 Good evening. Welcome to the Durham City County Planning Commission meeting on November 10th, 2015. Welcome to the Durham Planning Commission. The members of the Durham Planning Commission have been appointed by the City Council and the County Board of Commissioners as an advisory board to the elected officials. You should know that elected officials will have the final say on any issue before us tonight. If you wish to speak on an agenda item tonight, please go to the table on my left and sign up to speak. For those wishing to speak, please state your name and your address clearly when you come to the podium. Please speak clearly into the microphone. Each side, those speaking in favor of an item and those speaking in opposition to an item will have 10 minutes to present each side. The time will be divided among all members wishing to speak. Finally, all motions are stated in affirmative, so if a motion fails or ties, the recommendation is for denial. Thank you. Could we have a roll call? Ms. Freeman. Mr. Ghosh. Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Hollingsworth. Present. Mr. Harris. Present. Ms. Huff. Ms. Hyman. Present. Mr. Keechin. Mr. Miller. Here. Mr. Riley. Mr. Vann. Mr. Whitley. Here. Ms. Winders. Claire, we have an excused absence for Commissioner Gibbs, Commissioner Vann, and Commissioner Huff. Thank you. And I, well, Commissioner, Charlie's on his way in, okay? Okay. He said he may not. Yeah, he said he wasn't sure who was going to be here now. And I'd also like to state last month when Commissioner Whitley was not with us, that was due to an heart attack. And he just recently got out of the hospital after 28 days. And thank you for being back with us. I'm waiting for Charlie. He was sick. Are the in adjustments to the agenda? Good evening, commissioners. Pat Young with the planning department. I do have one requested adjustment which would be to move item 8a, which is a resolution honoring Commissioner Hollingsworth for a service to immediately following this item. So that would come item five. And then all the other items would move down accordingly. We can also certify for the record that all public hearing items before you tonight have been advertised in accordance with the requirements of law and their affidavit is to that effect on file with the planning department. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. And Mr. Chairman, I have a special request concerning item 6 on the agenda. This is TC 15501 because this is after we hold the public hearing on this item because it is such a long document with so many considerations. I would appreciate it if we could kind of go through that page by page and call upon commissioners to ask their questions that way rather than try to discuss everything at one time and have people flipping back and forth through the document. Okay. Okay. The other adjustments to the agenda, if not, could I get a motion that we approve the agenda as- So moved. All those in favor of the adjusted agenda, please let it be known by raising the right hand. Was there- who made the second? So the motion passes 10 to 0. So if I could have Commissioner Hollandworth. So most of you don't know, but tonight will be Commissioner Hollandworth's last night. He has better opportunities and greener pastors as well. So this is his last night with us. So because this is his last night, his resolution and appreciation for Mr. Joshua Hollandworth whereas Mr. Joshua Hollandworth with the member of the Durham Planning Commission from June 2014 through November 2015 and whereas the Durham Planning Commission and the citizens of the city and county of Durham have benefited from the dedicated efforts that he displayed while serving as a member of the Durham Planning Commission and whereas the Commission desire to express its appreciation for the public for a job well done and now therefore be it resolved by the Durham Planning Commission that this commission do hereby express its sincere appreciation for the services rendered by Mr. Hollandworth to the citizens of this community that the clerk for the commission is hereby directed to spread this resolution in its entirety upon the official minutes of this commission and this resolution is hereby presented to Mr. Hollandworth as a token of the high esteem held for him adopted the 10th day of November 2015 David Harris the chair. I've really enjoyed it. I just want to say thank you. Commissioner Bill. Mr. Chairman, I move the previous resolution. Second. It's been motion second. We move the previous resolution. All those in favor of the previous resolution that have been done by a short right hand. All those in opposition. It passes 10 to 1. 10 to 0. 10 to 0. Okay. Okay. The chair will now have open the public hearing for zoning map case Z1500020 Rose Walker. We did not, pardon me. We did not. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Excuse me, sir, before we open the public hearing, could we get a motion to approve the minutes from the last from the October meeting? Move to approve. With one small modification, I think on the under new business, we had a motion about the language that was presented by the for a statement on behalf of the coalition for affordable housing and transit. It says the Durham city county planning commission supports language presented. And I think what we were actually voted on was adding the language presented to the omnibus text amendment. And so I'd like to insert those, sort of adding and then between supports and language and then to the omnibus text amendment. Any discussion? Any other observations about the minutes? I just have one small adjustment on the members present for October 2015. It has my name under present and under absent. I was absent last month. I have two, two comments. Charlie. Mr. Chairman, my name is not under members present. I'd like it to be added as I was present. Okay. I'm clear. Okay. Charlie. I just want to make one comment about my vote. Is this mic on? Yes. Okay. I just want to make a comment about my vote. I was the only dissenting vote at, I wanted to, I just wanted to say I do support affordable housing. I guess it was one of my cockamamie notions. I wanted that to sort of stand out as sort of a marker as, you know, we have reviewed four proposed transit hubs so far. And there have been some other issues, other developments that we have, that have been talked about and we're still no further along in a solution. And I just wanted to voice my support for that. You know, affordable housing, poverty, homelessness. They're all there in together and well, I just wanted to voice my support for affordable housing. But I know I can't change my vote but I don't want to because I still want it to stand as that sort of reminder. Thank you, sir. Okay. So the motion on the floor is to approve the minutes with the corrections made. All those in favor, please let it be known by the show of right hand. It's unanimous 10 to 0. Okay. So the motion passed. Now we will open the public hearing for the Rose Walk Club Boulevard Z1500020. Mr. Chair and members of the Commission, Pat Young with the Planning Department, I wanted to introduce Kyle Taylor who's going to be presenting this item. Kyle is a recent addition to our staff. He's originally from Moorhead City, went to college at App State and was most recently planning director down in the Moore County town of Whispering Pines and we're very happy to have him with us and I just wanted to introduce him briefly before I turn the floor over to Kyle. As Pat just stated, my name is Kyle Taylor. Good evening. And I will be presenting case Z1500020, Rose Walk Club Boulevard. And to start out, the applicant for this application is Coulter Jewel Tames and this project is within the city of Durham. The request is for to move the existing zoning of residential rural 5 and residential rural 5-2 to PDR 10.8. The site acreage for the project is 5.59 and the proposed use of this project is for a future residential development. The site is located in the urban tier on West Club Boulevard between North Duke Street and Ruffin Street with frontage on West Club Boulevard and North Duke Street. The site is comprised of a total of seven parcels in an existing right-of-way and we'll get back to the existing right-of-way here in a minute. The proposed development does meet the PDR standards and has a proposed density of 10.8 dwelling units per acre. These are the existing conditions although they are a little hard to see up there. The site is heavily wooded and is vacant for the most part. The elevation does change fairly dramatically throughout the project as a whole. And there are two parcels that front on West Club Boulevard that do have houses on them and those are 708 and 710 West Club Boulevard. This is the proposed conditions for the site. As you can see the proposed conditions are two site access arrows, the location, the approximate location of tree preservation areas and the building and parking envelopes. Okay, the developer has committed to a couple different things. The intensity with the 10.8 dwelling units per acre on this site is approximately 60 residential units. There are two external site access points that he's committing to. The impervious surface of this is not in a watershed overlay district, therefore 100% of the site is allowed to be used. Tree coverage in the urban tier is 3% and the developer has joined that on his plan. The graphic commitments for this piece of property are the location of the tree preservation areas, location of general access points and building and parking envelopes. Developer has provided one text commitment and that text commitment is that the right of way for Sally Street will be legally closed before the issuance of the first preliminary or final plat and we have received an application for that. The developer has given us a set of design commitments for this property. These include architectural style, roof lines and building materials. This project does meet the, it is consistent with the future land use map which is identified as medium density residential. The plan is consistent with the comprehensive plan and other adopted policies and staff has determined that this requirement, that this request is consistent with comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances. Thank you. I have six people signed up to speak, have four people speaking in favor of the item and two people speaking against the item. The four people speaking in favor will have two and a half minutes each. The two people speaking against will have five minutes each. So the first person speaking in favor of the item is Bill Anderson unless the developer would like to go first. So let's, we'll Bob Chapman. So Bill. Are you sure? It's not going to hurt you. Bill, he's superstitious. All right. Thank you. I'm Bill Anderson of 113 West Markham. I really came not to speak so much about this particular project but to give you some general information. I want you to know that these pocket neighborhoods. Excuse me. Two and a half minutes please. Cool. I got a little extra. So why don't you know that these pocket neighborhoods I believe are a wonderful alternative to the four story apartments that you see going up all over the place. This is the way we can achieve some high density and some affordable housing parts of it. There's an amazing number of interesting components which this is why I brought a committee together at the inner neighborhood council about seven months ago by virtue of commissioners Reverend Whitley, commissioner Harris and commissioner Miller. You have three past presidents on your board of the inner neighborhood council and you have the current president in DeDriana Freeman. So I want you to know that we feel that the time taken to explore this new avenue of building in Durham was a worthwhile venture and commissioner Miller has served on that committee since its beginning and the applicant has also attended these meetings about the last half of them. So we didn't even know I had no idea that he was planning an operation or project like this. Anyway, I just wanted to come to you so that all of the commissioners were aware that there was discussion going on and while I won't be able to help you make your decision tonight I do expect that that committee will render some information to you that should make these decisions a little easier in the future. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. A little slideshow that he's going to put in as quickly as possible. Is there a button I push? I'll seek the forward key, which is that key, number eight. Okay. Thank you. My name is Bob Chapman. I'm a real estate developer. I live at 2525 Lanier Place Durham, North Carolina. I've been in Durham since 1965. I've done two projects in this area, Trinity Heights and Restoration and Redaptive Reuse of the Gear Street Foster Area for Restaurants and Mixed Use and a project in Chapel Hill called Winmore. I wanted to very quickly show you what we have in mind, am I causing that? Which is a variety of housing types and housing opportunities. We're talking about row houses between four and eight, 18 to 36 cottages, which would be smaller units, 18 to 36 single family houses. Our target would be about 27 and then eight to 12 flex units. That total is 70, which is above the 60 you just heard, because we're going to be the first project in Durham to seek the affordable housing density bonus, which would, thank you. Our goal is to have a variety of housing types and housing opportunities. I'm showing you pictures by our town architect, our planner, Lou Oliver. These are all real places. That's my son in that picture. These are in Atlanta, but they're places that face public greens and the public spaces are for interaction with neighbors for casual encounters and peaceful relaxation and the public spaces are revealed along what architect Jeff Shelton calls lines of enticement. They make you curious to follow a path through a gate or around the next bend. All in all, public spaces work when they're brought alive with active rooms, porches and steps and the whole process is about, again to quote Jeff, it's about life and it's as simple as that. Do you feel alive? Are you more fully yourself? That's it. We want to build a place that you love being in, a place that is about the scale of sociability with pocket neighborhood clusters within a village. It's about supporting children's needs and it's about community by design. If you visit the things that I've been involved with in this area, you see that we put a lot of focus on architecture, quality detailing and setting a new standard. These are all designed by Lou who will be designing this project. Continue on BLF about two minutes on the clock. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I'm going to try to back this up. I wanted to show you, we wanted to go ahead and commit to the diversity and I don't know how to back it up. There we go. We wanted to have this added to the application as a committed element that we will have this wide range of types and the types would be row houses or townhouses, cottages, single family and flex which could include or will include rental and 10 units within the affordable housing density bonus. That's pretty much it. I ran through the slides really quickly and my excitement is to set a new standard to create a place where people enjoy being, living, interacting and everybody in Durham ends up being proud of it. I want to introduce my partner in the project who is Aaron Lubeck and Aaron is an author who did this book Green Restorations. He's a co-founder of Trinity Design Build and I'll be available for questions later on. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Chair, before you recognize the speaker, I'm sorry, I just want to make sure this gets on the record before we go any further. This slide that's up right now becomes a committed element. I think the applicant alluded to that fact. We had not seen this previous to today or even earlier today. We saw it this evening along with you. We cannot independently verify that the calculation of dwelling units is consistent with the density being proposed but this is committed. So I just want to make sure that that's clear for the record. It's unusual but it does happen that 2009 changes to the development plan provisions in the UDO make graphics presented to you commitments. Thank you. And commissioners understand. Right. The shift? Good evening. I've known Bob Chapman for over 10 years. I worked with him on Duke University's infill development project which anybody you speak to who lives in that area in Trinity Heights is very, very pleased with the improvement and the quality of life crime going down. Some of the things that he's not mentioned are the Central Park School for children and he's also done successful projects in Arkansas and Florida. The land under consideration, if you've ever walked by it and I have because I delivered newsletters there, has a large gully. It's got broken appliances. It's got broken furniture. It's full of garbage. It's uncomfortable to walk by. I would have to say that safety, the environment because of that trash are detriments and living there 15 years in the Northgate Park neighborhood, I'd love to see something good done with it. Mr. Chapman also is incredibly knowledgeable. He uses people who are experts in land use, in land planning, architects. What he creates are neighborhoods and the neighborhoods are wonderful to live in. They have cultural events so neighbors know neighbors which makes for much safer places to live. And I am really excited about this project and I hope it goes forward. Thank you. Thank you. Laura? Laura? My name is Laura Lawton. I live at 829 Onslow Street in the Trinity Heights neighborhood. As you've heard, it's a wonderful place to live, Bob. I got to know him 14 years ago when my husband and I purchased a house there in 2000. The thing that he hasn't mentioned the word community yet and that is what Trinity Heights has created for me and my neighbors. There are 20 children on my block alone and there are six families that help one another take care of children, driving them, sharing butter or eggs or whatever it might be anybody needs. I've had a neighbor take me to rescue a teenager, a cousin who was staying with me. I mean we just really rely on each other. I didn't know any of these people 14 years ago and now they've become really good friends of mine and it's part of the way he's created a development. The other piece is he paid attention in the development process with Duke University when the folks that lives there, because I actually used to live on Berkeley Street, and we were concerned about the trees and the green space that existed in the full block that was developed there and they paid attention and they created two pocket parks there that we have about six events in every year. Various things. Easter egg hunts, just barbecues, we just had one closing down the street and throughout the whole neighborhood it's multi-generational, we've got grandparents, we've got children there and it's this concept of creating community in a dense way in the city and it does improve the crime. I lived on Berkeley Street earlier in the 90s and it was a very different neighborhood then so I think this can only improve Durham and I agree with the whole concept, the point that was made about the high rises that are going up. I'd like to see more of this style of development in Durham than the other. So thank you. Thank you. Abby Bartell, five minutes. Good evening, I'm Abby Bartell and I live at 1611 Ruffin Street, which is, this is my backyard. So I've always known, I've lived there for 13 years and I've always known that something would go in there, but I had always had dreams that it could be something better than what I am aware of this project. For one, one of my main concerns right now is its effect on affordable housing in Durham, which is currently a problem in our city. Yes, I did not know that they'd committed to perhaps having some affordable units, last I knew they were going to be offering studio apartments for $300,000, which if you know the Northgate Park neighborhood, $300,000, we don't have houses at that level. Houses, I live in a two bedroom, one bath house that I bought 12 years ago for $100,000. The value of it has increased as Durham has increased, but if it brought my house value up to $250,000, that's not really affordable for the citizens that currently live in our neighborhood. I also take offense to the idea that the area is crime-ridden. I've never had a crime occur. I can walk into that area. There is nothing back there but trees and deer and any occasional stray dog that the owners are searching for, but I've never had crime happen in my backyard or my front yard. My children are able to play in the street on Ruffin Street with the Latino kids across the street that they attend school with. Another concern of mine regarding this property is its effect on the elementary school district. That district is Walk Zone for Club Boulevard. Walk Zone because it is an area that has low income families. Club Boulevard currently is a perfect mix of 30, 30, 30. 30 African-American, 30% African-Americans, 30% Latino kids, 30% white kids. Most of those white children come from the Magnet Lottery with a few coming in from the Walk Zone. Additionally, this bringing in 70 units, perhaps speaking of saying they're family units, those kids would attend Club Boulevard. Club Boulevard is maxed out on space. Absolutely maxed out on space. They don't have room to put in another classroom of children. They are already serving 25, 27 kids in fifth grade classrooms. They don't have room for any more students in the Walk Zone, which would tell me that the Walk Zone would be potentially eliminated or the Magnet eliminated. I'm not sure which. And I did check with the front office who checked with the district and the district confirmed through Secretary Reddow-Wallpool that it is indeed Walk Zone for Club Boulevard. Another concern of mine is the traffic, which I didn't realize that there was another exit. I was really concerned that there'd be a significant amount of traffic increase at Duke Street and Club Boulevard. So I would hope that the other exit onto Duke Street might alleviate that. But I'd still be concerned about the amount of traffic. Duke Street gets really backed up, as does Club Boulevard. I know because I walk that twice a day with my son going to and from school. So the traffic gets really backed up on Club Boulevard and Duke Street, both. Another concern that I had is the drainage from that site. You've heard that it's a giant ravine. And it indeed is. I've walked back there before. We can only walk 15 feet from our property line before it drops off steep enough that we're not able to walk back there. So I would be concerned about how that would affect the drainage of the surrounding neighborhoods and houses. Lastly, a concern of mine is the easements. When my husband asked about the easements having just built an exterior building in our house, we had learned what the easement requirements were for the city. And we had to do a, what was it, a five foot setback for anything over eight feet and a 10 foot setback, I believe, for anything higher than that or 15 feet? I'm not sure which. But when he spoke to the developer about that, they didn't seem to realize that the houses would have to be setback that far from the property line. So I just wanted to confirm that those easements are being respected in regards to the property, especially knowing that there is a giant ravine not too far from that property line. So those are my main concerns. Just the general overall effect on the neighborhood, whether 10 units would balance out the amount, the decrease in affordable units in Northgate Park that are already currently in existence. So I hope that you'll take those concerns into consideration and I thank you for your time. Thank you, Bettina. Good evening. My name's Bettina Carpatian. My husband, George, and I live at 1620 North Duke Street. So this is literally in our backyard too, but on the other side from the previous speaker. And we are also concerned about traffic for one because since we've lived there, traffic has just continued to grow, especially with the development of the hotel. And there are regular accidents outside that stretch of Duke Street. And both my neighbors on one side, a car has gone off the road actually into the house. The same thing happened with the house on the other side of us. So traffic is one. And the other thing again is with the topography of the land, we are concerned about how close any buildings are going to be to our backyard. It's steep, there's a creek back there. And we're just very concerned about how this is going to encroach. I think both the traffic exits are going to be a problem because traffic does get bumper to bumper on Duke Street and West Club Boulevard. And if the exit is coming down onto Duke Street, almost directly onto the freeway, that seems pretty dangerous. And we have to sit there at rush hour time, sometimes for five or 10 minutes to even back out of our driveway so I can see this is just going to get worse. So it's not, I mean, the alternatives were to be for or against, we're not totally against, but we do have these concerns and I hope they'll be taken into consideration. It's nice to think that this is creating a neighborhood but there already is a very small neighborhood there. And I hope it's not going to be built over our concerns. So thank you. Thank you. Are there other members in the audience that would like to speak to this item? Are there other members in the audience that would like to speak to this item? If not, the chair will close the public hearing and bring it back before the commissioners. Do we have commissioners that would like to speak to this item? Okay. Commissioner Weiner's and commissioner, that and that. Okay. Commissioner Miller, Freeman, Bugsby, Gibbs. Okay. Commissioner Weiner's. Well, I, to start off with, let me just say that I'm extremely excited at the prospect of using the density bonus and the recommendations for Mr. Chapman were very impressive and I know that he's, I think this is going to be a great project. I'm not quite sure it's there quite yet. You know, I think it needs some more work. But to, I have a couple of questions for, yeah. First about the elevation is, well, well, now let's go with the other one first because the other question, it includes some city-owned land and I assume that the land is still owned by the city according to the, what's on the, in the materials. You know, what's on the website and everything. The city is listed as the owner on the development plan or the existing conditions or something. So I assume that not only does the street have to be closed but the property has to be acquired from the city. Is that correct? Commissioner Weiner's, Pat Young with Plain Department. To the best of my recollection, Mr. Taylor can help me if I get this wrong. The only thing that exists in the property that pertains to any city ownership interest is the unopened right-of-way of formerly Sally Street and that the applicant has committed through this proposal to close that. And when it's closed under the state law pertaining to street closures, the property would go to the applicant. So that really, as long as the street closing is approved by council, there would be no issues. And the development could not proceed unless council approves the street closing. Okay, so that is equivalent to purchasing the land, closing the street or acquiring the land, acquiring the land. It has the same outcome that the property could be used by the applicant. Okay, and another question I have was the, in the, you mentioned, you talked about the extreme elevation. Is that just a gully in the middle? Or is it slow, and is that gully gonna be filled in? And is it sort of generally sloping towards Ruffin Street? This is probably, yeah, y'all probably got that one. The gully slopes from Club Boulevard down towards I-85. And we have been working with and talking with Ellery Creek Watershed Association to make this a pilot project for best practices. It is not a jurisdictional stream at this point during a very heavy rainfall. Clearly there is water in it, but I showed a picture from Atlanta where the stream was preserved as part of the green space or the public area. And that's our idea, is that we would retain as much of that wonderful topography as public space and place for kids to play and take advantage of it. And I think the whole design really takes advantage of the topography. You, there were no, I didn't see any cars in the pictures, I don't think. Where are the cars gonna go? We're gonna do it. And what are these pictures gonna look, what are these things gonna look like from the back? We're going to have a loop around the project. And everything is gonna have a front door to the green and a back door to the lane. And the lane is a loop lane around. Similar in a way to the alleys we did at Trinity Heights, which have auxiliary dwelling units, granny flats, garage apartments on them. And so it fits and it works with the fire code. So in Trinity Heights, the streets are the boundaries rather than the backyards of the houses on the surrounding streets. What's your plan for connecting the existing neighborhood to the new neighborhood? Well, I believe you and I talked and you asked to have a fence, was that right? One of the neighbors, we want to connect. We want the neighbors to feel part of the community to the extent they want to, but if they also want to put up a wood fence, that's fine or we'll do it for them. So this density is about three, according to my calculations, about three times the density of the streets on either side because taking into account that you're figuring the density on the total area which includes the street. If you take that acre of street out of there, the density is even higher. It's 10.8 by way of comparison. Trinity Heights was eight, so it is higher than Trinity Heights. And the difference is that the lots at Trinity Heights were on average 50 feet wide by 150 feet deep or 130 feet deep in some, excuse me, 140 feet, 7,000 square foot lots. In this particular neighborhood, the public area is in common. It's a large green in front of the houses so there aren't the individual lots. And that's a difference. It's definitely walkable and compact, but we've been and shown pictures of a lot of places that are at the same density and we think they're delightful. Thank you. You used up more than my time. Not really, you had, it was one fort on the clock when Pat spoke and then when he spoke, you had about 50 seconds left. Commissioner Vice Chair. Thank you. I have two questions. I'm always very concerned when the current residents have concerns about new development and I did hear, you allude to the fact that there had been some discussion and I did also hear from the homeowners to current homeowners that they're not totally against this but so there's room for some additional discussion and I'd like to know will that take place and will there be an opportunity for some additional input? That's one question. Yes. Yes, ma'am. We've actually already held two neighborhood meetings. One was at the Club Boulevard School and the other was at one of the club houses, the Civitan Clubhouse. And we had an attendance of probably 40 to 50 people at each event and we'll continue to do that. We really want everyone to have an opportunity to see exactly what we have in mind and make suggestions. We've approached the LRB Creek Association, as I mentioned, about a model stormwater management program and we want to be completely transparent. I think it's the best way to do it and we get good ideas that way. Thank you and I do have a second question for you as well. I'm also excited about the use of the density bonus and we've been looking forward for items to come to us. My question has to do with, because there's a mix of row houses and cottages and single family then flex rental, will this be a covenant community? And if so, is your previous, the Trinity Heights, is that also, is that a covenant community? Yes, we probably are going to have to have a homeowner's association, which I guess is a CCNR, Covenants Conditions and Restrictions, I personally believe that those are often too prescriptive. I like them to be more flexible and where people don't call a special meeting because somebody's cat was sitting in the window and that kind of thing. And so I think the ones at Trinity Heights have worked out very well. They haven't been onerous and I'm sorry, there's another part of your question. No, that was the other part of it, whether or not and whether the previous, you've had some success with other communities and the question was whether or not these were covenant communities. Winmore and Chapel Hill, which is on High School Road is 214 units. We actually had a very complete architectural review board about a 40 or 50 page CCNR's document and that's worked out very well. And by the way, Winmore is the only community in the Chapel Hill area that had inclusionary low income housing tax credit apartments and you cannot tell which ones they are. And we also had the carburetor small unit ordinance that was complied with and that's the reason we're calling these cottages but it's affordability by size. Just as by measure of comparison at Trinity Heights, the one bedroom efficiencies, we actually sold those for $35,000 and I'm not sure if I led somebody to think that it was a $300,000 price on that. I must have either done my math wrong or something but I don't think that is something we've considered at all or would be supported by the market. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Villa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question or two for staff. Right now is cottage a defined term or a housing type contemplated by the UDA? Commissioner Miller Pat Young with Planting Department. It is not, flex rental isn't either so since this is a commitment, we're gonna have to work with the applicant to ensure that those are adequately defined by the time this goes to council. All right, or more descriptive terms contemplated by the UDA were used instead and I'm sorry I sound like I'm- Well, it'll have to be these precise terms since it's committed in front of this body unless they wanna go back to Planning Commission but those will have to be further defined in order for us to be able to characterize fully for council what that does mean because they don't have any definition or meaning to us. Right, thanks. And then for Mr. Chapman or for Mr, well for Mr. Chapman. Yes, sir. So, Bob, you and I've talked about this kind of development and this particular development and I like the concept that you showed us in your several slides and am interested in seeing you implemented here in Durham but I have to tell you I don't like your development plan even though I do like it better now that you've included a unit mix and I trust that you'll be able to work out something to make the staff a little bit happier about it as it moves forward if it moves forward. When we, you and I spoke, I was very, very concerned about buffering this development from the potential noise and view problem proposed by the 85 right of the way and wanted to see something in your development plan some sort of commitment to shield the resonance of your development from that view and maybe even from the noise if you can do it. Have you got, is there something you can put in the development plan to improve that? We've talked to Dan Jewel and he believes that if we have a problem and we're not actually adjacent to the interstate, we're adjacent to the access lane and then there's a cloverleaf lane and then there's a hill. You're next to the ramp. Next to the ramp and I've been on the property and have not been annoyed by the sound. It may be a problem and Dan believes that we can use a dense evergreen vegetative buffer that he has done at a soccer complex in Cary, I believe it was, in Raleigh that was very effective. I think I'd rather do that than build the brick wall. The brick wall to me, in any way, I prefer to have green and so we will definitely do what it takes to make sure that nobody doesn't wanna live there because of the sound. The biggest issue is big trucks that pull their Jake Breaks but I'm not hearing that as much as we used to and then motorcycles that impacts, that scream in the middle of the night and both those things I think we can focus on and through the vegetative dense buffer. So my question really is then, would you be willing to put something in your development plan committing to some sort of buffer to at least take care of the ugliness of the view realizing that coping with the sound effectively with anything other than a wall might be not possible? Yes, we'd absolutely be happy to do a vegetative buffer that is designed to be dense enough to have a good effect on sound mitigation also but we don't know exactly how big a problem we have now and so the question is, we talked about this at length yesterday, how do we know what the answer is and we don't wanna commit to the wrong answer in advance so. I realize that but I think you can make a commitment that is broad enough within the terminology used by the UDO in terms of density or an or opacity of a vegetative buffer that would pass muster and I would really like to see that in there. I would hate to have you build this and then have your residents afterwards complaining. You saw this as setting a standard if we're going to set a standard here and I hope that we will. I hope we set a high one so that the people who come later will say, this is an idea we like or not, that's the one where nobody wanted to buy it because it was slammed up against the interstate. So that's what I'm looking for. Can I refer this to Dan? Absolutely. He's the landscape architect. Good conversation, Dan Jewel with Culture Jewel Tams. Good conversation and yes, I think we can craft an evergreen buffer density that's somewhat higher than the prescriptive ones and if you're familiar with the Durham Ordinance, it has different prescriptions of opacity and the one that Bob referred to that we did about 10 years ago, you drive by there. Now you can't see what's going on on the other side. You can't hear what's going on the other side but we could work with staff and come up with a total evergreen buffer. It would be largely evergreen trees and wax myrtles and things like that, maybe even some birming. We could commit to that because certainly we're gonna be moving a little bit dirt around but we can commit to something that's of a higher opacity than even required by the Durham, current required by the UDO and we're happy to commit to that. So maybe that would be the language to commit to a tight evergreen buffer that is in excess of the current UDO requirements for a landscape buffer. All right, thank you and then one last question if I may, Mr. Chairman. Yes. For Mr. Chapman. The most attractive thing about this type of development and you showed it in your several slides to us was this notion of common green space. Rather than giving every house a front yard and a backyard, we might move the houses a little bit closer but give them shared one or two shared common areas and we don't have a commitment to that even though I know in your heart that's what you want to build. What I'd like to do is if we're going to allow 60 or even 70 units in so small a space and in this neighborhood, I would like to see some sort of commitment for that common green space and I was wondering if you could construct that a committed element for that in this development plan that would still give you the flexibility that you need in order to build the development. I'm not looking for a footprint or anything like that. If you don't mind, I'm going to stand to answer that because we've got so much experience tonight. Bob, man, I'd like my answer but I'll give you an answer. Yes, the concept of the plan all along is Bob brought to us over a year ago and I don't think it'd be a stretch to commit to say that the houses, the majority of the houses, the majority of the units, not all of them because there'll be some periphery corners and we would like to do a few things out at Club Boulevard to set an edge and a precedent and make it a comfortable thing to walk by but I think we could commit to a majority of the houses to be oriented around a common green space of some kind. Would you be willing to craft some sort of committed element though for this development plan going forward that would describe that with sufficient flexibility though for you to accomplish your development? Yes, I mean, I guess is there a suggestion for something beyond what I've stated that a majority of the units would be oriented to a common green space? No, no, I like what you stated, I was just wondering, are you willing to make it a commitment to develop? Yes, yes, thank you. I'm dim tonight, up late in Chapel Hill last night. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Pat. Mr. Chair, members of the commission, as you're probably aware, we've talked about this recently, the planning director has a guidelines that he's asked us to adhere to strictly as possible which is not to accept commitments or not recommend acceptance of commitments that we have not reviewed or vetted in any way, shape or form, which is the case with everything so far tonight. What's before you here is problematic because it lacks definition, but we're willing to accept it. I would need the applicant to restate anything that was just committed there previously in a way that we can ensure that we have explicit language and try to make a determination about whether it's something we can accept or whether we would request a continuance of this item to review these unless you all want to stipulate that these are things that are made subsequently to counsel which then they wouldn't be binding with your action. That's at your discretion, but we would need one of those things to happen. As a point of information, because this is in the urban tier, it's adjacent to residential, it's residential to residential, there's no UDL required project boundary buffer. So again, the buffer, I would need to be sure I understand the precise location and the standard above ordinance minimum means one tree, just legally. And then I didn't even hear the last one, so help me, I guess I'm just addressed primarily at the applicant, but you all have the discretion to decide how you want to handle this. Dan, you have language. Yes, to the one about the buffer. Mr. Young, would it be appropriate to say that along the Northern Interstate 85 right-of-way frontage of the property, we will install a continuous, tight evergreen screen consisting of a combination of evergreen trees and shrubs that would achieve a 90% opacity within 10 years of the time of planting. It does take time for plants to grow up, and I think we can achieve that. So is that an appropriate language for a committed element? And of course, you'll have to rely on a landscape architect to tell you how fast those trees will grow, but I know you have a few on your staff. And will the trees grow by themselves, or will they need some guidance? Commissioner. I'm not willing to recommend that that be accepted without further review by staff. You all have the discretion to accept it, but it's not something, I don't know if that's, and Mr. Joule, I respect greatly as a landscape architect, but I have no idea about what the word tight means. I don't know what the viability of trees at that opacity are. There's just a level of due diligence that seems warranted before we recommend you accept it. You can still accept it, or you can ask that this be handled with staff prior to council's consideration. Again, that's at your discretion. Commissioner Miller. But were we to ask for a 60-day delay? You would have time to vet these proposed committed elements to your satisfaction. We will review the committed elements that are sent to us by the applicant. If there's no action taken, we're gonna rely on the applicant to send those to us. We will certainly review those and provide feedback to the applicant pursuant to the departmental standards, which again is only several days in advance of each hearing. If I could, in lieu of a deferral, I would like to offer some alternate language, which perhaps is more in keeping with defensibility of the UDO. You're right, tight is a subjective term. That we will provide a evergreen buffer that has 25% more plant material than the most intense buffer shown in the UDO. So you just said the most intense. I think that's a fairly prescriptive staff. I don't know if that's practical. If you all wanna accept it, you can accept it. But it's not been reviewed or vented by staff. Let me just ask commissioners, anyone have a problem with the developer working with staff between now and the time they presented to city council to work out the committed elements? Okay, the second one was about the common area, shared common area. The shared common area. So let me give that one a better description as well, although this is something that's not in the UDO at all. So we're making this out of whole cloth and I expect we'll get the same concerns over staff. And that is that a majority of the single family units will be oriented in a looped configuration around a common green space. Now, there's a lot of subjectivity to looped to common green space, that sort of thing. But perhaps in the same spirit, we could work with staff on a language that is satisfactory to them as being defensible and enforceable. I think that's what it comes down to. Okay, do we have any commissioners that would have any objections to the developer and staff working together to come up with language for the second committed element? They recommend. I just want to say, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the developer's openness and willingness to include these and I'm certainly satisfied. And I believe that they will come up with the best language that they can between now and the time this goes to the council. Commissioner Freyman. I first wanted to mention that. I felt like I should apologize for being late this evening. I was running late for work, but I kind of have to eat my words and that I didn't think that the density bonus would be used and I'm excited that it is at this point and I'm okay with that. It's easy to support this development and that it's working towards a community by design and that, including a density bonus, I really wanted to ask staff how you would even address the concerns of the homeowner around school walkability? Like that kind of threw me so I didn't know if there was something that we could say or do that would. Commissioner Freyman, Pat Young with Planning Department. The analysis we provided you in your staff report is what we were asked to do some 10 years ago with the comprehensive plan, which is look at the capacity of the school relative to the entire during public school system. And that's what we provided and what the report shows is that there is capacity. The school system was very adamant. At the time we developed that policy that we not look at it in a school by school basis because they have obviously flexibility to as one of the opponents spoke to to make administrative changes about how they assign do school assignments. So all we could really say is that it meets our policy regarding overall capacity to the system and we don't have any additional information about magnet status or change or we don't have any information in that regard. And I would offer that to the resident that brought that concern I will be willing to work with you on any school board, you know, like making sure that your walk walk zone was not changed or anything. I mean, I can understand that concern is what I'm getting at. So just want to make sure that you know that. And then also for the other residents concerned about I couldn't quite understand if you were saying there was a drop off behind your house. Lisa, if you're going to talk, please go to the microphone. There is a, this is being televised. So the public need to be able to hear what you're saying. Yeah, our house, we're 1620 North Duke Street and our back garden goes down to the bottom of the ravine as it's been described. Thank you. Commissioner. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, Mr. Chapman and your team, I commend you as well for moving forward with using the affordable housing bonus. I think that's very exciting for Durham. I had first a question for staff. I was confused when I looked at the school impact information and I agree with Commissioner Hyman whenever their neighborhood concerns raised, I want to understand those in the staff report on page 10, it says that this development would serve the Glen Elementary School and it is within the walk zone for Club Boulevard. So number one, I just wanted to make sure we had clarity around that specific point. And then I was also interested in getting a sense of would there be additional impacts to the elementary school by going from 60 units to 70 units? Commissioner Busby, Pat Young with the Planning Department. As you're probably aware, the walk zone is kind of an option, a guaranteed option where the walk zone exists. I believe what's represented here, Green Brogdon and Riverside are the base assignment districts to the best of my knowledge. So that's why that was, and could you repeat your second question? And just then wondering about any, this is speculative, but this was based on 60 units, correct? And what might the change be moving to 70 units? We would have to evaluate that. As I mentioned earlier, this was the first we heard of the potential utilization of the affordable housing density bonus that would change again, both the assumptions and the total number of units. So we would have to calculate that. I just don't have those at the ready. It would, to be in all fairness, the applicant, it would be pretty modest in additional 10 units, probably a fraction per one student per level. Great, thank you. And then I did have a question for Mr. Chapman as well. I know you talked about the design of the traffic within the development site itself. Could you talk about the development, or the traffic when the development meets Club Boulevard? And I ask because I know that intersection can get quite busy. I'm having a hard time imagining anyone being able to make a left turn out of that development onto Club and heading east during rush hour. There is a city street across, there is an intersection where our entry street is, what is the name of the street? Woodland Street is directly across the street. And those individuals do make a left turn to Club. Clearly we're gonna design it so that the traffic and transportation department in Durham is happy and we'll have to do what they recommend. Is that I answer your question? We have not gotten that far yet. Brain, okay. Thank you, sir. Commissioner Gibbs. Just a couple of comments, the affordable units notwithstanding, it's good to see that coming. And I guess this sort of goes along with my comments earlier about my vote last meeting. This is one of the ways that we can accomplish affordable housing and that is by the cooperation and the contributing this without prodding from anybody. And I appreciate that. I have been waiting for this kind of design. It's one way to achieve, and I was talking about the common green space. It's one way to achieve density and without the shotgun design and have green space. I really liked your proposal. Green space, I really liked your presentation on some prior developments. And I think this concept is something, well it's something, it's one of my favorite design concepts and it can be applied not only in the city, but in the county, because I think in the future we are going to have more and more compact designs, compact communities, I may be misusing some of the terms that I'll say, but I don't know another term for it right now. But having said all of that, I do have concerns with what the residents have brought up and we've been there before, well at least I have in a couple of developments. I've contacted the school system. Does the school system ever weigh in on this? I'd like this, or at some point in the process, will they weigh in about what, well you never know how many kids are gonna be living there for one thing, but how it's going to possibly impact Club Boulevard and I can understand the concern of being within walking distance of Club Boulevard and having to be bused towards Glenn School. Anyway, that and the seemingly excessive slope, I still don't know how that's going to be handled and that's something I guess could be done as part of carrying this forward for the city council to, as you were suggesting earlier, Mr. Chairman, but those are my concerns and thank you. Thank you. I just had one question. In Previous Surface area, 100%, this is in the Ellaby Creek watershed, which is a tributary to the Upper Neuse River basin. Is that an accurate statement? Mr. Chair, Pat Young with Planning Department. What I believe to be the case is that this part of the community is not within a protected water supply watershed, which is the regulation that puts limitations on maximum Previous Surface. There still, of course, would be requirements to treat stormwater for quality and quantity, but there's not an explicit limitation on Previous Surface, so the applicant is within their rights for requesting up to 100% in Previous. Any other questions or comments, concerns? If not, the Chair will now entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman, if I may, I'd like to make a motion. You may. Mr. Chairman, with regard to Case Z1500020, the Rosewalk development proposed by these developers, I move that the Durham Planning Commission send this forward to the Durham City Council with a favorable recommendation, provided that the development plan contain committed elements, satisfactory to the staff, that include the chart and diversity of housing opportunities that the developers presented to us today, and a committed element concerning noise and view mitigation along the development's boundary with I-85, similar to the commitments made by the land use planner for the developer, and that the last committed element that we would add would be that the development include shared common green space with access to the percentage of units described by the developer's land planner, and that, anyway, that's the end of my motion. Thank you. Second. The motion by Commissioner Miller, second by Commissioner Freeman. We will hear a rare roll call as we vote. Mr. Busby. Aye. Mr. Gosh. In favor. Mr. Gibbs. Aye. Ms. Hammond. Aye. Ms. Freeman. Aye. Mr. Harris. Aye. Mr. Hollingsworth. Aye. Mr. Miller. Aye. Mr. Raleigh. Aye. Mr. Whitley. Aye. Ms. Wonders. Aye. 11 to 0 carries. All right, so the motion passes. Thank you very, very much. The chair has been asked, and we'll grant a five minute recess. If we can come back to order please. The commission is back. Do we have eight of us here? We got seven, right? I know. She went to get a direct award. He went to the bathroom. No, it's right there. It's not locked, right? No, it's not locked. I'm waiting for one more commission to get back. Yeah, I need one more for us to have eight. Yeah, we're going to be waiting on two more when you leave. All right, we have eight. So we're going to reconvene our meeting and open the public hearing for TC-15 quadruple 01, Upton Bus UDL amendments. Good evening. I'm Scott Whiteman from the Planning Department. I'm attempting to play the role of Michael Stock this evening. Attempt? Attempt. I admit it's solely an attempt. This is case TC-1501, omnibus changes nine. This is what's a usually annual collection of minor changes to the UDO. In this particular batch, we have five general categories of changes. One is to change the name of the former division of water quality with the state. The second is to revise the procedures for the historic preservation commission and the initiation of historic districts. Third is necessary corrections and clarifications to provisions of the UDO. Fourth are amendments reflecting minor changes in policy. And fifth are changes indicated by the elected officials during the approval of the WCF text amendment. As you're aware, we provided you this last month so that we could give you about 30 days to peruse all 49 pages. So I hope you've had a chance to do that. And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. Okay. I have no one signed up to speak. Are there any members in the audience that would like to speak to this item? Hearing none. I close the public hearing and bring it back before the commissioners. Do I have commissioners wishing to speak? Do I have commissioners wishing to speak? Yes. Commissioner Miller. Mr. Chairman, I have a number of comments on the, as we go work through this. Do you want me to just deal with each of my comments? Or do you want me to, do you want to kind of go item by item? No, we'll deal with your comments. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And these are questions for staff. My first concern is the one I raised briefly during our meeting last time. And this has to do with the proposed change to initiating historic district. This is contained on page four of the attachment A. So under the existing ordinance, there are two ways that historic district can be initiated. It can be initiated by petition of the owners of 25% of the proposed district. Or it can be initiated on the motion of the appropriate elected body, the city council, or the board of county commissioners. Is that not correct? And what we're proposing then to do is to say that when we have a petition initiated district, that we're going to send that to the appropriate governing body to decide whether or not to move forward with the district initiation. And I have a problem with that. Right now, and this is the problem, I don't think it's, I would rather just do away with petition initiated districts. And this is why. I mean today, any citizen can go to the city council or the board of county commissioners and ask them to exercise their discretionary authority anywhere. And if any one person can go and ask for the city council to start a historic district, why would we have a provision in the code that said it would take a petition of the owners of 25% of the property if one person can do it and has a constitutional right to make that request. I think it would be better to do away with that whole thing. And I understand why the staff doesn't like it. It's legal today because it compels the city to act. The city has to do certain things. You have to prepare a preservation plan before you get to the elected body to decide whether or not to create the district. And this, of course, allows citizens to essentially orient staff resources in a way that doesn't involve elected body review. And it's probably unsatisfactory for that reason. There's been some friction about that with regard to the Golden Belt application, and I've made kind of a stink about that. But I also understand the issue. And as we move forward then, what I recommend is that we do away with that petition initiated way of starting a historic district. I wonder why we don't do what some other communities do and make sense. A historic district is a zoning overlay. It's just make it like any other zoning and say that an applicant who jumps through the necessary hoops can bring forward a request to create historic district. And what I have in mind is we're simplifying the preservation plan by moving a lot of its contents into a set body of review criteria. It seems to me that we're creating a situation where an applicant might be able to create a whole application for a district including a proposed preservation plan. I mean, normally the contents of those plans are prepared by private consultants, a large body of the data at any rate. It wouldn't be that big a deal to add the other things as long as we had a clear list of what was minimally required in a preservation plan. We could do that or we could just make them all city initiated and let the people who want the district actually just to appear in front of council and say, start this is what we have in mind and then the council can decide to direct staff. We like this idea go work on it because that's essentially what we're proposing here. Now, I don't want to offer any disrespect to the historic preservation commission and would not oppose an intermediate step where any citizen proposal like that go to the historic preservation commission to get their advice to the elected body. And I think that's what you've got built into this too. I guess what I'm objecting to is what I think is the kind of pretended requirement of this 25% petition when really under the law it's not required today. It's legal only because it compels and once we take the compulsion away then we might as well wipe the whole thing clean. So that's my comment on that. Mr. Chairman, I have a lot of comments. Do you want to ask? I don't want to monopolize the microphone. We can go bit by bit. Okay. Do you want to respond? Sarah Young with the planning department. We're certainly take those comments back and discuss them internally and see if there's an alternate approach that could be proposed. We were trying to minimize the amount of changes to the section while still as you said ensure that there is some consideration of resource allocation and the availability to do such a massive project which has been what's been pulling us up. So that was the reason behind but we're happy to take your comments and take another look. I just don't see a reason not to eliminate the witch's broomstick quality of the 25% petition when it's really not required. Okay. Commissioner Frayn. I'm coming back. So I just had a specific question on the historic districts since that's where we're starting. Are there any others outside of Golden Belt? Sarah Young again with the planning department. Yes. There is a pending expansion of the Holloway Street local historic district came in at the same time Golden Belt did. Yeah. And then also I just want to make sure that they're that these are we coming back to the compact neighborhood. Yeah, we haven't gotten to the compact neighborhood yet. Okay. Commissioner Whitley. Yes, I'm a little confused. How did the petition get in the 25% where did it come from? To be honest, I do not know for certain that is a provision that has been in the ordinance as long as I've been here, which has been 15 years. So I assume that it was drafted originally when that was put into the ordinance when the program started over 25 years ago, but I don't know for certain. Now, do you know when it became palatable not to have the 25% and go straight to council? I don't know that I can address that question. I don't know that it necessarily is palatable. That is a suggestion that was brought before us tonight. What this text amendment was proposing to do was to add a middle step where when we get a petition, we take it first to city council to kind of get their blessing and get them to. Direct and be able to address any issues of resource allocation before we kind of put it on the docket and try and spend time and rearrange priorities to try and deal with these massive projects. So the proposal did not eliminate the petition requirement. It added an extra kind of prioritization step. Yeah, that's the part I like. You know, I think if someone or a group of someone wants to change my neighborhood, then I think they ought to have, it should be knowledge by some percentage of people living there. And the broader the knowledge of it seems to me gives weight to whether it should be approved or disapproved. One person going to change my neighborhood doesn't strike me as being, this is not how democracy both work. You know, we certainly don't elect people by one person saying approve this, you know, is done by a majority. And I think keeping democracy in the works makes it palatable for everybody. The more people that are informed, the better the decision. So my comment to this is how do we get this petition to have merit if it can be, if someone can go without it. And does that mean we need to write something into the text that would eliminate the ability of one person going to usurp the power of a whole neighborhood? Thank you. We're not going to go back and forth on an issue. If you got a comment, you make a comment, but we're not going to have you responding to each other's comment. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, why not? Because I'm not going to allow it. We'll be here all night if I allow that. So would the staff like to respond to what Commissioner Whitley said? Sure. I think the only thing that I said earlier is that we would be willing to explore another alternative. Again, that has not been vetted. We haven't had a chance to look at that. Our proposal was to keep it, but to add that extra step to help deal with resource allocation issues. To be honest, we as staff even looked at increasing the percentage to make it so that potentially you had more buy-in from the community that it was going to affect. We did not even land there, but just for your knowledge, that is one of the options that we looked at. Thank you. So we are happy to take your comments and go back and consider them. Okay. Just in response to that, I just had a question regarding, so the local historic districts, are they reviewed outside of national historic districts? Or do they normally have to fall under a national or just... So national and local can be completely separate. They can overlap. They actually don't have anything to do with one another. We do have several places where they overlap. We have local districts in the same roughly areas where we have national register, but they're not codependent in any way. And then just to respond to the 25%, I know we submitted from the Golden Belt neighborhood about 100% or maybe 85%. So I don't think the percentage is the issue, but it is an issue that with the 25%, we still haven't been able to have resource and allocation through the petition process for there to be movement on an approved local historic district. So I'm not sure that this is addressed. And I think that might be where Mr. Miller or Commissioner Miller is coming from in that. I don't think that addresses the issue. So I hear Commissioner Whitley, but I want to make sure that we are getting to that point of making sure that the resources are allocated and that planning staff has enough to move forward with this. Okay. You had another point to make. I mean, but you had another issue. Yes. And Mr. Chairman, if I can direct everybody's attention to page seven. And this is 3.16.4 e one. It says a legal meets and bounds description. It seems to me a meets and bounds description might be. I mean, that's a that's one legal description that would be okay. But what if it was just like a plat reference that's also adequate to convey. In a deed, you don't have to have a meets and bounds description. Seems to me that that that requires somebody to go out and survey when you might have the description already prepared in a deed. Yeah, the reason why we're adding this is because we've had issues where a stroke landmark was designated based on the property and then recombinations have happened. And we have no. What's that new plat is recorded we do. Because there's a tax credit associated with it. We need an exact location. Right. You can get an exact location with a. I mean, today, the majority of residential properties are sold without a meets and bounds description. There's a description that says this is lot 12 block six in the such and such plat filed a certain date. That's all that's ever going. That's a legal description. It just seems to me meets and bounds is is too restrictive under current conveyancing laws and rules. It's a just a legal description would be enough as long as it's as long as it's a legal description sufficient to convey the property. It seems to me meets and bounds is too limited. That is a good point. We'll look into that. Perhaps just referencing a legal description, which is not currently required is would be sufficient. Mr Chairman, if I can ask people to go also on page seven and part three at the bottom concerning incorporating documents by reference into the ordinance under the laws. I understand it. The city can endure incorporate into its ordinances a document like a manual or something else. But it cannot incorporate future changes. So if you incorporate a manual into the or provision from another document into your ordinances, it's the version that it prevails at the time of the incorporation at the time that the ordinance adopting. The incorporation goes into effect. If the body that creates the manual like the certified board of such and such changes the manual two years later. Those changes don't become part of the ordinance under North Carolina law. You have to go back and re adopt. Now the North Carolina General Assembly has in certain cases by statute given certain agencies the authority to adopt future changes. But without an express statute granting the city the ability to adopt future changes by reference. I don't think we can do it now. I also admit that I have not searched chapter 160 a or chapter 153 a to find out whether or not such an ordinance exists. I mean such a statute exists if it does then I withdraw my objection. I'm concerned here that what it does. I mean the way the laws that are written the courts have held that without express authority. It's a violation of due process because it delegates into a body that's not answerable to the people the ability to change the law that governs the lives of the people. So I would ask that we look at that before we move forward. I know it's it's convenient. But I don't think it's lawful. And if I may Mr. Chairman ask everyone to go to page 10. And this is the neighborhood meeting notice. And I see here that what we propose to do is if I understand it under the current ordinance when a neighborhood meeting is required for certain developments that neighbors within a thousand feet get notice and invited to that meeting. We're proposing to reduce that notice radius to 600 feet in certain cases. And am I guessing right. And that's because we want this notice radius to correspond to the notice radius for that would exist for a zone change. So that you don't have a group of people that might be invited for the neighborhood meeting and not invited to the plan to the hearing in front of the planning commission. Yeah that's exactly right. This is intended so that the neighborhood meeting notice requirements match exactly the legal notification requirements for the type of case. And if and while we're talking about these neighborhood meetings. A lot of us in the last month or so I mean year or so have have learned about rezoning from emails submitted to us by citizens who have attended one of these meetings. Sometimes I feel like I'm caught short when they ask questions or or want us to respond in some way when it's the first notice that I've had of any neighborhood meeting. I'm not suggesting that we get any kind of advance notice or anything like that. But I listen to what the citizens say happens in these meetings. And I wonder whether or not we in our ordinance have told people what we expect to happen in these meetings. Some of them seem to be very good and others seem to be filled with all kinds of crazy things. And it seems to they seem to be the source of a lot of public dissatisfaction. At some point in time I would like for us to look at at the neighborhood meetings and whether or not we're getting out of them. Everything that we hoped we would when we created them back in 2006. I'm not against them. I'm just I think it's maybe we now have enough experience under our belt to evaluate whether or not the program we have is the best one we could have. And Mr. Chairman if you could we can go to three point two point five a one. I didn't write down with page that page this is all page 10. Do I understand this correctly that this is just putting in a table information that's currently in the in the ordinance and that this table isn't creating any new requirements with the exception of the major and minors. That is correct. And it's also the the Board of Adjustment Statute that was approved a few years ago by the General Assembly explicitly added a posting requirement for appeals. So we're changing that. And what we're what we're doing is we're taking away the distinction between major and minor COAs for notice purposes and treating them identically. That's correct. Thank you very much. In five point three point three. I'm sorry to comment on that one. No, the the neighborhood meeting. I think that's a good idea, Tom. And I think we probably ought to have some kind of subcommittee to work on that. I would hate to just dropped it just for that to just come in and get lost somewhere. Commissioner Whitley, we're not dropping it. Staff is going to take all of these combat comments and massage them talk about them and bring them back to us. And this in any kind of review and reconsideration of the neighborhood meeting proposal has to find its place in the current work plan. And I don't want to jump ahead or anything like that. I don't I'm not considering it a crisis. And just we are seeing I am seen as a planning commission member how they're working, but I have to admit I've only attended one myself. Otherwise, I always find out about them after they've happened. So I personally do not feel like I'm in a position to say, OK, this is what needs to be done. Yeah, I do think that some that we need to we need to look at what's happening as the staff and put it in the work plan at some point. But I don't think we're I don't think we will be allowed to forget it because I think that the citizens will keep it ever in ever in our minds. On page 17, there is a provision that says setbacks allowed per section 6.9 residential development in non, excuse me, non residential development in residential districts. And then when I go to 6.9, we don't actually use the term setbacks. We use there's a table there and we talk about street yards and and side yards and those kinds of things. We talk about yards but not setbacks. Do we need to reconcile the the language that we use or if I completely misunderstood what's being accomplished? That's a good point. We are kind of conflating to similar terms. So we'll definitely clarify that. Thank you. And then on 18 on page 18, accessory structures. Why are we taking out the minimum 400 square feet in area provision? It seems to me 400 square feet is an area of 20 feet by 20 feet. So it is about that area right in front of us between the dice and the front row of chairs is about 600 square feet. And we're talking about allowing a dwelling unit to be smaller than two thirds of that space. 20 feet is seven steps. We propose removing that because it's redundant with the building code, which because the building code or and do is there a similar provision in the housing code? Because that was one of my questions. I can remember back when I was on the housing appeals board, there was a minimum. So it's just not necessary to have it there. It doesn't change the requirement. Thank you. I'm satisfied. And Mr. Chairman at any time if another member of the commission has something they want to talk about, they should jump in. We'll be here all night anyway. I warned you. So on page 22, 6.3.3d. Can you explain to me what this change actually does? So we've run into this conflicting provision where an existing platted lot say in a RS eight district meets all the legal requirements for a single family residence, but it does not meet the density requirements that are shown in the table. And so give me an example. So a better example would be a in an RU five to district. We have minimum lot sizes for duplexes in section in article seven. However, if you have a lot that meets that minimum lot size for duplex, it doesn't meet the density requirements in here in this table. In what way? Like I said, give me an example. I've got a lot that it's an RU five to lot. So in the urban tier, that's a neat 7,000 square feet in order to build a duplex. Right. But the density requirement would actually require a lot of, I can't remember the exact number, but it's well over 7,000 square feet. Something bigger. Something bigger. So we're having, we have this conflicting provision where we have minimum lot size for a housing type, but then a density limit here. And our, we, the intent was that when you're doing a density requirement, you're talking about a density limit. Yes. And so the intent of this is for new development, which would require a subdivision approval or a site plan approval. So this clarifies that if it's an existing plated lot, then the density limits do not apply. It would just be the lot size requirements in article seven. But if you need to do a preliminary plan or a site plan, then you would have to meet the density requirements as well as the lot size requirements. Thank you. I could not just reading this, figure out what we were talking about. I apologize. On page 24, there's a height table that's a brand new table. Does this table create new provisions or does it take old provisions and just make a table out of them? Yeah, it just reorganizes things because it was hard to administer the way it was before. So there's no new requirements. It's just putting it in a table. It's ease of use. Yes. Thank you. On page 38, see how many pages I skipped that time. It was probably getting tired. So what is the practical effect of the proposed change? 3.4, 0.11, A and B, this sending things to the JCCPC. If somebody proposes a text amendment to the comprehensive plan, it's my understanding that these are all going during the course of the year. We're going to gather these together and have one big meeting where we talk about them. Yeah, so this was an issue that we had never actually had to deal with until the recent Research Triangle Park amendments. And it definitely highlighted the issue that the future land use map is very property specific and is very similar to zoning map change. So the procedures for that seem relatively sufficient. However, if you change a broad policy that's intended to affect the whole county, there should be a higher level of input and scrutiny to that. And so this is intended to provide that higher level of input and scrutiny. Do we get a lot of these proposed text changes that come from the private community? Since the complaint was adopted in 2005, we've gotten one. So the likelihood that such a provision is going to cause some outcry in the development community is small in our experience. And hopefully, honestly, this will make that even less likely to happen. And so what their review criteria and then it talks about shall be considered for appropriateness and priority. What does that mean? Does this mean that the JCCPC becomes some sort of planning agency that can deny one of these things being considered by the elected board, the city or the county? I don't know what considered for appropriateness. If the JCCPC says we don't think this is appropriate, is the application for that change over? Or does it go on to the city council with the JCCPC's negative recommendation? We intended that to be like the text amendments are currently treated where they're brought to the JCCPC before they're brought forward through the regular process. And the JCCPC can bless it, send it forward. But of course, if someone pays their fee and... But they can't kill it. Can't kill it. On page 48 concerning section 14.2.6, the single-family use exemption. Again, help me understand what this means with a real-life example or one that's plausible from your own invention. So we actually have quite a few subdivisions that were developed under the zoning ordinance, which allowed single-family residential and a lot of our non-residential districts like the OI district and the CG district, particularly the OI district, which the UDO does not. And in those rather large subdivisions, they're all now technically non-conforming structures. And so if you want to put in a shed or something like that, then you're limited by the non-conforming provisions. If I owned a lot that was in a single-family subdivision that was created under the old ordinance in an OI one or whatever it was, we used to have two OI. And I hadn't built on it, but now wanted to, what would I have to do today? If you hadn't built on it, you would have to meet all current requirements. But if you had a single-family house in place by January 1, 2006, and you'd be granted all the rights that a conforming single-family structure would have. Right, but if I hadn't built, I probably wouldn't be able to build, would I? You might have to build a very teeny office. Okay. Interesting. Thank you. Yes. Commissioner Whitley. I guess my question with this sidewalks, when reading this, I was looking for where to... Let us know where you are. 47 and 48. We have a problem where we don't prioritize sidewalks where they're needed the most. Case in point, we have children walking in the street. They get off school buses. There's no sidewalk, you know? And seem to me that should have a priority. And where would that fall if you're going to language change here? So, Commissioner Whitley, these provisions only apply for what's required for new development. So, for example, if you're building a new commercial building, you would be required to build sidewalk on the frontage of your property, which is a, this is a land use regulation aspect of sidewalks. I think what you're talking about is the city construction of sidewalks in places that were, it was built before sidewalks were required, which is a funding issue, which is well above my pay grade. Commissioner Freeman. Just in reference to the sidewalks while we're on it. What's the current complete street sidewalk size? I know it's not our... It's in most years, not the compact or downtown, it's five feet, which is the ADA requirement. Okay. Any other comments? Mr. Chairman, that was all I had under this section. Any yet? Then... I'm disappointed, Commissioner Miller. I said I'm disappointed. Commissioner Gibbs. My question has to do with... and since I just ran across this handicapped accessible parking, that has to do with transportation. I know we have, there is a policy, I think there's a policy for shelters being provided at all bus stops and that they'd be handicapped accessible and that sort of thing. Is that something that's been included in some way in this UDO somewhere, somehow, other than just by reference to the ADA and I'm sorry I haven't looked into it any deeper then. So any new construction, whether it's a bus shelter or a building, would have to meet all ADA requirements. Right. And the ordinance doesn't generally require bus shelters at all bus stops. We do in certain cases where we believe there's a rational nexus for that and I can't remember what page it's on, but we do clarify the requirements for that in the mixed-use zoning district in these changes. Yeah, and I spoke to some of the staff several years ago about this particular issue. It's something that has come up many times from people that live, the elderly people that live in certain buildings and different parts of the city that is served by bus route and it's something that I wish it somehow could be codified as a requirement because it's, and that's just my recommendation. So that's all I have right now. It's certainly valid, but definitely beyond the scope of this particular change. Okay. All right, thank you. Additional comments? Commissioner Freeman? So I just want to make sure I take the opportunity as well to thank you. I noticed the affordable housing dwelling units change where housing cost rent or mortgage will not exceed 30% of family income. And I think it's very crucial to include that piece in that it shouldn't exceed 30%. That was specifically requested by Mayor Bell. I just want to thank you and thank Mayor Bell. You should thank him before me. Yes. I'll be sure to make sure I do that. Additional comments? Commissioner Bucks? And I don't think it was mentioned yet. All of us today received an email with comments from the Bike Pedestrian Advisory Council as well. I don't know if staff received that, but if we're not going to vote on this tonight and make some additional changes, I'd certainly hope that that would be taken into account. No more comments. But our intent was to have it voted on tonight. Yeah, we planned to. Okay. I'm sorry. You don't have to vote yes. I was in the hall when we started up again, so I was under a misimpression there. Sorry about that. Well, I hope we do take their comments into consideration as well. We certainly will. Okay. The chair will now entertain a motion on this item. Commissioner Miller? I'll make a motion. Commissioner Winders? I move that we recommend approval of the omnibus text amendments with the addition of the language about the clarification of definitions of design districts that we voted on to approve last month. Okay. Hold on before I accept your motion. Could the motion include them looking at all the comments that was made here tonight with reference to? Yes. Plus, shall let me try again, because I know it's hard to get these motions down. I recommend that we recommend, I move that we recommend approval of the omnibus text amendments with the addition of comments about equity and affordability discussed and recommended last month. And with consideration of the changes that have been suggested tonight. Comments. Comments that have consideration of the comments made tonight. Madam clerk, did you get that? We could work with that. Thankfully you're on TV. Okay. Do I hear a second? Second. We've been motioned and seconded by Commissioner Riley that we approve the TC-15 quadruple 01 with the comments made last month and tonight. All those in favor, let it be known by a, I think we can raise our hands on this one. Maybe not. It looks like ten to one with Camilla voting no. All those in opposition please raise their hand. Okay. So the motion moves forward ten to one. Thank you. Okay. This item seven on our agenda, the presentation will include A through G, but we will vote on approval on one at a time. A, B, C, and D. Mr. Chair, we would recommend that you'd also just hold one public hearing rather than seven. That's what we're doing. Okay. The one public hearing, we will receive the presentation for all eight of them. And then we would vote on them one at a time, but public hearing would be one. Good evening. I'm Lisa Miller with the Planning Department. The public hearing is now open. Thank you. I'm here to talk to you about the local review criteria consolidation project that's been going on for some times. We're excited to be moving forward. I'm going to start this evening with just a little bit of background for those of you who are not familiar with how our historic preservation program works, wanted to give you a better understanding of how this piece that we're asking you to make a recommendation on tonight fits into the larger puzzle. So I'm going to give a little bit of background before introducing the actual items. So first of all, I'll talk about, we have two different kinds of local historic designations. One are local historic districts, the other are local historic landmarks. Districts are a neighborhood or group of properties, intact, hold on to some of their initial characteristics from when they were built. An essential part of our history as a community and recognized as a district, as a group of properties. Those are designated as a historic district overlay. So it's a zoning overlay district. And each of those, when they were designated, we've got seven of them. Cleveland Street, downtown Durham, Fayetteville Street, Holloway Street, Moorhead Hill, Trinity Heights, and Watts Hill and Dale designated anywhere from 1987 through 2003. At the time, each one of those was designated. There was a preservation plan that included a survey of the district, an architectural and historical background, as well as criteria for reviewing changes to those properties. Our local historic landmarks, these are supposed to be sort of the most significant for any number of different reasons, whether they're associated with important people in Durham's history, important events. Their architecture is really one of a kind or a great example of something here in Durham. Or there's also the potential for prehistoric significance to be why some landmark is designated. Generally, these are individual properties, or in some cases, like West Village, you'll have a group of individual properties that are designated together. We currently have approximately 80 local landmarks designated in the city and two in the county. So one of the things of note for both local landmark properties and local district properties, this is an excerpt from our unified development ordinance, but it also mirrors the state statute for dealing with local historic designations. After the time that the property is designated historic, no feature, exterior feature, or other designated portion of the building can be erected, altered, restored, moved, or demolished within or on the historic district or landmark, until after a certificate of appropriateness, or COA, as we call them, has been submitted to and approved by the Historic Preservation Commission. So this is the crux of what we're getting at today. There are a set of criteria that the Historic Preservation Commission uses in reviewing changes to those properties, and that's what we're discussing this evening. The Historic Preservation Commission that I mentioned, they are nine members that are appointed by the city and county elected officials serving the community to make both, they have two functions. One is as a quasi-judicial board and the review and approval of certificates of appropriateness, again, using the local review criteria that were adopted by the elected officials. In their advisory role, they also provide general recommendations on historic preservation and historic resources to both the city and county. So I've mentioned the local review criteria. Currently, the way that these criteria are set out, I mentioned each one of our local historic districts is a zoning overlay, and there was a preservation plan adopted at the time of designation. Those preservation plans, each one of them, we've got six different plans, has a set of criteria that are applied to that specific historic district when properties come in for changes to the district, to a property within the district. To contrast, our local historic landmarks all reference the Secretary of the Interior standards for rehabilitation. Many folks are familiar with those standards because of going through the historic tax credit program. As Sarah mentioned earlier, the local districts and sort of the national register that deals with the tax credit program are completely separate. However, this was a case where our local ordinances reference the criteria used in the national register. So that's a bit of background about that sort of help you understand how this piece fits into our current historic preservation program. So the items before you today, it's seven different items. The first is actually a new document with local review criteria in it. The other items are the revised preservation plans that previously included a set of criteria for removing those criteria and referencing this new document. So to talk about the review criteria document itself first, one of the things that it does is it takes the criteria from each one of the districts currently and consolidates them into one document. In addition, it creates local review criteria that are not just the secretary standards for landmark properties. They are very much based on both the secretary standards that have been used in the past and the commission precedent for interpreting those criteria, but is specifically calling out how we deal with various different situations in order to give a little bit more clarity for those properties. One of the things that was lacking in the previous criteria were clear criteria for rights of way within the district. For local landmarks, those designations don't include right of way, but any of the districts, the right of way is part of what's designated. Therefore, we wanted to have clear criteria, clear understanding of how we wanted to apply them in the rights of way. In addition, we have included criteria for cemeteries and archeological sites. We don't have any that are designated sort of separately, but certainly have some of our landmark properties that have archeological potential or that have small family cemeteries on them, and we wanted to make sure that those were protected as well. And finally, the review criteria also distinguish very clearly between how contributing and non-contributing properties are addressed. And I will jump ahead and jump back in a minute. So everything I mentioned in the preservation plans, we have surveyed each one of them when they were adopted. All the properties in the neighborhood were surveyed. Each one of them is called out with a historic and architectural significance of either contributing to the historic character of the district or non-contributing to the historic character of the district. So those two classifications in past practice, there has not been clear guidance in the criteria that have been adopted for how distinctions between those two properties should be made. There are definitely distinctions, though, in how the Historic Preservation Commission has in its tenure carried out applying the criteria to each of those structures. Essentially giving more leeway to properties that were considered non-contributing. So part of what we are doing with this revision is to clearly differentiate between contributing and non-contributing properties so that folks have a very good understanding as they're going into a project what applies to them. The final bullet here, this is the other six items besides the review criteria. Updating each one of the preservation plans. We removed the existing criteria, we make reference to the new criteria document, and we've gone through and reassessed and revised where needed the significance of the properties that are included. They're contributing or non-contributing status. Because we are clearly differentiating in the criteria between contributing and non-contributing, we wanted to make sure that we had an up-to-date assessment of those properties. And I've also included in the document a commitment to reassessing on a regular basis, proposing every five years. So just a quick overview, as I mentioned, this project has been in the works for some time. It's relatively large undertaking, but just wanted to give you some sense of what some of the public involvement has been in this process. The project kicked off in December of 2012 where we had two separate introductory meetings letting folks know that this project was beginning, that what sort of the scope of the project was and how people could be involved and get in touch with the folks drafting the changes. In May of 2013, we had a series of focus group meetings to try and address some specific concerns that had come up with certificate of appropriateness cases over the past six months prior to make sure that the changes that we were proposing in this document were going to be addressing those issues. Then in July of 2014, we had a complete draft of just the criteria piece of this document. We held another two public meetings in order to get feedback on the draft criteria and get any ideas from folks about whether they thought that the concerns that they had raised and others had raised were being addressed in that draft. And then this past July, we had an additional two meetings with the complete document revised criteria from the previous year's input and all of the introductory material that are sort of intended to help folks understand and navigate this whole process better. So then we began the adoption process. We started with the Historic Preservation Commission. This was considered by them in September and then in October gave their unanimous recommendation of approval for this with several items were then incorporated into this version of the document which brings us to today to your consideration in this public hearing. It will then go on to both City Council and the Board of County Commissioners for public hearings before final adoption. And I would be happy to answer any questions. Denise, did you want to speak to this item? Okay. Denise Hester. Good evening, Commissioners. Denise Hester, 3526 Abercrombie Drive in Durham. This item actually is probably more appropriate for the previous UDO discussion but it had already started before I could sign up. But I think it's still applicable to the entire local historic district process. I'm concerned that the process for approval of local historic district we reference the petition process, the need for it, not the need for it. There's a gray area there when your local historic district has state owned properties in it. We found that out in a altercation with the demolition of the Rivera House at the corner of Lawson and Fayetteville Street. What we found, and this item went all the way to the Attorney General's office, the University wanted to tear it down. The local historic district people wanted to preserve it in some manner. And what we understood, and I could be wrong in my interpretation, but what we understood was during the approval process that because it was a state owned property, the Council of State had to actually, this was told to us, the Council of State had to actually approve the local historic district, be one of the approving parties. I don't know whether that is true or not, but that was the explanation that was given to us from the Attorney General's office. So that brings me to the point of explicitly understanding what approvals are necessary. When you have other governmentally owned properties in your local historic district, I think it needs to be really clear so that there's not an out later in the process when you get into disagreements over preservation issues in terms of who has the final say or who didn't weigh in. I don't even know, I'm not sure whose responsibility it would have been to advance the item to the Council of State. I would have assumed it would have been either the city, the county government, both planning commission, planning staff. I'm not sure. It's a gray area. And I think it needs to kind of be fleshed out because there's, other than Fayetteville Street, there may be, I'm not entirely sure. But I think Watt-Hillendale has some of the same, may have some of the same issues but at this point, there might be some interaction there. So I would like to see some investigation and understanding of just whose approval is necessary through the chain of command for approving local historic districts and or making changes. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other public people who would like to speak to this issue? Any other members of the audience would like to speak? If not, then we will close the public hearing and bring it back before the commissioners, commissioners wishing to speak. Commissioners wishing to speak. Commissioner Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have followed this project with some interest and have attended some of the meetings that the staff has sponsored. And generally, as a sometime applicant on my own property and then assisting other people with their properties in front of the Historic Preservation Commission, have seen some of the problems that this document is meant to address, especially the problems associated with new construction or modification of a property that's been classified as non-contributing. And I am grateful that this document, the new review criteria, seeks to address those in order to give better guidance to the Historic Preservation Commission as they deal with these applications. Having said that, though, I'm not perfectly satisfied with all the provisions that are in it. And if I may, I'd like to draw to staff's attention my objection to the maintenance provision that's on page 36 of the document. So this is with regard to what requires a COA when a property is classified as non-contributing, the modification or installation or replacement of windows and doors not facing the street. I guess this is a question. If the house or structure is on a corner, Lisa, would not facing the street be both street faces? That's correct. All right, well, then I'm satisfied on that. With regard to the last bullet there, alteration of architectural details and cladding material, you won't have to get a COA for that for... For non-contributing properties, that's the provision. That's, in my opinion, you could wipe out the rest of it and just have that provision. Alteration of architectural details means so little or encompasses so much to me that I don't see how that is a useful review criteria for any quasi-judicial body. It's just too broad. I mean, everything on the exterior of a structure could be classified as architectural detail. You could carry it down and start over without a COA. That's not what's intended here, is it? No, we can look at modifying that language to be clearer. I think that we can get much closer to what we mean. And actually, in other places here, we clearly contemplate modifications significantly less than that as actually requiring a COA. If I may, Mr. Chairman, while I have the microphone, ask the staff to look at page 44. This is just, I guess, a petty detail, but since these illustrations will be used by members of the public to guide what they do, there is a structure there that is identified as a new accessory structure in the Watts-Hillendale District that's actually across the street from me, and it's not new, it's a modification to an existing structure. However, there is a really good new structure, accessory structure on Alabama Avenue that would make a great illustration if you want to send somebody out with a camera to substitute a picture and keep the same caption. On page 47 and 61, my objections are the same, and these are statements with regard to non-contributing properties in residential and non-residential historic districts. And that's in A-1, modifications to structure shall not completely change the architectural style of the original structure. Again, not completely change is so broad but it encompasses that it is not an effective guideline. I just don't see how that can steer, tell anybody how to rule or even shape a ruling. When you look at page 48 just across the way, though, we contemplate four new structures as opposed to existing non-contributing properties, new structures, scale, height, and massing. So we have the tools and the language that can help us say what we mean here. I mean, I don't see a problem with approving COA for an existing non-contributing structure as long as we respect some of the scale, height, and massing issues that appear. So, I mean, we've got the tools labeled. I would like to see them transferred over so that we avoid saying things like they might completely change. I don't know what that means. That appears on page 47 and page 61. I mean, as it's written, the standards for new structures are stricter than modifications to existing structures that are non-contributing and I'm not sure that's actually what was intended. And with that, Mr. Chairman, those are my comments. Thank you. So just two questions. I wanted to know what the basis was for the five-year reassessment for the contributing and non-contributing? Certainly. We sort of picked an interval that we thought would not be so onerous considering that we have a lot of these districts and a lot of properties in them, but also wouldn't be so spread out that it would allow time to pass potentially needing a change to the contributing or non-contributing status without having the opportunity to do that. So we were kind of trying to find a middle ground between those two things. It was something that was discussed at the Historic Preservation Commission that maybe five years was too often and 10 years would be sufficient, but there wasn't any strong direction. So we've left it at five for now. It probably would be better to do a longer timeframe considering that planning staff is short on time. Sure. And I would like to make sure that my local historic district gets to put on the work plan. I'm biased in this. But also additionally, for the relocation standards and understand, like, walk me through if you're setting up or relocating a property that would be demolished, it probably doesn't meet current standards you're actually making sure that you're actually adding on that they, once they place the property on the new lot or new space within the historic district or... So let me back up just a second. The relocation and demolition standards are two separate situations. Okay. They're grouped into one section. The demolition is, you know, obviously when you are tearing down a structure. The relocation standards are, if you are moving a structure from one place in a district to another or moving a structure into a district as has been done before. Okay. And you're asking for those structures to be... follow the new construction standards. Is that like normal protocol is what I'm getting at? What I'm concerned is that... New construction standards for placement. So essentially we've established placement standards for new construction that look at the placement of other contributing structures first in the block face and then in the district as a whole. And that's what we would be looking for someone to follow in moving a historic structure into a local district or within a local district. Okay. Make the suggestion that you do separate the placement, the relocation and the demolition, but I mean it's not a major. Just because I've had some concerns about the commingling of that. Additional comments? Commissioner Whitley? I've learned a lot. Just listening. You know, my wife and I, when we go to other cities, we like to visit historical neighborhoods and one of the common thing that we see is who lived in what house. Durham has a lot of rich history. And we pay more attention to the architectural value than what people that live there contribute to a community. I happen to live in one of the old neighborhoods and we lose a lot of history because we don't have information that would keynote or say what this person, I mean this house is old and such and such a person contribute to the community. Salisbury is a good example. You can walk any historical neighborhood in Salisbury and you can read the history of a neighborhood just by science that point out who lived in those communities. We don't have that. And each time I go through one of these historical preservation I don't hear any of that. I don't hear where our history is being landmarked. And it should be. This is a wonderful city and we have wonderful rich history and who's going to protect that for us if preservation is not. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Whitley. You want to address that. I think Tom know about the plaque program. Yes, you know. So Commissioner Whitley I wanted to let you know that Preservation Derm which is Derm's private historic preservation organization does have a plaque program which is actually contemplated by an ordinance in the UDO that allows for the erection of plaques on houses to accomplish just exactly what you're talking about. The program is relatively new but there are about 150 or more plaques up. It's a voluntary program so the homeowner has to ask for it. It does require the compilation of the history of the house not merely its architecture and structure but of all the people who lived in it. I do these applications for people. Right now the plaques are concentrated quite frankly in the more affluent historic neighborhoods and there are fewer of them in the less affluent historic neighborhoods but I can tell you the people who are associated with the program are very concerned about that and are working to make sure that plaques are going up all over town. I'm working on a plaque application on East Main Street right now and have several others kind of in the works. Unfortunately the cost of the plaques they're cast bronze. That's the only material that actually lasts. When we cast about other cities about how to do the plaque program they said don't do painted wood because every 10 years you have to buy new ones. Say do bronze, it's expensive up front but you never have to go back. Well bronze is expensive up front and that's another limiting factor so it's not a perfect program but the program is out there. But I would like to echo what you say. It's not just the buildings, it's the people and I wish there was some way the city of Durham could be more effective at marking the historic neighborhoods than we currently are. I worked on getting the city to adopt its first historic district ordinances years ago back when we had the historic district commission and one of the things we talked about was a system of uniform signage but that part of it has never come through. That's a question quite frankly of city priorities and how the city spends money but with people like you and me nipping at their heels maybe we can get that fixed. I certainly know that there is no opposition on the part of staff to improving the program across the board. Okay Commissioner Freyman, I got you into it. I was just going to echo that and that I hear you Commissioner Whitley and Commissioner Whit Miller that I wanted to know if there was a process in place of moving those plaques actually into a historic process I guess a historic recognition within a local community similar to how the Pauli Murray House has kind of moved forward. I'm not sure you're wondering whether there's a way to require plaques for local historic districts or what? No, if there were a way to kind of stimulate that process but similar with stimulate that process so that the plaques that are located on houses which do identify the people in history that are of significant, I mean, you know, I don't know what the word is, but pretty much just knowing like is there a way to move a process along in this historic preservation process like or I know this review is for architectural and is there anything that you could think of within? To try and encourage folks to do the plaque program? To encourage them to do the plaque program maybe something so that it recognizes or identifies not just the houses that are contributing but also the plaques that are contributing in the neighborhoods or just something separate that does. Got it. We definitely, so one of the things when we made some revisions to the historic landmark program recently one of the things that we added in is a requirement to put up a plaque that actually was designed to work with those from preservation Durham in order to identify it as a historic landmark. So that's one way that we're sort of trying to tie into that. It's not something that we've looked at for historic districts. I think that from our perspective looking more at delineating the district as a whole as a first step is probably where I would think we would want to start. Okay. So specifically for the Paulie Murray House that has a plaque. How did that process work? And is that outlined in this guide? That is not part of the local historic process at all. So I can't answer that question. Just preservation Durham. Is there any way to connect the two? More than just the plaque is what I'm getting at. So that there was a way to list kind of those identifying homes that are... The information that in terms of the plaques provided inside of the preservation plans or... I mean, there's all kinds of... Just like a reference point so that people know where that information is. I mean, I think Commissioner Whitley is pretty well informed about the things on the community and the fact that he doesn't know about that plaque program. Sure. I think mapping out where the existing plaques are would be a simple process. Wait a minute. You through? Yes. Okay. Commissioner Weinders. I'd like to... Would you please comment on Ms. Hester's issue about state owned property and the process? Are you... I can confirm that the issue that she raised which came to our attention during the potential demolition of the Rivera House. One of the things that we were just... We're going to be doing some more discussion with our city attorney in order to look at... So one of the issues is looking at when the state purchased property. There are state owned properties that were purchased after the district was created specifically in the Fayetteville Street District. So we need to have good records of when that occurred because if the district was in place when they purchased the property they are subject to those requirements regardless of the council of state requirement for it. So that only applies if they already owned the property and we are trying to put a new zoning overlay on top of that property. So it is an issue that we're trying to get more clarity on so that we fully understand which properties are subject to that designation and can get some clarity about whether there's some possibility for getting district authority over some of these other properties. I'm not sure what the likelihood of that is. So where is that in the work plan process that the Rivera House was torn down a long time ago? It was. So this has come up. This is the question of as we are looking at revising these preservation plans and essentially the zoning map change again for each of these has been part of conversations that have come up around that again. Mr. Whitley. Yeah, Mike. I want to go back to I thank you for the information you've shared about the plaque system. But the point I was trying to raise was that it's not a criteria. And if we start making it a criteria, we will glean more information to share with people as they go through the neighborhoods. And how do you make that possible? So I would say that the idea of people significant in our history is very much a part of our district and landmark designations. If you've read through any of the preservation plans, the history in some of these neighborhoods definitely talk about people who are important to its development. In addition, we do have some landmark designations that are mainly significant for their association with a particular person. And so that is part of it. It's not. It could probably be highlighted more, but it is certainly a part of the overall historic preservation program. But it can't be made a criteria. Sarah Young of the Planning Department. I think there may be a little bit of a disconnect. So the state legislation that basically sets out Certificate of Appropriateness process and requires that we have criteria in place in districts basically requires that any physical modifications to a structure be done according to criteria. Criteria implied that deals with the physical aspects of that structure. So cultural references, other historical references that are not tied to the architecture are really just kind of beyond the scope of what we can deal with in terms of criteria. So I think the disconnect though has to do with the criteria that we're talking about is when somebody gets a certificate of appropriateness to make a change. I want to take this window out and put another window in. The time when the cultural significance, the people part of it who lived in the house comes up is not at the COA process when you're dealing with each owner's desire to make some modification or change to the exterior of a property that's already in a district. It comes up when the district is created. One of the things that has to be created before the council, City Council or the Board of County Commissioners can approve a district is a thorough survey of all the historical assets in the district. This survey is by custom, but not necessarily have to be this way, but Endurament has always been done by historic preservation experts. And they do, this is a gigantic document. It's structure by structure, who built it, who lived in it, and when something's really significant, then that's there. All of this information is actually in the library online when somebody applies and all of that's there. Whether or not we have done a very good job of making it readily available by publications and what have you, certainly we could do more. We could exploit the data that we've collected more effectively. The plaque program that I mentioned before takes it even further and so does the landmark designation. These documents are really wonderful, but again, that depends upon the owner applying for landmark status. We don't have very many landmarks designated Endurament, but for the districts, all of that information is there, but you have to know where to find it and you have to go look for it. But it is there, we do collect it. It's the question is, are we exploiting it as effectively as we could and then I couldn't agree with you more, more. I had one question. This is a lot of material and I want to carry it around with me. Is it available on the internet, on the homepage? Yes. We have a special section of our ordinance right now under current topics that has this item there. When it is through the adoption process, it's under we have a special tab for historic preservation. We'll be front and center there, so it's accessible to folks. Very good. No other comments that chair will entertain a motion on this item? Nobody want to move that? Mr. Chairman, I was prepared to make a motion, but my commission member Freeman, I think has another question. Just, just for the sake of clarity and my peace of mind, under demolition by neglect, where it says any fault defect condition in the building, which, is it possible to switch that to? That's actually a direct excerpt from our ordinance. So if we were going to change that, we would want to change the ordinance, which would be a separate process. I just want to make sure that it's clear that that's not with any default defect or what have you, that it becomes a demolition by neglect, but rather that it renders the property or the structure unsafe of property, properly warred or tight is the criteria. Like it's, how would we go about changing the ordinance? It would be a standard text amendment process or something we can look at clarification in the next round of tech changes. So would you have to wait to change this? Yes. Commissioner Miller. Mr. Chairman, I'm going to make a motion here, but I want my fellow commission members to know that I'm going to vote against it without some assurance that we're going to fix that broad language that I objected to. I mean, my objections there are not minor ones. They're serious ones, and I don't think they should go forward unless those are repaired. But because it's late and we still have agenda items, and I have taken up a lot of the commission's time, I'm going to move that we send this forward to the council and to the Board of County commissioners on favorable recommendation on condition that the language is clarified on page 36 and on pages 47 and 61 with regard to the over-broad language that I previously pointed out. Do the commissioners understand the motion before us? Do I hear a second to approve in, oh, okay, hold on, time out. We're going to take these one item at a time. I'm just talking about 7A. 7A, okay. So this is 7A local review updates in consolidation updates. So 7A, all those in favor of approving 7A, please let me have a roll call vote. I missed. Who made that a second? Whitley? Yes. Okay. Okay, Mr. Busby? Aye. Mr. Ghosh? Aye. Mr. Gibbs? Aye. Ms. Hyman? Aye. Ms. Freeman? Aye. Mr. Harris? Aye. Mr. Hollingsworth? Aye. Mr. Miller? Aye. Mr. Riley? Aye. Mr. Whitley? Ms. Winders? The motion carries 9-2. Okay, a motion to approve 9-2. Can I get a motion for 7B? Mr. Chairman, I move that we send item 7B, the modification to the Cleveland Street and Holloway Street Preservation Plan update to the city council. And that would just go to the city council, is that correct? To the city council with a favorable recommendation on condition that the language contained in the modified local review criteria be fixed to resolve the ambiguous language identified on pages 36, 47 and 61. Motion by Miller, second by Busby? Mr. Ghosh? In favor? Mr. Busby? Aye. Ms. Hyman? Aye. Mr. Gibbs? Ms. Freeman? Aye. Mr. Hollingsworth? Aye. Mr. Harris? Aye. Mr. Miller? No. Mr. Riley? No. Mr. Whitley? Aye. Ms. Winders? Aye. It carries 9-2. Okay, a motion carries 9-2. Motion for 7C? Mr. Chairman, is it acceptable to the commission members and the staff to simply say I make the same motion with regard to 7C that I made with regard to 7B? Any objections? Then that's my motion. Do I hear a seconder? Second by Commissioner Riley. Ms. Winders? Aye. Mr. Whitley? Aye. Mr. Riley? Aye. Mr. Miller? No. Mr. Hollingsworth? Aye. Mr. Harris? Aye. Ms. Freeman? Aye. Ms. Hyman? Aye. Mr. Gibbs? Aye. Mr. Ghosh? In favor. Mr. Busby? Aye. Motion carries 10-1. You can change. Yes. Okay, so it's 10. So motion carries 9-2. 9-2, thank you. Okay, 7D. Mr. Chairman, I make the same motion with regard to 7D that I made with regard to 7B. Second by Commissioner Whitley. Mr. Miller? No. Mr. Riley? No. Mr. Whitley? Aye. Ms. Winders? Aye. Mr. Hollingsworth? Aye. Mr. Harris? Aye. Ms. Freeman? Aye. Ms. Hyman? Aye. Mr. Gibbs? Aye. Mr. Ghosh? In favor. Mr. Busby? Aye. Motion carries 9-2. Motion for 7E. Mr. Chairman, with regard to Item 7E of our agenda, I make the same motion that I made with regard to Item 7B. Second. Second by Commissioner Hyman. Mr. Harris? Aye. Mr. Hollingsworth? Aye. Ms. Freeman? Aye. Ms. Hyman? Aye. Mr. Gibbs? Aye. Mr. Ghosh? In favor. Mr. Busby? Aye. Mr. Miller? No. Mr. Riley? Aye. Mr. Whitley? Aye. Ms. Winders? Aye. Motion carries 9-2. Motion carries 9-2. Motion for 7F. Mr. Chairman, I make the same motion with regard to Item 7F that I made with regard to Item 7B. Seconded by Commissioner Hyman. Mr. Busby? Aye. Mr. Ghosh? In favor. Mr. Gibbs? Aye. Ms. Hyman? Aye. Ms. Freeman? Aye. Mr. Harris? Aye. Mr. Hollingsworth? Aye. Mr. Miller? No. Mr. Riley? Aye. Mr. Whitley? Aye. Ms. Winders? Aye. Motion carries 9-2. Motion carries 9-2. 7G? Mr. Chairman, with regard to Item 7G, I make the same motion that I made with regard to Item 7B. Seconded by Commissioner Busby. Ms. Freeman? Aye. Ms. Hyman? Aye. Mr. Gibbs? Aye. Mr. Ghosh? In favor. Mr. Busby? Aye. Mr. Miller? No. Mr. Riley? Aye. Mr. Hollingsworth? Aye. Mr. Harris? Aye. Mr. Whitley? Aye. Ms. Winders? Aye. Motion carries 9-2. All right. That motion carries 9-2. We on Item G, presentation, compact neighborhood, future land use update. Good evening, commissioners. I'm Hannah Jacobson with the Durham Planning Department. I last came before this group in August of this year to give you a report on our compact neighborhood planning process. Tonight I am also giving an informational presentation on staff's recommendations. So you will not be asked to vote tonight, but we are anticipating a public hearing in January of next year. So in the intervening months, we do encourage you to look over these reports. I know there was a lot to look through tonight. Look over the reports. Feel free to ask staff questions. We're free to meet with you individually. And so with that, won't belabor the point, the purpose of this project has been to update the future land use map of the Durham comprehensive plan so that it aligns better with the planned Durham Orange Light Rail transportation line. It also gives us an opportunity to re-engage with the community. Many of these areas have changed dramatically in the last 10 years since the comprehensive plan was adopted. It also gives us an opportunity to help identify issues early on that should be addressed in compact neighborhoods prior to any rezoning or the opening of the Durham Orange Light Rail line. Just a little bit of background. The 2005 comprehensive plan introduced this idea of development tiers and the compact neighborhood tier was introduced as a way to promote higher density use, mix of uses in more walkable environments around the proposed regional rail transit stations. A first phase of the regional rail transit station was transit was supposed to be from Durham to Wake County. So compact neighborhoods were put into place around the medical center at Ninth Street around Alston Avenue and then two down in the research triangle park. We of course now know that the first line is the Durham Orange Light Rail line which follows, which covers areas in Lee Village, Patterson Place and South Square. And in these areas which were intended to be later phases of the light rail system, they were designated as suburban transit areas. And these compact neighborhoods and suburban transit areas are important because our region is growing tremendously quickly. Last year we were identified as one of the 100 largest metro areas within the country and we're growing fast. The 15th fastest growing of all of those top 100. And so looking to compact development as a strategy can help to minimize urban sprawl. It can help to promote a more fiscally responsible pattern of growth by reducing infrastructure costs. It can help to reduce transportation costs for households. And it can connect people who do not have access to cars either by capacity or by choice to jobs and other opportunities that are throughout the region. So a little bit more about what a compact neighborhood is. It's somewhat of a difficult term but there are areas near planned regional rail transit stations that are envisioned over time to become more high density mixed use and pedestrian friendly. We tend to think of them as having more of a street oriented building. So buildings that are built up to a sidewalk or up to the street and not far set back from a road maybe not without a parking lot in front of it. We tend to think of compact neighborhoods as having more of a grid layout of streets for example appropriately scaled streets for the pedestrian or for people who are on bikes and having greater transportation choices as well. In addition to these general characteristics of a compact neighborhood we've included two additional ones. The first one is this notion of tapering development intensity. The goal is to have the most intense development right around the light rail station and then as you transition further away from the light rail station to the surrounding areas maybe a single family residential neighborhood or a sensitive environmental area that you reduce the density you taper down. And so there is a policy that we are introducing. It's in your staff report a policy that we are introducing to the comprehensive plan or we're recommending to include in the comprehensive plan that helps to define what these sub districts are in the intent of this tapering development intensity. Another concept that we are characteristic of a compact neighborhood is this idea of equitable neighborhood change acknowledging that change in many of these areas will happen with the introduction of a light rail system but that the goal is to have those benefits be shared by all. So this corresponds very well with the city and counties resolution on affordable housing. So we're going ahead and introducing a proposed policy to the comprehensive plan that largely mimics the language within the city and county resolution on affordable housing. To back up a little bit talk more broadly about station area planning. It's a big undertaking that includes infrastructure planning and it certainly includes affordable housing planning. The focus and the scope of this project is on land use planning and we're at the very beginning of that task. Land use planning oftentimes requires three step process. The first step which is where we are now is updating the comprehensive plan and amending the future land use map. The second step would be looking at making any provision changes to the unified development ordinance that would be needed in some of these new compact neighborhoods. And then finally once strategies for affordable housing and infrastructure plans are in place we would look to initiate zoning map changes within the compact neighborhoods. And of course a step after that is that change in development will be incremental and it will happen over time largely through private development over again over several decades. For this study we've been looking at five different areas which I'll get more into detail in. I mentioned that we've been working on this project since the beginning of the year. We've been busy. We've had 12 neighborhood meetings with some good public participation in them. First round was held in April where we invited people. We introduced the concept of a compact neighborhood and had people work in small groups to help us understand where folks felt this type of development was appropriate and more importantly where it was not appropriate. So from that we compiled a lot of those recommendations from the neighborhood came up with some initial staff recommendations presented those at meetings in June and in August. And in the intervening months we prepared the draft reports which you have before you tonight and posted them online and just last month we held two additional meetings to get feedback on those reports. So if I could get a little bit more into depth into what our recommendations are the first compact neighborhood that we'll take a look at is the Lee Village. Lee Village is near the intersection of Interstate 40 and Highway 54. For those of you who aren't familiar with the area it's characterized by low density suburban development with almost a rural character to it. There's a lot of vacant land there actually. Strangely enough it's near one of the most congested corridors in the state NC 54. And there are some significant natural features kind of bordering the area the Little Creek Bottom Lands. Our existing future land use map shows a 356 acre suburban transit area it's outlined in blue on the screen with a combination of higher density residential uses surrounded by some office and commercial. Our proposed boundary extends the compact neighborhood to the west and to the north but it excludes an area of some residential neighborhoods Eastwood Park and I'll talk a little bit more about that right now. Eastwood Park is currently designated as commercial on our future land use map based on conversations that we had with the neighborhood and a recommendation from the NC 54 corridor study. We're also recommending that it be changed to low density residential to match what's currently there. A second kind of cleanup of the future land use map is for a property that's owned by the North Carolina Botanical Garden Foundation. They have a permanent conservation easement on this property that's east of George King Road. We're recommending that it be changed to recreation and open space and this is consistent with other privately held permanent conservation easements. Okay to get a little bit more into the boundary and how we arrived at this boundary. Again, as I mentioned, we've recommended expanding the boundary to the west looking at area number one. This is called the Meadowmont farms tract. It's extended this far to align with the boundary of Chapel Hill and this is primarily to help facilitate the development of the build out of the collector street plan in this area to help promote connectivity to the station and improve circulation within this area to help alleviate traffic congestion on 54. Our northern boundary near number two, that's again, it largely follows the kind of the half mile boundary from the station and is consistent with what we heard at the community meeting in June. It does not include the neighborhood village called Barber. We're using interstate 40 as kind of a hard boundary, makes some sense. And then we've included an area, if you look at number four on the screen, an area that's south of 54. This is already included within the suburban transit area. We're recommending that it stay within the suburban transit area because of improvements that have been recommended and are actually within the state funding process for Farrington Road and for Falcon Bridge, for an extension of Falcon Bridge Drive. That would help to better connect this area that's south of 54 to the light rail station. Again, as I mentioned, the eastward park and this neighborhood just to the north, we're recommending that they be removed from the compact neighborhood and the other two little creek bottom lands indicated here. And then just the amount of undeveloped and vacant property that's in close proximity to the station. Key issues that we're likely to see moving forward, a lot of this document and a lot of this report is to identify what those issues are now. We might not have immediate solutions to what they are, but it's somewhat of a scoping document so that we can identify what those issues are as we move forward through the rest of the process and certainly to opening day of the light rail and beyond. Extending public utilities to this area, it's largely within the county right now. So looking at annexation studies and what it might take to extend public utilities will be a major undertaking. Building sufficient transportation infrastructure to relieve traffic congestion, that's a major concern that certainly is we hear when we go out to the neighborhoods. Coordinating and phrasing and the development in a way that makes sense, this is probably one of our last green field sites within Durham. So doing that in a way that makes sense will be a challenge. And then transitioning to some of the more environmentally sensitive areas and low density residential will also be a concern as we move forward. The next compact neighborhood kind of along the line is the Patterson Place station. This is near Interstate 40 and 15501. It's largely an auto oriented commercial district characterized by big box retailers. Patterson Place shopping center was laid out with the intention of transitioning over time into a more transit oriented development, but that's kind of the only one in the area. There is a proposed suburban transit, there is an existing suburban transit area in place at this site. We're proposing to expand the boundary to 602 acres. The expansion would happen mostly south of Danzier Drive all the way down to Old Chapel Hill Road. It also expands and follows, instead of following the former floodplain lines, it follows recorded easements and property lines. This is for legal reasons moving forward. To highlight just a few of the areas, number two I had mentioned, this area north of 15501, Southwest Durham Drive is expected to be extended across 15501, which could open up this area for better access to the station. We are concerned about how close the boundary gets to some of the environmental issues, the environmental resources that are in this area. However, we are trying to follow that recorded legal sewer easement. Number four, we've excluded the Githins Middle School from the boundary previously, I believe it had been inside the boundary. Otherwise, most of the area is either already kind of commercial big box retailers or high density residential. Some key issues moving forward, there's a proposed conversion of US Highway 15501 into a limited access freeway. That was based on a study that was done in 1994 that I believe this commission has heard a little bit about. Doing that might effectively cut off the north side of the station area from the south side of the station area. I think that we would be interested in participating in a study that looked to reexamine that recommendation to be more in line with the idea of a transit oriented district. We also have concerns and think that a key issue moving forward will be how the sensitivity to environmentally important areas like the Dry Creek and the New Hope Creek and then again how to transition to low density residential areas that are on the fringes. Moving along to South Square and the Martin Luther King Junior area, this is near the intersection or the interchange of US Highway 15501 bypass and US Highway 15501 business. So it's near the site of the former South Square Mall Target Sam's Club to give you a little bit of context. Again it's largely an auto oriented commercial district with big box retailers and this area really does have a significant amount of multi-family apartment complexes and office uses as well. There is an existing suburban transit area in this district. We're proposing largely expanding the boundary for the new compact neighborhood to the south to include more area around the Martin Luther King Junior station and we're proposing to remove this area that's to the northwest of the 15501 bypass. We're also proposing to extend it to the east of the South Square station to take advantage of a lot of the vacant and underutilized commercial property that's to the east of here. I don't know that I have too much to elaborate on this one so I can be brief. In general the boundary includes kind of the commercial big box retailers. It does not and it also includes some of the multi-family apartment complexes. It does not include the environmentally sensitive areas and it does not include single family residential neighborhoods. Some key issues moving forward again. I think that the future of US 15501 business through this corridor may need to be looked at and there's some possibilities for creating a more transit oriented district around that. And looking at how the redevelopment of those existing commercial shopping centers happens is mixed use centers. There still is a market out there for commercial big box centers so how that happens over time will be interesting to see. The next compact neighborhood is along Irwin Road near Duke University and some medical centers so there's a strong institutional presence in this area. There's also a significant amount of multi-family both older multi-family apartment complexes and newer more mixed use uses along the north side of Irwin Road and then amongst all of that commotion is the Crest Street neighborhood, single family neighborhood made up of largely African-American families that's in the middle of everything. There is an existing compact neighborhood located in this area. It's 475 acres. We're proposing a new boundary to that compact neighborhood that would be 412 acres. The boundary changes exclude Duke University from the compact neighborhood and this is consistent with what was done in Ninth Street and it also excludes the Crest Street neighborhood. I'll get into that in a little bit more detail. It extends the boundary to the east of LaSalle Street to a greater degree than it is today. Because of the removal of Duke University and Crest Street we are left with this strange appendage that's more closely related with the Ninth Street compact neighborhood tier. That's already in the compact neighborhood and we didn't find a compelling reason to remove it. So again this is a cleanup of the future land use map. This is part of Duke University's campus. It's north of Irwin Road which is just off the map. On the future land use map it's designated as commercial. We're recommending that it be designated as institutional to be consistent with the rest of Duke's campus and other university college zoning. Again we're making use of large roadways, US Highway 15501 and NC 147 as boundaries. We've removed areas of Duke University from the boundary. Number three is where Crest Street is located. We heard from neighborhood groups somewhat of a mixed reaction about this but overall that they did not want to be included within the compact neighborhood tier. They wanted to preserve the single family nature of that neighborhood. There are some large apartment complexes in this area. Duke Manor is one that's reaching almost 40 years old. So we see that as an opportunity for redevelopment in the future and that could lead to some very good things potentially the more of a build out of a street grid network which would be very good for this area in terms of relieving traffic congestion. So again just a few issues moving forward creating a more complete street network that's just what I was talking about. The relationship with the university college zoning and the compact neighborhood tier as well as trying to divert impacts to the Crest Street neighborhood. Okay finally sorry this is a long presentation. Finally is the Alston Avenue compact neighborhood. For those of you just to orient you a little bit the Durham Freeway and the NCR Railroad corridor run kind of directly through the station area. There are a number of more active industrial uses that are along that corridor that still use the freight spurs. There's also a lot of institutional or civic uses ranging from churches, the Durham rescue mission to the Boys and Girls Club schools in this area. So a lot of residential neighborhoods many of which are historic and of course there's been the adaptive reuse of many mill buildings in the area as well. There's an existing compact neighborhood in the Alston Avenue area. It includes areas of Golden Belt Historic District it includes areas of the East Durham Historic District the proposed boundary removes or brings those kind of out of the compact neighborhood using Morning Glory Avenue as the cutoff and then following some of the East Durham Historic District boundaries. The other major change to this area is that we've included the former Fayette Place site into the proposed compact neighborhood. This aligns pretty well with the downtown tier which is located just to the west of the Alston Avenue proposed compact neighborhood. So again, number one is Fayetteville Street that's the dividing line between the downtown tier and the proposed compact neighborhood tier. Morning Glory Avenue forms kind of the northern boundary and does not include the residential portions of the Golden Belt National Historic District does not include Eastway Mill Village and does not include the East Durham National Register Historic District does however include a number of industrial uses that are along the freight rail and then the former Fayette Place does not include residential areas south of 147. So some key issues moving forward with the Alston Avenue we know that this issue of equitable neighborhood change and affordable housing will be a prime issue moving forward. We also see the kind of the mix of industrial sites with new development and some potential brownfield contamination being an issue as we go ahead and then particularly in this area access to the light rail station itself has been a major issue. So through the station area strategic infrastructure study which is another project I can update you on later working for looking for pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure access will also be important. Just some next steps moving forward just reminder you guys have the draft reports but if you can remind people that they are available online that would be really helpful. As I said before we're looking to have our public hearings for these in January so you're warned about that. And then if all goes as expected we'll move forward to the city council and county commissioners later on this spring. I forgot to mention throughout all of our public engagement sessions the planning commission many members of the planning commission came and I really do appreciate taking the time and effort to do so. It's greatly appreciated and I know we're going to need help moving forward as well so continued participation is welcomed. Thank you. Thank you. I now realize that this is a presentation for discussion and information purposes and it's not a public hearing but I do have one member that came here specifically to speak to this so I'm going to grant Denise has time to speak to this. Yeah, I'm going to open it up. Good evening again Denise Hester 3526 Abercrombie Drive. I'm here tonight to support the decision to keep the area south of NC 147 out of the compact district. Back in 2006 citizens overwhelmingly rejected this land use south of the expressway with a standing room only crowd and I'm glad to hear that that affirmation is still in place because as we know the compact land designation has the ability to profoundly change the character of communities in which they're located and I guess we have to exert care in where we actually place them. More recently in the series of neighborhood meetings and I'm glad the planning department to their credit heard what the neighbors in these areas were saying. It's a 300 plus acre area bounded roughly by as you can see Highway 147 Bacon Street, Lawson Street, Fayetteville Street but the important thing is that this area is one of the more affordable areas still in our city in southeast Durham. It's also home to our national historic district and also our Fayetteville Street local historic district which would be threatened by the entry of high density housing and intense commercial development that's favored by compact neighborhoods. So and it's also home to a sizable portion of Durham's historic African-American community. So again I just wanted to affirm the lineup of the recommendations in this presentation with those expressed by the neighbors at this series of meetings. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else come to speak to this? Okay. Commissioner Freeman. So just first in conjunction with Miss Hester's comment I want to say that I want to make sure that I'm not missing the line coming from Austin Avenue down from Austin Avenue proposed here coming down Morning Glory it should actually be coming down East Maine and that making sure that there is a buffer so the properties on Main Street may be developed but not properties that are on the backside of Morning Glory just making sure that that's clear. Our boundary it would just be better if it was on East Main Street. Okay we'll take a look at that. And then also the commotion that you mentioned and the equitable neighborhoods I want to know if there were any other organized like University College zoning groups that you met with so that University College like I didn't know that they had something like that. Duke University and NCC you are under a special zoning district. It's called University College and it enables them to do more campus planning so they do parking, stormwater, sidewalk planning as kind of a master plan and so it doesn't mean that those aren't transit oriented zoning districts it just means that they're kind of special and unique and aren't necessarily we don't achieve anything more from the compact design district in those areas. And then also I wanted to note both that the equity or inequity is around income and race and I don't think that's being specifically said and it needs to be and keeping the income and the races or keeping both of those in line pretty much with what they currently are or increasing the diversity of it. I wasn't sure if it was intentional or not like whether or not you because I noticed that in the previous plan it was spelled out that the affordable housing was at the 30% versus just being at the 15% affordable is that going to be the case going forward or is that been looked at? I'm not sure if I know what you're referring to. In the historic preservation plan or the UDO conversation them adding that language to say that the affordable housing is exactly you know 30% of your household income maximum. Commissioner Freeman that's if that the omnibus UDO changes are approved then that would apply to all affordable housing under account. I just need to make sure that's spelled out. Thank you. Those are my main comments. Commissioner Miller. Thank you Mr. Chairman. On page 5 of your October 215 draft on the Irwin Road not wild about the disconnected kind of strange as you called it a appendage on the north side of the freeway there I don't see a very compelling reason to include that as part of the Compact Neighborhood District and actually I opposed having it there having a disconnected thing like that and if we were going to talk about perhaps expanding the boundaries a little bit of the existing Ninth Street District I would be interested in how we might do that but to add it to this other district that is not just separated by a roadway but is separated by additional land mass that just doesn't seem to me like very good planning. How strong is the sentiment in favor of including it? Sure. I will tell you that our conversations with Duke University came about a little bit later in the process so while that area was originally contiguous with the rest of the district we know that it's a little odd now so I think that's something that we can take a look at I'm assuming we can take a look at that and have a broader conversation about whether it should be a part of the Ninth Street District which should be a part of this one. Just to add to that it is now and will be in the future effectively an extension of the Ninth Street District and it's an area that's already designated as a compact neighborhood and it's an area with a weird mixture of zoning and development and would probably make sense and it's also near if our friends in Wake County ever decide what they're going to do it's also very close to next to what would be the western commuter rail station. Alright where is that station proposed to be? Is it different for the, is it changed from where it used to be? I don't know where it used to be it's basically next to the food line where Erwin Road dips under and becomes Ninth Street. The proposed western commuter line was near the parking lot of the food lion between Hillsborough and Main Street. That's different than the Ninth Street light rail station which is where. Sorry I'm getting my imaginary light rail systems confused. It's understandable. My other question concerned the future location of the romp which right now is I think the favored location is along Farrington Road next to I-40 in the Lee Village compact neighborhood tier. I know that it's very hard to find anybody in that area that favors it going there. My own feeling is that a better location more centrally located along the line would be in the Patterson Place neighborhood in the very place where we just approved rezoning for an automobile sales lot which I thought was a dreadful decision would be a much better place dead center in the line to put and there's lots of vacant land on the romp. I'm just sorry that the way we're letting things shape up this way and my question then on that is as a result of this process that you've undertaken Heather with some sensitivity and I really appreciate that because not all of those meetings were initially success and you immediately responded to try to make them a success. How many rezonings have we got in the pipeline? Are there for properties located within any of these proposed boundaries where people are trying to rush in and try to make adjustments to our zoning map favorable to them in order to either exploit or avoid the consequences of changing compact neighborhood tier boundaries? I mean are there a lot of them? Commissioner Miller-Patty, I'm with the planning department. There's only two that come to mind. Ms. Smith to assist me with this. The one that's returning to you tomorrow next week, it seems like tomorrow next week. Next month, the Farrington residential project and then there's a smaller mixed use project called Straw Valley that's also in the- Paterson Place. That's going to be coming probably in January. Are there any others that you can think of in these areas? So I think there's just the two. Certainly any time we look to change these you see a flurry of activity like you've described Commissioner Miller. So we can keep you up to date of that and of course you'll see the cases as they appear. Alright, well thank you very much. This is all very interesting. And in January, we will be voting on tier boundaries. And that's it. The issue is moving tier boundaries. The handful of land use, designation, cleanliness. Oh and comprehensive plan changes. Yes. The flum changes. The flum changes to design district within the compact years and the handful of other minor changes that Ms. Jacobs had brought up, as well as the changes to the policies and the comp plan to have the affordable housing resolution as a comp plan policy and the sub district location policies that are currently only in the UDO and part of the comp plan as well. So for these we're moving, we're not just creating compact neighborhood tiers we're actually talking about moving into design districts and talking about, we're laying the groundwork for the conversion of these compact neighborhood, new compact neighborhood tiers into design districts and where sub districts will go. And the sub districts that we're talking about are core sub one sub two. Anything new or different? No. It's just the same ones that we were, we created with the Ninth Street district minus the business one. Yes. And just, we had some intense statements for all those in the UDO and so we're going to add those to the comp plan so that if someone does before the publicly initiated rezoning takes place and someone wants to apply for rezoning you have clear policy guidance as to what sub districts should be in place as well as the affordable housing policy. I can't wait. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I said before too, I think the staff is just doing an outstanding job at the public hearings. I know there are long nights which you've clearly gotten used to. But I think it's really helpful to inform the citizens very approachable so a great job there. I did want to echo Commissioner Miller's concern about the floating appendage in the Irwin Road area. I just don't think that makes a lot of sense either in terms of good planning. I hope we take a look at that. And then finally I just wanted to say under the Patterson Place, Hannah you mentioned one situation was the plan conversion of 15501 into a limited access freeway. We dealt with that issue a few months ago. I think it's great if the city would look at the appropriate time to reexamine that designation. I think that causes a huge problem for us to be able to move forward with doing this well. Thank you. Commissioner Gibbs, Commissioner Weinders. Is this presentation going to be on your website, your web page where all the stuff of the meetings are? I don't think some of these things were not in the packet. I think like especially the policy change. Those policy changes were within your staff report. They were. They were. But we can certainly put the presentation on the website. And all of the reports are on there as well, but they're lengthy. So this can be a good summary. Well, and I also would like to add to the other expressions of gratitude, how much work you put into this and how well you have handled you and the rest of the staff, but you're the person that is the face of the compact neighborhood tears, I believe, and all the public that you've had and incorporated it all and distilled the issues so nicely. There's a couple of little things that I would like to see or know more about or see happening in the next stages. And one is habitat planning. In those, I don't know whether we have any habitat plans or any wildlife corridors or anything designated, but it seems like that's going to really, would be needed especially in the Lee Farm area and maybe Patterson Place where you've got these huge expanses of open space that's going to become urbanized very quickly. And all those little animals are going to be running around into the suburban neighborhoods next to them and I'm sure a lot of them won't survive. I really have noticed that in my neighborhood in Parkwood this development up on 54 that we approved a year or two ago where then they now have it completely clear-cut and are doing the infrastructure and everything and we're seeing a lot of extra foxes and deer and even a hawk or eagle or something that I think have probably run away from there and of course more deer are not a good thing. And then the other thing is at the Austin Avenue Station you mentioned the pedestrian or bicycle access bus access and I guess that's part of that's more Go Triangles responsibility baby but being at the end of the line there and the fact that East Durham is not well served by the location of the station which is we can be helped but we should give priority to have a good bus connections instead of parking lots there or commuter park and I think bus is more important than parking just one addition noting that the East Durham National Historic District is either multiple districts or you're separating like Hyde Park like there are various districts within there just making sure that that's clear so I'm looking at page 11 on the report and noting that for Austin Avenue for number three specifically and I don't know how many times throughout but just noting that those districts are page 11 okay so the multiple East Durham National Register Historic District or you can separate out like Golden Belt National Historic Registry or Hyde Park National Historic just noting that there is the Golden Belt National Register Historic District and then the official distinction is the East Durham National Historic Register Historic District there may be distinctions within that the National Register but it's official name is the East Durham National Register Historic District which does not include Golden Belt so I just want to make sure that Golden Belt is included and separated so thank you Commissioner Whitley yes I am I too want to echo my appreciation for all the work that you put into this I got questions though about Austin Avenue when you look at the other compact neighborhoods you see the density population density but when you get to Austin Avenue that compact district is probably the lowest population density in all of East Durham one of our goals in East Durham is to bring development to us and how does this compact district help that? I think it is a step in the direction of trying to draw some more investment to East Durham it does in this area these are places that there is industrial businesses a lot of vacant properties so you could see some development happening there that wouldn't be displacing existing residents the areas that are surrounding the compact district are already fairly dense urban neighborhoods that will support transit usage but I think that the compact neighborhood is a step towards drawing some investment to this part of East Durham I don't see that one you point out that land has brownfield problems you know and given that there is a chemical plant along the rail two of them and one gravel company two of those you see that as an opportunity for economic development? I think that over time and over time I mean over several decades the presence of a light rail station and a lot of other factors but the light rail is no longer coming that way well it might have a broader impact on the area in which those businesses can make their minds about whether that location is still the right location for their business or not that's a private decision that they'll need to make and again it'll happen over time but it is I mean the presence of industrial businesses and brownfields can be a deterrent to transit oriented development but there's nothing we can do at this time about that those are still viable businesses would you be willing to help us create a compact district that would bring economic development to us that's not it I mean we have a railroad that there's no plan to tear down a bridge it's okay I mean we have we have wonderful people in Eastern we do and we are a bedroom community we have to go out of our community for goods and services we sleep but we work out of the community recreation we go out of the community in order to bank we go out of the community to get medical services we have to go out of the community so we have a real desperate need for economic development to take place in that community can we have a compact district that would really work well I think just to land use strategies are one aspect of a broader picture and certainly in many of these areas there are going to need to be other programs economic incentives that will help to spur development so if we look at it as this is just one piece of a very complicated larger pie but I think that there will be the commitment there to work towards making that happen I have just one more comment and I'm not being you know how the Malcolm said you know if I set up a table and everybody has something on their plate and there's nothing on mine I can't call myself a diner thank you yes Commissioner Whitley can I address him no there have been meetings for months on the location of the Austin Avenue rail stop on the east side west side east side west side and of course the east side is a preferred side I think for the east Durham area and I'm going to say this for the Durham area designers have looked at this planned it but the issue is with Go Triangle now all of these months that there have been meetings at the city council there have been meetings everywhere I have surreptitiously sent emails to the east Durham old east Durham group I have not seen that many if any east Durham representatives there to voice their opinion you can send emails to each other but you've got to get out in public and make your wishes known and we have we're in the last I'm talking right now Commissioner we're not going to have conversations between commissioners going to make a comment we have right now is our last chance so I would I would suggest that you get in touch with Go Triangle and make your wishes known go to the city council meeting and make your wishes known and your preferences maybe it'll do some good now we're trying our best but anyway I just wanted to put that out there as you know it's going to take effort from all of us thank you okay, Commissioner Onnes I'd just like to say I think the east Durham people have been pretty active in the deliberations here and it's just unfortunate that the railroad won't allow the train to go through there but I think that the answer for east Durham has got to be improved bus you know and also when Wake County if they ever get their act together you know everybody wants the transit to go to the airport and to RTP and east Durham needs to be able to get to the end of the line as efficiently and cheaply and as possible and then when they and hopefully 25 years from now we'll get something going to further east than east and it will be hooked up with the light rail but you know I don't know whether a compact neighborhood by itself is not going to just putting a compact district there is not going to make development come there I think is what I think I thank you Hannah and is your comment relevant to the presentation yes it is responding to what somebody has said I would like to say that the conversations that we've had with both the planning department as the eastern resident and on the compact neighborhoods as well as in the transit conversation has been very well attended and it's been active it doesn't need to be at a general meeting for all it actually has been happening and I think that the conversation is moving in the right direction first all and then second off the economic development that's coming into east Durham is already in line I think that there's this just wouldn't with this is not a land use aspect this is a economic development I would encourage anyone that has any comments or questions or any general purpose in being involved in east Durham if you'd like to you could actually attend the northeast central Durham leadership council meeting in which these issues are addressed thank you thank you and thank you miss Jacobs Scott Grace can you tell us what's coming up next month I had to go stretch my legs so for next month you have your continued case from October which is the Farrington mixed use case coming back for next month and then we have three zoning map change requests with associated plan amendments that will be coming before you as well most of them are very similar or very nearby locations one is on stirrup creek drive one is on TW Alexander and the other is at 5515 15 NC 55 the first two are very close by each other okay are there do we expect any changes in the proposal that we saw last month that's coming back next month for Farrington mixed use yes they have met with us and they have revised their plan some great thank you you're welcome uh holland worth it's been a pleasure this is last meeting so best of luck to you and your colleagues any other comments pat you have anything commissioners we are adjourned the little green button on your monitor just push that and power it down