 I want to call this meeting of the Durham City Council to order on at 7 o'clock on December the 21st 2020 and I certainly want to welcome everyone here tonight. My colleagues members of the staff others who are attending the meeting and anyone who's listening to it at home. We're so glad to have you with us. Before we have the moment of silent meditation tonight. I wanted to just share a little something. I'm W. H. all in the great English poet. wrote a poem called September 1st 1939 it was written just a few weeks into World War 2 after Germany had invaded Poland. And it was a very dark time. And it made me think not that this time is as bad as World War 2 I don't want to get that mixed up. But it has been a difficult time. This year with the covid virus and so many things that have come from that. So I thought I would read this little little passage at the end of all this poem before a moment of silence. Defenseless under the night our world in stupor lies yet dotted everywhere ironic points of life flash out wherever the just exchange their messages may I compose like them of air awesome of dust beleaguered by the same negation and despair show an affirming flame. So let's all show our affirming flame tonight and in the months to come and we'll all get through this together. So will you now please join me in a moment of silence. Thank you. All right. Councilmember Reese will you please lead us in the pledge. Well Mr. Mayor good evening colleagues. Staff and residents watching at home I will now say the pledge allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much councilmember madam clerk will you please call the role. Mayor Schuyl here mayor pro tem Johnson here comes a member caballero here comes a member Freelon here comes a member Freeman present comes a member Middleton here comes a member Reese here. Thank you. Thank you madam clerk and now I'll ask are there any announcements by members of the council. Councilmember Reese. Thank you Mr. Mayor. I've got a number of announcements before I go. I studied that all in poem in college and it honestly didn't make much of an impression on me then but on the Saturday morning after the September 11 attacks in 2001 NPR Steve inskeep read a portion of that poem allowed on morning additional Saturday and it's remained as part of my memory of that time in our communal lives ever since and so I got a little bit emotional with you read that portion of it because it's very very meaningful to me personally so thank you for doing that. First of all I wanted to say that the good news is there are vaccines and they have arrived in Durham. It's my understanding that the Durham Health Department received its first shipment of the Moderna vaccine earlier today is being prioritized for an oculation for Durham residents as part of the plan developed by public health experts with here in Durham and statewide look forward to seeing more folks getting the vaccine in the weeks and months ahead. As you know, Mr. Mayor, it's really really important that the vaccine be prioritized first to our frontline workers who are in contact with members of the general public that is both public employees and private employees. The elderly folks with with health conditions that qualify them and also for our more vulnerable populations and so just want to encourage everyone to know that the broad swath of American leaders that you've seen being vaccinated over the last several days should be a signal to everyone that these vaccines are safe and effective and I certainly intend to be vaccinated when it's my turn in line. But I did want to make sure that folks know that I will not search only one but I'll be jumping the line in front of folks who need it for more than I do. As this pandemic has shown, I think a lot of folks in our situation can can deal with the kind of isolation that we need to do because we can do our jobs remotely. A lot of folks can't and so those folks should be ahead of us in line. So I'll be, I have absolutely no concerns about taking the vaccine but I'll do it when I'm satisfied that enough other folks have gotten it that our community is a safer place. Second announcement I wanted to make is that additional help is on the way from the federal government. Very soon we hope that the Federal Congress will pass a new COVID relief bill into law that will provide much needed relief for families across North Carolina and especially right here in Durham. There are a number of parts to the bill including transit funding for our Groom Transit system here in Durham. Additional federal funds for individuals and families although it is a very very tiny amount of money unfortunately and support for rental assistance, support for additional small business support and support for our live stage venues and independent theaters. Part of the Save Our Stages bill got folded into this COVID relief package and so I know that our staff is busy coming through the almost 6,000 page bill that's making its way through both houses right now and on its way to the President's desk for signature and I know that we'll have more news about that in the day in the days and weeks ahead but just wanted to put that on folks radar is something that is at least a start in helping recover from what is still a devastating pandemic. The third announcement I wanted to make Mr. Mayor is that I'm sorry and I want to apologize and talk about how I intend to do better as this pandemic continues to unfold despite the existence of vaccines it's going to be a while before everyone is inoculated against this deadly virus and so we're going to be living in this kind of world for a while now for a while going forward even though folks have been starting to get vaccinated. I'm sorry because I don't believe that I did enough so far during the course of this pandemic to support the really awful condition that renters and our small local businesses have found themselves in over the last 8 or 9 months. I don't think it's it was a failure on my part of effort it was more failure of imagination. Like many of my colleagues in the council I suspect I spent countless hours wading through our city ordinances looking for additional levers to support our renters and small businesses. I looked at what almost every other city of our size and larger was doing in the United States to find out are there other good ideas that we're not implemented and I think we can be proud of much of the work that we have done as a council in partnership with the county. We put millions of dollars into loans and grants to small businesses here in Durham. We put millions of additional dollars into rental assistance for low income renters to keep them in their homes during this pandemic and of course the work of the roundtables here in Durham has has really put our arms around our business community and resulted in lots of things that we are trying to do to support our businesses. But I didn't think of everything and I will pledge going forward that I've I've gotten a number of good ideas or interesting ideas from folks on social media about other things we could try I will be surfacing those with staff in the days ahead. But I wanted to make one other pledge to folks who may be listening. If you are a renter in Durham and you believe your landlord isn't working with you as well as they might to help keep you in your home despite the fact that you've lost your job or otherwise suffering during COVID-19 or if you're a small local business and your commercial landlord is similarly not working with you the way that you think that they ought to. I hope you will email me at charlie.rese at Durham and c.gov and I will prostrate myself before your landlord to try to beg them for help for mercy. The problem is this our closures in Durham and around the state around the country have fallen much more heavily on the end of the economic lot the bottom of the economic ladder being individual workers individual residents and our small local businesses who are bearing the brunt of the pain of this pandemic both economic and otherwise folks further up the economic chain the capitalist system landlords banks mortgage holders those kinds of larger financial entities aren't experiencing the same kind of pain because local governments like ours can't waive rent we can't we can't forbid the collection of rent for residential or commercial purposes. So we're forced to doing lots of other things like the small business grants and loans like rental assistance direct assistance to low income families. I don't know what else to do but there are some ideas that folks have come up with and I'm going to be running by staff and in the meantime I will call your landlord and beg them to have mercy on you all you got to do is email me and I will do that. I don't know if that will be effective or not but it's worth a try. So I am sorry again I think it was a failure of imagination on my part and not effort and I will do a better over the next little while and finally Mr. Mayer my last announcement is that earlier today a governor with Cooper with North Carolina signed an executive order allowing to go mixed drinks across the state of North Carolina effective about two hours and 11 minutes ago. As you may know my father used to own a bar I grew up in a bar and so that that industry is very important to me and the way that industry has suffered not only the the folks who own these businesses but the folks who work in them has been really heartbreaking to me over the last seven or eight months and so I just wanted to encourage everyone if you are so inclined to take advantage of this new thing that the governor's allowed us to do better like the never I guess. I think some establishments are still working out how to make that happen but but we're going to figure it out together and I think it'll be just one more thing that business can do to try to stay afloat until we develop more immunity throughout the system through vaccination. So I encourage folks to do that. So far I don't know of two businesses in Durham that are doing that Luna rotisserie downtown and Kingfisher so but it'll be lots more in the days ahead that'll be announcing that. So those are my four announcements. Thank you Mr. Mayor. I appreciate the time. Thank you very much Council Member. Other colleagues any other announcements tonight? Council Member Caballero. Thank you and good evening. I want to just thank my colleague for being extremely thorough and that means that my comments can be more brief. I want to do another call out for folks to stay home through the holidays. I was asked to go with a sentry Spano on Friday and do a community plug in Spanish asking the Latino community which right now we like the party at this time of year. La noche buena the 24th you often stay up till midnight you hang out with as many friends and family as possible but this year is different and my it's really a plea. I know that folks are saying you can gather inside you know the state order is up to 10 folks inside and I would say that that's really honestly not safe. We need folks to stay home the next two to three weeks in Durham and North Carolina are going to be so crucially important. We will not be visiting my dad even though we did go see him over Thanksgiving. We isolated for seven days that tested beforehand. It's not enough. You really exposure right now is when it's in community the way it is right now is really really hard to mitigate spread and so I'm begging Durham to stay home for Christmas stay home for New Year's so that you can celebrate with your family next year. It's not worth bringing it home to your family. It's not worth the older folks in your family getting sick. It's not worth folks who are immunocompromised. There will be other holidays. There will be other New Year's. So a mi comunidad por favor que se dejen en casa. Nos estamos seguros. Nos estamos al otro lado de esta pandemia. Mi consejo es que se queden en casa y celebran en casa solos por WhatsApp, por Zoom, pueden ver su familia de esa manera. I think about when we first came to the states, you know, my mom used to tape record messages. It was so expensive to do international calls that she couldn't afford to call home. So it wasn't even about getting to be with your family. She couldn't even afford the phone call to call on Christmas Day to call for birthdays. So we would tape record ourselves and send our news that way. And she would mail those tapes to family back in Chile. And that's how we communicated for many, many years. And I think about how blessed we are right now that we have WhatsApp, that we have FaceTime, that we have Zoom, and we can connect with folks in ways that previous generations really just couldn't do. So again, my pleas to stay home, stay safe, please follow the orders issued by our governor. It's so, so important. Thank you. Thank you very much, Council Member. Any further announcements tonight? Council Member Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening to you. Good evening, colleagues. Good evening to all for watching. Mr. Mayor, thank you so much for lifting up that wonderful verse at the beginning of the meeting. I think it's highly appropriate and a beautiful capturing of the sentiment. I think that we all struggle and grope to find words for, but I thank God for poets. Mr. Mayor, firstly tonight, I want to to celebrate the incredible Old North State and the type of people that we have here. Last week, President-elect Joseph Biden named North Carolina's son, Michael Regan, to head the EPA, EPA Administrative Designate. There's a bunch of us who are particularly proud of Michael. He is a graduate of North Carolina A&T State University. So shout out to HBCUs and shout out to the Aggies. We certainly send our prayers and congratulations to him and his family. We're all extremely proud and we are hopeful and trusting that it will be a smooth and quick confirmation process through the Senate for Director Regan. We're also hearing a number of other names being floated around the state for other positions in the cabinet. So we are certainly proud of that. So we send our congratulations out to Mike to this night and to his family. Mr. Mayor, I do also want to again extend the warmest holiday wishes to all Durham residents for our Jewish brothers and sisters that's finishing up Hanukkah and our Christian brothers and sisters that will be celebrating Christmas and Advent and Kwanzaa and winter solstice. What I love about Durham is that it is a rich tapestry, a very varied mosaic. We have people in Durham that range from that cover all faith traditions to know a particular faith tradition to traditional African belief systems to know a belief system, but we are all one family. One thing that rests with me tonight is that one universal principle shared by just about all of the great faith traditions in the world is the utter resistance to succumb to darkness and to hopelessness, which is why light is so important during this time of year. So many traditions focus on lights, a pushing back against the darkness, a pushing back against hopelessness on this evening, but we know that there are a lot of people in our city on tonight that are dealing with darkness and struggling with depression and Councillor Reese eloquently spoke to economic challenges that many of our people are facing and the gunfire continues in our city as well and I want to send out condolences to most recent victims of gunfire in our city, which hasn't abated as we hoped it would with the weather, but I think there is light and I believe as we go into 2021 I'm excited. I'm emboldened and strengthened by the things that are before us as a council, as a government to do that would start to constitute a substantial and an actual response pieces of a puzzle being put together to respond to gun violence in our city. I'm looking forward to the violence interruption being brought back before us with actual numbers in January as our staff said it would. I'm looking forward to the initiatives we're looking at to address root causes coming back before us. I'm saying these things tonight because I want folk during the season to recognize that there is light and that we are pushing back against darkness. We are pushing back against hopelessness and we are not succumbing to it and that this government is committed to doing concrete substantive things to push back against the darkness. So with that said, thank you again for the poem, Mr. Mayor. I want to fully associate myself with everything council Caballero said as well with the response with respect to this ongoing pandemic. I share a councilor Reese's excitement about the vaccines coming. I will say that to those of us who have been hurt before in a number of ways, and given the United States of America's medical history, particularly people of color, Black people in this country, that I hope that we will find courage and strength to navigate these waters. I actually have been approached about possibly because of that history of getting the vaccine, not to jump in front of anybody in line. Some of us are afraid to get in line and if that can help inspire and encourage some folk to get in line to begin with, but that might be something helpful, useful. So I just want to say to folk as council Caballero said it far more eloquently than I did, continue to do the things that will keep us safe. But on this night, just know that the light is shining and darkness will never overcome it and hopelessness is not part of our culture and our values here in Durham. May God bless all of you during this holiday season. May God bless and protect our city. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you so much, Council Member. Any further announcements? Council Member Freeman? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate my colleagues taking the moment to share all those insights and I also appreciate them making my comments a little bit, a little more brief. Just noting, just one addition really is to just acknowledge that testing is important and acknowledging also that you may think it's a cold, you may think it's just, you know, your normal, just not feeling well. It's important to make sure that you continue to be tested as well. And so just noting that Durham has made available a variety of testing sites at like, I think at Holton and J.J. Henderson and up through a centralized panel. There are resources available. I just want to make sure folks are aware that testing locations are available throughout the city. And then just one additional point, just in reflecting on some of the comments made, it's important to also note that we have not had a bailout for our homeowners. And so just noting that foreclosures around the corner with all the rents that are not being paid. And it's going to be important to actually dial up our resource, resource levels and support that needs to be in place to make sure that people can stay in their homes. It's important to not miss that aspect of it. And just wanted to note also, I want to make sure that I put a fine point on the way we look at lightness, light and darkness and just acknowledge that sometimes in that darkness, it's an opportunity to see what you cannot see in the light and to reflect. I don't want us to just focus on the dynamic of just light and dark. As they've always been held juxtaposed to each other, I think that in in this darkness, in this year of 2020, our site has been clearer than it could have ever been. Acknowledging how much harm has been caused by violence, whether it's gun violence, or, you know, government sanctioned violence. There's a lot that we can see in this dark moment. And I'm mindful of how much we take into 2021 and the work that we have ahead. And I'm grateful to have the opportunity to serve and be on the council with with my fellow colleagues who are very visionary about these things. So I just want to note that. And then I also wanted to make sure I thank I think one missing thanks was to all our frontline workers themselves, especially in the healthcare. I'm mindful of a few folks that I know who've had to get COVID tested and are waiting to hear back or whether they have it based on the line of duty that they're in. And I'm also aware of a few losses that folks have experienced locally and just acknowledging that this COVID is still continuing to take lives. And it's a lot to carry. So I just want folks to make sure that they're taking care of themselves and tending to their emotional, physical and emotional and et cetera needs that will keep you healthy and safe. Other than that, thank you, Mr. Mayor. That's all. Thank you very much, council member. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, everyone for for your comments and just want to wish a happy holidays to everyone in the community. This is a tech question. I've just been notified by some folks who are trying to watch the stream that there's a problem with the sound on all of our streaming platforms and wanted to ask our tech folks to take a look at that. And I'm wondering if we should take a break until we can get that fixed because right now no one can hear us at all on any of the streaming platforms. Thank you. Let me ask our tech folks. Vivian, can you hear me? I'm now seeing in the chat that a couple of people are writing to us that they can hear. I can hear over Zoom. We can hear in two different computers. We can hear. Over Zoom is fine. It's just the stream. No one who hasn't been invited to participate in the Zoom is here on the Zoom. They're all trying to watch on YouTube or on the city website. I see. They're all not working. Okay. All right. Let me ask is there anyone here from our tech world? Vivian or others who can comment on what you think we need to do about that and should we hold off a little bit and take a little break until we can get that going? I don't see Viv on the line. Mr. Mayor, I just pulled up YouTube on my iPad and it's like a it's like the people talking are too far away from the microphone and there's a lot of audio static in between. So you can kind of hear what people are saying, but it's hard going. Yeah. Well, let me let's just let me ask again. I'm sure Ms. Page is probably checking manager Page is probably checking this out and we'll just wait a moment to hear from our administration on anything that they want to tell us about this little technical glitch here. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, we are troubleshooting right now. That matter will be back with you shortly. All right. Thank you very much. We'll just wait a little bit until we can get that cleared up. Meanwhile, should I tell you the story of when I actually saw W.H. Auden in person? Yes, please. It's here. You all are old enough, but I am. I love saying that. Auden came to Chapel Hill when I was an undergraduate. I really wanted to see him and I went over to the auditorium there, which some of you Tar Heels will know that I can't remember the name of. It's old. It's near the old well. And I wasn't able to get in because it was packed, but I saw a friend who I grew up with in Lynchburg who told me to come to the back of the building. He let me crawl into the men's room window. I did so. I then came out onto the stage. Apparently I didn't know that's where you came out of. Auden was coming in on one side of the stage while I was coming in on the other. I did quickly leave the stage and sit in the aisle. But anyway, that's my W.H. Auden in person experience. That's a really great story. It's entertainment. It's entertainment while I'm waiting for the tech to get in. Yeah, I accidentally discovered Auden. It was one of the one of the greatest library moments of my life. I was in high school working in a library and was just kind of browsing through the poetry section, starting with the A's. I randomly picked up a book and opened it and found all this amazing anti-war poetry at a time when we had just bombed a rock and a lot of anti-war movement energy happening in the U.S., and I remember just being so excited to find that book of poems and reading everything I could find that he wrote. It was a little bit of serendipity, my young life. That's awesome. The clerk has said that DTN is working on audio for the social media platforms. Oh, I said she means they're working on it. I see. Not that it works, but that they're working on it. Okay, great. Thank you, Madam Clerk. All right. Well, I suggest everyone order out one of those cocktails while we're waiting. Well, sadly, they haven't worked out the delivery aspect yet. Apparently, smarter people and I have reviewed the executive order, and you can get a delivered cocktail. One cocktail per person, and both people have to be there when the delivery person pans them off. So you can't just sit at home and say, I have 10 people in my apartment. I need 10 old fashions right now, please. That doesn't work. Now, in order to do that, the drivers are going to have to send training to figure out, you know, probably check IDs and whatnot. And the drivers have to be over 21 or 21 or older. And I suspect they haven't figured out like how to deploy that training yet. So it might be a little while before we get the delivery part working. But hopefully, some of our establishments can get some curbside options available, because that would be ideal. Right. This just happened today, right? And we should be good to go. The governor signed it this afternoon. We're good to go. Thank you. Yep. Yep. Colleagues, I think while we're waiting for this, I see no harm in going ahead with the priority items. I think that's next on our agenda. So I think we'll go ahead and do that. And first, I'll call on our city manager, Madam Manager, any priority items tonight? Good. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Tem and members of the City Council. We do have several priority items for your consideration this evening. Agenda item number five, Department of Water Management, Ms. Lake Facility Expansion Design Services, Stand Take Architecture, Incorporated Amendment number five. There's additional information that has been provided, and it is in attachment number four. Agenda item number six, the Williams Water Treatment Plant Paving Construction Award to S.A. Hauling and Utilities Limited Liability Company doing business as Creative Concrete Construction. There's additional information that has been provided, and it is in attachment number seven. Agenda item number 19, Consolidated Anxation, Carrington Woods 2, Motion Number 3, and Attachment 20 were updated. Attachment 18 was also updated. Agenda item number 20, Consolidated Anxation, 924 Old Oxford Road, Attachments number 14 was added, and Attachments number 11 and 13 were updated. Agenda item number 21, Consolidated Anxation 551 Olive Branch Road, Motion number four, and Attachment 18 were both updated, and Attachment number 16 was updated. And finally, Agenda item number 22, Consolidated Anxation 4-115 and Jere Avenue Attachment number nine was added, and Attachment number one was updated. Thank you very much, Madam Manager. Madam Attorney, are there any priority items tonight? Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Tem and members of City Council. It's good to see you all. The City Attorney's Office does not have any priority items this evening. Thank you, Madam Attorney. Thank you. Madam Clark, any priority items tonight? Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Madam Mayor Pro Tem and Council members. The City Clerk's Office has no priority items, and I did want to let you know that the social media stream is up. Great. Thank you, Madam Clerk. That's the news we were hoping for. Okay. All right, great. Colleagues, we're now going to move into the Consent Agenda. The Consent Agenda consists of items previously worked on by the Council and can be approved by a single vote of the Council. Items can be pulled from the Consent Agenda by members of the public or members of the Council, and if pulled, it will be heard at the end of the meeting. I'll now read the Consent Agenda. Item one, Raleigh Durham Mayorport Authority Mayor's Nominee for Reappointment. I'm going to pull that item from Consent. Item two, Safety and Wellness Task Force Appointments. Item three, Discussion of the Workers' Bill of Rights is written by the Durham Workers' Rights Commission. Item four, Intellogical Agreement with God, Triangle to Reimbursed the City of Durham for Technical Services Related to Commuter Rail. Item five, Department of Water Management, Miss Lake Facility Expansion Design Services, Stantec Architecture Incorporated Amendment Number Five. Item six, Williams Water Treatment Plant Paving Construction Awarded to SA Hauling Utilities Limited Liability Company, Doing Business as Creative Concrete Construction. Item seven, Water Plant Residuals, excuse me, and Wastewater Plant Biosolid Services Contract with Senagro Central LLC. Item eight, Contract for Insurance Broker Services. Item nine, Cooperative Group Purchase Contract, Five Automated Refuse Collection Vehicles. Item ten, Cooperative Group Purchase Contract Police Patrol Vehicles. Item 11, Contract with Colleagues Termite and Pest Control LLC for Pest Control Services. Item 12, Contract with Godwin Elevator Company, Inc. for Elevator Maintenance Repair Services. Item 13, City of Durham Employment and Training 2018 to 20, Grant Project Ordinance, Superceeding Project Grant Ordinance, 15, 6, 1, 3. Item 14, 2020, Blue Benevolence Grant Project Ordinance. Item 15, the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance, 2020 National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, SAKI Program Grant Project Ordinance. Item 16, Expansion of Fiber Optic Network Agreement with Duke University, Constructed Durham Housing Authority Campus Network. Those are the items in the consent agenda and I'll ask for a motion to approve the consent agenda with the exception of item one. So moved. Second. Second. Moved by Council Member Freeman, seconded by Council Member Caballero. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Call the roll. Mayor Shul. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council Member Caballero. Aye. Council Member Freelon. Aye. Council Member Freeman. Aye. Council Member Middleton. Aye. Council Member Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. Well now moved to our general business agenda public hearings and the first item was a consolidated annexation for Carrington Woods 2. Good evening Mayor Shul, Madam Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, Honorable Council Members. Alexander Kaley here with the Planning Department. I'm happy to be here with you tonight. I do want to state for the record that all Planning Department hearing items tonight have been advertised and noticed in accordance with state and local law. And that affidavits of all these notices are on file in the Planning Department. For Carrington Woods 2 we've received a request for a utility extension agreement, voluntary annexation, future land use map amendment and zoning map change from Glenwood Homes LLC for an area of 8.56 acres made up of 20 single family detached residential units. This is around 8.33 Clayton Road. The annexation petition is for a contiguous expansion of the corporate city limits. Glenwood Homes is proposing to change the zoning designation from residential suburban 20 to residential suburban 10. The development plan associated with this request proposes a maximum of 20 single family detached residential units which is an increase of eight units compared to the existing zoning. The area is currently designated low density residential in the future land use map. If approved, this annexation petition and associated applications would become effective on December 31st, 2020. The applicant is proffered for construction of an offsite sidewalk prior to the issuance of a certificate of occupancy within the existing right of way on Clayton Road and along the west side of the existing sidewalk south of Meadowcrest Drive to Glen Rose Drive. The maximum number of housing units was revised from 23 to 20 in text commitment number two on the development plan. The landscape buffer was revised from 10 feet in some places to 25 feet in text commitment number three on the development plan. These proffers have been reviewed by the transportation and planning departments and found to be legal and enforceable. City and county operational departments such as solid waste fire and EMS have reviewed this request and have not identified any significant negative service delivery at cost or impacts to the city. Public works and water management departments also perform the utility impact analysis for the utility extension agreement and have determined that existing city of Durham water and sanitary sewer mains do have capacity to serve this project. The staff is recommending three motions for this application. The first is to adopt an ordinance annexing the property and entering into a utility extension agreement. The second is to adopt a consistency statement. The third is for zoning ordinance. Thank you very much staff and the applicant are available here tonight for questions. Thank you very much Mr. Cahill. Mr. Cahill did I miss it or did you also already indicate in your comments that these have been appropriately advertised? Yes I opened up with that. Thank you very much. You have heard the report from staff. I'm now going to declare this public hearing open and I'm going to first ask if there are any questions for staff by members of the council. All right seeing none there are two people that are signed up to speak on this item. One of them is Penny Secadio and the other is Garrick Sevilla. Let me ask are those two people here with us Madam Clerk do you happen to know Penny Secadio? I'm sorry if I've got that name right and Garrick Sevilla. Yes Mr. Mayor both are in attendance. All right great. Is there anyone else let me ask now that would that would like to be heard on this item. If you were here tonight to be heard on this item and I'm not aware of that or did not call your name if you could please put that information in the chat or raise your virtual hand so that the clerk can identify you. I don't see any other hands up but if there are any please let us know. I see that both I believe now I see Ms. Secadlo perhaps Secadlo is perhaps the correct pronunciation. I see the two speakers are both proponents so I'm going to call on Ms. Secadlo first and you have three minutes and then we'll follow that with Garrick Sevilla. Ms. Secadlo welcome. Yes thank you. My name is Penny Secadlo. I'm the principal engineer of Penny Engineering Design at 9220 Fairbanks Drive in Raleigh, North Carolina. This project has been before you once before and we heard concerns that we needed to attach a development plan to it. We have attached a development plan and as you heard it has been modified from our review from the Planning Commission and with our discussion with the neighbors. We tried desperately to meet all the criteria of safety and traffic and privacy that we could with the neighbors concerns and with the with the comments we heard from the Planning Commission. I think that I'm very proud of the fact that this particular client has agreed to make a connection of the sidewalk to the existing southern high school. I think that was a concern of the neighbors and I'm very proud to find a way to make that happen for the neighborhood and willingness of this development to perform that task. We have reduced the number of lots to 20 lots and we have offered a rather substantial 25 foot landscape buffer on the entire perimeter of this project in an attempt to offer some privacy to the existing development. I think this will be a very good consistent development with the existing neighborhood. The lots are of the same zoning of the same size and I think it would be a very good addition to Durham's landscape. Thank you very much, Ms. Codlow. Ms. Codlow, I'm going to ask you this question not for you to answer right now but before we leave tonight. What is the approximate length of the off-site sidewalk that's being proffered and what would you say the approximate cost to construct that will be? So, I'll just leave that question with you and I'll go on to Mr. Garrick Savilla. That's fine. I'll do a measurement and get you an answer. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, members of the City Council. I'm Garrick Savilla. I'm the attorney for Glenwood Homes. Somewhat I'm going to say is going to retread some of what Ms. Codlow had said. This is Carrington Woods 2. There was a Carrington Woods 1 which was the first iteration of these consolidated petitions. The City Council denied Carrington Woods 1 about two years ago now in December of 2018. Unlike the present consolidated petitions, that was a straight zoning change from our RS20 to RS10. At the time, the Council had expressed a desire for Glenwood to further engage and conduct outreach with the neighboring residents. We heard that. We went back to the drawing board and instead of a straight rezoning, we decided to submit a development plan that would support the specific residential subdivision we envisioned building. We committed to act with just complete transparency with the neighboring residents. Within days of submitting the first draft of the development plan, we convened an in-person meeting at the nearby Durham Public Library in September 2019. This was pre-COVID. We also shared a sketch of the subdivision plan that we expect to submit if annexation rezoning are approved. We provided hard copies of these documents with all of our mail notices. We also provide electronic copies to any of the residents that gave us their email address. Like Penny said, the main concerns really centered on traffic through the existing neighborhoods. We are interconnecting through existing neighborhoods, so there will be some uptipping traffic. The residents also expressed concerns around privacy and then also the safety of pedestrians along Clayton Road, particularly the students of Southern High School who walk along Clayton Road into the wooded areas. One of our main goals throughout this process was really to win the support of the residents to earn their support. We had multiple Zoom meetings and follow-up to the initial meeting at the Public Library. As a result of this back and forth, we made the changes to the initial development plan that Penny outlined. The reduction in dwellings from 23 to 20 is significant and will mitigate some of the traffic through the existing neighborhoods. Then also the 25-foot project boundary will provide privacy. One of the concerns we heard throughout was the safety of pedestrians on Clayton Road. There was a lot of frustration that the residents expressed with what they see as neglect of that road, of improvements on that road. Again, for the high school students who walk to that school, even though this project of ours is just 20 homes, we wanted to step up and be part of the solution to the extent we were able. We wanted to set an example for other developers who wish to build in this area. We added the sidewalk text commitment as Mr. Cavill discussed. We hoped all of these changes to the plan would win the support of residents before the planning commission in September. Unfortunately, we didn't, but we were very encouraged to receive the almost unanimous recommendation endorsement of the planning commission. There was just one vote against. Tonight, we're similarly hopeful that the council will recognize their efforts to address the residents' concerns and vote to approve the consolidated petitions. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sevilla. I see that there's another person that would like to speak on this item, and that is Quincy Ratcliffe. Is Quincy Ratcliffe available to be heard? Yes, I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes, and welcome, and you have three minutes. Okay. I do, good evening, everyone, but I do agree with everything Attorney Sevilla has stated. They have, and Ms. Penny, they have met with us on previous occasions and tried to accommodate our requests. Our concerns are the safety of this area, and they have tried to hear us, and they have tried to assist us. And yes, our problem is still safety with the amount of pedestrians that use public transportation. The neighbors who walk and exercise, we do not have sidewalks. Clayton Road is unsafe. It's on a two-lane road. Whenever you're walking on the street, you have to get onto the grass, and whenever cars are approaching. And not just that, but Twin Lakes, when they build those 20 homes, Woodland Park Road is now going to serve, not just Twin Lakes, Carrington Woods, but it's also going to serve another new subdivision that's being built at the end. And there is nothing being done to address our safety issues. So, yes, we are concerned with the amount of safety, amount of safety that's not being addressed, somewhat by them, but nothing by the city. We're concerned with the noise level, the loss of a wildlife, the ability to exercise safely, we don't have that. So I do like the plan. I can speak specifically for me. I do like the plan that they just presented with the 20 homes and adding the 25 feet buffers. Yes, that is a better plan than what they previously presented. So, but those are my concerns at this time. Thank you very much, Ms. Radcliffe. You're welcome. Is there anyone else who would like to be heard on this item? If you're here and you would like to be heard on this item, please put your name in the chat or raise your virtual hand. Let me just check and make sure that we don't have anyone else who would like to be heard. All right. All right, colleagues, you have heard the speakers tonight. And we'll begin now with any questions or comments you may have, but first I'm going to ask Ms. Cadlow if she could answer the question that I asked previously. Yes, I did look it up. It is about 450 feet of sidewalk and building it along an existing right-of-way would cost in the neighborhood of $18,000. Thank you very much. All right. Colleagues, any questions or comments at this point for the applicant or for staff? All right. Council Member Freeman. Thank you. And just in light of the comments that were made, I just want to make sure that the staff does address how safety is being addressed in that area in regards to pedestrians specifically. Mr. Cahill, can you address that please? Yeah, I can. That's a great question and I can address it to the best of my ability. In terms of safety, the sidewalk that's being proffered is in addition along Clayton Road as a portrayed on the development plan. It's one way to address safety. In terms of the rest of the development plan, there aren't commitments that address crime prevention through environmental design or anything at this level. However, when you get to the site plan level and level of specificity there, there are other ways to address safety concerns. In terms of an overarching approach from planning's perspective, this is just one project in the area and we can't require them to do a lot of the things within the UDL ordinance. So the applicant is proffering the sidewalk at their own behest, at their own financial burden. Unfortunately, that's the best answer I can give at this point. Thank you, Mr. Cahill. Yes, thank you, Mr. Cahill. It might be helpful to hear from Mr. Judge specifically on project that will be occurring in this area. Yes, thank you. So there is a funded bike walk plan from the 2017 bike walk implementation for a small segment of sidewalk on Clayton and Freeman Road from Chandler Road to Obsidian Way and so on along one side of Clayton, one side of Freeman, and then a crossing. It was primarily intended to help get folks from the existing neighborhood a little bit south of this development along Woodland Park Drive and Chandler Road access to southern high school. So that project is in right away acquisition now. So when finishing up, hopefully we'll go to construction sometime in 2021. Beyond that, I mean, yeah, we've heard from Ms. Ratcliffe and a number of the other neighbors out here, we do know there's a large need for a large number of sidewalks and in this general vicinity, whether that's Clayton, Chandler, Cheek Road, Roth Road, Junction Road. There's a long list of large number of needs, but we're trying to work through them. Thank you, Mr. Judge. Thank you, Mr. Judge, and thank you, Councilmember. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to make a general comment that projects like these, which are you know, very low density, small single family developments, are pretty easy. And when developers spend time talking to community members, they often end up being even less dense than they were before. And I think this is an example where the developer removed several units at the behest of the community. And while I think it is really important to work with community members and to be in communication with them, I also just wanted to recognize that when that the way in which that is happening now is in many cases leading to us getting less housing when the community broadly needs more housing and more dense housing. And when developers come with proposals for these kinds of single family developments, there's typically very little opposition in contrast to the townhome developments that we've been seeing lately, which are more dense, though perhaps not as dense as would be. More dense would of course be more sustainable, but they are denser than what we're getting now and are often much more difficult for developers to push through and get a lot more community opposition. And I don't know how to solve this problem. I just wanted to highlight it as attention that I continue to see in our development cases that the broader needs of our community in terms of more dense, more affordable housing are not being served by the process that we are, by the process that we're using now. And that often the things that we're asking developers to do actually create even more problems for that broad goal. And it's not unique to Durham. I think it's common across the country that any more density gets opposition from neighbors who live in less dense housing, but contrasting this to the townhome development that we had at our last meeting with dozens of people speaking in opposition, I just worry that we are, I just worry that we're not going to be, we're not getting what we need with our current, with our current process. That being said, I'm going to vote for this item. Thanks. Thank you, councilmember colleagues. I think if unless you have some particular need to before we continue with our comments, unless there's anyone from the council who Jackson will go ahead and close this hearing, is there anyone has a problem with that at this point? And then we'll have our comments. All right. I'm going to declare this public hearing closed in matters before the council saw my hand and know it's enough. Oh, okay. Quick question for staff in light of mayor pro tem's comment. And I'm not sure if Sarah is is prepared, but just noting that is there a plan in place for moving forward with some small area planning so that these communities, especially in the areas where we're annexing and bringing online additional housing with a two lane road? Is there any planning in place or is there a plan in place to move forward with some small area planning? Good evening, mayor, mayor pro tem and council members, Sarah Young with the planning department. Councilmember Freeman, that is a good question. I will tell you that as part of the comprehensive plan effort, we're at a variety of different areas that are experiencing either development pressures that have particular development challenges to call it all small area planning and kind of the traditional sense. It'll be a bit different from that. But we do plan to try and address these issues through the development of the comp plan. So I know that's a not an immediate answer. But the comp plan is a thoughtful process that will take a little bit of time still in order to hopefully get us on the other side with better policies and plans in place to effectuate the changes that we need to be able to have development that actually works in our community. And just for verification, is that still like at least two to three years away? And so we need something in the interim to to kind of help counterbalance exactly what mayor pro tem is saying. So I would say that it's probably at least two years away. I will say that we have limited staff resources. And every time we try and do a Band-Aid fix, it will only delay further the overall comp plan. That's already going to somewhat be the case with the Searles project. So just in full transparency. But I think that one of the things that is very possible is that as we develop policies in the comp plan, our plan as staff is to go ahead and implement those in the ordinance so that we're not waiting 2 years before we start making a bunch of changes that actually start hitting the ground with live projects. You will start to see as we develop policy accompanying UDO changes following very closely on the heels of those. So as opposed to past plans where we wait and we draft the whole thing and then at the end we get it adopted, we're essentially going to be adopting it in little chunks as it's being developed to try to get at this very issue. Thank you. That's all. I appreciate you sharing that. I think it's insightful for the public to hear. Thank you. Sure. Thank you, Ms. Young. Thank you, Council Member. I'm going to declare this public hearing closed. The matter is now before the council and we'll be interested in your comments. Council Member Rees. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to thank staff for their work on this project. I want to thank the resident who came to speak about it. I also want to thank the applicant two years ago, almost to the day, two years and three days ago. This council met and voted against the annexation portion of this project by vote four to three. I was one of the folks who voted against it. The reason I voted against it at the time was that the developer had a lot of good ideas about how to moderate some of the traffic related concerns and pedestrian safety related concerns that the folks who live in and around this area had about the project, but was the developer was not willing to proffer a development plan that would allow them to commit to those things. So in the absence of that, it did not make sense to me to move forward with an annexation and three of my colleagues agreed. Today, two years and three days later, they have come to us with the development plan that commits them to doing all the things they said they were going to do two years ago with that in hand and acknowledging that the neighbors still have concerns about this project, the planning commission voted overwhelmingly to recommend it to us for our approval. The project is essentially a notch that appears carved out of the city jurisdiction that this annexation would bring into the city. And the density that is proposed here, 20 homes on this relatively small piece of property, it would be comparable to the neighborhoods that surround it. And so on those bases, and given the sidewalk improvement and some of the other things, it's my intention to support the annexation when it comes for a vote and the reason. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, Councilman Rees. I appreciate you bringing back to life the case and how it all shaped out. I think it's important to note that the comments that Quincy Ratcliffe identified haven't changed much of what's happening on Clayton Road and many of the neighborhoods that are experiencing this development pressure are going to consistently keep coming forward with the issues around traffic, pedestrian safety, and the other. And I think it's important to note that our staff is now prepared to address it in a better way and acknowledging the chunking of policy changes and noting that the comprehensive plan is not coming in another couple of years or coming to completion within another couple of years. It makes a huge difference. And the work that we're trying to do, and I know that the Joint City County planning staff or planning is moving forward with some of that small area planning conversation. And I'm excited about what's ahead. Also, just to put a kind of pinpoint on the race equity issues that align in this conversation are huge. And if we miss the opportunity to also include kind of an equity statement on how we move forward with these types of development, acknowledging the history of how developments have happened across the country with a lot of the harm caused to people of color. We'll miss not actually stating why we've had some of the angst or some of the what we've seen in the community or the response in the community like in the ones that are experiencing this development pressure. I won't call it gentrification because it's different. But this going forward, this and this being the types of cases like this, are going to continue to come forward. And we have to be very proactive of acknowledging that there has to be specific attention paid to communities that have experienced this development pressure without having planning in place or the resources in place to do the things that need to be done like adding sidewalks. So in a case like this where we're annexing the county into the city, acknowledging the costs that's going to be incurred. And then also on the other side of it, the equity issues that might come about in the specific community. There's a lot of details that are going to have to be checks and balances. And I'm hopeful that our council will be mindful of that as we move forward because it's not the same in every case. And so in different neighborhoods where the push was for it to remain rural, I think we just have a lot more to pay attention to and to be mindful of in each of these cases because they are not simple. They're very complex and the layers that are in them include race equity. They include transportation, shortfalls, and funding. They include the, I mean, the environmental injustice or the environmental hazards that have been in place for areas that have flooded. They include a variety of areas that we have yet to really nail down how we're going to address it. And so I just want to note that I will be in support of the case this evening, but it is in light of our developer actually being mindful of how we need to move forward in this. So thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Any further comments? I'll just comment real briefly that the commitment of a lengthy segment of off-site sidewalk is extraordinary, especially for a 20-home development. And I want to appreciate that. And I also want to remember that because the number of times that I've heard developers come in here and say they can't commit to an off-site sidewalk, we now know that you can commit to an off-site sidewalk. It does raise the price of housing. I think we have to acknowledge that. It's an $18,000 expense. It's going to cost almost $1,000 per unit to do this. So we don't want people doing it all the time, but there are times when we've really wanted it. And I just want to say that I appreciate it. In this case, I think it's absolutely right because it does answer, I think, the most significant pedestrian concern that's raised, not just by this development, but by the fact that the existing developments are going to be served by this, the development that Ms. Radcliffe lives in, for example. And finally, this, and I think Councilmember Reese mentioned this, when you see this, this is a wooded area that is surrounded by housing. This not only is going to be developed, but should be developed for this purpose. So I'm definitely supportive and appreciate the comments from my colleagues. All right. Councilmember Freelon. Yeah, I'll be super brief. I just wanted to say to my colleagues that I appreciate the backstory because when I'm reading the Planning Commission comments, Charlie always mentioned how detailed Miller is, and he talked about this coming up in 2018, and I was curious about the backstory. And I don't always have the opportunity to call you and be like, hey, what happened in 2018? So it's been really helpful for me to hear some of the critiques from Mayor Pro Tem, some of the context from you, Mayor Schuyl, about the sidewalks. As a new Councilmember, I'm just really appreciating the dialogue. You too, colleague Freeman. So just want to say that. Thank you, Councilmember. I think that there's such a big learning curve on these development things when you first get on the Council, and I certainly experience the exact same thing. Not only the ordinances and the technical aspects, but the history of these cases. And I agree with you very much. So I'm glad we're proving ourselves useful. All right. Colleagues, we will need three motions on this. The first would be the motion to adopt an ordinance annexing Terriken Wood II into the City of Durham, affected December 30, 2020, then tuned into the utility extension agreement. So moved. Second. Moved by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, seconded by Councilmember Reese. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Councilmember Caballero. Aye. Councilmember Freelon. Aye. Councilmember Freeman. Aye. Councilmember Middleton. I vote aye. Councilmember Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The ayes have it. The motion passes unanimously. We'll next move to motion two to adopt a consistency statement. So moved. Second. Moved by Councilmember Freelon, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Councilmember Caballero. Aye. Thank you. Councilmember Freelon. Aye. Councilmember Freeman. Aye. Councilmember Middleton. I vote aye. Councilmember Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The ayes have it. The motion passes unanimously. And now we'll move to the third motion to adopt an ordinance amend the United Unified Development Ordinance. So moved. Second. Moved by Councilmember Freelon, seconded by Councilmember Reese. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Councilmember Caballero. Aye. Councilmember Freelon. Aye. Councilmember Freeman. Aye. Councilmember Middleton. I vote aye. Councilmember Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The ayes have it. And the motion passes unanimously. I want to thank Ms. Radcliffe for being here and for her comments. I want to thank the applicant and I want to thank our staff. All right. We'll now move to item 20 consolidated annexation 924 Old Oxford Road. And first we'll hear our report from staff. Welcome again, Mr. Cahill. Good evening. Thank you for having me, Mayor Schuyl. Madam Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, Honorable Councilmembers. I look forward to spending the night with you tonight. We did receive a request for utility extension agreement, voluntary annexation and initial zoning map change for 924 Old Oxford Road. Case BDG-2006. This is for one parcel of land totaling about 3.4 acres, located at around 924 Old Oxford Road. This is from individual landowners Celeste Ritchie and Jason Errol. And they are looking for a contiguous expansion of the existing corporate city limits with this annexation petition. The site is presently zoned residential suburban 20. And if this annexation is approved, staff recommends an exact translation of this zoning designation, which means that it would remain residential suburban 20 but in the city limits. If this was approved tonight, it would become effective on December 31st, 2020. The site is presently undeveloped and heavily wooded, and the owners do intend to construct just one single family residence for their own personal residence on the vacant parcel after the site is annexed. City and county departments have reviewed this request and have not identified any significant negative service delivery costs or impacts. Additionally, public works and water management have performed the utility impact analysis and determined that the existing city of Durham water and sanitary sewer mains do have capacity to serve this project. Budget and management services completed a fiscal impact analysis and determined that this proposed annexation will become revenue positive at build out. Additional information related to this can be found in the staff report. So staff is recommending that the city council approve this utility extension agreement, voluntary annexation and consistency statement for the proposed zoning map change. Staff recommends this approval based on several key findings, which include the contiguous nature of this annexation, the minimal impacts to existing city services, and the revenue positive result found in the fiscal impact analysis. There are three motions that are required for this application. The first is to adopt an ordinance annexing the property and entering to a utility extension agreement with Celeste Ritchie and Jason Arrow. The second is to adopt a consistency statement. And the third is for the zoning ordinance itself. Thank you very much for your time. Staff and applicants are also available for any questions this evening. Thank you very much, Mr. Cahill. Colleagues, you have heard the report from staff. I'm now going to declare this public hearing open and I'm going to ask if there are any questions by members of the council for staff. But before I do so, I just I do have one question, Mr. Cahill. I was unable to understand from the annexation map where this parcel touches the city limits. Yes, I can pull that up for you right now. Are you able to see that, Marcial? Yes. Okay. So the parcel in question is the hashed area. And the contiguous the city limits are the dash line here. Okay, great. I see I've missed that map somehow. Thank you. Okay. So the we have a very funky parcel here. It includes not just the the kind of triangular shape, but it also includes the road going out to Old Axford Highway, correct? Correct. Yes, that is correct. Yeah, are we okay with that? I can defer to Bill Judge on that. I'm really not talking about the transportation issue. I'm talking about this kind of you know, I don't I don't have any objections that I can think of, but I wondered is there anything problematic about annexing this parcel and then having you know, with this one, you know, very thin line that will be I'm not sure exactly a driveway or yeah. So Ms. Young is coming, coming, coming to help. Ms. Young. Good evening. So yeah, this is a what we would call a flag lot type situation in essence. And we it's not uncommon to have these pop up. One of the reasons that in an annexation we ask all of our partner departments to identify any potential issues, situations like this where there may be an issue concern, for instance, about confusion along the roadway. If there's an emergency call, you know, 911, but there have been no identified issues with this. And because flag lot situations are fairly common. I don't particularly see a concern with this situation. Thank you very much, Ms. Young. That was what I wanted to know. All right, Council Member Middleton had a question. And then I see Council Member Freeman or a comment. Council Member Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor for recognizing me. I don't really have a question. I do want to make a disclosure before we engage in the public hearing. While there's nothing statutorily that constitutes a conflict of interest for me in this hearing, I do want to disclose that the not-for-profit that I serve as Chief Executive Officer owns a significant piece of land. Actually, it's almost neighbors at the corner of Oxford and Thompson. So I did want to disclose that. Again, there's nothing statutorily that constitutes a conflict. But I did want to, just for full transparency, disclose that while not me personally, the organization that I lead is a vested stakeholder in this area. And I think that should be known before we engage in the public hearing. So just wanted to share that. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council Member, for that disclosure. And I just want to check in with the city attorney, as I'm sure Madam Attorney just to make sure Council Member Middleton does not, there's no personal benefit to him in any way accruing in this regard. He is still obligated to vote on this issue. Is that correct? That's my, yes, my interpretation of the statute. All right, great. Just wanted to make sure we all were on the same page. Thank you. And thank you, Council Member. Council Member Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And just following up on your line of question, noting that this is a, that single road into that flag lot, I just wanted to just get verification that the, I'm assuming that the property owner is paying for the paving that would occur for this location. So that, that lot or that length of street would be paid by the property owner. So I will, Sarah Young again, I'll let Mr. Cahill correct me if I have misunderstood, but because this is a flag lot, it's not a street. It would be a private driveway. And so, yes, it would be the property owner's responsibility to pave their driveway. However, they saw fit in accordance with the ordinance requirements. Is that correct, Mr. Cahill? That is correct, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Colleagues, before we hear from the people who've signed up to speak, are there any more questions for staff? All right then, we've got two people who've signed up to speak. Council Member Freeman, did you have another question? Yeah, just to follow up the, so the, essentially that streetway would not have like any type of fire hydrants or like no road and gutter. Like I'm trying to get some clarity on this, like this difference. That's a great question, Council Member Freeman. So I think what we're thinking, if we want to think about it as Old Oxford Road is a road that services the site. And then if the applicant chooses to pave the driveway up to Old Oxford Road, you know, that's private property, but maybe that's the distinction. As of right now, that's not a road, that would just be a private drive. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Cahill. I essentially was just trying to figure out if they could pave all the way through, like if they could have a street actually or the connected driveway to both roads. Thank you, Council Member. All right. Any other questions for staff before we hear the speakers on this item? All righty. If not, then we'll hear from the, we have two people sign up to speak on this item. Celeste Richie and Jason Arrell, who are the applicants. And we'll first begin with Ms. Richie. Is Ms. Richie available to be heard? Hi, good evening. Yeah, this is Celeste. Hi, how are you? Welcome. You have three minutes. Thanks so much. Hi, folks. I'm one of the property owners with my partner, Jason Arrell, and just wanted to share a little bit about ourselves and the project. So we both love Durham. I moved to Durham in 2004 and it definitely feels like home. My DC stole me for a little bit, but I'm back now. Probably a lot of you also know we've been volunteering in our neighborhood with the Bragg Town Community Association, actually learning a lot about development over the past couple years and just working with the community to address the needs and different challenges around development. So I guess just sharing that as we've deepened our connection with the community over the past couple years, we're just excited to continue those relationships and that organizing and just take responsibility to be good neighbors and good community members. For the house itself, we plan to age in place. So we're thinking of this as our forever home. We want to make sure it's ADA compliant. So we have it's one level. There's a front ramp entrance. We're still designing it, but we want to make sure it's framed so that we can add grab bars and things like that as time goes on. We're trying to make it as energy efficient as possible and also removing as few trees as possible. So I think that's all I wanted to share. I don't know if it's okay, but Jason can just speak from my computer as well, if that's all right. That's fine, Ms. Ritchie. Thank you. We're glad to have you. Mr. Errol, also welcome and you also have three minutes. Thank you, Mayor Schuhl. Again, like Celeste, Durham is home for me. I moved here in 93. And apart from DC stealing us away for a little while, even when we were there, we always knew we were coming back to home to Durham and that we were going to, hopefully about the rest of our lives here. We feel really invested in Durham and in this community. We're hoping to build one house. And we do have some dreams for the other land that we own right near there. We would really love to build some affordable housing. We've been working and talking with a lot of affordable housing developers and folks with expertise in that area. And so we're hoping that we can really live our values. And instead of being like NEMB, we're like, yes, our backyard, build affordable housing. Yeah, this is all just so, the annexation is really just so that we can connect to city water and sewer and build this home for ourselves. Thank you very much, Mr. Arrow. Let me ask now, is there anyone else that would like to be heard on this item? If there's anyone here that would like to be heard on this item, please put your name in the chat or please raise your virtual hand. All right, I don't see anyone else. I'm going to now therefore declare this public hearing closed. And we will now hear any comments by the council or if there are any other questions for staff. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to let folks know I've had a couple of conversations with Celeste and Jason about the affordable housing that they hope to build on their property. And they have some really exciting ideas. And I'm really looking forward to hearing more from them when they come back to us with that project. I think it's really exciting to have individual home owners who are buying property in areas like this that need more affordable housing proactively thinking about how to contribute to the community. And we don't see that very often. So I just wanted to recognize that. Thanks. Thank you very much, Madam Mayor Pro Tem. Any other comments, colleagues, or questions? And if not, we'll move ahead with a motion. The first motion would be to adopt the ordinance annexing 924 Old Lockford Highway, Old Lockford Road into the city of Durham, and to enter into a utility extension agreement. So moved. Seconded. Second. Moved by Councilmember Reese, seconded by Councilmember Freelon. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Councilmember Caballero. Aye. Councilmember Freelon. Aye. Councilmember Freeman. Aye. Councilmember Middleton. Aye. Councilmember Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The ayes have it and the motion passes unanimously. The second motion will be to adopt the consistency statement. So moved. Second. Moved by Councilmember Reese, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Councilmember Caballero. Aye. Councilmember Freelon. Aye. Councilmember Freeman. Aye. Councilmember Middleton. Aye. Councilmember Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The motion passes unanimously. And now we'll move to the third motion to adopt and ordinance amending the UDO. So moved. Second. Moved by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson, seconded by Councilmember Reese. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Councilmember Caballero. Aye. Councilmember Freelon. Aye. Councilmember Freeman. Aye. Councilmember Middleton. Aye. I vote aye. Councilmember Reese. Aye. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. And I really appreciate the applicants being here. Good luck to you and good luck to you and your affordable housing plans. All right. We'll now move to item 21, Consolidated Annihilation 551 Olive Branch Road. And we'll first hear our report from staff. Good evening. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Alexander Cale here with the Planning Department. Here to present on 551 Olive Branch Road. So for this case, we did receive a request for utility extension agreement, voluntary annexation, future land use map amendment and a zoning map change from Kurt Berger of FFAC Olive Branch East. This is for an area totaling around 20 acres. And the proposal is for up to 108 residential townhouse units. This is east of the intersection of Doc Nichols Road and Olive Branch Road. The annexation petition does propose a contiguous expansion of the existing city limits. As shown on the existing condition sheet of the development plan, the 20 acre parcel does include a mix of hardwoods, pine, steep slopes, stream floodplain wetlands in a small portion is within the middle Lick Creek bottom lands, natural heritage area. The natural heritage program did perform an ecological assessment of the site, which you can see in attachment 14. The area of development that was identified in the development plan does not include the portions of the site identified in this middle Lick Creek bottom lands, natural heritage area. Wetlands, floodplains and steep slopes are found within proximity to the site but not on the site itself. The proposed collector street per the Wake Durham collector street plan does extend through some of those environmental areas. In terms of the city and county operational departments, they did review this and did not find any significant negative service delivery cost or impacts of their departments and there were no severe operational impacts expected. It's also a budget management and did a analysis and a fiscal impact analysis and found this to be a revenue positive project. There are four motions that are required for this application. The first is to adopt the ordinance annexing the property into the city of Durham and enter into a utility extension agreement. The second is to amend the future land use map. The third is to adopt a consistency statement and the fourth is to adopt the zoning ordinance itself. Again, if you have questions, I'm available and applicant is also available to answer them here tonight. Thank you very much, Mr. Cahill. Colleagues, you have heard the report from staff. I'm now going to declare this public hearing open. And I first want to ask if there are any questions for staff by members of the council. All right then, we'll move on to hearing from the folks who have signed up to speak. I have one, two, three, four, five people who have signed up to speak on this item. All of them have signed up as proponents. I'm not sure if all of them want to speak or perhaps accompanying the applicant. So I'm going to ask Mr. Neil Gauch. Mr. Gauch, are you with us? Can you be heard? I am with you. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Mr. Gauch, thank you. Mr. Gauch, there are yourself, Jesse Hardesty, Ryan Akers, Nick Williamson, and Kurt Berger have all signed up to speak on this item as proponents. Are all of these folks members of your team? That is correct. And do you have any, are they all planning to speak? How are you planning to organize your presentation? Probably I will speak and they'll be available to answer questions. All right. I see Mr. Harry Rassinen, and I hope I've got that name right, also wants to speak in opposition. And I'm now going to ask, is there anyone else here present who would like to speak on this item, either as a proponent or opponent? And if so, could you please raise your virtual hand or put your name in the chat so I can portion time? Is there anyone else who would like to speak on this item, besides Mr. Rassinen and Mr. Gauch, and members of Mr. Gauch's, the applicants team? If so, please make yourself known now. Okay. All righty then. We'll begin with the proponents. Mr. Gauch, how long would you say that you need for your presentation? All right. Won't need more than 10 minutes, probably, I don't know, closer to five. All righty. Go ahead, Mr. Gauch. And then after that, Mr. Rassinen will call on you for your comments as well. We appreciate you being here. All right, Mr. Gauch, welcome, and please go ahead. And good evening, Mayor Schuyl, Mayor Proxim Johnson, and members of the City Council. As mentioned, my name is Neil Gauch. I am an attorney at the Morningstar Law Group, located at 112 West Main Street in Durham. I'm representing the applicant for the project tonight, and Kurt Berger is on the line, as well as a couple of members from McAdams, Ryan Acres, Nick Williamson, and Jeff McCarthy. So thank you, Mr. Cahill, for your presentation of the case. As he mentioned, the site is just under 20 acres, and we are proposing to rezone it to a PDR 5.556 to allow for the development of 108 townhouses. Now, this project is one of two separate but complementary projects, which include the acreage across all of Branch Road. Unlike that section, though, this section is proposed as a PDR, rather than a conservation subdivision, so it needs to be re-zoned. The conservation subdivision across the street will come to you sometime in the future. Tonight, we are talking about this PDR project, but we actually started speaking with councilfolk prior to even submitting the rezoning applications of this PDR. Probably in August of last year, the direction we got from councilmembers we spoke with was very clear, as many townhomes as possible. So that is what we went with. This phase will consist of 108 townhouses. The community will offer one and two car garage townhomes in the low to mid 200. This will be far more affordable than the large lot single family we would be able to build by right, and certainly allows us to provide more homes than we could by right under the current. The project also is consistent with the vision you all have expressed about residential development in the Searles area, in light of the development limitations within that basin, as outlined by staff in its presentation to you months ago. One of the limitations staff highlighted in its Searles presentation was the existence of special environmentally sensitive areas, sometimes outlined in the natural heritage program. This property contains land within the natural heritage program, but the initial development of the site will preserve 20% of the existing tree coverage, including the entire Lick Creek natural heritage area on the property. Since receiving a vote from the Planning Commission, we have taken the time to address the concerns raised. The site will have two points of access on all of Branch Road. The northern access point is proposed across property, which is not part of the rezoning, but is part of the annexation. Because no homes are being proposed there, those properties did not need to be rezoned. We have worked out with staff the potential for the new road there to create a nonconforming lot. You should be aware that we are not able to get a site or subdivision plan approved which would create a nonconformity, so there is no risk of that actually happening. To address that concern though, what will end up happening is that the Revenant lot will be recombined with the HOA open space plot that said it will not become a nonconforming lot. And finally, there was a concern about the east-west collector street shown on the D plan by a dashed line going through the property. That street is part of a larger regional collector road for this area as outlined on the Wake Durham collector street plan. The portion going through the subject property is somewhat fixed because it begins at an existing right-of-way on the front of the property and must align with an existing right-of-way reservation on the adjacent property to the rear which is being developed by Mungo Lawn. Now, Durham is smart, so the initial development of the community does not require the developer to build the full length of that road before it will be useful or necessary. Furthermore, if we built it out right now it would connect to nothing. Therefore, the core will not issue permits for those environmental impacts and the only portion of the road we can build for now is the portion outside those areas. So the initial development of the community will not impact the steep slope and riparian area and the newly built road should stop short of the 10-foot no-build area. The remainder of that facility will be built out sometime in the future once that road actually becomes viable and connects to something. On its face, this project seems to be on board but the feedback council has given on previous projects proposed in Searle. And if I'm not mistaken, this project I believe is the densest project you all have seen proposed in Searle. So I think that is headed in the right direction. That having been said, I mentioned previously that this project is one of two separate complementary projects. The other project is proposed as a single family community directly across all of Branch Road. That project will in the future come to you as a conservation subdivision and as a single family community, the price points in that project will be attractive but they will be higher than what we envisioned for this PDR. In this PDR, the townhomes will be priced in the low to mid-200s but on the single family side across the street, we think it probably will be in the low 300. My client recognizes the importance of new affordable housing in Durham. We think that we hit the mark on this PDR but because we will be unable to make profits in relation to the future conservation subdivision across the street, we want to make a strong commitment tonight in light of that fact. Tonight, my client would like to make a commitment on this project to pay $40,000 into the city's affordable housing fund in recognition of the fact that we will be unable to make any profits on the future conservation subdivision side. Together, we believe both projects will make an ideal new construction community but even alone, this PDR stands on its own merit. We hope to have your support tonight for this project and on the future one as well. We have our team available to answer any questions and thank you very much for your time tonight. Thank you very much, Mr. Ghosh. We will now hear from Mr. Rassinen. Madam Clerk, can you make Mr. Rassinen available to be heard? He's been limited, Mr. Mayor. All right. Mr. Rassinen, are you with us? Yes, sir, you will hear me. Yes. Thank you for being here. I hope I've got your name right. We appreciate having you and I'm going to give you five minutes and look forward to hearing your comments. Yes, sir. You get the name correct and I wanted to wish everybody a good evening and season greetings. These are my concerns about the proposed consolidated annexation of 551 Olive Branch Road. About a month ago, Mr. Berger showed up on my doorstep with no mask on, pushing papers into my face about a described need to encumber the front of my road frontage with a sight distance triangle easement of 2040 square feet in order to qualify the main access road to the site. I see no mention of this in any of the attachments and I wonder what else is missing from this presentation. While I'm not thrilled with the proposed easement across the front of my properties and do not care to have any trees removed or fencing restrictions imposed, I would consider a trade-off if they were to put in a tree protection zone to the back of my property where the trees six inches or larger were preserved for 30 feet in from the property line. As the Planning Commission unanimously decided in Attachment AD, the request to propose inconsistent density by rezoning is not appropriate for the location. Single-family structures would be more desirable and applicable to this area of the county. I'm also concerned at the impact of the wildlife, deer, owls, birds, and other animals that live in this forest area. This level of over-development will force them out for sure and destroy the natural environment. Durham City Proper is located 10 or more miles to the west of here and any proposal to include storm city jurisdiction is not justified and is an attempt to avoid term county rules and restrictions. I don't see how developers are able to request selective annexation into the city to skirt county ordinances in an attempt to enrich themselves by packing more customers into an area. Affordable housing or affordable single-family houses can be built. They don't have to build mansions and I don't care who has jurisdiction. It's the density of the zoning that would be concerned. Those are my comments. Thank you very much, Mr. Resson, and we appreciate your being with us. Thank you so much. Let me ask now, is there anyone else who is with us that would like to be heard on this item? Are there any of the attendees here that would like to be heard? If so, could you raise your virtual hand? I don't see anyone. All right. All right. Colleagues, you have heard the members of the public who have spoken tonight and now I'm going to ask if there are any comments or questions by members of the council. Councilmember Reese. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I had a question for Mr. Resson and which specifically what county rules are they trying to circumvent? Help me out with that. Madam Clerk, can you make Mr. Resson and available to be heard? He is, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Okay. The rezoning would increase the density inconsistent with the surrounding area. All right. Thank you, Mr. Resson. Councilmember Reese, any other questions or comments? Colleagues, any questions or comments for staff or the applicant? So I have a couple. For Mr. Gosch, why wasn't the site access issues settled before coming to the Planning Commission? Can you talk about that? So yeah, sure. It was. It just wasn't very evident. So as you know, annotations don't go to the Planning Commission. So on the zoning map, typically when you do a rezoning with an annotation, the annotation boundary follows the rezoning boundary in this particular case that didn't happen. And that is because the area over which the second at the point is proposed. We're not building any houses there, so we didn't rezone it. So it is included in the annotation. It was included in the annotation at the time the item went to the Planning Commission, but those items wouldn't have been known to the Planning Commission. So, and you've explained this, and so I think I'll ask Mr. Cahill this question. Mr. Cahill, can you explain to me the situation with the, as you understand it, and this was addressed somewhat in the staff report as well, with the second access point and what the complication is there? Yes, I can, as much context as possible. So if they build more than 90 units, they'll have to add a second access point. That was, you know, it's 108 units that are being proposed, so that would, anything over the 90 would trigger that second access point. They can't commit to elements that are off the development plan. So we can't assess whether that site access will serve the area if it's on another parcel. I think that was one of the things that came up with Planning Commission that was a little bit confusing in terms of the site access. I don't know if any of my colleagues want to add anything to it. Well, let me just ask again, Mr. Cahill. So just to make sure I understand, the applicant owns the property, which would be annexed, but not re-zoned, where the second site access point would be if they were to build more than 90 townhouses. Is that correct? That's correct. I'm not sure of the ownership structure, but that would be correct. It's under contract, Mayor Schul. It's not presently owned by the applicant, but yes, I think your basic premise is correct. And thank you, Mr. Ghosh. And Mr. Cahill, the applicant has said that in order to build above the 90 townhome limit, they would need the second access point. And it would be my understanding, should they not be able to arrange for the second access point, that they would still be able to develop at only 90, up to 90 townhomes. That is correct, Mayor Schul. Great. Okay. My second question is regarding Mr. Rassenin's comments, and I'd like to address this to Mr. Ghosh or to Mr. Berger. You heard what Mr. Rassenin said about being approached concerning his home and an easement. Could you discuss that? I'm not sure I understood that, and I would like to hear. You could see he was concerned both by the approach and by the way in which he was approached. And so could you comment on that, Mr. Ghosh or Mr. Ghosh? Sure. Sure. And I can just go ahead. Yeah, I would like to speak to this. I had met Mr. Rassenin. Maybe a year ago, quite a while ago, we had a before we moved in some heavy equipment to do some clearing for some drilling and soils investigation, things like that. So I knocked on his door and told him what we were going to do. I thought we had a decent relationship. The existing unnamed road right away is the 60-foot right away basically at the intersection. DOT is asking us if we can secure from that resident in that property a site easement. So I had some sample documents drafted up and I went to his house and knocked on his door and wanted to discuss it with him. I apologize. I made a mistake and didn't wear my mask from my truck to the front door of the car. I'm standing in his front yard on his stoop. I clearly made the mistake. I am not an aggressive person and I didn't shove anything in his face. I did leave him with some documents. So he would have an example. He declined at that time to give us easement. I understand and I asked him with my car, would you, can I leave these documents with you? And that's how it went down. I'm not an aggressive person. I have no need. This is the second time we've met each other. And so I thought we at least had an introduction previously. And I sincerely apologize for any offense or certainly wearing my mask. I made a mistake and I apologize for it. I wear a mask all the time. And I just hopped out of the truck and it didn't get it right. There wasn't an aggressive. I didn't shove anything anywhere. And I was reviewing. Again, it was an example, a sample of a previous project of an example that I got from McAdams of another project so he could see exactly what I was asking for. And may I ask who? Yes, Mr. Gush. Yeah, and just for the record, that was Mr. Kurt Burger. He is the applicant or representative of the applicant. And I did want to say, I think part of your question was the nature of that easement. It was a tight distance triangle easement. Which NTDOT asked us to pursue? I think the, maybe the obvious question after that is, do we need that easement? It would be nice to have it, but the project can proceed without it. So Mr. Rassenin's property then is near the intersection of Doc Nichols and Olive Branch Road. Is that correct? He is at the, if you will, the T-bone of that intersection. So if you drove straight, you would drive into his front yard. When you came out. Why do you need that? Why is that? Why did you want that easement? DOT was asking if we could get it. So when people pulled up to turn right out of this community, out of that entrance, they could be able to see cars. It's very close. There's some trees. I don't believe that you, I believe you can see it, but they don't, I mean, in fact, you can see, but they want to have an easement just to protect the, protect the drivers in the future, I guess. And yeah, so you don't really know if you can see they're not yet, because you don't have that road there, right? We had it surveyed, sir. Okay. We had it, we had it surveyed, and we, it's the eyeball test. You stand there and line on the survey, and you can see the farthest state. So it generally indicates that there isn't a major obstruction in the way. DOT likes to have their, their site, their triangle distance easements. Yeah. Mr, is Mr. Judge on with us? I see he is. Mr. Judge, can I ask you to comment? When DOT asked for an easement like this, a site triangle, I believe it was referred to. Can you discuss that a little bit, and do you agree with the applicants? Yes. So Bill Judge. Assertion that it's not necessary. Yeah. Bill Judge, transportation. Well, I would, I don't know whether or not an easement on the resident's property is necessary or not. I will say that having adequate site distance is absolutely necessary for the new street connection. So that is a common thing that, that either our department, or in this case, NC DOT, looks at before they would approve sort of a street connection, almost a fourth leg of the intersection to Alla Branch, Doc Nichols. It's offset slightly primarily because that's where the right way is that it doesn't line up perfect. But as the applicant said, that that would be for vehicles exiting the site as they come up to Alla Branch so that they can look to the left for vehicles that are headed north towards NC 98. Whether they need to make a left turn or a right turn, you need to be able to see an adequate distance to the left to see oncoming traffic. So typically what can happen is that if the property owner's unwilling to grant an easement, yeah, they can go out in the field and verify whether or not there's adequate site distance within the existing right-of-way. So probably it was primarily primarily based on mapping or drawings that the applicant had provided. I don't know exactly what they provided to NC DOT that they were concerned about that. Mr. Judge, would NC DOT have to pass on this site lines at some point or is it just the applicant gets to decide that? Well, I mean, in order for NC DOT to approve the street connection, new connection, the applicant will have to show that there's adequate site distance either inside the right-of-way or that they have an agreement from the property owner to keep that area clear so that they don't install a fence or some other measure that would restrict site distance in the future. Okay, thank you. And while you're here, Mr. Judge, you heard the characterization by Mr. Gosh of the situation with the road, the collector road that is planned to go across this property. How would you describe that situation and what thoughts do you have to offer us about that? Yeah, so I mean, it is on our adopted collector street plan so they are accommodating that in with the development plan. I think it is a bit challenging some of the environmental features in this area and the likelihood of whether or not the property in this case immediately to the east, whether or not they will be able to get the easements and the permits from in order to extend across that covert, short of it being some sort of city initiated. I mean, an ideal non-environmental situation we definitely would want the collector street but we have to sort of balance the environmental features and as well as the connectivity. Is that our judgment or is that the judgment of the will that be the judgment of the property owner? It's a combination of our judgment as well as the environmental regulatory agencies into showing that the need for that connection with the development. All right, thank you very much, Mr. Judge, colleagues. Forgive my lengthy questioning there and I'm going to ask if there are any other questions now. Mr. Cahill, do you have some comments to add as well on that? Yeah, I just wanted to clarify on the proffer because staff was not aware of that until city council, the $40,000 affordable housing fund contribution. We just want to clarify that's what the applicant is intending to proffer and if so, they will need to complete a consent form to authorize that. Yes, and that is the intent of that and I believe I have the form in mind. Great, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cahill. All right, colleagues, other questions or comments at this time? All right, I don't see any and so I'm now going to declare this public hearing closed and the matter is before the council and are there any comments? That colleagues would like to make. Council Member Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate your line of question and the clarity that the applicant and the neighbor have provided. I unfortunately cannot be supportive at this time of moving forward. I think there's a number of concerns, including, I guess the proffer and the and the lack of a commitment on the easement that specifically are what raises immediately, but there are a number of concerns, especially around the environmental features. So I will not be moving forward with that. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Freelon. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just kind of wanted to ask my colleagues what they think. When I read the planning commission notes, there was a lot of confusion about the access points, which I appreciated your rigorous line of questioning there, Mr. Mayor. I had some of the same questions, but some of the other concern was about the awkward juxtaposition of this very dense thing in this area where that's kind of not, that's not the standard in this area. And I know that density is important for the housing crisis and just having good housing stock. And I can't remember what the price point was. I think it was a low to mid 200s. Is that right? Yeah. So, I know that's important, but I was hoping to hear from some colleagues about the thoughts, about the juxtaposition of this very dense thing in the Surrey Basin relative to what else is around it. Thank you very much, Council Member. That's an important question. Any colleagues would like to comment on that? Mayor Pro Tem? Mr. Mayor, yeah, happy to share some general thoughts. So what I understand is happening in the Surrey Basin based on our last presentation from staff is a lot of development that is going to largely be residential because of environmental constraints and is largely going to be low density. This project is, I think, low-medium density according to our scale. So I think a lot of times when we talk about density, we tend to, there's a tendency to exaggerate how dense something really is. Townhouse developments aren't really that dense. They can't be. I think that they're probably these sorts of developments in the Surrey Basin are as dense as I feel it's responsible to be based on the environmental constraints that were communicated to us by staff. And that my main concern with Searles going in was that we didn't really have a plan for where to make the neighborhood more cohesive. Where are the commercial areas going to be? Where could people maybe build an office so that someone who lives out here doesn't have to drive into downtown or drive into RTP to get to a job or to get to a grocery store? And I still have those concerns. So I think they were significantly mitigated by the staff presentation that made it pretty clear that this area, because of the environmental issues, is going to end up being mostly residential and that there's really the only options are develop it at low to low medium density residential or don't develop it at all. Given that we are in pretty significant need of additional housing, I think it makes sense to develop it. And I feel like there's always this tension between the question of density being that more density is more affordable and more sustainable, but that also we're dealing with suburban areas that don't have transit and we're cutting down trees to build the houses and also we have a housing crisis. And also we don't have a lot of available land in the community anymore. I feel like these decisions get pretty complicated where I tend to land most of the time is on the affordability question because I feel like that's the most urgent crisis that we face and that a lot of the other issues can be mitigated. Like we can put transit to this area when we get to transit supportive density of population, which is another reason to go ahead and build more dense housing in these kinds of areas and to build single family. I think that townhomes are not the greatest, but they're better than these very low density single family developments. And I don't think we're going to get any better density in Searles. And I don't know that it would be environmentally responsible to put more density in Searles. So that's kind of how I'm approaching the area right now. And I'm looking forward to having the small area plan so that we can figure out where there could be small commercial nodes so that people could walk to a corner store to get a gallon of milk and not have to drive as much or where there could be trails for people to be able to walk and bike. But it's hard to plan all of that in advance of knowing that there's going to be any development out there. So we're kind of in this catch-22 all the time. I feel like that was really long. But there's a lot of complications. Overall, I wish we could do different things, but there's just there's so many economic constraints and the fact that we're dealing with private profit-motivated entities who are building most of these products. I feel like we're just having to make the best choices out of a lot of not great options. Thank you. Thanks. I'll just say, Madam Mayor Pritam, you're the shortest-winded of this pretty long-winded group. And so you get to talk as long as you want. Happy to oblige every once in a while. All right. Colleagues, thank you for that. Other comments or questions at this time? I do have one more question for Mr. Cahill. Mr. Cahill, this property has the access point or potentially two access points on to Olive Branch Road. But between Olive Branch Road and most of the property is a row of single-family homes, correct? That is correct. Yeah. All right. Any other questions or comments, colleagues? I'll just make one comment, which is that I think that I really appreciate Mayor Pritam's really, I thought, masterful kind of explanation of the issues. And in this case, I find myself sometimes at odds with the Planning Commission on this issue of whether or not density next to a bunch of single-family residents, they usually think that's bad. I usually think that's good if it's an area like this where we have so many single-family residents. I think it's really good to have some variety in housing in an area like this where you can have some differences in price points. You know, you can have some less expensive housing. And so I just think that that's attention that we have. What worried me about this, and I feel a lot more comfortable now, and I don't worry the Planning Commission as well as you said, Council Member Freelon, is that is the kind of situation with these entrance points. I am satisfied by staff's explanation that the second entrance point is not able to be satisfactorily developed, as Mr. Gosh has indicated that he thought it would be, that this would limit the number of townhouses to 90 and within our within our within our ordinance. So, I was satisfied by that. Okay, any other thoughts, comments, questions? Okay. Then I'm going to ask for a motion on this. The first motion that we would need is to adopt an ordinance annexing 555, I'll branch road and entering into utility extension agreement. Move to adopt. Second. Move by Council Member Middleton, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council Member Caballero. Aye. Council Member Freelon. Aye. Council Member Freeman. No. Council Member Middleton. I vote aye. Council Member Reese. No. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. And the motion passes five to two. The second motion will be to adopt a resolution amending the future land use from low density residential to low medium density residential and open space and recreation. Move that stated. Second. Move by Council Member Middleton, seconded by Council Member Freelon. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council Member Caballero. Aye. Council Member Freelon. Aye. Council Member Freeman. No. Council Member Middleton. I vote aye. Council Member Reese. No. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. And the motion passes five to two. And the third motion will be to adopt a consistency statement. Is there a motion to adopt a consistency statement? Move to adopt consistency. Second. Move by Council Member Middleton, seconded by Council Member Caballero. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council Member Caballero. Aye. Council Member Freelon. Aye. Council Member Freeman. No. Council Member Middleton. I vote aye. Council Member Reese. No. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. And the motion passes five to two. And the final motion will be to adopt an ordinance amending the UDO. Move to the right. Right. Second. Move by Council Member Middleton, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Aye. Council Member Caballero. Aye. Council Member Freelon. Aye. Council Member Freeman. No. Council Member Middleton. I vote aye. Council Member Reese. No. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The motion passes five to two. I want to thank the applicant. And it looks like we have Gwynne there. And good to see Gwynne. I want to thank the applicant for being here. I want to thank Mr. Rassinen for being here. We appreciate you. These are always difficult questions and good arguments on both sides. So thank you very much. All right. I will now move to the final public hearing item tonight, which is Consada annexation item. 4115 and your avenue. And first we'll hear the report from staff. Good evening, Mayor Schuyl and Honorable Council Members and Mayor Pro Tem. I'm Grace Smith. I'm with the Planning Department. I'll be presenting this case 4115 and your avenue consolidated item. A request for a utility extension agreement, voluntary annexation, future land use map amendment and zoning map change was received from Nate Bueller with Cambridge properties. The site includes three parcels totaling 20.35 acres. The applicant proposes to change the zoning from commercial general and residential, I mean excuse me, commercial general and residential RS 20 to residential suburban multifamily with a development plan. This site is located in the suburban development tier. The portion of the site adjacent to US 70 is currently zoned commercial general. The remainder is zoned RS 20. The proposed zoning is not consistent with the future land use map designation of commercial, but the applicant is seeking a flow amendment to low medium density residential, which would be consistent with the zoning rezoning request. Staff determines that this request is consistent with the conference of plan and applicable policies and ordinances. Key committed elements include a maximum of 115 townhouse units. Monetary proffers to dedicated housing fund and dorm public schools right of way dedications, reservations and a center turn lane. City and county operational departments such as police, fire and EMS have reviewed this request and have not identified any significant negative service delivery costs or impacts. There are no severe operational impacts expected on city departments. This case was originally heard at the June 2nd planning commission meeting. At that meeting, the motion to recommend approval fell one to 12. The applicant made additional commitments and was asked to be reheard by planning commission. The planning commission reheard the request and voted to recommend approval by a vote of seven to five on September 22nd 2020. Four motions are required for this application. The first is to adopt an ordinance annexing the property and entering into a utility extension agreement. The second is to amend the future land use map. The third is to adopt a consistency statement. And the fourth is to adopt designing ordinance. The applicant is on the line and has a presentation. I'm happy to share that when necessary. Thank you and staff and the applicant are here and available for questions. Thank you very much, Ms. Smith. Colleagues, you have heard the report from staff. Before I declare this public hearing open, however, you all will remember that at our last meeting I committed that every two hours we would give our closed captioners a break. And I'm going to keep that commitment. We appreciate so much the work that they do. It's very hard to do it. And they need a break. So I'm going to just put us on pause for just three or four minutes and give our closed captioners a break and then we'll be back with the public hearing. So it's a great time to go get yourself a hard-boiled egg. I'd have to hard-boil it though. It's going to take more than five minutes. That was truly random. Sounds like someone's actually boiling that egg. Hey, Carmisha. All right. We will get started and just I'll give it one more minute and then we'll get going again. All right, colleagues. Thank you all for supporting our closed captioners and we thank them for their work. Ms. Smith, thank you so much for your presentation. This public hearing is now open. You've heard a report from staff and I want to first ask if there are any questions for Ms. Smith by members of the council. Councilmember Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Ms. Smith, good evening. Good to see you. You made a, I think you made a representation that the applicant is making proffers and the Affordable Housing Fund and to the school system. Did you have those amounts? I didn't recall reading them in the packet. Have they specified amounts? Sure. Let me look at the development quick. Okay. And if I missed it, forgive me. My numbers are running together. And if you need to pull it up, I don't need to hold up the hearing just for that. You can just give it to me later or bring it back and Mr. Mayor, if you want to proceed. And I'll be glad to do that. And it might be covered in the applicant's presentation. I'm sorry. I wrote down some other proffers and didn't write that down. That's okay. Thank you, Ms. Smith. That will, we will get that tonight though. Thank you, councilmember. All right. Other questions for Ms. Smith? Okay. Then we will now hear from members of the public who are here to comment on this item. I have here four people. Nate Bueller, Bob Micheler, Patrick Biker, and Jamal Levine. And all of them are listed as proponents. I want to know, let's see, I see Mr. Harry Rassen and Mr. Ken Irvin are both here. Mr. Rassen, could you raise your hand or put in the chat whether or not you would also like to speak on item 22 and also Mr. Irvin. If you all would like to speak on, okay, Mr. Rassen says no. Thank you, Mr. Rassen. And Mr. Irvin, would you like to speak on item 22? If so, could you put that in the chat? Thank you, Mr. Irvin. I liked it in the old days where we would be in a council chamber together and I could find that out in some, but we are where we are. Okay. Thank you all very much. Mr. Biker, are the members who are otherwise signed up to speak members of the team of the applicant? Yes, Mayor Shul. This is Patrick Biker, Mayor Shul, Mayor Pro Tem, and members of council. Here tonight representing Cambridge Properties. The other gentleman that you've referenced are members of the ownership and our neighborhood outreach team. We've been working together on this project for quite a few months now. Am I correct in the understanding that there's no one from the public who's in opposition to this item, Mayor Shul? That's my understanding. I don't see anyone here else who was planning to speak. Mr. Biker, yes, that's right. Are you planning to do the speaking for the applicant? Yes, Mayor Shul. Alrighty. How much time do you think you'll need, Mr. Biker? Well, we had a fairly lengthy PowerPoint ready to go, but in light of the fact that y'all have a work session tomorrow and it always feels later than it really is this time of year. So in light of a 10-minute PowerPoint, we'd like to just call to the attention of the council the comments by Planning Commissioner Tom Miller, noting that we had a 7-5 recommendation for approval. I would like to briefly address Council Member Middleton. He asked a question that I need to get my reading glasses on to answer, but the answer is $20,000 contribution to the Affordable Housing Fund and $2,500 for during public schools, even though this if I understood the staff report correctly, this project actually does not add any school children, but because this site is so close to Bethesda Elementary, we did want to make a contribution. So in light of what was presented by Assistant Director Smith in the Planning Staff Report and the comments of Commissioner Miller, we rather than take up your time this evening, we'd just like to answer any questions that you may have and respectfully ask for your support. Thank you, Mr. Biker. Colleagues, are there any questions or comments for the applicant at this time? Council Member Middleton. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Patrick, good evening. Good to see you. What have you anticipated price points of the townhomes? Mid-2s, probably starting around the 240s and up. So what we did is there's a committed element that states the size of the townhomes will range from 1600 to, I believe, 2400 and that provides for our range of price points probably starting in the 240s. Thanks, Patrick. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You're welcome, Council Member. Thank you, Council Member. Any other questions or comments for Mr. Biker or the team at this time, his team? All right. Council Member Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to make sure that I note that, again, I know that we are cognizant, but the public may not be, that there is no way that we can predict what a price point will be. We can give a guesstimation. I mean, it is based on the market, and so just noting that when we talk about affordable housing, I think it's important to make sure that we do clarify that these are guesstimations. They're not actual. Thank you, Council Member. Any other comments or questions for the applicant at this time? All right. Seeing none, then, I'm going to declare this public hearing closed. And the matters back before the Council, if anyone has any comments, I'm happy to have them, or would also accept a motion. The first motion would be to adopt an ordinance annexing 4115 Andrew Avenue into the city and to authorize the city manager into entering into an agility extension agreement. Move to adopt the ordinance. All right. I see some hands that want to make comments, I think. But no, that's okay. Let's do that first, Council Member. Then we'll come back to you. Sure. Council Member Middleton. Yeah, my bad. Council Member Reese. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to appreciate the applicant for their work on this. I appreciate staff, the work they put in in bringing it to us like this. I was really impressed with the applicant's persistence at the Planning Commission in working to address the very significant concerns raised by commission members the first time the case came before them. I think it's clear when you look at the written comments of the commissioners, the second time around, the most recent set of comments, you'll see that they really appreciated the commitment to grappling with the very real issues, some of the design elements, some of the things that Commissioner Miller often raises. So I really appreciated that. On the surface, this seems a little bit like the Olive Branch matter that we just passed, but I think there are some key differences. First and foremost, there were some environmental factors with regard to the Olive Branch site that made me very uncomfortable. I know that Council Member Freeman spoke to that, especially with the level of development that has been approved for that site, but this particular site doesn't have that kind of concern for me. There are some buffered streams on one side of the property, but it doesn't look to me as though this will be impactful there. I just really appreciated Commissioner Miller's discussion of the way that the developer modified the proposal in coming back to the Planning Commission. So often, we see developers get a negative recommendation at the Planning Commission and they just decide, well, we're just going to go to the city council and they'll get them to approve it. Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn't, but I think the process works better for us if the Planning Commission gets the developer's best effort because that's when we get a recommendation from the Planning Commission that is the most meaningful. If a project has changed so much from the time that the Planning Commission saw it and the time we saw it, it makes all the work the Planning Commission put into reviewing that really not particularly helpful to us, and that's the reason they exist is to inform the decision, the merits decision that we have to make on this. And I was convinced by Commissioner Miller's remarks, despite the reservation that a number of Planning Commissioners continue to have about the project, I was convinced by Commissioner Miller's comments here that this project, while not perfect, will fit in with the surrounding area and will be a benefit. And I'll be supporting the measure. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you so much, Council Member. And I believe Council Member Freeland also, no, okay. Is there anyone else who would like to comment before the motion? Council Member Freeman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate Council Member Reese's comments and just will note that it's important to distinguish the differences and I apologize. I was just going to go ahead because of the latency of the hour. But I also note that in this context of the comments from our commissioners, just noting that the concerns around traffic and making sure that folks are safe, they're going to continue to raise up and they're going to be the way that we're, that's on us and making sure that we move forward with our small area designing or small area planning. And so I just wanted to just make sure I make that very clear point that supporting this moving forward is not in spite of that lack of having that planning in place. And so just noting that it will be supportive in noting all of the things that Council Member Reese noted as far as the sensitivity of this area, but or the lack of sensitivity in this area. But I do want to note that the environmental sensitivity in the previous case was different from this one. And that moving forward, we will have to make sure that we do address it because these cases are going to continue to come at each Council meeting. And I mean, I can, I mean, I'm sure it's fine for developers to move forward with a vote of five to two or four, six to one or what have you. But I do think that it's a disservice to our community to not have a plan in place. And we're going to continue to move forward without that. And yeah, that's about it. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. All right, colleagues. Any other comments? All right, then, I will ask Council Member Middleton, go back, you serve for motion. Yes, sir. Resetting previous motion. That would be the annexation of 4115 Andrew Avenue to the city of Durham and the enter into the utility extension agreement. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Council Member Reese. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson? Aye. Council Member Caballero? Aye. Council Member Freelon? Aye. Council Member Freeman? Aye. Council Member Middleton? Aye. Council Member Reese? Aye. Thank you. Thank you very much. Madam Clerk, the ayes have it, the motion passes unanimously. The second will be to adopt a resolution emitting the future land use plan to low, medium density residential. So moved. Move the state. Second. Moved by Council Member Reese. Seconded by Council Member Middleton. Mayor, Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson? Aye. Council Member Caballero? Aye. Council Member Freelon? Aye. Council Member Freeman? Aye. Council Member Middleton? Aye. Council Member Reese? Aye. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. The ayes have it, the motion passes unanimously. This third motion will be to adopt a consistency statement. So moved. Moved by Council Member Reese. Seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson? Aye. Council Member Caballero? Aye. Council Member Freelon? Aye. Council Member Freeman? Aye. Council Member Middleton? Aye. Council Member Reese? Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The motion passes unanimously. And finally, the motion will be needed to adopt an ordinance emitting the unified development ordinance. So moved. Second. Moved by Council Member Reese. Seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Johnson. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Mayor Schuyl? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson? Aye. Council Member Caballero? Aye. Council Member Freelon? Aye. Council Member Freeman? Aye. Council Member Middleton? Aye. Council Member Reese? Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The ayes have it, the motion passes unanimously. I want to thank the applicant for being here today. I want to wish you all luck in developing this project. We trust you'll do a great job on it for the city. All right, colleagues, I did pull item one and I'll bring that item back to the council at the appropriate time. And then the other thing I wanted to just remind everyone is, of course, we have a work session tomorrow. And it'll be wonderful. And I also want to just remind you all if or let you know if you haven't seen it yet that there's an email in your inbox discussing the a couple of options for a special meeting of the council on either just January 12th or 14th in the morning to discuss the to make a decision on going forward on our choice for a contractor to help us search for our city manager. And so please look at look for that email and let the city clerk know which of those dates, whether one or both of those is okay for you. I know we've already heard from a couple council members. I know Council Member Reese, Council Member Freeman at least have responded. So if you all could respond, that'd be great. So we can see if any of those dates work for all of us. And if not, we'll find the time to us. Thank you. Thank you so much, Council Members. Thank you for everybody that hung with us tonight. Our wonderful staff who are still with us and we appreciate you so much. Yes, Council Member. You pulled item number one. We're not going to are you going to we're going to take some kind of action to defer consideration until later time. I don't know that we need to do that, but let me ask the let me ask the let me ask the attorney, Madam Attorney, I pull item one, which is an appointment to the RDA airport authority, which is important that I make. Do I do we need to have some sort of action to defer it? Or can I just simply bring it back to the council at the appropriate time? What's what do we need to do? This is not a council appointment. It's just a mayoral appointment. Correct. But yeah, but the council concurs traditionally. It probably would do. I don't know procedurely, Mr. Mayor, the exact answer to that without researching it, but it would probably do no harm for you just to bring it back to the council at a later date. I see I see Ashley Wyatt has commented to refer it back. So I'm going to ask that it be referred back, I guess, in this case to me, since it's my appointment. And I have no problem having a vote on that if people would prefer. So why don't we have a vote on that if that would heighten everyone's comfort level. Yeah. Yeah, I more than a legal issue, I think this is a parliamentary issue. And so far as this falls totally within your purview, I'm comfortable by unanimous consent just allowing you to the matter to be referred back to you without any objection. I'm unanimous consent for you to just do that. I don't think we need a vote. I see some thumbs. Okay, right. Thank you. Thank you, councilmember. Thank you, madam attorney. All right, colleagues. Thank you so much. I would say happy holidays to everyone, but we're going to see you tomorrow. So we're going to have a chance to do it. But it's always good to be with you. We're supposed to happy winter solstice. Yes, happy winter solstice to shortest day of the year. Alrighty. Thank you so much, everybody. And let's go out and show an affirming point. Yes, see you all tomorrow.