from the website. New construction of single family homes would not be permitted. Existing homes cannot be significantly expanded without a special use permit. Okay. I recall having to being a part of a conversation or opposition to a major special use permit once before and I looked up how much it costs to do a major special use permit and it's like $2,500 by the time to little fees and everything. So that says to me as a person, as a homeowner in Edmont, I've been there 24 years. Okay. I moved there with a vision for supporting a vision of revitalization of that neighborhood based on the historical, or the history of what it was, the Hose Re Meal. And I've included in my little paper here the documentation about the Durham Hose Re Meal and how it was designed by Julian Carr and it was the first in the country to have a Hose Re Meal of its size that was run and operated by African-American people. Ooh. Okay. So what I've done is I've asked the residents of Edge of My Village and community, if it's gonna cost $2,500 to make enhancements, of houses that we've owned 30 years, by the time I finish paying for it, I will have, six more years I will have paid my household. And if I need to do any kind of enhancements for when my daughter, a millennial, has her babies or whatever and grandma wants to be able to add on a room or something to be able to have them for the summer or whatever, I've gotta come out of pocket for $2,500 to be able to do it. And it's just not fair to say nothing just can't afford it, won't be able to afford it. Along with the fact that it just, it only costs a residential permit for renovation right now and it costs $250. So there's quite a difference. Also, to allow this compact tear plan to move forward as it's going with no single family, no new construction single family homes, reneged on the promise that the city made to me and all of my neighbors when we moved over there and we have city second loans, housing loans and we supported Hope 6 so they could come in and build those town homes with the understanding that they were gonna, it was gonna help revitalize the neighborhood, but we had an understanding also that they were only gonna, those would, that would be the last of the multi-family apartments and that sort of thing. We were promised that stokes and lions streets would be and they've already got, they've got the lots drawn, they've got the infrastructure there, there's plumbing coming through the ground. All it needs is somebody to come in and develop and put single family homes on it. They don't even have to do the infrastructure, it's already been done. So with this, this says that this new compact neighborhood thing says that we won't get those single family homes that we've been waiting on for the last 10, 15 years. And it's not right and I am respectfully requesting that Edgemont Village, which is my little neighborhood and the community that we call Edgemont community, including the lots on stokes and the corn of lions and Anger be exempt from this land use rezoning thing that's going on or is proposed to go on to fulfill a promise that not only was made during hope six but during the Northeast Central Derm Revitalization. Thank you, Mary. We've got it all in writing. Thank you. Thank you. All right, DJ Anne, two minutes. I don't think I'll need that long. Just two things. I just wanna say that I serve on the planning commission and I didn't vote on this matter because I live in this neighborhood and I serve on the leadership council in Northeast Central Derm. I serve on the inter neighborhood council as the president and in all of my conversations with everyone that I know across the city around this amendment, it's just not the right time. I mean, just to put it, it's just not the right time. Thank you. Okay, who else wants to make a comment on any one of the village's areas that's being considered? If you come up to the podium, state your name and address. This is a public hearing and I'm gonna have a recommendation once we finish all of this. As you come forth, if you could state your name, your address and what particular area you're speaking to. Mayor Bell, just a quick note. Durham can, opposes, changing the future land use for the Austin Avenue area until we move further along with our plans to try to acquire Fayette Place. Thank you. My name is Blair Carrington. My address is 913 Dale Street. As my mother just mentioned, I am I guess quote unquote millennial, ages 1834 and the property behind our property that is owned by Durham Housing Authority is a 27 year old that has been actively searching for an affordable house in Durham County for the past, I would say 24 months with the hopes of some single family home development in the downtown area that is under, I would say 300,000 is kind of disheartening. One thing that I am worried about when reading and studying this new plan is that eventually we are going to be, I guess, bought out of our neighborhood. I have been looking at opportunities to the south side and things like that and for someone who makes under $50,000 a year, a $200,000 house is just not affordable. And so I feel that with this in a compact neighborhood that I guess you guys are proposing for the Edgemont community and the surrounding communities of Austin Avenue that yes, development will come but it will no longer be affordable to members of the Durham community. I've lived here my whole life. I've lived in Edgemont for 24 years as long as I can remember. This is home and so it's disheartening once again that I can't afford to live in place that I call home by something of my own and invest in my community. Good morning, Mayor Bell. Is it appropriate to make comments on the south square? Not quite. Not quite. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were coming. Go ahead, Patrick. Okay. Mayor Bell, members of city council, my name's Patrick Byker. I live at 2614 Stuart Drive. I'm an attorney with Morningstar Law Group here in Durham. I'm here tonight representing Hawthorne, Uzzle, LLC and GRE Regency, LLC for this staff initiated plan amendment for the south square area. I've had the privilege of representing several property owners in south square over the last several years and I live about a mile away from the proposed design district. Speaking both personally and professionally, I think the proposed plan amendment is well crafted and fully justified and we're very much in support of the staff proposal before the council this evening, this morning. We strongly agree with the boundaries set forth in the staff report. We want to commend the planning department for very good work convening and conducting meetings for this area of Durham and I've lived there for over 20 years now. We think it's time to move forward with this well thought out proposal. Some members of the council may recall that I served as chairman of the Durham Area Transit Authority for several years back in the late 90s and early 2000s. I believe this area around south square has solid potential for transit oriented development. I think it is very positive that several months ago our transit system started providing 15 minute service from downtown to south square from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. six days a week. We should facilitate planning and land use to take advantage of our community's investment in transit for this section of Durham. Furthermore, this plan amendment supports the light rail transit system that our voters strongly approved a few years ago. I think the south square area has great potential to generate more ridership for existing bus service and then for light rail should that be fully funded in the years ahead. Last Durham needs to move forward rapidly with this design district for south square while we still have a strong real estate investment climate. There are excellent opportunities for redevelopment right now and it would be a shame for another downturn in our national economy to delay those opportunities. For all those reasons, we respectfully ask for your support tonight. Thank you. Welcome. Hi, Jim Savard, 1114 Woodburn Road. Just very briefly with regard to the overall proposal, I would like to speak in favor of making the change because it will create the boundaries in which this new approach to density incentives, the transit oriented development option that the planning department is gonna be working on over the next year. Could be used in the compact neighborhood tiers. This will prevent the kinds of situation that we faced with Lee Village. I'm afraid the pressures are coming from the fact that these are station areas. The development is going to occur. This creates a framework in which that planning can take place and it'll provide a basis for not the old approach to housing densities but rather a two level density approach in which choosing the higher density will entail including affordable units. So I think that this approach and combining these elements gives us a way of ensuring that the development that does take place will include affordable housing. Thank you. Yes, sir. My name is Mike Waldrop, 3524 Say Where Drive. I'll try and make this very brief. I'm a little perplexed by the planning vote on Patterson Place. I think we're unique in a number of respects. In the early 1990s, New Hope Commons was developed and they installed a sewer line that basically runs east to the New Hope Creek and then down south. And there was a similar sewer line that was put in by the, what are now the Colonial Ground Departments. And it's a subtle point but Hannah made this that these give us permanent boundaries at the foot of the slope of the hills that clearly overlook the Dry Creek and the New Hope Creek. And so with that, we have permanent legally defined boundaries that are not going anywhere. And this is why the staff made minor modifications on the north side and on the east side of the old STSA to come up with the new compact neighborhood boundary. We're unique I think in the sense that we have very clean geographic boundaries. We've got I-40 to the west. We've got this essentially the sewer line, the outer boundary of New Hope Commons and the sewer line to the north and to the west. And then old Chapel Hill Road. We do not abut neighborhoods per se. And so I would like your support. We would like to move forward. You know, we'd like to have something that we've been working on for many years actually recorded with a positive vote tonight. But I think that if you look at the record, there were no voices of opposition. No neighborhoods came forward. I think John Kent has indicated that he wants to speak and he's going to be speaking to the issue of the boundary and tying it, I think based on his earlier comments to something that staff indicated might fluctuate. So again, I wanted to highlight the fact that there are permanent legal boundaries to the north side and to the east side that serve as the basis for the boundary that staff defined. Is this the last speaker? Mayor Bell and council. My name is John Kent. I live at 394 Cub Creek Road in Chapel Hill. I took transit to get here. I'll be riding my bike home because transit quits at 12. And I've been involved in New Hope Creek since November of 90 when we started our first monthly monitoring for water quality. And we've kept that up, we're in our 26th year. Mayor Bell was with the county then when the New Hope corridor plan was adopted by the four jurisdictions, Chapel Hill, Durham City, Durham County and Orange County. I was with the late Becky Herron and Ellen Rekow and went to the Department of Transportation to the secretary's office and got the new bridge that's out there over New Hope Creek on 15501. It's 10 feet high and it's 300 feet long to make a good wildlife passage between two huge areas of open space, natural areas. This is a significant feature of our local natural environment, the corridor between the Jordan Lake, Game Lands and the Duke Forest. And we also spent 2010 to 2015 getting the light rail transit line to go next to that bridge. That bridge was built so you could get a transit bridge right next to it. Also in 94, the Oak Creek apart on the Patterson Place, what is it called? Colonial Grand at Patterson Place, Apartment Homes on Southwest Durham Drive. When that was done in 94, they reserved the transit corridor over part of the land. And that was where their line is gonna go now. What I'm concerned about is if you look in the staff report on page 11, the natural heritage line is within the designated compact neighborhood area. And how that plays out gives me great caution, gets me here tonight. Is that gonna be developed or is, as staff has said, and the conversation is not over yet, is that gonna be preserved in this area that we want to develop so we've got the ridership to make the LRT viable? So thank you very much. Welcome. Let the record reflect that no one else has to speak. Everybody's had the opportunity to speak. Matters of fact, before the council, I knew that I was late. We're gonna recognize councilman Moffitt. Otherwise, I'm gonna make a recommendation, but I recognize councilman Moffitt and councilman Schuhl. Your recommendation. Happy to talk. I thought that you were perhaps gonna make a recommendation to continue this case or something given the hour, but that's fine. So I have some questions for staff. And earlier when talking, and actually in the previous case, I don't know who from staff can answer this, but in talking about the previous case, you talked about one of the reasons to do that is to create urban standards for the compact neighborhood tiers to guide development going forward. But at this time, we don't have the sub districts. So how can it guide urban standards until we have the sub districts, right? So we're talking about now designating areas as designed. Councilman Moffitt, in the compact neighborhoods, the not the design district, the compact neighborhood itself, any area that's designated as that has different standards for non-residential districts, which includes primarily a maximum setback instead of a minimum setback, which creates a more urban style development then. But didn't I understand earlier that until we have all this mapped out, you all are not gonna recommend approval anyway? And I thought I heard that. Of a zoning change to a design district or a zoning change, but the compact neighborhood itself changes the development standards for non-residential districts so that instead of having a minimum setback, which is kind of the suburban standard for, it would have a maximum setback. So it would be required buildings to be close to the street. So that would ease, especially places like South Square, where there's already a lot of existing suburban development to be more urban in the meantime. I think it's maybe partly the hour and partly my time, but I'm a little confused about, I thought I understood you to say that there's a process to get to the final zoning and tiers in sub-districts and so forth. And until we got there, you all did not favor, in fact, Councilman Schultz said, is that sustainable for three years? And I think that what he was asking was, can we actually not develop further in these areas? And I've heard a couple of speakers tonight say, gosh, we need to get this done so we can move forward. And yet we're, I thought I heard the staff say, we're not interested in moving forward for three, actually three to five years. Yeah, so what we were referring to earlier was rezoning requests. So there, these areas are already zoned. Any property owner has the right to develop the property as they're zoned. Some, with Lee Village being the main exception, they're all relatively intensely zoned as commercial multifamily. So the compact neighborhood tier has standards tied to the commercial and office zoning districts, which do change some of the development standards, which primarily is the setback, which changes it from a minimum to a maximum. Okay, so that helped me a little bit to say when we're talking about this guides for urban standards, we're talking about under current zoning if somebody wants to build by right today. That's correct, yeah, under the current zoning. Councilman Shul asked about wood partners and what I understood whoever was speaking and not to say it was that while the staff considered it to be consistent with the idea of compact neighborhoods at the time we heard the case, that if we were to change the designation to design district it would no longer be considered consistent. Is that correct? That's correct. And can you help me understand why? Because I thought what I understood before was this is really in keeping with what we wanna do with those rail station area at Lee Village. So under the design district designation, the only zoning districts that would be consistent would be the downtown or the compact design districts. The downtown design district can only apply in downtown, as the name suggests. So the only zoning district that could be consistent in all of these areas would be the compact design district. However, we would not recommend that any compact design district be put in place until the comprehensive planning of each station take place first. It's an applicant can still ask for it, but we wouldn't recommend it. Okay, and if we were to make these changes tonight, what I understood you to say with, I'm picking on cases, that's the only way I can do it, Witherspoon Roses, which is a big multi-use project, that if we were to make this change tonight, you would still recommend approval because of the timing of it. Simply because of the timing of it. We would, yes. Okay. Although as always, you're not bound by our recommendation. Right, okay. On a different matter, so earlier it was said that a single-family houses, could you repeat what was said about single-family houses in these areas being considered, even if they're non-conforming use, being considered conforming use, in particularly in regard to what Ms. Lambert's concern was about. And I apologize, I think we, when we started this about a year and a half ago, we did a frequently asked questions page, which I was, didn't know where, was still out there. And so it's no longer accurate because we made a change to the ordinance a few months ago. So now, not just in these areas, but any area where a single-family house is not permitted, any zoning district where it's not permitted. If it is, as long as it existed by January 1st, 2006, then it is a conforming use based on the ordinance and is entitled to all the rights that a residential zone property has. So a special use permit would not be required for Edgemont. So, and the reason why 2006 is because if it was built after that time, it would be conforming. It either would be conforming or illegal. Okay, yes, thank you. So do I understand you to say that in the case of Ms. Lambert, she wanted to make a significant renovation to her house. It would be the same whether she was inside or outside the compact neighborhood. That's correct. Okay. And then I think that one of the, oh, no, sorry, gas stations. So one of the concerns that's been raised to me is family fair owns, apparently owns property within some of these compact neighborhood tiers. If they wanna enlarge or do any other thing, would that be a non-conforming use and therefore they wouldn't be able to continue to use their property the way they're using it? So I think I'm doing this off the top of my head, which is slightly dangerous, but I believe in some of the sub districts of the compact design district, gas stations are permitted, but they're limited to the number of pumps. If that were the case, if once it's rezoned, if it had exceeded the number of pumps, it would be a non-conforming use or a non-conforming. So let me make sure I understand. It would be a non-conforming. Between now and the time that they're rezoned whenever that occurs in the future, it's a matter of a site plan. That's right. Okay. And then I wanted to ask, I need to get back to the screen, about transit-oriented design. So my understanding is that, if I understood right, the plan is to this year, add to the work program, a work on a transit-oriented design amendment. Am I correct on that? Yes, we're proposing to do what we call an interim TOD district, which would include a density bonus for any adopted compact neighborhood that would allow for development under a different set of standards, if affordable housing is included. Okay, and is that amendment to the plan or is it to the UDO? That would be to the UDO. And, okay, so you just told me what it would encompass. And I understood that it would be somewhere in the next year. Yeah, that'll be one of the earlier ones. Definitely in the next year. And does the department consider it necessary to undertake it if the tier changes are not adopted or the tier designations are not adopted in this? I'm not trying to put you on the spot here. This is really- If the tier changes aren't adopted, then we have really nowhere to apply it. Okay, and if some of the tier changes, this is where I'm, now I'm putting you on the spot. Some of the tier changes are adopted, but not all of them. Would it be worth pursuing? Do you feel comfortable? You can say you're not comfortable making that statement. I would say, I mean, definitely our preference is, if we want to, we need to deal with all the stations. Okay, so those are my general questions. And then when we start looking at these tier changes, I do have some concerns in Lee Village with the area west of, I do have a question about that. The area west of George King Road, right? I'm mixing that up with another one. The area west of there, one of the comments that was made tonight was it appeared rather suddenly near the end of the process. Yeah, so the proposed boundary for the Lee Village is, from, we had three separate meetings and so it hasn't changed since the second meeting, which is when it was first proposed. I have some concerns with how it got onto them. I mean, I do look at it, you're stream running right through the middle of it. It does look problematic. I do think that one of the problems with all of this is without the tiers, without the sub districts, my turn, without the sub districts, it's very difficult to understand how it might play out. It's easy to see 10 story buildings throughout the, you know, for someone to be concerned about that. I'm concerned about that. I'm also concerned about the planning commission raise issue on the other side of NC 54 and how that becomes walkable. How that, how the department, because that's part of the idea, right? It's just gonna be a walkable district. So can we talk a little bit about that commercial area on the other side of 54 and how that ties into the Lee Village area? So under the I-40-54 plan and it's in the Metropolitan Transportation Plan to create a grade separation at Barrington Road, which would not have any access to 54, which would allow pedestrians to cross 54 without having to interact with traffic. So Mr. Mayor, when the time, I mean, right now, I do think that there are some, personally, I've been convinced that taking Eastwood Park out of the compact neighborhood is the right thing to do. I believe that we should approve that, but not approve the tier change to the west side of George King Road, nor the other side of NC 54 at this time. And then we can look at those in the future if that's necessary. I have a great deal of empathy for Ms. Lambeth. One of the problems with this, when we talk about light rail in general and concept, it's something we can all get behind. But when we realize that it's affecting us and our home and our history and it becomes much more difficult on a case-by-case basis. So I have a great deal of empathy for you, but I also want to see light rail developed. I think it's very important to the long-term future of the, well, we can't develop, I don't wanna get in the debate, I'm sorry, it's really late, but we can't develop light rail without having the compact neighborhood tiers with transit-oriented design and support. Because right now we're too suburban and we have to create the areas in order to become much more urbanized. So those are my comments. I appreciate the time. Thank you. That's Councilman Schuhl. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, I have a couple of comments I wanted to make and then I'd like to make a motion. That's okay with you. I appreciate everybody's comments and there's so many variables here, I recognize that and there's so many difficult decisions on each of these tiers. Well, let me just take it from the top. I think that on the issue of, on the affordable housing issue, I really appreciate linear your thoughts and concerns and have thought about them a lot. I am, where I'm at on that at this moment is I do believe that making the changes to the compact neighborhood tiers will actually give us more ability to control that and have an influence on that because we will have a basis under which we can turn down the request for rezoning in new density. And I don't think we have that now and I think it's been very problematic for us. I think I appreciated Jim Savara putting it much more succinctly than I can at this moment but I appreciated the planning staff's explanation of that and on balance I believe that's right. At the same time I do think that you're right linear that we don't really know if the transitory and the development bonus will be enough to incentivize affordable housing and I share your concerns and doubts. And I know that and I've heard from for example the developer of wood partners that had they had the density bonus they still might have not have taken probably wouldn't have taken it. So I don't think we know that but I do think that we have a better chance if we adopt these comprehensive, if we adopt these compact neighborhood tiers of controlling this and it gives us more power when the rezonings are requested because the planning staffs can be saying they're not gonna be recommending it and it gives us more control over that. I think the current future land use map designations encourage applications for rezoning now without a basis for a staff coming out against them and I think that would change in a way that will help our affordable housing goals. The opposition to the Lee Village, the planning commission opposition to Lee Village was based on a lot of different things for different people. There were a couple of people who were concerned about the romp on the planning commission. There were a couple of people who were several people who were concerned about the traffic. What I would say about the traffic is I get it for those of you all who live out there and I know a lot of you all do. 54 and Farrington Road and so forth. I don't believe whatever we do on this. I think, let me put it like this. The thing that's gonna change the traffic out there that has the most promise of changing the traffic out there is the light rail. The best way to get the light rail and get some traffic off of 54 is to improve these compact neighborhood tiers. We need to be moving this planning along. I'm fully believe that showing good faith and making progress on these compact neighborhood tiers will tremendously help our case with the federal government. We are in a national competition for this money. We have to make progress on it. I appreciated Kathy Abernathy's concerns about the land west of George King Road, the natural areas there and John Kent's questions as well. And I think these are things that need to be dealt with and I think that we will need to be vigilant about them as we move forward. So I think that there are lots of issues. I definitely feel that, I understand the people, the people on one end of East, of Celeste Circle feel one way, the people on the other side tend to feel the other. I get it. I can understand why that is from the position that you all are both in and remembering it well, visiting out there several times around that parking lot issue. My own feeling is that for the long-term future of the neighborhood, that the recommendation is the best thing but I understand for people that disagree with that. So Mr. Mayor, given all that and given the complications, I have, if you're or would like a motion I would, I can start. It's my, it's really late. With respect to the concerns about being able to build and not build, especially on those properties that already have stubs out. So the short answer is the properties are a zone that could actually come in for building permits tomorrow for single-family homes on those lots. I can't hear you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. What I said is the properties are appropriately zoned today. Someone could come in and apply for a building permit at any point and they would be granted because the zoning would allow that use. We're not changing the zoning with this. What we are doing is simply dealing with the tier boundaries in a land use designation. The zoning piece will come back at some time in the future. As Mr. Whiteman has indicated for any property that was already constructed prior to 2006, if it's single-family, it would be allowed to continue as a conforming site, be allowed to make any improvements consistent with single-family use. One of the things that we can certainly do as we're developing the compact neighborhood design district is take a look at that issue. I'm not saying we necessarily will change that approach, but I think it would be appropriate when we bring that back for council's consideration at some future date. Okay, all right, see. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm gonna make it, I'm gonna choose what I think is the easy one first, which is the Irwin Road Compact Neighborhood A150017. And I'm going to move the adoption of the resolution attachment three. Second. It's been properly moved and second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, call to question. Madam Clerk, will you open the vote? Close the vote. It passed this five to zero. Is that all we need to do on that one, Mr. Mayor? Okay, I'll move to the Austin Avenue, which is 18, and I will move the adoption of that resolution as well. It's been properly moved and second. Madam Clerk, will you open the vote? Close the vote. It passes four to one with council member Johnson voting up. Mr. Mayor, I will move the South Square, Martin Luther King, Jr. Parkway, which is 16. Second. It's been properly moved and second. Madam Clerk, will you open the vote? Close the vote. It passes five to zero. 15. Do I hear a second on that? All right. It's been properly moved and second. Comments? So, I'm supportive of this. Madam Clerk, will you open the vote? Close the vote. It passes five to zero. Pass one is Lee Village, and I will move the approval of the resolution. Okay, we did get a motion and a second substitute. It's open. As a part, I know the gentleman has gone. It's the way, can we put that map up again to make sure we know what you want me talking about. So, this one is because it's suburban transit area, it's the whole thing is a boundary change. So, your motion is appropriate. Council member Moffitt. Don, I'm asking to put the site up so we make sure we... It's in front of you. Could you just go ahead and show the area west of George King Road to the workforce? So, Councilman Schultz asked me to defend my motion and I will do so here for a moment and it may fail for lack of a second if I'm not convincing. The land west of George King Road, to me, appears to be to have too many environmental issues with it at the moment. At the moment, can be added later. So, I'm not ready to add it to the area. The area south of NC 54 is not, in my opinion, walkable. They may put it in an overpass, but that doesn't connect it with walkability. To NC 54, a longer elixir to me can be an automobile-oriented connector and I believe that what's going, that the appropriate use of the land on the south side of NC 54 would continue to be not the dense development that we need with the rail area. Well, you had a motion, I don't know if you had a second. That's what we did. You didn't have a second. So, the motion dies for the... Substitute dies for lack of a second. So, we're back to the original motion. I'm calling a question on original motion. Madam Clerk, will you open the vote? Close the vote. Five to zero. Mr. Murphy, do you vote voting? Yes. Okay. Passes five to zero. Okay. Thanks, everyone, for this long on deal. I know some people satisfied somewhat, but we try to do the best we could on this issue. I did want to say the same thing. I want to echo that, which is thank you very much. I know many of you from your years of engagement on this issue and the fact that you all are so committed to it that you're still here tonight. Thank you very much. Okay, let's move item 22, construction manager at risk, guaranteed maximum price. I don't know who pulled that. Was somebody in the audience who pulled that? Councilman Johnson, did you pull that? I mean, they wanted to speak on that, spoke on the budget and left. Entertain a motion on item. It's been... Just, yeah, we'll follow it on, yes. 22, we've had a motion and a second. Madam Clerk, we open the vote. Close the vote. It passes four to one. Would council member Johnson voting no. 43. Okay. Item 43. Su-Ona extension agreement with San Juan, Amanda Derra to serve 549 Continental Drive. It's been proper to move the second. Sure. It's outside city limits, right? That is correct, sir. Is there a possibility it could be subdivided? It is sufficient size that it could be subdivided. Do you think that the owner would be amenable to agreeing that they would not subdivide it and place an additional home on it? I don't think that would be enforceable through the EA though. I think it would be a problem. Oh, okay. Don, could you address that? Don O'Toole City Attorney's Office, we have included language with restrictions like that in other UEAs, so I think we definitely could do that. We would need to go back to the property owner and discuss it. So Mr. Mayor, once again, I'm gonna offer a substitute motion which is that we approve the request for the extension of sewer only with the provision that the property owner agree to a restriction on subdividing the property and building a second house on it. It's been property moved in second. Madam Clerk, can we open the vote? Close the vote. It passes five to zero. Okay, is there anything else to come before the council at 1210 A.M.? 1240. 1240, wow. I know it's time to go home. Meetings adjourned. Mayor Baker. I'm sorry, yes ma'am. We have to do item 44, the resolution memorializing Mr. Clement. We have to vote on the resolution. It's been property moved in second. Madam Clerk, can we open the vote? Close the vote. It passes five to zero. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Okay, I guess we're gonna adjourn and it reminds me about why I'm not running for reelection.