 Good morning and welcome to the August 24th, 2021 meeting of the Durham Board of Adjustment. My name is Jacob Rogers. I am the chairman of the board. I would like to start by acknowledging that we are conducting this meeting using a remote electronic platform as permitted by session law 2020-3. The Board of Adjustment is a quasi-judicial body that is governed by the North Carolina General Statutes in the city's unified development ordinance. The board typically conducts evidentiary hearings on requests for variances, special use permits, among other requests. Today's meeting will proceed much like an in-person meeting of the BOA. On the screen you'll see members of the Board of Adjustment, additionally planning staff and representatives from the city and county's attorney's offices are attending the remote meeting. Applicants, proponents and opponents were required to register in advance and are also attending the remote meeting. When a case is called for its hearings, speakers will be promoted within the platform so the video can be seen. The chair will swear in applicants and witnesses at the beginning of each case. Staff will present each case and applicants will then provide their evidence. Control of the presentation and spring sharing will remain with planning staff. Today's meeting is being broadcast live on the city's YouTube site and a link to this broadcast is on the website for the Board of Adjustment. Before we begin the evidentiary hearings on today's agenda, I would like to provide some important information about steps taken to ensure each party's due process rights are protected as we proceed. Each applicant on today's agenda was notified that this meeting would be conducted or would be conducted using a remote electronic platform. During registration, every applicant on today's agenda consented to the Board conducting the hearing using this platform. We will also confirm at the start of each evidentiary hearing that that participants in the hearing consent to the matter proceeding in this remote platform. If there is any objection to a matter proceeding in the platform, the case will be continued. Notice of today's meeting was provided by a publisher noticed in the newspaper, mailed the property owners, then sits under feet of subject properties, posting a sign at the property and posting on the city's website. The newspaper website and mailed notices for today's meetings contained information how the public can access the remote meeting as it occurs. These notices are also also contained information about registration requirement for the meeting, along with information about how to register. All individuals participating in today's evidentiary hearings were also required to submit a copy of any presentation, document, exhibit or other material that they wish to submit at the hearing prior to today's meeting. All materials that the city received from the participants in today's cases, as well as a copy of city staff's presentations and documents were posted on the board's website as part of the agenda. No new documents will be submitted during today's meeting. All decisions of this board are subject to appeal to the Durham Superior Court, anyone in the audience other than the applicant who wishes to receive a copy of the formal order issued by this board on a particular case must submit a written request for a copy of this order. And one more thing I've got, do any board members wish to recuse themselves for any of the cases on today's agenda? All right, seeing none. Do any board members wish to disclose any partake communication regarding any of the cases on today's agenda? Yes, Mr. Chair, being a board member of the Tuscaloosa Lake Whitney Board Association, I was subject to some written go back and forth with the variance B210041. Just want to disclose that. I do not know the owners, but there was some talk on an email back and forth. All right, via email? Is that what you said? Yes, sir, it's a listserv for the Q&A listserv, yeah. All right, and Jessica, would you like to call the roll? Yes, sir. All right, we have Rogers. Here. Meadows. Here. Kip. Here. Wretchless. Here. Wymore. Jeter. Here. Major. Here. Tarant. Here. Boucher. Here. Right, thank you. And Tisha Wymore requested an excused absence, so we'll need to, would anybody like to make a motion in a second for how to excuse Tisha from today's meeting? Meadows, so moved. All right, Jessica, would you call everyone? Rogers. Yes. Meadows. Yes. Kip. Yes. Wretchless. Yes. Jeter. Yeah. Major. Yes. Tarant. Yes. Thank you. Motion carries 7-0. Our next thing on the agenda, any adjustments to the agenda? Eliza, do you want to mention anything? Yes. Excuse me. Good morning, everybody. There is an adjustment to the agenda. Case B210031 has requested to be continued to the following month, so we will not be hearing that case today. There was a county case. Okay, that's our, the second case on today's agenda. Thank you. Next is the approval for the minutes from the July 27th meeting. I hope everyone's had a chance to review those as they know and want to make a motion to approve. Oh, Shane, I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second. Wretchless is on the second. Jasmine. Rogers. Yes. Meadows. Yes. Kip. Yes. Wretchless. Yes. Jeter. Yeah. Major. Yes. Tarant. Yes. Motion carries 7-0. All right. So, all right, let's get, let's dive in. Jessica, you want to call the first case? Our first case is B20020 City Case. It's a request for a minor special use permit to allow a project over 5,000 square feet in size within a commercial neighborhood zoning district without a development plan. The subject site is located at 48024818485249044916 and 4950 Durham Chapel Hill Boulevard is zoned commercial neighborhood residential suburban 20 and PDR 6.030 and is in the suburban, excuse me, and Patterson Place Compact neighborhood tier. The case has been advertised for the required period of time. Property owners within 600 feet have been notified and notarized affidavits verifying the sign postings and letter mailings are on file. The seating will be Rogers, Meadows, Kip, Wretchless, Jeter, Major, and Tarant. All right. Thank you so much. Would anyone who plans on giving testimony in this case please turn on your camera. We're going to minister the oath and ask you one additional question. Ms. Edward, is he going to join us as well? Mr. Chairman, can you hear me? Yes. Patrick here. Ed Lamas is our client, but he's just attending. He's not planning to testify. Okay. So anybody who plans on testimony, testifying, please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony today that you'll give is the truth and nothing but the truth? I'll need an answer from each of you. Let's start with Tom. You're on mute, Mr. Tom. Tommy. Tell me. I do. Jeremy. I do. Earl. Earl, you're on mute too, sir. I do. All right. And Biker, Patrick. I do. All right. Do you consent to this remote meeting platform, Mr. Biker? Yes, sir. Earl. Yes. Jeremy. Yes, I do. Tom. Yes, I do. Alrighty then. Eliza, take it away. Sure thing. I'm going to share my screen. Okay. Good morning, everyone. Eliza, when you're representing the planning department here, the planning department would like to request that the staff report and all materials submitted at the public hearing be made part of the public record with any necessary corrections as noted. As noted, thank you. Thank you. Case B2000020 is a request for a minor special use permit to allow development over 5,000 square feet in size within a commercial neighborhood or CN zoning district. The applicant is CJTPA and is located within the city of Durham. It's jurisdiction. The site is highlighted in red on the screen and it's going to be several different parcels. I would like to note that this parcel is not included in the information that we're talking about this morning. The, excuse me, highlighted in red on the screen. And I will also note that since the time of the submittal of this application, the parcels were zoned originally compact neighborhood or CN residential suburban 20 and PDR 6.030. And then the project was rezoned in 2018. So the zoning that you're seeing on the screen is the rezoned zoning. I apologize for not having the previous zoning up, but there were different zoning. So that's very important as to why this case is here today. And we can definitely talk a little bit more about that. As you'll see in the next screen, the existing site is currently vacant. It is located within the suburban tier and the Patterson Plays compact neighborhood tier. Per unified development ordinance section 6.10.1d.2d, the development within the CN district with new project floor area over 5,000 square feet with no development plan and residential zoning districts adjacent to when that includes across the public driveway to two or more property lines requires a minor special use permit. And essentially, as I talked a little bit about before, the previous zonings across the street across the right of way were residential, therefore triggering this need for a minor special use permit to permit the over 5,000 square feet building that is proposed. In addition to this, the applicant was required to hold a neighborhood meeting. As mentioned in UDO section 3.2.3, the neighborhood meeting notes were also located at the bottom within the packet that you all received as well, as well as the presentation. There's no issues that staff would like to report of or any outstanding comments from the internal departments, but we will note that there are some outstanding comments within your client department of transportation as it relates to access to the site. However, it is within our opinion that these issues can be resolved outside of the site plan approval process and the site plan is otherwise clear of comments and ready to be heard by you all today. And staff will be here throughout if you have any questions throughout. UDO section 3.9.8a and b establishes four findings and 13 review factors that the applicant must meet in order for the board to grant a use permit. Excuse me, all findings and review factors are identified when the staff report and the applicant's responses to the findings and review factors are identified in the application, both of which you all received inside of your packet. And if you need to link to that, please just let me know. Staff will be available for any questions and I'll have the site plan pulled up for any referencing. Thank you, Eliza. Any questions for Eliza? Chair? Thank you, Mr. Chair. And good morning, Eliza. So two or three questions for you. Could you quickly explain what no development plan means? Does that mean there's no rezoning plan or plan development plan? What do the words no development plan? What does that mean? Yes. So a development plan would be something that would go to the city council or board of county commissioners depending upon the location. And that would show the layout of the proposed site. So at the time in which this was submitted, there was no set development plan. So there was not that layout for referencing that would tell the buffers and or parking and things of that sort. I see. And would you mind explaining a little bit more about paragraph three of the staff report? That's the summary part that deals with the zoning. I was a little confused in that this property is now a different zoning designation than it was before. And I am assuming that this project still requires the minor special use permit because of the lack of development plan, but not necessarily because of the zoning. Is that what's going on? Yes. I'll explain that a little bit better. And I'm sure Patrick might have a little something to add as well. At the time, so when the site plan is submitted, at the time that zoning as well as the code at that time is what is applicable. So when this was submitted, the zoning that was originally there, as I mentioned before, the residential being adjacent to property lines, that it was triggering the need for a minor special use permit. As it stands today, if we were to look at it with the current and present zoning, the minor special use permit would actually not be required. However, that would mean the site plan would have to be utilizing updated code as it is today instead of the code that it was originally submitted under. One more follow up to that, and that might be a question for the applicant. And that is, do you anticipate that the site plan associated with this project will seek to follow the prior rules? Is that a question for the applicant? So there will follow the rules at the time of their submittal. So we would not subject any recent modifications to the code or text would not be applicable. It would be whatever was the current code at the time of their submittal, which was in May of 2019. Okay. And one last question, and thank you for your patience. Is there a maximum project floor area in the CN district? There is not a maximum, but over 5,000 is what triggers the need for the minor special use permit, but there is not a maximum that they're required to have it would depend upon each case in the board's decision to approve that minor special use permit. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, this is perhaps, Ms. Monroe might be a better answer about the applicant, but I was curious if you could explain, it looks like there's a right of way reservation running through the property about 80 feet. And just curious as to what that is for and any risk of potential future nonconformities that might be associated with that if that were to actually be developed. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will actually reflect to the applicant because I am aware that they've been having a lot more communication with the NCDOT than I have, and I don't know the current status of those conversations. Thank you. All right. Any other questions for Eliza before we hear from the applicant? I got a question. Kep, you noted that the one of the parcels there, Froning, Durham, Chapel Hill, Boulevard, isn't included. Was that zoned differently or is that not in the project area this little one? Is my understanding that that parcel is not within the project area? The existing owner will remain that owner throughout this project. They were not included within the project area. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. Anyone else? All right. Mr. Becker, would you like to come forward? Yes. Good morning, Chairman Rogers, members of the board. I'm Patrick Becker with Morningstar Law Group. Our office address is 112 West Main Street here in Durham. We are here today representing Durhill and Durhill II LLC, which are the co-owners of the 72-acre site that is subject to this special use permit application. Durhill and Durhill II acquired this assemblage in early 2019. For many years, just to give the board some background, this assemblage was known as Oak Ridge 58 or Oak Ridge for short. So that's why you're seeing that name for this project on the site plan documentation. I personally recall that name being used when I started working here in Durham over 25 years ago. We're here this morning to request a minor special use permit as required in the UDO by section 6.10, 1D, 2D, and 3.9.8 for new development in a commercial neighborhood zoning district in the cases where floor area would be greater than 5,000 square feet. At the outset, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to have exhibits A through D that were submitted to the planning department, I believe about a week ago, entered into evidence along with the site plan and all the information in the staff report. Mr. Chairman, exhibits A through D are the resumes of our witnesses today. I've included my own witness to address zoning issues that are in the background. I don't believe they're particularly germane to the minor special use permit criteria, but we're happy to answer any questions in regards to the zoning process that's covered this section of Durham over the last two years. So if we could move those into evidence, I don't believe there's anybody in opposition to this special use permit application that would need to review these exhibits. But Mr. Chairman, I would ask for your admission of exhibits A through D into the record. Very good. So I'm sorry, am I correct that there's nobody in opposition to this use permit on the call today? Okay, great. I was going to chime in and say that, yes, Eliz Monroe staff, there is no one that has signed up in opposition for this case. Like I said, clean living pays off. And so just to briefly go over exhibit A, that's my resume. I have a law degree from UNC Chapel Hill in 1992, and then a master's in city and regional planning from UNC Chapel Hill in 1994. I've been working in the development, real estate development for over 25 years, primarily in the in the triangle area, primarily in Durham and other cities and counties around here. Also in the lead AP, accredited professional, and would submit myself as an expert witness to address any questions that the board may have about the zoning process. I was personally involved with count, I shouldn't say countless, but let's say dozens of meetings regarding the Patterson Place zoning district that was shown on one of the slides that Eliza shared. And Eliza, if you would, could you please go back to the aerial photo that has all the trees on it? I'd appreciate that. And then I'll give a brief introduction, then we'll get rolling. I know you have a long agenda today, and we'll do our best to answer all of this swiftly. It looks like, I'm going to, excuse me, everybody, we'll have to reshare. That was starting to freeze a little bit. I'm sorry. I apologize for the inconvenience. Well Eliza is pulling that up. I wanted to explain that the requirement for this minor specific use permit is property-aligned adjacency to two residential zoning districts. And that's a condition in the requirement in the UDO, but it's a requirement that doesn't have any distance stated. So it doesn't matter how far away those are. I wanted to give the board some context in regard to the two property, I'm sorry, into the two residential zoning district that issues. The single-family homes to the north that you can see on this slide at the top of the slide are approximately 2,000 feet away from the subject property where the building is greater than 5,000 square feet would be built. To the south, the residential zoning district is on the other side of the 15501 which is a public right-of-way that's approximately 300 feet wide. The nearest apartment building to the south in that residential zoning district on the other side of 15501 is approximately 900 feet away from the subject site. So as you can see from this aerial photo, the strong majority of the area between the subject site and the residential either to the north or to the south is heavily wooded. The proceeding therefore is somewhat out of the ordinary. I kind of feel like I'm on a roll with the board in that a few months ago it was about building height and have anything to do with the use and then there we had the case about the road design, the street design at University 4 which again had nothing to do with the use. And today we're talking about building footprint which again has nothing to do with the use just has to do with the size of the building. So we're here today to request a special youth permit pursuant to section 3.9.8 of the UDO to allow buildings greater than 5,000 square feet in the CN zoning district. Within the CN zoning district there is no maximum building size limitation. Again just to give the board some background based on my 27 years of experience in Durham, it's important for the board to realize there are many examples of there being buildings greater than 5,000 square feet within the CN zoning district. I believe this minor special use permit requirement was adopted into the UDO about 10 years ago so it actually has not been around for that great a length of time. I do want to refer just before I turn it over to Jeremy, refer to a few examples that the board may be familiar with in regards to buildings in the CN zone. If the board is familiar with the Barakwood building where Thai cafe and beer study and numerous other stores are located that's a building in the CN zone compact neighbor I'm sorry some commercial neighborhood zone and that building is approximately 33,900 square feet in size. If you go across the street from that building to the building the restaurant formerly known as Nanna's that building is owned commercial neighborhood and that building has a size of approximately 12,950 feet. If you look at this aerial photo here if you look at the two buildings that are on the same side of 15501 just going down towards New Hope Commons the university light store that's also zoned commercial neighborhood that is that the building on that side on that site is 14,500 square feet and then lastly there's an office building also on the same side of 15501 here 51 or 2 Chapel Hill Boulevard that office building is owned commercial neighborhood and it has a size of approximately 10,900 square feet. And now I'd like to briefly introduce our team that's going to present this case to the rest of this case to the board today our team working on the Oak Ridge development will demonstrate that granting the special use permit meets all the requirements for approval set forth in the UDO. The experts who will testify to the board today include Mr. Jeremy Anderson he's our landscape architect and a site designer from CJTPA here in Durham. Next will be our traffic engineer Mr. Earl Llewellyn a very experienced traffic engineer with Kim Lee Horn and then lastly Mr. Tom Tolly is our team's real estate appraiser with board and Tolly appraisals here in Durham. As you consider the evidence please keep in mind the legal standard. It's the applicant's burden to prevent competent material substantial evidence showing that each of the required findings has been met once that's done the applicant is entitled to issuance of the special use permit and again I want to stress for the board that this is a little bit out of the ordinary like the last two cases we presented on we're not talking about a specific use. The only issue before the board today is granting minor special use permit for buildings greater than 5,000 square feet. We feel confident that the competent material substantial evidence that will be submitted to you today will establish clearly that the applicant is complied with all the requirements of the UDO. I would be happy to answer any background questions on the zoning which again goes back several years and I was personally involved with that if there are not any questions for me we'll turn it over to Mr. Jeremy Anderson. Any questions for Mr. Becker before we continue? Mr. Mattis. Thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you Mr. Becker. I sure do appreciate your knowledge of this area you've demonstrated on many occasions that you're familiar with this part of town and I appreciate that. I also understand you know why we're here today. I would like it if one or more of your experts who are going to give testimony would respond directly to section 2.a of the staff report that says that the walk to this bus stop would not prove safe and also section 2.l under the staff analysis that says the proposed project however does not meet the intent of the C&N development tier as it was previously noted that this is a difficult site for bicycle and pedestrian traffic. I understand this is an issue of building size however that stuff is in the staff report under the review factors and I just hope you guys will take a little time to you know help address those criteria raised in the staff report. Yes certainly Mr. Mattis we respectfully disagree with a few of those characterizations and so we'll be happy to address those in our findings. It's important to recognize that this is an area that's transitioning from what was historically a very traditional suburban completely auto dependent development. I remember when New Hope Commons and the Home Depot were approved here and then at that time or right about that time I was chairman of the Durham Area Transit Authority and so nobody gave a thought to transit at that time so what we're trying to do is catch up with some of those infrastructure issues and I think the site plan that you'll you'll see today affect addresses them as best as they can be addressed. So we're trying to play catch up and that's why the Patterson Place rezoning was was approved I personally supported that I personally attended all the neighborhood meetings that were directed or convened by the planning department. I think the planning department did a very good job in shepherding this 600 acre rezoning through the process at the time but of course the whole White Rail plan crater that was the the genesis of that and I think we're doing our best to play catch up so that's that's where we are we'll be happy to address those issues and I think without further ado I'll bring on I'll ask Mr. Jeremy Anderson to present his testimony to the board. All right with no other questions for Mr. Biker we'll move on to Mr. Anderson. Great thank you Patrick thank you Chairman Rogers and board members nice to see all this morning my name is Jeremy Anderson landscape architect with CJT PA here in Durham I have served as a project manager landscape architect for this project on behalf of the applicant Durhill. CJT is located 111 West Main Street downtown Durham briefly my experience my background I received a bachelor of landscape architecture degree from North Carolina State University in 1999 had been practicing in the Triangle area for just over 20 years now mostly at this firm with with one other firm in the area with primary focus on Durham and Chapel Hill over those years. I am a partner and a landscape architect here at CJT and again worked on primarily projects in the Durham Chapel area with a focus on site development commercial and residential private development over those those years for this project specifically I actually as the project manager landscape architect land planner and have been working with city Durham staff for about two years two plus years on the approval process for this working out the various details and I will go into too many of those here in the next couple minutes. I do want to mention kind of my experience as this map is up right here my my experience personally and our firms the University Ford and Kia dealership that is the two white buildings just to the south of the project south side of the US or excuse me a 15501 I was responsible for the rezoning and land planning landscape architecture for that project so familiar with the zoning that was in place that time when that was developed the witherspoon rose garden which is a little further southwest of that in the middle of Patterson Place there worked on the rezoning for that as well as the the landscape architecture for the residential building that's currently being developed there just to the south of the screen behind the Home Depot but within the Patterson Place area currently under development is the Maumari Apartments about 260 garden style apartments that were developed within the design district following the design district rules and again that project is currently under construction as well so numerous projects in this area is familiar with both the zoning district and requirements before Patterson Place was rezoned as well as as what the design requirements are after that so just so more specifically about the site itself and maybe let's leave the slide up one more one more second as Patrick referenced there was approximately 72 acres within the boundary there and we are talking about the parcels across the front the small rectangles about two acres each that were zoned CN they add up to again about 10 acres of land of that 72 and that's what our focus of the developments on there is approximately 10 to 12 acres that would be future development just to the north of those rectangles and then approximately 68 50 to 60 acres of that area further north between our development and the residential to the top of the screen is floodplain wetlands stream buffer all very protected and will never be developed so there is that natural buffer as Patrick said that will remain in place as as discussed already that the CN zoning that was in place that's requiring this this special use permit has certain design requirements beside it we were aware of the design district zoning coming in place so as we went through the site plan process over the past two years we worked closely with planning to stitch in as many of these design requirements as possible design district requirements such as you know streetscape and building placement pedestrian connectivity things like that so we we wanted to make this as as design district and as urban as we could but we were falling within the existing zoning district the existing CN zoning district that we submitted the site plan under so just wanted to put that out there that we have we have certainly considered the design district requirements in the site design maybe it's Eliza if you don't mind you may have to reshare could you go to the site plan now if we're done with this one okay great let's go to the going down a couple more sheets let's go to the overall site plan there we go that'll be fine so the site more specifically is is focused around this central street that you see running just to north of the buildings there that is a new public road designed to public to the design district public road standards so those are within the design district section so we followed those closely when we laid this road out and that road is specifically designed with two narrow travel lanes on street parking parallel parking on both sides it protected and buffered bike lane on both sides of the parking and then why 12 foot sidewalks on either side of that that street section is is is included I think in page 202 of the of the site plan said if you want to see in detail but that was the focus of the site design incorporating and designing this pedestrian although it's a it's a road and there's on street parking it's still we wanted to encourage you know the bike friendliness and the pedestrian friendly it's that we could as we orient to the design and then obviously parking is behind that to support the commercial you know office and retail that is proposed here specifically I'll get into the the various review factors within the UDO that's required to be demonstrated here with the minor special use permit so I'll go through those one at a time lighting being number one in generally speaking this review factor is not impacted by the the size of the building however lighting will be designed to meet the UDO standards and a commitment we made during the Patterson Place zoning discussion while we're working with staff and members of the New Hope corridor we did commit to full cutoff light fixtures in an in an attempt to to screen and and protect the environmental areas that will remain there was concern about light glare into those environmental areas so we committed to full light off full cutoff light fixtures as well as capping the height at 25 feet so that that has been shown on the lighting plan and in addition the building height just want to emphasize is capped at 35 feet so you know if if a building is that tall there may be some light from that but 35 feet is the height that we've capped it's at so there's there's kind of a a cap there on lighting that may come from from adjacent buildings signage again not a factor specifically related to the building size we have not outlined any signage on this plan signage will be permitted separately with the sign permit but it ended up designed to meet the UDO standards we don't see any specific requirements related to signage for this project utilities are available available in this area of Durham the public public sewer main to the north of the project that we're connecting to and public water in 15501 to the south Durham Chapel Hill Road on this plan here Durham Public Works Engineering has reviewed the site plan and generally for availability water and sewer availability and has had no comments open space there is not a specific open space quote-unquote requirement for a commercial project however there are some open space ask commitments that we've made with this project I've mentioned the 50 plus acres of floodplain stream buffer wetlands that will all be protected to the north of the site just wanted to continue to point that out that that will be continued to be an asset to anything that gets developed around here in addition there is a hundred foot greenway easement being proposed it's off this page here it was on a previous sheet and maybe Eliza you scroll back two or three sheets it's shaded in gray on the existing plan that is a commitment to of the site plan to to commit to a hundred foot greenway easement for the dry creek trail I believe it is in the north New Hope Creek corridor here so that is being committed with the site plan for for future construction of that greenway trail environmental protection yeah there hang on one more there we go so you see it see it shaded in gray there it's it's within most of that protected area so when that greenway gets gets planned and funded there's a hundred foot easement there that that trail can be be constructed in so thank you you can probably scroll back to that site plan environmental protection outlined in the staff report these CN parcels are not encumbered by natural inventory sites steep slopes wetlands those are mostly off this off the CN parcels but there is a section of stream buffer you can see here that just just noses into these the CN parcels that we are impacting that impact is required to construct this new public road again as you've heard you've been working with DOT for 24 months now on this access and bringing this drive in and sweeping it to the west there and it does cross that stream buffer I will say however the army corps of engineers has already reviewed and approved a nationwide 404 permit for that crossing as well as ncdq 401 permit for crossing that stream those have been reviewed and approved and the city of Durham has approved the no letter of no practical alternatives for crossing that buffer so all three of those agencies have reviewed it in terms of the the appropriateness of crossing it and the impact and have all approved it so that is worth noting screening buffering and landscaping there are no specific landscape buffers required here within the CN district because CN to CN does not require it I will point out a few things though I mentioned the street street design of street a will have street trees on both sides of it so to create that that canopy along both sides as well along 15501 we committed to street trees every 20 feet 40 feet is pretty standard we committed to 20 feet because that's what again the design district if this was in the design district at the time would have required so we increased it from 40 to 20 so we have more trees on the front in addition to a row of shrubs and an ornamental fence along the entire frontage so a screen a natural landscape screen to to screen some of that parking from 15501 the effects on nearby properties I will say in my expert opinion the approval of the special use permit for buildings greater than 5,000 square feet will not result in noticeable increases in noise odor or lighting given the wide natural buffers that Patrick discussed already given the proximity of those residential properties compatibility again granting the special use permit for buildings greater than 5,000 square feet is appropriate in this location because you're directly across from 15501 you see university of university forward dealership which has already which already has buildings of approximately 50,000 square feet Patrick already referred to the university lighting and office buildings adjacent here to the west and both of these park buildings have buildings in excess of 10,000 square feet so the building sizes here are compatible with other buildings directly in this area according to that my professional opinion that the request for the special use permit for buildings greater than 5,000 square feet is consistent and compatible with the nearby properties consistency with the policy besides what is stated in pages 5 and 6 of the staff report I want to highlight my personal experience again based on working on projects in Durham and Durham's design districts I mentioned the the Mount Mariah apartments on Mariah road just south of the home depot that was I believe one of the first projects or was the first project designed with the CSD Patterson Place design district zoning in place and it again worked with staff closely a lot of challenges in designing those public streets the same street you see designed here with the street parking and the buffered bike lanes and the wide sidewalks we designed two public streets on that project buildings up on the road all of the design district s requirements to create a a walkable and you know kind of pedestrian friendly development same with the Witherspoon redevelopment that project was designed with buildings up on the street wider sidewalks buffering the parking stuff like that the various design design district requirements that the CSD Patterson Place zoning now require I think we did a good job incorporating as many of these into this project as we could with also working within the confines of the CN zoning and the UD that was in place so kind of to answer your question Chad we didn't throw out one we didn't look at one of the other we tried to incorporate as much of that into design as we could and I think we've done a good job creating this pedestrian streetscape although you know there's a there's a large parking field and 15501 is what it is we've created an internal road that we hope is the focus of this and in the future you see here at the west side of the site that road will in hopes continue over to both the extension of Southwest Durham Drive when it goes north of 15501 as well as over to New Hope Commons and the hope is that this road continues with the exact same streetscape here with the wide sidewalks and the and the buffered bike lanes and creates that pedestrian connectivity that's kind of what we can do at this point being the first project in providing pedestrian and bike connections along 15501 is just not something that DOT will permit they will not allow the sidewalk out there along 15501 so so our focus is on the internal street and hoping that the connection here to the west via the internal road happens sooner rather than later so in conclusion my professional opinion that granting of this best use permit is compatible in nearby properties and the site has been designed in a manner that minimizes the adverse effects on nearby properties it is my professional opinion that granting of the special use permit for buildings over 5000 square feet has been designed in compliance with all fact all review factors I have discussed and adopted policies applicable to the site if there's no questions for me directly at this time I would like to invite Earl Lwelyn traffic engineering expert to speak more on the specifics of the special use permit access and circulation thank you sir looks like we've got a couple of questions Chad I believe you first thank you sir and and and thanks for that Jeremy I appreciate the detail that you went into I'm sorry to ask such a silly and rudimentary question but I'm I'm still confused when I look at the site area map for this MSP it looks like two of the parcels that are included in the site plan we're seeing on the screen are not included in the application for the MSP could you explain that to me a little bit more so that I I'm confused by that yeah I will I didn't know Patrick feel free to step in just just legally on it the that map that Eliza had presented with that one parcel being excluded I believe is an error I don't know it was it is included as one of the parcels in this project it's kind of right here in the middle of the site so we submitted it I can't explain why there's the discrepancy but the site plan as Jeremy indicated has been under review for approximately two years I'm happy to get more background on why we went through this process but it's it's clear that what we need to do is approve the site plan that's before the board today simply to allow buildings greater than five thousand square feet thank you and one last thing I think I heard you say and I just wanted to be sure I heard you say it correctly I think Jeremy I heard you say that the DOT at this time is not not approving sidewalks or pedestrian facilities along the the 15501 the Durham Chapel Hill Boulevard right away is that did I hear that correct okay thank you that is correct thank you yeah if I could just add a little bit more background I I understand that ncdot is working on a project to upgrade 15501 when that'll happen when they'll have funding to do it is anybody's guess and I really have no idea but I do believe planning for improvements to 15501 by ncdot are in the works all right thank you mr. Richlis yes hi question with Jeremy and mr. biker being that you're increasing you wanting an increase of over five thousand square foot in this project and all this pedestrian friendly use where are the semi trucks gonna unload these goods uh for all these buildings that uh you're proposing that over five thousand square foot yeah I'll leave it for to Jeremy or Earl could handle handle that but obviously those are service entrances are a UDA requirement that'll be addressed I'll touch on that that quickly and Earl can can expand on it if he wants so um you do see one building to the west that has a dedicated service area all the way to the west of the page there is other buildings are are smaller scale yet to be defined on how small those spaces get carved up to so there is the on-street parking which is parallel and then there's the the obviously the parking lot inside we have not identified any loading areas because we do not know at this point what those loading requirements will be we don't think they're intense on really any of those other than the large building to the west there um you know we're happy to work with signage requirements timing requirements um you know for for shopping centers like this with kind of double faced commercial where you have an active streetscape and on the one side and you still have access to it on the other side similar to um some of the stuff going on here at Patterson Place in Briar Creek it's it's hard to identify a loading space at this time um but we could see you know some of those loading happening on the street side in those parallel spaces at you know early times in the morning or you know taking a few parking spaces inside we have I think identified in the staff report you can see there's there's some extra parking spaces designed on the site we could lose you know several parking spaces dedicate those to loading if we just if we found an area that we needed to given the uses so we have we have spaces we could we could carve out if necessary got it I just you know it's a factor especially when you get to a building over 5000 square foot in that I wasn't sure about that that if that was a loading zone in there but it makes sense to me yeah um okay thank you thank you our next witness will be Mr Earl oh I'm sorry was there another question well I didn't know if I think it was Mr Kip asked about the reservation I don't know if this is a perfect time to or maybe maybe Earl will hit it but um let me let Earl go through his stuff and I can address that after all right uh Mr Tarrant had a question first yes uh thank you Mr Anderson I think your testimony has clarified a lot of things for me I just have a few follow-up items um can you talk to me a little bit more about the the stream buffer crossing in the impacts um you know typically we would see a a culvert or you know minimize the impacts as much as practical in this area it looks like we're just wiping out a significant portion of that the end of that buffer there if you could just give me a little bit of background on the conversations you may have had with the with the 4DQ I would appreciate it um yeah certainly um like I'm not I'm not uh firsthand knowledge of the conversation with DEQ I don't think there was a whole lot of back and forth I don't want to say it was cut and dry but putting in a culvert um you can see if we did that just for the crossing you may end up with you know a couple feet left on the project side um so it it was more practical to kind of remove the entire end of it and kind of start that stream um just to the north of the road crossing if we looked at I believe it's the uh the the campo plan where this road connection was shown it actually extends further further into the site we did what we could to to meet DOT standards and actually probably below DOT standards in terms of curving that road curving that road to the west as quick as possible to minimize you know where we had to cross it so we're crossing at the end there really is an opportunity to keep a piece of it and culvert under it just given how little was left on the one side thank you um and then as it as it relates to service can you um can you speak to how waste management is being handled I I see a lot of density specifically called out for restaurant use and for small dumpsters on this plan which doesn't really seem adequate in my mind um we've we've laid those out as as preliminary locations um as I mentioned earlier I think there's like 40 extra parking spaces just by the calculations so um if it came to the construction drawing level when maybe some of these uses get a little bit more defined um if those get converted to a mini mac or a compact or if we act you know I have to add another facility um we could we could do that and still meet parking requirements um but we've we've kind of identified those as two central locations we see a kind of a property management type situation going here where we're trash we picked up and take taken to these central locations and um again if one of them gets converted to a compact or two to increase the capacity I could see that happening and that really doesn't affect the design the final question I have is it looks like you are dedicating about 25 feet of right away along 15501 is that correct that's correct yep um and then there appears to be about an eight foot tall retaining wall in the southeast corner of the building H parcel that's within that dedicated right away is that something that's being discussed with ncdot as part of the review and is that permissible um that's a good question honestly I think it's uh we probably just have to turn that retaining wall um honestly had noticed it before so um good catch on your behalf we we could turn that retaining wall and and remove the wall from the right away that was just an oversight on the grading thank you mr kiff yes um informationally did you give any thought to having the building's front closer to the boulevard and have the parking in the back that's actually that's an interesting question the when the comp when the Patterson place compact suburban design district was adopted the city council as a separate agenda item adopted an internal street network and that's what you're seeing on the north side of this site so that is a directive of the city council as part of the Patterson place rezoning to build this new street with wider sidewalks bike lanes on both sides and have the building's front on that street so this is a directive of that Patterson place um compact suburban design design district that was adopted in august of 2019 i august 20 sorry august 5 2019 so you could go back to the city council agenda that night and you would see i believe it was the last item that was adopted was in fact a street network for this 600 acre assembly and so that's what drives the building layout we're looking at today it's essentially hornet's requirements sir all right um and mr louis one is next morning everybody um hurl well in traffic engineer with kim lehorn and associates located here 300 more street in durham i have a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from nc state with a focus in transportation i'm a registered professional engineer in north carolina have worked in the transportation field for over 30 years 12 of which was with the city of durham transportation apartment and i've since been with kim lehorn for 12 years um i was retained to testify regarding public health safety uh related to the transportation related findings in the ordinance uh section 3.9.8 and i've been on the oak ridge team analyzing traffic impacts and overall traffic design for the assemblage regarding circulation just to reiterate um germy's points sites served by two access points one right in right out onto 15501 proper uh one full movement access onto the service road based on the traffic impact analysis i conducted all study area intersections will operate at acceptable overall levels of service um you'll you'll notice that we have collector street a proposed through the site uh in consistent with the paterson police street network which provides two travel lanes and then on both sides of the street we have parking the bike buffers bike lanes and uh wide sidewalks i believe i believe they're 12 feet wide on both sides again consistent with the primary street type within the paterson police district there's also a very robust robust interconnected sidewalk system on site with regard to parking parking is provided in accordance with the udo and drive aisles are configured to ensure safe movements similarly bike parking will be provided to meet or exceed udo standards um the the granting of this special use permit will uh will have no effect on the service areas or entrances uh which have been designed appropriately in conclusion it's my professional opinion that approval of the special use permit is in harmony with the area and that it meets uh all requirements of the applicable applicable to this s up it's also my professional opinion that the site has been designed to safely accommodate bicycles automobile traffic including emergency vehicles uh the granting of this use permit will not adversely affect health or safety of the public and in my opinion the street cross section um prepared before you today for street a does not adversely affect health or safety of the public i would as has been mentioned i would respectfully disagree with the statement i believe it's on page seven of the staff report which states the proposed project however does not meet the intent of the c development tier as it was previously noted that it is a difficult site for bicycle and pedestrian traffic uh this site is my opinion this site has bicycle lanes and sidewalks on both sides of street a strong pedestrian uh accommodations as jerry has jeremy has testified about uh accordingly i think this site plan actually provides one of the safer uh and more accommodating of likes and pedestrian than others in the Patterson Place District because it allows for connectivity to the west with the understanding that bicycle and pedestrian accommodations aren't allowed within 15501 as we've talked about before so basically the apcon has done everything possible to address this issue and i believe it's done so very well therefore in my professional opinion i think this uh statement is incorrect um accordingly this application adequately addresses all review factors identified in the Durham UDO section 3.9.8 that i have testified about and i'm happy to address any questions any questions for mr louella mike i can't tell if that was from uh your last okay all right then thank you sir our last witness will be mr tom tolling yes my name is tom tolly i have an undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill i have an MBA from the University of North Carolina at charlotte i've been a certified general appraiser in Durham since 2000 uh specializing in both residential and commercial appraisals uh i'm pretty familiar with this site i actually worked on the 2002 acquisition and development of the veterinary hospital that will abut this property when they purchased that from sports endeavors and the basically i was charged to look at this to see if there were any impacts negatively on any residential or commercial properties i found none in that the stream buffer and flood plain that backs up through the houses off of mount mariah to the north would have no impact and basically the residential properties across the street off of southwest Durham drive would have no impact from the site and the only potential impact would be the commercial properties that with both university lights and the animal hospital and i actually talked to both of the owners of those properties just to see what and they didn't feel like there would be any impact and i can't see any either so i would say that this project will not have any negative impact on property values both you know commercial or residential by its development any questions for mr tolly thank you sir mr biker i guess we'll turn it back over to you yes thank you mr chairman thank you members of the board for your time this morning i just want to for the record move into evidence all the exhibits relied upon especially the site plan that showed the parcels that are included in this site plan as well as the resumes of our expert witnesses as i mentioned at the beginning it's the applicant team burden to provide competent substantial material evidence to the board on all the findings in the udo our expert team has done that on each one of the findings stayed in the udo and so again this is a case where our team has met the applicable burden there's no evidence to the contrary all right so we respectfully ask for your approval to exceed five thousand square feet of building area within the commercial neighborhood zoning district our team will be happy to answer any questions again for the record i believe this site plan and our expert team has demonstrated we've done everything humanly possible to accommodate bicycle and pedestrian activity within this site and in addition to the site plan there is the of course the greenway proposed to the north that would provide further connectivity as development within the paterson place district forward so with that mr chairman and members of the board we respectfully ask for approval and our team will be happy to answer any further questions thank you very much for your time this point thank you any questions for the applicant or any any of the witnesses before we move forward all right uh eliza do you have a recommendation for the group good morning everyone eliza mineral here with the staff plane department staff staff recommends approval of the case b two zero zero zero zero two zero i'm under special use permit to permit the square footage over five thousand square feet um and that the improvement shall be substantially consistent with the information submitted to the board as a part of the application and site plan case d1900127 all right we've got a recommendation from staff uh any discussion wretchless here mr wretches um you know i love that the city derm is increasing you know pedestrian walkways and more biking and things like that but um and i have a little faith that that you know when when you're developing a center like this over five thousand square foot buildings that you know the fact remains that there there are uh trucks are our main industry of of unloading goods and when you mix the two um it it definitely becomes a problem and and that's really the bottom line for me on my decision here but i do support it i do have faith in um the uh site design in the in the architects that they'll hopefully keep that uh you know in the forefront when you mix the two sir anyone else mr meadows thank you mr chair um i i i really appreciate uh what you know what mr wretches is saying um and here's why um the the review criteria in the code ask us to analyze the proposal with respect to circulation and loading um and we we have a diagram that's presented by the applicant and i understand that's the requirement it might even exceed the requirement um and you know when the applicant is is you know asked about you know loading and and and so forth you know the the answer is well we don't really know we're we're not sure what the truck loading issues needs are going to be um and so that makes it very very difficult in my opinion for this board to render any kind of uh thoughtful decision about whether or not the proposal does or does not meet the review criteria so i appreciate that um i appreciate there i appreciate the applicant's attention to pedestrian access um certainly this is an inward looking site the intention i believe is to have pedestrian connection internally um along the greenway uh you know between this commercial area and whatever subsequent development takes place uh but that too is in the future we don't know um you know are those areas to the north or west going to be developed or not we don't really know um i think the decisive issue for me um is the state's limitation on pedestrian access along 15501 i believe that this applicant had they had the ability to include pedestrian circulation along that major transportation corridor they would have done so um but the the supreme sovereign um is not not permitting that and so they've done the best that they can um so so i guess you know at the end of the day um i want to say that i i believe it's in some cases hard for this board to render a thoughtful decision on some of these review factors when the applicant's not even sure what they're going to do much less us um in light of that you know we we sort of have to muddle through and do the best we can i i do believe they have done that with respect to pedestrian circulation um i also believe that um at least i hope that pedestrian conflict will be minimized um and and i i finally the last point i want to make is you know the point that mr terrant raised about uh you know refuse and and recycling i think was spot on the notion that you know four dumpsters are going to accommodate you know this you know what is likely hundreds of thousands of square feet of of non-residential floor area probably not realistic and there'll probably be some revisions to how that works um so i'm going to support uh or i intend to vote to support this this minor special use permit i i think they've done um as well as they can uh but i just wanted to flag for myself and for the record that the material that we're working with today simply doesn't allow us to render a thoughtful decision on some of these review factors and uh i should appreciate the opportunity to share my opinion thank you thank you sir anyone else all right what does anybody want to offer it's taren time to make a motion i hereby make a motion that application number b two zero zero zero zero two zero an application for a project over 5000 square feet in size within a commercial neighborhood cn zoning district without a development plan unproperly located at 4802 4818 4852 4904 4916 and 4950 Durham Chapel Hill Boulevard has successfully met the applicable requirements the unified development ordinance is hereby granted subject to the following conditions one the improvements shall be substantially consistent with the information submitted to the board as part of the application in site plan case d one nine zero zero one two seven we've got a motion by mr taren is there a second kip second yeah all right second by kip um jessica would you call everyone yes kip yes meadows yes rogers yes retulus yes jeter yeah major yes tarant yes motion carries seven to zero vote of seven to zero your request for a minor special use permit has been approved we appreciate your time and thank you for coming in for the b away this far thank you very much we appreciate all your time and thoughtful consideration see y'all soon the next item on the agenda case 31 at the end has been continued um i had a request from from mr kip for a quick five minute break which is anybody else for anybody else okay with that at her all right everybody's gonna do that all right we'll get back it's 844 let's just uh make it six we'll come back at 850 or 950 excuse me all right we almost have everybody here i'm just waiting on mr kip and then we'll get started let's just um we'll start anyway jessica you want to call the case sure our next case is case number b 21 00036 city case a request for a minor special use permit to allow a school within a residential zoning district the subject site is located at 2722 and 2742 east main street is owned residential urban five or r u five is in the falls of the new jordan lake protected area watershed protection overlay which is fjb and in the urban tier this case has been advertised for the required period of time and property owners within 600 feet have been notified and notarized affidavits verifying the sign postings and letter mailing are on file the seating will be kip meadows rogers wretch less jeter major and tarant all right thank you jessica would everyone who plans on giving testimony in this case will need to have your camera on um so maryon right i'm seeing on here brandon um did miss did bishop right want to speak today or is bishop right just attending uh brandon mclam excuse me hi i'm uncertain if he planned on speaking or not um okay so uh uh if you'll raise your right hand do you swear or affirm that the testimony anyone who plans on speaking uh deborah walkins as well uh do you swear or affirm that the testimony you'll give today is the truth and nothing but the truth uh brandon i do deborah i do and do you consent to this remote meeting platform uh deborah yes brandon and if maryon wants to talk we'll we'll get to her then all right uh Eliza is this yours yes it is i'm going to go ahead and share my screen all right everybody just start out good morning once again elizabeth represent the planning department planning staff request up the staff report and all materials submit that the public hearing be made part of the public record with any necessary corrections as noted uh as uh so noted thank you thank you case b21 00036 um mr right i'm gonna bishop right i'm gonna mute you just because we can hear you um so case b21 00036 is a case for a minor special use permit for a request um for a to allow a school with an air residential zoning district the applicant is going to be timon's group i apologize they're not the property owner there so that is an error on the powerpoint but the applicant is going to be timon's group representing the property owner as well as the um school principal and i believe the um bishop of the church as well um they will be speaking a little bit today um the case area is highlighted and read on the screen as you can see there are two existing sanctuary buildings so the applicant is proposing to have the students in one of those buildings on site and you can see now the aerials showing those existing buildings um the project is located in about 4.01 acres it's owned residential urban five or re five and located within the falls news or jordan lake protected area watershed protection urban a district and the urban development here an educational facility in a residential district requires the issuance of a minor special use permit pursuant to unify development ordinance section 5.1.2 and it's subject to the limited use standards of udo section 5.3.3 k there is a site plan case d2 1 0 0 1 7 0 that is currently under review of this problem for this project and is included in the attachment within the application that you all received um there was an updated site plan that was um submitted based upon some conversations that the applicant had had with ncdot about some things that had previously occurred um when this originally came in 2015 i would like to note so some of you may have been on this board during that time so this case um is might be a little familiar to you um as there was a previous minor special use permit that was administered in 2016 under case b 1 5 0 0 0 2 2 that previous use permit has expired so the applicant is coming before the board again in order to um have this school use permitted um so that just to provide some clarity for anyone that was here in 2015 2016 it might be familiar with this site um i will stop sharing now excuse me everybody i once again apologize for sound like i swallowed a frog i will stop sharing now so i can share the updated site plan which all of you should have had um access to it's located on the agenda playing staff will be available for any questions that you all might have throughout this presentation and once again i would just like to note that udo section three point nine point eight a and b establishes four findings and 13 review factors that the applicant must meet in order for the board to grant a use permit um the all findings and review factors are identified within the staff report and the applicant's responses to those review findings and factors are identified in the application both of which are within if you have any questions or need me to pull up a specific side please let me know i don't see anyone's hands raised besides mr meadows at this time thank you aliza um mr meadows thank you mr chair all right good morning aliza um two quick questions um to the best of your knowledge i assume b1500022 was approved um and my question to you is um are you are there any changes um in in this use um from that prior case to your knowledge that's a great question chat um so essentially not really we're just swapping of the essentially the students will now be located in a different building um the number of students that are proposed is actually decreasing so there's going to be a maximum of 60 students under the current proposal um and one of the major changes is previously dot was requiring some installations of um crosswalks and different um indicators that there was a school on site and since 2015 this type of construction this project um does not actually trigger that threshold so the major change you'll notice between the previous plan and now and what you'll see in this updated site plan that's on the screen is that there is no longer that requirement for these school crosswalks and things of that sort um as dot stated that this project does not trigger those needs um but those are going to be the the main the primary differences um it's going to be the changing of where the students will be located on the site um as well as the number of students that they're requesting thank you good question good point thanks liza any other questions for liza before we look forward all right would the applicant uh please come forward who would that be hey good morning this is brandy mclean i'm with the timon's group i'm a civil engineer professional civil engineer um i graduated from nc state in 2004 and in the field since i'm here representing i appreciate your time today um and i'm here to represent the applicant that really essentially as aliza greatly pointed out that um moving students from from one building on a previously approved plan to another building which is the reason for this special use from that um again for for those that were on the board or had the history i was not involved in the project back in 2015 but my understanding that that the students that are in the building just to the west are are there due to that approval um and as aliza pointed out overall nothing has really changed other than shifting students from the building um the building from the east now to the west if aliza you want to change uh maybe yep this page perfect so the the gray shaded building the sanctuary to the left that's the building where the students are being proposed to move to and i'll quickly go through the um um you know the findings uh circulation you see in the door in the black arrows that's the intended pathway for any drop offs or or and as well as the parking so come in as as well as this through the screen there um and there's considerable stacking length um that would not back up any you know traffic onto east main street and again the students are there now and i think there is a decrease of students since the last was removed uh number two in conformance with all special requirements um again no change in use here so it does conform with all the requirements health and safety of the public nothing has changed from what's been there reached uh previously i'm sorry i kind of circled back but anyway circulation we talked about circulation parking and loading number two um sufficient parking and loading for the site again this is a sanctuary on on sundays and then during the week from eight to eight thirty to three thirty i believe for the times for the school so the the parking for the sanctuary and those times do not conflict with the parking or parking or circulation of the school times service entrance areas um the trash receptacle is existing on site and that is not changing as part of the site plan or nor did nor did it need to during our review of circulation pattern uh lighting is unchanged on the site and is existing the signage is unchanged on site um um and i think uh in the initial application we had assumed that we would still need to put signs out but during the site plan improvement process as Eliza mentioned um signage and striping no longer requirement due to the number of students not meeting that threshold nothing has changed in regards to open space or environmental protection uh no screening and buffer changes um on the site um the effect on adjacent property we see none as as the use previously uh at the other building was also educational uh category two we feel that it is compatible um with the neighborhood as it is existing now um and consistent with policies and again existing use um k through two is is the proposed use 60 students just moving from building from the east to the building sanctuary to the west and thank you for your time i'm here to answer any questions that anyone might have regarding this case any questions for mr mclam uh chat just one thank you mr chair um mr mclam where do the the is there a is there a designated drop-off area or pickup area for the kids or because these are little kids people will be parking and walking their children in what's the what's the plan for uh pickup and uh and drop-off and miss deborah make us speak on what they do now and as i'm looking at this site plan um that again was was it's a revisit of an old site plan but as i see as i look at this site plan to me the arrow to the to the right where the the space is i don't know if we can see those numbers between 77 parking space 77 and 78 to me that feels like the perfect spot to to stop to stop that that first car and allow students to be dropped off that again there's also ample parking for only 60 you know 60 students for parents to to um you know to park and want their kids in as well thank you and if i may say that um that is basically what we're looking at um following the arrows they'll drop off in the back and then just circle around and come back out all right any other questions for mr mclean mr mclean do you have anybody out steered as uh any other witnesses that or would like to give testimony for you or on it would you like to say anything um well yeah i would i was just wanting to say that um it is a kindergarten through second grade school um we've um we're really anxious to get into our permanent location because for the past five years we've been in a temporary location so i'm just looking forward to being able to serve more students um and really have a bigger impact in the community any questions for the applicant or or uh mr blockers uh mr chair thank you mr chair um so i'm just curious that if i understand there's not no building addition is associated with this correct or you're simply renovating the existing building to accommodate the new classrooms that's correct thank you any other questions all right um is there anyone here to speak against this application um eliza morrow at the planning department there's no one that signed up to speak in opposition of this case okay um eliza do you have a uh recommendation for the group yes um staff recommends the approval of minor special for use permit case number b21 00036 so with the following recommended conditions that the improvements shall be substantially consistent with the site plan case d2 000170 and all information submitted to the boards apart the application the educational facility shall serve the kindergarten through second grade levels only the enrollment of the school shall be a maximum of 60 students and any outdoor areas to be utilized by the school shall be shown on the associated site plan all right we've got a recommendation from eliza uh any discussion i'd like to make a motion mr chair sorry comment absolutely okay sorry about that um this is a very ample site um as we see it's unfamiliar with the area it not only has main main roads on either side north and south it's got felix street which is a gravel road in between so there's it's a big site so i'm comfortable with this uh minor special use uh request thanks thank you anyone else i think mr meadows is going to make a motion um yes sir if i may are we are we done with discussion anyone else looks like we're good mr meadows take it away uh before i do i wanted to um mention that i was going to add a word into the suggested staff motion um for item two the item two currently reads the educational facility shall serve the kindergarten through second grade levels when aliza restated the those conditions she inserted the word only at the end of the sentence and i'd like to insert that i'm going to insert that into my motion just so that everybody knows um so with that i will uh i'll hereby make a motion that application number b2 1 00036 an application for a minor special use permit on property located at 27 22 and 27 42 east main street has successfully met the applicable requirements of the unified development ordinance and is hereby granted subject to the following conditions one the improvements shall be substantially consistent with the site plan case d2 1 0 0 1 7 0 and all information submitted to the board as part of the application to the education facility shall serve the kindergarten through second grade levels only number three the enrollment of the school shall be a maximum of 60 students number four any outdoor areas to be utilized by the school shall be shown on the associated site plan all right we've got a motion for approval by mr meadows is there a second kip second kip on the second and jessica you want to take it away all right kip yes meadows yes rogers yes wretch less yes jeter yeah major yes tarant yes motion carries seven to zero vote of seven to zero your request for minor special use permit it has been approved we appreciate you coming forward be away this morning hope you have a good day thank you thank you thank you very much we appreciate it all right uh um jessica you want to call the next one our next case is b2 1 0 0 0 3 7 a county case is a request for a variance from the street yard requirement the subject site is located at 2705 green lane drive is zoned residential rural or rr and eno river protected area watershed protection overlay eb and it's in the suburban tier the case has been advertised for the required period of time and property owners within 600 feet have been notified notarized affidavits verifying signpostings and letter mailing are on file the seating will be kip meadows rogers wretch less jeter major and tarant all right thank you so much uh with the applicant i'm just glancing around jonathan greer uh is it because that's all in person i say we'll need to swear you end at this time you'll raise your right hand do you swear or affirm that the testimony you'll give today is the truth and nothing but the truth i do and you consent to this remote meeting platform i do all right thank you so much uh Eliza is this one yours again yeah yes i should know um mr renegar is not joining us today so this um me and jessica are running the show okay um good morning everybody Eliza Monroe representing the planning department once again um a planning department would like to request that the staff report and all material submitted at the public hearing be made part of the public record with any necessary corrections is noted noted thank you thank you case b21 00037 is a request for a variance from the street yard setback requirements the applicant and property owner is jonathan greer and the site is located within the derm county jurisdiction the case area is highlighted and read on the screen um the site as i we've talked about before is going to be within the county's jurisdiction the site is also going to be zoned r s excuse me r s five excuse me one moment i'm gonna grab some apologies i'm not doing too well the site is going to be zoned r s m and is located in the county's jurisdiction the applicant is requesting a variance today as you can see there is an existing structure there which is going to be a legal non-conforming structure and essentially it's legal non-conforming because it is located too close to the street yard setback so the street yard setback would be from green lane drive green lane drive would require a 50 foot yard 50 foot street yard and the current structure if i go a couple more slides down is located just a little bit too close so the applicant's requesting a variance today to allow them to make it a small addition on to this illegal non-conforming structure therefore increasing the nature of the non-conformity this is a better image here so they're just a little bit too close to the street yard they're wanting to place a small addition which is going to be located right here in order to add on to the structure it does not trigger the need for a minor special use permit which is sometimes the case for these non-conforming structures but it does increase the nature of the non-conformity by bringing the house closer to the street yard and therefore requires a variance from you all today all right thank you Eliza any questions for Eliza before we move forward so Eliza based on their will the addition flush with the porch current dimension or will it come out past the porch even though it's on the other side based upon this photo the addition is going to be showing showing coming flush to the porch but I will let Jonathan speak as to whether or not this is to scale and like if it's going to be a couple of inches or a foot off to add on to what Eliza is saying the plan is for it to sit flush with the porch so that the closest point of the house to the roadway does not move any closer all right any other questions for Eliza all right Mr. Greer we're turning over to you to just or Chad do you have something for Eliza thank you thank you Mr. Chair I just had a quick question Eliza with respect to the front the street setback is the porch something that's allowed to encroach or or not so the porch is a part of the previous existing square footage in pervious surface excuse me if it were new if there was to be a porch that was attached to a structure and it wasn't a prior nonconformity would the porch could the porch be encroaching to the street setback or not depending upon if the porch is enclosed covered those things would determine whether or not it could encroach but it would be able to go a little bit further into the street yard that's correct the porch but not a building okay so which is what this addition would be understood so the so an enclosed porch perhaps not an unenclosed porch or an uncovered porch perhaps so yes like a couple of steps ups a couple of steps up excuse me however when you talk about enclosing things or adding walls in we're looking at it more so as building and that's what this addition is it's going to be fully enclosed i'm going to have a wall or a roof excuse me thank you good point uh mr greer would you like to sure thank you for the board's time today i just wanted to present this proposal for in addition to our home on green lane drive i'm really not sure how what additions to add is my first time here for asking for our variants um the the plan or proposal is to construct a contractor to construct a sunroom on the front of the property um and i believe the engineering drawings were attached within the evidence submitted to the board um this structure is a unheated um a non-bedroom enclosure it is simply a 12 i believe it's 12 by 12 or 12 by 14 space and it serves to increase the square footage of our house my wife and i are um during foster parents and some of the things that we've attempted to do to help kids with trauma is have a quiet and peaceful place to improve their wellness especially as they're i don't know if you're aware there are several kids in foster care that have significant trauma and being able to have a place to relax and calm themselves or even have private sessions with their therapist is needed i myself well my wife and i have three kids already and so it can get a little loud in our in our house right now and so we wanted to have a quiet place to be able to have those activities and continue our our mission to foster within the county of doing outside of that we did investigate additional or other or alternative locations for the sunroom either the rear of the house or on the side um it is my understanding that regardless of the position or location of the sunroom on a variant request for variants would have been necessary as this is a legal non-conforming structure um it is also my understanding that the setback rule was um put into effect in 2006 and this structure was built in 2001 hence the legal non-conforming um i think that's all of the items i wanted to cover for today thank you sir excuse me any questions for the applicant uh mr medus i do thank you mr chair um okay so so mr gir thank you for what you do um i'm i'm sure that um you know you don't hear enough how much um you know people appreciate the kinds of things that you do for our community so thank you for that um so we have this variant we have four criteria that we have to make this decision based on um and i am hoping to um help you tell me the right that the information that we need to be able to to assist you with this um so this is a 12 by 12 or 12 by 14 enclosed room and it's a space that you'll use as a as a quiet space or possibly even a a room to engage in in therapy or whatever it is the room heated or served by water or anything like that no it is not okay and assumedly you'll there's a single door um there's not a pair of doors or multiple doors it's a single door into this space from inside the house is that right correct the plan is to have a a single entry way into the room okay and are there any aspects um framing or um construction related issues or concerns with respect to um the structure that that leads you to place the um this size room in this location so on the eastern side of the house um there are all of our utilities are located there so the gas line the water line as well as both the condenser and package gas units are located on that side which if we propose that location would substantially increase the cost of of the of the sun and understanding that's not a a cause for hardship however on the rear of the of the home there is i don't know if it's quite listed there or quite obvious there but there is a approximately 12 foot brick wall right next to on the rear of the house that serves as a as a patio we would have had to remove quite a bit of that structure in order to build the addition on the rear of the home and it would also remove several square footage of kitchen space as that is where the kitchen is located within the dwelling so this would significantly or potentially impact our um property values as there would be less square footage for kitchen encounter and cabinet space as we'd have to remove all of that so let me follow up with with one of the things that you mentioned um i'm in looking at the the image on the screen you had indicated that on the eastern side of the structure there were um utility features whether that's a utility meter or or or like a condenser for an HVAC system or something like that um is that is that in the approximate location where it says you know 51 feet plus or minus correct all of a little bit better sense about where that stuff is on the eastern side correct on that on the long wall on the eastern side where it says 36.2 there all along there there are two units one is the package unit for HVAC and heat for the ground floor as well as a condenser as well as the demarcation for the gas line comes in on that location right in the center there and then the electric both of the electrical panels are towards the fence but also right along that wall so any construction along that wall would require significant utility work and repair and movement okay and could you explain a little bit more about why a 12 by it looks like this structure is actually 12 by 14 could you explain why a room of that size is necessary um as stated in in the opening remarks um that we are asking to build this structure to create a calming space for kids that are put into our care within the Durand County foster system I mean it is also a it's a nice place to have our the existing floor plan doesn't allow us to segregate off certain portions of the house because it is a quite open floor plan to be able to remove noise and excessive commotion to be able to have a secluded space for these children to speak with their therapist or to have meetings with their with their families or relatives and we felt that this was the best way to provide that as we have there are several landscape features right in the front of the house that aren't present on the survey that with very tall pine trees and you can see it I think from the overhead map that it does create a calming and soothing and shaded area to be able to to um have that those sort of activities take place would it be necessary for you to remove any trees if you located this uh structure in a different location yes actually on the side of the house there are several mature pine trees shortly very close to the to the structure that would also would need to be taken down I see thank you any other questions for that but get Mr. Rachel's uh oops wrong button um yeah so I'm very aware of uh super foam structures and um I'm glad you're using the same shingles and being um the six by six posts you're really not going into the ground too much there um so I just have a question about the lattice is that open or is there a like a glass window behind the lattice on the pictures can you identify which picture um it seems like on well on elevation b wall it looks like lattice on those two panels is that just a screen door sheet two of nine I think those are just representations of a screen for the windows so this is a sunroom so those will all be paneled windows right and I think those are just the screen areas it's all windows and um you just have a ceiling fan basically keeping the air circulated that's correct okay um well I just wanted to comment on the super foam roof uh they're they're great structures they hold up well and um I'm I'm in support of this it's in harmony thank you sir any other questions for the applicant all right uh we do not get a staff recommendation but is there any discussion any thoughts on this one Eliza do you have some notes yes Eliza with the planning department I just wanted to chime in really quickly to make a correction on the record about the zoning district it is going to be rr which is residential rural so just to take that into account and read that into the record um but no further um comments from staff thank you any discussion thoughts okay rich mike you're you're on mute thank you sorry um I think you know given that this is a sunroom and the intended use of it the location on the south side of the house is absolutely the most appropriate location for it um it doesn't appear that based on the design plans and the application that the encroachment while it be a nonconformity is is going to be any worse than it is already so um I think there is certainly a hardship here um in regard to the additional of the porch and I support the application all right uh mr rechels did you have something no chairman I just I had uh Mike was messed up there anyone else anyone want to offer a motion then I'd offer the motion um I hereby make the motion that application number b 2 1 0 0 0 3 7 a request for a variance from the street yard setback requirements on the property located at 2 7 0 5 green lane drive successfully met the applicable requirements of the unified development ordinance and is hereby granted subject to the following conditions that the improvement shall be just fancily consistent with the plans and all the information supported to the board as a part of the application we have a motion for approval by mischievous there a second extra second mr rechels is on the second um Jessica hip yes meadows yes rogers yes wretch less yes jeter yeah major did I hear an answer for a major she's nodding yet but I don't think we can hear her no yes Jessica we're unable to hear your audio I'm not sure why you can't hear we can hear you now we can thank you sorry and tarant yes all right motion carries seven to zero all right by a vote of seven to zero your request for a variance has been approved we uh appreciate the time you've taken to go through this and wish you the rest of the block you guys have a great day but no Jessica you want to call the next case yes our next case is b 21 00039 a city case a request for a variance from the front rear and side yards the subject site is located at 2207 inlet avenue is owned light industrial or i l and is in the falls of the new jordan lake protected area watershed protection overlay f j b it's also in the suburban tier this case has been advertised for the required period of time property owners within 600 feet have been notified and notarized affidavits verifying the sign postings and letter mailings are on file our seating will be kip meadows red rogers redschlitz jeter major and tarant all right thank you for that so everyone who plans on giving testimony for this one need your camera on to administer the oath and that's okay mr and um art uh heli schlitz yes all right go ahead everybody um there's a second martha as well so i don't know if um there's two marthas in the attendee portion so i don't know if the link was shared so i'm going to promote that person to a panelist as well just in case it's someone else that needs to be attending um but i think after that once everyone turns their cameras on we should have everyone okay um or if this martha that is here um that would be great too if you could turn your camera on if you're the right martha yeah if you plan on giving testimony or speaking today we'll need to do the oath okay can you hear me we can see you too good good deal uh yeah no i'm the only martha all right so uh all right we'll need you both to raise your right hand do you swear or affirm that the testimony you'll give today is the truth and nothing but the truth uh martha yes why yes uh do you consent to this remote meeting platform why yes uh martha yes all right um eliza we'll let you take it away sure thank you good morning everybody eliza monroe once again representing the planning department planning staff requests that the staff report on all materials submit that the public hearing be made part of the public record with any necessary corrections as noted so noted thank you thank you case b21 00039 is a request for a variance from the front side and rear yard setbacks the applicant is martha schlitz and i apologize for pronunciation um and the site is like yeah schlitz no i'm sorry about that okay um but martha schultz and the site is within the derm city of derm jurisdiction the case area is highlighted and read on the screen the site is in the suburban tier in zone light industry or i l and is within the city of derm's jurisdiction the existing use is a single family dwelling um which i like did some research you can see a building i'm there but you can't really see it in this aerial there but that would not be continued the continued use i should say the applicant on behalf of the owner requested variance from the street yard setback of a 30 feet a rear yard variance of 15 feet and two side yard variances of 10 feet on the west side and a on five feet on the east side of the property the proposed yards will be used to accommodate a building that will be utilized for light industrial use so the use would be permitted the property um is within the falls news jordan lake protected area watershed overlay district and is within the suburban development tier according to udo section 6.10.1 the required yards for a light industrial zone parcel in the suburban tier are a 40 foot street yard a rear yard of 25 feet and the side yards of at least 30 feet so you can see based upon the outline here that we're seeing two different setups based upon these variances due to the west being next to a non-residential use so going back to this here being next to a non-residential use the required buffer is only 20 feet which is still resulting in the request for a variance i would like to note that the site is located within the fjp watershed protection overlay district and per unified development ordinance section 8.7.21 point there is a maximum impervious surface limit of 24 with the low density option or 70 with the high density option and the installation of approved stormwater control measures the proposed building will need to meet these standards however given the information provided that's not something that could be concluded at this time and will definitely have to be concluded and reviewed during the site plan review process udo section 3.14.8 establishes the four findings that the applicant must make an order for the board to grant a variance these findings requiring approval are identified in the staff report and the applicant's responses to these findings are identified the application both of which are within your packets and staff will be here if you have any questions thanks aliza any questions for staff chat quick one i assume aliza that if there were to be an industrial or a light industrial use on this site there would need to be off-street parking is that um or or an off-site parking agreement but i assume that absent an off-site parking agreement there would need to be parking associated with this site is that is that an accurate assumption that's correct every use even dwellings um single family dwellings require a certain amount of parking that's correct um and parking would be something that would be reviewed and approved during the site plan to ensure that the size of the parking spaces the materials that they're constructed with are in compliance with the code all right mr terry yes um i think i'm just having a hard time really understanding this diagram um is this what's proposed um and where i'm where i'm getting at is if that's the proposed building is the innermost blue line that's labeled as usable lot line what's required by the ordinance yes mr tarrant you're correct so if they were to meet the 20 foot um the buffer requirements the rear yard set by requirements and the street yard requirements this would be the the what was what would be left um meeting those dimensional standards the applicant's proposal um is going to be um highlighted in this green color um what based upon what they're requesting a variance from that would be the remaining usable lot area i guess i'm reading through the application you know it looks like the building proposed is 2400 square feet which is essentially the size here so i'll wait to hear from the applicant but i'm still struggling with why why we can't uh or why why the building can't be constructed without the variance thank you all right any other questions for eliza before we move on all right uh would the applicant like to come forward or no which one martha yes all right we'll let you uh give an overview of what we what we have going on here okay well um as you can see like the usable lot line is so small that even driving around the building would be nearly impossible we want to use the property or the building for a um commercial roofing storage unit we want to be able to um put our supplies in our inventory but we also want to be able to drive through the building and drive around the building but if we can't um if we don't have the proposed usable lot where we expand the size we can't put down any driveable area there's no there's no way we can drive around the building and that's what we're looking at we don't own the property it's currently owned by somebody else so if we don't get the variances um that we're proposing then um we probably have to go look elsewhere although we've tried several different properties with the il zoning and um they're either too small or way too big this would be a perfect lot size although the restrictions from the code say that we have to have that the you know 20 and 30 and then the 40 from the front line and the 25 from the back line whereas if you uh Eliza can you put up the aerial view you can see the to the west is just a huge car parking lot and they didn't give any buffer at all for their lot lot line and then across the street is recycling there is a house but it's also in the il district to the east there you go and uh but we plan on leaving a larger buffer on the right hand side with vegetation so that the building would be obscured in that plot all right any questions for an applicant mike i saw your hand up i i guess this um i actually goes back to miss minn row um so what it what it sounds like to me is that the variance is really for the buffer width not the yard requirements the building appears to fit within the required building envelope but there's just not access to the rear of the building because of the buffer width requirement um so excuse me essentially the with the with the what would be rain if they were to meet all of the dimensional standards would be about three thousand square feet and that would not be ample enough space to have both the structure and the drives are provided if they're meeting all of the dimensional standards so that's buffer as well as the street yards so by lessening those yards they increase their buildable area to have more things that they could do more space that they could do things with on this already small lot which is smaller than the requirements that the dimensional standards are based upon the lot is a lot of record that's a little bit tinier about six thousand square feet or so smaller than what the dimensional the minimum average lot side is is for this zoning district so it's a mixture of both the yard requirement and the buffer requirement to allow them to have more buildable area to do what they need to do for access as well as the building and storage so it's more so I understand the I understand that the buffer in decreasing that would probably take care of a lot of issues but overall in each direction there's one to more space they need more space for the proposed use but parking and drive aisles etc are allowed within the yard requirements right the minimum yard requirements is just not within buffers that's correct so I'm not seeing unless I'm overlooking and I'm not seeing a request in the application for a reduction buffer width and I might be overlooking and I apologize if I am it just looks to be specifically for the the yard requirements it's just for the yard requirements the buffer would still have to be required or provided based upon on the side that it's required to be provided on so not all of the sides that are required to provide a buffer but the request is just for the minimizing of the required street yards not the buffer yeah the buffer is on the right hand side so that would still be provided thank you Mr. Meadows did you have a question for the applicant um I think that it's been answered but I'll I'll just be sure Mr. Taren indicated that uh circulation features like driveways and so forth uh can can take place within required yards I echo his concern there are is there any under storage or other kinds of things that you're anticipating outside the footprint of the building that wouldn't otherwise be permitted inside of the required setback lines well this is just a beginning proposal we we haven't really since we don't own the property as of yet we really figured that if we could start with one building and then if we had the variance was ahead of time then we could add an additional building back or you know storage um to the you know in the usable lot line okay thank you any other questions for the applicant um staff would just like to note and clarify um I think because we don't really have a final version mark that could you please describe what exactly you're envisioning I think we were under the understanding that it's going to be almost like a shelter to store things in but could you possibly describe a little bit more of what the building that you would like to look like I know that we have the the footprint um but could you describe through a little bit more clarity what the building would look like and what it would encompass when you say roof proofing storage space yeah well it we're planning on doing a uh a concrete uh foundation with a metal building to be able to drive through so if our vans were driving through if you notice there's like garage on front and back so they would be able to drive through the building load up materials we'd have um you know racks storage racks um they can pick up equipment and that kind of thing and then be able to drive out the river the will building and go around it and drive back out um that's that was our plan as of right now there's not going to be any it's basically storage it's not going to be an office or you know anything that would the public would have to go through but basic metal storage building very large one but metal storage building basically it uh Eliza if you put up the aerial view again you'll see the street or the building across the street is very similar it's just um you know metal storage thank you Martha for clarifying um and then also so to clarify the right now the intention is the 2400 square foot um building footprint but um the thought process that you all were wanting to um do is possibly get this variance request and maybe have a larger building um at a later date which of course would have to go through site plan approval and review absolutely absolutely mr. Ritchells do you have a question yes chairman rogers uh hi mr. Schultz um i'm very familiar with abc roofing is that kind of the intent you're kind of trying to go with this they they do yeah our company is w jam roofing we are under a partnership um Wyatt and I it's WNM company and we do use abc quite often but we end up having to go through the warehouse too many times so what we want to do is have a mini warehouse of our own where we can store inventory um and just go pick it up as needed as opposed to going through the whole would you say that there's like a sales area in the front and then you know you get the ticket and then you pick up what you need or is this your business not really just our business our business storage yeah it's just for us primarily there'll there'll be no other um businesses I got you okay that's that's all I had just want to keep in perspective of what you're doing there okay all right any other questions for the applicant all right uh we did not get a recommendation from staff uh is there any discussion or thoughts on this one mr. terry yes um I you know just looking at typical industrial sites I do think this parcel is is rather small for an industrial site um I know there there was mention in the application about some topography challenges and you know 10 feet on a narrow site is certainly certainly challenging in and of its own right um and looking at the surrounding area the proximity of the building especially on the south side of inland avenue is um this is close as you know 20 feet or so to the to the right of way so I feel like the proposal is is generally in harmony and there is um there are some partnerships here on this particular site anyone else actually see you I don't know if Chad had his hand up first go ahead sir I'll come after you so yeah and and to piggyback on mr. Terrence comments I I think it's definitely in harmony with the area um and you know I have um a lot of faith in our our our uh municipal uh inspections and planning and all that to put in some uh great storm order and you know those kind of protections being in where it's at and uh I'm I'm definitely um support this mr. Meadows thank you mr. Chair and and thanks to everybody for your comments I'm slightly more dubious of this not necessarily because they you know it I agree that the site is smaller than the minimum lot area and the anticipation that you could accommodate required yards and a lot that does that a lawfully established lot that doesn't meet the minimum lot area I think there's a compelling reason to to allow reductions to uh required yards um I don't know that the the evidence has been presented compels me strongly um that that indeed we've we've got a a serious bona fide hardship in fact the image that's you know in the record shows a building that that fits within the uh required yards without any problem at all and I think that's where I'm having some trouble the what is on the record shows a structure that fits uh and we're asking for a variance for some reason but we don't really have anything on the record about what that might be and that's I think what's giving me a little bit of concern um that said you know I do believe given the fact that the lot is smaller than the minimum lot size for the district that it that I think there's a built-in justification for reductions to yard widths but I would want those reductions to be the minimum necessary not just a a blank check um thank you any other thoughts or a discussion items um this is why I haven't spoken yet oh excuse me I'm sorry go ahead I'm the other applicant part of the apple I wanted to address why we want the lots um dimensions um the variance in it because with basically any roofing company a truck's going to be pulling a trailer even if it's like an f-150 pickup truck and it's going to have a 16 foot trailer behind it by being able to drive through the building and come out the backside we can enter the street pulling out into the street and not backing into the street every time they're with those smaller lot sizes and with the smaller the built-in buffers that are already there you would probably not be able to even turn the vehicle around on the lot that's that's everything mr chair follow question yeah i'm so um wide I I I own a pickup but i'm not necessarily uh that good at backing up and I'm horrendous at backing up with a trailer do you uh in the course of your duties over uh a regular day operate a truck with a trailer that you described are you are you knowledgeable in that company needs a trip yes I am I am I built this company 26 years and we do we're not the warehouse is not for sales to other people we actually do roofing installations that is what we do and we pull trailers um daily and so the whole idea is to have to be able to store our materials inside the building so they're not getting rained snowed on or better organized we can pull they're heavy materials you can pull up beside them inside the warehouse load them directly onto the truck or the trailer rather than have to walk them outside or on a um valley you can pull the truck around the building and enter the street directly head on without backing into um a road you know potentially blocking traffic um it just saves a lot of hassle and headache to be able to pull forward with a trailer sorry we must have lost him yeah one last question perhaps you can answer um answer this one Martha and that is the the trucks going through the building you're you're loaded up and then you're you're exiting the building um I assume you're going to um exit you're going to you're going to pull around through the the back of the building that the building facade that's farthest from the street and then once you're loaded up you'll pull out the side of the building that is closest to the street is that is am I thinking about that the right way well we'll be pulling out and going to the left towards where that car lot is so we'd go through the building and then pull around the building and then out into the street that way they don't have to you know drive into the building and then try and back out with the trailer it's um it's just less complicated I see I see so they're going to be so you would not be having a driveway through the buffer obviously that's there for a buffer no not at all the buffer on the um on the east side where that house is is going to be vegetation we want our intention is to to have a minimum impact on on the um you know just the the land in general you know but a building it's it's necessary it's necessary in the course of business that we have some place that we can store our our our inventory and be able to utilize and access it in the most convenient way but we we're not looking to store a whole lot of stuff on the property right it's just not in the works right now and it's a lot safer for the public if your trucks are able to pull out uh onto the street instead of backing into the street is that accurate that's correct that's correct thank you mr camp thanks I just wanted to say that um obviously this is a pretty intense light industrial zone we look at the aerial map and uh it's there's a lot of cars there um on harvest street so what i'm saying is i'm comfortable with this variance um i don't think it's going to have negative effects i also think this is what industrial zones are for so i'll just leave it there thank you right anyone else is there anyone here to speak against this application just going to see anyone no one has signed up to speak in opposition of this case okay um i uh at first i had i was kind of along the lines as as Chad for this it wasn't really wasn't sure what to do um and i don't think i was going to support it until recently but um talking about um you know looking got more in depth with the uh the use i guess or or the plans for it so um anybody want to offer a motion or any further thoughts retro so i'd like to make a motion i hereby make a motion that case number b210039 an application for a variance from the front side in rear yards that property located at 2207 inlet avenue has successfully met the applicable requirements of the udo and is hereby granted subject to the vowing conditions the improvements shall be substantially consistent with the plans and all information submitted to the board as part of the application we've got a motion by mr rechlis is there a second kip second second by mr kip um just leave kip yes meadows yes rogers uh yes rechlis yes jeter yeah major yes tarant yes that is seven to zero motion carries a vote of seven to zero your request for a variance has been approved we appreciate your time this morning and wish you the best of luck thank you very much have a good day you too jessica you want to call the next one our next case is b21 00040 a city case it's a request for a variance from the requirement that retaining walls built to support grade eight feet or higher than the grade at the interior edge of the project boundary buffer shall also be set back 10 feet from the buffer the subject site is located at 927 ellis road is zoned light industrial or i l and is in the urban tier this case has been advertised for the required period of time property owners within 600 feet have been notified and notarized affidavits verifying the signpostings and letter mailings are on file the seating will be kip meadows rogers rechlis jeter major and tarant all right thank you jessica all right anyone who plans on giving testimony will need your or our speaking i should say uh this morning for this case it will need your camera on um we want to administer the oath and if you'll raise your right hand do you swear or affirm that the testimony you'll give today is the truth and nothing but the truth and we'll call andrew yes i'm ladeedra i do uh travis and i do and you consist of this remote meeting platform travis yes ladeedra yes and andrew yes i think i got everyone um thank you for that and aliza it's all yours thank you um good morning everybody still elizabeth real representing the planning department planning staff request that the staff report on material submitted at the public hearing be made part of the public record with any necessary corrections as noted so noted thank you thank you case b210040 is a request for a variance from the requirement that retaining walls be built to support a grade height eight feet or greater than the grade that the interior edge of the project boundary buffer shall also be set back 10 feet from the buffer itself the applicant is trendy capital investors and the site is located within the city of Durham's jurisdiction the case area is highlighted in red the site is in the urban tier and zone light industrial and is within the city of Durham's jurisdiction as i mentioned before and is not located within a watershed protection overlay district um as we'll note on the site right now it is pretty vacant and very much um a lot of foliage um so trendy capital investors which is the applicant and owner is requesting a variance to allow retaining walls eight feet in height or greater to be allowed within 10 feet of the project boundary buffer the proposed retaining wall segments are non-compliant with as um 62 linear feet are located along the northern property line and 150 linear foot segment is along the southern property line both supporting the parking areas the northern segment will be screening truck trailer spaces and the southern segment will be for five additional parking spaces per unified development ordinance section 9.9.4 b retaining walls that are built to support a grade of eight feet or higher um then the grade at the interior edge of the project boundary buffer have to be set back at least 10 feet from that buffer the applicant proposes retaining walls in the noted locations that will be much closer to the property buffer project boundary buffer excuse me video section of 3.14.8 establishes the four findings that an applicant must make in order for the board to grant a variance these findings requiring approval are identified in the staff report and the applicant's responses to these findings are identified in the application both of which are within your packet um the applicant did provide a powerpoint presentation so um at that time whenever um LaDijera whoever will be heading up that team will let me know i'll navigate to that document um staff is available for any questions throughout the hearing process thank you Eliza any questions for staff uh check um thank you mr chair um i just want to be sure that i understand Eliza so if they uh if the applicant had suggested retaining walls um that were lower in height than eight feet then such walls could be within 10 feet of the buffer and their and a variance would not be required or they could have a retaining wall that's taller than eight feet but it would need to be farther uh than 10 feet from from the uh from the buffers that am i thinking about that the right way yes your um Eliza Monroe playing department you are thinking about that the correct way it is both the height and the proximity to the project boundary buffer that is triggering a need for a variance in order to have it at that location and that height so yes and was the powerpoint uh included in the staff report and i just missed it um it's actually on the agenda item and it's labeled as b 2 1 um the case number 40 um powerpoint presentation it's a pdf document so it's okay i missed it sorry thank you you're totally fine any other questions for Eliza before we move forward all right seeing none um will the applicant come forward um um i believe let's let d drive from parker poe that is going to be um navigating things thanks Eliza that's correct all right hello chairman rogers with parker poe office address 620 south triumph street in charlotte and again i'm here on behalf of the applicant i do want to note for the record that um the applicant's name is trinity capital advisors as just a slight error in the staff report um naming them trinity capital investors next slide please thank you the subject parcel is shown on your screen in green um the project area is approximately 20 acres located at 927 ellis road it sits between ellis road and highway 147 and a butt's glover road along the southern boundary the project has an industrial light zone does it's designate designation excuse me and is within the urban tier objective 2.2.3 of the comp plan encourages several different types of development in the urban tier including industrial commercial and residential uh per udo section 4.3.6 the industrial light district was established to provide a wide range of light manufacturing warehousing and wholesaling activities as well as office and related support services the proposed industrial use before you today is directly aligned with the goals and expectations that the city has for this area next slide please thank you this variance request is to seek um relief from udo 9.9.4 point b which allows it just outline for you that states that retaining walls built to support a grade eight feet a grade eight feet or higher than the grade at the interior edge of the property um boundary shall also be set back 10 feet from the buffer while retaining walls are proposed around the entire building um and you'll see that in a couple of slides the variance request is limited to two small areas totaling just eight percent of the total linear footage of the retaining walls on the site these areas are indicated on your screen by the orange hatched outline next slide please so as Eliza talked about udo 3.14.8 uh permits the variance if the board makes the following findings um one that a necessary hardship was would result from the strict application of the ordinance that the hardship results from conditions that are peculiar to the property such as location size or topography that the hardship did not result from actions taken by the applicant or the property owner and lastly that the requested variance is consistent with the spirit purpose and intent of the ordinance such that public safety is secured and substantial justice is achieved today you'll you'll hear excuse me from travis caught well with trinity capital advisors who will provide some background information about the proposed industrial development you will also testify to these three or three four general finding factors here on your screen so at this time i would like to call mr travis caught well at this time set that twice all right travis please set your name and address for the board uh travis called well office address for 40 south church street sweet 800 in charlotte north carolina can you please describe your background and trinity capitals plans for this development yes i am a senior development manager for trinity capital advisors which we do currently own the parcel that is subject to this request and we specifically purchased this for an industrial use thank you next slide please now can you explain this project for the board and some of the site constraints that you've encountered yes the project involves an industrial building near the intersection of ellison glover roads just north of research triangle park it is largely surrounded by other industrial uses the importance of industrial uses were certainly made more clear during the pandemic which consumers began to see how supply chain logistics could impact their daily lives as industrial demand continues to engrow this development is needed to accommodate market growth in this area given the site's land use designation of light industrial within the urban tier coupled with the surrounding uses and close proximity to rcp it serves as an ideal location for industrial development however there are a few site constraints unique to this property that result in a site design that made compliance with setback requirements for retaining walls of eight feet or taller and feasible uh the first constraint as you will see on the screen is site topography um as indicated by the stars the property slopes severely from ellis road to the east approximately 50 feet in elevation as such retaining walls are required on all sides of the building next slide another existing peculiar condition to the property is the presence of two streams the property property line is shown here where they saw a red line as you can see travis i believe you're muted sorry about that if you don't mind just starting with the description i think you were um we heard the solid red line for the property line and then lost you after that okay just lost my spot let's see the property line shown here is a solid red line and streams are found on both northeast and southeast boundaries of the parcel they're indicated by the blue hash lines you can see these streams require riparian buffers which limit the footprint of the building and require taller retaining walls the 50 feet riparian buffer plus the 10 foot no builds setbacks are shown on your screen in purple um surrounding the streams we are also designating tree save areas shown in the green shading when you look at all of the restrictions on the 20 acre site as a whole together with the need to meet the other udo standards such as those related to open space it becomes nearly impossible to design a meet strict application of these standards next slide this slide provides a closer look at the retaining walls around the building and parking areas which are shown in orange many of the site many side layout options were considered during the design of this property in an effort to reduce the height of the site retaining walls some of these efforts including and sloping the building pad which is not typical in industrial development and steepening pavement slopes and the parking lots as a result we were able to ensure that 2376 feet out of the 2588 linear feet of the retaining walls approximately 92 um complied with the udo requirement 9.9 point four point b compliance with the udo 9.9 point four point b and the remaining two areas shown along the north of the building um and to the east along the south side of the building indicated by a green hatched line would inhibit trinity capitals ability to provide adequate and safe parking and storage necessary for the industrial use the total linear footage for these two areas is a combined 212 linear feet this hardship as discussed results from environmental conditions peculiar to the property which were not created by trinity capital next slide this slide illustrates more clearly the unnecessary hardship at the top left of your screen you'll see the first variance area which is located along the northeast side of the property due to the stream located to the east this portion of the retaining wall must be built 13.5 feet high as such the udo 9.9 point four point b mandates that it must be set back 10 feet from the the parcel boundary if the variance is granted and trinity capital is able to build the retaining wall within two feet of the property buffer this will allow the trailer storage areas shown here in red to be widened in order to improve the circulation and safety for truck drivers without the variance trailer storage spots would be shorter and present an opportunity for a driver to park a trailer and obstruct the ability to make the required truck movements to get to the loading guys the second variance area is located southeast of the property and showed on your screen in the bottom right corner like the portion of the retaining wall we just discussed the area of this retaining wall must be 12 feet high to accommodate the stream located to its east if the variance is granted and trinity capital is able to build the retaining wall within two feet of the property buffer similar to the previous example it would provide five additional parking spaces which will improve the circulation throughout the site and accommodate the intensity of the contemplated industrial use as requested variance is consistent with the spirit purpose and intent of the udo and will further public safety and substantial justice the intent of the setback is of the retaining wall from the property boundary buffer is to allow a visual buffer between adjacent properties which may be negated by a wall overhanging a planted buffer however in this instance the use to the north is commercial and the retaining wall would not adversely affect the adjacent property the property to the south of the site is residential however that lot is vegetated with mature trees such that the retaining wall would likely not be seen from the adjacent lot further these retaining walls would still be constructed in a structurally safe and attractive condition and adequate buffers will separate the subject party property excuse me from the adjacent uses without strict compliance with the additional setback requirement mandated by udo 9.9.4 point b the variance also secures public safety by providing sufficient vehicular circulation um and now i'm muted you passed it on um i do have a a brief summary of the evidence that was presented before you today but at this time um chair if you would like um to take questions before or after this summary just let me know what works best uh well why don't you go ahead with the summary and then we'll take some questions after that just you may answer them then all righty we'll do next slide please so again i like to briefly summarize the competent material and substantial evidence you've heard um today in the form of live testimony and how it addresses each of the four um general findings of udo 3.14.8 with regard to finding one Mr. Cotwell testify that strict compliance with um udo section 9.9.4 point b would inhibit the applicant's ability to provide adequate and safe parking necessary to ensure the safety of trunk drivers as they maneuver through the site and to accommodate the intensity of the contemplated industrial use which again is necessary in this market and ideal for this particular location given the surrounding uses as well as the site's industrial light zoning um an urban future land use map designation with regard to the second factor Mr. Cotwell explained that this deep topography of the site uh the streams on the property and the size of the parcel necessitate this variance with regard to the third factor Mr. Cotwell also explained that these uh peculiar conditions are existing environmental aspects of the site and they were not the result of actions taken by trinity capital finally with the last factor um Mr. Cotwell testified that the request to build 212 linear footage of the retained walls within 10 feet of the property buffer is consistent with the ordinance because the walls are not likely to impact the adjacent properties and will still be constructed in a structurally safe and attractive condition such that public safety is secured and substantial justice is achieved without strict compliance of the um the udo section at issue the variance will further substantial justice because it will permit the construction of the legally permitted use in this zoning district subject to very minor deviations from the code so again under north carolina if you find that we have um shown each of these findings with competent material and substantial evidence the law indicates that the variance should be approved i like to reserve um the right to cross examine any witnesses offering contrary um evidence and i don't believe that there are any but um um myself mr. Cotwell are happy to answer questions at this time and in addition mr. Andrew Allen of semen white side um who developed the site plan is available to answer questions to the extent that the board requires his testimony thank you thank you we've got a couple of questions chat I believe you were first thank you mr. chair um uh thank you miss matthews um and uh and mr. Caldwell I have a question about um the off-street parking spaces I think looking at the parking notes from the site plan it indicates that um there were uh approximately uh 157 parking spaces required for this use um and that the the use is proposed is 203 parking spaces so uh a little over 40 40 more parking spaces than would otherwise be required it might it might is that right yes that's correct so um at the north uh property line where we're asking for the variance um that is not actually to increase the parking spaces that is for um the trailer storage and again the variance allows parking spots to be um of wider length so that trucks can properly circulate and then at the bottom it does add five parking spaces to the south excuse me um and that is to accommodate the intensity of this use um as industrial use in the area but you are correct okay so the the retaining wall on the southern side the retaining wall that's shown um is is necessary to to allow for those additional one two three five five or so parking spaces that are shown in red on the site plan that's okay uh and to to the north side um I understand there's a retaining wall that sort of runs along the the head or the back of the trailer parking spaces I'm not sure the terminology but near the wheel stops and then it looks like the retaining wall sort of turns and and heads in a northerly direction um towards what is I guess the northern property line does the retaining wall extend um all the way to the northern lot line or does it does it stop what what were you what was the anticipation with respect to grading and the need for retaining walls in that area north of the trailer parking sure Travis if you don't mind taking that and then Eliza if you're still available uh to switch screens maybe we can go back to yes this slide here um and I think that that's uh excuse me shows the the what we're requesting that retaining wall again the green hatch line shows the area that will be non-compliant um but with that please try this yeah so so you will see um kind of at the let's call it the western edge of that orange line there you can see the retaining wall does cut back up I guess towards the building away from the property line on the I guess left side of the trailer storage spaces that is that is going to be the line that indicates where the retaining wall is as you continue east um you know I guess down the trailer spots you will see that the line does turn north and that is going to indicate that the retaining wall does turn there yes um okay does that retaining wall extend to the to the northern lot line or does it appears to terminate what 30 feet 40 feet north of the edge of the trailer parking that is that wall keep going or does it stop or what it's it stops there I see okay thank you all right mr. Taylor thank you mr. chair um have a couple of questions regarding the walls themselves and then what about just general um sort of design standards could you tell me what the intended construction material is for the retaining walls yes just a typical um mse wall uh block wall okay and is is um for each wall is the is the truck court on the high side of the low side of the wall the truck court is on the the high side of the wall okay and what about the south wall is the parking on the high side of the side is on the high side as well okay so in each instance then the adjacent properties would be looking at at the face of the wall correct um I would I believe there is um Andrew if you could speak to that I believe there is a landscape requirement there um and there are currently trees um that we are preserving in that area yes this is this is Andrew on um semen wide side yes um there are landscape buffer requirements um which these walls even if the variance is granted will not infringe upon so there's a 10 foot landscape buffer on the north and a residential landscape buffer on the south that have been planted in accordance with the Durham regulations for those landscape buffers um and and for the south wall is there any reason that can't be pulled back right against the um the parking lot like the left portion of the wall is I'm just wondering why the wall jogged to follow the the buffer line at that point instead of perhaps trying to achieve the 10 feet sure so you're saying where you see the green hatch line it kind of slopes to the diagonally Travis or Andrew I don't know who wants to take that one yeah Andrew if you don't mind speaking to that one I'm sorry I ended up in safe driving mode somehow um yes um on the lower end um the wall runs along the parking and the grade comes closer to the grade of the building the wall is able to kind of start to dive away from the parking spaces there so I believe where he's had there is that there was more opportunity to grade and lower the height of the wall um as we move away from from the parking area um so we would try to move that closer to the buffer in order to lessen the height of that wall at that location so I guess where I was going is I mean that's a that's a construction cost item not necessarily a hardship right if the wall could be designed to be compliant with the ordinance why why would that not be accommodated other than your cost uh the wall the wall cannot be designed in accordance with the ordinance and to leave those five parking spaces the wall as shown in this plan is not can is not compliant with the ordinance the orange line is the proposed wall location in order to comply with the ordinance the wall has to jut in towards the building at that point as the building that the slope is moving away from us as we go to the west if that makes sense and if I might add uh which is a refuse again it's not necessary I wouldn't pose it as a cost issue um as opposed to a use issue again um the applicant has determined that this amount of parking spaces and this level circulation is needed to accommodate the industrial use here um so again it's not a cost prohibitive issue it's about accommodating um whoever our tenant will be within this building I understand it's difficult without a gradient plan to understand why the five spaces to the east can be provided and then you've got in a previous exhibit there's five spaces highlighted and read in it's hard to understand why approving this variance allows for those additional spaces the way it was presented in the application this is Andrew let me let me try to speak to that um the grade as we head towards the western property line is falling away from us and with the buffer there those five spaces as the wall comes adjacent to those five spaces in red it gets above 10 feet and high or it gets above the eight feet in height and so it would have to be set back from the park from the buffer and we would lose those five spaces the five spaces just to the west of that as you see the property line starts to pull away from the building and it gives us more time to grade between the edge of the parking space and the wall so we're able to get those five spaces in there just as you can see there's more white space between those five spaces on the west and the proposed orange wall so it gives us the ability to keep that wall below eight feet if that makes sense I think I follow you on that um appreciate that answer and the the final question I had her clarification um believe in the responses to the findings there was reference to industry standards uh related to the truck court and I was um hoping you could elaborate on on that just um based on pure math it looks like you've got loading docks plus um plus a dry violet equal about 135 feet um so assuming a truck dimension of 80 feet that leaves a 55 foot wide dry vial seems like that can be reduced to eliminate the need you know 10 feet to eliminate the need for the variance along the north side and I was hoping you could elaborate on on why this much pavement is needed in this area sure so so typically what we will see from um you know industry standards is that we do want the ability for the truck to be able to turn around and make a full movement in both directions um this site is a little unique because it does not have a full truck loop road around the whole building so you will have to make more maneuvers than you typically would um due to the you know the the site topography and constraints here um the concern with these spots that are shown in red uh is certainly going to be that if if they are shortened which is what would be required uh with the retaining wall moving closer to the building uh to the the spots would be shorter and the trucks would protrude even further um into that that truck aisle um not allowing for trucks to pass and make those movements necessary to get to all of the loading blocks thank you mr meadows do you have a question or is that from earlier it's from earlier my apologies no worries just wanted to make sure uh anyone else have any questions for the applicant or witnesses uh is there anyone here to speak against this application for variance there is no one that signed up in opposition to speak against this case okay thank you and chairman rogers if i may um just ask that to the extent that it is not included already that the presentation um be included in evidence for this case noted um Eliza would you mind uh stop sharing so we can have uh make sure i can see everyone all right uh any discussion on this or further discussion files i'll share mine absolutely um so i um you know i i do agree that industrial development is necessary um on the other hand this site has upwards of 40 spaces more than the minimum required i haven't really gotten any expert testimony on why additional parking spaces are necessary for this site i i believe that if they didn't install at least some of those additional parking spaces it might be possible to to have to develop this site with without the the variance on the southern uh southern side and i and i echo mr mr terrence comments with respect to the trailer parking on the northern side i i do understand that they're wanting a tractor trailer to make a complete u-turn um i have no idea what kind of distance that's required and i and i don't believe that i heard any testimony about what that required distance was other than a reference to an industry standard um that i have not seen or wasn't made available so i'm i'm hesitant on this one um you know i i would love to uh to say that i think industrial development is important i think industrial development of the site is is appropriate um i'm not sure that the configuration um you know i'm not sure that the test for why um the the additional parking that's provided i'm not sure that the case was made for why that was necessary uh and it to my mind it's that parking that's driving the need for the walls that's driving the need for the variance and uh i'm i'm just not i'm not able to get there with respect to uh the rationalization the justification so that that's kind of where i'm coming from maybe somebody um a board member can convince me otherwise thank you any other thoughts yeah i just want to follow up with you which mic we're talking here like terry and i think i had to okay go ahead mic thanks um i i just echo um a lot of mr meadow's comments i we absolutely need industrial air i think this is the perfect site for it topography alone on large industrial buildings is certainly challenging almost impossible to do without retaining walls in this area um but i again i'm not convinced that that the hardship is here or that a hammerhead turnaround couldn't be provided and reduce the width of the dry vial i mean 50 feet for two trucks to pass is i mean that's a four-lane roadway um so i i just i'm i'm not not convinced that this can't be done without a variance and mr ritchells well i kind of piggyback when mr tarant was saying um it's hard to justify you know the variance when we're adding so many parking spots but i'm i'm still kind of in the middle of this and i'm welcome to any other board members to enlighten me um differently anyone else andrew or lididra did do you want to say something yeah i go ahead andrew i'm just apologizing for having my camera off i'm doing the bathroom dance right now no no this is this is adria seaman white side and um you know we we build a good deal of these industrial buildings so this is you know a speculative industrial buildings where there's not a tenant day one and so this building will compete against other speculative industrial buildings you know in other counties for the same tenants we have at seaman white side right now about 20 of these buildings in some form of design or construction and zero of them have a dock that's less than 135 feet 135 feet is understood as industry standards and if this you know if you go to a dock that's less than 135 feet you're just not gonna win tenants tenants have an idea of how fast they can move trucks in and out of docks and the shorter the dock is the less truck movements that they can turn and that 135 is required for this building to compete on in a competitive marketplace you know where rents are very tight you know it's it's these kind of site constraints that lose that lose deals and you know that'll lose a deal to an adjacent county and to an adjacent city if that makes sense you know and the parking numbers are the same this being built as a speculative building not knowing what tenants are going to come in there's understood kind of parking minimums based on square footage and you want to be able to maximize that parking as much as possible to make the building competitive in a marketplace you know and as you can see if you look at this site plan that the industry standard is a double row of parking down the entire front of the building and there are already multiple spots on this building due to grade due to constraints to you know other UDL regulations where we are losing that parking and so we are already kind of below industry standards on the minimum parking there and losing more spaces will just make this building very very difficult for this building to compete in marketplace for tenants all right anyone else i have a question Mr. Allen do you have any like anything that can back what you just set up as a as a industry standard i get you know we have 53 foot trailers then you've got your cabs they can get probably up in words of 70 feet sometimes and i and i do get that do you have any like anything to back that up what you're saying we have a auto turn design programs that basically drive trucks you can drive trucks in and out of sites like this you know and show we can provide the auto term that shows kind of what the truck that's actually look like you know and the other thing you know that that is you know concerned with the 135 is that those dock doors you know if you have two dock doors that are 25 feet apart and trucks are not very close to each other the truck can do a lot more turning moments without being able to affect the truck next to it you know again here industry standard the doctors are about 12 and a half to 13 feet apart and therefore you need you need the 135 for the truck to start to turn left you know and turn out of the space without affecting the truck next to it it kind of cuts down those radiuses and i don't i don't know if there's an industry publication that has these distances in it but you know we can provide or travis you know i'm sure we can provide numerous site plans of other buildings that are constructed in the areas you know that all have 135 or 140 feet minimum truck courts on if that makes sense but i'm not sure that's published anywhere in publication or something that nature it's just speculative buildings these days are not built with truck doors that are narrow in that sense and this is dry we do have a standard that we use here at trinity capital that has been adopted by some of the larger industrial builders throughout the us and that is the standard that we are going off here and if that is needed we can certainly provide mr tan i just had a follow-up question in that regard um is the the 135 140 feet for the dock is that really based on sort of level of service and ability to get in and out quickly in your expedite delivery loading etc more so than it is purely needed for dimensional maneuverability or is it both i would say that that is a combination of both um as andrew spoke to i mean with the the distance between the two docks um you're gonna need some some leeway there to maneuver a truck in both directions especially um on this site when you do have retaining walls leading down the entrance to the truck court um you're gonna have to back up for an extended period of time and for safety reasons need to make sure that we do have an adequate amount of space there thanks all right uh any further thoughts um ladeedra i'm just looking here and being realistic i got three folks who are on the fence it looks like and you need at least one of their votes um you we can do i can ask for a motion now or if you want to come back we could also vote to continue this if you want to come back with some kind of i mean guys for the uh for chad mic and mic it sounds like what we you you're looking for some kind of why this this much space is needed and then this is that correct to my i summarizing that very quickly and very layman's terms as well i don't you know so when i ask you uh what you'd like done um so i believe that you're saying to hold it open our postponing to a later hearing so that we can get the necessary materials um for and i believe that's finding one um and it sounds like particularly you're looking for and i'd like um andrew said i don't know that we'll find um per se industry standards outside of what travis just discussed but maybe um some site plans that uh trinity capital advisor has done similar to this one are either received on white side with that um sort of evidence help i want to make sure that we are being again realistic as well and able to provide you with what um you're specifically requesting so again with the site plans like historical site plans in addition to um the standards that travis has discussed um and your canada opinion for the ones on the on the fence would that be enough uh to suffice for a standard one well in my mind expert testimony uh suffices for that i don't i don't need to see another site plan uh that has no relevance to this particular case uh but these gentlemen could probably answer that question so i'll take a stab at that the the issues that i'm kind of coming up against when i'm hearing you know your your application um the first is that we need this retaining wall for these additional parking spaces um the rationale for the parking spaces is this is a speculative building and we want to be able to sell it or lease it and therefore we think we need these parking spaces uh some evidence about that would be helpful um in my belief if those parking spaces weren't there perhaps you wouldn't need a wall so high perhaps you wouldn't need a variance so answering that line of logic would be helpful um to the northern side um i think the the the question is was it seems that 135 feet is is sufficient perhaps even excessive um it would be possible if the drive aisle wasn't 135 feet that you could conceivably pull some of those spaces back where at least the spaces in the area that are triggering the need for the variance um and and and figure out a way to to to move through either without a variance or provide some some evidence as to why this many trailer spaces are necessary this close to the lot line yielding the need for the variance uh that would be you know information that would be helpful to me i am not a industrial site developer um i do not know anything about that um a fast google search reveals uh apron widths of 120 feet so i i'm definitely interested in in understanding more about why 135 is is the is the industry standard or why that's necessary for this building sure thank you and chairman rogers i do i mean you made me realize that we did not um proffer uh mr allen as an expert um so just for purposes of the testimony that he's given today i'd like to ask him a couple more questions i mean then ask that his testimony be accepted as expert testimony if that um if that is fine with you sure um yes okay um andrew can you please state your name and office address for the board my name is andrew allen my office address is 508 red street in greedville south carolina and just briefly describe your background and experience um as an engineer for the board please yes i have a degree from uh george tech in civil engineering and i'm a licensed professional engineer i have over 20 years of experience uh designing civil projects and industrial buildings all over georgia north carolina south carolina and um i am currently my title is director of civil engineering at sea more inside all right and can you briefly explain your role in this project again for the record yes um we are the civil engineer we're in charge of designing the site site layout grading utilities permitting um for all of the site improvements thank you um that's for me um so again just to summarize what you've discussed today with regard to finding number one that an unnecessary hardship would result from the strip application of this ordinance and in particular that um the trailer spots needs to be about 135 to 140 to accommodate um truck driver safety and industry standards is that your professional opinion today yes i would i would agree with that the industry standards have changed you know 10 years ago we were building buildings with truck courts you know that are 120 feet wide and those industry standards have changed and all new buildings i would say 99 percent or 100 percent of new buildings have truck courts that need these 135 140 foot widths now and in your position about how many um industrial site layouts like this one um have you made in the past uh hundreds hundreds like i said we probably have 20 of these buildings currently in designer construction throughout the southeast all right now um travis i just did hear from the applicant that they're willing to hold this uh open um i don't again we just uh tender mr allen well now i ask for him to be tender as an expert in the field of civil engineering and site layout excuse me for getting my for not having my bearings about me but chairman rogers all right um i don't know uh and it's hard for me to pull up with everything going on uh if his resume was included in the um materials that you all submitted um that'd be something we'd want mr rechels you have a question before we um yes mr allen why did the standards change um logistics has yes absolutely yeah logistics has just become a supply chain logistics has changed and warehouses used to the dock doors were not as prevalent supply chain logistics have changed you know the amount of online commerce has changed the amount of product that is flowing through these buildings has changed the amount of studies on efficiency and dock efficiency that have been done over the last 10 to 15 years just has shown that these wider truck courts can just push trucks through at a much faster position and therefore you need generally less square feet overall in the entire marketplace they can now with these wider truck courts do with less square footage what it used to take them a lot more square footage to do if that makes sense just the thinking in the industry has changed you know the amount of goods that are flowing through facilities such as this has changed as well well i'm trying to get more toward what the trucks and the trailers what changed uh to needing this amount of space yeah absolutely um it's been determined over the last 10 or so years that just this is kind of the optimum you know place that can get trucks moved through and at 120 feet you know a facility like this with dock doors this close you just would not be able to make the trucks turned and again you know we have we have programs that we can show the truck movement so we can drive the trucks through these facilities thank you all right um let me draw next meeting is September 28th do you do you want to continue or what do you prefer yes we um we'll take you up on that offering you said September 28th correct yes we'll put you at the top of the list um for that meeting so uh i think we'll need a motion if we want to continue this um in a second along with the voter on the board uh is that is that a consensus here seems like it does anyone want to make that motion this is meadows i'll make a motion that we continue uh case number b21 00041 to our next meeting uh date certain of September 24th eight 28 thank you sir to date certain September 28th wretchless second all right um Jessica kip yes meadows yes rogers yes wretchless yes cheater yes major yes and tarrant yes motion carries seven to zero for continuation we'll continue we'll see you guys uh next month and we'll add this one to the list all right we're gonna let's take a quick break uh here we are 10 53 um is 11 excuse me 11 53 might you want to take a seven or 10 minute break what do you what do you guys want to know we're all in our last case we've got a few orders to approve and then we'll be done 10 minutes uh let's do 1205 all right 1205 we'll reconvene all right we're almost all back we'll wait on chat and then and we'll get started or continue rather rogers i just wanted to know um chris and i are having some technical difficulties promoting a panelist um one of the uh sign the opponent that signed up for the case um so we are able to allow them to speak as an attendee but unless we are able to promote them or figure out what's going on they may not have video capability so just want to kind of note that and bring it up if chris or brian have any um things that's wrong all right we can we can move forward on that well thank you uh jessica you want to call the next one sure our last case is b21 00041 this is city jurisdiction case a request for a variance from the 10-foot no-build setback from a riparian buffer the subject site is located at 2801 legion avenue is owned residential suburban 8 or rs8 and is in the tuscaloosa neighborhood protection overlay as well as the urban tier this case has been advertised for the required period of time property owners within 600 feet have been notified and notarized affidavits verifying signposting and letter mailings are on file the seating will be kip meadows rogers retch list jeter major and terrant all right got a neighbor kevin loyde who has said in the chat he plans on not speaking you just want to make a note of that he looks like he signed up his opposition but i will not be speaking all right um for those who do plan on giving testimony we'll need your camera on and if you'll raise your right hand do you swear or affirm that the testimony you'll give today is the truth and nothing but the truth um john i do and do you consent to this remote meeting platform i do yes thank you sir it's a brutal meeting you guys have to hand it to you three and a half hours um we're used to this is three and a half hours uh the lines that you want to take this sure thanks let me go ahead and share my screen good afternoon everyone um elizabeth roe here representing the planning department planning staff requests at the staff report and all material submitted at the public hearing be made part of the public record with any necessary corrections as noted so noted thank you case b21 00041 is a request for a variance from the 10-foot no-build setback from a riparian buffer the applicant is john wittger and the site is located within the city of Durham jurisdiction the case area is highlighted and read on the screen the site is within the urban tier zone register residential suburban eight or rs eight and is the existing use is currently a single family dwelling um and here is an aerial version as well showing the existing use um in the center of the lot john wittger the applicant and property owner request a variance to encroach two feet five inches into the riparian buffer 10-foot no-build setback in order to add a new screened porch on the west side of the existing house adjacent to the street the porch would be in the setback would be setback from 10 feet from the street and extend east along the house the north portion of the porch extends into the no-build setback ranging from two feet to two and a half two feet five inches into the setback the existing house already encroaches into the riparian buffer and the no-build setback and is considered a legal non-conforming as the existing house was built before the adoption of the unified development ordinance standards the subject site is located within the tuscaloosa lakewood neighborhood protection overlay district and is in the urban development tier for unified development ordinance section 8.5.9 c buildings and other features that require grading and construction shall be setback at least 10 feet from the edge of the riparian buffer placing the screen porch in the proposed location will cause a two to two feet and five inch encroachment into the 10-foot no-build setback I will like to note that the property's location within the tuscaloosa neighborhood protection overlay district does not have any effect on the proposed barriers and there is not anything within the MPO that would need to be addressed today that will be available for questions about the hearing process and UDO section 3.14.8 establishes the four findings that the applicant must make in order for the board to approve and grant a variance these findings requiring approval identified in the staff report and the applicant's responses to the findings are identified in the application both of which are within your packet and I'm available for any questions if there are any. All right any questions for Eliza, Mike? Terence, Ms. Monroe could you please confirm what the street yard requirements are for RS8 zoning district and if this proposed porch encroaches on that in any way? Sure thing let me do that give me one moment to look that information up. Sorry for the radio static I'm doing everything on my iPad on the side so development within UDO section 7.1.2b the standards for a single family detached structure requires for the RS8 zoning district a 25 foot street yard and 12 a excuse me a nine foot side yard on the single side and a total side yard of 22 feet. However that's not a requirement or no total is required within the urban development here which this property is located within and the rear yard would be 25 feet. So Mike, am I correct in interpreting this this image you have on the screen here it looks like the proposed porch is 21 feet from the right of way is that correct so it would be encroaching four feet into the required street yard? That is correct and I will also go back to the porch section and we can actually read that into the record as I believe that would answer your question a little bit further Mr. Tarrant. Thank you. All right any other questions? I just got confused I thought I had it in my head but then I just got confused this is a request for a variance from the 10-foot no-build setback from a riparian buffer is it also a request for a variance from the front yard setback? It is not a request from a variance from the front yard setback I wanted to pull up this other part here if you'll give me one second. So per UDO section 6.12.3 this is going back to Mr. Tarrant's question about the encroachment of a porch so decks uncovered terraces and at-grade patios can extend up to four feet into any required side yard or up to eight feet into any required street yard or within four feet of a rear property line non-enclosed covered decks or porches can extend six feet into required street and rear yards however a minimum setback of five feet from the property line shall be maintained. So we're getting back into which we kind of talked a little bit about at the very beginning in the earlier case about whether it's enclosed or not enclosed and what's permitted so a porch that is not enclosed so like more of a patio at-grade can extend six feet into required street yards by right per UDO section 6.12.3 so the request in this nature is for the addition within the no-build setback onto the existing non-conforming house which is already located within the no-build setback. So this is not an enclosed structure? The applicant did not provide design drawings so I'll have to reflect to them so they can give us the final design if Mr. Whitaker would like to chime in about the final design and what's going to be proposed here. Yeah let's hold on Mr. Whitaker let's wait until you get into your overview. Is there are there any other questions for Eliza before we hear from the applicant? Just want to hear some order here. All right John we're going to turn it over you give us an overview of what you have here in what you wanted to do. Yeah so it's a screened in the proposal is a screened in porch a 15 by 15 screened in porch and it was my understanding that that would qualify we wouldn't need the setback from the street. In initial conversations with city staff they had asked us to measure the other neighbors to make sure that our house wasn't extended closer to the street than any of the other neighbors and this 15-foot porch would not extend further closer to the street than the other neighbors so that was the determination that I understood needed to be met for the street setback but this is basically a request to I mean the staff also let me just one other thing the staff also suggested might be easier just to move the porch over so it doesn't it doesn't encroach on the on the setback from the riparian buffer from the 10-foot construction setback from the riparian buffer from the creek but the design and the structure of the front of the house is from the 70s where the brick facade is alternating with the plywood panels in which the windows occupy the full width of the plywood panels and so in discussions with an architect he recommended that we not try to split a window but instead enclose both windows and center the building and center the the proposed structure in front of the building so that so that it would look more aesthetically pleasing and would add to the character of the house rather than detract from from the house by splitting a window so so um so we're just proposing that there's there's really no other side of the house that we can build on in putting in a screen porch the one side of the one side of the house the creek side of the house is too close to the creek the the back side of the house is too close to this creek the other side of the house is too is too close to the to the property line so we're left with trying to to put it on the front of the house and put it on as aesthetically as possible Well, the proposed structure is not any closer to the creek than the house itself. I guess you call that a legal non-conforming, the house is a legal non-conforming structure. And the creek side of the house is already has a, within that buffer is a 13 foot concrete driveway that's lined by two or five foot gardens. And the creek at that part of the house is actually on the neighbor's property. So the structure basically is not going to be any closer to the creek than the house already is. Eliza, I'm going to staff. Yep, just wanted to chime in really quickly to add some more clarity. Cause I think Mr. Whitaker brought up a great point that staff did not mention. And that's that this is a site that's less than four acres within the urban tier. So what he was referring to is the range that's permitted within a context area. So the base zoning district, of course, has a street yard setback requirement within the urban tier, in order to, within the infill standards in the urban tier, in order to have some consistency, a context area is created between all of the houses on the same block face. And you're allowed to have your street yard be within a range of those. So I want to just read into record confirming what Mr. Whitaker said based upon staff analysis. And I apologize for not bringing that up that the infill development standards apply here. And therefore his street yard would not necessarily be 25 feet, but really a range in between whatever the neighbors on that block face have. So the variance just to go back and reiterate would only be because this is new encroachment into the 10th foot no-build setback and not from the street yard setback requirement. Got it. Thank you for that. Any questions for the applicant? Mike, can you have something? Yeah. Hi, Mr. Whitaker. See, I go back, I'm not on the full screen. I'm sorry. There's Mike Tarrant. I'm sorry, Mike. Go ahead. I'm jumping the gun. It's my job. You go ahead. You already have the mic. Okay. So I just, Mr. Whitaker, I have a question about what is this being made of? Are we six by six posts above ground? What are we trying to do? Okay. So I thought I submitted the architectural drawings, but I guess they didn't make it to the attachment, but there's going to be basically three pilings on either side and three pilings in the center with, I guess the minimum is four by four, but that seems pretty small bringing up. And the roof line will be consistent with the roof. The floor will be consistent with the floor of the house. And it'll be screened in the front and on the one side. And then the access will be on the side where we have the upper pad, the upper driveway pad. I don't know if you can see it there on the drawing. So it's basically a screened-in porch from floor to ceiling and the front of it will be open as well. The front screening will be up to the roof line. The roof line will be consistent with the roof line of the house. Does that help? Thanks so much. Does that help? Yeah, okay. Yes, thanks. Teri? I had a similar question. So I appreciate the input. Just curious if based on the design of the structure itself, could the host be inset such that you're not actually disturbing any part of the no-build setback with your footings versus having on the extreme outside of the structure? That's an interesting point. Architecturally, I don't know how that's done, but I never thought of that. But that structure would still be hanging over into the no-build zone, correct? Well, I would have to defer to planning on that, but my understanding is that the no-builder is to ensure that you're not disturbing earth within 10 feet of the actual buffer, right? It's the sort of additional buffer. So in this case of, you know, essentially out of two-foot cantilever you inset your post two feet, you could install your footing and not actually be disturbing that no-build setback. That's interesting. Yeah, I guess I would have to consult an engineer and an architect on that. All right, any other questions for the applicant? All right, yeah, thank you. Chair Rogers, may I interject for just a second? This is Jessica Dockery, Planning Department. The actual disturbance to put the footer in for a porch post wouldn't be considered sufficient to qualify as building in the no-build. I think it's more the building itself is overhanging into the no-build in the situation that is causing the variance need. Thank you for that. All right, any discussion thoughts? Hold on, is there anyone here to speak against this application? I know we've got Kevin Lloyd on the here, but he also said in the chat that he arbitrarily chose against, so he's not against, but he is a neighbor on Sarah Avenue, so just throw that out there. Eliza, did you have something? I just wanted to note for the record that there were no other individuals that signed up in opposition. Okay. All right, any thoughts? Discussion? Rachel is here. So we already have a non-conforming structure built from the 70s that parlays with this new porch Mr. Worker wants to put on. And I, this comes down to the judgment of this board and variances, I have a lot to do with the harmony in the neighborhood and I'm in support of this. I think it's in harmony. He's doing very minimal on the structure to the property and I'm in support of it. Anyone else? Mr. Tarr? Back of this Rachel's comments, had many of the same myself regarding the comment about simply relocating the structure. I think the applicant responded to that very well, looking at the architecture and sort of design of the house and it's very symmetrical. I think it would be somewhat unsightly to simply move the porch a couple of feet and even to reduce it to make it symmetrical then it's not really a usable porch. So just looking at where the buffer kind of sits today running through the middle of the house, I feel like there is a hardship and there's really no other ideal place to put this porch. So I'm in favor of the proposal. Well, Mike and Mike agree, anyone else? Two minds. All right, does anyone want to offer? I'll chime in that. Sorry, Mr. Kip. I'll chime in that I agree as well with what they said. So we'll just leave her. Good with that. Does anyone want to offer a motion? I'll make a motion. Here. Hereby make a motion to case number B210041 an application for a variance from the 10 foot no-builder perium buffer setback on property located at 2801 Legion Avenue has successfully met the applicable requirements to the unified development ordinance and is hereby granted subject to the following conditions. The improvements shall be substantially consistent with the plans and all information submitted to the board as part of the application. All right, we've got a motion for approval by Mike, Taryn, is there a second? Meadows. Second. Meadows. Okay. Ready? Kip. Yes. Thank you. I second it. Meadows. Yes. Rogers. Whatever works. Wretchless. Absolutely. Jeter. Yes. Major. Yes. Taryn. Yes. Motion carries seven to zero. All right, by a vote of seven to zero your request for a variance has been approved. We thank you for coming forth BOA and wish you the best of luck. Thank you, Chairman. Have a good day. All right, just going through all of this stuff we have no old business, any new business anybody want to brought anything? All right, approval of orders. Couple of these have to get it with the staff on the order or the who can vote but the first one was today B200000020. Zero, two zero. Two zero. Unanimous vote. So I need a motion and a second for each one of these and then we all have to vote. So anybody want to take this one? I have a question. Did normally we get orders emailed? Did that just not happen to everybody this time or did I miss the email or what happened there? Right, Eliza Monroe staff. My apologies. I thought I had sent the email out. I could definitely send them to everyone now and that way we can review them. I just noted that when we got to the end of this meeting I was like, well, that did not happen. So I do apologize about that but I'll send them out to everyone now and I'll also make the revisions based upon Chad's change of language and B2000020 with the motion or 210036 with the addition of the word only. Okay, who wants to take this first one? So moved. Tarrant, who do we have a second? All right, Kit. I think he's stuck. We can come back. We'll come back to you. Meadows. Yes. Rogers. Yes. Wretchless. Yes. Jeter. Yes. Major. Yes. Yes. Tarrant. And Kit. Kit, you said yes. All right, seven to zero. So B2122 is an older one. Meadows may not vote and Tarrant may not vote. And Ms. Bichang, you also may not vote but the rest of you can. So it will be a five to zero vote. All right, for 22, who wants to take that one? Wretchless. Wretchless. Who's the second? The second. Yeah, Jessica Major. All right, so we have Kip. And we're having trouble. All right, we'll come back to him. Okay. Rogers. Yes. Wretchless. Yes. Jeter. Yes. Major. Yes. Kip, you said yes. Did anybody catch that? All right, I got five to zero. Carries. Yeah. All right, and 28. 28 is also an older one. And Ms. Bichang, you can vote. Everyone else can except for Tarrant. So no Tarrant. No Tarrant. So who wants to take, who wants a motion for this one? Meadows, move approval. Meadows, who's the second? Meadows, second. Bo-Shane, second. All right, Kip, we'll come back. Meadows. Yes. Rogers. Yes. Wretchless. Yes. Jeter. Yes. Major. Yes. Bo-Shane. Yes. Kip. Ian, it's your turn now. Yeah. You just throw up the check. Yeah. Yes. Got it. Seven to zero. 33 was continued. Yes. Correct. We got you, Kip. I know. I'm trying. All right, 33. We know. Yes. 33 is the same as B21, B21, 28. So everyone except for Tarrant, and that includes Ms. Bo-Shane. All right, who wants to take it? Jeter, so moves approval. Jeter. He's the second. Meadows. Meadows. Try it one more time. Kip. Yes. Got it. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Kip. Yes, Meadows. Yes. I don't know what is going on. Rogers. Yes. Wretchless. Yes. Jeter. Yes. Major. Yes. Bo-Shane. Yes. Seven to zero. For B21, 36, do we need to wait till next month because of this only deal? Or can we, the word only, or do we need to, can we vote on it now? I think it's fine to vote on that now. Okay. That was a seven to zero. Everybody who voted on it can do it. So B21, 36, who wants to take it? Meadows, move approval. Wretchless. Second. There's a second for Wretchless. Okay. Here we go. Welcome back. Meadows. Oh, thank you. Got it. Meadows. Yeah. Rogers. Yes. Rogers. Yes. Wretchless. Yes. Jeter. Yes. Major. Yes. Terrant. Yes. Terrant. Thank you. All right. So next one, 37. Jessica, do you have an idea who can vote on this one? That was just a straight seven to zero with no opposition. I'm sorry. I didn't mark it right. So yes. That's right. Anyone who voted today. So who wants to have a motion on it? Wretchless. I got Wretchless. Who's our second? Jeter's second. Jeter. Thank you. All right. Kip. Yes. Meadows. Yes. Rogers. Yes. Wretchless. Yes. Jeter. Yes. Major. Yes. And Terrant. Seven zero. Yes. Terrant. Sorry. Jump the gun. All right. B-2139, same thing. Who wants to take it? Terrant. Terrant. Prove. Who's the second? Meadows. Meadows. Take it away. All right. Kip. Give it on. Yes. Yes. I got it. All right. Rogers. Yes. Wretchless. Yes. Jeter. Yes. Major. Yes. Terrant. Yes. Seven to zero carries. All right. 40 will be heard next month. 41. Another unanimous. Who's taking it? Wretchless. Wretchless it is. Who's the second? Jeter will second it. Jeter it is. Kip. All right. Moving on to Meadows. Yes. Meadows. Yes. Rogers. Yes. Wretchless. Yes. Jeter. Yes. Major. Yes. And Terrant. Yes. Seven to zero. All right. We've made some big decisions today. Thank you all. Been a long day as well. So our next meeting is September 28th, a month away at 8.30. And we shall see you all then. Have a good day. I wanted to say thanks to the staff for the training session. Thanks so much. It was awesome. Yeah. It was very nice. For organizing that too. You're very welcome. Have a good day. Thank you all. See you all.