 Good evening welcome to the Durham Planning Commission. It's good to have you here tonight. The members of the Durham Planning Commission have been appointed by the City Council and the County Board of Commissioners as an advisory board to the elected officials. You should know that the elected officials have the final say on any of the issues that are before us this evening. If you wish to speak on an agenda item this evening please go to the table to my left and you can sign up to speak. For those of you who wish to speak please state your name and your address clearly at the podium when you come to speak. Each side speaking in favor and speaking in opposition to an item we each have 10 minutes to present for each side and the time will be divided among the persons wishing to speak. Finally all motions are stated in the affirmative so if a motion fails or ties the recommendation is for denial. Thank you. May we have the roll call? Commissioner Alturk? Here. Commissioner Johnson? Present. Commissioner Gouche? Here. Commissioner Bryan? Present. Commissioner Satterfield? Here. Commissioner Harris? Here. Commissioner Hyman? Present. Chair Busby? Present. Commissioner Miller? Here. Commissioner Kynchon? Here. Commissioner Hornbuckle? Present. Commissioner Vane? Present. Commissioner Gibbs? Here. Great, thank you very much. We will begin with approval of the minutes and the consistency statements from our November 14th meeting. Commissioner Bryan? I didn't notice one minor thing. We have 13 commissioners listed as being present but the motions on the first two items adjustments and approval of the minutes were by 11 to 0 votes so somebody must have come in late. It needs to be noted who they were. Yeah we can do that. There were some late arrivals. We can do that. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Hyman? Yes. First of all let me offer my apologies to the staff for some of my scribbling which wasn't clear and this is on the 5520 Wake Forest Highway. I've offered some clarification in my effort to list the four proffers. I kind of mixed up the words but I've listed them out. One was to create the 50 foot building set back that no more than 50 homes a single Bay Car Garage and cap units at 79 were the notes that I made and so they weren't quite clear so I've offered them for clarification. Thank you so much. We've received those and we will correct your comments. Great, thank you. If there are no other comments I will entertain a motion. I move approval of the minutes and consistency statements as amended. Second. Great. Properly moved and seconded. Moved by Commissioner Brian, seconded by Commissioner Alturk. All those in favor please raise your right hand. Seeing none opposed the motion passes. We will move to adjustments to the agenda. I have two adjustments. I'm not sure if there's anything else from the staff's perspective. Staff does not have any adjustments. Great. I would like to propose that we would move the new business, the resolution honoring of Ms. D. Dranna Freeman to the very top and then with that we also we've had a request to move the public hearing on the compact neighborhood interim affordable housing bonus to be right after that. Some movements here. Second. Properly moved and seconded. Moved by Commissioner Harris, seconded by Commissioner Brian. All those in favor please raise your right hand. Any opposed? Great. We did have for the record we had one opposition. Great. Thank you. Staff didn't have any adjustments. We would like to affirm that all legal notices have been carried out in compliance with local and UDO and those affidavits are on file in our office. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. One other thing to note is for the commissioners you have on in front of you the notice or the update on what to expect at next month's meeting and Commissioner Harris noted that it said December 12th and that's actually meant to be next month. So it should be January 12th, 2018 and the staff will email us an updated version tomorrow. January 9th. Oh, January 9th. Today's December 12th. So it's January 9th. Yeah. Thank you. All right. So when we're having all year all right. Have some good news and bad news. So next we will move on to our resolution honoring our former colleague, Dejana Freeman. Dejana, if you want to join me up front, I think is everyone here knows Ms Freeman served on the planning commission for a number of years and last month was her final meeting as she's moved on to greener pastures and is now Councilwoman Freeman. It's always a pleasure to have you join us here. So I am honored to read this resolution and appreciation of Dejana Freeman and your service on the planning commission. Whereas Mrs. Dejana Freeman was a member of the Durham Planning Commission from June 16th, 2014 through November 14th, 2017. And whereas the Durham Planning Commission and the citizens of the city and county of Durham have benefited from the dedicated efforts that she displayed while serving as a member of the Durham Planning Commission and whereas this commission desires to express its appreciation for the job, the job well done. Now therefore be it resolved by the Durham Planning Commission that this commission does hereby express its sincere appreciation for the service rendered by Mrs. Freeman to the citizens of this community and that the clerk for the commission is hereby directed to spread this resolution and its entirety upon the official minutes of this commission and this resolution is hereby presented to Mrs. Freeman as a token of the high esteem held for her. Adopted this 12th day of December 2017. And I would invite you to share any comments if you would like. I just want to thank you all for support for the support that you've all provided in offering your comments and also lively debate on many of cases. I learned so much being here on the Planning Commission and I hope to continue to learn more as I continue as a council member on the City Council. I will be reading your comments so please keep making them. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. The four hours if you like. For longer. Yes. Commissioner Miller move the resolution. Moved and seconded all those in favor please raise your right hand. Motion is approved. Thank you. We will move to what is now our first item on the agenda. This is the public hearing TC 16 quadruple zero five compact neighborhood interim affordable housing bonuses. So we will begin with Ms. Jacobson and the staff report. Good evening. I haven't done this in a while. I'm Pat Young the director of the County Planning Department. I've had the great fortune to work with many of you in my over seven years as primary staff support for the Planning Commission and I frankly miss it but I have not been here in several months since my appointment as director in April. I did want to come and introduce this item because it has some wide-ranging implications for a very important priority for the city and county which is affordable housing. With me today is Senior Planner Hannah Jacobson as Chair Busby introduced and I'm gonna turn over to her in just a few moments to talk about the proposed interim regulations. But first I want to give a little bit of background on how we got here. As many of you will remember in 2015, City Council and the Board of Commissioners adopted a goal of 15% of all future housing units within a half mile of planned light rail transit stations should be affordable households with income of less than 60% of area median income and that was subsequently adopted as policy in the comprehensive plan in 2016. That gives us the ability within the combines of law to seek strategies that further that policy. In furtherance of that policy, the Community Development Department under the leadership of then a consultant to the city Karen Lotto who now is the Assistant Director of the Community Development Department and is with us here tonight helped craft a affordable housing plan that was subsequently adopted and one of the key strategies in that displayed on your screen here was to consider an enhanced density bonus to try to leverage the zoning tool to have a market rate development generate affordable units most likely within that 60 to 80% of AMI range. And so what I want to emphasize before I turn it over to Miss Jacobson is and you've heard this from me and a number of our colleagues before the zoning tool is only one tool in the toolbox to help achieve the important affordable housing goal and it's a tool that has got especially in North Carolina the North Carolina law a lot of limitations. Different strategies are required to ensure that affordability is maintained at different income levels. This graphic is representative and conceptual but there is a fairly narrow range of incomes at which the value of the additional zoning entitlement helps provide enough subsidy to provide the affordable housing. And I'll talk a little bit more about this following Miss Jacobson's presentation because I think this interim strategy you're going to hear about tonight. A lot of components in this may be things that we carefully examine for a longer term strategy. I want to talk a little bit about where we're at in terms of that evaluation. What this slide here depicts is what I said a moment ago. There are a number of tools. There are different tools that are more effective at different income ranges and there are different tools that are more effective for homeownership versus rental options. We do think that the highest likelihood of success is in that 60 to 80% of area median income range and I'll talk a little bit about what those income levels are and particularly for rental products because of some of the limitations of state law. Again you'll hear more from Hannah and for me at the end. And I do want to talk about exactly like I said before I turn over to Hannah where we've been. Like many North Carolina municipalities including Durham and Charlotte, excuse me, Raleigh and Charlotte, we have had an affordable housing density bonus in our ordinance since the mid 1980s. And from the mid 1980s until 2015 there was one required committed affordable housing unit for one additional above baseline density market rate unit. That provision was not used and it was not used in our piercings either. So with that concern of the ineffectiveness of in sending the affordable housing in 2015 along with the other changes to make this bonus program more attractive, we increased with you all's review and support and with the City Council Board of Commissioners adoption that ratio to three to one so that there would be three additional affordable housing units allowed for every one market rate, excuse me, three additional market rate units for every one affordable housing unit provided excuse me. What you're seeing tonight is a much more robust attempt to try to find a level of density that will adequately incent the market to respond to this incentive and to create affordable housing. And you're gonna hear from Hannah it's typically depending on the baseline zoning in these different transit areas in the order of five to seven to one in terms of the number of market rate units that a developer can get by right with the provision of affordable housing unit and we also have other changes that will we think help provide financial incentives to developers but the key takeaway before I turn it over to Hannah that I want to emphasize is we're working hard to find a tool that works. We don't want to just have a tool in the book for show we've had that for 30 years and we are confident that this is an important step in that achieving that goal but it is going to take other tools as I mentioned earlier and I'll talk a little bit more about those following Hannah's presentation. Thank you all. Thank you Pat. Thank you members of the commission. Again I am Hannah Jacobson at Durham Planning Department and I'll be getting into some more of the nuts and bolts of the proposed text amendment that's in your packet. Before I do that I do want to give a shout out to Commissioner Brine who notified staff earlier this week of some inconsistencies between what's in this text amendment and what's in a later text amendment that you'll hear later in the evening the Omnibus and we do we do recognize and appreciate that comment and we'll work towards reconciling that and whatever version moves forward to the elected bodies. So with that with that I'll get more into the details of the interim affordable housing bonus. At the onset of the project we laid out kind of three major objectives. First is that we would of course like to encourage developers of multifamily housing to include affordable units into their projects and when we do that we would like them we would like to see there be establishment of good urban design principles kind of that are foundational to our compact neighborhoods in our design districts and then finally that this incentive be available by right or administratively that can help to reduce that acts as an incentive because it helps to reduce the time the expense and the uncertainty of moving forward with these types of projects. To take a step back yet again what is an interim affordable housing bonus? It's a zoning tool that allows developers to build more more housing units more height more density more floor area in exchange for a public good in this case affordable housing and the theory behind that is that by building more market rate units you can help help to offset some of the costs that are accrued by providing the affordable units lower rents essentially. The reality of course is a lot more complicated to make the math work it can be hard to balance some of the costs of land construction particularly with structured parking and financing and still keeping those market rate units within within reason but that's the theory. Where can these proposed interim bonuses be used? We have a two-step process the first step or the first question to ask is is the property within a compact neighborhood tier? As many of you all know compact neighborhood tiers are designations on our future land use map that are around our proposed regional rail transit lines. There are six that are along the proposed Durham orange light rail line and two that are down near RTP that would be along the proposed Durham to Wake commuter rail line downtown is highlighted on this map for reference only just to note that this would not apply to downtown because we do not regulate density in downtown so that's the first step are you in a compact neighborhood tier the second question or the second step to ask does the existing zoning district allow for multifamily housing so this actually includes many of our commercial districts and the office institutional district but it would exclude single-family housing zoning districts and industrial zoning districts so it's shown on the map here is an example at the Austin Avenue area where we've highlighted in green the places where the bonus would be eligible to be used because of what the base zoning is today the basic structure of the bonus is pretty simple if a project is in one of those eligible locations and it meets the requirements for affordability and requirements for design then you can get the density and the height bonuses so what are those affordability requirements at least 15% of the total units must be affordable for a 30-year period and what we're proposing moving forward we are proposing a two-step process and I should say that these this recommendation that we're moving forward with is the result of meeting with some of the elected with the work session of both the City Council and the Board of County Commissioners and getting their feedback on the way to move forward so where we are right now is that step one would be that a developer would propose a project to the city where 15% of the units are affordable to people earning 60% of varying median income or less the city would then the city or the county would then get the opportunity to evaluate that project determine whether or not it's within their interest to participate financially in that project step two would be if the elected board opts not to participate then kind of the default requirement would become that 15% of the units are affordable to household earning 70 an average of 70% of area median income or less and this would be done with a by right or administrative approval so those are the affordability requirements the design requirements again these help to build on some of what you know principles of good urban design that we would like to see moving forward in our compact neighborhood tiers that you know the building is placed on the site to help to create more of a Cuban pedestrian oriented sense of sense of scale that there'd be visual interest that's created through windows and doors on the street fancy word for that and planning lingo is fenestration that there's the primary entrance again engages with the street that pedestrian activity is encouraged through accessible sidewalks and enhanced through these of streetscape amenities so if you're in an eligible location you meet the affordability requirements your project meets the design requirements then you are entitled to the the bonuses and so what we're proposing is a maximum density of 75 units an acre maximum building height of 90 feet the exception to that is on the edges of the compact neighborhood tier in places where you're adjacent to single-family uses or single-family zoning in that case the building height would be a maximum of 50 feet a significant bonus for these types of projects is that we would eliminate the minimum required parking it's not to say that we don't think that projects would include parking within them it's just eliminating the unified development ordinance as that barrier and then finally seeking administrative approval if again if the financial assistance is not not utilized and again that like I mentioned at the very beginning that's regarded as an incentive because it eliminates the the time and the cost and uncertainty of many rezoning requests to look a little bit more closely at density this graphic shows the the range of densities that's currently allowed within zoning districts that are in the compact neighborhood tier so that the bars that are in yellow are the residential zoning districts the red bars are the commercial zoning districts the green bars the mixed-use district and then the blue bars are the compact design district and the dashed line at the top shows the 75 units an acre so you can see that this is a significant bonus but it varies kind of depending which which zoning district that you are you are in how big the bonus actually would be so it's a similar chart that compares the proposed heights the 90 feet kind of internal to the compact neighborhood tier and the 50 feet that would be at the edges of the tier compares those two numbers that are shown in those dashed lines to what the proposed with the existing allowable heights are with within the zoning districts I mentioned the to be a little bit more context sensitive to single-family neighborhoods that are outside of the compact neighborhood tiers there's this proposed transitional height area of 75 feet if you're adjacent to the urban tier or 150 feet in distance if you're adjacent to the suburban tier and again the height there would be restricted to about 50 feet which is approximately four stories during our community outreach that we conducted over the summer we anticipated a lot of questions like how will this affect development near me so what we what we did is for every compact neighborhood we put together charts maps that compared with the allowable densities and heights are under current zoning and compared that to what it would be under the proposed bonus I mentioned this just to just to say that these are available online and if you have particular questions about particular sites you know we're happy to answer them but this is this is a good resource to look to look at to look at the impacts on on sites that you might be most interested in with that I'm gonna turn it back over to Pat to talk about some of the limitations benefits and steps moving forward good evening again and thank you Hannah Hannah and our excellent team did a lot of research associated with the proposal that's before you tonight and one of the things they found is that this type of program is most effective and in fact really I would say exclusively effective in real estate markets that have very very high market valuations such as San Francisco New York and places of that magnitude and that's because the very high market rents as Hannah alluded to under the describing the theory behind this allow for a market rate developer to offset or write down the cost of the affordable units by charging very high market rents we do have much higher rents than we've had five years ago or ten years ago in Durham but they're still not at the level that fully offset the cost of things like steel frame construction which is required when you get over about 50 feet or four stories and parking decks structured parking the for these large projects that would take advantage of this density bonus that Hannah presented to you the underwriting standards of banks and lenders the market as well as our regulations would require those types of improvements which are very very expensive and very hard to put the zoning tool to completely offset the cost of and so there's still a revenue gap that exists and that is a substantial limitation in what you heard tonight and it just it ties back to the point that I think we make every time you hear us talk about this which is it's gonna this program that you heard of tonight is a great step in the right direction but it's gonna have to be partnered with direct programs to be to be effective because there's still a gap for market rate developers between what they can make in these extra units and the cost to providing affordable units another key point I want to bring up here is that you heard about the six different future compact neighbor light rail transit areas that we call our compact design districts there are very significantly different as you all I think are well aware market conditions land costs market rents across these different areas Alston Avenue versus Patterson Place versus Irwin Road and that has a significant impact on how effective this tool may be and I'll talk a little bit about that a minute and there are relatively few development ready sites and by development ready I mean I meet the criteria that you heard about from Hannah in terms of being a zoning designation that could take advantage of this program and that are on the market and that that there's interest in market demand for this type of product but that being said I think we think we think that this program sends a real signal to the market about the community's expectation the something that the advocates the community advocates that have helped us with this program tremendously have have promoted is the idea that our markets are only going to continue to mature and evolve and there's going to be higher and higher demand and we're really sending a signal now to the community that our expectation is that affordability inclusion and equity and access are important community principles and I think also importantly that there are already current projects and plan projects that may be able to take advantages that have a high level of whole participation already for example Fayette Place there's not a full funding source for redevelopment of Fayette Place but there are is a lot of interest in that and I'm just using that as an example the current zoning on that site would only support I believe it's eight I should have checked before I came in here but it's eight or twelve units an acre if they took advantage of this program it would be able to be redeveloped at a much higher density and have a much higher amount of affordability than it would without the program so there's both market signaling and there's immediate near-term benefits for projects that have a high level of public subsidy or that are possibly being done by a nonprofit or mission-based developer I alluded to this here I just want to give this for additional context to the point I made a moment ago I think it's important to spend just a moment here you see the household income limits there on your screen for 60% and 80% of AMI and then you see the market rents today this is based on some very current almost real-time data that did a fairly detailed assessment of market conditions in our future light rails transit station areas you can see the differential between affordable rents which is shown there up on the top of the slide in the current market rents of course those are only likely to increase over time so we what we're trying to do here is to as a next step is to look at each of these future compact design excuse me compact design to future light rail transit areas and probably through a third-party consultant contract to do an economic analysis of each of these to see if based on the market current and projected market demand what is a baseline density that can support our minimum transit goals meaning being dense enough that it can support light rail transit but not so dense that there's not some incentive for market rate developers to consider to heavily consider using this tool this is a different this is a complex set of data points that we have to try to pull together to be effective our average baseline density in these areas now is 12 to 15 units an acre with our current zoning meaning the zoning that is in place today if the market demand is not above that density today there's no chance that this tool is going to work so what we've got to do is assess these areas for now in the future to try to make sure that both today and for the future as we implement our compact design districts that we are setting baseline densities that can take advantage of this concept if we're going to keep this interim strategy in place for the long term I hope that all made sense I'll be happy to answer questions to talk about that further but we feel like it's a great interim strategy but if it's going to work in the long term we have to embed it in our compact design district zoning and in the past what we've done is just given very high densities for compact design district zoning I want to be very candid with you about this is a very difficult thing to accomplish markets are very dynamic it would be very difficult for us to have the same type of information about construction costs and market dynamics as the market has and so if we don't get it right we're unlikely to be very successful in using this tool long term another another there are other potential consequences here if we get it wrong meaning if we set the baseline densities at a level that does not encourage folks to use this incentive we run a risk as I think we've seen over the last 30 years or so in our partner cities to the West Chapel Hill and Carbureaux where you have a lot of very high cost for a low density development if we don't titrate this right if we restrict density too much in the interest of trying to incentivize people to use of the affordable housing bonus we run the risk of folks coming in and doing high value low density development we also run a significant risk of attracting only non-residential development presumptively this would only be applied both under what you heard from Hannah in the future to residential development there's certainly a chance we get only office or other commercial uses and residential gets pushed to the edges which leads to a next area of concern which is if we don't get this exactly right and we don't create a long-term strategy that provides the right incentive to participate in this program there's a risk of development pressured on adjacent neighborhoods which is something we've been trying very desperately to avoid and finally the FTA which is federal transit administration that's the funding primarily the federal funding agency for the light rail transit system looks very closely at projected ridership for the line and there is certainly a risk that as they continue to evaluate this and as we go down the funding process that they will consider these efforts something that will reduce density the number of likely riders in these areas and that could be something that could negatively affect our scoring under the program so I don't mean to bring any of this up as the sky is falling but I want us to be very thoughtful as we move from this interim strategy which is against interim refers to the fact that it's between now and the time that we bring in these compact design district zoning in the future light rail transit areas if we if when we apply the compact design district zoning if we don't get the zoning exactly right there is a risk and we it's something that we would love to get your feedback and commentary and input on before we go a lot further down this road so in conclusion then the interim strategy is a great approach it's a great way to test to see how this works and if it's the market responds to it and it's a great way to provide opportunities and options for the development community to pursue additional density by providing affordable housing but we are going to be proceeding forward to bring you the compact design districts with the caveat that we will look at possibly modifying those baseline densities to embed this concept going forward but we wanted to bring up with you now the concerns about that and the risks of that I'll say one more thing and then turn over any questions you all have for Hannah or I alluded to it several times there's no way any of this is successful without being partnered and paired with other toolbox options to be effective I mentioned Karen lot I was here tonight with us a community development department is in the very early stages and I want to emphasize that there's been no drafts or proposals other than concepts and early discussions but about some kind of a program that would potentially be paired with this program that would help market rate developers make make up that revenue gap again that would have to go through a full process of evaluation by council on the board commissioners if the county decides to adopt that approach but that is being considered and I wanted to just disclose that because we do think this is only likely to be significantly affecting if it's paired with a program of financing or gap funding thank you all for your time and attention happy to answer any questions you all have great thank you I think what we'll do actually is open the public hearing and give the chance for public comment and then we'll have the commissioners be able to ask questions of the staff as we move forward so at this point we will we will open the public hearing and we have one individual signed up to speak James Chavis okay we may have more than one so we will get to the additional speakers as well but mr. Chavis please come up to the microphone good afternoon ladies and gents and others sitting up there as well my name is James Chavis I say 2813 Ash Street here in Durham and Pat one district one I come to represent my area because we are not being notified by the planning department when this stuff comes up when I found about this in two weeks I sent it out and I've been talking to people how can we the public know in our district what our money is going to be used for and have voices in it if we do not know from the beginning I hope y'all would do in 2018 what we have been asked to stop letting the community be at the tail but stop making the community be at the head of the table with these people that's planning this because this will make it better for you all to help make your decision it will make it better for us to see that they are really working and listen to the people it's not just their tax money it's the people's tax money and the people should have it it's not the special interest groups tax money it's all of Durham's tax money so I hope as you looking through this incident that you will tell them please go and get out here in the community especially in Pat one district one every I don't think speak for the others but I'm speaking of and let us truly know what they are planning on doing thank you thank you mr. Chavis we do have two additional speakers we have Terry alabal and then Jim Savara my name is Terry alabal of its 1609 Hollywood Street here in Durham and I appreciate the opportunity to address the planning Commission I'm here on behalf of the Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit to speak about the proposed interim affordable housing bonus I want to start by noting that this notion for the density revised density bonus grew out of the Coalition's work several years ago to provide Durham's local government with a way to incentivize the inclusion of some affordable units when new residential construction takes place in Durham our Coalition has appreciated the opportunity to work with the planning and legal staff over the last two and a half years on developing the framework and text amendment that you have before you today and we're grateful for their openness their hard work and diligence and moving this matter forward we strongly support the city and County of Durham adopting the center of measure to allow density around many future rail stations sites while incentivizing the provision of additional new affordable housing units within our community the text of minute benefits our community in a number of ways one it encourages greater density around our transit sites in accordance with our land use plans to it provides affordable housing near station sites for transit dependent citizen and thus will improve transit ridership and three by providing affordable housing near transit stations it will reduce commuter demands on our transportation system ease congestion and promote better air and water quality the proposed text amendment provides strong benefits and incentives to a new developer of multifamily housing or a developer of new multifamily housing in several ways as you've heard the density bonus can now be three four even five times the number of units that are allowed under existing zoning which means greater profitability for these projects the parking requirement changes from two spaces to whatever the developer deans commercially necessary reasonable which can mean significant cost savings and structured parking cost and three the process as you've also heard would be an administrative review of proposals that's a much faster more certain less time-consuming and less contentious process however there are two important aspects of this draft for this amendment that we have serious reservations about I will cover the first and Jim Savard will speak to the second the adopted goal of the city and county is for at least 15 percent of the residential units near the transit sites to be affordable the citizens with incomes of 60 percent and below the area median income the draft only requires that 15 percent of the new units be affordable to folks with a 70 percent and below a my this would virtually eliminate those at 60 percent of the am I will go to say more on this and let me just say a few words about who would be eliminated in this process for example in Durham a carpenter at 49 percent of a my a paramedic at 51 percent a firefighter at 55 percent or a teacher with six years of experience in the Durham public school system at 59 percent it would be very difficult for these these kinds of folks to be able to afford the new affordable units that will result with the passage of this amendment as presented I'm going to ask Jim then make some additional points for us thank you mr. Savara thank you Jim Savara 1114 Woodburn Road let me just make a comment to respond to the presentation that you heard there was the indication that this specific proposal which Terry has expressed concern about backing away from the 60 percent requirement was was developed in part based on feedback from the city council on the council county commission I was at the work sessions when both when this issue was discussed and I would not say there was any clear feedback from the council and in so far as members spoke on it it was former members of the council who spoke on on possible move forward only two of the commissioners gave any indication of their preference and they said we want something that works and there was no public discussion at that time so I think this still needs to be viewed as as wide open I will continue comments that you may sound familiar because they came in a message to you from with golly a letter reflecting the views that the coalition of affordable housing in transit has taken up to this point as Terry said we've been working with with planning for over two years but always discussing this incentive to be used with the expectation that 60 percent AMI would be the affordable housing limit for 15 percent of the units we have asked the planning staff for evidence for facts that support making this change this two-step process and in effect lifting the limit to 70 percent we will and continue to engage with the staff on this issue and to be in communications with the city council and the county commissioners about this measure in in coming weeks the second concern is with the two-step process that's been outlined in this proposal the structure of the process seems to encourage developers to come to the council with unreasonable demands for assistance if they're going to cooperate and provide 60 percent units in effect they can if they don't get as much money as they're asking for it then they can choose to provide the units at 70 percent instead this seems to us to be the wrong incentives to build into this program we should we should maintain 60 percent and and then look for the tools to make work having the straightforward standard of 60 percent for the affordable units seems to be the wiser course of action at this point in time we would ask the planning board not to delay consideration for this amendment we had to say we were opposed we're not in opposition but just have concerns about these these these two specific points we hope that the affordable housing bonus will be put in place soon and there are several more months of consideration and approvals ahead at the same time we also urge you to express your concern with weakening of the 60 percent AMI standard absent clear evidence that the 70 percent AMI approach will be more effective in achieving the creation of new affordable housing and Durham for all along until again just a week or so ago we thought there were three options the first of which was to hold to that 60 percent we would like to close with restating the basic goal of this ordinance which is to help ensure that the people who need transit most are able to live close to transit stations we recognize that in Durham we are just beginning to forge the tools to produce new affordable housing units in our opinion we may not we may often need to use additional tools in our toolbox to reach this goal including public or reserve land parking concessions and other infrastructure improvements public funding and other approaches but we believe that the affordable housing bonus can be a powerful tool to help us incentivize private developers to provide affordable housing when new housing is built so let's look for these and try out these tools rather than lowering our sites and only trying to get 70 percent AMI into the into these units as as we have heard as the light rail gets closer as construction begins rents are going to go up and the tools may not be needed at that point in order to get to meet the 60 percent limit I think it's also important to recognize that this is a more robust approach than they used in the past it is also a new approach that we have not used before for the first time we will be linking up zoning to the provision of affordable housing the old approaches didn't work there was that promise of additional units but up zoning higher density was approved by the council on the commission anyway so it wasn't necessary to to include affordable units in order to in order to get that higher density from this point forward higher density needs to include affordable housing it's important to send the message let's send the right message to the community to developers to those who are advocates of meeting addressing this serious need and hold to that 60 percent AMI goal thank you thank you very much I'd like to give the opportunity if there's anyone else who would like to speak during the public comment period on this issue great seeing none we will close the public comment period and I would invite commissioners anyone who would like to ask any questions great commissioner Johnson would you like to start thank you chairman and thank you to members of the planning department who presented tonight and comments from the public have a series of questions but I'll be quick and trying to get some clarifications around a couple things so to Pat mr. director and our Hannah just in regards to the term interim do you have is that defined in regards to a timeline of what does interim mean before you read reassess it for a longer term assessment Pat young with the planning department commissioner Johnson that's a very good question I don't feel like I did a very good job of explaining that my presentation the term interim refers to the fact that pursuant to the 2005 comprehensive plan that was adopted by city council the board of commissioners we in the planning department have been tasked with applying what are called compact design districts to these six future light rail transit station areas in the concept model originally behind those and we've applied it those regulations downtown and ninth street is to have a very limited restrictions on density or use in order to attract high quality high density transit supportive uses 18 or 24-hour activity live or play high-rise development so that the ridership will be there for the train and then we'll have the type of economic activity that makes those areas successful the in light of the concerns about affordable housing we have decided to look at rather than applying the traditional compact design zoning which allows very very high densities has minimum restrictions on density a lower density level and so the interim refers to the time between today and the time that we and here's the time a slide that depicts the timelines in front of you where we propose to work with the neighborhood to develop and then bring to you all and counsel the application of these design districts today answer question I think so so and this this parallels comment mr. shape it's the gentleman from the public mate so when you're saying that interim to the time that you engage with the community is that the initial conversations you start having so on this chart the red bars basically signals in 2020 2021 you will start having conversations with community members from the league from the Lee Village community about what you've learned or whatever that communication that the start of that communication is with the community the short answer is yes so there there will be some public engagement in advance where the red bar begins some initial outreach just getting initial feedback engagement with the community getting to know the stakeholders and partners for example in Patterson Place and we've already been out and had several preliminary meetings but there wouldn't be likely any action until at least 2018 that's helpful just I'm just trying to clarify and follow-up question is in your in your two-step process you say you note that the initial step is to play the elected body to entertain the opportunity to participate in the request from applicant developer or whatnot so is am I hearing from weight from that comment or statement that basically the elected body will be asked to pony up direct funds for whatever project to take advantage of to participate in this density bonus so as we want X amount of dollars to make this project happen in the elected body then confer convenience and determines whether it wants to participate in a public a direct public subsidy manner yes that's right that that was suggested by a member of the joint city County Planning Committee one of the speakers is accurate that there was not a broad consensus on that but we in the planning department took that proposal by a commission member and looked at it closely and determine that this is a voluntary incentive program it's not a mandatory inclusionary zoning program we're not allowed to do that under North Carolina law and our goal is for this thing to work and be successful and actually incentivize the production of affordable housing and we felt like the only way that was going to be possible if there was the least the potential for partnership and participation by the governing body or by other nonprofits grant agencies philanthropies or other folks so that what that two-step process does is allow the app the applicant to request some type of consideration of participation by the elected bodies and one follow-up and so with that what the the initial step of that process is the proffer from the developed the applicant based on the 60 percent income threshold and then if face if the elected body says no then they have the option to go to the 70 percent of 15 percent affordable housing units as part of the plan contemplated development sure that's a good question so let me unpack that a hand it can correct me if I get it wrong when we say an average of 70 percent I think what we working with our partners in community development and others looking at other programs across the country that are similar in design what tends to work best and be most effective is allowing a range of participants from 60 to 80 percent of AMI 70 percent is an average so there would be a range from 60 all the way to 80 with 70 being an average there's nothing that precludes an applicant from going straight to the 60 certainly if they're able to provide that level of subsidy and support build the units and continue and make a profit doing it but the 70 is is an average to answer your questions so it seems to me that the 60 would be my my lowest common denominator and that I'm going to come and initially ask for the most costly component of my development which is making it accessible to those at the 60 percent level so if I get a no it means for me from a developer a money person I'm going to offer it to the highest amount of rent I can get which probably means I'm going to help up to the 80 and so and so and so thank you for for that clarification because in my final comments I would just say with this proposal it's basically has the the possibility of creating straight-up losers in regards to where you are on the income spectrum from a Durham resident standpoint because one most of us I'm sure if not all of us understands that you know the pocketbook of you know the city and the county is limited right and so there could likely be situations where developers come and ask for the direct subsidy and they can't get it and so when I if I'm a developer and I go back to do my numbers I'm going to maximize as much as I can in regards to trying to take advantage of this so that means that those in the 60 70 percent income threshold level they're just not going to be a part of the contemplated development because I'm going to go for the 80 percent households that I can get that from and so something to keep in mind is that whichever side of the fence you follow on in regards to this that there will likely be winners and losers just simply be from the way this is structured and I get the the intentions of what's happening with this proposal but I would like for us to be mindful that if we're good at the at the end of the day we'll basically be tailoring we'll be tailoring development projects a favor that will provide housing for like the 80 percent the question is well what are we going to do for the 60 and the 70 those below the 80 percent in regards to access to affordable housing so that's those are my kind of thanks thank you commissioner johnson commissioner ghost thank you first of all I want to say thank you to the planning department and community and everyone who's been involved this is a very important issue in our city and I appreciate the work that you all have done on it and I also appreciate how difficult this is and recognize that you know none of us know whether this will work or not it is a change from the current approach which hasn't worked and so at least we can say that having said that I do have some questions about some of the decisions that were made in this and about how some of this works the I use the comprehensive plan as the measuring tool and one of the items that I I didn't quite understand my understanding is that we want to provide within you know close to our transit stops we want to provide 15 percent of the units to be affordable to someone earning 60 percent AMI and at the outset what I see is that I don't know maybe be helpful helpful to reference so in the example given example three residential density it's on page four of my handout I don't know what that equates to for you all but it says the projects in the urban tier and 15 percent that's 45 units of the 300 maximum units qualify as affordable housing dwelling units thus an additional 45 dwelling units are allowed above the maximum 300 units totally 345 dwelling units and only 45 of those are affordable and so that puts us at like 13 percent and so I'm wondering I mean I appreciate the tool I understand what does I'm wondering what is the plan or or is there a plan for the other two percent that we're now missing uh I think 13 percent is better than zero percent so let me just make that clear but ultimately our comprehensive plan you know attempts to approach the 15 percent number so that was one question I had yeah just just for clarification um the way that it's formatted might be a little bit confusing because we did some restructuring to okay to the section um and so places that are um underlined but not highlighted in blue which is on mine um our exists our existing text okay so so the example that that you're that you're talking about is actually in the urban tier and and the all the changes the proposal that we're talking about tonight is for the compact neighbor okay okay but I mean I think the questions so yeah and let me um Pat Youngie with the planning department let me address your broader point which is very well taken there's no scenario under which this tool either in its current presentation or under a long-term strategy by itself that additional programs is going to be effective in achieving that the adopted goal great I think it's important that we recognize and acknowledge that I think that that will be important to know going forward I mean this is a probably a better tool than what we have available now even if imperfect and that was one of the points I wanted to make um and you know with this restructuring comment I'm a little thrown off because I don't know exactly what some of my questions deal with the additional height that could be achieved um I just wanted to be clear I think you can get if you're using this incentive you can get 15 feet of additional height that seems to be something that's in the urban tier now that you're now that I'm understanding a little bit more how it's structured but the question I had is you know you so when you say you can get up to 75 dwelling units per acre that's like theoretically you couldn't actually achieve that because you know you'd be limited by height and things like that is that the case or well we are we are proposing additional height increases as well up to 90 feet to again kind of help to accommodate the amount of density that that there might be the 15 feet additional I think is built into the compact design district the one that's already in place in Ninth Street okay all right that actually that clarifies a lot that that makes sense to me um all right that helps thank you very much those are all my questions right now great thank you commissioner gosh and commissioner gosh thank you for wearing that sweater tonight as well I just got a really good look at that for you buddy commissioner brian thank you I want to start with a few questions just about AMI in general my understanding is is that what we're dealing with the AMI is for the drum Chapel Hill carburel metropolitan area is that correct so we're skewed right off the bat yes that's correct um that that's the way it's measured the housing the federal department of housing urban development collects that data in conjunction with census and uh that that's the area that we're required to utilize okay um and another question I had about it an example that Hannah sent me uh it seemed like that AMI varied depending on the number of people in the household and I don't really understand that good evening um Karen Lotto uh community development so um area median income is a is a standard that is used by the department of housing and urban development and so it's a standard that we use to um basically determine eligibility for affordable housing programs and affordable housing um finance financing and so every year um HUD in the census bureau do a survey they establish median income for the community for us as you've as indicated it's germ orange county msa and then they adjust that by household size so area median income for a one person so 30 percent of area median income for a one person household is um I think somewhere around 16 thousand dollars and whereas you know 30 percent of our median for a four person household is um closer to like 21 thousand dollars so when you are thinking about this as it applies to a unit of housing you make a determination and you you um you choose the AMI level based upon the average household size that you think is going to live in that unit and so typically if it's a one bedroom you say that that is a one person household or potentially you split it and say it's a 1.5 person household because you're allowing for the possibility in some case it'll be 1 and that's how you set the so when we say that a unit is affordable at 70 percent of area median income we are factoring in both what the AMI level is for the community as well as the household size that we think the unit is appropriate for okay well the reason I was asking I got confused because let's say you have a single person living or you an affordable housing house one person and they may have a certain income but let's say you had a single mother with two children correct three people in the household but still you're probably only got that same low income and we don't know how does that work so the way it would work for the purposes of this program the way it would work is we would say um that the unit so we'd pick a two bedroom we would say establish rules for the program that's the rent for that income for that unit will be based upon either a two person household a three person household or some you know something in between and that would be the rules for the unit the rent on the unit would be set and then whoever wants to rent that unit would have to be below um 70 percent of area median income for their household size so if that mother with two kids wanted to rent that unit so long as she met the income level then um then she could rent the unit yeah thank you um I also want to have a question about the administrative approval process um it almost sounds like that we start with a site plan and do the you know figure out the affordable housing part of it and then do the rezoning is administratively am I getting that right yeah commissioner brian what's being proposed here is that um between now and the time that we bring you all and and the commissioners and uh city council the compact design district zoning for these areas the the base zoning could be used to achieve these densities without any rezoning at all so it could be we done through a site plan as you suggested okay thank you uh final question um I know that there are differences between this tax amendment and another one that we'll hear later uh have you looked at any of the changes that the other tax amendment proposed to see how they would fit we have we've had similar people working on you know both of these teams okay so we are we are aware of the changes that are being proposed through omnibus okay um and so that leads to my final question once you get this worked out is there any chance even just as a letting us know what happened that the planning commission could see this again absolutely thank you thank you commissioner brian commissioner meller thank you mr chairman I have want to start with some questions uh quite frankly I'm a little confused and it's probably just me about how height limits work at the edges of compact neighborhoods and design districts uh and how the bonus will affect those height limits and let me start by saying what I think the rule is or today or and I realize that we've we are either in the process of changing it or have changed it but if uh if we're say in the design district we're in uh say an s2 we're next to uh out just outside the district we've got a traditional single family neighborhood the height limit there would be I've forgotten now is it 45 or 50 feet but if you get within 75 feet of the back lot line or the border or boundary of the district then the height limit is 35 feet would that 35 foot height limit inside that 75 foot transitional area uh could you change that by using the affordable housing density bonus I may have gotten a little lost in your question um well I tried to make it as complicated as I could I wanted you to be able to show off your technical looks and fail what I can say is we tried to make this bonus as consistent as possible with what was already adopted in the compact design district in the s2 so the bonus that is applied in the in the in the compact design district the s2 I think is an additional 15 feet and that's what you would get here as well would you get that in that 75 foot transitional area it's the same distance so you could go up to 50 feet in that area but only by using this bonus correct all right thank you that helps um so my next question concerns actually the question that George asked that I had not considered before so uh with the flexible nature of AMI based upon who it applies to uh and then idea that we have all different types of units that might be affordable from efficiencies up to I suppose four bedrooms in the standard marketplace do we have a chart or something somewhere that tells us how to work that out because it's not reposed in this ordinance and I don't know what the standard is for judging the acceptability of or or whether or not we've met the the standard here I don't like standards that exist outside ordinances these either got to be in the ordinance or it's got to be a standard reference that's adopted by reference and I don't see a reference here so um I'll try to defer to Hannah and question of whether what has been included if not I would say the in general rule that this would be um well for the AMI levels are going to change every year so the actual numbers you wouldn't put into an ordinance but you could you could you could target the but there's an agency that's telling us what the AMI is and we could we could incorporate that and even future changes into that we could we could incorporate that in future that's that's the simple part we can incorporate units no somebody's got to make a judgment when a proposal comes in as to what units what how we're going to work this for the different sizes of units that's if that's a discretionary decision to be made at the administrative level it's not lawful under North Carolina law um so the the the definitions and the unified development ordinance do refer to the HUD standards for area median income I understand what you're saying when it comes to somewhat of an enforcement issue kind of incomes change over time no it's actually just an initial approval issue is what I'm concerned about so I bring in a mix of units from efficiencies up to three bedrooms and say here's my proposal uh it's been being done at the administrative level somebody's got to say okay you're good for the bonus or you're not good for the bonus and there's got to be some standard that we go to that's empirical not discretionary if I'm if I'm understanding the issue is that there should be a specification of if it's a three bedroom unit then you're going to base it on this household size and use the AMI level for that household size um basically that's that would be and then rent would be set then rent would be set as 30 of that number and within a you know an allowance for utilities if we want to go down into the weeds and so rent would be set for at 30 of that number and and and this is how it would be calculated if that if that is that it might is that a right in other words it's got to be an empirical standard we can't we can't have at the administrative at a site plan level a proposal that comes in and says here's my proposal don't I I want approval for my for my bonus staff at my site plan staff has got to look and see here's the mix of of units here's the mix of sizes and okay that's good enough that's not good enough I mean if you tell somebody that's not good enough there's got to be a bright line somewhere and it's got to be reposed in law so can I address that commissioner miller I think I understand and appreciate the point you're making the way it's set up now has been since the mid-1980s and would continue to under this proposal it hasn't been utilized but it's set up this way um is that the applicant would assert as part of the site plan submittal it says it is administrative that they are taking advantage of this provision which is in the UDO there is a required annual submittal of income verification for each unit each qualifying unit that would be reviewed and by the community development department um under agreement with the planning department they do this as Karen alluded to they they do this with their existing federal programs there would be income verification on an annual basis to ensure that it that it's qualifying regardless of the regardless of the unit size it would be qualified based on the number of occupants and if there was not compliance with the required standard there would be notice of violation civil citations petitional potential injunctive relief and other remedies under the UDO yeah that's not my question my question is at what is the standard for determining at the site plan approval whether or not the bonus applies is it written down somewhere that says how different unit sizes that are proffered by the developer are going to perform uh in measuring whether or not they whether it conforms to the AMI standard and so I throw that out there I don't see it in what what was presented in our packet and I don't see a reference to a standard out there that it would be an acceptable incorporation by reference and so I see that as a concern and and I guess what we'll move on I don't want to take up any more time on that we'll investigate that further I understand what you're asking and we'll make sure and so then provide information have a couple of technical points that I'd like to throw out there I think the way that 6.6.1 a I mean excuse me b is written is confusing it begins with the word unless uh and then I think it ought to say projects in which 100 of the residences are affordable housing dwelling units shall not be eligible for affordable housing density bonus and then say unless within the compact neighborhood tier rather than do it the other way around that's technical uh and then I point out another thing that that concern me as I read through this is in 6.6.2 b the heading is minimum number of units required and then it says a project may meet the minimum number of affordable dwelling units required by either and then there's a one and a two and neither one nor two grammatically follow the word either and both of them concern AMI not the number of units so I just think that's a awkward drafting and so that's kind of the end of my technical comments and questions but I do have some other things that worry me we talked about this whole notion of there being an impermissible amount of discretionary decision making at the site plan approval stage that has always worried me we spent a lot of time flushing that out of the UDO I don't want to start building it back in however I understand the utility and the importance especially in our design districts uh where we have already finished with the legislative decision making process of having some way of evaluating the bonus program at the administrative recite plan level so I'm not against that I just think we need clear standards so that staff is insulated and the city is insulated from essentially impermissible procedure under North Carolina law my next concern is this whole business about baseline densities and I realize that there's a conundrum here if we I mean gosh some years ago at the JCCPC meeting I watched the staff make a presentation of what type of affordable housing density bonuses work in other places and they said there's two components to success one is a bonus ratio that is exciting to the development community and the second component is reducing the baseline density so that the only way to actually get up there is to use the affordable housing density bonus and there were some other kind of sideline things too like eliminate competing bonus programs I think we've done some of that but here I am concerned I know that we are reluctant to reduce baseline densities in our compact neighborhood tiers because our fear is is that it will make our proposal for federal funding for rail transit less interesting to the federal government but I'm afraid that if we don't also reduce baseline densities that we're creating a bonus program that nobody's going to be interested in if carrots are free and they are plentiful and they are there for the taking what is the incentive value of another carrot and so I'm concerned about that I support the idea I would love for Durham to have rail transit I'm beginning to believe that we're not going to get it I am like it's Christmas is coming but I don't think we're going to get the train set I don't see the administration in Raleigh being excited about it I don't see the administration in Washington ultimately giving us the money but that doesn't mean our affordable housing problem goes away that's here now and so I would like to address the problem that is here now it is now more important to me than attracting federal rail dollars but that's just me I would like to get at affordable housing which is another component related to that in Patrick I don't know who if you wrote this memo I don't know who wrote the memo that leads into this it was lovely and excellent and I really appreciate it and the issues that were laid out were great and one of the issues is in our design district zoning there's no guarantee that we're going to get a residential component well this has been a criticism of mine from the beginning our experience so far at least with the 9th street district we got a residential component but the market supplied that and it was timing and a whole bunch of things we it is not to say to say that that the timing in the market is going to be the same way for the other design districts when we bring them on and I would like to see us build in a residential component into our design district zoning so that essentially we require a mix of units and that the mix should always include residential it seems to me if we are trying to affect density we need to have each of these transit areas need to be destinations for workers and at either end of the commute it should be home and office so maybe that's in the next stage and then finally I share the coalition's concern about the abandoning the 60 standard and I believe this two-step process is really a false option the developer who's not interested who wants to just jump straight to a 70 percent AMI just proposes something ridiculous can't come to an agreement with with local government about local government funding and then we've just blown 60 out of the way and and I'm concerned about the people that Terry and the others described who are I think that's one of the most amazing things here we're not talking about people who are on the margins of society we're talking about the people who jump out of the ambulance that comes to save us I think those people ought to be the target audience of any bonus program we have and so having said all of this and because we couch our motion send this forward with a favorable report I can't send this forward to the council or to the board of county commissioners with a favorable report and I'm going to vote no Mr. Gibbs oh yeah and I thought I had some questions I but I do agree I liked your comments about transportation and transit but that's for an argument for another time some of my questions have been answered by some of the questions that came up I would like to say that I do appreciate what planning has done they are going into this it is one of the most complex situations I have ever encountered in my 75 years in the past and I'm just going to say this about affordability there are people below the 60 percent income level that needs help that's just one of the issues with affordable housing and it's all sort of intertwined and mixed in there but and I think all of us when we bought our first house we probably couldn't afford it but we had to keep scratching and punching at it and that's another element that I'm sure has gone into planning decisions and trying to craft some kind of some kind of process to provide affordable housing and not dissuade market developers who want to build affordable want to build marketable housing developments not just housing just any kind of development I guess sort of what I am I'm hoping to see come riding over the horizon is a developer, builder or whatever who realizes the financial opportunity to build a whole development that would be affordable whatever that means everything cannot be high-end but at any rate that's what I'm hoping to see happen whether it will or not I don't know but I do like the idea or the approach by planning to go into this thing with eyes wide open it may not work but we and I hope we on the planning commission the elected officials and everybody involved and I and that was one of the comments Pat that you made that really stuck with me is we don't know if it's going to work but we got to try something uh there are I guess we've just got to put a toe in the water and keep walking and and I that's I'm not even going to get into my questions because it's it's probably already been thought of anyway but I'm just going to end my comments there and I do appreciate what we're trying to do and God help us thank you Commissioner Gibbs Commissioner Alturk and then we have additional questions as well thank you chair um I'll I have a question about the area meeting income I so I want to follow up on that on some of the things that others have mentioned um and and follow up on some of the comments made by the coalition as well the I this chart that you're showing this figure is probably the you know one of the most telling figures that you have in your report and I I understand that the area meeting income is something that's used in all cities in the United States because it is a HUD right calculated measure but it seems to me like the what we're setting ourselves up to or setting ourselves up to do is to encourage development in some parts of of the city and not others right if if this is an incentive program and we are asking developers to get to this 60 percent or even 80 percent and we're expecting affordable housing units on 9th street or Irwin or even Patterson Place right there having to take a considerable cut and then ask the city for to make up that revenue gap so I guess I'm just I'm I'm curious to hear from staff whether there's a legal reason that we have to use AMI I mean this is not our federally funded program right and so it's not it's not a tax credit like you know that we use um it's not the low-income housing tax credit it's not something else so do we I guess I'm you know it it seems to me like the incentives there are not or this is not going to be enough of an incentive for developers to develop in in you know all of these compact neighborhoods and so so that's one question about do we have to use this measure and then the second would be to the coalition if there if there is a you know somewhere where there's a middle ground between you know pushing for 60 percent throughout the throughout the city and then or and or saying maybe that we would accept some affordable housing units in other parts of the city that are not quite that low or something like that I you know I'm just I know this is a difficult question but if we are talking about incentives for developers it this this tension is bound to to come up so I'm just I'm curious to hear what staff or or the coalition has to say about this thanks commissioner out there I think for the first question if the staff could answer and then if there's a specific individual that you'd want to call up for the second question we can do that next so on the on the first question um so the answer is you know we're not legally bound to use AMI but we have to use a standard and you know a good standard is a standard that is readily available cheap you know doesn't cost us we don't have to calculate it every year and as has general acceptance um that is why we all wind up using AMI because it is it is the standard that is calculated every year it is generally accepted and if we were ever to layer in any other funding into these deals that funding would would be using an AMI standard because that's the standard that the city uses for for allocating its funds and and so it is the easiest and simplest and most transparent standard to use that we have available to us if we can't oh go ahead if I could just add maybe a layer of complication to that um the I believe that this the city charter um that enables us to do density bonuses in the beginning might use an area median income it does threshold so by state law that we have to use area median income in order to do a density bonus program it's a layer of simplicity okay thank you um I guess I'll I'll ask the coalition terry or about about the um about my second question thanks mr alba if you understood the question feel free to just address it if you need to hear it again if I get into it I think it's real important to start with what the established what we've already come to which is uh looking at 15 percent at 60 percent of area median income uh is a real important standard and big concern that we've had in our discussions at the coalition is that the proposed amendment as you heard geome explain and talk about creates kind of a convoluted process by which you kind of come to the council in order to ask for support and it it's encouraging working that system to get back to the 70 percent so our concern is that 60 percent remain in there we think it should be at the 15 percent well are there compromised positions in there that could work or need to work perhaps so and so if that was something to come forward we would discuss that at our coalition and and provide feedback to the staff as well as uh to the planning commission as so desired okay that's all great thank you uh commissioner satterfield you have not asked any questions yet and the commissioner gosch will we'll circle back to you thank you um there have been a couple of comments made about the potential arbitrary nature of financial assistance that's been that would be requested um from the public body and the potential um impacts of those arbitrary requests my question gets to whether there would be a formula that developers could use or be required to use for making such requests for financial contributions seems like they would the public body would want an apples to apples comparison and apply across the board yeah commissioner satterfield pat young again with plane department it's a very good question and it's a very significant concern honestly we haven't gotten to the point of actually developing um a detailed pro forma or spreadsheet that would allow that apples to apples comparison i think the expectation working with city administration county administration and the elected officials it would be to develop some kind of a application standard that they would have to submit and provide consistent information we had not provided that develop that or provided that with this uh udo provision but we it would be the expectation that we would ensure that there was at least a minimum standard of information about the financial need and and relative benefits provided to council and to the commissioners thank you commissioner gosch thank you uh i apologize if this has already been said but the good news is it's not very it's not a complicated question it's just a drafting concern um on section 17.3 defined terms uh the way i read it i think it's meant to create a range from 80 percent AMI to 50 percent AMI but the use of the word or kind of makes it one or the other if you get what i'm saying that was it thanks seems relatively you know simple compared to the rest of the conversation we've been having i would i would agree are there any other commissioners with any questions or comments seeing none i would just like to say from from my perspective number one i appreciate the really hard work that the staff has put into this there's a reason we've spent the last hour and a half discussing this issue and we've seen this issue be worked on for a long time and we have yet to find the the way to move us forward there clearly is no silver bullet but we're working our way towards finding the right solutions i particularly appreciate actually on page seven under the section 17.3 the the minimum 30 year term i think that's a really important change and i think that i just like to highlight that um i still personally also have concerns with moving away from the 60 percent AMI i'm not convinced that on page two the the the two different two different ways of moving forward is really going to get the job done but that said i think mr. Zavara was very clear in saying that they would not like to see any more delay with moving this forward i would also personally agree i think we need to get going i will in my comments i'm going to plan to vote to send this forward but i am going to note in my comments for the governing bodies my concerns and i hope that they will continue to look at this i'm sure they will debate it probably even more than we have this evening but i will entertain a motion and when that motion is put forward i'm going to plan to vote in favor of sending this forward and hope to see some changes as it moves forward commissioner brian um i move that we send uh this text amendment dc 16 000005 forward with a favorable recommendation second properly moved by commissioner brian seconded by commissioner al turk uh before we vote we'll leave a moment for any additional comments or debate and mr. young you may have been looking to make a comment as well if i might mr. chair thank you for that opportunity um i did want to respond um we really appreciate and value immensely partnership and assistance that the coalition for affordable housing trends has provided us as we develop this proposal they have been invaluable in terms of information advocacy assistance in every regard um we believe that we as staff have enough information about market demand in these areas land costs and construction costs to believe that there is a very substantial gap in terms of financial feasibility for for this model to incent production of affordable housing that lowering the threshold will make it less likely that it will be employed as a voluntary incentive tool and so we're going to maintain our recommendation as it is tonight however i want to be clear and on the record here tonight that we certainly will advise um council and the commissioners and in this body now that if we certainly would support and understand the desire to pursue the more uh the adopted and espoused 60 percent goal um with the understanding that we may need to revisit if it's not effective at incenting development we need to revisit in six twelve or eighteen months following adoption and we'll make sure that we frame that out for the governing body so i just wanted to get that on the record and thank you for the opportunity to do so i appreciate that and appreciate the diligent work of of you and the entire planning department any other comments or debate before we vote seeing none we will have a roll call vote commissioner al turk yes commissioner johnson yes commissioner gush yes commissioner bryan yes commissioner siderfield yes commissioner harris yes commissioner hyman yes chair busby yes commissioner miller no commissioner kinshin yes commissioner formbuckle yes commissioner van yes commissioner gibbs yes motion carries 12 to 1 thank you very much we will move to our we actually have more in the agenda so we will move to our next public hearing and we're back on our our regular agenda as originally posted this is uh page park 2 a1 7 quadruple 0 7 and z1 7 triple zero one three and we will start with the staff report good evening jimmy sunyak with the planning department i will be presenting case a 17 0 0 0 7 z 17 0 0 0 13 page park 2 the applicant is robert shunk steward it's located within the city's jurisdiction pending annexation the site is 28.1 88 acres broken up into two tracks the area was the subject of the original page park development which was approved by city council on october 6 2003 the area was zoned rsm and cg with development plans to allow for a mix of commercial land uses and residential a portion of the property track a includes 288 apartment units which are currently under construction the current proposal is to rezone track b to allow 50 townhood townhouse units and remove prior tax commitments for off-site track traffic improvements which are no longer needed this translates to a rezoning request of the existing commercial general with a development plan and residential suburban multifamily with a development plan to residential suburban multifamily with a development plan rsmd in addition there will be a flam request of medium density residential to low medium density residential the track is shown in red uh there's track a and track b the properties are located within the suburban tier and also within the lower noose river basin residential is the prominent use in the surrounding areas the site is adjacent to the four seasons at renaissance residential subdivision and the the current development plan which you'll see later on shows various interconnection access points to the residential neighborhoods to the north this is the existing conditions map and you can see under track a it shows the footprint of the apartments that are under construction and track b which is on the right the currently vacant lot also shown on this map there are various stream buffers a 10 foot no build area um storm drainage easements a duke power easement floodplains and additional stream buffers and an existing turn lane to be abandoned off of page road in terms of the current application track b which um is shown the existing flam which is shown on the left and track b is shown in red that is the commercial designation currently and the applicant proposes to change this designation to medium density residential which is shown on the right in a orangeish yellow color that would be consistent with the rezoning request and this map is our context map and it shows the existing zoning on the right with the track b in a purple color as cg and then the proposal on the right in orange as rsm track b which is highlighted in yellow here meets the requirements of the maximum pervious coverage and the tree coverage this is a a highlight of the development plan and the development plan shows the various access points the building and parking envelope the tree preservation areas and the project boundary buffers there are no changes to track a in terms of impervious coverage tree coverage etc in terms of the summary of commitments for track b all of the dwelling units will be town homes or townhouses there will be a school contribution for students generated from the residential development a minimum 10 foot planted landscape buffer along the frontage of crown crown parkway and there are also associated design and graphic commitments provided on the plan in terms of consistency with the comprehensive plan it is currently not consistent with the commercial medium density residential flam that is a request for the plan amendment it is consistent with the with 2.1 3d 231 b and 232 a staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other policies and ordinances at this point i'll be happy to answer any questions that you have great thank you very much actually at this point we will move to open the public hearing and i will start calling names once once i see who's signed up thank you great mr robert schunk nothing coming back good evening my name is robert schunk i reside here in durham at 20 2627 university drive thanks jamey for a comprehensive overview i won't go repeat all of those details in short linar actually started working on this tract 2013 linar developed where the developers of this land here we developed 115 units in that location as jamey said you know the apartments are mostly developed here you know after some years of the the parent developer looking to develop this as commercial he approached linar to you know to to acquire this property linar's intent is to develop this tract in the same context and quality architectural style as they did before so continuity is important for that this request does generate less traffic on the roads generally generates less demand on the water supply yes it'll have a few more demands on students um the on this tract uh over on this track there was about 90 000 square feet of office and 29 000 square feet of of commercial previously provided so when we submitted this request we did do a traffic impact analysis so that was submitted to the city and the dot to demonstrate that the some improvements at a couple other intersections offsite intersections were not required but in 2006 all of the frontage was widened with a 14 foot out actually a four foot cross section across the frontage with a 14 foot outside wide lanes uh traffic warrant analysis was also done at the intersection of chin page and page road and where the dot found that a signal was not warranted that concludes my comments and i'm available for any questions all right thank you very much anyone else would like to speak in this public hearing this is your opportunity seeing none we will close the public hearing and move to comments and questions from the commissioners or their commissioners who would like to make any comments or asking any questions commissioner brine and then commissioner johnson um thank you um on page four of the staff report on the very bottom i think there's a minor typo the total number of maximum number of residential units to be 338 consistent with what's shown on the development plan and i also had a question about the additional planings along crown um will this small cemetery that's there be screened yes and whoever is in charge of that cemetery i'm assuming it must belong to a family they're okay with it being screened yeah we're gonna be screening it along crown parkway okay yes we haven't heard any objection to that request okay thank you commissioner johnson thank you chair uh to the applicant representative hopefully these are two easy two simple questions um so on the uh the site plan i'm just curious as to have you uh contemplated parking will it be surface parking or structured or how how will that all of the units will have garages similar to the development linar built to the west thank you and could you just provide me a if possible what are the uh anticipated uh that rate price for the price range for the contemplated town homes and the rental rates for the 288 apartments so you have a sense of what the right the price range is i don't have any information on the apartments um the the new um the new units here will be consistent with what's been done before and i think they were the other units over there sold in the low 200s thank you and commissioner harris okay i need uh staff i have one question on page six top of the page latter part of the first sentence the request is not in harmony with policy two dot three dot one dot delta could you elaborate on that yes just a minute please thank you okay page six you said yes the latter part of the first sentence the request is not in harmony with policy two dot three dot one dot delta i mean one delta yeah my my apologies i believe that's a typo as well it to um policy two one three d it deals with the residential defined and this is a residential um application there is no commercial proposed as part of this so um i will make that correction that it is i can i can accept that thank you very much thank you commissioner any other commissioners with questions or comments commissioner miller i'm going to vote for this uh for the primary reason is it nearly eliminates or reduces substantially a uh chunk of commercial which i think is badly placed between two larger commercial nodes in in a way that's inconsistent with our comprehensive plan uh so that's desirable in itself so that's the most compelling thing to me but mr i have to congratulate mr brine i'm usually the cemetery protector it doesn't just have to be one any other questions or comments from the commissioners if not we have two motions i'll entertain the first motion mr chair yes i move that we send case a 17 quadruple 07 forward to the city council with a favorable report second properly moved and seconded by commissioner miller commissioner brine the protectors of cemeteries all those in favor please raise your right hand any opposed motion excuse me motion carries 13 to 0 great and the second motion for the zoning mr chairman i move that we send case z 17 triple 013 forward to the city council with a favorable report sir they properly moved by commissioner miller seconded closely by commissioner brine all those in favor please raise your right hand any opposed motion carries 13 to 0 great thank you we will move on to our next case it's the Lumley road industrial cases a 17 quad triple 017 and z 17 triple 042 and we'll start with the staff report well thank you jacob wiggins with the playing department the request before you is titled Lumley road industrial this is a consolidated item containing both a request to modify the adopted future land use map as well as change the zoning atlas quick case summary the request has been submitted by kim griffin june this is located within the county's jurisdiction this is a request to change the future land use map from office to industrial for two properties and currently changes the zoning map from residential role to industrial light this is for approximately six and a half acres there is no development plan associated with this zoning map change request so any uses in the il district would be permissible in the event that this request is approved an aerial map highlighting the subject site in red and as you can see this is located at the northeast quadrant of page road at Lumley road just south of where the page road extension intersects with us highway 70 on the subject side does contain single family structures that are in that may or may not be removed in the event the site is developed the future land use map the left hand side of this image indicates the current future land use the proposed is on the right hand side as i noted this site is currently designated as office and the applicant is proposing to change that designation to industrial some zoning context as well as you can see the subject side is owned residential role the surrounding area is a mix of that residential role category as well as rsm and industrial light are the predominant three zoning districts in this area so general requirements of the il district there's the udo establishes a maximum of 50 feet of building height for this district again since there's no development plan there's no way to proffer any commitments regarding anything but also including uses so anything in the il district could be permissible and there's also the ordinance establishes a 40 foot street yard setback for this request some comprehensive plan policies evaluated as part of this request there were three key policies one of the flum and it should quantify the the industrial would be consistent in the event that this request is approved is the request continuous the conference plan notes that ideally these uses would be adjacent to each other you may have been able to see on this map here go back one more on the future land use map there's a slight separation along page road between what would be this established industrial area and the other established industrial areas to the north um however taking that in to context um as well as the infrastructure capacity if in the event that the applicant wanted to perhaps petition for the utility service at some point as i noted this is currently in the county um so the site would have to be served by water and septic service unless the applicant petitioned the city for annexation would that staff does determine that this request is consistent with the conference plan applicable policies and ordinances and i'll be happy to answer any questions that the commission may have thank you mr. wiggins thank you we will now open the public comment period and we have one individual signed up to speak kim griffin if you can state your name and your address before your comments i'm kim griffin i'm with griffin associates filters and Durham 1816 front street and i'm representing the brooks family and the uh i call them the page sisters because they all have different names now but they're both long-term residents of the area and then about 10 years ago the harris family asked me to sell the property next to them which is comprised of about 92 acres i know the brooks has had their property under contract four times to residential developers that has not worked out we've had several contracts on the large track sometimes they tied in the smaller tracks with the large tracks and in each time uh but the builders decided they couldn't make it work because of the rock on the large track that's adjacent to this it's currently under contract to sconell they're large developers out of um indianapolis indiana they're going to build warehouses they have pent up demand they've been building them on tw alexander the brooks family and the page girls wanted to sell their property but not be tied in to the larger development and i foolishly agreed to help them rezone the property now i know why the engineers charge so much um the um demand that we have had for this property has been small independent business people uh huffman family was here earlier they left they have a warehouse in riley next to the quarry near the airport and they need to expand their business they needed 10 000 square foot facility they want to own their facility they're tired of leasing and they're tired of the blasting adjacent to their property and they chose this site if we would get it rezoned for them uh Durham roofing uh purchased budpiper roofing and they want to go on the brooks's property they will utilize the home and then build a warehouse on the back neither one of the purchasers want to be annexed into the city of Durham there is county sewer across lonely road and there's adequate water supply in the wells at the existing facilities as i said this this has been under contract several times i think we've had five neighborhood meetings we have had one neighbors show up and the neighbor came and he met um Durham roofing people and he met capital air people and he felt very comfortable and he said thank you i'll support it and he left and haven't heard back from anyone so i have contacted other property owners next to the ones um on the east towards uh next to the pages would not work with us the ones to the west would not um although since we have started this one of them has approached me uh neither one of them wants to go through the zoning process they want someone else to do it for them part of the challenge about the large piece of property is the draw that runs down in there um where the water tower is if you will and next to the water tower there is a line that runs down to the sewer lift station and crossing that is about six or seven hundred thousand dollars i'm told and that's why the property that's adjacent to it is just not suitable for residential and that's why industrial people are looking at it because they can make it work so i think it it may look a little funny the fact that we're trying to do two tracks but i think in the end you're going to see that this is compatible with what's across the street on page road between Lumley Road and 70 and i'll be happy to answer any questions you have great thank you mr griffin at this point we'll close the public hearing and ask the commissioners who would like to speak commissioner outtirk any other commissioners all right if you don't mind give me one moment here okay commissioner outtirk why don't you get started okay thank you chair um i'm i think on the face of it it seems like an industrial light designation makes sense in this part of of of Durham and this you know this this area but i am a little concerned because in the staff report um you know the staff points out that there are two criteria and the comprehensive plan that that this application may not be consistent with criteria and b compatibility with existing development um and then criterion c which is um they the the staff report says that development trends in the area indicate that market forces are driving new residential development and that would be to the north and to the east mostly to the east of this property so it it's a little concerning because you know you would you would have residential on the you know the east side on the south side of the property um and so and then you have this kind of little gap between the two industrial light designations and one of the i'll close with this that the staff report points out that there is no development plan so we we don't know if there are going to be any buffers uh between the industrial designation and the resident and the residential the potential residential designations and potential development there so i'm just i'm curious why there's no development plan and what you you know if you have specific plans for what you what it's going to be on this site the buyers uh did not want to do one unless the zoning was approved and let's talk about what's to the east what's to the east of um if you y'all have a map that shows what you need to see i guess and uh what's to the east is currently i believe rural residential it's vacant and it will not be developed in my opinion is residential the 20 acres of it is in wake county and beside that property is the um aviation parkway right of way that was reserved and beside that property is the church that's on the corner of t w alexander and what i call Lumley road but in wake county they call it fellowship drive so if you you know we're kind of like winston salem if you're driving along you're on Lumley then you're on fellowship then you're back on Lumley so um that's kind of that situation but i i will tell you this the market is uh this particular area is it's just not going to be residential we did get townhounds approved across the street we um in order to accomplish that we had to do a land swap with some wake county folks um to satisfy uh different governments you know protecting their jurisdictions and things of that nature which made no sense the developers uh the owners of the apartments across the street on Lumley road to the south are in support they have no issues with this development they have no issues with what the folks want to do any additional questions great thank you commissioner commissioner johnson thank you chairman so hopefully uh staff can help me with uh the question in the comment that was last uh addressed so it seems to be some uh inconsistencies in what mr mr griffin is sharing and the and that his uh sentiments is that residential will not likely be what ultimately happens in this on this in this area of this particular parceled area however the staff reports that residential seems to be on the horizon so what what's genesis or what's driving that that conclusion from staff versus what we're being told mr griffin i'm sure jacob wiggins with the playing department i'll first state i'm certainly not a realtor um so take anything i say with a grain of salt but um you know i think from a staff perspective what we've seen especially and i think this commission may have seen it on page road as well um it does seem to be an area that is seeing an increase in residential development um you know the case before you there was the case preceding this uh was in close practice any of this site um i can only say personally i have met with people about other persons the northern and eastern portions of this property those have been residential discussions but again the our department has no application for that so i can't say with certainty but it does seem based on the the site plans that i've reviewed in this area it does seem to be that residential is the predominant development within the last few years and that's not to mean that it's only residential but it does seem to be primarily geared towards residential development thank you uh so my um so i'm inclined not to support the application simply because uh well not simply in part because there is no uh development plan with it uh and this hearing that uh the um developer or whoever it is does not prefer to provide one without the rezoning i think it's important to have a better understanding given that you're basically carving out a portion of a pretty significant swath of uh property that's zoned for residential and so it creates this incontinence contingency whatever that word is engine and yeah yeah the continued flow of uh a consistent use of of land and so you're asking for something that's kind of unique here and so the fact that we don't know what it would be and what it would look like in regards to what would be how that site would be programmed i'm not confident or at a point where i could just go forward with that and then given that the the comments regarding what seems to be happening around this area in regards to the residential despite uh you're sharing tonight that that's probably not the case it's just that i'm not comfortable um with moving forward with in support of this with with the limited information that seems to be a part of the request and so with that i'm inclined not to support it commissioner brane i have a few questions for you mr griffin but before i ask them i wonder could staff put up their view of the aerial map please thank you um in your letter to mr wiggins sir you mentioned this uh but this site is adjacent to the 82 acre parcel that's under contract to a national warehouse industrial warehouse developer and i just wondered on this aerial map could you just roughly show what the parameters of that site are i don't know how to use this uh fancy thing here so uh i will tell you this uh you see you see at the bottom right corner of the picture that is the church okay up above that you will see a little cleared area and that goes uh is an area fenced in that's approximately where that right away is going to go for aviation parkway so that portion is into wake county now you see the the subject property and if you'll look to the right of the subject property is where you will see mass rock holdings and that's what has made it uneconomical to develop this site is residential and uh you will see directly north of the red there is now a big water tower but the city of Durham purchased that property and the owners of the 82 acres worked with them on uh easements and whatnot for that um keystone development had this under contract in 2005 the whistler corporation uh album all properties empty lot kb homes on two different occasions easement um wine garden was lonar one of them i can't remember we've had so many that have put it under contract and have gone through the due diligence to try to make this residential and every one of them says i cannot make a profit building residential at this location and each one has walked away okay i had you i've sort of gotten an idea of what i was interested in in my first question my second question when i came back up runway road and turned on page road going down toward us 70 before i got to the water tower i noticed that there was a for sale sign out with your name on it and that's one part of the 82 part of the 82 sir okay thank you great thank you commissioner harris staff staff i'm looking at zoning map change two dot three dot one dot baker dealing with contiguous development how do you support you know this request i mean there's no industrial light anywhere adjacent to this property um so in this case i will say this is probably uh from my experience probably one of the closest calls we've had in that regard and being that the ultimate determination of whether or not it's consistent is at the feet of the planning commission and the city council um in this regard it's it's very close um and i think the commission and council has to weigh whether or not they concur with that um yeah obviously it does not directly touch that it is a very small strip of land um that divides the proposed i l versus the other i l on the other side of page road um but i will say yes if you go by the strict letter of the law it does not meet that but if you also i don't consider it to be close understandable yeah so i have a concern sure thank you that's very noted thank you commissioner harris commissioner miller i wanted to repeat the same thing so when i look at the comprehensive plan uh if we were to change the comprehensive plan to make this uh industrial we would leave a crooked finger of of office designated property for the future land use plan around it um and so i'm very uncomfortable with the idea of supporting a change to the future land use plan uh that when it was all over it's not so much what we do to the subject property it's what we leave in the future land use plans that says that should be residential is crooked i mean not residential the rezoning says residential the um the comprehensive plan says office which could include some residential and that's just not what we mean uh the future land use map in my opinion the result would be false to intentions uh i would support this though if a request came in to change the essentially the crooked finger around this piece of property to industrial too and i agree with mr griffin with the page road frontage of that of the knuckle now occupied by a water tower that makes it an unlikely uh entrance for residential or even an office use um and the properties right there along page road their future viability of single family homes is limited and i think there's is there one how many are houses are in there kim one or two on on the corner there's a house on the corner that my understanding is and this is all here say it was purchased for a daycare okay the septic tank of this house is on the lot next door okay that is a different owner that is in south carolina they did not want to participate in the rezoning because they weren't sure whether you know that was money well spent or not right like i said i the next lot is about bought by vet and nary and from charlotte and i can't tell you what they plan on doing because they've never applied for a rezoning and they they do not respond to my request to see what they wanted to do but it it was purchased for a commercial use so what i would like to see is a request to change the future land use map not only for the subject property but for the finger uh to industrial and uh and if that was a precedent to this request for rezoning i could go for the rezoning even though we left zoned in there uh rural residential uh some of the finger properties because i i believe that the the rezonings once we got the future land use map fixed right the rezonings would follow and then we would have a logical future land use map and a logical pattern not only of zoning and development but until we get that and it seems to me like maybe it would be possible to get people to sign on to it um uh then or maybe even the the uh this this is in the county right maybe even the board of commissioners would initiate uh a kind of an evening out here um but right now i'm very uncomfortable with leaving it because it says this should be industrial and then but this little strip here and this strip above it should be office or and and that's just not what we mean okay thank you commissioner and any other commissioners commissioner homebuckle i know that we're talking here about a future land use plan and and and all this but i'm looking at it from another side we're looking at a man a business that's been in Durham for quite some time and a tax paying business and if they're in my understanding Mr. Griffin they would probably use that house as an office there the roof and company and this would be and it would be some type probably maybe a little uh some storage out uh but behind this he would like to use the house uh he has found a warehouse because he sold his downtown property and had to move and he's under the gun and he has a warehouse that is temporary but you know he he just didn't want to make decisions until he knew whether he was going to be able to use the business and i think we should support and i'm going on reckons it's fully in favor of this plan i appreciate that also recognize the fact the other property these folks are relocating from wake county to Durham and i think that should be a plus right thank you commissioner homebuckle commissioner gauche thank you i just want to say a couple things about this um so as an attorney i have worked on this site uh with mr. Griffin and these property owners before and i can tell you i feel confident that this area is not going to develop residentially i know that all the site plans and things that have been um zoning petitions that have been submitted for that larger track have been for residential there's a reason that you know the cases i worked on they didn't even get make it to planning commission um and that's that's because this site is full of rock i actually think that this site is going to take a long time to develop because of that and it's more likely to develop as non-residential uh at least it'll it'll it'll develop as non-residential i think before a viable residential project can be uh can be built on this property so i don't have the same concern that staff express in the staff report uh regarding you know the the trend of development in this area uh this is not that larger track is not emblematic of the rest of the area which is otherwise developable um so i don't think it's going to be uh residential the other thing i want to say is that i think we have to read between the lines a little bit here and recognize that this case is also about access to the prosperity that we have in Durham uh going on you know elsewhere if i mean you can look out in the crowd we got property owners here these are not developers it's not big business um and you know i don't know if people are aware of the type of uh fees associated with filing rezoning case something like this i mean the fees were probably uh close to ten thousand dollars without a development plan and then if you had a development plan on top of that you're talking at least another thousand dollars to the city and plus all of the professional fees you have to pay for it so you know i know the the staff report highlighted some of the some of the issues that they are not able to uh come to a full determination on because of a lack of development plan but i mean a development plan isn't viable and i'm assuming the development plan isn't really a viable option for these property owners um again it's not big business it's not a big developer these are people who've been trying to sell their property for over a decade now um i i'm fully in support of this this item i recognize that it it creates a odd scenario on the future land use map but you know just because we didn't color the the picture in real pretty doesn't mean the future land use map is is useless or whatever i think uh i think we have to recognize that you know there are instances like this one where you know they they have an opportunity here to sell property provided they can get it rezoned uh appropriately and uh and that's really all they're trying to do which they it's really all they've been trying to do for 10 years and they you know they don't want to put the money into a development plan or anything like that they probably don't have all that money to spend on that they're not developers so i would encourage the members of this commission to consider that uh this is either long term property owners in Durham that have been trying to sell this property for a long time and now they have an opportunity to do it yes the the future land use map is a little bit odd the way they were they've requested it but i think at least i recognize that the zoning makes sense whether the future land use map does or doesn't the zoning makes sense that they're asking for and it's going to help some property owners out in Durham and for that reason i'm in support of it and i would encourage you to be as well mr and johnson okay so this is where i'm going to be more of a student here and um so question for staff and then a question a thought question for for my colleagues on the panel here so when the future land use map as it is today was determined was the reality of the rock situation on the site taken into account when we were saying that it's being planned for rural residential was was that even a part of the thought process when determining what we wanted this area to be uh and look like uh Jacob Wiggins with the plain department i can't say with certainty um exactly how everything on the future land use map came to be my uh professional guesstimate for whatever it's worth would be to say that no the the soil or anything underneath the ground there was probably not considered in that designation so quick follow up so if you if you're if and i'm gonna put you on the spot and speaking for the planning department uh take it forward as well if you if the planning department was going through the future land use map exercise today would that be something that would be taken into account when you're when we're thinking about what should or could be a part uh this area should be designated in regards to zoning and etc etc um sure if that information is available to us uh i mean we you know we have lots of information but when it comes to something as detailed as to the amount of stone or something in the soil uh you know unless it's been brought to our attention through other methods we may not have all of that information so i i couldn't say with certainty uh how that would play in this for this particular request uh and just because you know there's rock there okay is the entire site covered with rock is it a portion of the site how much do we really know so i think it begets more questions that would be helpful to have those answers for in this hypothetical situation thank you into my uh my fellow commissioners so given the comments that i that we've heard from fellow commissioner uh ghost here assuming that there may be some on the on this this panel that had reservations give does the comments about his knowledge of what's there and what's possible have is that has he influenced you one towards the other side of where you were maybe thinking in regards to maybe this request tonight could catalyze a different transformation of the area in regards to this notion that residential is happening over here in this area but we're being told that this this particular surrounding parcel will likely not become residential so maybe if this if something starts happening other than a residential it can trigger other non-residential development or plans or ideas to come forward which could possibly long term turn this map from pink to mostly purple in this area i'm just curious as to thoughts or anyone willing to go on the record and share their thoughts and and i would ask that uh anyone who would like to respond could ask to be recognized by the chair so i'd start with commissioner harris and commissioner miller rock does not deter development rock does not deter it just may cost you a little bit more money but you can still build on rock so no it has not changed my decision commissioner miller so first of all i want to make sure we understand what we're talking about the future land use map does not designate this residential it resonates at office you're right sorry zoning designates it residential uh and but i am less concerned about the zoning aspects of this case than i am the future land use map and again it's it i don't really object to this property being developed for light industrial purposes if uh but what i don't like is is a future land use map that moves forward that that says it is the policy of the city of durham that that quick finger should be used for office uses if when we change the future land use map for any purpose it should leave a future land use map that makes sense for the property the subject property and the property around it and it is this issue of the property around it that is giving me heartburn i would have liked to have seen a proposal that joined this this the subject property to its industrial neighbors either to the west or to the north and preferably both um uh interestingly uh mr ghost reminded me that i have met with some of the lawyers in his office and their clients about uh the potential for residential development for the this larger parcel over to the east and they were interested in residential but they were concerned with the soil type being able to meet the minimum uh unit count demanded by the uh the comprehensive plan they were thinking is there some way to get relief from that um uh because of the general soil condition say we could develop it but we probably couldn't get as many units in there as the comprehensive plan uh demands uh and that's an issue that i think is something that we're going to have to look at sometime but right now i'm concerned uh as evidently mr harris is is that we leave a future land use map that goes forward that says it is the policy of the city of Durham that that crooked finger should be used for office uses in the future and i don't think that's what we mean any other questions or comments from the commissioners commissioner gibbs i would agree that uh this uh this finger as we're referring to it uh that this proposal uh does create an island uh regardless of the buildability or whatever but i i i do think it should remain flexible it should i would like to see this whole finger rezoned from the north to the west but i'd like to have uh flexibility for uh office uh use uh to me it's something that could go hand in hand with whatever happens here you never know when uh the roofing company may want to expand i'd like to support this but i do have one question and i will be very brief with that there is vegetation or trees around this thing now and i know uh a roofing company uh this is not going to be a pristine warehouse uh there's there's just lots of equipment as you can imagine uh and i'm assuming that this is going to be uh i think i heard the term warehouse uh and probably some office in there but if there is some guarantee that there will remain some vegetative barrier visual barrier uh even amongst the rocks um i i could support this those are my comments though mr griffin if you'd like to respond you may Durham roofing company currently is on a lot it's less than three quarters of an acre i don't even think it's a half acre quite frankly now it doesn't have a tree on it anywhere it has a 17 000 square foot building and a parking lot that was graveled back um around 1920 and it's been that way ever since now the proposal that that he makes for the roofing company is to use the office and put the shop area behind the to use the house as the office and put the shop area behind the house that's his desire well i i think i will support this with uh but i'm going to advise uh county commissioners city council whoever the county commissioners probably will be the people to approve uh to make this request um and some other questions but um that that's all met mr james i certainly understand and appreciate that and keep in mind that there will be a site plan generated in order to get a permit to build on either one of these two lots the uh site plan must be approved by the city county and right that that will be done before any construction takes place and any permits are issued here thank you sir thank you thank you commissioner miller i just wanted to remind the the commission members this there's no development plan here there can't be a commitment like that the site plan is changeable by whoever owns this property whenever they want to the city can't say no uh and so you can't have a commitment to to preserve trees or any anything else you have to assume as a matter of law that this property will be built out to the maximum allowed under the industrial light zoning that is actually a requirement of law the only way you can accept an agreement to do less or even to use it for a roofing company would be with a proper commitment in a development plan if we send this forward we we are saying that the uh that every use allowed in light industrial is appropriate to the full maximum extent that the dimensional requirements of the code say it can be used um we don't see very many non-development plan rezoning so we get used to this idea of of of asking for limitations and requests but we've got to recognize there are cases where we cannot ask for them and they cannot be uh promised and our decision cannot be influenced by an understanding that it's going to be used in a particular way thank you commissioner chair i make a motion we move case a one seven zero zero zero one seven forward to the county commissioners with a favorable approval second properly moved by commissioner hornbuckle seconded by commissioner brian uh we will have a roll call vote please commissioner alturk uh yes commissioner johnson no miss your gauche yes commissioner brian yes commissioner satterfield no commissioner harris no commissioner hyman no commissioner buzzbee no commissioner miller no commissioner ketchum yes commissioner hornbuckle yes commissioner van yes commissioner gibb no motion carries seven two yeah motion care or motion fails seven to six thank you except yeah so just a reminder this will still be sent forward to the governing body but with an unfavorable motion by the planning commission i will ask for the second motion on the zoning case mr chairman i move that we send case z one seven zero zero zero four two forward to the county commissioners with a favorable recommendation i'll second properly motion a proper motion by commissioner brian seconded by commissioner hornbuckle we will have a roll call vote again please commissioner alturk yes commissioner johnson no commissioner gauche yes commissioner brian yes commissioner satterfield no commissioner harris no commissioner hyman no commissioner buzzbee no commissioner miller no commissioner ketchum yes commissioner hornbuckle yes commissioner van yes and commissioner gibbs uh no motion fails seven to six great thank you very much we will uh you have uh six to seven unfavorable recommendation we will move to our next item thank you very much uh the red mill quick stop and that is case a one seven quadruple zero nine and z one seven triple zero two zero mr wiggins has the staff report thank you jacob wiggins again with the playing department in the case before you is the red mill quick stop this is another consolidated item containing both a plan amendment request to change the future land use map as well as a request to change the zoning atlas the applicant for this request is mr dan jewel this is a site that's also within the county's jurisdiction mr jewel is requesting to modify the future land use map to change the designation of the subject site from very low residential i'm sorry very low density residential and commercial to simply just commercial for the entire site as well as modify the zoning atlas to change the designation from commercial neighborhood to commercial general with a development plan the subject site is approximately less than three acres in size and the request is to have a convenience store with a maximum of 12 fueling positions an aerial map of the subject site is shown on the screen in front of you the case area highlighted in red as you can see the property is adjacent to interstate 85 where it intersects with red mill road a convenience store is currently located at the subject site and that is not proposed to change as part of this request the key impetus for this is the u d requirements the ordinance in the c in zoning district when it comes to convenience stores with a vehicle i'm sorry with with fuel cells limits one to a maximum of eight fueling positions however in the c g district the commercial general district one can have up to 12 such positions on the existing conditions sheet from the development plan which is in your packet um notes the case area um and the aforementioned um convenience store located on the subject sites um you can see my my mouse there and that's the primary location of the store um with parking area um as well as the fueling positions the future land use map for the subject site um as you can see the um northern portion of the property is currently designated as commercial on the southern portion of the property is currently designated as very low residential on the zoning nerd in me finds it's very interesting that the commercial designation is in our role tier which is also our least inst here um so the applicant is proposing to have a comprehensive future land use designation for the entire site as part of this request um as you can see the surrounding area is primarily it makes a residential some industrial and recreation open space future land use categories the zoning context map as i noted the subject site is zoned cn the applicant is requesting the cgd district for this um there are no other commercial districts adjacent to this request um however giving the existing use at the subject site and that that does not propose the change i think staff blinked on the side for this application of the through this action the applicant is actually bringing this site closer into conformity through petitioning to change the future land use map to the commercial designation um generally in the cgd district you're looking at a maximum these are ordinance requirements a maximum of 20 000 square feet of floor area a maximum of 50 feet in height and as i noted the maximum of 12 fueling positions on the proposing additions look very similar to the existing conditions um with the the one caveat that the applicant has committed to those fueling positions the additional fueling position excuse me fueling positions um there are no other commitments um at least my general understanding can make other modifications to the site as part of this request um comprehensive plan policy is evaluated as part of this application um as i noted on the the future land use map it is both consistent and not consistent um the applicant is requesting to change the low density residential to commercial to make this wholly consistent um the continuous development um touched on the previous case i'll bring it up again to this one even though it's not necessarily consistent with it um given that this use has been established and been in this area for so long um i think staff finds that generally um this is uh through these requests this is trying to rectify an issue um so we found it to be consistent with that policy as well as the um suburban tier commercial development policies um having said that uh probably no surprise this staff determines this request to be consistent with the comprehensive plan and i'll be happy to answer any questions that the commission may have this time great thank you very much thank you at this point we'll open the public comment period we have one individual signed up to speak mr dan jewel good to see you good evening commissioners and uh thank you mr wiggins yes i'm dan jewel president of culture jewel towns 111 west main street also reside at 1025 glory avenue we've been asked by the uh the owner of the store mr richard block who's here with me this evening to help him in his request to get two more gas pumps on his property also with me tonight is martin colter uh my associate um according to bill sparrow senior who i suspect several of you know who with uh red mill nursery who was born raised and lived his entire life within about one mile of this property the existing store was built back in the late 50s so it has been there for nearly 60 years in fact the original structure that mr block uses is is still in in use today mr block purchased the store in 2004 and has turned it into the successful business that it is today he recently added a small kitchen but when he went to get permission to add more gas pumps he was told that the current zoning limit him to the four pumps or eight fueling positions that he has today and then he called us we are here this evening requesting the change to cg so that mr block can have a total of 12 fueling positions which is a text commitment on our development plan as mr wiggins stated um which translates to two additional pumps from what he has today along with that he would build a new canopy over those pumps to be a little more modern and and lit to current standards etc etc uh as mr wiggins explained there's also an associated future land use map request curiously the northern portion of the property which has minimal development on it right now other than a parking lot is already designated as a commercial land use on the future land use map even more curiously the southern portion of the property which has been occupied by this existing store for nearly 60 years is shown as low density residential on the future land use map even though i can guess that it has been in place through every concept comprehensive plan that was adopted and made over in the history of Durham so one way to look at it is we were are simply asking to bring the future land use map into conformance with what the site has been used for since the late 1950s we held a neighborhood meeting at the store back in June about half a dozen neighbors including mr sparrow showed up besides learning from bill that his wife dated martin's mother back in the day presumably before they were married the only real concern had to do with traffic in the area and also that the double and fact that they have a wide driveways and double driveways was also making it more and more challenging to get in and out of the site so we have committed as a text commitment to consolidate those driveways and narrow them into a single single driveway and the trip generation analysis that mr judge did shows that there is some additional traffic that would be generated with the cn zoning district not necessarily with what muster blocks proposing to do but that the adjacent roads are at roughly half of their available capacity even so we have witnessed and the neighbors know that the peak hour traffic in the morning and the afternoon has grown to the point where it has gotten much worse in the last five or six years they feel it is for several reasons one the expansion of murk aw and some of the larger industrial plants the good employers and trayburn who are using this way to get in out of trayburn the folks who live in person county who now come through the back to get into Durham because 501 and guest roads in duke street have become so congested in the morning and afternoon and also this was quite interesting to me they know that people who live in wake forest and are commuting to Durham and and and trayburn are actually using back roads to get into uh trayburn because 98 nc 98 has become so congested in the morning and if you've been heading to wake forest in the morning as i do on occasion you'll know that's that's true what we have agreed to do with these neighbors and church is to lead an effort to get up with nc dot and have them take a holistic look at this whole intersection of red mill road and the 85 uh service road because it is way beyond the capability of just one small uh property owner who's adding a few additional trips to to tackle that in this case it's been a death by a thousand cuts and they are now very concerned about traffic at that intersection the store is a popular spot for folks from granville county in points north to stop in the morning fill up get a breakfast biscuit in coffee or on the way home in the afternoon uh mr block has been a good neighbor for the dozen years he's been out there and provides we think a vital little neighborhood service center for folks who need to get a milk bread or various sundries without having to hop in the car and go very far i might also add that mr block represents the best of the american ideal i believe having emigrated from afghanistan in the 1970s with only the shirt on his back and then working hard to save enough money to be able to buy this store and support his family and the half dozen employees that work for him we hope you will agree that this modest request to add two gas pumps through this rezoning and expand an existing business that has been at this site for nearly 60 years and is an asset for the community and worthy of a recommendation for approval to the county commissioners thank you very much and happy to answer any questions you might have great thank you mr jule we will now move to close the the public hearing and before we move to the commissioners i do just want to check in with staff on the the proffer just to make sure that that was understood and is acceptable mr judge may also speak on this as well potentially i'm jacob liggins of the playing department are you referring to what mr jules talked about in terms of meeting within cdot we talk about that interchange um at least unless i'm misunderstanding i don't believe that was a voluntary proffer in nord okay those city county playing department can enforce it if that is uh mr busby what you're requesting absolutely uh it's not actually i'm sorry i misunderstood okay but what happens when you move the affordable housing debate to the start of the meeting okay that's okay if the if the proffer was like the driveway work uh i believe that's already on the uh plumber mr wiggins is taking commitment number two right yeah there is a commitment yeah currently there are two entrances or two points of interest and you go to the site and mr jule has committed to consolidating that into one great one access point for the site thank you let's move to the commissioners any commissioners who would like to speak uh commissioner bryne commissioner harris uh just a quick question um will you have uh your fuel pumps will it be diesel or other um that he already has one diesel pump he'll be adding two gasoline pumps okay because when i was out there there were far more trucks out there than any other vehicle and i thought diesel might make sense yes yes i understand understand thank you mr harris uh chair bryne and it's my good friend over there i i am concerned about the zoning map change you're not satisfying either of these two criterias however i am aware that uh it's not in compliance right now this will bring it more into compliance so i do plan to support it all although you're not satisfying any of the zoning map criteria here mr miller dan help me understand the buffer i don't understand the buffer that is going to have existing paving and buildings in it so um the uh the the so what we are that map up yes i'm not sure if i'm smart enough to do that but i will i will give it a try development plan map yeah there you go whoops oh i was there too quick too quick yourself short so um what what we are requesting to do right now is leave the existing pavement that is in place in place the um the mtc buffer of course is uh that wide zone adjacent to i-85 i'm not concerned about that okay not concerned about the 85 you're concerned about the landscape buffer i guess the buffer on the uh on this map on the south and to the east the south and to the east where it shows the parking envelopes building into what i think is the buffer area if i'm reading your design right you you are reading that so uh that that there is an existing small encroachment in the area that's shown as the landscape buffer on the south side that we would like to remain as is because as long as the the building and parking remain as is and similarly on the eastern side uh there is existing pavement in that area that we would like to keep as is again his request is simply to put the two gas pumps in a new canopy thank you i have a question for staff seems to me that when we expand a business and we rezone and change the land use map that the residential neighbors ought to get their full buffers shouldn't they um i mean ticket weekends with the planning department i think in this case the we're working with the idea of existing not conformities of the subject site i understand that but the the map this plan also says that it's going there's going to be a 50 foot buffer and it's going to have a 80 opacity this seem to be in conflict sure future um so this development plan will be establishing development standards for future development at the subject site so anything that would trigger additional buffering requirements in those areas the the app can maybe have to do some of that but again this would would trigger um sorry to interrupt just want to finish my thought um again so this is the an existing non-conforming situation so we it is i would say somewhat of an odd request in that regard considering this is something that has been in place for over 60 years um and probably before we had much in the way of land use controls in this area i appreciate that i'm just asking about going forward i read this this the commitments on this map is being in conflict with each other um um i appreciate that um and that that will be noted um i do not think that the additional two fueling islands that the applicant is proposing is going to trigger any additional buffering requirements in those areas um but we can in good faith allow the applicant to propose a buffer that doesn't meet the udo requirements and so that there is somewhat of a rub and i get what you're saying there's somewhat of a rub versus the with the ordinance acquires but also the also trying to work with the real world existing non-conformities at the subject site and trying to reconcile those two things and end up with a project that is closer to conformance with ordinance requirements which staff's position is that this request does that mr miller mr wiggins let me uh my understanding is that um it as long as it stays as is it continue to continue to remain but if mr block were to come in with a substance subsequent site plan that did knock the building down and redevelop it or redevelop that portion of the site then he would be required by the udo to put the full buffer in place as required by the udo we simply wanted to capture and memorialize the fact that there's an existing encroachment in place uh and uh as long as he does nothing but a minor improvement that minor improvement being the two additional gas pumps and a new canopy uh that he would not be subject to pulling that out but again if he came in with a more substantial site plan and this has been my experience in my 30 plus years of working in Durham he would have to meet the full udo requirement for a full width buffer and that's my understanding perhaps a staff person could clarify that or sure uh jakey wiggins i'm with the pine department i'd confirm what mr joel said every said a better than i this will establish i'm a level development going forward i'm i think something else so to keep in mind is that you know the applicant is coming to us and requesting this owning map change we as staff can't force them to make i realize that i'm not asking i'm just trying to understand yeah and again this is a very i think a peculiar request i think that's a fair statement to say um so yeah any major development in the future would have to uh follow these guidelines in front of you assuming this request is approved is there any way to put a note on this development plan that explains this so that somebody some other dummy like me reading it will understand what what's going to happen moving forward well first and foremost you're not a dummy mr miller and secondly yes we'd be happy to do that and maybe we can help craft a proper proper wording for that um uh you could even just like say that it'll remain as a non-conforming use pursuant to the udo section blah blah blah and that the but the buffer requirements will obtain moving forward something i don't know something like that because it would help me understand it i would appreciate it if staff is happy with that or as a revised wording for that i think we're happy with that i'm not asking for a 60 day delay or anything at just but words are important you're correct well jake wiggins with the planning department of staff is happy to work with mr joel and his team i think on a note to help clarify the intent of the proposed condition sheet i don't know if a proffered commitment is the the way to go for i don't i'm not looking for a proffered i'm not looking for anything except for an explanation sure yeah and i think that's fair i'm not asking for anything that's not on there i'm going to vote for it and i'm on record one understand it thank you great mr hornbuckle dan i just want to say i you know i mr block has he's done an admiral you know he's run that's i was i've known him ever since he's had that store there when he perched it for mr crabtree and uh he does and he serves part of the people in my community go that way because we don't have any gas in behemoth we have to go that way and he uh serves uh he provides quite a service to that community and and i think we should all fully uh support this plan any other questions or comments if none i will entertain a motion i'll make the motion mr chairman if we moved kz one seven zero zero zero two zero uh forward to the county commissioners with a favorable recommendation that would actually be a 17 quadruple zero nine oh my what am i looking at nine right yeah so um we will we will vote first on the the a1 seven quadruple zero nine uh the motion as amended uh made by commissioner hornbuckle seconded by commissioner brine all those in favor please raise your right hand any opposed motion carries 13 to 0 right thank you now we'll take the zoning motion if you will commissioner hornbuckle yes sir same by z one seven zero zero zero two zero uh forwarded to the county commissioners with a favorable recommendation properly moved and seconded all those in favor please raise your right hand any opposed motion passes 13 to 0 thank you very much same with you we are moving to our two public hearings on zoning map changes the first is 251 smallwood that's cases z one seven triple zero three three and we'll start with the staff report Lou Jacob wiggins again with the playing department um as the chair noted this is a request for 251 smallwood drive and this is a zoning map change only request the applicant is mr chug allen this is also located in the county jurisdiction and this is a request to change a portion of the the site located at 251 smallwood drive from office and institutional to industrial light um excuse me and ignore the part with the fielding positions this is not going to be a gas station um at least not out so the subject site is highlighted in front of you uh noted in red um as you can see it does have some frontage on smallwood drive um it also has some frontage on a public right of way that has access to page road um currently the site is a mix of wooded lands with some cleared areas the future land use map for this area and you see is primarily um fund industrial there are some pockets of low to medium density residential most notably to the north and east of the subject site um some of the commissioners may recall uh within the last few months approving a pdr request just north of the subject site so the zoning contacts map um and it may be a little hard to see on this map and i apologize the covers are very similar so on the left hand side you see the existing zoning um you probably can make out on your screen this uh blue line stream here so the portion of the site that is zoned office is this little area right here if you look super hard you might be able to see the the color differentiate differentiation uh the remainder of the site is zoned industrial light i'm mr allen as i noted is proposing to have a unified industrial light category for this site um as was the the case um with the project on lonely road earlier there is no development plan associated with this request either so the if approved any use in the isle district could be permissible at this site um also there is no annexation petition associated with this request so this would uh the next step in the process would be to go to the board of county commissioners for final approval um the requested isle district um udo requirements allows for a maximum 50 feet building height um again no development plans or potentially any permissible uses in the isle district um there's also a 40 foot street yard setback as well as project boundary buffers that are required for any development in the isle district um comprehensive plan policies evaluated as part of this request um the future land use map is already recommending this site for industrial um so it's consistent there there is industrial that is contiguous to the site um and there is infrastructure to serve the site if in the future they ever did want to petition for annexation um and there is adequate infrastructure there in terms of private septic and well service as well therefore um staff finds that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan applicable policies and ordinances and i'll be happy to answer any questions the commission may have at this time great thank you very much we'll open the public hearing and then we may have some questions for you mr wiggins we uh we have one member signed up to speak i am going to get the last name wrong because i can't read very well so i apologize mr doug jacobs jacobs apologize for the handwriting together we're going to get this done um doug jacobs i'm a commercial broker with a coal banker advantage at 1858 hillan dale road i am here to speak on behalf of uh mr allen philips and his wife terry and their company is triangle forest products they are under contract with uh mr chuck allen to purchase this property pending the rezoning proceedings uh to relocate their company from wake county to the site um they uh once rezoned the uh those who have the opportunity not only to meet their clients current needs but the the size of the site will allow them to expand uh their their business as necessary to meet future needs for their business and um um so we think that that in that case that the rezoning will bring um the entire site in line with the land use plan and the uh existing uses in the area as well as um um create a situation where an existing vacant site is utilized for employment purposes in derm county and um um that it'll pave the way for immediate employment opportunities for us uh citizens of the area um we think that in in this case it's a uh a positive not only for for mr missus um philips but for the local area as well and we certainly hope you guys will agree be glad to answer any questions you guys may have for us great thank you mr jacobs we will uh move to close the public comment period and i'll open it up for commissioners with questions or comments let's start to my left commissioner miller uh there's a stream on the property that's shown on the map uh can anybody tell me how it's classified and what uh boundary buffers might be required if any um does anybody know tikka wiggins of the pine department uh give me just one second to double check i believe i have that information and then while he's checking that uh for uh mr jacobs so that the way i got into the property was to run down the the the road from small wood yes and then through the mud those are my tracks uh and but there's another way in from page road but it doesn't look like it's part of the parcel does the owner of this parcel have an easement or right of way in over that road that one that's gated could commissioner miller that that would be uh paver lane uh and that is a public right of way that's public it's public right of way certainly as we verified that there's got a gate across it's got a gate on it because uh currently there's only one user and uh they are the uh a wholesale landscaping company that you may have seen back there and so the gate was up that was originally a private road that was dedicated and accepted for public right away and uh because they're the only user there's never been a reason for them to take that gate down however there will be so so you would have access that whoever develops this piece of property is going to have access from small wood and page exactly all right that's what i needed to know and i believe it's intermittent but i can't say for certain it's either intermittent perennial which would be either a 50 foot or 100 foot buffer from top of bank yeah i mean if it if it's a perennial stream that's a big chunk of the property that would would be uh undevelopable and it bisects the property which is a problem too but that's a site plan problem exactly those are my questions miller if i may um we have been presented a a site plan that is now expired that mr allen had approved previously that shows that only the very western portion of that stream and i i dare not say how far it comes in but i'm going to it certainly doesn't bisect the the partial as we see here it's it's only the the very western portion of that uh stream is uh perennial it's jurisdictional oh it's perennial well it's it's blue line anyway down to a 50 foot it's 50 foot buffer and there there are understanding from the site plan that that uh mr allen had approved is that uh he actually had approved to pipe the majority of that stream um so all right that's what we've seen i was just worried about that's why i was asking about access if your the property was cut that way but if you can get in on either side sure all right thank you i'm going to vote in favor mission of brian i was just curious about something uh when i went out there i went down the same gravel road about as far as the communication tower and there's i couldn't quite figure out what was on the property it's sort of like a grayish cover that seemed to have a lot of green fibers in it so so it's it's recently been hydroceded okay so that's what you're seeing that's what it is yeah okay yeah a lot of it got washed down hill the last ring yeah great tommy thank you any other questions or comments from the commissioners commissioner gibbs i do have a concern about i i believe you said that uh the owner said that he could or would pipe the stream no no sir uh commissioner gibbs i said that he presented us with a a now uh expired site plan that he previously had approved that had allowed that so obviously with the site plan um process that the uh new owners would go through would determine buffering for that stream that they would have to adhere to yeah i i just thought i heard the word pipe i would hate to think that a stream leading from a flood plain i don't think you can make a pipe sure i understand anyway yeah that that's my question okay that's my only question thank you sir great at this point entertain a motion mr chairman i move that we send z 17 triple zero three three concerning 251 smallwood forward to the county commissioners with a favorable report second properly motion by commissioner miller seconded by commissioner out turk all those in favor please raise your right hand any opposed motion passes 13 to 0 thank you very much and we move to our final zoning public hearing of the evening and that is uh nc 54 storage has returned it is case z 17 triple zero i'm sorry z 17 quadruple 0 1 mr chairman yes before we start on the report for this i need to recuse myself i had to recuse myself from the original zoning and i think it would be appropriate to continue recusing myself i gladly will make that motion seeing as it is not me that's recusing myself i move that we accuse mr brian from consideration moved by commissioner ghost seconded by commissioner harris all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed enjoy it out there it's nice yeah we'll start with the staff report good evening jimmy sonyak with the planning department this is case z 17 0001 nc 54 storage um it is a uh text amendment the applicant is tim cybers from whorebath associates the jurisdiction is located within the city um the property is located at 1003 east north um 54 highway uh the site is is 1.9 acres um if you recall a zone map change and future land use map amendment was recommended by the planning commission on august 2017 dual out for 120 000 square feet of self service storage since that recommendation the applicant has um requested some revisions to text commitments on the plan here are our summary of the changes there was a revised new text commitment on number three um let me just say that the the staff report highlights pretty much the entire project from the zoning map change and the plan amendment and the first page just outlined some of the changes um there were no changes to the development plan and the and the proposal on the site it was relative to the text commitments um again there is a revision to number three to construct an exclusive eastbound left turn lane with adequate storage and appropriate tapers on nc 54 at the proposed site access um a removal of a prior commitment number four to construct a westbound right turn lane with adequate storage and appropriate tapers on nc 54 at the proposed site access and a third text commitment which was number um six that was uh provided as a result of um comp plan consistency with policy number 8.12 h however based upon information that was provided to the transportation department um and the planning part earlier today um we all agree that that text commitment can be removed um um staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and the apical policies and ordinances and the only action that would be needed if you found this um favorable would be a vote on the revised development plan which would be part of the zoning map change i'll be happy to answer any questions that you have at this time okay thank you miss Soniek we will open the public hearing and we have three individuals signed up to speak uh Jamie Shea Welder Tim Sivers and Earl Llewellyn and I am so sorry it's okay I am used to it um good evening Chairman Busby and members of the commission my name is Jamie Schwaedler um with Parker Poe at 301 Fayetteville street in Raleigh and I'm here on behalf of the property owner on behalf of the applicant Tim Sivers and we do have our traffic engineer Mr Earl Llewellyn here with us um Jamie highlighted all the changes that um I'd like to focus on um I would like to just go through quickly what those changes are to the plan to actually offer an additional um proffer here tonight that speaks to cross access and then explain why these changes uh actually better meet the comprehensive plan policies and work with the barbie road retail rezoning that was approved by council uh earlier this year um so as Jamie mentioned the the plan was before you in august to receive a favorable ruling um but there were some concerns raised at that time about should a new commercial node be created in this area what would the new council do and how these two projects would work together and at the time that we were before you that project had not yet been approved um and the projects hadn't yet had a chance to really work together because there was some uncertainty about what would happen since that time council has of course approved the uh future land use map zoning chain or future land use map change from office um to commercial and has approved that zoning project so that there is a a commercial node that has been created at the corner um and that we believe our new um proffers and the time that's passed would make these more consistent with the comprehensive plan in addition to uh that approval the applicant offered a um a cross access easement where council asked if they would agree to offer our property owner cross access easement and if accepted they would record it that was approved in september and they have not yet reached out to us to make that offer so what we'd like tonight is to make the mirror offer of that cross access easement that we will offer to make the cross access easement uh to them and that way it gives a kind of a belt and suspenders approach where we're going to work together um and try to to move forward they were not required to modify their development plan because they were already at council um and as we go forward if approved by the commission tonight we would update our development plan with those change conditions and showing um that that commitment as well um and if those are accepted by the commission tonight we believe that with the time passed and those conditions offered uh we're able to overcome some of the concerns that the commission raised before and some of the uncertainty that was before the commission and hope to leave tonight with a favorable recommendation um as jamie mentioned the three changes are the change to an exclusive eastbound turn lane into the site uh we're removing uh former condition four and this existing condition six so you might see on your plan um because at that time there was some uncertainty about whether those were were warranted and based on our discussions with uh mr judge and the planning department uh we believe there's consensus there to remove that condition six mr luan is here to address those traffic conditions specifically if you have questions on that but briefly the the the changes support um support approval tonight for both the land use map amendment and the zoning specifically with the land use map amendment one of the issues was that at the time we came through we didn't have that contiguous parcel issue that you looked at earlier on one of the hearings tonight now that that land use map has been amended from office to um commercial and we're asking for that same change it's merely just an adding on of that new commercial known expanding it by much less of a of an area and that's consistent with policy 2.3 point a which tries to avoid those patterns of non contiguous area and orderly development um and second the change from office to commercial makes sense here we talked about last time that the site is really too small to do office or uh or other types of uses and it really makes sense to do this commercial and with the development plan committing us to self storage we're not talking about any commercial we're just talking about a low impact uh low traffic type of commercial that makes sense for this this parcel and third it's consistent with policy 2.3.1 e which speaks to expansion of commercial nodes and this wasn't before you before because the commercial node didn't exist but now that the council has approved that commercial node it calls upon the commission to evaluate the requests um and determine if they've been integrated with the rest of an existing node to promote pedestrian and vehicular circulation and we have two commitments that speak to that the first is we have a four foot asphalt path that runs along 54 that provides either a pedestrian or a bicycle connection between the two sites and now that we've offered to offer the cross access easement that would also provide an internal point of connection between the two sites and to promote that pedestrian and vehicular circulation that cross access easement also supports several policies in support of the zoning change and that in a policy 2.2.2 e in the suburban tier we're to discourage our auto oriented strip development and encourage this commercial node again now that council has created that node this is just a minor expansion it's a complimentary expansion of that service oriented residential services area and this offers just a commercial expansion that makes sense and works with that type of use they also offer to the barbie road retail some limitations on their footprint I think they would believe between 15,000 and 16,000 square foot for the footprint ours is going to be smaller than that because our site is much smaller and so it's going to be that complimentary type of node not a strip development the orientation of this parcel along 54 truly lends itself to just adding on to that node and not having a long commercial strip as well and I'd also like to point out several text commitments that speak to that that node creation we have as I mentioned the limit on self storage is necessarily a low impact type of commercial use that speaks to that type of service oriented commercial use we also have a text commitment limiting the type of materials and committing to architectural features such as parapet walls and storefront windows that again lend itself to that complimentary node and not your type of auto oriented strip center and so for those reasons we believe the changes in addition to the new proffer of the cross access easement brings this more in line with with the concerns that the commission expressed before it brings the properties more in line with each other and brings them brings us more in line with the elements of the comprehensive plan that the staff outlined tonight and for those reasons we'd ask for a favorable recommendation forward to the council thank you thank you mr cybers good evening tim cybers whorebath associates 16 consultant place i just want to bring up a few points on the development plan um specifically some items that have changed and have not changed um self storage is one of if not the lowest re lowest retail traffic generator the additional trips for this site are 31 peak hour trips but i did want to note that this is not a change from what was previously approved uh the project boundary buffers to the northeast and west are shown in the development plan there were also no changes to those items from what was previously approved the minimum of 35 foot of right away dedication is also the same the site will have a single access point on the nc 54 again the same uh the only changes on the development plan are the cross access easement as well as the text commitment changes to the traffic improvements as as noted by jamie um again we just asked for your approval this project and we were available for any questions thank you thank you mr lawellen okay great he's just here for questions so at this point we will close the public hearing before we come to the commissioners i think i would like to just check in with staff on the the proffers make sure everything is acceptable and jamie sonyak with the planning department we had the opportunity to review the language regarding the cross access easement and it um is found acceptable so if it is found to be recommended that would be added to the development plan great thank you commissioners who would like to speak start to my right commissioner ghost mr ghost so uh i i voted in favor of this last time with the caveat that i'd like to see some cross access thank you for providing it i'll vote in favor of it again thank you commissioner meller so it's my understanding that the developer of the other project told the council that they would offer cross access they weren't required to include it as a requirement of their development plan and since having obtained their approval they've made they've not reached out to you that's what is that what you said yes it it actually was a requirement of their development plan i believe and i'm not sure it was timed to any particular timing assuming it would be at some point before their their building permit obviously um jamie sonyak it was tied to the site plan site plan but not the development plan so they can withdraw it anytime they want to i believe it was a it was an offer at the table that i that i was understanding was to become a text commitment on the development plan it's correct it's a commitment on the development plan but the requirement to have it in in place would be prior to site plan so it is in their development plan that's right but okay let's make sure i'm talking about the commercial okay i misunderstood you i thought you said that that the council didn't require them because to do it since they that they just made a promise no what i meant was it might not have shown up on the development plan going to council but it was at the table during the council it was a proffer made and then written in later yes as a conditional okay that helps i do understand and and i didn't mean to misrepresent that they're refusing to do it it's just they haven't reached i i because i misunderstood what you said i i i ran with it the wrong direction so thank you that i'm still concerned about this this is an unusual request it's 120 000 square feet of storage on a piece of property that is less than two acres with a building envelope that is essentially 75 000 square feet the fur acre i mean that's that is 63 000 square feet of building per acre that's pretty intense this property doesn't even include its own but boundary buffers they are on the boundary buffers are on neighboring properties i'm not saying that that's against the rules it's just something i don't like means that the that if we rezone this the property owner next door has to hold that it has to buffer whatever they choose to use their property for against this use rather than including the buffers on this site um i realize the code allows it but it's to me it's it's just wrong um it's also to in order to get 120 000 square feet of storage building on this site it's going to have to go four stories five stories four stories um thank you uh that's pretty tall this property sits up on a hill if you went up into the neighboring apartment complex the property rises above it those this building is going to tower over even the two-story apartment building next door um i just think that when we you know i fought against this commercial node it's there uh and it seems to me that when we expand a commercial node it ought to step down in intensity to residential not up in intensity to residential literally up and so i'm still going to vote against it however i do appreciate the fact that there's interconnectivity which in my opinion is a minimum requirement in order to even call this these two uses together a node any other commissioners with questions or comments um yeah just negotiation just responding to something i heard i think commissioner miller's comments are are well received i think one of the things that i find attractive about this development plan is that it limits the use to self-storage yes it's a lot of self-storage but in speaking about stepping up or down in intensity with expansions of commercial nodes towards residential areas at least the use is not very intense i'll just leave it at that thank you commissioner gosh seeing no other questions or comments this is the appropriate time for a motion uh one moment i apologize just before you do that uh jimmy sannyak with the planning department can the applicant just confirm on the record that um that text commitment number six is going to be removed that you're making that request yes we are making that request thanks i have one other question back to my point about interconnectivity is do you show interconnectivity on your development plan we haven't shown it but if offer if accepted here tonight we will they just made the offer tonight okay and so you're that's going forward all right very good thank you okay so just to confirm then we we're we have uh we have interconnected we have interconnectivity as a proffer that will then move forward and we'll show up as this moves forward commissioner hyman yes um chair busby i'd like to make a motion that we move case number z one seven zero zero zero zero one nc 54 storage forward with a favorable recommendation second properly moved and seconded moved by commissioner hyman seconded by commissioner harris all those in favor please raise your right hand and all those opposed same sign motion carries eight to four thank you very much thank you extra phone we're now moving to the home stretch text amendments to the unified development ordinance and we have a case tc one seven quadruple zero five good evening i'm scott whiteman for the planning department filling in for the world famous michael stock uh tonight before you is case number tc 17 00005 which is the 11th in a series of omnibus changes to the udo that many of you have seen before uh these changes are designed to be technical revisions and minor policy changes uh to the udo that can be adopted all at one time uh one thing that is different with this set is we're now trying to do them twice a year so that the list of changes is uh slightly more manageable than what you may have seen before i will the these changes touch uh many of the articles throughout the udo i'll be happy to answer any questions about any of the changes but i just want to mention a few of the the bigger things and highlights first we're adding some additional standards for minor preliminary plots we are adding parking standards to list of things that may be modified with the neighborhood protection overlay which is something that came out of the development of the old west germ npo it's a removal of parking requirements for accessory dwellings the clarifying text regarding outdoor activities for certain home occupations uh technical amendment regarding development in the rural tiers or areas not within a designated tier an additional height allowance for the il district within the suburban suburban tier adjustments to on-street parking allowances for parking requirements for single family and two family developments revisions to the support to 30 foot 35 foot height limitations in our design districts additional text allowing for a lot with flexibility associated with affordable housing developments removal of the dimensional requirement uh two acre minimum for the pdr district in the urban tier revision to household living parking standards for qualified affordable housing and clarifying the defined term for a flag lot this text amendment as per the procedure has been presented to the joint city county planning committee the staff would recommend approval and to be happy to answer any questions thank you very much we'll open i'm sorry we will we'll actually open the public hearing we have no one who is signed up to speak if anyone would like to speak this is your chance seeing now we will move to close the public hearing and then we will move to comments from the commissioners we'll start with commissioner gosch thank you um so i'm just going to go in order that of the handout i've made notations and i have questions and or comments throughout so hopefully i won't take too much of your time um okay on uh page five convenience stores of gas sales um i have a question about the limitation for this new provision which says that no more than 50 of required parking spaces shall be provided at fueling stations i just i guess i don't understand what the issue is that we're addressing there uh to me i mean i've worked with different gas stations to me you know this wouldn't affect something like sheets who generally tries to get as many parking spaces at their c store as they can but it might affect the mom and pop stores that have four pumps and not a lot of room for parking and if it if it did affect those uh those types of stores i mean i think it does so in a kind of negative way it would it would just require them to add more parking spaces which might mean more impervious for and i guess i don't understand the reason why what we're finding is with certain gas stations especially ones with a lot of pumps the they can fulfill all their parking requirements at the pumps which leads to uh parking issues and stacking issues bill judges here could probably give a more detailed third answer about the problem uh bill judge transportation that's that's correct what we found is that where there's a large number of pumps in a fairly small convenient store um that basically the parking requirements could be met just by people parking at the pump so we wanted to verify or provide that some of the that there would still be some parking provided okay i mean i that's that's fine i mean i was just looking for clarification i don't really understand it because i can't say i've ever experienced i've never circled the parking lot of a gas station looking for a seastore spot sometimes you have to queue at the at the pump it you know all the pumps are taken but i've never experienced myself haven't seen it but if it happens it happens um another question i had is uh on page six eliminating the requirement for one additional off-street parking space um for accessory dwelling units i understand that that might make it more of a possibility to be able to provide those accessory dwelling units but you know on page two one of the one of the justifications or statement i don't know what you would call this uh for that change was that um it's been determined to be unnecessary for additional off-street parking since single family lots generally have enough driveway or parking pad space to accommodate more than two vehicles i mean i think we could just accommodate that by saying you have to provide one off-street parking spot and it can be on your driveway or your existing driveway or parking pad that would kind of satisfy both it's it the current parking standards for single family do allow driveway but you can only have only stack two cars i guess what i'm saying is i think there's another way to word this such that you know it can address the exact reason that you're looking at this so you wouldn't have to provide an additional off-street parking space if you do in fact have enough space on your lot already we can certainly look at that see if it encompasses the same thing um and sorry again uh page eight b one um i think the wording is a little off uh i'm not exactly sure i don't have a i don't have a suggestion but a residential building shall also include a building converted to a non-residential use i mean it doesn't i don't know it just that that could be anything right i mean it should be a previously residential building that has since been converted you know something like that it doesn't doesn't quite jive i guess and then on six eight two same page six eight two b um the base zoning requirement for a lot with can apply for lots developed for affordable housing dwelling units there's another section that allows those standards to be changed for affordable housing dwelling units so i think you know maybe a no i think it's six six two allows you to change some of the uh lot standards so i think that needs to be recognized in this provision so you know or as reduced by you know pursuant to section six six the issue we're trying to rectify is that udo specifies that the most stringent should apply so if one is reduced but then one is increased yeah through the infill standards then you would have to follow the increase lots lot size through the infill standards or a lot with um so we're trying to rectify that that for affordable housing projects only you can you do not need to follow the affordable housing okay so maybe it is a maybe i maybe i misread it but yeah that's what i'm saying for affordable housing units you should be able to to reduce it um i i will admit that i didn't check what the current udo says but on uh six ten one a one a that's being at page you are please uh page eight thanks all right it says it the new added language says the standards for i zoning shall apply to i l zoning i mean that just seems i don't know it that's not true unless you're making it true you know it i l zoning is its own thing it's not i zoning so there's a weird quirk that we found in the ordinance where um i l zoning was not through the udo permitted in the rural tier um but the i zoning district was so there were no standards to the i l district included for properties in the rural tier you're just trying to match and so there are a few legacy i l properties and so we want to make sure that there is a zoning standard that applies to them yeah fair enough so this was the the quickest and even most reasonable way to do that i guess what i was saying is it certainly seemed like the quickest way i think there might be a better way to do um on page nine uh six eleven three b one instead of changing it to no minimum acreage shall be required i think it would be appropriate just to delete bullet point one for the urban tier because i mean that's essentially what you're saying right no we have some issues that because there are other tiers as well so we would apply that in the the pdr is not supposed to apply so we'll we'll definitely take that under consideration but i think it's clear to show that that's the standard for the urban tier is no minimum okay um and then uh on the table on the next page underneath there's a note there that says the rear yard shall be measured blah blah blah i was just wondering if someone could demonstrate with that i don't i don't recognize what the issue is there i don't know if there's a way to to demonstrate what that's addressing i don't have any other problem with it interpretive dance yeah sure that'd be great be fantastic yeah i would have a hard time uh demonstrating it without um one of those telestrator pens like they they use that football games got a dry erase board i don't think i think it's a bulletin board with commissioner miller and this city clerk would be very mad if i drew on that okay that solves that mystery i was wondering what this wouldn't tangle with it yeah uh my boss had told me that we can add an illustration to this as we move forward to make it clear the oh that might be help yeah the general idea is that townhouse developments don't have a rear yard that is associated with each lot like a single family house does so we need to clarify where it's measured from so but that's a good point if if you're having triple visualizing it lots of people have trouble visualizing it well yeah okay so now that wasn't my suggestion but i'll make it my suggestion now i think an illustration would make it look you're allowed to do that uh and that's all i got oh no i'm sorry one more on page 15 when we're defining flaglots okay i don't know that there's a better word for it or whatever but in the first part it says and is located behind another lot i feel like the word behind is not i don't know it could describe a lot of things and i think that might be an issue with the uda um i i mean generally i know what a flag lot is but i don't know that this is a better definition than what we had and then the uh the other thing is a number two it seems to suggest that a flag lot could only have one treat frontage and that's what i'm familiar with i just don't know if that's true though i feel like a flag lot could have multiple frontages and still be a flag lot but i don't know flag with more than one pole it could yeah uh i don't we'll double check to make sure that we're not accidentally prohibiting flaglots with two poles but this doesn't prohibit that it just yeah it just defines it i just wanted to flag only has to have one pole okay all right that's all i got thank you sorry for taking everyone's time that's very helpful commissioner brian thank you on page seven uh the section 6.6 on the affordable housing bonus uh i would uh just to soon not have to vote on that language tonight because this is where you conflict with affordable housing text that we looked at earlier and i think it needs to be worked out as to what language you're going to use in the affordable housing text i mean if you read dc 16 005 carefully these two sections don't exist anymore if i may mr chairman you may and welcome a staff responsive appropriate so if the there are two affordable housing density bonuses there is the one that the other text amendment that we considered earlier that relates to the affordable housing density bonus inside the compact neighborhood tiers there is also an affordable housing density bonus that is available outside those tiers anywhere where residential zoning is allowed that that certainly may be true but the point is in in the earlier text that we think the 66.1 applicability and 66.2 bonus program those were stricken oh those are stricken that is a problem and so and this is why you know the conflict comes in and i'm suggesting since i hannah's response to my question it about it was that they're working on it i think we should simply not vote on this particular piece well i would be willing to vote on it if i knew what the workout was well and and they they haven't apparently haven't solved it yet this is right to do we'll take anything that is covered in the previous affordable housing text amendment uh take it out case take out of this one and put it in that make sure that all those are rectified so that it's adopted at the same time should one be adopted one not or be adopted at times okay that that's good because it's the very first thing here on on a if you take out that language you're going to have to take it out some other places in the earlier text amendment that we considered you know little things like that it's a fair point i have one more thing bottom of page 13 methods to exceed maximum parking it says the additional parking spaces and drive aisles shall be pervious paving pursuant to the following but what's following is alternative to the essence of compliance so i think something's left out christa brian if if those are the those are my own comments great if those are your remarks we'll move to commissioner miller while the the staff the staff is back sir waitman back yeah we i think what that is it was referring to a definition and it was also listed in the the list of things we probably should have left the that list of things in here for context and we'll do that before we provide it to the to the governing bodies we are not changing what qualifies as previous thank you commissioner miller so i had a couple of questions uh which remarkably did not overlap much with mr. gauche amazing however i'm very grateful for the points you raised they were good ones um i thought i was pretty thorough i thought you were pretty thorough too but you're not so again this this relates to to help me understand and i'm on page eight what six point eight point one as changed will do give me an example so what this does is it takes things like a daycare that was a former house within a residential district the way pa's officer yeah it typically because this only applies to residential zoning okay wouldn't be a cpa's off yeah uh that because it's strictly worded as residential uses then that house which probably is in the historical context of the rest of the houses doesn't count so we're just making sure that anything that looks like a house on the street is counted towards the infill standards oh for the purposes of of setbacks mostly all right very good um and so um so my i have a similar question with six point eight point three a i'm you know that those language that we've used in these two things that structures which change their use it is possible i suppose to actually have as we have in my neighborhood commercial structures that were built as commercial structures that are now in residential zones how shall we treat those and they're not even some of them are not commercial their houses now and some of them are just strange things and they're so far away that nobody knows they're there admittedly this doesn't really address those it's not nearly as common i know there are some of those throughout especially the older neighborhoods lots of lots of little neighborhood stores uh and we've got a quonset hut in my neighborhood that is filled with pest old very very very old pesticides um i'll have to say that i've been mike and i and sarah and lots of the staff have been trying to tweak the infill standards to make them work well for years it's hard to hit every scenario i'm i've been just wondering is there is so it's possible that were there still there's still work to do yeah there's there's definitely still work to do all right we're we're just uh chipping away all right and then so if you would go to 1633 c1 a2 b and a3 what page is that oh i don't know um it's got to be at the back 15 so it has to do with the 75 feet i like the language in the uc zone that we call it the perimeter transitional area although we don't use that language here um i get very confused about i thought it was a great idea when you brought it to us but now it's it's got so many moving parts i'm having a hard time visualizing how it would work am i reading this right that the maximum height inside that 75 foot area for downtown is 50 feet and for ninth street it's 45 feet or 35 feet i don't understand why it seems to me if the impetus is the same then the height limit ought to be the same the idea is to not destabilize the outside the district traditional residential use and i don't understand why at ninth street the the protecting height is 35 feet and the and for the downtown tier the protecting height is a different thing i'm very confused about how it works can you run through it so there are two different standards that were adopted at two different times based on to the input of two separate mostly separate sets of stakeholders um this was not trying to change so it's very much so what are the what are the how does it work start with downtown so in downtown it's 50 feet if it's within 75 feet of a non-design zoning district the limit is 35 feet it's 35 feet within the 50 feet within 75 i'm confused okay sarah young with the planning department so in both cases in downtown and in the compact design district the default is 35 feet in that 75 foot depth that's okay that's our beginning standard so that's the that's the difference if we want to do something different inside the 75 feet what can we do and how do we get there so in downtown through a minor special use permit you can go up to 50 feet okay so that's option for for that one in sorry i'm skimming in cd so compact design the only one we have in places at nine street you can do the same thing but it only gets you 45 feet and i think it's an m up still still with an m up process yes correct and i think the difference stems and i would don't quote me on this because i'd have to go back and look we based the numbers based on what was originally in the two districts for height and they did have different they did not have the same heights in the various areas so that accounts for why one is slightly less if there's no significant you know feeling of difference in that five feet we can make them consistent if i'm not asking for that i just wanted to make sure i understood what i was reading this is for information and now with the affordable housing density bonus which isn't going to be available in the compact neighborhood design tier and probably immaterial in the downtown tier the there is at site plan inside the 75 feet i can go i asked this once and i'm already forgotten i can go up to how high in the 75 feet do you go up to 50 50 feet only with the affordable housing density bonus right and i don't have to get the m up i jump over that step that's correct okay all right i'm cool with that let's let's vote commissioner miller is cool with that so at this point i will entertain a motion for approval so i'm going to move that we send this omnibus uh text change tc one seven quadruple zero five forward to the city and to the county with a favorable recommendation but with some of the changes that my fellow commission members have suggested especially the one the apparent inconsistencies or potential for inconsistencies as uh in the proposals contained in uh this omnibus 11 and the uh compact neighborhood interim affordable housing bonus proposal um i would love to see all of those kind of worked out um going forward and i but also throw in i do see why uh in a system that creates a lot of of minimum acreages why you would want to have say zero when you meant zero so that somebody didn't think that something was just a hole in the in the ordinance a second of motion without the comments properly moved by commissioner miller seconded by commissioner harris all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed great motion carries 13 to 0 thank you very much and last but not least the compact neighborhood i'm sorry uh legal land yes leg and s and e case tc one seven quadruple zero six mr whiteman evening i'm scott whiteman i'm the planning department again this is uh without the shorthand uh technical updates regarding sedimentation and erosion control and state legislation uh half of this amendment is something you're also probably accustomed to seeing which is changes we must make to our ordinance based on laws that are passed by the state legislature it also includes a set of changes requested by our county s and e office and we have ryan eaves from county engineering to to answer any questions about those in general there's uh two laws that were were passed this year that we felt required uh amendments to the udo one was uh statute of limitations that was imposed for zoning violations and the other was um how the city council adopts consistency statements unfortunately the legislature adopted the way method the counties did it which was backwards so now they're both backwards um there's also some for several collective state laws about performance guarantees for infrastructure projects and as i mentioned some changes request technical changes for for sedimentation erosion control with that i'd be happy to answer any questions and the staff would recommend approval thank you very much we will open the public comment period we don't have anyone signed up if anyone would like to speak this is your time seeing none we will close the public comment period and move to commissioners with any comments i'll start to my right commissioner gosh i i must admit i'm not uh as thoroughly prepared for this one as maybe the previous but i think i had a question about um okay it's on page nine part two and i thought the change in north carolina law there was another kind of exempt subdivision that was created and i i'm not sure that it's codified here the only one we're aware of is the one that specifically talked about probated wills and the division of land for that every all the other exempt subdivision standards remain okay so you the official position is this is what's consistent with what recent changes in north carolina law yes all right you're not trying to hide from any of them that's that's that works for me let's go mr harris my on page three three dot eight six self-inspection that's like putting the fox in the hen house and that's what the state law does and that's what the state law did and i mean i don't have to be happy with it but i know that's what the state required us to do so but i that's like you know putting the fox in the hen house and tell him not to eat your chickens i would agree with commissioner harris and i did not use as colorful as an analogy as he did at the joint city county planning committee meeting when this came up but i'm i'm planning to vote to approve to ensure we conform with state law i don't like the state law any other commissioners commissioner gibbs i guess my question is general in nature by adopting these uh these new rules i'll say would it conflict or be less less strict in some of our planned let's say erosion control plans uh is a state less strict than what we would need here in Durham to because of our special uh situations i'll defer to mr eaves to to answer that work try his best to answer that question i didn't yeah i don't know the answer to that uh good evening ryan eaves i'm the uh storm water and erosion control division manager for county engineering um if i understand your question you're asking if if by making these changes it makes us less strict than the state or is the state going to be less strict i'm not sure i quite understand your question would adoption of would the state restrictions be less strict than some some issue that we're trying to deal with locally would it prohibit inhibit or any other way hold us back from doing what we feel we need to do to control a situation in Durham county i don't believe so um you know my division handles all erosion control both inside the city limits and out um we do at least monthly inspections of all of the permitted sites within the county um and i don't believe any of the uh while there are some things we don't necessarily agree with or like i don't believe that they will hinder us from acting appropriately to make sure that our sites uh maintain compliance okay well that that answers my general question uh i don't like the state rules either but that's neither here nor there of course they know for you anyway i'll i'll let it go for now i'm ready okay thank you and thank you for staying so late too i happy to to share input any other comments or questions from commissioners and if not oh mr chairman i move t that we send uh text uh change tc one seven zero zero zero zero zero six forward to the city and county with a favorable recommendation second properly moved and seconded moved by commissioner miller seconded by commissioner outtirk all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed the motion carries unanimously any final staff updates before we adjourn for the year no updates thank you thank you and before we do adjourn i did want to number one thank the staff for your great work this year we really appreciate all that you do and i know they're late nights but we appreciate that you stick with us answer our questions let us have the robust debate that i think we deserve to have on behalf of the citizens and i wish you all happy holidays i do also want to note that commissioner freeman as you know has resigned from her seat to now become councilwoman freeman that position is currently open and it is open until january eighth so if you know of any good candidates i would ask you to encourage them to apply or if you're still watching at home you probably do want to apply if you've sat here this entire evening uh with that i wish you all happy holidays this meeting is adjourned thank you thank you we'll start with