 I'm trying to give me as much as to win store near the exit but that could put us to traffic on bar. I appreciate it. It really messes up. No, not to my knowledge. Let's say I can't I couldn't participate in that one. We shall see. I mean, I appreciate having the gas station there because that's where my life and I generally by the edge but I'm a lot of people don't like it. So, it started soon. Good evening. Welcome to the Durham Planning Commission. The commission, the members of the commission have been appointed by the city council and the county board of commissioners as an advisory board to the elected officials. So you should know that the elected officials have the final say in any issue that's before us this evening. If you wish to speak on an agenda item this evening, you can sign up to the table on my left on your right and each side will get 10 minutes to speak for and against each item on the agenda and the time will be divided by each of the members who are signed up to speak. Finally, all motions are stated in the affirmative so if a motion fails or ties, the recommendation is for denial. May we have the roll call please? Commissioner Alturk. Present. Commissioner Johnson. Present. Commissioner Baker. Present. Commissioner Brine. Present. Commissioner Satterfield. Here. Commissioner Durkin. Here. Commissioner Hyman. Present. Chair Busby. Here. Commissioner Miller. Here. Commissioner Ketchin is currently absent. Commissioner Hornbuckle. Present. Commissioner Gibbs. Present. And Commissioner Williams is excused. Thank you. We will move to the approval of the minutes and the consistency statement from our October 9th, 2018 meeting. Do we need a motion for Commissioner Williams? Yes, we do. Thank you very much. I move the excused absence for Commissioner Williams. Moved and seconded. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you, Commissioner Brine. We'll move to the approval of the minutes and the consistency statement. I know we had one correction, Commissioner Hyman, Vice-Chair Hyman. Yes. Mr. Hornbuckle had asked for an excused absence, and I wanted to make a motion that we do this at this time retroactively from the last meeting if that's appropriate. I'll second the motion. They've properly moved and seconded. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. Any adjustments to the agenda? That was just the excused absence. You haven't done the minutes yet. We're still waiting for George to tell us whether they were all right. I'll move approval of the minutes and consistency statements from the October meeting. Second. Second. Okay. So moved by Commissioner Brine, seconded by, we'll say Commissioner Miller, because I heard him the fastest, I guess. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Any adjustments to the agenda? Good evening, commissioners. I'm Sarah Young with the planning department filling in for Grace Smith tonight who is out unexpectedly ill. So first thing as an adjustment is that you have at your seats your 2019 proposed meeting calendar that you will need to approve this evening. I suggest that we add that as an item under new business. In addition, we have as probably, I think we promised, I don't know how many meetings back now, we were going to start doing more regular updates on long-range planning projects and Mr. Scott Whiteman is here tonight to deliver the first in a series of updates related to a variety of his projects so I would ask that we also add that at the end of your agenda. Great thank you very much. But I'm not done. But wait there's more. Wait there's more. So Ms. Smith wanted me to relay that she will be sending out via email the what's next upcoming items since she was not able to do that. And the last thing is I'd like to state for the record that all public notice requirements were carried out in accordance with state and local law and add for David's for all those notices are on file in the planning department. Excellent thank you. I'll entertain a motion for the approved updated agenda with the addition of the two agenda items the the new projects and the 2019 meeting dates. Motion to approve adjustments to the agenda as stated. Second. Okay moved and seconded all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed. Great thank you very much. So we will move to our first item on the agenda. This is a zoning map change for Comstock Industrial Case Z18 00010. Thank you. We'll start with the staff report. Good evening I'm Jamie Sonjak with the planning department. I will be presenting case number Z18 00010. This is Comstock Industrial. The applicant is Patrick Biker of Morningstar Law Group. The subject site is two parcels 4509 Page Road and 5505 Comstock Road. The property is currently located within the city limits pending and annexation application. The applicant proposes to change the two parcels which total 7.879 acres from rural residential to industrial light. There is no development plan associated with this request. The property is designated industrial on the future land use map which is consistent with the rezoning request and the proposal is for all uses within the industrial light district. The aerial map shows the two properties highlighted in red hatch. They are currently located within the southeastern portion of the county near the Wake County border. They are bisected by Comstock Road. The northern property is triangular in shape and it is 0.691 acres in size and the southern property is the larger of the two. That is 7.189 acres. The site is located within the suburban tier and the Neuse River basin. These photos depict the existing site conditions in some of the area surrounding. The properties as shown on the aerial and also in the photos are vacant and heavily wooded. The southern property contains floodplain and stream corridor along the eastern property boundary. There are wooded lands to the west and to the north. There's a medical building under construction at the corner of Page Road and Arrington Park Drive. There are residential developments to the south and to the east. Comstock Road ends at the Wake County border and schools located on the north side at the terminus of the road. Additionally, there are vacant wooded lands and overhead utility lines located to the east. Also, Page Park and sterling residential developments are located to the northwest off of Page Road. This slide shows on the left the existing zoning. The properties are in the rural residential yellow shade and on the right they are highlighted in purple proposed for industrial light. This is the future land use map which shows the property in purple which is the industrial designation as well as small piece within the recreation open space which will which will not change. This slide highlights the industrial light dimensional standards just giving you an idea of if you want to develop and occur some of the standards that they would have to adhere to. And in terms of consistency with the comprehensive plan and policies, the property is consistent with or the proposed industrial light zoning designation rather is consistent with the current industrial designation on the future land use map and applicable policies. It is consistent with policy 231A as the proposed industrial zoning is compatible with the office and institutional zoning to the west, the mixed use zoning to the south and to the east, and the industrial light zoning to the west as it allows many of the same uses as well as policy 232A the existing infrastructure such as the roads, water, and sewer capacity are sufficient to accommodate the potential impacts. Staff determines that this request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and applicable policies and ordinances and I will be happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you. We will open the public hearing and we have one individual signed up Mr. Patrick Biker. Good evening. Good evening Chair Busby, Vice Chair Hyman, members of the Planning Commission. I'm Patrick Biker of Morningstar Law Group. I live at 2614 Stewart Drive here in Durham. Let the record reflect I'm here tonight so that Neil Gauch can have the night off. I'm here tonight representing Page Road Landco LLC for this zoning map change and I first of all want to thank Jamie for an outstanding staff report on this item. Next I'd like to discuss briefly our team's decision not to submit a development plan with the zoning map change to IL. Our client is just the property owner and not a developer and we do not have an end user in mind or under contract or any relationship in regard to the 7.8 acres that you all are looking at tonight. However, what we do think is important for the Planning Commission to consider is that Duke University Health System owns about 45 acres to the south of this site. It's under construction as Commissioner Brine shared with me the first phase and the IL district gives our client flexibility to serve the needs that arise from whatever Duke Health System does with its new campus in this location. The IL district allows for a limited service hotel or medical office space or a restaurant depending on what use or uses would be most synergistic with Duke Health Services at this location. Since we do not have an end user at this time it's impossible to scope a traffic impact analysis but once an end user is identified the TIA will be done in conjunction with the site plan. I also think it's important to note that this area of Durham which is east of Page Road and west of 540 and then south of Longistik's Way is developing as a good quality light industrial area. Many of you on the Planning Commission will remember the zoning map change for Long Beverage earlier this year and Long Beverage is less than a mile north of the property you all are looking at tonight. Keep in mind Durham City ordinances including but I limited to the UDO place limits on the noise lighting building height of no more than 50 feet and also impose significant project boundary buffers under UDO section 9.4. Accordingly for all those reasons we respectfully ask for your recommendation of approval. I know you want me to take up all 10 minutes but I'm sorry to let you down in that regard and so if you have any questions I'll be happy to try and answer them. Thank you very much for your time tonight. Thank you. Anyone else like to speak on this item before we close the public hearing? Seeing none we'll close the public hearing and commissioners questions or comments? Mr. Johnson. Thank you Chairman. I'm just curious as in regards to the request absent of a development plan just for my curious nature. It seems that the request that you're making is in line with the future land use map and so is it can you provide some thinking on absent of this request being granted would it make it more difficult for you to shop this parcel to end users or the flip side is why is it would it be possible for you to shop this parcel to potential end users knowing that the future land use map is essentially in your favor and what you're asking. The problem we've got Commissioner Johnson is that the property right now is on rural residential with no access to water and sewer which makes it adequate for playing cornhole. I don't know what else you could do on it and you could build it's in your staff report you could build houses on one acre lot to a well upset subject so it's not even marketable with its current entitlements. I don't think anybody really looks at the future land use map in terms of end users. They would say well that's what the future land use map says but in terms of the entitlements it's whatever it is in your staff report I apologize for not remembering off the top of my head but what is it nine single family houses that that that dog won't hunt when you go out to the market. So what what does make sense and I remember driving up and down Page Road with Commissioner Becky Herron talk about a blast from the past and her saying we really need more industrial development on this part of Durham so it's it's been a goal for our community for golly that must have been 10 that was probably 15 years ago and we're seeing it happen with a long beverage case they all approved and that that didn't have a development plan for the expansion of long beverage. So in terms of can we market it with our zoning you really can't. Hope to answer your question. A follow up please. And so it's the intent of the property owners to sell this land to a developer or to lease it or develop and probably sell it. And so I asked this question because you know there are cases where the zoning zoning change would increase the value of it but developer or a choir of the property would make the purchase contingent on them being able to get you know the request that you're coming here tonight with some just you know that's usually what happens. I'm usually here representing developer who has a piece of property under contract but that's just not the case here. He's a property owner and we looked at the future land use map. We looked at the Duke health system campus and we decided that residential really wasn't a good fit here. So I L makes makes good sense and it's in line with Durham County and the city of Durham's goals for this part of our community. Good question. Thank you. Other commissioners. Yes, sir. Commissioner Miller and then Commissioner Hornbuckle. Patrick I agree with you that because the property is currently designated for industrial use under the future land use map that your zoning is in line with that supported by current city policy but you have to push back a little bit on your statement that what's happening over here is an industrial area when in the immediate vicinity of this property what's happening is residential. I drove all over. It's residential in every direction except for the for the Duke project and then down at the end of Comstock there is a non residential development down there but that's in this other purple area. Yeah, I appreciate that. I'm only referring to the area that if you went north from this site to Long Beverage. Right and appreciate that. All throughout this area between the what I would call the suburban area the real the developed suburban area and the Wake County line on this side of I 40 we have we're developing a crazy quilt of industrial and residential projects which I I wish we were not doing but since we get these requests one at a time we have a tendency not to remember what we did already. I would love to have us look sometime and try to make sense out of this in terms of some sort of comprehensive approach to redrawing the lines on the future land use map but in terms of this particular project because of its proximity to the to the Duke development just further down and because I notice that you say that you're you're a use for this property may be a hotel. It's not that far from my 40 the land between here and I 40 years. Some of it is clearly wet and not a good good site for any kind of development. That's about all we have left in Durham. So I can't say that the way this is shaping up here. A hotel use or an office use consistent with the industrial light zone bothers me that much. I would not want to see a Long Beverage type facility here but it wouldn't be the end of the world. I suppose I'm going to support your request. But I do think that that in this particular part of the county residential seems to be the trend. Yeah, it's a pretty small parcel. So to perhaps allay your concerns. South of Comstock Road. It's only seven acres. So it's not like it's a 20 25 acre site that we can build something on. If I may, Mr. Chairman Patrick just reminded me with his comment about the small parcel is the parcel on the other side of Comstock Road, the portion of this property that's over there. Is that really usable for much zone? Light industrial meeting our open space requirement. Probably used for me or open space requirement. That makes sense. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thanks. Mr. Hornbuckle. Do you have a question? Yes, Mr. Barker. I totally support the project. I just had one question. Yes, sir. I remember many years ago when old Mr. Page was still living in that area. And I used to as a deputy, I would stop in and speak with him. Sure. Part of that somewhere in I see a lot of it is still some some wooded area. Yes, I recall him taking me back in the woods back in there and he had a cemetery for his old mules. I remember that. And I didn't know if that was on this piece of the north. It's a little north of that. I knew he had a large chunk of land in there. And that's why I just mean this site and long bed. I just wanted to see if it was, you know, if that was in this piece or not, I couldn't recall where it was. It's been many years. Belief is not. Mules. But yeah, there's still Page Family property between this site and the Long Beverage site that y'all. Right. Well, he's probably the only person ever did, but he did have. I remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For his old farm mules. If referred to the residential projects that Commissioner Miller, we had to work with the Page Family on temporary construction easements for the widenings of Page Road up and down through there. And so we spent some quality time with the Page Family. Commissioner Gibbs. Yes, sir. I keep pushing this button. I'm still not used to this on and off thing. Anyway, we're really learning some interesting history. I always like to hear those kind of comments because it does go to Durham's character, Durham County, Durham City, whatever. But I intend to support this. It's any of the allowed uses I think would work in this on this project. When there is no development plan, it's up to our imaginations as to what could go here. But at any rate, I think it's a good move for the property owner. And it's not out of step with anything else that's going on around this patchwork area. So I intend to support it. That's all, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Commissioner Baker. I have a comment. I don't have any questions. So if anyone else has questions before anything. The floor is yours. All right. So I want to thank staff for the work that they did on this, for the analysis that they conducted. I think that they did a really good job. This has lots of great information. Made it really easy to understand what was being proposed. They did their legwork. I want to make a quick statement. I don't necessarily want to persuade anyone of any of anything here, but I do want to voice some of my concerns with this project. It's coming before the Planning Commission and I think that we can make a thoughtful recommendation for the best of the health welfare and safety of the community. I noticed that in the Evaluation and Assessment Report that we received from staff under Section 5 Transportation, it mentions recent trends indicating growing locational demand for housing in more compact neighborhoods. It also mentions that the Triangle Region has historically been one of the nation's most sprawling regions. So I think that that's something to sort of step back and consider when we're looking at, yes, it's a small, it's a small parcel in a big city. Yes, sprawl is a big word and it can mean a lot of different things. But this is in many ways or can be sprawl. It could be a lot of different things. It could turn into industrial. It could become a wrecking yard. It could be used for something, a use that's more compatible with adjacent neighborhoods or with hospital uses. And so I think that that's something to consider. It's also currently being used. It's being used. It's forested. That's important for society, you know, the trees and the wildlife habitat and everything else that goes along with it. The positive impacts that that has on the climate and those types of things, it's not going to remain that way. I also don't believe that it will be developed residentially. I don't think it'll be developed as rural residential. And so there are opportunities, a lot of great opportunities for this site. To me, zoning this industrial light, which actually permits not industrial, not just industrial, but a lot of commercial and other types of uses in many ways, this is kind of a blank check. It's a blank check. And right now, we kind of have an opportunity to say, well, you know, we can why don't we come back with something else? I don't even think that a development plan is necessary. I don't think that we always need to know at this stage what's going to be developed. I think that those types of things, you know, can be handled by staff and can be handled in the UDO. So I wanted to voice that concern. I just wanted to say that I probably won't be supporting this. But I just wanted to voice that. Thank you. Thank you. Other questions or comments? Mr. Johnson? I just want to comment. Let's just wait one moment. Since no one has directly asked you a question at this point, we need to wait a moment. I just wanted to correct you. So my comments is in response to what we should share here. So I'm just curious as to is it the absence of a development plan, which you stated is not necessarily needed here, but what would you need to see to assuage whatever discontent that has you not in support of what's before us this evening? So I would be interested in something that guarantees that we'll see some sort of development that would be provide green building that would potentially provide less of a sprawl type of development. We don't just need to think, in my view, we don't just need to think about the uses. We also need to look at the form. This requires huge setbacks off of the street. And I think that we'll ultimately end up seeing a lot of the sort of business as usual type of commercial development or a hotel or whatever the next property owner wishes to put on their property. So I think the lack of knowing the lack of guarantees that something good, something that doesn't perpetuate the types of sprawl development that we see that is a little bit more sustainable in its orientation. And of course, you know, we have to consider the context of the area. Yes, it's not developing, it's not going to be a new urbanist community. It's not going to develop out that way. But you know, we only get a few opportunities to really be critical of these types of applications. And zoning is a powerful tool. And so I think that, you know, when we're looking at it, when we're looking at the zoning, this is an important moment for us to be considering, you know, do we want to push the community forward and do we want to be talking a little bit more about more sustainable development? Commissioner Johnson, any other questions? And Mr. Baker, I'd like to ask, give you the opportunity to make any additional comments. I believe there was a reference to a wrecking junk or salvage yard that would require a special use permit from the Board of Adjustment is not an as-of-right use in this district. It's correct. Again, I want to thank Jamie for putting a very, for putting the list here. And I believe the the lists are of permitted uses demonstrates that this request is appropriate for this section of Durham County. Thank you. Commissioner Alturk. Thank you, Chair. I wanted to just highlight what BPAC's recommendations were. And I wanted to ask staff a question. So, because we don't have a development plan, we typically see a commitment to five feet of asphalt for a future bike lane. Is there anything in the UDO that would require a bike lane without that commitment for this property? Or, I assume the answer is no, right? Eileen Thomas, Transportation. So, no, there's nothing in the UDO that would automatically require the additional asphalt for a bicycle lane. If there are facilities planned in our approved bicycle and transportation plans, we would look at those as they apply. And what would those be, those facilities? Or what do you mean if they are approved in the bike and plan? In the long range? Okay. Clients. All right. Thank you. And then I guess I am curious why, I mean I'll just reiterate the question that BPAC had, which is why not, you know, propose a commercial designation for this rather than an IO to more align with the potential proposed use? Because commercial would support residential uses and I agree with Commissioner Miller, I don't think that we need more residential use on this part of town, so that's why we did not pursue a commercial zoning designation. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Miller. So, to follow up on what Commissioner Alturk has said, I was looking at the BPAC recommendations to him and I know the staff has added comments to the comments. I find nothing wrong with either of the two questions that BPAC has raised and we have rehearsed them here and talked about them and I don't think that we'd necessarily all come down on the same side of it but I do think they are appropriate and so I'm grateful to them for raising both issues. I mean ultimately we have to send this forward with a recommendation either for or against and I think these are considerations that all of us can weigh and I'm grateful to them for bringing them up. In this instance, if I may respond to your point, I think that had they applied under the BPAC question number two you're an application for another zoning category like office institutional or commercial would have required a comprehensive plan change and they probably didn't want to incur the expense quite frankly. I'm just guessing Patrick can answer that so if he's going to change the zone he's looking for zones that are allowable in that purple part of the map and they're essentially two of them industrial and industrial life so I think that's what's driving this is a desire to be consistent with the the future land use map and the comprehensive plan and I get that. I also would prefer more specific understanding. I also don't like to write blank checks but considering the broadest range of things that might go in here and assuming as we were required to do by North Carolina law that the developer will put in as much as that if the developer put in as much as he could under the the table of permitted uses would it be okay to me the answer to there under in this case is yes so that's what I'm voting for. I admit that that there's just possible I suppose I would be disappointed if other things went in one over another but it doesn't worry me that much but I I get the point it's a good one and I think it's something we really need to look at but I would like to look at it not seven acres or nine acres at a time would really love to have a session where we sat down and we got a bigger map of this portion of Durham County and decided whether or not our future land use map actually makes sense. Commissioner Alturk. Commissioner Miller's comments remind me of a question that I had for staff which was that I also was struck by the comment from staff that it's not appropriate for BPAC to recommend the type of application and I'm because this is the first time I've seen this from staff and I'm curious because I am the liaison to BPAC so I can tell them why they should or should not do this. Sarah Young with the Planning Department again so BPAC's role in the development review process is limited to making recommendations on bicycle and pedestrian related issues amenities related to what our plans say we need what the ordinance may require although there is also transportation staff that looks at those same things so we have seen a consistent trend from BPAC asking applicants basically questioning why they didn't do a development plan there are lots of things and that's really kind of outside the purview of BPAC. But if if their goal is to promote bike and pedestrian facilities without a development plan they cannot assess whether or is that is that not correct that they cannot assess whether there will be a five-foot asphalt for future bike lane that so that's it seems to me honestly part of it I think is also an educational issue in terms of being familiar with what is on our adopted plans in terms of future proposed amenities and transportation improvements which will look will be asked for at the time of site plan and the developers will have to comply at that point so one of the things that Grace Smith and I have talked about is actually coming it's a little premature but you asked so I'll answer is coming to BPAC at an upcoming meeting and having a talk about the role of BPAC in development review and how to make sure that you guys find most effective avenues to push good transportation planning and good multimodal amenities and connectivity through what you're doing but we have consistently heard from applicants their concern that they're being put on the spot and basically interrogated questioned as to why they haven't done a development plan and not seeing the direct relevance. Okay thank you if I may one more question first and again this is on the issue of whether commercial or industrial designation makes sense so the proposal is for potentially a commercial development in an industrial zoning but it would be consistent with the comprehensive plan is that preferable to having you know the use not aligned with the front future land use map so you know to me this seems like there's you can either be consistent with the future land use map or you can the uses can be consistent right and so what is preferable from a planning perspective. So honestly I think that's where there is some judgment and some give and take the future land use map is intended to be the cities and the counties plan for this is the type in general of development that we want in this area so looking at it from that perspective at some point the city and the county said industrial is what we want here now having said that most if you look at our ordinance most of our zoning districts except for the residential ones allow a whole lot of different uses they really are not single use districts strictly and so you do get some amount of overlap part of that I think is good in that you know we have a comprehensive plan policy that talks about contiguous development and things kind of feeling like they continue to merge and fit into each other if we took that really literally you could only ever have one use in the entire city and county right because you'd have to constantly match what was next to you and that's clearly not the intent so I think the intent of having zoning districts that allow kind of a range of use uses that can kind of merge from one category to another helps do that blending of contiguous development where you may have different land uses I mean different specific uses in a land use category thank you sir great thank you any other questions or comments and before we we take a motion because I don't see any other questions and comments I do just want to say actually I appreciate this conversation I think it's really helpful for us to be able to ask direct questions of staff or the applicants or talk to each other and so I think that's really healthy and I always learn something from that as well so I appreciate this conversation and some of the questions that that have been raised that said I will look for a motion Mr. Chairman if I may you may I move that we send case z1810 forward to the city council with a favorable recommendation second and just for the record this is case z1800010 did I yeah okay I think when you add three zeros together I still think you have nothing I never stopped learning at this meeting properly moved and seconded and we'll have a roll call vote please no uh learning Mr. Al Turk no Mr. Johnson yes Mr. Baker no Mr. Brian yes Mr. Satterfield yes Mr. Erkin yes Ms. Hyman yes Mr. Busby yes Mr. Miller yes Mr. Kenshin yes Mr. Hornbuckle yes and Mr. Gibbs yes motion passes 10 to 2 thank you thank you mr. biker next on our agenda appropriately is a text amendment to the unified development ordinance this is case TC-18 quadruple 08 text only development plan thank you michael stock with the planning department text amendment TC-180008 would establish a limited text only development plan option for zoning map changes requests to allow proffers that limit uses allowed within requested zoning district this alternative limited in scope as staff develops more comprehensive set of revisions for alternatives to the current development plan requirements basically the proposed changes would be or the commitments that would be made would be incorporated into the ordinance for adoption commitments will be limited at this time to propose uses and can be proffered at any time during the review and adoption process and the d designation that you see commonly for development specifically for development plans would still apply to the zoning designation it's in response to frustrations we've we've heard from elected officials and even I believe even some planning commissioners that there are really just two options before you at this time a straight rezoning that you just heard right now and the full-blown development plan option which requires an applicant to put forward thousands of dollars worth of consulting time to develop plans that show a lot of things but ultimately the goal of the development plan is to allow applicants to proffer additional commitments that are beyond ordinance requirements and many of those commitments don't need to be graphic in nature sometimes they're very helpful to be graphic in nature but a lot of times they don't and and we've seen we sat here in meetings and like an applicant would just want to commit to a certain height and they don't have a development plan and and everybody would be fine if they could just commit to that height and the applicant was ready to do it but there wasn't a real option between the two that were already on the book so this is an initial step we are also taking a look at if and when this does get adopted furthering it to develop a more comprehensive list of items that could be in a texomy development plan and what that would look like in more detail if you're adding more items to it maybe there are some graphics that could be added to it to add to what the meaning of that commitment is without calling without having to do those larger development plan projects again if you have any questions i'll be happy to answer thank you and we do have a public hearing for this item as well is that correct we will see if there's any anyone signed up no one is signed up to speak anyone who would like to speak great okay seeing none commissioners questions comments feedback commissioner brian uh in view of the case that we just dealt with one potential use that i see for this and i want to sure understand how it would work is that you know they didn't know exactly what they wanted to do but they could have provided the list of things that they would not do is that correct that's correct at this point it would be listed it would be limited to a range of uses that you'd find on your use table but the goal is to even go beyond just that list and be able to provide those those proffers that don't require a of visual graphic thank you commissioner dirkin i just had a question on the visual thing is there any kind of room to provide a visual depiction of some sort in this capacity outside of a full-blown development plan for this kind of nice to visualize especially placement of certain things or right well in this in this limited case you're just talking about uses so you're either you're saying you can't do a shopping center or you're okay with a shopping center for that within that zoning district the idea that we're looking at when we go beyond that list when you see some text amendment in the future would be okay if you were going to the applicant was agreeing to a larger buffer do you need a full-blown development plan for that specifying larger buffer or was text and maybe a supplemental graphic with that text is is doable so that's what we're looking at for the future commissioner meller so you said something that interested me because i read it as being we're really just kind of fooling with the use table but you suggested that we've had cases and we have had cases where it would be easy to add a text commitment saying that it's not going to be taught that instead of the 50 feet it's going to be 42 feet that's not use would that be allowed under this as no i i'll just add yeah as an example of that was just something i was on top of but you say that may be where we're headed that's where we are heading with it once i've been working with uh with james team with developing and and looking at what kind of revisions we can make to add that more more robust third option or middle ground option um that would include maybe height limitations and other limitate other proffers or limitations offered by um the applicant um that again wouldn't necessarily require a graphic and as i were given a direction to kind of go with just uses at this point in time and procedurally as i understand it uh that at least as it's currently proposed right up until city council we could fool with items on the lit on the use table you know pull them off right uh or say these three only or this one only do that right up till then without causing delay correct yeah the idea is to allow that flexibility for when a public hearing happens or even through the application review process that something comes about when they've been talking to neighbors or something like that um to allow that flexibility to make those proffers without having to uh change the application substantially right because messing with use table we're we're we're moving the checkers but we're not we're not making them bigger or smaller or different shapes right all right thank you i understand that appreciate it and actually as a follow-up to to commissioner miller if i may um so basically i just want to understand the the way this would work is that a staff report might indicate if the applicant at during the application process before it even came to us took use of this right it might say they've already eliminated these we would still see the use table but it would note that these these uses have been eliminated or taken off and then obviously during the the hearing process we might go further than that that makes absolutely sense yeah i believe they would incorporate that into your stand at some point this would be written down and made a part of the application yes but ultimately um as it occurs so either they amend their application during review or when they go and have your public hearing and you make your recommendation of approval it would be with the proffers of whatever uses they've limited themselves to um and then that would move forward to the elected bodies and uh city council or board of commissioners depending on the jurisdiction and then they would see that and they'd be that's good or we want more or whatever and then whatever is adopted is just there's always an ordinance of adoption and those commitments would be just be part of that ordinance of adoption great commissioner johnson thank you so just to make sure i heard uh what i heard is i'm interpreting it correctly so when miss uh miss miller says that this tool will be able to be utilized up until council acts on it so if we go through the process and do whatever we do with the use tables restriction exceptions or whatnot and it's voted upon it can still change between what we vote on and what the the council ultimately decides on so the council can come in change the uses from what was voted on here in regards to the they they can yes i mean it would be a proffer from the applicant i mean it's not them mandating a change development plans are meant to be proffers agreed to by the developer just as you you would with a development plan in front of you now you'd raise a concern and they'd say oh yeah you know how we could address this concern we can limit this use so we don't allow the wrecking wrecking yard or whatever and then you guys say that's great could we confirm with staff that that's an appropriate committed element and it's just it's the same process except there's no big plans in front of you it's just limiting to those kinds of proffers that you normally see anyway for one quick follow because uh some i may be a little fatigued mentally so help me out here so the way it currently works here in the sense that if a development plan comes before this body and we vote on it favorably let's say we voted on it favorably for the council can that development plan be changed during the consideration by the council itself they have the authority to do that yes okay so so basically i mean at the hearing there's authority for that to happen it's kind of so this will be pretty much consistent with how that product okay exactly there's it's still a development plan it's just text only commissioner meller but there is a point between it between the case being coming to us and the time it gets to council where proposed changes become so substantial there's there's a magic line that can get crossed and then it's a do-over right but we're declaring in the way this ordinance is written that if this is all if you're just moving items in and out of the table of uses within the applied for zone that's not substantial that's not a do-over right right it's really enabling the applicant to address concerns it's more about form than it is about substance right and as even today if we had all the maps and everything if all we changed were commitments about what what items in the table of permitted uses would be in or out you wouldn't consider that to be substantial no i think that would be a pretty straightforward you know list and that gets that your concern the concern of what we're talking about for the next step we want to kind of go over that list of things that may what are substantial and not substantial that kind of things and it's going to be a tricky balance commissioner johnson is just curious so there she will assume that there's no cost associated with the applicant using this potential tool so there's no i get cost to do a development plan but there's additional costs for full-blown development plans i don't think that you're looking i don't know what the fee schedule would be like for this that's something that i haven't yeah that needs to be finalized follow and so how much effort are you assuming you would have to do to look at a use table and imagine it would be minimal effort so can we assume that the cost the fee the relative fee would be minimal i cannot make any assumptions at this point i'll let that be for the assistant director 45 cents so like like i said chances are it may be very comparable to what a straight zoning is we haven't looked at that yet there will be a fee though i don't want to i don't want people in the audience or at home getting the idea that this is a free rezoning so when we say that there is none let's be clear that there is no premium less than a development plan zoning and certainly the applicant the main savings is that they don't have to hire a consultant to spend thousands of dollars developing the drawings that right there is a cost savings a major cost savings it's a lot lot lot more than the fees okay i just wanted to make sure the citizen of obderm understood that aspect of this question thank you for your questions there we have now learned there is no such thing as a free rezoning i i did want to say i want to thank the staff i think this is this is a really good step in the right direction i know many of us and are not always comfortable voting for a case that doesn't have a development plan because of the large number of uses and as you just saw many of us still will will do it but we're not always comfortable with it this gives a level of comfort and moves us in the right direction and is very responsive to what you're hearing from from us and obviously the governing bodies i'm curious on the timing of the next phase so and i know you don't have the exact answers but what's your sense of the next phase how long do you think we will live with this interim regime if this does move forward and get approved which i'm guessing it will i would hope so um yeah um that's a good question uh we have a couple other things big things on our plate right now like we kind of like to least get partially eaten up um and digested um but um i'm thinking probably we'll take it back up early next year um to start looking at that um so this would be on the books for probably at least six to eight months before um anything's really moving forward you know it might give it time to see how things work and play out to which might be helpful great thank you any other questions or comments mr chairman if i may you may uh i move that we send the uh text amendment 18 quadruple 0 8 forward to the city council and the board of county commissioners with a favorable recommendation second moved and seconded do we need a roll call on this or give a voice vote of a voice vote all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed great motion passes unanimously thank you again to the staff thank you appreciate that our final public hearing this evening is the text amendment to the Durham comprehensive plan so this is a 1 8 quadruple 0 1 the year the evaluation and assessment report and we'll start with the staff reports good evening i'm laura woods with the planning department and as you stated this is uh case a 18 0 0 0 0 1 our annual evaluation and assessment report um for those of you the few of you i recognized from the last time i was here uh you'll you you will recall that we usually do this earlier in the year unfortunately this year a host of special projects with tight deadlines kind of scuppered our plans as it were so we're a little late i do not be surprised if the next annual report comes to you in the spring in about five months so let us get started um the purpose of the report is direct five differences between the city and county future land use maps report on progress of plan implementation propose changes to policy language propose technical updates to the future land use map and forecast planning issues and trends in 2017 the city approved nine changes to the future land use map and the county not a one uh the change in land use acreages was fairly small with the most significant being about 47 additional acres of commercial land and about 32 acres of low medium density residential with small declines industrial land and office um oh before we get to that the details on these plan amendments and also on zoning cases are in your staff report in tables and um the locations are shown in uh maps in the report um we have one policy recommendation change that i want to highlight this is proposed by the planning department and it has to do with the impact on a housing affordability within neighborhood protection overlays um if you if you don't mind i'll read it out evaluate the net impact on housing affordability and housing supply in all received applications for neighborhood protection overlays and local historic districts planning staff shall recommend denial of npo applications that have a negative impact on housing affordability or housing supply this policy is intended to bring the comprehensive plan into conformance with affordable housing initiatives that are currently underway uh we have one change recommended this year on the future land use map and this is in the vicinity of rose of Sharon road um it's actually an extension represents an extension of enos state river state park three properties were acquired by the state and those are indicated on the map shown here uh also in attachment three of your report and not only do they offer an extension of the park they also offer um sort of a um a path to the city's Durham Durham or the city of Durham's spring valley park or excuse me valley springs park it's not one i'm familiar with haven't been that way so that is the extent um of our changes recommended um we have expanded our um trends this year since we have so very little changes so i hope you don't didn't mind the um insight into land use and demographic changes in Durham and our assessment of emerging trends that concludes my report thank you we will uh open the public hearing but we have no one that has signed up to speak we'll give anyone in the audience the opportunity to speak no one is coming forward so we will close the public hearing questions from the commissioners commissioner johnson uh just a question in regards to the affordable housing impact assessment and the proposed recommendation um uh do you have an existing uh framework or method methodology of what that impact assessment entails and if so and if not will that mean net impact on affordable housing in the city or is it the net impact of the purview of whatever you know overlay area that is under consideration the net impact within the historic district or the proposed npo additional questions commissioner johnson oh thank you you're good get commissioner satterfield my question was along the same lines what are the metrics that are going to be used to determine what that net impact looks like i think there's yet to have yet to be determined commissioner miller so i have a problem with it too we do have policies in the um comprehensive plan at least my quick scan of it to talk about what it is we want out of our historic districts uh and some criteria that that help us determine or measure uh when one is appropriate where we want them and where we don't as far as i could find we don't have any policy whatsoever in the comprehensive plan that even contemplates the npo and i have a problem with having a concrete with having a device in the zoning code called the neighborhood protection overlay having a comprehensive plan that doesn't recognize it and then adding a one policy in the comprehensive plan as it relates to the npo and it is unfavorable uh we just considered at our meeting last time changes to the rules about applying for an npo that make it so difficult why don't we just propose to eliminate it because that seems what we're doing by it's it's death by a thousand cuts and i so i object to this policy i don't think the metrics are there um i don't even know how you do it um how you evaluate it i do think that's a very good question is is whether it's just inside the the boundaries of the proposed district or whether it's a net effect across the the jurisdiction i also have this problem with if we're going to have policies that contemplate the npo we ought to start with policies that are about where an np what we're trying to accomplish with an npo uh and put that in the comprehensive plan and then if we want to curb npo applications uh based upon uh how they perform with regard to housing affordability and and uh and housing supply and we can work that in there but to have just a negative policy uh no and no policy guidance at all for for the tool seems to me a lousy way to do comprehensive planning so i'm going to vote against this any other commissioners uh commissioner dirkin i would just um in response to a commissioner miller's statement i'm excited that the staff is actually thinking about housing affordability and how we can bring that metric into our decision making process so i'm really excited that even though this needs to be fleshed out a lot i'm excited by the idea that you're thinking about it and that we'll have more in front of us soon so i thank you i had a question as well so i had concerns about this as well i appreciate you raising it in your report and putting it directly in front of us because that was the one thing that jumped out of me as i read through this so and and i agree with with commissioner miller's concerns in a lot of regards i think this is an important planning tool if not the only citizen driven planning tool where the citizens of this community are reacting to development proposals this is the one tool that's available for citizens to bring something forward that said can you walk us through how you envision this would actually work i don't mean the metrics but i mean if you decided if the planning staff and it says shall recommend denial of an mpo application that has a negative impact on housing affordability or housing supply what happens next is that just your recommendation in your report to us when it comes to the planning commission and because i know there's a couple different proposals now that are moving on separate tracks so i'm trying to wrap my head around how does this actually move forward under current proposals and how might it move forward if what we saw last month also gets put forward does that make sense it does i'm scott wayman from the plane department so it would just be recommendation the the planning commission and the governing body could still adopt an npo if we determined that it had some negative effect on housing supply this is in response to a lot of what we heard during the adoption of the old west Durham npo is that there was concern that it would be opening the door to a lot of neighborhoods trying to clamp down on the amount of housing or by greatly increasing lot sizes or greatly reducing density we publicly stated that to council and i probably the planning commission as well that we believe the old west Durham npo did not do that just affected the scale of the housing in their in their neighborhood excuse me it did not actually affect the supply but we felt we'd be in a better position to make that analysis if we had a comprehensive plan policy that was adopted and just a follow-up and then then other commissioners i'll call another commissioners if the proposal if i understood the proposal that we saw last month and we we pulled that out and we we will see that again at some point i assume soon that proposal would start with the staff making a recommendation to the governing body is that correct if that proposal move forward is currently drafted and that may be getting reworked so i don't i don't want to get us tied up and not so i'm just trying to i'm trying to get a sense of i i still have concerns with it i have less concerns if the the staff report just says we're going to vote denial because of concerns about affordability and the planning commission and the governing body will still then have that opportunity to review it and and make their decision i i still have concerns i just think it's a little different so absolutely the planning staff does not get to approve or deny any zoning change whether it's an npo or a standard zoning map change so we would just we provide our analysis and our recommendation this is something that city council indicated they would want to hear from us if they had another npo application in front of them i will say we are planning to bring the udo changes about the npo process to your december meeting as a standalone item great thank you commissioner miller so i i'm reminded by some of the comments that people have made that in article three of the udo we incorporate our comprehensive plan into our udo and so if the planning staff then makes its evaluation and says that that this is a recommends denial it seems to me we have a confused situation does the case end i think the people who i i'm just terribly troubled by this and i don't think that i know we've got i have i read in the newspaper and i know that we have an application for an npo from one neighborhood and i know another neighborhood i read the newspaper has met with the staff to explore where they're looking at it i wonder if they understand that these barriers are being set up in front of it why can't we just have an npo process that where it gets to the city council or the board of county commissioners and they say we're voting against it because we think it has a negative impact on housing affordability or housing supply why do we have to make these decisions before before people even start or after they start and put all the work that we now propose to to put them to to get their application in front of people and find out they wasted their time i think this is this is this is the bad way of going about dealing with citizens and the one thing that they can do uh that that that lets them participate as an initiator in our planning and zoning process commissioner alturg thank you chair um you know last month we had the proposed text amendment and and we discussed the npo process and i mentioned that i did not like the fact that we were potentially making it more difficult and so i was glad that we took that part of it out of it because i do think the npo process is an important one having said that i i like this policy i don't see any problem with the planning staff making or assessing the effect on affordable housing we can we can still have an npo process but have the planning staff assess the impact on affordability at the end of the day like staff has said it is our decision and it's really the governing body's decision whether to approve it or not you know so i i'm always in favor of more information about all applications and if you know i think we should make it easier to have an npo process but at the same time we should have full information about the npo and how and its effects so maybe the issue that we're having here and and i'm not sure if this is exactly what it is for some folks that the language says that the planning staff will recommend denial so i'm i'm wondering you know is there any way where you can still have the assessment but not recommend i mean just have a neutral recommendation if i may interject um as someone who does a great a good deal of the quantitative analysis for the planning department um as you know the npo process is an iterative process it usually takes a long time um there's no reason that the assessment could not take place during the development of the npo which would highlight a problem that might there might be with the npo before it gets to the the point of a public hearing before it becomes a completed product i will say to answer commissioner alturk's question um the assistant director does remind me that the planes have to technically does not make recommendations on zoning changes which this is one so we'll refine that language so that it's not the the it's not so stark okay so you will take out the sentence that says planning staff shall recommend denial yes okay thank you thank you commissioner alturk okay i see a few hands so commissioner dirkin and then commissioner johnson a follow-up question related to commissioner alturk's comment um does this the staff include any kind of analysis on affordability in an npo application currently and or is this the vehicle that would allow you to do that we don't do it currently uh we haven't had that many so okay won't we only had one recently um to be approved we do as commissioner miller said we do have one an application currently in and we've heard talks of others okay commissioner johnson i just want to echo uh support for the position uh put forth by commissioner alturk i think that anytime we can get value add information in front of us to help us with our deliberation and decision making that that is a good thing however i do i do agree with striking out the shell provider recommendation because i think that that's the charge of us it's like that's pointing the the responsibilities of what us and then ultimately the council is responsible uh from an elected officials and then an appointed position to do and so i am all for uh additional value add information but i do think the responsibility is up to us to uh make the decision regarding what do we do if that record the information is good that are indifferent thank you commissioner baker yeah this is unrelated to to that topic but i i wanted to um just bring out a few items um in in the report that i think are interesting and and worth highlighting one is uh under housing on page nine looking at the increases in housing and housing prices and housing costs um i think this is something that we need to be paying close attention to as a planning commission and and as a city especially looking at the increases in rent um because the the types of people that are renting um can often be um people who um have less means and so um especially when rent is increasing at a higher rate than than home prices it makes it difficult to to build up any wealth um uh to save up for a down payment if someone is trying to save up for a down payment to buy a house i also wanted to just highlight something on page 13 um the um design districts in the in the udo uh i don't have an in-depth knowledge of those but i wanted to raise this i just wanted to applaud staff for applaud staff and applaud everyone else who is behind um putting in place the design districts i think that this is something that's really important that's needed in in the city um i'd love to see more of this type of work um happening so that's all i wanted to say thank you commissioner baker commissioner miller so while we're i'm going to tie the two together impacts on housing affordability as they relate to npos and historic districts quite frankly isn't going to happen very often if we really want to measure and get information on impacts on housing affordability and housing supply we'd have this kind of analysis whenever we have uh certain kinds of major residential rezoning uh of course with our design district process once we go to design district and we apply the design district zones there is no coming back the developer builds what he wants to build inside the the the rules of the code but i'll point out in our design districts we don't require any residential at all we could build a design district out completely without any residential and to me that's a policy failure and if we want to have our hands on the levers uh to the extent that that the that the levers can accomplish anything with regard to affordability and supply i think we need some rules that address of uh the requirements for housing in design districts since the design districts are supposed to be around places where we have transit stops and that we also continue to have some sort of analysis of or some way to analyze affordability because when i i look at the same charts and tables you have the the rents that are jumping up aren't it's not the it's not the the 1800 square foot single family house up in argon hills it's the new apartments that are being built around parking structures all over downtown that's where the rents are going that that's where housing prices are leaping out of control but we have already given up all controls there's no point in studying uh or analyzing uh housing afford the impacts on affordability or supply there because we created design districts and if you own a piece of property in there your next step is is site plan and a building permit it's not going to come here there's not going to be a vote so i would like to change that so that we stay in charge of uh of the place where action in housing is actually happening not in historic districts which once in a blue moon and npo's which at our current rate are once in every 12 years so i don't see any other questions or comments i did just want to follow up for staff because i i think you may have addressed my main concern do you mind just restating how you would plan to rephrase the language on the impacts on affordable on affordability on the housing affordability i just want to make sure that that i understand what you're planning to change and it may be useful for other commissioners as well generally not i'm not going to hold you do the exact language but just i just want to make sure i understand where you're changing language we will definitely remove the phrase planning staff shall recommend denial of npo we'll need to add some words generally so that it still makes a sentence but i'm not sure what those are at this particular moment but softer words it will definitely be softer great thank you christina turk this is unrelated to to affordable housing um laura you're the i want to point to table sorry figure one on page two you show the net change in acres of the uh flum um i was kind of hoping there would be something similar for the zoning map changes um do you have a sense of what i mean just looking at this list in table two i was just trying to get a sense of you know what the net changes would be for zoning map changes um so i guess you know if there was some way to relate that or relay that to us at some point that would be i think useful but i was thinking more broadly you know i assume you do this kind of analysis for the last five years the last 10 years i think it would be good for us to to see those net change in acres over a longer time period um because i think this is a really helpful you know overview and i would i would love to see maybe you know five year or something just so we can get a sense of when we're deciding to change from you know residential to commercial you know what are we doing to the landscape as a whole right and and how is that really going to affect affordable housing long long term so if there's you know any way to pass that along to us at some point that would be great but would you be satisfied if i did it with the next report yes that would be great yeah i'm you know yeah i'd hate to add more homework but but that would be great thank you any other questions or comments and then we'll accept the motion commissioner miller i'll ask my question directly to i'm sure there's an easy answer with embarrass make me embarrassed for having a question it might be worth the extra minute okay i'll take a motion for approval at this point mr chairman i move that we send uh the text amendments to the comprehensive plan uh embodied in a 18 quadruple zero one afford to the city council and board of county commissioners with a favorable recommendation second motion made and seconded you need to clarify the motion with the changes that the staff indicated with regard to the policy tax change yes thank you properly moved and seconded we'll have a roll call vote for approval mr el Turk yes mr johnson yes mr baker yes mr brine yes miss satterfield yes mr kinn yes miss hyman yes mr busby yes mr miller no mr kinshin yes mr hornbuckle yes and mr gibbs yes passes 11 to 1 thank you and thanks to the staff for your work we had two final items that we added so we are going to review and vote on our 2019 meeting dates and then we have project updates which is a new feature to our meetings that we've been asking for for a while staff anything on the 2019 meeting dates you need to add no so we have the dates in front of us this keeps us on regular schedule i move that we adopt the 2019 meeting schedule presented by staff second moved by commissioner brine seconded by commissioner hornbuckle and commissioner miller recognize you for a question or a comment on the motion never mind i'm a little concerned about the october 8th date but since we always meet on tuesday and tuesday is election day is always on tuesday i know we'll have a primary in october and i'm concerned that it might be the eighth but we probably don't know the date yet so there's no point in asking the question staff always amend later if we need to and we can do that keep that in mind we can amend later if we need to that's a great clarification thank you so all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed thank you mark your calendars and finally the long-awaited project updates and again we really appreciate that the staff is willing to take the time to put these together we're hoping that these will be a regular feature when we don't have really really long meeting agendas mr whiteman yes and our intent is to do this quarterly ish and we'll we have any meetings like your last one we'll uh we'll wait till the next one thank you so mr stock is passing out a memo that just is a brief summary of some of the big projects that we'll have coming for you soon i'll introduce them to you or refresh your memory about some of these and give you a quick status update feel free to ask me questions so for the Patterson Place compact neighborhood the we held our last public meeting at the end of october we have general consensus for most of the stakeholders we are planning to do a briefing for the planning commission at your next meeting and then plan for the public hearing at your january meeting let's say one it's in our last discussion one one thing to note about that is it will include a version of the affordable housing density bonus that was adopted as an interim that will be incorporated as a permanent in this district the expanding housing choice project we'll be having public open houses here at city hall to discuss the details of the proposal on november 27th and november 29th we are planning for a planning commission briefing in january and the planning commission hearing in february the rewrite of the signed section of the udo which i know might briefed you on a few months ago we're still working on trying to find some compromises on a few sticky issues so we're we're not sure when it'll come back to you as a public hearing item but sometime early next year and the new comprehensive plan for those who don't know we received some funding in our budget to hire consultant to help with the engagement portion of our comprehensive plan i'd like to thank some of you for either volunteering or having your arm twisted into helping us select that consultant we are let's see the week of november 26th we're doing interviews for that and we're planning to have a a more engaged process to select the consultant than is normal in a a process like that and so we're including community members development community members as well as city and county staff great thank you questions comments commissioner gibbs my comment excuse me my comment is for the the last item i really do appreciate the information that y'all compiled i'm going to be referring to this little packet this little thing for a long time there there is some good information in here and i do appreciate your efforts commissioner outtirk just to clarify so the consultant is just for outreach is that correct that's correct okay and then are you hiring consultants to help with actual plan or we will we'll do that in house okay and have you started on that process or not quite yet we have just yeah go ahead barely begun doing some of the initial research and we'll wait till we have the consultant on board to free up our time to and to have some of these other projects work their way through the system so we'll have more time to devote to the comprehensive plan great thank you is young if i may i i notice some concern perhaps expressed on some of the members faces about the proximity of some of the pc briefings followed by public hearings and i just wanted to let you know that we're well aware that you wanted more space and however these two projects are so far down the road there's no time now to to have an early on briefing with the commission these projects are nearing completion and so that's why these couple of projects you see still follow the more traditional or previous model of one month of briefing in the next month the public hearing but i just want you know that you've been heard and we are going to do everything to roll towards a new model where we bring you things early on so i just wanted to to mention that and not let anyone walk away thinking that they totally ignored us but once projects are kind of towards the end of their lifespan it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to to try and jam in an extra session with you all i had two things that one i just did want to speaking of feeling ignored i want to make sure we know that commissioner Kenshin has arrived he arrives soon after we started just for the record for the minutes i'm also just curious from staff the what what is the path on the signed ordinance at this point because i know there are still comments coming in what's the just what are the steps at this point for that moving forward so the steps once we feel we have addressed some concerns of elected officials and the community we'll bring it back to the planning commission so we're the first stop you're the first stop okay and the bulk of it won't remain the same there's just a few things like signs in the right of way as you might imagine which are still creating some controversy okay thank you any other questions or comments i would just say i know this may not fit the staff capacity i for one this doesn't have to be a quarterly thing where this is kind of a scheduled quarterly update i think it's it's helpful for us to get these updates and some more advance updates as we get further down the path of this process and so for me it's much more about just looking at meeting agendas and if we have smaller agendas like this evening let's make sure that we're taking advantage of that time if we have meeting agendas like last month please do not add anything to the agenda so that that's just my take i know the staff resources might not allow that but i would encourage you to not think a bit of as having to be quarterly given how the workflow comes to us i think that was the ish part of yeah okay great all right one more thing so one another thing that i was gonna ask ad if i may is it grace and i've been talking about and this is not just for this commission but for our other boards and commissions whenever you have a light agenda bringing some more um although i know we have our our kind of manual trainings with you all bringing some more almost educational you know have a stormwater expert come and really talk about what happens at the site plan stage have someone from our development review group come and talk about the nitty-gritty of site plan review and approval for those that may not be as familiar with it so i think things that may give you all a better comfort level with some of the zonings that are less specific let's say as to what our development regulations in totality address or don't address so we will look in coordination with the chair to try and whenever we see you have a light agenda slide some of those things in if that's all right i think we would welcome that great commissioner brian sir i would really enjoy hearing the stormwater thing because we've had so much rain recently that this business of a hundred-gear storm may have to be revisited and regulations may have to be updated and so forth just like you are faster and given that we just endured a two-hour delay of the public schools opening this morning i would very much like to hear an update commissioner miller this is something i mentioned a while back and uh it makes me nervous every time i do any kind of training our emails with citizens and with each other and what have you our public records and right now like hillary clinton i'm running mine through my one email address um i would feel a lot more comfortable if i had an email address it was over here and if somebody wanted to see what somebody had said to me or what i had said back that it would be right there and it would be segregated from all the other emails i get and it won't rely on me searching up and down but i've been on the commission for four years now i've only had two requests for emails somebody who was on one side of a case asking for the email chain from that i had with somebody on the other side and i have done my best and everybody seemed to be satisfied with it but it as an old city government i mean county never mind too too late as an old state government guy um i would like to have all of that happen somewhere else i do not know how big an ask this is uh whether i can get a ci Durham uh email address um that i can access but everybody else can see too um it would also help to remind me that everything i am doing is there for somebody to see and it could carry that thing at the bottom that i do not want at the bottom of every email i send that says that my emails are emails to me and emails from me on planning commission business for public and people available they belong to the people and the people can see them we can we can inquire thank you i would appreciate it commissioner brian um based on some of my experience getting emails from the city of Durham on topics that are totally unrelated to planning uh i would worry a little bit that if we had an email address for planning commissioners you might wind up getting more emails than you ever counted on and some of them won't be related to planning i still get an update every time the tech people do something i used to get stuff about signing up for my medical benefits stuff like that so i think we have to it could really be a problem for staff to set up something that's just for planning but is isolated from everything else i don't know and that and if that's it in fact the case then we'll just carry on but i do feel like hillary clinton every time i get into an email exchange i don't look like hillary clinton but i feel a little bit like her commissioner johnson uh that's a good point uh commissioner miller because i'm sitting here like playing you know hypotheticals it's like our communications with citizens or anyone reaching out regarding cases is considered public information but it could be the case where some personal relationship about someone reaches out my best friend it's like what do you think about i hear cases going on just personally what do you think about it is that deemed like a public record if i'm using my private my my personal gmail account and i'm having a company and so that's why when you're saying that i think it is then should be a way where there's a a portal of a portal email address to something that's dedicated to residents or whoever reaching out to us through that vehicle so that there won't be any great area for us knowing when and what is and what is not public consider public information that has to be shared when whoever asked for it whenever let me clarify one thing if gigantic if someone had a city email that does not mean that if you were to email something on your personal email about a case or a topic related to playing commission that is also still a public record so having a separate email does not then make your private email off limits no no what it does is it just for if you it's it makes segregation easy if you are disciplined about how you use both right but the discipline requirement doesn't go away stairs right and if this doesn't work out i can set up another email account and just have one for everything and one for for this only that gets published on the on the directory part of the website so my emails start coming just to that and i won't use it for anything else and that's the point i was only right so they have one goat well we we'll look forward to a staff update if that's a possibility and if not i think we've identified our backup solution so anything else for this evening and i just asked one quick question about that would uh this email uh the emails that we receive from the public is is something directly to us and as long as it's just to us as individuals rather than as a board uh that's okay uh it's when we get into like some things that i have mistakenly done included everybody on the board uh if there is something that needs to be tracked in the city system or county system or whatever uh when it comes from staff it is whatever we say is public record does that make sense i i'm just for keeping things simple so commissioner gibbs i think you're actually confusing two different different but related things one is open meetings law and open the meetings law says that you cannot conduct business which includes discussing either verbally in person or digitally online through forums or in emails back and forth you cannot discuss the business of the body outside of a published and advertised meeting that's among ourselves that's open meeting right so that's open meetings right the other is public records which says basically any any record where you and your official duties a planning commissioner are discussing business if someone if i'm a citizen and i email you oh please do something about this horrible case that's about to you know come before you please don't vote for it that is absolutely a public record and someone could ask to retrieve that email from you so it's two separate things well now yes certainly the emails that originate from our accounts are automatically you know we archive them and we keep them but there may come a time when we get an open records request for some of you all's emails and we have to reach out to you and say please compile them all and give them to us that's separate and a different issue that open meetings law okay great thank you for the clarification great seeing no other questions or comments this meeting is officially adjourned have a good night everyone you do