 And we're live. Thank you. All right. Good morning, everyone. My name is Charlie Reese and I'm privileged to serve as a member of the Durham city council and also chair of the joint city county planning committee. This is our December 2 2020 meeting. Our agenda can be found online. And for those of you following along at home. For some reason, the central panel of my screen says Chris Peterson. I don't know if it's that way for everybody else, but it doesn't really matter as long as folks can see all of us and whatever form they have. Here we go. I want to do the gallery now I can see everybody. There you are. So I think now it's time for us to take the attendance. Council member Reese. I am here. Commissioner Jacobs. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Council member Middleton. I'm here. Commissioner Howerton. Here. Planning commissioner. Busby. Fantastic. Great to see everyone here. Thank you for joining us this morning. Next up on the agenda is adjustments to the agenda. Council member Tori. Thank you very much. That's good. Council member Kagan. Are there any adjustments to the agenda this morning? Is young. Good morning, everyone. Staff has no adjustments. Other than to say, I think a one minor tweak is that the expanding housing choices item will not be presented by Keegan. This morning, Scott might move will actually be presenting that item. We'll see if I can forget that by the time it comes up. I'm sure I can. have demonstrated that multiple times. Thank you, Ms. Young, I appreciate it. Next up, announcements. Does anyone have any announcements this morning? I just want you to acknowledge Council Member Riech that this will be Commissioner Reckhouse's last meeting with us. Yeah, that was gonna be my announcement as well. And in fact, our staff prepared for us resolution in honor of Commissioner Reckhouse's service on the Joint City County Planning Committee. And I think during announcements is probably the right to read that resolution so that we can all hear it at an appropriate time. I will go downtown and actually sign a copy of it so that it can be presented to you, Commissioner Reckhouse. But as it is right now, it does not bear my signature but it will so that I can take care of that while I'm still chair of this committee. So let me go ahead and read the resolution and then folks can add their comments. Councilor Maurice, before you go there. Yes, Commissioner Howard, you're great ahead. Thank you. Can we have staff, we've been getting the emails about the value birds, pollution, all of that, all these emails that we've been getting. Can we have staff talk about that a little bit sometime this morning? Commissioner Howard, are you talking about the revisions to the landscape manual? Yeah, just to address some of the concerns that citizens are sending us about that. Can we have a little bit of conversation around that from staff at some point during the morning? Ms. Young, is there gonna be an opportunity for us to talk about that maybe at the end of the agenda? I think we can probably make some time to do that, sure. Great, sounds great. We will absolutely do that, Commissioner. Thank you for bringing that up. Thank you. All right, so this is a resolution and appreciation of Commissioner Ellen Rekow. Whereas Commissioner Ellen Rekow was a member of the Joint City Counting Planning Committee for multiple terms during her three decades of public service. And whereas the Joint City Counting Planning Committee and the residents of the city and county of Durham have benefited from her dedication and leadership. And whereas Commissioner Rekow has consistently advocated for good planning, championing, environmental protection, historic preservation, smart growth, multimodal transportation and innovative design. And whereas this committee desires to publicly express its appreciation for Commissioner Rekow's many years of dedicated service in the field of local planning. Now therefore be it resolved by the Durham Joint City Counting Planning Committee. Section one that this committee does hereby express its sincere appreciation for the service renderer by Commissioner Rekow to the residents of this community. And section two that the clerk for the committee is hereby directed to spread this resolution in its entirety upon the official minutes of this committee. And this resolution is hereby presented to Commissioner Rekow as soon as I actually signed the thing. As a token of the highest esteem and respect held for her by the members of this committee adopted this second day of December 2020 it will eventually bear my signature as chair. And so that's the resolution we have, we prepared for you Commissioner Rekow. Yeah, let's all have a round of applause. And Commissioner, if there's anything you would like to say this would probably be an appropriate time to do that. Okay, well, thank you very much, Charlie. I appreciate that. Let me say that I go back a long way with Joint City County Planning. I was actually on the board when we merged the city and county planning departments and the merger did call for a joint committee and I served on it right from the get go. I believe I had a four year hiatus, but other than that I've served pretty much all the rest of the time. I think with as many as five or more planning directors. And this committee is very hard working when you think about the amount of hours if you do a prep and attend these meetings and in the old days they used to go longer. We, I don't know what it was, but we particularly in developing the UDO when we particularly when we merged the city and county ordinances the first time and then when we moved to a UDO which incorporated more provisions we would have meetings that would often extend the whole morning. In fact, I think Wendy and Brenda, particularly Brenda may remember having lunch because the meeting would go so long and sometimes into the afternoon. But I don't know if we've just gotten better or more efficient and I think our planning commission has taken on a heavier load which we greatly appreciate. So anyway, it's been a good run and I look forward to great things ahead. I think some of the things on this agenda like the equity indicators today and whatever show that we've moved to a whole new dimension where we're looking at equity across all areas. And it is so important to look at equity as it relates to development and transportation. Because that's how opportunities for citizens are created. So I look forward to innovative and ambitious work ahead for the members that will continue. And I wanted to take a moment to thank the staff. I think we have a very professional staff and I really appreciate the work that they do all the time to prepare such good agenda packages for us and provide such meaningful background on the issues that we face. So thank you. Absolutely, thank you, commissioner. I didn't know if any of the committee members wanted to talk about the resolution or this kind of, this is really the end of an era on the, on JCPC. Commissioner Reck, I don't know if you've got any more public meetings between now and Monday night, but I didn't think so. It's my last one. This is my last official meeting. That's amazing. So I'll open the floor if anybody wants to say anything beyond what we put in the resolution. Yes, commissioner Jacobs, go right ahead. Well, I think this, as Alan has just said, this committee is especially, I think, meaningful for Alan and that you've really made your mark is in one of the areas is in planning and land use because of your background as a professional planner. And we've all, I think, really benefited from that hat that you always wear and that lens that you have when you've always looked at things. And similar to me, Alan was started out as a planning commissioner and moved from that into elected office. And so I've learned a lot from you, Alan. I share your passion and perspective about the importance of planning and land use. And so I really just, I just wanna say I'm really grateful for all of your contributions. And I've always listened and learned from you at these meetings during our discussions. We've had really, really good discussions about things at this committee. So thank you for your legacy. And I will do my best to have you sitting on my shoulder. Well, the only other, yeah, go ahead, commissioner Howard can go right ahead. So I'm not gonna say very much. We have celebrated Alan the only thing we haven't done is dance two steps, and we can't do that right now. So maybe she and Ken can come back at another time when this is all over and we can do a two step dance in our new building. But I just wanted to say at this meeting, thank you so much, Alan, for 32 years is a long time of contributing your time and energy and away from your family. And you must have an extraordinary husband to support that. Cause that takes a lot of time. And I know that you've enjoyed it. So I just wish you all the best in your next endeavors and also know that you'll be around. Absolutely, yes, commissioner Middleton, go right ahead. Thank you, you promoted me. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry about that, I'm in the ball of words. It's early, it's very early. Absolutely, commissioner Rechal, let me just say again, I had opportunity to go on record last week at the celebration for you and commissioner Hill and just, I just went out on record here. You did that either way, that was very nice. Everything was true. Let me just thank you again and go on record here just for the fierce intellect and passion and attention to detail you've brought to this work. It's been a pleasure as a student of politics and public service to watch you work and to listen to you and just try to emulate the detail you've brought. I think it was St. Paul's Cathedral. I was in St. Paul's Cathedral in London some years ago and Christopher Ren, the architect is in the description there that says if you're looking for his legacy, just look around. Or if you wanna know what his impact was on paraphrasing, just look around the cathedral. It's gonna be hard to walk around this town and look around and not be able to attribute something etched in stone to your legacy. So just know that your legacy is secure. It's gonna be impossible to forget you because after all these years, you've touched us in so many ways, not just emotionally, but actually in our physical layout of the city and county and on behalf of the grateful people just thank you. God bless you and your family. I may your next chapter be your greatest chapter. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Absolutely. Council Member Middletons, I'll devote you back. Anybody else have anything else they wanna say before I shared a few thoughts? Yes, Director Young, go ahead. Thank you. I just wanna take a minute as staff and thank Commissioner Rechow for the many, many times that you have challenged us as a staff that you questioned us and pushed us to do better and to go further. I wanna also appreciate all the sharing of your knowledge that you've done over the years. Every time you went to a conference or ran across an article or something that would be beneficial to us as a staff in our work, you were so prompt to share it with us. And I just wanna acknowledge that we appreciate all of your efforts throughout the years to help this department be the best that it can be to serve the community. Thank you, Director Young. And I think Commissioner Busby, you were raising your hand there briefly if I was correct. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Go ahead, Brian. Yeah, I just wanna say thank you as well. It's a remarkable service that you've given to our community. And I always respected the amount of time and detail that you put in and always asking the one extra question. I just, I saw that first when you came to the Open Space and Trails Commission meetings, I've seen it here. And so just a remarkable service to our community. So thank you. Well, Commissioner Rechow, I will just add to what everyone else has said. I've served on a handful of committees with you over the time that our services overlapped. But this committee, Joint City County Planning, is the one where I feel like I have learned the most from you. And maybe that's because you just have such a deep experience in this subject area. And I did not when I joined the city council and came onto this board. But I think also it's the fact that your legendary work ethic really shines through in the work of this committee as much as it does in any other part of your service. And seeing the very detailed way that you approach this work, the fact that you will pull up a document, go to the 23rd page on the second paragraph and have underlined part of that paragraph that really does outline the key question we need clarified from staff before this moves on to you'd like to bodies is an incredible service to all of us. But more than that, it's an example to the rest of us about how we should be conducting ourselves in this work. And I just hope that I can live up to the example that you have set over your long service to the city. My service won't be as long as yours, but I hope that I can do the same kind of clear focused and detailed work that you have done because it all matters. And I think that's the biggest lesson that I've learned from you, Commissioner Recow was that it all matters. And we have to be willing to put in the time and the effort and the attention to make sure that we sweat the details. So thank you, Commissioner Recow and look forward as someone else said, look forward to seeing what happens next in the next chapter in your life. So thank you. Thank you everyone for your kind comments. I greatly appreciate it. And as I say, I value you as colleagues and I'm sure you'll continue on with great work. Awesome. Well, speaking of great work, let's pick up the work of our agenda and item number four, approval of the minutes from the October 7th meeting. I think that's 2020, not 2025. That's quite a bit further in the future. I'm not sure we're gonna have minutes up then, but in any event, if anyone has any comments or corrections to the minutes, this is the time to add those. Otherwise, failing that, I would love to hear a motion to approve the October 7th minutes. So moved. Second. I heard a motion from Commissioner Howerton, a second by Commissioner Recow. Let's have that vote. Council member Reese. Aye. Commissioner Jacobs. Aye. Council member Caballero. Aye. Commissioner Recow. Aye. Council member Middleton. Aye. I vote aye. Commissioner Howerton. Aye. Planning commissioner member Busby. Aye. Motion carries seven to zero. Fantastic work, everybody. We got that done. Next up is item number five, city and county managers' priority items. Anything from the city, Mr. O'Toole? Good morning, committee members. No, there are no items from the city. Thank you, Mr. O'Toole. Mr. Wardell, how about from the county? They know priority items from the county. Appreciate the both of you being with us this morning and helping us get through that agenda item expeditiously. Next up is item number six, comprehensive plan update. The agenda says Lisa Miller. And I see Lisa Miller. Yes. All right, I'm one for one on this one. Lisa, go right ahead. I'm really looking forward to this update. Thank you very much. We managed to get the name right on the agenda for you this time. So good morning, everyone. I'm Lisa Miller with the planning department. As with our update to you all at your last meeting, preparation of book, the memo and the presentation and all of this work is a solid team effort. I'll be talking through the slides. Brooke is gonna be navigating the PowerPoint and then we'll all be available for answering questions at the end. Next slide. So this is what we're gonna go over today and highlight from the memo. We'll obviously be happy to answer any questions related to the project. Some of these things I'm gonna go through pretty quickly so that we can spend a few more minutes sharing a bit more information on the qualitative data analysis process that we've been going through over the last few months leading to draft objectives and share a little bit more information on the ever elusive off mentioned social pinpoint. So next slide. We just wanted to quick refresher of some of the things we shared in our last update. We've been continuing to work with our fantastic resident outreach team. We had another great discussion with them last night around another group of draft objectives. We've been continuing to coordinate with the transit plan on all of the different outreach strategies that they're utilizing and that phase of their engagement on the transit plan is running through December 18th. And we also provided, as many of you are aware, project updates to the board of county commissioners, the city council and the planning commission at their retreat over the last month. So just a quick refresher as we do every time our purpose for coming to you is not just to provide updates to help ensure the work we're doing and the direction we're headed is in line with your perspectives and recommendations. But it's also an opportunity to raise concerns and help redirect us as needed. So a quick update we wanted to share on some of the focus groups or kind of gaps in the input that we heard from the listening and learning phases and the work we've been doing to fill those gaps. So we've shared in past presentations the ways we've been trying to make sure we hear perspectives from folks that were missed in the listening and learning round of engagement, specifically trying to reach youth, Hispanic and Latino residents and residents in North Durham. So we wanted to share an update on that similar to the Spanish language focus group discussion that we set up back in September. We have set up a virtual focus group with North Durham residents for December 10th. We've worked with a number of different staff and community contexts to share this opportunity out and invitation to participate with residents. And we'd also love your help sharing this invitation out. We'll be happy to follow up with the registration link and flyer by email if folks are willing to help us get that information out in the county. We've also had continued discussions with the office on youth staff on how to incorporate and bolster the recommendations coming from the youth listening project. Their office is currently reviewing some of the draft objectives in order to see how we can better incorporate those recommendations and perspectives in the drafts. And we also just wanted to share an update on the hiring of an engaged Durham program assistant that's focused on outreach to Hispanic and Latino residents. We've now completed the interview process. We had several excellent candidates and have extended an offer at this time. And we anticipate that we'll be able to introduce this new staff person to you all at our next update. We're also working with Robin Baker and our human resources department to refer candidates to the participatory budgeting Latino outreach position for those who weren't made an offer in this round. So as we've previously discussed, next slide, since about mid-August, we've been going through a qualitative data analysis process under the guidance of Aaron Parrish with the Office of Performance and Innovation. So in addition to analyzing comments from our listening and learning phase of engagement, the pilots we did over the summer in street chairs by community partners and focus groups we've held, we've also been pulling a lot of input from the resident survey focus groups and from the listening project. And in all of that, we're starting with the needs and priorities of those we've typically not included in the process in the past to make sure that those voices are heard and reflected in this work. So for this meeting, we are shared with you all some draft objectives around housing and development, transportation and jobs. We anticipate having all of the draft objectives ready to share out by the end of this month. And alongside this group of draft objectives we've shared, we wanted to take a few minutes to share a bit more information with you all about our process for drafting those objectives. Next slide. Aaron gave a great overview of this work recently at the planning commission's retreat. And while I'm borrowing heavily from her description of the work, I would also encourage you all to hear her description of the process because she's an expert in this work. She's done an amazing job of shepherding us through this process and we will gladly share you a timestamp YouTube link to that for those that wanna take a look. So one of the core values, I'll go back to the previous slide, thank you. One of the core values of all of the engagement that's happened with the comp plan is how we elevate the experience of residents and their lived experience. Specifically, how do we listen to, respect and honor the voice of residents who've been disinvested in and actively harmed by planning in the past? The large, rich listening and learning data set has allowed us to do this by filtering according to the kind of engagement I've heard and the demographics of people who participated in that kind of engagement. For any kind of data analysis you're doing, both qualitative and quantitative, there's a lot of it that is data cleaning and structuring. This is a pretty big data set we're working with and we started by sorting every quote that every resident said into different coded topics. There are about 70 different topics in total and then we created umbrella topics like housing, transit, environment and then we looked at what codes might fit under that umbrella. So for housing, there are a number of different topics and codes that would fit under that topic like belonging, gentrification and displacement, growth and development, housing as its own code, affordability, homelessness and McDougal Terrace. We took all the quotes and observations coded under that larger universe of housing related topics and we asked what are the patterns that we see? What are the stories that begin to emerge from all of these voices? How do we cluster and make sense of those patterns? And then we use digital sticky notes to pick illustrative quotes and cluster them according to shared themes and shared topics. And next we worked towards clarity in iterations. So we moved back and forth between the quotes and what we were starting to draft to understand what people are saying. We answered a series of structured questions. What are residents saying? What are we hearing? What brings these clusters together and unifies that cluster? What does it mean and why does it matter? We then took an equity lens and asked who benefits from this kind of current setting and who's being burdened by what we're seeing. And then finally we asked, how does this fit into a comp plan? Can we make policies about this? What would those policies look like at a neighborhood level, at a community level? And once we can answer all those questions we're pretty close to maintaining the source material which is resident quotes in a draft objective. So then we wrote draft objectives. We wrote all of the draft objectives in the voice of residents. Every draft objective starts with we need. For example, we need dignified welcoming and healthy housing. We need innovative housing options. We tried to be really intentional about writing in the voice of residents who shared the source material for these objectives. And now we have draft objectives for housing, transit jobs. We'll soon have draft objectives for the environment, public spaces, education, youth and seniors. We've already shared some of these objectives with staff and with the outreach team. These objectives are stories for the kind of future that we wanna build for Durham. One of the bits of feedback that we heard from the outreach team in an early discussion on objectives we heard was there's a lot of heart in these objectives. We want these objectives and goals to reflect our shared values as a community. We want those values to come through and what we're doing with the comprehensive plan and how we're guiding our future together. Next slide. So a little bit more of an update on the work of the engagement ambassadors. As we've mentioned, we've been coordinating with the transit plan this fall in working with engagement ambassadors. Over a hundred residents have been engaged through the work of our engagement ambassadors right now. And they'll be continuing the work of engaging folks around the transit plan goals and objectives and the housing objectives for the comprehensive plan until mid-December. Next slide. We'll also be continuing to work with the engagement ambassadors over the next couple months, who'll be engaging residents around the remainder of the draft objectives for the comprehensive plan. To do so, we'll be recruiting and training ambassadors again as needed and continuing to work with ideal RTs who's been managing the engagement ambassadors this fall in coordination with the transit plan engagement. Next slide. So you all have heard us mention the social pinpoint for some time now. I'm extremely excited to say that we have a signed contract as of yesterday. Huge thanks to all the staff that helped us get that contract through the process. So social pinpoint will be a place for broad community engagement while we focus our work with small focus groups and engagement ambassadors. This site will have a number of ways to engage residents, sharing options to learn more about the process, daylighting what I just described in the process of developing objectives. It will have options to review and comment on the objectives themselves, as well as an opportunity to post artifacts, pictures, drawings, kind of around the five senses and people's desires for our future Durham. We'll be pushing this out widely as soon as we have both the English and Spanish version set up. And we'll be sure to share that with you all so that you can help us invite folks to participate. Next slide. So we also wanted to provide you all with a brief update on the Southeast Regional Lift Station small area plan. As a reminder, this will be a limited scope small area use plan done in advance of the comprehensive plan because of the large amount of development interest in the area served by the lift station. The work will focus on property that's undeveloped and not yet entitled. Some decisions for this area will be able to wait for the adoption of the comprehensive plan, which is part of the limited scope nature of this work. So we'll be focusing on identifying areas where development can be faced until infrastructure exists, opportunities for higher density development, areas for non-residential uses and mixed use development, identifying appropriate densities taking into account environmental constraints and updating the UDO to modernize our residential suburban standards. And with this work, we will be coordinating the timing with the goal and objective adoption so that they won't be considered at the same meeting for you all. Lisa. I just want to, while you have this map up and raising this, I'm glad you're going to be doing this small area plan. I just want to raise up that the residents, as you can see from this map, this is a mixture of areas that are in the city limits, some of them as islands or peninsulas and county. And I'm assuming there have been a number of large development projects proposed of late, but I know that county commissioners are getting emails from residents who are very concerned about density, very, very large projects. And they're emailing us not necessarily recognizing that these properties are going to be annexed and that the city will be making the decisions. One of my parting requests would be that it would be helpful. And I think I emailed Sarah about this after getting one of these emails and I may have forwarded it to her that getting some type of an advisory out to the county commissioners when projects are proposed and so that these emails aren't hitting us cold would be helpful. And maybe perhaps as we go through this process really, as you go through that, this process, thinking about this interface between rural and the urban slash suburban and all that's wrapped up in this, but I'm definitely sensing angst among the residents in the area. Yeah, I think that that where we move from city to more rural areas in the community overall, I think is a concern that needs to be addressed across our work with the comprehensive plan, but absolutely with this area as there's so much potential change here. Lisa, let me just jump in real quick on that and tell commissioner Wreck out two things. First of all, members of the city council don't get those advisories either. What a project when a developer applies to the planning department for an annexation or rezoning the city council doesn't get those updates either. We learn about them when they show up on a work session agenda. So we are in a very similar situation that you are when residents, for example, attend a community meeting or listening session that a developer might have in a neighborhood about a project they'd like to move forward. And we hear from folks all the time and we're like, what? So we're often in a position of forwarding that email to Sarah Young and getting a quick update that we can then reach back out to people. The second thing I would say, commissioner is that you're absolutely right. The folks that live in and around these areas that are being considered for annexation and are, if the residents are in the county, they are your constituents, but I'm necessarily definitely not a constituent to the city council. But I hope you know that that doesn't mean they cannot and should not reach out to us about it. We hear from county residents all the time, especially about those annexations in this particular part of Southeast Durham. And so I hope that when you receive comments and concerns from residents of the county about issues that are gonna come before the city that you feel comfortable telling them you need to talk to the city council because they're the ones that are gonna be deciding it. And like I said, we hear from county residents all the time and hope that we will continue to do that. So, awesome. All right, Lisa, keep it going. Let's go. There, did you wanna share something? Yeah, I just wanted to try and say that I apologize. Commissioner Reck, I did get your email and one of the things that we've been working on behind the scenes to your point and also Cherise's point is we had been doing for a while, kind of early alert notifications, particularly to this body when cases came in and we've gotten a little bit behind just due to staffing issues, the very high case load and COVID in our situation. But we are revamping that process so that it is more real time when cases come in and you all will be going back to getting summaries of what those cases are as they come back in. We're also working on making our website a little more user friendly, not just for you all, but for the public in general so that they can be better kind of self-service informed about where they can go to find information about stuff that's in the pipeline. And we have our public notification service which is our weekly email that goes out. That is actually the kind of earliest alert because neighborhood meetings are posted there. And so before we even have a case, that's a place where folks can learn about. So hopefully between those three things we'll do a better job of getting information out. And I would encourage anyone on the JCCPC that isn't part of that weekly email list to sign up. We'll be glad to share the link to do that. So you can also see kind of neighborhood meeting notices as they come through. Because I know I think some of you have received inquiries based on those neighborhood meetings and I've responded with, it's not even a case yet. So. And I could follow up Sarah. One response, you made an email response to me about this also and pointed out that perhaps the numbers being quoted in the email were not necessarily consistent with what maybe a preliminary meeting in the office had been. And that made me think and wonder just for you to think about you don't even have to respond now. Whether we want, I don't know, developers out talking about projects and putting out numbers that haven't even necessarily been introduced at the office as the numbers that you're thinking are at least within the ballpark or I don't know. Again, it's just something that I was thinking about after I saw your email that they could go out and say we're proposing 5,000 units and where they were in the office talking about 1,000. I don't know because you want, it seems like if they're thinking about a range to be fully transparent, they should put that range out to you in the meeting and then use that range with the residents. Otherwise it seems as though we could have a lot of misinformation and disinformation out on the street. So just wanna. Yeah, I'll say that and then we can get back on track with Lisa's presentation. Sorry, Lisa, but in February, I think we're gonna be bringing an item to this body. I'm talking about some of the changes that we're gonna be making to the land use process, to the neighborhood meeting process to address a lot of these concerns. So there's a lot of stuff happening behind the scenes. And we'll be sure to send you an invite and you can join us as a guest in February. Okay, I might. Awesome, well, thanks everybody. And let's get back into our conference plan update. Just a couple more slides here, next one. So just our every meeting reminder, we're continuing to face uncertainties and challenges because of COVID just like everyone else. So during this time, things tend to take a little bit longer than anticipated, especially as we're trying to do a better job coordinating engagement across projects as residents have less bandwidth to spend time engaging around things. We've been updating the schedules that are included in your memo each time we provide to make sure that we're reflecting this reality. Next slide. So over the next couple of months, we'll be continuing to engage residents on the draft goals and objectives through engagement ambassadors, focused small group outreach and the digital engagement platform. Now that we have a contract signed for social pinpoint, we hope to have that up shortly. We're finalizing that now and preparing it for translation into Spanish. And as we're engaging folks, we will be getting working on additional data analysis to bring that input into revising draft objectives. And we'll also be working on an engagement strategy around the Searles project and finishing up the technical work related to that. Next slide. So with that, we'd like to hear reflections, concerns, questions that you have from the presentation or the memo to make sure we're continuing on the right track. We're happy to have been able to share first bunch of draft objectives with you all and would love to hear concerns or reflections on that work. Thanks. Actually, first of all, Lisa, thank you. That was a fantastic presentation. What I'd really like to hear more about is that baby. Because that's music to my ears, but I guess since I'm the chair of this committee, we should probably stay on task, I apologize. So I guess this is an opportunity for members of the committee to talk about the comprehensive plan update we've received and the great information Lisa provided us. So if you have thoughts, questions, comments, this is the time. Ah, yes, Commissioner Jacobs, go right ahead. Well, thank you, Lisa. I was really interested to read the draft that you presented to us and I really appreciate this process. You know, I've been involved with planning since I was on the planning commission and I can't even remember what, see, I don't have Alan's memory so I can't even remember what year I started on the planning commission. I think it was 2006, right after our comprehensive land use plan was actually adopted, which has not been revised 2005. So our land use plan is 15 years old but I remember very much the process around our first comprehensive land use plan and it was a really big deal and it went on for several years but it was very, very different than this process and, you know, the outcome was very different but so, you know, that's my perspective is the last process around our comprehensive land use plan. And so I really appreciate it and I found myself when I was reading you know, all of the goals that you have come up with at this point, it just really, I started getting a visual picture in my mind. I felt like all the comments that people had made and I also really appreciate that you inserted the actual words of people from our community but I just found myself, it really started creating this picture for me and so, you know, how do we then create that picture? Right, I see it evolving with the words and then I guess I would like to hear a little bit more how you feel like, you know, will we have visuals? I know we'll have our future land use map but has there been any talk about about actual having visuals with our new plan and how, what it will look like compared to what our current plan looks like? Yeah, I can tell you that as we're trying to improve our work to make it more accessible that visualization is a huge part of that. I mentioned with the use of social pinpoint, one of the things we're trying to do is use what's called their ideas wall to gather artifacts that are submitted by residents that are helping to draw our pictures that are helping us vision what the future Durham we want will look like. We've also talked about, you know, the final version of this plan. We will definitely have a paper version of it but have something that's a more interactive web version of this and the inclusion of visuals alongside that. And then we've also, I think briefly introduced to you all the concept of place types that are much more descriptive of what a place will look like than just a future land use designation, right? So not just what use is kind of projected here but a little bit more about the character of that. So those are some of the ways that we've talked about visuals alongside this work. We're always happy to hear more suggestions too. Yeah. Well, I just, I think when I read all the goals and again, what, you know, trying to, you know what we heard from the community, it just, it's a vision, right? Of what we all want to see for and what the kind of community everybody, you know wants to live in the type of neighborhood, the type of quality of life. And I just thought it was such an expression of I think all the work that we all tried to do every day within the city and the county, the quality of life that we're trying to create for people in our community. So it, I think, yeah, just thinking about how do we express it the different ways? And I guess, you know, and then, you know the other thing I was thinking about is that of course the challenge will be revising all our ordinances to how do we actually implement it? And I think the tension is that so many of the things that people feel frustrated about are related to also capitalism and market forces. And also some of them are things that we currently don't have the tools that we need because of preemption from the state or, you know, things from the federal government. I'm not sure how we talk about that, but then, you know, how we're gonna have to be really, really creative and how do we really create, how do we really create the community that we want with the tools that we really, that we have is gonna be challenging and the resources. You know, we just had a briefing yesterday at our joint MPO meetings from Congress and Price and from Bo Mills and Kevin Leonard, you know, state leaders for each of our organizations, our, you know, NCACC and the Metro mayors and League of Municipalities and just the landscape that we're looking at. And, you know, we need funding for sidewalks and transit and all the things that people want, affordable housing and just what is that, what is that really gonna look like as we try to implement this plan? It also really jumped out about how much of it I heard about Durham being age friendly and I was wondering, are you all really looking at the aging plan that was just developed? Could you talk a little bit about how that's playing out? With the work that you all are doing? Yeah, I think that the master aging plan and the youth listening project are two great examples of work that's focused on specific group of residents within Durham, really focused on how to create more empowerment and visibility and opportunities for folks in those age groups. And we've been looking for ways, you know, a lot of that is reflected in the feedback, the input that we heard from residents in the various ways that we've heard from folks. And so what we've tried to do similarly as we've done with the youth listening project and mentioned in presentations, tried to make sure that we're creating opportunities to bolster the recommendations from the master aging plan in this work as well. Okay. Yeah, I just think it's really important that plan has just been done and how we implement it and integrate it. And the other thing I just wanted to mention, I'm so glad to see the section about transit and to see how you all are really working together as we update our transit plan. So really great to see that, all the transit goals in there. But one thing I did want to say that I noticed when there was discussion about the Durham County transit plan, it was talking about how the transit plan is focused on how people get around Durham. And I do want to stress that it's also a regional transit plan because, you know, we are a region and we've got tens of thousands of residents who leave Durham every day to go to work in Wake County or Orange County. And, you know, especially the section about jobs and getting the goal about getting people to good paying, you know, self-sustaining jobs, they may be outside of Durham. You know, parts of RTP that are in Wake County, for example, where we have, you know, significant numbers of residents in East Durham that go work at Chapel Hill and Chapel Hill at the University and the hospital. That was actually like the biggest ridership, one of the biggest riderships for the light rail was between UNC Hospital and the University and East Durham. So I just don't want to lose that focus that it's not, the county transit plan is gonna be about both. And I just didn't know if that had come up with you all. Had there been any discussion about that? Yeah, absolutely. That I think a lot of what our focus, you know, we talked a lot about how the two should function together. We don't need to talk about all of the things that the transit plan is going to do in the comprehensive plan. So trying to figure out what the right balance of tying those two together. And so a lot of what we were hearing from folks was better physical connection to the places where there are transit options, transit stops. And so a lot of that is very Durham focused. Whereas I think the routing that is the service that is through the transit plan is very much looking at regional. But I think we can definitely take another look and make sure that we're not excluding that piece because it's obviously important. Yeah. I mean, I think as county commissioners are very aware of the issue that because we've have focused a lot of our efforts on trade burn and RTP where we see even now during the pandemic. I mean, there's even a job announcement today in the Toronto Business Journal that a company that's adding 200 jobs and investing $150 million and expanding in the life sciences. And it's been a frustration that so many of our residents don't know about these good paying jobs. They can't imagine themselves in them and that how we have got to make sure that they're getting connected to them and through Durham Tech. Or I mean, that's part of our challenge but then they've got to be able to get there. And trade burn has been such a big challenge as well. And so I just don't want to lose sight of that. I thought that the jobs piece is so it's all connected to being able to afford housing and which was the big priority, right? That you heard, which was around housing. But anyway, so I just want to thank you all and I'm really excited to see this evolve and how it's evolving. Thank you. Awesome, thank you for those thoughts Commissioner Jacobs. Anyone else want to chime in on this fantastic comprehensive plan update? Well, I will just say Lisa that every time we get one of these updates I find something new to be excited about in this project. Really just very happy about the progress that we're making. Really excited. I know every member of the city council is eager to hear more about the Southeast Durham small area plan that's something we've been talking about quite a bit and just amazed at how swiftly that is moving forward. But also some of the larger community engagement efforts that you've had to do, that you've had to kind of figure out during this unprecedented time. By the way, I feel like the phrase this unprecedented time really needs to be retired for a while. I feel like every email I send has that in it somewhere. Like that is just a COVID times thing. We will look back on the 20 years and say, oh yeah, you remember that unprecedented time and then there were like 10 more. I don't know. Anyway, but in any event, thank you, Lisa. Look forward to seeing the next update when it comes through. And just really, really great for all the work that you and your team have put into this. Thank you. Unless nobody else, if anybody else wants to get in this is your opportunity otherwise we are moving on. We're way behind looking to make a deal. Okay. Thanks, Lisa. That was item number six on our agenda. Now, item number seven, we're only about 20 minutes behind. It's really not that bad. Is expanding housing choices metrics. And it is not Keegan, but in fact Scott Whiteman, I believe, who I see and is now taking control of my screen. Scott, take it away. Thank you. And thanks. I do want to thank Keegan, who actually put this together for us. So I'm just presenting his work and we'll all try to be brief so that we can maybe catch up. So as the memo, you showed your memo, we've to date since expanding housing choices became effective in the city on October 1st, 2019. The planning department has received 50 applications for development that is, would not have been entitled before expanding housing choices was approved. The quick check this morning, it looks like 35 of those have been approved to date. The remaining are still under review. I want to note that in your, we noticed this time that we had missed some of what we're calling lot splits, which are the small subdivisions in our previous reporting. So we have updated our numbers to reflect that. It appears that the small lot options have been a little more popular than we thought. So we'll make sure that we reflect those accurately in the future. So the overwhelming majority of the agency permits are in the urban tier, which is to be expected since that's where most of it was permitted. Oh, we are seeing some in the suburban tier. For some reason, there's the non-ADU accessory structure is becoming pretty popular in the suburban tier. And so those tend to be things like garages with a workshop or an extra room on top. It'll be interesting to see if that's a trend that was created by people having to work at home. Scott, I think there's one of those in my neighborhood. Yeah, I thought they've been working on it for a while. It's pretty interesting. They basically took over half of their front yard. The folks who live around them aren't super thrilled about it, but I think it looks fantastic. So anyway, sorry, I just wanted to... Okay, and some of those, perhaps the one in your neighborhood, Councilmember Reese, would have been permitted before, but there's some, particularly with one-story houses, which you find in kind of the 60s and 70s neighborhoods in the suburban tier, it's a lot easier to build an accessory dwelling and get it financed if you can put a garage on the bottom and then finish the area on the top. So that appears to be happening. Here's the 10-year running total of teardowns. I think it's good news to show that. So for the three quarters of this calendar year so far, we've had 50, which would, running the earned run average which would make it to be about 67 by the time the year's over, which it looks like the trend is going back to what the historical averages have been and that the 96 we had in 2018 and the 142 that we had in 2019 were just an aberration. But we'll also see as Councilmember Reese implored me not to say 2020 is an unprecedented time. So I hope this is moderately legible. And the last time we promised you that we would have a map this time. The stars are where all of the HC permits are located. I'll say there is one more accessory dwelling that's down in Parkwood. If I included that on the map, it made it completely illegible. What we're seeing is most, particularly the small lot options and the permits that are being allowed by the relaxed infill standards are pretty well spread across the urban tier or just the parts of this urban tier that are just outside the urban tier, the ones that like around Carver Street and South Roxburgh Street, which are zoned RU-5 like most of the urban tier is. We are seeing there's a trend of a lot of, not a lot, but there's a clustering of new ADUs in Trinity Park, which is interesting. And I'll just point out there's the Emorywood Orchard subdivision down here. There's quite a few permits for those accessory dwellings with improved space on top. So with that, one other thing I should mention is that the August meeting we'd mentioned we worked with the Center for Community Capital at UNC. They were trying to get a grant to do some qualitative research on EHC for us. Unfortunately, they did not receive that grant. So if doing that sort of work is still a priority, we're gonna have to find some additional options to do that. So I'd be happy to answer any questions. I'm gonna stop sharing. Well, thanks, Scott. That's very, very interesting information. Really appreciate not only the data, but also the format and it's really easy to use and that map is actually very helpful to me. But this is the time for us to take, if anybody has comments, questions, and I did see Council Member Capio erase her hand, go right ahead, Council Member. Yeah, thanks, Scott. This is a, I was glad to see this on the agenda. So just real quick, can you share a little bit more about what the grant would have done? What I wanna know is, so my husband's an architect. He's actually been hired to do quite a few of these ADUs and what keeps coming up is the financing for them. So there is a lot of interest and folks are actually interested in doing affordable housing, which was one of the things that we were hoping and not an Airbnb unit, which is one of the things that folks were concerned about. Not that that isn't gonna happen, but just it's been at least anecdotally, not what I have seen. And so just wanting to understand if that, if the grant was around understanding the financing of it or around other things. Yeah, so the grant, it was gonna be, it was from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which they normally deal with health related issues, but I think they weren't looking at housing as being a health issue. And so one of the main things it would have done, it was allow the UNC researchers to, one, talk to builders about why, and particularly why not, they chose not to do something that's permitted under each C and just doing something that they could have done before, which is something we are definitely concerned about is if folks are still just tearing down a small affordable unit replacing it with a very expensive single family unit and that's not really doing the Savior County even good. They were also going to do some quality of research on folks who moved into these structures to see if it was actually kind of believing the pressure on some of the more affordable existing structures. So it was not financing, research and the financing wasn't their primary focus, but we understand that that is a huge issue and that's, we hear that a lot as well. Thank you. Commissioner Rekha, I'll go right ahead. You are still muted, Commissioner. Thank you, Scott, for the overview. I just wanna bore in a little bit on some of the data that we're not getting because I just wonder if there's another avenue to take. Back when we were thinking about metrics, I worked with our tax administrator, for example, and he was able to get us baseline data for the median, to get the median assessed value for one and two family properties in the urban tier, which at the time, so I guess this would have been about this time last year, it was $204,536 was the number he came up with for what it's worth. And because some people were raising the issue that with lot splits and everything, we might see values actually go up, particularly for land. And that was the other thing that I actually have an email here from John Hodges Koppel about it, where he was recommending that we add land sales and is something to track because of a paper that was circulated when we were discussing EHC done by, oh, he's a former local resident who now has a PhD in planning. Our last name's Free Mark. He did a paper on Chicago after the- Yona, Yona, Free Mark. Right, a paper based in Chicago where he actually documented he had a control neighborhood versus, with very similar demographics and a neighborhood that had the enhanced housing choice initiative in it and documented land prices going up in the EHC area. So the concept of tracking our land prices might be good. And he said that that's readily available via these values, I guess, in the Register of Deeds office. So are we looking at some other sources of data locally, whether it's from our tax administrator or Register of Deeds that we might be able to use to track things of this nature? So we had reached out to the tax administrator late last year or early this year to look at the value, tax value as a metric to see if this would cause an undue increase in property values. It was his opinion that since we don't revalue the whole county except for every four years that it wouldn't be an accurate picture of the actual value. We also talked about land sales. And he said that is something we could look at but that the sale of actual vacant lands in these areas, there's so few of them that it's a very small sample size and that actually where some of these things are getting built, it's folks selling off their backyard or it's a small house being sold and the lot being split in two. And so those are not gonna be captured in land sale data. It's gonna be captured in home sale data. We can certainly reach out to him again and see if there's other options but it looks like it was gonna be hard to get really good data from the tax data until the next valuation which I guess is 20.2 maybe. Okay. And then John in his response also mentioned that they might teach a cog might be able to help you with because they have developed a tracking system for both legally binding, affordable units, LIBAR and also naturally occurring affordable units, NOAA from what he called co-star data that they track. So, because one of the things obviously we're also interested in and part of much of the rationale for EHC was creating more affordable housing and so getting our arms around that issue would also be very helpful. Yeah, Commissioner Redkaw, we do, I think when we first did this, I think it was back in February, we included the affordable housing data from TJ cog, they only updated annually, so we're not, we're gonna do it quarterly but we'll do that and then we'll, we'll do the next presentation on this and even those in like two months in February, you're welcome to watch it on TV, Commissioner Redkaw. And then I wanna, I was just sent a reminder from Mike Stocks for Council Member Caballero. Community Development is working with TJ cog on a, on EDU financing related issues. I know they, as you all probably know, Community Development has a lot of things on their plate right now, but it's definitely something they've got in the works to look at ways that we can, the city can help financing use for folks. Okay, thank you. I just wanted to say something really quickly to that, to your point about what you mentioned earlier with what the grant would have potentially studied, which is why are builders not maybe building things that they're allowed to build by, within the different than before and still settling on a single family house. And I would say that, you know, I definitely think what folks can get money for in the first place is gonna really limit what they're building. And so I'm glad that that TJ Cog is, and Community Development is really digging into that issue, because if we can't figure that out, then you know, EHC will still be real limited in what we could get out of it. That would be beneficial. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Council Member Caballero. Council Member Middleton, did you have your hand up? I thought I saw a move there, yeah. I did, thank you so much. Thank you so much, sir. And I, I'm gonna thank Commissioner Reckon, Councilor Caballero for their questioning. And my question slash observation comment, I guess really goes to the efficacy of it. I'm thinking back to the original discussion around EHC and, you know, my asking for six months of update after six months as opposed to a year or more. And so I'm pleased with the reporting today. I guess Scott, is it safe to, is it a fair characterization that we just don't have enough data yet to see whether this is going to do harm or just basically we're breaking even? I mean, this was billed as something that was gonna help us increase housing stock as the city was growing. 35 application, I guess in your, I don't know if that's moderate or modest or a lot in your line of work in your industry, you can certainly scold me on that, but 30 something applications doesn't seem like an overwhelming amount. So is it, if it doesn't do any harm to us, how long do you think it'll take before we can see if it'll do any good? I guess if that makes any sense, is this really going to be a substantive tool in increasing our housing stock or is it we just kind of break in even? So thanks, Council Member Middleton. I would agree that 50 applications and 35 approved applications is very modest. I know you all relative often see subdivisions on the edge of town that have five times that many units proposed. And it is less than we thought originally. I think one, we'll need to see it one year and it's really the first three months where it wasn't effective in the county for part of that time. So we'll say nine months of it being fully in effect is still way too soon to see if it's effective or not. And also this year has been not normal. So it's impressive in it. Oh, my bad. I was trying not to use that extra word. Although to be honest, the real estate business seems not to know what a COVID is since we keep getting many, many applications. So I think we would still need at least one more here to see if it's effective. It's certainly not causing the massive tear downs that some of the opponents were fearing. So I think that's one thing we can be comfortable with but whether or not it's helping us reduce sprawl and improves our affordable housing stock and all that. It's too early to tell, but it's definitely the results are modest. I'll admit that. I appreciate that. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's all I had. Absolutely. Thank you, Council Member, Commissioner Jacobs, go right ahead. Thank you. So I'm just really glad that we're doing this, I really appreciate the staff is tracking this data. I think it's really helpful. This is the first time that in my experience that we've done something like this where we've implemented an ordinance and then we're actually in real time trying to understand how it's working and what its impact is. And I think it's, so it's a learning experience for all of us, but I think it also to me kind of sets a precedent for how we can do this more in other situations. And especially looking at the revision of the COMP plan and we're gonna talk about the equity indicators next. And so maybe this being a template also for how we look at the impact of things that we're doing. Scott, I know this was kind of already asked, but I remember there were projections about how many additional dwelling units were gonna be created from this. And it was pretty modest, but I think we're actually exceeding what was projected originally, right? For one year. Do you remember the numbers? So my recollection and I'll, if I'm wrong, I will follow up with you all and admit that I was wrong. I think it was estimated about 10% of the total units that we normally see in the urban tier. And so that was about 90. So it's less. So we're a little bit less. Okay, okay, so we're less, yeah. Yeah, I think it would be helpful at some point, maybe after, you know, when it's appropriate to go back and compare with what the projections were just to see. And, you know, I still, I mean, I guess I look at it and I'm glad to see that it's being used. I think especially related to the lots that normally would not have been developable at all. Under the UDO, some of the non-conforming lots that are being built on, I don't, I can't look at it right now, but there were a number of those. And I think also when we compare infill development like this to like you were comparing it to a subdivision, I think the difference is getting back to, you know, some of the values that people have and that the difference is that in these neighborhoods, they're actually already, they're already walkable. A lot of these are places that people can walk, get to transit or get to commercial. So that's the advantage of doing more infill development within our urban neighborhoods. You know, these are places that already have sidewalks and bus stops and things like that. Getting back to what Council Member Cabera was talking about. Have we done anything with a template that makes building an ADU more affordable for people or easier for people that whole? Where are we at with that? So we had started working with, I knew that the AIA, American Institute of Architects, local chapter had begun looking at some, a couple of kind of off the shelf plans that people could use that were kind of, not necessarily pre-approved, but were easily approvable under our rules. And I don't know the status of that. So we'll look into that and we'll provide an update at the February meeting on that and the projections that we had used when EHC was adopted. Yeah, I mean, I guess I would say that I think it's important for us to look at, you know, what are the barriers for why maybe it's not working the way we want it to work. And I know that was part of the plan was to have a template, you know, for residents to make it very user friendly and also the whole component of access to the capital for that. And I guess I don't know much about the city's plans, maybe city council members could educate me on this, but whether there's any plans on using any of the affordable housing bond money or any city funds for supporting affordable housing builders using this, you know, getting access to capital if they're gonna use this for affordable housing. Thanks for that question, Commissioner Jacobs. It's my understanding that the five year plan that was for which the affordable housing bond was one of the prime funding sources does not include that piece, but what I can do is ask our community development folks to reach out to or to provide the members of this committee with an update because I know that parallel to the spent the five year plan and the housing bond, I know that that specific issue is something that is definitely on their radar and something that I know that they've been looking at since we started talking about EHC. So what I think I'll do is reach out to our community development director and I ask him to send the committee an update on what's happening with that specific piece of this particular work. So. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. So absolutely thank you, Commissioner Jacobs. Anybody else have anything they wanted to share about the expanding housing choices metrics presentation before we move on? Speak now or forever hold your peas. All right, well, Scott, thank you so much for this update. It's always great to see and I absolutely agree with the commissioner Jacobs. I hope that we can do more of this as we make changes and create new programs to look not not wait a couple of years and see what happens, but really kind of get on the metrics right away. I think this is a fantastic way to handle that and look forward to seeing more about it. Thanks, Scott. All right, well, speaking of seeing more, let's move on to more of our agenda and item number eight, equity indicators. And who do we have here to talk to us about that? That's my brief. It's not me, but I went to introduce or reintroduce Taishan Wooten who has been an intern with us since late last year. We introduced him to JCCPC back then, but some of you, a lot's happened since late last year and some of you weren't on the commission then. So Taishan just graduated from North Carolina Central with a degree in, let me get this right, Environmental Earth and Geospatial Sciences. He's, we hired him mostly because of, well, because he's a great guy, but also because he's an expert in GIS. One of the things we've had him working on is finding some data that can serve as equity indicators for the comprehensive plan so that we can use them as metrics to test our policies to see what effects they would have on equity. This is Taishan's internship is almost up. So we wanted him to have the opportunity to present to some of the elected officials before he left about the work he's done. So this is our initial take on the equity indicators. It's certainly not final, but we would love to have your input. And so with that, I will stop talking and let Taishan present. Hey, Scott, I don't see Ty on the call. Did he drop off? That's right, he was on here earlier. He was, hang on. We're trying to locate our missing chair, Reese. If I could suggest that maybe we move and do the calendar real quick and give Ty a moment to try and rejoin. He may be having some technical difficulties. If that's fantastic. Great idea. Let's skip ahead to number nine, 2021 meeting dates. All right. So we have attached to your agenda, the meeting dates for next year. We have followed the every other month practice that was started. Again, it's at you all's discretion. If you want to continue with that practice or if you would like to return to a monthly meeting or do some other meeting schedule, but the dates are there February 3rd, April 7th, June 2nd, August 4th, October 6th and December 1st for next year. Thank you, Sarah. I appreciate you letting that out for us. Do any committee members have any concerns about that schedule? Anything you want to change or talk about? This is the time to raise your hand and say so. Otherwise, we're just gonna go ahead with that schedule because it looks pretty good to me. See a few nodding heads. No, no, yeah. I said, wow, thumbs up. Wow, this is great. Okay. Sarah, you may consider this, your approval of that schedule and let's just go forward with that, which means our next meeting will be on February 3rd of next year. Correct. If I might, if there is an exigent matter, we will let the chair know and request a meeting in one of those off months, which I think was what we had promised previously when we moved to that schedule. Perfect. That sounds great. Any luck getting Mr. Wooten connected with us? Let's see. I'm watching my chat here on the other side. I don't see. So I would suggest that maybe Scott, can you roll with the presentation and we'll continue to see if we can get Ty on? And chair, would you not forget to weigh in on the item that I'd mentioned earlier? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, we're definitely gonna hear about that after. Just a quick one. I don't want to prolong the meeting, but just so that the citizens know we are addressing that issue. I appreciate your reminder that we do need to talk about that before we end our meeting. Absolutely. Thank you. So yeah, so director Young, and really it's up to you how you want to handle item number eight, we are at your pleasure. Okay. I think Kayla might be stepping in to handle it. Let's see what Scott has to say. We're working on pulling, oh, there's Kayla right now. Okay, yeah. So Kayla, who's been working closely with Tychon, we'll fill in for him right quick. All right, good morning everybody. My name is Kayla Seibel. I'm going to share my screen. Let's make sure that you all can see that. Okay, let me minimize this. All right, good morning everybody. This is an update on the work that Tychon has been working on with us on equity indicators. This is envisioned to be part of the comprehensive plan, but we also see that there's a lot of uses to this work other than just the comprehensive plan. So it's our first initial pass at looking at data around equity and measuring it specific to Durham. So let's see. So we have just an overview of the content of the presentation. We have purpose, the goals of this work, the methodology and a sampling of the equity indicators profiles, and then future plans for this work. This is just an initial look at what we're doing with equity indicators. All right. So equity indicators is a component of the equity framework. This is supposed to be measurable data that assesses the state of equity in the environment, so in Durham, City and County. It's supposed to inform the comprehensive plan and transit plan process, informing equitable development mapping and the future land use maps. We want to make sure, just like we're doing with our equity lens and community goals, that we are having equity informed pieces of the technical process as well. And it can be used to measure the impacts of our recommended policies and procedures in both plans. So the goals of this, the slice of work, the small piece of work is to generate a list of preliminary equity indicators, which we've done, link the data sources. So Ty did a lot of work to find data sources that seemed right for this work, but of course they're of work in progress. Developing accessible phrasing and descriptions for each equity indicator along the way. You want to make sure we're being accessible so that most audiences can understand what we're trying to do and what we mean and provide information about what the equity indicator is, what it'll be used for, and then eventually this work, we want to start overlaying the equity indicators and this data in a digital platform. So some methodology. So Ty started with researching equity indicators and analyzing the pros and cons. So this was a really long process where there's tons of equity indicators out there, lots of different industries use them in health, in planning, in transportation. So combining that, we're looking all of that volume of work. Getting down to an initial list that was vetted by team staff. So this was the policy and urban design team right now, just an initial pass. We did a process where we ranked the equity indicators which ones we thought would be helpful in measuring equity for a land use plan, shortening those indicators, developing accessible language, like I mentioned, and then choosing appropriate data sources and then sharing this, the next step would be sharing this work with our comprehensive plan outreach team and incorporate changes that will be in progress. So just to jump into just a sampling of what was included in the memo of equity indicators we think would be helpful in this process. Still has to be vetted outside of the team, but we have percentage of youth in the juvenile system. Here's a sampling of what some of the age ranges look like that Ty put together for Durham. Percent of cost burden renters. So we pulled from, I believe this is the DataWorks website we thought this was helpful for understanding where renters are and kind of their spatial positioning to where they need to get to and how cost burden they are. Pedestrian access to a quality park within a walkable distance by racial demographic. So right now this is just showing sidewalk coverage from 2016, but there are a lot of measures a lot of ways we can look at pedestrian access in terms of equity. Meeting household income, that's one of our basic measures we want to show. Again, this is from 2018 across the county a DataWorks sampling. And in the memo there's a bit more description of the PERS and CONS for using this data. Percentage of evictions by racial demographic and location. So this we thought was important to include to understand more of the housing and the impact by racial demographic and location. And then commute times. Commute times by mode, demographic and accessibility. So this is bus stops, sidewalks, et cetera. We thought this was also important for understanding how we can improve our accessibility and make sure that we're focusing equitable investments in these areas. And sorry. Access and availability to quality grocery and healthful food stores by racial demographic. So we thought this was important. And also as we get more into presenting more objectives and objective language, we also noticed there's these equity indicators and this data can help us measure the objectives as well. And so we do have an objective coming up on healthy food access that we'll share with you later. Percentage of unbanked residents. I will have to look at the memo to see what source this is from, but here's a snapshot of what this looks like. We thought this was an important measure for equity as well. So there's several other equity indicators that we didn't share a snapshot of. Percentage of residents with two or more jobs, comorbidity rates, households below poverty, making sure we're incorporating environmental justice. So understanding where our super fund and brownfield sites are by demographic. Displacement measures and then home mortgages, information by racial demographic. So like I mentioned, the future of this work, of this slice of work is to start digging into the data a bit more, mapping out geospatially what this could look like. Maps for all the equity indicators, understanding what the lay of the land is, where we can look at equitable investment and how this informs the comprehensive plan. And then having this in an interactive and digital way platform is kind of where this work is on track from. So with that, I will stop sharing and welcome any questions you have about this initial work, what your thoughts are and how it can inform the next steps. Thank you. Kayla, thank you so much for that presentation and for stepping into the breach. At the last minute, you did a fantastic job. Saw some of your teammates, I think pop up a little chat bubble in the middle of that so you're doing a great job and I absolutely agree, you work great. So this is an opportunity for committee members to share any thoughts, questions or suggestions about this equity indicator work that's just getting underway. And so let me know if you have anything you wanted to say right now. Commissioner Reck, I'll go right ahead. So I agree, you did a great job and I also agree that it looks like a really good list at least to start with. One area that perhaps could be considered to be added would be one about educational attainment. Looking at whether people have high school degrees, percent with college degrees, et cetera. Has that been thought about or discussed? We'll add that to our list if it's not already in the memo. There is a long list, but absolutely, that's definitely one of the things we mentioned and one of our objectives coming up, I think around jobs is availability and accessibility of jobs and how that matches up with educational attainment. That's really important and we're working on objectives around schools. So thank you for pointing that out. We really need to focus on that in the sense that I'm on the Dermatech board and we actually just had a strategic planning retreat. We're gonna be doing a strategic plan over the next year and we brought in outside consultants to assess where we were and they pointed out something that we already knew but very, very strongly pointed it out that our completion rate, our graduation rate is not where it needs to be and that we're lower than the average for the state we're lower for the average for the nation. So while Dermatech's a great gateway into jobs and whatever a lot of our citizens start a program but don't finish it, the completion rate is exceedingly low. So this is something that we have to focus on like a laser I think, going forward as a community and really work at moving that up. And so having that also being tracked in a high profile metric that is community that looking at this, we also be helpful I think. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Recker. I think that's absolutely right. We have to keep our eye on those particular areas. Anybody else want to share any thoughts, suggestions about the presentation? Yes, Commissioner Jacobs-Gerard. Well, I'm sorry that Taishon is in on here so that we can't thank him for his work. So if you could, when you have a chance, express our gratitude for his great work on this and that he has been plowing new territory, setting a new tradition here. And so I'm really excited that we're doing this and I think this is all part of, you know, our work to put equity front and center in the work that we do in every area. So I'm really excited that this is happening and how, so one of my questions is, and I also really appreciate just understanding the process that you all started out with 60, you know, and then narrowed it down to 15 and how challenging that is. And then to, you know, with Taishon's help to find the actual data points for it and to, because we also need to pick things that are gonna be doable, right, and implementable. So one of my questions is how are you all envisioning that these indicators will be integrated into the comprehensive land use plan and into the future land use maps? I mean, because like right now we have like one future land use map, right? But I guess that's going back to kind of my earlier question which is, you know, should we have more than one map? Should we have different maps? Should they be equity future land use map? So what are you all thinking about? Yeah, thank you for that, Commissioner Jacobs. And I'll certainly pass on that message to Ty. He did a great work with us this past year actually he's been with us. So as far as where we're headed with this we wanna make sure that the future land use map and any recommendations and policies start with being informed by these equity indicators and a bigger equity equitable development framework. So they could become a series of maps. And right now we're working on how the goals and objectives work we're doing and the equity indicators, you know what are things we can start measuring these objectives with? And we know equity is super important to this project and to this community. So we wanna start with building out an equitable development framework. So a piece of that are these measures. And part of that is how we implement some of these objectives that are around equity such as making our community engagement process more accessible and equitable our development process successful and equitable and understanding what areas need that attention and need to be lifted up and voices heard from those areas. So the equitable development framework we're seeing is informing the future land use map as well as all the technical pieces that go into future land use map. I know this along with the answer it's still we're still kind of fuzzy and working on how that all comes together but that's what we're seeing right now. Okay, well, that's helpful. Thank you. And I guess what really also struck me about the indicators was that some of them are more directly can be more directly tied to our ordinances than others. For instance, like the ones around, where are their sidewalks? How close are you to a park or a grocery store or a bank or a bus stop? And I just wondered if you are gonna look at almost categorizing them as to which we really can really which are more actionable in terms of our when we look at our future land use map and then when we look at our ordinances because for instance sidewalks like I looked at the indicator for sidewalks. Well, yeah, it shows up that we don't have a lot of sidewalks in the county because guess what? We don't require sidewalks in the county. So, you know, and you know, so when we think about if we're gonna say people need to be within a half a mile from let's say a greenway or a park then when we look at our future land use map we need to then look at where are parks now and where do we need to locate future parks so that people can be within a half a mile or it could be a greenway, right? But so I'm just, and you know, same thing with the grocery stores or banks like okay where do we need to put commercial neighborhood commercial so that people can be walkable to those things. So I just was thinking, I don't know if you all have talked about the difference in these indicators and which ones we can have much more direct control over when it comes to our future land use plan. Yeah, thank you. We'll need to contextualize the equity indicators just like you described and you did it much better than I described how they be used for the future land use map but definitely contextualizing it to specific areas and what makes sense and making sure it is actionable just like we're doing that with our goals and objectives, thinking about that last question. How does this fit in the COMP plan? Can we create policies out of it? So thank you. I'll take that down as the next step for this. Yeah, I mean, and also I just think that even going back to all those wonderful goals that we heard from the community in the draft plan and a lot of them really describe kind of like an ideal neighborhood or like a mixed use work, live, play environment. And where can we actually do that? Cause we don't have a lot of land left, right? So a lot of it is gonna be looking at redevelopment of shopping centers and parking lots and things like that. So, and I know you all are doing this, the Southeast Durham special study, but I just think it's gonna be important that we really think outside the box. I know the group that I participated with on the engaged Durham, I was really excited when I heard people in the room talking about, yeah, let's reimagine our shopping centers and all the redevelopment opportunities to think differently about creating what we just heard from, what we're hearing from people, what they want. How can we make that happen? So anyway, but I'm excited about this process. Thank you. Commissioner Jacobs, any more thoughts on the equity indicators? Had a pretty good conversation about this so far. I will just add Kayla again, thanks so much for stepping up. I'm really sorry we didn't get to see Taishon, but I hope you will share with him the broad consensus among committee members that this work was really fantastic. A great way to start really digging into how we wanna make decisions going forward. Also really appreciate commissioners, Rick, Helen Jacobs, really focusing on how we're gonna take this work away from out of the, look and see what the world is into the realm of how do we start making the world as it ought to be very specifically as our built environment as a city. Because for so many of our residents that is what a city is, right? It is the built environment and the people who inhabit it. And so I really appreciate that focus and hope that we can maintain that as this work goes forward. But again, thank you again, Kayla, for stepping up and helping us work through that. And thanks also especially to Taishon for getting us going down this road. And again, just really sorry he fell off the call. That's a bummer. So that's item, that's that item. I guess that's item number eight on our agenda. And that leaves us with, ah yes, there's our planning director to talk a little bit about the issue that Commissioner Howerton wanted to talk about. But I guess first I'd like to hear from Commissioner Howerton exactly what it is you want staff to provide some information on because I wasn't exactly clear from your initial remarks. Thank you, Chair. We've been receiving these communications about regarding the Durham landscape manual and not really understanding what it is that the community is asking for, asking us to vote on. So I wanted some clarity around what it is that what's the concern. Fantastic. Well, I guess before we, I asked the planning director to talk, I guess my understanding from those emails that they're at least the ones that I've read and I think I've read all of them has been that we please vote to approve it. And I haven't heard any concerns about the landscape manual beyond the fact that it's incredibly awesome and folks want us to say yes to it. So I guess I'm not understanding why they think we wouldn't vote for it. And if it's something that needs more clarification that will not have us end on time at 1130 because we all have other meetings because this meeting has extended longer than we thought it would and adding this just kind of adds a little bit more time. So if it's something that we put in writing that would be fine with me. I just think that with all these emails we need to be able to give something back to the citizens as to their communication to us. Yeah, I mean, I can't speak for the residents about why they, I don't think that the emails are motivated by a concern that we wouldn't support it. But I think there are folks in the community who are eager to see this go into effect and are using their voice to make sure that we know that. But I think this is be a good time for our planning director to say a few words about it. Sure, I will say that I think the majority of these emails are actually coming from the partner organizations that worked with us on the landscape manual. And so they are voicing their support because we included them in the process to help us draft those changes. So I would say that while it's unusual, I think to hear so many positive emails, let's say, usually we tend to hear more of the negative. I don't have any need for concern. I think these are just folks that wanted you all to know that they are very much in support. And if I could go a step further, probably even appreciate being involved in the process. So I think that's all this is. I think that the only response needed is you all's action when it comes to you. Okay, thank you. Alrighty, well, yes, Commissioner Reck-Hall, go ahead ahead. So, Sarah, we had a companion item that we approved at our last meeting, right? And I was wondering, Suki, if you could just clarify, I thought maybe the landscape manual itself was just a document that would be done and approved by the staff, but didn't necessarily need elected body approval. But is that coming later, if you could clarify? It is. It does require elected body approval because it functions as development. It's part of our development regulations. It's just kind of an adjunct document. So it does require formal approval. And that is coming just on the heels. I think it slated the kind of commissioners in January. And I think it's coming up, I'll remember, for the city council. So, sorry, I could look that up if folks really wanna know the exact date, but yeah. I was just curious, because sometimes manuals of that nature aren't necessarily considered things that the board has to adopt. So I was curious about that. Thank you. Does anybody else have any questions or comments about that issue? Because Commissioner Howerton is absolutely right. We've been getting a ton of emails about that for weeks. And I know when I started getting them, I definitely did a double take and went back and kind of looked through our work. And I've read all those emails. I have not seen any of them say, this is an awful idea. Why would you consider passing it? It's all that kind of exactly what Sarah said, the advocacy of member organizations who've been involved in this work who wanna make sure that we know that it's important to them. And I think it is unusual. Sarah said for us to get so many positive emails about a thing I think we all wanna do. But my impression has been that that is what it is. So with that, it looks like we're at the end of our agenda. And before I adjourn, I did wanna say one last thing and then we'll get off. That's not a conversation topic. But this is scheduled to be my last meeting for a full meeting of me presiding as chair over this body. We're gonna elect a new chair and vice chair at our February meeting. Between now and then, I will reach out to each of you individually to talk to you about the folks that you wanna see move forward as leadership in this committee. There's a way that this has traditionally been done and that would be to have the vice chair move up to the chair position. And then someone from the other elected board who is not the current vice chair, step up as the vice chair. Currently, our vice chair is commissioner Jacobs, the member of the council, city council who has been on this body the longest who has not served as vice chair or chair, I believe as council member Middleton. And so that's my initial impression about what should happen. But as I said, I'm gonna take some time to talk with each of you individually about this over the next couple of months to find out if there's anything different we want to do. But that's my current suggestion. But we'll have some additional conversations and be ready to move forward with that at our meeting in February, at which I will convene, preside, call the roll and then get the heck out of the way. So look forward to that. I hope everyone has a safe holiday season. We're not gonna meet again until the new year, but please be careful and be safe. The vaccine news is great, it's not here yet. So I continue to be careful and encourage all of our neighbors to do that as well. So thank you. With that, I will adjourn our meeting, not terribly late. Great job, everybody. And I hope you have a great rest of your day. Take care. Thank you. Thank you. And I just want to say great job up and left you're ready. Take care, everyone. Happy.