 Outside, everything that's going to R and U, outside, those are neighborhoods that are at R and U. Your mic is hot. Okay. Yeah, so that was fun. I got it. It's my mic. It's out of yours. He's the guy. Good afternoon. Welcome to the Durham Planning Commission. We're glad you joined us this evening. The members of the Planning Commission are appointed, half by the City Council, half by the County Commission. They are the governing bodies. And you should know that the governing bodies have the final say on any of the issues that are before us this evening. We have one main agenda on tonight's agenda, one item. So we urge you, if you would like to speak, please come and sign up on the table to my left. And we ask that you put down your name, your address, and you can indicate if you were for or against. You might be in the middle and you can indicate that as well. When it's your turn to speak, we'll call you up. We ask you to come up to the microphone. You can speak into the microphone and you can share your name and your address. And then you'll have time to speak. Our rules are that each side on each item have 10 minutes per side. So 10 minutes for those speaking in favor, those 10 minutes for those speaking against. But we can amend those rules depending on the item that's in front of us. I'm assuming that may be something we'll be thinking about this evening. 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 Williams. Here. Commissioner Morgan. Here. Commissioner Johnson. Present. Commissioner Brine. Present. Commissioner Durkin. Here. Commissioner Al Turk. Here. Commissioner Hyman. Present. Commissioner Busby. Here. Commissioner Miller. Here. Commissioner Baker. Here. Commissioner In the minutes and the consistency statements from our April 9th meeting. Any comments, suggestions, edits or a motion for approval. I move approval of the minutes and consistency statements as presented. Second. Moved by Commissioner Brine and seconded by Commissioner Morgan. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously and we will move to adjustments to the agenda. And we will move to adjustments to the agenda, Ms. Smith. Yes, staff does not recommend any adjustments on moving items, but we would like to add two very brief items under new business, item B would be resolutions in honoring past Planning Commission members. And item C, just a very brief update on some future training. Oh, thank you. Mr. Chairman, I move that we adopt the agenda with the additional items described by Ms. Smith. Sorry. Properly moved and seconded. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. And with that, staff would like to remind the Commission that the item that was on the agenda tonight was continued from our prior public hearing. And so, re-advertisement was not required. So, advertisement was done for the original hearing. All right, thank you. So, again, we're going to move to our main item this evening. This is text amendment with rezoning. This is a continued case from two months ago. It's TC-18 quadruple 07, the expanding housing choices. Again, before we start the staff presentation, if you are interested in speaking, please sign up on the table. And we will continue the public hearing, which we opened two months ago. And we will certainly look forward to hearing your comments. But we'll start with the staff presentation. Thank you very much, Michael Stock, with the playing department. Back in March, we had a pretty lengthy and substantial presentation presented before you and folks within the audience and those watching at home. And also, you heard numerous comments. We have a brief presentation, which pretty much just wanted to update you as to outreach. And also focus your attention on at least one of the attachments in your agenda with the supplemental memo about specific text amendment alternatives that receive the most focus that we've heard upon. Outreach since the March 13th meeting, this is the list of groups and events that playing department has met with or been involved with. I'm not going to discuss each and every one. But the biggest, well, the most interesting one that we held was back in April 27th, the community conversation over at the Walltown Community Center. We had over 40. I think it was actually close to 50 attendees. We had Spanish translation. We had actual kid activities and supervision of those kids. And it was actually used. It was a lot of fun. And what was great about it was that the playing director not only presented what was presented at the March hearing. So everybody was on the same footing. But if you are not aware, we were able to have folks who attended break up into small discussion groups. I recognize some of the folks here tonight that were at that meeting. But a number of you were not. And they were able to just talk about different issues that were presented to them and then report back to the larger group just to have a discussion about what they were supportive of, what they weren't supportive of, and why and see if there was any, if at all, consensus. The other thing that we wanted to discuss with you is within your agenda packet is some of the points that were most talked about and based upon that public input and the options that are before you tonight based upon those specific points. The other, what was in the agenda packet, along with the supplemental memo that just discussed different issues that staff heard, is a very fine tuned specific list of points to talk about. But also, there is a broader, as you've seen, a broader table of comparisons that might be a little eye-crossing at times. But we tried to provide you as in simplistic form as possible. And these same items are online. The comparison between current, what was proposed in November, and what was proposed in March. There have been no changes made by staff from the March item. That doesn't mean that changes can't be made going forward. But we wanted to stay consistent at this point since the public hearing was still open. Oops, I'm sorry. Go back for a second. So for the very specific items that we wanted to focus on, and again, these can be focused on. And we can also talk about anything else that you'd like. We provided a couple of options. Option A is what is represented in the current staff draft submitted in March. Option B was the November discussion draft version and then indicating the current requirement. So just to briefly go through that and for those sitting in the audience and watching on TV or online. We heard a number of comments regarding the accessory dwelling units and standards that were proposed for change. I'm not going to get into detail with each and every one, but the staff draft back in March provided for a slightly tiered and revised methodology for calculating height. The November draft didn't change any of the current requirements and the current requirements are as listed for RS zoning. It was a maximum of 15 feet within 10 feet of property line and RU zoning 25 feet within 5 feet of the property line. With another issue that seemed to be a hot topic with ADUs was allowing an ADU with a duplex. The March draft would not allow an ADU with a duplex. In November, that was proposed to allow that and the current requirement does not allow an ADU with a duplex. The next was there's a new option, small lot option, proposed consistent with both the November and March drafts. The November draft option be allowed ADUs with the smaller lot sizes. The March draft would not allow ADUs with those. And again, ADUs are accessory dwelling units. Getting out of accessory dwelling units into maximum density, one of the big issues that we heard was when the zoning density caps would be applied, option A would change the current requirement to apply the density cap to exempt plots and exempt plants allow for those or state-allowed subdivisions of land of up to three lots, the no less than two acres. The current requirement does not require a density cap for those and the November draft also did not require a density cap for those. And also with the small lot options for reducing the current lot sizes, we have provided additional supplemental requirements for those such as driveway design and location, additional tree planting or protecting downspout placement and even a density cap for the very small lot option B down to 2,000 square feet. Those were provided in the March draft. Those were not within the November draft. And again, there's no current requirement now because this is a new proposal. And also in infill standards, one of the new things that were proposed for infill was providing a maximum building coverage. It's not an overall impervious surface coverage, but it's just a coverage for building on the lots. And that would be a maximum of 40%. I believe there would be, and then in November draft, there was no maximum building coverage provided. And current requirements don't have a maximum building coverage unless you're in a water supply watershed. And then this is extremely wordy, but I will not write it for you. Maximum building height has also been an issue. The current requirement is whether it's the base zoning. It's the lesser of the base zoning or no more than 14 feet. And there's also a height taking a look at adjacent structures. But you get to exempt that 14 feet if it's more than 25 feet. The November draft kind of kept that standard, but clarified which adjacent structures we were looking at, and then also removed the 20 foot exception so it would apply no matter what. And then the March planning draft actually changed the requirement completely and set the standard as no higher than the tallest building on the subject block face and the opposing block face. And you could seek a minor special use permit to get a higher height. Staff does recommend approval of the proposed draft. And here for everybody's edification is the website and the email address if you have additional comments or concerns you'd like to send staff. And we'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. We're going to move to reopen the public hearing. But Mr. Stock, I'm sure we will have questions for you following the night's public hearing. Thank you, Scott. So commissioners, as I said in the beginning, I expected we'd have a significant number of speakers and we do. And so I'm just quickly looking, but we have at least 25, it appears, speakers who have signed up. This is a continued hearing. So we did have a number of speakers who addressed us in March. You are welcome to speak again. I would like to have us consider having a discussion to have a longer discussion, more than 10 minutes per side, to allow a robust conversation. Mr. Chair? Yeah, Mr. Chair, I would ask to amend it to allow three minutes per each speaker and that we give them enough time to express their thoughts. How many minutes? Three minutes. I second that motion. So the motion before us moved and seconded is to allow each speaker three minutes to speak. Any discussion? Seeing none, we will have a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. So what I'm going to do, and we did this last time as well, we have a series of speakers. We often will have those speaking for and those speaking against. We've got a lot of folks who, some are saying for, some are saying against, some have not indicated and some, I think, are saying maybe they're for or maybe they're against, but they have some modifications. We're just going to run straight through the list. So this is a little different than how we usually do things. Just to remind folks, and I'm just going to read a few names so you can each come up or be ready to come up. There is a clock that you should keep an eye on that will count down your three minutes and you will hear a beep at the end of your three minutes. So I encourage you to please finish your thought if you are still speaking and allow the next speaker to come and speak as well. Ms. Smith. Staff would graciously request that you do them in groups, have the fours, the against and the undecided or vice versa. Last time we had to go back through and watch the whole tape because some people were undecided and they got grouped and with the wrong groups for the minutes and I had to take out like half a day of my time to figure that out. So if you don't mind, that would be great. I don't, we have eight or nine folks who did not indicate. It's fine. So we, this will not be perfect. That's fine, just do the best you can. But if you could take, usually what we do is take when we do the hearings, we have the applicants, which are normally four, then you have the folks, the opposition and then, so however you want to arrange it's fine with me. I just would like to have them in groups if possible. Why don't we do this? I will keep score as people speak. Okay, if you want to do that, that might be better. Why don't we do that? Just help me, one way or the other. And that way it'll be his fault when you get it wrong. That's right. I get an email that is not correct. I'll send it to you. That actually is my wheelhouse. So I'm perfectly comfortable being. Thank you for doing that very much. We appreciate it. You bet. So if, when I do call you up, we're just going to call you in order. I will do my best. I might even ask you, so are you speaking for or are you speaking against so we can at least get that noted. We are going to start and again, I may not get your names pronounced correctly if I can't read it right. So please forgive me in advance. Jay, Lorand. Matori, thank you, sir. So if you can come up to the microphone and if you can give us your name and your address and then your remarks and then Mary Barzi is next. Floor is yours, sir. Thank you. I'm Jay Lorand Matori. I live at 1014 West Markham Avenue. My wife, Bumi and I have lived in Trinity Park for the last 10 years and are very grateful for the opportunity to share our impressions of TC 108. The first thing that we loved about Trinity Park when we moved there was the trees. The trees are beautiful and everywhere. And the next thing that we noticed was a lovely balance between multi-family, sometimes high-rise dwellings and private homes and homes of various sizes. So people of various stages in life could live together. The concern that TC 108 raises for us is matched by our sympathy with the inspiration behind it. We strongly agree with the inspiration that urban sprawl is ecologically harmful and disproportionately impacts the underprivileged. On the other hand, if the current proposal is implemented, we fear a number of results. One would be the proliferation of accessory housing units on each plot, which would increase the density of population significantly and also increase runoff due to the inevitably increased paving that will also accompany these developments. Our concern is with the loss of trees that would result in the proliferation of accessory housing units. Furthermore, as was made very clear to us, restrictions on the architectural style of these accessory buildings are against the law. So our concern is that developers concerned with short-term rental profits would build utilitarian-looking architecture that would harm the aesthetics of the neighborhood. Finally, we're concerned about increased population density and the loss of parking. I think there are better ways of addressing the laudable inspiration behind this proposal. And those would be high-rise developments on currently available plots of land, which my wife and I notice all the time as we're driving around Durham. And furthermore, those housing units should be encouraged to include moderate-income units, both condominium units and rental units that would serve the interests of people of moderate income. I believe that such developments could pay greater attention to traffic flow and to population flow. And the provision of parking, because they're new units that could be required to have underground parking. So in sum, I would strongly oppose TC-188. We do not believe that Trinity Park would benefit. And indeed, we believe that the neighborhood would be damaged significantly by the proliferation of utilitarian-looking accessory housing units, unecological paving, the loss of trees, population overcrowding, and loss of parking. I strongly oppose TC-188. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Barzee? And then Bob Chapman is next. Hello, whoa. My name is Mary Barzee, and I live in Waltown. I have been there since 2004. And I'm a homeowner. Under the current regulations, I'm not able to build an accessory dwelling unit in my backyard, despite the fact that we're two blocks from Trinity Heights where there are several accessory dwelling units. My house is about 1,100 square feet. And since 2010, I have been trying to work with the planning department to build an ADU for my elderly mother. It didn't work out because of the size restrictions. And we ended up purchasing a home for my mother at a great cost to us. Basically, I'm for this proposal because I'd be happy to serve as a case study. It would directly benefit me and my family. We'd be able to build an ADU for our elderly relative and possibly defray some of the building costs by renting it to her. As far as, I definitely understand some of the fears that people have about adding more accessory dwelling units. But it's wonderful to have renters in the neighborhood. We have several on our block and we're currently offsetting runoff with a rain garden. We've planted street trees and we use an extensive water catchment system to water our garden. I think it would really benefit my neighborhood to be able to increase density and have some more rental units available. And I encourage you all to accept the current proposal. Thank you. Thank you. Bob Chapman. And then Sylvianne Robertge is next. My name is Bob Chapman. I live at 2525 Lanier Place. I'm a New Urbanist Real Estate Developer here in Durham. If you are concerned about accessory dwelling units, I invite you to go look at Trinity Heights, which is a project I did for Duke a few years ago and there are 30 units over there. And they made all of the large houses there affordable and they also were affordable themselves. This weekend, my partner and I, business partner and I went over to Seattle and up to Vancouver to do some research. We met with three organizations that are focused on affordable housing and infill development. And one was in the mayor's office, the other was called Sightline Institute. And the third gave me a poster to bring and I'd like just to read you what they say on the poster. The organization is called SeattleForEveryone.org. In our neighborhood, housing is a human right. More neighbors equals more fun. ADUs are awesome. Characters make up the neighborhood character. Renters are welcome. Triplexes and fourplexes are pretty. Our city is for everyone. And I think that applies to our city here. I'm very strongly in favor of option B. The changes that were made behind the scenes really diluted and really almost defeated the purpose of the entire thing. On the trip back I had time to read some newspapers and ran into a British newspaper, the British communities and local government secretary, the headline, how they do the big headlines. NIMBY homeowners are betraying the next generation. Too many people object to houses being built next to us. The secretary of communities urged people to change that attitude. I think I could apply here. And then I saw Richard Reeves, a senior fellow for Brookings, coined a term called exclusionary zoning, which he defines as a form of opportunity hoarding by the upper middle class. A market distortion that restricts access to a scarce good, in this case land that restricts opportunities such as good schools for other children. Those middle class voters who oppose more mixed use housing are what I call dream hoarders, dream hoarders. Keeping elements of the American dream from themselves at the expense of others. We have a chance to do something wonderful in Durham. When we were in Vancouver, we stayed at an Airbnb which had a basement apartment which we stayed in and also had a garage apartment which they call a laneway cottage. And I said, you have two apartments here and a fairly small house, very small lot, way more than 40% coverage. And I said, why'd you do that? And he said, we have to. Otherwise, people would have nowhere to live. Thank you very much. Thank you. Sylvianne Roberge. I'm Sylvianne Roberge, 1515 Hermitage Court and I'm seating my time to Mimi Kessler. Mimi Kessler, thank you. Susan Emser and then Janine Tompkins. My name is Susan Emser. I live at 1302 Ruffin Street and I'm seating my three minutes to Mimi Kessler. Thank you. Janine Tompkins. Janine Tompkins, I reside at 106 Minerva Avenue and I cede my time to Mimi Kessler. Thank you. James Sorrell. I'm James Sorrell. I live at 907 Englewood Avenue. And I'm seating my time to Mimi Kessler. Thank you. And Wendy and Gil Smith. Are you, you're signed up together? Is that correct? I think we're two actually. Wendy Smith, I live at 2223 Cranford Road and I'm seating my minutes to Mimi Kessler. Thank you. Gilbert Smith, 2223 Cranford Road. I also cede time to many Mimi. And Christie Ferguson and then Mimi Kessler. Are you are seating your time as well? Is that it correct? Okay. So, Ms. Kessler. Yeah, at least 20, 24, 20. There are eight of, counting yourself, there are eight. I don't plan to take up that much time. We thank you. Thank you, Chair Busby. But I am talking to other people. I'm gonna verify I was gonna set the clock for 24 minutes, is that correct? Yes, that is correct. Don't start my time yet because I have to find my thing. Oh, I see. Got it, got it, got it, got it. Just a minute, I'm not starting yet. Hey, how do you do Slige? All right, thank you. Good evening, my name's Mimi Kessler. I live at 1418 Woodland Drive. I, at the risk of sounding like a grade schooler talking about what they did for their summer vacation, I wanna talk a little bit about what I've done in the last 60 days. I tried to convene a panel of all stakeholders. I was able to recruit from neighborhoods other than my own, but I was unsuccessful in recruiting from what I consider to be the most vulnerable neighborhoods. And I also was not able to attract any practitioners who were interested in developing truly affordable housing. I was fortunate to find a group of people who worked tirelessly, ferreting out information from a variety of sources, and having intense conversations over the last couple of weeks to prepare for tonight. I wanna thank all those people for you, and you know who you are. And in many cases, I am speaking for them also. So I may take a few more minutes, but you'll hear fewer people over the course of the evening. So I do thank you for your work, and I feel much better prepared than I would have without you. I sent a letter to the commissioners last night, and my presentation is gonna follow the content of that letter, so you will be able to follow along. First, there have been some premises for this initiative, and they have not changed in the last 60 days, and I'm going to review them, because I think that they're worth repeating. A city is its people. So here we have citizens who were not involved at the beginning, and have come to feel that they don't matter to the mayor or to the city staff. They wanna know why, after all the years that they have put into building their neighborhoods, that they matter less than the people who are about to move here, and who might be more wealthy than they are. Then there are the practitioners who've been involved for over a year, and they're feeling very impatient, and I don't blame them. And then there are the citizens who have supported this initiative from the beginning, and who are feeling impatient as well. So there is a real divide in our city between the people who agree with it and the people who don't agree with it. For the record, I'm still on the fence. So this is, I think, a grand experiment. The staff is confident, but they can't find any place where this has actually worked, and I have not been able to either. They say that this particular approach has not been tried in other cities, and so therefore the reports from other cities are not applicable. But the other cities have had some disastrous results, and there are lawsuits pending, and many of them are downzoning. And I think we need to learn from their experience. The most vulnerable neighborhoods in our area are not fully engaged, and they have in them the most disadvantaged city residents and they are being displaced, and they deserve to live in the city, and they're part of the fabric and the patchwork quilt that makes up Durham. There are no stated measurable goals. This bothers me because I don't know how we would know whether or not we're succeeding. The staff have engaged with the INC to help them work through the measurements and what would be collected, but I don't know how they would know how to do that either, particularly if the staff doesn't know. The staff has worked very hard. They have done everything they could to deliver what was asked of them. But they wanted off their plates. They're starting on the comprehensive plan. They have a lot to do. They thought they were gonna be finished with this by now. But most people still don't know what is happening because it's still not being called what it is, which is a rezoning. The word affordable should be dropped from all presentations and associations with this initiative. It is absolutely not true. There is no way that this initiative is going to meet demand and be able to create affordability, and it is deceptive and disingenuous to suggest it is a benefit. So you probably wanna know, why do we need 30 more days? And I'm gonna go over some points that I think would make the initiative stronger and more effective. And you can follow along by number. So number one, a stakeholder panel. This would have been easier to accomplish in 60 days, but I believe we can still do it in 30 days. But we need to get with it. Representatives from the practitioner panel and all other stakeholders, which include citizens, residents from a variety of neighborhoods, organizations that are invested in keeping Durham a livable and desirable city. So that would include preservation, Durham Coalition for Affordable Housing and Public Transit, People's Alliance, Downtown Durham, Duke, and there are so many, I can't name them. And what I'm hoping is that we can find some two first where there are people who live in neighborhoods and they are involved in one of these organizations because if we had one person from every neighborhood and one person from every organization, I think it'd be 100 or something people and that would be unwieldy. But I really feel that this is an important thing to have all stakeholders at the same table discussing it. So I would like to ask that anyone who supports this idea stand up silently. The stakeholder panel, all stakeholders at the same table. Okay, thank you. Goals and measurable things have not been defined. I think we need to do that before it hits the political process, which is the city council. So we need to decide what will be measured, at what interval will it be measured? Will we measure it at six months, at 12 months? And then 12 months after that, we need to figure out when the measurement intervals are. We need to decide who will perform the assessment. The staff had suggested that they would be willing to do that, but they do have a lot on their plate. And I'm wondering if we could find a grant that would allow us to pay an outside consultant to help us formulate what the objectives are that are measurable. Or maybe we could find a city planning, academic organization that needs a project. And maybe then they would do the actual work and report to the staff. And where would these different measurements be? What areas do they apply to? So could there be caps for streets or neighborhoods if it doesn't go the way we thought? And we need to pull it back. And then what process are we gonna use if in fact, through the measurements, we determine that we need to either slow it down or speed it up or change the text to make it clearer. So if you are in favor of establishing goals and measurements prior to it going to the city council, would you please stand silently? Thank you. Current residents are concerned about keeping the look and feel of the downtown neighborhoods. So infill standards, that section is very promising, but I think it's not finished. Downtown Durham is known for its mature canopy of trees, the sidewalks, though there are not as many as I would like, and garages are at the back of the homes. This home is a renovation. The final product will be three times the size of the original home, which is still in there. You can barely see the front door, and you can only see it because the garage has not been finished out. And you can barely see the ranch house to its right, which is gray. This, I think, is, it's a snout house style, and I think it is a duplex. And you can see that it dwarfs the house to its right, and it is substantially larger than the house that was taken down. In this picture on the right is, I think, a better infill example. It is bigger than the house to its left, but this particular homeowner wanted to build a modern house and realized that it wouldn't fit in in the neighborhood where they wanted to live. So they created one that is consistent with the architectural styles of the neighborhood, and it's very modern on the inside. And then there is my worst nightmare. So what we need is we need to settle on how exactly we're gonna decide what the maximum height would be. I understand that there is a very clear definition of that, but I don't think that that is adequate, and how the homes fit in with the other homes. We also wanna make sure that setbacks are honored and that architectural detail is articulated. So for item number three, would all the people who would support reviewing and refining the infill standards please stand silently? Thank you. Now we're gonna move on to duplexes. Duplexes are often an investment property, and I was very surprised by this graphic. It does come from the Durham Neighborhood Compass site, which is part of the Durham NC.gov site. I was surprised to learn that the urban tier is about 75% rentals. That surprises me, because my area I thought was more homeowners than rentals, but even the little area of coloring in this map shows that there are more rentals than there are homeowners, and that surprised me. So it's about 75%. Some of it, like for example, over where Duke is, it's dark blue, and those are rentals, and that's understandable, but I was surprised at how high it was. So when you have a community filled with tenants, sometimes those people are transient and are not emotionally invested in being a neighbor. They may not participate in community activities as much as owners do, and tenants think that their opinions don't matter. And I'm wondering if that's the reason we've had trouble getting engagement with these neighborhoods, because there's so many renters, maybe they feel like they don't count, and they don't go to community events. For B, I talk a little bit more about the fact that we need to make sure that residents, that is owners and tenants, need to feel like they belong, that everyone has a legitimate reason to be here and they should be entitled to be here. And we want to foster home ownership, just look at the principles of habitat and how important it is and how a family becomes, it's sort of like a platform to launch at when they are able to own a home. For C is duplexes and a concern about tear downs. So will all small houses be torn down and duplexes replace them? And one of the concerns is that I'm told that an investor versus maybe a homeowner that an investor will see that if you construct a duplex, and even though it costs more to construct two different kitchens at the onset, that if you in fact rent it out over time that you recoup that money. And then there's the whole supply and demand thing. Do we really know if the current residents of Durham want to live in duplexes? Do we know for a fact that the newcomers that are coming want to live in duplexes? Do we know if developers want to build them? I don't know. Will we tear down all the small homes and have no starter homes for the millennials when they realize they want to grow a family in a house instead of an apartment? Or provide options for older folks when they want it downsized? So I think there's a large focus on duplexes within the EHC and I think it needs to be re-evaluated in light of the issue about tenants and building community. And if anyone else agrees that we need to re-evaluate the desirability of duplexes, would you please stand? Thank you. Because of what I said about duplexes, I've grown to have a preference to ADUs, which I was originally not liking for a lot of the things that Randy said. And the staff did a survey, an online survey of the city last summer, and this is the section about ADUs. So you notice that the largest blue bar is, I think it would be too expensive and the next bar down is I have no idea where to start in the process. Then you have a couple, I'm not interested, I don't want to be a landlord. And then there's, I would consider it if there was an incentive program. Then there's the person who's probably a renter and doesn't think that they matter. I'm not a property owner. So I guess that they don't know that they can have an opinion. And then the last is I had no idea it was an option and when I filled out the survey, that was the option I chose. I've become better educated about that now. So have we fully explored giving people help about financing and how to go about building an ADU? Could the city help people with financing or work with a lender to help the financing? Might there be plans available sort of off the shelf for different types of ADUs that reduces the design cost? And would manufactured tiny houses be eligible? You should look on Amazon. You can buy a tiny house on Amazon. It comes in pieces. So would anyone who favors looking at advancing an ADU program please stand? Good. Item six, small lots. It's my understanding that the small lots that are owned by Habitat and Casa can't be built on right now because of the UDO. So in the March text, I believe that it says that small lots could have a single family home or a duplex, but ADUs were ruled out. And I think that it might be better living space to actually have a house, a main house, and an ADU and that that might be a better environment living space than two duplexes on a small lot. I would like to see if that would work. If anyone would support looking at this option, please stand. As you can see, there's some agreement and some not agreement. And that's the problem. Item seven, and you'll be happy to know this is my last item. We are stewards of our neighborhood and our city and our country and our planet. The older homes in the urban tier are the soul and the bones of Durham and its history. We need to protect those neighborhoods so that we do not lose all sense of history. We can increase density in those neighborhoods, but we must do it carefully with infill standards. I think that the national and local historic districts should be left out of it now to give them time to write design guidelines. And by the way, you probably don't know this, but a lot of those historic districts have boundaries which are smaller than the neighborhood known by that name. So for example, I live in Trinity Park, but I don't live in the historic district. There are a lot of these districts. I am not an expert about them and fortunately I will be followed by someone who is. There are many of them and they cross geographic and socioeconomic territory. Here's only a few of them. They're sprinkled all over the city, some in affluent neighborhoods and some not. So I think that it's very important that we prioritize them. If anyone here feels that we need to give special recognition, special treatment to historic districts, please stand. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Inclusion, in conclusion, I want to say from my own point of view that the initiative still has great potential. I do believe we can find compromises. I am concerned about displacement and about the lack of affordability, but this initiative is not going to make any dent in the issue of affordability. And we need to take care of that in a different program. I hope that you will consider all this seriously before you vote. And I'd like to say let's be different from the other cities who have lost their souls to progress. They have lost their trees and their air quality. They have lost the ability to move in their car down the street and they have lost the ability to know their neighbors. Thank you very much. Thank you. We will move on with our regularly scheduled public hearing and so we'll start moving down the list again. What we have done, I know a lot of folks have come since we started this public hearing. If you would like to speak tonight, you haven't had a chance to sign up. We did put an additional sign up sheet so you can go up and sign up. We voted to allow three minutes per speaker this evening. Next on our list is Maggie. It's just Maggie. Like Sting and Prince, Madonna on 914 Englewood Avenue. And then Ellen Pless. I'm Maggie Sargent. I live at 914 Englewood and I cede my minutes to Ellen Pless. Thank you. Hello, good evening everyone. I'm Ellen Pless. I live at 706 East Forest Hills Boulevard in Durham. I've been a Durham resident since 72. I've spent the last 20 years in the same house. I'm not as organized as my predecessor up here on the podium, so forgive me. I'm largely gonna be reading. This is Durham's sesquicentennial anniversary year and we should be celebrating its history and practicing top notch cultural resource stewardship. Unfortunately, 2019 is a very risky year for Durham's national and local historic districts. The EHC initiative densifies all urban tier neighborhoods, historic and nonhistoric, with a one size fits all approach that will be attractive to developers, incentivize tear downs and design laws and may erode the integrity and historic fabric of multiple diverse urban tier historic districts. The text of this densification initiative does not reflect consideration of the unique quilt that is Durham's assembly of residential neighborhoods. National and local historic districts exist because of prolonged and sustained community efforts to retain and preserve the soul of a community over many decades. They cannot be replaced once broken. Our historic districts are not just important to Durham. They are federally recognized through the US Department of the Interior and the National Park Service. The state of North Carolina is actively invested in them and in their preservation through the historic rehabilitation tax credit program. Although North Carolina's session law 2015-86 appears to provide for equal protections for national and local historic districts, Durham's national historic districts are not currently protected under its UDO, even though the comprehensive plan chapter five, section one, quote, provides for the identification, protection and promotion of historic districts, resources, excuse me. Currently, a historic property located within one of Durham's national historic districts receives no delay or unique consideration when a demolition permit is requested and it can be torn down the day after that permit is issued. This happened in my area where I live only last month. We lost a certified contributing historic structure. Shortly, I think it was two days after the permit was issued. The greatly expanded by-right powers that are written into EHC will multiply demolition permit requests and pose a severe threat to historic structures and districts, a threat that likely will not be clawed back once it is given. It is not reasonable for Durham's historic districts to be a canary in an experimental coal mine. The lack of a proper environmental impact study assessing the specific risks posed to both our environmental resources and our historic resources is deeply concerning. The unusual speed of this densification initiative and the fact that it is occurring outside of the comprehensive plan rewrite throttles a more full conversation on what all historic districts in Durham could be. Foundational voices in such conversations could perhaps actually involve the residents of those neighborhoods and other organizations like Preservation Durham. The swiftly drawn by-right powers built into EHC risk ensuring that for our historic districts the damage may be done before those conversations have begun. If we do not have important conversations about the future and end visions of Durham's historic districts, then we tacitly cede their stability and their future, excuse me, to the permanent stamp of developers and others who profit financially, a number of whom spoke here on March 12th, some of whom are here again this evening. We request that Durham's irreplaceable urban, tier, national and local historic districts which are established hard boundaries on the map be removed from the EHC initiative so that such a balanced, robust and crucial conversation may begin to evolve as Durham moves toward its work on the comprehensive plan rewrite. Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak. Thank you. So we do have rules of decorum. We ask that you not clap when people are speaking. Chair, can you clarify if that was for or against the proposal itself? I'm pretty sure that was against. Oh, on this one. Okay, Linda Wilson is next and then Bruce Curran. Linda Wilson here. She is not here. Okay, she also didn't acknowledge if she was for or against so now I understand why she probably didn't acknowledge that. We'll move on to Bruce Curran and then Tom Wiley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Bruce Curran and I live at 800 Foster Street in Old North Durham. I have no doubt that the individuals who support the proposed plan have the best ethical and moral motivations behind their wish to create housing opportunities for members of our community who cannot presently afford them. Nevertheless, I want to address what I think are some unfortunate pragmatic considerations. I look at this plan as the housing equivalent of disregarding the facts like those who ignore the science of climate change. None of the tenets of basic economic theory or the facts of this marketplace support the plans being proposed as an effective way to achieve our community objectives. As previous speaker Mimi Kessler said it hasn't worked in a number of cities around the country. On the other hand, if you instituted this proposed plan in Crete, Nebraska, Mary in Iowa, Circe, Arkansas, or Topeka, Kansas, it would work great. You could control supply, demand, and price with the wave of your hand as nobody wants to live there. On the other hand, it won't work in Portland, Oregon, Austin, Texas, Boulder, Colorado, Alexandria, Virginia or Durham, North Carolina because everybody wants to live there. What the market forces here are doing will continue to do is totally overwhelm any attempt to create anything affordable. There is no reasonable way to create significant additional supply that will put a dent in the almost infinite demand for housing in this market. There's really only one effective way to create and maintain affordable housing in a market like this and New York has been doing it for over 50 years. Control prices in selected market segments for populations you want to serve. If you want affordable housing in this market, you're gonna have to legislate it. The market's not gonna hand it to you. And I yield the balance of my 21 minutes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Tom Wiley. Well, 14.05 force few. My role was to see time to Ellen Pless and since she's already spoken, I have nothing to say. Thank you. Ideal Ortiz. And then Casey Collins. So just again, a reminder, if you have not signed up to speak and you would like to speak, there is a signup sheet on my left on the table. Please sign up and we will get to you. My name is Scott Harmon. I live at 600 West Main Street in Durham. I yield my time to Ideal Ortiz. Great, thank you. Good evening, folks. My name is Ideal Ortiz and for some context, I wanna share about myself that I've lived at 1808 Vale Street in Old East Durham for the last 16 years. I lovingly renovated my home with the support of an evil developer. Her name is Tiffany Elder. She was a practitioner on the work group for EHC. I'm in the historic district of my neighborhood and in fact, my home has won a pine award from the Preservation Durham organization. I've been a landlord that consistently rents housing at well under the current market rates. And I've been doing that since I moved into the house. I am currently the chair of the Northeast Central Durham Leadership Council and I have been a well-known fierce resident advocate for a variety of concerns that plague my community and various other low income communities across Durham. I wanna express a note of gratitude for the many community members from neighborhoods that are not considered vulnerable, who spoke on behalf of vulnerable neighborhoods at the last hearing. You asked that we be allowed for more time and for that I thank you. So that Durham residents could understand EHC and decide what they think of it for themselves. Over the course of the past two months, Mimi, I hear ya. I have actually diligently used that time to have over two dozen conversations or so, primarily with low income residents and groups that represent them. Families moving forward, the Community Empowerment Fund, Northeast Central Durham Leadership Council, Ragtowns Neighborhood Association, the Black Business Chains Economic Development Committee, which includes quite a few black developers by the way, they're not all white and they're not all wealthy and some of them are here tonight. Various realtors and contractors that do work for low to moderate income families, especially in my community. I've also visited quite a few of the coalition for affordable housing meetings and these are just a few of the folks that I've met with. I'm even currently, ironically, on a committee right now for measuring the impact of any zoning changes in partnership with DataWorks North Carolina about the annual housing metrics no matter what happens with this work. So that work is abreast, it is happening. It is not mysterious and several folks from the community are part of that table. And from all of those conversations what I've gathered, the overall sentiment I have been able to synthesize from all of the EHC conversations is that EHC as it's been formally presented was too big a set of changes to absorb at one time. And when trying to solve problems, the crafter inside of me keeps saying inch by inch is just a cinch and yard by yard is much too hard. So when trying to solve problems, it is not necessary to, as a therapist might say, eat the entire elephant in one bite. We can make incremental changes in step with where community is ready to go. And incremental changes to support density and better land use allow for communities to be brought along with full understanding of what is happening and also allows for pivots and the event of unintended damage. So let's work on things in manageable chunks. So to that end, many people who are currently negatively impacted by housing needs would love to see stabilizing resources implemented before we uncork too many changes on density, resources like revolving loans, legal education for homeowner rights, to guard them from predatory purchasing practices and ways to promote more private landlords taking Section 8 vouchers. But we know that these kinds of programs are not part of the planning department's work. So what I have been able to learn, what have I been able to learn that people would support moving forward that is part of the planning department's work? And so these are just four things I'm going to list. Again, I want to thank the advocacy of wealthier communities for the extra time for our community to decide upon these four points. And I hope you'll support what that time has yielded. Because of that time, we arrived at a more clear synthesis of policy suggestions and here's what I can say people feel really good about potentially moving forward with. So if you're going to do something, this is what we'd like now. One, abolish single families, single family homes only in urban tier residential zoning because all low income neighborhoods already have zoning for duplexes by right. Let's make that the case throughout the urban tier. Two, changing the number of allowed non-related people to live in a house from three to five people. We have a situation where we are trying to legislate what family looks like. And I think we know that Durham is at a place where we define family very differently. And this is one zoning change that allows for density without developers being involved. Ironic, no, and no cost. Three, make ADUs up to 800 square feet possible by right. Let's stop discriminating against little houses that are often owned by families of modest means. Four, driveways or flag lots that are 12 feet instead of 20. And this hopefully lets more people utilize the land they already have without potentially tearing down a house for a trivial rule about driveways. Let's call this a super skinny EHC that is powerful because it is easy to understand. Part of what equity requires is for information that is clear and actionable by the general public so that it isn't just the big developers who can afford to decode policy. I hope all of us who have invoked their concern for vulnerable communities will support what I'm dubbing EHC lights for now and then take all of this energy to the conversations that community development is having about resources to stabilize our communities in years to come. Affordability requires a plurality of resources and strategies and I completely believe that the specific suggestions I just shared now accompanied with many efforts that need to come out of community development and prospectively the affordable housing bonds efforts are what's needed. The soul of Durham, however, is not houses, it's its people. Thank you. So a reminder, thank you. I don't like the rule but I have to enforce it. Casey Collins and then Stacy Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Casey Collins. I live at 2128 Sunset Avenue. However, I am not here on behalf of myself but rather on behalf of the Durham Environmental Affairs Board and so my opinions that I share tonight are of that group and my colleagues. Thank you very much for the work that you're doing on here. As the AB knows, this is not so easy. We certainly thank the city staff and all the constituents and residents of Durham that have come to visit us too. So broadly speaking, the EAB is supportive with caveats of the proposed EHC changes. I'll describe those caveats in a minute but we don't pretend like we can foresee all the consequences that may come out of these proposed changes. We do, however, know from both practice and study that there are significant benefits for the environment to improving and increasing density, particularly in our urban communities, that relate to transportation options, that relate to stormwater management and that relate to overall lower greenhouse gas emissions that affect our environment and the air quality that all of our citizens breathe. So with that context in mind, I'll share that we support EHC provisions that are intended to promote protection of our urban tree canopy. We support tree and landscape revision text amendments which certainly include important canopy protection provisions. We support the limitation of driveway width and the utilization of quote unquote ribbon driveways and the bar on downspout connections with the motivation to reduce impervious surface area and thus improve stormwater management. We oppose the addition of height limitations given that the goal is to increase flexibility of housing options and density. We oppose any provision that bars ADUs from lots containing duplexes given, again, flexibility of options that this type of configuration would provide to the development community and to property owners. And then we additionally support the increase in size of the allowable ADU. However, we do oppose any proposal to change minimum parking requirements. And so we encourage the planning commission to revisit these minimum parking requirements for the urban tier. On the grounds that that is both expensive to build additional parking. It increases impervious surface area and it certainly does not motivate any paradigm shift in how people move around our city. And I'll say too that while I offer my comments tonight on behalf of the EAB, there is the context that I too am a Durham resident and I'm a Durham resident that would be affected by this. And so I can share personally, I am broadly supportive of the EHC initiative. Thank you. So Stacey Murphy and then Sasha Berghausen. Hi. So my name is Stacey Murphy. I live at 1014 DeMaria Street in Trinity Park. I serve on the Trinity Park Board. I've worked on EC, expanding housing choices subcommittee. With that, I also have a business that I do historic preservation, renovate old houses within the urban tier. I work, I'm a landlord of a handful of properties that are all within the urban tier. And I'm a passionate advocate of affordable housing. And I work with Habitat for Humanity as a volunteer, as a financial donor. And I've been working with them on a proposal to create an ADU partnership to help them with their crushing wait list that they have of individuals that are waiting for Habitat homes. I'm not here on behalf of Habitat or speaking for Habitat, but just from my work with them, I know that they build about 25, 26 homes a year. They have a waiting list that's over 1,000 families waiting for homes to own their own homes. And in an effort to help partner with these families on their path to home ownership, they have to live in rental housing in the interim. There are a lot of very involved, very committed private homeowners, not developments that are ready to build ADUs on their lots. But the provisions in this new proposal, they have to be less restrictive. So under option B, the original option, it's less restrictive. The restrictions are, it makes it easier to build ADUs. In the new, new version of the text amendments, a height restriction of 25 feet was added and the 10 foot setback was added. And those are crushing to the ability of private homeowners to build ADUs on their lots. And it makes it a deal breaker for a lot of people. So if we do believe in ADUs and we want to have private individual homeowners being able to have ADUs, whether it's a small house or we need to lessen those restrictions, and that's option B, if we want ADUs to happen. And it will happen, ADUs will happen. I'm not talking about big developers, I'm talking about private homeowners who wanna be a part of the solution. And there's a lot of them out there and they're willing to do it. But it depends on having text amendment changes that are passed that don't increase the restrictions on ADUs. So that's why I'm here in support of option B. Steph, thank you. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Sasha Berghausen and then Matt McDowell. Good evening, Planning Commission. My name is Sasha Berghausen. I live at 2009 West Club Boulevard. I'm a licensed architect who has practiced in Durham nearly two decades. Many of my projects have been renovations of historic residences, including state historic tax credit projects and projects in Durham's historic districts. I helped craft my neighborhoods, which is Watts Hospital Hillendale response to the EHC and was disheartened that some of our suggested modifications were not taken. In particular, I support requiring buy-right duplexes to provide an affordable unit, permitting small houses on small lots to have an ADU and prohibiting the EHC upzoning in the eight historic districts, which were crafted with considerable input and deliberation by both the Planning Department and thousands of neighborhood residents. Consequently, I cannot support the present EHC, which I regard as a grand experiment. By the director's own admission, it was drafted through consultation with a developer-only panel, and is likely to provide housing for new arrivals who are more affluent than current residents. As the incredibly expensive 810 ninth and station nine apartments on the edge of my neighborhood illustrate, density alone does not ensure affordability. The EHC is a plan that risks destroying decades of careful planning to preserve our historic neighborhoods and Durham's character. It will not make housing more affordable and will in fact only increase gentrification pressure in neighborhoods like Waltham. New construction also threatens destruction of our beautiful mature tree canopy. The only thing I am confident it will do, based upon the evidence presented and the vociferous support from the developers who have spoken is to give them the unchecked ability to enrich themselves. Thank you for your time and for listening. Thank you. I'm Matt McDowell, and then Gary Gareffi. Matt McDowell here. If not, we'll move to Gary Gareffi. Good evening. My name is Gary Gareffi. I've lived at 1008 Monmouth Avenue since the early 1980s. Thank you very much for the time for this public input. I have three basic points I wanna make. At this time of the evening, I'm sure they will echo some of the things we have heard from previous speakers. First point, I fully support the goals of this expanding houses choice agenda that we're talking about. I share the vision of an inclusive Durham, of a Durham that has more affordable housing, more diverse neighborhoods, and all the objectives that are part of this proposal. And I think most of the people in the room and the planning commission also would share many of those goals. But the second point is having read as much as I can about other experiences with upzoning and trying to increase housing supply to make housing more affordable and bring a lot of the other objectives that we would like, it's pretty clear the record is mixed, very mixed. And in particular, as a number of people have already mentioned, and none of the cases that I have seen has the affordable housing objective clearly been met because there's so much interest in moving into the desirable cities, the prices of the houses often get bit up. But I think housing density in the urban areas is itself a good goal. And I think making our neighborhoods more diverse is a very important goal. So the third and most important point I would at least ask the commission is if indeed this proposal is going to be passed or something like it in the near future, what plans are in place by the planning commission or the city council to review the progress it's made after this is proposed? I really endorse the point made by one of the earlier speakers that when we're doing a big change like this, we have to try to study the change in chunks and manageable pieces. And my concern would be that once this passes the group that's most interested in moving quickly would be the developers. And there are many responsible developers in Durham. I know them and I think they will do a good job. But developers have a narrower set of interests than the planning committee and the city council more generally about all these other goals. So is there a process by which you will be monitoring step-by-step and in reasonable time periods what's actually happening after this passes and is there an opportunity to make adjustments? And can those plans be made public since I think that would be something that would make everybody feel more comfortable about buying into the proposal. Thanks. Thank you. Dan Bach and John Swansy. And then just a reminder, this will be, this was the original list, but if we're gonna move to the second list. So if you have not signed up on the second list yet, please do so. My name is Dan Bach. I live at 915 Urban Ave. I support the November draft. I think the requirements in the March draft are too onerous, too complex, adding restrictions beyond what exists now. And I'm against it. Complexity favors the connected and the March draft prevents housing from being built. I would also support the proposal we heard a few speakers ago from IdealRT's allowed duplexes, 800 square foot A to use, allow more unrelated to people, more unrelated people to live in it than is currently allowed now, narrower driveways for flaglots. That's a simple proposal that, can you hear me? That's a simple proposal that I think anyone would be able to understand. I'm a Trinity Park homeowner. I think Trinity Park would be a great place to add more density. We are on bus lines, walkable to downtown. And we already have duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, and three and four storey apartment buildings, interspersed among the single family homes in our neighborhood. And I don't know of anyone who thinks that the existence of those structures or the people who live in them makes Trinity Park a bad place to live. Expanding housing choices has been repeatedly scaled back in terms of the number of units that would yield. When the survey was done last summer, they were asking about triplexes and quadplexes, and that was removed. And then there was the November draft, and then there was the March draft where more restrictions were added on to accessory dwelling units in other parts of the proposal. I don't understand why that is, why it keeps being scaled back given the results of the 2018 Residence Survey of Durham. In that survey, 60% of people said adequate supply of housing is an important priority, should be an important priority. And 36% said that neighborhood character of buildings in their neighborhood should be an important priority. So I think we all know that the people who show up to these meetings are not representative of the entire city, and that's why they do these surveys. And what the survey said was adequate supply of housing is something that a lot of people believe is an important priority. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Yes. I'm John Swansea. I live at 110 North Buchanan. I've followed the EHC closely since it was revealed late in the fall and participated in my neighborhoods, suggested fixes to the first draft, some of which were adopted and I think made significant improvements. I have no financial interest in this other than my own home onto the address that I mentioned. On my street, if you look at it, I think most of the units are in multifamily buildings on Buchanan. There are apartment buildings, three stories as the previous speaker mentioned, quadplexes, duplexes, BNBs, there's a hotel. And we already have all the things that are on Bob Chapman's list, renters, ADUs, all of that, it's great. The neighborhood is pretty much fully built out with this diversity of housing. I did some research into this by talking to people in other cities. I called up neighborhood representative urban planning people from Portland and did some research on Houston and Nashville. And it's very clear that there's a way this can go well and there's a way this can go really poorly. What Portland did is they've spent four years on their process. They did an economic impact assessment which showed a number of things. They had economic models that predicted exactly how many units they would expect to see added and they showed which ones would have a bull's eye on them for tear downs. They also were able to highlight neighborhoods that would likely see accelerated gentrification and displacement based on the up zoning which is what this really is. So my thoughts on the subject are we should first do no harm. I asked one of the urban planners in Portland, you know kind of how would you assess this and he described who are the winners and who the losers are. He described the winners are the developers who have an incentive to cut down trees, knock down houses and build cookie cutter luxury boxes for wealthy newcomers. The other winners are the people who buy them and the losers are everyone else. The established neighborhoods whose character may be drastically changed or the vulnerable communities who may be gentrified and displaced out of existence. I'm in favor of the overall idea of this. I like ADUs. I'm in favor of the idea of taking 30 days additional time to study the details and make sure to get this right because once something goes wrong, it's impossible to undo it. We can always take it incrementally one step at a time. Thank you for your time. Thank you. I'm gonna circle back. I believe that Linda Wilson has arrived who had signed up and then just to see if Matt McDowell has arrived as well. And if not, after Ms. Wilson, April Johnson is next. Thank you and I apologize for being late. Bad planning on my part. My name is Linda Wilson and I live at 302 Watts Street and that's the original Watts Hospital. I'm gonna read my remarks to respect your time. I'm here to ask you to vote no on the EHC or at least to delay your vote for another 30 days. And my reasons are this. One, the planning staff has told me directly that they are unable to find any city or town where upzoning like the EHC has been tried and worked. But we have documentation from a number of cities where upzoning has been tried and failed. Two, there are no measurable goals in the current EHC plan. Three, there appears to be no one on the senior planning staff who lives in any of the urban tier neighborhoods. Therefore, there's no one with real skin in the game. Four, if the upzoning fails, lives will be altered forever and some homes lost forever. Five, once the upzoning is put in place, it'll be difficult, as John just said, if not impossible to undo any damage that's been done, unless some protections are put into place at the outset. So if you feel that you have to vote yes to the EHC as it stands now, I would ask that you do the following. Ask the planning staff to include measurable goals in the document to an assessment of changes, good and bad, at six months a year, 18 months and two years. And the assessment should be done by an outside contractor, should involve demonstrable representation from each of the urban tier neighborhoods. And fourth, in that original document, there should be a method that will allow for alterations to the EHC upon receipt of that data from those two years of studies. If you can't, if you feel that you can't require these things to the planning staff, then I would once again ask you to vote no on the EHC proposal or at least delay it until you can find a way to require these things. I believe that the planning staff has put the entire city unwittingly in the position of a blindfolded diver standing at the very outer edge of the diving board with no idea whether there's water in the pool or not. Please ask them to think about this more. Thank you. Thank you. April Johnson, and then Dick Hales. Good evening, my name is April Johnson, 1912, Cardens Lane. First of all, I want to thank the planning staff. I know they've worked really hard on this and the planning commission for listening to everyone's comments and the community members for meeting and discussing this issue. I'm speaking on behalf of myself. I am the Executive Director of Preservation Darm, but as you can see, I have received comments from many different folks in historic districts and not everyone doesn't believe the same. We have people who are for it. We have people who are against it. But what I do want to say is I did go to the meeting that where the, what are they called? The people from Minneapolis came and talked about their process. And what I would like for us to do is use them as more of a better model. They took two, three, four years worth of community engagement. I think our process started with developers and builders and the community wasn't really involved until the last minute. And so I would like for there to be more time, more engagement, different groups, different interest groups being involved and understanding the process. Let's see, duplices and quadruplesis. I believe that duplices and quadruplesis are not strangers to historic districts. As we can see in Trinity Park, as we can also see in the Fayetteville on Stokesdale historic districts. So they're not strangers. I don't have a problem with those. But I do want to stand with, I do support maybe providing some special design treatment to historic districts. People live in historic districts for a reason. They like the field, the looking field of historic districts. People come around, they commune together and over historic houses and architecture. People love it. We just had a home tour with Presbych Endowment. People just love being around historic neighborhoods. So there's community there. And I think people are afraid where people don't fully understand the process. They don't fully understand what will happen when this is approved. Our developers gonna come and tear down our houses. I also stand with the affordable housing community. I understand that if this is approved, this could potentially increase in field development. And in this particular market, I don't believe that new houses are gonna be affordable at first. So the affordable housing community is looking for, looking towards implementing affordable housing policies and standards at the same time this is initiated so that we can ensure that people have an affordable place to stay. Wait a minute, that was fast. Yes, I think I got the main thing. Thank you. Dick Hales, and then Larissa Seibel. Good evening, members of the commission. My name is Dick Hales. I live at 100 Briar Cliff Road. Want to first thank members of the commission for your service. Gotta give a special tip of the hat to at least several of you who were on the commission when I, I worked 25 years for the plant department left in 2004 and three of you are still here. Extra shout out there. I was involved with several complete rewrites of the unified development ordinance and several hundred individual or smaller amendments. This would probably fall in the medium size amendments based on what we did over the years. I'm speaking this evening, however, on behalf of the commission for affordable housing and transit endorsed a brief statement. Four points we want to make. Number one, community input. The coalition appreciates has participated in and supports the broad continuing efforts made by city staff to receive and respond to community input on these important proposals for ordinance amendments. Equal input. We haven't had this much input to full rewrites of our ordinance in the past and delighted to see the strong community engagement shown here, which really means people care about their community, care about their neighborhoods and it's great to see. Members of our coalition have attended many meetings, either community meetings or ones we set up with staff. We've written letters. We participate in the surveys as well. So we know firsthand the breadth of input that's been attempted and received on this effort up till now. However, we still fully support, continuing to receive input and we know numerous parts of the community are still finding out about it and provide an input as it moves along. Our main comment is that on the March version of the expanded housing choices amendments relating to accessory dwelling units, duplexes, small lots, infill standards, our coalition supports those changes as ways to encourage more small scale infill housing. But our next point is the coalition believes that all efforts should be made to use these new standards to preserve existing and produce additional affordable housing, as well as to resist displacement. In particular, the city should implement new programs at the same time as the effective date of these provisions to provide both financial and technical assistance to homeowners and others utilize the provisions. And we've talked to city staff, they're very interested in that and has set aside funds to target some of these type of infill. We believe that these changes should support neighborhood stabilization and not encourage accelerating neighborhood gentrification. And I'll just say we also endorse what ideal Ortiz said about continuing to look at other parts of the ordinance such as loosening the definition of family that might provide for more households that could benefit from this infill. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Larissa Seibel and then Susan Sewell. I'm Larissa Seibel and I'm a member of the Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit and I wanna emphasize the affordable housing. What we're talking about here is programs that will actually help people create the affordable housing we hope to see with this ordinance. But we need to give it some time because those programs are not in place. We don't have the funding yet for the accessory dwelling units or for duplexes or for other small homes on small lots. And there's a desperate need, as you heard, more than 1,000 people on the waiting list for habitat to buy homes. The other thing that I think actually originated from the Community Empowerment Fund was redefining the family size to allow people to live together who may not be married and where you can have more affordable housing by sharing housing with a couple families. And so we wanted to join a request that all of us come together and meeting together. And I think we have a lot of common ground, especially around the affordable housing. And so let's continue working on this. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, and we meet on third Monday. So you're welcome to join us. We're going to talk about the funding. You're welcome to join us on third Mondays to talk about funding for affordable housing that can really make this expanding housing choices, expanding housing choices to low and moderate income residents of Durham. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Sewell and then Mr. Martin is our final speaker. My name is Susan Sewell. I live at 2904 Legion Avenue in Durham. And I speak tonight on behalf of Tuscaloosa Lakewood Neighborhood Association. We have a subcommittee that's been looking at this since last year. And we continue, this is our statement. TLNA strongly agrees with Durham's goals of equitable growth, affordable housing, increased density in the urban tier and neighborhood diversity. We doubt, however, that the expanding housing choices as proposed will lead to any of these goals being met in the newly attractive urban tier. There is no evidence that it will create fast-paced densification or will lead to the desired outcome of affordable housing by providing more housing in what is sometimes referred to as the missing middle. Moreover, under EHC, modest neighborhoods could well be casualties as the zoning changes would further incentivize builders to tear down existing structures and construct highly profitable large luxury homes rather than the desired duplexes, triplexes, townhouses that would give more density. We wish for a comprehensive set of programs to address the multiple actors in our current situation. For instance, programs that would provide access to designers, contractors, and capital so that small homeowners can repair their own homes and build rental units on their own lot. This would preserve some of our heritage and add density and spread the benefits of Durham's growth more broadly. We oppose expanding housing choices as it currents for. Thank you. Mr. Martin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm last and I will be brief. Travis Martin, I reside at 3608 Mollsdale Avenue. And as many of you know, I've been involved with this whole issue of affordable housing here in Durham all of my adult life. I just stand to say that I'm here tonight representing a newly formed organization of minority realtors, contractors, developers, and members of the community that is not present here tonight to seek to make sure that we are a part of this expanded housing choice and that we support what Ms. Artisa said, that we must do something in this city to maintain not only affordability but a greater choice of housing for all our residents. We know firsthand because we work in these neighborhoods, we are the people who are helping to sell homes, those who are helping people to manage properties, et cetera, and many of us in this organization group own property. So we see daily pressures that is being put on the tenants and landlords that work together to maintain affordability. So we support expanding housing choices. It is not perfect, but we must do something. Thank you. Thank you. So those are all the speakers who've signed up. I do want to give the opportunity if there's anyone else who would like to speak. This is your moment. Well, and what will happen when we finish with this evening's public hearing, the commissioners will then have time to deliberate and that commissioners can ask each other questions. They may call up individuals to ask for a very direct question on something you may have said. And I think we're gonna have a lot of questions for staff ourselves as well. But this is the opportunity that if you are here this evening, you have not spoken yet, but you would like to speak, you may indicate your interest to speak. I do see one individual, please come on up. My name is Nancy Scott. I live at 1022 Gloria Avenue. I have lived there for many decades. And I am one of the organizers of the Trinity Park Association, which was founded in the early 70s. My real concern here is that there does not seem to be any appreciation for the difference between fully developed neighborhoods with existing mostly historic housing and vacant lots. Because I hear the term infill being used interchangeably with also so much in this rezoning proposal that would lead to wholesale tear downs of all of our mature developed in town neighborhoods. And so we must distinguish between what was already vacant at the time this proposal was put forward and what developers are hungering for now. We get calls every day, we get cards in the mail from groups of investors, both local and out of state clamoring to buy our house. Well, I don't think that is anything that's really going to be good for Durham. Thank you very much. Thank you. And is there anyone else who has not yet spoken who would like to speak? Yes, I would ask that if you could just come and get in line. And again, if you can give your name and you have three minutes. And if you aren't in line now, we are gonna close tonight's hearing after this. Hi, my name is Tamar. I live in 1203 Ruffin Street in Trinity Park. I was not planning on speaking today as I'm still learning about this initiative a little later to the game than I would have hoped. But what I can speak to is the members of this community that I've worked with or desperately trying to find a place to live. I would just like you to take into account, as was said earlier, that many of those people aren't here today to speak. As someone who myself make a living wage, but not more than that. Attending meetings like this is really difficult when you're just trying to make your rent. So yeah, please take that into account and thanks for hearing me today. Thank you. And Tamar, what is your last name? Shukran. Shukran, thank you. Good evening. Thank you for your work that you're doing. My name is David Paul Henderson. My wife is Nancy Scott. I've been a resident 1022 Gloria Avenue in Trinity Park for 33 plus years. I'm also been a member of the Lions Club, Durham Lions Club for 35 years. Also, I've been worked at Christian Howard Furniture downtown dorm back in the late 70s and 80s. The major shifts, the way I see it for the investors, they are not the major stakeholders in this, folks. Citizens of dorm, I'm a little disappointing. We didn't have a lot of people here. I know a lot of people that work out where I have been at LC Industries for 27 years, they're hard workers. And we talk about affordable housing. The answers, the questions were asked before, what is affordable housing? What is the rate? Well, Trinity Park is a diversified area. Yes, there are units where you can take and build a house or a small house or build a duplex. Yes, there are. But to come in and zone it where you're gonna change and tear down houses is gonna be a major mistake. I think what everyone here needs and the citizens of dorm, you need to think about the citizens of the dorm. They are the major stakeholders. A lot of the people aren't here. They're working. They're hard workers. They make 20,000, 30,000. Questions before that Yuzoni was asking was how much is affordable, what is affordable housing? I never got a clear answer when I was here in March. And it goes back to economics 101, Samuelson. Shift your burden to the taxpayers of dorm. Shift the revenue to the investors and the new people coming in, buying up the houses, tearing them down. Yeah, you might have a couple here or there and the bond's gonna do that. I think you need to take careful consideration and think about the long-term effect of dorm and the people of dorm, all people of dorm, from homeless to the very well to do. And in doing that, I think you need to put and think what's dorm gonna be like in 20 years? I talked to the dorm Lions Club councilman in Mayor Steve Shul. I voted for Steve Shul. He didn't say anything about this at our dorm Lions Club meeting. I'll talk to him next time when I see him. Because economics, I know his brothers, Mark and Jack, who worked in the furniture industry for years. But in allocation, you take money in the bond and give it to certain groups or shareholders where the money is allocated. It really doesn't flow to the people of dorm who need it for affordable housing and who need to work two or three jobs. They're the people that need to be helped. So please consider this and I'm totally against this the way this is. Thank you. And there are other parts of dorm that could be rezoned. Thank you. Thank you. So we are concluding the public hearing today. I'm told that according to the rules, I may ask you a question as a speaker. And it is critical to your deliberation. So I hope you'll allow me just a brief question. Thank you so much. You might do so. Brief is the key. Yes, it's about a fact, which we as an audience seem to be divided on. We were told by the representative of the EHC at the Trinity Park meeting that North Carolina state law forbids restrictions on the architectural style of new developments. That even if it's a historic neighborhood, we do not have the right to amend this proposal by restricting the architectural style of the new development. It's against state law. Am I correct in understanding his words or am I incorrect? Well, I'm gonna, that's a fair question. Thank you for asking. I'm gonna ask the staff if they could address that question. And then actually staff could stay up because I have a couple of questions before I open it up for commissioners comments. Sure. Michael Stock with the planning department to address the state law. State law does provide limitations on design and aesthetic controls for single family and two family residences as defined through the building code. There are exceptions, local and national historic districts are two exceptions within that. There's also other exceptions for manufactured housing and housing within flood plains and one or two others, but those are, there are exceptions. Great, thank you. And Mr. Stock, before you walk away, could you just walk through for us? Because again, this is a unique proposal and it comes at a unique time that the process from here forward, this was presented to the planning commission and it was in front of us at our March meeting. We are given the ability to review this for up to three cycles. So we voted to continue this for two cycles which brought it back here tonight. And at this point, we have two options. One option is we can continue this for one additional cycle until the June meeting. The other option is that we deliberate this evening and we have a vote up or down and it moves forward to city council. Is that correct? That is correct. And those are our options. So I just wanna make sure everyone understands that as an advisory body. Second of all, am I correct that normally when we approve, when we send an item forward, whether we approve it or we vote to deny it, it moves forward to the governing body. It will normally land at the governing body within two cycles of our review to move forward. Is that, and is that true for this proposal, the expanding housing choices? This proposal because of the break that city council takes in July, it would probably, unless we are told otherwise, if planning commission acts tonight and provides recommendation for or against, most likely the earliest would be in August before the elected bodies would have the public hearing on it. There's always a possibility that maybe if we got direction to do so to try to get it for the last meeting in June, but as of right now, we're anticipating August as the best case scenario. Right, so the city council takes a break in July. They do not meet regular Monday meetings or work sessions. They do not. And it's not under schedule for this year anyway. And your language though is not terribly specific. You kept saying there might be a chance that this could move forward. I may not matter to other commissioners. That really matters to me. Is this, if we approve this and deliberate and approve tonight, does this provide the time for the community to continue to be engaged and move forward in June or does this arrive in August? So Scott whispered sweet nothings in my ear by saying that August is the best case scenario. There will not be a June option. Right, so the very earliest this would arrive at the city council would be in August, whether we vote on this tonight or we continue this for another month. Correct. Right, okay, thank you. I think that's just really important for all of us as commissioners to think about that in our deliberations and probably good for everyone in the audience to know. Yes, as well. That's understandable. I have other questions, but I wanna give commissioners an opportunity to speak. I'll start to my right commissioners with questions or comments. Commissioner Johnson, commissioner Brian. Thank you, chairman. So of course, I'm sure we all have numerous questions, but I'll reserve my initial comments just towards some high level things. So one, I wanna thank everyone for coming out and being engaged in this process. It's a lot to digest and to understand. And I'm sure we're all still learning as we go through this process. So thank you all for coming out and providing your thoughts, concerns and feedback. So I just wanna start by asking staff to just provide context so that it's clear and articulated to the public as well as me and my colleagues on the commission regarding the goal regarding affordable housing. We've been hearing the term affordable and that has its own definition, but with this EHC, is there a particular level of affordable housing goals? Is there a particular goal in regards to affordable housing that what we are considering this evening is aimed to help contribute to our address? The presentation made back in March and other meetings that staff has attended, we've tried to make it clear that this is not gonna solve affordable housing, especially subsidized affordable housing. What this is aiming to do is it can help with that in terms of allowing for those mission-based suppliers of affordable housing and even those that are subsidized affordable housing projects to provide more dense and more housing options. But ultimately, this is a goal to provide and options to allow for more variety of housing at hopefully different price points based upon the different sizing of units and such in areas that are most desirable and to help lessen the impact on neighborhoods that have not yet seen those development pressures based upon the projections that we've seen for the increased influx of new residents. Thank you. And so based on that, can one assume or can you provide insight on planning thinking of, are you expecting developers being one of the stakeholders or anyone, an existing homeowner, et cetera, et cetera, who can participate based on this to actually come in and pursue low-income affordable housing based on the proposed changes tonight, particularly low-income affordable housing? Low-income affordable housing, and I'm not gonna, if you, what the city has always talked about about low-income affordable housing has been 60% every median income or less. That has historically been done through either subsidized or mission-based providers. So this can help with that. It's not going to provide it in and of itself. Thank you. Another question is regarding the parking and so this is part of the environmental concerns. And so the Kermit proposal is there's less mandates in regards to parking requirements with the ADUs and accessories. And so I just want to make clear that just because, if this was to pass the parking aspects of it, just because it's not required does not mean that additional cars will not come to existing neighborhoods that may bring additional accessory units or AD. So it's not like saying, just because we're not requiring the parking requirements that more cars will not come to neighborhoods, correct? Yes. And finally, the one commenter and the name, I mentioned that in one of the historic neighborhoods that a home that was a contributing structure was able to be, was obviously eligible for tear down. Is there anything existing in cold regs or anything that, let me see how it prevents existing historic structure from being torn down? Or how did that happen in the sense that a contributing structure was able to be completely tore down? So that's a good question. So there's two types of historic districts. There's the local historic district, which is a local regulation, it's a zoning overlay and development on properties within local historic districts that have to get special approvals called Certificate of Appropriateness through and larger, primarily through the Historic Preservation Commission. There are smaller projects that can be done through staff. That has, through local historic districts, to do it tear down a structure, you have to get a certificate of appropriateness from the Historic Preservation Commission and they have the ability to delay it up to a year. National historic districts are not regulatory-based. They are tax-incentive-based. And there is no federal prohibition on the teardowns. Then there's no local prohibition on the teardowns. Any building can be removed, whether it's a house or an office building or a shopping center, unless you have specific state-enabling legislation to limit a demolition, there is no allowed prohibition on demolitions. And just wrapping up, so just for context, so I raised the parking question and I addressed this to my colleagues in that I think that the parking proposed changes that doesn't require as much can be a good thing from, particularly the storm water runoff and some of the issues, because some of the existing neighborhoods are experiencing like puddles in the street when it rains really hard. And so I think that that could be good for the environmental piece, but I wanna make sure that we all understand that just because that becomes a non-requirement does not mean that they will be hearing or council will be hearing that more cars or whatever are coming to these neighborhoods this is acted upon because we're a car-oriented city right now and it's gonna take time for the walk, run, bike or whatever to become a part of our DNA. So I just thought that that was something to know. Thanks. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to echo Commissioner Johnson's thank you to everybody who came out tonight, to the people who have contacted me one way or another and also want to thank staff for all their efforts on this proposal. Since we had two months to mow things over, I've been spending some time going through all the pieces of paper. And I do have problems with this as it is before us tonight. And those problems can really be broken into two categories, process and then the product. And in the process, we started with a practitioner's panel when I can see that there was probably a need for that as a starting point. But where I really have a problem is the fact that we never convened what I would call a neighborhood panel. And if there's one thing I've learned tonight from listening to the comments that people made, we really need more discussion. A neighborhood panel would be perhaps very useful to coordinate that because there is still not agreement among people as to what is best. Some people like option B. Some people like the March version. Some people prefer November. We haven't worked it out yet. Another thing that was raised in which I agree with is that we seem to be getting the cart before the horse when it comes to the comprehensive plan. I went back to the memo that staff wrote that came with our March draft and they put in a summary of issue statement to show support from the comprehensive plan, but this is a summary of issue statement. It's not an objective and it's not a policy. They put in another policy that says through the unified development ordinance, continue to provide variability of lot size and allow a variety of housing types and styles and new residential developments to avoid monotony. If you go to the version of the comprehensive plan which is on the internet, you'll find that this particular policy is shown as being completely implemented. So I'm not sure exactly how it really applies here. I think the goal that we're working, trying to work toward expanded housing opportunities is a noble one, but I don't see it expressed in the current comprehensive plan. And I don't see any policies in the current plan to help us achieve this goal. So in my opinion, what's before us is really not consistent with our comprehensive plan. And even allowing for the fact that that plan is badly out of date. And I have trouble supporting something that's inconsistent or not consistent with the comprehensive plan. I think going forward since we're beginning to the process of updating our comprehensive plan, I think expanding housing choices needs to be a discussion topic that goes along with that. And we need to develop the goals, the objectives and the policies that will enable us to achieve it. Once we have done that and have a new plan in place with those in it, then I think it's the time to update the UDO. Right now, the way I see it, we're making sweeping changes to the UDO without any real relevance to our comp plan. That's the process part of it. Now I have a list of several things that I question about the current draft. I'm only gonna mention two of them at this point. One, I am very concerned. I share the concern that's been expressed for that this provides an incentive for tear downs, not only in historic districts, but in well-established neighborhoods. Their character could be changed and not for the better. And I fear that poor neighborhoods may actually feel the brunt of this so-called redevelopment that is tear down and something else being built. I also have some concerns about accessory dwelling units. I'm not against them, but I want to share with you an experiment I did back in March. I pretended that I was going to be a visitor to Durham and I wanted to stay in an Airbnb. So I did a search. My parameters were one adult staying two nights during the week. I think I was arriving Tuesday, leaving on Thursday, something like that. That little search gave me over 300 hits, scattered all through Durham. Now I didn't go through all 300 plus hits, but I went through enough of them to learn that detached ADUs were certainly part of the rentals. And so when I look at it, you know, at this one time in March, there were 300 rentals, over 300 rental rooms out there. But I couldn't find it, you know, obviously the people who were renting them felt that, you know, they could do better as an Airbnb than they could renting to a low or medium income person. And for this reason that I'm a little suspicious of how much ADUs are really gonna help us with the problem. And with that, I'll be quiet for a while. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Bryan, Commissioner Durkin. Thank you. I just wanted to say a quick word in support of renters. I think there's been a lot of renter bashing and as a former renter, I'm currently a homeowner, but as someone who's a renter for a very long time and as someone who has lived among many renters for many years, I think that to suggest that they don't have an interest in their community is really false and it's harmful to people who are renters and to cast them this broad net of being uninvolved in their community is really not fair. So my brief statement is really just in support of renters. Thanks. Commissioner Alturk. Thank you, Chair. Thanks to everyone who's come out tonight and spoken and thanks to everyone who's emailed. I want to thank the planning department for the community meeting that you held on April 27th, I think that gave me another chance to speak with residents about some of their concerns. Thanks also for the great staff report from March. And I also want to thank fellow commissioners. I was out of town for the last meeting that we had on EHC two months ago. So I've had the added benefit of hearing your comments and your questions that have informed my comments tonight. So that four hours of YouTube was a lot of fun. So let me, I'm not actually going to get into the details of the technical details. For the most part, I think I like a lot of the technical details. I know we can quibble about which version was better. I'm not going to get into that and I'll say why in a few minutes. I do think that much of the discussion from last time was and from today was about the effect that this would have on affordability. And so I'm gonna try to have some comments on that. I think there's an assumption that if we increase the supply of housing, that that would lead to more affordability. And I will be the first to admit that I have said that on this board, on this commission in my three years here. But the more I read about the housing, housing markets, the more I come to realize that it is not, it doesn't operate like most market goods and the supply and demand curves that we learn in economics 101 and that Samuelson book that Mr. Henderson I think alluded to, don't quite work I think in, you know, when it comes to housing. The other challenge which I think, you know, a number of us have noted and a number of speakers have noted is that the academic literature on the link between supply and affordability is unclear, right there. And there are a number of reasons for that. So it is difficult. But I think one thing we can do and one thing that I will push for and that will resonate or will be a thread in my comments, the common thread is that we do have a lot of excellent data on a lot of things about the county, right. And so I think we should do that, right, to get a sense of what the effect this will have. Commissioner Morgan, I think in the last meeting said that we would need more, it would be nice to have more data for us to make an informed decision. So let me focus on, I mean, I try to do a little bit of myself. And so if Mike, if anything I say if it seems like it's way off, let me know. But I wanna focus, I'll focus on the duplex provision in the proposal. And that's because it's a clear right now, currently allowed in the RU-52, RU-M and RS-M in the urban tier, the proposal says that we will now, or the proposed provision says that we can now build a duplex by right in the RU-5 and RS zoning designations in the urban tier. So, we've all gotten these recent tax valuations from the tax assessor's office. And so I went and looked at their data. And I was trying to get a sense of what the property values are of different neighborhoods in the county. So currently, and my GIS skills are a little rusty. So if I take this with a grain of salt. But currently single family homes that are zoned where you can build a duplex, there are about 5,000 of them in their urban tier and their median property value is 172,000, something like that. Then there's the properties that are zoned RS where you cannot currently build a duplex, right? And there are about 3,600 of those and their median property value is about $300,000, $293,000. That's because most of them are, as we suspect, most of these homes and single family homes are in Forest Hills, Trinity Park, where I live and Watts Hill and Dale, right? And that's not a clear, these are not clear boundaries, but most of the RS designations in the urban tier are in these neighborhoods and they have a very high median property value. Then you've got RU-5, right? And there are lots more of those. There are about 10,000 of those single family homes where again, you cannot currently build duplex by right. The median housing value there is $143,000. So some of those are in Old West Durham, but most of those are in East, Southeast and Northeast Durham. So let me repeat that, right? In the RS zone, where you cannot build a duplex currently, median property value of about $300,000, RU-5 zone, mostly in the East part of the county, it's about a median value of $143,000. Does that sound more or less right to you? I mean, no, maybe you don't. Okay, you don't know. All right, well, I'll just, we'll just trust my- Do you need Scott to whisper to you? Yeah, if you need Scott on this, I can wait. No, no, that's okay. That's all right. But let me just let me, so then I do have a direct question for you though. Is this, to me, this suggests that most of this increased supply is going to be in the Eastern part of the county. That at least, that most of the new duplexes will probably be built because it is more financially incentivized to do so in these neighborhoods where it is currently zoned RU-5, and we would allow them to build duplex. Is that, I mean, am I often in suggesting that? I can't say you're off or on for suggesting that. Okay, so all right, well, I will just suggest I will suggest that I am on, and that because it is a lower median value, it is a housing values that are relatively low. And I think the likelihood of someone converting a single family home into a duplex or tearing it down is probably higher in those neighborhoods than it is in Trinity Park, Watts Hill and Dale, Forest Hills. That's my gut and some empirical evidence to back that up. So I have three thoughts on that. So if you look at a map that the planning department produced recently in the April JCCPC meeting, it's not in our packet, but it's a displacement risk map. And I wanna thank a couple of residents for pointing that map and that meeting out to me. But if you look at where the greatest risk is of displacement, it is in those neighborhoods that are currently, a lot of it, a lot of it, I'm generalizing here a little bit, that are currently zoned RU-5, where you cannot build a duplex, but you will be able to, right? It maps on very well. The dark blue in that map maps on very well with the RU-5 that we are proposing where we're proposing some changes. So I'll just let that sit for a second. So then to me, I feel like this potentially contradicts one of the main goals of this proposal, which is in the staffer presentation, you showed us the buying down assumption, right? If someone comes in and wants to, and moves in from outside of the county or is able to afford it, and they cannot find something in Trinity Park, they will go somewhere else. My concern is that actually we're not going to increase the supply in Trinity Park in Watsfield and Dale considerably. And that much of the supply, much of the increase in the supply will go somewhere else. And I think it will go into those, will be more likely in the neighborhoods that are, I think at currently high risk of people who have low incomes who are at risk of economic displacement. And I guess you could say, you could argue, well, that's good that we have more supply in the eastern part of the county, east Durham. But I think it's been alluded to a number of times here. We cannot, we don't have incentives for people to create affordable housing there. And so I appreciate Ms. Ortiz and I think Mr. Martin for suggesting that not all landlords are bad, not all developers are bad. And I don't think this board would be considered but accused by anyone by being anti-developer, but we have to be realistic about what some of the incentives will be to create expensive duplexes, expensive single-family homes in parts of the county that are at risk of economic displacement. That's one big concern that I have of this as it stands. I understand the goals, the greater goals of this, but when I look at the numbers, I feel like the incentive is going to be higher to increase duplexes in east Durham. And again, we can have a debate about whether that's good or not, but I feel like that this policy that suggests to me that this policy will benefit, it will not be an equitable policy. It will not be something that creates more equality and it is more progressive. Just from looking at the numbers. And I would, if you're interested in this, there's Matthew Desmond has written a book recently called Evicted, has got a lot of attention, but he's also written an article recently that looks at the fact that the poor are still the most burden when it comes to rent. And in part, it's because of landlords and developers that are able to do it. And again, I don't want to be disparaging of all developers, but we have to acknowledge that fact. If we don't have protections for affordability, I feel like we're just assuming that the market will work itself out. All right, so let me have a more specific question for staff and that because of these concerns that I have, Mr. Swansi brought up an excellent point about Portland doing an economic displacement study. I would love for something like this to be done here. Is there any barriers to doing something like this? I mean, we have a wealth of data that we can, where we can assess the possible effects that this would have on displacement. I know it would be making assumptions, but I would rather us do that before we put this policy in place. Do you give me a look like that? Well, if you have a methodology you'd like to suggest or something, we can certainly look at that before we bring it to city council, but I'd just say, I'd also need to understand, I mean, to get your question for the data you just brought out, I just, we'd need to understand a lot more, like how many vacant lots are included in that because that would bring down the value of the average value. One of those were vacant, those were all single-family occupied homes. But I guess my bigger point is that we have a wealth, I mean, the county data that keeps on, the tax data has a lot of great information about, and we can see how many houses have been built in the last, you know, four, five, 10 years, right? We can see where duplexes are popping up, we can see what their market value is, we can see a lot of things. Right? Certainly can. This information was in your staff report, but in the last 10 years in Durham County, we've had eight net new duplexes. Okay. Okay, well, so I guess I'll say that I think, okay, I'll leave that there for a second. If I may have a few more. You may. Okay, thank you. Something that Commissioner Baker mentioned last time and that has come up a little bit here is that, you know, the suburban tier, we're not including the suburban tier in this. The response that Pat gave to Commissioner Baker's question, one of the responses was that the demand is higher in the urban tier. I guess I, I mean, I don't really see that because I, you know, your own numbers show that most of the housing supply is going to be in the suburban tier. So part of that, of course, is that we have more land out there and there's more supply out there, but people also want to live in the suburban tier. And I think, you know, part of this, you know, we've, much of the growth of the county is going to be in the suburban tier. So I guess my question again would be, why are we leaving that part alone? And is, is there any plan to incorporate or to anything differently in the suburban tier into coming? I mean, I think it should be done simultaneously while we're addressing the urban tier, is there any plan to do anything to change any of the single family zoning in that tier? So currently the RU five districts that are within the suburban tier would be included in that. We are also revising cluster subdivision and conservation subdivision requirements to allow for more variety of different housing instead of the current focus on single family housing. The ADU changes are also city, county wide, right? But so again, I think I guess my bigger point is that, you know, most of the RS zoning is in the suburban tier. A lot of it is not developed. So there's not the, I assume the private covenants do not apply to those, right? So we could technically makes changes to RS zoning that has not been developed. Is that? That's possible. Yes, for future consideration, absolutely. Again, I think that this is a, so if you look at the numbers, there are the suburban tier dwarfs, the urban tier in terms of demand and supply. And 71% of the suburban tier is single family homes, 71% of the units, whereas 22% of the units in the urban tier are single family homes. So I think, you know, imagine, if we're really interested in increasing the supply, I feel like we cannot leave the suburban tier alone. So I'll leave that there. So a couple of others have mentioned other strategies, other affordable housing strategies. Can you walk us through what the connection of this, of EHC is to the, maybe the proposed $95 million bond? I mean, is there any real connections there between the two, or kind of thinking about them strategically together? I don't think any of us is familiar enough with the details of the bond that we can do that at this time. Okay. All right. Well, again, I would say that, you know, as I think Commissioner Bryan and others maybe have alluded to is that I think EHC should be part of a more comprehensive strategy. I think, you know, some of the comments that have already come up from Ms. Ortiz, Ms. Johnson, Ms. Pless about, you know, historic districts about non-market solutions, all of these things can go into our, you know, can I think ease some of the burden in the urban tier that we're talking about. And, you know, I think in summary, this is what I see. I think that we're artificially, you know, suppressing the supply in the suburban tier. We're incentivizing more of the housing in the urban tier to probably in lower income neighborhoods, which, you know, creates the potential for economic displacement. I don't, I will say that this is, it's not clear to me how this fits within a larger strategy of promoting affordable housing in the city. And I think that that needs to be more clear. I'm not saying we push this off forever, but I think we need to know how this fits in within a larger strategy. And I hesitate, I would hate for us to pass something like this that would have unintended consequences. And potentially, I think negative consequences before we know where, you know, where some of the new housing units from the bond are gonna go or where some of the renovations are gonna go. And to me, this is why I think talking about the technical details of this is, to me, are not important. I think to really get to a more progressive policy, I think we need to rethink the way that this process has developed and where this fits in within a larger framework. Can I just say one more thing? I, you know, I'm glad that some people have mentioned redlining and that the legacy of zoning and that that discussion is being had, that, you know, the decisions of the 1930s and 40s have had, you know, long-term effects in cities throughout the U.S. My, so my thoughts about that is, and again, I'm glad that Richard Rothstein and others are talking about opportunity hoarding like the Reeves book that Mr. Chapman mentioned. Those are really important conversations to have, but to me, the way to address those policies are not simply to do the complete opposite of what was done back then. And I'm not suggesting that's exactly what's happening here, but I think that there needs to be a more comprehensive approach. The other thing that I think the redlining history tells us is that zoning decisions have really long-term effects. And I don't think it would hurt us to spend another few months or another year to really study this, to study what the effects of this would be. These are going to have decades-long effects, these changes. And I would really love for us to, whether it's to bring more stakeholders together, I feel like many of the comments that Ms. Kessler made and Ms. Ortiz made can be hashed out in a way that would be really helpful to the planning department. You know, and I, that's the approach that I would like to see. You know, these are going to have long-term effects and I'm hesitant to support this as it stands. Thank you. Vice Chair Hyman? Yes, thank you. I think Mr. Commissioner Al Turk has basically proven my point. These are very complicated issues. And I'll go back to Commissioner Brine's comment about process. I think we are putting the cart before the horse. There is a comprehensive plan and a lot of work is going to be done in creating a new comprehensive plan. The, that particular process will also take into consideration the need to change the unified development ordinance. So the UDO is going to get a major overhaul and I think what is happening is so critical to the success of everything going forward in this community that we really need to pause. As I listened to some of the questions, very good questions came from this body, a number of individuals here enthusiastically willing to work on process. And the work that has been done, I think is to be commended, which means that there is a thirst for helping out with this process. And it should start with the neighborhoods and the communities rather than the practitioners. I do think that it was probably not the best thing for us to do to start with the practitioners, but to start with the communities that are going to be affected. And I also heard something that I think is very important. A question was asked, what plan is in place to review the changes and then manage the pieces? I heard that from several individuals, including one which actually asks, if you go forward with this, if you must. And at this particular point, I'm not inclined to support this, but the question was asked, could you get the staff then to have measurable goals and assessment of the changes good or bad in six months or a year, in two years after initiating such a huge upzoning process? And what could something like this be built in? All that tells me is this, there are way too many moving parts and there are lots of loose ends and even our body, if we could get together to even discuss it more as far as some of the things that we would like to see done, because all of this about making the best decision for this community, and I'm not feeling that we're there yet. And those are my comments. And I'll ask this question because some of our citizens asked, is there anything built into the process that would actually allow for measuring and during that process, if you're getting it right, is there an opportunity to restart or once it's done, once the upzoning is done, is that it? So as the playing director indicated at the previous public hearing and at other meetings, he is committed to developing a metrics plan and to reviewing it with the elected officials on a yearly basis and with any text, with any ordinance, there are always opportunities to change the ordinance as deemed necessary. And that was the other part of it and the citizens also asked, would something be built in then for them to be informed as well? Because I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of interest in this even moving forward. I think that's something we can look into. I can't guarantee that it can't be built in. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Miller, you might have comments. Yes, I have comments, but I have to say that as somebody who almost never completely agrees with anybody, I completely agree with the remarks I've heard from Mr. Brown and Mr. Alto and Ms. Hyman so far. I too think with regard to process, I think we've made a terrible mistake in addressing the stakeholders in this. We created a special panel who was working without, at least I didn't know they were working. And they are the people who are most apt to be benefited by the proposed changes. We did not, even though we have clearly identifiable stakeholders in the area that will be burdened by the changes, we didn't create a panel of knowledgeable people from them who could consult with the staff or even better consult with the benefited stakeholders at the same time, sitting together at the same table. I would have felt much better about that. And having now divided the stakeholders, we produced finally in November a concept of the EHC and then public engagement changed from consultative to sales. And so engagement to the community is here's the EHC, here's why it's so good. And it wasn't what do we do with the process? We weren't starting at zero with the burden stakeholder group. And I think the result of that is, is we now have an oppositional relationship when we didn't have to. I don't know whether that can be fixed. I also believe that in setting it up this way, we have created a great deal of community distrust in the process. I also think that we have set up a whole bunch of axioms that justify the EHC that don't necessarily play out in truth. And I think this also, as we have come to realize this from a year ago when this was all about affordability and now it's not, I think that also undermines trust and confidence in the process. We should be building the community's trust and confidence, not breaking it down in everything that we do. We need to tell every citizen of Durham, no matter what they do, but especially the people whose interest in planning and zoning is their home, the place that they scrimped and saved to buy, or the place where they scrimped and saved to pay rent, where their lives occur, where their children grow up, and where their triumphs and tragedies occur. These are real things that matter, but we always sweep them aside. These are really important things. And if your interest in this process is your home, then you should have a hand on the steering wheel and you should never fear that somebody is trying to slap it off. But I'm afraid in this process, that's what we've done. We pride ourselves in being a city for all, but this has not been a for all process. I am concerned that we have the cart before the horse. I sat through the really interesting presentation by the folks from Minneapolis. What they were describing was not the EHC process that we're going through in Durham. What they were describing was their redo and addressing with a, in my opinion, superior system of citizen engagement of their comprehensive plan. Fix the plan, change the ordinance. We're changing the ordinance before we fix the plan. And unlike most cities in North Carolina, we actually have something in our ordinance that makes the plan compliance with the plan mandatory. The state law doesn't require that. So I share Mr. Brine's concern that the EHC, it's extremely arguable whether the EHC even conforms to the plan, especially when the plan is filled with long sections about how important it is to identify and preserve historic assets because the EHC does not do that. There is no affordability. I am very concerned about accelerated gentrification. And I believe that this will do this and I cannot compete with Mr. Alturk on his analysis of it, but I can agree with it completely. We talk about gentrification, but the profit in exploiting the provisions of the EHC are going to come from buying the least expensive houses, the old houses, the small houses, and then converting them into much more expensive housing. One thing that I have seen as a member of this commission for the last five years is that what is built new is dramatically more expensive than what is already on the ground. Our affordable housing exists. Why would we adopt policies and rules which attack that housing? So I'm very concerned about that. I have a bunch of technical things. I'm gonna skip those for now. I may wind up talking about them. I am concerned that the EHC proposals are overbalanced in favor of investment housing over the possibility for home ownership housing. In this country, unless you are Bill Gates and invent a computer system in your father's garage or something like that, your creation of family wealth, wealth that pays for your kid's tuitions and then is grows and is passed on comes from home ownership. Now, not everybody can afford a home. And I am not saying that rental housing is bad. We have to have it. But this favors forms of housing like duplexes that are more often than not owned by investors to generate rents. Rental housing is a wealth transfer engine. Tenants pay their rent and when they are done with their tendency, they leave and they haven't got anything to show for it. I would like to always say that in Durham, our rules allow for a balance of housing types and that people whose personal situations allow them to enter the housing market as owners are always there on the ground. But as Mr. Alturk has said, the houses that will go first in this are our current entry level homeowner houses. And so I think we can tweak it without doing it any harm but I'm concerned that that multiplying duplexes at the expenses of small entry level housing will actually do our community a disservice in the long run and will exacerbate and prolong these very severe racial distinction in family wealth that exists not only in Durham but all across the country. I'm concerned about infill standards and I am concerned about historic district protection and I don't apologize to anybody. I've lived in Durham all my life. I was born here. It's historic neighborhoods are important to me. I have become historic at the same time those neighborhoods have become historic. I would like to have better protections. I think the easiest thing that we can do is except for the provisions regarding ADUs which I think can be managed through the approval process through the Historic Preservation Commission I would exempt our local historic districts from the application of the EHC. Our local, we have eight I believe local historic districts that are located in the urban tier. They are relatively small. They make up a small percentage of the total land. I would do that in a heartbeat but the other thing that Durham has never taken advantage of is the ability to create design standards for houses in the National Register District. And we have many national registered districts in Durham and I agree with what the speakers tonight have said. I would exempt all the areas inside national registered districts from the EHC until we can create a body of design rules that protect the historic assets in those areas. It would be a different level of protection than the local districts but it would push back against the incentives to demolish and tear down the historic assets which are actually not just the character of those neighborhoods but the character of Durham. I do believe that once we get, we can draw up design regulations in the for the national register areas and with the EHC in mind and when we adopt the design rules apply the EHC to those areas at that time and have a better program. This is a way of pushing back against the one size fits all. I also believe that our urban tier boundary should be at play. We created the tier boundaries back in 2005 and adopted them in January of 2006 without having the EHC in mind. Why are boundaries, lines on the map drawn then the guiding lines for an entirely new idea about the need to redevelop our urban core? I believe that as we develop EHC provisions I believe we ought to look at the lines on the map not just accept them because they're there. And again, this would be a function back to what Mr. Bryan said and what Ms. Hyman also said of doing this in the correct order which is addressing the comprehensive plan first where we draw tier boundaries and then coming up with zoning rules if we stopped now and then put the horse in front of the cart. Do we lose the work that we've done so far? No, we don't. It doesn't go away. The one thing can guide the other. We can also take the opportunity as to restructure the stakeholder input in a way that builds trust, builds understanding, builds cooperation. And we can come out with a better result. I feel like Mr. Alter adopting changes to the UDO for the EHC will actually do damage to the stated goals for the EHC that we will not be able to fix. I'm not in a hurry to make things worse when there is an opportunity to make things better by better process, better cooperation. So that's my feeling on this. I'm going to skip and leave aside the things. I mean, if it looks like we go ahead and vote tonight then I have some specific concerns that I would like to see addressed at a minimum, but those are my big concerns. Thank you very much. Thank you. Commissioner Gibbs? And you didn't ask to be addressed. So if you don't have comments, that's fine. Well, I was not going to, but I can't. I've got to. I agree with most of what has been said from the panel. And I do think this EHC would be better addressed within the new study of a new comprehensive plan. And as far as I'm concerned, what this EHC can be just plugged in, but it's a good start. And there is a place in planning for infill, for alternative housing choices. And that's the one thing that keeps coming at me when I hear comments from the different neighborhoods. This is not alternative housing direction requirement. These are intended to be choices if it's needed, if a homeowner or a property owner wants to do something like this. And every meeting that I've been to, staff has said from the beginning, this is not an affordable housing proposal. This is just to present housing alternative choices. And I don't think there's anything, there is not going to be enough from all this to even address a fraction of the affordable housing once we determine how we're going to move ahead with and identify affordable housing. We've got a long way to go on that. But I just wanted to say those comments that staff has, I think they've done a really good job in trying to come up with a product for us and we are us, us are the public too. Something to discuss, something to base our feelings on and to the more we look at it, we can see where it may affect our neighborhoods. But I sense a fear too that from the very beginning, from the very first meeting that I went to, everybody is afraid that their whole neighborhood is going to get torn down. There are rules regardless of whether this thing goes into effect. You can't go into a historic district and just willy-nilly tear down things. There are rules and regulations that protect historic districts, historic structures. And I'm saying all of these things because I'm still at this minute, still struggling with this whole thing. And I know it affects different neighborhoods and certain concerns and even fears. And it kind of concerns me too, distrust of quote, developers. But it's been said tonight, anybody, a homeowner can go out in the backyard, make a trip to Lowe's and build his own ADU or, but anyway, I think I'll just let those comments go. I just wanted to throw those things out that and to reassure people, and I've said this many times, this EHC is not designed to be a land grab. It's not, nobody is going to force anybody, whether it's a historic district or whatever. And I think this whole EHC concept, when we get to the comprehensive plan, could involve and probably should involve not only suburban, but it, there's applications countywide because we are gonna grow. Everybody cannot live downtown. Everybody's gotta go somewhere, especially when new housing is being developed and built and gentrification is taking place. There's no other place to go, but toward the county moving out. And so our planning, I think, and I probably won't be around when this time comes when it expands that far, that we become almost metropolized, if that's a word, but I, those are just some comments and some faults that I have. But I think when we all work together under the leadership of the planning department, and I think they have the capability, the expertise to address and consult other towns in other states just to get some pointers, but I also have faith and hope that when these considerations or these investigations are made, Durham is not Portland, Durham is not Pittsburgh, Durham is Durham, and whatever is decided would have to be determined and the final product is gonna have to be based on the Durham's uniqueness. And you know what I mean. Thank you, Commissioner Gibbs. Thank you. Commissioner Morgan. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I kind of held back on my initial comments just to leave room for some of the more articulate members of our commission to add their comments and it kind of confirmed my own gut feeling as far as hearing what we've heard from the public as well as we've heard from the other commissioners. I think the cake isn't baked yet, so to speak. I think there is a number of things to do with it. I don't think it's something we get rid of, but I do think where I said last time was more data. I think we've got data, some of it. We've got some great feedback and we got some good, well thought out ideas. And I think what we need now more is more collaboration with the community, more collaboration with the planning commission, the planning department and with this in order to bake the cake more. Because I think if we want to get this right, it impacts everything. And so it is just so large to try to push it forward to get more input and get more collaboration with the neighborhoods because it isn't a one size bit all. It is more related to different neighborhoods. So my thinking here is understanding that and to be allowing for that. Which like what Commissioner Miller was saying about, we sometimes get the cart before the horse. We've done different things. We need to know more about the comprehensive plan. We need to draw the boundaries better to understand what works and what doesn't. To take something that's 12 years old in a comprehensive plan and we haven't revised it and use that as a basis for this can be flawed in some ways. So my thinking is measurable results as some people have said. Defining clear results of expectations of what we need. Concerns, there's more details I think sometimes our concerns that's if we are able to solidify those a little bit better, that'll take a lot of the fear factor out of this particular program and what it might do to people's communities and their homes and their neighborhoods. So that's kind of where I'm thinking from that sense is my gut was saying we're not ready yet with some of this stuff. And I think there are more things we can do. And I think some of the certainly the comments that we got was really well thought out. I think certainly with some of the handouts and some of the emails and some of the very clear things of saying this is what we want to do and these are the changes we'd like to recommend. And again, I'm thinking more in terms of I think staff's done a great job in collecting the feedback and the information but I'm a little disappointed that we didn't get any changes in the revisions from the March draft. And maybe just because we just didn't have enough time to incorporate that. So that's kind of where I'm thinking in terms of is we've got feedback and to push this forward and to leave our elected officials to try to figure it out for themselves too is a disservice to them because our job is to provide advice and clear direction. So in my situation, I'm sitting there thinking the feedback that we've gotten from some of the other commissioners and some of the more articulated analysis that people have done, especially Commissioner Alturk who's done some of that work and we're looking at the data. My sense is just we need to really do a good job of this and get this right because this is for the whole city, not necessarily just one neighborhood. And we need to kind of look at it from that perspective. That's my comment. Thank you. Commissioner Williams? Well, I always try to be very brief and I never have questions so I won't start any tonight. I look at this from the totality of it. I'm a lifer in Durham, from Durham, born and raised in Durham. And a lot of what was said here tonight is a lot of my thought process on things as I drive through my city, as I call it. I'm quite concerned about 50, 50 foot homes living next door to very small houses. They're very towering and it's also a privacy invasion as I look at it because even if I had a privacy fence, I still don't have any privacy because you can clearly see over it. So I don't agree that density is going to approve anything because as we've been saying for months now, all these people are moving to Durham and that's why we have to keep building well that's supposed to help the affordable housing crisis and supposed to make things more affordable in Durham. And I know that that's not the case because as everybody else's property taxes went up, I'm quite certain that was a shock. Mine went up and it's not making it any more affordable and I have somewhere to live. So that's not the solution to the problem and that's not what we're banking this off of. I think we do need to be more considerate as numerous people have said today about those that have vested in the city. People who have been here, people who are going to be here, people who have seen the good times and the bad times. We talk about being responsible builders and the impacts that it's going to have on the environment. The only concern I hear is tree canopy and impervious surfaces when no one's considering carrying capacity and we're reaching that greatly. Tearing down one home that sits on a quarter acre and building three more is not helpful. It's not going to change anything. It's going to do more harm than good in the long run. And a lot of people do have genuine concerns about where we're gonna be in 20 years. Some people who have been here for numerous years have seen the up times and they've seen the down times when it's bad, it's bad and that's economy based. We can't do anything about that. So I don't know that accessory dwelling units is gonna necessarily be the solution to the problem. As some people call them granny flats. Most people who live in granny flats can't really navigate a 25 foot ceiling in terms of moving up. Like you have to navigate stairs, that's 12 to 16 stairs. Recently being 48 stairs is a challenge to my knees now. So I'm just saying, I just think that we're banking on what seems to be popular definitions for the reasons why we justify the things that we do. And I don't do studies, I don't do statistics. I do what I see in reality. My parents are from Durham, I am from Durham. So I know what's going to happen. I know because it has happened here before and we aren't learning from history, we're going to repeat it. So that's gonna lead to 40 and 50 and 60 lots of empty homes that are going to deteriorate because nobody lives there. When the popularity of Durham fades out, what do we do? And I think that that's the larger concern of a lot of lifers in terms of preserving neighborhoods, not because they're historic but because they have withstood. Some of these people in this room are gonna leave their homes to their children and their children are gonna return home or their grandkids. And I think that that's what they want. They wanna be able to say that they can do that. And I know that the rate in which property taxes are increasing and people cannot afford to remain in their homes as they are now, we have to be considerate of that. We can't keep providing housing choices for people who are coming in or make a greater income values when the people who live here rate of income is not increasing. So I think that that's the sensibility and the more we have this meetings, the more that we continue to be invested in the city, we have to consider that. There are things that are beyond our control. People can no longer afford to renovate their homes due to recent economic issues that are beyond the city of Durham's current issues and situations. So I think that the more that we hear the residents, the more that we have to kinda stop acting in hindsight. We can't come back and undo the fact that we wanna expand housing choices when we gave approval for multimillion dollar complexes to be built downtown. And now we're concerned about affordable housing. Now we're concerned about expanding housing choices when that should have been in the forefront to begin with. So I think that we can't rush to a decision of how we're gonna address a situation we created. Now in hindsight, I think that we have to take our time and we have to listen to these residents. We have to listen to the citizens of Durham. And we can't keep forecasting what's gonna happen. Because 20 years ago, we didn't know we would be the most happening city on the East Coast. That's just where I stand. And hopefully we'll be going to emotion now. Thank you. Actually, not quite yet. I did have a few additional questions, but I appreciate everyone's comments. I have peacefully said through all of your comments. So I'm gonna say a few things. What I do wanna do though, number one, I appreciate everyone's comments on the commission and the citizens as well. I wanna say first of all, I am very glad we waited two cycles. I appreciate all of you rolling up your sleeves and coming back here tonight. I think one of the challenges that we had in March and those of you that were here, tell me if I get this right or not. But I heard a lot of folks we talked a lot about I support the November proposal. I support the March proposal or I don't like any of the proposals. What I heard tonight with the 60 day continuance was more nuance, I heard more thoughtfulness. We've all of us, myself included, we've had time to dig in. There are still people who still want the November proposal, I understand that. I think those are individuals who say, we have a problem, we need to address it, let's get started. I've also heard individuals who are evolving as they learn more. I heard Ms. Kessler say I started out skeptical of ADUs and she's warming up to that. I think that's important. I've heard Ms. Seibel and others from the Coalition for Affordable Housing bring us really thoughtful proposals that have more depth than we had in March. Ms. Ortiz with her work and reaching out and talking to community members who may not have had input in March. So I say all that to say, I think we're getting closer. I did wanna ask a couple of questions of some of the individuals who spoke tonight just to make sure that I have a clear understanding of exactly what you were asking. So if you are willing to come up, I'd appreciate it. Ms. Seibel, if I could start with you and then Ms. Ortiz, I was gonna invite you up as well. I wanna give you a head start. So Ms. Seibel, and I'm looking at the statement from the Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit, number three in particular. So you talk about expanding affordable housing stock and you talk about the city should implement new programs at the same time as the effective date of the provisions to provide both financial and technical assistance to homeowners and others to utilize these new programs. Could you talk a little more about what you're thinking is there because I have similar concerns. So there is a city affordable housing plan, a five-year plan and part of the funding will come from the proposed $95 million housing bond, which isn't on the ballot until November. There's a small line item. It's relatively small for affordable dwelling units and other preserving naturally occurring affordable housing. And I think there's some specific funding, again, a small amount for homeowners to help them maintain their homes. So there is a little bit of money that might be able to assist. And then there's some larger chunks of money, I think, to help people. But I think those were going to be larger apartment complexes, hopefully affordable apartment complexes. So I think there's some funding, but it won't be available until well after that bond referendum. But that's something that I'm hoping that as you pull together the stakeholders, it will be not just the planning department, but also the community development department. I know Karen Lotto has been working on that plan and probably need to consult with city council and the mayor to find out what's gonna be funded in that housing bond referendum as well. Great, thank you. And for staff and Mr. Stock, and you may not have the answer to this, but from a staff perspective, is it feasible for these two efforts to be on similar timeframes or are we on a track where we're gonna approve this proposal expanding housing choices, however it looks sooner, and then these kind of support programs are gonna come later? I'm just trying to understand the timing of these efforts. The timing that we're looking at right now, as we said, we're probably gonna at least try to make the August meeting, one of the August meetings, so that would in effect be before any even bond proposal that doesn't mean that council can't set a different effective date for that. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. And Ms. Ortiz, if I may, I'm gonna ask you actually, if you mind, could you walk through your four points again? I was taking frantic notes, but I'm not sure I got them exactly right. Sure, I can also email the meeting after this meeting. That would be helpful as well, but actually if you don't mind just doing one at a time then I'd like to just ask staff a question on each one if possible. Making ADUs a max of 800 square feet just by right. Cause if you have a thousand square foot home, which a lot of working class neighborhoods do have those modest size homes, it makes it much like the woman who was speaking earlier, very difficult to have an ADU for the aging in place kinds of things that people might be thinking of. So 800 square feet, so that we're not picking on the little houses. Leaving them out of the game, especially with such generous sized lots in so many situations. And from the staff's perspective, I mean the expanding housing choices, the current proposal is 800. So we do that, check. Check. Thank you. And so the second point? The flag lot from 20 feet to 12 feet. And we're thinking that on lots that are maybe a little narrower towards the front, where the house, depending on where it's positioned on the lot, you don't want folks to feel like they have to maybe knock those down to access the lot in the back. So to eliminate some of the logistical sort of jigsaw puzzling that people are doing to meet the 20 foot standard, 12 feet being a little more gracious for that. Great. And that is also in this current proposal. Check. Check. Excellent. Thank you. Then the duplexes, allowing them by right throughout the urban tier. Check. So three checks. Thank you. Yes. And then almost like you knew. This is when we heard a lot, especially from low income community groups that fear being potentially differently policed in houses around the unrelated family members, even though some people have a mixed bag about some people have a mixed bag about enforcement. It's the number, the definition of family about unrelated, no more than three unrelated persons in a home. Which feels really discriminatory based on privileging a particular way of defining family. So from three people to five people. Right. And I'm not a lawyer. So I don't know if that is something that the city has jurisdiction over or and where. You do. Yes. In the union. But that is not addressed in expanding houses. That is not contained in these proposals. Okay. Then if you don't mind just one more question. So part of the reason I'm asking is that this is what my recollection was of your comments. I was sitting here thinking, so here are three items that are in the current proposal. There's a lot more in this current proposal. That's what we've heard a lot of concerns raised about. What have you heard? And I know this is an unfair question, but in a minute or two, but if you don't mind just sharing what in your work you have heard that, because you could have put more things in here and said there's a lot of agreement on eight items. You gave us four and three of them are in here. Anything, any concerns that you were hearing about what is remaining in our proposal. But it's too much, too complicated, too fast without due process, right? For the rest. And much to, I love what Larissa was saying earlier about wanting to make sure when I have been out in community trying to explain this I have been very expressed in saying based on my entire organizing history and understanding how economics around these kinds of things work that you have to pair not just zoning policy changes, like you can't just do those on your own. You have to pair them with good programming, education, technical assistance. That's one bar. Obviously the policy changes and you also need financial tools and that can look like a myriad of things. And so part of what I've sensed is that community feels like there is a lack of trust that they will be able to secure those things if the whole package were passed at once. So whereas traditionally, and I'm gonna use some language here that's not meant to speak to anyone in the room, it's meant to talk about history, okay? Traditionally density has been used and captured and wielded by white wealthy people to the exclusion of other people. And in this case, there's a sense that people would like to hold it hostage to ensure the inclusion of more people to be able to utilize what these different density opportunities might mean for them but maybe aren't able to realize those options without the programmatic and financial tools assisting them. Does that make sense? It does. And so is it fair to say, and you tell me if I get this wrong, is it fair to say that you personally, based on these past few months of diligent work talking to lots of individuals? Oh my God. And y'all, I'm not paid by anyone to do this, to be clear. You would say, would you ask us to oppose the current version of the expanding housing choices even though there are three items that are in here that you believe are positive? There are three out of the four items that you raised tonight. Three are in here. Would you say to us, approve this as is? Or would you say, this is too much too fast even though there are three things I like? Right. I say it's too much too fast. Take the four things and suggest those in your notes to counsel and let them make the one or two word choices and changes that would allow for this to flow through with those four points in the text. Thank you. I appreciate your willingness to have this Socratic dialogue. No worries. So back to the commissioners and I'll just tell you, when I came here tonight knowing that this was going in August regardless, right? We can vote tonight. We can continue this for one more cycle. I was inclined to vote tonight because this is going to counsel regardless. There were zero changes made by staff in the last 60 days. I say that without judgment. It's just a fact. So it leads me to think there is absolutely no changes coming in the next 30 days. All of these fine individuals will be required more than likely to come back yet again next month. We would have another public hearing. We might have the same conversation. I could be changed on that. We had a different conversation tonight than we had 60 days ago. I think we had a better conversation tonight because we're understanding this more. We're getting good ideas. We're getting nuance. We're starting to really figure this out. I would still rather vote on this tonight personally. What I don't wanna do is I think it's the easy way out is for us to just have a straight up or down vote on this proposal. I would rather us do the hard work of actually making a recommendation to counsel but I don't know if we have the time or the ability to pull that off tonight to actually make a proposal to counsel that would say we would like you to do this for the expanding housing choices. So I say all that to say, I think I'm in Commissioner Morgan's camp of saying we have one more cycle. It does not change the timing of this going to counsel. Question for staff. I believe next month's agenda is fairly light. Is that correct? That is correct. You might have a couple cases. Might have two. Two zoning's. Two zoning's. Couple means two. Couple. Well, two, couple, yes. Okay. Tentatively two. So it could be more but maybe less. Could be more. Okay. Could be more than two. Yes, right now they're pretty confident that it's going to be two, maybe one or two more could sneak on if they are ready to go. Yes. So thank you. I want to hear from commissioners. I also recognize it's 20 of nine, but I think this is important and we got to stay and do this. Commissioner Johnson. So I agree and I was just wondering, thank you for bringing this up. My thinking is that even with the continuance for an additional cycle, I think that any feedback that we're going to get is going to fall within this bucket of concerns that have been expressed over the since March. So it'll just be the weighing of more people said this. And so my question and my question to staff is you've provided rationales for why you've presented what we're having a discussion about. Like it seems to me unlikely that anything will change even with the continuance. It's just you'll probably come back with what we're looking at today. So does it make sense to even go up 30 another cycle? Yeah, I will say, I will say Commissioner Johnson that that's probably true. I think the reason why there were no changes to this proposal is we went out and did more engagement over the last two months. We heard a lot of the same. The camps are pretty, pretty well established. Either folks want more folks want more time or folks are okay with the proposal as it is. So I don't see that changing in the next month. I will agree with chair Busby that having the planning commission recommends something to city council would be very helpful for us. And so if that takes another month, we're okay with that. Thank you. Additional thoughts, Commissioner Johnson, the floor is yours at the moment. I guess I'll hear from the floor is moving Commissioner Williams. Yeah, I have a question. So, which is rare, but if we come back in 30 days is there yet another public hearing or is this merely for us to formulate our thoughts as a committee and as a commission to what we plan to suggest going forward? Because I think now we would be entering a third cycle of bringing these very same voices back and then yet again, they have to go before the city council. That's a great question. I'm gonna let the staff answer that. So yeah, to continue it for one more month, the public hearing would have to stay open. That does not mean you have to take more testimony. I'm okay with that. Additional thoughts, Commissioner Williams? No. All right, Commissioner Miller and then Commissioner Morgan. Sure. So on that subject, I was concerned about that too and thank you for the answer. I don't like to play fast and loose with the community. If we do continue it, if there's somebody who has not spoken before and has something they want us to hear at least for a few minutes, I would make sure that we don't turn anybody who has something new to say or somebody who's not said anything that we would turn them away. I would be against that. I'm against continuing a hearing that we're not actually going to hear. But on the other hand, what we do, what other planning commissions do, and there's all kinds of forms and then there's not one right way. There are planning commissions that meet and they hammer out like a majority opinion and they send that. We don't do that. We send out, we vote. There's a majority that wins the vote and sometimes we approve or recommend approvals. Sometimes we recommend denials. But after that, our rationales all come higgledy-piggledy, different people saying different things. Frequently we've discussed it together. We've heard the same things. Frequently we say the same things. Because we do it that way doesn't mean that we couldn't attempt whatever our vote may be to come with a more unified statement of why we voted the way we voted and to make recommendations also because we're an advisory body. Our vote isn't our only recommendation. We could say we voted against this because but if it had this, this, this and this in it, we would have voted for it. And I think that kind of advice is always available to us. We just don't do it. And usually because it's a single zone in case it's a single parcel, it's a much more simpler set of issues. This is big. If we, I would love to now, I tried to write down everything everybody said over two hearings. I would like to go back through that and process through my mind and come back with a proposal of my own making and see and let you debate it and kill it or and listen to your proposals and see if we can cob something together where we speak as nearly as possible, if not with one voice, with a majority voice. So I'm in favor of continuing the hearing, hearing a few people with the understanding that we're not just gonna open it back up again and let everybody speak. But if there's somebody that really has something new to say if then to hear a few people and then really work amongst ourselves to come up with some, if it's possible and it may not be unified advice to the city council and the board of county commissioners about how this is going to proceed going forward. And of course they can ignore our advice but I don't think they can fault us for having attempted to do it this way. I yield my time to the young lady in the back. Yeah, I yield my time to her. I'm sorry. Going forward. She has some excellent points in advisory statements. So yeah, I yield my time. Commissioner Miller. I'm done. So I would favor putting it off for a moment. So chair. Yep. Commissioner Morgan and then commissioner Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think some of the feedback that we got in written form from some of the people in the can really help us guide the kind of response that we would want to have. I agree with what commissioner Miller's saying is to try to come up with a unified direction to city council so that they can look at it and make a much more informed understanding or decision on what they want to do. And I think some of the feedback here is excellent. I mean, I'm looking at Ms. Kessler's write up and her concerns. I'm looking at Ms. Wilson's write up that she handed out to us that's saying it's very pointed. Here's the things that you would do if you vote no. Here's the thing to do if you vote yes. We could almost take that and expand on it and come up with something I think that we could all agree upon. And I think that's agreed. It would make more sense to city council when they're reviewing this with this feedback and with this advice, I think we're doing a good job as a planning commission. So I do think I would agree with that approach is to try to come up with a common thing. I mean, we could do it as part of say, vote it up or down and provide our comments. And we could still do a majority opinion that way too. So that's another option to consider, but I'm in favor of some kind of unified structure of comments because this is big. Thank you. Commissioner Alturk and then Commissioner Johnson. Thank you, Chair. I guess I like this idea and principle and because we haven't done it, I'm curious if you could walk me through how it might look like, what it might look like. That's my question. I mean, would we all come with our ideas and then we would just hash it out here? Would we designate, because we cannot meet between now and then. So, if other commissioners have ideas about how this would work in practice, I would love to hear that or if the, my preference of course is to go back to the planning staff and to neighborhoods and to work that way. Right. But I guess we cannot do that or we can vote no and say and recommend or we can recommend that, I guess. So yes, now I'm just speaking. No, it's a fair question. I think it's important to note. We as commissioners, we have to do this in a public setting. So we will not be meeting somewhere else as a commission to come up with a proposal. But that said, I would like to recognize commissioner Brian who has served for many, many years and there may be previous examples sharing. There is a mechanism which the commission has used in the past. We used it in particular when we were doing our memo addressing the drought situation some years back. The commission can dissolve itself into a committee of the whole. We're still here, we're still in public, but it makes it simple. We don't have to have motions to vote or anything like that. We can make a suggestion and just vote by raising your hand or something. When we've cobbled something together then we rise from being a committee the whole back to being a commission and then we vote on our final product. So that's one way to go about it. That's been used before. If I were gonna make a recommendation to council and board of county commissioners, my recommendation would be to suspend work on this process right now, work on the comprehensive plan first and gather a neighborhood panel and let them work on the details along with staff as part of the redoing the comp plan. I'm a little hesitant to try to get into too many other details because as things get talked through at the neighborhood level, things could change. So basically I would say give them more time. Period. Now let me ask the staff is commissioner Brian. We don't have control over that at the end of the day. We're an advisory body and we have this until the end of next month's meeting. I understand that, but I'd say if I was gonna make a recommendation to council my recommendation would be we do things differently. Take a different approach. Commissioner Johnson. Is that right? You were recognized next, so I'm just giving you a chance. Well, I've been leaning from the recommendation of voting standpoint more from that, from commissioner Brian's standpoint. Maybe we don't necessarily have to bring what our proposal looks like. I think that what has been made clear is that there needs to be more community engagement. So we highlight and whatever the majority or whatever it is, these are aspects of what we've seen thus far that have gained, that has consensus and should be in it. But I think suspending me and basically voting no or whatnot, no with the caveat of this is what the recommendation going forward. And I don't think we necessarily have to give our brand of what the EHC means. So that's what I was thinking. But I'm on board with continuing. I was reluctant for continuation, but given the conversation, I think that that can work. Great. And I will just say, and staff may offer input, there's not a direct question, but my concern with that approach is that this started because the council, I understand, asked for a process. And if we come back and say, we are asking for you to just keep having more process, I'm not convinced that they will listen. And then we are not giving them an alternative. We are giving them this proposal. So I just say that I'm in favor of continuing today. And I think we should think very carefully about that because I would fear that we're actually then, it's basically just the same as a no vote and they can pick it back up, take it. Obviously they're gonna listen to all of you. I appreciate that. But I think it's important for us to give them an alternative. If we have heard an alternative. I will also say, however, if we do continue this for another month, I hope all of you will continue to do your work and maybe have a little bit of a mashup because it seems like there were at least two or three working groups, very diligently working. You now know who each other are. So I would urge you to consider reaching out to each other in the intervening time. Commissioner Miller. So I agree with you and with Commissioner Bryan. And I think that in a rezoning, we vote up or down. This is a text amendment and we can vote it up or down. But we could also propound among ourselves a motion that said the best way of, that there's a process problem and work through it and say, here's our advice to the process problem. But if you're disinclined to take that advice and you're going to vote on it, then here are the detailed changes or that we think need to be made. Here are the problems, et cetera. We can try to come up with that together. Because I agree that we've done a lot of work ourselves and it hasn't just been here. I know I've been to half a dozen meetings where Mr. Al Torch was present and where you were present and Elaine, I know it's attended meetings. Spent a lot of time working on this. I do not want to proceed now or in the next 30 days in a way that makes everything we've done irrelevant. I would like for us to come together. And I don't see why we can't plead it as attorneys say, plead in the alternative. And I think we can do that. And by speaking as nearly as possible at least by attempting to speak with one voice, then I think we will give advice to the counsel that will be received more powerfully if we do not cancel each other out. That's why I'm willing to go another 30 days. And in the meantime, though, not just show up here 30 days from now and say, okay, pick up where we left off to start thinking about it. I did want to ask the staff a question about our rules of procedure. If I may, if we were to create a committee of about four or five people, but less than a majority, could that committee meet without having to trigger the complicated business of advertising notice? So yes, Commissioner Miller, that would be acceptable. And per your rules of procedure, you can from time to time create committees. It does say that from time to time as need arises, the commission may at its sole discretion establish committees. The commission shall charge every committee and every committee shall report on its activities as it's directed to do by the commission. Committee appointments shall be made by the chair in consultation with the vice chair. And I believe, and our assistant director agrees that a committee consisting of five or less would be acceptable. We would still have to advertise it, but that mode of advertising is not the same for these meetings. It would be like on our website to make sure people knew that you're gonna meet when you're gonna meet in case they wanna contact you ahead of time. Yeah, I'm not proposing a secret meeting or a secret committee. Yeah, nothing like that, yeah. So, and the reason I'm interested in this is if we don't do that, or if somebody isn't drafting something to bring us, then we're going to spend a lot of frustrating time in a setting which I think is particularly terrible for deliberations among a group of 10 or more people. This dies, I hate this dies, that we can have a thing where we talk to each other. But it would be easier if the chair and the vice chair were to appoint a minority of us to bring us talking points. And so that if we continue it, we have a point of beginning and we're not all working from scratch. I will say I am very comfortable with that approach and I think that allows us to have some of the conversations that are very difficult to have when we're here deliberating in real time, Commissioner Gibbs. I just have one quick question. When do we as a body get to vote on this proposal? Proposal. What we have in front of us is the ability to vote tonight or to continue for one cycle. But in addition, we can also create a committee that can then work with the staff that Vice Chair Hyman and I would appoint that would not be a minority or would be a minority of these members. But we could then do some work in the intervening time. And that I didn't mean to say the proposal I meant this committee's work. When that is done, do we as a body, each one of us get to vote on it? Oh, absolutely, yes. And when? That would be 30 days from now. Yeah, it would have to be at next month's meeting. Everything hinges on 30 days. Commissioner Miller. Mr. Chairman, if it's the appropriate time, I'd like to make a motion. You may and I'll leave a moment for debate if anyone has questions. So, Mr. Chairman, I move that we continue the hearing until the commission's regularly scheduled meeting in June. And that in the interval that in accordance with the commission's rules that the commission, Chair and Vice Chair appoint a committee of no more than five members of the commission. And the charge to that group would be to bring the larger body at that June meeting a proposed statement of advice to the city council and board of county commissioners on the proposed EHC zone changes, zoning text changes, and that at a minimum, that advice should address concerns about process. And that it may also concern individual items, as Mr. Bryan called it, product in the EHC. Second. All right, so this motion has been properly moved by Commissioner Miller, seconded by Commissioner Williams, doing as a long motion. So I want to give time for debate or questions, Commissioner Alturk. Thank you, Chair. Could we amend the motion to say a minority of members rather than no more than five? I'm not sure that, you know, I guess we could. I chose five because we have 12 members at the moment and we will not have 14 until the earliest that could occur would be the next meeting. Oh, okay, great, okay, great. Given that, are you comfortable with the motion? Any other questions, comments? I'll give you a second. I know, Commissioner Williams has seconded the motion. Thank you. Hearing none, we will call the question, we'll have a roll call vote on the motion please. Commissioner Williams? Yes. Commissioner Morgan? Yes. Commissioner Johnson? Yes. Commissioner Bryan? Yes. Commissioner Durkin? Yes. Commissioner Alturk? Yes. Commissioner Hyman? Yes. Chair Bozby? Yes. Commissioner Miller? Yes. Commissioner Gibbs? Yes. Thank you, that is unanimous. I would like to say just before I'm sure, we're gonna take a five minute break because I know most of you are gonna depart. We have a few final items this evening. Again, I wanna thank you for your time. As you heard, you should watch, I guess the Planning Department's website because we will notice when these committee meetings will be taking place. And we do want you to continue to think about this, offer your feedback, it's very helpful. And as I said, if you wanna connect with additional folks that you've not been talking to and working with, I think it's gonna make all of us much happier and it'll help us continue to come up with a product that I think we're all gonna be much happier with that'll help Durham. So again, I wanna thank you all. We're gonna take a five minute break. Also, how do you build? How do you, wait, so fellow commissioners can return to the front. Everyone else, if you wanna have a conversation, if you can move into the hallway, please. Well, great. So we have three items for our new business. And the first is Ms. Young with the comprehensive plan update. I'm hanging. If folks can go into the hallway, please, we're gonna continue our business. Or sit down and be quiet, you can't throw a ring before. Hope they're talking. Ms. Young. Yes, good evening, Sarah Young with the Planning Department. I wanna give you a brief update on our status with the comprehensive plan, particularly the Engagement Consultant. I think I mentioned at our last meeting that we contracted with Planning Next. We have, they have already been on site once in person, had a full day kind of working session with the staff. We have set up weekly conference calls between our in-person meetings with them. That's what they do. Give it a second for the noise to die down. I think if we can close that last door, we'll be in good shape. So what kind of a team are we getting? So the team we are getting consists of Jamie Green, who is the principal. He has a fair amount of time dedicated to this project. Sarah Bongiorno, I believe is how you pronounce her last name, is the primary project manager working with us directly. They have additional support staff. And in addition, we have Dr. Irma McLauren. These are the people that we met. Right, yes. Those names are all familiar to me. Yeah, those are the exact people that came. Ms. McLauren, is she from, she's here in Durham, but works in Raleigh? Yes, I think that's correct. Or works in... The other way around. The other way around. So we have met with them. We are continuing to meet with them. Currently we are hashing out the details of a schedule that we can agree on. And it looks like our first kind of public round of engagement will be this fall, probably in October. And I tell you all this tentatively, because obviously as we work through details, things may need to shift. We are going to try and do several things, one of which is coordinate our events and activities with other events and activities that are going on throughout the city to kind of maximize, get our bang for our buck, and also try and minimize folks' engagement fatigue of constantly being asked to participate. People get tired of this? Some people do. I hear you. So we're, there is a fair amount of coordination. There are, there is additionally, you may recall that we talked about a program that we're calling Neighborhood Ambassadors, which is how we plan to do specific outreach and engagement to folks that are underrepresented that typically do not participate. So like Miss Ortiz. Right, right. So that process, we still are working out the details of how are those people going to be recruited, compensated? We are working on basically job descriptions for them to make it really clear what their role is in the project. We are also setting up a communications committee and an outreach committee. The purpose of the communications committee is to basically craft messages, marketing, et cetera, to get the word out, create all the materials, the branding, those kind of things. So I think public affairs, PIOs, folks with kind of that sort of expertise to help us do that. The outreach committee will be a group of folks that tells us where to send the messages, right? So if we've got one group that's helping to craft the messaging, another group helping us make the connections, we have not yet fully settled on whether the planning ambassadors are part of that group or if they're like an arm extension. I'm sharing this to give you a sense of like, there's still a lot of little nitty-gritty details that we're trying to work out. And that is probably what the next couple of months will entail kind of figuring all that out. But hopefully we will launch with a public event in the fall. Is there, may I, Mr. Chairman? You may. Is there a possibility? Because for most of the people here in Durham, the concept of Comprehensive Plan is the one we're changing. I would love to have somebody like Paul Norby, who went through a process, a Comprehensive Planning process so successful that the plan won an award inside the context that we all work with in North Carolina because it's the same enabling legislation. I would love to have somebody from Winston-Salem come and say, this is what our award-winning Comprehensive Plan looks like so that we, because I feel trapped inside the Durham Comprehensive Plan because it is, my understanding of Comprehensive Plans are defined by its edges. And I would like to have somebody come and say, here's one from a city not unlike Durham that exceeds those edges. It's like, I wanna be able to say, oh, I hadn't thought of it that way. Is that a possibility? Either is it at a meeting or perhaps in one of our training sessions? It definitely is a possibility, particularly if you're talking about for the commission. Just the commission, at least at this point. Yeah, staff has actually done a fair amount of research at other Comprehensive Plans, including in the state. So it's not just Winston-Salem. We have, I think, one or two other good ones that we could certainly share and kind of talk through and do a little compare and contrast, like pros and cons of each, the way that each jurisdiction went about determining kind of their future in terms of land use and land use outcomes. We'd be happy to do that. We could certainly plan that. Thank you. Thank you. Other commissioners, questions or comments just on the COMP plan? It'll be good to have Commissioner Miller escape the Durham Comprehensive Plan with a little help. This sounds really great. I know we, as commissioners, have indicated wanting a bigger role of some sort, and it may look similar to what we just did on expanding housing choices, but I think that is a question for another time. So I just wanted to say, again, that I've heard from our conversations the interest in playing some substantial role. So we look forward to continuing that. All right, thank you. This would happen when I'm going off the board. Well, you know where we live. You, I hope you will still stay engaged. We have two other items that we added. We do have two resolutions for commissioners. I'm just gonna stay here because we... Fine, yeah. We have a resolution and appreciation of Ms. Cynthia Satterfield, who served with us for some time and needed to resign her seat a few months ago. I can read this for the record, but I can also... I think it's okay if you wanna do a motion on each one individually, but you don't have to read them into the record. We have copies that we can spread upon the minutes. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I move that we adopt the resolution honoring the service of Cynthia Satterfield and that the text of the resolution be spread across the minutes of this commission meeting and that at some appropriate time, the resolution, if it's adopted, be shared with Ms. Satterfield. Moved, and like Commissioner Maylor, seconded by Vice Chair Hyman. I know Ms. Satterfield has said that she looks forward. We'd love to serve again at a future time when it works better for her and we will make sure that she gets this. But with that motion in second, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. And then we do have a resolution and appreciation of Mr. Paul Hornbuckle. We will share this with his family after we adopt this. So Mr. Chairman, if it's appropriate, I move that we adopt a resolution honoring the service of Mr. Paul Hornbuckle and that we spread the text of that resolution across the minutes of this meeting of the Planning Commission and that upon the adoption of the resolution, that the resolution itself be shared with members of his family. Second. Moved by Commissioner Maylor, seconded by Commissioner Alt-Turk. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Unanimous. Thank you very much. We have one final item, future training. So this will be super quick. Chair Busby will remember and maybe even Vice Chair Hyman months ago, we spoke about having some trainings where they're not necessarily group trainings in the settings that we've been having historically where we have lunch. We'll still have that at some point once we're back fully at full capacity here with 14 members. But we would like to, we were thinking June but I think July now because of the EHC being continued to June. We were looking, Chair Busby'd asked me directly seven, probably seven months ago, Grace, if you see an agenda that looks like, can you put something on there and let's start having some people come from city departments to talk about different things that we asked questions about during the course of the year. And so ironically enough, I think we had a commissioner recently that had a question that falls right in line with what we had talked about doing and we just have not had an agenda where it would be possible. We have had such a full load. So that being said, June looked good but I think July will be the best time to probably have our first. We have these at HPC and we call them 10 minute topics. This will be more than 10 minutes. It'll probably be more like a 30 minute thing and then you can have questions and we'll do it at the end of the agenda under new business. So it won't be in the way of anyone here for a public hearing. And if they wanna stay and listen, they can. I think it would be an educational opportunity for maybe for the public if they wanted to stay and listen to the topic. So that being said, we'll start with a topic about the approvals that you have to seek after zoning entitlements when you're actually gonna move dirt and start construction. So we'll start with that and then we can build on that and then you can give us topics and if we're able to find someone to come and speak on those topics, we'll try to do a couple a year. Maybe we'll start with that and if we have time to do more, we will but you guys are so busy and your agendas are so heavy we're gonna try not to overload you. So just wanted to put that plug in and let you know that's something that'll be coming down the path. And the other thing that we're gonna do and it looks like the supply is starting July as well, Sarah, is we're going to, we are right now trying to set up a program similar to what Riley and a lot of other cities in North Carolina and other states are actually doing and it's called Ask the Planner. So before the planning commission meeting we'll have staff members here. The case planners will be here to talk about the different cases that are on the agenda, just those cases and answer questions about those cases for the public if they come a few minutes early. So we'll probably set up an hour before and be here and be available for that. So. That is fantastic. What about the beach trip? Well, I'm still working on that. So, I'm, you know. I suspect those plans don't actually include us, do they? I'll have to get back with you on that, Mr. Miller. I have a question. When do you guys sleep? Oh, we don't sleep much. You don't even wanna know what I'm gonna do when I get home from the sleep. Hey, don't. I don't know. I was just involving adult bear, adult bear. Two horses and two dogs and four cats, maybe, but yeah. Yeah, you thought this was hurting animals. I do wanna thank the staff tonight and always, but I think tonight in particular, you really were working with us and we were sort of in new territory. We really appreciate it. And I'll tell Scott and Mike the same thing, but it was really helpful. And so, thank you. And I think Vice Chair Hyman and I will work diligently and quickly and we will keep you posted on the committee that we got set up so you can all be in the loop on what we're doing and when we're doing it. Yeah, and anything we can do to help facilitate getting your room to meet in and making sure it's advertised correctly, we'll be glad to do that. So just keep in touch with mayors there. Scott, we'll be glad to help you. Great, thank you. Mr. Chair, I was wondering, also if you once you do appoint that committee, if there are other members that would submit, it would be good just to know that if we have feedback and we're not on that committee, then we just submit our comments so that you guys can work through it. I think it's a great idea. And I think we're just gonna have to create really good feedback loops that fall within the law just to make sure we can get that information and we can get something back out to everybody in advance of next month's meeting. Thank you. You guys are awesome. Thank you all very much for this meeting. I have one last and I'll be very quick. Please. On June 8th, that's a Saturday. Don't know what time is yet, but and it'll be advertised more later. We're going, dad is working with, I think it's the bike and walk committee. Yeah, yeah, that's it. But the walk and talk will be, we'll cover HATI, historic HATI and Edmont. I'll be leading the Edmont. And it's learned something about the history of both of these and especially in Edmont's case, to me it was a forerunner of what we're trying to do today with not affordable housing. That's just in my head. Compact districts, cluster districts, whatever, but I think you would really enjoy it. Anyway, I was hoping there'd be more people, but if folks on TV just come on. They'll watch right to the end. I know that. You're right. This meeting is adjourned. Good night everyone.