 Thank you. And good afternoon. Welcome to the Durham Planning Commission. The members of the Durham Planning Commission have been appointed by the City Council and the County Board of Commissioners as an advisory board to the elected officials. You should know that the elected officials have the final say on any issue before us tonight. If you wish to speak on an agenda item tonight, please go to the table to my left and sign up to speak. For those of you who wish to speak, please state your name, your address, clearly, and when you come to the podium you'll be doing the same things, be clearly into the microphone. Each side, those speaking in favor of an item and those speaking in opposition to an item will have 10 minutes to present for each side. The time will be divided among all persons wishing to speak. Finally, all motions are stated in the affirmative so if a motion fails or ties the recommendation is for denial. Thank you. Can I have the roll call? Mr. Brian? Mr. Busby? Mr. Freeman? Present. Mr. Ghosh? Mr. Gibbs? Mr. Harris? Mr. Harris has asked for an excused absence. Miss Huff? Miss Huff has asked that she be that this will be a delay. So when she comes in will mark her present. Miss Hyman? Mr. Kenshin? Mr. Miller? Mr. Van? President? Mr. Whitley? Miss Wonders? We are ready for adjustments to the agenda if there are any. Good evening. I'm Grace Smith with the planning department. We do have a few adjustments this evening. First of all, cases A150002 and Z150006 North Roxboro Road retail were withdrawn. So those cases will not be acted on this evening. In addition, the Shannon Road retail plan amendment case A1500022 was withdrawn. However, we will act on the zoning case tonight and I'll explain that when we get to that presentation. In addition, we would like to add an item under new business, a resolution for appreciation from Miss Wonders Service to the Planning Commission. And the planning staff has all affidavits on file for notification and advertisement as per the Unified Development Ordinance and State Statute. Madam Chairman, if I may. The chair recognizes Commissioner Miller. Madam Chairman, because we have a lot of citizens here tonight, I notice that item five on our agenda is the annual evaluation and assessment report and why we do plan to hold a public hearing on that. I was wondering if the chair might ask those folks in the audience if there's anybody here to speak on that. And if there isn't anybody here to speak on that particular item, that perhaps we might move it to the end of our public hearing agenda. I will ask at this time if there aren't any individuals here to speak on the annual evaluation and assessment report. Hearing none, then I'd like to have a motion to move the item to the end of the agenda. Madam Second. Commissioner Busby, first and Commissioner Miller Second. I'm sorry, was it Whitley? Okay. It's like you're in my immediate ear. Okay. The clerk gets so recorded. Thank you. All in favor of this motion, let it be known by raising your right hand. All opposed. I, Savit, will make that change. I'm sorry. Change is grazed. No, ma'am. I have a clarification, please. Mr. Miller, would you let, at least verify exactly where, did you want it after item D under public hearings? Is that where you wanted it? Okay. Just move five after seven. I got you. Okay. Let's, let's make sure that we note that just five. Okay. The next item on the agenda is the public hearing. Oh, I'm sorry. The next item is approval of minutes for the May 10th. Can I get a motion to approve the minute? Madam Chair, I move that we approve the minutes and the attached consistency statement. Second. Has been moved by Commissioner Brian and second by Commissioner Busby. Did I hear that correct this time? That we approve the minutes with the attachments. All in favor of this motion, let it be known by raising your right hand. All opposed. The minutes have been adopted and move forward. The next item we have is a public hearing plan amendment and current zoning map change request, but we'll move to item B. Shannon Road Retail, item number Z1500336. Are there any individuals here to speak to this issue? I do see one individual raising his hand. So you're in opposition. Okay, in support. Let's start with the staff. Good evening. Grace Smith with the planning department. I just wanted to be sure that I'll distribute it to each planning commissioner revised staff report. Does everyone have that at this time? I just wanted to make sure. Okay, so I'll get started. So as you know, this case was continued from our last regular meeting. Vivian, can you come help me with the mic? Okay, it's actually on. Okay, sorry about that. All right. Can you hear me now? Oops. Can you hear me now? Okay, sorry about that. We've had some might troubles in here, so I didn't want to assume that it was working. So this case was continued from our last regular meeting in May. The applicant requested the continuance so that they could go back and work on the development plan a little more. The staff had some concerns about whether or not the applicant's proposal, the prior development plan, whether or not it met some of the design criteria for transit oriented at build out. So I'm going to mostly cover the revisions. I'm going to kind of breeze through what we already covered last month since we have such a large crowd. So this is a Shannon Road retail case D 15 00036. The request is from RSM to CND. The acreage is 1.913. And the proposed use is 9500 square feet of floor area for commercial use. This is the context map as you'll see it's two lots on Shannon Road existing lots. So the zoning standards for CN are listed here. I'm not going to go through all of these because we did this last month, but the proposal doesn't meet these requirements. This is the existing conditions for the site there to well, there's a single family dwelling on each site. I believe they're both vacant. This is the development plan with the parking envelope and building envelope shown in the note of 9500 square feet of building area. The summary of commitments, the intensity of course will be 9500 square feet of building area. They are committing to one vehicular site access point maximum impervious surface of 70%, which is 1.31 acres and the tree coverage of 15%. They have some graphic commitments also shown on their plan, location of site access points, location of tree placement areas and building and parking envelope. I basically just covered all of that so I'm not going to repeat it. There is going to be a construction of a northbound left turn lane on Shannon Road for the site access and four feet of additional asphalt along Shannon Road for a bicycle lane. So the new design commitments that they committed to since we last met are basically addressing the need for transit oriented build out. So the prior plan did not really, the staff felt like we had some concerns because as you're aware, the form was recently changed or the future land use for this area was recently changed to design district for compact neighborhoods here. That just happened just a week ago at City Council. This application was already in process at that time. So we met with the applicant and we kind of worked with them to get them closer to compliance. And they proffered these design commitments as a result of that meeting. So the first one is to use a storefront window system that wraps around the building corner to the building side facing Shannon Road. They're going to provide awnings and or canopy features along the storefronts. They wanted to provide a four foot paved or concrete walkway along Shannon Road to the storefront entrances. They're going to incorporate a pedestrian gathering space with benches and specialty paving at the walkway connection into the property from Shannon the Shannon Road sidewalk. And they're going to incorporate a low wall fence or columns with low shrub hedge along the streetscape of the site with a minimum height of for these elements of three feet. The staff felt with this small site it was very limited in what they could commit to and the things they could add. But they they got creative and they did as much as they could to work towards that transit oriented at build out. The policies are obviously the future land use has changed since we last met. It's now designed district with compact neighborhoods here. So it is not technically consistent. The zoning is not however because this application was submitted prior to the adoption of the revised land use and compact neighborhood tier. We have staff has met with management and we all agreed we had about a handful four applications in house that were in that flux where they came in while the amendments were being made to the future land use. And we felt that if we worked with these applicants to get their development plans as close to compliance as possible that we would support those. So the staff determines that this request meets the UDO standards for transit supportive development had build out. The request is not consistent with the future land use map of the comprehensive plan but staff is supporting the request because number one the application was submitted during the same time the staff initiated comprehensive plan updates regarding compact neighborhood tiers and design district land use designation were underway. And number two the applicant has committed to design commitments that are consistent with design district designation goals and policies. So that's the end of my presentation. The staff is available for any questions you might have. I have one individual who has signed up to speak and Mr. Jared Eden at this time. Good evening. Jared Eden's with Eden's Land Corp. I want to thank Grace and staff for their time over the past month or so helping us get this application cleaned up a bit. I don't have a lot to add. Grace had a lot of detail in her presentation. We did make the changes that she mentioned earlier. I do think it's much more in line with what the city has in mind for this area with the recent land use amendment that was adopted. We have no neighborhood opposition that I'm aware of. I've not been contacted by anyone. We now have staff support so I'd appreciate your approval tonight. I'll answer any questions you have. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to close the public hearing and bring this back to the commissioners to see if I have commissioners who would like to speak on this issue. I'll start on this side. No. I'll start on Commissioner Miller. Okay. Commissioner Miller and Commissioner Winder's provided there is anything left to say. Thank you. Thank you Madam Chairman. I'm not going to take long. I did want to mention that this case has with any case that comes along to rezone property inside an area where we are working on creating a design district. I think the correct analysis is whether or not the rezoning that's planned is going to if it's if it's adopted whether it will has the potential to interfere or frustrate the planning process as we go through the design district planning process. So using that analysis I opposed the Farrington Road case that we had some months ago because what was proposed there was so big that it was clearly going to get in the way of the ability to effectively come up with a design district. In this instance though the project that's proposed is so small that it cannot conceivably interfere with the design district planning process and so had we voted on this at our meeting last month I was prepared to argue for it even though the staff had reservations. I'm glad that it's all been worked out now. I appreciate what the developer did to make adjustments to the design commitments in the development plan to bring it more in line with what may be called for in the design district rules and regulations and so at the appropriate time I'd like to be able to make a motion in favor of this rezoning. I mentioned the winders. So how many this is going to this is going to be how many units will this be? Which it's just a retail shops building so it's a maximum. Existing. I'm reading the existing. No residential. And the so we have some new design commitments that would be that are on the development plan but we haven't got a copy of the development plan. Is it okay? To clarify Grace Smith with the planning department the only thing that I handed out that was slightly revised was the staff report. The development plan that you received is correct. Okay. Okay that's all. Okay I think we are ready for a motion. Madam Chairman I move that we send case number Z-15-0-0-0-36 forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation. It has been moved and properly second that we send case Z-15-0-0-3-6 to the city council with a favorable recommendation. All in favor of this motion let it be known by a show of your right hand. All opposed. The motion carries unanimous 11 to 0. Thank you. Madam Chair may I ask staff has a request we would like to basically bypass item C for right now and move on to item A under public hearings if you don't mind and we'll get back to item C and just at some point during the process of the evening we if you wouldn't mind could we do that please. Can I get a motion from this commissioners to- Madam Chairman I move that we pull items 6C from our agenda and return it to the agenda agenda following the repositioned item Roman numeral 5 just before new business under Roman numeral 8. Okay thank you very much. Commissioner Miller and Commissioner Busby second that we move item C East End Corridor 2 and we're moving it after 6C for new just before new business is that correct. That's correct Madam Chair. Thank you all in favor of this motion let it be known by showing your right hand. I think it's actually after we moved my item 5A so it will be after 5A. I got you. Wait a minute make sure that I have it it'll be after 5. 5 moved down after 7D. Okay just move this other thing after 5. Okay I've got it thank you. Commissioner Whitley did you have a comment? Just a question is there anyone here to speak on this before we move it? There may be and we'll just we'll make that adjustment when we get to it so. Then I'll vote against it. Okay. Madam Chair staff had and not anticipated moving some of the prior items so the main staff member who is later to present that project is not here. Okay so she's anticipated to arrive slightly later that is why we are asking for it to be moved. Thank you so much for that so we'll make the adjustment. Thank you for working with us. Okay Okay. All right let's move to the next item. We have the public hearing zoning map change request number A is Farrington Place South Point. Didn't we vote? We did vote. Yeah we did. I'm well I want to be you know I want to be clear that we did you know everybody's saying we did we did vote. I voted. Great. Staff we're ready. Good evening my name is Kyle Taylor the planning department. I just I just want to make sure something was withdrawn no for the text amendment I'm talking about. Okay so A North Rocksboro retail that's been withdrawn and then B Shannon Road retail the A-15. You just voted in favor of that. I thought that was a Z-15. No the A was withdrawn. Is the A was withdrawn. Okay right now staff. Okay Good evening my name is Kyle Taylor the planning department and I will be presenting zoning cases E-15-0028 Farrington's Place at South Point. The applicant for this project is Tony Whitaker with Civil Consultants Inc. This project is currently located within the county but this request is in relationship to an existing annexation case that will be going they will be going together to council so this will be considered underneath the city jurisdiction. The requests go from RR to RS-20D. The approximate acreage of the site is 4.35 four acres and the proposed use is for up to six residential single family detached lots. This is the context area for the site. The site is located at 7221 Farrington Road at the intersection of Farrington Road in Curlew Drive in the Suburban Tier and the it is located within the FJB Watershed overlay. The site is currently located with the county however annexation is associated with this place and will be rezoned underneath the city's jurisdiction. There is an existing single family house located on this site. This project is consistent with the standards for the RS-20 district as outlined in this last in the staff report and the and the staff report that you have however I will make a note that there is two typographical errors in the staff report for this case on page six which also has the same information that it currently states the there's 35 25 for the street yard and side yards that actually should be 35 for the street yard and 12 for the side yard which is the minimum requirements for this district. The existing conditions as you can see on this page the site is heavily forested but there is one single family residential home located on the site currently. This is the proposed conditions page on the proposed conditions page you will see that this project meets the requirements the development plan for a RS-20 district zoning district. The proposed condition page does commit to the location of six driveway accesses off of Curlew Drive. The commitment shown on this is the six no more than six residential lots will be allowed up to six driveway access points of Curlew Drive impervious surface maximum of 21.6 percent or 40 000 square feet. There are three text commitments associated with this plan the first one being the only use allowed shall be single family homes of residential access for uses in home occupations. The second one is no mass grading is defined by section 16.3 defined terms or clear cutting is defined in paragraph 8.3.4 clear cutting will be utilized during construction and before the very last one before issuing of the final plots dedicate 20 foot of additional right of way for the frontage of the site along Farrington Road. This project is consistent with the future land use maps but designates this area as very low density residential two dwelling units per acre or less and it is consistent with comprehensive plan as identified in this slide and also the staff report and staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other policies and ordinances and staff is available for any questions. I do have one individual who has signed up to speak David Vines. Good evening commissioners my name is David Vines I'm with Grace and their homes uh Tony Whitaker is our engineer he's on vacation so I'm here to stand in for him this evening so I'm available for any questions yet. I have no other individuals to speak so I'm going to close the public hearing and bring it back to the commissioners do I have commissioners who would like to speak I'll start on my right commissioner brine one and commissioner Miller two that's it okay we'll start with commissioner brine. Just a couple of quick questions when I visited the site I noticed that this land is for sale are you buying or selling? That's correct commissioner we have a contract to purchase pending annexation and rezoning. Okay thank you and the 20 feet of additional right-of-way along Farrington Road does that include the four feet that was requested for the bicycle lane? That does include that. Thank you. Commissioner Miller no question. Commissioner Busby and I'll make a motion at the appropriate time as well I did just want to say in addition I appreciate the text commitment on the no mass grading I know we hear a lot about flooding issues we know things have to be to code for stormwater but this is an issue that's growing in Durham so I know not to have mass grading will certainly help with that issue so I certainly appreciate that and at this point I would make a motion that we move favorable recommendation of case number Z1500028 to forward with a favorable recommendation. Motion by commissioner Busby and second by commissioner brine that we move south point forward with a favorable recommendation all in favor of this motion let it be known by showing of your right hand all opposed? Motion carries unanimously 11 to 0. Thank you. Thank you commissioner. Madam chair it's nil over here. Before we open the public hearing for the next item I would like to be asked to be recused for the project. Commissioner Gosh is asking to be recused from the next item which is the barini drive assemblage. Madam chairman I'm not sure I always understand exactly what the correct procedure is but whatever the procedure might be I'm sure this will cover it. I move that we excuse a commission member Gosh from consideration of this next case on grounds of conflict of interest if I'm not mistaken his law firm represents the applicant in in this case is applicant and at least another case if not this case. Thank you commissioner Miller for the motion second by commissioner brine all in favor of commissioner Gosh being recused from this item please raise your right hand. Motion carries 10 to 0. Now we are ready for the public hearing for the barini drive assemblage item number z 1500039 staff. Good evening again Kyle Taylor with the planning department. I'm going to be presenting zoning case z 15 00039 barini drive assemblage. This project's applicant is Randy King with the poultry group. This project is within the existing city zoning jurisdiction. The requests go from RS 20 to PDR 3.755. The acreage is 83.31 acres and the proposed use is up to 300 single family and town home residential units not to exceed 100 town home units. This is a request to rezone four parcels located at 4115 brini drive between brini drive and NC 147 in the suburban tier. A small portion of this request is located in the north a small portion that's located in the northwest quadrant of this project is located with the EA watershed district overlay. This project does meet the requirements for the PDR zoning district with a acreage of 83.31 acres a 3.735 dwelling unit per acre density and a no more than 35 maximum foot height. The existing conditions as you show that's shown here show the parcels are heavily wooded with the exception of parcel number 081303111497 which is 4115 brini drive the largest parcel associated with this. There is a pond and existing transmission towers located on this parcel. The developer does propose to remove those towers prior to the first subdivision plat and that is one of their text commitments that we will get to later. There are also several streams and required stream buffers shown on this project to the south and also the east on this project. The proposed conditions as shown on this page this project meets the requirements for a development plan for the PDR zoning district. The proposed conditions commit to access points buffers and excess of ordinance requirements a building and parking envelope a stream crossing stream stream and buffers as required to be for preservation location designated for single family detached lots only and location of tree preservation areas. The intensity for the site is 300 residential units no more than 100 and no more than 100 town homes. There will be six access points as I mentioned for this project however the one from Brooke Chase Lane is currently restricted to emergency pedestrian access only impervious surface for this project is limited to 70 percent or 56.24 acres and tree cover just 20 percent at 16.66 acres. Graphically this project commits to the tree preservation areas access points building envelope building and parking envelope area for reservation for single family detached lots. There are a number of text commitments proffered with this property including prior to the recombination of the first uh subdivision plat all on site transmission towers will be removed maximum number of units within the project will not exceed 300 maximum number of town home units will not exceed 100 prior to the recording of a subdivision plat for the 250th lot a main activity main active recreation area will be provided containing at least a club or house or changing room as well as a swing pool. There are a couple of tia improvements that are required on this site they include some for coal mill and burini drive the first one being subject to the they include several traffic improvements that are required they can be outlined in the staff report on this slide and also on the development plan. The development was required and did proffer design commitments with this project they include the general architectural style the rules will be pitched and they did say that there are no distinctive architectural features identified at this time. This project is consistent with the future land use map which designates this area as low density residential for dwelling units breaker or less. It is consistent with these comprehensive plan policies as well and staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan other adopted policies but is not consistent with UDO section 12.3 UDO section 12.3 requires street layouts and new development to be coordinated with the existing street system with connections made at all stovouts. This project does not provide for a connection to Brookchase lane or a stub to the southeast corner of the site that would allow for a future public street connection to Shockery Drive. Thank you and staff is available for any questions. I have quite a few people who have signed up to speak. I have 15 17 individuals who are speaking against this item and I'm going to ask for a suspension of the time rule a motion for the suspension of the time rule. Commissioner Miller. Madam Chairman I move that we suspend our customary 10 minutes per side rule and in this instance because so many people have indicated a desire to speak that we give all speakers at least three minutes to speak in that in a division of time between those in favor and those opposed that we give equal time to both sides. Second. Motion by Commissioner Miller and second by Commissioner Brian that we suspend the time rules and allow three minutes for individuals to speak. I'm going to start with the list that I have. I'm sorry. I know. I was thinking that we could get by with two minutes each. Okay so are there other are the other commissioners who would like to speak to the time issue before. I also agree I think on two minutes should be sufficient. I consider you have 17 persons. I do have 17 individuals. Madam Chairman I'd like to be heard on the motion. The chair recognizes Commissioner Miller. Madam Chairman we're here to hear from the citizens and have a right to a public hearing under our rules. In my opinion a public hearing it's great to be fair and I want to be fair but a public hearing is is an opportunity for them to come and say what they have to say and not worry about the running of the clock. We all volunteered to be on this commission. I got nothing else more important in my immediate future than hearing what these folks have to say and I don't want to have people cut off or have the bill ringing them off the way from the podium. This is their chance and I don't want to reduce it in any way so I urge the commission members to vote for the original motion. Madam Chairman. The chair recognizes Commissioner Whitley. We have set a precedent when there's a large turnout to extend the time and to change it now will be unfair and we'll be setting a new precedent. Three minutes is better than I mean we've we've done five minutes for each speaker when there's a large turnout. Three I think is reasonable. I have a motion to from Commissioner Miller to extend the time to three minutes and I'm going to call for a vote. All in favor of this motion and I do have a second by Commissioner Brine. I'm going to call for a vote. All in favor of this motion let it be known by raising your right hand. The motion carries unanimous 10 to zero. Thank you and I will the first individual Francis Mock these are all the individuals are four. I'm sorry these are all of the individuals against there was a question since there is a smaller number of individuals who are against would there be an objection to you know yeah I mean most of the individuals are against I'm saying okay excuse me I'm four Madam Chair yes typically the order is that the proponents go okay very good then I'm correct then that is correct we'll start with Francis Mock thank you the people in favor speak first oh the proponents I'm sorry the proponents go first so those individuals let me find someone on the list Robert Epley okay Patrick it has just been brought to my attention why don't I let you go first and organize the rest of those individuals who are four thank you thank you Vice Chair Hyman members of the Planning Commission good evening my name is Patrick Beiker I'll be the only person speaking at this point in time but I will introduce the rest of our team obviously we'll be here to answer questions at the end of the list of speakers that you just referenced so again good evening members of the Planning Commission my name is Patrick Beiker I live at 2614 Stewart Drive I'm an attorney in Durham the Morningstar Law Group I'm here tonight representing Polti Holmes for this zoning map change I'd like to introduce the rest of our team who's here tonight Robert Epley is our traffic engineer with VHB and his colleague Lyle Overcash is also our traffic engineer he's on his way here at this moment and should be available for a question and answer our landscape architect is Bob Zoomwalt with McAdams and then Bob Anderson and Randy King are also here from Polti by way of introduction we wish to highlight that we are asking for 3.7 units per acre in the case before a tonight 3.735 represents the appropriate density for acreage that is adjacent to a freeway and is designated on our future land use map for up to four units per acre while our future land use map looks forward I think it is important to take a moment to look back for the generation after World War II from the 1950s to the 1980s it was fairly normal for Durham to develop houses with a quarter or half acre lots like the houses north of Burini Drive that mindset changed starting in the 1980s with a development in South Durham called Woodcroft I hope every member of the planning commission is familiar with that neighborhood I find it compelling that Woodcroft is zoned PDR 3.65 almost identical to what Polti is requesting tonight while Woodcroft has a wide range of homes and lot sizes some of those lots contain only about 6,000 square feet a major shift from the post-war generation and reflecting much more efficient and wise land use practices in a similar vein when I started working in economic development for the Chamber of Commerce back in 1994 we never really contemplated the fact that Durham would someday run out of developable land even though Durham has always been a fairly small county with fewer than 300 square miles fast forward to 2016 and it definitely feels to me like most of the developable land in Durham is developed accordingly Durham has to be a good steward of its limited land resources while PDR 3.735 does correlate with homes on relatively small lots this zoning map change is consistent with current market trends and sound planning principles again it is simply good stewardship of the limited land Durham has available to develop in order to meet the housing needs of our growing population to reinforce the consistency with the surrounding area of Polti's application before you this evening I wish to highlight the demarcation on our development plan that calls for the potential development of up to 100 townhouses closer to the freeway this component of our development plan mirrors the existing 100 townhouses located approximately one half mile west of this site a townhouse community known as Sparger Springs Sparger Springs is adjacent to the freeway and his own PDR 3.59 therefore the development plan before you is consistent with both the future land use map and the existing development that is nearby of course it is incumbent upon any proposal to provide appropriate buffers for current and future residents as shown on Polti's development plan there is a 30 foot 40 opacity buffer along Barini Drive and 100 foot buffer along the freeway there's a great deal of existing tree coverage that contributes to the 100 foot buffer I just mentioned last based on a recent meeting with residents of bank grass lane we've agreed to a 50 foot buffer along the lots adjacent to our site that are located on bank grass lane in order to achieve 60 percent opacity with new plantings and existing tree coverage prior to the issuance of a building permit in addition it is important to note that this zoning map change constitutes infill development and Durham's comprehensive plan states quote both urban and suburban both urban and suburban infill development become more important as the population of Durham continues to grow infill development including residential non-residential and mixed use are an important aspect of smart growth and will help support transportation alternatives and alleviate congestion related issues unquote in my opinion it would not be wise public policy to utilize the existing r20 zoning at this location given its proximity to a major freeway and the aforementioned need to use our existing vacant land in an efficient manner moreover as a textbook example of infill development this site is conveniently located with relatively short commutes to major employment centers such as downtown Durham and Duke University Medical Center I think this site also provides a very reasonable commute to Duke Regional Hospital and Trayburn Corporate Park I bring up these potential commuting patterns because according to Forbes.com the triangle region has the unfortunate distinction for generating more vehicle miles traveled per household than any other metro region in our country in the triangle quote the average household racks up 21,800 miles per year unquote now that is unsustainable we need to do more to encourage shorter commutes and this type of infill contiguous residential development is the way to do just that last in regard to traffic it is important to recognize the hierarchy of the traffic network which for example is noted in the city's street impact the ordinance that references freeways thoroughfares collectors and local roads in this section of Durham east of the orange county line south of the eno river north of 85 and west of coal mill one finds 85 represents the freeway coal mill road is clearly the thoroughfare that transports traffic from the collectors to the freeway barini drive and other streets that intersect coal mill while they may be local roads also serve as collectors to take traffic out of the neighborhoods to coal mill road as a two-lane road barini drive has a capacity of approximately 10,700 vehicles per day and according to our traffic study it currently carries approximately 1500 cars per day accordingly it is functioning at approximately 14 percent of its capacity coal mill road according to the staff report is functioning at approximately 60 percent of its capacity of course no one wants more traffic in their vicinity however if we do not utilize these infill opportunities to accommodate new residents of Durham these persons moving to the triangle will move further out from our employment centers increasing sprawl increasing vehicle miles traveled for our region and decreasing convenient housing choices for people moving to Durham in order to avoid these negative outcomes Durham needs to move forward with infill development such as this zoning map change that follows our comprehensive plan for all these reasons we respectfully ask for your recommendation of approval tonight and our team will be happy to answer any questions we respectfully ask to reserve the balance of our time for a buttle and we thank you for your time Francis before you a staff yeah staff would just like uh staff would just like the developer to clarify whether he was proffering additional uh brother buffer along bed grass that's currently shown on the development plan yes that's correct increasing it to 50 feet thank you well thank you i'm not sure i think i need vivian here i have a power point presentation and i'm not sure how to get that pulled up my name is francis mock and i live in 14 west haven place and to be clear i'm not here to oppose any development on this barini assemblage i'm here to oppose the request to rezone it and double the density of that property since we learned about pulty's intention or desire to double the density of this land our community has been united in its opposition we have filed with you a packet we mail to you this packet that provides a lot of information you may refer to that and follow along as i walk through a power point included in that as the signatures of 225 um residents who are showing their opposition to this zoning request and while we understand that the protest petition is no longer a legal option for us we wanted to show our unified um uh opposition to this request as you can see there are a number of people here um who oppose this request if you are here to oppose this zoning request please stand thank you you may be seated so the best way to articulate our um some of our oppositions is through a power point which shows pictures of our neighborhood and that and what is proposed so they developer has pointed out that the comprehensive plan would allow up to up to four units per acre but the udo requires um that it be consistent with the neighborhood and in fact the number one thing in the udo says that the ordinance is to protect existing neighborhoods and to prevent their decline and promote their livability and that's what we're here asking this commission to do udo section four four one says it has to be compatible with existing patterns of development and this development is not here's a satellite image of our uh neighborhood and i want to try to show i think it's hard for you to let me see if you can see my map the red obviously shows this this is barini drive along this red area here is bent grass i'm going to show you some photos of that which is the street that would be to the east of the property this is kimble um which would be one of the main entrances is proposed to be right here on kimble drive i'll also point out that the traffic study that you'll hear more about later from a different resident um did not even consider the impact on kimble and even though a main entrance is poised to be right there so i want you to notice as you look at this the density the amount of trees that we have in our property and the density of the housing so here is a zoning map this is the city's zoning map um the all of the yellow areas as i'm sure you're aware are rrs 20 the including the concurrent area that the developer is trying to change the areas in tan this sort of lighter shade um here and over here is actually rs 10 which allows smarter lots smaller lots but if you can see this development here is really the lots are essentially the same as all the rs 20 lots around it this area in blue here is that my time running down allow you to finish sure what your your statement yes caroline akkar okay thank you miss akkar so this area in blue here is zoned pdr 2.0 so essentially almost all of the area that you see allows has lots that are up to about a half acre lots so having um this change to the 0.16 acre lots that the developer is proposing would be a significant change to our neighborhood so here's a satellite image this is the street corner of kimball and barini this is the entrance and you'll notice the density of the houses and the intense wooding the wooding around it this is bent grass the lane to the right of the property to the east of the site and you'll see the proposed development site that butts up against it and again if you'll notice the density of the houses and the trees there so um magnolia walk is a property that pulty has developed in apex i think it finished last year i myself have met with bob anderson um three different times to discuss this development and he told me that magnolia walk is exactly this is a quote is exactly the same development that they'll do in barini he said the lots are exactly the same size and the houses are the same size this is what that looks like this is the same scale of what i just showed you um for the bent grass avenue and as you can see these are 0.16 acres so you can basically fit three of these houses on the existing lots um in our neighborhood so when you compare these if you'll look at the cul-de-sac you'll notice that the scale is about the same i'm not playing any tricks here um that that's the difference and that is not consistent with our neighborhood here's a street view this is kimble and barini again i'm at one of the main entrances you can see it's a lovely wooded neighborhood you can barely see the houses from the street here's bent grass we have the same thing you again you can barely see the houses here's a street view of magnolia walk that pulty has developed here's another view and as you can see there's no architectural diversity the lots are significantly smaller all of these houses have front facing garages they have small front porches and they have upper all the roof lines are essentially the same so these two are not consistent this lack of architectural diversity and the um significantly smaller lot sizes are not consistent this is the distance between two houses on bent grass this is the distance in magnolia walk where you can almost touch both houses so these are not consistent with our neighborhood pulty's proposed one six acre lots that's even smaller than the point two five acre lot that their pdr suggests because they're going to have a clubhouse in a pool so these are very very small lots so they are not only really doubling the density they're tripling they're going to have house lots that are one-third the size of our existing lots so we are asking you tonight to comply with the udo and to protect our neighborhood um and to vote no on this rezoning request thank you the next speaker that i have is brian and it's um is it shusha okay share thank you thank you commissioners thank you for your time my name is brian sharrick i live at three west haven place i am a native of Durham and a local commercial real estate developer while i have a responsibility to create profitable profitable projects on behalf of my shell shareholders i do so in a manner that places good design and good place making above profits do not believe that pulty has the same philosophy pulty is quick to highlight how their rezoning quest aligns with the comprehensive plan but fails to mention how the proposed rezoning deviates from the udo pulty informed us that building on larger lot sizes is not does not fit their business model this mindset does not take into account the best interests of our community whether it puts pulty's business model and their profits first pulty has approached this development in a manner that raises a lot of red flags to me pulty intentionally cut a parcel that a butt-stackery drive presumably to avoid the possibility of connecting to it they told us they abandoned the possibility of using the right of way to comel road because it would not provide the grand entrance they desired in addition a recent stream re determination was point zero five points short of officially recognizing existing streams on the property that are in need of protection a developer truly committed to the future of Durham i hope would take it upon themselves to ensure this potential environmental neglect is avoided i hope as a planning commission you will hold developers accountable myself included to design projects that in best interest of our community not just their bottom line voting against the proposed rezoning will send a message to Durham send a message that Durham will develop in a manner that is thoughtful safe and beneficial for our community thank you thank you the next speaker is laura christensen thank you laura christensen for 118 greenie drive almost directly across from one of the proposed openings for this proposed rezoned development i support development in Durham and in my neighborhood at the existing zoning level knowing that this zoning provides one of the best uses for this land greenie drive is a quiet residential feeder street my home is between coldwood street and kimble drive a distance of approximately three tenths of a mile in that three tenths of a mile are four speed bumps the speed limit is 15 miles per hour obviously the city recognized a traffic problem and took measures to mitigate that problem years ago to protect the integrity of my neighborhood the developer could have made an access point via a piece of property that has right of way to coal mill road a major transportation corridor it is for sale and directly adjacent to the property they are buying but they have reviews refused to do so by ordinance according to my conversation with bill judge of the city transportation department brook chase lane must be an access point i understand that on two tracks of plans the developers have refused to make that an access point by ordinance according to my conversation with bill judge of the city transportation department shockery drive would be an access point except as brian mentioned the developer subdivided a small lot between shockery drive and the rest of their 81.9 acres this is a disingenuous legal but certainly in my estimation unethical act that puts me and my neighbors in a position i never thought possible the position of which i speak is having to make a risky investment by buying my home like many americans my home is my major investment when i sell my home it will provide me with funds to help me live until the end of my life assisted living can be significantly expensive as i have just discovered having just come from settling my elderly parents now this outside developer totally uninterested in promoting the beauty of this city would build to decrease my property value by radically increasing traffic and noise and make me would make me and my neighbors pay for what they need to pay vote no please thank you is glenn walters glenn please state your address which is not listed on the sign-in sheet my name is glenn walters i live at 1015 kimble drive i'd like to address the potential traffic impacts of the proposed rezoning on our neighborhood in the surrounding area in particular i want to discuss the traffic impact assessment prepared for pulty homes by vhb engineering dated december 11th 2015 in a nutshell i believe this report to be inadequate due to key omissions that make it impossible to determine the impact of the proposed rezoning on local traffic furthermore i believe that the report downplays the significance of the impacts that it does identify first traffic counts were performed on two consecutive days in july 2015 the two closest schools hillandale elementary and riverside high school operate on a traditional schedule so these counts are not representative of typical traffic volume a single count was done in october but only at the intersection of barini and coal mill drive road however as i'm about to detail the data from this single count is not a legitimate basis upon which to extrapolate the additional findings in the report second it appears that the traffic study area was selected without a complete understanding of how traffic moves through the area the impact assessment focused almost exclusively on the movement of traffic between our neighborhood and the i-85 interchange this demonstrates a lack of regard for the many trips associated with travel to the schools and to the north on coal mill road much of this traffic leaves our neighborhood via coalwood drive kimble drive and fleming drive in order to avoid making the left hand turn on to burini or from burini on to coal mill road ironically mr riker just mentioned employers such as duke regional hospital and businesses in traver and industrial park all of which would employ residents who would commute via those trips to the north and to the west on coal mill road to rose of Sharon these trips would all potentially use the internal streets to bypass left turns from burini on to coal mill the impact assessment did not identify these turning movements and did not include these intersections in their study as a result the report provides an incomplete picture of existing traffic patterns and significantly underestimates the actual impact of the proposed rezoning on traffic in the area vhb's own report cites significant lost counts within the limited area that they did study this alone puts into question the validity of their study area i believe that a properly scoped traffic study would show significant increases of traffic within the neighborhood on these smaller streets i therefore asked the board to deny this rezoning request and a future application is made that it be supported by a more thorough and may have finished thank you and complete traffic study that includes representative traffic counts during the traditional school year and it includes counts at the additional intersections necessary to accurately assess the traffic impacts on this area thank you and let me ask let me ask that you hold your applause so that just for the sake of time so that we can get through this plot at the end but let's just let's get through this the next speaker is elizabeth lambar okay elizabeth yes his hand out good evening my name is elizabeth lumbar and i live at 700 dilute street my biggest concern about the proposed rezoning request that would clear cut the trees significantly increase the density of houses and result in 70 percent impervious surface is the effect this would have on stormwater runoff and ultimately the health safety and well-being of Durham residents the developer is choosing the maximum impervious surface allowed but the minimum standards to manage stormwater runoff although not able to attend the meeting tonight mr staples the owner of lakes wananoa which feeds the northernmost headwater of ellaby creek asked that i speak on his behalf he expressed to me that he and his neighbors the vast majority of whom signed the petition are extremely concerned about the disastrous effects a high density development immediately north of them could have for both city owned and private properties along this portion of the watershed much of which lies in the fema declared floodplain currently a significant rain event raises the level of the lake as much as three feet inundating the lake spillway and ellaby creek this is evident on the slide and the handout that i have presented to you this shows this shows lake swannanoa the spillway picture taken in june of a normal day with very small flow flowing under the city's sewer the line there that has sewer and then it also shows after heavy rain and this is not a one-time event this is every time they get a heavy rain the next show the next slide shows the water as it flows under the city bridge into the ellaby creek and again you can see the extreme flooding that can happen contributing to erosion of the creek during a conversation that mr staples had with former city watershed employee greg susah last year mr susah stated that his department has an ongoing concern for the protection of the bridge creek sidewalls and the city utilities we recognize that durham has strong stormwater runoff standards however polty has a national reputation for not following the minimum standards as is evident in the three articles that were handed out about successful lawsuits against polty because of these concerns it is crucial that any development on this land adhered a low impact development principles as well as install systems to manage a 100-year flood finally at a time when the city is working hard to manage stormwater and reduce the pollution of ellaby creek and ultimately falls lake it does not make sense to change the zoning of this property this is a great opportunity for the city to follow the recommendations of their ellaby creek watershed management improvement plan and limit density as much as possible please vote no to the request to rezone this land but i'd i'd like to make one additional adjustment this time i'm going to call uh the next four people to speak and be ready to go so the the next person will be raymond pierce deborah jackson lewis bowls and john flinn thank you okay john flinn excuse to to mr pierce okay thank you madam chair my name is raymond pierce and i live at nine 12 kimball drive and i'm actually a member of a committee that represents this neighborhood um and what i have what i've heard before what you've heard before me pretty much tells the story but i want to add two points um my family is blessed to be a part of this community that we are we see here today and 12 years ago when i was invited to move here to be the dean of our law school at north carolina center university my wife and i asked specifically uh for neighborhood uh that we described that what we found but it was interesting that when we spoke to the real estate agency that there are actually very few communities like this the options were very very few and i actually found that surprising in north carolina coming from where i live uh where i came from um and and you've seen the pictures you you see the the resistance to this and i just find a troubling that it would be considered to actually eliminate a rare asset that you have uh what i was told when i moved here is that waterford is is highly sought after neighborhood um in large part for relocation of people who are coming in academia for north carolina center university and for duke university in fact the chancellor's home of our university is located in this neighborhood and it was placed there specifically because of the lack of density and so i i just find it kind of sad that this would get to this point that this is a neighborhood that is used not only to attract people to Durham um but also to uh to uh to to incentivize people who have been offered positions that here's a neighborhood that you could actually listen if you so decided to come to our community brings me to my second point um frances and brian and carolin and everyone who preceded me they just gave laid out the points the environmental impact uh the traffic study that glenn talked about uh on and on and on it just puts this in context Durham is is is fortunate to be a a city that is actually in a position where it's attracting people some of us have had the the task of reviewing grants i have and proposals uh for cities that are looking for grants because they're losing population and these grants are are are a combination of proposals from developers and academia that if they receive this money this is what we do communities that are actually losing people and if you look at those development proposals they for cities that are losing population it is foreign access of what pote is proposing here my point is we can do better than this now my good friend patrick back here is where's patrick um patrick is absolutely correct when we say we have to be good stewards patrick of our land we have to be here in Durham but i'm sorry my friend you're wrong when you say that this would be a good use this will be good stewardship this is this is poor stewardship we can do better to suggest that we can't have a developer come to us and present to us a plan that actually shows investment in our community partnership with our community and actually respect for our community is to shortchange ourselves i mean they said it all so i respectfully ask this commission review this take it for what it is and deny this request this city and this definitely his neighbor can do much better than what has been presented here by this developer thank you i've called several people in order so the next with deborah jackson louis bowls mr flinn well we didn't use all of his time i thought that was carolyn oh maybe that was miss ackards okay um louis bowls okay so louis has thank you my name is louis bowls i'll live in five duffers place fairway woods i've been there for 31 years my property is within 100 feet of the property to be developed um i don't disagree with anything anybody has said so far um i have a slightly different way to come at it and it is this of the 300 houses property uh being proposed up to 100 or townhomes and i believe townhomes which i'll refer to as multifamily are the single biggest flaw in this development it puts too many uh parcels inside this 84 acres and uh it would have i think several impacts one would be uh i believe it would impact our the value of our homes second multifamily is uh if you take those hundred and they all have to go out at least now on the barini drive entrances it's that much more traffic on barini drive that's the reason i think the multifamily is the biggest flaw in it if this was just a single family development i don't think i'd be here uh in opposition to it the last development of any size adjacent to me was stony brook cottages so that was 2002 to 2008 it was on 20 approximately three parcels 21 acres uh the lot sizes of the homes are about 0.15 acres my property not to be bragging is 0.9 acres uh two of those parcels uh actually three of them actually touched my property everything's going well they were well built houses 2,900 square feet to 3,700 square feet and uh well built homes uh there's the that neighborhood has incorporated into the entire neighborhood i believe very well it was all single family i think the flaw in this that poli has proposed is multifamily which they're calling town homes if that were removed that would be a big obstacle to at least allowing this thing to possibly move forward so i'd recommend that you vote no thank you so now we have Bonnie Flynn um is it alan restley and chris deeps dripps good evening i'm not going to take long but i do want to correct something that was said by the gentleman representing the developer he said that during world war two we were building houses that were um the size that ours are our development was built my house was built i live at 800 kimball drive right on the corner of barini and kimball my husband and i retired there to waterford our house was built and our whole neighborhood was built in the 1980s my house was finished in 1986 so to give the idea that these are houses that world war two and we do something or that during that time frame and we do something different it's just a false uh i i didn't think that was well said so i wanted to clear that up thank you thank you and alan alan restley followed by chris dripps good evening i'm alan restley i live at 4206 coles pond drive in durham i'm also president of our owners association in coles pond coles pond is located along coal mill road near the site the pulty is proposing to rezone coles pond was one of the first communities in durham developed under the cluster development rules the cluster development was appropriate for our site because as the name would imply it is built around a pond a really beautiful environmental feature a sensitive environmental feature and something that is the most attractive feature of our community uh the barini road assemblage also has a large pond obviously you can't build on the pond you can't build within the riparian buffers around the pond and pulty proposes to have additional recreational facilities there to me as someone who has had the benefit in living of living in a cluster development that is taken advantage of specific environmental features to enhance the neighborhood i believe this property is a perfect location for another cluster development like coles pond coles pond the underlying zoning district is rs 20 as are the surrounding areas but because the pond and land adjacent to it was set aside as open space the developer was allowed to incorporate smaller lots most of the lots in our neighborhood are about 16 000 square feet but the overall density is no greater than the underlying rs 20 zoning um a developer who would come in and appreciate the environmental qualities of this parcel could design another larger cluster development that would take take advantage of the specific beauty of the site if you haven't visited you should it's a very beautiful site it would allow by doing a cluster development it would allow more homes and would be allowed under the rs 20 but it would respect the density of the surrounding neighborhoods waterford westwood estates and be sensitive to the neighbors who are here be sensitive to the environment and create a neighborhood that would be i think a uniquely beautiful spot in there so i encourage the commissioners to vote against the rezoning there are other options that could achieve higher density but preserve the special features of this site and chris hi commissioners my name is chris drepps i'm the executive director of ellert creek watershed association 331 west main street but we also own property on shockery drive just downstream of the proposed development site the proposed rezoning site we have many concerns about this request uh first ellert creek watershed association has been trying to protect this site for about 15 years and even the city's very own ellert creek watershed management improvement plan uh calls this land a keystone property for protection why spend a half million dollars making a watershed plan if you're going to throw the recommendations out the window as soon as the next big development comes along pulty homes approach to this development is right out of the 1990s clear cut the trees masquerade and compact the soils destroy all the streams by putting them in pipes deny the state's wetland deny the site's wetlands are really wetlands by calling them man-made build 70 impervious cover which is as high as what we have in downtown durham most people don't realize that through nutrient trading pulty can check off all the boxes in their stormwater requirements and meet the minimum standards by paying for restoration somewhere else on cheap land outside of durham and the result will be that the now relatively clean headwaters of ellert creek will no longer comply with north carolina water quality standards though all the requirements have been met at a time when the city is spending millions in an effort to reduce pollution in ellert creek it would be irresponsible to allow pulty to add density and pretend that they can't do any better for stormwater the city's ellert creek watershed plan recommends multiple restoration projects just upstream of the site this pulty homes development will cancel out and overbalance all the good that these projects could do come on this is 2016 are we an innovative community or home of the minimum standards we have done research developed the technology and seen hundreds of low impact development projects all around the country the engineering firm working on this project mcadams has done low impact development and could easily do it again on this site but not under this proposed rezoning request a comparison was made to woodcroft and i just want to add this which is on third fort creek which has the lowest water quality score in durham state of our streams 2014 report as low as the that water quality in south ellert creek in downtown durham so yes that's a good comparison the what the woodcroft density to this to this density finally this proposed rezoning sets a bad precedent there are so many more sites on the urban fringe with similar potential saying yes to this rezoning will make restoring water quality in our creeks and rivers even more difficult and expensive please finish your sentence please vote no on this rezoning thank you request and then the the last person that i have listed is chris baker thank you thank you commissioners my name is chris baker i'm the president of stonybrook cottages homeowners association which is to the east of the development proposed by poultay i've been a residential realtor for over 10 years just to give you a history on stonybrook cottages which is probably the newest development in the area close that abuts this development at the front closer to coal mill road the zoning is currently 3.14 and then as it gets closer to the green neighborhood it drops down to 2.72 i'm guessing back in the early 2000s that's how they transition to a rs 20 neighborhood um i see a lot of people here speaking today and one thing that really we were a failed development from 2008 to 2013 so obviously i'm a little bit uh up on city code standards and everything um our neighborhood is our association is a little disturbed that city staff is calling us as a should be a connection point for main traffic our roads are 50 feet wide that includes curb and gutter and there is no turn lane off a coal mill road the subdivision was designed for 45 homes at the time of the developer so that's why nothing else was added and there's really no way to widen the streets because you'd be in people's living rooms basically as opposed to older neighborhoods that are set further back from the street um one thing that i've said to the developer from the beginning is that something of this magnitude it would be really nice you envision it with their own private entrance and things like that but obviously that per land that doesn't seem like it's going to happen i do need to rebut what laura christian said very emotionally which i can understand nobody really wants this in your backyard but you know to see city staff if you drive down our neighborhoods and obviously was impact like that there's just no way cars could come through there obviously brook chases call it a lane and not as dry like brini is and we don't have speed bumps because we don't have to through fair traffic um so again my observation in all this is just i see the passionate in here of people that doesn't feel this fits the neighborhood and i again vote you to probably send this back for some more consideration for the developer and probably vote no against it thank you thank you um i'd also like to check now to see if the developer would like to have some additional time that would be mr. baker biker i'm sorry sorry madam vice chair our team is ready to answer any questions that you may have okay thank you now are there other speakers i'm we do have our our lead traffic engineer here if you want to go into questions about traffic we're happy to do that right now go we defer the commission i am sure there will be questions about traffic a little bit later if we may since we have a fair amount of time if our traffic engineer lial overcash could just address a few points okay and then we'll open up yes we will allow him we you still have that time thank you good evening my name is lial overcash managing director of the rally office of vhb we prepared the good evening my name is lial overcash with vhb the managing director of the rally office we prepared the tia and in conjunction with the city of Durham and ncdot we scope the tia back in the summer of 2015 in anticipation of submitting the tia during the summer the city and the dot were okay with collecting traffic counts during the summer during that time we evaluated the connection to the neighboring stony brook and changed the plans as we understood that the traffic would be attracted to go through that neighborhood and move the drives to access berenie only since we then we're into the fall of the year we went back out and we collected account in october as the gentleman mentioned we took that count and then we rebalanced the rest of the counts so we actually took a more conservative approach than if we had submitted the tia during the summer as originally planned regardless the tia was submitted to the city and dot and they concurred exactly with our recommendations for the two driveways on berenie as proposed on the site plan and also we recommended a traffic signal at the intersection of berenie and cold mill due to increased traffic load on berenie which would be a benefit I think to the residents and also the two churches that are on berenie we noticed during the study the accidents that occurred at berenie and cold mill actually occurred on sunday evenings so we were wondering if the you know the signal would help in that situation as well a couple of points want to point out the speed limit on berenie is actually is 25 miles an hour the advisory speed for the speed bumps is 15 miles an hour we did a speed study on berenie the speed bumps are working the observed 85 percentile speed was right at 25 miles an hour so they are working as installed the intersection of kimble and berenie was brought up we did study that intersection per the city and dot recommendations that southbound movement on kimble operates at a level service a currently with the development it will decrease down to a level service b which is just a couple of seconds extra delay we based on the traffic counts we collected we assigned 20 percent of the traffic to the north and 80 percent of the traffic to the south in the study are just based on traffic patterns with a signal installed at berenie and cold mill we would actually anticipate maybe some of the traffic that's using kimble and some of the other streets would actually be attracted to the berenie cold mill intersection and then make that move with the assistance of the traffic signal concerning the townhomes townhomes actually generate 60 percent less traffic per unit than a single family so it's not all bad always inserting townhomes in development as they actually per unit generates less traffic than a single family home those are just some of the points I wanted to touch on are there any additional comments uh mr biker no thank you we're happy to answer any questions thank you close to public hearing and bring this back before the commissioners to give them an opportunity to speak and and have questions so all those commissioners who would like to speak I will start looking this way I see mr I'll start with miss huff okay I'm gonna go down this side um Patrick I didn't I'm sorry miss the first part of your presentation my understanding is that you all are not going to build any kind of buffer sound buffer between the property and the interstate is that true you're not sorry you must have missed my comment there's no I said I wasn't here okay I'm sorry you must have just missed it because I remember seeing you come in it's there's a 100 feet forested buffer between the interstate and the first residential dwelling units on our property we are leaving a 100 foot forested buffer the exact same as the mc mtc buffer that's along interstate 40 now I also read in information I got from the community that you all had said that the townhomes that are going to be I presumably along the interstate is that that's correct just like the other townhomes a half mile further to the west that they would constitute a sound buffer is that what you said I was not there but the buffer is going to be 100 feet of of existing forest they'll remain intact along the interstate before there is any property line for a residential dwelling unit on this project okay um I would like to say the gentleman who spoke about cluster development it's exactly where I'm coming from on this piece of property it's a beautiful piece of property it could be they could take advantage of of the landscape I'm an artist I went out there I was I was moved by this lovely lovely piece of land I am appalled at this development I absolutely am it is a virus that it's a it's a virus that is going to come in kill the piece of property and just go away and you guys are going to be left with the consequences of it I mean there's much to say about it but gosh I'm voting no thank you chair recognizes commissioner brian thank you I'd like to start just by thanking everybody who came out tonight and for all the many messages that I've received if I didn't respond to you they were coming so fast I ran out of time uh I do have a couple of questions for transportation mr judge please I am really concerned about barini drive being able to really handle this traffic it doesn't look like it's as solid as the street that I live on can you comment yes bill judge with transportation I think what you're referring to is more just the pavement structure and the ability to handle traffic it is a city maintained street the our public works department engineering actually is more responsible they reviewed the they not only reviewed the rezoning request but if any developments approved whether it's this one or any other development they would go out in advance of the development evaluate the pavement take an inventory document the existing conditions and then if any damage were done by the construction then they would hold the contractor responsible for that making those repairs thank you for that I just so people know I currently have three development projects going on within one mile of my house and I learned more about large equipment than I ever wanted to know and I was really concerned that bringing this into the area over barini would really tear a barini drive up there are a lot of environmental points and actually historical points about this site one that I only saw mentioned briefly but it happened to be one I was familiar with crossing a portion of this site is a remnant of something that is known as fish damn road fish damn road is historically or actually it's a remnant of a historical roadway it was initially used by the native americans and then by colonial North Carolina the fact that there is a piece remaining and it runs parallel to barini about 200 feet off of it I believe to me this is something that I think should be preserved for future generations uh and uh I just wonder if the developer would have any interest in preserving this to me it could be incorporated into a pedestrian way or something like that so commissioner brine Patrick biker with morning star law group Patrick biker with morning star law group uh commissioner brine will will certainly evaluate that we're not able to commit to anything this evening I am familiar with the concept again having worked with development over the years but I was not aware of that condition that you just brought up and will evaluate it but we're not in a position to make any commitments about this evening okay and a couple of final observations uh I agree with the comments about the elebre quick watershed management plan it doesn't make good sense to me to spend half a million dollars of taxpayer money and then ignore the result of the recommendation and I would add that I believe that the falls lake rules would support the watershed management plan and I'll be quiet for now thank you uh commissioner Whitley Robert um traffic yes sir lyre of a cash is a number of the citizens that um gave testimony said that they asked that more um exit be used so that just spread the traffic weight around and that was denied can you tell us why yes early on we looked at connecting to shockery and also the stony brook and we recommended to the developer that against doing that that it would be better to connect to a road such as barini that has a capacity of 10 000 cars per day so shockery is a small road and that is kind of funny it is real funny I uh I'm just quoting what city city staff gave me as the capacity of the road we evaluated connecting to stony brook as well stony brook intersection those approaches actually operate at e and f and so we felt like given the proximity of a distance that a lot of the traffic from the development would be attracted to that exit and as the gentleman spoke that that neighborhood is not really designed to handle that kind of traffic load coming out and would compound the level service problem there we felt like if we assigned the traffic to barini and then made an improvement at barini and coal mill which has a considerable amount of turning traffic traffic signal will be enhanced and hence safety at that location and enhance ingress egress for not only the residents but also the institutional uses in the area but we did evaluate both both connections to shockery and stony brook and and our advice to them was to connect to barini getting out of the question and you were under an impression that it could it could take the access traffic yes I have no doubt that it will handle the exit traffic from this development easily do you know to your knowledge do you know whether the developer ever been on barini oh I'm absolutely sure he's been on barini thank you yeah thank you I had a chance to let me thank everyone from the community those that sent me mail and those that didn't in fact when I was getting so much mail I thought it was coming up immediately and I want to thank all those that sent me emails and those that didn't um I had an opportunity to go out there and um and before I could depart my car I had already figured out there's no way of development is going to going to be able to handle the traffic on that street no way no and before I could and I wanted to I didn't have the proposal right in front of me and so I wanted to ask someone was I correct in this being an entrance and exit point and I knocked on the door and they came out to tell me exactly where it was and and how it's supposed to be developed and who they have talked to and I was amazed that the developer thought that they could put a project like that in a neighborhood like that without any adverse response and um I um I think this should be um rejected um for three reasons traffic watershed and um and the developers refusal to listen to the community that he wanted to put the project into thank you commissioner quickly commissioner busby thank you madam chair I had a couple questions for mr biker one question that hasn't been explored yet is the um the issue of flooding and stormwater management and I mentioned that earlier tonight in a in a different proposal where they were putting in a text commitment for for no masquerading no clear cutting the photos that we saw earlier I know are not on this site that's correct but they are they're very disturbing and I was interested in hearing your thoughts your plan to adequately capture stormwater as you move forward with this proposal well just want to highlight the fact that there is no flood plain on this site so that's not a that's not a flood plain issue I would like to ask our landscape architect if there's any other issues that we have but our our intention is to pursue the rigorous process of of complying with the city of Durham stormwater ordinance for this location it's a very rigorous process and it is to my knowledge the toughest stormwater ordinance in the in the region if not the entire state therefore given that there is no flood plain on the site it's a a development that I think will comply with those ordinances and therefore because it's a new development it will not add to the pollution situation in in Falls Lake or because the the problem is existing development the pollution that pollution loading that we're experiencing is take any take oxford commons for example just to pick an old shopping center there's no stormwater controls there whatsoever and it's the existing development that was built prior to all of our ordinances that's that's the problem I don't think new development really contributes appreciably to pollution loading in in the watershed water supply basins Bob do you have anything to add on that okay that's I think I think I'd I think I'd respectfully disagree but I I hear your point another another question the you mentioned the the 100 foot buffer from the highway is that along the right of way and I'm wondering there's a pond specifically I think that you're draining and is that part of that buffer Bob's I'm all with McAdams if any portion of it is void of vegetation we would have to vegetate it to the point six opacity okay just just to be clear commissioner that is 100 feet completely within the property of that that's under consideration none of it is counting what's in the existing right okay great thank you and I'll echo my other commissioners I've heard from many probably all of you and and interestingly enough the this rivals the commitments or the the comments that I've heard from folks around the Cornwallis development as well which had a lot of similar issues these are the two I've heard the most about in my two plus years on the commission I share very similar concerns I think concerns about water quality runoff issues traffic issues this doesn't in my opinion fit with the neighboring landscape and as mr. Drepps from the Ellerby Creek watershed association pointed out it does seem like this is the wrong approach when we're making investments just upstream this I believe we'll counteract that so I plan to vote no thank you commissioner busby and I'm going to turn to my right I'll start with commissioner Gibbs and other individuals on this side who would like to speak commissioner winders kitchen commissioners okay and then all right commissioner Gibbs well this has been a long drawn out conversation and I fully expected the outcome that I think we are all expecting I would like to echo what commissioner busby just said that the protest petitions are not legal but what you folks have done and what the folks at cornwallis road have done when you speak out we listen and that's why I never really thought protest petitions were all that great anyway but at any rate I I'm not going to keep belaboring all of the points because everything has been covered I'm familiar with it with the area and I don't I don't think this is a good good fit for the area in fact I I am a real supporter of what we're having to do with the water quality in the whole area regardless of what the general assembly has done in the watershed back down to where we are and beyond uh Durham has well we're in Hock or will be starting from the middle of town through the uh where the OYMCA is now that is in a floodplain uh nothing has been done yet while that that building sits and rots and could be used as a community recreation center but that's another issue but I wanted to put that in but to make a long story short regardless of its impact on the community I would not support it simply because it it is in the watershed and I would hope that the city would turn it into a park or that would protect it from even rs 20 it's just a beautiful area uh that's that's my comments yes thank you very much um after uh first um again to all those persons who have come come here on this evening uh certainly and for those who have certainly um contacted us I certainly want to say that um as you might know quite a few trees died and we we got your point um and that was my my point much earlier um as they say out in the midwest um you don't have to eat an entire cow to know you've eaten some beef and that was my point all right and as we say when you're winning take your win okay I do want to say that I certainly um echo what Commissioner Gibbs has noted um in that um you know I believe in smart growth um but also you have to also respect the impact that developments have on communities and I know what folk in my neighborhood would say um to a project like this and certainly you have to think along those lines um so um for that reason for um not only the valuation and impact on the property value that I noted three main points that helped me to craft out my idea three that's all too valuation impact traffic and the density issues and so I think those three um key points will very well said very well made uh and so and for that reason of course I too will be um voting um against this project thank you commissioner van commissioner winders would like to also thank everybody for for the amount of information that you provided not just what your opinion is and what your feelings were but the actual information um and um I I um including uh Patrick biker's comments about uh uh the style changes in style of development uh and maybe um uh I didn't I didn't understand it as being that these houses were built in world war two but the the separation of land uses uh you know is like the old style development I have no problem with uh I consider this low density development you know 3.7 is low density development and I don't see anything wrong with having townhouses across the street from from you know million-dollar homes you know uh but but um in fact I think that's a good kind of design I think we need to have mixed incomes and mix socioeconomic uh groups living as neighbors uh and I would like to approve vote in favor of this this development for that reason but I do see problems with the with the transportation and um that all the traffic's going out this one street and I'm not uh and I'm not uh so uh is it a collector street um but or is it just a residential street with speed bumps all over it you know collector streets don't usually have speed bumps on them I don't think but uh and you know so there's no other place for it to go well that was a failure of planning in the past sometime you know there should be if we're going to use this property for residential development there should be a way to get to it you know um and so that's a concern and I think that um uh maybe barini drive could be made to be adequate or something you know but but it doesn't make it doesn't seem like good design for an 80 acre development to have all the traffic going out one street it seems like that's going to be traffic unpleasantness within the development you know uh but um then the the uh I have real concerns about this the stormwater and um I haven't heard that claim about how tough our stormwater uh regulations are too much uh lately since the cornwallis uh development kind of uh blew that one out of the water I think we don't hear about it so much but I live close to the same developments that mr brine where mr brine lives and although the rules were followed parkwood lake is completely destroyed by those developments on 54 thank you commissioner winders commissioner kitchen uh yes I won't believe with the point either I just will say that uh I live within uh two miles of about four developments um and I think uh it's not good I'm all for growth uh but not for growth it doesn't make sense I think we need smart growth and even if no one has showed up there were no emails um no opposition I couldn't vote for this because it's just didn't feel to be a good development so I would hope that the developer goes back and uh reconsidered and uh listens to all the feedback from commissioners and puts forth something that we can support because this does not uh good for doing in my opinion thank you and commissioner miller thank you madam chairman uh I did have a question really quickly for whoever can answer it what is because our packet doesn't actually tell us uh the traffic impact analysis traffic counts for barini drive what did what numbers did you come up with we got cold mill road but we didn't get barini the volume we uh we counted during the summer the ADT we did for the speed count was about eleven and twelve hundred uh if you adjust it to october counts is about fourteen hundred to fifteen hundred vehicles per day all right thank you very much so I have four major concerns about this development and before I go over those very quickly I want to say that I think one of the truest things that was said here today is what mr biker observed to us is that Durham's big green fields available for any kind of development are rapidly diminishing they're still out there but we're seeing lots and lots of development that's now being proposed for properties that were passed over by developers earlier because of problems uh cornwall's road we've talked about that that's a property that has had problems this property uh is an incredible piece of property and has been used but it is not just an open field it has problems it's trapped it's it's caught up between the interstate and surrounding neighborhoods and it doesn't have very good uh uh access uh for a lot of reasons and I know we've talked about that today and and I'll go over that so I think that what we need to do is when we use the pdr uh which is what we use for almost all new residential development we really need to use the flexibility and our ability to craft commitments in pdr to exploit these previously passed over parcels to come up with sensible development that takes account parcel by parcel the special features and limitations and work within those it's not so much a question about how many units we put on an acre it's how we use the acres and what's already there and that's what's not happening in the development proposals for pdr that we see we get these pdr proposals we get development plans that have very few commitments more commitments could make me feel better about approving these developments show me that the developer sees what's on the land show me that the developer is coping with the problems that caused the earlier generation of developers to pass this one up for a better and easier piece of property somewhere else if we can do that i'll be voting for these but we're not and we have good guidance in our planning documents we just need to exploit these things i notice that the in the staff report my good friends on the planning staff said oh well we've the proposal meets most of the requirements in the comprehensive plan but at no point do they cite any of the goals or policies out of chapter four which is all about good residential design i just don't see how we can keep doing that we need to expect more from pdr we need to expect more from other development plan required development plan zones like mixed use etc so my four problems are barini drive so we just learned that it's about 1400 adjusted trips per day this is going to add around a thousand i won't quibble 600 800 that's well it's going to have a lot of extra trips per day that's a big jump and that's that's not what these folks expected and so we need we can't add i agree that you don't want to add an access over chockery it's a it's a lousy idea you don't want to cut through these the neighborhood next door and therefore took the only way to cope with the property is to reduce the number of units that we propose to build on the property and order to be able to have two neighborhoods that work together i do not like the idea that we have to buffer one residential neighborhood against another residential neighborhood in order to say that we have compatibility of land use development patterns we should not have to build a buffer between one single family neighborhood and another single family neighborhood if buffers are necessary that's a sign that something's wrong um lrb creek i was stunned when it was explained to me we we get a version of the developer plant so small i can't read the print i was done to discover that that the developer poses proposes to grade away the stream and the pond but doesn't include some description to make me feel good some description of the stormwater measures that they propose to put in there and when they say oh well we'll comply with the code that's not enough we have development plant we have a development plan we can craft committed elements i want commitments tell me what you propose to do and where you propose to put it this is a special piece of property let's deal with it with special requirements i-85 i live in an i-85 neighborhood i live in wats hospital hillondale i-85 was uh four lanes when i moved there it's now 12 lanes and we uh got the uh d-o-t in the city of derm to build a wall and the neighborhoods that were already existed we got a wall and thank goodness we did it a hundred feet sounds like a lot my lot in a r yet uh an r u five neighborhood my lot is 110 feet wide and you're talking about essentially the width of one residential lot as the buffer here a buffer they don't and and if there's an opacity figure did i hear you say six patrick i didn't see it in the development plan but it's so little i i could have easily missed it so i don't think that's enough uh nobody wants to live near i-85 i was on this property with uh mr anderson's permission here just last week and you get over there it's noisy it's wide it's noisy it's level something more is required and i don't understand the philosophy says we're going to put the townhouses up close to the interstate if an area is not a good place for people to live why do we put more people living there i don't understand that philosophy i don't think there should be townhouses in this unit since we need to read in this development since we need to reduce the number of units anyway to control the traffic impact then let's kill the townhouse part of it um and then ultimately design this is really matters to me we have lots of fine words in the uh udo and in the comprehensive plan about good design especially residential design but we don't seem to mean it because we do not insist that development plan contain commitments for good design because they're absent here i have to vote against it and it's not just this one from now on i've learned a lot in two years on the planning commission and this kind of area of practice of law is kind of what i did but i've learned a lot uh from here on out if if a development plan for a pdr comes up and it doesn't talk about how it's going to accomplish good design then it's not going to get my vote we need a better development plan submitted at the time of rezoning applications so that's what's going to guide me i will vote for a good development on this piece of part land when it comes along i will but this isn't it i hope maybe that it can be uh so thank you very much miss madam chairman i appreciate the opportunity to address these folks and i very much thank the input that they've given us over the last year thank you commissioner thank you commissioner miller and i would just like to make one brief statement before i actually call for a motion um and um a vote and i would just like to thank all of you for the opportunity to visit your community um i did have one major major concern it's already been mentioned and it was barini i stood with the number of residents on that street on the side so that i could actually get a feel for what you were experiencing and what would happen if you experienced more so i wanted to at least let all of you know i took that information in at that time and all of this information is being taken under advisement at this time so i'm going to ask for a motion oh i'm sorry do you have um i would like if you will permit a couple more comments real quick yes i agree with mr biker on one thing and that is is that Durham stormwater requirements are very good but these are the stormwater facilities that are built when the development is completely constructed the big concern and commissioner wanders sort of referred to it is what happens during grading and construction because that's when the disaster that really hurt parkwood took place clearing was done grading was started torrential range came stormwater systems failed mud was everywhere so i think we need to be really careful about stormwater during the construction phase and the second point which has sort of been referred to by others um i do believe that a pdr could work on this property but this density to me is just too high thank you commissioner freeman i also would like to echo uh commissioner brine's comment and winders and saying that it it definitely doesn't fit for this neighborhood and i recognize and i want to thank all of you as a commissioner whitley mentioned that sent the mail and didn't send mail and emails and and all but uh i also want to acts of the commissioners to also have the same uh view in reviewing all future projects including those where folks don't show up and making sure that you recognize that for east dorm i think commissioner whitley and commissioner huff there's hope because east dorm has plenty of land that needs to be developed thank you commissioner whitley commissioner huff i didn't thank you guys for all of the letters and all of the information because and and the information that you spoke about tonight it really was important and determining my decision i mean i have a lot of aesthetic reasons why i do not like this project i don't like this kind of cookie cutter housing but um but thank you for the madam chair i move forward a motion that we send forward case z one five zero zero zero three nine with a favorable recommendation uh noting as we heard at the beginning we make all recommendations as a favorable recommendation i will vote against that favorable recommendation second the second and uh that we move the barini drive assemblage a z one five zero zero zero three nine forward with a favorable recognition all in favor of this motion let it be known by raising your right hand i'm not all in favor of this motion let it be known by raising your right hand all opposed okay the motion to approve fails love into zero our clerk our clerk is trying to announce the vote the motion fails love into zero thank you madam chairman may we have a uh five minute recess definitely you all picked the wrong one for me it was like huge huge i mean look today you guys decided you were going to be funny not that i'm in any hurry look i want to make all right let's get back in it's like where are my folks commissioners we need to call this break everybody start heading back to the podium commissioner willy is we need to call the meeting uh to order our next item on the agenda public hearing zoning map change and we're down to mose tavern item number z one six zero zero five staff good evening again my name is Mike good evening again my name is Kyle Taylor the planning department and i will be presenting zoning case z 15 z 16 0005 most tavern this probably applicant for this project is Howard a partner with culture fuel teams pa this project is located within the county the request is to go from rs 10 to cn this project does not involve a development plan the acreage for this property is 0.455 acres this is a portion of a 0.667 acre parcel it is just the back portion of this property that is being rezoned at the front part of this property is already zoned cn the proposed use for this project is a 12 by 12 bathroom addition this request to to rezone is that like i said earlier a designation of 0.455 acres of a 0.677 acre tract the site is located within the rules here in the county and is located with the mlrb watershed protection overlay as you can see by the existing conditions this site is currently developed as a commercial property this property is located within the commercial future land use map designation and it is consistent with future land use map and as such staff determines that this request is consistent with comprehensive planning ordinances and other adoptive policies thank you and staff is available for any questions okay i only have one individual sign up to speak and um mr dan jewel good evening madam chair and fellow commissioners i am dan jewel uh president of culture jewel thames 111 west main street in durham uh as as kyle said this is a rezoning of a portion of this property the bulk of which is already zoned cn the back portion is zoned residential we are here tonight simply because uh mr billie lane and his family who have owned the property that most tavern is on for many many years the uh the the tavern had operated for many years with a privy as the restroom facility uh years ago he upgraded to port a portal it's uh but very recently he decided and possibly with a little nudging from the health department that that it needed to be upgraded a little bit more so he proceeded to start working on a real bathroom addition on the back of the building when his contractors went to get permits they were of course told that they needed a site plan approval for this little 12 by 12 addition of course um and then staff further discovered that the zoning line between the cn district and the residential district exactly followed the back wall of the existing tavern building meaning the addition was in the residential portion meaning it couldn't be built there without being rezoned so the reason we are here tonight is to allow him to have a a compliant zoning district so he can then go for a site plan to get a compliant site plan for his bathroom addition and have that permitted and occupied uh he could i couldn't have said it better myself thank you mr miller keep in mind that uh this is a a piece of property rougemont does not have public water and sewer it will be on well in septic he he was able to work with the health department and put a creative little septic system in to handle this bathroom addition um i i did note that uh mr judge in the staff report said there would potentially be an increase of like 2,500 car trips or something like that but that's because there's not a development plan he had to figure the worst case scenario i can assure that you there will not be a sheets at this location without public water and sewer out there so and also one final little thing even though the property immediately to the rest the west is zoned residential if any of you have been out there or looked on street view you will notice that that residential lot actually has one of our fine county convenience centers and if you've never visited a county convenience center what it is is a collection of large construction dumpsters and recycling bins so that those county residents who do not have uh public access to having trash collected at their site can bring all their trash out and put it in the back so we don't feel that there will be any any harm to an adjacent residence for that reason that was probably a much more long-winded presentation than i needed to give uh happy to answer any questions and we would ask that you recommend approval and move this forward to the county commissioners not the city council thank you very much thank you mr jewel we're going to close the public hearing and bring this matter back before the commissioners well is there an additional staff comment yeah i forgot to mention at the beginning of my presentation that mr julie is correct there is one typo on the staff report the property to the west is currently identified in the staff report as a single-family residential home he is correct it is a solid waste facility for the county of Durham thank you and so noted so we will move the hearing to give the commissioners an opportunity to speak i'm going to start with commissioner huff and commissioner gosh i just want to say i live out there i want moes to have a bathroom okay uh when i saw the staff report and i saw the 2,500 plus trips i thought man this can be some bathroom but i'm glad you explained it to me thanks dad are the other commissioners who would like to speak commissioner busby just that this seems fine to me i just wanted to be able to say as a fan of the simpson's most tavern and a public hearing so i'm good thank you other commissioners commissioner gibbs yeah and this is just a comment i i spoke to dan well ago and i have i haven't been there but i've been by there when they were having fun so it's uh even well they need the restroom thank you commissioner gibbs other commissioners i'm going to call for the vote i mean call for the motion madam chair i move that we send case z16 0005 forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation make it a second that with commissioner huff this is actually going to the board of county commissioners not the city council yes this one i apologize that's what i meant board of county commissioners um motion by commissioner miller second by commissioner huff that we send most tavern item z16 0005 forward to the county commissioners with a favorable uh recommendation all in favor of this motion let it be known by showing your right hand the motion carries 12 to 0 thank you so much we're ready for the next item commission commissioner hyman um as i am a resident of golden bell i'm just going to excuse myself i'm thinking make a motion madam chair i rec uh i move that we uh allow uh commission member freeman to disqualify herself for conflict of interest because she lives within the notice area of the zoning case as a someone who always has to recuse himself i will gladly second this motion strict item numbers on x100 0004 we'll hear from staff good evening i'm lisa miller with the planning department i just wanted to give a brief introduction uh to the consultants who've been working on this project i also will be available for questions and additional information after they give their presentation but synthia de maranda and jennifer martin from mdm historical consultants have been retained by the city to prepare the golden bell local historic preservation plan and boundary and they are here to present that information to you now thanks good evening i'm jennifer martin from mdm historical consultants uh as lisa mentioned we are here tonight to introduce the golden bell local historic district preservation plan we will outline the work that we undertook for the project summarize the purpose and process of local historic district designation and present the findings of our work to you golden bell is a historic mixed-use neighborhood east of downtown durham it was established starting with several factory buildings in 1901 and grew in the first couple of decades of the 20th century to include the factory buildings themselves residential properties in a mill village and a commercial district the three elements that make up a classic textile mill village such villages once constituted a good portion of durham neighborhoods but most of them have suffered too much loss of individual historic resources to retain integrity edgemont once immediately south of golden bell had lost so many buildings by the 1980s that it didn't qualify as a national register historic district golden bell did qualify and was listed in the national register of historic places in 1985 it retains its historic and architectural integrity even today in fact rehabilitation of the mill buildings and some of the dwellings had improved the historic integrity by reopening bricked up window openings and uncovering original historic fabric residents concerned about continued preservation of this remarkable resource this record of durham's historical development petitioned in 2010 to have the city designate golden belt a local historic district that petition led to this project that we are here to discuss tonight up on the screen i have a timeline of the project of some brief overview again in 2010 the petition from the residents in january of last year the city released an rfp seeking a consultant to prepare a preservation plan for golden belt in june we were hired to prepare the plan we are a durham-based woman owned business by the way in july of 2015 mdm and the city planning staff held a public meeting at golden belt in the factory to introduce residents and interested citizens to the project telling them what the the plan was for the project the purpose of the project and in november of 2015 we submitted our draft plan to the city planning staff who offered comments on that draft we then submitted a final draft plan in early 2016 in january and march of this year we held more public meetings to present the plan to the public in april of this year the historic preservation commission recommended the plan for approval so briefly let me tell you what local historic districts are it is a type of zoning applied to an area of special historic architectural prehistoric or cultural significance that possesses integrity of design setting materials feeling and association it's created using the same procedures used to change the zoning on a parcel or parcels it's formed after the approval of an investigation and a report that describes the significance of the building structures sites and features and boundaries of the district and that report is called the preservation plan the zoning requires that the property owners or residents obtain a certificate of appropriateness known also as a coa before undertaking any exterior alterations to their property uh in durham we have several local historic districts all of them are mainly residential except for our downtown durham historic district so in durham the historic preservation commission manages changes to the exterior appearance in local historic districts the historic preservation commission consists of nine members and has several duties including to review and recommend planning and zoning commission modifications to boundaries of existing districts or the addition of new districts the preservation commission also reviews and revises the design guidelines which are the basis for evaluating cases that come to them for coas and in general the historic preservation commission's role in the community is to inform the public of the importance of the historic resources through education sending out leaflets about historic districts and historic resources and finally to hear and decide requests for certificates of appropriateness within local districts submitted by owners of properties in those districts on matters that exceed the planning staff's authority so a coa is a document stating that the proposed work is appropriate to the historic district and meets the local review criteria when golden belt becomes a local historic district property owners wishing to alter or change the exterior of a building structure or site in the district will be required to obtain that coa before pulling permits and beginning work i'm going to turn it over to my partner Cynthia de moranda hello everyone i'm Cynthia de moranda with mdm historical consultants um and now i'm going to take us back to the golden belt project itself our task as consultants was to update all the documentation of the golden belt district creating in the process an inventory of all the individual properties that compose the district and also to write a preservation plan in anticipation of golden belt's designation as a local historic district so the work broke down into the following tasks we photographed every building structure and site in the golden in golden belt and we researched the resources through interviews with residents and documentary sources and also files at the state historic preservation office and historic maps the files containing information we created files containing information on each resource and submitted them to the city and to the state historic preservation office we wrote a history and description of the district and delineated a boundary for the local district that included the greatest concentration of historic resources associated with golden belt that retains sufficient architectural and historic integrity to demonstrate the district's significance and we conducted public meetings to inform residents and citizens of the preservation plan and of the program the process all together and to get feedback from them on all aspects of the document golden belt qualifies as a district because of its history as a mill village which jennifer talked about it remains today the city's most intact historic mill village and it qualifies as well because of its architecture which includes romanesque revival factory buildings and simple but nicely detailed mill housing in both early 20th century vernacular and in craftsman styles the commercial district includes buildings in the vernacular commercial style which was common to business districts in Durham and across the state these maps that you see on the screen are pages from the 1913 sandborn fire insurance map showing all the buildings in the area that were built at that at that time up to that date and you can see that while the village wasn't even fully built out you can you can tell the extent of the historic mill village and villages were a type of development that characterized Durham in the early 20th century now an important component of the plan given the requirements of local historic district status are to come up with an appropriate boundary for the local historic district and that this boundary does not have to correspond with the national register historic district boundary that was established back in the 1980s so we drew the boundary seen here through research and survey of the area this boundary closely follows the full extent of the neighborhood once it was fully built out in the historic period and that historic period is defined as the period when the company the golden belt company was still driving development of the village and the plant the company built all the houses and because the houses were there and the factory was there that sort of drove development of the commercial area so we define the historic period as as the one when when the company was still adding to the mill village and maintaining control over all the ownership control over all the houses so of course there have been changes in this district over time some buildings have been demolished and others have been abandoned and then rehabilitated landscaping and roadways have changed all the roads have been paved and retaining walls have been built and allston avenue of course will soon be widened but despite these alterations both those that have been made and those that are anticipated one still feels strongly the sense of place and the historic integrity of the milling village this is the Durham typical Durham development story of the early 20th century and and this is the very best representative of this type of industrial residential and commercial development left in Durham the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office concurred stating in a letter dated April 1 2016 that even areas that had suffered some loss of resources still retained historic and architectural integrity and concluded that all together the mill housing and surviving commercial buildings are Durham's most intact mill village and as such represents a highly significant aspect of the city's development the latter part being a quote from their letter so despite these changes there are many many constants in this district the richard sony and romanesque buildings of the factory plant remain and many have been rehabilitated and thanks to this excellently excellently executed rehabilitation several buildings really look great now and they're fully occupied the village comprises modest single family dwellings with architectural detail ranging from simplified derivations of the queen and style to rather stylish versions of craftsmen bungalows some of these have likewise been rehabilitated as seen in the slide here and there is also some new construction by Habitat for Humanity which replicates the look of the original houses the commercial district still borders the south end of the village as it always did and it overlooks east main street with the classic vernacular commercial storefronts that we saw a few slides back views and vistas through the village to the plant remain and that's a reminder that this was a company village historically where all the residents once had a strong economic tie to the large factory at its west end which you can see if you follow the view up the road you can see the factory buildings at the end of that street so the combination and retention and preservation retains the strong sense of place throughout the proposed boundary and as we've mentioned already the project offered opportunities for public input throughout the process and one comment that we got was from a property owner that requested that the far eastern block of morning glory and worth streets not be included in the district details and a map showing all of this were included in the staff report and we considered this request but ultimately we found that the historic and the architectural integrity was intact throughout the whole area as it was throughout the district throughout this area as it was throughout the whole district and therefore preservation of the golden belt neighborhood was best served by including the area in the boundary similarly the work on alston avenue will introduce a wider street and will shut off some of the circulation patterns throughout the area but it will not present a significant visual impact within the district the strength of the village's integrity overrides the proposed changes to the street some small areas that were historically part of the district have been drawn out of this local district boundary because no buildings remain on the block face as in the case on the north side of the east end of taylor street you can see taylor street is the northern most boundary right at the east end and so there were originally houses on the other side of that block they've all been demolished and now it's part of the school property and then there was also another isolated property south of elm street and that building has also since been demolished so those two areas we drew out of the local historic district boundary throughout the project in conversation with neighborhood property owners residents and stakeholders we developed a goal for the local historic district which drove development of the preservation plan and also the the boundary the establishment of the boundary and the goal of the golden belt historic district is to achieve and maintain an inclusive affordable mixed-use neighborhood with an understanding of and appreciation for its historic and architectural heritage which is preserved and displayed in its buildings landscape and layout using this goal as a touchstone we developed the historic preservation strategies in the plan specific to golden belt and its particular character our policies and recommendations center on the following five elements educating the residents and property owners about the history of the neighborhood and about preservation and rehabilitation of historic properties providing technical assistance with regard to preservation and appropriate rehab publicizing the availability of financial incentives including the historic preservation rehab tax credits do that are available due to the nr national register listing regulating exterior alterations and new construction according to the design criteria recently adopted and recommendations specific to golden belt to augment those design criteria and relating to ways to promote affordability through established and perhaps new city programs including developing new public private partnerships we feel that the focus on education and technical assistance in maintaining an inclusive nature to the neighborhood will help in maintaining the inclusive nature because sometimes preservation can be intimidating to residents or property owners who may not be acquainted with good preservation practices similarly letting folks know about the financial incentives that are already available due to the national register listing can help with regard to updating or improving existing buildings use of the design criteria and the additional recommendations for alterations and new construction of course are meant to maintain and possibly recover the historic appearance of the district the latter can also help keep modest single family dwellings in this area perhaps protecting some of the stock of modestly sized housing this is a trend we're starting to see throughout Durham neighborhoods i'm sure you're all aware where a lot of modestly sized sort of workforce quality housing is being demolished and replaced with much much larger houses so if you've seen here most of the dwellings were historically very small many were a single story with just a few rooms originally bathrooms were even added after original construction these were all built with privies in the backyard and other other buildings especially the ones built later were story and a half or two stories but they were still modestly sized so with this combination of recommendations policies and the design criteria for local districts we believe that this plan can further the preservation goal of the district and help protect the architectural and historic legacy of the golden belt mill village as Durham continues its evolution from an industrial to a post-industrial city so we do ask that you send this forward to the city council with a recommendation for its approval thank you very much do i have any individuals who sign up to speak okay here it is thank you thank you okay i have mr john martin yes schedule to speak yes i'm ready for you good evening my name is john martin i live at 401 east trinity avenue in old north durham i'm a former resident of golden belt at 1005 morning glory avenue and when i was a resident of golden belt i was one of the people who helped initiate and submit petitions to create a local historic district um let me just say a little bit about golden belt it is still a fragile neighborhood that needs your protection when i say it's a fragile neighborhood what i mean by that is very simple when i bought my house at morning glory avenue it had been vacant for several years there had been a fire it was boarded up nobody was living in it i restored the house i moved in and when i moved in i was the only person living on my block next to me was a boarded up house owned by the durham housing authority which was trying to get rid of it across the street was a boarded up house owned by lee ray bergman rentals up on the corner was a house owned by a guy who thought he was restoring it there were a couple of empty lots on that block as well where there had once been houses that had been torn down by the city of durham right fortunately things have improved i mean miracles have happened um lee ray bergman even his family i should say even fixed up that rental house and basically at least on the exterior did it to historic standards and people are living in the house the house next door was bought by an owner occupant and is fixed up um and people are living in it the house on the corner is now fixed up um but these are modest houses um and they are therefore affordable housing that is close to downtown um and the temptation is going to be very simple if it doesn't get this local district protection people will tear them down right and build um magnanians i say i live in old north durham within a couple of blocks of me in the last six months three houses small houses have been torn down and new houses are going up we talk about gentrification what we're doing here is preservation but preservation on a scale that is historically um appropriate and is also affordable right i hope that you will give this your vote of support to protect this neighborhood thank you thank you mr merton um the next individual is eileen morgan good evening it's a long been a long evening i'm eileen morgan i live at 725 quiet woods place and i've been a resident of durham for about 16 years and in this day and age of um cookie cutter development and with our desire in our in our city to have more mixed used areas this is like a gem so i do support it i do have some concerns that i'd like to place on the table and i know i've heard some of these from some of you so i'm kind of preaching to the choir but this is an area that from my understanding has suffered economic dis in disinvestment over the decades and so the incentives for folks with this you know designation are really going to be helpful i believe but with you know mirroring the comments from the prior gentleman gentrification sometimes is not good for the neighbors so to speak and so you know i guess i would like to have you keep on the table um concerns for not taxing people out of their homes you know that there needs to be more incentives to help people as their property values rise that they not be taxed out of their homes and i really support the efforts of the education that's planned for this community i think it's a good thing for Durham but i really hate to see people being moved out of their neighborhoods because things get too expensive for them so thank you very much thank you the next individual on any task to question about this because i'm going to move from the fours to those who are against there is a strikeover for mary jone mandel so was this name taken off the list okay so let's move on to the next one jared eden thank you jared eden's here with eden's landcourt but i'm not here as a i'm here to speak on the Durham rescue mission's property that's owned at the corner of a morning glory and holman and along austin avenue i'm not here and they're a client of mine i'm not here as a paid consultant tonight i'm here as someone who has seen what the rescue mission has done over the past seven years that we've been doing work with them you know we watched the main block just south of um main street you know we we got to we got to see that the center for hope being built we designed that permitted that it's a 20 000 square foot structure that provides housing for homeless people in Durham i've just seen a lot of the things that the rescue mission is doing so i'm all about flexibility for the rescue mission because currently the mission is probably housing about 50 percent of Durham's homeless they accept zero public dollars for doing that so they're providing a huge public benefit and even though they've been offered public money over the years by Durham county to say hey let us help you they don't accept public money it's privately funded privately raised and they've built are building a campus there that's housing so many homeless people and people that have drug and alcohol addictions there so i'm not in favor i'm not against the district at all i'm not trying to affect mr martin's property or any of the property owners who want to be in the historic district but i am against imposing a district on an organization that is doing so much good in the community that inevitably is going to impose more restrictions on what they want to do in the future and it's going to incur added cost due to those restrictions in the future there's just no way around it it's hard enough in Durham to get plans approved and zonings and things like that but if you've got a nonprofit that's doing such good for the community that's also going to have to go get a certificate of appropriateness and do extra architectural commitments and things that just add cost to a nonprofit that's housing half of our homeless people i just don't agree with that so i would ask i'm here as a citizen who's seen the good works that they do and i would just ask that that block and a half in the staff report be removed from the district which has no impact on anyone other than the Durham rescue mission thank you and the next individual i have is some rob i'm tart okay good evening my name is rob tart i'm the chief operating officer of the Durham rescue mission um the Durham rescue mission has been there since 1974 long before any of this stuff was on the table and as it's already been expressed by jared we uh we just want to express our desire to not be a part of this we're not against what everybody else wants to do if they want their property to be done this way praise the lord we're not opposed to it we're we would probably support it if it didn't include us into it um everything on the east side where we are um it's full of i mean much of the she she talked about all the stock that's left much of the stock since 1985 when the first designation was was made much of that is gone you know that much of the commercial area is gone there's only i think two structures left and much of the property we have about 25 properties in this designated area so we're not just one voice we're like 25 voices and um it's just not something that we want to be a part of it doesn't help us it doesn't accomplish anything we're a nonprofit the tax incentives aren't there for us and it's only going to put an undue burden on the Durham rescue mission which is already hard to uh to meet the needs actually he mentioned it's 50 percent of the home it's actually 64 percent of the homelessness in the last uh point in time count done in 2015 i haven't seen the others uh then the 2016 has been released yet and uh so we just want to express that you know praise the lord for whatever anybody else wants to do but please don't put this on the Durham rescue mission thank you okay are the others should like to speak to this issue yes hello i'm addressing you as a citizen of this neighborhood and um president of the neighborhood association and i just want to make sure that you are very well aware that my neighbors across austin avenue have been veniment about being included in the historic district which is why we requested that the zone that the neighborhood remain intact completely as they've mentioned um this is the last of one of the few intact mill villages and you can't preserve history with with large chunks taken out as uh it was previously state if you took out those 25 units i mean what's left so i mean i just it's just um interesting that you know the Durham rescue mission with all the good works that they do praise the lord um if you dismiss those same neighbors that they have um in this would be useless okay i think we're ready to close the public hearing and bring the matter before the commissioners for discussion i'm going to start to my right and uh commissioner gauche uh commissioner brine commissioner whittly commissioner miller commissioner kitchen and commissioner Gibbs in that order okay thank you madam chair um i want to speak on this primarily about the Durham rescue mission property um i think that this golden bell area is generally speaking a very desirable area that you know to preserve and i i will say that that's not always the case i think when it comes to historic preservation districts sometimes i feel that there are structures within a district that aren't really worth preserving um however the the golden bell district is i mean is a is a very intact nice example of um you know what i think historic district ought to be that being said uh i could not agree more with what this gentleman in the back said and what jared eden's mentioned um which is that the Durham rescue mission has provided a a huge benefit to this city and part of that is because of the flexibility that you know they they invest in property and part of that investment does i mean they do consider the flexibility of that property how it can be used these properties that that they've requested to be out while i recognize that they may appropriately define the historic significance of this area they're owned by the Durham rescue mission i think we should keep in mind that they own those properties bought those properties when no one else would and they have maintained them since that time um and i think a lot of credit should be given to them for that and you know and it says a lot about their investment in the community to suggest that by not by to suggest that because they do not want to be in the district they are not committed to the community i think is naive um but at any rate i i am all in favor of this district as uh as modified in this report to fit the Durham rescue mission's requested boundary and i just i will vote in favor of it in that way thank you well first of all i want to thank the consultants and the staff for putting together this plan i enjoyed reading it because it taught me things about Durham that i didn't know before so thank you for that i do have a question for the Durham rescue mission um i noticed according to the detailed inventory that was taken uh quite a number of the lots in the area that you would like to be exempted are vacant and i just want to know what your plans for those lots are well we have no definitive plans we have in the past discussed some things of some housing down there i think nothing hard nothing in stone we would like to see a community center some kind of civic center there that the community could use but that would be something that sounds to me that would be a little bit different from the current characteristic of the historic district as i said all our plans that we once had were were were shot down we we have done everything we can to comply with golden belt and their desires and i mean they they have resisted everything we've tried to do over the past seven years and we have been over backwards we've moved the buildings we wanted to build we've done everything we can do um we just don't have any desire to build some historic homes i mean it's hard to raise money as it is now to go raise money to build a historic home i mean i might you might as well shoot me with a gun i mean i mean it's just crazy to ask us to do that it's it's not possible okay well you've you've answered my question so thank you commissioner Whitley the Durham rescue mission has served Durham well and they've done it on their own dime they have taken in the least of these when there was no room anyplace else when you talk about affordable housing they did that you can't get any better than free can't be less affordable than free and not only did they do that they produced some of the finest citizens in our city now why they made a decision i'm all for it being a historical district but why would you make a decision to um to shed out a contributor to our community puzzles me it really puzzles me you know um they were doing it when no one else would do it i have a question for the consultants um i noticed that you you added into your development area but it's blank that's part of whole sixes and i i'm sorry can you tell me what page on hoban and morning glory i tried to contact the housing authority to find out what there was i noticed in your package that was not it was not mentioned hope six was not mentioned and i didn't see a letter from the housing authority saying that they will be resent let's give can we get some clarification on what page you're talking about and what exact area you're referring to so i think what you're talking about is actually outside of the district but i'm not certain if you wouldn't mind helping us yeah well along angie avenue beginning in the 1400 block going up until the 1600 block the hosiery mill and the hope six area to the south of the district right okay um is um hope six and um it's land that when we carved out hope six that would um where we would put affordable housing and if this stops hope six i can't vote for it although i'm a champion of golden belt you know but there are two things in play here one that you've disrespected a um an entity in our community that contributes on a daily basis and you're making it more difficult for them to continue to serve our community and the second is this whole this whole planet commission is for affordable housing how can we be afford for affordable housing when we're going to make it difficult for developers like the housing authority to build so i you know i believe the area that you're talking about along angier it's not included in golden belt and i'm i'm not sure if you i think your question was why is it not included i was a little unclear well i'll reserve until i get an answer um that because i'm sure it's going when it gets to the city council they will ask the same question you know um and if not i would well i'm sure someone's going to give them a call and let them know okay well i i believe the area you're discussing is not included in this plan and the reason it's not included in this plan is because historically it was not part of golden belt it was a separate mill village called the edgemont mill village these two mill villages once you know it was destroyed by whole six that means it is part of whole six but it's it was not historically that area was not historically part of golden belt so it's not an area that we were commissioned to study as part of this project okay so i believe your question was why was it why did we not look at it and that's the reason we did not look at it my first i i mean what Ernie Mills has done with rescue mission um and anything to it would stop them from continuing to do that i find close thank you commissioner Whitley and um mr. gosh has enough an additional question okay i'll just want to make sure before i move to the okay commissioner gives commissioner gives okay thank you uh i have a question for the consultants and i i really did appreciate the report as well and i don't want to make this a referendum on uh how great the doing rescue mission is no one can dispute the work they've done um and that's not really my place to dispute or discount what they've done um my question though is um you you guys did a survey to determine the boundary for the district and you determined you have a recommendation on how that boundary should look and what it should be talk talk to me about that how'd you come up with that boundary and why did you discount or why did you not include exclude rather the uh the rescue mission um when you did the survey and you just established the boundary for the district why does that make sense why did we not exclude yeah just talk to me about the the surveys and the whole development of the boundary and why you decided to exclude tonight exclude right um from the uh from the boundary so the survey itself was jennifer and me walking around the whole district and taking a photograph or a few photographs of every property in the district um and also taking notes on the um appearance and and what we were really noting was um the architectural character how much architectural character was intact how much had the building been changed um and then we wrote a brief description of each property each building in the district and that constituted our survey we compared that information to um older architectural surveys that had been done in the 1980s because that was a record of what the area looked like in the 1980s when the plant was still working um and then we compared that as well to maps like that 1913 map that was in our presentation that showed what was what had been built by 1913 there was also some other older photographs that we uh that we saw that showed what the area looked like in intervening years so we looked at all of that information um as part of the survey and the research then we also met with property owners stakeholders and we met with the Durham rescue mission i believe i had something like a three-hour meeting with them and they showed me their full facility and um you know we we talked about their work and what they do and they talked about um not in any specific terms but in general terms about um perhaps what they'd like to do with that property that that is you know most of the most of the area that they're currently using well i don't i don't know about most but the Durham rescue mission itself the i don't know it's current address and its main buildings that are that are in use are are not in the district um so we talked about what they would like to do with the areas that were in the historic area known as golden belt um and ultimately our our task was to come up with a plan that preserves the neighborhood and we felt that because there was architectural integrity in that area that including it best preserved the neighborhood do you have anything you want to know i i would just add that the boundary that we are recommending is the historic extent of golden belt and the boundary that we feel retains the historic integrity of golden belt what it was and what it still is um it's based on history it's not based on any organizational work by anyone it's just based we are architectural historians this is what we do yes commissioner miller thank you madam chairman i have a question for mr tart and would it be possible to i think it might help everybody if we could get a map displayed since we're talking about boundaries i'm sorry mr tart i called you to the microphone and then ask somebody to jump in front oh that's great um thank you lisa i understand that you own how many of the properties in the block in the block and a half that uh area do you own does the rescue mission when you say the block and half the block and half we're asking to slice out the one that that is the alternative boundary section that that we've been talking area we i think we own 25 no no just just the block and a half how many do you own in the block and a half i'd have to 13 sounds right it's in the staff report it's 13 of 15 properties pardon me 13 out of the 15 yes and i think the other two 15 are commercial properties from the mistake and then beyond that block and a half do you own other properties that are would be included in the in the golden bell area 13 from 25 can you tell me where those properties are most of them are on the like we own almost all the properties on morning glory then what's the next street franklin and then the next street is wait no worth and then franklin and we we own most of them right there and then there's actually four properties on the other side of 55 that we own that's on wall street i think that's the extent of them but almost all of our properties other than those fours are contingent to each other so if i want to make sure i understand your position with regard to the alternative boundaries would you be satisfied with the alternative boundaries you mean that's the block and a half yeah we'd be satisfied with it and it would not be a source of continuing irritation to you that you own properties that would be in the resulting district and subject to the district regulations we would prefer not but we're willing to compromise thank you mr tart that was my question i just wanted to say i support the original boundaries i mean uh as proposed i live in a local historic district i have seen what it has done in the time period that it's been created um we had a lot of houses we had areas that were getting better on their own we had a large area that was stagnant and we had a whole bunch of houses uh that were the subject of complaints to neighborhood improvement services and were subject to vacate and close or vacate and demolish orders uh i live in wattsillendale and people say how can that be you live in wattsillendale everybody wants to live in what's well that wasn't always true and one of the things that we did in wattsillendale in order to stabilize it was to pursue this local historic district option when it became available to us uh the dividends that it reaped for our area were way beyond anything that we could possibly imagine and so i think it's a good thing uh and we had we worked hard to educate people it includes the school of science and math it includes the city waterworks it includes a church uh the church had misgivings for the same reason are we going to be able to expand our facilities etc these are issues that existed or didn't exist uh without regard to this overlay district uh if we had never created the district we still would have had tension between the neighborhood and the church and the church undeniably did good work uh in my opinion whether we create this district or not whether we adopt the original boundaries or not they're going to continue to be competing goals for the area among the people who reside there and the rescue mission uh and they're going to have to work those things out themselves over time uh i personally believe though that this is about preserving to the greatest extent possible the integrity of the last intact mill village in durham i grew up in durham i can remember when huge areas of durham were mill villages all over the place uh the biggest one of all was the urwin mill village over near where i live now uh over a thousand company owned houses and now there probably aren't 20 of them or 30 of them left uh and so this is a part of durham that we can preserve we should preserve it and it will be an incubator uh in my opinion for a revitalized east durham that is struggling we need to do it we can't just do all these kinds of things on the west side of town we need to do it in the east side of town too what i love about this is this will actually preserve on these properties uh modest size houses that will function in the marketplace as east durham i hope improves you're going to see gentrification but this will actually keep those houses small and will keep them available in an affordable way for the the folks who want to move in there i believe that although the rescue mission may have ambitions for the block and a half that's there i believe that they can develop ambitions that are consistent with and development projects for the vacant and and and remaining houses there that could serve the rescue mission and the neighborhood beautifully in a way that's consistent with historic preservation and durham so for that reason i'm going to urge my fellow commission members to support this local historic district as it has been proposed thank you thank you commissioner miller are the other commissioners who would like to speak commissioner gibbs well first of all uh i do support uh a golem a golden belt historic district uh i think and i'm just going to throw some things out there i do support the durham rescue mission and all the properties they have they should be able to function renovate add to as they need to as far as this been a the most complete mill village left it is nothing like it was it has hasn't been that way in absolute decades i know i grew up there and rather than just keep ramping on because there's a whole lot of things that i could say i'm just going to read from uh something that i've prepared as i said first i do support a gold a golden belt historic district but not this one as proposed its history and surrounding area deserves to be designated accurately by that i mean its boundaries should also be accurately represented and not arbitrarily and inaccurately expanded to overtake parts of the adjoining historical neighborhood of edgemont a neighborhood named uh i have heard uh by julie nescar to support his new mills on angier avenue and by the way i don't know who y'all interviewed but i could pull together two handfuls of people that live there that could probably give you a whole lot more information that needs to be included in the research for this but i i'm going to go on with this uh the boundaries of edgemont like other neighborhoods i.e. east Durham west Durham watsundale etc didn't have surveyed with meeting bounds officially charted documentation but rather were defined by soft boundaries as residents businesses etc considered the neighborhood areas area where they lived as edgemont this assumed neighborhood of quote assumed neighborhood of edgemont has existed for many decades and it still exists there may be some buildings that are gone a lot but and i if i could just finish this out you may finish your statement we always refer to edgemont soft boundary to roughly be the railroad tracks to the west along main street to about blacknell street to the east liberty street to the north to about the overhead railroad along austin avenue to the south the golden melt belt mills property was considered to extend from the railroad to along morning glory to austin avenue uh i'm going to skip on down to where in the edgemont there was an edgemont business district on the north side of main street and i noticed that that's part of that is included in this golden belt boundary along that was a drugstore there were edgemont barbershop edgemont cafe or lunch as it was called edgemont pool hall three or so duplex houses spain's market edgemont market and others edgemont park and playground on south side of main street is now hope six further on main street was edgemont baptist church and further on down as well there was edgemont elementary school and i hope you're hearing edgemont enough uh there was another church uh edgemont baptist church i believe which is now the rescue mission uh and further on down there was uh edgemont free will baptist church at main and holman uh this is a church that i was raised in uh and by the way i don't know everybody i think knows the story of cpls and ann at water uh clayburn which is what we called him was a member of edgemont free will baptist church and i got to experience that uh saga i guess i would call it um from before he changed to the time he changed and uh i had to think that the hand of god had a a part in that because it was a miraculous thing to see if you could know cp or clayburn anyway that church is in dire need of rescuing it's falling apart and behind it there is uh it's a house whose front elevation matches exactly uh one of the the plans for the mill village houses exactly and i don't know where i ran across i go through the internet so much commissioner uh gives that we need to wrap this up so if you're finishing your statement i well i would i can name some other businesses and and all that but i would if let me read it it'll be quicker if golden belt is to be declared in the historic district i would propose that the edgemont community should be included to have historic area designation signage or something along with an accurate golden belt designation that's my comments thank you for your comments are there any other commissioners who'd like to comment before we call for the yes i have commissioner huff um i just have a question here um the non contributing uh properties i don't know who can answer this the not that on this map there are these non contributing properties now on on one of those lots it says these are buildings i guess that weren't made weren't built during the time of uh that we're preserving here now if someone should tear down the building would they have to then put up a uh a millhouse type of house or would they be able to put up anything you want in the non contributing lots the any any new construction would like a renovation c o a request would have to um comply with the guidelines design guidelines um so and those are a you know a separate document that sort of govern the c o a process they're used by the historic preservation commission so there are specific guidelines for new construction in local historic districts that would be followed it applies to two areas that right now don't have complying right uh properties right but it would be within still within the boundaries though of the local district so they would have to comply with the guidelines for those for that district the district madam chair if i could clarify a couple points quick lisa miller planning staff thank you thanks um so two quick points one is the reason that we have uh the criteria that apply to both contributing and non contributing structures within a local historic district is because the point of a district as opposed to a single landmark property is that there's something about the neighborhood the area as a whole that is intact that we're trying to hold on to so the criteria that the that our consultants referenced a couple of times have recently been revised one of the things that we heard loud and clear from folks is so we understand that yes we all need to get approvals to make sure that the overall historic character of the neighborhood remains intact but perhaps there's a way that we could uh make the non contributing properties um a little bit have a little bit more flexibility so that the sort of the biggest most important decisions about how a building is placed what its overall scale and massing is things like that those are still regulated but there's a lot of flexibility in terms of the design the architectural style and things like that so um i just wanted to clarify there was some mention earlier about the rescue mission not wanting to put up historic structures you're allowed to build modern architectural style uh you're allowed to do things that aren't part of the architectural uh mill house type but the the most important thing is to hold on to sort of those basic design elements that are repeated throughout the district and and make sure that new construction is in keeping with and not detracting from that historic character thank you are the other questions or concerns uh commission of witley now i have a question well since the consultants are there um one quick question for you um if if um we left out the the earning meal property could this pass i mean would your group i mean because i want to have a reason to vote for it i can answer that question so this city is actually contracted with the consultants to prepare a preservation plan and local district boundary for us so normally that's work that staff has done um and can move forward we're doing a similar project with the halloween street expansion right now that's handled in house by staff so the consultants uh responsibility was to prepare this information in order for it to go through the process for ultimately city council to decide what the appropriate boundary is so they've done their work which is trying to provide all of the information that is necessary to determine what's an appropriate boundary and now in front of you all and then in front of the city council the more political process happens where the sort of final version of the boundary whatever that is will get adopted by city council but it can certainly move forward with any boundary that is the proposed one or smaller if we were to expand the boundary that would require additional process just one question for you now um they had talked about putting up a dormitory in those where those vacant houses are and would the dormitory be consistent with historical property that's a great question and it's actually one that's come up in the Fayetteville street district because there are some properties where nccu has looked to expand or other folks have looked to put a dormitory style structure um essentially what we've told folks is that you would have to break down the massing to be more on the scale of repeating residential structures so you couldn't have one big block at the street that was you know multiple residential lots wide so it would be probably some additional cost and would would need to take into account the review criteria in sort of designing that but it is certainly possible there goes my um so commissioner waitley if i could add one thing to that the scott wyvern from the playing department those all those lots are currently zoned r u five two which would not permit a dormitory so it would require a zoning change it would take zoning change but it's possible right with the zoning change yes with the zoning change um now i think my fellow commissioners you understand the dilemma you know um the dormitory right now we have over 10 000 drug addicts on our streets we can only house um somewhere around 2300 now um if um this dormitory is needed um we don't have housing and um i would have to vote against this i need reason to vote for the the historic district but because of this i have to vote against do i need to recognize is that mr eaton would you like to to oh no i think um we're ready to call for i i think we're ready to call for emotional what mr whiteman was trying to explain with regard to rezoning if i may yes please so commission member witley the um what we're talking about is zoning if we create the historic district that's a zoning category if the rescue mission can't build a dormitory today without a rezoning and they apply for rezoning in the future even if we put it in the historic district their application for rezoning would change the historic district boundaries so if they need to change it to an office institutional zone or some other zone that's not quite accurate unless they were to actually remove the overlay which we've that's a rezoning just like anyone has ever removed a portion of an overlay are you suggesting that they could remove it at that time as part of the rezoning yes okay just yes it's a rezoning just like any other i mean the it's not permanent it's subject to the rezoning process and since they would have to go through a rezoning process anyway to build the dormitory i believe that was the point that mr. whiteman was trying to make i don't see where creating it within the historic district at this time would make any difference to their future plans at least with regard to a dormitory which would require a rezoning i think we're ready to call for the motion mr. mr. gosh my motion would be to move case x1000004 4 with the recommendation for approval to the city council as modified per the Durham rescue missions requested boundary second madam chairman i'd like to make a substitute motion if i may we have a we have a a motion by commissioner gosh and a second by commissioner Whitley to send the item forward with modifications and then i am hearing a substitute motion madam chairman the substitute motion would be descended for send this item forward with the boundaries as originally proposed can't do both second so i have this now i've got kinship uh madam chairman yes commissioner can i make an alternate motion i have an original substitute and an alternate i'd like to make a motion similar to uh to neils motion to include or to not include the golden belt property and to re-study the boundaries of this proposal to more accurately reflect what was edgement and what is actually golden belt i'm gonna have to defer to staff who have some additional input that may change our motions yes madam chair chair i just wanted to bring to the commission's attention under your rules of procedure in 4.5 you can have no more than two substitute motions so i just wanted to be sure that we don't exceed that here with what we're doing okay but i just wanted to jump up to remind you of that okay could could you provide maybe some in i don't know if you can some insight on how we now vote on what motion he says the motion does not have a second yes i have first or the second okay okay so we're going to vote on the substitute motion made by commissioner miller and second by commissioner kitchen that we move the item forward without modifications that's the first motion now all in favor of the substitute motion let it be known by raising your right hand hold your hands up high for mr miller and the you record have you got them now we're going to vote on the original when okay all right i'm sorry it's there are more motions up here at one time okay so we have first okay we've gone to the first part now all oppose the mr miller's motion to not make adjustments the substitute motion passed so that means there's no need to act on the the first motion who knew we would miss the roberts rules of order expert chair harris so much tonight yeah thank you now let's move to the next item that we we moved this is the annual evaluation and assessment report item number a one six zero zero zero one staff good evening i am laura woods with the planning department and um begging your indulgence i may be slightly less loquacious on this than i had originally intended thank you hang on while i pull up the correct staff report madam chairman is this a public hearing item this is a public hearing oh i'm sorry i answered for you this is actually a plan amendment it is case a sixteen zero zero zero zero one alternately known as the 2015 evaluation and assessment report and the reason we do this every year it's required to enter comprehensive plan uh it rectifies differences between city and county changes in the comprehensive plan text or future land use map over the previous year and we report on progress toward plan implementation proposed changes to potentially to policy language provide technical updates to the future land use map and provide some forecasts and planning trends and issues in 2015 there were nine plan amendments that were approved by the city of durham there was one plan amendment approved by durham county that uh was unusual in that it wasn't a change of the future land use map it actually changed some text that impacted a research triangle park and that text is provided in attachment for okay in terms of acreage there's not a major impact in changes of acreage by land use type in the future land use map the largest increase was in medium density residential and the largest decrease was in office designated office um i will briefly comment on the fact about office is our projection here shows a shortfall that's actually more apparent than real because this only reflects land that is actually designated for office on the future land use map whereas there are additional categories that allow for office for instance the downtown design overly district allows for an enormous amount of office that is not reflected in this projection so it's not really a shortfall all right we only have one recommendation on changing the balloon this year it's an oddity of the future land use map that there are many public parks that are in fact not shown as recreation open space we think that would be more appropriate and i've zoomed in here to illustrate my point this happens to be the area around north carolina central university and the change would be thus all parks would go to green as recreation open space they're unlikely to be anything else in the future therefore we think that's reasonable all right we did poll or contact all city and county departments regarding actions and accomplishments because many other departments besides planning are responsible for implementing policies of the comprehensive plan uh those those responses are in attachment five and proposed changes they made or proposed to policy language is included in the body of your report on pages five through eight most of that's word smithing they just want to better reflect their mission um there are many accomplishments that are identified in the staff report i'm only going to highlight one these happen to be some of the accomplishments that planning are these are projects planning is undertaking are nearing completion one of which will follow this report the east end connector land use study which was prepared because of the impacts of highway being built by north carolina d o t and um i don't believe we need to discuss this too much but it often comes up in this body uh rezoning of land either to or from industrial this study was actually completed in uh 2013 and was approved by the elected bodies we do recommend that we periodically revisit this because preserving prime industrial land is quite important to our economic well-being in Durham County so uh that's the brief version and uh i await your questions did anybody sign up to speak you know against this okay no thank you okay we'll close the public hearing and move it to commissioners to see if you have questions commissioner bryne this is not really a question just two comments first of all uh before you send this forward to the governing bodies uh i would recommend that you sort of prove freedom one more time because it seemed to me that you had some of your references wrong you would refer to attachment three when you meant attachment four that sort of thing i do apologize i did notice that and meant to do a mea culpa before i started but i i simply forgot and the second thing is concerned stormwater i would very much like to see stormwater staff take another look at stormwater controls during construction uh because the grading clearing construction this is where some pretty bad accidents have occurred and apparently if we have a 10 or 25 year storm during these periods uh we're going to have a disaster so that's just a suggestion commission of witley um i don't know if the proper person is here but one of the things that gain real obvious and one of our zoning tonight is that um traffic need to be a little bit more observant whether um when there's a street that can just manage car two cars passing in different directions can travel on it whether it can take traffic that increase volume of a thousand cars um and if it's not adequate staffing that's an issue or if we're using measurements that um that doesn't really give us the 2016 method of being accurate um it needs to be looked into and updated just to know thank you commissioner witley are the others commissioner winders i just um i would like about these uh proposed substantive policy amendments do am i correct in thinking that these might show up on the work plan for the the fiscal year that starts july of 2017 because we've already got the work plan going and you can't do these things faster than that right this is like looking way ahead um you would have to if there are changes that would propose new projects yeah that would have to be bumped forward to the next year at least yeah and then we we do have a proposal i believe all the work plan to start working on a whole new comprehensive plan in the next year so well the yeah that idea is out there yeah and that's one of the reasons we wanted to be kind of so you're a little bit ahead of the game with this i hope so that i would certainly like to second commissioner brine's comment about the stormwater for one thing and then my other input here on my last planning commission meeting i must say that i would really like to see the concept of affordable housing or equitable development brought into the compact neighborhood tier definitions in the policy and i uh have made this proposal before the coalition for affordable housing in transit has made this proposal before in connection with the udo and uh you know we and also the recent summit well i don't know if it ever got as far as the council recently on the on the amendments but you know that still needs to be done um i it's my understanding that some new policies were recently adopted by one elected body they will be going to the other elected bodies soon and they will be incorporated into the comprehensive plan any other comments i'd like to make a motion thank you i'd like to send forward uh a one six zero zero zero zero one with a favorable recommendation can i get a second um motion by commissioner busby and second by commissioner um Whitley that we move this item forward with a favorable record recommendation item number a one six zero zero zero zero one all in favor of this motion let it be known by raising your right hand all opposed the motion carries 12 to 0 one item another item under public hearing uh this is the east end corridor the east end connection land use analysis um item a one six zero zero zero five and item z one six zero zero zero nine staff please thank you good evening i'm lisa miller with the planning department thanks for your patience um i'm here to talk to you about the east end land use analysis it's uh both a plan amendment and zoning case the case numbers are a sixteen zero zero zero zero five and z sixteen zero zero zero zero nine um and just to to quick mention uh those two cases will require two separate motions by the body um but can be considered as a whole because it's a single project so just a little bit of background the comprehensive plan has long directed the planning department to undertake a land use analysis around the neighborhoods adjacent to the north carolina department of transportation's east end connector project which as most of you know is under construction currently um but its planning efforts and its expected expected uh completion at some point has been in the works for decades um briefly the public input process that we've been through uh we initially held a public meeting in october of 2015 to introduce the folks in the study area to the project and and our mandate by the comprehensive plan to undertake this effort um we then had another public meeting in january of 2016 to start getting some feedback from folks about potential changes to the future land use map and and zoning in the area around the connector um and then finally in march of this year we had a public meeting where we presented back to folks our proposal to move forward and and got final feedback from folks and along the way we've been updating the joint city county planning committee both back in october and in april before moving it forward to you all so this is a map uh is also in your packet is the east end uh area the study area that we looked at this is the adopted future land use map um so just to give you an idea of the area that we're looking at and um you'll see there's sort of a large swath running uh northwest to southeast and then kind of a tee off of that that shows 70 in the east end connector connecting through uh this neighborhood so that's the change in traffic patterns and character of property as they're adjacent to a large transportation project like this were the kinds of things that we were taking into account uh in looking at appropriate future land uses um so our proposal ultimately ended up including future land use designation changes to 65 properties and zoning designation changes to 10 properties uh and this map here also in your packet delineates the areas where we're proposing change we get into a little bit more detail later in the presentation and also in your packet um so the areas that with the dotted lines around them uh and numbered are the the areas kind of where we zoom in and give more detail there's seven different areas where we're proposing change um so there are a handful of reasons that we propose change uh on various properties one was where there's multiple future land use designations to consolidate to a single future land use designation which would allow the property then to be rezoned to that if necessary um we really only looked at this for the most part on vacant properties um also looked at uh changing future land use designations where they aren't consistent with the existing use and the existing use is uh some has some longevity um and then the two that have to do with the connector project itself where there's significant changes in the property character because of proximity to the highway project basically what you know if you're going to see the project or you're going to hear the project uh that may have some changes to what might be appropriate development there um and finally significant changes and limitations to how the properties are accessed because of the instant connector there's a because it's a limited access uh transportation route then the ways that you can get sort of through and into different properties is is changing because of that i'm going to go very quickly through the seven different areas and then just focus on questions that you all have i know there's kind of a lot of little pieces here so i'll try and run through it quickly um the first area we have um three three different areas that are all split future land use designations they're all partially low medium density residential and partly industrial essentially what we did on all of these is we changed the designation or we're proposing to change the designation to what the majority of the property uh is designated currently so the two properties that are under the the letter a are um both adjacent to industrial property and they have us they're a little bit more industrial designation on them than residential so we proposed changing those to industrial there's no proposed change to the zoning there uh under item b that is actually a storm water facility for the adjacent residential development so we're proposing to take the industrial portion of that change it to residential um and also this is an area where we're proposing to rezone um again to match the residential uh development that this goes with um from its current split designation of light industrial and uh residential and then finally there's two properties to the south there under the letter c these are both uh primarily low medium density residential so we're proposing to make them completely low medium density residential um again with no change to the zoning uh just jump down to area two just to the southeast of there and the overall map there's a bunch of properties here um the the significant issue here is actually a change in access um so the this is going to be you can kind of see in the the left hand corner of the map the looping uh exits from the interchange there and so this is one thing that we presented to the community as an option for either changing it to industrial because of sort of the character that that land would possess being so close to that kind of transportation setting um or potentially leaving it as low medium density residential and we heard support for changing it to industrial um so that's what we've proposed in the future land use designation with no change to the zoning area three are two sort of strangely shaped properties um parcel a there is kind of leftover right of way from the dot project um and that one is a combination of low medium density residential and commercial and we're just proposing to remove the commercial piece of that um to fit with the remainder of the residential to the to the east of that that's contiguous and no change to the zoning is proposed um the parcel under the letter B is a combination of uh two different densities of residential and uh just for the sake of simplicity uh if that property were to be developed um we've proposed taking this that it's basically a very small corner up in the the northwest portion uh that is currently low medium density residential and we're proposing to change that to medium density residential again no zoning change area four uh two different uh sections here under the letter A for the future land use map you'll see two properties that are currently designated industrial one of them is vacant one of them has a residence on it um and they're contiguous with the line of residences along the north side of the eastern avenue um so we are proposing a change to medium density residential there the underlying zoning is already residential in nature and so we're not proposing a change to the zoning there um under letter B there are two parcels uh that encompass to see our wood park um and as in a tiny sliver of leftover right of way from the eastern connector project and both of those parcels where they front on Andrew have a little bit of commercial that goes back into the property just the depth of adjacent parcels um so essentially we're just proposing to take that little bit of commercial and designate the park wholly as recreation open space on the future land use map um we are proposing a rezoning here for uh the commercial portion along Andrew to be changed to R U five to match the remainder of the park um area five there's a a few different sections here that under letter A are the properties that are owned by Calvary Baptist Church those properties are currently uh combination of residential and commercial both in their future land use designation and in their zoning designation and we're proposing uh it's about a fifty fifty split in terms of how much of each designation um our proposal was for both the future land use map and the zoning to match the use of the property to be institutional future land use and oh I uh zoning designation uh parcel B uh is a currently used for forestry and has a swath of commercial that runs along uh 70 that's no longer going to have access directly to the highway because of the connector project um so we're proposing to remove the swath uh long seventy where the commercial was designated so that it is all medium density residential and to have the zoning follow that same logic so it's commercial general and R U five and to have the entire thing zoned R U five and finally there is a residence at uh 1215 Lynn road that's under the letter C um this parcel has a lot of different designations both future land use its city and county property and it has um multiple zoning designations so as part of this we're trying to clean that up um not proposing to change the the city county jurisdiction boundary um but to clean up have uh medium density residential future land use designation for the entire parcel and R U five zoning for the entire parcel uh area six has a couple of weird properties um that are a result of creating that new so you'll see 70 is the first right of way kind of running northwest to southeast and adjacent to it is kind of a road with a curve in it and that's a new access road that's part of the eastern connector project so there's a handful of parcels here that have sort of some weird uh boundaries and some weird designations so when we were looking at this and when we were talking to the community uh that access road seemed like a good boundary for commercial designation to stop so for the property to the west of that access road they'll remain commercial which is how they're currently designated but for any portion of the parcels and it's kind of some portions not the entire rest of the parcel um for any portion of the parcels that are to the east of that access road to remove the commercial um and use either the medium density residential or low medium density residential that the remainder of the parcel currently has and we're not proposing any changes to the zoning here and the final area is um along Andrew Avenue um we're not proposing any zoning changes here but for the future land use designation there's a this area has a lengthy strip of commercial designated both on the future land use map and also um is predominantly commercial use for a lot of that stretch so the areas here we've proposed uh to change a handful of those properties that have a residential future land use designation to a commercial land use designation um for the most part that matches the existing use and zoning um but there is at least one residential property within there and I have had contact with that property owner and they were not opposed to it so um that is the end of the sort of detailed areas so essentially um we feel the the proposed changes are in the public interest because they result in a future land use designation that's more appropriate with both considering existing land use patterns um and surrounding uses and this new transportation um pattern so I'd be happy to answer any questions that you all have at at this particular time I do have one individual who has signed up to speak before I before I move this back to staff so let me hear from Randall Haithcock commissioners planning staff my name is Randall Haithcock I live at 1304 Seaton Road uh townhouse 10 I'm a member of northeast creek stream watch which is a stream monitoring organization for northeast creek the headwaters of northeast creek are on the map that was presented uh this is the proposed zoning map the headwaters are right in here and we have uh a few concerns uh about the future uh we have some concerns about the future land use map primarily at this point not the zoning the the first is that uh there is in fact a uh non-compliant agricultural use of the area this large area right now under the bend in uh of the east end connector it's off of uh uh is it rigsby avenue it's uh owned by coca-cola bottling company and it's currently a cattle farm uh we would like to have that continue to be an agricultural use rather than to have impervious surfaces from being zoned as industrial it's probably currently industrial and that would require some negotiation with the the property on a coca-cola and the people who are actually using the property uh so that is one concern that we have the second is that there is extra right of way in the dot corridor for the connector there has been talk in the past of a greenway along northeast creek that generally does not have a tie to town but there is sufficient right of way there now that it is possible to set aside a greenway right of way on the east side of the the Durham freeway going south to Glover Road at a Glover Road crossing over to the west side going down to where northeast creek goes under the Durham freeway and connects across through across Ellis Road behind the Glaxo facility and RTP that's the second one the third is you have a large mass of industrial area that is there currently uh that that mass is uninterrupted with land uses that could uh buffer the uh runoff from impervious surfaces that could mitigate heat island effect of parking lots and buildings and could fix and absorb the airborne and waterborne pollution uh those are our three concerns thank you very much are there any questions thank you um i'm going to bring this matter back before the commissioners and give them an opportunity to ask questions um commissioner Whitley commissioner brine and we'll start with commissioner Whitley and then commissioner brine Lisa one of the reasons we wanted to loop so that East East Durham could have an exit in East Durham is to create um commercial and we were thinking that that car car road earlier to the right of East End connector would be um commercial property and it's industrial can you tell me why and it's right there at a residential neighborhood that's land locked into housing uh so i can tell you that the the commercial isn't allowed use within the industrial future land use designation so this doesn't preclude commercial from occurring um it also there is a lot of industrial along this stretch and so that seemed like another viable option okay good well another question about this industrial right where you see ash street and um i think that's angie avenue um there was a developer that wanted to put a strip club there is that is that now possible this isn't changing the future land use designation there um but maybe scott can answer that better the commissioner Whitley i'm aware of the project you're speaking of and i did some in-depth research and i feel the uh i mean do we have to fight this again i think the the dot pretty much took care of that site from ever being able to put that particular use on there so all right thank you so much commissioner brad thank you uh i also have questions and concerns concerning car uh it looks like from your map here that car has more right away than there is actual road at the moment and do we where does the right away end i'm trying to figure out if car might somehow be able at some point in the future to connect over to westbrook mr brine it's not completely out of the question but there's an existing apartment complex on that site and unless it redevelops and sub divides there would be no requirement to connect it well if you look at the empty land out there and i noticed when i drove through the apartment complex that there were some big spaces there it looked like could be potential right of way it is not right of way it's just i'm still there yet okay um because i'm a little bit concerned about putting an industrial designation on this because knowing that the people who live in these apartments and other homes to the east might wake up one morning and find that they've got industrial next to them and the other point i wanted to make was that we seem to be leaning toward industrial which could allow commercial because of the more limited access to car but depending on the type of industrial that might go there the industrial and or commercial might actually require more roadway access than residential it was actually not about access but was about character um so that the character of a space in that was what i mentioned in uh my presentation was that so certainly yes the access will change there but the reason that we felt that it might make sense to go from residential to industrial was that we felt it might be an undesirable location to be under the shadow of the the interchange for a new residential development to occur unfortunately for neighborhoods that are already existing there's nothing we can do about that but but it might not be a desirable place for new residential well i'm i'm just not sure i agree with that because you've got this industrial that's going to be it looks like pretty much surrounded by residential on three sides so i'm i'm just not sure i can support going to industrial okay and as i mentioned we had kind of put it out there as either leaving it alone or changing it to industrial so we're we don't have you know we weren't married to one or the other but we're really trying to put it out for feedback so i think that's valuable feedback for us to take to the governing bodies our other what other commission of miller and then i think that well he spoke i just i made a promise during our break that i will keep now during a break i was approached by a couple of people who live on midway avenue and they were concerned about the changes in the comprehensive uh the future land use map proposed on item seven which is the back of your handout and they had come to learn about that to ask questions but uh because we moved this from the front of the agenda to the back they had felt that they wanted to attend a vigil that was scheduled as a result of the Orlando shootings and we're leaving and i promise that i would make uh make it known to you that they they were concerned about this since they do live on midway avenue uh and that they did they wanted to learn more i encourage them to speak with the staff and i told them that i would bring it to your attention in case you wanted to uh continue the hearing on this at least this particular portion of this uh i made no promises continue commissioner whitley yes um let me explain why we fought and and won the car car road um loop we want to bring businesses to each term that industrial property on the south side of the connector is scheduled to become an industrial park where people will be employed and they will stop and eat in our restaurants um they will buy gas and they will get the haircuts and and the things that happens in a community right now east Durham is mostly residential and we have to go out of our community for goods and services so we don't need we need housing we want people to come to east Durham to live but we but most of all we need to give people reasons to come to east Durham and we want the amenities that um other um communities have right now we don't have a triage if something a disaster is east Durham we have to go further than any other community in the city to um to get medical help from center right and um our urgent care for that matter um so um we have needs and our planning with what we've been talking about for 25 years now is how to bring businesses in we got the loop and we got we got a developer that says he wants to put an industrial park there and leave that area alone thank you um commissioner gauche i am looking at the car uh road section that you were just speaking about and um i do have one question for lisa and a comment after that uh my understanding was that uh part of the process when you when you all decided that this might be an appropriate uh cypher industrial uh was that you did get input from the community and i just wanted to confirm that because it sounded like you know this was news to you i don't know just i i thought that's what you had said earlier right so what we had proposed in our january meeting uh the first set of changes for how we would move forward with this and got some for most of those we had prescribed this is what we propose um this was one of the few areas where we weren't really sure what to do and wanted to just leave it open for feedback um and we did get support for changing it to industrial but it wasn't overwhelming it wasn't uh but so i think that certainly your comments are worthwhile and super helpful in moving forward yeah i was more trying to understand the extent of neighborhood input you got i mean in terms of how many people we had at our meetings or what how overwhelmingly supportive it was of that particular i mean you've answered the question okay in in my yeah that that makes sense i was just trying to get an understanding of that and then my my comment on it is that to some degree i have to agree with what uh my fellow commissioner whitley has stated about this and i i don't know anything about any plans to develop this for any industrial part but to the extent that it could be used both commercially or industrially with this uh land use designation it makes sense to me to have an area i mean if this area is appropriate for it it makes sense to me to have it in easter um and to allow for more of this type of use uh you know acreage for this type of use in easter um uh i will say that uh you know it sometimes can seem alarming that there would be an industrial designation next to residential but for the most part those uses that are allowed in industrial um district that are incompatible with uh residential district they there are special or um you know supplemental standards that you have to meet to to establish those on on an industrial track that is adjacent to or budded by uh residential districts so i think that it can still be uh i think you could still use this land appropriately in a manner that respects the uh surrounding residential even if it is own or designated for industrial use any additional comments commissioner freeman uh just noting that this is a large industrial area and all of that residential that is around there this small section i mean being a resident of easter and it's kind of ironic how small this uh recreational open spaces and to go to commissioners gauche's comment or to his his statement so to speak it i would think that there would it would be some some consideration for some of the space to be green with all this residential around it so i don't i don't know if that was the recommendation from the community like as a whole but that's a lot of industrial are the any commissioner winders i just just briefly if you want commercial you know what we want as restaurants and barbershops why zone it industrial why not just zone it we're not changing the zoning i mean i mean okay just clarify sorry okay future land use designation it's late the the future land use uh designation so commercial wasn't something that we heard from people as something that they wanted to see here instead um it was something and so i think in our minds since an industrial future land use designation would allow both industrial and commercial to happen and we thought that was maybe a better way to go because it would accommodate both okay and then about the the green space of the open space are you aware of the of the cattle farm that that this mr. haithcock was was uh mentioned and is was that a possibility at all do you think so i can let scott talk to you all about how the study area boundary was just was determined but that's outside it's on the west side of the railroad tracks and so was not inside the area that we were looking at for this project but it certainly when we we tried to when we started this project we started by drawing an area that we thought would be the areas impacted by the change in access created by the east end connector and that's where the land use impacts would happen and the areas that on the west side of the railroad tracks they didn't have any access before and they don't have any now so we didn't release spend much time studying those areas so i think i'm aware of the site he's talking about and i've seen the cows while driving down 147 yeah but there was no compelling reason to look into changing that land use at this time because because of the impacts of the east end connector yeah but we do need to think about northeast creek and where of sate as things are developing more and more road is going to bring more more development supposedly and and we need to think about places that can be reserved just to protect water quality don't we that's certainly true but that's probably also true in every watershed as well are there any additional questions if commissioner brine sorry the one thing that occurs to me if you're thinking of maybe putting commercial uses on this car street um you're going to have i think it would be a bad place unless you can create some connectivity to the surrounding residential neighborhoods and if you're going to create connectivity to the surrounding residential neighborhoods then i think it could just as easily be residential i am ready to call for a motion let's now we're going to do this in two items we have the planned amendment first and then the map change second so the planned amendment first i move that we send the east end connector land use analysis case a one six zero zero zero zero five forward with a favorable recommendation uh and changing the proposed uh flim designation of industrial on car street back to residential second i have a motion to send item number planned amendment a one six zero zero zero zero five forward changing the industrial section back to residential on car robert i i would offer a substitute motion to send it forward as is yes as proposed i'm not here oh i have a second okay so once again i had an original motion now have a substitute motion and we'll vote on the substitute motion and the substitute motion is that we send amendment forward as presented i'm going to call for a vote all in favor of the substitute motion sending it forward without any adjustments all in favor let it be known by raising your right hand all opposed hang them high to four okay now the second portion of this for the zoning map change i am madam chair i will move that we send the east end connector land use analysis zoning case z one six zero zero zero zero nine forward with a favorable recommendation second um motion by commissioner brine second by commissioner busby that we send the east end connector uh map change case number z one six zero zero zero zero nine forward with a favorable recommendation all in favor of this motion please raise your right hand all opposed we have one other additional agenda item we have new business we have a we have new business i do have a resolution that i'd like to present to commissioner winders and i think we need to move to the next podium so if you won't give me a chance i want to read it into the record testing resolution of appreciation of miss rebecca winders whereas miss rebecca winders was a member of the durham planning commission for march 18 2010 through june 30th 2016 and whereas the planning commission and the citizens of the city and county of durham have benefited from the dedicated efforts that she displayed while serving as a member of the durham planning commission and whereas this commission desires to express its appreciation for the public of a job well done now therefore be it resolved by the durham planning commission section one that this commission does hereby express its sincere appreciation for the service rendered by miss rebecca winders to the citizens of this community section two that the clerk of the commission is hereby directed to spread this resolution in its entirety upon the official minutes of this commission and this resolution is hereby presented to miss winders as a token of the high esteem held for her adopted this 14th day of june 2016 elaine hyman vice chair move the resolution second thank you we have been here all night we may as well be and i'd like to present as well stay here another 45 minutes well thank you yeah well i would like to thank you for the resolution and and i thank the uh thank you to the city council for and for the opportunity to serve it's it's uh i have really learned a tremendous amount it's been uh and traveled the county including this last uh this this month i had an opportunity to go around the entire county so it was like a perfect summation and uh i want to to thank those the staff for their their patience their great patience and good humor and expertise and tolerance and uh i'm going to be watching you all on television so um usually at the end of the meeting i give you a snapshot of what you can expect next month before i do that though um congratulations congratulations to miss winders but also wanted to introduce to you um our new member mr sederick johnson he's been here faithfully observing tonight and he has hung in until the end so we would like to welcome you we'll uh he will take his place on the commission next month so uh mr sederick johnson used to that's still the policy we'll be waiting as soon as this meeting is over that's assuming he doesn't back out after so because we're going to be busy next month so next month you have coming back to you the two cases that you continued from um may the uh hope valley hope valley road case in the highway 55 case the self-storage cases are coming back next month you also have one two five five zoning cases and four of those have associated plan amendments so uh we have ellis row commercial that has a plan amendment ellis row townhomes that has a plan amendment south point trails has a plan amendment beth page village for that's the beth page plan it's the fourth revision that has a plan amendment and then we have the towns at south point without a plan amendment so um they're scattered about but that's probably the um compact neighborhood here i bet i'm i'm gonna take a guess because i'm not a hundred percent sure um right off the top of my head i'm assuming that's the urwin um the compact neighborhoods here for that area that still hasn't that still has to go to the county commissioners or are all those cases going to county commissioners or not all of them yes we could probably pick that one up if it's yes they they used z signs for those i believe yes yes so we probably need to pick that one up because it won't go to county commissioners we only have a couple of those that have to actually still go to board of a commissioner so thank you for pointing that out we'll try to get that retrieved so i think the chair recognizes commission of buzzbee for one additional announcement great and this is just to let folks know and i can put this in writing as well as i will require an excused absence next month i'll be out of state for work travel so i'm sorry to miss a another packed agenda and to see all of you but i'll look forward to hearing about it when i'm back we had made a note of that um you had mentioned that to me after the last meeting so we'll make sure it's in the record if there is no other business motion to adjourn