 All this meeting of the Durham City Council to order on the 19th and I certainly want to welcome everyone here tonight, my colleagues, all of our city staff and the other people who are here to speak on public hearing items and all those who are listening to this meeting streaming it or otherwise doing this meeting. We're glad to have you and look forward to a good constructive meeting together. I'm now going to ask you to please join me in a moment of silent meditation. Thank you. Council Member Rees, could you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? I will, Mr. Mayor. Thank you and greetings to my colleagues, staff and Durham residents watching at home. I will now recite 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. Thank you, Council Member Rees. Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll? Mayor Shul? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson? Here. Council Member Caballero? Here. Council Member Freelon? Here. Council Member Freeman? Present. Council Member Middleton? Here. Council Member Rees? Here. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Colleagues, we'll now proceed with the ceremonial items and the first ceremonial item is one of my favorite ceremonial items of the year. We did have this Saturday a virtual version of the Run with the Mayor. This is the ninth year in which I have, before I was Mayor, it was just Run with Me. But it has become, as you all know, a city tradition and also part of our health plan now. And it was awesome. It's been an interesting year in many ways, but one constant has been the outstanding leadership of our city staff and continuing to focus on the health of our employees. And that has just been a constant that I'm very proud of. And we had this weekend as part of that on Saturday, albeit it looked a little different than previous years. Our employees, again, showed their strength and their spirit in the Run with the Mayor. We had more than 120 employees this year, which was awesome. And they logged nearly 360 miles during their run and walk or rolling or strolling, whatever they chose to do. And what was cool this year was, since we couldn't be together, at 9.30, we convened on Zoom. And then people took off and did all their running and walking, and they did it all over the triangle. They did it in Umsted State Park. They did it on the Ellaby Creek Trail. They did it in Bahama. There was one of our city clerk and her husband went to Hagenstone State Park south of Sanford to do their five miles. We had somebody in Pizga National Forest. And farthest away of all, we had a runner exit glacier in Seward, Alaska. So this was a very different and fun Run with the Mayor this year. As you all know, I'm very competitive when it comes to this event. And let me just say that a lot of people beat me. But I didn't beat my arch rival, Melinda Squires Nelson. Melinda, you will never beat me. I just want to say that. And I'll just throw it down the gauntlet for next year. But the fastest mile was run by Robert Raphole in water management, five miles in a time of 31 minutes and 31 seconds. Friends, that six minute and 18 second miles. That is very fast. Maybe the fastest we we've had in this esteemed event. And the fastest female was Megan Walsh in a time of 47 minutes and 50 seconds. So just over nine minutes and 32nd miles. Megan's in public works. People who beat me in addition to Robert Raphole were Bill Haley, Colin Davis, Dana Horne Cole. Dana beats me every year. Harmon Henderson, Jeffrey Johnson, John Loper Fido, JJ Scott, Kevin Lilly, Paul Wiebke, still super fast. Peter Wu, Randy Stewart, Sam Jackson, Sean Dooling, Sean Tuttle, Tom Dawson, and Timothy Stewart. And so congratulations, you guys. But just remember I'm 69. Okay. I will say that my time was 47.30. I ran nine minutes and 32nd miles. And that's the best I can do and I'll never do better. So if you run next year, more people will beat me. But it was super fun. I want to congratulate everybody who participated in this year's run and special thanks to the HR department, including Elizabeth Tetley, Drew Bullard, Gwendolyn Burnett, Keana Bailey, and Veronica Jackson and everybody who worked to make it possible. Super fun event. We were usually by the assembled group, an adult beverage of their choice after the race. We weren't able to do this that this year, but I look forward to it. Look forward to doing it next year. All right. So we'll now move on to our second ceremonial item. And that item is the Indigenous Peoples Day Proclamation, which is going to be read by Councilmember Freeman. I appreciate the opportunity to share this proclamation this month, acknowledging that one day it'll be a federal holiday. So whereas Indigenous Peoples Day was first proposed in 1977 by a delegation of Native Nations to the United Nations Sponsored International Sponsored International Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in America. And whereas in making this proclamation, we pray respect to the cultures and populations that exist long before European contact. We celebrate the contributors, contributions of all Indigenous people to the culture of diversity, innovation, and resilience that has marked the city of Derm as leaders on the global stage. And whereas we value the many contributions made to our community through Indigenous peoples, knowledge, labor, technology, science, philosophy, arts, and the sincere cultural contributions that have substantially shaped the character of the city of Derm. And whereas the city of Derm recognizes that it was founded and built upon the lands first inhabited by the Indigenous people of this region and acknowledges and honors these members of the of the community, both past and present, to Native American tribes, the Eno and the Okadiji, related to the Six-A-Five, lived and farmed here, established settlement sites, transportation routes, and environmentally friendly patterns of natural resources. And what is thought to be the site of the ancient Native American village named Ashnerd. And whereas a growing number of cities and towns in the United States have recognized the second Monday of October as Indigenous people's day, an opportunity to learn and celebrate the Indigenous heritage and resilience. And whereas we celebrate the acts of resistance and persistence that have shaped the experiences of Indigenous communities since first contact with Europeans. We continue to celebrate the Native American communities who exemplify the best of who we are and who we can be as a both city. Now, therefore, I, Stephen M. Schulmaire of the City of Derm, North Carolina, do hereby proclaim October 12, 2020 Indigenous People's Day in Derm, and hereby encourage other institutions to recognize this day and reaffirm the city's commitment to promoting the well-being growth and growth of Derm's American Indian and Indigenous communities. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Thank you for that important resolution, important proclamation. Our next proclamation, the Arts and Humanities Month proclamation will be read by Councilmember Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Marin. Good evening, everyone. Good evening to my colleagues. I'm particularly pleased to be reading this proclamation. I'm aware of the prodigious amount of consumption of art that my colleagues on this Council engages in, so I'm particularly honored to be reading it. I also can't help but think about my sainted mom who's passed on now as a New York City public school special education teacher. Didn't have much money, but used the arts and really scrounged up ways for us to consume music and art. There are always speeches in the house and she used art to help me overcome my own speech impediment as a child, so I'm particularly honored to be reading this proclamation regarding the arts proclamation. Whereas the nation's 120,000 nonprofit arts organizations, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the nation's 4,500 local arts agencies and the Arts and Humanities Councils of the 50 states and the six U.S. jurisdictions have regularly issued official proclamations on an annual basis designating October as National Arts and Humanities Month, and whereas the arts and humanities embody much of the accumulated wisdom, intellect, and imagination of humankind, and whereas the arts and humanities enhance and enrich the lives of every American, and whereas the arts and humanities play a unique role in the lives of our families, our communities, and our country, and whereas cities and states through their local and state art agencies and representing thousands of cultural organizations have celebrated the value and importance of culture in the lives of Americans and the health of thriving communities during National Arts and Humanities Month for several years, and whereas the humanities help diverse communities across the United States explore their history and culture with the support and partnership of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the 55 state and territorial humanities councils, and local educational and cultural institutions, and whereas the arts and culture industry also strengthens our economy by generating $166.3 billion in total economic activity annually, $27.5 billion in government revenue, and by supporting the full-time equivalent of $4.6 million jobs, and whereas the creative economy drives tourism and commerce, supports American workers, and makes up 4.5 percent of the annual GDP, proposed federal legislation titled the Create Act, S650, and HR1519, and the Place Act, S3232, would support economic development of the creative economy. Now, therefore, I, Steve Shul, Mayor of the City of Durham, North Carolina, do hereby proclaim the month of October 2020 as National Arts and Humanities Month in Durham, and call upon our community members to celebrate and promote the arts and culture in our nation, and to specifically encourage the greater participation by those said community members in taking action for the arts and humanities in Durham. Witness my hand, this the fifth day of October 2020, Steve Shul, Mayor. Thank you very much, Council Member. Appreciate it very much. I think that colleagues just let you know that I'll be trying to work with the clerk soon so that we were, I think, our next advancement in this area would be get someone to receive these. We've gotten to where we're now doing the proclamations and resolutions again, ceremonial items, and I think we can begin to have people come to receive them, and I'll work with the clerk on that. Really appreciate the way our technical staff and our clerk staff have consistently just moved us forward, including more and more through this technology. But thank you all so much. I'll now ask if there are member, if there are announcements by members of the Council. Council Member Reese. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and good evening again, colleagues, staff, and members of the public who are watching at home. Mr. Mayor, I did have an announcement, but I also wanted to let you know that my family participated in the Run with the Mayor Challenge today, a little bit of time separated from y'all. We did not go five miles unless you add up the distance that all of us traveled together. And it took us, my wife and I walked, my girls rode their scooters, and I think we took about 47 minutes to do our trip as well. So we were thinking about you today, Mr. Mayor. By the way, Third Fort Creek Trail looks fantastic right now. I've seen evidence of very recent maintenance out on the trail. I just want to thank our staff for keeping that amenity such a great resource for the folks here in South Durham. Speaking of South Durham, Mr. Mayor, I don't know if you're aware, but there is an election this year. It's 2020. We have races starting with soil and water, a supervisor at the very back of the ballot. And at the very top, we're electing a President of the United States. And Durham really is in the epicenter of this campaign. Folks a lot smarter than me say that whoever wins North Carolina will probably be elected the next President of the United States. And as has always been the case, Durham is really critical to anyone who's trying to win a campaign statewide. I'm really, really proud of how Durham has shown up both during the mail-in portion of absentee voting and now during early voting. Polls are just are still open, by the way, today. They'll close in about 14 minutes. So I only have data from last night or as of this morning. But as of that morning, this morning, 30% of all registered voters in Durham had already cast a ballot, which is extraordinary. And this year, it's easier than ever to cast your ballot in Durham. So I want to encourage anyone who is listening now that has not yet voted in this election to make a plan, do your research, figure out what candidates support your values, and go out and vote. The easiest way to figure out how to do that is to go on the internet at decovotes.com, that's dcovotes.com, where you'll find a list of the 14 early voting sites open across Durham County. They are open every day between today and October 31st, Halloween, even on Sundays. And so you can easily find the site that works best for you in your schedule. All staff inside the polling places will be wearing personal protective equipment, and they'll be spacing folks out to maintain social distancing. So voting in person during early voting is as safe as possible for both staff and folks in Durham trying to cast their ballots. In addition, this year, for the first time during early voting, the City of Durham has made GoDurham buses fare-free between now and October 31st, thanks to a group of very committed community members who came to the city with this recommendation, and also our staff, especially the folks at GoDurham, to make that possible. They'll also be fare-free on election day as well Tuesday, November 3rd. And so it's, as I said, it's never been easier to vote, and it's really, really important as it is every election. Just one more thing to brag on Durham a little bit. They keep a list of the top precincts in the state for voting, that is the mail-in voting, turning your ballot or in person. And as of this morning, 10 of the top 25 precincts in North Carolina were here in Durham County, four of the top seven. And the top precinct in the state for votes is 35.3 Parkwood, very close to where I live here in South Durham. Mr. Mayor, more people have voted in the Parkwood precinct than in 30 individual counties in the state of North Carolina. That's how committed the folks in South Durham are in making their voices heard. So, y'all who folks living in other parts of the county in the city, step up your game, get on Parkwood's level, because South Durham is bringing it, and I want y'all to bring it too. Let's do it like Durham, and make sure that this election, all our voices are heard. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much, Council Member. Thanks for, I'm glad to hear you were walking, running, and strolling, and yeah, do it like Parkwood. That's awesome. All right, other announcements. Council Member Freelon. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, colleagues, community members. I just wanted to do a little report back. A few weeks ago, we were instructed by a resident to ask ourselves every day what we were doing to address violence in the community. You don't remember that email? And I've really taken that quite literally, and I've had almost an obsessive response to that request. And if I don't do at least one thing every day, it feels like, you know, I haven't brushed my teeth or made my bed. It just feels weird. And I wanted to share some of those efforts, not to pat myself on the back, but actually to be accountable to Durham residents, to tell them that we care, and that I'm literally doing everything that I can. And in responding to the urgent kind of calls for accountability around the violence. So the primary thing I've been doing is having a lot of conversations. And there is a particular thing at the end of this that I want to share. I haven't a lot of conversations, sometimes dozens per day. And over the past several days, I've met with clergy. I was at they laid out the quilt in front of the quilt of all the murdered folks in Durham, in front of the Durham Police Department on Saturday. I was there with the mothers of black boys who'd been killed. You know, I've been doing deep dives with my radical black feminist abolitionists defund folks. And also with my colleagues here on council over the past five days, I've spoken to each of my colleagues, County Manager Davis, Police Chief David, Police Chief Davis. Oh, they're both Davis. That's right. I thought I was mixing them up. But County Manager Davis and Chief Davis. And, and I've been canvassing on Saturday of last week. I canvassed in the neighborhood College Heights, which, like last Thursday at the city council session, we had the presentation from Chancellor Acnele about, you know, the need for various measures that the city needs to take to keep the campus community safe. Literally the day after that meeting, there was a shooting in College Heights. And one of the speakers from that work session, Beverly Evans somehow found my number and she texted me audio from the actual shooting. She sent that to my phone. And for those who are listening, certainly my colleagues will remember when Beverly Evans was speaking about the history of that neighborhood, I mentioned that the 103 year old resident Mozilla McLaughlin, who still lives in the same house she's been in for 76 years and was a mentor and babysitter to me is still in that neighborhood. So after I heard about the shooting, I called her and other residents and then I organized a group of about half a dozen North Carolina central students and community members to canvas that neighborhood and talk to folks about what they think they need to make them safe, which leads me to kind of the announcement. The central students were so excited about that work about knocking doors in the neighborhood and talking to community members and checking the pulse of a place that had very recently been rocked by violence that we're actually going to do it again this weekend. So on Saturday, this Saturday, I've got at least half a dozen central students and folks from BYP, Mamania from Spirit House and others who did the canvas and College Heights are also going to canvas McDougal Terrace with Ashley Kennedy. I don't know if anyone was looking on Facebook live this past week, but Ashley was live streaming two shootings that took place in that neighborhood last week. So we're going to link up with her and get some food trucks and try to knock on doors and talk to folks about what they feel is going to make them safe. And I think that's really important work because, you know, one of the critiques has been we haven't been hearing from folks, you know, who are directly impacted by the violence. And so, you know, just we're just some concerned, you know, Durham residents that really care about this community and are doing everything we can to check in with folks, primarily to see that they're okay. And then number two, to pick their brains and to tap their radical imaginations to see what's possible. So I wanted to use my announcement to extend that invitation to my colleagues and other members of the community who would like to join us. And I'll share more details about that at the work session on Thursday. But I just wanted to put it out there that we will be canvassing in McDougal Terrace on Thursday. And my second announcement, just real quick, another outgrowth of these conversations and efforts to address violence in the community has coalesced in a movement to create a fund to support community organizers and folks doing grassroots work to address the root causes of violence. And so I've talked to police Chief Davis on Friday. And she said, you know, by the time you call us is too late, you know, we spend $70 million a year on policing and it's reactionary. The most common thread I heard in our canvas on Saturday is that, you know, we need to give kids and youth an alternative, you know, something for them to spend their time doing that's constructive and positive. And so this fund will be an opportunity to do that. I've spoken to all my colleagues about it. And I know there will be a presentation or sorry, a proposal rather coming soon called the we are the ones fund. And so I wanted to take the announcement time to tell community members that that's coming, because I mean, I keep getting the question, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? And it's a legitimate question because kids are dying in the street and they want to feel that we care and that we're taking action. So this isn't my project, it's a community project. But I've been in conversation with several partners. It'll be an ask in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to create micro grants for community groups to amplify their work. And again, it's called the we are the ones fund quoting queer black feminist poet June Jordan, who said we are the ones we've been waiting for. So details on that are forthcoming, but I just wanted to let our beloved Durham community know that violence, we do think it's a crisis, it's a top priority. And I will advocate to put our money where our mouths are and to supplement some of the visionary community based work that's already been going on in the community for years. But they've been doing that work under resourced. So yeah, thank you for giving me the opportunity, Mr. Mayor and colleagues for indulging me. I know y'all have all heard this feel for me individually. But I thought it would be important to tell the community that that's coming into and to say it as soon as possible, so that they can feel the urgency of the words and the work. Thank you very much, Councilmember Freeland. And thank you for joining that canvassing and for making those contacts. Other announcements colleagues. Councilmember Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate Councilmember Freeland sharing all that he's been doing. And I really appreciate all that you're pouring into moving us forward in this conversation. I know that over the years, I've probably stressed it more than anything that something we have to do more than what we're doing and acknowledging the limitations that we have. I am gratefully accepting of you taking the lead on all of that. And if there's anything I can do to help, of course, I'm being read available for that canvassing. I just want to make sure we don't leave out the other neighborhoods that have been asking for those types of supports. I will also note that the Hope Fund is available. It's $117 million for rental assistance and utilities. And I want to make sure that folks are aware and acknowledging that the funds will probably run pretty quickly because they're available statewide. And so that's for anyone in the state. And just acknowledging that there are struggles. And so for the last six months that people have lost jobs and have been out of work, you know, just trying to figure out how to make ends meet. I do want to note that the governor has made funds available. And you can call 211 or you can actually go online to NC and I want to make sure I don't mess it up or go on and just have the website. NC211.org forward slash hope. And there are applications available. And just noting that in this COVID pandemic, you know, as you try to whittle away at what at the kind of progress that we've been making and trying to address some of the disparities over the years around racism and around all the other barriers that have been in place, I'm very excited that this is happening and that this is available to prevent evictions from occurring. I will also note that the utility companies I believe are starting to pick back up on following up on collections. And so this will be very helpful. And so I really hope that folks will take advantage of the opportunity to do this immediately and don't wait. And then secondly, I had a follow up. So from the work session last, last time, we actually had a joint city county committee meeting and I wanted to share that based on feedback from the county commissioners. There was a note or a kind of a asterisk on the conversation of moving forward with the community health and safety's task force. And that there was a request that I said I would bring forward to our council and making sure that I make you all aware. And I'll continue to press forward with this conversation that the chair and vice chair be selected by the members of the committee, because it's important to make sure that the committee has has it gets off the ground running and doesn't doesn't stop stall or start. And moving forward in the kind of vein of what council member Freelon was talking about, we want to make sure that you have the folks folks who are centered in the conversation leading and that usually happens when folks pick who they want to lead them. So I just want to make sure that I bring them forward. That would mean we would need to change the bylaws or adjust the bylaws that we put forward because it did indicate that the the mayor and the chair of the county commission would select the chair and vice chair. So just making sure that I note that. And just one last note. I want to say that that the gun violence situation is far more present for me. Just noting last night, listening to the 12 gunshots and worrying about, you know, exactly where they're coming from. And if anyone is laying on the ground, you know, hurt or needing support or assistance and how quickly that can get to them. And so I just want to acknowledge that that there are so many facets of this conversation. And I want to hold up that North Carolina Central's request for those five items, being a shot spotter, being additional police presence, being I think there was a request for the former county commissioner Michael Page, who works with the North Carolina Century University to be on the community health and safety task force. And there were two and there were two others. But I just say that to say that there there's a lot happening. And I really hope that it can all come together. Because I think that this is this is what we need is not to just focus on one area, but to actually cover as many as possible and put as many folks to work in it as possible. So thank you. Thank you, council member. Are there any other announcements? Council member Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, everyone again. In the last 72 hours, Durham has been visited by high profile celebrities, a top top of the ticket for presidential race. And we have set records in terms of voter turnout. So it's been a pretty phenomenal weekend in Durham. Also in the last 72 hours, gunfire has continued to ring out in our city just last night. It continues to be a de facto state of emergency in our streets for many of our people. And I want to just keep the attention on that. I'm going to fully associate myself also with my brother and colleague, council Freelon has said, I can tell you right now, I'm down for spending money. I believe we should push every button and pull every lever. But I also want to say that if we as a city and as a government will insist on approaching this issue as an either or if we're going to insist that we approach it as either or rather than flooding the zone and emptying our quiver and firing every hour at this issue, then I would respectfully submit that if we're not going to do the free thing that actually has metrics built into it and decide to spend money on something that is well intentioned, then I think one of the questions that we have to be prepared to answer is what, when can we expect the numbers to go down? If that's going to be our response and the only part of our response, then can we causally link that to a time when we can expect the numbers of what's going on in our city to go down based upon however much we spend right now. I believe the time to talk to a heart attack victim about lifestyle changes in their fitness program is not while they're having a heart attack. We need to stabilize them first and get them on ICU and then talk about changing their diet and getting their exercise. Many of our people are having a heart attack right now and I think that it's important that we push every button and pull every lever and whatever metric or whatever test we apply to any one recommendation, then we ought to be prepared to answer that same question for any other recommendation that we bring forth. So I want to say right now even before we have the conversation, you know, I'm prepared to support what anybody on this council brings forward to address this issue but I do also want to caution us that if we choose, if we insist on approaching this as either or rather than this and that, then we need to be prepared to answer some hard questions about the singular choices we make as opposed to flooding the zone with a myriad of responses to this problem. And I agree with you, Councilor Freeland, I want folks to know that this issue will be front and center. Everything else is secondary. Everything else is secondary in our city to this. May God bless the families that have experienced gun violence recently and may we preserve further children and families from experiencing it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much, Council Member. Any further announcements? All right, colleagues, thank you. We'll now move to priority items by the city manager. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Tem members of Durham City Council. I have three priority items this evening. Agenda item number eight, North Durham Water Reclamation Facility and Acadia Street, Water Main Replacement and Fletcher's Chapel Road sewer improvements. Award of construction contract to Carolina Civil Works Incorporated. Pursuant to City Council's request, additional information has been provided in attachment number seven. Agenda item number 17, Consolidated Annexation, Farrington Road Multi-Family, BDG1900017, attachment number 19, has been updated. And finally, agenda item number 19, Pascals Bakery Building and Studebaker Building, Landmark Repeal. Pursuant to City Council's request, additional information has been provided in attachment number seven. That is all I have this evening. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Manager. Madam Attorney, any priority items for us this tonight? Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Madam Mayor Pro Tem members of City Council. The City Attorney's office has no priority items this evening. Thank you, Madam Attorney. Thank you. Madam Clerk, any priority items tonight? Good evening, everyone. The City Clerk's office has no priority items. Thank you, Madam Clerk. You're welcome. We will now proceed with the consent agenda. The consent agenda consists of items that were previously worked on by the Council and can be approved. The consent agenda can be approved by a single vote of the Council. Items can be removed by members of the public or by members of the Council. And if an item is removed, it will be held until the end of the meeting for consideration. For the consent agenda, Item 1, Approval of City Council Minutes. Item 2, Durham Affordable Housing Implementation Committee Appointment. Item 3, Durham Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Commission Appointment. Item 4, Durham Convention and Visitors' Bureau Board of Directors, DBA, Discover Durham Appointments. Item 5, Durham Planning Commission Appointment. Item 6, Durham Workers' Rights Commission Appointment. Item 7, Request to Amanda Fiske Year 2021 Capital Improvement Project Ordinance for General Funds, sideways, stormwater and transit funds and grant project ordinance. Item 8, North Durham Water Reclamation Facility in Acadia Street, Water Main Replacement and Fletcher's Chapel Road, Sewer Improvements, Award of Construction Contract to Carolina Civil Works Inc. Item 9, Interlocal Agreement for the Collection of Taxes with the County of Orange. Item 10, Resolution for Installment, Financing Contract Amendment. Item 11, Acquisition of 1602 Midland Terrace, PID number 159782. Item 12, Construction Contract with Engineer Construction Company for Rockbury Park Upgrades. Item 13, Fair Housing Assistance Program Grant Project Ordinance. Item 14, Odyssey Drive Culvert Replacement, SD 2020-01. Item 15, Odyssey Drive Culvert Replacement, SD 2018-01 Amendment Number 2. Colleagues, you have heard the consent agenda and I now accept the motion for its approval. I move. I second. Moved by Council Member Caballero, seconded by Council Member Freelon. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council Member Caballero. Aye. Council Member Freelon. Aye. Council Member Freeman. Aye. Council Member Middleton. I vote aye. Council Member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. The ayes have it and the motion passes unanimously and the consent agenda is approved. Well, now move to the general business agenda of public hearings and the first item is Item 16, Consolidated Annexation 1101 Olive Branch Road. And we will first hear from staff and I see Ms. Smith. Welcome, Ms. Smith. Good evening, Mayor and City Council Members. This item, as you remember, was continued from your regular meeting on September 8, 2020, to this evening. I'm Grace Smith. I'm with the Planning Department and before I start the review of this item, I would like to state for the record that all Planning Department notices for hearings have been carried out in accordance with state and local law and the affidavits for those notices are on file in the Planning Department. You may recall this is a request for a Utility Extension Agreement, Voluntary Annexation, Future Land Use Map Amendment and a Zoning Map Change by Tim Syvers of Corvath & Associates. It's for one parcel of land located at 1101 Olive Branch Road totaling 178 acres. The annexation position is for contiguous expansion of the corporate city limits. The case is BDG 190007. In addition, the applicant proposes to change the zoning designation of the site from rural residential to planned development, excuse me, planned residential development, PDR 2.999, with the development plan committing to a maximum of 421 townhouse units and single-family residential dwelling units. The applicant also proposes to change the Future Land Use Map designation of the site from very low density residential to low density residential. There is no change to the recreation and open space designation. If approved, the annexation petition and the associated applications will become effective on December 31st of this year. Key commitments include restricting townhomes and single-family detached residential units as the building permit is the building permitted type, dedicating additional right of way for a future bicycle lane and providing contributions to the Durham Public Schools and Dedicated Housing Fund. And as of late this afternoon, the applicant did wish to change their proffer for that and they can speak to that when they get to their presentation. The City and County operational departments have not identified any significant negative service impacts. The Budget and Management Services Department determined that the proposed annexation will become revenue positive immediately following the annexation. Additional information can be found in the staff report. The Planning Commission recommended denial of this case at their June 22nd, 2020 meeting by a vote of four to nine. There are four motions required for this application. The first is to adopt an ordinance annexing the property and entering into a utility extension agreement. The second is to adopt a resolution amending the Future Land Use Map and the third would be to adopt a consistency statement. And the fourth is for the zoning ordinance. The applicant is on the call and staff is available for we have any questions. I believe the applicant has a presentation and I'm happy to help share the screen for that. Thank you very much, Ms. Smith. Colleagues, you've heard the report from staff and I'm now going to declare this public hearing open. I'm going to first ask if there are any questions by members of the Council for our staff. Any questions for staff at this point? All right, we have several people who have signed up to speak on this item and Ms. Schwedler, are you leading the presentation for the applicant? Jamie Schwedler. Madam Clerk, can you make her available to be heard? Unmuted her. Here, can you be heard? Thank you. Are you leading the presentation for the applicant, Ms. Schwedler? Yes, Mr. Mariam. Okay, I have certain people listed as proponents. I want to make sure that are they planning to speak or are they just available for questions? That includes Balhong Wan, Robert Anderson, Jamie Davis, Timothy Savers, and Ladidra Matthews. Are they members of your team? They are and they'll be available for questions, but I'll be handling the presentation. All right. I also see Stephen Canill. I hope I'm pronouncing that name properly, who is an opponent. And are there any other members? Are there any other people present today? Anyone else who is attending this meeting who would like to be heard on this item? If you are, if you could either put that in the chat or raise your virtual hand. Is there anyone else that is here to be heard on this item? Item 16, which is the consolidated annexation of 1101 Olive Branch Road. Anyone else? We'll make sure that we're getting everybody, giving everybody a chance. All right. Believe not. Ms. Schwedler, I'm going to ask that you go ahead with your presentation and Ms. Smith has offered to share her screen. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Jamie Schwedler on behalf of the applicant 301 Fayetteville Street, and I'm here with Parker Poe representing Timothy Savers who's also on the phone tonight. While we're waiting for Ms. Smith to raise the presentation, I did want to commend the staff for doing a fantastic job in the Searle's work session, which is why this case was deferred till tonight. They did a great job laying out the type of development this area can support due to environmental limits and explaining how the low to moderate density development was anticipated when Searle's was approved over four years ago. This request aligns with that expectation and proposes a maximum of 421 units from rural residential to PDR 2.999. The units are a mix of townhomes and single family residences with a commitment to at least 100 of each of these housing types to stimulate variety. Next slide, please. The density is compatible with nearby developments and consistent with long range planning designations, and we've also committed to environmental features, transportation improvements, and townhome design and variation. We could skip to the next slide, please. Smith, are you able to move those slides? Thank you. Yes, I had a moment. I'm sorry. That's all right. I just read over the second slide. We can stay right here. The second slide was just an orientation of where the existing site is, and you can see on the bottom right hand side of your screen that's the Searle's map, and our site is the green area, the larger green area in the middle of the Searle's basin. What you see on your screen now is a development plan, and you can see that we concentrated most of the development within existing clearings. The gray areas are shown as the streams and buffers, which will be preserved, but we went above this requirement and committed to a 600-foot wildlife corridor centered on the stream, running north-south in the center of the site, shown in green on the screen in front of you. This leaves three main pockets of land to be developed between the buffers and tree stands shown in hatch with dots on your screen. Next slide, please. With respect to sustainability, we are exceeding the UDO requirements on both preserved tree coverage and open space, committing to programming of the open space and amenity areas, dedicating a greenway easement or building a trail, adding paving for bike lanes along our frontage, and preserving the wildlife corridor I mentioned. These elements are consistent with comp plan policies on increased environmental protections and bike greenway accommodations, but they're also specifically consistent with the east-term open space plan for this particular site. Next slide, please. This slide shows that open space plan with our site in blue towards the bottom half of the screen. The east-term open space plan contemplated a proposed natural corridor running north-south across the center of the site in a planned greenway trail, both of which we've committed to in this request. Next slide, please. This slide shows the traffic commitments we are making at our site access points on olive ranch road and Virgil road, which mainly consists of additional turn lanes to maintain traffic flow. Next slide, please. And we are also making off-site improvements of an additional turn lane on olive ranch road at 98 shown towards the left of your screen, widening highway 98 itself, and installing a new traffic signal at 98 and camp shown towards the right side of your screen. As Mr. Judge noted in the sorrel's presentation, these improvements are not funded by the city or NCDOT on any timetable, so this development provides a means for completing these in the nearer term to ease existing traffic congestion and mitigate new trips from this development. And you can see in context where our site is on the right side of the screen and how far away those improvements are on 95 just to relate back to the sorrel's basin. Next slide, please. We're also making significant design commitments for townhouses as shown in your packet, and they're summarized here on the screen. I won't read each of them, but they include distinctive architectural features, materials, block length, and the appearance of front facades, which we've grown accustomed to hearing comments from the planning commission and incorporated those in at the planning commission level before we came here tonight. Next slide, please. As we've covered, I think that the site is shown in blue on the next screen is in the heart of the sorrel's basin area. At the work session, we heard from Mr. Greeley with the Department of Water Management that the $40 million sorrel's project and the fees charged to offset its costs were based on the basin developing in low to moderate density, which is consistent with this request. Staff also noted that it was actually better for the environment in the long term to have the public utilities that this development would provide instead of having septic, which is all that is available today or if the site was developed with existing zoning. As acting as director Young noted, septic is more likely to fail over time and it cannot support residential uses. And so the annexation and development with public utilities is actually more beneficial in this scenario. This project commits to connecting to sorrel's consistent with the comprehensive plan as well as extending water along Kemp Road. Next slide, please. As noted in your staff report, this project is consistent with the comprehensive plan. The low density designation is consistent with PDR and the suburban tier and provides a mix of single family and townhome housing. In addition, the single family is planned for two different types of housing, traditional and more of a patio or ranch home to allow for different price points and preferences. All of this will provide more housing on smaller lots and result in a more affordable supply than what is developed across the line in Wake County. We think that was very effectively explained by Miss Young during the work session. I've also noted how the open space commitments are consistent with the Eastern Durham Open Space Plan and the transportation improvements, including the widening of 98 and new signals, result in an acceptable level of service, which is also consistent with your comp plan policies. Next slide, please. In sum, this request is reasonable and in the public interest because of its offset of the sorrel's cost. It's over $3 million in offsite roadway and utility improvements, its donations to public schools, and its donation to affordable housing. The one change that Miss Smith noted that we're making tonight is we're increasing our affordable housing commitment to $300 per unit, which totals roughly over $126,000 to the Affordable Housing Fund. We're making no other commitments to, no other changes to the commitments, but just increasing that amount. And together, these commitments exceed those of any recent project approved in the Eastern area. Next slide, please. In sum, these requests are consistent with the comprehensive plan with UDO requirements, with the sorrel's land use and infrastructure planning, and they respond to a growing need for housing in this area at an appropriate density. We thank you for your time tonight and your patience, and we're happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much, Ms. Schweidler. We have someone else signed up to speak, who's Stephen Canill. Madam Clerk, could you make Mr. Canill available to be heard? Mr. Canill, can you be heard? I'm here. Can you hear me, Mr. Mayor? Yes. Have I pronounced your name right? No, it's Nill. The K is silent. I'm sorry. Not a problem. So I'll try. Go ahead, Mr. Nill. I'll try to be brief here. I'm the head of the Courtyard of Andrews Chapel Finance Committee. Andrews Chapel is on the corner of Leesville and Andrews Chapel. I also lead our community action group, which we're linking to similar groups at Caroline Arbers and Fendall Farms, all that share the roads being discussed. These communities are homes to about 4,000 seniors. I was able to speak at the October discussion of the Leesville Road annex public hearing for 344 townhomes. And I understand you're also considering 66 more townhomes on Leesville Road next to Fendall Farms. I have two quick issues. The first one is the same as the issue that we had about the 344 townhomes on Leesville Road. These are all two-lane roads. Olive Chapel, Carpenter Pond, Leesville, and Andrews Chapel. In your documents in H.C., the attachment to their quest lists the area communities that may be impacted. First, some of the numbers of the total homes are incorrect, but the big omission is that it doesn't include 1,265 homes at Caroline Arbers. So it includes 1,608 homes, but with an additional 1,265 that should be included as to how this impacts the area. The impact study also uses numbers from a 2017 NC DOT traffic count. And I've lived here since October of 2018. Believe me, the traffic has grown much more than this traffic count list. The proponent of this talks a lot about the changes they're making on Route 98, but those don't have anything to do with the direction that the majority of these residents will go to get either to U.S. 70 or to Breyer Creek in 540 and 40. They will be traveling down all two-lane roads to get to those general destinations or conveyance roads. Interestingly enough, the Leesville annex documents didn't even list the community's impact, but again it used the 2018 NC DOT traffic count map. So that's the traffic and those roads are my number one concern. And speaking to residents in all three of these communities, they all have the same similar issue. We need to get these at least Leesville road widened in order to make this a workable situation, or we will have significant backups. Now there's a fire station on Leesville road that in rush hour, if these get backed up, could be heavily impacted. The second concern we have is that the documents for the Leesville road annex from October 4th, 344 townhomes, listed an impact of 76 additional students. This one being discussed tonight is for 421 townhome and or single family homes, and that lists an impact of only 29 additional students. I'm not sure how that math works together. If you're saying you're going to have 76 additional students in 344 townhomes, I don't know how you're going to get to 29 additional students when you're going to have single family homes, which naturally have more people in them. So both of the, and again that obviously affects school, school size, school cost, property taxes, etc. But to just get back to the beginning, the major issue is Leesville road, which Olive Branch dumps out into and the backups that will occur if we don't get that road widened while we green light all these new communities. We're not opposed to the communities, we're not opposed to the development. The development is great for Durham County and Durham City, but we need to be able to move people. The U.S. studies say that most major communities, Durham included, have two cars per home. We're now talking about, you know, 3,800 homes right in this area. That's 7,000 cars. These roads are not made for that many cars. So that's the point I wanted to make tonight. Thank you very much, Mr. Nill. I appreciate that and we'll be asking some questions about that in a little while. I do want to just say that in terms of the, I know what you're talking about in terms of the increase in students, but just to explain that, because I know that that's something that's often confusing. The increase in students is calculated between what the existing zoning will produce and what the new zoning will produce. And so it's the underlying zone, it's the current base, what the current zoning will produce and how that's different than what the new zoning will produce in terms of students. And that can be very different in different situations. And so the first case that you referred to wouldn't produce, you know, produce more additional students because it was a zoning from a lower opening density. So I hope I made sense of that, but that's the reason that we see that. But I know that your most important point is your point about the roads and we'll be having some discussion about that because I think that's important to all of us. Thank you very much, Mr. Neal. Is there anyone else that would like to be heard on this item? This is a public hearing item. If there are any attendees that would like to be heard on this item, if you could either raise your virtual hand or say so in the chat, that would be great. All right, I don't see any. So I'm now going to ask if there are any questions or comments by members of the council for either staff or the applicants or the or any of the speakers. Council member Reese. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Shwedler, can you help me understand how this, the presentation that you showed us tonight differs from what the Planning Commission saw when they considered this item? Sure. We had many of the same text commitments and the that were proffered at the table and that at that night that are now part of your case. And the Planning Commission expressed a gratitude or appreciation for including those. A certain commission members wanted to go further. And I think those were along the lines of whether Durham wanted development that was less car centric, had more mixed use development or commercial aspects to not just residential, whether there could be creative solar or environmental elements on the buildings themselves. But then there was also the commission member who moved in favor of moving it forward greatly favored the variety that was proposed and had and kind of recognized that the density and the mix of housing was something that would add to Durham supply. So the votes kind of fell along those two camps. I'm sorry. I wasn't clear about my question. First of all, thank you for that information. But what's different tonight versus what the Planning Commission considered when they had it before them? Oh, I'm sorry. Just the merely the passage of time, we increase the affordable housing contribution. And I believe up from 100 at the Planning Commission up to 300 tonight. But really, there was a much more robust discussion of this area since this was considered and I believe it was considered in June of this year. And if you recall, there were many more cases that you all heard in this area and a much more robust discussion between that time and today, including the work session, but the actual merits of the case and conditions didn't change except for the affordable housing commitment. Great. Thank you, Ms. Schwedler. That was my main question, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Other questions or comments, colleagues? Council Member Freeman? I just had a question for staff and it may not be something that's readily available, but I want to just like note and acknowledge. So I know Ms. Schwedler mentioned the 2007 Eastern plan. And I just wanted to touch back on some of the things that she mentioned and acknowledging that there was a clean water trust fund and I'd love to know if anyone knows how much is left in that trust fund right now. Council Member Freeman, I'm not aware of how much is left in that trust fund. There might be another staff member on the call that may know off the top of my head. I'm not sure that I can answer that question. Okay. And then there's someone else there. Maybe they'll jump in right now, if not, I'm hoping so. If not, it's okay. I just wanted to get a number because it looked like it was only like 200,000 in it at that point in 2007. And I wasn't sure if that was for the entire Eastern area, especially around the falls of the Newst Reservoir. The questions that I had though specifically were just like in looking at this report because I had to pull it up because it's been a long time since I've seen it or even thought about looking at it. But there were a number of issues that were raised in this report that I feel like speak to the laps and where we are today. And so just noting from 2007 to 2020, there have been many acknowledgments in how greenhouse gases, climate change, all of these things have been evolving. And this plan that we're referring to as a reason to move forward with a project like this because the circles are in place doesn't seem sufficient. And so just noting, and I'm trying to get to that page, there was a push for traffic conditions and air pollution continued to dare. I'm sorry, number seven and on page four, and just noting like there were a list of like nine areas that this plan was looking to address. And I just want to note the failures in those areas and acknowledging that today, even with the DOT unable to move forward with repairs, we would be the cost for that road widening that was mentioned earlier would fall on the city. And then just also noting that the preservation of these floodlands, which are prone areas to create flood damage or property damage for homes that are in those areas, would fall on the property owners that are in those homes. And so just noting like when we're talking about these high density sites and flood zones, we create even more harm. And the impact is not just by on the on the front end of just being being cheaper to purchase, but also on the backside of being expensive to maintain. And so just noting that on this on this specific case, and in many cases, I've raised this issue. And this document, which I really wish I had had had read in its entirety before this evening to refresh all of my concerns around why we have to be really specific about developing in these wetlands, especially on this on olive olive road and Lee'sville road and acknowledging there was a plan in place to preserve the farmland. And there was a hope that we would be able to prevent some of this, some of the failures from occurring, but they're not they're not acknowledging that where we are today, the differences that needs to be made. And so I'm really looking forward to a point where we can have small area planning that would address something like this. But I know that that's not right now. And so it's hard for me to to see the benefit of having 300 in some my townhomes and three different sections near this wetland. Yeah. Thank you, Council Member. Other questions, colleagues or comments this time? All right, Ms. Schweidler, I have a couple of questions. The first I would be interested in you addressing some of the comments that Council Member Freeman made. And Council Member Freeman, could you tell us the report that you were talking about that I'm not familiar with? And I also see in the chat Ms. Schweidler asked about that. What a report is that? It's the Eastern Open Space Plan. Okay. The one that I see. So all right, thank you. Ms. Schweidler, you all refer to the Eastern Open Space Plan in your presentation or rather it's referred to in the staff report and you refer to it as well. Do you want to comment first on the open space and the preservation that you're doing and the concerns that Council Member Freeman raised? Sure. I'm a happy to. The portion of the Open Space Plan I was referring to is really more of the land planning of preserving the corridor down the center of the site on the open space plan back on our slide. It showed a corridor alignment that really lines up with what we've done on our development plan and exceeded that what was required. So there's a corridor shown with the greenway and we've committed to both of those elements that expanded the corridor to 600 feet for the wildlife corridor. And I wasn't speaking directly toward the fund and I don't know that I can speak toward the balance of that. That question was directed to staff. But to the extent we need to address any stormwater questions or concerns, we do have Tim Cybers on the line to address those. And before we turn it to him, I think the point I was trying to make with the Durham Open Space Plan is that given the environmental constraints throughout this the Searles area, applicants are encouraged to preserve as much of the environmentally sensitive areas they've done. And we've done that not only through the corridor but also through an additional commitment to tree preservation and open space that exceeds the EDO. Tim, if Tim Cybers could be made available if there were specific questions on on stormwater that he might be able to address. Yes, I believe, yes, can you hear me? Yes, Mr. Cybers, welcome. Could you talk to us about the stormwater treatment that you anticipate and anything else related to the open space that you think would be valuable for us to hear? Sure. As Jamie mentioned, Tim Cybers, Horvath Associates, 16 consultant place Durham, North Carolina. So yes, the stormwater requirements will be met through the site plan. We will be working with Mr. Shay Bullock of the stormwater department review at the time of site plan to review those to make sure they're part of city code. As for the floodplain in response to potential flooding of downstream residents there's very minimal downstream residents. There's a lot of large parcels at this point and we're very close to the further downstream. And in addition, our requirements within our site is that we will not be able to increase the floodplain elevation. So we'll be have to make sure our single stream crossing, if you'll note, we have limited our crossing to one vehicular stream crossing across that main floodplain area. So where that crossing is, we'll have to make sure our infrastructure is sized adequately to not increase the floodplain elevation. Thank you, Mr. Cybers. Colleagues, actually, I'm sorry, Ms. Schweidler, I have another question for you. Looking at the Durham DOT and NC DOT letters, looks like the traffic flow will actually be much better than the current traffic flow after improvements are made at NC 98 and Camp Road than they are now, which is good. And thank you. I appreciate the commitments to the offsite improvements, which we don't see very often, but I appreciate the significant offsite improvements. We see the same situation though that we're seeing in every all these developments out here, which is the worsening situation, not just because of this development, but because of the developments out here at Olive Branch and Leesville Road. And I wondered if you wanted to comment on that. And then I'd like to hear if staff would like to comment on the particularly on the intersection at Olive Branch and Leesville Road. Ms. Schweidler, do you have any comments on that or your traffic engineer? I do briefly. And then I would like to have to Tim and the traffic engineer address that because Tim has a perspective on Leesville Road. And then we can hear directly from the traffic engineer Tim. Yes, this is Tim Cybers again. So as you council members are familiar two weeks ago, the Leesville Road Assemblage was approved. And that project of 344 townhomes will be doing improvements along Leesville Road, which is directly across from the courtyards that the Mr. Neil had spoke about. Those improvements on Leesville Road will be widening in areas that's a two lane road up to four lane road at both the access points for that project. In addition to Andrew's Chapel, there's other developments in the area that will also be doing further improvements at Olive Branch and Leesville. And I will pass that to our traffic engineer Mr. Bohang Wan with VHB that can provide more information on that item. Sure. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Mayor. My name is Bohang Wan. I'm a traffic engineer with VHB. We prepared traffic study for Olive Branch rezoning in 2009. We also worked on the Leesville Assemblage with Tim Cybers as well. So our TI was prepared in close coordination with the City of Durham and this NC DOT and the recommendations has been reviewed and approved by the City and DOT. As Jamie and Tim already mentioned, this project made a really significant commitment along NC 98. So as Ms. Mayor, you pointed out the level of service under the future conditions are actually better than the current conditions. So which not only benefits some traffic from this project, but it's going to benefit the travelers along NC 98. I think it's going to bring opportunities for other, for the public and for future development as well. Regarding the roadway capacity along Leesville, first I want to mention about Leesville is a two-liner road. So just like Olive Branch and Virgil Road. So for a two-liner road without turn up, the typical capacity is about 13,000. So the current ADP along Olive Branch is 2,300 in 2019 and it's less than 1,000 on Virgil Road. So this project is expected to generate 3,500 data trips. So our analysis is showing it's on the capacity for both Virgil Road and Olive Branch. But we are committed to make roadway improvements with TurnLine. So by adding TurnLine itself, a two-liner road with TurnLine, the capacity will increase to about 15,000 range. Now also about Leesville Road, I think Tim already mentioned that that project is going to make widening improvement and turn improvement at side access and also at Andrew Chapel Road. And with other developments going on, I think you correctly pointed out the development, the growth is not only due to these two projects, it's due to many other projects. But other projects are also making commitments as well. I know there's a future signal plan at Doc Naples at Leesville Road with signal and with TurnLine improvements. I think there are also TurnLine implement plan at US 70 at Leesville Road as well. And there's many other occasions. So each development is evaluating their own traffic impact, make improvements. So do their fair share. In my opinion, this project has done one-eighth fair share of transport improvements. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wan. Mr. Judge, could you comment on what you see ahead for Olive Branch and Leesville Road? What are your thoughts about that? Yes, thank you. Bill Judge, City of Durham Transportation. So the intersection of Olive Branch and Leesville is challenging for making improvements due to the proximity to the intersection of Leesville and Shady Grove. The Leesville-Shady Grove intersection is the primary intersection that's already been that's planned, signalized and improvements have been there due to the proximity. It's not really appropriate to install a signal at the intersection of Leesville and Olive Branch. The long-range plans do show a sort of realignment of Olive Branch sort of to the north of Shady Grove and Leesville. That would be ideal, but that project will be very challenging. There's some historic properties in the cemetery in the area, so I don't want to necessarily give folks a lot of hope that anything's imminent or funded for that, but that's sort of the long-term goal or solution is to do a realignment there to improve the spacing. Is the Shady Grove intersection useful to people in these developments? It is. It's functioning at an adequate level of service today. The primary delay at Olive Branch and Leesville would just be those coming on Olive Branch going south that want to turn left. That's where most of the delay is currently at. Thank you very much, Mr. Judge. Any other questions at this point? I just have one question for Mr. Judge. Sure. You're talking about the traffic count, and I'm just making sure I'm verifying. The counts are by car. They're not by pedestrian. They're not by bike. They're not by motorcycle, like it's by car specifically. Correct. The traffic impact analysis is pretty much exclusively auto-oriented, and we're measuring vehicle delay. And this probably is more so a question specific to Sarah or Grace and acknowledging that this is probably the fourth project that's come forward. And so what we're talking about is about 1,200 townhomes in this area, and all of this traffic lining up to come in with these road improvements that this one project is doing. And I think there's a couple of others, smaller ones. But the majority of the traffic that we're all talking about is all car, and the continuation, I mean, this continuation of, I don't want to say that, yeah, I'm not going to say that, but I just wanted to just get a handle on where that was going on. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions, colleague, for the applicants or for staff? Any other questions? All right, I'm now going to declare this public hearing closed. You declare it closed. I just had a question for Sarah in the timeline, I guess. I just would like to know when it's going to come forward. Excuse me, council member. Let me just say this public hearing is closed. And now if you have a question for staff, go ahead. Thank you. I'm just trying to get a baseline or understanding of what the timeline looks like because I'm acknowledging that this is 179 acres of land in this area. It's a huge like city size or such a small town size. Is there any semblance of a like a movement on this that we're going to get because we're going to continue to get this pushed towards down 98. We're going to continue to get this pushed around all of the serals. And all of these properties are going online with all this density. Is there any conversations that's going to pick up around how we're going to actually build road road infrastructure so that it can handle all of these cars and all of these residents because it's not, it doesn't seem conducive and it doesn't support a city. Like it's not building on a city. It's turning these rural communities, these rural farms into subdivisions and then just throwing all the traffic on that two lane road. I'm really starting to get more and more concerned because I know I acknowledge that folks folks aren't concerned about the waterways and they're not concerned about the stormwater runoff. But at least I mean the traffic impacts. This is all starting to just weigh around my nerve. But I would like to know what the timeline looks like. Good evening everyone. Sarah Young with the Planning Department. Councilmember Freeman, are you referring to the timeline for a serals, a Southeast Durham small area plan? Are you referring for a timeline for additional roadway improvements? I'd like a little clarification if you don't mind. I think specifically to the roadway improvements. Then I will have to defer to my colleague Bill Judge on that. So yeah, Bill Judge, transportation. The roadway improvements that are being proffered by the applicant would have to be constructed most likely prior to the issuance of certificate of occupancy. There is a potential where they could potentially phase them and get a few units if they're able to show that there is some available capacity before they would need it at the time of site plan. But most likely given the existing conditions out here, most of those will be required pretty early in the development. Not exactly sure of their current timeline for constructing, but I would certainly think it would probably, assuming that the site plan gets submitted and approved relatively quickly after designing could be within two or three years likely. So what I'm hearing you say is that there's no timeline in place for a large, specific to the streets you have a plan that are already there before interconnecting streets like back streets or back channels. How is that planning happening? Is it happening? Yeah. So in terms of the interconnectivity between the neighborhoods, that unfortunately is happening as each development develops. So as neighborhoods next to each other develop and extend, we'll be able to build that internal collector street network to provide pedestrian and bicycle connectivity. But right now it's basically is each development builds their own portion of it. And then as ultimately as every development gets built out, hopefully we should have most of those connections that we need. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Ms. Yon, could you refresh us on the small area planning for this area? What you told us about last time we were together or perhaps at the Searle's Work Session? Sure. We are going to be starting a small area planning process as part of the new comprehensive plan. And that's been advanced to start this, it probably in about the next month or so staff has already started game planning their kind of schedule of working through that component of the comprehensive plan. So instead of waiting a year out, we're actually beginning it now. And it likely will take, we will probably have recommendations ready in the spring. Thank you very much, Ms. Yon. Are there any other questions, colleagues, for staff? Any other comments on this? Council Member Rees. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to thank Ms. Shwedler and her team for making the presentation tonight. I also want to thank staff for all their work in answering our questions and helping us understand not just this project, but other projects in this area and helping us kind of get our heads around what can happen in this part of Durham, what ought to happen, and what tools we have as a city to get to where we want to be in this part of Durham. I will just be totally up front with my colleagues and with everyone listening, is that I'm not sure how I'm going to vote tonight. That's why I wanted to go first to talk to you, talk to my colleagues a little bit about some of the factors that I see in this project and then listen to y'all tell me what you think about it so that I can figure out what in the heck I want to do. I think ultimately the Planning Commission had a really good conversation about this project and I think this was a real conversation between the ideas that were championed in the written comments by Commissioners Durkin and Busby and on the one hand Commissioner Miller on the other hand. I think it's fair to say that Commissioners Durkin and Busby were very concerned that this is a very large piece of property. There is some environmental sensitivity here due to wetlands on the property and that the open question is whether or not this kind of development on this type of property is really in the best interest of our community and I'm really grateful to the two of them for raising those critical issues. On the other hand, Commissioner Miller, whose written comments are always extensive, detailed, thorough and with which I often agree, makes the case that contrary to what I think it was that Council Member Freeman mentioned earlier, this is not actually high density development. This is about three units per acre once the some of the ecological sensitivities are weighed in at least that's what Commissioner Miller said. I know it is PDR4 and that in addition to that, that the developers made a number of critical design commitments to make sure that this isn't the kind of monotonous sprawl type development that in other situations Commissioner Miller has opposed strenuously and so all of that I think we weigh against the backdrop of the presentation that we received I guess almost a month ago now concerning this part of Durham, what conditions here are suitable for in terms of development and the concern that I think we all share about what happens if we say no to projects like this that are annexations that would be served by city utilities, what does that say about what development will come to this part of Durham in the absence of those kinds of utilities and I think staff showed us pretty clearly on the map about what's happened on one side of the Wake County line with Durham and I think analogize the possibility that can happen for a year. All of which is to say Mr. Mayor that there are lots of competing factors at play here and I know I have very smart colleagues who are going to have lots of interesting things to say that can help me figure out how I'm going to vote in just a little while. So that's what I wanted to say. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you Councilmember. Other comments at this time? Councilmember Caballero. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Good evening everyone. I just wanted to say that I will be voting for this zoning this evening since my councilmember colleague Reese was saying he was unsure and actually conveniently well not so conveniently because it took me a minute I had to drive out to Wake Forest and I had two route choices. I could go 98 and I could go 540 to get to Highway 1 which is where I needed to go. On the way there I took Highway 98 because it was something we were considering voting tonight and I thought it would be great to get some context and while the traffic is definitely something that on 98 I'm always very well aware of the part that I found extremely illuminating is once I crossed over into the Wake County line I started seeing a lot more development than there is in the Durham County line all around Falls Lake all in very environmentally sensitive areas and what's getting constructed out there are massive single-family homes and there was lots of signs near those developments asking for I think one neighborhood said you know come drive find your dream home for $600,000 and that is what I want to avoid and I think that while these developments I know are not often in my ideal I have to make decisions based in the reality that I'm in and the reality of my that I'm in is at least this way we can control for some of the environmental concern because it's in our sewer system it's attached to our water we don't have to worry about potential leaks from septic I have a feeling that all of those developments in Wake County were on septic near sensitive areas and it doesn't for help us with any affordability issue I don't know very many people who can avoid afford $600,000 homes in fact I know very few and I certainly know that it does not help the crisis that we're facing here in Durham and so that is kind of what helped me you know make my decision I was kind of unsure leaning yes I think the Searle's presentation was very very helpful but today provided a very very clear real-world example of what we will get by right development we cannot stop the development all we can do is make it better thank you very much councilmember other comments colleagues I had a question I appreciate oh sorry thank you Mr. Mayor trying to get my decorum right go ahead go ahead councilmember thank you your decorum is just fine okay well kind of thank you councilmember Reese for you know I was also kind of out on this and reading the reading the feedback from the planning commissions folks they were clearly split and so that wasn't terribly helpful I was kind of curious councilmember Cabrero is that about your analysis of the 600k home thing is that just kind of a foregone conclusion if we vote this down I mean I know it's a risk that we take but I'm thinking about um you know I had questions about septic when we talked about the the last development the Leesville project and its environmental implications but I'm also curious with our current density with the current zoning what options exist you know is it the type of thing where there's a lot of precedent and I'm asking maybe all my councilmember colleagues is there precedent for us voting something like this down and and and getting something better like what what kind of what kind of precedent is there for yeah for for holding out for something better resulting in a positive outcome and I'm relying on your collective institutional memory to be able to tell me that as somebody who's newer you know on the council well I think I have the most institutional memory just by reason of longevity I would say that that happens on occasion but it's rare that I thought what councilmember Cabrero said was very eloquent and described the predominant current reality which is that you know usually if we turn something like this down then the developer usually comes back and develops what they can by right I'm not saying that always happens but in my experience and I guess I'll ask my other colleagues who've also been on the council now several years they would agree with that or not that that certainly is my my yeah that that's what mainly happens uh councilmember Freeman thank you I I can understand how the mayor might see that I would love to note the cases that that has happened and I know for the three years I've been on council in the four years on the planning commission I've not seen that happen and so there hasn't been a case that's been voted down um to to even for me to even go back to to say that that's been the case I think we've kind of done the foregone collude conclusion that you know we're not going to get anything better and so we'll just take what we can and that's been kind of the mantra going forward every step of the way I unfortunately haven't been successful in convincing my colleagues that we could do better and that we needed to really focus on how to develop a plan around large swaths of land like this um so that it's not I mean it's I want to be really clear and say and I would I would like to see the area developed I would like to see the area developed very carefully I think this plan that they put forward is a phenomenal concept but I have seen the outcome on the other side where this then the density is not by acres per unit like per unit it's density in the area so if you put 12 town home town homes right next to the to the buffer and then you're right there on the water the issues that come up or like where your sewer where your sewer lines are how much how much you smell crap every day when or whenever it rains or how much is pumped out into your yard and who those people are that I meet that have those issues has been consistent throughout the entire time I've been on council and on the planning commission and overwhelmingly it's usually older people of color or older people who were without means to a to kind of um to purchase those $600,000 homes that council member caviero mentioned and so I mean I think we create this to look like a conundrum where the people who who can't afford to to to be in a light or on in a property that's not and I want to be really clear that this this property itself will have great flood maintenance like all of that the site planning all of that is not the issue it is whatever is whatever else is done around it and so just acknowledging that Raleigh Raleigh expanded their city limits to many of our borders so there there are many of them are on sewer and water the problem is that with all of so if we just develop just the way they develop then all that happens is all that all that compound harm on that environmentally sensitive area and I don't see a I don't see a response to that I just continue to see us develop and continue to see us approve these plans and continue to see approval approval approval approval there's very rarely a case where it's not approved and get a chance to see someone come back with a better plan um I honestly don't think it should be town homes uh densely located deck or located closely in that area I do think it should be a little bit more spread out because that would create more open space in between the homes more open space around the homes um and so I'm I'm I'm probably saying way more than I normally do but it just it's just concerning it's just concerning thank you council member thank you council member Middleton thank you mr mayor firstly I want to fully associate myself with the comments of my colleague council cabillero and I will be supporting this uh development I also want to say um echoing what my colleague counselor risa said I found commissioner millers musings his comments very very helpful um I uh mr mayor you are an institution by the way uh but I have enough institutional memory uh to remember us uh approving similarly situated developments not too long ago uh situated in terms of this the fact toys in the presentation and again I just want to echo my my and caution uh against the appearance of being random and capricious uh in our decisions as tempting as it is I I am just not prepared to to behave as if we've done small area planning before we have um and as much as I you know we we have a vision of what we want uh areas to look like I think it's important that we establish that as a standard and codify it um this is me so and I know everything's on a case-by-case basis but I I um it's important to me to be able to you know explain my decisions decisions particularly when there's a record where you can compare uh decisions as old as a few weeks ago to ones before us uh now so I will not uh as as child as tempting as it is I will not behave that we've done the work of small area planning before we have um I'm comfortable with the uh the proffers uh and the uh the plan of the developers that have put forward again I associate myself with counsel caviaros commons and um I'll be supporting this development tonight thank you mr mayor thank you council member mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor um I wanted to try to answer council member felon's question um because I do remember a couple of cases that we turned down early in my tenure I think it was about 2016 and council member wreaths probably remembers going out and trumping through the woods at one of them I think it was like golf of cornwallis um and then there was one up by coal mill road where there were proposals to up zone slightly again a mix of single family and townhomes um where the by right development would be um just single family on on larger lots the the trouble with that is that large lots mean large homes and large homes means they're not affordable and so what would building these townhouses would have allowed for smaller more affordable homes on these properties we ended up turning them down because of environmental concerns related to water pollution in those regions and both of those um projects went on to be developed by right with larger homes that were more expensive than the proposals that were brought to us by developers I don't I can't think of a counter example there there there is one example where we turned something down um the developer came back added more density and then we approved it but it was still a split vote um it was not it was not a unanimous support there was not unanimous support for that project in either case and in general um I would like to see more density on this site if if possible because I you know because that feels to me like the primary way that we get more affordability into um into our housing plans I'm convinced by the staff's presentation though that more density would not be appropriate in this area because of the environmental concerns and those are always the things that we're trying to manage trying to balance right um in an ideal an ideal development pattern in my opinion would be something like um like a buffer where beyond which you would not you know extend city water and sewer but then within the city you have opportunities for greater density but unfortunately because we can because developers can build these large you know large suburban communities outside of what we currently have there's really no way to to divert that development energy to doing higher density residential in the city um and we just don't have the we just don't have the ability to control and regulate housing markets in the way that we would need to actually make these visions that we are that we are seeking real so in my opinion this is the most density that makes sense in the area and that's why the proposal makes sense to me um and also the given the environmental sensitivity um the the ways in which this developer is you know preserving the buffers and preserving the wet lens um is is an added advantage that wouldn't necessarily happen with a by right development and the and the fact that I just cannot you know I there there has never been a development that we turned down and then got back something that everybody was happier with um that it's I yeah I I just don't feel like that course of action is is um is going to get us what we need what is going to get us what we need is more legal authority to regulate the conditions of development and that's going to require some pretty high level political changes thank you madam mayor pro tem uh council member caballero yeah I also just wanted to provide some other context for council member freelon if that is allowable by all means thank you that one of the other things that I am concerned about in this area and it's something I think about a lot again I I hear everyone's concerns it ideally this kind of development while there are some townhomes you know walkability density all of these things I think are extremely important I also do take into account where we are which is close to falls lake so are those things is it suited to where it is in the in the land out there um or on the land out there um and I think another thing that I have a lot of concern about is during wake county is a large county geographically Durham county is not and if we are not real careful about what we allow to build here we have a you know a market driven system and so whatever we choose or not choose and I think we have a pretty good cautionary tale with our neighbor next to us in orange county Chapel Hill who has notoriously hard and complicated zoning rules that have pushed their housing up very very high the cost of housing is much higher and I've lived in north Carolina long enough to know that you know some of the folks who were originally pushed out you know came over to Durham and then at a cost you know it caused a ripple effect in our housing market and that's going to happen in places like person in Granville county whose zoning rules are much different than ours much less stringent than Durham county and so the the environmental cost all of the traffic cost all of these things become a regional problem and so as much as we think about Durham only we do have to think about the larger broader context of decisions we make on zoning thank you very much council member colleagues this has been an awesome discussion thank you we've heard it so many good perspectives and I want to appreciate all of my colleagues and for the things that you all have said this is hard these decisions are important and they're always amongst in between or amongst imperfect alternatives and that's the that's the reality we face and I appreciate that everyone has worked hard tonight to talk about I mean I think we've got a fully you know round picture of the of the complications that we face um all right um I'll now ask if there's a motion to adopt an ordinance annexing 1101 olive branch road move to adopt the ordinance is there a second second moved by council member Middleton seconded by council member Caballero that we adopt the ordinance madame clerk will you please call the vote call mayor shul mayor shul aye mayor pro tan johnson aye council member caballero aye council member freelon aye council member freeman nay council member middleton aye vote aye council member east aye thank you very much madame clerk the ayes have it the motion passes six to one and I see gwin hey gwin uh and now we'll need a motion to adopt a resolution amending the future of land used to low density residential so moved second moved by madame mayor pro tem was there a second second by council member freelon madame clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul aye mayor pro tem johnson aye council member caballero aye council member freelon aye council member freeman nay council member middleton aye vote aye council member east aye thank you thank you very much madame clerk the motion passes six to one now we need a motion to adopt a consistency statement move to adopt consistency statement second moved by council member middleton seconded by mayor pro tem to adopt the consistency statement madame clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul aye mayor pro tem johnson aye council member caballero aye council member freelon aye council member freeman nay council member middleton aye vote aye council member barice aye thank you thank you madame clerk the motion passes six to one and finally we would need a motion to adopt an ordinance amending the udo move to amend the udo second moved by council member middleton seconded by council member freelon madame clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul mayor pro tem johnson aye council member caballero council member freelon aye council member freeman aye council member middleton aye vote aye council member barice aye thank you thank you i do want to just say appreciate everybody who came tonight miss schwedler and your team mr. nill i do want to also just add one other comment in in in response to council member freelon's question we have we have over the years i've been on council we have turned down many rezoning requests that we don't think are good enough and sometimes that they come back to us slightly tweak sometimes they come back to us very different um sometimes they don't come back to us at all they sit there for a long time uh so uh i i don't want to give anybody the impression that we are we're uh just approving everything that comes before us we've not improved we already had some this year we haven't approved and we'll have others i'm sure all right uh colleagues we'll now move to item 17 consolidated annexation fairington road multifamily uh and uh i will first hear the report from staff thank you very much michael stock with the planning department um excuse me consolidate cases bdg 19 uh 007 and z and zoning kz 19 0036 fairington road multifamily involves 13 parcels uh of approximately eight or just over eight acres and associated uh jason right of way along fairington road rugger's place and crescent drive um council be uh asked to act on three requests tonight um to summarize there'll be a request for annexation uh request for the zoning map change from rezoning from rs 10 to our uh residential compact with a development plan and thirdly uh act on a ordinance for a statutory development agreement associated with the rezoning request which also includes uh the utility extension agreement and that's an important part it's normally part of your annexation approval but the utility extension agreement is actually uh included within the development agreement itself the rezoning does include a development plan the base density allowed for the rc district is 20 units per acre resulting in roughly 161 dwelling units the associated development agreement which is committed as part of the development plan allows for a density bonus of 332 multifamily units 82 of which would be affordable units for a term of at least 30 years thus 250 units would be market rate in short 25 percent of the total number of units would be affordable units utilities would have been will will have been extended to the site by the developer along with improvements to crescent drive units will be varied in affordability at 30 60 percent and 80 percent uh area median income and also vary in one two and three bedroom units within each of those ranges uh in accordance with the terms of the development agreement if construction guarantees for those 82 affordable units are are not secured by June 2024 the city will may exercise an option to buy those two acres that are designated for the units um identified as site b on the development plan for ten dollars the development agreement also includes utility extension agreement normally associated with the annexation ordinance as I mentioned before um and also within your package is a specific memo from community development regarding the proposed development agreement the development of plan in addition to the development agreement includes commitments to roadway and bike lane improvements along fairington road design commitments incorporating requirements of design district zoning standards construction traffic limitations relocation of neighboring water meters and amenity commitments for the affordable units uh the detailed list is found on the cover page of that development plan planning commission heard the case on august 25th and recommended approval six to five and as a reminder three actions are requested adoption of the ordinance for annexation then adoption of the appropriate consistency statement and then adoption of the zoning map change ordinance and the ordinance approving the statutory development agreement which includes authorization for the city manager to enter into development agreement and the utility extension agreement um along with me tonight are two additional staff that were uh very much involved in the review of the rezoning and the development agreement even more specifically uh dono tool at the attorney's office and Karen Lotto with community development the applicant is also here also available and I believe they plan to address council thank you will be happy to answer any questions thank you mr stock colleagues you have now you've heard the report from staff and I'm going to now declare this public hearing open I see that we have four people uh signed up for this item um deon nelson ron stort um maybe maybe that's and then and then Mimi castler is there anyone else that I missed who would like to speak on item 17 mayor shill can you hear us here from uh Patrick biker here along with colter jule temps and and ed edward llamas with ck e ck e five I see I'm sorry mr biker apparently I missed that I see now are you speaking are you the are you presenting on behalf of the applicant mr biker yes mayor shill I'll be presenting and the rest of our team is here answer questions are miss nelson and mr stort part of your team yes there with moral street our affordable housing department yes all right but I'm by my man they're they're not planning to speak separately I guess is my question all right that's for sure yeah and uh and then there's miss kessler is there anyone else who's an attendee uh who would like to be heard on this item if you would like to be heard if you could please raise your virtual hand or please write to us in the chat all right I don't see anyone else at this time mr biker we'll begin with you at the proponents and please go ahead and make your presentation thank you I understand yeah have to wait for a powerpoint to come up very good good evening mayor shill mayor pro tem johnson members of the city council on patrick biker and i live at two six one four steward drive i'm an attorney with morning star law group and i'm here tonight representing ck e five for this agenda item with us tonight for our team our edward llamas of ck e five deon nelson and ron steward of laurel street our affordable housing development partner and then dan jewel and jeremy anderson of culture jewel tems our land planning and engineering firm at the outset our team wishes to thank karen lado and richard valzonas of community development deputy city attorney donnell tool and then sarah young grace nith and mike stock in the playing department for all their hard work on this agenda item the project before you this evening consists of 332 multifamily units in a high opportunity area that is close to transit jobs education and other important amenities we are thrilled that through this development agreement 25 percent of the apartments within this project which amounts to 82 units will be affordable at a combination of the 80 percent level 60 percent level and the all important 30 percent level of area median income across one two and three bedroom units the affordable units will be delivered by laurel street and will be of exceptional quality as laurel street has demonstrated throughout its history next slide please next i want to stress two important points about the agenda item before the council tonight first this development is at the appropriate density and height for this location given that it is 41 units per acre adjacent to parcel zone for 40 units per acre and this development will construct four-story apartments consistent with udo height restrictions next to the existing four-story apartments second the development team has met with the neighbors and made development plan commitments to address their concerns and our team is proud of its neighborhood outreach efforts over the past year as we engaged in direct communications with residents both inside and outside of the notification area next slide please your affirmative vote tonight will cause the affordable housing land donation to be to be made to laurel street but it is far more than just a land donation laurel street will will receive its road water and sewer infrastructure at no cost and all of the upfront master planning engineering and legal costs will be covered as well this final yet significant piece of the financing gap when added to other approved and non-competitively available funding sources means that these 82 affordable units are fully funded last slide please in closing we believe that approval of this agenda item will generate a significant contribution to affordable housing and it will set a solid precedent for others to follow and a new benchmark for others to meet the council's approval of this agenda item tonight will directly cause the delivery of these new apartments for 332 verum households including 82 desperately needed affordable homes for 82 verum families accordingly we respectfully ask for your approval and our team will be happy to answer any questions thank you very much for your time this evening thank you mr viker uh we'll near now hear from miss kessler madam clerk can you make maybe kessler uh available to be heard please can i be heard yes you can miss kessler welcome we're glad to have you thank you mr mayor thank you for the opportunity to speak um well thanks to a correspondence i had with van jewell this afternoon i'm feeling a lot better about this project i i want to first say that i completely support every effort to create affordable housing in all areas of the city in the county what i was not aware of and what i felt happened after the planning commission meeting was that somehow the city wasn't going to get the benefit of those affordable housing units until after two years the developer would would sell the property for ten dollars but then the city would have to develop it um so that was my concern but mr jewell um told me that that um i guess this uh laurel street um organization is is ready to to get going and that pleases me because then i think that the city is getting the benefit upfront rather than um you know late um i do want to say that that um all of the conversation you all just had about making decisions about how parts of our land are developed and how one development plus another development all of a sudden there's kind of a problem and um and specifically related to annexation um and there were 482 apartments developed right next to where we're about to add 332 and it's a two-lane road and um you know it's going to the traffic's going to be horrible and at some point um with all this annexation we're going to run out of capacity in the sewer system and in various other pieces of infrastructure and every time that we go through this exercise um i'm just not convinced that people are saying this is really adding up so i'm concerned about that um i'm also concerned in general about development agreements um this um proposal um was linked to the the establishment of statutory um options for development and um and and the proposal was fast tracked um and i don't i still don't really understand why but if it it's it's like um a very good example of of what i'm concerned is going to happen if development agreements become the standard um as opposed to the exception and and that is that there was a great deal of work um by multiple organizations with the city um before it came before the planning commission the planning commission had no opportunity to delay it even if they have wanted to um and that that uh impacts on the public's ability to um actually have any um persuasive element because it ends up coming in at the eleventh hour so um i would like to say that if development agreements um are structured they should be structured so that the city gets the benefit sooner rather than later um in in every single case and that that they should not be expedited in order to to um allow the public to have more um thoughtful participation i did hear what mr biker said about meeting with the um community and so forth um i drive past this location twice a day five days a week and i have never seen a rezoning sign um anything that said that it the density was going to get changed and there are very few people who live around there other than in these new apartments that were created so um it does impact people like me who drive through there and and my commute is about to get really bad so i thank you for the opportunity to speak i do actually hope that you vote in favor of this proposal um but i would like for you to consider my comments related to development agreements and uh infrastructure um replacement that we're going to ultimately have to do if we continue to annex everybody thank you very much thank you for your comments miss kessler oh this is a public hearing is there any other attendee who would like to be heard on this item if so could you please raise your virtual hands or make yourself known in the chat i don't think virtual hand was a word before about six months ago um all right um i don't see anyone else um i'll now ask if there are questions for uh the applicant or staff by members of the council any questions or comments at this point council member reese thank you mr mayor i just wanted to thank the applicant and their partners for putting together what may be the very best um zoning case that i've ever had the opportunity to consider as a member of the derm city council um i also want to thank staff for the incredible amount of work that goes into something like this um and i actually want to thank miss kessler for her incredibly thoughtful and um i think very on point comments to us about this case in particular but also how we go about using development agreements uh more broadly um i think one thing i would say is that the um ordinance changes that we passed i guess a couple weeks ago around statutory development agreements did not usher in a period of statutory development agreements under the general assembly did that for us um and what we passed were merely a set of guardrails around that process to make the process much more inclusive much more responsive to community needs much more protective of our environment um and so i think sometimes that piece kind of got lost uh in the conversation around um around the development agreement ordinance but i just wanted to say that you know the only way that something gets fast tracked is if we agree to it um and so we are the ones that that folks should hold accountable for that uh in addition fast tracking it means doesn't mean that we have to decide on it at any given time uh the city council reserves the right under every scenario to say you know what we're not quite satisfied with how this is rolled out we need you to go back and talk to the community some more we're going to keep this open for a period of time um i suspect that that doesn't give a lot of comfort to the planning commission who um you know respects this prerogative to put a lot of time and energy into these cases but it's going to be a very rare case where i think this council will review to do that we've done that here uh and for reasons that the applicant staff explained um and again i just want to thank all the folks involved in making this a presentation to us and look forward to supporting the item thank you mr. mayor thank you very much councilmember any other comments uh councilmember freeman thank you i just wanted to ask just flat out for the applicant is there a reason why rather than doing the i guess affordable housing density bonus this is the route you took i just wanted you to explain it so the public could hear it mr. biker uh would you like to comment or is there someone on your team who would like to comment uh i don't think we can hear you mr. biker are you trying to hello mayor yes you know yes i can i took a little while to work that out uh yeah we looked at the technical requirements for the affordable housing density bonus for uh quite a while with uh members of the staff and planning community development uh unfortunately there were just too many technical hurdles for us to get through in order to make this project work and so that's why the staff came forward with the development agreement framework um there are just various technical requirements in article 6.6 of the udo that uh just didn't work for this site um there's just too many um there's just a lot of moving parts when you have an affordable housing uh project and we couldn't make all the parts line up with the discrete requirements of the udo so it wasn't for lack of effort it was just uh uh couldn't put a what's the what's the phrase couldn't put a square peg in a round hole and um and so that's why we came forward with this development agreement in order to move forward with the uh uh project that has a strong affordable housing component thank you i just wanted to make sure that i actually to follow i guess to create a follow-up or a feedback loop so that the planning department does get that commentary around what was so what the hurdles actually look like because i feel like the affordable housing density bonus that we've had the conversation about over years um could be a little bit better fleshed out if uh if some of this kind of um of the example was actually used to show where we could make some changes and then just to know i uh i also appreciate council member riz's commentary and acknowledging how i guess the the general assembly has directed this process and we're trying to create a a workaround of sorts i i had a similarly miss kessler i uh to your comment or your questions i had a lot of the same concerns around uh how long uh before the donation would occur and how it was tied to the zoning case and and just noting that there were a lot of pieces that were kind of kind of pulling pulling together or pulling a lot of pieces together so that you could make this deal work in a way that was beneficial to the city as a whole i do uh have hear you on the concerns around the traffic and acknowledge that this was actually the light rail uh stop location or in the light rail stop location uh and those changes have to be accounted for and making sure that we're acknowledging what that that finance that financial piece will be to the infrastructure that will need to be added in that area and so i'm hopeful that the transportation staff is is also accounting for that and they're planning and moving forward and i i as well will be supportive of moving this forward so thank you thank you councilmember any other questions for staff or uh councilmember meadowton thank you mr. mayor i'm looking forward to voting for this uh development uh today i also appreciate uh council reese's exposition on uh what we've done uh here in Durham to appropriate uh development agreements and contour them to our values uh from his in response to miss kessler's comments so like a like a sunset i'm not going to mess it up by trying to talk about it he was spot on with that so thank you uh council reese i remember going to uh charlotte not too long ago samara i think you were on that trip a fact finding trip uh to look at the paradigmatic shift that the charlotte housing authority was going through in terms of how they approached affordable housing and i remember looking with envy at laurel street development saying wow that's affordable housing i wish we had something that looked like that in Durham and lo and behold here they are in Durham so i'm really excited and welcome them i hope that this will will trump it around the nation to other developers and and encourage them to come with affordable housing on their minds right out the gate uh to Durham uh so i think this is this is a good thing and i hope to see more of it as we move forward so i look forward to supporting this development to see thank you mr mayor thank you councilmember mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor i just also wanted to appreciate our staff for all the work that they did to put this project together the developer and their partners who are putting affordable housing at the forefront of their work and especially laurel street their affordable housing partner who's also doing work with the housing authority with Durham county in addition to this project and so really making a difference here in the Durham community and i'm also just so glad to have them have them here as our partners in this work this is you know we all know how critical this need is for our community and i really appreciate the creativity and um and thinking that went into figuring out how to make this possible and it's it's great news for Durham and i really look forward to going to the groundbreaking in person in a couple of years thanks yes let's hear for in person groundbreaking thank you madam mayor pro tem any other comments questions all right i'll add my voice to the chorus to miss nelson and mr stort we're so glad to have laurel street here as a partner uh in Durham and all the work you're doing in Durham i think the problem that mr jul and mr biker you've created for yourself is now every time you come in front of us you're going to have to offer two acres for affordable housing i just want to throw that down while we're all here talking uh develop if if uh if it can be done here it can be done uh lots of other times in Durham and i want to appreciate the developer for bringing this forward with this creative approach i also want to notice that um the this is requiring uh yeah so one of the other things i do want to also just what mr biker said about this is not just the two acres uh the the the master planning the providing of the the engineering and so forth is also crucial and so that's another thing that makes this such a great such a great option for the future and i want to just say that our affordable housing work uh it's it's that's supported by our two cents for housing um is providing you know the three million dollars that's going to make this work in addition to the affordable housing the low-income housing tax credit it's providing the money that's going to help us close the gap at jj henderson to both renovate jj and build the 80 units behind it the 82 units going up the bus station all supported by that money the and then uh you know just so many others and i am very excited that so much affordable housing is really coming out of the ground now in Durham and being designed and it's a it's a it's a sea change and just want to express my gratitude to everybody who's making that happen on my community development department and all throughout the city all right um i'm now going to declare this public hearing closed i'm sorry declare this public hearing closed and the matter is back before the council we will take we'll need three motions here the first would be to adopt an ordinance annexing fairington multifamily move to adopt the ordinance move by madam mayor protem seconded by council member middleton madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul ah mayor protem johnson hi councilmember caballero hi councilmember freelon hi councilmember freeman hi councilmember middleton i vote i councilmember barice thank you thank you madam clerk the motion passes unanimously second we'll need a motion to adopt a consistency statement move to adopt consistency statement second moved by councilmember middleton seconded by council member caballero that we that we adopt the consistency statement madam clerk can you please call the roll mayor shul i'm sorry i'm sorry madam clerk hi mayor protem johnson hi councilmember caballero hi councilmember freelon hi councilmember freeman hi councilmember middleton i vote i councilmember barice hi thank you thank you madam clerk the eyes have it the motion is adopted unanimously the third motion and i've been uh wisely instructed by our city attorney to make this clear is a motion is really a three in one motion uh this motion will rezone the property as stated in the full motion adopted development agreement ordinance as allowed by statute and to authorize the city manager to execute both the development agreement and the utility extension agreement thank you for that thank you for that madam attorney um is there a motion uh to those those three things move this thing don't move mr mayor um uh councilmember freeman uh is there a second second seconded by councilmember freelon madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul hi mayor protem johnson hi councilmember caballero hi councilmember freelon hi councilmember freeman hi councilmember middleton i vote i councilmember barice hi thank you thank you madam clerk the eyes have it the motion passes unanimously madam attorney did we do everything that we needed to it was perfect mr mayor thank you thank you well it it helps to be perfect when you give me the exact wording makes it easier all right thank you thank you to the development team uh and we're excited about this project thank you for being here as well miss kessler all right um we'll now move to item 18 consolidated annexation naughty pine drive annexation uh and we'll hear the report from staff hello mr others good evening emily struthers with the planning department a request for a utility extension agreement voluntary annexation and initial zoning map change happened received from neil mahan for one parcel located at six nine three three naughty pine drive the area of the request is zero point eight five acres the annexation petition is for a continuous expansion of the corporate state limits the site is presently zoned residential rural rr and staff recommends an exact translation of the zoning designation the annexation petition submitted identifies the proposed development will be a single-family residential lot the proposed annexation area is designated on the comprehensive plans future land use map as low density residential which is consistent with the zoning request if approved this request would become effective on december 31st 2020 city and county operational departments such as solid waste fire police and ems have reviewed this request and have not identified any significant negative service impacts the public works and water management departments have determined that existing city of durham water and sanitary sanitary super means have capacity to serve the project the budget and management services department determined that the proposed annexation will become revenue positive immediately following annexation additional information can be found in the staff report staff determines that these requests are consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances three motions are required for this application the first is to adopt an ordinance annexing the property and entering bringing into a utility extension agreement the second is to adopt a consistency statement and the third is for the zoning ordinance thank you and staff is available for any questions thank you mr. others you've now heard the report from staff and i'm going to declare this public hearing open i don't have anyone here to speak on this item is there anyone who would like to speak on item 18 if so could you please raise your virtual hand or make yourself known in the chat i see mr. raymond farrow mr farrow apparently would like to speak on this item madam clerk can you make mr farrow available to be heard he's been unmuted all right mr farrow i believe you need to turn on your microphone unmute yourself there hello can you hear me yes we can yes my name is raymond farrow and my wife and i own the property that's adjacent to this lot on the 7190 pine drive and we probably have a stronger interest than normally you would about the development of this property i think primarily because we share a driveway with this lot and so we have a cross driveway and utility easement and um the other issue is that the lot is natural and heavily wooded very much like the army corps of engineer land that is behind both of these lot and so i wanted to just share some of our questions and concerns about this rezoning and we have not had a chance to talk to to the staff member and so some of these might be easily answered but one question that we had was whether or not the rezoning of this adjacent lot would impact our current zoning because currently we're in Durham county but so that's one question my wife and i had and also the other question was about whether or not the utilities that will be installed whether that will be completely retained in the existing flag for the lot again because we share this easement we wanted to have a better understanding of that and then i think looking a little bit further down the line since the intention is to develop a single family residence um and we know that this isn't about a building permit but we would want to i think officially register our hope that uh and concern that we during the installation of the utilities or the construction that we maintain access to our home because the driveway that we shared is actually pretty lengthy and narrow and wanted to also make sure that we were protected from any damage from the construction or the installation of the utilities and then the hope that there would be some consideration to maintain a buffer between the homes to retain the natural environment and the setting so those were our questions and issues that we wanted to share tonight thank you mr farrow i'm going to ask miss struthers if she would like to respond to some of those uh miss struthers i'll try to paraphrase mr farrow's questions the first one i believe is well the zoning of mr farrow's property adjacent be affected at all by this zoning they're in the county and now these zoning requests is only for the um the the property of six nine three three nine pine it would not impact zoning adjacent thank you uh and then he asked about uh utilities did you get that question mr others um i got some of it i don't know that i'm able to fully respond to it though okay um mr farrow will you ask your question again about utilities yeah we were curious about whether the new utilities that are going in uh to the lot whether that will be completely retained within the existing flag for the lot i'm because it has to because the lot sort of sits back from the street and so it has to the utilities have to to run near the driveway that goes up to naughty pine and so okay well those new utilities well those new utilities be entirely on that lot or will they need to come over to ours it's a little bit unclear just because the property line sort of goes right through the middle and sort of meanders uh through the the driveway i see mr joiner here mr joiner would you like to help us with this good evening sir uh robert joiner public works engineering department so the utilities for this parcel would be on the actual parcel of record so they would stay on that individual property unless the property owner reaches an agreement for an easement across another property so they would have no rights to directly access other property without first going through and obtaining an agreement thank you mr joiner that was very helpful and um uh mr others uh the mr ferro also had concern about access to his property during construction those kinds of things when would that uh how would that be addressed and when would that be addressed during the process i believe that would be addressed um in part through the um construction drawing well it's a single family home um when they're working through the building permit requirements and the um closer to actual construction that's not something that um the staff has analyzed at this point sure um and as i understand this this is a shared driveway mr ferro it is mr others do you have any comments on how that works with a shared driveway that would need to be coordinated um between the builder and um any easements that would be required um at that time and the easement would need to be acquired from mr ferro um i believe that um looking at the maps currently it looks like the um the flag portion of the parcel is owned by uh neil mahan who is the applicant of the annexation petition so um that may not be the case i see so it could go through the the flag um the the flag part of the property and not up just up the shared drive leg it's a little hard to tell in maps exactly where that driveway lands since our aerial imagery is not specifically um 100 accurate it could it's it's hard to say without a survey my question is really what role would mr ferro be able to play in this if he his concern is this might happen then that he he would be blocked access would be blocked at his property uh coordination with the um the proposed developer would be the route there can the developer block his property without him without his consent i don't believe so miss young good evening i just wanted to chime in and say that um in situations like this where you're talking about an easement it's a private property and so that's something that they would need to work out between the developer and the adjacent property owner it's not something that we can regulate from the land use perspective so at that point it kind of becomes a civil matter between the two entities right thank you that's what i was thinking and appreciate your confirming mr joiner did you have additional comments sir just standing by in case there's any additional questions thank you all right um mr ferro i hope that that answered your questions or most of them we appreciate you being here with us yes thank you um we'll now move to another speaker neil mayhan uh is here to speak to this item as well madam clerk can you make neil mayhan available to be heard can you hear me yes mr man thank you very much counsel i would like to uh say to mr ferro that he does not have to worry about the utilities when i built the house that he lives in now i brought the water and sewer back at the same time and if you look out looking out to the street from his house you'll see sitting out at this lot about 180 feet back from the street a white sewer pipe and a black water pipe and those utility pipes have already been pulled back there in line with what they were the requirements were in 2002 when i built that house and i would feel that any request that he has relative to when the law is built on whoever the builder is should be held liable to maintain the driveway in its present condition and finay damages to it they need to improve upon it but as far as the utilities are concerned that should be not be a problem they have any other questions for me thank you mr mayhan is there any other questions for mr mayhan sir thank you very much for being with us tonight well thank you for allowing me and i would like to uh thank mr struthers for walking me through this for the last 11 months uh i'm a 82 year old uh person who's at a retirement home and i'm trying to get this tool by myself and she's done a great job of assisting me thank you well thank you for that compliment for mr others we know how excellent she is but it's really nice to hear it confirmed thank you sir colleagues are there any more questions or comments if not i'm going to declare this public hearing closed and the matter is back before the council uh to we would need um three motions here the first will be to adopt an ordinance annexing annexing nadi pan drive and to and to authorize the city manager to enter a utility extension agreement and to authorize the yes you're exactly right to authorize the city manager enter the utility extension agreement is that a motion council member reese it is indeed mr mayor is there a second moved by council member reese second about mayor pro tem madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul hi mayor pro tem johnson hi council member caballero hi council member freelon hi council member freeman hi council member middleton i vote i council member reese hi thank you madam clerk the eyes have it the motion passes unanimously um the next motion will we to adopt the consistency statement so moved moved by council member reese seconded by council member caballero that we adopt the consistency statement madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul hi mayor pro tem johnson hi council member caballero hi council member freelon hi council member freeman hi council member middleton i vote i council member reese hi thank you thank you madam clerk the motion passes unanimously the third motion will be to adopt the ordinance amending the udo so moved second moved by council member reese seconded by mayor pro tem johnson madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul hi mayor pro tem johnson hi council member caballero hi council member freelon hi council member freeman hi council member middleton i vote i council member reese hi thank you thank you madam clerk the motion passes unanimously uh mr mayhem thank you for being here mr farrow thank you for being here we're grateful for you all being here with us tonight and thank you mr others and mr others um it's it's great to hear um confirmation uh again of your excellence and we appreciate it all right uh now we move to item 19 pascal's bakery building and the studer baker building landmark repeal and uh first we'll hear the report from staff miss smith are you with us for this i am i am here i'm gray smith again with the planning department this is a request to repeal the landmark status for pascal's bakery and studer baker building the original status was approved through case ld 17 0001 the location is 115 a mb north duke street the applicant is david revere of 2050 Bentley llc and david does have a representative on the call here tonight the staff recommends approval of the repeal of um this landmark designation the historic preservation commission recommended approval four to one at their meeting june 25th 2020 staff is available for questions thank you miss smith you've heard the report from staff i'm going to clear this public hearing open and i'm first going to ask if there are questions by members of the council and i think i'll ask the first question miss smith why did someone vote against this landmark designation repeal when the buildings are no longer standing that's a good question marshal um that was our commissioner jordan jessip jordan and he was concerned i think he thought that the uh repeal would um he was thinking there was some archaeological um remnants potentially but we we explained to him that even if there were that's not how the original landmark was designated it was designated for the buildings not for archaeological um artifacts or evidence so um he still was not comfortable for whatever reason so he voted against it but um but the that the designation was originally for the buildings and the structure are gone so therefore there's no more landmark or designation to be found on the property thank you miss smith colleagues are there any other questions for staff miss freeman and then council member milton that um and let me i'm sorry my apologies council member freeman and then council member milton awesome yes sir thank you i i just wanted to just caution miss smith on i guess put in the connotation i didn't know i just want to make sure it's clear that because the property was a historic or designated a landmark that it was because it's still possible to rebuild it doesn't mean that it's feasible to rebuild and so there's a difference um even though the building's not there it could still be rebuilt to the specific specifications so i don't know that that would be practical but it's still possible and so i just didn't want it to seem like it was as if he didn't know what he was saying or doing that didn't seem accurate thank you no um hey i think he was more concerned about um artifacts maybe um in the ground or some kind of historic evidence of some other historical significance that may still be intact but it was cleared completely and we're not we're not aware of any of that being that survived the explosion thank you thank you miss smith council member milton thank you mr mayor a quick question if the historic designation was tethered to the actual structures and the structures no longer exist does it accrue does it then carry over to air rights what why do we need to uh take it away if they were tied to the building so um this was an older designation case or when i say older it's it's not recent it wasn't done in the last couple of years um and we have we no longer automatically designate the land when we designate buildings back when this case came through the land was designated along with the building the land under the structures was designated along with the buildings and so the um the slab that's still there is technically um sitting on land that's designated and the property owner would like to rebuild and since there's not a landmark there um any more the landmark is gone the property owner would like to rebuild and new construction and we don't have any um criteria for and they're you don't reconstruct a landmark um necessarily especially when it's pretty much gone um if if it had not suffered so much damage it might have been able to be repaired but it's beyond that obviously so the um because the the land was designated a technicality back in the day the the repeal is technically for the land at this point because the so it was yeah okay so it was land and buildings i wonder if that no boat maybe was informed by knowledge that it was indeed land and buildings and there might be some archeological right that was what i was saying i think uh commissioner jordan was just uncomfortable because he wasn't sure what archeological remnants were still intact but there there aren't any that we're aware of that would have any significance the only thing that's left is the slab that was sitting there so um the state historic preservation office agreed so i was just sharing his concern as best as i could articulate it from the meeting was in so thank you for that thank you mr mayor thank you timber all right any other questions uh for staff okay um colleagues uh let me ask is there anyone present who would like to speak on this item i i should have asked that earlier is there anyone on here who would like to speak on this item if you would please raise your virtual hand or make yourself uh known in the chat all right seeing none i'm going to declare this public hearing closed the matter is back before the council we would need one motion which will be to approve the repeal of the landmark designation mr mayor just before i make the motion i just wanted to thank staff for adding the notes based on the questions i asked at work session regarding the trade-offs on designating it a landmark or not i really appreciated of having the explanations spelled out and then i'd like to make the motion to repeal the designation for the landmark thank you council member is there a second second moved by council member freeman second about mayor pro tem johnson uh that we approve or repeal the landmark designation madam clerk can you please call the roll mayor shul hi mayor pro tem johnson hi handsome ever caballero hi handsome ever freelon hi handsome ever freeman hi handsome ever middleton i vote i handsome ever ease hi thank you thank you madam clerk the eyes have it the motion passes unanimously and thank you to the staff as well this is a sad this is a sad moment um but we're definitely sure we're doing the right thing here all right uh we'll now move to item 20 curb gutter and paving water and sewer mains and water sewer laterals on the portion of ardmore drive um and uh the public hearing item we'll first hear the report from staff um and this will be a mr joiner welcome mr joiner thank you sir uh good evening mayor shul and members of the council i'm robert joiner with the public works engineering group and i would like to start by saying that item 20 is to consider the ordering of petition improvements on a portion of ardmore drive the proposed project is inside the city limits staff recommends that council accept a certificate of sufficiency for the petition adopt a preliminary resolution conduct a public hearing and adopt a final resolution to order the improvements i'll be happy to answer any questions council may have on this item thank you mr joiner uh you've now heard a report from staff i'm declare this public hearing open we do have some people who've signed up to speak on item 20 uh we have three people that i see who would like to speak joel graybill danes summer and isaac woods let me ask now is there anyone else present who would like to speak on item 20 is there anyone else if you would please raise your virtual hand or make yourself known in the chat all right um i will ask uh first mr joel graybill to uh if you can make him available be heard madam clerk and mr graybill you have three minutes and we're glad to have you with us good evening mayor can you hear me yes we can thank you very much and thank you again for the town council i represent the ownership group that owns 623 ardmore and we have i think we're the owner that has the longest uh lineage of street we have about 640 feet uh on this section and i just wanted to say that we would very much appreciate the city's consideration and approval for this um and the staff laura adcock in particular has been great very helpful to us and i would just like to convey uh our desire to have the city approve this thank you very much thank you for being with us and for those comments mr graybill um the second speaker is danes summer could you make danes summer available to be heard madam clerk good evening mr mayor um this is danes summer my partner arlie marcott we are of 710 ardmore drive um we just wanted to briefly chime in and say we are in support of this petition um obviously it's dirt road currently and we think that paving it will allow more homes to be built on the road and further improve development in this area um as well as you know of us as well as we plan on building our future home on this section of road so we appreciate the consideration tonight and hopefully uh you're able to pass this petition thank you thank you for being with us mr summer uh and also we'll hear from isaac woods mr woods welcome and you also have three minutes thank you mr mayor and city council members i appreciate this opportunity i would like to also uh commend and recognize the outstanding city employees uh unity bailey laura accott of course uh mr robert germiner and assistant city manager both furrickson and marvin wittfield the director owned their assistance in getting this portion of ardmore drive paid i would also like to recognize the mayor and uh council member freeman and uh councilman milson for responding my emails if we worked on this project for over two years uh trying to figure out the disparity of why one part of ardmore drive was paved and kerb and gutter and water and sewer and the other end wasn't uh but uh we're at this junction now where i think uh we have a petition before you um and i strongly recommend you approve this just to give you a brief history of this um this area was annexed in the city more than three decades ago it was forced annexation which probably nobody on the city council remember that but i think mr paid system city manager mr page and robert probably can tell you about that part uh we were promised water sewer and street paving over 30 years ago the city came through and they installed the sewer line as you can see and then they came through a couple of years ago and they paved one end of ardmore drive and put water in other end of ardmore drive and we were trying to figure out what happened with this disparity on why one end resident property only had preference over the other and they said we need to do a petition which we uh i took up the role and we beat on the words and everybody assigned it to get a majority which i think was a tremendous process uh but we we not only actually approve this project we asked that you give this project a priority it'd be moved up as a priority number one is we've been in the city force file over three years the house across from 725 as i was communicating to the city manager and your police chief would tell you it burnt down to the ground and your police chiefs he said only thing we can do is contain it because we have no fire hydrants so as taxpayers we pay a higher home insurance as well on our home insurance insurance because we don't have a fire hydrant within distance so if uh the insurance company said we're high risk the second thing is it's just a good way to cause cohesive in us in the same street i mean ardmore drive is one street of all property owners and neighbors and we should all not be in a business of creating disparity on providing some city services to one end of the street the nine city services to the other one so that being said we asked it not only you approve this but we asked that the funds for this project be increased because as you know it's time goes by you know if you remember 30 years ago i remember the average water bill was five dollars now the average water bill is 35 dollars and now we're incurring additional expenses by the land this project more and more because the cost of paving and water lines and everything increased and we're long past overdue we asked the council to make this a priority to make this services available that we pay taxes on and we're all on the same street available to all the property owners and i thank everyone for their time i also believe looking at your comment that there's isaac woods jr who's also here to speak yes can you hear me yes mr wood you also have three minutes welcome uh yes i'll be short uh i echo some of the same comments uh that isaac woods mentioned before me is i'm isaac woods jr of 725 out more drive my family have resided in that address for generations um and we are in support of and we asked that you know we the roads are paved and we have curved gutter water and sewer drainage um as the rest of the road does we hope that you all will be expeditious in addressing this in equity on our half of the road of op more drive thank you for your time thank you very much mr woods this is a public hearing item is there anyone else present uh in this meeting who would like to be heard on this item um we've if so uh could you raise your virtual hand or make yourself known in the chat all right thank you uh hearing none i will now ask if there are questions or comments by members of the council questions for staff or comments at this point mayor pro tem thank you mr mayor um i just have a couple questions we heard a little bit from staff recently about this petition process and i have concerns um about the way our process is currently structured based on the situation that we had recently where a number of ordered utility improvements had kind of languished for several i mean a lot of years a decade even um and the cost of those improvements had escalated to the point that we were you know going to be out millions of dollars because we weren't able to charge the homeowners any increase in rates based on how the cost of the jobs had appreciated um is that still like we as to my knowledge we have not changed that process can i get confirmation from staff that that is the same situation that we would be entering into um with these improvements if we were to approve this petition that if we didn't if we weren't able to complete the improvements for a period of time that we could be facing city costs of even more than what's listed here which is already pretty high like a million dollars but that we could that we would have to cover any additional costs the robert joiner of public works engineering that is the uh situation as it currently stands that process has not been amended it is under review currently and we are awaiting updates as we finish current petition projects things of this nature over the next few months and look at rate changes um and things of that nature likely to occur in january um okay so so this petition is coming to us under the current under the current rules that created that that situation robert joiner of public works yes that is okay um so i i mean maybe it makes sense to i don't i don't know what kind of um options we have to to delay this or to you know have it proceed under um under those different rules given that the current rules are under review i um yeah i have i have a lot of concerns about proceeding with our current rules um given the situation that we've been put in before and the potential for the city to have an extremely large and unexpected cost in the future um based on approving approving a petition right now thank you madam mayor pro tem uh council member freeman thank you i appreciate um madam mayor pro tem expound expanding or explaining that um or expounding on what would be the situation if we didn't actually act or request to kind of a priority in this and acknowledging that it can take a long time to get the process moving and i think that in this particular case because it's been over 30 years and books have been annexed and one half of the block was done and the other half not that this is this is a specific case in which it might be uh pruded to just move forward approve it and then make it a priority so that we don't incur those additional charges i acknowledge what you're saying and i think they're absolutely right that we need to figure out how to change it going forward but i don't think in this case that we should hold off on getting this moving but thank you and i was just going to just acknowledge um i appreciate the work that the folks in this neighborhood have done to try and jump start the process to make sure that you did get the uh equity in place of of having water and sewer on online um acknowledging that you are paying city taxes and i'm hopeful that this will move forward and i'm hopeful that you will that the project will be prioritized and that we can kind of close this chapter for art more drives thank you thank you council member mr joiner um the the the first uh the part of art more drive that was paved was that paved under a petition process it was mr mayor and uh we have now uh we have quite a number of miles of unpaved roads in the city um and we have a process now uh for prioritizing the ones that are going to be paved is that correct that is correct and i believe we have roughly three million dollars in the cip for paving unpaved roads in the coming years is that right also yes sir specifically i believe for dirt streets for dirt streets and so how are those dirt streets chosen those are all of the remaining um those are all the remaining dirt street miles listed in the city of Durham currently so roughly 18.7 and would that three million dollars pave them i do not have that information directly in front of me if it would cover all of that i doubt it but i see mr williams here uh good evening mayor mayor pro 10 members of council marvin williams department of public works we actually have 1.2 million in the budget for dirt roads for the fiscal year and we anticipate asking for that amount of funding on an annual basis for the next 10 years uh to pave the road so that's only paving the roads with the petition project sponsors are looking for improvements beyond just general paving um so the the dollar amount that we've been funded would not pave all the dirt roads in the city uh nor would it address the additional improvements that the petition sponsors have requested and we do plan on bringing an item to council for review and discussion in january of 21 with the updated costs related to um the petition projects to give you a menu of options to choose from whether that's full cost recovery some type of high percentage recovery based on actual construction costs along those lines so we are reviewing that data right now as we finish up some of the current petition projects but we'll be bringing those items forward to you uh in the coming months thank you that was really helpful mr williams could you talk a little bit about the process for choosing which roads are prioritized uh in the street paving uh process with regards to the dirt street paving program uh we we are looking at all the roads that are unpaved like mr joiner stated and we were actually looking at some of the data that we have in our maintenance division as far as annual maintenance costs uh and just taking an initial look there most of the roads that we have high maintenance costs on are in east Durham um and the angier driver area specifically briggs road is probably the dirt road with the highest amount of maintenance that we spend on the annual basis so we were looking to start in that area first and and then go in somewhat of a clockwise or counterclockwise rotation around the city but then again looking annually at which roads we're spending the most money on to maintain uh and then moving forward with prioritizing those roads annually if funding is provided to us to pave them thank you and um and so ardmore would be on that list ardmore would be in the list only for paving but not for any type of curb gutter sidewalk utility extensions the dirt road program was not intended to provide those types of infrastructure improvements it was essentially set up the way that we discuss it with council to have a actual paved surface that would reduce our maintenance need for dirt road grading on an annual basis and the for the the cost recovery you're going to bring us options for cost recovery in the uh in january yes for the petition project so that we move away from the current process that we have in place and that the city's no longer in the position that we're in now with the this current set of petition projects where the city is subsidizing a large portion of the petitioned improvements on various street segments the cost of this improvement on this project would be for the city would be about 1.1 million dollars is the source of that from the general fund yes this project would have to be submitted into the fiscal year 22 capital improvement program process and it will compete with all the other general fund projects for funding so it would really be the council deciding if this takes a high priority over other general fund projects and um okay those are my questions that was really helpful mr. Williams thank you sure other questions colleagues or comments at this point council member middleton thank you mr. mayor um marvin good to see you the uh so if if tonight what we're being asked to do tonight if we were to uh just ratify or or affirm that their certificate of sufficiency is indeed sufficient would this and put them in the queue we're not committing the money tonight right but if we don't act will they even be online for consideration to have their street pay so if you do not approve it tonight we would not move this project forward into consideration in the next round of capital improvement projects for the next fiscal year we would essentially put this petition on the shelf so to speak and the residents will be required to wait until we bring forward the item in the capital program um you do have the option to rescind it all together and require the residents to submit a new petition under the revised guidelines whatever they may be in 2021 that's an option you can consider but no if you don't approve it tonight it will not move forward for consideration for funding at all right i i appreciate the you know according to the letter our ability not to grant it or rescind it but the fact that they have met the requirements as a charter exists tonight before us now uh uh you know this kind of reminds me of that whole uh the uh our friends in forest hills that wanted to uh do an npl but we you know we we had new plans coming down the road so should we put that on hold in anticipation of what's coming uh down the road and and it just always kind of concerns me when we have rules that are already codified and and and published to kind of you know and let me let me be clear i fully associate and and and appreciate mayor pro temp's concerns i mean we are five years rest city to be concerned about fiscal responsibility um this feels kind of like a an institutional integrity and fairness issue to me um not totally but but to some degree so um i mean i'm curious to hear other concerns or questions or comments by my colleagues but i'm i'm highly inclined to to um it's kind of hard to argue me it's called a certificate of sufficiency if it's sufficient relative to our standards as they exist now um i would i would uh strongly be in favor of granting it but i'm i'm curious to hear the rest of the discussion thank you mr mayor thank you councilmember mr Ferguson i see you on our screen would you uh like to add some comments thank you mayor both Ferguson deputy city manager uh just wanted to offer comments of clarification uh to councilmember middleton so uh you are correct the the sufficiency has been determined and what the sufficiency does is allows the council to hear the request uh so um without uh without the sufficiency test being met this this discussion would not be before you this evening and that is really the bar that that is cleared by sufficiency uh whether or not council deems the improvement to be appropriate and necessary and for this process to move forward that is still a legislative decision of the council and so um that is not to sway the council in one way or the other but but sufficiency does not compel the council sufficiency allows the council to consider the question no i appreciate that and my observation was just the poetic impact of the word sufficiency i'm aware that where it doesn't compel us to have to do but i appreciate the uh the clarification uh with that said i guess to test i'm i don't i see no compelling reason not to um grand moving forward uh with it in light of all that said but again i'm i'm i'm open to hearing uh from my colleagues about this thank you thank you councilmember other questions or comments at this time councilmember caballero yeah so just a clarifying question i think this has already been said but this this is for curb gutter utility extensions and paving and the other piece that we've been talking about which is um mapping and paving dirt or gravel roads is just paving i just want to make sure that i'm understanding that difference uh robert joiner poll it works this is for curb gutter paving and utilities thank you and the other item is strictly just paving perfect which is where the the cost differentiation occurs um i want to say that i uh i'm curious to hear what my colleagues other colleagues have to say um i live on a dirt road i have utilities but i live on a dirt gravel road and it's no fun uh i've always been curious to know what the city spends on maintenance on road because they're out pretty often uh due to whenever there's a heavy rain there's there's a lot of issues um so i i deeply can understand the petitioners um although i have utilities it can be a challenge to live on a dirt road when thinking about um storm water and and other issues around that um so again i'm at this point just want to hear what what other of my colleagues would like to add to the conversation thank you councilmember okay um i'm going to declare the public hearing close and now we'll just continue this discussion uh among the council um i'll i'll um upper my comments i am uh i understand that uh that that um i'm i'm grateful for the petitioners and their work uh and i also understand uh that uh we need to be doing everything we can to make sure that all of our dirt roads are paved um i really believe in for when we are a petitioner comes before us i really believe that we ought to have full cost recovery and that we ought to we ought to make that our principle and um i have seen through when when we had the situations uh with with ravenstone um and the adjoining neighborhood where we ended up paying millions um without getting the full cost recovery um it it it was a really big hit to our city treasury the reason to be uh i of course i can see reasons to be for this the reasons that the reason to be against it is it's 1.1 million dollars out of our city treasury out of our general fund uh at a time uh well you know it wouldn't be right now but uh that that's that money is very valuable to us and i just believe that for improvements like this that are petitioned for there should be full cost recovery or very nearly full cost recovery and that um that should be a principle and that we should uh i believe we should put this on hold until we have spoken to it uh to the system that we believe is a justice system uh in january because i believe that what this does is it allows people who can uh who can who who are able to take advantage of this process to jump ahead of what are other priorities that the city sets as a city and uh so that's that's my big concern i i uh i certainly appreciate that uh you know why these folks are petitioned and i completely get it but i don't think that what we have is a fair system or a good system uh and that that's my that's my concern other comments council member reese thank you mr mayor and i want to thank you for your kind of very sober analysis of where we are in terms of the process that we have in place right now um what you think is a better system um and i think you're this is not the first time you've advocated for um for that kind of system when we do these kinds of improvements and i just respect your consistency and your persistence about that um i uh i don't believe that that if we vote to approve this measure this evening that it puts or more drive in front of anybody else on the on any priority list uh based on what staff have told us a vote tonight merely puts this on the menu for our capital plan for the next fiscal year um if the vote tonight were to obligate the city in the current fiscal year to spend the kind of money that it's going to take to make these improvements i doubt i would be in a position to support it but that's because right now we're not really in a position to support a lot of things that we'd like to do um but i think putting this on the menu for the council to consider um as we build the capital improvement plan for next year is a reasonable improvement step because it provides us with the ability to move forward with it if we think that on in the balance of all the other items that we have in front of us at that time if it makes sense to us um and that i think is completely fair and reasonable um and moves these folks a little bit further along uh to getting uh their street squared away i think the other thing i want to add is this is not the first of these types of situations that we faced i think it's fair to say that you as my colleagues know that that i have been very concerned about about folks residents who try to access the system in some way whether it be utility extension agreements that were entered into with folks a generation ago or um this kind of situation also running over years that the city not break faith with folks and i understand none of us were here when promises were made and assurances were given but we're here now and um and i have always felt that that is an important principle to keep front of mind as we consider these types of claims and processes um and mr mayor when we get to january i suspect i'll be very much closer to your position about full cost recovery because i think that makes sense going forward but i think these folks deserve to be considered under the process we have now i don't see any compelling reason to wait till january and i intend to support the measure tonight thank you mr mayor thank you council member other colleagues all right we have a motion before us let's see here or the motion that we will need would be to accept a can we do this on one motion madam maternity so we'll be to adopt to accept a certificate certificate of sufficiency to adopt a preliminary resolution and so forth or do we need separate res uh separate motions on each of these so mr mayor i would i would just read through the motions as they're indicated so first you've already received the presentation so yes start with the certificate of sufficiency all right thank you for them in order is there a motion to accept a certificate of efficiency sufficiency for a petition certificate yes a quick question yes of course um if we approved this does this obligate us to complete these improvements at whatever future cost they may but that may apply to the city that is correct okay thank you mr joiner all right uh i'm sorry i didn't hear who made the motions i'll ask again is there a motion to accept a certificate of sufficiency move to accept the certificate of sufficiency second moved by council member middleton seconded by council member freeman madam clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul no mayor pro tem johnson no council member caballero no council member freelon sorry no council member freeman yes i council member middleton i would i council member reese hi thank you madam clerk the i believe that the motion fails three to four and i believe that we don't need to take any more action therefore is that right madam uh madam attorney correct i think that's a condition precedent mr mayor so if it's failed the rest of the motions will fail as well thank you very much thank you all for being here today uh point of order sure uh clarification just for information moving forward um i'm wondering and madam attorney if you can help me can if if statutorily it the the certificate of sufficiency is sufficient i'm wondering is this accepted certificate the same should we be read the same way as i think we're taking a report and then the actual action would be the to adopt can we declare that it's not sufficient are we not accepting it but did we just vote that doesn't negate its efficiency we're just saying we're could you just explain to me just from future it's all does it's not as it works moving forward as a legislator i think the vote was that you have not accepted the certificate because that's what the motion was to accept the certificate and it was voted down okay but that that's not to say that it did not meet the statutory standard correct you're just not accepting it okay all right thank you madam attorney i read it okay thank you and that'll be useful for the next item as well of course all right thank you thank you for those who came to petition and i deeply understand your concern and you can see that the council has differing opinions on this but i appreciate you all being here all right um we'll now go to item 21 uh also a public hearing item curb gutter and paving water and sewer laterals on the portion of linden terrace um we'll first hear a report from staff good evening mayor shul and members of the council i'm robert joiner with the public works department item 21 is to consider the ordering petition improvements on a portion of linden terrace the proposed project is inside the city limits staff recommends that council accept a certificate of sufficiency for the petition then adopt a preliminary resolution then conduct a public hearing and then adopt a final resolution to order the improvements be happy to answer any questions council may have thank you very much mr joiner you have heard the report from staff i'm going to clear this public hearing open and first i'm going to ask is there anyone here who would like to be heard on this item all right i don't see anyone and so now i'll ask colleagues are there any questions uh or comments for mr joiner at this time all right hearing none i'm going to declare this public hearing closed and the matter is back before the council we would need a motion to accept your certificate of efficiency for a petition so move moved by councilmember freeman is there a second i'll second it seconded by councilmember middleton thank you uh madame clerk will you please call the roll mayor shul no mayor pro tem johnson no councilmember caballero no councilmember freelon no councilmember freeman hi councilmember middleton how about councilmember barice hi thank you very much colleagues um the motion fails three to four um thank you madame clerk colleagues if i'm at a point of personal privilege of course i think at some point this discussion is going to fall under the equity rubric um and they're historically in our city there have been some folk who who their land may have been annexed into our city and who although it may be decades later there are some people in our city that will never be able to afford um be able to participate in cost recovery and um i think that's an equity issue it's it's interesting this discussion for me shares the same intellectual anatomy and architecture as the reparations argument when that bill comes due uh and i know this is a slightly different um you know when we're going to have to write that check for reparations as a nation uh and go back all the way back you know kind of at the current cost at current value of dollar you know that's going to be a pretty heavy lift um for our country and i just i just wonder how we're going to reconcile our concern for equity and and there are folk that will certainly try and gain the system and i appreciate councillor re springing up the the notion of institutional integrity which is kind of where i landed on those previous cases where we absorbed that money because we not we personally but we as an institution said we would do it um i'm just wondering what our institutional responsibility if any would would be to the those folk who will never be able to participate in full cost recovery and do their streets just remain unpaid forever or or do they never get curb a gutter do we wait for them just make enough money to be able to do it so i just want to you know that has obviously no bearing on what we've done tonight but i just want to put that out there in terms of something we will need to i think wrestle with um as a council indeed as a city uh as we move forward so thank you mr. mayor thank you colleagues yeah thank you council member agreed and you know in my mind the best way to do that is to set up a fair system that nobody gets to jump and and and that that fairness you know just like when when you think about how we've prioritized um you know let's just take uh what the press the press release this week about how we chose where the the uh the street trees are going to be planted uh this was done uh through a racial equity lens and i think that that is the way we ought to be thinking about all these systems and we are i'm proud of the way our city has been doing that and i i'm very much in agreement that that's got to be foremost in our mind and i think the way we do it is to have a system that nobody gets to jump that's my own feeling but we'll these things work themselves out in the particulars as well as in the philosophy and we'll look forward to hearing from our staff on this um in january council member freeman did you have a comment also yes i just wanted to um i appreciate uh council member middleton's um summation that's helpful i just wanted to just note when we talk about fairness the aspect of equity has to take into account the history of our country and so just denoting this just denoting that fairness now doesn't mean that it creates equity in the future you have to make sure that you account for the past history and so i just want to make sure that that we keep having that conversation in in light of how we're talking about race equity and race equity lenses and then just also noting that for these folks who do live on that side of the street what is there i guess way forward towards getting city water because it doesn't it doesn't jive for me for them to walk away from this without city water or fire hydrant or any way to put out a fire on that block thank you council member any other comments okay thank you very much colleagues i believe we have done all the business for tonight and i'm going to declare this meeting adjourned at 10 19 thank you all very much thank you